Why are we seeing so much violence recently? One explanation is that people are sympathizing with those in the Minneapolis area who are upset at the death of George Floyd. They believe that a white cop used excessive force in subduing Floyd, leading to his death.
I believe that there is a much deeper story involved. As I wrote in my recent post, Understanding Our Pandemic – Economy Predicament, the problem we are facing is too many people relative to resources, particularly energy resources. This leads to a condition sometimes referred to as “overshoot and collapse.” The economy grows for a while, may stabilize for a time, and then heads in a downward direction, essentially because energy consumption per capita falls too low.
Strangely enough, this energy crisis looks like a crisis of affordability. The young and the poor, especially, cannot afford to buy goods and services that they need, such as a home in which to raise their children and a vehicle to drive. Trying to do so leaves them with excessive debt. If the affordability problem changes for the worse, the young and the poor are likely to protest. In fact, these protests may become violent.
The pandemic tends to make the affordability problem worse for minorities and young people because they are disproportionately affected by job losses associated with lockdowns. In many cases, the poor catch COVID-19 more frequently because they live and/or work in crowded conditions where the disease spreads easily. In the US, blacks seem to be especially hard hit, both by COVID-19 and through the loss of jobs. These issues, plus the availability of guns, makes the situation particularly explosive in the US.
Let me explain these issues further.
[1] Energy is required for all aspects of the economy.
Energy is required by governments. Energy is required to operate police cars. Energy is required to build schools and to operate their heating and lighting. Energy is needed to build and maintain roads. Tax revenue represents available funds to buy energy products and goods and services made with energy products.
Energy is needed for any type of business. Operating a computer requires electricity, which is a form of energy. Heating or cooling a building requires energy. Growing food requires solar energy from the sun; liquid fuel is used to operate farm machinery and trucks that transport food to the locations where it is sold. Human energy is used for some of these processes. For example, human energy is used to operate computers and farm machinery. Human energy is sometimes used to pick the crops, as well.
Wages paid by governments and businesses indirectly go to buy energy products of many kinds. Food is, of course, an energy product. The heat to cook or bake the food is also an energy product. Metals of all kinds are made using energy products, and lumber is cut and transported using energy products. With sufficient wages, it is possible to buy or rent a home, and to purchase or lease an automobile.
Interest rates indirectly reflect the portion of goods and services produced by energy products that can be transferred to parts of the system that depend on interest earnings. For example, banks, insurance companies and those on pensions depend on interest earnings. If interest rates are high, benefits to pensioners can easily be paid and insurance companies can charge low rates for their products, because their interest earnings will help offset claim costs.
Interest rates are now about as low as they can go, indicating a likely shortage of energy for funding these interest rates. The last time interest rates were close to current levels was during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Figure 1. Ten-year and three-month US Treasury interest rates, in chart made by FRED.
[2] When there is not enough energy to go around, the result can be low commodity prices, low wages and layoffs.
This is not an intuitive result. Most people assume (low energy = high prices), but this is the opposite of what actually happens. The problem is that the amount workers can afford to pay for finished goods and services needs to be high enough to make production of the commodities used in making the finished products profitable. When affordability falls too low, the system tends to collapse.
We are really dealing with a two-sided problem. The prices of commodities such as oil, wholesale electricity, steel, copper and food tend to fluctuate widely. Consumers need these prices to be low, in order for the price of finished goods made with these commodities to be affordable; producers need the prices of these commodities to rise ever-higher, to cover the cost of deeper wells and more batteries, to try to partially offset the intermittency of solar and wind electricity.
Most people assume that the situation will be resolved in the direction of commodity prices rising ever higher. In fact, commodity prices did rise higher, until mid 2008. Then, something snapped; commodity prices have been falling ever-lower since mid 2008. In fact, ever-lower commodity prices have been a world-wide problem, causing huge problems for countries trying to support their economies with export revenues based on commodity production.
Figure 2. CRB Commodity Price Index from 1995 to June 2, 2020. Chart prepared by Trading Economics. Composition is 39% energy, 41% agriculture, 7% precious metals and 13% industrial metals.
Even before the lockdowns, low commodity prices were leading to low wages of those working in commodity industries around the world. These low prices also led to low tax revenue, and this low tax revenue led to an inability of governments to afford the services that citizens expect, such as bus service and subsidized prices for certain essential goods/services. For example, South Africa (an exporter of coal and minerals) was experiencing public protests in September 2019, for reasons such as these. Chile is a major exporter of copper and lithium. Low prices of those commodities led to violent protests in 2019 for similar reasons.
Now, in 2020, lockdowns have led to even lower commodity prices. At times, farmers have been plowing their crops under. Oil companies are laying off workers. The trend toward lower commodity prices had been occurring for a long time; the recent drop in prices was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” If prices stay this low, there is a danger of falling production of commodities that we depend on, including food, metals, electricity, and oil. Businesses producing these items will fail, and governments with falling tax revenue will be unable to support them.
[3] Historical energy consumption data shows that violence often accompanies periods when energy production is not growing fast enough to meet the needs of the growing population.
Figure 3 shows average annual growth in world energy consumption, for 10-year periods:
Figure 3. Average growth in energy consumption for 10 year periods, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects (Appendix) together with BP Statistical Data for 1965 and subsequent.
Economic growth encompasses both population growth and rising standards of living. Figure 4 below takes the same information used in Figure 3 and divides it into (a) the portion underlying population growth, and (b) the portion of the energy supply growth available for improved standards of living. During most periods, increased population absorbs over half of increased energy consumption.
Figure 4. Figure similar to Figure 3, except that energy devoted to population growth and growth in living standards are separated. A circle is also added showing the recent growth in energy is primarily the result of China’s temporary growth in coal supplies.
There are three dips in the Living Standards portion of Figure 4. The first one came in the 10 years ended 1860, just before the US Civil War. Most of us would say that was a period of violence.
The second one occurred in the 10 years ended 1930. This is the period when the Great Depression began. It came between World War I and World War II. This was another violent period of our history.
The third dip came in the 10-year period ended 2000. This was not a particularly violent period; instead, it reflects the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, leaving the member republics to continue on their own. There was a huge loss of demand (really, affordability) on the part of countries that were part of the Soviet Union or depended on the Soviet Union.
Figure 5. Chart showing the fall in Eastern Europe’s materials production, after the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991.
[4] The world is facing a situation in which total energy consumption seems likely to drop by 5% per year, or perhaps more.
If we look back at Figure 3, we see that even in very “bad” times economically, energy consumption was rising. In fact, in one 10-year period, the average increase was more than 5% per year.
If the world economy is reaching a point in which we consumers, in the aggregate, cannot afford the goods and services made with commodities, unless commodity prices are very low, we will likely experience a huge drop in energy consumption. I don’t know exactly how much the annual change will be, but energy consumption growth and GDP growth tend to move together. We might guess that GDP growth is shifting to 5% GDP annual shrinkage, and energy consumption will be shrinking by a similar percentage.
Clearly, shrinkage of 5% per year would be far worse than the world economy has experienced in the last 200 years. In fact, for the 10-year periods shown in Figure 3, there has never been a reduction in energy consumption. Even if I am wrong and the shrinkage in energy consumption is “only” 2% per year, this would be far worse than the experience over any 10-year period. In fact, during the Great Recession, world energy consumption only shrank in one year (2009) and then by 1.4%.
History doesn’t give us much guidance regarding what impact a dramatic reduction in energy consumption would have on the economy, except that population reduction would likely be part of the change that takes place. If half or more of energy consumption growth goes toward rising population (Figure 4), then a shrinkage of energy consumption seems likely to reduce world population.
[5] What the world is really facing is a competition regarding which parts of the economy can stay, and which will need to be eliminated, if there is not enough energy to go around. It should not be surprising if this competition often leads to violence.
As I indicated in Section [1], all parts of the economy depend on energy. If there is not enough, some parts must shrink back. The big question is, “Which parts?”
(a) Do governments, and organizations that bind governments together, collapse? If countries are doing poorly, they will not want to contribute to the World Trade Organization, the United Nations or the European Union. Governments, such as the government of Saudi Arabia, could be overthrown, or may simply stop operating. In fact, any government, when it faces insurmountable problems, could simply stop operating and leave its functions to lower levels of government, such as states, provinces, or cities.
(b) Do pension plans stop operating? Are pensioners left “out in the cold”? How about Social Security recipients?
(c) Can international trade be kept operating? It is a big consumer of energy. Also, competition with low-wage countries tends to keep wages in developed nations low. Without international trade, many imported goods (including imported medicines) become unavailable.
(d) Which companies will collapse, leaving bond holders and stockholders with $0? People who formerly had jobs with these companies will also find themselves without jobs.
(e) If the world economy cannot support as many people as before, which ones will be left out? Is it people in rich countries who find themselves without jobs? Is it people who find themselves without imported medicines? Is it the ones who catch COVID-19? Or is it mostly citizens of very poor countries, whose income will fall so low that starvation becomes a concern?
[6] The violent demonstrations represent an effort to try to push the problems related to the shortfall in energy, and the goods and services that energy can provide, away from the protest groups, toward other segments of the economy.
In an ideal world:
(a) Jobs that pay well would be available to all.
(b) Governments would be able to afford to provide a wide range of services to all, including free health care for all and reimbursement for time off from work for being sick. They would also be able to provide adequate pensions for the elderly and low cost public transit.
(c) Police would treat all citizens well. No group would be so poor that a life of crime would seem to be a solution.
As indicated in Section [2], back in 2019, before COVID-19 hit, protests were already starting because of low commodity prices and the indirect impacts of low commodity prices. One reason why governments were so eager to adopt shutdowns is the fact that when people were required to stay inside because of COVID-19, the problem of protests could be stopped.
It should be no surprise, then, that the protests came back, once the lockdowns have ended. There are now more people out of work and more people who are concerned about not having full healthcare costs reimbursed. Social distancing requirements are making it more difficult for businesses to operate profitably, indirectly leading to fewer available jobs.
[7] Violent protests seem to push problems fueled by an inadequate supply of affordable energy toward (a) governments and (b) insurance companies.
In some cases, insurance companies will pay for damages caused by protesters. Eventually, costs could become too great for insurance companies. Most policies have exclusions for “acts of war.” If protests escalate, this exclusion might become applicable.
Governments of all kinds are already being stressed by shutdowns because when citizens are not working, there is less tax revenue. If, in addition, governments have been paying COVID-19 related costs, this creates an even bigger budget mismatch. Governments find themselves less and less able to pay their everyday expenses, such as hiring teachers, policemen, and firemen. All of these issues tend to push city governments toward bankruptcy and more layoffs.
[8] Dark skinned people living in America tend to be Vitamin D deficient, making them more prone to getting severe cases of COVID-19. Vitamin supplements may be an inexpensive way of reducing the severity of the COVID-19 epidemic and thus lessening its diversion of energy resources.
There are a number of reports out that suggest that having adequate Vitamin D from sunlight strengthens the immune system and helps reduce the mortality of COVID-19. Adequate Vitamin C is also helpful for the immune system for people in general, not just those with dark skin.
Dark skinned people are adapted to living near the equator. If they live in the United States or Europe, their bodies make less Vitamin D from the slanted rays available in those parts of the world than they would living near the equator. As a result, studies show that Vitamin D deficiency is more common in African Americans than other Americans.
Recent data shows that the COVID-19 mortality rate for black Americans is 2.4 times that of white Americans. COVID-19 hospitalization rates are no doubt higher as well. Encouraging Americans with dark skin to take Vitamin D supplements would seem to be at least a partial solution to the problem of greater disease severity for Blacks. Vitamin C supplements, or more fresh fruit, might be helpful for all people, not just those with low Vitamin D levels.
If the COVID-19 impact can be lessened in a very inexpensive way, this would seem to be helpful for the economy in general. High-cost solutions simply divert available resources toward fighting COVID-19, making the overall resource shortfall for the rest of the economy worse.
[9] Much more equal wages would seem to be a solution for wage disparity, but this doesn’t bring the wages of low earning workers up enough, in practice.
There are a huge number of low-earning workers in many countries around the world. In order to increase commodity prices enough to make them profitable for producers, we really need wages in all countries to be much higher. For example, wages in Africa and in India need to be much higher, so that people in these parts of the world can afford goods such as cars, air conditioning and vacation travel. There is no way this can be done. Furthermore, such a change would add pollution and climate change issues.
There is a fundamental “not enough to go around” problem that we do not have an answer for. Historically, when there hasn’t been enough to go around, the attempted solution was fighting wars over what was available. In a way, the violence seen in cities around the globe is a new version of this violence. Governments of various kinds may ultimately be casualties of these uprisings. Remaining lower-level governments will be left with the problem of starting over again, issuing new currency and trying to make new alliances. In total, the new economy will be very different; it will probably bear little resemblance to today’s world economy.
“No country is emerging unscathed from the Covid-19 pandemic, but the impact on the world’s poorest countries is especially severe…
“The international community is well aware of what’s happening. More than 100 countries have sought financial help from the International Monetary Fund…
“The response to this unfolding human tragedy has been inadequate in every respect. The IMF has nothing like the bare minimum of $2.5tn it says is needed to meet the demands for help. A debt-relief deal agreed in April excludes money that poor countries have borrowed from China and the private sector.
“The G20 has no meeting planned until November, fully justifying the accusation by Gordon Brown that it has gone awol – absent without lending.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/12/the-guardian-view-on-the-global-crisis-where-is-the-rescue-and-recovery-plan
“Global poverty could rise to over one billion people due to the COVID-19 pandemic… according to a new report.”
https://www.wionews.com/world/extreme-poverty-could-rise-to-over-one-billion-people-globally-due-to-covid-19-crisis-report-305434
“The coronavirus pandemic and its punitive economic effects are about to set off the next global hunger crisis.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/coronavirus-global-hunger.html
“India’s industrial production shrank by a record 55.5 per cent in April from the year earlier with manufacturing crashing 64.3 per cent, as computed from data released by the government, which didn’t provide a number for the change from April 2019 because of the Covid-19 lockdown.”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/factory-output-shrinks-55-5-in-april-full-cpi-data-not-out/articleshow/76349789.cms
“”Many were left shelterless. Several lakhs of migrant labourers had to walk on foot and go back to their native places. The economic situation of India has taken a terrible hit due to the lockdown.
“”In fact, many analysts have opined that the lockdown has caused more human suffering than COVID-19 itself,” said [the Delhi High Court].”
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/lockdown-caused-more-suffering-than-covid-19-delhi-high-court
“At least 10 million more Pakistanis will drop below the poverty line because of the toll of the Covid-19 pandemic, the government’s new economic survey estimates.
“Around one in four Pakistanis are currently too poor to meet basic needs, but that figure is predicted to rise closer to 30 per cent of the world’s sixth most populous nation.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/ten-million-people-pakistan-set-fall-poverty-line/
“Israel’s public hospitals are on the verge of collapse due to heavy debts stemming from the loss of billions of shekels in revenue during the coronavirus crisis.
“Not only were hospitals forced to halt all elective procedures during the crisis, medical tourism – normally the most lucrative source of revenue for Israeli hospitals – has ground to a complete halt.”
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1870335/no-medical-tourism-israeli-hospitals-on-verge-of-financial-collapse.html
“”Madness.” One word suffices for Mona to describe the world around her. As she passes through the streets of Idlib City [Syria] on her way home from work, she sees many desperate people standing in line — at a pharmacies, at bakeries, desperate for some bread, desperate for medication. All of which cost thousands of Syrian pounds.
“But what is money now worth? Little or nothing. Mona sees scenes that are new to her, even after nine long years of war: “I’m frightened that many people here will starve. What can I say? It feels as though we’re suffocating.””
https://www.dw.com/en/syrian-currency-crisis-idlibfacing-the-next-catastrophe/a-53783863
“Protesters from various political parties across Lebanon, including members from the pro-government Shi’Ite Hezbollah and Amal movements, took to the streets overnight to protest the dire economic situation.
“Many of them chanted: “We are starving”.”
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/lebanon-protesters-chant-we-are-starving-as-financial-crisis-deepens
“Facing unemployment or having their salaries withheld, thousands of Lebanon’s 250,000 migrant workers, who are perhaps not protected by any labour laws, have already been trying to get repatriated in recent months as a result of Lebanon’s dire economic situation.
“For Ethiopians trying to get home, the financial bar is impossibly high. According to the consulate’s Facebook page, the price of a ticket will be $680 in addition to costs for a 14-day quarantine upon arrival, at a rate of $40 to $100 per night.
“Domestic workers in Lebanon make less than $150 each month.”
https://www.reporter.am/the-plight-of-foreign-workers-in-crisis-hit-lebanon/
“The European Central Bank appears to be in a funk about how to address the looming price deflation…
“ECB President Lagarde body-swerved a question on deflation in a recent press conference and ECB Chief Economist, Philip Lane, couldn’t bring himself to type the D word in a recent blog…
“Thus, heads are firmly buried in the sand. If consumer prices start to deflate (as we expect), perhaps the ECB will call it negative inflation, as some already call price deflation.
“Central banks are so focused on consumer prices as a gauge of their “success” in aiding the economy that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
“When all this historic money printing doesn’t end up in rampant price inflation, expect central banks’ focus on consumer prices to be ditched. Ironically, that will probably be the signal of price inflation ahead.”
https://www.deflation.com/articles/ecb-in-deflation-denial
“The global use of the euro was broadly stable last year after a steady decline in the aftermath of the bloc’s debt crisis but hopes for increased demand failed to materialize, a European Central Bank (ECB) report indicated on Tuesday.
“Launched over 20 years ago, the euro has always played second fiddle to the U.S. dollar, even as the European Commission has made it a goal to boost its global role, in part to reduce the bloc’s reliance on the greenback during a period of growing global trade tensions.
“The euro zone’s financial architecture remains incomplete, however, as it lacks a common safe asset or a deposit insurance scheme, its bank sector is fragmented and the capital markets union is unfinished.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-euro-ecb/global-use-of-euro-stabilizes-near-historic-lows-ecb-says-idUKKBN23G0Y5
‘Negative inflation’? What a hoot!
So, shoot someone in the head, and they will have ‘transitioned to a state of negative life’?
A bit like our old friend ‘De-growth’ = COLLAPSE.
De-growth= hibernation, sleep, so as to be awakened again in the morning/spring.
What if there is no spring?
We just have to wait for new fossile fuels.
Ultimately, not enough goods and services to go around. If there are lots of debt defaults and collapsing businesses, I would expect deflation. A large number of people afraid of going out because of COVID-19 would also add to the effect.
“Britain’s record economic slump in April during the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown has put businesses across the country on the brink of financial collapse.
“The Guardian has spoken to three company bosses about the pressure they and their employees are facing at the onset of the deepest recession in living memory.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/12/april-was-catastrophic-the-firms-caught-up-in-uks-record-slump
“British businesses will not be able to cope with a no-deal Brexit while attempting to recover from the coronavirus crisis, the boss of the Confederation of British Industry has warned.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-no-deal-coronavirus-cbi-carolyn-fairbairn-business-pandemic-a9561186.html
“Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has said he will be “ready to take action” to help the UK economy weather the coronavirus crisis.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53019360
The CBI flooded the media with anti Brexit propaganda before, during, and after the referendum. And they are still at it.
And they’re still right
neil, they may well be right about the economy, but that was never the issue. The issue is sovereignty, and there we are right, as the current behaviour of the Euro tyrants abundantly proves.
Sovereign, unlikely. Sufferin’, certainly.
“The week ended with another raft of data that confirm the shock effect of the pandemic on the global economy.”
https://www.ft.com/content/09c868f1-a459-4d80-8dea-18c93db7db48
“The evidence of the depth of economic pain in April is stark. India recorded no new auto sales in April, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations. In the U.K., only 197 autos were made, compared with about 70,000 in April 2019.
“Exports from Germany, one of the world’s manufacturing powerhouses, fell by a third. In Bosnia and Croatia, no steel was produced. Clothing sales in France, the home of fashion, were down 67.4%.
““The shock was huge,” said Helene Baudchon, an economist at BNP Paribas in Paris. “Even this word is not enough to qualify the scale. We are back to the 1980s in terms of household consumption of goods.””
https://www.wsj.com/articles/aprils-historic-economic-plunge-points-to-steep-climb-for-the-world-economy-11591993230
“Central bankers look set to go on a gold buying binge this year in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, new research shows.
“And the leading reason for the likely desire to buy bars of bullion is fear of another financial crisis, according to a recent report from industry group World Gold Council.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2020/06/12/central-banks-set-for-gold-rush–over-financial-crisis-fears/#648cb3baeebc
It would be a crime and shame if the Russian secret service hadn’t infiltrated BLM and ANTIFA to instigate racial and class tensions in the US.
Well…of course they have.
ANTIFA was created by the KGB to bring down the German democracy in the 1930’s.
First the Chinese virus.
Then lockdowns.
Then BLM and ANTIFA riots.
Next?
https://www.eupoliticalreport.eu/russian-connection-in-us-riots/
The Russian connection to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attack against the US.
https://www-businessinsider-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.businessinsider.com/exploring-al-qaedas-murky-connection-to-russian-intelligence-2014-6?amp_js_v=a3&_gsa=1&&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#aoh=15920389469512&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s
Are you kidding? What do cartoon figures like Lin Baden and Al Kaeda have to do with nine-11?
Exactly, Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were inventions of the CIA for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and a convenient boogeyman for the masses of dumbasses to think pulled off 9/11.
The real perps of 9/11 belong to the US and Israel.
shessssh—were not back to 9/11 are we
now that a certain player has left the building, i thought we’d done with that—especially now we know about the holograms of aircraft that were projected onto the twin towers just before the CIA triggered the detonators up the inside of the buiilding—
oh and we mustn’t forget the crash dummies who pretended to fly the aircraft in the first place
one of them was due to be displayed at the Smithsonian, until Musk put it into one of his cars and sent it to found a colony on Mars
I’m starting a new business
Rentaconspiracy.com
shessssh—were not back to 9/11 are we
When the proletariat is confused and frightened, delusion and superstition are a way of giving some small sense of comfort.
Reality has never gotten in the way.
Please explain what happened then……..
Please tell me you don’t believe the official narrative
dunno why i bother—but will give it a final go on this thread. Masochism isn’t my strong point.
first off
in addition to the holograms of aircraft projected onto the twin towers—what is never mentioned (presumably because they dont fit into any daft consipracy threads), are the other 2 aircraft on that day.
Why are they excluded from this silliness?
One aircraft hologram was projected onto the pentagon (which building had also infiltrated for months beforehand and laced with explosives prior to actual impact of the hologram on 9/11)
Just before it was blown up
the other aircraft which was also being flown by remote controlled crash dummies,( who were so realistic they fought with the passengers, who died in their determination to stop that aircraft being targeted at either the WH or the capitol building.) That plane crashed in a field
Those guys never get a mention. Their heroism is just plain inconvenient I guess
Whichever of those two was the target, the CIA had to quickly gain access to remove the pre-planted explosive charges.
I guess it wasn’t too difficult as those buildings had been panic-evacuated after the WTC impact.
I would have thought somebody might have noticed though. Men in plain vans racing up and carrying suspicious packages and trailing wires out the door.
(just as somebody might have noticed the WTC being wired up for months beforehand)
Had the WH or Capitol building been blown up without an aircraft impact, that certainly would have given the game away. Or at least made a few people suspicious. (gas leak maybe?)
Today, with the Don inside, there would be dancing in the streets.—but that’s another hoax. for another day.
get real
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/original-plan-for-911-attacks-involved-10-planes-panel-says.html
You really need to educate yourself on 9/11, Norman. I’ve a good mind to send you to bed without any supper. There is masses of evidence from all sorts of experts that the US govt’s story was a fairytale in every respect. For a start, seek out the videos of Dr Judy Wood, an ex-professor of mechanical engineering. She is the Gail Tverberg of 9/11.
Part of the problem is that the perpetrators managed to obfuscate the story by creating so many incidents that different theories got going (thermite, directed energy weapon, mini-nuke), and the various proponents spent too much time arguing with one another.
Watch the YouTube videos by ex-spy Dimitri Khalezov too. Where he falls down is in his speculation of who was ultimately behind 9/11, but he provides a good forensic analysis of what caused the physical traces and demolition of the Twin Towers.
Also seek out ‘9-11 Alchemy – Facing Reality by Wolf Clan Media’ on YouTube – one of the best videos (if very long) for visual evidence and explanation and debunking of the many various dodgy elements of the official story. You may choose to ignore the theories about the supposed visual occult references allegedly interpolated by the putative perpetrators (who knows, they may have had a warped sense of humour), but there is a lot of excellent stuff there.
And yes, I totally agree that the US as tron auts did what they said they did back in 1969. Maybe some photos were touched up afterwards, but that’s not unusual and would explain some of the minor anomalies. I also notice that the varieties of cheese commercially available after 1969 just exploded, so it’s clear that they mined a lot of the cheese deposits while up there. But I’m joking – I really do believe they went.
Z, do you really think it is worth discussing political issues with people who believe in MSM narratives and official versions? If people believe in the “2planesx3towers down” story it’s because they prefer so (as in: not taking the trouble to investigate).or because they need so (as in: leaders can’t be such psychopats, if they look like me! Greedy? Yes. But psycho-sob-murders who don’t give a a twit for your or anybodies life? No, It’s to awfull to contemplate. How could we ever believe that leaders who bomb without a blink a foreign city, killing hundreds of civilians, could do the same in their own land, to their own sheep – sorry – people? Unthinkable! To most people, this a line they will never cross. It’s a No go zone: Dragons Ahead.
In any case, I don’t care too much about politics, It doesn’t really matter. And it’s mostly a bad show. The source of our predicament is physical or ecological (overshoot), and if politics could have prevented it (which i much doubt btw) i’m sure it can not solve it now. Industrial civilization is way way past any kind of salvation.About the survival of human species, who lives wil see.
Gosh, so many Russians still under the bed!
Getting crowded down there – but they must be used to that from the days of Soviet housing.
And we are not using those Russian Rockets to get to space finally after 10+ years.
Worse than Soviet Housing (although the second home on the Caspian was nice)
@JMS
Dude you are one of the few with an actual brain here. Thanks for the reply as I agree with it all.
“Mr. Miles and Mr. Hermanson are 700 miles apart, leading lives separated by lines of race, age, ideology and income. Yet there’s one opinion they both share: The American experiment is teetering.
““It’s all screwed,” said Mr. Hermanson, who is white. “It seems to me that we’re pretty close to a fall.””
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/on-the-future-americans-can-agree-it-doesnt-look-good/ar-BB15nRWH
“Trillions are now whooshing by at a breath-taking pace.
“The US gross national debt – the total of all Treasury securities outstanding – jumped by $1 trillion over the past five weeks, from May 4 through June 8, and by $2.5 trillion for the 11 weeks since March 23.”
https://wolfstreet.com/2020/06/12/wow-thats-fast-debt-out-the-wazoo/
“Mr. Powell said that beyond the Fed’s monetary policy, support for the recovery might require further action by Congress and the White House, with their taxing and spending powers.
““It’s possible that we will need to do more,” he said, “and it’s possible that Congress will need to do more.””
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/business/economy/federal-reserve-economy-coronavirus.html
“A selloff in U.S. government bonds that pushed yields to the highest levels since March petered out almost as quickly as it started, a sign economic pessimism and aggressive monetary stimulus remain powerful forces suppressing longer-term interest rates.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasury-yields-retreat-signals-economic-woes-11591959600
“The Minneapolis city council has pledged to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety, a historic move that comes as calls to defund law enforcement are sweeping the US.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/07/minneapolis-city-council-defund-police-george-floyd
“At long last, financial reality has caught up with Chesapeake Energy Corp., avatar of the boom and subsequent bust of North American shale.
“Chesapeake’s spiral toward oblivion accelerated this week with executives said to be preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing…”
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/chesapeakes-demise-marks-end-of-shale-model-that-changed-the-world
“Extraction Oil & Gas, which surged 300 per cent on the stock exchange earlier this week, is likely to file for bankruptcy imminently, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest casualty of an oil price crash ravaging the US shale patch.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ab45d5ef-28d3-4932-ba7b-be3d08e64623
“When the novel coronavirus first appeared in the United States, North Dakota was in the envious position of having more money in its state coffers than it had budgeted.
“Now, it is making sweeping cuts to state agencies in a bid to stem the financial bleeding from a historic oil price collapse sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, and a battered farm economy still struggling with the fallout from the U.S.-China trade war.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-states-insight/what-rebound-north-dakota-in-economic-crunch-as-virus-batters-oil-agriculture-idUKKBN23J1I9
“A slump in nitrogen prices could be a sign U.S. farmers planted less corn.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/fertilizer-plunge-may-be-a-sign-u-s-farmers-planting-less-corn
““This is an earth-shaking moment in the energy sector,” says Robert Godby, director of the Center for Energy Economics at the University of Wyoming, about the rapid drop in demand for coal power. “This industry just doesn’t change this quickly.””
https://www.wired.com/story/the-covid-19-economic-slump-is-closing-down-coal-plants/
Right! Wholesale prices are too low for all electricity producers.
Nitrogen prices? Nitrogen is 80% of Earth’s atmosphere, and those cute little bacteria will fix it in the ground for free. The fact that nitrogen prices even exist is an unmistakable sign of dangerous overshoot. Once again, collapse is staring us in the face, but we prefer to turn away.
Robert, very true about nitrogen. Unfortunately, corn does not fix nitrogen and is a heavy feeder
Prices too low for all commodities!
Chesapeake Energy Corp is primarily a natural gas company. It is not just oil that has low prices; natural gas is a problem as well.
“Oil and gas infrastructure companies worldwide will be impacted by the rapid reduction of oil and gas volumes as the broader oil and gas industry struggles with the simultaneous demand and supply shocks, Moody’s Investors Service said in a new report this week.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Midstream-Oil-Companies-Are-Beginning-To-Feel-The-Pinch.html.
More Gun and Ammo sales on the rise. Due to ….well you guessed it…
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ammocom-reports-a-recent-spike-in-ammunition-sales-that-indicates-rise-in-african-american-gun-ownership-301074060.html
Ammo.com Reports A Recent Spike in Ammunition Sales That Indicates Rise in African American Gun Ownership
National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) Membership Grows as Members Purchase Ammo in Record Numbers
Founded by Phillip Smith in 2015, NAAGA started with one chapter in Atlanta, and just 30 members. It now has 112 chapters in most U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia, with approximately 40,000 gun-toting members – more than 10,000 of whom joined this year alone. 90% of NAAGA’s members are African American, more than half of them women, and over 1,000 are law enforcement and military.
“2,000 people joined NAAGA in 36 hours after George Floyd,” said founder Philip Smith. “That broke our records. We’re getting a ton of folks from all over.”
Ammo.com’s sales to NAAGA members reflect this spike. On May 26th, the day following the death of George Floyd, the online ammunition retailer saw a 260% increase in traffic from NAAGA members.
When compared to the two weeks before May 25th (May 10 to May 24) versus the two weeks after (May 25 to June 8), Ammo.com saw the following increases from NAAGA members:
Revenue: 425% increase.
Transactions: 350%
Conversion Rate: 104%
The most popular calibers purchased by NAAGA members during this time frame were:
9mm ammo – 37% of all sales.
223 ammo – 27%.
40 Cal (S&W) ammo – 14%.
5.56×45 ammo – 6%.
45 ACP ammo – 4%.
These increases come in the wake of a record-setting first quarter for Ammo.com’s Freedom Fighter Support donations, which saw over $9,000 donated to pro-freedom organizations at the end of March 2020 – their largest quarterly amount ever.
“The right to self defense is natural, color-blind, and enshrined in our Constitution,” said Alex Horsman, marketing director at Ammo.com
Saw this on Alice Friedman’s website and found it of great interest
Preface. Since 90% of international goods move by ships, I was curious about how much fuel they burned. It’s a lot: The very large container ship CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin above, which can carry 18,000 20-foot containers, carries approximately 4.5 million gallons of fuel oil, which takes up 16,000 cubic meters (FW 2020). As much fuel as 300,000 15-gallon tank cars.
But these ships can carry 200,000 tons of goods, so they end up being more energy efficient than 300,000 cars (Stopford 2010, UNCTAD 2012).
Pound for pound and mile for mile, today’s ships are the most energy-efficient way to move freight. Table 1 shows the energy efficiency of different modes of transport by kilojoules of energy used to carry one ton of cargo a kilometer (KJ/tkm). As you can see, water and rail are literally tons and tons—orders of magnitude—more energy efficient than trucks and air transportation.
Table 1 Energy efficiency of transportation in kilojoules/ton/kilometer (Smil 2013), Ashby 2015)
(A) ……………Transportation mode
50……………. Oil tankers and bulk cargo ships
100–150….. Smaller cargo ships
250–600….. Trains
360………….. Barge
2000–4000 Trucks
30,000…….. Air freight
55,000…….. Helicopter
(A) Kilojoules of energy used to carry one ton of cargo one kilometer Transportation mode
Alice Friedemann http://www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report
Can’t wait for the sailing cargo ships to go online
Cutty Sark: zero kJ/ton km. But Dr McKay, in his excellent treaties “Sustainable Energy without the hot air”, estimates that a cargo airship would need about 100 kJ/ton km, as cheap as a small cargo ship. (pp 280 to 281)
The deceitful statements of the greens:
Our planet is being destroyed.
The truth is that other species are being eliminated. That way the planet becomes our.
Welcome to the new Children’s Crusade.
The rampage in Minneapolis was apparently planned ahead of time by organizers of the Sunrise Movement, who are committed to mayhem in the name of climate, as much or more so than Extinction Rebellion. Millenium Millie reports, supported by a team of undercover reporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqYeiF20j_0&feature=emb_logo
What you are about to see is part of a two year undercover investigation into the leftist radicalization imbedded within the climate justice movement that contributed to the riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In this first video, we are going to show how the Sunrise Movement played a preemptive role in carrying out the mayhem, taking advantage of George Floyd’s death and using it as a trigger point, to further push their Green New Deal agenda and promoting the abolition of the police.
What some parents may have thought were innocent youth organizations genuinely fostered and ran by children are actually top-down monolithic structures with private intelligence, military contractors, and foreign interests influencing children to carry out their subversive objectives.
The events that erupted in Minneapolis, Minnesota were not a spontaneous reaction to the murder of George Floyd. These were well planned events anticipating some perfect trigger point to bring about the “new normal” – a world without police, without borders, without industry, without wealth, without private property, without an economy – a world based on communist ideals imbedded within the Green New Deal.
First – lockdown.
Second – Riots
Third – second lockdown?
Compounding first and second is disastrous but we have not seen the full effect yet. It will show up pretty soon.
I don’t have any clue anymore when you add in the third one. My head is exploding literally
“ryioters”, er, I mean “protesters” don’t want any more lockdowns…
almost anyone involved in “business” (which is probably most of us) does not want any more lockdowns…
anyone who likes to get out of the house and have some fun does not want any more lockdowns… especially now that Summer is here…
maybe all that remains are the politicians…
may all the fayke gods ever invented be merciful to us and not allow the politicians to do lockdowns again!
There is so much talk about ‘surgical’ and localised’ lock-downs that I very much doubt we will see national ones again.
The economic damage is becoming clear even to the insulated idiots in parliaments and congresses everywhere.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/12/photos-seattle-autonomous-zone-has-a-border-wall-conducts-deportations/
“Seattle, Washington’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) — formed by anarchists, Antifa members, and Black Lives Matter activists — has set up a border wall surrounding its perimeters and is seemingly conducting ‘deportations’.”
also, it seems that a local guy/rapper appears to be a neophyte “strongman” who is “taking charge” of the area, and also it seems he, and others, carry guns… legal in the context of the open carry law there…
so this CHAZ now has a “police force”… oh, the pathhetic irony…
but really, it’s all peace and love, man…
Have you ever been down to Love City?
I’m waiting for Summer of Love 2020 when bellbottoms and “flowers in your hair” begin to appear all throughout “CHAZ”…
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/12/this-chaz-idea-growing-me/
I’m not validating every idea in this article, but:
“They have seized six city blocks, built border walls, and are running around with guns in a community that reflects their values and their desire to live their lives in the way they choose to live their lives.
This includes high-capacity weapons and vigilante groups that punish vandalism with a good, sound beating.”
sounds like a rougge version of policing and crimminal justice in action…
or am I mistaken and it’s actually Utopia?
So the Radical Left likes building walls now?
I wish they’d make their minds up.
Men with guns, or the women too, I wonder?
‘Our guns are only for the safety of the peaceful and ant-patriarchal Revolution, Comrade!’
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/12/coronavirus-spread-isnt-the-feared-second-waveits-still-the-first.html
“The rise in coronavirus cases seen in about half a dozen states across the U.S. isn’t the feared “second wave” — it’s still the first, scientists and infectious disease specialists say.
To be defined as a second wave the virus would need to retreat and reappear, or a new variant would have to emerge, said Columbia University’s Ian Lipkin. “The recent increase in cases does not reflect either.”
It’s odd that so few people seem to grasp that point about the much-vaunted ‘2nd wave’.
Vague language, sloppy thinking, poor decisions.
Hey, but we are only a bunch of chimps, scratching out heads as this isn’t one bit like our old esy life on the African savannah…
The lockdown only postponed cases. It flattened the curve, but there still are lots of sources of infection around. Except for remote islands, this will likely always be the case. And the remote islands will be subject to importing the illness back again.
Hawaii is one of the few US places that greatly reduced cases. They are now back.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/hawaii-new-covid-cases-june-12.png
A more common pattern is (1) Initial increase, (2) Flatten, but not down, (3) New increase.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/arizona-nc-catx-new-cases-june-12.png
corona so passe. Black lives matter.
Remember this lady who always seems to be there for us in a crisis?
Well, it turns out she is also George Floyd’s 2nd grade teacher.
LOL what a freaking “coincidence”! Nice find, Tim.
Strange! Lots of different hobbies in the world.
It can’t be done, I was in error regarding minimum wage in most states.
Marriage is a contract, it is a very serious contract and a great deal of thought should go into it. It is not easy, marriage is very, very hard. Two people can live under one roof for half the cost of two homes, romantic, nope. Once there are children, they come first, until they are grown it is your
job and it takes two.
Median wage referenced immediately below was $4576.32 in 1964, 2018 median was $52145.8. Median wage increased 11x, multiply a 1964 nominal cost to get 2018 cost. What has changed most in percentage is employment tax, transfer from young to old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_Indexed_Monthly_Earnings
Each American uses 20+ barrels of oil per year, at $100/barrel that is $2000/year in cost compared to $60/year in 1964. His/her overall cost of oil is in everything around, put it one place for ease of computation. Payroll taxes are now $7K plus vs close to zero in 1964 and this is mostly an after tax cost. Oil is 4% median income, payroll 15% median income.
There is anger all over the world, hypothesis: secondary to transfer payments. Oil is up, but nothing compared to transfer payments.
Again, I apologize for not being more careful with minimum wage, I didn’t check it. No, I did not have braces.
Dennis L.
no worries mate we all make mistakes now and then
I agree… 😉
adonis, this is no mistake:
bAU tonight, baby!
This looks like fun. Jeremy Corbin’s brother Piers was protesting about the corona thingy and they’ve come to take him away, ha ha! I wonder if Piers got to meet Julian Assange before seeing the magistrate.
In the image reproduced below, the reader should be able to count 16 police men and women (from bits of their uniform, if not from their faces) surrounding Piers Corbyn at one of the small demonstrations that have taken place in Hyde Park in the month of May. Corbyn should be considered dangerous by British authorities because of how he has correctly identified, as he calls it, the “Nazification of the NHS” in the course of UK Government’s execution of the coronahoax.
Some accounts say that when police were performing the arrest on Corbyn shown in the image, there were almost as many of them present than there were demonstrators. However, this can’t be known by someone who wasn’t there and only has a viewpoint through a number of photographs – but at least the most iconic of this gallery shows a definite tactical scrummage to isolate Corbyn. The police have consistently treated Covid-19 as if a uniform fends it off, so the lack of social distancing in the formation, that will no doubt strike many who look at the image, is not really an issue. The message in the image is one of mob-handed over-reaction, which would have been induced by fear. Protesting against Covid-19 is not to be tolerated – and there is a reason for it. It breaks and disrupts the impression of unity against a common enemy.
http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PiersCorbyn.jpg
A person would think that police would set good examples and wear masks, if they expect others to wear masks.
Beating the horse more:
Average age of cars in US, Department of Transportation:
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/line3.htm
From 1970 to 2000 it has gone from 5.6 to 9 years, this is an increase of 61% in the useful life for a car. Combine this with median wages increasing, fuel efficiency increasing overall cars are cheaper relative to median income now than they were 30 years ago. Pre tax that is.
Dennis L.
Cars do last longer now, but the issue is that the monthly payments on used cars are relatively higher than those on new cars because loans on used cars have shorter terms and relatively higher interest rates. The amount of unexpected costs for repairs can be higher on used cars as well.
That would be a factor, it is also a factor that my minimum wage number was wrong, probably because in Rochester it seems to be the minimum wages even at McDonalds are $15/hour didn’t research it very well, that explains why median income has increased 11x vs my guess of 15x for minimum wages.
Car repairs are huge, but run a car long enough and it is cheap, the problem is initial cash flow vs wealth. I have spent more time on this subject that I would like, but it has been informative, it would be interesting to spreadsheet aftertax income divided into cars, bread, oil, houses, rent. I think it is up and it doesn’t work, pretax would be close to a wash at 11x increase in income. The problem I see is the transfer tax – before the boomers started retiring it was manageable, especially in the 60’s, now it doesn’t seem to work at all. There is no way to do the transfer tax and increased oil prices as well, it collapses.
It is always tempting to try and spin it to be right, my conjecture is transfer caused many of the problems, cash flow is always an issue and hard to get ahead of as it is after tax money.
Dennis L.
How soon would a single mother earning minimum wage be able to afford braces for one of her children?
Is she pretty?
Dennis why are you using the current price of oil of around $36/bbl when we are in a period of great dislocation and change?? Over the last dozen years or so oil has averaged well above $60/bbl, or 20X your 1964 starting price, and over that dozen years is where the damage has been done.
The relativities of prices you are looking at are not a constant, they are forever changing, so only over a period of time are comparisons realistic, so average minimum income to average oil prices to average bread prices over say a decadal scale, as it is the long term effect that influences the ‘wealth’ of people.
For instance would many people go out and buy a gas guzzler right now just because oil has become ‘cheap’ for a few months?? Some would, but what about the ‘average’ person?
Anybody know where one can get a fast and dirty weighted average cost of oil over say the last 20 years, yes I can do the calculations, lazy?
I think adjusting for COL is a joke, what counts is income at the time oil is purchased. As a middle income person, what counts is after tax income when the car was purchased, the rest is meaningless.
Pre tax income relative to life’s necessities, shelter, food, energy doesn’t seem to have changed much over say 50 years, what has changed is after tax income and that seems to relate mostly to payroll taxes. The rich get a break after $106K, taxes decrease dramatically for self employed.
Two sites, both government sites, rent and median salary. You can do the math, wages outrun rent unless you start do subtract payroll tax, then things change. I looked up to 2000, became bored, it agrees.
Average Wages:
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html
Average Rent:
https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html
Yearly cost of a barrel of oil:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/262858/change-in-opec-crude-oil-prices-since-1960/#:~:text=This%20statistic%20depicts%20the%20average,barrel%20was%2051.52%20U.S.%20dollars.
Yearly payroll tax rates:
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/payroll-tax-rates
So, exercise: Take the median income over ten year periods beginning in 1950, subtract payroll taxes for both employer and employee as this tax is an employment tax, divide into rent and cost oil per barrel and see what happens to the ratios.
My guess based on periods I gave, the ratio stays relatively constant or decreases prior to payroll tax adjustments, it increases for income after payroll tax added in.
If this is the case, outsourcing was not secondary reduced coal/oil, whatever, it was primarily secondary to transfer of payments, it foreshadowed Walmart and the hollowing out of main street.
Plot college loan amounts as a function of payroll taxes and see what happens. A guess, as the payroll tax increase so to do the loans. When the tuition is paid by non recourse loans, the colleges get to raise tuition without end.
My guess, this mess is mostly demographic; hence the kids are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more. Gail was right again if this is correct, the plague was beneficial to society. COVID the same? The stock market has been going up.
Dennis L.
Dennis L.
The big issue is the wage disparity problem. As a dentist, you can afford practically any price of oil. People trying to support themselves, or themselves plus a family, on minimum wages (perhaps earned on two part-time jobs) have a terrible time. One of the issues is the fact that health care costs are not determined as a percentage of wages; health care costs are more or less a fixed cost, regardless of how low your wages. There is also no discount for dentist’s services for low-wage clients, as far as I am aware.
In Georgia, the minimum wage is $5.15 if the employer is a Georgia-only employer (thus, any small Georgia company would likely qualify). For companies operating across state lines, the minimum wage is $7.25. If a person has to pay for food bills, transportation, physician bills, dentist bills, and all of the other necessities, how far does $206 per week go, or $10,300 per year go?
Minnesota is a wealthy state. It sets minimum wages of $10 per hour for large employers and $8.15 per hour for small employers, so there is less of this problem than in poorer states, but I expect that even at $10 an hour, many people will have trouble making ends meet.
Agreed, I used $15/hour minimum wage, obviously wrong, have not done payroll in some years so I lost track.
$10/hour does not cut it, oil is up more than that number, many things are in that range, a loaf of bread us up a bit more than 10x.
Sorry, I missed the minimum wage, think I have median income correct as it is from SS data.
It is not easy, and those payroll taxes are killers, after payroll taxes a $10/hour job has $8.50 available for everything else, it cannot be done.
I am not happy with how dental fees have progressed, I was lucky, I had a very large dental lab as well, manufacturing makes service look like a low paying job, due to operational leverage, mine was a good practice, but one that had no need to look for the last dollar. The lab did well enough to pay good medical insurance, many women at the bench, many babies – correlation?
It is nice to have a venue to look at these issues and not have flame wars.
Dennis L.
Wow, this is surprising in a way, in a culture so sexualized as ours. Poor millenials .- no decent jobs, no independent living, and aparently no sex either…
(Reuters) – Sexual activity among young American men has declined sharply since 2000, with nearly a third reporting no sex with a partner in the prior year, according to a survey study published on Friday that suggests social media and electronic gaming might be filling the void.
The survey found that from 2000 to 2018, nearly one in three U.S. men aged 18 to 24 reported no sexual activity in the past year. Lack of sexual activity, or sexual inactivity, was also on the rise among men and women aged 25 to 34 years during the survey period, the report in the journal JAMA Network Open found.
Possible reasons for the decline in sexual frequency may also include stress of juggling work and intimate relationships, as well as the prevalence of other forms of solo entertainment.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-health-sex/young-u-s-men-having-a-lot-less-sex-in-the-21st-century-study-shows-idUSKBN23J2LI
Again, a quant here:
Plot the amount of sex to the number and frequency of expensive dinners in a romantic restaurant, low lights, good wine, excellent service. It probably is about the same as always. Based on another post of mine, plot amount of sex to payroll taxes, I don’t have a clue on that one, but might be interesting.
Dennis L.
A lot of if is just social atomization.
Also “sexualized culture” in reality means people just end up addicted to porn and self satisfying, which probably falls into a vicious cycle with increasing social atomization as the development of both probably have positive feedback on each other.
If jobs are unstable (contract jobs, for example) it is harder to support a family. Women aren’t as interested in finding husbands, and men get to be frustrated trying to find a spouse.
People complain about religion all of the time, but one of the big functions churches have served in the past is to provide a meeting place for families with similar backgrounds who are not genetically related. This contact with unrelated families has been helpful in finding spouses for young adults. Hanging around bars is not nearly as good a way of finding a spouse. Now meeting through the internet is popular, but that doesn’t work well for everyone.
Here we strongly agree, religion is good for people, good for civilization, a simple set of rules which work most of the time are repeated often in a group setting with pleasant interludes of wonderful music. It is not perfect, it has flaws, but perfection is the enemy of good enough.
The sophistry of intellectual atheists has served us poorly.
Marriage is tough, it seems to work best between equals, nice to have a dopaminergic component when possible. Overall, it seems to make life easier, it is the details which are a challenge.
Dennis L.
I fully agree that religion provides a social glue of a much higher quality than that proposed by atheism.
But to say that atheism is a sophistical product seems to be a misjudgement. Philosophy does not serve to glue anything, On the contrary, i would say it serves to unglue everything, to decompose, analyze and test the solidity of any proposition. And it’s not the fault of philosophers if religious propositions are highly inconsistent and therefore refutable applying some logic.
Moreover, devouts tend to consume less than hedonic materialists (usually irreligious), therefore atheism / agnosticism is much more favorable to the circulation of capital than religion. Then If atheism had not been invented by 18th century philosophers, it would have to be created by 19th century economists, or by 20th century advertising agents.
The role of current churches is to pick out which things are relevant to our lives today. This is why there are so many different churches. Some churches think some things are relevant; others think other things are relevant.
Governments would like us to believe, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Churches (except a few of them), try to push back against this idea. It may be that a balance is needed, to maximize energy dissipation. We know that low income people spend a larger share of their income on energy-intensive products. So if the rich voluntarily give to the poor, it will tend to raise the income of the poor, and thus raise demand for commodities. It is this demand that keeps commodity prices up, and allows more of them to be produced.
I believe that religions are unavoidable, that they exist and have existed everywhere because humans generally need them, because they are useful.
Social cohesion is impossible without shared beliefs, and in this respect it’s irrelevant whether these beliefs are logical or absurd. But i believe philosophers are not usually concerned with the social/psycological impact of their resonings or conclusions, Which means that in certain circumstances they will not be the best advisers to rulers?
Dennis: The sophistry of intellectual atheists has served us poorly.
JMS: But to say that atheism is a sophistical product seems to be a misjudgement.
JMS, that’s not what Dennis said. What I think he said amounted to a judgement that sophistry (in other words, the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving) employed by intellectual atheists (I’m not sure if he’s referring to the recent crop of “tele-athiests” (to coin a pejorative) or to the long list of atheist philosophers spanning several centuries) has has been a net benefit for society. He wasn’t implying that atheism itself necessarily equates to or is a product of sophistry.
Terry Eagleton delved into this subject while lamenting Richard Dawkins in 2005:
Dawkins on God is rather like those right-wing Cambridge dons who filed eagerly into the Senate House some years ago to non-placet Jacques Derrida for an honorary degree. Very few of them, one suspects, had read more than a few pages of his work, and even that judgment might be excessively charitable. Yet they would doubtless have been horrified to receive an essay on Hume from a student who had not read his Treatise of Human Nature. There are always topics on which otherwise scrupulous minds will cave in with scarcely a struggle to the grossest prejudice. For a lot of academic psychologists, it is Jacques Lacan; for Oxbridge philosophers it is Heidegger; for former citizens of the Soviet bloc it is the writings of Marx; for militant rationalists it is religion.
What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case? Dawkins, it appears, has sometimes been told by theologians that he sets up straw men only to bowl them over, a charge he rebuts in this book; but if The God Delusion is anything to go by, they are absolutely right. As far as theology goes, Dawkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion is; it’s just that Dawkins rejects it while Oral Roberts and his unctuous tribe grow fat on it.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching
OK, I misunderstood Dennis.
Professional atheists like Dawkins would perhaps like to replace the Ten Commandments with the Periodic Table. But it is absurd to think that human beings can dispense with religion and replace it with science, since science is also a “dissolvent”, like philosophy, and therefore does not meet the minimum requirements to be used as a social glue.
Right. Science doesn’t provide social glue. It seems that political factions increasingly provide social glue. Let’s all get together for a demonstration now! These are outside so they reduce the chance of COVID-19 exposure.
Going Japanese, perhaps?
The demographic shift is one of the “elephants in the room” that we do not talk about.
It’s quite consistent across western nations, fertility rates and family creation are way down, in a society that expects to grow forever!?
This is the reason why Germany and some other European countries have imported so many young workers from outside. Otherwise, who is going to pay all of the medical costs and pensions of the many elderly people.
Right.
“In 2019, more than 180 000 people managed to obtain portuguese nationality: it is more than double the babies born in Portugal (81 351). The number is a record and the reflection of a law that, over the years, has increasingly opened the country’s doors to new migrants.”
https://www.jn.pt/nacional/estrangeiros-naturalizados-ja-sao-o-dobro-dos-nascimentos-12303010.html
The South Koreans are now outcompeting the Japanese in not having kids. Their population will begin to decline this year or next, and the slope will be a steep one.
The nation’s total fertility rate, which measures the average number of children a woman is expected to bear over her life, sunk to 0.98 in 2018 as it dipped below 1 for the first time.
President Moon Jae-in’s administration has prioritized fighting this demographic decline, but the effort has yet to stop a decrease in fertility that dates to the 1980s.
“Women are reluctant to have children,” said Ha Joon-kyung, a professor at Hanyang University, citing factors such as high education costs and home prices as well as difficulty in returning to work after childbirth.
South Korea’s low fertility stands out even compared with aging Japan, which reported a rate of 1.42 in 2018. Both fall below the 2017 average of 1.65 for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The number of births in South Korea dropped 7.3% last year to 303,100, according to Statistics Korea, a government agency. Births per 1,000 women sank 13% among those in their 20s and 6% for those in their early 30s.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/South-Korean-fertility-rate-drops-to-new-worldwide-low
Notice, it is mostly the men who are having less sex, not so much the women. Everything is upside down now, that is why you have the Incels, MGTOWs, Red pillers, etc. Guys like Elliot Rodgers, George Sodini, and others go on killing rampages of young women.
Another thing to note is the obesity epidemic, and I wonder who is sexing up these huge hambeasts of women? My goodness they are like another creature.
Add in the dysgenic effects from feminism and the hordes of single mothers who are living off the government tit and you have a dystopian nightmare. The majority of criminals come from single mother households and yes this includes the school shooters, rapists, murderers that the feminists shriek about yet their own policies create them. Fools.
I agree that many (most?) young and not so young americans are an eyesore. Fast food comes with a price… in pounds. But the overweight epidemy is a problem everywhere now. And sure it is a sexappeal killer.
If it’s mostly the men who are having less sex, then who are the women carousing with?
The women will have sex with the top 20% of men who can have multiple partners due to attractiveness/money/criminal status etc. There seems to be soft harems forming, you can look this up in online dating statistics that women only find a small portion of men attractive whereas for men it is the opposite.
Keep in mind though, most of these reports are biased and not reflecting the total picture because there seems to be a lot of women not having sex either as one has to wonder how it would be physically possible to have sex with these obese creatures.
Further, there are many women in western nations who are rabid feminists and lesbians so that could also be a possibility.
I have read that based on genetic evidence, a much larger percentage of women have been mothers than men have been fathers, historically. Attractive (rich?) fathers tend to have lots of children. Poor fathers have few.
each other probably
less hassle and fewer kids
Possible reasons … may include that many US women have turned themselves into man hating feminists whom no sane suitor would cross the street to spit upon.
Seattle Police Chief: “Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and we’re not able to get to them.”
The Major of Seattle calls it a block party.
Well… she’s actually right. Peak oil will not be a soup kitchen party… and the brown shirts were just a dress rehearsal.
Yoshua,
Your observations are cogent with the exception of the issue being peak oil. The price has not changed relative to salaries be they minimum wage or median, what has changed is payroll taxes which is a highly progressive tax that has increased around 30x over the past 56 years. SS tax also caps out at around $100K so after that it drops out and becomes much less than 15% after say $300K, the math is simple 12% for SS, 3% for Medicare which is not capped, excel problem. . Were SS not capped the next $200K would incur a tax of an additional $60K. that is a good proportion of inequality.
This is mostly a demographic issue, wealth transfer of SS and Medicare is almost 2.5x the total oil bill and it has increased much more than the wage cost of oil. Somewhere above are the numbers which I posted of government websites.
Kids are mad because even if they get a job payroll taxes effectively take 15% of their salary and half of that amount is after tax to the kids, add state and federal and the cost to the kid in a weird combination of pre and post tax dollars is close to 44% tax rate.
I am sticking my neck out, but even here we are so absorbed in peak oil we miss the transfer from our children. The kids are taking it to the streets because they have zero financial power, they literally have nothing left to lose, fine them and they don’t pay, can’t pay, jail them and how many can you jail? What does it cost?
No matter how it is cooked, the transfer numbers are too big relative to oil and living expenses. As an employer the biggest incentive to robots is no FICA taxes, well maybe a stretch, but it is there.
Dennis L.
Yep, the hordes of useless eaters will be thrown under the bus.
“Despite rumors of extortion and cops making wild claims—and walking them back—the people engaging in capitalism in a cop-free experimental space are having a great time.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/local-businesses-love-the-domestic-terror-autonomous-zone-in-seattle-actually?ref=home?ref=home
Local Businesses Love the ‘Domestic Terror’ Zone in Seattle, Actually
“For the past few days, it hasn’t [ever] felt safer,” Gilmore said of the neighborhood. “I’m taking the paper down from our windows. We are getting ready to open, now that the police are not here.”
We will see how long holding hands and singing kumbaya will last once they quit getting free sh..*t, water, energy and food.
Of course it is really just a pretend autonomous zone. All needs are being supplied freely by the city and various donors.
My oh my, what a lot of demands we’re making!
Given the historical moment, we’ll begin with our demands pertaining to the Justice System.
1. The Seattle Police Department and attached court system are beyond reform. We do not request reform, we demand abolition. We demand that the Seattle Council and the Mayor defund and abolish the Seattle Police Department and the attached Criminal Justice Apparatus. This means 100% of funding, including existing pensions for Seattle Police. At an equal level of priority we also demand that the city disallow the operations of ICE in the city of Seattle.
2. In the transitionary period between now and the dismantlement of the Seattle Police Department, we demand that the use of armed force be banned entirely. No guns, no batons, no riot shields, no chemical weapons, especially against those exercising their First Amendment right as Americans to protest.
3. We demand an end to the school-to-prison pipeline and the abolition of youth jails. Get kids out of prison, get cops out of schools. We also demand that the new youth prison being built in Seattle currently be repurposed.
4. We demand that not the City government, nor the State government, but that the Federal government launch a full-scale investigation into past and current cases of police brutality in Seattle and Washington, as well as the re-opening of all closed cases reported to the Office of Police Accountability. In particular, we demand that cases particular to Seattle and Washington be reopened where no justice has been served, namely the cases of Iosia Faletogo, Damarius Butts, Isaiah Obet, Tommy Le, Shaun Fuhr, and Charleena Lyles.
5. We demand reparations for victims of police brutality, in a form to be determined.
6. We demand that the City of Seattle make the names of officers involved in police brutality a matter of public record. Anonymity should not even be a privilege in public service.
7. We demand a retrial of all People in Color currently serving a prison sentence for violent crime, by a jury of their peers in their community.
8. We demand decriminalization of the acts of protest, and amnesty for protestors generally, but specifically those involved in what has been termed “The George Floyd Rebellion” against the terrorist cell that previously occupied this area known as the Seattle Police Department. This includes the immediate release of all protestors currently being held in prison after the arrests made at 11th and Pine on Sunday night and early Saturday morning June 7th and 8th, and any other protesters arrested in the past two weeks of the uprising, the name Evan Hreha in particular comes to mind who filmed Seattle police macing a young girl and is now in jail.
9. We demand that the City of Seattle and the State Government release any prisoner currently serving time for a marijuana-related offense and expunge the related conviction.
10. We demand the City of Seattle and State Government release any prisoner currently serving time just for resisting arrest if there are no other related charges, and that those convictions should also be expunged.
11. We demand that prisoners currently serving time be given the full and unrestricted right to vote, and for Washington State to pass legislation specifically breaking from Federal law that prevents felons from being able to vote.
12. We demand an end to prosecutorial immunity for police officers in the time between now and the dissolution of the SPD and extant justice system.
13. We demand the abolition of imprisonment, generally speaking, but especially the abolition of both youth prisons and privately-owned, for-profit prisons.
14. We demand in replacement of the current criminal justice system the creation of restorative/transformative accountability programs as a replacement for imprisonment.
15. We demand autonomy be given to the people to create localized anti-crime systems.
16. We demand that the Seattle Police Department, between now and the time of its abolition in the near future, empty its “lost and found” and return property owned by denizens of the city.
17. We demand justice for those who have been sexually harassed or abused by the Seattle Police Department or prison guards in the state of Washington.
18. We demand that between now and the abolition of the SPD that each and every SPD officer turn on their body cameras, and that the body camera video of all Seattle police should be a matter of easily accessible public record.
19. We demand that the funding previously used for Seattle Police be redirected into: A) Socialized Health and Medicine for the City of Seattle. B) Free public housing, because housing is a right, not a privilege. C) Public education, to decrease the average class size in city schools and increase teacher salary. D) Naturalization services for immigrants to the United States living here undocumented. (We demand they be called “undocumented” because no person is illegal.) E) General community development. Parks, etc.
THE DEMANDS OF THE COLLECTIVE BLACK VOICES AT FREE CAPITOL HILL TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-collective-black-voices-at-free-capitol-hill-to-the-government-of-seattle-ddaee51d3e47
And by “useless eaters” you are meaning…? The pensionists? The jobless? The ones with perfect teeth? The…?
I would say I have been a ‘useless eater’ for the last 3 months or so. What have I contributed to society during lock-down? Zilch.
Don’t say that. I think your commentary work here and elsewhere is worth at least 3 kilos of rice a piece! So as long as you have two brain cells in full working conditions, you will never be an “useless eater”.
Dennis,
Oil is required by the whole system. Even if your calculations show that oil prices are a small piece of the total, this is (in a sense) irrelevant. Economists have confused this issue as well.
The only way the rest of the economy can expand is if the price of necessities (oil, electricity, and food) are getting relatively cheaper quickly enough to free up buying power for everything else (such as education, taking care of the elderly, medical costs).
Once oil, electricity, and food are squeezed down to a small percentage of the total, there is no more squeezing down that can be done. The rest of the economy (education, taking care of seniors, medical costs) can’t continue to expand, if the cost of oil, electricity and food cannot continue to contract, as a percentage of GDP or wages. The gets to be a problem of prices that consumers can afford being lower than the price that producers require.
First glance, that does not do it:
Round steak went up about six times from 1965 to 2015
https://www.infoplease.com/business-finance/us-economy-and-federal-budget/retail-prices-selected-foods-us-cities-1890-2015
Income about 11x for median from 1964 to 2019. Numbers thus not strictly comparable but income rose 2x the cost of steak give or take.
Bread went from .22/loaf in 1964 to 2.35/loaf today, approx 10x increase, median wage increase was 11x, wages keep up with bread. Take increase in payroll taxes and then bread is a larger share of after tax income.
Electricity nominal 1964 2.5/kwh, 2011 11.8/kwh increase of about 5x
Eia has inflation adj, 1964 12.8/kwh, 2011 10.41 decrease of 2.36/kwh all in cents obviously. Wages more than kept up with electrical costs, Natural gas prices are down.
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=ptb0810
Rough numbers show wages more than keeping up with costs without payroll taxes, payroll taxes are the problem and they apply to all income up through most of the middle class now, the income level where SS stops continues to increase during that period, get a raise and it is hard to out run it.
By Wikipedia it appears oil consumption by US in 1964 was 4.015B barrels total(please check graph, I may be wrong), US population was 192M so oil use was about 21 boil/year/person. Median income increased in parallel with oil cost.
2020 we are using about 6.716Bb/year with population of 331m population so we use 20.29 b/person/year that is really unchanged of the period. Sure, we will use less this year but to date, these are the numbers we have. Oil is up 10x, median income up 11x, minimum income up 15x, oil is not the problem for family affordability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption
I previously showed and referenced household debt and it has increased about 3x from 1964 to 2019 , less than wages of 11x. It isn’t debt, wages are out running it. This is referenced above, think it is Fed data.
As far as the cost of production, that has been an issue since J.D. Rockefeller, not splitting hairs, some day things will change, but to date, the cost of oil has not been an issue, the cost of a loaf of bread has not been an issue, steak is a bit sketchy, but it appears not a problem. Generational transfer, that is a problem, even if the details are wrong, the amount is almost 2.5x the cost of energy, huge room for error in computations before a “wrong” answer.
The kids get a later start in building equity, it is the old compounding issue, you cannot make up lost years, they really count, payroll taxes increase with raises, payroll tax rates increase, income tax rates increase with wages increasing the employee’s cost of payroll taxes as they are not deductible.
If student debt parallels the transfers, that would be a good correlation the parents had less and less disposable income, kids don’t generally have tuition prior to 18 years of age. Does state decline in financial support of universities correlate with increased payroll taxes? I don’t know.
Gail, wages are up 11-15x per ss statistics and unless one does not file income taxes these numbers are very good. What is up is taxes, what is up is the most regressive tax of all, payroll taxes and it is up far more than anything else. We have a sharing economy, the young are sharing their labor with the elderly spending time in nursing homes or on the golf course in the villages. Greed is not a good thing, the kids are mad, they are taking it to the streets all over the world.
Immigration: they all pay taxes, it is all payroll taxes, starts to make sense doesn’t it?
Dennis L.
It’s very hard to see how this play out, since most of of us here are not seers. It would be wonderful if all this blow should have been dealt not to people, but to state finances. But the realities are different. I think that the government from the very beginning incorrectly coped with this crisis and still copes badly with it.
We do (or should) know from history that when population rises too high relative to resources, a phenomenon called “collapse” tends to take place. Politicians, educational institutions, and researchers of all kinds have been in denial that a similar problem could happen to us. We have any number of groups coming up with absurd ways to get around the problem we are facing. “Renewable energy” (such as wind turbines and solar panels) are supposed to save us. The big problem is that intermittent electricity is that it is close to worthless. The way it is sold, it tends to drive down the wholesale prices of more stable electricity producers, ultimately putting these producers out of business.
>>Politicians, educational institutions, and researchers of all kinds have been in denial that a similar problem could happen to us.
Couldn’t agree more. Politicians are clueless. Academia a disgrace. It is bleedin obvious we are in serious trouble, but academia chooses to ignore it. I work at an academic institution and out of the thousands of staff, I think there are zero that half a clue about the the state we are in, Same everywhere.
Hence you are in a minority of one.
I find that the majority of people I interact with are completely incapable of engaging on the subjects we discuss at OFW. Many others have a clue that there is trouble ahead, but they would suffer from the equivalent of vertigo if they approach to the edge and stare into the abyss so they refuse to go anywhere near. But the number of people I know personally who are not in denial about the impending end of BAU and the probability of a catastrophic collapse I can count on the fingers of one hand.
“Many others have a clue that there is trouble ahead, but they would suffer from the equivalent of vertigo if they approach to the edge and stare into the abyss so they refuse to go anywhere near.”
That is a pretty good description of the reaction I used to get when bringing up the issue of peak oil back 2003-2010. People new instantly the consequences were not good, so typically got angry and made it clear they would rather remain ignorant of the issues until further notice.
Dennis L comparison of inflation of certain areas of economy vs oil might have one statistical flaw, he is comparing areas that have a lot of difference in price variance per time. That makes it too easy to have different outcomes depending on what time frame snapshot you use. I am not a expert in statistics but I’m sure this has to be taken into account. Any experts here?
The issue is that production costs have been rising, but prices have not been rising sufficiently for both oil and food. So “price” makes oil and food look much less expensive than it really would be. In fact, oil is used in many steps of the food chain, so higher priced oil needs to flow through to higher priced grocery store food.
So if we had a true free market, then oil price would be higher, but production would be lower. Higher food prices, leaving less for extras, such as education, medical, even social benefits. Of course there has never been a free market so we will never know.
There is no such thing as a true free market, whoever controls the money supply, whoever controls access to the market, whoever controls limited supply of certain goods, etc. all distort any market.
The “true free market” is just as hopelessly utopian as “true communism”.
The maximum price is based on what consumers can afford. If the maximum oil price falls too low for producers, oil production will stop, because the price is too low. The economy will collapse without enough energy products.
It is not a free market problem. It is a not enough to go around problem.
We humans can’t help ourselves, two legged roams and don’t know when or where to stop!😎
Globalization really started 1,000 years ago
https://news.yahoo.com/globalization-really-started-1-000-122012849.html
Valerie Hansen, Professor of History, Yale University
June 11, 2020, 8:20 AM EDT
Viking ships touched down on the Canadian island of Newfoundland around the year 1000, at what is now the archaeological site known as L’Anse aux Meadows.
For the first time, the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean were connected.
When the Vikings landed, the indigenous people immediately started to trade with them. The Vikings describe this initial encounter in “Eirik’s Saga,” an oral epic written down after 1264 about the Norse voyages across the North Atlantic from Greenland to today’s Canada.
The locals brought animal pelts to trade, and in exchange, the Vikings offered lengths of red-dyed woolen cloth. As their supply of cloth began to run short, the Vikings cut the cloth into smaller and smaller pieces, some just as wide as a person’s finger, but the locals wanted the cloth so much that they continued to offer the same number of pelts in trade.
All over the world at this time, the allure of novel goods led to 1,000 years of trade and interactions among people from different places, in what is now known as globalization. They are the subject of my recent book “The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World – and Globalization Began.”
The rapid spread of the coronavirus and the resulting social and economic shutdown around the globe have changed everyone’s understanding of the dangers of globalization, including mine. A society that can get only certain necessary items from a trade partner is vulnerable as a result of that dependence. In the past, there were built-in limits in global trade that prevented earlier societies from becoming totally reliant on outside goods. Those limits no longer exist today.
About 10 years after their arrival at L’Anse aux Meadows, the Vikings abandoned their settlement, most likely because of conflicts with the local inhabitants. But they continued to sail to Canada to get lumber to bring back to Greenland and Iceland, where trees were scarce.
Similar encounters around the world took place when Muslim traders and missionaries went from the Middle East to West Africa around 1000, when speakers of Malayo-Polynesian languages sailed from the Malay peninsula west to Madagascar, settling there by 1000, and across the Pacific to Hawaii and Easter Island between 1025 and 1290. A whole new system of maritime and overland routes opened up as a result of these expeditions. In the year 1000, an object or message could travel all the way around the world for the first time
…………..Today, the vast capacity of cargo planes and modern ships means that they can supply a community with entirely imported goods and eliminate all local production. The coronavirus pandemic has made Americans realize how dependent they are on foreign countries for key goods.
In 2018, for example, a confidential U.S. Department of Commerce study concluded China supplied 97% of all the antibiotics Americans consumed. Ceramics aren’t as important to people’s health as antibiotics, but modern imports of all kinds can overwhelm local manufacturers today in a way that was not possible in the past.
That’s the challenge for the future: figuring out how to tame globalization so that local producers can survive alongside manufacturing superpowers. The past gives us reason to be optimistic: When supply lines have been cut off, people have managed to come up with alternative sources?
Don’t worry, when we revert back to wind sailed cargo ships, the issue will solve itself just fine
Supply lines to create manufactured goods become a big problem, however.
Scramble for Gold Is Redrawing the Map of the Market
More than 20 million troy ounces of gold have landed in New York vaults over the past three months
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/a-scramble-for-gold-is-redrawing-the-map-of-the-market-11591867007
New York faces a gold rush after the pandemic threw precious-metal markets into disarray, setting off a scramble by traders to cut their losses.
Bullion vaults approved by the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange house a record 29.7 million troy ounces, according to FactSet data back to 2013. Almost three quarters of that gold—weighing as much as nine, fully loaded Boeing 737-700 airplanes—has arrived in the past three months.
If you don’t have it in hand, you don’t own it😘
It will be safe securely locked away in NEW YORk CITY!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wuyWkNK0-yo
Demand for gold has fallen greatly in both China and India. At the same, worried investors in the US were more concerned about having precious metals, at the time of the lockdowns. The moves were complicated by declining air cargo transport availability because of COVID-19 shutdown of air route. Even with this change, gold from Switzerland has made its way to the US, as well, because that is where the demand is.
“The collapse of oil prices due to the price war and COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the financial underpinnings of the shale patch. Some journalists and short sellers have likened the collapses and pending collapses to the recipe followed by Enron in the 1990s: an unsustainable business model and overtly “optimistic” projections.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/edhirs/2020/06/11/have-some-in-the-shale-patch-taken-cues-from-the-enron-playbook/#13828fb237ec
This is a nice article summarizing why shale oil is not as productive as claimed.
Unfortunately, auditors did not understand that the models they were endorsing were horribly optimistic. Also, those buying shares of stock and bonds assumed oil prices would rise because of scarcity. Those issues added to the issues outlined in the article.
Thank you, Gail, for another amazing example of human stupidity. Invest billions in overproduction of a scarce resource, quite forgetting that this very investment will destroy its own rationale. Which is exactly what happened.
“Emerging-market economies are grappling with a new dilemma as they begin the slow journey to recovery: how to rescue state-owned businesses without also triggering a debt crisis.
“Cash-strapped governments in Indonesia, India, South Africa and elsewhere are being pressured to bail out national airlines, energy utilities and other state businesses brought to their knees by virus-related travel restrictions, collapsing demand and plunging oil prices.
“The debt risk is putting credit rating companies on watch and prompting nervous investors to sell off assets before the situation gets any worse.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-11/rescuing-state-owned-firms-adds-to-emerging-market-debt-crisis
“The Luanda airport is just one of hundreds of megaprojects that have supercharged African economies over the past decade. Angola alone has built Kilamba, a satellite city outside the capital that’s home to 80,000 people, two other airports, a state-of-the-art library that was abandoned halfway through construction, and four soccer stadiums seating as many as 50,000 spectators.
“Across the continent, governments have spent at least $77 billion annually since 2013, erecting everything from critical infrastructure such as bridges and hospitals to sumptuous presidential villas and soaring monuments celebrating national heroes.
“The building binge has been fueled by at least $600 billion in loans, leaving African governments struggling with record debt. The obligations were manageable—barely—when countries in the region were expanding by as much as 10% annually. But with the coronavirus pandemic shutting down trade and hammering commodity prices, the debt bill threatens to unravel years of progress…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/africa-will-be-the-next-debt-explosion-after-coronavirus
Unsustainable and unproductive infrastructure is not ‘progress’. That applies to us, too.
There is a huge amount of debt around the world that looks like it will be defaulted on. Who will bail out all of this debt, if the “assets” really aren’t worth much?
In the last decade, a part of it’s Silk Road project to expand its influence, China went o a lending spree. Now that it is facing defaults they have do decide how hard-nosed they want to be in collecting it. If they push too hard, they create resentment and weaken their influence. Also, as Gail has mentioned, many of the assets are worth little.
I suppose they extend the loan terms and pretend the ability to pay back the loan will be there in the future.
I think China already has a plan in place. (1) Land grants from indebted African countries. (2) Slave labour camps on that land, managed by Chinese overlords and populated by impoverished locals. (3) Extraction of raw materials with no payment to the host country.
If that model sounds familiar, look up “Belgian Congo”.
Some ominous symbolism here:
“As the muezzin called out the adhan daily, thousands of snow-white doves would scatter from one courtyard outside Afghanistan’s famous Blue Mosque to another. However, since the coronavirus pandemic started, the lives of these birds have been greatly endangered.
“The mosque, also called Mazar-i-Sharif, closed to curb the spread of COVID-19 and the doves no longer had anyone to feed them. Since then, more than 1,000 doves have died of starvation, caretakers said on Tuesday, June 9.”
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/coronavirus-1000-doves-die-at-afghanistans-blue-mosque-1.1591876154396
I was rather expecting to read that they had been eaten!
It is lawful (halal) to kill doves and eat them, but doves that have died of starvation are forbidden (haram).
“The percentage of Argentines in poverty is expected to reach as high as 45% this year…
“Even before the first case of coronavirus was diagnosed, prompting quarantines and curfews lasting more than three months, Argentina was facing 50% inflation, overwhelming debt and difficulty accessing credit in what economists call its worst crisis in two decades.”
https://www.startribune.com/virus-deepens-argentina-s-economic-crisis-as-poverty-soars/571207742/?refresh=true
“After seven years of economic collapse, Venezuela’s crisis has entered a troubling new phase. In a nation that’s home to the world’s largest oil reserves, fuel shortages have grown so acute that fields are going bare.
“Venezuela is now on the verge of famine, the International Crisis Group warns.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-11/venezuela-on-brink-of-famine-with-fuel-too-scarce-to-sow-crops
“Although there is enough food to feed the world, not everybody can afford to buy it.”
https://www.dw.com/en/rising-hunger-threatens-famines-as-coronavirus-crashes-economies-leaves-crops-to-rot-in-fields/a-53686031
Lack of income to buy food is exactly the problem, many places.
“The euro area’s largest economy may be set for an even sharper contraction than was already feared if the latest forecasts from research institute DIW are anything to go by.
“DIW projected that Germany’s gross domestic product could sink by 9.4% in 2020, which would mark the most severe contraction since World War II.”
https://www.sharecast.com/news/international-economic/diw-says-german-gdp-may-drop-by-over-9-in-2020–7538030.html
“Spain’s $6 trillion home market looks headed toward another crash, according to economists who are studying the impact on property demand stemming from Europe’s strictest pandemic lockdown…
““We’re in the prologue of a decline that will only become apparent in September,” said Gonzalo Bernardos, an economics professor who directs the real estate Master’s program at Barcelona University. “By year-end, prices will have dropped by 12%, because this is maybe the sharpest economic crisis we’ve had.””
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-12/spanish-real-estate-is-heading-for-its-second-crash-in-a-decade
“Italy’s antitrust regulator said it was probing four financial firms, including the country’s top two banks, for allegedly withholding information and imposing unnecessary conditions on borrowers who wanted to access coronavirus support measures.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-antitrust/italys-competition-watchdog-probes-top-banks-over-debt-support-measures-idUSKBN23I2SR
“The European Central Bank will do anything possible to ensure that the current crisis is not made worse by a credit crunch, its chief economist Philip Lane said today.
“He made his comments in an interview in Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper today.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0611/1146832-ecb-to-avoid-credit-crunch/
Spaniards have the most unrealistic expectations of the value of their property, and are very reluctant to face reality. They can’t bear to face the fact that the pre-2008 good times are long past. Hopefully rents will fall now, making life a little easier for the mass of people.
Much lower prices will reduce the equity that owners have. The same factors that cause lower prices could also lead to defaults on loans.
A 9.4% contraction seems quite believable.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that it may again downgrade its already pessimistic outlook for the global economy in June given the possibility of a further decline in consumption, more job losses and the risk of a fresh wave of bankruptcies.
“The IMF in April predicted a 3 per cent contraction of the world economy this year. It also warned at the time of the possibility of a deeper crisis which could result in a 6 per cent decline in 2020 and zero per cent growth in 2021.
“”We are putting out new numbers on June 24 and they will likely be worse than what we had in April,” said IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath in a virtual address to the Seventh Asian Monetary Policy Forum on (Friday) June 12.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/business/economy/imf-may-further-cut-global-growth-outlook-in-june-as-covid-19-crisis-drags-on-says
Not a big surprise!
Agreed, no surprise. If the IMF told the truth about the global economy, they wouldn’t have to keep revising the untruths they actually tell. And, who knows, people might actually start believing them again.
Somebody from the UK Office of National Statistics was on radio this morning – UK economic output fell 20% in April, more than 10 times the previous monthly high, and 25% over April / May. Ouch. Scotland still in full lock down. Seems the economic damage already done is not enough.
^^^ Here’s a link for that:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/12/britains-gdp-falls-204-in-april-as-economy-is-paralysed-by-lockdown
Wales’ tourism industry is on the “brink of collapse”, say a group of Welsh tourism leaders demanding a reopening plan from the first minister [I’m sure Scotland’s is, too].”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53012199
“Brexit trade negotiations and Covid-19 are “two perfect storms”, a Welsh Government minister has said. Lesley Griffiths, who is responsible for rural affairs, said “the window of opportunity to secure a deal is getting very, very small”.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53006755
Brexit, the real brexit as opposed to pseudo brexit from the start of this year, will be delayed again.
I hope this is a cunning and well thought through negotiating tactic:
“Michael Gove has confirmed to the EU that the UK will not seek an extension to the transition period.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/brexit-transition-period-not-extended-michael-gove-a4467581.html%3famp
I wonder how New Zealand will be doing. I see that its first quarter statistics (not April or May) are to be announced on June 18.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/gross-domestic-product-gdp
Don’t put out information too quickly, if you don’t want the bad news spread around.
“Come home to a real fire: buy a cottage in Wales”. My uncle lived in Wales for many years, and was hated by the locals. Because he was a surveyor who helped build levees that tamed the flooding of the nearby rivers. He would visit a shop; from outside he heard those inside speaking English; when he entered, they switched to Welsh. I shed no tears for the Welsh tourist industry.
lol
I live near to the welsh border–they always start speaking welsh when the English are around.
The first time I took my partner (a london expat) into a ‘deep wales’ restauarant, she couldn’t wait to get out—the atmosphere was so anti English
Well, that means you don’t have to talk to them.
Couldn’t people see in advance what a problem that the shutdown was going to cause?
no, because they were driven by fear.
Oil vs SS payments.
EIA for 2019 $57.02/barrel WTI
SSA for 2019 Payments all beneficiaries 1047.9B total, income from payroll taxes, 944.5B.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/FACTS/
EIA 2019 7.47B barrels of oil used – Gail is better than I, she can if she so chooses adjust.
Total Cost of oil 7.47×57.02 = $425.9394B total oil bill.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=33&t=6#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20United%20States,billion%20barrels%20of%20petroleum%20products.&text=Last%20updated%3A%20March%203%2C%202020,Petroleum%20Supply%20Monthly%2C%20February%202020.
The elephant in the room is transfer of payments from those working, and this is not on unearned income, it is on earned, salary, hourly, whatever income is more than twice what is spent on all oil in the US in 2019. Actually is it closer to 2.5x what is spent on oil.
Cut down on transfers, shale oil is cheap, affordable to the young who are working.
Does this sort of thing underlie much of the social unrest we are seeing all across the developed world? One would want to see how the numbers add up, maybe graph some metric of unrest against transfer payment amounts. The unrest seems to be color blind. Absolute wealth doesn’t seem to matter, relative wealth does when it comes to unrest and unhappiness.
Socially in Chicago apparently a number of cops did an OFW, they ate popcorn in a political office while the neighborhood around them burned. If they did their job maybe they feared being prosecuted for anything or something, if they ate popcorn, a few days off after all the fires had burned out. Take the days off, keep the pension, stay out of the court system.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mayor-apologizes-after-chicago-cops-caught-lounging-congressmans-office-instead-arresting
Dismissing the protesters is probably not a very wise decision at this time, the future is not clear.
Dennis L.
“Total Cost of oil 7.47×57.02 = $425.9394B total oil bill.”
about 0.4 trillion for domestic oil, and what’s GDP about $20T so then oil is maybe 2% of our total…
that could be looked at as “wow, such a small portion of GDP”…
and it is! (but add the cost of coal, natgas, nukes, electric grid etc and the portion is quite a bit higher)…
so the average American has a metaphorical 100 “oil slayves” that enable most of us to have lots of prosperity…
but…
population is growing and net (surplus) energy is declining, so per capita energy is shrinking… all while the infrastructure continues to grow year by year in size and complexity…
and…
add in the wealth disparity… more wealth concentrated at the top and less in the lower ranks…
due to the “direction” of these energy issues (the gross size is not the issue), average prosperity MUST be going down in the future, probably was already in 2019 and definitely now in 2020…
protesters?
millions of Americans every year will be added to the “lower ranks”…
yes! wealth disparity does “underlie much of the social unrest”…
more or less social unrest in the future?
I think you can guess the answer…
Covid thanks for the reply.
Oil in 1964 was about $3/barrel.
https://inflationdata.com/articles/inflation-adjusted-prices/historical-crude-oil-prices-table/
If oil increased at the same rate as median income, 12x, oil would sell at $36/barrel or about where it is now. The worker’s car is 3x as efficient now, oil used by the consumer is only 1/3 the cost as in 1964 so the cost of a barrel is effectively $12 to go the same distance and the distance driven is actually decreasing as I recall.
My posit is this is not the only issue, transfer payments have grown greatly. Doing it this way eliminates the per capita issue, it deals with increases in income and increases in cost.
It seems each individual uses about 23 barrels/year, but that personally will all be driving, gasoline with a car that is 3x as efficient as 1964, so the cost barrels per mile is effectively 1/3 of the nominal current cost of oil for personal driving.
Cars have gone up less than the multiple of wages, they are better, they are safer, they require much less maintenance, they are cheaper to run. Oil uses should be expected to decrease based on cars.
In MN total gas taxes, state and federal are about $.46/gallon, so gas cost is say $1.50. Drive 15,000 miles at 30 miles per gallon and that is 500 gallons or a cost of gasoline of $750.
Go back to 1964, same numbers but 10 miles per gallon, 1500 gallons of gas used, say $.25/gallon $375 pre tax, don’t know what taxes were. Your income is up 12x or 15x and gasoline cost has only doubled. It doesn’t affect your disposable income. If your income was median in 1964 it was about $5k by memory, so gasoline was 7.5% of your income. Presently median income is about $6k/year, gasoline is about 1% of your income through a combination of efficiency and gain in median, nominal income. This is to go the same number of miles/ year. I’ll take a Camry with air over a Chevy any day.
It is a finite world, we will adjust, if Italy is to be the example, granny is in trouble. My posit is the kids are done giving, they have done their share, something will change.
Again, thanks for the reply, it seems to me that we benefit from looking at data in various manners and seeing what makes sense.
Dennis L.
there is a plan they are going to drop oil prices even lower thanks to the lockdowns and the virus ispreading so a population decline is baked in the cake a brave new world is coming
population is still increasing about 200,000 per day…
Makes one wonder just how bad things would have to get to just have a break even population, and from there how horrendously crazy it would have to get to effect a decline.
We would have to be stumbling over unburied corpses I suppose.
And to think, there are those idiots who maintain that because the rate of increase in global population is declining, all will be well!
The problem would likely have to be too many people too poor to afford an adequate food supply, as a result of shutdowns. These poor people would become vulnerable not only to COVID-19, but to any other virus or bacteria that comes around. Infant mortality would rise, for example.
Alarming news..
Yahoo
Empire Financial Research
Yahoo Finance
The Dow crashes more than 1,800 points out of nowhere — here’s one reason why
Brian Sozzi
June 11, 2020, 3:33 PM EDT
Think more broadly, investors…it may save you from losing a ton of money right now.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — fresh off a press conference Wednesday where he warned about long-term joblessness due to the COVID-19 pandemic — was the easy scapegoat for the surprising market meltdown on Thursday. President Trump of course took full aim at Powell via his latest Twitter pipe-bomb.
But some blame should get cast upon state governors for perhaps moving too quickly to reopen various businesses without a vaccine for the coronavirus. In turn, that has likely helped fuel a rise in coronavirus infections in key states such as Texas, California and Arizona. Texas alone reported 2,504 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, the highest one-day total since the pandemic began.
“There is a new wave coming in parts of the country. It’s small and it’s distant so far, but it’s coming,” Jhn Hopkins Center for Health Security Eric Toner told Bloomberg News.
The U.S. has seen more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus infections. About 115,000 people have died from the disease.
Fears of a second wave of COVID-19 have subsequently erupted this week in the markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked more than 1,800 points on Thursday. Hot stocks that have fueled the rally from the lows such as Royal Caribbean and Bank of America were crushed. Even inherently less risky stocks like Disney, IBM and Pfizer were drilled on the session.
Markets were beginning to weaken before Thursday’s rout, however.
What a show…can’t wait for Friday…Black Friday….
What a show…can’t wait for Friday…Black Friday….
Hint:
Dow Futures
25,329.00
+164.00(+0.65%)
The Dog Track does not have that much connection to our current economy.
I wonder what this Winter will be like economically if there is no proven vaccine.
We will soon see, as there is not the smallest chance of such a vaccine, as far as one can tell.
No chance of a safe vaccine, distributed widely.
Ocampos. The measures against Covid-19 fractured the stability of the world energy sector.
The paralysis of mobility on the planet caused the collapse of demand for oil and gas. The international oil industry reacted by brutally cutting investments for the coming years, estimates indicate that at least $ 100 billion.
If the demand for oil rises again, there will not be enough fuels for all countries.
Given the current outlook, the forecast indicates that there will soon be a shortage of oil worldwide, which will cause a rapid rise in the price of a barrel above $ 100, a situation that the fragile world economy, which is just recovering from the Covid coup -19, will not be able to tolerate.
“Given the current outlook, the forecast indicates that there will soon be a shortage of oil worldwide, which will cause a rapid rise in the price of a barrel above $ 100”
I don’t see that happening as the world was ill equipped to handle $100 p/b oil, prior to Covid 19. The average consumer could not afford those high prices before and certainly not after Covid 19. If anything you can expect prices to continue being too low for the energy producers. The system will probably collapse way before we hit $100 p/b of oil.
The big problem is a lack of demand = affordability. This keeps oil prices low. Peak oilers have been confused about this issue for a long time.
I am a peak oiler, and I am very confused.
I cannot see oil prices rising anytime soon.The bottom line is if oil supply is higher than oil demand , oil prices will be low. Global oil production is still much higher than consumption, looks like, the excess going into storage. Once storage is full up, globally, oil prices will go much lower (they were at $20/barrel back in April, and have risen to $40/barrel now, as storage fills up, which makes no sense). I also cannot see the global economy recovering anytime soon, especially air travel, not whilst we are controlled by halfwits.
All countries that produce oil will do whatever it takes to keep it going, which will keep oil prices low. Yes, eventually depletion will kick in taking production down to lower levels, but the global financial system will likely have popped before then, taking consumption lower, much lower.
Right!
No argument, but I have trouble understanding the affordability issue.
In 1964 a barrel of oil was $3.00 minimum wage about $1.00
In 2020 a barrel of oil maybe $36.00 and minimum wage is $15.00 and more around here.
Oil has gone up ten times, wages 12 times, wages are winning.
The stockmarket was less than 1000 in 1963(this is a guess), now it is down to say 26,000 an increase of 26 times.
In 1963 median US house price was $18K in 2020 median house price is $320K. the price of a house increased >16x. Hmm, something changed here. If one looked at the cost per square foot, say 1000 ft sq in 1964 then about $18/sq foot vs say $160/sq foot today say 2000 feet, that is up ten times or so, slightly less than the increase in oil prices as a ratio, or about the same.
It would be interesting to see how divorces have affected housing prices, two can live much more cheaply than one, two alone means twice the housing requirements.
Phone service in 1995(can’t find 1964) was about $19/month, phone was included and not an extra.
A TV in the 1963 was maybe $400, but it didn’t require a $60/month cable bill to run it. The internet was nonexistent, but a library card was free. The US educational scores are going down.
A college education has gone nuts, mine was $110/semester, UW Madison 1964, must be $10K/semester now. Calculus didn’t change, the English language is the same, French is the same, philosophy is still the same old stale, nihilistic nonsense as ever. What changed is the power to charge secondary to the power to indenture our children. That increase by the way is close to 100x, not even close to the increase in oil.
Medical care has gone nuts, what changed recently was power, power to make people purchase care they did not want or need. In the sixties it was power to get medicare and medicaid passed. You can skip insurance, but an individual has NO bargaining power with the medical industry, they charge top dollar for cash.
Where is oil in all this?
The big drivers are power, they are not at first glance natural resources. We have indentured our children. Soon that most beloved of all entitlements will be under siege, SS. Why, because it is where the money is, the kids are coming into power and they are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. Look at Italy, they threw the old folks under the bus, I am at the age where I look over my shoulder for the next bus.
Dennis L.
If oil has gone up 10 times, and wages 12 times. wages aren’t winning
Debt is winning
Which is like pretending (to everybody else) you still have wages coming in after you lose your job,(and living accordingly) but in fact you are borrowing from the bank each month
A lot of the other stuff you list is also driven by our ability to take on ‘unlimited’ debt.
Building trades want higher wages–so you take on more debt to pay them when you buy a house. A 100 yr old house price doesnt stay at 1920s prices, its jacked up by house prices in general
House prices are levered up year on year because there are more people willing to buy them.
Oil has dropped below the horizon of affordability and usefulness , which probably means the debt spree is over.—guessing on that one.Ultimately I’m floundering like everybody else.
But
Like my skimming stone hypothesis, there may be a couple of little bounces left
And at each bounce, the deniers will insist the flat stone is going to go one skimming for an infinite number of bounces
Only we know it isn’t
Norman,
If my research(crude) is correct, household debt is up by 3x, wages by 12x for median. Not a problem.
Houses are not up as much as median wages and not even close with minimum wages.
Cars are not up as much as median wages and use much less fuel.
I made another post, I think much of the missing money is a generational wealth transfer.
The money must be somewhere.
Dennis L.
There are more places for debt than just households, our entire system is indebted to an insane degree by conventional measures, not to mention QE that will never be unraveled.
it is technology or efficiency that has stolen all the jobs so therefore there is a huge increase in havenots or people that will never have jobs.That is the dilemma not enough good paying work to go around which ultimately leads to low oil prices which leads to collapse.
I agree with you on technology, staying in the “game” requires ever harder work and ever more ability, or the ability to steal, corruption which in history has been a characteristic of the political class. The need for constantly increasing educational levels correlates well with this and thus the ability to charge ever greater tuition, the problem is there are only so many students with the ability to do the really tough subjects.
This does not account for the disparity between the increase of the minimum wage and the price of oil. If efficiency has been increasing that implies oil/unit has decreased along with decreasing prices and it seems true that many categories of stuff have not increased as one would expect based on oil price. Cars have not gone up as fast as wages otherwise the average car cost which was $3.5k in 1964 would now be say $35K based on oil increase and $52.5k based on a 15x increase in minimum wage. Wages are winning.
Median wage for 1964 – about $5K, median for 2020 about $60K, an increase of 12x compared to an increase in the cost of oil of 10x. Wages are winning.
My issue is costs are not seemingly a function of the cost of oil. Take raw food costs and at least in the US, farm outputs are decoupled from oil. Corn in 1964 was $1.24/bu, now maybe twice that, minimum wage is 15x greater now, if corn followed minimum wage it would now be $18 and if it followed oil it would be $12.4 and farm land would be golden in many ways. Wages are winning.
Reading the St. Louis Fed median personal debt appears to have increased about 3x over the time span 1964-2020. Wages are winning if I read the chart correctly, they have done adjustments to 1983, always making things less clear. Compare nominal wages at a time to nominal debt, no need to normalize.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/files/pdfs/hfs/assets/2017/moritz_schularick_the_great_american_debt_boom.pdf?la=en
Where is the money going?
A guess is this a rate of growth problem, we are better off now than then, but we are not increasing as fast, investments have been based on rate of growth, not a return on investment. Oil does not seem to be an affordability problem – we are still not even out of it as many predicted, fusion may well come before we run out of oil if accuracy of predictions are any indication. When I was in business, growth was always easier as revenue was ahead of expenses, when expenses are projected on assumed growth rates which don’t arrive, there is a problem. In the US it is the upper class that projects the growth, when it doesn’t happen they dump the costs on the rest of us. The kids are mad.
I don’t think we understand collapse any better than we did the price oil or when fusion would arrive.
Dennis L.
I am on a roll and if someone disagrees please step in. I have rounded numbers, they are close enough at this scale.
In 1964 the SS was based on $4.8K and a 7.25% combined employer/employee rate for $348/year.
In 2020 the SS was based on 106,800 at 15% including Medicare.
Median wages 1964 $5K/year, median wages 2020 $60K
SS in 1964 348/year, SS in 2020 $9K/year so this is an increase of 25 times. But it gets better.
Medicare taxes in 1964 $0 that is a zero, Medicare taxes in 2020 make it 3% so that is $1.8K. Current payroll taxes for a median employee at say $11K/year compared to $348/year in 1964. This is a 31x increase. If oil increased as fast it would now be maybe $62/barrel.
Oil is not in my opinion the issue, this is a massive transfer of wealth from the young to the old and while they may not see this, all this anger in the streets is very possibly the result. Houston, those of us who are older have a problem, maybe better to rent in the villages than purchase. SS is now cash flow negative, the only way to pay SS benefits is for the government to borrow in the general fund to pay off the SS “trust fund.” Medicare has been cash flow negative for some time.
US economy in 1964 $4T, 2019 $20T a 5x increase. SS taxes have grown 6x as fast as GDP. For consistency oil at this rate would be $60/barrel about the same as above which is based on median income and this on GDP. In my opinion this is close enough for our work.
Take any tax course and the first thing they teach is how to avoid payroll tax through S corps and the like. What they fail to mention is SS pays out more than you pay in especially if delayed to 70, SS payments increase 8.5%(done by memory, may not be exact) per year retirement is delayed after full retirement age. That is a very difficult return to get anywhere else. SS avoids initial cash flow problems only to have a wealth problem in that the liability side is growing and they are hoping those who delay will die sooner than later.
The kids are on the streets because they are mad, school has done them poorly and the grandparents left town to hit Fl and go on an extended spring break. This is not going to work. A new economy is coming ready or not, and so far, oil is not an issue. There is enough for the kids, there might not be enough for the elderly to sit around and play while not tending to their grandchildren. Dr.s got rich because of a transfer of wealth from the kids to the elderly in medical premiums, kids pay, the elderly use.
Elderly politicians are accusing the young of being insensitive by partying, they might infect the elderly. The numbers suggest in this case, partying may be a wise financial decision – that is not a very pretty idea.
I invite and encourage comment on this. I took fast and dirty back of the napkin numbers from a Google search, my hope is the numbers are so large a billion here or there makes no difference. I was curious where the money went on an increase in minimum wage by $14 over the period of time I have been an adult. I think the kids are going to walk away, in doing so we may very well lose many of the cultural ideas that have made life so very wonderful these past years. but first one must eat and have a roof over one’s head. The homeless are coming from somewhere.
Dennis L.
One thing I think you might have missed is the benefit of real estate appreciation that boomers got. This was generally leveraged by debt. The real estate appreciation allowed people of the older generation to refinance their homes and buy lots of toys (new pool, nicer car, nice vacation). The younger generation has been saddled by debt, relatively higher-priced cars and wages that often have not risen enough to compensate for the high cost of education. They end up renting instead of buying, so that they don’t have the capital appreciation. They also don’t have the tax deduction that the older folks have (which has partly been taken away).
The Social Security system now has a lot more old people, relative to young people. Medicare has the additional problem of the cost of the system rising dramatically.
Whenever the government pays for something (like Medicare or goods purchased by the military) it seems like the cost goes up.
Also, education costs have escalated rapidly, now that they are paid for by debt. Lots more bells and whistles were added: much fancier dorms, much fancier food, much fancier labs, fancy stadiums for football, teachers with PhDs instead of Masters Degrees, lot of teacher time spent writing academic articles rather than teaching.
Dennis
You make a lot of valid points, and raise a lot of questions, to which I don’t have all the answers.
world finances leave me somewhat confused. I have enough trouble with my own finances, without trying to fix the global version. I’ve set out the points below, to clarify things in my own mind as much as anyone else’s. The following is just my take on it. I might be wrong. tell me.
whichever way we think it through, what seems to be indisputable is that we live in a surplus energy economic system, not a surplus cash economic system.
To make the former work, we must constantly get hold of more and more fungible energy, (fossil fuels) and use them to make stuff we can buy sell and use to give ourselves employment. (money is just a token of energy availability)
To make the latter work, we only need to print more and more money, which we convert into goods we buy sell and use. (and pay ourselves wages)
decide which is more logical.
In your thread, you say that food production has disconnected from energy production:
Quote /////Take raw food costs and at least in the US, farm outputs are decoupled from oil. ///////
But we cannot extract food from the earth without oil, and the rule of thumb seems to be that we get 1cal of food from every 10 cal of energy input.
If that is so, then that energy input (9 cal) is coming from somewhere.
Where?
I suggest that since 2005 (peak production of free flowing oil) we have had to pump (tight oil) oil at a faster and faster rate in order to sustain ourselves with food (and everything else) at a price the ‘median’ population can afford. This would account for 40m Americans on foodstamps. They are below the ‘median’ affordabilitly level.
It would also account for the millions of homeless. (houses are energy sinks) The crash of 07/08 followed that 05 peak.
If the government ‘printed’ money and gave those 40m 10k (or even 100k) a month each, it would not increase the amount of food available. It would lead to a bidding war. (rampant inflation) which is what happened in Zimbabwe.
All our ‘goods’ are fossil fuel derived, so handing out unlimited money would have the same effect on goods as on food. It would not increase the available supply.
Transfer of wealth between people and age groups is an effect, not a cause. I have a guilt that absorbing energy/wealth 50 years ago has left some of my grandkids struggling in a level of debt i never had. (though some are rolling in money)
The wealth of Bezos et al is an effect (not the cause) of how we run our lives. Just as it was for Rockefeller and his chums 100 years ago.
Your reference to the “arrival of fusion” is a similar ‘non-solution’.
‘Unlimited electricity’ (which is what fusion is, in effect) is the same as unlimited money. Unlimited electricity could not increase (to any meaningful extent) the amount of goods we buy sell and use.. And if that buy-sell-use equation can’t function, then our employment structure collapses.
(which is where we find ourselves right now)
Dennis, thank you for your informed and perceptive analyses, which I have greatly enjoyed. Please allow me to offer one small piece of advice, based on my own experience. Do not quote prices just in terms of fiat money, quote them also in troy ounces of gold. I think you will find the result insightful; I know that I did.
Those “have nots” want a roof over their heads. If they cannot get a job that pays enough to allow a roof over their heads, quite a few likely to turn to crime, since if they are sentenced to jail, it provides food and a roof over their heads. It is possible to make friends in jail, too. Others become homeless. They may become addicted to some substance, to help hide their problems.
Dennis, where oil is in all this is where it isn’t. Precisely *because* previously-remunerative endeavours are less profitable than before, “they” (banks, businesses, investors, and many of the self-organizing “we”) have to turn instead to scammy schemes to extract a profit. “Eds and meds” have the beauty of being something people feel they cannot live without (both somewhat by design) and have the beauty of being something various levels of government will backstop to a greater or lesser degree (unlike a dry-cleaning business, a bauxite miner, or a pool hall). That’s how I see it, anyway.
It is the “complexity” that has gone up a huge amount. We are now spending an outrageous amount of health care and education. This leaves not nearly enough for other expenditures. The cost of vehicles has risen disproportionately, now that they are more fuel efficient and have all kinds of bells and whistles (more sturdy bumpers, better sound system, air conditioning, electronic instead of crank window openers, camera showing rearview, antilock breaks, etc.).
Housing costs have risen based on the “need” for more square footage for the same number of people, for all of today’s “stuff.” Two or three children per bedroom was the norm back in 1964. Also, there are now lots of requirements for double-pane windows and for many things less essential than this. Also, builders are expected to pay a share of road and school development. Schools now are much bigger, with many employees besides teachers, trying to deal with a wide range of different background of the various children. Children need to be bused to these larger schools.
The cost to produce a barrel of oil now is a whole lot more than $36 per barrel. Oil companies are not being paid enough to make adequate reinvestment. They should also be paying taxes based on a higher price, because governments depend on tax revenue from oil extraction (among other sources).
There are a lot of people trying to live on not much more than minimum wage. They have a terrible time making ends meet. People with high paying jobs are generally doing quite a bit better. But even if a low-paid person borrows money to attend college, there is no guarantee of graduating. There is also no guarantee of a high-paying job. It gets very frustrating for those with low-paid jobs, or none at all.
Gail,
Things are tougher, the question for me was where did it go? In 1964 employment taxes on a median income were $348/year, today on a minimum wage job they are $2340 a 7x increase from the median income of 1964.
At a large, well run Midwestern hospital medicare/medicaid revenues are close to 50% of the total which does not cover costs, the rest comes from the kids and that may well be indirectly by way of their parent’s increased insurance premiums. Again a transfer in part from the young to the elderly. The hole in medical costs could well be the young making up the difference between what medicare pays and what the kids pay. I am on medicare, my premiums are minimal and I get wonderful care at Mayo.
The ratios should work, something does not. Wages have gone up enough to cover fuel costs which have effectively decreased even more than nominal due to increased fuel efficiency. In the sixties cars got maybe 10mpg, today say 30mpg, effectively taking the cost of gas to 1/3 that of in 1964. Autos have not gone up as much as wages, wages have won. Now, there is an exception if a person purchases a >6K pound four door pickup truck for $60K. No one had one of those in the sixties.
All natural resources are important, scarcity is real and shortfalls are approaching rapidly, perhaps the inter generational transfer arrived first.
Again, no argument, the money had to go somewhere, where? A big chunk is a wealth transfer, waiting tables could be seen as a wealth recapture without payroll tax on tips. As I listen to the progressives and follow the money, we, the elderly are the target. Watch politicians, the young ones are on the street, older ones are concerned about grandma, not the kids and their jobs. Kids are going to vote, things will change, ouch. Have you seen the “king” of Seattle? He is apparently a hip hop artist, he talks to the kids. Something is not working.
Dennis L.
what about inrterest rates there is a good indicator of cheap energies role in the worlds growth without 2 to 3% growth per year there is not enough money to go around so earnings will contract
Psychologically perhaps, unless one has an exceptionally affectionate and empathetic personality, one only comes to care about the fate of the elderly -or anyone else – when one has aged or suffered to the point of being able to feel one’s own mortality and anticipate the vulnerability which comes with old age and sickness. Self-interest, in effect.
It’s common in primitive societies for the young to want to push the elderly aside if they can -not venerate them – as they stand in the way of enjoying life. Sons long for the deaths of their fathers so that they can be free to farm as they like, etc. At a higher level, princes rebelled against their fathers to seize the kingdom, and so on. Daughter-in-laws long to get rid of their husband’s tyrannical mother……
Exhortations to venerate the elderly found in ancient religious and ethical texts -eg Ancient China – indicate that most often they were NOT venerated. If they had been, naturally, it would not have been necessary to make it a moral duty!
Jared Diamond makes the point that the young warriors in a tribe will accept the total dominance of the few, weaker, selfish, elderly males, as they anticipate being able to enjoy those privileges to the full themselves (best cuts of meat, multiple very young nubile wives). In the meantime they can occasionally get hold of those young wives in a shady corner every now and then , and have the fun of hunting and fishing. Again, self-interest!
So, the elderly primates must ask:
‘As to care deeply for the elderly is not natural to any animal, what incentive am I giving the young to look after me? Is it worth it to them?’
It’s fortunate that in most earlier societies, very few lived to old age.
In your analysis, remember too that farmers are not getting a high enough price for their food, just as oil producers are not getting a high enough price for their oil. There is a severe distortion occurring.
I agree that the young and blacks are the ones who have been seriously left out in the income rearrangement that has taken place over the years, with more debt (and complexity) replacing some of the oil. The politicians with the shutdowns have been supporting old people and the high wage earners, at the expense of young people and blacks.
“…remember too that farmers are not getting a high enough price for their food…”
“Multiple floods and low commodity prices are making it nearly impossible for Mississippi Delta farmers to make a profit in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.”
Video:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mississippi-delta-farmers-feel-impact-033818293.html
Also, planting on a flood plain doesn’t work very well. Government crop insurance seems to be helping this year. I expect that government crop insurance is close to a give-away program in places that flood frequently.
Farmers have planted in a lot of areas that would have been flood plain, and tried to direct the water in a chosen direction. The problem is that the combined effect is too much water, going in the same direction. It tends to over-top dams and flood Mississippi Delta crops.
are you sure cars are more fuel efficient ? I saw an ad for a subaru in a 1970 magazine advertising that it gets 38 miles to the gallon….most people are driving larger vehicles today and getting less gas milage
I have just been reading Carbon Democracy by Timothy Mitchell. Regarding the the discussions regarding money and energy I think this quotation from the book is interesting:
For these reasons, oil could be counted on in a further sense. Its ready availability, in ever-increasing quantities, and mostly at relatively low and stable prices, meant that oil could be counted on not to count . It could be consumed as if there were no need to take account of the fact that its supply was not replenishable. In turn, not having to count the cost of humankind using up (largely within the space of two or three centuries) most of the earth’s limited stores of fossil fuel made another kind of counting possible – new kinds of economic calculation.
The economy came into being as an object of calculation and a means of governing populations not with the political economy of the late eighteenth century or the new academic economics of the late nineteenth century, but only in the mid-twentieth century (see Chapter 5 ). Its appearance was made possible by oil, for the availability of abundant, low-cost energy allowed economists to abandon earlier concerns with the exhaustion of natural resources and represent material life instead as a system of monetary circulation – a circulation that could expand indefinitely without any problem of physical limits. Economics became a science of money; its object was not the material forces and resources of nature and human labour, but a new space that was opened up between nature on one side and human society and culture on the other – the not-quite-natural, notquite-social space that had come to be called ‘the economy’.
And the book point to the central role played by JM Keynes:
Keynes’s main contribution to the making of this object was to devise new ways of describing and managing the domestic circulation of money. In a memorable passage in The General Theory, his classic treatise of 1936, he explained the difference between the market devices of laissez-faire economics and the modern need for government to organise the circulation of money by picturing banknotes buried in disused coalmines: If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again. . . there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a great deal greater than it actually is. 27
British coal production peaked in 1913. By the time Keynes began writing The General Theory, twenty years later, the country’s coal mines were being exhausted at an unprecedented rate. William Stanley Jevons, the author of an earlier revolution in British economic thinking, the mathematical calculation of individual utility of the 1870s, had published a book warning of the coming exhaustion of coal reserves. Keynes was reading that book as he published The General Theory, and gave a lecture on Jevons in 1936 to the Royal Statistical Society. 28
It is indicative of the transformation in economic thinking in which Keynes played a role that the exhaustion of coal reserves no longer appeared as a crisis. The management of coal reserves could now be replaced in the mind, and in the textbooks of economics, with reserves of currency. In the era that Keynes’s thinking helped to define, the supply of carbon energy was no longer a practical limit to economic possibility. What mattered was the proper circulation of banknotes.
The shaping of Western democratic politics from the 1930s onwards was carried out in part through the application of new kinds of economic expertise: the development and deployment of Keynesian economic knowledge; its expansion into different areas of policy and debate, including colonial administration; its increasingly technical nature; and the efforts to claim an increasing variety of topics as subject to determination not by democratic debate but by economic planning and knowhow. The Keynesian and New Deal elaboration of economic knowledge was a response to the threat of populist politics, especially in the wake of the 1929 financial crisis and the labour militancy that accompanied it and that re-emerged a decade later. Economics provided a method of setting limits to democratic practice, and maintaining them.
Sven, a little white space between your paragraphs would make your comments much easier to read.
Hi Gail, I haven’t checked in a while, thanks as always for all your work.
“Its appearance was made possible by oil, for the availability of abundant, low-cost energy allowed economists to abandon earlier concerns with the exhaustion of natural resources and represent material life instead as a system of monetary circulation – a circulation that could expand indefinitely without any problem of physical limits. Economics became a science of money”
And there you have it-the departure into madness. Thanks Sven.
Sven, thank you for a most perceptive analysis. I confess I had quite forgotten Keynes’ fantasy about burying bottles full of banknotes, but from our present perspective it seems almost a prophetic anticipation of the “bitcoin” scam. But that the ulterior motive of these “reforms” was the removal of the economy from democratic oversight is a conclusion I endorse.
I added some paragraph breaks to make this quote easier to read.
This is a 2013 book. It sounds like added debt was being planned as a way to get around resource limits. Of course, Jevons was writing about peak coal, back before it happened in 1913 in the UK. This peak was very much a cause of World War I, in my opinion. (And peak hard coal in Germany was a cause of World War II, not much later.)
I am certain that politicians would have been most unhappy with a theory of economics that talked about running out of fossil fuels. If debt could be substituted, if only for a while, that would be a great advance. In fact, it seemed to have worked to for a while, because it allowed demand (and prices) to rise higher than they would have without the debt. It is only since 2008 that we have had major problems keeping commodity prices high enough, even with ever-rising debt.
Just a shoutout to Gerald Celente who called it first last year. He called what’s coming our way as the Greatest Depression in human history primarily because of the wage disparity and 7.8 billion humans looking to find a way to feed/support themselves and their family. Good to see Charles Hugh Smith pickup the baton.
“Unstoppable: The Greatest Depression and the Reverse Wealth Effect”
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/06/unstoppable-greatest-depression-and.html
He concludes by saying the following:
“In summary, it can’t stop the reverse wealth effect. We are entering The Greatest Depression because there is no exit. Either the phantom wealth of asset bubbles completely vanishes, or the phantom purchasing power of fiat currency vanishes. Both paths lead to the same destination: systemic collapse.”
There is always an alternative.
That is a very fine article by Charles Hugh Smith.
I would think that all three happen simultaneously: asset bubble vanishes, fiat currency purchasing power vanishes, and systemic collapse.
I might differ with Smith on when this wealth effect starts. Smith says:
I think that the wealth effect started to happen as soon as interest rates started falling, back after 1981. It happened when debt started to be used to replace growing oil consumption.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/ten-year-and-three-month-interest-rates.png
“fiat currency purchasing power vanishes…”
I’d love to see some actual analysis on credit as money vs physical cash. I can envision a period – even if short in duration – when credit completely collapses and a flight to physical cash ensues.
In that scenario, the purchasing power of physical cash would greatly rise while credit becomes inaccessible and/or worthless. Not sure that scenario would last very long, however, as most people don’t have access to much physical cash, and an economy where most people have no way to purchase/produce the goods/services they need to survive isn’t likely to be very stable.
After a short while of that… then comes the systemic collapse?
Cheers,
-GBV
Back in Oil Drum days, some of the peak oilers recommended keeping at least some physical cash around. That seemed like a reasonable idea to me. If the banking system collapsed, people would need a means of exchange. Physical low denomination bills might be a way of keeping things going, at least for a bit.
I figure it would also be wise to have physical cash if we ever got hit by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) / solar flare that knocks out the electrical grid. Credit cards and ATMs probably wouldn’t work out so well in that situation…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_1859_geomagnetic_storm
Cheers,
-GBV
In the initial weeks of such a crisis, people would generally assume that the money was good for something, certainly.
During the break-up of Yugoslavia, people with stocks of candles did well at first, when power-cuts came, and could use them for barter and sell them for cash of course.
I have plans to be the Tea-light King of this village. Maybe I could get a premium for scented candles, to soothe stress? 🙂
lol
the wife of a friend of mine started a business making ornamental candles
didn’t get anywhere–had a stock of hundreds of all types until the electricity went down
then she had queues down the street
Gail, I keep six month’s of physical cash in the drawer by my left hand. And when I lived in the US, I kept physical gold.
US stock market seems to be headed down today. Dow at -735. Nasdaq down to 9793, so no longer above 10,000.
WTI oil back down to 36.69.
The mood in the casino is not very high today.
VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term ETN (TVIX)
NasdaqGS – NasdaqGS Real Time Price. Currency in USD
165.50+43.71 (+35.89%)
Depends on how you approach it.
The Dog Tract has many options.
Then again:
VelocityShares Daily 2x VIX Short-Term ETN (TVIX)
NasdaqGS – NasdaqGS Real Time Price. Currency in USD
201.95+80.16 (+65.82%)
True capitalist know how to extract wealth.
Who cares what is happening to the economy! (sarc)
( i have used this to extract a bit of wealth myself-should I feel guilty?)
Volatility is breaking out from its falling verge…and S&P is breaking down from its rising verge.
Another “dip” before more intervention?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaPo0-6WsAAQwdi?format=jpg&name=large
We will find out.
They tell us lies at schools, so no wonder when the oppressive weather comes (like hot humidity air), the situation becomes unbearable: todays shooting at the school in Vrutky, Slovakia where the former pupil aged 22 killed the deputy directory. The man was shot down by the police when running away from the place.
https://www.lidovky.cz/svet/na-zakladni-skole-na-slovensku-zautocil-neznamy-pachatel-na-miste-jsou-dva-mrtvi.A200611_112238_ln_zahranici_mha
https://www.facebook.com/policiaslovakia/videos/1776981109109063/
I notice that not too many in the photos have masks on. Perhaps COVID-19 is not a top concern.
The situation is already relaxed now, the emergency state is ending on June 13th. There were severaly days without the new cases or only 1 to 3 new cases per day.
The company will close 400 locations over the next 18 months. It will open approximately 300 locations during its current fiscal year (and an unknown number in the rest of the 18 month period). The new locations may have a smaller employee count. So the net may not be down as much as it would appear.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/06/10/coronavirus-starbucks-closing-stores-expanding-mobile-only-options/5332786002/
Reuters has reported that Starbuckers is going to permanently close 400 stores.
How many staff is that?
Pre-modern islamic armies were invariably slave armies anyway.
“Don’t worry! Our slave armies will set you free!”
Why slave armies? According to one guy I read, it was in part because the Koran left Islam with no system for managing the handover of dynastic power. Slaves were more reliable than brothers and cousins. Not a great system, but humans…apparently we screw up everything.
Quite true. Slave armies were very common. Many ancient German aristocratic families also began as slaves of counts and dukes.
At quite an early date, the Arab rulers settled down to enjoy the fruits of their conquest, and employed Turkish, and some African, tribal mercenaries – the toughest guys on the block then – as bodyguards and soldiers, being more reliable than Arabs who all belonged to antagonistic and ambitious tribes.
The Turks soon became like the Roman Praetorian guard, as they had to be kept very happy or else, and eventually of course in many regions they pushed the decadent and lazy Arabs aside and formed their own dynasties, which also needed mercenaries because the tribesmen always fought over power.
The failure to establish orderly government was the principal feature of Arab kingdoms, perhaps for longer than in the West. It was no accident that the Ottoman Turks routinely killed all rival princes when a new Sultan took power.
At the same time, early Western kingdoms also fell into civil war as dynasties clashed and brothers fought over thrones.
So much beautiful art and architecture, music, etc, but so much bloodshed….
“Al-Qaeda is actively trying to exploit the current unrest in the US by reaching out to both Muslims and non-Muslims to present themselves as “champions of the oppressed”.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-52999812
This rhetoric is common in Islam: if one reads popular versions of the history of the Islamic Conquest, it is always presented like this:
‘The various peoples they encountered were so impressed by the justice of the Muslims, that they immediately converted and accepted the rule of the Caliphs.’ I’ve read this time and again. Nothing about massacres and slavery.
It’s a bit like writing the history of the Raj in India as confined to the bringing of railways….
ETA and the IRA took the ‘social justice’ propaganda route, too.
History is written by the victors. And, of course, no one mentions the role of energy consumption in history books.
Apart from Peter Turchin not explicitly.
But of course everyone knows that the rise of the Antique world around the Mediterranean Sea was a consequence of energy and logistic possibilities. The Romans accumulated their wealth by wheat that was grown by slaves on large farms outside Italy and carried to Rome by ship. It was not possible to transport it by ox cart because the ox would eat too much. I know at least one study that calculates it precisely without ever mentioning the word energy.
The plundering armies in Europe, Christian as much as Muslim, and taking slaves was also a way to accumulate wealth, that at the end, has grown as crops or forest. It is very clearly documented, how rivers and canals were used to transport goods and resources before the train was driven by fossile fuels.
A lot of what is considered to be ancient, like churches and courts in Europe, are in fact fantasies of the 18th and 19th century and build with machines driven by coal. A lot but not all.
The only researchers that never mention energy at all are the archeologists. They find gigantic pyramids and cities in the desert and in the jungle and valuate them as ancient cathedrals phantasizing amazing details about the past religion. I always wonder how societies could accept “energy sinks” to build mega cities for their dead instead of achievments for the living. But in fact our cars are also something dead and probably we invest more energy into our status than into education or health or food for the poors.
Scottish history is written by the vanquished. The victors don’t get a look in.
All over Scotland in out of the way places, you’ll find memorials commemorating battles in which the Scotsmen fought the English invaders and lost boldly, bravely and valiantly, just like in Braveheart.
And you will also find that the Scottish clans and noble families who fought for the English – a lot did – always skip that bit in their family histories! It’s funny, lots of detail up until 1715, and suddenly one fast forwards to 1800……. Same thing in Basque history, all falsified.
Dont forget, the Arab empires lasted longer than modern America has. With multi-ethnic and multi-religious populations and no fossile fuels.
“As multiple crises are simultaneously bearing down on Lebanon, its fragile humanitarian situation is nearing a breaking point.
“Lebanon hosts the highest proportion of refugees per capita in the world, including over 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 174,000 Palestinian refugees, and has struggled to cope with the spillover effects of the nine-year conflict in Syria.
“On top of this, Lebanon now faces its worst ever economic and financial crisis…”
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/refugee-conditions-deteriorate-amidst-multiple-crises-in-lebanon/
“Anti-government demonstrations and counter protests continued in the southwestern Syrian city of Sweida on Wednesday, as an economic crisis exacerbated by sanctions and a collapsing currency provokes unrest for a fourth day…
“The pro-government rally comes as anti-government protests continued to rock the majority-Druze city.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syria-sweida-protests-government-fourth-day
I am sure that Israel will help out with those refugees. They’ll find some place nice for them in Germany.
According to the article,
This is a place with way too many people for resources.
The anarcho communists dystopia in Seattle is failing. They are now starving and begging for food.
Looks like they single handed ended the protest movement. Who wants to join their dystopia?
Don’t tell me they’ve run out of supermarkets to loot already?
Apparently the homeless took their food.
Maybe they should call the police?
They need to look at the Bolsheviks in Revolutionary Russia: always the best houses, clothes and food and lots of coal when everyone else went hungry and cold. And guns.
Don’t they study revolutionary history with any attention?
Deadbeats! 🙂
Study what?
They are meth addicts and crack heads.
What is more amusing: that the homeless they invited to share their temporary Anarchist Republic took all the food they had; or that they have called for Vegan-only food supplies to save them? As long as mo one is killed, thanks for the comedy!
Strange!
Do you have any links?
Yoshua,
Something in American society is changing, it is very difficult to grasp, and even here with considerable thought and consideration we seem to have missed many recent turning points.
Collapse now seems to be all around us in many different guises; perhaps a useful indicator is 1/4 renters can’t pay their rent. A strip mall in our town near me is more than 1/2 vacant and it is a nice little mall, well maintained.
A guess is we threw away our belief in God about 50 years too soon, atheists left us with nothing, maybe the fear of eternal damnation had some useful real world value in preventing the most extremes of human action. Our churches are more empty than not, our streets in some areas are filled with rage – much of it probably understandable. Still, it does not seem like much good will come of it.
It is very hard to build a life, many of the recent political decisions have torn much of our lives and supporting society apart. We will come out of this, we will make it, but it looks like a tough voyage, in my youth there was a song, “Forty Miles of Bad Road,” seems like a reasonable theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoZymsInDEA
Looking at the audience in that video, we were well behaved, modestly but well dressed and there were no lyrics(yes this is instrumental) openly hating, swearing or denigrating anyone. Sixty-one years ago, very different world, so many scorn that society, which in about ten years would go to the moon. The current path is not encouraging with all its pseudo sophistication and angst.
Dennis L.
I am a city boy too. Everything that I eaten has come from the super market.
The dope heads in Seattle should have occupied a farm…but then would not have heard from them…since they would have been busy working.
Life is turning comical as we go down the road of hell.
“The dope heads in Seattle should have occupied a farm…but then would not have heard from them…since they would have been busy working.”
“They” will never be busy working. They do not know what physical labor is. The modern millennial is conditioned that life flows from a smartphone screen and all needs provided magically by someone else.
What is interesting about this type of experiment, if it were allowed to continue, is how quickly they would resort to slave (enforced) labor to grow food, etc. it would happen quickly to those on the barrel end of the gun.
“And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: ‘If you don’t work you die'”.
“A cross-section of Wall Street has warned that there’s too much irrational exuberance in the markets, and the oil price rally is not fully supported by fundamentals…
“According to Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, as well as analysts at Goldman Sachs, refining margins, aka crack spreads, across different regions around the globe are still way off their norms, portending continuing weak global demand for distillates.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Bulls-Beware-A-Dark-Cloud-Is-Forming-Over-Oil-Markets.html
“Back in late March, Goldman stunned commodity traders when its energy strategist Jeffrey Currie predicted that landlocked oil (such as WTI, and unlike Brent) could trade negative in the very near future
“As a result, while countless (most retail) traders suffered massive losses as oil plunged from $15 to -$40 in one session, Goldman made a killing.”
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Goldman-Sachs-Banked-A-Billion-Dollars-On-The-Oil-Price-Crash.html
Crack spreads are too low equates to “prices are not affordable to consumers.” WTI price today is now $36.13, or 8.76% off of the previous price level. Thus, it is moving in the expected direction.