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.
“US mortgage players nervously eye post-Covid market. The pandemic has been a grim reminder of the pain in mortgages, both residential and commercial, that the securitization market endured in the aftermath of the 2008 recession.”
https://www.globalcapital.com/article/b1m3kfjwfwhcgd/us-mortgage-players-nervously-eye-post-covid-market
“Fears of an impending house-price crash [UK], a backlog of viewings and worries over borrowers who have stopped making repayments have thrown the mortgage market into turmoil.
“Loans for people with smaller deposits have been withdrawn over concerns that people could end up in negative equity if house prices fall.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-new-mortgage-crunch-sflft88jk
Withdrawing loans for people with smaller deposits makes it certain the that economy will do poorly. In fact, those in this group who might purchase a home are cut out.
“Russian President Vladimir Putin has been struggling. The pandemic did not give him a boost, and in fact just solidified the downward trend his approval rating has been suffering over the past two years.
“Austerity measures, such as a particularly unpopular pension reform, have caused anger in the general public, even among his supporters. The collapse of oil prices and a looming economic crisis – a second for Russia in the past 10 years – have also severely affected public opinion.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/putin-facing-growing-anger-russia-200616190716489.html
“Russia’s central bank slashed interest rates on Friday to the lowest level since the collapse of the Soviet Union, pledging to consider the need for even lower rates amid waning inflationary risks and a shrinking economy.”
https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/russia-cuts-rates-to-record-low-amid-coronavirus-crisis
“The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has declared board chairman of New Stream oil and gas company and former co-owner of troubled Antipinsky refinery Dmitry Mazurov accused of the 4 billion-ruble embezzlement (about $60 million) bankrupt, according to court records.”
http://rapsinews.com/judicial_news/20200619/305943205.html
Russia needs higher oil prices!
It seems like it is difficult for any world leader to do well in the context of COVID-19. Even Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand will have to live with whatever downward impact all of the country’s draconian requirements have had on GDP, as they become apparent in the future.
“Global stimulus so far in 2020: $18.4 Trillion, or 21% of world GDP”
This is to offset a small percentage (3%?) of the world’s population getting COVID-19. If 60% get COVID-19, does that mean that the stimulus needs to be 20 times as much, or $368 trillion? That would be about 4 times world GDP.
CULLS ……….. 4/25/09
You look at what’s happening and try to imagine what it would take for it all make sense.
You know that they got smart people that they pay to sit around and think.
If I think of something you got to know that they thought of that a long time ago.
So if I see that there are too many people, then they saw that too, a long time ago.
But we don’t see anything being done to accommodate these people.
There’s supposed to be billions of more people coming in the next couple of decades.
and we’ve already got too many.
The stories I’ve been seeing say we’re five to ten times over populated right now.
You know these high roller mover and shaker Ivy League money types have got a plan.
It doesn’t appear that the plan is to accommodate all our brothers and sisters.
So what’s the alternative?
Elimination.
You either accommodate …………or you eliminate.
The most plausible method is the virus.
I was thinking of this meeting where the doctor types are making a pitch to the money types and they are telling them that they got all these souped up agents….. viruses, bacteria, fungi, prions ……. all ready to go, but they tell the money guys that the thing that makes the greatest difference in their lethality is the stress level of the recipient. At extreme levels of stress, the lethality raises exponentially.
The money guys go to some other smart people.
“How do we create a bunch of stress?” “Hunger and fear work the best” say the smart people.
The current financial collapse and job elimination, on top of the poison in the air, water and food,
is a plan to soften up the masses so that the virus works better.
It would also make sense to set off a nuke some where.
Nothing like some pictures on TV of some people that are made of charcoal.
Stress suppresses the immune system for more successful elimination.
Culling the herd is not a new concept.
From Zerohedge: Fed’s Balance Sheet Posts Biggest Weekly Drop In 11 Years
https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2020-06-18%20%281%29.jpg
in my opinion the big plan is to “do more with less” what these planned lockdowns are doing they are transferring cheap oil from developed countries to developing countries that way developing countries governments can survive the “staircase collapse ” that has begun. It in my opinion is part of a deal agreed on by the “big bosses ” aka the UN. It is quite fair and justifiable that the developed countries look after the developing countries during the coming “staircase collapse ” over the next 30 years that is why I believe lockdowns will become the “new normal”. That is just my opinion.
I think you’re right. What better way to slim down the American energy hogs than wrapping their pie holes with gauze, getting them fired, and hiring hooligans to chuck bricks at food delivery trucks.
Government hand outs will keep us fat and placated… while they last, anyway…
Cheers,
-GBV
So the big plan is to save as many people as possible? I never knew the “big bosses” were so generous and considerate about the plebs, the little people, the sheep. I’m speechless. Wow.
The developing countries are closing down as well, so it is not as clear to me that the developing nations are benefitting from the shutdowns. Disproportionately, the developing nations were exporters of commodities, before the shutdown. The prices of these commodities were too low, even before the shutdowns. With these low commodity prices, the currencies have tended to fall relative to the US dollar, making it more expensive for these countries to import goods of all kinds. There is less of a world market for what they want to sell and tourism is way off.
The countries with rising energy consumption per capita (and in total) have been disproportionately in the Middle East. This would suggest that it is increasing inefficiency within the system that is bringing the world economy down.
another wealth transfer from developed countries to INDIA
“Reuters last month reported India planned to buy oil from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia to fill its SPR to gain from low prices.”
But the people cannot afford to buy cars and operate them.
the lockdowns effected a wealth transfer from developed countries to CHINA in the form of cheap oil
“WASHINGTON — China has been filling its oil storage facilities at record pace, propping up global energy prices at a time demand has plummeted due to shutdown orders designed to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Over the first six months of the year, Chinese oil inventories climbed by 440 million barrels a day, dwarfing the previous record of 111 million barrels a day set by the United States in late 2014 and early 2015, according to the consulting firm IHS Markit.
Gail and many of us on OFW thought the world economy was going downhill before COVID, and that it wouldn’t take too much to push us into a visible collapse. The COVID lockdowns and related measures have been far more severe than I think most of the triggers we anticipated. And these restrictions continue to some extent in most places and remain unchanged in many places. Add to this the social unrest from the riots in many, mostly rich, countries. Yet BAU has continued, even though it may be fueled entirely by debt and wishful thinking. I suspect BAU is much more resilient than most of us have imagined. I doubt many of us, if asked a year ago, would have predicted that BAU could have survived to the point it has after everything that has happened in the last 6 months.
I understand that the collapse may also be (and have been for some time) underway, and that some places are experiencing exceptional and obvious economic problems and misery. I also understand that everything everywhere could visibly crash and burn tomorrow. But I think it would be fair to say that we have mostly underestimated the persistence of BAU in the face of immense challenges. I include myself in this group. I conclude that it means our understanding is not very good.
You are right DB. It is amazing to me that things have gone on as long as they have. There seems to be a whole lot of inertia in the system. Even if things are bad financially, it has been possible to paper over the problem with more debt at lower interest rates. Even if some supply lines have broken, enough supply lines have stayed in place that most people in rich nations have been able to get enough food. Fewer cars are being purchased, but we already have about as many cars as we need.
Few people understood how low oil prices and other commodity prices could fall, and how long that they could stay low.
COVID now seems to be pushing us over the edge, but we still don’t know precisely how this will play out. As long as we have electricity and the internet, we have front row seats in seeing how this whole scenario plays out. How long can the system stay together? Are there pieces that can stick together in some form, longer than other pieces?
I’ll add: can the system withstand another set of lockdowns in response to a second wave of infections that appears to be happening? will people even cooperate with authorities asking for a second set of lockdowns? do they dare even ask?
I thought that scientists were repeatedly saying that this is still the first wave… a second wave would be down the road towards Winter, when the areas hit hard in March-April would be re-hit hard… possibly… no one knows… but there are some simple ways to prevent a large second wave…
authorities ie politicians may not be systems thinkers, but I have a gut feeling that many/most of them will figure out that second lockdowns would 1. be more economically damaging and 2. be even less tolerated by the public… especially since those who want to hide in their homes will not be prevented from doing so…
and the federal government would have to roll out additional trillions of aid to mitigate the second wave of economic damage…
I would say the odds are poor for any more big lockdowns…
local areas might be bothered by the whims of local politicians, but I doubt any more lockdowns would be bigger than that scale…
My belief is it will all fall down when “a certain amount” of people (what I call the critical mass) will stop to believe the debt will be refund. Most people work hard for what? They hope it’ll be better in the future : they work for their children, for they pension,… But when they realize their dreams just vanish, no future for the kids, pensions funds burn in fumes, then it’s over.
Debt is a claim of energy for the future. In French, you say the bank grants a credit to the debt holder (the mortgage, loan subscriber) . The credit is the counterpart of the debt. Credit comes from Latin “credo” : I believe.
But why would so many people think this way? All it takes is one great leader to say that everything will be great again and people will hope and believe that good times are right around the corner. It takes a special kind of person to be able to see objectively that our trajectory is downwards, since this goes against our culture and upbringing in the west.
Events beyond our control seem to be occurring with greater frequency and intensity.
yes DB the powers that be have kept BAU going through some unbelievable conditions using infinite amount of free money based on promises to pay in 30 years so that gives them a long time to balance out our unsustainable system based on GREED they will keep BAU going through all sorts of infinite ways so the finite world will evolve and survive these lockdowns were in my opinion part of their arsenal to fight the deflationary collapse that was coming to effect a staircase collapse in all resources : energy and population .
I think we are is too early in the disintegration process to draw conclusions about its speed. Things are moving real fast now. What’s probable today could not be so next week. We had already been sailing on uncharted seas for at least 2008, and now we met a harbinger of perfect storm called covid. But the storm hasn’t really arrived yet. Everything suggests the winds will start to blow hard after the summer. We’ll talk at that time. I rather postpone to next January any conclusion about BAU’s resilience in OECD countries.
DB, you can count me as one of those who has been surprised by the resilience of the financial system.
We have passed many peaks – peak commodity prices in US$ (2011), peak coal production (2013), peak oil production (2018); almost certainly peak auto sales, peak global manufacturing and peak international trade (2019); and now, courtesy of the coronavirus it is also likely that global tourism and international travel have peaked sooner than they otherwise might have (2019).
The system was giving off distress signals in 2019 with trade wars, accelerating social unrest and the Fed needing to prop up the repo market. It did not feel like it could withstand the shock of a global pandemic. However, so far it has, albeit at a mind boggling cost.
Perhaps all we can say with any confidence is that the coronavirus has added huge amounts of stress to a global economy that was already showing signs of contraction and disorder, and governments and central banks really have their work cut out if they are going to keep this show on the road.
DB, many of us are looking pretty stupid to all those we have been preaching to right now but it is good to be wrong in this case. The system is far more resilient than anyone could have imagined.
Hey JMS, no offence but this is better music:
Not in my opinion, Joe. I never liked shrill guitars. To me the fundamental musical instrument in pop is the bass, Nothing beats a good bass line. But to each his own taste. Cheers!
Some newer stuff with good bass.
Thanks! I didn’t know them. Apparently, post-punk is not dead yet. Nice!
excessively bombastic bass… so sad he died…
60’s music is not my forte, but this Chris Squire was obviously a bass virtuoso. Thanks.
JMS: Some more bass for you.
https://youtu.be/w3iyqbuY-_g
Nils Lofgren’s “Acoustic Live” album is quite good if you enjoy mixing up the playlist wildly between genres and styles.
Thanks again, Kowalainen. I am sure that if the human heart could speak, it would be in a low bass voice.Now it’s my turn to give you something in the same vein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEl3CN-p2Aw
Don’t turn the clock back
Break its hands off
Two minutes to midnight
Are you ready to collapse?
Ready to all fall down
“Apple to Close Some U.S. Stores Again as Covid-19 Spikes”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/apple-to-close-some-u-s-stores-again-as-covid-19-cases-spike
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
New Daily Covid-19 Virus count RECORD for the world today: 164,068 and may go higher later, but that number has not been reached before, in fact, 150,000 had not been breached before, so the case count worldwide has been rising steadily and is now going much higher. I suggest that it won’t be long, maybe during this coming fall or winter and there will be 1 million more cases a day being added. Then the numbers will go up really fast.
Brazil set a new record today for any country with 49,554 new cases!
The US which had gone back down to ~15,000 new daily cases has recently been going back up hit 29,506 today which puts us right back up there at the peak range we were a few weeks back.
India today has 14,721 more cases, a new record for that country.
It’s likely a situation in which the increase in case count has to happen at this point as people go back to work. Its as if we did the best we could to buy time to develop a treatment/vaccine but now the world just has to work, wear masks and hope you don’t get it.
It could even reach a point by the time a vaccine is developed it might not be that big a deal. People might say, too little too late.
When I use the charts that come off of the Johns Hopkins data base (which may be different), they show that the highest new case amount to date has been 176,010 on June 17. The data updates overnight. I will try to remember to make some charts tomorrow morning.
Deaths in Texas started to rise on the 13th of June following a rise in cases three weeks earlier. They are today 50% up and heading exponentially again.
Only 1 in 1000 die (yes this is a complex number I know many use different numbers, I think this is a fair deaths/total population number) This is lower than the odds of dying in car crash in a life time of driving. We accept risks and get on with life.
Maybe it is time to build safe villages. Villages were anyone entering must be tested and quarantined. Where everyone in the village must be tested for disease and anti body every quarter. Just as universities students want safe places so do some fraction of the population.
There are too many false negative tests for this to work with respect to when a person is currently infected, and too many false positive results when trying to tell whether a person has antibodies. You would have to keep kicking people out, as their antibodies depleted. This would break up families. There would be no stability to who belongs in safe villages. It is just an illusion that we can do this.
Report on the BBC today from an owner of a 30 pub chain. He is going to reopen the pubs on the 4th of July whether the government allows it or not. If the government closes them down so be it because if they don’t open on the 4th they are going bust anyway.
Before Covid, the UK was losing one pub per day due to going out of business.
It is the businesses that were already “on the edge” that we have been especially losing.
Was car hire on the edge? The rapid demise of hertz was remarkable.
The use of rental vehicles was dropping because people could access ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft. With transportation so inexpensive in this way, there was much less need to rent a car.
This article has some interesting charts: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/
https://1z1euk35x7oy36s8we4dr6lo-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/uber-taxi-hire-car.jpg
some of this must happen as the economy resets at a lower level…
when some pubs close, in theeory the remaining pubs should get more business and be able to stay open… IF they all stay open, then simply all of them will have more of a struggle to stay in business…
this is the self-organizing aspect of the shrinking economy…
I hope that the scenario will be that the economy only shrinks 5 or 10 %…
so in a sort of simplistic average way, only 5 to 10 % of pubs will have to close down…
When the last pub closes, it will be TEOTWAWKI.
Do you believe in destiny?
The universe is ruled by the laws of physics, which gives it a clear destiny.
The universe is not something outside of us, it reaches within us. We are the universe. We are one with the universe.
Espinoza believed that the universe and live were ruled by destiny.
I don’t believe in destiny. The moment you believe in a theory it will swallow you into the abyss of darkness.
Clear destiny? The Mandelbrot set would say otherwise.
Also, where did the laws of physics come from? In fact, why is there something instead of nothing?
I cannot tell you the answer to either of these questions, but If there was nothing, then nobody would be here to ask these questions.
And despite them not having easy answers, I think they are very good questions in a koan sort of way.
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/e6/45/3f/e6453f1559db487cde319dc993b92a54–yoga-flow-bhakti-yoga.jpg
You continue out of curiosity of your own internal workings. The desire for information and knowledge is the basic foundation of any sentient agent, from birth to death. It is hard wired into all cognitive systems.
Herein is the crux; by the function of your internal workings, you become interested in your internal workings. I would go so far as to say it is unavoidable given an sufficiently advanced cognitive agent.
In mathematics and computability theory, self-reference (also known as Impredicativity) is the key concept in proving limitations of many systems. Kurt Gödel’s theorem uses it to show that no formal consistent system of mathematics can ever contain all possible mathematical truths, because it cannot prove some truths about its own structure.
So there we are, trying in vain to figure trees out, while standing in the forest, only aware of the trees, while oblivious of the complexity of the forest giving rise to the trees.
and what about all of the other (infinite) universes?
doesn’t the uncertainty principle show that the universe evolves randomly? even if it is governed by the laws of physics…
in this universe, I didn’t exist for the first 13.7 billion years…
I don’t expect to exist anymore within the next 20 years, and that definitely will remain so for all the remaining billions of years which this universe has…
was it destiny for me to exist for 70 or 80 years within these many billions of years?
amazing if true!
between that 13.7 billion year past and the possibly infinite future, I would suggest that a person should not overrate the handful of mere decades being alive here…
welcome o life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience…
We are all destined to end up at our destination, and fated to end up as a fatality.
Predestination—the idea that everything we do is the will of God—is quite another matter.
What is easy to forget is that we have been absent an awful long time before we came into existence, and then the opposite also holds true. Believing that death is final is as foolish as believing that birth is final – the cessation of nonexistence.
I’m not clear what you mean, but if by birth being final you mean that once a person is born they will continue to live forever (including in some non material form after death), then believing birth is final and believing death is final are mutually exclusive and comprise all of the event space, in which case how can they BOTH be foolish?
Because the sentient being that is you became manifested in the chemical/biological configuration that is you, your body, you mind out of matter in the universe. It is a principle of this universe that nothing ever gets discarded, it is merely transformed into something else.
You see, everything is connected in a fundamental level, among other things – this is what quantum physics teaches us. All complex systems with a degree of orderliness (approximate determinism) needs parts that is connected to each other.
Once you take that it is a process into perspective you come to realize that you are indeed eternal, it only appears that you are finite.
Take for example young Yorchichan, which is for all intents and purposes a completely different human being than the one you are today, with zero left of the original configuration from birth – basically not a single atom is the original one. The thought process have changed fundamentally and dramatically across the years as more experience, knowledge and wisdom have been gathered.
Now, who are you? Alive, dead, a human, a process, eternal, finite. Yes. All of it.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/wrong-place-wrong-time-ohio-100355310.html
“The wrong place at the wrong time’: Ohio police charge 3 in shooting death of 18-year-old Na’Kia Crawford”
“Adarus Black, 17, has been charged with murder. Jaion Bivins, 18, has been charged with obstructing justice and tampering with evidence, and Janisha George, 24, is charged with obstructing justice.”
“Headlines should read: Police charged three BLACK people Thursday in the shooting death of 18-year-old Na’Kia Crawford, a case that had garnered national attention…”
so will these arrests also garner “national attention”?
So are saying that if black people murder each other, it’s ok for the police to murder them too?
If you live in a state with the death penalty, I suppose those states are of the mind that it’s okay for the government to kill anyone, regardless of skin colour. Of course, when it’s state-sanction murder, it’s never called murder…
Cheers,
-GBV
“So are saying that if black people murder each other, it’s ok for the police to murder them too?”
no… I don’t see where I even implied that…
what I did imply was that there should be equal attention to any murder of a black person, even if it is by another black person, which is the case about 90% of the time… (most all murders are same race doing it to same race…)
when retired police officer David Dorn (a black man) was murdered, where was the outrage? was it minimal because he was killed by another black man?
black communities, mostly those in the big inner cities, will gain almost nothing in the area of blacks being murdered unless the black on black issue is addressed, not ignored…
@covidinamonthorayearoradecade
“most all murders are same race doing it to same race…”
While it is true that most murders are intra-racial, it is also true that black-on-white murder, violence and crime in general is massively more common than white-on-black crime and violence.
“Most of the time, blacks killed other blacks, but about 13 percent of their victims were white. Whites also usually killed each other, but six percent of their victims were black. In all, there were 2.7 times as many whites killed by blacks as blacks killed by whites, which means that any given black is 17 times more likely to kill a white than vice versa.”
https://www.amren.com/news/2020/05/race-and-crime-in-america-statistics/
“White-on-black homicides are much rarer than black-on-white homicides. The vast bulk of interracial violence is committed by blacks. In 2012, blacks committed 560,600 acts of violence against whites, and whites committed 99,403 acts of violence against blacks, according to data from the National Crime Victimization Survey…
In other words, in 85% of interracial crimes between blacks and whites, it is blacks victimizing whites.
https://pjmedia.com/drhelen/2017/01/09/white-on-black-homicides-are-much-rarer-than-black-on-white-homicides-n133165
Note that the Bureau of Justice Statistics stopped publishing its table on interracial crime after 2008, the first year of the Obama presidency. Why might they have done that?
there were multiple major instances of police brutality in the Obama years, and I don’t know enough to offer an opinion as to why he seems to have done nothing about it for 8 years…
maybe he tried and I missed it…
and now, famous-public-figure Obama could still say a lot and perhaps actually do a lot to help the interracial crime situation in the big inner cities… like his city of Chicago…
unless it’s just that he’s smart enough to realize that it would be a losing battle…
that’s very cynical, but could it be true?
I certainly meant to write “intra-racial” and not “interracial”…
“Obama could still say a lot and perhaps actually do a lot to help the intra-racial crime situation in the big inner cities… like his city of Chicago…”
What could he do? Is it something about Chicago that could be fixed?
But the black crime rates are the same in London. And they are just as disastrous in Melbourne where twenty years ago the Australian government saw fit to insert a large dose of Somalians. Result? Melbourne now has outrageous levels of Somali crime, much of it targeted against a very different earlier and much more successful group of immigrants, the Vietnamese. Vehicle-ramming confrontations with police. Assaults on the public with machetes. Of course, public drug dealing.
People may wonder why Vietnamese can fit in but Somalis can’t. They have every resource in the world thrown at them.
US crime statistics are horribly and notoriously r*cist.
BLM should demand a recount.
At this point, 29.5% of 2018 murderers are of unknown race, whether because the case hasn’t been cleared yet or because the local agency didn’t get around to reporting the race to the federal government.
Of the 11,514 murder offenders in 2018 where the race of the offender is known by now, 6,318 of the offenders were black: 54.9%.
Blacks make up 13.4% of the population at present.
So, blacks in 2018 were 7.9 times more likely per capita to be murder offenders than the rest of the population.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/fbi-blacks-who-are-only-13-4-of-the-population-were-54-9-of-known-murder-offenders-in-2018/
A discussion on BLM in America:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1vdBzzfVwJjJ/
At the 5 min mark is a chart comparing the homicide rates of black and white Americans with various Sub Saharan countries. Notice a pattern?
To try to get this thing in a bit more proportion, consider that most people never commit homicide. And that includes most black people and most police officers in the US.
The US black population is 43 million. Between them, they kill perhaps 10,000 people each year in crimes judged to be homicide. That’s one killing for every 4,300 black people. The vast majority of black people never kill anybody. Also, most killings in the US are intra-racial, so killings of no-blacks by blacks are a rare or even a freak occurrence.
According to FBI data, of the 2,491 murders of black people reported in the U.S. in 2013, 2,245 perpetrators (90%) were black and 189 perpetrators (7.6%) were white. Of 3,005 murders of white people, 2,509 perpetrators (83.5%) were white while 409 perpetrators (13.6%) were black. Based on these figures, if you are white, you are over six times more likely to be killed by another white person than by a black person.
In the US, there are less than 700,000 police officers and they kill around 1,000 people each year. That’s one killing per year for every 700 police officers. So the vast majority of cops never kill anybody. Dirty Harry was very much an outlier.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/many-newspapers-are-refusing-to-publish-mugshot-galleries-because-the-criminals-arent-white/
“The Tampa Bay Times announced on Monday that they would stop publishing mugshot galleries due to concerns that they “disproportionately show black and brown faces.”
“The galleries lack context and further negative stereotypes,” Tampa Bay Times executive editor Mark Katches said in a statement.”
…………………………………………………………….
BREAKING NEWS! Ostrich announces will bury head in sand!
The stuff I quote below is from a law education blog and is interesting and kind of informative. I post it here for general information as this topic will certainly come up again. Justice O’Connor’s dissent raises a very relevant common sense point, one that we see played out again and again nowadays. How can police, under the law, deal with those who escape or resist lawful custody? Why should a suspect ever comply with the police?
I am not in favor of instituting “shot while trying to escape” rules, but – to put this in terms familiar to readers of this blog – there is a clear issue of resource limitations here. If every offender can resists and escape without risk, and thereafter considerable resource smuct be spent on tracking him down and arresting him, is this a sustainable law enforcement model?
Fifty years ago, police would serve warrants face-to-face, as part of their daily duties. Now we need a Warrant and Arrest Squad that turns up like SWAT to deal with people with DUIs who are not turning up at court.
https://legaldictionary.net/tennessee-v-garner/
Tennessee v. Garner Case Brief
Statement of the Facts:
On an October evening in 1973, Memphis police officers responded to a burglary call. One of the officers went to the back of the house and saw a fleeing suspect — 15-year-old Edward Garner. Garner ran across the yard and stopped at a chain-link fence. With a flashlight, the officer could see that Garner was likely unarmed. The officer told Garner to stop. Garner, however, began to climb the fence. The officer then shot Garner, striking him in the back of the head. He died shortly thereafter.
Tennessee statute (and Memphis Police policy) at that time allowed a police officer to use deadly force against a fleeing suspect. Neither the Memphis Police Firearms Review Board nor a grand jury took any action in the case.
Procedural History:
Garner’s father filed an action, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, in Federal District Court. Garner’s father alleged violations of Garner’s constitutional rights. The District Court found that the Tennessee statute, and the officer’s actions, were constitutional. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Issue and Holding:
Is it constitutional to use deadly force against an unarmed felon who is fleeing? No.
Rule of Law or Legal Principle Applied:
Deadly force may not be used against a fleeing suspect unless such force is necessary to prevent the suspect’s escape and there is probable cause to believe that the suspect presents a serious threat to the officer or others.
Reasoning:
Stopping a suspect with deadly force is a Fourth Amendment “seizure.”
As a threshold matter, apprehending a suspect by deadly force is a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment. The Court noted that deadly force is obviously the most intrusive type of seizure possible because the suspect’s life is in jeopardy. Accordingly, the Court must balance the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights with the Government’s justification for intruding on those rights.
Government’s use of deadly force is not justified when a fleeing suspect is unarmed.
The Court noted that Garner was unarmed. It concluded that, under the totality of the circumstances of the case, the Government was not justified in using deadly force against the unarmed Garner.
The Court cautioned that the use of deadly force against a fleeing suspect is not always unconstitutional. Such force can be used if there is probable cause that the fleeing suspect poses a serious threat to the officer or others.
Dissenting Opinion (O’Connor):
Justice O’Connor, in dissent, stated that the Court’s opinion expands the Fourth Amendment too far. Justice O’Connor stated that now there is a right for a burglary suspect to flee unimpeded, even if an officer has no means of preventing escape short of using deadly force.
No, he is saying that if black lives do not matter to other blacks, why should they matter to anyone else? They made their bed; let them lie in it.
How convenient to forget how much whitey/yellow lives mattered during, well since the dawn of mankind, but more recently during the Corona virus farce, Opoid epidemic, Iraq, Afghanistan, WW1 and WW2.
Perhaps, just perhaps, no lives matter? No?
Kowalainen, right, it is money that matters. If your skin color group has lots of money and power then your skin color group matters. Americans can not consider money when thinking about social issues. That is the way the owning class wants it.
From a material standpoint the blacks in the US is filthy rich. Perhaps not as rich as the regular whitey/yellowy, but in comparison with the outright poverty in, lets say rural Africa or India.
These “revolts” is nothing else than extending the beginning of the end of the consumerist era. Take money from the frugal and give it to the wastrels to make the Machine churn some more cheap headphones, cars and dope. Why? Because it can.
I don’t think white lives mattered much to other whites during WW1. Nor did yellow lives matter to other yellow people during WW2. But war is different. I remember a Britain where murder was virtually unknown and criminals would not carry guns because they feared the noose. And murder is still virtually unknown in Japan. Until foreign powers fomented a civil war, Nigeria had a pretty low murder rate too. But the people in the US inner cities have had more welfare lavished on them than just about any group of people in history, but they still loot and burn.
Well, “we” gotta keep The BAU Machine churning consumerist stuff, faking “growth”. Why not extend the welfare programs? They can dig into your savings account and hand it out, no? 🙂
Oh, I see, they didn’t get the memo. Yes, the consumerist bonanza is over.
I have a cute one. In a restaurant one the coast of Maine I asked do you have lobster (it is indicated on the menu)? Answer “No. With hamburger at $10 per pound people are substituting with lobster, so lobsters are hard to come by.”
https://news.yale.edu/2020/06/03/leading-charge-give-citizens-and-workers-real-say?utm_source=YaleToday&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=YT_Yale%20Today%20Alum%20no%20Parents_6-17-2020
This article is about letting workers have a say in their work conditions, as Germany does.
I worked for an employee-owned consulting firm. Especially when it was small, before it got bought out by a larger consulting firm, this sort of worked in determining how employees were treated. In the smaller firm, everyone was an owner because the company was too poor to pay market wages to workers. Instead, it issued shares of stock to workers at the end of the year, in the hope that someday, when the company got bought out, the shortfall could be corrected. In fact, that did happen.
When the company got bought out, the larger company was on the usual model of a select group (principals) being the only owners. It seemed like “ordinary employees” got treated much less well. No more free parking. Employee offices or work spaces were shrunk, with much more space set aside for fancy, infrequently used, meeting spaces with clients, and a fancy area for fixing meals for clients.
“$190 oil seems outrageous. But JPMorgan thinks it really is feasible even just after the pandemic.”
https://presstories.com/2020/06/19/190-oil-seems-outrageous-but-jpmorgan-thinks-it-really-is-feasible-even-just-after-the-pandemic/
Can’t even begin to imagine what a spike of that magnitude would to do to the global financial system, further bloated with debt after the pandemic.
It would blow up the global eCONomy. Look what happened when oil hit $150 back in 2007. Oil at a $190 p/b would crush any demand left. Who would buy it especially with the millions added to the unemployment lines around the world.
As Fast Eddy would say: CPD
The article seems to be referring to a price spike in 2022. Let’s see if we can get through 2021 first.
Good point
WTI is $39… the 2020 high was in the low 60s in January… the 2019 high was in May at about $66…
other than because of hyperinflation (which is not the topic here), there is almost zero chance that $190 could happen, because the global economy must continue in the direction of demand destruction since net (surplus) energy is declining and that decline cannot be reversed…
in the tiny small minuscule itsy bitsy chance that oil spikes to $190, it will be a blip like the brief time it was minus $37…
wake me up if oil gets back to the 60s…
it could be said that “$70 oil seems outrageous”…
nobody believed oil could sell for a negative price just a short time ago. demand destruction has not finished yet from covid. when world wide infections have peaked then demand will pick up. can the oil companies keep producing when the world needs less? at some point producers will shut in because of lack of profits. debt, etc.
and if infections wane after the peak demand could pick up significantly so who knows we may have a super spike in prices as producers come on line as prices soar.
Well-
https://www.artberman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/image-67.png
That is a nice chart.
Squeezing oil out of rock using hydraulics. 😀
Economists do not understand how the economy operates. Their supply/demand model is wrong when it comes to energy products. Lack of energy products leads to loss of jobs and well as loss of finished output. Both supply and demand are affected!
“The centuries-old UK hop growing industry is at risk of collapse after the months-long closure of pubs during the lockdown left brewers unwilling to buy next year’s crop.
“Only 40 per cent of the 2021 crop is under contract to brewers, who have been left with a surplus this year after a steep drop in ale consumption because of the pandemic, trade groups said.
““If we don’t have some intervention, then in the autumn growers will have to decide what to do next year, and if they have no contracts they will remove significant acreage or exit the industry. If they exit the industry, we won’t get them back,” said Ali Capper, director of the British Hop Association.
“Farmers facing a big fall in demand may quit the sector altogether…”
https://www.ft.com/content/5fe5ec81-b25a-4fd3-993a-74ee66735bb7
“Australian wool prices fell further this week to their lowest point since 2015, with China again being the only significant buying country.
“Exporters reported the odd sale to buyers outside China in Europe and India, where industry is opening up but they countries are still affected by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.”
https://www.sheepcentral.com/wool-price-benchmark-at-lowest-point-in-five-years/
The problem seems to be low commodity prices for producers.
Unintended consequences! These hop growers need income. They can’t simply wait out a season.
Government subsidies / handouts are income, no?
Cheers,
-GBV
“At the moment, the stock market is in celebratory mode over the prospects for recovery, aided by an unprecedented wave of government and central-bank stimulus. The biggest problem is that this recovery is, at best, is getting us back to levels that were once consiedered dire enough to call the downturn of 2008 and 2009 “The Great Recession.”
“It doesn’t seem like much to celebrate at this point.”
https://uk.investing.com/analysis/stocks-are-celebrating-but-this-recession-might-make-20082009-look-mild-200443061
“Overall, it is hard to deny that the links between stock prices and fundamentals have been loose at best.”
https://voxeu.org/article/stock-market-and-economy-insights-covid-19-crisis
“As stock markets roar back from the coronavirus-led rout, advisers to the world’s wealthy are urging them to hold more gold, questioning the strength of the rally and the long-term impact of global central banks’ cash splurge.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most private banks recommended their clients hold none or just a tiny amount of gold.
“Now some are channelling up to 10 per cent of their clients’ portfolios into the yellow metal as the massive central bank stimulus reduces bond yields – making non-yielding gold more attractive – and raises the risk of inflation that would devalue other assets and currencies.”
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-8436045/Worlds-ultra-wealthy-gold-amid-stimulus-bonanza.html
But will gold buy food, if there is no food to buy?
But iit may just have enough value to provide a ticket pass to get you and your family to WHERE there is FOOD! Numerous tales on how folks were able to escape a dire situation with a payoff of GOLD.
It has been recognized as such…money….for thousands of years….doubt that will change with collapse….
https://goldsilver.com/blog/first-hand-account-how-gold-jewelry-can-save-your-life/
The 80 passengers in the tiny fishing boat were among the lucky ones: After seven days at sea, they were able to land in Indonesia, where they found shelter in a refugee camp. All had survived the voyage, but their struggles were not over. Food was scarce in the camp, and there were few resources to support the constant influx of tired, hungry refugees. The little girl’s family used their gold jewelry to trade with the local merchants for food, medicine, and other necessities of life. It was that gold jewelry that enabled them to survive the many months they endured on the island.
Once in a shop befriended a older man who shared his own story about fleeing Germany
They were in a horse drawn carriage and outside the city limits and needed a hiding place for the night. Approached a farm and the owner came out chasing them away.
His father reached for a small wooden box and revealed a hidden bottom with a gold coins. Immediately, the Farmer eyes light up and lead them to the barn.
No guarantee that Gold will work everytime….but….
Also, gold mining is very destructive to the planet…it is what it is
History rhymes, it doesn’t repeat.
On the downside of the slope tomahawk & fire-making skills may be of more use.
“Numerous tales on how folks were able to escape a dire situation with a payoff of GOLD.”
yes, as long as you pay the most attention to your words “dire situation”…
if my situation of bAU in the middle of IC turns into something so “dire” that I would need some gold to somehow “escape” my predicament, then we would probably be in a scenario of The Collapse…
I’m not seeing the value of planning for a collapse…
I already have some small plans for 2021 which don’t require the possession of gold…
I once tried to fly out of the BVI but did not have enough dollars to pay the airport exit charge; they had doubled the price up whilst on our stay. The official at the desk asked if we had any gold we could sell. A lesson learned and from that day I always take a gold Sovereign with me when abroad.
I have always carried a silver eagle when I travel.
As a believer in gold for money, you are right about the downside. Especially when artensional miners get involved. Good being $5000 will wring ecosystem destruction
A good case can be made for diversification: have some dollar bills; have some gold coins; have some silver coins; know a trade; keep working; have a garden. If you have a number of sources you can depend upon, you have a better chance of something working out.
Good point!
“Creative strategies to avoid the appearance of non-payment are becoming more common in China’s domestic bond market. That leaves many investors at a disadvantage and uncertain of their rights.”
https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1m2zp7kc6kpr7/chinese-bonds-issuers-cloud-the-meaning-of-default
“A troubled private firm that aspired to be China’s answer to LVMH is facing growing concern over its ability to repay debt.
“Shangdong Ruyi Technology Group Co., which has been battling liquidity issues stemming from a $4 billion global acquisition spree, has twice delayed a domestic bond repayment since March.”
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/debt-woes-rise-china-lvmh-013342560.html
According to the article:
“Japan’s core consumer prices fell for a second straight month in May, reinforcing deflation expectations and raising the challenge for policymakers battling to revive an economy reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-economy-inflation/japans-deflation-gathers-momentum-as-prices-extend-declines-idUKKBN23Q03X?il=0
“Business sentiment among Japan’s big manufacturers in the second quarter likely tanked to levels last seen during the 2009 global financial crisis as the coronavirus pandemic crushed global demand and paralyzed factory output, a Reuters poll showed.”
https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/pandemic-to-sink-japan-business-mood-to-lowest-since-2009-global-financial-crisis
I notice
“Britain’s public debt is larger than the size of the country’s economy for the first time since 1963, after the government borrowed a record £55bn in May.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/19/uk-debt-is-bigger-than-economy-for-first-time-since-1963-coronavirus
“The Italian tourism sector is expecting a steep fall in visits this summer, and is concerned that the drop in revenue could become the worst ever recorded.”
https://www.thelocal.it/20200618/italys-tourism-industry-braces-for-major-revenue-slump
“Banks have rushed to borrow a record €1.3tn from the European Central Bank at deeply negative interest rates, in the latest monetary policy drive to boost liquidity in the eurozone’s coronavirus-stricken economy.
“It is the first time that a major central bank has offered multiyear loans to banks at an interest rate below its main deposit rate…”
https://www.ft.com/content/132f875c-c821-4045-bf2b-6615b55f2b83
Borrowing at deeply negative interest rates? This sounds crazy. Borrowing should be used to encourage profitable investments. It sounds like borrowing is being encouraged for any reason, whether or not there is a long term benefit.
Talking of disappearing, it looks like this CEO may have been quietly embezzling $2.1 billion. You almost have to admire the scale of his ambition:
“Markus Braun’s almost two decades as Wirecard AG’s chief executive officer ended after accusations about the company’s accounting culminated in a shock disclosure that it was was unable to locate 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion).”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wirecard-2-1-billion-hole-071914093.html
Strange!
“Already, companies large and small are succumbing to the effects of the coronavirus. They include household names like Hertz and J. Crew and comparatively anonymous energy companies like Diamond Offshore Drilling and Whiting Petroleum.
“And the wave of bankruptcies is going to get bigger…
“…in many cases, the coronavirus crisis exposed deeper problems, like staggering debts run up by companies…
“A run of defaults looks almost inevitable. At the end of the first quarter of this year, U.S. companies had amassed nearly $10.5 trillion in debt — by far the most since the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis began tracking the figure at the end of World War II…
“Robert J. Keach, a director of the American College of Bankruptcy, said many companies had so far managed to put off bankruptcy by amassing cash and conserving it as best they can: drawing down existing credit lines, furloughing workers, delaying projects and taking advantage of federal and state pandemic-relief programs.
“But when those programs expire, the companies will start burning through their cash. That’s when bankruptcy filings are likely to soar and stay elevated, Mr. Keach said.
“Expect “a Covid-19 cliff” in the next 30 to 60 days, he said.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html
Let’s all get into the bankruptcy filling business! This sounds like the next growth industry.
The catch is all of the pensions and other assets that depend on the ability of debt to be repaid with interest. They seem likely to disappear as well.
“I declare… BANKRUPTCY!!!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-m3RtoguAQ
Cheers,
-GBV
“For the first time, roughly a dozen central banks in the developing world have taken a cue from peers in advanced economies and begun buying government bonds and other assets as part of their own versions of “quantitative easing”.
“Emerging markets debt investors have so far embraced the experiment, but many warn of potentially adverse effects should certain countries push these measures too far.
““We are in a new era for EM policymaking,” said Pramol Dhawan, head of the EM portfolio management team at Pimco, the Newport Beach-based investment group. “In many ways, EMs are converging towards developed markets in their new extraordinary policy toolkit . . . [but] they are never too far from . . . sliding down a slippery slope.””
https://www.ft.com/content/6a63d700-3a59-4e3f-8092-4c818ffaa9d8
“The global economy is forecast to shrink 6% in 2020, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development—or between 7% and 8% if a second wave of the pandemic occurs before the end of the year…
“Major central banks have responded with big stimulus packages and suggested there may be more to come if growth disappoints.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/central-banks-pump-more-cash-into-economy-to-fight-recession-11592482055
Doesn’t sound good at all!
“Following the demand and oil price crashes, Saudi Arabia has idled offshore rigs and postponed the start of a US$18-billion expansion project…
“Saudi Aramco is also suspending the project for expansion of the offshore Marjan and Berri oilfields for a period of between six and twelve months.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudi-Arabia-Idles-Offshore-Rigs-Amid-Demand-Slump.html
“Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has begun cutting hundreds of jobs as it looks to reduce costs after a slump in energy prices, according to people familiar with the matter.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Saudi-Aramco-Slashes-Hundreds-of-Jobs-After-Slump-15348850.php
Laying off oil workers in Saudi Arabia will have adverse side effects. I expect quite a few of these workers are foreign workers, who have been sending remittances home. The loss of these remittances will affect their home countries. If flights are available, they may try to return home.
There may be some Saudi workers as well. They will not be happy with their government.
Unemployed young men? I bet that makes good recruitment material for the Army. Or for dangerous exploration missions or other forms of adventure.
World War I apparently found young men in the UK who were earning less than a living wage in coal mines. The problem was basically “peak coal.” Seams were deeper or thinner, requiring more effort to extract the same amount of coal. Wages couldn’t be high enough for the workers, given the amount customers could afford for coal. Miners were easy to recruit for the army. I understand at some point, a limit was put on how many could sign up.
okay, some of you quote Shakespeare here…
so who wrote Shakespeare’s plays?
(I have a confident answer, but all the world’s a game, so who will play?)
Queen Elizabeth
They’ve used computer analysis (word counting) to settle the question once and for all. Shakespeare had a different style than the 18th Earl of Oxford, Francis Bacon, Queen Elizabeth, or a dozen other people who have been suggested as the authors of the plays and sonnets. They also succeeded in confirming several of the doubtful sonnets, and establishing which roles Shakespeare himself probably played.
I think this poem answers your question
Marin Sorescu
(great Romanian poet, born 1936, died 1997)
Shakespeare
Shakespeare created the world in seven days.
On the first day he made the sky and the mountains
and the ravines of the soul.
On the second day he made the rivers, the seas, the
oceans as well as the other feelings
and gave them to Hamlet, to Julius Caesar, to Cleopatra, Ophelia, Othello and others,
to reign over them with their children and later descendants
for ever and ever.
On the third day he summoned the whole of humanity
to teach them the diverse tastes:
the taste of happiness, that of love, the taste of despair,
of jealousy, fame etc.,
till there were none left to distribute.
But then a few people came who were late.
Sorry for them, the creator patted their heads
and informed them there was nothing left for them save to become
literary critics and debunk his work.
The fourth and fifth days he reserved for laughter,
gave the clowns a free hand,
allowed them to turn somersaults
and so provided amusement for kings and emperors
and other unfortunate persons.
On the sixth day he dealt with administrative problems:
he set up a storm
and taught King Lear
how to wear a crown of straw.
There was some waste matter, too, from creation, and
out of this he made Richard III.
On the seventh day he made sure that nothing was left undone.
Already theatre managers had plastered the whole world with their playbills, and
Shakespeare thought that after so much hard work
he deserved to see a performance;
but meanwhile, because he felt so excessively drowsy,
he lay down to take forty winks of death.
(translated by Michael Hamburger)
Baldrick?
https://youtu.be/xXvhmnD2r1E
I have one word for you, Benjamin: Potassium!
Absolutely amazing video! And some of it is true.
Watch the first ten minutes and you’ll be hooked.
https://153news.net/watch_video.php?v=N4KKN1MRDO26
Yes, some of it is true. Raw vegan is not the way to go, unless you have a food processor to juice quite a few things. This helps your body absorb more of the nutrients, much the way cooking allows the body to absorb more nutrients. But if you lose electricity, you will likely need to build a fire and cook your raw food.
Potassium from fruits and vegetables is indeed important for good health. A diet built around white flour is not the way to go.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I just figured something out that makes every bit of sense. The most deaths from Covid-19 are occurring in the most air polluted cities, like Sao Paolo, Brazil with 1204 deaths today and Mexico City, Mexico with 770 deaths today. It’s not so much the air pollution on any one day, but the accumulated particulates that have already compromised the lungs, then add a respiratory virus and it becomes a deadly combination. Wuhan, China had the same problem.
Similarly to what Steve Martin in ‘The Jerk’ said when a marksman was shooting at him but hitting oil cans, “Stay away from those cans! He hates those cans!”, I say, “Stay away from those air polluted cities, the virus will kill you!”
Air pollution could indeed be part of the problem. There are more people with pre-existing lung issues because of the pollution.
the “big bosses ” i refer to are the united nations and i believe they are responsible for the creation of fake global warming statistics and fake covid 19 statistics in order to turther an agenda the implementation of a green new economy for the world which the “big bosses ” want governments of the world to invest in , One part of the plan they wish governments to implement are removal of fossil fuel subsidies see here
http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/the-end-of-the-road-for-fossil-fuel-subsidies-205584&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjojLKq04zqAhVTfH0KHfQeB5EQFjAGegQIABAB&usg=AOvVaw0hMLxZwUpYi3Q5ku1X5Xby
so let’s see… it’s all rather puzzling…
USA and Russia and China have the 3 biggest massive militaries in the world, and it appears that the leaders of these 3 countries are each in charge of their big massive military…
so this is not clear to me…
who are these Big Bosses/seeeecret Elites who somehow can tell the whole world what to do?
and how is it that the leaders of the 3 countries with the biggest massive militaries all submit to the bidding of those seeeecret guys?
“According to research by Credit Suisse, the combined wealth of the top 1% is greater than the total wealth of the rest of us put together. There are eight people who have more money than the bottom economic half of the world’s population. Over the next few years 500 people will pass on a combined $2.1 trillion inheritance to their heirs. This is more money than the entire economy of India, a country of 1.3 billion people.”
“The economist Thomas Pickety demonstrated, in the last 30 years, income growth, in real terms, for the lower half of the planet’s population has been zero while the top 1% have seen their real term incomes increase by 300%”
https://itt002-itt.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Global_Wealth.png?x56485
https://in-this-together.com/who-are-the-new-world-order-a-brief-history/
The banksters. You don’t run a military without banksters. Haven’t kings always needed to borrow to wage wars?
Kissinger: “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”
Fossil fuel subsidies have historically been used in countries that produce oil, so as to keep the price of fuel low for people living in their countries. The countries effectively waive the taxes that they would charge on exported fuel. But with oil prices so low, these subsidies no longer make sense. They are unaffordable for governments of oil exporters. This makes local citizens very unhappy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/18/the-economy-is-snapping-back-but-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-alternative-data-shows.html
“Markowska has been tracking a slate of high-frequency data and comparing it to 2019 levels to gauge current performance. Those metrics include foot traffic at consumer discretionary stores, roadway congestion, job postings, employee hours at small businesses, web traffic for job posting sites, domestic flights and restaurant bookings.
In the big picture, she’s found that activity is back to 51% of the 2019 “normal” level, up from the low point of 33% in April. Last week showed substantial increases in flights (35% from 30% the week before) and restaurant bookings (35% vs. 24%). Unemployment web searches are declining, which would be a positive sign for payrolls but job postings at the same time have leveled out. Foot traffic in stores is the closest to normal, at 67%.”
so May was “up” to 51% of the 2019 economic level…
I don’t see any chance of returning to the 2019 level… maybe 90 to 95 % at best…
This was with the $1,200 per person stimulus checks, the $600 per month add-on to unemployment compensation, debt deferral progams, and all kinds of other “goodies.” The virus will keep coming back, too. We are kidding ourselves about getting back to the 2019 level.
and those are good points…
there has been much discussion of a second wave of the virus…
with or without more infections, what about a second wave of unemployment?
if the economy starts to look (deceptively) better, do all of those “goodies” go away, and then the economy slumps and unemployment has a second spike?
I agree about 2019… that was the peak of prosperity… my wild guess is that maybe by the end of 2020 and probably more through 2021 there is a return to 80 to 90 % (high range of 95%) of the 2019 level…
Tis but a Scratch: the Insanity of Returning to Normal
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-18/tis-but-a-scratch-the-insanity-of-returning-to-normal-episode-31-of-crazy-town/
Just a scratch:
https://i2.wp.com/digbysblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/47122218_1589544893611235_r.jpg?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1
yes, some younger persons have been seriously affected by the virus…
the percentages are quite minuscule…
reopen everything… no more lockdowns… and it’s all voluntary… any person who wants to continue to hide out in their home is still allowed to do so…
continue with masks and social distancing in public…
and so what if there is a second wave…
most of the death will continue to be older unhealthier persons who would have had on average only a few years more to live anyway…
this is all well established by now…
then there can be a partial economic recovery… bAU at perhaps 80 to 90 % of the 2019 level, which will certainly be the final peak of world prosperity…
you are overly optimistic i see a crippled economy moving forward. life will be different as there will be a reset. there are so many areas of the economy that will be depressed for many years if not forever.
if the “big bosses ” dont get their way the end result will be hyperinflation
I am the Big Boss…
many of the comments here are overly pessimistic, as this is home to many Doomers…
I try to find the most-reasonable-to-me middle ground between InstaDoom and decades-long drawn out Doom… but that’s just me…
I also see a crippled economy, but the question is how much will it be able to heal?
definitely the economy will be reset as it self-organizes at a lower level… the above story states that by some measures we are down 49% from the 2019 level… but that is up from April to May…
so the short term direction seems to definitely be up…
will the economy continue up, or stall and crash, or something in between?
I think most overreactions to the virus are going away, and we will get further partial recovery, like I said perhaps to 80 or 90 % of last year’s level…
but it’s a wild guess…
and I am fully aware that some critical economic subsystem could “break” at any time, or some other Black Swan could fly in at any time…
all in all, I think the odds favor more partial recovery…
but again, just a guess…
its a heck of a hole to climb out of.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/18/us-unemployment-claims-rise-coronavirus-economy-latest
An uptick in GDP will probably be rather easy to engineer, but whatever the macro-level manipulations, with even a 5% permanent fall in turnover, so many businesses will be either unviable or forced to cut payroll, etc, that the great problem will be massive long-term unemployment of a kind not seen for decades, and waves of defaults on debt.
evidence of a plan B organised by the “big bosses ”
The 2015 Paris Accords and SDGs launched, a 3-decade, low carbon transformation, recognising “Climate Change is existential”. This is the rationale for SUN – the Strong Universal Network. Under the initial guidance of our friend and mentor, the late Maurice Strong – sustainable development pioneer, we are creating a “Plan For Our Kids” a global Training and Lifetime Learning program to create a movement of 100,000 STRONG Climate Champions by 2030. They will advance Climate Friendly Travel ~ measured: green: 2050 proof ~ to support the Paris Accords & SDG13, underpinned by our technology Portal and network of cloud-connected centres. This will help bring Travel & Tourism into the “New Climate Economy”.
I found some links. This is United Nations’ stuff.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=25102
https://www.thesunprogram.com/images/pdfs/cft-ambitions-report-2019-web.pdf
https://www.thesunprogram.com/images/pdfs/SUNx_Malta_CFT_Think_Tank_Report.pdf
With COVID-19 and other communicable diseases, high speed trains probably don’t make much sense. We need vehicles in which people can self-isolate. Today seems to be the time of the pull-along camper, in stead of flying to a destination and staying in a hotel. This approach is no more climate friendly. It is only affordable by those with lots of time and money.
I was told a few years ago by a transport consultant that doubling the speed of a train uses four times as much energy. High speed trains make no sense at all in a world where energy is in decline. That has not stopped the UK govt from going ahead with a £100+ billion fast rail project.
HS2: When will the line open and how much will it cost?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16473296
The US needs to get back to 1940 with its train technology and progress.
“The US needs to get back to 1940 with its train technology and progress.”
We can’t do that because we have lost the technology. It got put somewhere with the Apollo mission plans and now is gone forever.
Good point! There is practically no one who can afford the high cost of high speed rail either, if there is a low speed alternative. The difference in price is simply too great, relative to the hours saved.
E = 1/2mv^2
The total kinetic energy value of a system in motion is equal to half the mass of the system multiplied by the square of the velocity of the system.
I’m not sure what the mass of a fully laden high speed electric train would be (which increases
when moving anyway according to relativity but not by enough to be of any concern in this case with the velocities involved), but I will use a small and simple value for the mass because we are just looking at the effect of the velocity.
If we take m to be 1000kg and v to be 100km/h = (rounding to the nearest full metre) 28m/s, then such a system has a total kinetic energy value of 392kj. If we leave the mass the same but double the velocity to 200km/h (rounded to 56m/s as above), then the total kinetic energy value of the system is now 1568kj.
That energy obviously needs to come from somewhere.
Thanks for supplying the physics. It is the v-squared that does it. If we triple the speed rather than just double it, nine times more energy required, quadruple, 16 times more energy. Not that the trains will be going that fast.
However, there is a way out. It’s called “regenerative braking”. When the train slows down, most of the kinetic energy can be recovered, and then reused to speed it up again. The most efficient method is simply flywheels; spin them up on deceleration and spin them down to accelerate. Far too simple for today’s complexity obsessed technologists, I fear.
Yes there is no energy cost to accelerate and decelerate but mostly it is the rolling fiction and the air fiction that requires energy to overcome. Air fiction loss can go as velocity cubed due to turbulence.
There is more to it than that, even though the energy usage is dependent on the speed of the train it does not really matter when the actual energy usage is tiny compared with burning kerosene or gasoline for the same person and kilometre. Something small squared is still rather small, and does not really matter.
For example, the iron ore trains departing from the mining towns up north in Sweden (Gällivare I think it is at 300 meters above sea level) departing for Luleå some 250km to the south, at sea level, basically has to apply regenerative brake for the entire trip due to the elevation and low resistance of steel wheels on steel rails. It is absolutely incredible that a single person can move a fully laden iron ore car 100 (metric) tons by shoving it, that teaches you something about friction and inertia. Now try do that on on a trailer or your ~2 ton car.
Of course the empty train returning back north will be powered by the regen electricity from the fully laden train heading south.
High speed trains are basically useless for many reasons.
A low speed train, with open windows, would seem to offer at least a little protection from COVID, if the riders wore masks.
Wearing a mask for the duration of a cross country trip doesn’t seem feasible.
A cross country trip wearing masks might not work.
High-speed trains also suck because they kick all the local trains off the tracks. When I lived in Italy, there were trains I could catch from my town to Florence every 20 minutes (say). When the “Freccia Rossa” got introduced, the local trains had to cut their schedules because the track had to be clear for the faster train.
See Ivan Illich’s short book / long essay “Energy and Equity” for a discussion of how faster transport tends to eliminate slower transport.
http://debate.uvm.edu/asnider/Ivan_Illich/Ivan%20Illich_Energy%20and%20Equity.pdf
False dichotomy.
Just slap down another pair of HST rails alongside the local ones and call it a day. It might not be cheap, but that also holds true for maintaining the fossil fuel guzzling road and aviation infrastructure.
Going between Okayama and Tokyo with Shinkansen wearing a mask for 3h is absolutely no problem. People did just that even before this coronavirus intermezzo.
JobSeeker payment set to be increased as Federal Government grapples with high unemployment
By political reporter Jane Norman
Posted 9hhours agoThuThursday 18 JunJune 2020 at 8:00am, updated 8hhours agoThuThursday 18 JunJune 2020 at 9:26am
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
This seems to be an Australian plan.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-18/government-to-raise-jobseeker-coronavirus-unemployment-benefit/12370804
This should help the main source of BAU in my State of Florida…Tourist…
Florida has ‘all the markings’ to become next COVID-19 epicenter, study says
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/florida-has-all-the-markings-to-become-next-covid-19-epicenter-study-says
That warning comes via Wednesday’s projections from a model by scientists at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.
USF professor: Up to 18,000 new Hillsborough Co. COVID-19 cases a day if people ignore social distancing, don’t wear masks
Florida was one of 10 states that saw a record number of new COVID-19 cases this week.
On Tuesday, the daily total surpassed 2,700. Governor Ron DeSantis said those cases can be traced to hot spots like farm labor camps or particular businesses. DeSantis said he doesn’t intend to re-close the economy amid the rise in cases.
Food for thought…we are in a Depression and with another lockdown Forget about it folks…
Hint…the rise in cases does not matter. What matters are the rise in ICU cases. Hospitals have been empty.
Hint:
118,029 deaths
US
More than twice the deaths of the Vietnam War–
Hint:
That took 5+ years
This took 4+ months
The Vietnam War was young people. It was in theory avoidable.
COVID-19 has not been avoidable. Keeping deaths to this level is taking down the economy. Even China is not capable of keeping deaths down.
This is just the start.
Infection rate of 5-7%.
We need 70% for herd immunity, and with upper respiratory infections, that is a year at most of protection.
Vaccine? A year away if everything goes perfectly—
(has never happened)
Has there ever been an effective vaccine produced for a corona virus?
Meanwhile, nothingburger rolls on, reported in 48 point flaming headlines. But still, nothing happens. Nothing. Stop the presses. Aged people die.
Don’t be too hard on Duncan, Kim. He’s in the high-risk demographic for a Covid-19 diagnosis and probably worrying himself sick that he’ll catch a cold and then be taken away and ventilated to death.
That’s the size of it.
Seeking to keep the death toll down we kill the economy if we use lock-downs and physical -distancing as the principal tools.
Really only voluntary isolation of the particular;y vulnerable and the development of pharmaceutical strategies are viable if economic damage is not to be irreparable.
If we strive to keep the vulnerable elderly alive today by imposing lock-downs on everyone, it will only be for them to die a little later when social care systems collapse due to economic decline. Care homes with proper PPE provision become utterly unaffordable.
Even without the pandemic they were heading that way anyway, being just insupportable due to sheer numbers.
Sorry 19 year olds dieing in combat not comparable to 90 year olds who would have died in a couple days anyway. The real death toll will be the economy and the dollar from fiat creation. And og course IC.
Correct !
Here is a typical example. The Washington Post or maybe CNN did an article claiming hospital ICE units in Montgomery Alabama were overwhelmed by Covid cases. The reality is that one Montgomery hospital had 5 ICU units, of which they dedicated two of five to Covid patients, seeking to keep the other ICU units uncontaminated by Covid. They were handling all the Covid cases in those 2 ICU units just fine.
No crisis whatsoever….not surprising the wrong news was broadcast by the fake news media.
Of course because the real agenda is to promote a “mandatory vaccine and to ban cash”. The media which is essentially State owned is not going to tell the truth. They did the same thing with Obamacare.
The government of Spain is now seeking to reduce the amount of cash that can be used to pay from 2.5 k euros to 1k – pleading ‘public health’ as their reason…..
Govts. everywhere will be able to point to the (forced) decreased use of cash during the pandemic as proof that people are going off cash and want a digital world.
A famous Ronald Reagan quote: “The scariest words in the American language. I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you”
Hmm… i don’t believe Reagan’s big business friends were too scared when he said to them I’m here to help you 🙂
Floridas economy is hitting a brick wall with all the old people barricaded in their homes.
We are learning more about how to keep people out of the ICU, and better how to treat them if they are in the ICU. Having patients with low oxygen levels lie on their stomachs instead of their backs seems to raise their blood oxygen levels. Respirators are not of as much assistance as previously thought; CPAP machines plus oxygen work in some cases. A cheap steroid that has been discussed in recent articles seems to cut the death rate of ICU patients by a third. I would expect that it cuts their length of stay as well.
A study of New York City respirator patient showed that 97% of early ICU patients over age 65 died. With this kind of a baseline, there was huge room for improvement.
The stomach lying was a big one, according to my virology friends in NY.
They had 150+ people dying in their wards, and now that has decreased.
They are convinced of a Fall, Winter second wave.
When you lose 4 patients before 9 AM, it kind puts a down in progress.
“They are convinced of a Fall, Winter second wave.”
so bring it on…
with masks and social distancing of course…
then what will we see in the second wave?
more deaths, mostly older unhealthier persons, again!
maybe the 125,000 deaths now will be 250,000 by then…
so what? that’s not enough death to justify any lockdown…
IF there is a second wave, by then there should be an understanding that the FIRST lockdown didn’t really “work”, so I hope the political conclusion is no more lockdowns, though we are somewhat at the mercy of the whims of politicians who are not systems thinkers…
The problem for politicians will b headlines like: ‘COVID Infections Jump 100% in One Week!’, when it’s only from 25 to 50 in the week nationally.
A gift to opposition parties and the media, so they may well be forced for PR reasons into local lock-downs.
Also hospitals are, at least in the the UK , exhausted and little able to face a significant rise in cases in the winter, or even get back on top of months of postponed operations. There will be a need to spare them a flood of cases. The PPE situation will probably still be acute.
>>Also hospitals are, at least in the the UK , exhausted
I don’t know what you mean by that. Do you mean some of the doctors and nurses are exhausted? I doubt it is all of them. The media have been telling us that there are about 550,000 front-line workers in the NHS and I suspect that most of them are not working directly with Covid patients – would be useful to know though. The number of visits to A&E over the last few months have apparently dropped by about 50%. All non-essential patient consultations and operations have been cancelled for months, creating a huge backlog.
The dole figures are badly underreported. The real unemployment figure is probably triple this, as a lot of people who’ve lost jobs, if not actively seeking work, aren’t even counted in the statistics. Plus, there’s a lot of other hidden unemployment too…
Australia’s jobless rate reaches record highs
https://onshorebeachhouse.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/The-Big-Banana.jpg
“The economic hit from the Coronavirus pandemic has been put into sharper focus, with Australia’s unemployment rate soaring above 7 per cent.”
Prospect Of Peak Oil Demand Puts Cap On Total Global Oil Reserves
By Rystad Energy – Jun 17, 2020, 4:00 PM CDT
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Prospect-Of-Peak-Oil-Demand-Puts-Cap-On-Total-Global-Oil-Reserves.amp.html
The 2020 release of Rystad Energy’s annual global energy outlook reveals that the Covid-19
downturn will expedite peak oil demand, putting a lid on exploration efforts in remote offshore areas aànd as a result reducing the world’s recoverable oil by around 282 billion barrels.
Global total expected remaining recoverable oil resources decrease to 1,903 billion barrels, 42% of which are in OPEC territory, with the remaining 58% located outside the alliance.
Non-OPEC countries account for the lion’s share of “lost” recoverable resources with more than 260 billion barrels of undiscovered oil now more likely to be left untouched, especially in remote exploratory areas,” says Rystad Energy’s Head of Analysis, Per Magnus Nysveen.
OPEC countries are much more resilient to the current crisis and will only lose a fraction compared to their non-OPEC counterparts such as the US (-49 billion barrels) and Russia (-31 billion barrels).
“OPEC countries are expected to lose 21 billion barrels of reserves potential as the negative developments in Venezuela and Iran outweigh the increased strength and reserves potential of core OPEC countries in the Arab Gulf region,” Nysveen adds
Article link has much good data if interested in reading
BP 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy is now out. (Free downloads available.)
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Oil reserves are down a little bit comparing 12/31/2019 to 12/31/2018, in many parts of the world, and in total worldwide. The last time world oil reserves fell was 2015. Oil reserves did not fall during the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
Trump is using Nazi symbols.
https://mobile.twitter.com/jewishaction/status/1273482511918616578
GOP is morphing into the Nazi party…and the Dems are morphing into the Communist party.
Time for a third party? Perhaps, party of the young and/or black?
A vote for Biden is another 4 years for Obama.
Things seemed a bit quieter during Obama.
Just vote in those loony Dems again!
A vote for Biden means 3 1/2 (or 7 1/2) years of Kamala Harris, or whoever he picks.
Assuming the votes are counted accurately.
Its more fun with Orange Man Bad, than those pretentious hypocrite snobs.
Yawn. There are inverted red triangles scattered all over the US: it is the basis of the road sign “yield”. Reminds me of a nut called Churchward, who decided that a rectangle was the Lemurian symbol for “Mu”, and hence any building with a brick was traceable to Lemuria. And the website is another rabid far left propaganda outfit, pretending to be associated with the real “Jewish Action”, a sane, conservative Orthodox Jewish publication. Lies and damned lies.
Paul Krugman retweeted this on his time line.
I know that he has gone over the cliff…but…I still follow him.
I read those books!
Leftists in general, useful puppets in the work box of the Big Puppeteers.
Son of George Soros launches Bend the Arc Jewish Action PAC.
https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/170634/
Leftists? There _is_ no left in existence today. Big bloated governmentists is what they are – The toxic waste centuries of unimaginable wealth produces apart from the more environmentally damaging chemical compounds. They couldn’t hold a candle in a distributed competitive collaborative environment.
The GOP have done a good job of characterizing socialists ideas as communism, but I don’t know any Democrats suggesting we should all make the same amount regardless of our job. The Dems on the other hand have done a weak job of distinguishing between socialism & communism so there is likely a lot of confusion in the US. Many examples of socialists governments exist in Europe because they have a long history of monarchs that hoarded most of the wealth, but the UK and France are not communist. They just exercise greater insistence on an equitable distribution of wealth and reasonable working standards not seen in the US. That’s what the GOP fears, is a more socialist country than we are now and so they insist on those efforts having communist intent, which is false.
When I worked in the UK for Haliburton on the BP-40’s oil rigs, after my first 3 months I got a mandatory 1 week paid vacation, something that doesn’t exist in the US. They paid overtime, which isn’t always paid here now. Women in France get 90 days paid maternity leave. In France people get 6 weeks paid vacation a year. The reason why France is so progressive is because “The People” of France protested/rioted, etc. to fight for workers rights.
Hint:
Pepsi / Pepsi Lite
Repug / Dim
Both capitalist, and a very narrow outlook, that is coming to a close..
IC coming to a close. We could all start goosestepping or raising busts of mao and it wouldnt change that. Smoke em if you got em.`
goosestepping or raising busts of mao and it wouldnt change that.
That is in the rear view mirror– although I see new people learning to goosetep.
Happens during downturns.
Mao?
Theres less stuff. We have consumed it. the left blames less stuff on oligarchs. The right blames less stuff on non productive people. Their both wrong. And stupid. People are stupid. All they want is MOAR stuff. If they dont have any they want it. If they do they want to keep it. Is that capitalism? Is that communism? No its stupid greedy violent people. Truth. I hang out with productive people. Just habit. It beats getting worked up in a frenzy over oligarchs. Working is a privilege. It wont last long so i enjoy it. And i plan on keeping my stuff too. Come and take it. I not saying it cant be done but i wont be around.
Not really capitalist, it is consumerist. Consumerism is drawing to a close because there is no more advantages to be had from skimming the “buying” bonanza. The tech sector lives its own life with the perpetual development cycles.
Stuff gets more expensive because more complications enter development and production chains, while the scale advantages of mass production already is at its peak. Look at modern cars – do you really need that extra stuff to go from A to B while adding an obscene amount of cost to the price, development and production, then it is already obsolete the day you get it delivered?
I use the epitome of consumerist gear (computers/smartphones) for far longer than many people own their cars. That stuff just does not get old anymore. Sure, it can break down occasionally due to bad component choices, but then that’s just me being cheap. Nowadays it it a rather long time ago I had some electronics fail on me (one 90’s NAD audio amp that released its soul as a puff of smoke into the air), that stuff can be built to last a lifetime, specially with good thin film/ceramic capacitors, coils and silicon semiconductors running within specs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rf-fO0aj3I
The other day I ordered renovated old speakers (refoamed drivers) from before I was born, which does not tell much. 🙂
I worry about the “cloud.” Once it stops working, a whole lot of things we depend on stop working. The problem could be the result of hacking by a political power wanting to fight in a new way. It could relate to a lack of electricity, perhaps caused by over-reliance on intermittent electricity. Lack of electricity could result from missing component parts from around the world. Lack of electricity could come from uncontrollable forest fires in some parts of the world, or the inability to rebuild after a storm.
Yes, stuff wear out eventually. But with the right choices it can last a bloody long time. Like that radio from the 40’s. A couple of new thin film capacitors, tuning and its like new.
I’m of the opinion that all gear being sold should come with a 100 year warranty, with the exception of parts that is designed to wear or is subject to inherent wear. Such as brakes pads, for obvious reasons, and batteries. Its just the way nature works on some applications and chemistry.
Its this cheap, centralized jank that makes the system brittle. Windmills as a prime example. 20 years, tops, for a good one and lets not talk about solar panels degrading. Now that is abysmal.
After a point, however, companies cannot afford to give them these benefits, especially if the government plans to give them pension plans as well. Something has to give. I think that that is a big part of the problem in France–too many promises relative to what the real world can afford.
Blame the real Communists, who recognized that Communism could not be achieved anytime soon, and so called their countries “Socialist” (as in the Union of Soviet *Socialist* Republics).
My John Deere tractor has red triangle on the rear. So is John Deere an inverted Nazi company.
Yes!
Ok…so I heard that the red triangle is a warning symbol for explosives.
You must be joking Yoshua. You don’t know the source of this meme? Here it is:
1) Trump puts out an ant-Antifa video ad
2) The inverted red triangle in question is a symbol used on communists and anarchist uniforms in German prison camps under the national socialists
3) In the way of these things, Antifa long ago adopted it as one of their own symbols
4) In the Trump video, Antifa are of course wearing this symbol, as they usually do
5) Twitter bans the ad because it is showing “hate symbols”
6) But this same symbol can be seen in thousands of other Antifa-uploaded videos on Twitter. They are not deleted or banned. Why is the Trump anti-Antifa ad banned?
7) The ADL, that supposed bastion of free speech and anti-hateness, and the lords of all goodthink, do not even include the inverted red triangle in their list of “hate symbols”. Why not?
I am sorry, Yoshua, but I think you have been played.
Thanks for the explanation.
Politics is a tricky business.
“Atlanta police officers are refusing to answer the radio and walking off of the job. The county can go screw themselves. If you want a society without police we’ll give you one. Let it burn!”
Gail got a machine gun?
Atlanta is a small part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Atlanta may look more like a doughnut in the future, I expect. It is about a half hour drive from my home to Downtown Atlanta.
The City of Atlanta does have some moderate and higher income Whites living there, in older homes that have been fixed up. I find it hard to believe that new buyers would want to move to these areas, but I could be wrong.
Nothing like a “protest” or two and a virus that thrives in high density populations to make rural home attractive to buyers.
Of course, there are lots of folks with guns in rural areas, more so than in urban areas.
Floyd was murder. The kid in atlanta was manslaughter. Police need to get their S*** together. The kids are all happy at the idea of defunded police. No police and it will take martial law and national guard to stop what will become a straight up firefight. Allepo time.
I was in Bogota in the 70’s, in which 1/2 the city had no cops.
You learned to negotiate very well. And these were an experienced proletariat, not the current overweight simpletons of the current US.
Sounds like a pub I used to frequent in London, near our office. It struck me how very polite everyone was, especially if they accidentally jostled you: then I realised – many of the patrons were criminals! An accidental knock without an immediate apology could go very wrong indeed…
“Old school” criminals likely exhibit a lot better manners, as they likely experienced an untainted version of “prison justice”.
These days, many ranges are filmed by cameras… those ranges typically have a few goofs who will scream at you and taunt you, trying to start a fight so that the COs (correctional officers) will come rushing in and drag you off to solitary. They’re annoying, antagonistic individuals who generally appear unable to defend themselves, but learned how to game the system to their advantage: escalate an argument slowly so that the COs notice it on camera, then taunt the other fellow to the point he hits you. Usually they’d only get a punch or two in before the COs broke it up, and since it was on camera, charges would sometimes be laid.
It seemed that the secret was not to make a big spectacle if you were going to fight. Act as if you didn’t care so much about the fellow in question so he would be less suspicious of you, and then catch him at the back of the range / under the stairs to upper levels (where the cameras weren’t as effectve) when he goes to use the toilet or sink. Not only do you catch the person unaware, but you buy yourself an extra minute or two to really smash him up before the COs come down on you, and you can make the argument that he started the fight without any (good) video evidence to show otherwise.
Though I suppose each institution, and even each individual range, has its own dynamics that could make it different from others…
Cheers,
-GBV
“Floyd was murder”?
How was Floyd’s death murder? Legally? Morally? How? Legally, murder requires the formulation of intent. Where is the evidence of that?
Facts:
1) Autopsy showed death by heart attack
2) Floyd had pre-existing heart disease
3) Floyd was under the influnce of fentanyl which suppresses respiration and heart rate
4) Officer was using an approved (trained-for and recommended) method of restraint on a highly dangerous convicted felon (armed robbery and home invasion) who was two metres tall and weighed 120 kg.
5) No formulation of intent
Conclusion: Death by misadventure. In no jurisdiction could this be classified as “murder”.
Meanwhile, in 2019 over 400 blacks were murdered (by other blacks) in Chicago alone. But you don’t want to complain about these actual murders, an actual black murder pandemic? Instead you want to blame-shift and complain about a statistical outlier? Funny that.
There do seem to be some indications that the police officer and Floyd worked at the same club, Floyd providing inside security and the police officer providing outside security, as a second job besides working for the police force. There seemed to be a conflict between the two of them, previously, perhaps related to shady dealings of the management of the club. For this reason, some people believe that Floyd’s death was premeditated.
Seriously kim? Why was the force being applied? He was in cuffs. He was in custody. Custody. The officer was totally responsible for his well being. The force was being applied with no reason. It resulted in Floyds death. Not only does it fit all criteria for murder but it was a particularly sadistic murder. Why bring attention to a outlier? Because it was a police officer Kim. They are supposed to be serving and protecting. The fact that you not me compared him to thugs is telling. I am pro law enforcement. The bad apples need to be discarded. The culture that has developed is not healthy in law enforcement. How on earth is it possible that none of the three other police officers stepped in. Serve and protect. If you are a cop and let your guard down sooner or later you get hurt or dead. You learn this and mitigate risk. Its gone too far. The brotherhood of police can not extend to sadism and murder if they are to serve and protect.
I doubt we will get a healthy police system. When i grew up in the 70s there were still high rise housing projects. Police did not go into those without massive force. Maybe thats what we are returning to. Kim i knew good cops. They were courageous. They were just the sort of good man you wanted to show up when thugs were around. All dead now. One ran a 3 gun match on the police range for civilians. He wanted civilians able to defend themselves. I respected him. Thats the kind of cops that create healthy community’s for policing.
Ive know three young men that entered law enforcement. All wanting to help to serve. Bright enthusiastic sharing their heart. Within a year the force changes them. They become distant to civilans reserved. Not like the older cops i knew who were still ALIVE and Vibrant and COMUNICATING with civilians. Go to a wedding with cops. The Cops all go to one side.
If you are pro law enforcement you want it to be healthy. You want it to belong to the community. you want to make its job easier.
supporting sadist and murderers in the force works against law enforcement.
Its all moot. IC is ending. We are not returning to a healthy situation where law enforcement is respected and it is part of a community. Its just a dream. End times. But justice must be served in Floyds death. We must at least try to heal.
Communities that respect LE will have cops. Those that dont wont. Thats the future. I live where its very poor and very rural. No one calls the cops. You develop relationships with neighbors. You home and property is sacred. Cops get called only when its absolutely necessary. Why? If they are called and somone is facing jail and fines the cant pay it only aggravates the situation. If their uncle is in a mexican cartel ohh your ass is grass. They are still there regardless. There they are only now you created a bunch of shit in their life. Calling the cops solves nothing. It makes it worse. Big properties make for happy neighbors. If you are lucky you have a few that are worth something. The cops make under 30k. Every day they spend eating donuts and not answering calls is a good day. The cops are on board with less calls the better too. They know criminal justice is broke too of course. So if there is a murder or a serious assault or rape yeah they want to lock those guys up. Besides that the cops know the criminal justice system solves nothing. The really bad dudes, the cartel EVERYONE stays away from them. Police too. 30k a year. Thats really how you stay safe. You associate with decent people. You dont condemn the bad people yo stay away from them. You take care of your own security and dont get into trouble. Its as good as it gets.
Agree with a lot of what you’ve said, but…
“It resulted in Floyds death”
Resulted in, or contributed to? I think there is an argument to be made that subduing someone is not necessarily an attempted to murder, yet death can result from said attempt.
Incidentally, I am anti-police, at least in the large-scale / paramilitarized form it takes today. If all policing was local – the people who enforced laws were people in my community who know me personally – then I’d probably change my tune. I guess the same could be argued for those who make our laws; here in Canada, we’re finally seeing a push-back in the Western provinces against Ottawa and their Federal anti-gun agenda…
Cheers,
-GBV
China shuts schools and cancels flights as Beijing reports an ‘extremely grave’ surge in new coronavirus cases pop
tcolson@businessinsider.com (Thomas Colson)
https://news.yahoo.com/china-shuts-schools-cancels-flights-103239045.html
June 18, 2020, 6:32 AM EDT
ITS BACK
China shuts schools, cancels flights, and locks down neighborhoods after a surge of reported new COVID-19 cases.
Beijing had reported no locally transmitted cases for 57 consecutive days until a flurry of cases emerged last week.
The new outbreak has been linked to a massive food market in Beijing, where traces of coronavirus were reportedly found on chopping boards used for imported salmon.
“This has truly rung an alarm bell for us, the development as “extremely grave ” said Cai Qi, the Communist Party’s Secretary of Beijing.
……..”The risk of the outbreak spreading is huge and controlling it is difficult,” said Pang Xinghuo, a government disease control official, in comments at a press conference reported by Reuters.
“(We) can’t rule out the possibility the number of cases will persist for a period of time.”
It has prompted fears among citizens that the city could be heading for another full-scale lockdown
FULL SCALE LOCKDOWN!!!!😥
Well. That should add another trillion(s)stimulus package to the mix ….Faster,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJidFzAnFo
It s not as easy as it looks to fill the gas tank to keep BAU on the road!
It will be interesting to see how this all works out. The new virus wave seems to be the European type after the mutation that allows it to spread more easily. This is harder to fight than the variety that Wuhan had early on.
The myth that the virus problem can easily be fixed, once and for all, with sufficient lockdowns, will soon go away.
Round 2 for China.
What did the expert on the 1918 pandemic call this one, the ‘leaky bucket’ virus, because it always gets out?
At least now we know a lot more about its characteristics, contagiousness, and the principal target groups than we did in February.
And here is even some small advance in pharmaceutical treatments.
Now CNN is saying:
One of the all time classic autos.
The past is getting further in the rear view mirror.
The corona quiz lockdown special:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/RzB9Nek2Mr6f/
Not sure about the scientific accuracy of the answers, but it’s funny.
“In a new report, economists writing for the Brookings Institution estimate that the United States could see “on the order of 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births next year” as a result of the economic recession triggered by the novel coronavirus.
“The economists, Melissa S. Kearney and Phillip Levine, derive their estimates from data on birthrates during the Great Recession and the 1918 flu pandemic.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/covid-baby-bust-could-lead-half-million-fewer-births-next-year/
In all likelihood those who are least able to support themselves, poorly-paid or on welfare, will surely continue to have children, as they tend to do so anyway without any real thought as to how they will be supported or find work when they mature. I would be surprised if the pandemic had any real effect on them. This will only exacerbate economic troubles.
Any major recession is going to lead to far fewer births. In fact, this forecast suggests that the current COIVD-19 outbreak, and the way it is being fought, will have a far larger impact on births than on deaths. We are currently at about 118,000 deaths in the US, and this forecast is based on the assumption that things won’t get much worse.
This is a link to the Brookings report. https://www.brookings.edu/research/half-a-million-fewer-children-the-coming-covid-baby-bust/
The number of births in the United States in 2018 as 3,791,912 according to the CDC. This would imply a 10% or so drop in births.
Hertz, which declared bankruptcy under Chapter 11 last month, disclosed its decision to freeze the offering on Wednesday in a regulatory filing. Earlier in the day, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said on CNBC that the agency had informed Hertz that regulators had “comments” about its proposed stock offering.
“Clayton also said he expected Hertz to put the transaction — which is highly unusual for a company that has filed for bankruptcy protection — on hold until the SEC’s comments had been addressed.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hertz-suspends-stock-offering-price-bankrupcy/
“Scotland’s GDP plunged by 18.9% during April – the first full month of lockdown – adding to fears that it would have the worst performing economy in the developed world.”
https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2020/06/lockdown-sees-april-gdp-slump-by-almost-a-fifth/
“The Bank of England is expected to build back its war-chest for fighting the coronavirus crisis on Thursday by announcing an increase of at least 100 billion pounds in its bond-buying programme.
“The British central bank has already spent most of the 200 billion pounds of fresh firepower it gave itself in March as it soaks up much of the government’s COVID-19 borrowing.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-boe/bank-of-england-set-to-rebuild-stimulus-war-chest-idUKKBN23O3Q1
“The Deputy Governor of the Central Bank [of Ireland] has said while the financial system is stronger than a decade ago, its resilience is not limitless.
“Sharon Donnery made her comment as she addressed an online presentation hosted by the Institute of International and European Affairs.”
https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2020/0617/1148013-central-bank-warns-resilience-is-not-limitless/
“A campaign has been launched to raise awareness of food security and to encourage people to grow their own produce. Those behind the BiaHero initiative say the Covid-19 crisis has exposed the vulnerability of the global food system.
“Only 1% of Irish farms grow fruit and vegetables so large quantities are imported.”
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/nation-urged-to-get-growing-and-shore-up-food-supply-39293610.html
The sun-ripened Irish peach is no doubt an unlikely prospect, however hard they try….
Sounds like a good idea!
‘War chest’, ‘firepower’: wonderful dynamic words which wholly fail to convey what the policy -and the problem – actually is! Medals for all the central bank heroes!
Others: ‘kick-start’; ‘boost’, ‘spur’; ‘fire-up’.
‘Ammunition’ is actually quite appropriate: most missiles and bullets miss the target, make a lot of noise for no real benefit, cost an awful lot and put money in the pockets of all the wrong people….
Keep adding to the borrowing, to try to fix the mess!
“South African tourist towns flounder as safari tourism collapses. Poaching set to increase as rural South African communities reliant on Safari tourism face starvation while the tourism industry in Africa’s most developed economy grinds to a halt.”
Video:
https://www.dw.com/en/south-african-tourist-towns-flounder-as-safari-tourism-collapses/av-53849476
“…today, half of Zimbabwe’s population is struggling to feed itself, high inflation rates – which helped destroy the economy over a decade ago – have returned…
“Zanu-PF has stopped telling the world that Zimbabwe is “open for business” and has reverted to its old habit of accusing unnamed Western nations of fomenting unrest and of conspiring with local critics to undermine the government and the economy.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-53062503
“Hundreds of thousands of pigs have been culled by Nigerian farmers in response to an explosion of African swine fever… the recent wave of infections is the worst by far.
““We have never experienced anything of this scale in the past. This is the worst and largest outbreak ever,” says Ayo Omirin, a pig farmer at Oke-Aro, who has lost more than 600 of his 800 pigs.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/worst-outbreak-ever-nearly-a-million-pigs-culled-in-nigeria-due-to-swine-fever
There is more than one kind of epidemic to fight at the same time!
“Atiku Abubakar, has again, warned that Nigeria is in dire financial crisis under the Buhari administration – The former vice president warned that Nigeria risks a situation where its revenue cannot sustain debt servicing obligations.”
https://www.legit.ng/1339479-nigeria-president-buhari-financial-crisis-atiku.html
“Lockdowns, border closures and the global fall in commodity and oil prices are all wreaking havoc on fragile sub-Saharan African economies.
“This has been exacerbated by the continent’s substantial debt burden… The continent has no greater creditor than China.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/amid-covid-economic-crisis-questions-swirl-around-africas-giant/
Also, according to the article:
So Africa still has lots of debt. And it is not in a position to take on more debt.
Same problem as tourism everywhere!
“Argentina’s debt restructuring talks, in a tense final stretch, hit a roadblock on Wednesday with the government determined not to cede further ground after making an improved offer and a key creditor group warning that negotiations had failed.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-argentina-debt/argentina-debt-talks-hit-roadblock-as-government-creditors-rattle-sabers-idUKKBN23O3LM
“The World Bank forecasts that Brazil’s economy will shrink 8 per cent this year as the broad shutdown weighs on businesses and consumers alike….
“Such a slump in Brazil’s gross domestic product would lead to a wave of corporate bankruptcies, soaring government debt and surging unemployment in a nation with abject public finances.”
https://www.ft.com/content/8f47d0b7-54e6-42f2-aa74-4a100508c849
“Chile’s Central Bank revised its GDP projections for the year on Wednesday, predicting a fall of 5.5 to 7.5 percent due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It would be the largest contraction in 35 years and comes three months after the bank projected a fall of just 1.5 to 2.5 percent.”
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/latin-america/chiles-central-bank-predicts-worst-gdp-fall-in-35-years.phtml
Shutdowns lead to huge problems!
The financial system is very unwell, in fact terminally so – riddled with imbalances and distortions. As we push it to the limits of its elasticity in our attempts to maintain growth, it no longer sends clear signals about what anything is actually worth:
“Currency analysts are lamenting an avalanche of cheap money from the US Federal Reserve, which they say has created bizarre conditions in which exchange rates track stocks rather than economic fundamentals.
“For decades, strategists have analysed exchange rates on the basis of the outlook for growth and interest rates in the countries concerned. Generally, the better the prospects, the better the currency can be expected to perform.
“But that relationship has broken down since March’s market rout, analysts say. As the global economy moves towards one of its worst recessions in history, currencies that are usually most sensitive to growth have become the best performers against the US dollar.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9cdee0fa-a4a1-44d4-a091-21ceeb6fcea1
“Life used to be so easy for central banks. A tweak here and a tweak there was all it took to keep inflation under control.
“Now they are creating money in unprecedented amounts and contemplating negative interest with only the sketchiest idea of how things will pan out. It is much more complex and much more dangerous, not least for central banks themselves.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2020/jun/17/pity-the-central-banks-lockdown-dilemma-do-they-fight-inflation-or-deflation
“Volatile markets and the economic fallout from the virus could wipe out as much as $16 trillion of global wealth this year and hinder growth for the next five years, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group. By comparison, the 2008 financial crisis erased $10 trillion.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-18/pandemic-could-erase-more-global-wealth-than-financial-crisis
I’ll bet the real outcome is a lot more than $16 trillion!
Strange! I suppose the more that US funny money helps another economy, the better their future prospects are.
Nearly 30 years without a recession has fostered much malinvestment Downunder, the consequences of which are long overdue. Also, the government’s business stimulus and unemployment support packages, brought in in the wake of the bursting of the bubble due to CV-19 are scheduled to end in September.
Australia’s grim economic outlook following the pandemic
https://thehumornation.com/storage/2018/09/10-Weird-Things-That-Happen-Only-In-Australia-2-802×420.jpg
“Despite measures to mitigate the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, figures show the dire situation Australia’s economy is now in, with predictions it will take years to repair.”
“Australia lost a further 227,000 jobs between April and May, resulting in a total loss of 835,000 jobs in seasonally adjusted terms since March and a 0.7% jump in unemployment to 7.1%…
“The figures intensified the political debate about how to handle the expiry of jobkeeper in September…”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/18/australia-loses-227000-more-jobs-taking-coronavirus-unemployment-to-71
“New Zealand entered recession for the first time in almost a decade as the coronavirus pandemic led to the nation’s biggest quarterly contraction in 29 years…
“New Zealand is bracing for a severe contraction in the three months through June after it responded to the pandemic by closing its border and imposing a strict nationwide lockdown that stayed in place until mid-May.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-17/new-zealand-enters-first-recession-in-a-decade-as-virus-bites
I am sure this next quarter will be a lot worse!
It takes energy consumption to provide jobs!
I read Kim’s statement about uprising from below.
The problem with it is, in the old days info was slow, and a lot of people were simply stupid and they would just follow orders from their knights and the priests, who were often relatives of the knight.
Nowdays, people do not follow orders that easily. Coercion only works to some degree, and many people are simply too apathetic and cynical against any orders.
More likely, the haves will retreat to some key zones in defensible terrain, and will let the rebels run around for some time. The calculus has changed from the medieval times when peasants at region a did not know what was happening in region b.
As long as the internet is working and electricity is working. Once that is gone, oil will probably be mostly unavailable as well. We won’t be much better about knowing what is happening in other areas than in the past.
for those living in urban areas, once the rubbish collections stop, and no electrical pumping of water to drink, wash and flush the toilets (plus fight fires), it will be game over fairly quickly. uncollected dead, no refrigeration, will lead to collera, typhoid outbreaks and similar. weakened immune systems from stress, starvation amplifies the medical problems.
any survivors may stop to ponder what was all the fuss about some extra hearty flu virus?
Ummmmm…..television? The internet?
And of course, no reflection on anyone here, but perhaps you are not very familiar with internet comments sections such as at, say, Brietbart? Or a similar spot on the “left”. Just watch Jimmy Kimmy or some similar maiknstream tv/politics show. In five minutes it will have you wanting to neck yourself.
No. There is just as much stupidity and fasle beliefs and magical thinking and reflexive tribalism and oversensitive egoes and human spite and envy today – and in particular just as many human red buttons – as there ever was in the 12th C.
Well, there is a goal. The only one that makes any sense. That is to get the world population down to 2 billion. It’s going to take a bit of time, but it’s going to happen and the folks with money will live in paradise.
In paradise? How do they keep electricity or oil operating? Prices are already too low? How do they keep up the complex system, and in fact increase it, to get more out? How do they get “demand” up?
Paradise? I doubt it. I’ll tell you what “paradise” is: when you have developed boils all over your body as a result of exposure to some common tropical parasite and just as they have started to colonize the inside of your nose and rectum, a doctor turns up with a nice soothing cream and a four-week supply of an effective antibiotic.
That’s paradise!
True story or allegorical?
You are asking how I know? Well, don’t ask me how I know. It is the kind of experience that can make one very appreciative of modern medicine.
When things collapse, mod-med will be very much missed, because there is a world of bugs out there that are not very friendly. The one in question here is a very small insect that lives in grass around the tropical world (and in the African Med) and carries a parasite that enters the bloodstream and spreads rapidly causing the mentioned eruptions. I am not aware of what someone does without modern drugs. The limbs also get infected and swell like sausages and if left untreated it attacks the kidneys too. You don’t want to get it. I am now a bit leery of walking in long grass.
@Kim
Too bad they didn’t exterminate this insect like crazy like we exterminated the sabre-tooth tiger.
To have a goal assumes that somebody is in charge. I’m sorry to say that no one is in charge, the system is self-propelled and self-organising, driven by the actions of billions of people, each with their individual wants and needs.
If anything is in charge it’s good ol’ mother nature. She definitely has the whip hand in our race off the cliff face, and yes, the population will drop, but what makes you think it will stop at 2 billion, or that it will take “some time”? That’s not what the evidence of overshoot and collapse shows.
https://www.paypervids.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Population-limits-consequences-of-exceding-carrying-capaicty.jpg
If a population exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment, the result is a population crash. The sting in the tail is that the bigger the damage caused to the environment, the greater and faster the crash. And we have caused so very much damage.
Putting the carrying capacity of the environment to one side for just a minute, we are living inside an artificial system that allows us collectively to greatly exceed the Earth’s “natural” carrying capacity for primates. This holds as long as the system keeps working. The system might sputter along and settle into some new way to sustain itself and at least some of us—as probably 99% of people assume it will. But if and when it stop working completely—as some very smart people contend it must—then we may all get to experience a Wile E. Coyote moment.
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/02/97/39/0297393410218209b9f90fb4fb15a6a3–catholic-memes-road-runner.jpg
The one thing about humans in overshoot is that we are intelligent creatures that are aware of our predicament (we some of us are), we can have influence on how we react to the contraction, we don’t have to sit idly by. That said it is more likely that we will just make it worse. So plant your popcorn now as there is bound to be a shortage when you really need it. Keep the great commentary coming.
Niko
(well, some of us are).
Thanks mate!
Yes, as you point out, as individuals, perhaps we can make change. But for every one that decides to tread more lightly, a thousand more are fighting to gobble up whatever resources that person has foregone to use up in the struggle for survival. Same goes for nations, states, and empires. Cheers!
Jevons paradox