We would like to think that we can eliminate COVID-19, but doing so is far from certain. The medical system has not been successful in eliminating HIV/AIDS or influenza; the situation with COVID-19 may be similar.
We are discovering that people with COVID-19 are extremely hard to identify because a significant share of infections are very mild or completely without symptoms. Testing everyone to find the huge number of hidden cases cannot possibly work worldwide. As long as there is hidden COVID-19 elsewhere in the world, the benefit of identifying everyone with the illness in a particular area is limited. The disease simply bounces back, as soon as there is a reduction in containment efforts.
Figure 1. One-week average new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Israel, Spain, Belgium and Netherlands. Chart made using data as of August 8, 2020 using an Interactive Visualization available at https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ based on Johns Hopkins University CSSE database.
We are also discovering that efforts to contain what is essentially a hidden illness are very damaging to the world economy. Shutdowns in particular lead to many unemployed people and riots. Social distancing requirements can make investments unprofitable. Cutting off air flights leads to a huge loss of tourism and leaves farmers with the problem of how to get their fruit and vegetable crops picked without migrant workers. If COVID-19 is very widespread, contact tracing simply becomes an exercise in frustration.
Trying to identify the many asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 is surprisingly difficult. The cost is far higher than the cost of the testing devices.
At some point, we need to start lowering expectations regarding what can be done. The economy can protect a few members, but not everyone. Instead, emphasis should be on strengthening people’s immune systems. Surprisingly, there seems to be quite a bit that can be done. Higher vitamin D levels seem to be associated with fewer and less severe cases. Better diet, with more fruits and vegetables, is also likely to be helpful from an immunity point of view. Strangely enough, more close social contacts may also be helpful.
In the remainder of this post, I will explain a few pieces of the COVID-19 problem, together with my ideas for modifications to our current strategy.
Recent News About COVID-19 Has Been Disturbingly Bad
It is becoming increasingly clear that COVID-19 is likely to be here for quite some time. The World Health Organization’s director recently warned, “. . . there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be.” A recent Wall Street Journal article is titled, “Early Coronavirus Vaccine Supplies Likely Won’t Be Enough for Everyone at High Risk.” This article relates only to US citizens at high risk. Needless to say, creating enough vaccine for both high and low risk individuals, around the world, is a long way away.
We are also hearing that vaccines may be far less than 100% effective; 50% effective would be considered sufficient at this time. Two doses are likely to be needed; in fact, elderly patients may need three doses. The vaccine may not work for obese individuals. We don’t yet know how long immunity from the vaccines will last; a new round of injections may be needed each year.
A new report confirms that asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 are indeed able to spread the disease to others.
Furthermore, the financial sector is increasingly struggling with the adverse impact shutdowns are having on the economy. If it becomes necessary to completely “write off” the tourism industry, economies around the world will struggle with permanent job loss and debt defaults.
Shutdowns Don’t Work for Businesses and the Financial System
There are many issues involved:
(a) Shutdowns tend to lead to huge job loss. Riots follow, as soon as people have a chance to express their unhappiness with the situation.
(b) If countries stop importing migrant workers, there is likely to be a major loss of fruits and vegetables that farmers have planted. No matter how much money is printed, it does not replace these lost fruits and vegetables.
(c) Manufacturing supply lines don’t work if raw materials and parts are not available when needed. Because of this, a shutdown in one part of the world tends to have a ripple effect around the world.
(d) Social distancing requirements for businesses are problematic because they lead to less efficient use of available space. Businesses can serve fewer customers, so total revenue is likely to fall. Employees may need to be laid off. Fixed costs, such as debt, become more difficult to pay, making defaults more likely.
Shutdowns cause a major problem for the economy, because, with many people out of the workforce, the total amount of finished goods and services produced by the economy falls. Broken supply lines and reduced efficiency tend to make the problem worse. World GDP is the total amount of goods and services produced. Thus, by definition, total world GDP is reduced by shutdowns.
Governments can institute benefit programs for citizens to try to redistribute what goods and services are available, but this will not fix the underlying problem of many fewer goods and services actually being produced. Citizens will find that some shelves in stores are empty, and that many airline seats are unavailable. They will find that some goods are still unaffordable, even with government subsidies.
Governments can try to give loans to businesses to help them through the financial problems caused by new rules, such as social distancing, but it is doubtful this approach will lead to new investment. For example, if social distancing requirements mean that new buildings and vehicles can only be used in an inefficient manner, there will be little incentive for businesses to invest in new buildings and vehicles, even if low-interest loans are available.
Furthermore, even if there might be opportunities for new, more efficient businesses to be added, the subsidization of old inefficient businesses operating at far below capacity will tend to crowd out these new businesses.
People of Many Ages Soon Become Unhappy with Shutdowns
Young people expect hands-on learning experiences at universities. They also expect to be able to meet possible future marriage partners in social settings. They become increasingly unhappy, as shutdowns drag on.
The elderly need to be protected from COVID-19, but they also need to be able to see their families. Without social interaction, their overall health tends to decline.
We Are Kidding Ourselves if We Think a Vaccine Will Make the Worldwide COVID-19 Problem Disappear
Finding a vaccine that works for 100% of the world’s population seems extremely unlikely. Even if we do find a vaccine or drug treatment that works, being able to extend this solution to poor countries around the world is likely to be a slow process.
If we look back historically, pretty much all of the improvement in the US crude death rate (number of deaths divided by total population) has come from conquering infectious diseases.
Figure 2. Crude mortality rates in the United States in chart from Trends in Infectious Disease Mortality in the United States During the 20th Century, Armstrong et al., JAMA, 1999.
The catch is that since 1960, there hasn’t been an improvement in infectious disease mortality in the United States, according to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Society. As progress has been made on some longstanding diseases such as hepatitis, new infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS have arisen. Also, the biggest category of infectious disease remaining is “influenza and pneumonia,” and little progress has been made in reducing its death rate in the United States. Figure 3 shows one chart from the article.
Figure 3. Mortality due to influenza or HIV/AIDS, in chart from Infectious Disease Mortality Trends in the United States, 1980-2014 by Hansen et al., JAMA, 2016.
With respect to HIV/AIDS, it took from the early 1980s until 1997 to start to get the mortality rate down through drugs. A suitable vaccine has not yet been created.
Furthermore, even when the US was able to reduce the mortality from HIV/AIDS, this ability did not immediately spread to poor areas of the world, such as Sub-Saharan Africa. In Figure 4, we can see the bulge in Sub-Saharan Africa’s crude death rates (where HIV/AIDS was prevalent), relative to death rates in India, where HIV/AIDS was less of a problem.
Figure 4. Crude death rates for Sub-Saharan Africa, India, the United States, and the World from 1960 through 2018, based on World Bank data.
While the medical system was able to start reducing the mortality of HIV/AIDS in the United States about 1996-1997 (Figure 3, above), a 2016 article says that it was still very prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2013. Major issues included difficulty patients had in traveling to health care sites and a lack of trained personnel to administer the medication. We can expect these issues to continue if a vaccine is developed for COVID-19, especially if the new vaccine requires more than one injection, every year.
Another example is polio. A vaccine for polio was developed in 1955; the disease was eliminated in the US and other high income countries in about the next 25 years. The disease has still not been eliminated worldwide, however. Poor countries tend to use an oral form of the vaccine that can be easily administered by anyone. The problem with this oral vaccine is that it uses live viruses which themselves can cause outbreaks of polio. Cases not caused by the vaccine are still found in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
These examples suggest that even if a vaccine or fairly effective treatment for COVID-19 is discovered, we are kidding ourselves if we think the treatment will quickly transfer around the world. To transfer around the world, it will need to be extremely inexpensive and easy to administer. Even with these characteristics, the eradication of COVID-19 is likely to take a decade or more, unless the virus somehow disappears on its own.
The fact that COVID-19 transmits easily by people who show no symptoms means that even if COVID-19 is eradicated from the high-income world, it can return from the developing world, unless a large share of people in these advanced countries are immune to the disease. We seem to be far from that situation now. Perhaps this will change in a few years, but we cannot count on widespread immunity any time soon.
Containment Efforts for a Disease with Many Hidden Carriers Is Likely to Be Vastly More Expensive than One in Which Infected People Are Easily Identifiable
It is easy to misunderstand how expensive finding the many asymptomatic carriers of a disease is. The cost is far higher than the cost of the tests themselves, because the situation is quite different. If people have serious symptoms, they will want to stay home. They will want to give out the names of others, if they can see that doing so might prevent someone else from catching a serious illness.
We have the opposite situation, if we are trying to find people without symptoms, who might infect others. We need to:
- Identify all of these people who feel well but might infect others.
- Persuade these people who feel well to stay away from work or other activities.
- Somehow compensate these people for lost wages and perhaps extra living expenses, while they are in quarantine.
- Pay for all of the tests to find these individuals.
- Convince these well individuals to name those whom they have had contact with (often their friends), so that they can be tested and perhaps quarantined as well.
Perhaps a few draconian governments, such as China, can handle these problems by fiat, and not really compensate workers for being unable to work. In other countries, all of these costs are likely to be a problem. Because of inadequate compensation, exclusion from work is not likely to be well received. Quarantined people will not want to report which friends they have seen recently, if the friends are likely also to lose wages. In poor countries, the loss of income may mean the loss of the ability to feed a person’s family.
Another issue is that “quick tests” are likely to be used for contact tracing, since “PCR tests,” which tend to be more accurate, often require a week or more for laboratory processing. Unfortunately, quick tests for COVID-19 are not very accurate. (Also a CNN report.) If there are a lot of “false positives,” many people may be needlessly taken out of work. If there are a lot of “false negatives,” all of this testing will still miss a lot of carriers of COVID-19.
A Major Benefit of Rising Energy Consumption Seems to Be Better Control Over Infectious Diseases and a Falling Crude Death Rate
I often write about how the world’s self-organizing economy works. The growth in the world’s energy consumption since the advent of fossil fuels has been extremely important.
Figure 5. World Energy Consumption by Source, based on Vaclav Smil estimates from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects, together with BP Statistical Data on 1965 and subsequent
The growth in world energy consumption coincided with a virtual explosion in human population.
Figure 6. World Population Growth Through History. Chart by SUSPS.
One of the ways that fossil fuel energy is helpful for population growth is through drugs to fight epidemics. Another way is by making modern sanitation easy. A third way is by ramping up food supplies, so that more people can be fed.
Economic shutdowns lead to reduced energy consumption, partly because energy prices tend to fall too low for producers. They cut back on production because of unprofitability.
Figure 7. Weekly average spot oil prices for Brent, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Given this connection between energy supply and population, we should not be surprised if shutdowns tend to lead to an overall falling world population, even if COVID-19 by itself is expected to have a small mortality rate (perhaps 1% of those infected). Poor countries, especially, will find that laid off workers cannot afford adequate food supplies. This makes poor members of those economies more susceptible to diseases of many kinds and to starvation.
Epidemiologists Based Their Models on Diseases Which Are Easily Identifiable and Have High Mortality Rates
It is clear that an easily identifiable illness with a high mortality rate can be easily contained. A difficult-to-identify disease, which has a very low mortality rate for many segments of the population, is very different. Members of segments of the population who usually get only a light case of the disease are likely to become more and more unhappy as containment efforts drag on. Models based on very different types of pandemics are likely to be misleading.
We Need to Somehow Change Course
The message that has been disseminated has been, “With containment efforts plus vaccine, we can stop this disease.” In fact, this is unlikely for the foreseeable future. Continuing in the same direction that has not been working is a lot like banging one’s head against a wall. It cannot be expected to work.
Somehow, expectations need to be lowered regarding what containment efforts can do. The economy can perhaps protect a few high-risk people, but it cannot protect everyone. Unless COVID-19 stops by itself, a significant share of the world’s population can be expected to catch COVID-19. In fact, some people may get the disease multiple times over their lifetimes.
If we are forced to live with some level of COVID-19 (just as we are forced to live with some level of forest fires), we need to make this situation as painless as possible. For example,
- We need to find ways to make COVID-19 as asymptomatic as possible by easy changes to diet and lifestyle.
- We also need to find inexpensive treatments, especially ones that can be used outside of a hospital setting.
- We need to keep the world economy operating as best as possible, if we want to stay away from a world population crash for as long as possible.
We cannot continue to post articles which seem to say that a spike in COVID-19 cases is necessarily “bad.” It is simply the way the situation has to be, if we don’t really have an effective way of containing the coronavirus. The fact that young adults build up immunity, at least for a while, needs to be viewed as a plus.
Some Ideas Regarding Looking at the Situation Differently
(1) The Vitamin D Issue
There has been little publicity about the fact that people with higher vitamin D levels seem to have lighter cases of COVID-19. In fact, whole nations with higher vitamin D levels seem to have lower levels of deaths. Vitamin D strengthens the immune system. Sunlight raises vitamin D levels; fish liver oils and the flesh of fatty fishes also raise vitamin D levels.
Figure 8 shows cumulative deaths per million in a few low and high vitamin D level areas. The death rates are strikingly lower in the high vitamin D level countries.
Figure 8. COVID-19 deaths per million as of August 8, 2020 for selected countries, based on data from Johns Hopkins CSSE database.
The vitamin D issue may explain why dark skinned people (such as those from Southeast Asia and Africa) tend to get more severe cases of COVID-19 when they move to a low sunlight area such as the UK. Skin color is an adaptation to different levels of the sun’s rays in different parts of the world. People with darker skin color have more melanin in their skin. This makes the production of vitamin D less efficient, since equatorial regions receive more sunlight. The larger amount of melanin works well when dark-skinned people live in equatorial regions, but less well away from the equator. Vitamin D supplements might mitigate this difference.
It should be noted that the benefit of sunlight and vitamin D in protecting the immune system has long been known, especially with respect to flu-like diseases. In fact, the use of sunlight seems to have been helpful in mitigating the effects of the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918-1919, over 100 years ago!
One concern might be whether increased sunlight raises the risk of melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. I have not researched this extensively, but a 2016 study indicates that that sensible sun exposure, without getting sunburn, may decrease a person’s risk of melanoma, as well as provide protection against many other types of diseases. Non-melanoma skin cancers may increase, but the mortality risk of these skin cancers is very low. On balance, the study concludes that the public should be advised to work on getting blood levels of at least 30 ng/ml.
(2) Other Issues
Clearly, better health in general is helpful. Eating a diet with a lot of fruits and vegetables is helpful, as is getting plenty of exercise and sunshine. Losing weight will be helpful for many.
Having social contact with other people tends to be helpful for longevity in general. In fact, several studies indicate that church-goers tend to have better longevity than others. Churchgoers and those with many social contacts would seem to have more contact with microbes than others.
A recent article says, Common colds train the immune system to recognize COVID-19. Social distancing tends to eliminate common colds as well as COVID-19. Quite possibly social distancing is counterproductive, in terms of disease severity. Epidemiologists have likely never considered this issue, since they tend to consider only very brief social distancing requirements.
A person wonders how well the immune systems of elderly people who have been cut off from sharing microbes with others for months will work. Will these people now die when exposed to even very minor illnesses? Perhaps a slow transition is needed to bring families back into closer contact with their loved ones.
People’s immune systems can protect them from small influxes of viruses causing COVID-19, but not from large influxes of these viruses. Masks tend to protect against large influxes of the virus, and thus protect the wearer to a surprising extent. Models suggest that clear face shields also provide a considerable amount of this benefit. People with a high risk of very severe illness may want to wear both of these devices in settings they consider risky. Such a combination might protect them fairly well, even if others are not wearing masks.
Conclusions – What We Really Should Be Doing
Back at the time we first became aware of COVID-19, following the recommendations of epidemiologists probably made sense. Now that more information is unfolding, our approach to COVID-19 needs to change.
I have already laid out many of the things I think need to be done. One area that has been severely overlooked is raising vitamin D levels. This is being discussed in the medical literature, but it doesn’t seem to get into the popular press. Even though the connection is not 100% proven, and there are many details to be worked out, it would seem like people should start raising their vitamin D levels. There seems to be little problem with overdosing on vitamin D, except that sunburns are not good. Until we know more, a level of 30 ng/ml (equivalent to 75 nmol/L) might be a reasonable level to aim for. This is a little above the mean vitamin D level of Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
Social distancing requirements probably need to be phased out. A concern might be temporarily excessive patient loads for hospitals. Large group meetings may need to be limited for a time, until this problem can be overcome.
The Sun also Goes Behind a Cloud?
Japan’s economy shrank 7.8% in April-June from the preceding quarter, or at an annualized pace of 27.8%, the Cabinet Office said Monday, as private consumption and exports bore the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic.
The third consecutive decline on the quarter was also Japan’s biggest under gross domestic product data going back to 1955, exceeding the country’s 4.8% drop in January-March 2009 in the wake of the Lehman crisis.
Economists expected a decline of 7.3%, or an annualized fall of 26.3%. A big drop was anticipated following a state of emergency in April and May that kept many retail outlets closed, while exports were slammed by shutdowns in the U.S. and Europe.
– – –
Though Japan’s decline was less severe than in the U.S. and the U.K., where the economy shrank 9.5% and 20.4%, respectively, it was deeper than in Asian peers such as South Korea and China.
South Korea’s economy shrank 3.3% in the second quarter. The country, a top producer of memory chips, benefited from a surge in demand for personal computers as more people opted to work from home to avoid the risk of infection.
China’s economy rebounded with 3.2% growth on the year in April-June after a decline of 6.8% in January-March. Beijing’s draconian handling of coronavirus cases helped contain the outbreak faster, and reopen the economy earlier, than in other countries, economists said.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-GDP-contracts-annualized-27.8-in-April-June
“Thailand’s economy saw its biggest annual contraction in 22 years and a record quarterly fall in the April-June period, as the coronavirus pandemic and restriction measures hit tourism, exports and domestic activity, prompting an outlook downgrade.
“South-east Asia’s second-largest economy, which is heavily reliant on tourism and exports, shrank 12.2 per cent in the second quarter…”
https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2020/08/17/thai-economy-sees-biggest-contraction-since-asian-financial-crisis-in-q2/1894612
“Thailand protests: Hunger Games salute a sign of defiance as thousands rally in Bangkok in historic demand for change.”
https://news.sky.com/story/thailand-protests-hunger-games-salute-a-sign-of-defiance-as-thousands-rally-in-bangkok-in-historic-demand-for-change-12050610
The 12.2% shrinkage is relative to the prior year. It would be nice of every country used the same measurement.
No one is doing very well. We don’t really know whether China’s figures are right, either. They seem to overstate their figures. They are also building more things now, but they may be building unneeded things. Does this really add to GDP?
I once read that GDP is basically a measure of the commotion of money. By that definition, spending on useless projects does add to the GDP. It would seem that GDP is not the most accurate way to gauge the health of an econmy.
Japan works on building fancy roads that are practically never used. China builds a lot of homes that no one lives in. Many of them are too expensive for anyone to afford.
The US now seems to be building any number of Assisted Living Centers, some with Memory Care Centers. The current ones are struggling with low occupancy rates. At least this is speculation by investors (with abundant credit at low interest rates), rather than directly government sponsored ridiculous spending.
I am sure that each of us has ideas regarding what is useless spending. When I hear about expensive treatments for pets, it something put that in the category of useless spending, but it depends on a person’s priorities. A 78-year old told me that he owns four vehicles. I asked him, “Whatever for?” I am guessing that a couple may be older vehicles that he fixes up for shows, perhaps. A lot of people seem to own both a smallish automobile and a pickup truck.
The human population is coming to the point when it becomes an easy prey for other species: our availability of energy is becoming more and more dependent on complicated devices and we are no longer able to produce goods or food cheaply because of this rising complexity.
The humans are helpless, although the ownership of the mobile communication devices provides them false belief that they are stronger. When you look at the faces of today’s people, there is an increasing naivity radiating from them.
It is no wonder, when you realize that the majority of them does not recognize the energy decline as the culprit.
Nice summary,
Dennis L.
Dependence on medicines and specialty physicians for every little ailment adds to woes. I have talked to a couple of different people recently who have been in pain for long periods of time because their own specialty physician was not available (vacation, relocating office) and they felt that they couldn’t just go to someone else for what would seem to be a pretty simple analysis of what was wrong and a solution.
Supply chains that depend on one particular person being available are fragile. Drug supply chains are fragile, as are supply chains for keeping fresh water treatments available. I remember reading an analysis that showed that Australia imports its chemicals for fresh water treatments. I imagine a lot of other countries do as well.
maybe excessive energy use, rather than decline has been the culprit in the ultimate sense.
We used excess energy to rip the earth apart in search of ‘more energy’, convinced that it would deliver infinite wealth and prosperity
unfortunately that philosophy gave us the idea that the planet was property, to be converted into cash.
We even invented gods to prove it was so.
But we reckoned without microbial life proving to us that we are not the dominant species after all, and that other species have the same rights here as we do.
“…the planet was property…We even invented gods to prove it was so.”
Their god’s could act as real estate brokers offering one group of followers, in an oil rich region, the only piece of land which does not have a single drop of oil under it. That deal may not age well.
Time to reference another great poem by Friedrich von Schiller: “DieTheilung der Erde” (1795). The Gods divide the Earth among the peoples of men. One of the treasures of my library is a small book of Schiller’s collected poems, in the original spelling before the stupid “reformers” mangled the German tongue.
if the gods hadn’t put christian oil under muslim territory, far less trouble would have been caused
“maybe excessive energy use, rather than decline has been the culprit in the ultimate sense.”
I’m paraphrasing Nate Hagens who suggests that we don’t have a shortage of energy, but rather an overage of expectations.
Nate doesn’t understand dissipative structures.
I agree. In a dissipative structure, a shortage of energy leads to a fall in the ability to capture and use more energy, and we have a positive feedback loop going in the wrong direction, That’s how forests turn into deserts.
I stayed the weekend in a hotel in the prestigious St James’ area of London. This 240 bedroom hotel has (according to the bar man) typically 14 people staying during the week. It’s also not getting any better as the weeks go by. Quite shocking levels of occupancy.
Incredible video of Manhattan, boarded up:
https://twitter.com/tadgermania/status/1291717913980747776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1291717913980747776%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fghost-town-shocking-dystopian-video-nyc-shows-abandoned-and-boarded-5th-avenue
“The number of empty apartments for rent in Manhattan soared to their highest level in recent history, topping 13,000, as residents fled the city and landlords struggled to find new tenants.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/08/13/empty-apartments-in-manhattan-reach-record-high-topping-13000.html
Gail, I came upon this recent essay which seems to confirm what the video shows. Everything has closed down, museums, resturants, even the Lincoln Center. Influential figures like Dr. Osterholm hold New York as a model we should all emulate. What is the greater good? Not that it matters at this point, I suppose. We are all just passengers now.
NYC IS DEAD FOREVER. HERE’S WHY
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nyc-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher/?fbclid=IwAR1ceTngy84xlWX3IMyhHAfHZ40cecK6kgTTY4RCPujW1b6U7836WeBYde8
Yes, this is a disturbing story.
I am afraid the same thing may happen to the fancy areas of Chicago, too. Atlanta doesn’t have much of a fancy downtown area. Atlanta was listed as one of the most popular destination cities for those leaving New York City.
Emulating New York City for lockdowns would be crazy.
Let us set the wayback machine to 532 AD, Constantinople, and the Nika riots. The proximate cause was a horse race, a common trigger of small riots. But this one was bigger. The administration had raised taxes and reduced subsdies, to pay for their endless wars with Persia (sound familiar?) and the rioters were seriously annoyed..
So the problem spread, and there ensued widespread burning, looting, and private settling of scores (also sound familiar?). The local constabulary were unable to contain the problem, partly because of some ill considered legal reforms, but mostly because several prominent senators supported the rioters (still famiiar?), in the belief that the turmoil would allow them to depose the Emperor Justinian, whom they saw as a threat to their entrenched power (now where have we seen that recently?).
Justinian was ready to accept exile, but his Empress Theodors, a former tavern wench who knew the ways of the world, dissuaded him. So he called in his best generals, Belisarius and Narses, and gave the problem to them. Being good generals, they knew that the best victory is one you can achieve without fighting (the lesson of Quintus Fabius “Cunctator” was still taught in schools) and so some bags of gold, a little flattery, and a few pious condolences dissuaded the more rational of the rioters. (Can you say “reparations”?)
But the majority preferred to continue their rapine, and indeed put almost half the city to the torch. So the good generals handed the problem to a less good general, Mundus, who solved the problem his way, by executing the remaining rioters, all 30,000 of them.
Could it indeed come to that? Of course it could, but will it? I fear so. The Democrats have been trying to depose Trump for almost four years, and after every failure thay have not learned their lessons and thought again; they have doubled down. And at the end of that road lies a civil strife more deadly, and more damaging, than the War Between the States.
In a similarly troubled time, Friedrich von Schiller wrote:
Gefährlich ist’s den Leu zu wecken,
Und grimmig ist des Tigers Zahn,
Jedoch der schrecklichste der Schrecken
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn.
(Das Lied von der Glocke, 1799, lines 374 to 377)
I pray that we do not come to that narrow pass. Judge of the Nations, spare us yet … lest we forget, lest we forget.
On a happier afternote: when told that the rioters wanted to kill her, Theodora made this immortal reply: ‘Kalon entaphion he basileia’. “Empire is a fine shroud”. And yes, she is another of my strong woman heroes.
Indeed historic parallels rhyme! Thanks.
as a manhattan dweller, i have to say this is stale info. The department stores are open! FWIW. That said, I’m told that 3x as many tenants in my building are moving out vs. moving in.
So the longer-term outlook is not good.
I thought the reference a good, well reasoned essay. But the comments were much more fun. All the New Yorkers disagreeing, with zero facts, a whole heap of arrogance, and not a shred of courtesy. That’s been also my experience: New Yorkers are the rudest people in the world. I hope they stay there and live in the slum of their own creation.
I have not been keeping up with what is going on in NY. These boarded up properties – is it permanent or temporary? Or a mix of both depending on how things pan out?
It was to a considerable extent a temporary situation in June, when there was a concern about riots. The situation seems to be better now.
I saw a comment that this video was from early June, when stores were boarded up because of concern for protests. The situation is better now.
The video is thus not really right, as a representation of the current situation.
There are mass protests in Belarus after a presidential election one week ago.
Lukashenko claims that the protest leaders are foreign agents and that NATO is building up troops at the borders of Belarus.
He has ordered troops to the borders.
Putin has promised to defend Belarus, while also claiming foreign influence behind the unrest.
Things are a bit surreal and dangerous.
Putin should send in the troops, reunite Belarus with the Rodina, and inform NATO that any further meddling will be regarded as an act of war. May God and his Holy Archangel, Saint Michael, bless, preserve, and defend Svataya Rus, Holy Russia.
That’s certainly a point of view, Robert.
Any further meddling from NATO and Putin may move the frontier back to the Oder–Neisse line. The understanding was that the Western Alliance was not supposed to move further east than that.
Russian Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin have complained bitterly about the expansion of NATO towards their borders despite what they had believed were assurances to the contrary. “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?” Putin said at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in 2007.“No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are these guarantees?”
As the newly declassified documents show, the Russians might have had a point. While it was previously understood that Secretary of State James Baker’s assurance to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “not one inch eastward” during a February 9, 1990, meeting was only in the context of German reunification, the new documents show that this was not the case.
Gorbachev only accepted German reunification—over which the Soviet Union had a legal right to veto under treaty—because he received assurances that NATO would not expand after he withdrew his forces from Eastern Europe from James Baker, President George H.W. Bush, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the CIA Director Robert Gates, French President Francois Mitterrand, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, British foreign minister Douglas Hurd, British Prime Minister John Major, and NATO secretary-general Manfred Woerner.
All those Eastern European countries liberated 30 years ago from socialism under the Warsaw Pact, only to be returned now to socialism under the EU. They must be wondering where they all went wrong.
Guarantees from Western leaders are obviously not worth the paper they are printed on. But if ever the strategic tables are turned, the Russians will be eager to expand their security zone again. And some of the locals may even welcome them back.
At least from few TV shots the anti gov demonstrations don’t seem of reach uber-massive extent needed to topple “the regime” so far. Granted, most of the pop is tired from “intact” single ruler situation, but they are not that stupid now, voluntarily rushing to abyss and end up like Ukraine or most of the impoverished former USSR -stans. Belarus is relatively rich country in PP perceived living standards (minus western on credit high end trinkets).
It’s just another color revolution attempt via foreign NGOs, the ring leaders of these youth protesters ring the usual bells, trashy cosmo women driving msm attention, empty exalted rhetoric, ..
Western Europe is only interested in possible hostile market take over of the assets and the enslaving of newly impoverished workforce by then (e.g. there are millions of Ukraine workers inside CEE factories on sub-minimal wage and quasi legal status)..
On today’s “news” the autocrats of the EU have just announced “sanctions” against as yet unnamed individuals in Byelorussia with whose politics they disagree. Will these people be informed of the charges against them? Will they be permitted to make their case in open court, call witnesses in their defence, and confront their accusers in public as justice requires? Of course not: these “sanctions” are bills of attainder, which at one time every Western polity condemned.
And imposed by whom? By people who are elected by nobody, answerable to nobody, and governed by no legal or constitutional oversight. They have, indeed, power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages. And their puppet masters? I think most of us know who they are. We fought two world wars to free Europe of precisely this tyranny of unaccountable apparatchiks that sought to control our lives and our destinies. Time again, I think, to water the tree of liberty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPUkQLojSA8
Nature took a time out from busting our arses via super high temps in our neck of the woods, and gave us a light show with thunder. Take a tiny time out to enjoy it.
No rain, however?
A smattering of trace amounts of rain for brief moments. Although it would have been great if it had rained a lot to reduce chance of fire from lightening.
Jewellers in the traditionally lucrative Indian gold market are struggling — even while the metal’s value skyrockets — as coronavirus fears keep sales down, craftsmen at home and shops shuttered.
Months after India lifted its strict lockdown, the country’s biggest gold market Zaveri Bazaar remains desolate, with most stores closed and no customers in sight.
“We have been running this shop for the last 40 years and I have never seen the business hit such lows,” said 75-year-old Madhubhai Shah, one of only a handful of jewellers who decided to reopen.
The Mumbai market was hit hard by the March lockdown, which saw millions of migrant workers — including many gold craftsmen — flee India’s cities as their income dried up.
“Seventy percent of our artisans have left for their villages and manufacturing units are all closed,” Shah told AFP.
And with gold prices hitting record highs after soaring around 30 percent this year, there is little incentive for customers to splash out on jewellery.
https://news.yahoo.com/bling-no-longer-king-india-035327614.html
Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.
The finding, published today, Aug. 13, in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, means that Greenland’s glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers.
“We’ve been looking at these remote sensing observations to study how ice discharge and accumulation have varied,” said Michalea King, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center. “And what we’ve found is that the ice that’s discharging into the ocean is far surpassing the snow that’s accumulating on the surface of the ice sheet.”
King and other researchers analyzed monthly satellite data from more than 200 large glaciers draining into the ocean around Greenland. Their observations show how much ice breaks off into icebergs or melts from the glaciers into the ocean. They also show the amount of snowfall each year—the way these glaciers get replenished.
The researchers found that, throughout the 1980s and 90s, snow gained through accumulation and ice melted or calved from glaciers were mostly in balance, keeping the ice sheet intact. Through those decades, the researchers found, the ice sheets generally lost about 450 gigatons (about 450 billion tons) of ice each year from flowing outlet glaciers, which was replaced with snowfall.
“We are measuring the pulse of the ice sheet—how much ice glaciers drain at the edges of the ice sheet—which increases in the summer. And what we see is that it was relatively steady until a big increase in ice discharging to the ocean during a short five- to six-year period,” King said.
The researchers’ analysis found that the baseline of that pulse—the amount of ice being lost each year—started increasing steadily around 2000, so that the glaciers were losing about 500 gigatons each year. Snowfall did not increase at the same time, and over the last decade, the rate of ice loss from glaciers has stayed about the same—meaning the ice sheet has been losing ice more rapidly than it’s being replenished.
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-greenland-ice-sheet.html
Tipping points have been passed that can’t be taken back. Although still in the initial stages, the gun has been fired so to speak. Now we just watch it unfold to see how fast it occurs and what the new normal will be like.
Climate models work about as well as viral models = GIGO. The interconnections are beyond us, “tipping point” meh. Watch thongs unfold, yes – same as it ever was. Luckily (some) humans are durable and adaptable.
That’s sobering.
Dennis L.
Yes, it is sobering and how to proceed ahead?…Professor McPherson suggests in a manner the befits the predicament….treating humanely our family, friends, neighbors, and working to assure the community can exist as best as it come from the outcome(s) ahead…whatever the case may be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Xh8WCm7IE
Not to worry, the upcoming grand solar minimum will take care of the problem
/sarc
good point (sarc or no sarc doesn’t matter), the negative feedback from the 2020s being in an extreme low point of the solar cycle could reverse the ice loss.
or not.
the science is uncertain, since solar/global weather is a chayotic system which is not fully understood by scientists.
NASA scientists say the solar minimum is a real thing.
we should trust the science, but unfortunately the science does not fully understand 100% of the story.
There is an underlying upward trend in global temperature. This can be determined by removing the fluctuations caused by factors (including solar variations) other than increasing GHGs. There is almost no chance of a solar minimum masking that increase for a decade.
At some point, the earth goes back to an ice age, however. Humans lived through ice ages before. Humans seem to be pretty adaptable to changing climates.
The ice sheet on Antarctica started forming about 10 M years ago, once Antarctica had positioned itself over the South Pole.
You could argue that we are still in the current ice age. It started about 2.6 M years ago and for 1.6 M years oscillated on a 40,000 cycle (one of the Milankovitch cycles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles). About 1 M years ago the oscillations switched to a 100,000 cycle, another one of the Milankovitch cycles, whereby the icesheets were near a maximum (stadials) for 90,000 years and minimum (interstadials) for 10,000 years, roughly speaking. The current interstadial is now about 12,000 years long, so we are overdue going back to ice expansion.
But I doubt that will ever happen again, unless the Earth can find a way to soak up all the excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. It took millions of years to turn it into oil / coal /gas last time, so I would not count on that happening any time soon.
Sorry Gail, but that is so unlikely. As long as humans are around (and I’m not projecting how long that will be) there will be no ice age; it is quite simple for humans, with at least some industrial capability, to produce enough GHGs to make an ice age impossible (it would only need to keep the proportion at way less than pre-industrial levels). So, I would predict (without ever being able to say I told you so) that humans will never again see an ice age, unless there is some horrendous natural event. Even if I’m wrong, there would be no industrial technological society (or at least not a global one) at that point.
According to the current incarnation of the theory named after Milankovitch, whether the earth returns to glacial conditions or not depends totally on whether the summer sun can keep melting all the snow that falls each winter at latitudes around 65º north—especially in North America. And that depends greatly on how much sun shines up there each summer and how warm it gets. And that in turn depends greatly on the obliquity, or tilt, of the earth’s axis with respect to the plane of its orbit.
For anyone interested in the details, one of my heroes Javier gave a thorough account of how the obliquity cycle works and how this affects the c-l-i-m-a-t-e. But the gist is:
Changes due to obliquity have the effect of redistributing insolation between different latitudes following an obliquity cycle of 41,000 years. When obliquity was maximal 9,500 years ago, both poles received more insolation due to obliquity, while the tropics received less. Obliquity also affects seasonality, at maximal axial tilt, there is an increased difference between summer and winter at high latitudes. But unlike precession changes, obliquity alters the amount of annual insolation at different latitudes in a 41,000 year cycle. This is represented by the background color of figure 34, that shows how the polar regions received increasing insolation from 30,000 yr BP to 9,500 yr BP. Since then, and for the next 11,500 years, the poles will be receiving decreasing insolation. Unlike precessional insolation changes, obliquity changes are symmetrical. Although the annual insolation change is not too large, it accumulates over tens of thousands of years and the total change is staggering, creating a huge insolation deficit or surplus. This changes the equator-to-pole temperature gradient, and is largely responsible for entering and exiting glacial periods (Tzedakis et al., 2017) and for the general evolution of global temperatures and climate during the Holocene. Obliquity changes contribute to the lack of warming of Antarctica during the Holocene, despite increasing Southern Hemisphere summer insolation. Ultimately obliquity changes will be responsible for the glacial inception that will put an end to the Holocene interglacial in the distant future.
In short, due to relentlessly declining obliquity, the sun is shining a little bit less strongly at latitudes above 65º north each year and has been doing so every year since the time of the Holocene Climatic Optimum (a warm period during roughly 9,000 to 5,000 years BP, with a thermal maximum around 8000 years BP.) Among the Milankovitch orbital parameters, Obliquity rules, and as a result, we are now at the fag end of the Holocene, a sub-period known as the Neoglacial.
https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/figure-37.png
Here the most recent report from the Danish Arctic research institutions’ Polar Portal website. Interpret the data how you will.Personally, it gives me no cause for alarm.
http://polarportal.dk/en/news/2019-season-report/
If there’s a problem with melting land ice, it will show up in sea level rise. Right?
Representative tide gauges are among the highest-quality measurement records of coastal sea-level in the world The sea-level trends measured using date from these gauges are almost perfectly linear since the 1920s or before, with rates averaging less than 1.5 mm/year.
http://sealevel.info/avgslr.html
Worry or lament all you want, or believe Guy and panic to the point where wet your underwear for all I care. The best data we have seems to show a small and reasonably steady pace of sea level rise and therefore modest warming since the early 19th century—the end of an era known as The Little Ice Age.
Unfortunately, the rise is not distributed evenly along the Coastlines of the Planet. To write it’s only 1.5 mm a year, no to worry is hardly the case.
Seems there are those that worry…
Pentagon Warns of Dire Risk to Bases, Troops From Climate Change
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-18/in-dire-report-pentagon-warns-bases-imperiled-by-climate-change
The U.S. Defense Department has issued a dire report on how climate change could affect the nation’s armed forces and security, warning that rising seas could inundate coastal bases and drought-fueled wildfires could endanger those that are inland.
The 22-page assessment delivered to Congress on Thursday says about two-thirds of 79 mission-essential military installations in the U.S. that were reviewed are vulnerable now or in the future to flooding and more than half are at risk from drought. About half also are at risk from wildfires, including the threat of mudslides and erosion from rains after the blazes.
The Department of Defense is concerned…
We live in a world with ecosystems of all types being dissipative structures. They all keep changing, over time. We cannot wipe out fires or droughts; they are part of natural cycles.
Our mistake was to assume that the future would be constant. That is not the way natural systems work.
Two thirds are at risk from flooding, and one half are at risk from drought. According to my limited mathematical brain, that means at least one sixth are at risk from both flooding and drought. And we are relying on these people to defend the “free world”?
Unfortunately, the rise is not distributed evenly along the Coastlines of the Planet. To write it’s only 1.5 mm a year, no to worry is hardly the case.
An average rise of 1.5mm a year, 15mm a decade, six inches per century is what we have been experiencing for the past 200 years. The rise is a bit more in some regions and a bit less in others. Sea level is actually falling in some places, most notably around the Baltic Sea and the shore of Hudson Bay, as the surrounding land is still rising rising gently in response to the lifting of the burden of the ice caps ten thousand or more years ago.
If sea level starts rising at 10mm a year, a meter per century, governments will have to take drastic measures along coasts everywhere. This could happen. Global sea level as been several meters higher than today over the past few thousand years. But worrying about the possibility won’t help. And the phenomena can’t be controlled. The idea that we can live on a planet with ambient conditions that are totally stable and controllable is a childish fantasy that is pushed on the gullible and the dumbed down by the propaganda machine.
The Department of Defense is always on the lookout for more funding based on any excuse they can get away with. Also, they make good use of the advice given in The Art of War to practice deception at every turn just for practice’s sake..
Why would you make them a go-to source for backing on any subject?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/d9/af/63d9afbda8b75138f2f6fc7bfd22ac03.jpg
Mike we are technically still in an ice age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record
The earths temperature has many ‘input’ factors and whether any of us survive the changes is not our decison to make, all we can do is tinker around the edges, mostly for profit and power it would appear, so enjoy the thrill of the ride.
Expect record heat from California to Texas this weekend
By Allison Chinchar, CNN Meteorology
More than 80 million people are under excessive heat alerts this weekend with record temperatures possible in over 10 states.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Texas. Heat advisories are in place for some surrounding states, including Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
“Nearly 100 daily record highs are in jeopardy over the weekend, and even more record heat is expected next week as the heat remains locked over much of the western half of the country,” said Haley Brink, CNN meteorologist.
Some cities like El Paso and Abilene, Texas, will likely only have record-breaking heat one day this weekend. However, Las Vegas and Yuma, Arizona, could break temperature records for the next 3 days straight.
BREAKING: No matter how you slice it, this is now the hottest summer to date in Phoenix, Arizona. #azwx pic.twitter.com/Ly2jLKg4rk
— NWS Phoenix (@NWSPhoenix) August 11, 2020
We know it’s simmering in the Southwest, but Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, aren’t exactly known for being hot places. This weekend, however, they both have a chance to break records.
Yep, I feel the Technical Ice Age
People who set up electric grids need to plan for this kind of thing. Temperatures fluctuate and a particular pattern can affect a wide area.
California has set up a system based on, “We will just import more electricity from elsewhere, if ours runs short.” No wonder it has a problem.
“We will just import more electricity from elsewhere, if ours runs short.”
That’s Norway’s plan for most things except oil and fish …
Regardless of whether we’re technically in the dregs of the last ice age, it is currently in our hands to avoid another, provided there isn’t some catastrophic single event which plunges us essentially immediately down that road.
Mike, why do you think “it is in our hands”? What could we do to forestall the way things are going to play out, realistically?
Lidia, avoiding an ice age is in our hands because we only need to keep GHGs above the level needed to bring on an ice age with natural variation. We will have the ability to do that for as long as industrial civilisation lasts, maybe longer.
Mike, CO2 is not a climate control knob. Ocean temperature drives atmospheric CO2, not the other way around. Propagandists have been lying to you all your life, and it’s understandable that you believe some of the lies, but now I’ve given you an inconvenient fact, so you have a rare opportunity to to revise your understanding. Lucky you.
https://citytoday.news/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/josh-knobs-oct4.jpg
If they’ve been lying to me all my life then the same applies to you, Tim. We can fairly easily (for as long as industrial civilisation lasts) avoid an ice age. Mind you, for as long as industrial civilisation lasts, there will be no cooling of our biosphere without a conscious attempt to do so.
So about three months, then…
Lidia, in my view you have the right of this argument. Our future is not in our hands; the global ecosystem is still far, far beyond our understanding, and without that understanding there can be no effective control. James Gleik tried to explain that in 1987; he was ignored because he failed to flatter our entrenched arrogance. But if our future is in anyone’s hands, it is in Gaia’s; or, as I would say, In the Hand of the Goddess.
Of course, I’ve never stated that. It is only in the matter of avoiding an ice-age that we have that degree of control, currently (absent some catastrophic natural event).
as there seems to be about 40k years between the cold trough of ice ages, our 1000 year shenanigans with co2 would hardly seem to make much difference in the grand scheme of things.
seems to me we appear to mix up geological time with human history time.
political/science/industry/religion now will not have the slightest effect on the ice sheets that will cover us 20k years from now
+++++
Norman, I think most of us, including Mike Roberts whose correction of my last post I fully accept, are pretty much on the same page. We merely prefer to emphasise different paragraphs, and that is surely one of the things that enriches this newsgroup.
“Oil companies wonder if it’s worth looking for oil anymore:
“As the coronavirus ravages economies and cripples demand, European oil majors have made some uncomfortable admissions in recent months: oil and gas worth billions of dollars might never be pumped out of the ground.”
https://www.livemint.com/market/commodities/oil-companies-wonder-if-it-s-worth-looking-for-oil-anymore-11597561552490.html
“…while West Texas plunged into chaos, some shale founders were apparently cutting fat checks. “On July 7, the board of directors at Texas fracking sand supplier Hi-Crush granted nearly $3 million in bonuses to four top executives, including $1.35 million for CEO and founder Robert Rasmus,”
““Five days later, the company declared bankruptcy.””
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Shale-Executives-Make-Millions-As-Their-Company-Goes-Bankrupt.html
The report doesn’t say if there was any pension plan for the employees. This is typically something that gets “shorted.”
Sorry for double post if Harry or others already filed it..
“Saudi Wealth Fund Ditches Blue-Chip Stocks, Adds ETFs
Public Investment Fund bought utility, materials ETFs
Fund exited positions in Citigroup, Facebook, BP, Boeing”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-14/saudi-wealth-fund-ditches-blue-chip-stocks-adds-etfs
How are ETFs long term solutions? They are based on derivatives “working,” aren’t they?
Lots of indications that Saudi finances are dire – VAT up from 5% to 15%, demand that Pakistan re-pay $3bn loan early, mass deportation of migrant workers etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/aug/04/we-drink-from-the-toilet-migrants-tell-of-hellish-saudi-detention-centres
A person needs to be able to pay bribes to get reasonable treatment. The situation does indeed look pretty awful.
Pay bribes….yes, because of imposition of costs. A bribe exists because there is a cost, in some countries the tax payers covers it and in other places it’s between the parties involved directly.
Bribes do make sense in this case, as you explain the situation.
Even within US colonies (Guam), a Thai Stick given to the auto registration guy always got a pass.
Bribes are a cultural norm.
On the plus side, the oil not pumped out of the ground is probably worth far more to the environment than the oil pumped out is to us.
“Diane Lau is among tens of thousands of Hongkongers struggling to make ends meet after the coronavirus pandemic hit her city on the heels of anti-government protests that began in June 2019.”
Video
https://www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3097474/jobless-struggle-make-ends-meet-hong-kong-city-battles-coronavirus-and
“A spike in new coronavirus cases in South Korea prompted authorities to reimpose tighter social distancing curbs in Seoul but that did not stop thousands of demonstrators from protesting against President Moon Jae-in’s policies on Saturday.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/anti-gov-protests-seoul-increasing-coronavirus-risk-200815092801571.html
“The Jakarta Police have apprehended seven alleged provocateurs at a rally protesting the controversial omnibus bill on job creation in front of the House of Representatives complex in Central Jakarta on Friday… Thousands of protesters comprising students and laborers gathered at the legislative complex in Senayan…”
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/08/15/jakarta-police-apprehend-seven-alleged-provocateurs-in-rally-protesting-jobs-bill.html
“Thai protesters have broken a long-standing taboo, risking lengthy jail terms to criticise the king, after weeks of student-led pro-democracy rallies that have swept across the country.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/12/thailand-protesters-cross-the-rubicon-and-risk-all-to-criticise-the-monarchy
Unfortunately, changing the king is unlikely to fix the underlying problems.
If a King has any influence, one is in a primitive political system.
Remember the French Revolution?
That was over 200 years ago.
The oldest human responses: nominate a scapegoat and kill it, or tear down the old gods and put new ones in their place.
Hands up those who think we are anything other than Neolithic people in a thin disguise…..
Remember the French Revolution?
That was over 200 years ago.
Sorry, it was a bit before my time.
It was responsible for such well-known sayings as “Let them eat cake” and “It’s good to be the king.”
My ancestors believed the King could solve most current problems by offering himself to the Druids as a human sacrifice. Or, at least, so the Druids told us. There is a secret history that says William II was a pagan, and did indeed so offer himself in 1100. Frankly, I don’t believe it.
Containment efforts not really working.
“Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said on Friday that …in total, three out of four Chileans – 14 million people – were at present beneficiaries of some form of social support.”
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/08/15/chile-some-14-million-have-received-some-form-of-social-support
“Peru’s economy contracted 18.06% in June versus the same period a year earlier, the South American country’s government said on Saturday, the fourth straight month of contraction due to the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-peru-economy-growth/perus-economy-contracts-18-06-in-june-on-coronavirus-impact-idUKKCN25B0R4
“Close to 1,000 delivery workers for SoftBank-backed Colombian mobile application Rappi went on strike in the capital Bogota on Saturday to protest what they called unfair working conditions.
“…Rappi counts on some 50,000 couriers, known as Rappitenderos, to deliver groceries and take-away meals, among other services, in the Andean country. Many are Venezuelan migrants who have fled the social and economic crisis at home.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-rappi-colombia/rappi-delivery-workers-in-colombias-bogota-strike-over-conditions-idUKKCN25B0ZV
“A small but growing number of people in the coastal town of La Guaira, just a few minutes from the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, have turned to the sea for sustenance since the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down the Caribbean nation’s already miserable economy.”
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/venezuelans-brave-open-sea-tubes-fishing-survival-72395440
These poor countries cannot really help their people very much.
Everywhere we run into contraction!
How long after contraction before the average Joe,Jose, Dieter feels the pain? Most people in my circles are clueless to things coming down the pipe and when I try to explain it to them I am written off as a doomer! I think we have about 2 months! Tops! Unless we can get the printing machine going…
You are most definitely a doomer, Dan. We have at least three months of quasi-BAU followed by six months of pseudo-BAU!
Personally, I’ve given up trying to reason with people who still see a light at the end of the tunnel. We will all have to deal with the situation as it manifests. Until then some will want to prepare, some will want to worry, and others will prefer to stay in their comfort zone for as long as they can.
“…thanks to the fools’ paradise that is the furlough scheme, the tsunami of job losses has yet to hit us. But it will do this autumn, when the furlough scheme is unwound. Add several million unemployed, and the 20 percent contraction in the economy is going to look a little less abstract.
“If you think the past ten years were an age of ‘austerity’, it is nothing compared with what is coming.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/15/phoney-depression-coming-close-soon-enough-will-real-painful/
“Two million viable jobs will be needlessly lost under the government’s plan to end its flagship jobs support scheme, Boris Johnson is being warned on Sunday, amid cross-party demands for further emergency help.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/16/end-of-uk-furlough-scheme-means-needless-loss-of-2-million-jobs
“Ministers are ‘concerned’ about Rolls-Royce’s precarious financial position, City sources claim.
“Investment bankers said they have heard rumours the UK Government is ‘starting to get worried’ about the jet engine maker.”
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8630665/Rolls-Royce-debt-crisis-rings-alarm-bells-Whitehall.html
Harry, many years ago Rolls Royce made a decision that seemed good at the time. The airlines, especially the smaller regional ones, were keeping planes in the sky for years longer than originally estimated. Of course, that meant fewer new aeroplane purchases, and fewer engines sold.
So they decided to stop selling engines, and start selling time. The airlines got the engines at a huge discount, but had to pay per hour in the air. This proved a very good arrangement, for Rolls Royce of course, but also for the airlines, since they could pay out of income rather than capital …
Until it was virus time.
If the jobs need a “job support scheme” in what sense are they viable? Guardian doublespeak strikes again.
At this juncture, I don’t believe that anyone is thinking clearly:and the poor hacks who write for The Guardian always struggle at the best of times (with a few honourable exceptions.)
They would be more accurately described as ‘formerly viable ‘ jobs and companies.
I fear the slide in the UK cannot possibly be arrested.
Meanwhile, huge numbers of African and Asian ‘asylum seekers’ are still trying to push their way in: what on earth will there be for them to actually do here? bury the dead?
“Groceries were 4.5% more expensive in June 2020 in the US than they were in February 2020, the month before the coronavirus pandemic was declared a national emergency in the United States. And the prices of some items rose more than twice as much.”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/08/15/19-groceries-driving-up-your-bill-the-most-during-pandemic/42206031/
“China has officially launched a new version of “Clean Your Plate Campaign” flagged by Chinese President Xi Jinping, sparking speculation that the world’s most populous country faces food crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic.”
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/china-launches-clean-your-plate-campaign-is-it-facing-food-crisis
Check this out
A restaurant in central China has apologised for encouraging diners to weigh themselves and then order food accordingly.
The policy was introduced after a national campaign against food waste was launched.
The beef restaurant in the city of Changsha placed two large scales at its entrance this week.
It then asked diners to enter their measurements into an app that would then suggest menu items accordingly.
Signs reading “be thrifty and diligent, promote empty plates” and “operation empty plate” were pinned up.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-53792871
China is irritatingly opaque for a news-glutton like me. There are a lot of articles and tidbits of info suggesting that they really are struggling with grain supplies but it is impossible to know how serious the situation is. This is one from today:
“Concerns are mounting about China’s grain supply this year, despite government assurances that the summer harvest was at ‘an all-time high’
“Output has been hit by drought and heavy rains and many farmers are hoarding crops in expectation that prices will continue rising because of low supply, traders say.”
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3097623/china-drought-heavy-rains-spark-concern-over-grain-supply-xi
The Taiwan News ran this article on August 13, 2020: China facing food shortage after months of flooding, infestations
The article also mentions that food prices have increased about 10% from July a year ago, suggesting that even with imports, supply is not keeping up with demand.
“‘When I first arrived in LA 40 years ago, the town smelled of orange blossoms. Now the streets stink of urine. There is a beautiful park in Westwood but you can’t go there because there are people slumped on the ground and you step on a carpet of needles.
“‘White flight is real. The elites and middle classes are leaving. People are taking losses on the sales of their homes to get out.'”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8631063/Hollywood-Apocalypse-rich-famous-fleeing-droves.html
“… one by one, the businesses that once buoyed Gallup [New Mexico] have fallen like dominoes. By year’s end, the area’s remaining major employers will close their doors, too. It’s salt in the wound for an area that has already been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.”
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/coronavirus/gallup-officials-fear-economic-collapse-will-further-hurt-area/article_6a614634-dc0f-11ea-bc88-6bd277958dcf.html
Shutting down a refinery and electric utility will certainly hurt the area. It is hard to find other sources of income in the area.
Harry—I dont doubt there’s a thread of truth in what you say, but the UK Daily Mail is one of the worst sources for balanced information on any subject
The Express and the Mail use headlines to sell papers to a hungry audience
Oh, for sure it is hyperbolic and the most dreadful rag but then most of the news sources I post will push *someone’s* buttons. I thought the article itself was pretty good. Nicely illuminates the story of fraying social cohesion in the US.
“The spike in gun violence in New York City continued unabated this weekend, with several dozen people shot in less than a 48-hour window…
“In the last four weeks, shooting incidents in the city are up nearly triple versus the same period last year, continuing a pattern seen since early June, as the city’s coronavirus lockdown began to ease…”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/at-least-14-shootings-in-nyc-leave-2-dead-since-friday-night/2569113/%3famp
the UK Daily Mail is one of the worst sources for balanced information on any subject.
Really? I find it invaluable for the latest on Megan and Harry! Apart from that, it is sensationalist and unreliable, but no more so than most other newspapers. The main difference is that it departs further than official narratives than the Times, Guardian or Telegraph do. Basically, they are all controlled limited-hangout propaganda organs with little space for balance reportage and shadows of their former greatness.
I give the Mail considerable credit for being the first, and probably the only UK newspaper of note to review 9/11 Revealed: Challenging Facts Behind the War on Terror by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan. (Nafeez Ahmed’s books The War on Freedom and The War on Truth were not reviewed at all in the mainstream press in the anglosphere, although a review of the first book written by Gore Vidal for Rome’s La Republicans was reproduced in The Observer.)
But your claim is so extraordinary that you really should back it up with a short list of what you regard as the best sources for balanced information, just so we can all have a chuckle.
And please don’t list the NYT. In 2017, they replaced their “Fair and Balanced” motto with “Most Watched, Most Trusted.”
eye rolling time again on the WTC
You can sneer at 9-Eleven truth all you like, but that controlled demolition set the stage for the present one, and this time you, your children and your grandchildren are stuck inside the huge structure (composed entirely of Leonardo Sticks by some accounts) as it falls into its own footprint at close to freefall speed.
Normies preferred doublethink to rational analysis then, and they are still clinging to it now, because the reality of what is going to happen to society, the economy and normal norm life is far to terrifying to comprehend.
Orwell was so insightful about the human condition. Some people think he was prescient because they can see elements of what he wrote about in fiction in today’s world. But I think he was simply an excellent observer of what was going on in his own society in his own time. He was able things to see what normies are blind to, and he only felt able to describe what he saw using the medium of fiction because nobody, least of all the good people at Secker & Warburg and Penguin Books, would have taken him seriously if he had declared that WW2 was actually won by totalitarianism.
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself — that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”
― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
please visit your plots conspiracies and hoaxes on someone else.
you demean yourself and insult my limited intelligence
https://www.biography.com/activist/helen-keller
Can we please have a moratorium on the use of the word “normies”?
It makes me feel like I’m back in school and if you are on an ego-trip about being the sort of person who can see what the mainstream cannot then your objectivity is questionable.
OK, it’s the Daily Mail, the paper with the unreadable website dedicated to advertisers rather than news. But I made the same observation on visiting San Francisco over 25 years ago, and even wrote it up in my trip report. If you want my opinion, here it is: the US was always a third world country; its exceptionalism was because it was a rich third world country. Now that wealth is going away, and the pathologies that used to be confined to the inner city ghettos are metastasing nationwide. Not my immediate and physical problem, here on my calm Mediterranean island; but assuredly a personal problem, with three children and two grandchildren at risk from an uncontrolled descent.
“The World Bank’s new chief economist has warned the recovery will last even longer than the financial crisis aftermath as China struggles to rescue global growth again.
“Carmen Reinhart dashed hopes of a rapid V-shaped rebound by predicting that recoveries in advanced economies will take more than five years on a per capita income basis.
“She told The Sunday Telegraph: “I think it will be longer [than the financial crisis recovery]… We are talking upwards of five years. Look, the damage being done is being done really to every sector.”
“A forthcoming report by the Washington-based development bank will reveal that the “extremely regressive” Covid-19 shock will mean global poverty rates rise for the first year since 2000.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/08/15/world-bank-dashes-hopes-swift-recovery/
Sounds like preparatory thesis for giving green light of $T print fest per each global hub into the near / midterm future. Say, US prints 2-3T, Europeans and Asians ponny up some more, and voila suddenly $5-10T of aggregate yearly extra support is guaranteed (apart from other modes of stimulus). Good enough for few years of can kicking in nominally ~100-200T world of ours. We are entering new normal here..
Quite so, worldof.
Let’s take a stroll along Potemkin Street, shall we, and admire the fine facades?
People do tend to take Carmen Reinhart’s views seriously. I wonder how much longer the current stock market bubble can last, for example.
I know only 2 ways to think, deductively like Euclid elements, and inductively, data gathering to hope to find non spurious cause and effect. Not sure where your sharp succinct analysis of “…disease simply bounces back, as soon as there is a reduction in containment efforts.” fits but it packs a mighty wallop.
As to speculative ideas, how about zero talking in indoor public places.
Zero coughing or sneezing in indoor spaces might need to be added as well. Eating food seems to spew particles as well. So that might add, “Zero eating in indoor spaces.” All of this becomes impossible. Hunter gatherers might have had the right idea, except that quite a few of them used caves for shelter. They would have concentrated viruses, too.
hunter gathers lived in small groups , close together
but the range of the group is determined by available resources in any given area
so if one group caught something deadly, they would be unlikely to spread it to another group maybe 5-50 miles away, mainly because other group wouldn’t welcome strangers, so that group was forced inwards on itself, and either survived or died out
either way—nobody cared
Hi Gail, been following the oil market for the past 20 years,,,,,I remember reading the oil drum. From my research and gut feeling,,,,we are out of easily accessible oil,,,,,the Corona hoax is about the oil,,,,they, the elite had to stop demand,,,,Saudis IPO dec 19 2019,,,,a coincidence? No. Yemen war? Venezuela Syria Iraq Iran….etc.
What ever data you get from IEA, is fraudulent, in my opinion.
I’m sure you’re familiar EROI and know the E doesn’t stand for Equity.
Remember WESTEXAS? From the oil drum or the French guy saying oil is going to zero on a downward wave. Well we are here.
Good luck to you and your family
Hi there, tempus fugit, yes almost seems like yesterday: the Oil Drum, PO forum, early energy audio podcasts and various oddball resource limit (& doomerist) web sites, the famous triangle of doom oil price sloping graph, the feeling of crescendo of ~2008 must be forming the top, and so on.. Almost two decades (well 5x decades from LTG) later we are not there yet in terms of full scale acknowledged collapse, but the cracks in quasi-BAU are evidently much more pronounced, and obviously some 2.5-3rd world outliers of countries and newly even inner communities of core countries are for sure falling through the abyss hard already.
Coincidence, controlled implosion (attempted or at least nudged along)? Possibly, today the ongoing triage is taking out the most wasteful activities like (long distance travel) mass tourism and feel good impulsive obsessive shopping, restaurants etc. It seems about to trim large sections of no longer necessary sectors managerial middle class (and consumption pattern in its wake) now. Hey, but there are still the remaining ~5-15% managerial and .001% owner’s class with appetite for consumption, hence the wheels of economy continue to turn for them.
Lets talk thresholds though, the major arteries of energy throughput (and capacity utilization) are still operational yes bordering on blinking “red alert” limits, this infrastructure upkeep will be even more underfunded-neglected. The financial system is also “good” for at least next ~5-10yrs before pension funds + SWF (linked fin assets) had to be trimmed, denied withdrawal, nationalized. In the new normal ~500 – 1 500% levels of debt to “GDP” might occur, but it’s no longer discussed much as crucial or shocking metric after while anymore.
In short from last stage of bumpy plateau lasting till ~2018-19 we are about to re-position into early stage of recognized fall (first years still to be called a deep depression), its gradient still somewhat shallow though upto ~2026-30, afterwards more serious cracks (phase shift) inside the int system to be expected aka “the energy spices” physically not flowing across the globe as freely anymore in terms of volume and reach.. more attempted autarky, reshuffled closer distance trade-resource-security alliances and reappearing local early feudal-slavery arrangements, larger uncontrollable chaos pockets inside 1-2nd world hubs, etc.
Decisions, decisions, we had it good for so long, and still likely few more years left out of it, so lets enjoy some more designer ice cream meanwhile (e.g. as Nancy the f. W. of Kali does) before the onset of the real-bleak finale..
We are certainly on the downslope now. How all this will play out, isn’t as obvious that as a person might think. The idea of keeping everyone at home, for their own good, was not an obvious one for me. Now, there are a huge number of people afraid to go out, for fear they will catch COVID.
The downslope could indeed take a few years, or even quite a few years. Meanwhile, pieces of the world economy will increasingly deteriorate. We can see the obvious problem, just not how things will work out.
Yep, unusual twists in the story should be expected.
From my research and gut feeling,,,,we are out of easily accessible oil,,,,,the Corona hoax is about the oil,,,,they, the elite had to stop demand.
Since the elite has certainly put a huge dent in demand, they must have had a good reason, and the reason you have offered seems a plausible one.
For decades and decades I’ve been waiting with trepidation for us to be out of easily accessible oil. Now it looks like we may have reached that point. Of course, we can’t expect the oil companies to announce openly that “we are out of easily accessible oil”. So if we are, this economic brake would be a reasonably way of indicating it by proxy, so to speak.
Some would even argue the affair ~19yrs ago was also chiefly about front running immediate PO/surplus resource related bottleneck as understood at that time (pre alt/tight oil mania). The reshuffled mil bases in the ME and toppling regimes flirting with the “Eurodollar” reset option serving as logical evidence..
I was rereading some of JayHanson’s writting. Interesting that 20 years ago he said this:
“But when the above scenario seems inevitable, the elites will simply depopulate most of the planet with a bioweapon”
http://www.jayhanson.org/page185.htm
This is a video by a fellow named Steven Van Metre saying that a financial crash could be very close at hand–perhaps starting as soon as two weeks after August 5, when he made the video.
He says the banks have been tightening loan standards on all categories of loans. This can be expect to lead to a big crash in the financial system in the not too distant future. He thinks that the banks want lower interest rates, to make their loans more attractive. According to him, right now is the top of real estate and other markets financed by debt. He sees a big deflationary crash ahead. Lowering interest rates doesn’t help, won’t really help, because if interest rates are too low, banks won’t lend because they can’t make money. Van Metre thinks the dollar will rise, making loans very expensive for people from other countries.
Given how poorly consumers are doing right now, I can understand why banks would want to cut back new lending, except to the most credit-worthy.
I know that back in 2008, I saw a sharp reduction in lending for many classes of loans, about the same time that oil prices crashed. I would agree that reducing loans outstanding would have a very negative impact on the economy. People cannot buy a new home, if they cannot get a loan, for example. Besides the asset prices crashing, I would expect energy prices to fall lower.
he is very convincing, though even he does not have the whole picture, as no one does.
I agree, housing and commercial real estate plunging, and the average person getting poorer in the coming months, so yes also lower energy prices.
our gov seemed to already know that people would not be able to borrow their way out of their 2020 problems, thus the massive helicopter money $1,200 for everyone and $600 times (what?) 10(?) weeks for the newly unemployed.
those kinds of socialist policies may continue, but that high level of handouts can’t be expected.
“they” will surely keep stocks from crashing, even as these other parts of the economy slowly worsen.
I don’t think that there must be a crash ahead, could be, but surely any appearance of a Q3 recovery (GDPnow plus 26%!) will soon reverse.
stock markets stay high, everything else slowly worsens.
“With mortgage rates still at historic lows, it may seem like a good time to refinance. Starting September 1, however, the cost of refinancing a mortgage is going up due to economic risks associated with Covid-19.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2020/08/15/covid-19-is-about-to-make-refinancing-a-home-a-lot-more-expensive/#839ce4949a13
The additional cost is fairly large:
“BOOM has compared the excess death numbers in Europe from Covid 19 this year to the excess death numbers that occurred in the Influenza epidemic of 2017/2018. Here are the facts of the comparison —
Influenza — 178,575 Excess Deaths in the European Population (Winter 2017/2018)
VERSUS
Covid 19 — 177,545 Excess Deaths in Europe 2020 (Late Feb – Mid May)
The only conclusion that can be reached is that the European winter Influenza epidemic of 2017/18 caused approximately the same number of excess deaths as has occurred in the spike of excess deaths in Europe this year attributed to Covid 19.”
the flu was allowed to run wild, as usual.
extreme measures were taken to prevent Covid-19 related deaths.
“The only conclusion” that can be reached is that Covid-19 related death rates are about 5X flu related death rates, so the extreme measures kept deaths down to flu-like numbers.
for now.
perhaps a year from now, corona deaths will be 5x as much as that flu epidemic.
The similar number must be coincidental, given the changes in total population.
I believe the death statistics are wrong. Many deaths reported as being due to covid are flu deaths. The powers that be want to bump up the death numbers to keep us fearful and easily controlled.
We do know that most deaths are of older people with pre-existing conditions which are likely to have caused their deaths, but reported as due to covid.
This planned event is about control, not health.
We have total death statistics. We know that increases in these deaths are higher than the number reported as COVID deaths in most places, especially early in the epidemic. It takes a while to be able to analyze whether it is still true, later in the epidemic.
To some extent, higher deaths are to be expected, than just from COVID. More people are depressed. Their immune system is depressed. Elderly people especially tend to decline more quickly. Untreated cancer becomes more of an issue, as people are afraid to go to the hospital for treatment. Many people stopped going to the emergency room for heart attacks and strokes during the lockdowns.
Two COVID deaths which I have heard of personally, of men in their 50’s, happened at home, as they were too scared to go near a hospital despite having the tell-tale cough. The disease took a nasty turn and bang, they were gone…..
I wonder what the numbers would look like if we include all the secondary deaths resulting from job loss, poverty, famine, civil unrest, war, food supply shortage etc. It will probably end up 100 or 1000 times as deadly as the flu, indirectly worldwide.
Like the Black Death, the first wave of which might kill some 30% of the population in a given locality, but the secondary effects (lack of manpower, banditry, violence, riots, suicide, etc) killing 50-100% in succeeding years.
Nothing new under the sun.
Epidemiologists and physicians (need we mention our intellectually negligible politicians?) take no account of these secondary effects, but they determine the course that things will take more than the mortality rate.
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This recent article on WebMD was very interesting.
Asymptomatic COVID: Silent, but Maybe Not Harmless
https://img.webmd.com/dtmcms/live/webmd/consumer_assets/site_images/article_thumbnails/blog_posts/public-health/1800x1200_lungs-coronavirus.jpg?resize=*:350px
“Aug. 11, 2020 — A big chunk of people who catch COVID-19 — maybe as many as 40%, by some estimates — never develop noticeable symptoms.”
“It’s a very big portion of people, and although they are silent without symptoms, internally, they are taking hits in there inside their body so they don’t even know it,” says Eric Topol, MD, the founder and director of the Scripps Translational Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200811/asymptomatic-covid-silent-but-maybe-not-harmless
I don’t know ’bout y’all, but this senior is going to cool his jets, at least for the time being…keep a low profile.
I thought the image would load directly to the post and not as a link. Eventually I will get this figured out. Anyway…
When this issue came up before, I did some looking around and found some indications that the inflammation might actually be treatable and go away.
I found an article called, “Good Prognosis for Pericarditis With Without Myocardial Involvement” by Imazio and others, written in 2013. The primary treatment seems to be aspirin or other NAISD. A study of 486 patients over 36 months showed over 90% got well with this treatment.
So these conditions may be treatable, or may go away by themselves. But of course, we don’t know for sure at this point. Another concern is that it may come back later.
I think of inflammation as often being a temporary situation, unless the person has a condition, such as being overweight or eats a lot of sweets, that creates the situation.
One thought I had is that the cardiac inflammatory involvement condition may explain the large number of people in China who seemed to faint on the sidewalk. In fact, quite a few of them died. It is not clear to me that the version of COVID-19 we are seeing in the US is having as much of this problem. We don’t see the videos of a lot of people falling dead on the sidewalk.
So even if you have no symptoms, the disease is silently eating you away, … Or so big pharma would like you to think. Incidentally, a close read of the reference reveals that there is ner enough zero evidence of permanent damage, merely a few “glassy spots” on the lungs, for which no credible explanation is provided, therefore it is the virus and she is a witch.
I noticed that many of the people felt no symptoms, so the impact was not very great. There cannot be any long term analysis, at this point. We know that inflammation is a temporary reaction to a lot of different things, even insect bites. We have lots of ways of treating it.
Chill out Dan….your getting political accusing Gail,of being political.
Norm made a good point a few comments back that the US and Middle East have oil as a common denominator. The fact remains the US has historically pumped more oil than any other nation on earth over 220billion barrels. Add to it they directly or indirectly control the global market through technology or finance. So the fortunes of both are the same. Remember Iraq.
However, the US needs to import oil– lots of it.
It does export refined oil, but needs to import oil to survive.
The situation is becoming worse with covid, and the impossible profitability problem.
World Global Production peaked in November of 2018.
That is far in the rear view mirror, IMHO.
From Friedman’s site.
Every one of those wells needs sand, and lots of it. A single well can use as much as 25,000 tons—enough to fill more than two hundred railroad cars. But like members of a specialized combat unit, frac sand grains need to meet a list of highly specific physical requirements. They must be hard enough to withstand all that pressure, which means they must be at least 95 percent quartz.4 That eliminates most common construction sand, shrinking the pool to the silica sands used for glassmaking. But frac sand must also have the right shape: small enough to fit snugly into the frack cracks and rounded enough to let the hydrocarbons slide easily around them.
They have increased it to 30,000 tones recently to enhance production. I can give other references.
It must take a lot of time and energy to find it, separate it, and ship it to site. Also, it must be limited, as all things are. An interesting question is, does the price of sand change as supplies decrease, and if so what is the shape of the graph? If it is linear, then we would see a linear increase of the price of oil. But, like picking oranges from a tree, each orange has the same price, independent to the individual orange being the first picked or last. So the whole lot gets picked and sold, then no more supply. If sand is similar, we should expect shale oil to have a fairly stable price, then the production would stop completely as the last box of sand is used. Granted, this is a simple example, using only on variable on the amount of shale oil produced, but an interesting point none the less.
Wow! This means that even if locations suitable for fracking were found around the world, we likely would run short of the sand for this purpose in not too long. It would become necessary to transport the sand too far. All of the energy (often oil) needed for this purpose would be a problem.
Gail, I think you have found another “meme” for collapse. If fracking needs sand, what happens when the cost of the sand exceeds the value of the oil? Perhaps we can use it for sand castles, as part of a stepwise descent. Unhappy oil billionaires; happy children: I would call that progress.
Silica sand is made from grinding bigger rocks down to sand sized particles. While I am sure silica sand exists naturally it is far cheaper to grind it down than trying to retrieve natural deposits. Silica sand is wonderful for fracking as it allows liquids and gases to pass through while at the same time keeping the fracking bore holes from collapsing. There is no shortage of silica, the majority of the earth’s crust is composed of silica. I have seen the price of fine silica powder (exactly the same substance as silica sand but ground much into much finer powder) double for my pottery business since fracking went mainstream. When I asked my supplier why this was, they said demand for silica has gone sky high due to fracking. This doubling in price is not really a big deal, a ceramic mug might have had 20 cents worth of silica in it before the price doubled. Not a big deal for me, some of my mugs sell for as much as USD $100. Of course that price is for the best of the best but the cost of the raw materials are literally dirt cheap for the most part in the realm of handmade ceramics, it’s the time involved that drives up the cost.
Grinding down silica rocks clearly takes energy of some kind; shipping sand from a distance takes energy of some kind as well.
I don’t know whether unneeded solar electricity (wrong time of day, year) could be directed toward rock grinding. It could be done by some type of intermittent energy, much better than transport. But ultimately, the sand needs to be at the fracking site, so some transport is required.
When my boys were young I filled the back of my truck up with “safe, play” sand. I built them a giant sandbox in the yard. They loved it for many years, so did my cat…
Norman Pagett, is your book available in paper or only eBook? If it’s available at multiple vendors, which provides you the best royalties?
Hi Reader
My book is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, (by clicking my name here on OFW) also on Goodreads, but I don’t think many readers find it on there.
Royalties to me are a pittance wherever they come from–I think I just contribute to Bezos’ lifestyle mainly.
A lot of my stuff is on Medium too, on a variety of topics
Hope that helps, Thanks for your interest.
All that shows up for me is the kindle version at 99cents.
If you’re not seeing a lot of sales, consider bumping the price up to $2.99 so the authors’ share will be higher (70% rather than 35%). That way even one sale nets you more. For most eBook readers (the people, not the tablets) who are interested in such topics, that $2 isn’t a deal breaker.
Anyway, I’d be happy to pay $2.99, so if you might change the price, do mention it and I’ll hold off until then.
Actually looks like UK 70% royalty list price would be $£1.99. See
kdp.amazon.com/en-US/help/topic/G200634500
thanks for the input on that, Reader.
I can’t figure out what’s happening at your end.
UK Amazon shows the book as paperback and Kindle, and the USA shows the same thing. I know Canada is the same.
Where are you? It’s very odd.
I’ve sold about 3000 at that price level but that’s over several years, I’m not going to change it now. Medium pays better anyway. If you like the book, a nice comment on Amazon is always welcome though
I think the issue is that
the physical book isn’t available to ship to the us from the UK site (as a default). Looking at the US site, I see a physical copy available.
Thanks 🙂 and no problem about pricing, just thought I’d propose it in case it would be helpful.
Insightful post
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-israel-uae-palestinians-middle-east-oil-gulf-a9670926.html
‘Between 2012 and 2020 the oil revenues of the Arab producers fell from $1 trillion to $300bn, down by over two-thirds.
A question that was asked was what happens when they pass peak production? Arguably they will spend more on less productive fields to maintain production. That’s what we’ve seen already. We’ve been living in an era of unaffordable oil. The peak was behind us. 2005-2006. Since then every oil producer has been cannibalizing there industry in one way or another to stay alive. Sure we can say that the production increased during the period since 2006 but not without accounting tricks and a ton of debt. Remember oil used to include only oil now it includes BOE barrels of oil equivalent. You the kind of stuff you can burn but won’t fuel your car. Conventional oil has been flat or declining. Now the production bubble has truly burst. Unconventional oil, mostly shale, is pretty much shut in. We forget what a mammoth undertaking that was. Nearly 1000 rigs drilling two wells a month 3-5miles long with 1000 truckloads of materials per well. 60million lbs of very specific sand per well twice that in water. The US has never undertaken a project of this magnitude in its history. Not the Apollo project or Manhattan project or Eisenhower highway system. That was the Hail Mary pass. Not one well ever produced its projected EUR and most only produced 50%.
Now the system is in contraction airlines are cutting none profitable routes to peripheral airports. This will not only affect the periphery but also the hubs as volumes declined. The feedback is increased ticket prices which will impact demand. Wash rinse repeat. It’s already happened the FED just printed enough paper to cover it over. It isn’t just the Middle East that will be displaced. It will be the rural population here in the US. And as proud as they are in their “independent “ way of life in their Red states they will discover that it was the Blue states that made it possible and vise versa.
As I’ve said money is not a store of value it’s a flow. That’s why printing is not going to fix it. Once the velocity declines the money simply disappears. Sure it looks like it’s there but it’s not. Don’t believe it? Try to lump sum cash out. You’ll discover quite quickly it simply was an illusion. Try to sell your retirement for face value on projected life span. Can’t be done with out debt. Because the money isn’t there.
It’s been a bag of holes and shear futility. The gates at the concentration camps expressed it best “Work Will Set You Free”. Ah yes the Golden Years. Same Fascist message
Add to it the political entertainment that makes people believe they live in a democracy. A two party system is no different than a single party system. Particularly when it’s the corporations who effectively choose the candidates. Does anyone remember what the economic policies of Fascism are? Direct government economic involvement perhaps? The American Dream how true it is. But the world has chased after it. And it has come this. An empty gas tank.
I confess that I don’t find this post at all insightful. It seems to rehash familiar themes, slanted a little to denigrate Donald Trump (of course). And the author ought to learn a little German political history (and a little German), before referring to Auschwitz.
Depending on the dream or reality. Don Quixote had the same moment. The man in the mirrors. The US is entering that same moment. It creates psychological dissonance and political dissonance. It might be the same conclusion in the end Dolcenia . A New Green Deal or call it whatever. It’s the same old girl. The country or the world will never consider the truth. Better to dream. Isn’t it interesting that LSD PCP and mushrooms have returned as therapy?
From Wikipedia
Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.
A mixed economy is variously defined as an economic system blending elements of market economies with elements of planned economies, free markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise.
No particular party is absent. FDR no different than Trump or Carter or Truman or Bush. All different colors same political economic model. It doesn’t matter. As Stalin said “What matters is the people have a vote”
But it’s ok we can all decide what stage of grief we would like to be at when the lights go out. That’s free will.
Re hallucinogens, I watched an interesting video on people “micro-dosing” them to boost their creativity, lift their mood and generally make it through the day.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbkgr3ZR2yA
JT,
Looked up the amount of sand/well and found:
Search Results
Featured snippet from the web
Image result for amount of sand per fracked well
According to the most recent averages of a Permian well at 8,000 lateral feet using 2,250 pounds of frac sand per lateral foot, that equates to an average of 18 million pounds of proppant per well.
Your numbers are about 30K tons, at 200 tons/railcar that is 150 railcars of sand/well. Sometimes a back of an envelope calculation is helpful to check various number.
I did not double check the source.
Dennis L.
We don’t get very many articles in main street media that acknowledge that “peak production” might be a problem. Or even that recent low prices cause a problem for producers.
I, too, am struck by the fact that each party has a particular group of corporations that support it. Salvation is either by more fossil fuels or by more renewables and electric cars, in particular.
And we know that printing money does’t quite work the way that people expected. A couple of recent charts regarding M2 money supply and velocity show just how inversely they seem to be related now.
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/quantity-of-m2-money-supply-aug-15-2020.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/velocity-of-m2-money-supply-aug-15-2020.png
I know I waffle on about it
but every political shyster offers prosperity in return for votes
and every voter believes them,
Yes, what did you expect? Spiritual awakening delivered by politicians? It can’t be that bad, now can it?
Gail it’s game theory again. If people earn money and expect a regular income, they will spend some and save some, based on their personal budget. But if people are given money, with no guarantee that the gifts will continue, their natural instinct is to hoard it, to make it last as long as possible. So with “free money”, the velocity drops in tandem, and the whole exercise is useless.
Likely true!
Which is good news. A bit of frugality is healthy.
The intent could be just that. Create massive debt and hand out the money while no inflation ensues and people feel more financially secure.
I saw a rather disturbing article this morning from the Washington Post called, U.S. will prepare coronavirus strain for potential human challenge trials.
It seems like we could end up with even more types of viruses in circulation that each need different types of vaccines, among other things.
Yep. Bump up the numbers, bump up the profits (for big pharm and big tech). Keep the plebs frightened and don’t tell them that many of the testing kits are faulty. And for god’s sake, don’t let on that its only the flu!
Paul Krugman writes via Twitter:
The new Eurostat numbers say that Sweden and Denmark have had identical economic performance: ~8% GDP decline over past year. So all Sweden got from its herd immunity strategy was a bunch of dead Swedes
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/10545332/2-14082020-AP-EN.pdf/7f30c3cf-b2c9-98ad-3451-17fed0230b57
“One thing I worry about is how much of a long-term blow we’re delivering to the most effective mass transit system ever devised — the elevator.” Paul Krugman
Sigh. Paul Krugman again proves himself to be an idiot. If elevators are so efficient, why does almost every building taller than 10 storeys have special elevator banks, special fast elevators, and private elevators for bigwigs?
If you measure in terms of moving people from point A to point B, the most efficient system is the streetcar. If you measure in terms of energy use, the most efficient (by far) was the Egyptian Nile boat. Anywhere to anywhere, at zero energy cost (downstream with the current, upstream with the prevailing wind).
Fatalities are really neither here nor there, given the age of the majority of the deceased, half-departed from this world anyway: but what is the comparative state of small and medium businesses, the high street, etc, in Sweden – any better than Denmark? Lock-downs have been rather deadly for them everywhere.
“East Africa faces an unprecedented triple threat to food security caused by the combined effects of recent severe floods, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and an upsurge of desert locusts.”
https://reliefweb.int/report/djibouti/urgent-action-required-prevent-major-food-crisis-eastern-africa-igad-fao-wfp-joint
“United Nations officials worry that the DR Congo might overtake Yemen as the biggest hunger emergency in the world.”
https://www.voanews.com/africa/malnutrition-soars-dr-congo-acute-hunger-grips-millions
We get a contest as to who is worst off.
Exactly. What with China having an imminent food crisis, looks like, I am not sure how much spare food there will be to provide aid.
It wouldn’t take a very big percentage in China being without food to outnumber the number in smaller countries.
Ethiopians should catch and eat all the locusts.
“Although the increase in cases [in South Africa] is beginning to fall, the total number of cases tops half a million – the fifth highest national total in the world.
“But that’s not the biggest worry for the people who queue here every morning. There is a long patient line, not for Covid tests, but for food.”
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-08-14/hunger-is-a-greater-fear-than-coronavirus-in-south-africas-townships
“…the number of food-insecure people in Zimbabwe is expected to surge by almost 50 per cent, to 8.6 million by the end of the year. That figure represents around 60 per cent of the population.”
https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/world-news/2020/08/13/millions-in-zimbabwe-will-be-affected-by-the-ravages-of-acute-hunger-say-campaigners/
Food is the big problem. Of course, wages would be beneficial to be able to afford the food.
The People’s Bank of China may have bought government bonds from domestic banks in July, a rare move that has analysts puzzling over the monetary authority’s policy intentions amid a record amount of government debt issuance…
“The PBOC is forbidden by the nation’s central bank law from purchasing government debt in the primary market.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/china-s-bond-data-hint-central-bank-is-buying-government-debt
“China’s top banking regulatory official said on Thursday that the country’s banks have to deal with 3.4 trillion yuan (US$489.5 billion) worth of non-performing loans in 2020 – flagging a big risk for the banking system in the world’s second-largest economy.”
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3097229/chinas-top-bank-regulator-sees-surge-bad-loans-straining
The Chinese bank situation is worrying. There must be a lot of debt that cannot really be repaid.
“The Federal Reserve’s unparalleled stimulus risks plunging the world into financial crisis, according to the chairman of China’s banking watchdog, who also warned that bad debts at Chinese financial institutions could balloon significantly this year due to the impact of Covid-19.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-16/china-s-banking-watchdog-warns-fed-easing-risks-financial-crisis
“Trump administration paves way for large drilling project in Alaska Arctic petroleum reserve:
“The Bureau of Land Management on Thursday took a step toward development of the Willow oil prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a large ConocoPhillips effort that could help revive Alaska’s sagging economic fortunes…”
https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2020/08/13/trump-administration-paves-way-for-large-drilling-project-in-alaska-arctic-petroleum-reserve/
“The Trump administration is abandoning Obama administration curbs on methane leaks from oil and gas wells, a move that even some drillers oppose and that could become a campaign issue in the swing state of Pennsylvania.”
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/8/12/trump-eases-methane-monitoring-rules-for-oil-and-gas-operators
Reality check: methane emissions from oil and gas production are 18% of anthropogenic emissions (one third of the amount emitted by agriculture), and less than 7% of total methane emissions from all sources. Of course, every little helps, but moving beef production from corn fed to grass fed cattle would be more effective.
We also hear that Kamala Harris is very anti-fracking. Sort of sets up a Republican-Democrat division. Natural gas prices are so low now that drillers cannot afford the costs associated with equipment needed to stop methane leaks.
At current prices, it is difficult to imagine that it will make any difference.
“With less than three months to go before the November 3rd election, President Donald Trump finds himself between a rock and a hard place over oil prices.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2020/08/14/trump-boxed-in-by-tight-oil-market-ahead-of-election/amp/
The article says:
The oil and gas producing states need higher prices to provide a good job market for workers in associated with this production. The extra employment spread into many areas, such as building homes and new stores. Low oil and gas prices are a huge problem in oil and gas states.
This is the under reported story of the decade…..just as we were lied to that the U.S is energy independent…drill baby drill etc….The new underreported story is how low oil prices will bring down these oil states and then drag the other states with them….. LIBERALS= “WE don’t need oil anymore”!! I am going to get a Clean burning electric vehicle Consersatives= We have so much oil ! At least 100 years worth!! I am going to get a giant truck so I can fit my groceries in and pretend I am a “blue collar worker!!””” Both idiots!!!
Interesting point! I am sure that the list is moderately long, if you include oil, gas and coal. Quite a few of the remaining Trump states are farming states. Food is, of course, an energy product.
Considering how important these products are to the economy, the producers don’t get paid a lot for them.
When a person looks at a chart of which way individual counties votes, the most urban counties vote Democrat/liberal; many of the suburban and rural states vote Republican/liberal. States with oil, gas and coal tend to be less urban.
“This recession/depression is unlike anything we have experienced in the history of the US.
“I am at a loss to find anything like it in world history. That is because we have never experienced an economic disaster—and that’s the correct phrase—like we are witnessing today.”
https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2020/08/14/the-second-great-depression-but-not-really
“…several of the largest restaurant companies in the U.S. are struggling with capacity restrictions on indoor dining and attempting to lure customers with takeout in a bid to avoid financial disaster.”
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/08/13/restaurants-coronavirus-outback-steakhouse-ihop-applebees-cheesecake-factory-dennys/3346312001/
“The COVID-19 pandemic is plunging U.S. nursing homes into a major financial crisis and many of them could go out of business…
“In a poll of nearly 500 nursing home operators, 72%, said they couldn’t keep going for another year under current conditions while 55%, said they were running at a loss.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-out-of-10-nursing-homes-say-we-cant-go-on-2020-08-14
How many people are willing to go to a nursing home, if they cannot see any of their relatives any more? This issue, by itself, is contributing quite a bit to the industry’s problems.
“One wonders: Is America about to see bread protests, or even riots?
“People around the country have been testifying how they are down to their last dollar or flat broke, facing eviction or living on the street, unable to afford vital prescriptions or even food.”
https://theweek.com/articles/931090/are-bread-riots-coming-america
“A Chicago businessman says he’s going to sue the city after police failed to respond when his convenience store was looted for the second time since May.
“Walid Mouhammad’s store was destroyed Monday, when the city experienced widespread looting.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8629519/Chicago-business-owner-plans-sue-city-looted-twice-May.html
My husband and I visited Chicago in the fall of 2019. I was surprised to see how much the central part of the city had gone downhill since when I had lived there between 1968 and 1981. Some of the Near North side was still very fancy, but that is one of the areas with looting problems.
If so it would confirm the descent of the US to 3rd World conditions, if not status. Fascinating to observe.
Let us set the wayback machine to 532 AD, Constantinople, and the Nika riots. The proximate cause was a horse race, a common trigger of small riots. But this one was bigger. The administration had raised taxes and reduced subsdies, to pay for their endless wars with Persia (sound familiar?) and the rioters were seriously annoyed..
So the problem spread, and there ensued widespread burning, looting, and private settling of scores (also sound familiar?). The local constabulary were unable to contain the problem, partly because of some ill considered legal reforms, but mostly because several prominent senators supported the rioters (still famiiar?), in the belief that the turmoil would allow them to depose the Emperor Justinian, whom they saw as a threat to their entrenched power (now where have we seen that recently?).
Justinian was ready to accept exile, but his Empress Theodors, a former tavern wench who knew the ways of the world, dissuaded him. So he called in his best generals, Belisarius and Narses, and gave the problem to them. Being good generals, they knew that the best victory is one you can achieve without fighting (the lesson of Quintus Fabius “Cunctator” was still taught in schools) and so some bags of gold, a little flattery, and a few pious condolences dissuaded the more rational of the rioters. (Can you say “reparations”?)
But the majority preferred to continue their rapine, and indeed put almost half the city to the torch. So the good generals handed the problem to a less good general, Mundus, who solved the problem his way, by executing the remaining rioters, all 30,000 of them.
Could it indeed come to that? Of course it could, but will it? I fear so. The Democrats have been trying to depose Trump for almost four years, and after every failure thay have not learned their lessons and thought again; they have doubled down. And at the end of that road lies a civil strife more deadly, and more damaging, than the War Between the States.
In a similarly troubled time, Friedrich von Schiller wrote:
Gefährlich ist’s den Leu zu wecken,
Und grimmig ist des Tigers Zahn,
Jedoch der schrecklichste der Schrecken
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn.
I pray that we do not come to that narrow pass: Judge of the Nations, spare us yet … lest we forget, lest we forget.
On a happier afternote: when told that the rioters wanted to kill her, Theodora made this immortal reply: ‘Kalon entaphion he basileia’. “Empire is a fine shroud”. And yes, she is another of my strong woman heroes.
The mercenaries of revolution will decorate the light poles.
Probing the artisanry is a good indicator of how it will end. They would manufacture and sell the ropes with a smile on their faces.
Dropping the explicit imperialism is essential. Dominate through technological omnipotence is the implicit way.
“The recovery has stalled in major advanced economies, with some countries hitting a ceiling on activity, below their pre-crisis levels, according to Bloomberg Economics gauges.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-11/alternative-data-show-growth-plateauing-far-from-normal-chart
“Fitch Ratings’ macro-prudential risk indicator (MPI) and bank systemic indicator (BSI) scores are at risk of deterioration due to the coronavirus shock despite the unprecedented array of monetary, fiscal and regulatory measures, Fitch Ratings says.
“Together, these two systemic risk indicators identify weaker banking systems vulnerable to increased stress…”
https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/scope-for-deterioration-in-systemic-risk-indicators-despite-stimulus-14-08-2020
Now, why would I not trust a “macro prudential risk indicator? Especially one that does not understand the influence of the planets on human affairs.
And the rather large star at the center of the planets.
Bloomberg’s analysis is based on credit-card use, travel and location information. In its analysis, Norway is doing best (least badly).
It shows this chart:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/receovery-plateauing-bloomberg.png
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/14/improving-reality-weekly-coronavirus-cases-deaths-hospitalizations-fall/
“New coronavirus cases, deaths, and hospitalizations reported over the last seven days are trending downward compared to the previous week, reflecting “improving” conditions on the ground, the COVID Tracking Project conceded on Thursday, echoing data maintained by Johns Hopkins University.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/california-orders-first-rolling-blackouts-since-2001-crisis/ar-BB17YXdP?ocid=uxbndlbing
“As many as two million Californians were plunged into darkness over the course of about four hours late Friday in the first rolling outages to hit the state since the 2001 energy crisis.”
quasi socialist distribution of electricity.
I found this undated article: How California’s Power Crisis Works
“Last year (2018), the California grid got 34% of its energy from renewable sources, …”
Well dome California. Leading us back to the age of oil lamps (oh, sorry, no whales left to supply the oil).
Just print electrons.
I notice that the shortage came in the evening: 6:30pm to 10:30pm. This is when people are at home, air conditioners are on, and the sun is down.
In some imaginary, magical future, everyone’s electric car would be charging overnight. The current system can barely cope with A/C demands.
Or maybe, the belief is, after driving home from work in the evening, there will be enough charge left in the battery that the battery can discharge into the grid, from the time the person gets home until the big need is over, say 10:30 pm. Then, the cars can start recharging from the grid, so that they have enough charge to go to work in the morning.
Of course, all of this discharge and recharging eats into the life of the battery. Car owners won’t worry about this.
Thank you, Gail, you were way ahead of me. The plan is that everyone’s car batteries will power the grid at night, when the sun has gone down, and recharge in the daylight. And in the winter, when you have to drive to work in darkness? Once again, these people do not understand game theory. Plug your car in, and risk being stranded in the morning, or unplug it, and be mobile. Not a tough choice.
Most people does not even top up their EV’s to conserve battery longevity.
No problem here. Just allocate 10% of your battery capacity for grid backup. Get a deduction on the utility bill.
In north Scandinavia every work place have electric outlets for engine and coupe warmers.
Watch it happen.
https://www.newsmax.com/us/cdc-coronavirus-immunity/2020/08/14/id/982230/
“CDC Says COVID-19 Immunity Likely Lasts Three Months”
Preparing the ground for big pharma to sell overpriced vaccines four times a year. Why does Trump allow these corrupt organisations to keep lying with public money?
Probably a bargain to get them relocating back to the states.
Idealism has no place in realpolitik.
It seems like it could be more than three months, depending on how immunity really works. But it does seem to last at least three months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6396zhUd54o
That’s a video by Thom Hartmann in which he’s talking about Trump’s threat that the US economy would collapse if he’s not re-elected. He starts out talking about a US senator saying the debt is actually about 30 trillion, which is the national debt of about 23T plus about 7T of Treasury bills created to buy corporate stock and debt to keep the stock market where we see it today; artificially elevated in a time of major economic contraction.
Then at 5:54 he talks about Trump winning the election, but I think he meant to say Trump loses the election, because everything after that has to do with the revenge Trump will exact on the American people if he’s not re-elected. That he will have Powell sell those bonds and stop buying stock and corporate debt, which will crash the stock market and crash the US economy.
This likely is the highest priority method Trump will use as vengeance towards the American voters that didn’t vote him back in, although I’m sure he has a laundry list of other ways he can also show his rage. Take the video and what its suggesting could happen seriously because that is likely what will happen. Not that people should change their vote to appease the angry vengeful power hungry master in charge of our lives, but still, just know its likely going to happen.
Yawn. Another far left race baiting idiot.
Maybe so but I am selling all my stocks by the end of September….maybe sooner. It has been a great ride….if I had not listened to Gail …I would have made a lot more money….but oh well at least I’m not a total sycophant….ahem like others on here! I won’t mention any names but it is important to think for yourself these days..it is important to always question the right and the left…..taking guidance from any talking head is dangerous.
Another Zerohedge article: Sweden Hits COVID-19 “Triple Whammy”: No Lockdowns, Low Deaths & Minimal Economic Damage
Quite a bit of the article is a quote from the Telegraph, including this:
Obligatory counterexample: Taiwan.
Oh so Sweden lives in a bubble….good to know….even if you had 0 cases in your country there would be huge economic impact. We live in an interconnected world and the global economy is suffering… do they grow all their own food and produce all their own energy by sticking a large straw in the ground and pulling out easy oil? I am very suspicious; but I guess if I go against the right wing grain I am the enemy….I smell a lot of bull in this article…
This is what perplexes me about you Gail…you talk about complete and utter collapse but then you push an agenda that this or that is what we should be doing….but we are still going over the cliff at break neck speed……really strange. As if a cancer patient that is told they have 1 month to live and you are doing a lot of thing to stay healthy……etc…
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/fightclub/images/d/d3/Tyler-Durden.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140513065629
This article was written by this guy! He doesn’t even exist he is a character created by Brad….creepy….let me see what I can post from Winnie the Pooh! Come on Gail! you are better than this….
he is obviously a very smart man and is writing under an alias, which is a very old tradition.
come on Dan!
don’t you know?
it’s bAU tonight, baby!
ps: my name isn’t really Covid.
I don’t regard Zero Hedge as a reliable news source, especially after this article. It seems like the site is not averse to making stuff up to keep the page views up. And, I understand, Tyler Durden is a pen name for multiple authors.
there is no completely “reliable news source”.
I didn’t say there was.
There is no completely reliable physically realizable system. Take everything with a sack of salt.
There are NO reliable news sources: they are all dung heaps, in which sometimes one finds a jewel.
Even The Guardian occasionally has some good reporting, rather than pure ideological Lefty LBGTQ123+ garbage.
And even Tim Morgan, whose intellect is unimpeachable, sometimes refers to Zerohedge articles. The comments on Zerohedge are below contempt, sadly.
ZH hosts a lot of different articles and opinions. At least they are not just promoting one political view.
Look I read zero hedge every day; I just am careful not to quote it without back up evidence. I did that once on one of their stories that turned out to be false! Sort Of like quoting your drunk uncle… Sometimes his right a lot of times he’s full of…
Perhaps what is interesting about this article is not whether it is true or not, but that a major newspaper (the Telegraph) is reporting the results this way. Zerohedge is quoting major sections tp the Telegraph article. It could start changing the thought process of a few people.
Agreed. Usually the British MSM go out of there way to report on Sweden negatively. This should open a few eyes, hopefully.
Reality:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1113834/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-the-nordics/
Buy US standards–OK
By other Scandinavian Countries?
A disaster.
While I agree, putting any country against Norway is unfair, Denmark and Finland absolutely kicked their butt.
An 8.6% decline does not look like the “Minimal Economic Damage” of the headline, even if that is better than a lot of places.
Actually, I’ve long thought that more consideration should be given to the Swedish model. However, the data from that country seemed to be all over the place from about a couple of months ago. I’m not sure whether it can be trusted although anecdotal evidence does seem to support it. No doubt, all will be revealed in the fullness of time.
The Bloomberg chart I posted in response to another comment shows Sweden’s economic activity to be quite far down, using their measure.
From ZeroHedge: Did Buffett Just Bet Against The US? Berkshire Buys Barrick Gold, Dumps Goldman
Excerpts:
Kennesaw State University, right near my home, is starting in person classes next Monday. Driving past the dorms, there are lots of cars outside; the place is buzzing with activity. My husband tells me that enrollment is “way up.” Students must want in-person classes. Only half will be allowed to attend class at a time. Some classes will be only online, including the one my husband will be teaching.
We will see how well this goes. Two high schools near here (Etowah High and Woodstock High) opened a while ago, but are now closed until August 31 because of COVID cases that appeared not long after they opened. They plan to reopen with only half of the students at a time.
Rated 76th in undergraduate teaching.
Not bad, I guess.
There needs to be schools for the ordinary students. It started by teaching mostly students beyond the traditional age. Most had dropped out of college earlier and wanted to try again.
Well, studying closer to home isn’t a bad idea. Plus, only sanctimonious
and pretentious suckers compete with their grades. Most studies is a mindless, churn that some lesser beings have an affinity for.
That’s okay–back when I was in university, a lot of students only went to half their classes anyway!
I took as many courses as I could, mostly in feedback control theory, and it hurt my grades. But what do I care. My professor asked me to continue as a PhD. I rejected his offer and went to industry. We still keep in touch.
Only morons compete with their grades. I guess we all gotta feel “special” as a “unique” individual, but in actually is just another dimwitted rapacious monkey species with an affinity for cramming knowledge we don’t really care about.
What are we doing wrong? My first response was “almost everything”, but after a lot of thought, it seems a longer answer is required.
Let me begin with the US medical profession, which I believe is a major cause of what went wrong. For centuries, and across many societies, the medical profession saw their
main duty as helping people keep well. Diet, exercise, abstention from unhealthy or dangerous practices: the goal was “hygeia”, health.
This is not the case today, and for one reason: money. It is far more profitable to heal the sick than to keep the well healthy, and the more extreme the sickness, the greater the profit. And hence the endless increase in costs, and the endless failure to return people to health and vitality, rather than maintaining them at a tolerable level of sickness, with a predictable need for endless ongoing medication.
In the US, ths is exacerbated by the fact that there are almost no checks on the amount of poison people can be fed. Glyphosate in corn, a known carcinogen; high fructose corn syrum, a known cause of obesity; and meat contaminated with antibiotics, and hence with adventitious mutant pathogens. All of which weaken the natural immune response.
The scond cause, I believe, is the tendency, among ordianry people but, especially, politicians and bureaucrats, to trust the spokesmen of that medical profession. There is no skepticism, no impulse to question the motivation behind their advice; and yet we know from bitter experience that 90% of that advice is not to enable health, but to enable funding. The World Health Organisation is the kept lackey of China and Bill Gates, yet we treat their pronouncements as gospel, and their contradictory pronouncements, one month later, as a new gospel.
The once respected journal “Lancet” recently published an article trashing a possible prophylactic against the virus; an article that was invented out of whole cloth, submitted via a shell company with three employees, never sumbitted to peer review or even basic sanity checks, and published as authoratitive truth by a jouranl whose editor was a proven liar and hoaxer: and we were supposed not only to believe it, but to base national policy upon it. The same sickness is present in the Center for Disease Control, the JAMA, Johns Hopkins, and many others whom we foolishly trust.
Next in line come the politicians, who have abused the medical advice to impose totalitarian constraints upon a supposedly free people, all in the name of “science”, but in fact in order to inflate their own egos. Rules that have no basis in law, no sanction from the electors of a supposedly democratic republic, and often, no appeal.
And last? Why, we are last, because most of us have accepted this obscenity as a defensible polity. We have sacrificed liberty for security; and at the end of the day, we shall lose both.
Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their yoke from us.
Note:
The US is the only first world country without socialized medicine. It spends twice as much, and is rated 37th or so world wide.
Why not spend half as much, and live longer?
with its shrinking energy economy, the US will be forced to spend less on its medical industry.
the details are uncertain, but more socialist policies are coming and will result in less income for medical workers.
and at least somewhat less profits for medical companies, and perhaps zero profits if the medical industry is nationalized.
huge socialist changes are coming, even if the Rs win in November, which might just delay things slightly.
Well for the first time i believe I agree with you.
The steroid drug I have in reserve for a severe asthma attack is certainly not cheap in the UK, but is, I believe, some 3 times the cost in the US. A very corrupt and bloated sector, ripe for true reform.
Excellent comment, Robert.
I have nothing to add to it and would like to offer this ditty as an accompaniment.
https://youtu.be/PH3Xt9j4WnA
https://d26c6kbf708176.cloudfront.net/image-resizer/?/800/https://www.oftwominds.com/photos2020/dinosaurs-meteor3.jpg
De-Normalization : everything that was normal is gone and will not be replaced with some new normal.
The latest by Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds
Here’s Why the “Impossible” Economic Collapse Is Unavoidable
https://oftwominds.cloudhostedresources.com/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2Fa0rthoQz9J%3Famp%3D1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oftwominds.com%2Fblogaug20%2Fcollapse-unavoidable8-20.html&width=800
“Most operational costs are mandated and cannot be reduced: union contracts, property taxes, regulatory burdens, tax accounting, debt service, employee healthcare costs, minimum wages, etc. Other essential expenses such as commercial rent are difficult to renegotiate lower, as the landlord also has the same high fixed costs and any reduction comes directly out of his pocket.”
all mandates can be changed, and many if not most of those above will change.
employees will earn less, and owners will make less profit, and gov will collect less taxes.
landlords can go bankrupt, and the next owner will get a building for just about “free”.
landlords will default on the mortgages on their buildings, and gov will bail out the banks involved.
CHS thinks that collapse is unavoidable, because he presumes the continuation of the current corporatism and capitalism that is now in place.
but there has already been a massive shift towards socialist policies in 2020.
such as $1,200 chunks of free money to almost every adult, and the extra significantly large $600 per WEEK of free money for the newly unemployed.
collapse is more probable without this shift towards socialism, so I expect the shift to grow in the coming years.
Debt jubilee.
Dinosaur Lives Matter!
‘There is a historic change taking place in the Middle East – the decline in power of the oil states’
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-israel-uae-palestinians-middle-east-oil-gulf-a9670926.html
‘Between 2012 and 2020 the oil revenues of the Arab producers fell from $1 trillion to $300bn, down by over two-thirds.
‘As populations rise and young people flood into the labour market, more and more money is required to keep society running as before, but such resources are no longer there. This change has revolutionary implications as the unspoken social contract between rulers and ruled breaks down. Nothing much can be done to preserve it because the oil industry blights all other forms of economic activity. Little is produced locally and then only with massive state subsidies.
‘Beset by wars and dysfunctional social and economic systems, the Middle East is too fragile to cope with the coming earthquake.’
the middle east has been a construct of fossil fuels
the usa has been a construct of fossil fuels
very few people recognise them as balanced at one end of the same seesaw with nobody on the other end
What I fine amazing about the de-carbon/renewables movement is that they don’t seem to realise that there are 250m Arabs dependent upon fossil fuels for their very existence in a land that produces nothing else but fossil fuels. Those Arabs are going to starve and they will be heading across the Med to the EU. Good luck turning that tide back.
nooooo problem
The UAE has sent a probe to Mars.
Apparently this will provide the basis for a ‘knowledge based’ economy in the future
We should relish the comical side to this catastrophe. Mars next for the UAE?
apparently somebody has spotted a big black rock there that they can go walk around
We turned that tide back in 732. We turned it back in 1529. We turned it back a third time in 1571. Of course, that was before most of Europe was taken over by globalist technocrats who hate their own people; but once we have dealt with the enemies within, we can take on the enemies without.
Although a Europe which had fallen to Islam in the 8th century would certainly not have developed scientific and industrialised capitalism: no rule of law to set against despotism and tyranny; no free enquiry in the Natural Sciences; no security of person and property – just look at North Africa and the Ottomans, Persia, all still stuck in the 13th century by 1900, more or less.
Civilisation and intellect died (and dies) under Islam, but it might have been better for the planet for all that.
Xabier, once again I respectfully disagree. The first university since the fall of Rome was founded in Moslem Africa. Under Harun al Rashid, the University of Baghdad was a centre of learning superior to any in Europe. And there was a thriving multicultural civilisation (“convivencia”) in al Andalus. It brought us Ibn Sina, Moses ben Maimon, Ibn Rushd, and of course al Khwarezmi.
Until it all fell apart. The tipping point, I think was the invasion of the Seljuk Turks in the tenth century. This led to the rise of another version of Islam, one hostile to learning, foreign people, and indeed everything else civilised. Its persecution of Christian pilgrims to Palestine led to the Crusades, and hence much of our current world.
What do you think will happen when those countries start to experience the peak of production and then a fairly constant decline to zero reserves? A move to renewables may hasten that peak but the absence of such a move will not delay that peak for ever.
The sheer numbers will defeat any attempted migration form the Near and Middle East. Most will die in situ. Those that survive, we will kill, I am sure.
Timothy Mitchell “Carbon Democracy” – an oustanding read on this very point by Norman.
thanks for the book link wondering
I hadn’t seen it before, excellent source
I see nothing wrong with this at all…hard work deserves a bonus…
But the crowd over there holding Pitchforks may disagree
https://news.yahoo.com/bankrupt-alaska-airline-seeks-bonus-143316763.html
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The largest rural airline in Alaska has declared bankruptcy and laid off more than a thousand workers but wants to award $250,000 in bonus money to its chief executive and other employees.
Anchorage-based RavnAir Group filed the request Tuesday in Delaware bankruptcy court, arguing that the bonuses are justified because of long hours and the hard work that went into selling the company’s assets after it shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, Alaska Public Radio reported.
The final sale of all the assets is expected to generate more than $55 million, exceeding what the company anticipated. Chief Executive Officer Dave Pflieger has already collected $1.4 million in salary, bonuses and expense payments over the past year.
……Two phone numbers for Ravn Air Group did not allow messages to be left. One invited emails regarding customer feedback. One sent there seeking comment from Plieger wasn’t immediately returned Thursday to the AP.
Nice morning wrapup….PS …He’s at again…
Bloomberg news
Airlines are “in a very, very critical situation right now,” said Chief Executive Officer Robin Hayes as he called on the Trump administration and Congress to resolve a stalemate over a new economic stimulus plan. Carriers have said that the stalled travel recovery may force them to cut tens of thousands of jobs on Oct. 1, when restrictions expire on $25 billion of existing U.S. payroll aid.
“They absolutely have to come together and build a stimulus bill to help the country continue to get through this,” Hayes said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “The day of reckoning is coming for the industry, because we can’t continue with where we are in terms of numbers of jobs we have and see demand at 25% to 30% of where we’d normally be.”
JetBlue has joined other U.S. carriers in trimming its flying this month amid a resurgence of coronavirus cases and quarantine requirements adopted by some states. The New York-based carrier will fly about 40% of its normal schedule in August, down 10 to 15 percentage points from its earlier plan, Hayes said.
Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co. and other carriers had to backtrack on earlier plans to boost August and September flying when a fledgling rebound in leisure travel fizzled. Delta CEO Ed Bastian and his counterpart at Southwest, Gary Kelly, have called on the government to extend payroll aid beyond the end of September
Nearly 150,000 workers at the nation’s four largest U.S. airlines already have left the companies voluntarily or taken extended leave as carriers adjust to reduced demand. About 25% of JetBlue workers have taken such offers, Hayes said, and the airline is trying to avoid forced layoffs.
Still, JetBlue is maintaining plans to start trans-Atlantic flights next year, assuming approval of a coronavirus vaccine or treatment. It’s “reasonable” to expect JetBlue to begin service to London in the third quarter of 2021, Hayes said.
Boy. The Ending of BAU is hard to take…we are going to miss you when the only trip we are going to take is from the hut to the field to the dung pile💥😥
…the only trip we are going to take is from the hut to the field to the dung pile…
Be sure to grow some Wildwood weed in your field for the times ahead. As Jim Stafford sang in an old 1970’s song, “You can take a trip and never leave the farm”. 😀
D3G
Does it relieve hunger pains, besides boredom?
Herbie, give me a pitchfork. The managers of profitable companies get bonuses; the managers of unprofitable companies get bonuses. This was prefigured in an oratorio by Hans Honneger called Jeane d’Arc au Bucher, “Joan of Arc at the Stake”. The advocates of the contending parties reflect on their success or failure:
“J’ai gagné et j’ai de l’argent plein les poches.”
“J’ai perdu et j’ai de l’argent plein les poches.”
Succeed and win; fail and win: how is this capitalism? Or sanity?
Both winning and losing still require corrupt henchmen. It’s not about sanity, it’s about power.
Exactly. As the oratorio makes clear.
Like Ed Abbey wrote, I’ll hold the flashlight to point them out…happy sticking them good
“Boeing’s commercial activity slowed to a trickle in July, when the company handed over just four jets and took in no new aircraft orders.”
https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers/boeing-delivered-four-jets-in-july-with-no-new-orders/139713.article
“Boeing this year has booked 59 orders. But its net figure for 2020 is negative to the tune of 836 aircraft, owing to cancellations, accounting adjustments and order conversions.”
Former NTSB official, Jamie Finch, was recently interviewed where he discussed Boeing’s ongoing
troubles recertifying the 737Max. While the FAA seems to be satisfied with Boeing’s efforts at making the Max safe, foreign regulatory agencies are not necessarily on board with it…no pun intended. It remains to be seen whether or not the traveling public will accept the improved Max version once air travel picks up again.
D3G
An interview with Jamie Finch from December 2019. He reveals that the FAA was fully complicit in allowing a plane to fly that their own analysis had shown to be unsafe. Why has nobody been hanged?
“https://lincolnparkconsult.com/index.php/2019/12/17/rick-sanchez-talks-to-jamie-finch-former-director-of-gapafa-at-ntsb-about-the-federal-aviation-authority-knowing-about-the-problems-with-boeings-737-max-before-a-deadly-crash-forced-the-plane-out/”
As if things weren’t bad enough, you may have read that US operators of certain 737 models must now respond to an FAA Airworthiness Directive (AD) inspection involving the engines, specifically the 5th stage engine bleed valve. Cabin pressure air is taken (bled) from an open 5th stage bleed air valve. Air pressure sourced at the 5th stage is plenty for cabin pressure requirements during takeoff, climb and cruise power settings. On decent however (low power), 5th stage air pressure drops too low and the 9th stage bleed air valve opens to compensate. The thing is, because air sourced at the 9th stage is higher pressure, the 5th stage bleed valve must close. If it fails in the open position, higher pressure 9th stage air will backflow through the open 5th stage valve into the engine causing a compressor stall – a condition which might not be recoverable. Apparently the 5th stage valve has not always been closing properly. Though unlikely, it is possible for both engines to experience this failure at the same time. Weeks and weeks of sitting on a tarmac somewhere can’t be good for the equipment.
Thank you, D3G, I didn’t know that. The basic idea of feeding air through the engines and into the cabin is absurd; one error can put lives in danger. Aeroplanes have become absurdly complicated, with innumerable modes of failure. No human pilots can possibly become familiar with all of them, and of course computers are often part of the failure mode so cannot be trusted to correct it.
Well, using the engine compressor to pressurize the cabin has been around since, well, most likely more than 50 years.
However, the devil is in the implementation detail.
Thank you. Yes, I was aware of that, have been since I first flew on a de Havilland Comet. Older aircraft used electric heating and compression, which avoided the risk of chemical contamination, hence the rather unfamiliar smell in the cabin of the new improved machine, not like the old Boeing Stratocruiser, probably the most comfortable flying machine I ever enjoyed. Of course, direct heating from the jet engine is cheaper, because it doesn’t need any energy conversion, but I still think it a bad bargain.
“The stock market hasn’t seen a 100-day gain this strong since 1933 [didn’t Germany find itself with a dynamic new Chancellor in that year?] … both the current rally and the 1933 rebound follow historically steep selloffs that accompanied global cataclysms.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-stock-market-hasnt-made-a-move-this-big-since-1933-11597337248
Nice comparison! The big run-up didn’t fix the general economic problem back then either.
Re emerging market central banks funding government debt, as per the article I posted above, some nations, like the Philippines and Indonesia, are better placed to “get away” with it than, for example, South Africa, Brazil…
“The headwinds are considerable, says Craig Mellow in Barron’s. With public-sector debt “ballooning” towards 100% of GDP, the state cannot afford generous fiscal support measures for much longer, says Alberto Ramos of Goldman Sachs. Brazil has “one of the weakest fiscal positions” of any emerging economy.”
https://moneyweek.com/investments/stockmarkets/emerging-markets/601813/brazil-drowns-in-its-own-debt
..or Turkey:
“The Turkish lira has depreciated rapidly since the turn of the year, recently notching its weakest ever level against the dollar, but analysts suggest the risks are still skewed to the downside… Central to the currency’s weakness has been Turkey’s unconventional monetary and fiscal policy moves and the diminished independence of its central bank…”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/13/turkeys-plummeting-lira-could-have-further-to-fall-analysts-say.html
“Discussion of wars and invading Greek islands is of course a tactic used by the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to distract the Turkish population from the woeful economic situation.”
https://greekcitytimes.com/2020/08/14/as-turkeys-economy-collapses-yeni-safak-says-greek-islands-must-be-invaded/
When I look at the map in the article, the islands are all right next to Turkey, rather than adjacent to Greece. I would wonder how Greece could defend them.
Greece is part of NATO, attack one and you attack all.
So is Turkey. NATO attacking itself.
which is why I wrote in 2018 that the EU was a product of mutual prosperity—-EU or NATO, the same thing applies.
Nations remain in cohesive harmony as long as they can afford it.
when they can’t old animosities will inevitably break out. they start to look for resources elsewhere.
https://medium.com/future-vision/the-european-union-was-a-construct-of-infinite-prosperity-7a401c225171
“Will look for resources elesewhere”?
Really Norman? They HAVE been doing that for about a century..
I didn’t realize how badly off Brazil was.
“China’s retail sales slipped in July, dashing expectations for a modest rise, as consumers in the world’s second-largest economy failed to shake off wariness about the coronavirus, while the factory sector’s recovery struggled to pick up pace.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-activity/chinas-economic-recovery-underwhelms-as-consumer-comeback-stays-elusive-idUKKCN25A0EA
“Japan’s economy will contract more than previously expected and suffer mild deflation during the current fiscal year, analysts predict, underscoring the fragile nature of the recovery from the devastating coronavirus pandemic.”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-economy-poll/pandemic-to-hit-japans-economy-more-than-expected-u-s-china-tension-adds-to-concerns-reuters-poll-idUKKCN25A0EG
I presume these are annualized amounts:
Retail sales down; construction related spending up due to stimulus, according to article. Also auto sales, likely due to stimulus.
Rain/flooding problems blamed, also partial lockdowns to deal with coronavirus. Seventh month in a row with retail sales below a year ago.