We live in a world where words are very carefully chosen. Companies hire public relations firms to give just the right “spin” to what they are saying. Politicians make statements which suggest that everything is going well. Newspapers would like their advertisers to be happy; they certainly won’t suggest that the automobile you purchase today may be of no use to you in five years.
I believe that what has happened in recent years is that the “truth” has become very dark. We live in a finite world; we are rapidly approaching limits of many kinds. For example, there is not enough fresh water for everyone, including agriculture and businesses. This inadequate water supply is now tipping over into inadequate food supply in quite a few places because irrigation requires fresh water. This problem is, in a sense, an energy problem, because adding more irrigation requires more energy supplies used for digging deeper wells or making desalination plants. We are reaching energy scarcity issues not too different from those of World War I, World War II and the Depression Era between the wars.
We now live in a strange world filled with half-truths, not too different from the world of the 1930s. US newspapers leave out the many stories that could be written about rising food insecurity around the world, and even in the US. We see more reports of conflicts among countries and increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, but no one explains that such changes are to be expected when energy consumption per capita starts falling too low.
The majority of people seem to believe that all of these problems can be fixed simply by increasingly taxing the rich and using the proceeds to help the poor. They also believe that the biggest problem we are facing is climate change. Very few are even aware of the food scarcity problems occurring in many parts of the world already.
Our political leaders started down the wrong path long ago, when they chose to rely on economists rather than physicists. The economists created the fiction that the economy could expand endlessly, even with falling energy supplies. The physicists understood that the economy requires energy for growth, but didn’t really understand the financial system, so they weren’t in a position to explain which parts of economic theory were incorrect. Even as the true story becomes increasingly clear, politicians stick to their belief that our only energy problem is the possibility of using too much fossil fuel, with the result of rising world temperatures and disrupted weather patterns. This can be interpreted as a relatively distant problem that can be corrected over a fairly long future period.
In this post, I will explain why it appears to me that, right now, we are dealing with an energy problem as severe as that which seems to have led to World War I, World War II, and the Great Depression. We really need a solution to our energy problems right now, not in the year 2050 or 2100. Scientists modeled the wrong problem: a fairly distant energy problem which would be associated with high energy prices. The real issue is a very close-at-hand energy shortage problem, associated with relatively low energy prices. It should not be surprising that the solutions scientists have found are mostly absurd, given the true nature of the problem we are facing.
[1] There is a great deal of confusion with respect to which energy problem we are dealing with. Are we dealing with a near-at-hand problem featuring inadequate prices for producers or a more distant problem featuring high prices for consumers? It makes a huge difference in finding a solution, if any.
Business leaders would like us to believe that the problem to be concerned with is a fairly distant one: climate change. In fact, this is the problem most scientists are working on. There is a common misbelief that fossil fuel prices will jump to high levels if they are in short supply. These high prices will allow the extraction of a huge amount of coal, oil and natural gas from the ground. The rising prices will also allow high-priced alternatives to become competitive. Thus, it makes sense to start down the long road of trying to substitute “renewables” for fossil fuels.
If business leaders had stopped to look at the history of coal depletion, they would have discovered that expecting high prices when energy limits are encountered is incorrect. The issue that really happens is a wage problem: too many workers discover that their wages are too low. Indirectly, these low-wage workers need to cut back on purchases of goods of many types, including coal to heat workers’ homes. This loss of purchasing power tends to hold coal prices down to a level that is too low for producers. We can see this situation if we look at the historical problems with coal depletion in the UK and in Germany.
Coal played an outsized role in the time leading up to, and including, World War II.
History shows that as early coal mines became depleted, the number of hours of labor required to extract a given amount of coal tended to rise significantly. This happened because deeper mines were needed, or mines were needed in areas where there were only thin coal seams. The problem owners of mines experienced was that coal prices did not rise enough to cover their higher labor costs, related to depletion. The issue was really that prices fell too low for coal producers.
Owners of mines found that they needed to cut the wages of miners. This led to strikes and lower coal production. Indirectly, other coal-using industries, such as iron production and bread baking, were adversely affected, leading these industries to cut jobs and wages, as well. In a sense, the big issue was growing wage disparity, because many higher-wage workers and property owners were not affected.
Today, the issue we see is very similar, especially when we look at wages worldwide, because markets are now worldwide. Many workers around the world have very low wages, or no wages at all. As a result, the number of workers worldwide who can afford to purchase goods that require large amounts of oil and coal products for their manufacture and operation, such as vehicles, tends to fall. For example, peak sales of private passenger automobile, worldwide, occurred in 2017. With fewer auto sales (as well as fewer sales of other high-priced goods), it is difficult to keep oil and coal prices high enough for producers. This is very similar to the problems of the 1914 to 1945 era.
Everything that I can see indicates that we are now reaching a time that is parallel to the period between 1914 and 1945. Conflict is one of the major things that a person would expect because each country wants to protect its jobs. Each country also wants to add new jobs that pay well.
In a period parallel to the 1914 to 1945 period, we can also expect pandemics. This happens because the many poor people often cannot afford adequate diets, making them more susceptible to diseases that are easily transmitted. In the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-1919, more than 50 million people worldwide died. The equivalent number with today’s world population would be about 260 million. This hugely dwarfs the 3.2 million COVID-19 deaths around the world that we have experienced to date.
[2] If we look at growth in energy supply, relative to the growth in population, precisely the same type of “squeeze” is occurring now as was occurring in the 1914 to 1945 period. This squeeze particularly affects coal and oil supplies.
The chart above is somewhat complex. It looks at how quickly energy consumption has been growing historically, over ten-year periods (sum of red and blue areas). This amount is divided into two parts. The blue area shows how much of this growth in energy consumption was required to provide food, housing and transportation to the growing world population, based on the standards at that time. The red area shows how much growth in energy consumption was “left over” for growth in the standard of living, such as better roads, more vehicles, and nicer homes. Note that GDP growth is not shown in the chart. It likely corresponds fairly closely to total energy consumption growth.
Figure 3, below, shows energy consumption by type of fuel between 1820 and 2010. From this, it is clear that the world’s energy consumption was tiny back in 1820, when most of the world’s energy came from burned biomass. Even at that time, there was a huge problem with deforestation.
Clearly, the addition of coal, starting shortly after 1820, allowed huge changes in the world economy. But by 1910, this growth in coal consumption was flattening out, leading quite possibly to the problems of the 1914-1945 era. The growth in oil consumption after World War II allowed the world economy to recover. Natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear have been added in recent years, as well, but the amounts have been less significant than those of coal and oil.
We can see how coal and oil have dominated growth in energy supplies in other ways, as well. This is a chart of energy supplies, with a projection of expected energy supplies through 2021 based on estimates of the IEA’s Global Energy Review 2021.
Oil supplies became a problem in the 1970s. There was briefly a dip in the demand for oil supplies as the world switched from burning oil to the use of other fuels in applications where this could easily be done, such as producing electricity and heating homes. Also, private passenger automobiles became smaller and more fuel efficient. There has been a continued push for fuel efficiency since then. In 2020, oil consumption was greatly affected by the reduction in personal travel associated with the COVID-19 epidemic.
Figure 4, above, shows that world coal consumption has been close to flat since about 2012. This is also evident in Figure 5, below.
Figure 5 shows that coal production for the United States and Europe has been declining for a very long time, since about 1988. Before China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, its coal production grew at a moderate pace. After joining the WTO in 2001, China’s coal production grew very rapidly for about 10 years. In about 2011, China’s coal production leveled off, leading to the leveling of world coal production.
Figure 6 shows that recently, growth in the sum of oil and coal consumption has been lagging total energy consumption.
We can see from Figure 6 that the only recent time when oil and coal supplies grew faster than energy consumption in total was during a brief period between 2002 and 2007. More recently, oil and coal consumption has been increasingly lagging total energy consumption. For both coal and oil, the problem has been that low prices for producers cause producers to voluntarily drop out of coal or oil production. The reason for this is two-fold: (1) With less oil (or coal) production, perhaps prices might rise, making production more profitable, and (2) Unprofitable oil (or coal) production isn’t really satisfactory for producers.
When determining the required level of profitability for these fuels, there is a need to include the tax revenue that governments require in order to maintain adequate services. This is especially the case with oil exporters, but it is also true in general. Energy products, to be useful, produce an energy surplus that can be used to benefit the rest of the economy. The way that this energy surplus can be transferred to the rest of the economy is by paying relatively high taxes. These taxes allow changes that aid economic growth, such as improvements in roads and schools.
If energy prices are chronically too low (so that an energy product requires a subsidy, rather than paying taxes), this is a sign that the energy product is most likely an energy “sink.” Such a product acts in the direction of pulling the economy down through ever-lower productivity.
[3] Governments have chosen to focus on preventing climate change because, in theory, the changes that are needed to prevent climate change seem to be the same ones needed to cover the contingency of “running out.” The catch is that the indicated changes don’t really work in the scarcity situation we are already facing.
It turns out that the very fuels that we seem to be running out of (coal and oil) are the very ones most associated with high carbon dioxide emissions. Thus, focusing on climate change seems to please everyone. Those who were concerned that we could keep extracting fossil fuels for hundreds of years and, because of this, completely ruin the climate, would be happy. Those who were concerned about running out of fossil fuels would be happy, as well. This is precisely the kind of solution that politicians prefer.
The catch is that we used coal and oil first because, in a very real sense, they are the “best” fuels for our needs. All of the other fuels, even natural gas, are in many senses inferior. Natural gas has the problem that it is very expensive to transport and store. Also, methane, which makes up the majority of natural gas, is itself a gas that contributes to global warming. It tends to leak from pipelines and from ships attempting to transport it. Thus, it is doubtful that it is much better from a global warming perspective than coal or oil.
So-called renewable fuels tend to be very damaging to the environment in ways other than CO2 emissions. This point is made very well in the new book Bright Green Lies by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert. It makes the point that renewable fuels are not an attempt to save the environment. Instead, they are trying to save our current industrial civilization using approaches that tend to destroy the environment. Cutting down forests, even if new trees are planted in their place, is especially detrimental. Alice Friedemann, in her new book, Life after Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Fuels, points out the high cost of these alternatives and their dependence on fossil fuel energy.
We are right now in a huge scarcity situation which is starting to cause conflicts of many kinds. Even if there were a way of producing these types of alternative energy cheaply enough, they are coming far too late and in far too small quantities to make a difference. They also don’t match up with our current coal and oil uses, adding a layer of time and expense for conversion that needs to be included in any model.
[4] What we really have is a huge conflict problem due to inadequate energy supplies for today’s world population. The powers that be are trying to hide this problem by publishing only their preferred version of the truth.
The situation that we are really facing is one that often goes under the name of “collapse.” It is a problem that many civilizations have faced in the past when a given population has outgrown its resource base.
Needless to say, the issue of collapse is not a story any politician wants to tell its citizens. Instead, we are told over and over, “Everything is fine. Any energy problem will be handled by the solutions scientists are finding.” The catch is that scientists were not told the correct problem to solve. They were told about a distant problem. To make the problem easier to solve, high prices and subsidies seemed to be acceptable. The problem they were asked to solve is very different from our real energy problem today.
Many people think that taxing the rich and giving the proceeds to the poor can solve our problem, but this doesn’t really solve the problem for a couple of reasons. One of the issues is that our scarcity issue is really a worldwide problem. Higher taxation of the rich in a few rich countries does nothing for the many problems of poor people in countries such as Lebanon, Yemen, Venezuela and India. Furthermore, taking money from the rich doesn’t really fix scarcity problems. Rich people don’t really eat a vastly disproportionate amount of food or drink more water, for example.
A detail that most of us don’t think about is that the military of many different countries has been very much aware of the potential conflict situation that is now occurring. They are aware that a “hot war” would require huge use of fossil fuel energy, so they have been trying to find alternative approaches. One approach military groups have been working on is the use of bioweapons of various kinds. In fact, some groups might even contemplate starting a pandemic. Another approach that might be used is computer viruses to disrupt the systems of other countries.
Needless to say, the powers that be do not want the general population to hear about issues of these kinds. We find ourselves with narrower and narrower news reports that provide only the version of the truth that politicians and news media want us to read. Citizens who have developed the view, “All I need to do to find out the truth is read my home town newspaper,” are likely to encounter more and more surprises, as conflict situations escalate.
Hospital in Iowa: 100% of Covid patients are fully vaccinated.
https://twitter.com/vegsource/status/1393358858811187200
It would be interesting to know what percentage of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients have been vaccinated.
TORONTO — The city has confirmed that all major events in Toronto this summer, including the Caribbean Carnival and the Canadian National Exhibition, will once again be cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March, the city cancelled all events and permits through to June 30 and today’s announcement means events typically held in Toronto in July, August, and over the Labour Day weekend will also not proceed in person.
“To continue to slow the spread of COVID-19 and help provide predictability to major event organizers, the City of Toronto is extending the cancellation of in-person City-led and City-permitted outdoor events to September 6,” officials said in a news release issued Friday.
LOL! Jacinda Ardern Has Been Named The World’s Greatest Leader
Jacinda Ardern has topped Fortune Magazine’s list of the world’s greatest leaders.
The Kiwi Prime Minister has received the epic honour for her hard work during the pandemic last year.
While every country and territory leader had a huge responsibility to keep their citizens alive in 2020, New Zealand has been voted in a separate poll as having the best response to the outbreak of Covid-19.
It was Ms Ardern’s early, quick and harsh lockdown that allowed New Zealand to keep cases and deaths to a minimum.
It wasn’t long before the country became the envy of the whole world and was hosting massive sporting and entertainment events while the rest of the globe was still locked in their homes.
Fortune Magazine wrote about Jacinda’s honour: “The Covid-19 pandemic struck and Ardern targeted not just suppression of the virus but its complete elimination.
“Though there have been a few scares, her strategy largely proved successful; New Zealand, a nation of nearly five million people, has seen fewer than 2700 cases and only 26 deaths.”
It’s not the first time Jacinda has appeared on Fortune Magazine’s list but it’s certainly her debut at number one.
Fortune added: “Jacinda Ardern had already sealed her position as a great leader early in her premiership of New Zealand, by empathetically steering her country through the aftermath of a terror attack and the deadly eruption of a volcano.
“Ardern and her cabinet ministers took a six-month, 20 per cent pay cut in 2020 to show solidarity with people who had lost their livelihoods owing to the pandemic.”
Fortune’s list isn’t restricted to prime ministers, presidents and other stately figures.
https://www.ladbible.com/news/latest-jacinda-ardern-has-been-named-as-the-worlds-greatest-leader-20210514
How does New Zealand ever resume relations with the rest of the world? Will there be anything left of the economy?
I would like to return to the term “hygiene”.
I am more and more persuaded that the authors of the Limits to Growth should have had included this term into their models instead of “pollution”. The use of the term “pollution” in The Limits to Growth is imprecise. Maybe they could have used the term “polluting industrial emissions” instead of “pollution”.
It is clear that after the peak, the main problem is the control of pollution and even more maintaining the hygiene due to the falling energy per capita and the deterioration of the populations due to the ageing, the accumulation of the genetic mutations and overcrowding.
A pandemic is a direct result of the failing hygiene control caused by the abovementioned population growth and better and better healthcare.
The spread of the virus via respiratory ways does not mean that it is a respiratory virus, but it seems that the actual one causes vascular damage. It is like damaging the pipe network. The leading species on Earth is attacked in the most sensitive way, as the transmission of this virus is carried out via air.
In that way, the virus directly addresses the overcrowding.
In the 80s, we had the immunodeficiency causing virus of AIDS spreading via direct contact, especially attacking the area of human species propagation. Now we have the virus that attacks from the other side, the side of the ageing of the populations.
The main problem of both seems to be the social distancing. As if the viruses addressed the too high concentration of a species.
Definitely, there is a too high concentration of the humans on Earth who create various kinds of artificial pollution that can be handled only by higher and higher amounts of energy.
The failing pollution and hygiene control cause stopping the complexity growth, as more and more energy is directed towards complexity growth.
good. But I think that LTG probably realized that hygiene was built into their models in the death rates. Hygiene doesn’t matter much if people are dirty or stinky, but really only if it becomes a life or death situation.
Downloaded Nomadland… watched about 1/4…
Is this the PR Team glorifying living out of a van? One of the old ladies says ‘I love this life – the freedom – the connection with the earth’
People gathered around the fire singing folk songs… over to smiling simpletons line dancing…
I am quickly losing interest …. if I end up on that boat… please shoot me.
D H Lawrence suggested that real men would only be truly happy dancing around a fire in tight red trousers, having given the finger to Capitalism. Maybe wave an axe in the air, too.
Give it a go FE and report back on the liberating effect!
The YT van life meme is just pathetic, it can’t work without industrial services.
Van Living is the New Doomie Prepper Lifestyle!
Both completely unfeasible when Walmart closes and the petrol stations run dry.
But hey — if the delusions fend off insanity and depression ..
India’s fuel use to take bigger hit as Covid spreads
India’s fuel demand could fall by as much as 40pc from pre-pandemic levels in the next few months should the surge in the country’s Covid-19 infections lead to extended lockdowns, officials from state-controlled refiners said.
The predictions, which come as the country’s coronavirus outbreak shows no sign of any significant slowdown, are likely to translate into lower refinery operations and crude imports.
Fuel consumption could fall to as little as 60-65pc of levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic, senior officials at two of India’s state-controlled refiners told Argus. The predictions are based on authorities imposing two-month lockdowns to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as some government health experts are recommending.
Other refinery officials were more optimistic but still expected a significant drop in fuel use in the coming months.
State-controlled refiners, which mostly supply the domestic market, will need to reduce runs to at least 80pc next month, the officials said. Average run rates across the sector are unclear but IOC, the country’s biggest refiner, has cut its throughputs to 85-88pc of capacity from almost 90pc last week, according to a company official. India’s state-run refiners operate around 3.2mn b/d of capacity, including joint-venture plants.
India’s gasoline and diesel demand fell by 5-10pc last month from April 2019. A fall of up to 40pc in consumption could imply reductions of as much as 700,000 b/d for diesel and 290,000 b/d for gasoline, based on demand of 1.75mn b/d and 715,000 b/d respectively in June-July 2019.
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2215138-indias-fuel-use-to-take-bigger-hit-as-covid-spreads
A person would think that India would figure out that an extended lockdown would be a disaster for the economy. Perhaps this author is just trying to point this out to leaders in India.
Summer power cuts to add to covid woes
Power outages during summer could threaten the recovery process of covid patients who may require oxygen support at homes or hospitals without power backup, especially in rural India.
With the virus now spreading to villages and smaller towns, experts say that steady power supply is emerging as a key concern for those on medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators and ventilators.
“Both my parents who live in Meerut tested positive for covid in the second week of April, and we hastily arranged an oxygen concentrator at home, but frequent power cuts in the locality made it very difficult to maintain steady oxygen supply,” said Rahul Agarwal, a Delhi-based entrepreneur. “We finally decided to bring my mother to Delhi after her condition started to worsen. She continues to be on oxygen support at home, but hopefully, the worst is behind us.”
While Agarwal is among those who had the resources to manage the situation, for a large part of India, power outages pose a threat to public health during the pandemic.
“The availability of power per se is not a problem as we have enough generating capacity, and significant surplus, in fact. The problem, however, is at the local level distribution network,” said Shantanu Dixit, group coordinator, Prayas, a Pune-based energy advocacy group that focuses on the healthcare sector.
“During summer, the electricity demand increases, and the distribution system, which is already fragile or not robustly built, gets overloaded, and power supply is interrupted,” Dixit said.
https://www.livemint.com/industry/energy/summer-power-cuts-to-add-to-covid-woes-11621014171428.html
Power supply to India was not very reliable when I visited India in 2012. Transmission is always the most difficult part of supply.
I am fairly certain that IL&FS was involved in financing a lot of the electricity infrastructure. IL&FS hit huge financial problems back in 2018, and I am not certain this is, even now, entirely sorted out. I don’t think that India really has the financial means to put together an electric grid providing electricity 24/7/365 for everyone.
Gail, India has the same problem we had when my family lived in Africa. Not the reliability of the grid, but the wholesale theft of power from every accessible node, which of course greatly destabilised ii.
China’s power use up 13.2 pct in April
China’s electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, expanded 13.2 percent year on year in April as the country’s economy continued to resume growth, official data showed.
Total power use came in at 636.1 billion kWh last month, according to the National Energy Administration.
In April, power consumption by the primary and secondary industries rose 16.4 percent and 12.3 percent from a year ago, respectively, while that used by the tertiary industry surged 31.3 percent year on year.
https://www.macaubusiness.com/chinas-power-use-up-13-2-pct-in-april/
Last years’ April was probably depressed by pandemic effects. The same report says, “In the first four months, China’s power consumption totaled 2.56 trillion kWh, up 19.1 percent year on year.”
Wow!
US dollar dominance waning as CBDCs enter global spotlight
Global US dollar reserves touched a 25-year low in Q4 2020, according to a new IMF report. Will a digital euro and e-RMB muscle in?
The International Monetary Fund’s recently released Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report suggests global finance could be at the cusp of a paradigm shift away from the U.S. dollar. With the rise of rival currencies such as the euro and China’s yuan poised to go digital, the USD’s dominance could dim even more in the years to come, analysts say.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) must compete with two obstacles to successfully challenge the USD, however: rivalry from private cryptocurrencies as stores of value against inflation, and regulatory uncertainty regarding implementation.
New lows for the dollar
In Q4 of 2020, global reserves of the U.S. dollar sunk to a 25-year record low of 59%, according to the IMF report. USD last dipped below 60% in 1995.
“Some analysts say this partly reflects the declining role of the US dollar in the global economy, in the face of competition from other currencies used by central banks for international transactions,” the IMF explained in a blog post. “If the shifts in central bank reserves are large enough, they can affect currency and bond markets.”
https://forkast.news/us-dollar-dominance-waning-cbdcs-enter-global-spotlight/
It looks like pretty much everything else went up, including the Euro and pounds sterling.
Here we go again…
Covid: Indian variant could disrupt 21 June easing, PM says
The Indian Covid variant could pose “serious disruption” to lockdown easing in England on 21 June, the PM has said.
Boris Johnson said if it was found to be “significantly” more transmissible there could be “some hard choices”.
The wait between jabs will be cut from 12 weeks to eight for the over-50s and clinically vulnerable because of concern over the variant, he added.
Cases of the Indian Covid variant have nearly tripled in the past week, Public Health England figures show.
Surge testing is already taking place in 15 areas across England, including Bolton, Blackburn, London, Sefton and Nottingham.
According to Friday’s government figures, a further 17 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive test and another 2,193 coronavirus cases have been recorded.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57122817
I feel so very grateful that a born leader of immense integrity like Boris is looking after us here, and ready to take the hard decisions – about as hard to him as lying…..
Hopefully the real reason for the cut from 12 weeks to 8 weeks for the over 50s is that the take up by the under 50s has been less than expected, especially by those in their late 30s who are currently in the crosshairs.
For those outside the UK who don’t know, 21 June is the date when all restrictions in the UK are due to end according to a roadmap set out by the government in February. In particular, nightclubs would be able to open and large gatherings would be allowed again. Even when the roadmap was announced I doubted this would be the case, and it looks like we are already being primed for it not to happen.
I felt we were being primed from at least as far back as January, when we were warned to not book summer holidays abroad. That particular warning is still in the news semi-regularly.
True. The message has hit home and most people I speak to are too wary to consider a holiday abroad. I expect bookings in Devon and Cornwall are well up, but will we even get a summer this year? May is already looking like a wash out and if the following three months continue in similar vein, discontent at the restrictions is sure to be even greater..
One of the obstacles to travel is a rule Biden put in on January 12, right after he took office. It says that everyone returning home from abroad by air is required to test negative using an approved COVID-19 test within 3 days of returning from abroad. This applies whether a person has been vaccinated or not.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/testing-international-air-travelers.html
In fact, there is new guidance effective May 13 for fully vaccinated people, and it says the same thing.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
This requirement is not much of a problem, if a person is staying in a resort that gets most of its travelers from the US, or if a person is staying quite a while in a major city, where such tests are easy to get. The problem occurs when a person has been traveling around on a tour through smaller cities where such tests are likely not available. If this is the case, the person needs to extend his stay for another three days, staying in the city where his return flight is from. Thus, if the person had planned on a 14 day trip, he suddenly discovers that he needs to plan on a 17 day trip, with an extra 3 days in a hotel that he needs to pay for. If a person only has two weeks’ vacation, or a limited amount of funds to spend on the trip, this adds a level of expense and complication to the trip.
Then there is the question of what happens if a person does test positive. The person will need to stay wherever he is until he can test negative again. If the country has inadequate medical facilities, this becomes a problem as well.
My husband and I were thinking about an overseas trip (to use the travel credit available, because our planned trip from last year was cancelled), but my husband only had 14 days available to travel. The extra three day stay requirement was a deal-killer for us. There were other issues, as well, that entered into the decision. Would there be adequate care, if one of us became ill, while on the trip?
A travel agent in my car last night explained to me the UK rules when arriving from abroad. These are applicable as of tomorrow, as today travel abroad is illegal without a good excuse. If I remember correctly, foreign countries are rated as green, amber and red for covid. If arriving from a green country, a passenger must take a covid test on arrival and another three days later. Arrival from an amber country entails a two week quarantine at home. From a red country it is a two week quarantine in an approved hotel at a cost of £1700.
Given the chance of a false positive from testing, the fact a country’s colour is liable to change at a moments notice, and reports of it taking six hours to traverse an airport on return to the UK, one would have to be wealthy, foolhardy or have a very understanding boss to get on a plane.
Yes, I know it can’t be done, it is impossible, it is pure wishful thinking, but….
“The US and China have taken an interest in Mars because it is packed with rare metals, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, tungsten, and gold, essential minerals that will power the economy of tomorrow.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-may-attempt-land-mars-rover-friday
Dennis L.
The energy cost of going to Mars, keeping people alive to extract the minerals, actually extracting the minerals, and bringing them back would be absolutely absurd. We could, in theory, leave our pollution on Mars.
It’s more likely an implausible smoke-screen to distract us while they get down to the serious business of rapid population reduction and control, and competing/partitioning over the ever-scarcer resources of this planet.
We need nutritious food. Lots of it.
Maybe we could build vertical farms as high as skyscrapers near all population centers. Probably cheaper than the long distance excursion in search of more iphone materials.
Building more stuff won’t stop the inevitable.
This is amusing ….
Using data combined with anecdotes from home buyers, WSJ illustrated how the rapid pace of price appreciation over the last year is affecting the outlook for the housing market, as high prices negate the impact of mortgage rates that are still near record lows.
Nationwide, the median existing-home sales price rose 16.2% in the first quarter to $319,200, a record high in data going back to 1989, NAR said.
Prices are rising so rapidly that they are outweighing the benefit of rock-bottom borrowing rates. In the first quarter, the typical monthly mortgage payment rose to $1,067, from $995 a year earlier, NAR said, even as mortgage rates declined.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/home-prices-are-soaring-so-fast-they-are-negating-benefits-low-mortgage-rates
Old Swiss money no longer valid from Friday
From Friday 30 April 2021, old Swiss bank notes will no longer be legal tender. This means they can no longer be used as a valid means of payment.
The notes affected are old 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 1,000 Swiss franc notes from the eight series pictured above.
From 30 April 2021, the only businesses that will accept these notes are Swiss Rail and Swiss Post, who will accept them until 30 October 2021.
After 30 October 2021, the only places that will accept these notes are the cash desks of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), which will always exchange old notes for new. There is no time limit on this. The SNB operates cash desks in Bern and Zurich.
https://lenews.ch/2021/04/29/old-swiss-money-no-longer-valid-from-friday/
The way I am reading this, this article relates to bank notes issued prior to 1916. These would be very old notes. I can’t imagine there would be very much currency involved.
ZURICH, April 28 (Reuters) – The Swiss National Bank is recalling the eighth series of banknotes issued between 1995 and 1998 that has been replaced by the ninth series launched between 2016 and 2019.
https://www.reuters.com/article/swiss-snb-notes-idUSFWN2MK1DV
No, sorry. Rhey are vnewer banknotes: 1996-1999
https://www.snb.ch/fr/iabout/cash/series8/design_series8/id/cash_series8_design_principle
They certainly looked newer. Thanks!
When Jung was old and worried about losing his wealth, he withdrew lots of Swiss franc notes and buried them in his garden, in valuable Chinese jars.
Of course, he lost both the notes, which rotted, and the jars which broke.
I often wonder: was he just a senile old fool, or was he trying to teach us something by example? The former, probably.
Whatever the truth, the wisdom of not trying to store up treasures on earth is well illustrated by the tale.
The Swiss franc has kept its value much better than most other fiat currencies. Had he come up with a better storage method, he would have been onto a winner. A Swiss bank account would seem to have been ideal. 🙂
Research suggests Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine reprograms innate immune responses
Researchers in The Netherlands and Germany have warned that Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine induces complex reprogramming of innate immune responses that should be considered in the development and use of mRNA-based vaccines.
Jorge Domínguez-Andrés and colleagues say that while the vaccine has been shown to be up to 95% effective in preventing infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and subsequent COVID-19, little is known about the broad effects the vaccine may have on the innate and adaptive immune responses.
In the current study (not peer-reviewed*), the research team from Radboud University Medical Center and Erasmus MC in the Netherlands, and the Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research (HZI), Hannover Medical School (MHH), and the University of Bonn, in Germany, confirmed the efficacy of BNT162b2 vaccination at inducing effective humoral and cellular immunity against several SARS-CoV-2 variants.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210510/Research-suggests-Pfizer-BioNTech-COVID-19-vaccine-reprograms-innate-immune-responses.aspx#:~:text=Researchers%20in%20The%20Netherlands%20and,use%20of%20mRNA%2Dbased%20vaccines
2020 was the virus and the lockdowns. 2021 is the vaccines and the reopenings. 2022 might be very much about the medium term effects of the vaccines. We will know within about 20 months.
India is the least vaccinated nation in the world…and producing the worst mutated viruses…
viruses always gonna do what viruses do.
Yoshua, what can I say? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Google is your friend.
According to Our World in Data:
India:
Vaccination began on January 15, 2021.
Total doses given (as of My 12): 178m
Fully vaccinated: 39.3 million
That includes over a hundred million people with only one dose and millions with compromised immune systems that, according to Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, allow the virus plenty of opportunity to develop into new variants.
New variants always seem to start flooding a country just as vaccinations ramp up in that country. It is happening here in Japan, where 1.2% are fully vaccinated and the English variant has become the biggest threat, according to the mass media.
Hey Fast Eddy – are you prepping the South Island for a few million refugees?
Home Prices Are Soaring So Fast, They Are Negating The Benefits Of Low Mortgage Rates
A recent report in the Wall Street Journal that cited data from the National Association of Realtors and Fannie Mae caught our eye by highlighting an unfortunate reality of low interest rates: while they initially help even the playing field and make homes more affordable for more Americans, after a while, price appreciation will ultimately make housing less accessible for middle- and working-class Americans.
Using data combined with anecdotes from home buyers, WSJ illustrated how the rapid pace of price appreciation over the last year is affecting the outlook for the housing market, as high prices negate the impact of mortgage rates that are still near record lows.
Nationwide, the median existing-home sales price rose 16.2% in the first quarter to $319,200, a record high in data going back to 1989, NAR said.
Prices are rising so rapidly that they are outweighing the benefit of rock-bottom borrowing rates. In the first quarter, the typical monthly mortgage payment rose to $1,067, from $995 a year earlier, NAR said, even as mortgage rates declined.
Of course, the frenzied state of the American real estate market is nothing new.
The other day, we reported that home sales prices in the country’s hottest markets had risen by their widest level since 2006, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index, a closely watched measure of home prices in the US which offers a breakdown by region, as well as nationally. According to Case-Shiller, US home prices in 20 major cities are up a shocking 11.10% year-over-year.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/home-prices-are-soaring-so-fast-they-are-negating-benefits-low-mortgage-rates
Did China Just Kill The Commodity-Craze?
While it may be early, the sudden reversal across the commodity space has many wondering if the bubble has popped.
Copper prices were on course for their first weekly decline since the start of April on Friday as rising inflation fears and a dip in demand from China dragged prices down.
“The high copper price appears to have curbed demand,” said broker Marex Spectron.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/did-china-just-kill-commodity-craze
“In February 2021 it became apparent the rollout of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines in the United Kingdom could have triggered a sharp spike in COVID-19 deaths.
“The experimental vaccines in Gibraltar appear to have only caused a short lived spike in deaths. Gibraltar supports the suggestion that the first dose of the experimental vaccines may be fatal
“The only discernible blemish on the rollout of the experimental vaccines in Sweden is the sustained [elevated] level of deaths at the end of the season spike in deaths. The Swedish experience suggests the second dose of the experimental vaccines may be fatal.
“The vaccines in Denmark appear to have doubled the size of spike in COVID-19 deaths.
“The experimental vaccines in France appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike in deaths.
“The experimental vaccines in Germany appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike in deaths.
“The experimental vaccines in Greece appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike in deaths and this embarrassing observation might explain why the daily updates ceased on 21st February 2021.
“The experimental vaccines in Ireland appear to have triggered a spike in COVID-19 deaths.
“The vaccines in Italy appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike in deaths with a second wave.
“The experimental vaccines in Malta appear to have prolonged the seasonal spike in deaths.
“In Poland the vaccines appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike with a second deadly wave. The Polish before and after graphs [with 7 day moving averages] clarify the impact of the vaccines.
“In Portugal the experimental vaccines apparently triggered a sharp spike in COVID-19 deaths.
“In Romania the vaccines appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike with a second deadly wave
“The experimental vaccines in Spain appear to be prolonging the seasonal spike in deaths and this embarrassing observation might explain why the daily updates ceased on 22nd January 2021.”
See the data here:
https://malagabay.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/scream-blue-murder/
I am not convince that an unbiased observer would be convinced by these charts.
…and of course this is all due to QE which is money printing and buying all the treasuries…
Too many treasuries are leaving the market thanks to QE, leaving too few for others who need them.
Thus the high ratios of total orders to number of bonds available for other countries as well, in another comment.
This is interesting. Recent auctions have shown a healthy appetite for new on-the-run bonds at any low rates (for balance sheet purposes). The TIPS auction had reduced demand compared to expectations. Not much inflationary expectation from foreign buyers as the demand was reduced.
I see short term inflation this summer followed by massive deleveraging and deflation by October. High gas, High food, High housing and taking away unemployment checks…
sounds about right. High essentials. I hope you’re correct that the federal unemployment bonuses go away, but our gov seems to be all in on More Money Today.
How can there ever be any ‘massive deleveraging’ when the rot (bad collateral) is overflowing? The Dow will never drop below 30,000 ever again until collapse.
You deflationista’s make me laugh. You just cannot accept that Wall Street Oil (fracking) completely ruined the reservoirs.
Disclosure: Long Oil and Silver until the US $ is kaput.
It’s not money printing. The CB’s create excess reserves on a CB held balance sheet in exchange for the security. Neither the security (on the fed’s balance sheet) nor the reserves (on the prime account at the fed) circulate in the economy. The reserves mathematically allow banks to loan more money, but that doesn’t mean they do so.
In order to lend, it is necessary to find customers who will be able to pay back the loan, with interest. If a bank cannot find them, the bank cannot increase the amount of lending it does.
Exactly! Plus from the borrower’s side they need to be confident that they can pay back principal with interest.
So you don’t think there are forgivable loans out there?
How naive!
Someone said that the Repo rate is at zero since there aren’t enough collateral (treasuries) in the Repo market. There’s too much money and not enough treasuries.
The government isn’t borrowing enough to create enough treasuries? The US treasuries are more wanted than gold…since they are backed by the largest economy, best companies and the biggest military force in the world….and of course the Fed.
isn’t China decreasing UST holdings and increasing gold? Aren’t UST based on the value of the US dollar? If the USD soon might plunge, who would want UST?
Most treasury demand by banks has little to do with the rates. They need the treasuries to serve as collateral for transactions. They prefer it because it is liquid and risk free – unlike using a corporate bond or something else.
Its so ‘risk free’ that the banks have to liquidate their depositors with regular injections of chemical additives, nanostructures, genetic structures, and other assorted ‘goodies’ to make them whole.
Why don’t you just admit that the financial system is a toxic landfill and get it over with?
Inflation alert: Container shipping rates just spiked (again)
The headlines last August and September blared: “Trans-Pacific rates are going crazy.” “Rates are on fire.” “Records shattered.” Oh, what cargo shippers would give to pay the rates they paid eight or nine months ago. Those earlier records were repeatedly shattered. It just happened yet again.
“Non-stop demand of ocean freight and the resulting delays and equipment shortages pushed spot rates to new heights across all major trade lanes once again this week,” said Judah Levin, the research lead at Freightos.
The weekly Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, which tracks global trends, rose 8% week on week. And spot-rate moves don’t tell the whole story. Shippers are paying up to $3,000-$5,000 more per box in premiums on top of base rates just to get their cargo loaded.
Fixed annual contracts priced 50%-100% higher than last year’s will partially shield importers from the latest spot-rate rise. But with many shippers still heavily exposed to the spot market as the traditional peak season nears, the stage is set for the dramatically higher transport costs to be passed along to consumers, to the extent possible, in the form of inflation.
Trans-Pacific rates still rising
As of Wednesday, the Freightos Baltic Daily Index assessed Asia-West Coast spot rates (SONAR: FBXD.CNAW) at $5,650 per forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU). That’s up 15% from the beginning of this month and up 70% from rates back in August and September when pricing began to garner headlines. Rates are now 3.2 times higher than in mid-May 2020, up 228% year-on-year (y/y).
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/inflation-alert-container-shipping-rates-have-just-spiked-again
Wow!
What cannot continue — will explode.
34 COUNTERPARTIES TAKE $241.2B AT FED’S FIXED-RATE REVERSE REPO
New post covid crisis high.
Repo market running out of collateral
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1XVvKpWEAIBO_A?format=jpg&name=medium
Thanks! I figured out that “FRED” has a similar chart.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRPONTSYD
thanks. Multi-year shows that 2017 was much worse than now. so 1st we survived 2017 and 2nd is it the same problem now as it was in 2017, or is the 2021 problem worse?
OMG ..It NEVER Ends…the Fake Fast Eddy Hoax Chronicles…now this!
Earth’s stratosphere – an atmospheric layer that starts 7.5 miles above the surface – is shrinking.
The stratosphere has gotten a quarter-mile thinner since 1980 and will keep contracting.
That shrinkage, caused by greenhouse gases, could throw off the trajectories of orbiting satellites.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.
About 7.5 miles above our heads, the stratosphere begins.
That slice of sky – where supersonic jets and weather balloons fly – stretches up to 31 miles above Earth’s surface. But according to new research, this layer of the atmosphere has shrunk by a quarter-mile in the last 40 years.
A study published last week in the journal Environmental Research Letters shows that humanity’s greenhouse-gas emissions are behind the startling contraction.
I’m 😱😮
If we all die off, I suppose that atmospheric layer will come back. Or maybe the system will evolve in a totally different way.
They are arguing that since the stratosphere has gotten thinner in recent years, and since CO2 concentrations have increased in recent years, that CO2 must be the cause of the stratosphere shrinking. But hang on, my bank balance has also be shrinking the whole time. So perhaps that is what is causing the thermosphere to shrink? No? How many times do we have to repeat. CORRELATION doesn’t necessarily imply CAUSATION.
According to Eric Worral:
“Given we appear to be experiencing a prolonged period of abnormally low solar activity, any fluctuation in the thermosphere* is more likely due to change in solar EUV ( extreme ultraviolet) emissions, rather than anthropogenic CO2. The EUV component of solar emissions is far more variable than total solar irradiance, so even a small change in solar activity can have a profound impact on the energy budget of layers of the atmosphere which are especially sensitive to EUV flux.”
*It is the thermosphere, located between about 80 and 700 kilometers (50 and 440 miles) above Earth’s surface, that can effect the trajectories of orbiting satellites. The stratosphere, located between approximately 12 and 50 kilometers (7.5 and 31 miles) above Earth’s surface, has nothing to do with it. The writer of the article Herbie quotes from is scientifically illiterate.
Tim. Did you read the paper that was the reference in the article?. If not, hard to judge the validity of the findings.
Not that it really matters 🙂 in the predicament we face. Just another doom and gloom piece to add to the pile.
I really wanted a reaction from False Fake News Fast Eddy.
P.S. I’m so over the debating of GW already and how sensitive the climate is or is not…I totally agree with Gail…not much to be done with the overshoot of the humans
I didn’t study the paper due to limited time, Herbie. I know as part of my general geophysical/astronomical knowledge base that the thermosphere expands and contracts in response to cyclical changes in solar output. When the writer of the article ignored that and also got the stratosphere mixed up with the thermosphere, I knew I was reading something by a shill and probably a shill with acne. So I didn’t feel any need to explore that claim further. If Greta starts screaming about it, though, perhaps I’ll check it out.
I found the following on a NASA webpage from 2018:
Chill out.
That’s the current message from the Sun to Earth’s upper atmosphere.
To be more precise, as the Sun settles into a cyclical, natural lull in activity, the upper atmosphere, or thermosphere — far above our own climate system — is responding in kind by cooling and contracting.
The layers of the atmosphere
The thermosphere is where the Sun and Earth’s atmosphere first interact.
Credits: NASA
Could that have implications for folks down here on the surface? Absolutely not. Unless, that is, you’re someone with a vested interest in tracking an orbiting satellite or space debris.
Beginning approximately 60 miles above Earth’s surface and extending out to about 375 miles, the thermosphere is where the Sun and the atmosphere first interact. When solar activity is low, like it is now, and the thermosphere cools and contracts, satellites in low-Earth orbit feel the effects.
“They encounter less drag and their orbits will not decay as much due to that. It’s good for satellites,” said Marty Mlynczak, a senior atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
To be totally clear, this cooling is natural and specific to the thermosphere. The cooling thermosphere does not affect the troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface where people live. The temperatures we experience on the ground do not get colder due to this solar cycle. NASA and other climate researchers continue to see a warming trend in the troposphere. These two effects are ongoing but unrelated.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/yes-the-sun-is-less-active-no-youre-not-likely-to-notice
I note that nobody is opposing Gail’s views at all. The mainstream are ignoring her completely. A few renewables evangelists are attacking her on the viability of solar and wind. The rest of us are firmly behind her because, IMHO, she has stated the basics so often in and so many different ways that if there were any major floors, somebody would have spotted them by now.
Thank you ❣️ You answered my question fully by stating you didn’t read the paper…enough said..
Back to fun and games.
The USA hasn’t cornered the market in nutters
we now have a young earth creationist running Northern Ireland
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/finance/news/northern-irelands-dup-elect-edwin-160057005.html
Actually, no. They have to choose a new first minister yet. I do agree, though, he’s a nutter, and the sooner he’s gone the better.
Speaking of nutters….. stay away from mirrors
no need
mirrors do not show my reflection
The Potty and DUPid show
DUPid has about 700 members, drawn from an extreme fundamentalist church.
It is totally bizarre and incongruent that they should govern a region of UK.
‘Britsh’ is just an identity for them, they are nothing like mainland Brits.
Their voters will shift to the moderate Alliance party, and SF will probably take the post of First Minister in 2022.
DUPid will try to rally around the NI Protocol, but it has the support of business and of a majority in NI.
A DUPid attempt to shift the border onto the island would immediately raise the prospect of a border poll.
It is possible that DUPid will cause Stormont to collapse again, over Irish language provisions or a SF FM, which would also increase impetus toward a border poll.
Demographics are shifting toward Irish unity, but another 10 years is perhaps a more realistic timescale.
DUPid is acting out its sense of impending crisis – and ushering it.
The DUPid circus is a catastrophe for the UK, and it will be interesting to see how things develop.
The election of Potty comes in a long line of DUPid miscalculation – from Brexit to a hard Brexit to an Irish sea border, among many others.
Yesterday morning. Maybe England should get a vote on whether we want to continue with this ‘UK’. What sort of people do this to young kids? The idea that this lot represent ‘Britishness’ is frankly offensive.
> Finaghy Primary closed over claims ‘device in vicinity of school’
Superintendent Gillian Kearney said: “Police, along with Ammunition Technical Officers, attended Finaghy Primary School this morning, following a report that a device had been left in the area of the school.
“This incident has been declared a hoax. An investigation is ongoing and we are following lines of enquiry. The individual, or individuals responsible for this incident will have caused great upset and distress to the school and community.
“Young schoolchildren and their parents have already been affected by disruption over the last year and this is the last thing they, the teachers and staff needed to contend with.
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/finaghy-primary-closed-over-claims-20595231
The Times has an insightful take on the Poots election. In particular, DUP is caught between the hard-line TUV and the moderate Alliance, to whom its vote is leaking. DUP will quite possibly crash the Stormont parliament if SF takes the post of first minister. That would leave NI entirely non-functional on a political level, with no obvious resolution in sight, and it would raise questions about the time of a border poll – one is allowed every seven years.
> DUP votes in Edwin Poots, Johnson critic who believes the Earth was created 4,000 years ago
…. Support for the DUP has fallen sharply since it backed Johnson only to see him agree a Brexit deal that effectively put a customs border in the Irish Sea. In the 2017 elections the DUP was the largest party, with 28.1 per cent of the vote. A recent poll, after the protocol came into force, showed that its support had fallen to 19 per cent while the hardline TUV — formed from a DUP split in 2007 — had grown to 10 per cent.
The fear is that at the assembly elections next year the unionist vote will be split, leading the way for Sinn Fein to become the largest party — and with it the post of first minister. In the 2017 elections Sinn Fein received 27.9 per cent of the vote.
…. Yet that strategy, and the party’s new leader, risks putting off moderates who were already drifting towards supporting the cross-community Alliance Party that did well in 2019.
The fear is that Poots will lose votes to the TUV and even more votes to the Alliance, put off by his views on gay rights and creationism. If that happens, the DUP could fall into second place behind Sinn Fein in next year’s elections, handing the republican party the first minister’s job. In such circumstances it is hard to imagine the DUP remaining in the power-sharing executive, leading to a collapse of the institutions yet again….
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dup-picks-anti-protocol-hardliner-edwin-poots-to-replace-arlene-foster-as-leader-d98l56cdl
Time Out…seems we are all a little stressed out and need to step back and get things back in perspective….
A short minute in a half video that will help everyone..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tm6Z1y3h94
A Reason to Stop Worrying
If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.” – Lao
Yesterday is history tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift and thats why its called the present” – Master Oogway
over time every person, every memory of a person will all die, this won’t matter to anyone we’ll all be dead”
I’m sorry was this supposed to cheer me up
Have a Nice Day Everybody🤓
Yes, nicely put; we do what we can and learn to live with the rest.
Dennis L.
Is that “Lao” as in Laozi (= Lao Tzu), or “Lao” is in “The Seven Faces of…”? I don’t think this quote is in either one. Remember what Lincoln said about the internet!
Tzu…googled it!
https://www.taoistic.com/fake-laotzu-quotes/fake-laotzu-quote-If_you_are_depressed_you_are_living_in_the_past.htm
Just cheer up!
‘Don’t look back – you’re not going there!’
‘Whoever told you life is about being happy?!’
Ragnar Lothbrok, from the utterly authentic series ‘Vikings’.
nice video, how about this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFLvhKv-Lbo&ab_channel=BigWallyFilms
you are a child of the universe.
one more for you philosophers out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0shWISKpNA&ab_channel=JermBoor
it’s The Mostly German Philosophers Love Song.
Another great day for the STock “Market” “Economy”. Soon Crude oil and Silver (the most manipulated entity on earth) will be the biggest percentage gainers every single day!
The Canada Leak cannot be wrong.
“Military” in the streets within 3 months guaranteed.
Its all over.
martial law?!?! we’ll see. there are no guarantees in life, and the Leak is already partially wrong.
Eddy, here is an even more profound video than ‘American Moon’
Imagine, all of physics a pile o crap with the head con being exposed in an interview about magnetism. This dude is even worse than Buzz. And Little normie gets on his knees for this?
I guess Insane Clown Posse was right about magnets, then.
Feynman, like Eunstein, was a complete fraud. They not only plagiarised every idea that they presented as their own, but when confronted by a first principles question which they didn’t have a prepared misdirection sophistry for, would resort to ending the interview abruptly or try condescending dissimulation. I used to look up to these people as demigods as a young researcher. Then i began to see through their gish’s gallop, circular reasoning and hype, their clusterf**k of sophistries and Liam’s bluffs.
The last 110 years will be known as the Age of Lies.
Do you know of anyone online/book worth reading on physics? What do you think of this guy’s views on physics?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Yokai-Seishinkage
what’s wrong with feynman’s answer? maybe i’ve been brainwashed by university physics but made perfect sense to me. there’s a phenomenon that people have observed, and it’s been given a label “magnetism”. he goes on to say that this force at a distance is so observable because certain force producing units in iron are all lined up and they aggregate to a force that we can readily observe working at a distance, as opposed to ordinary matter where you feel the force only when you’re in actual contact. i thought people at OFW were science oriented.
Well, Gary Mosher says this about the physics:
http://donotgo.com/in/ds/index.html
The physics described by most scientists today isn’t just unscientific (proclaimed without evidence) it is illogically full of unresolved paradoxes and contradictions.
The Universe runs on Energy and conventional physics doesn’t understand any aspect of it.
The kinetic energy formula for example:
1/2 vmv
Was willfully created to Force reality to match religious daydreams. The history of its creation, defense, and eventual acceptance is a mockery of the scientific method. Truth was forsaken for agenda, evidence was exaggerated distorted and quote mined to support a plainly silly notion of reality…
Richard Feynman was a fine man! 🙂 He was also a great performer, a great teacher, and a great explainer of physics to the masses. And he popularized QED and discovered why the Challenger blew up (unless you’re one of those boring Fake-Shuttlistas). So what’s not to like about him?
Also, in the above video, he’s an old man in a chair already weakened by ill health and possibly the cancer that would ultimately end his life at the age of 69. Being ill like he was can make a man grumpy and make him sound grumpy even when he isn’t. Let’s have a bit of empathy and compassion, please.
“…as recently as December, the volume of negative-yielding debt hit a new record of about $18trn…
“Yet with inflation stirring, the era of the negative bond yield might be drawing to a close. And that promises to bring its own headaches. Particularly within the eurozone.”
https://moneyweek.com/investments/bonds/government-bonds/603253/negative-bond-yields-end-of-an-era
“Wall Street Has a Bond Sale Problem…
“The order allocation of hot new bond issues has long been a murky area of the capital markets. Which client gets favored and how is a closely guarded secret on Wall Street, but dissatisfaction is growing on all sides — more so now that every new European sovereign bond sale seems to be breaking records on order books.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-12/wall-street-has-a-bond-sale-problem
A person might wonder what the problem really is:
(1) Indirectly, too many people unable to travel, and because of this, parking their money in bonds (or bank accounts) because stocks look too risky.
(2) The various support schemes giving people who don’t really need the support a great deal of money to invest.
(3) Something else.
4) The governmental Corona helps in every country…
oh, it is the support schemes, I had to think twice LOL
Negative yields coming to an end = Rising interest rates
Neither of these is really good. If nothing else, rising interest rates mean falling bond carrying values. And of course, borrowing has a higher cost.
With banks funding repo based on long UST’s their is a significant liquidity risk to higher rates if bonds become illiquid based on rising rates. We could have a repeat of the MBS type problems from the GFC. Repo markets moved away from using products like these as collateral and now focus on long maturity treasuries. Collateral seems to make things more secure, until it doesn’t, as in when nobody wants to buy it.
Harry,
It may be negative yields are in essence insurance that the lender has capital returned vs default.
Dennis L.
“Nearly 2 million jobless Americans are set to lose their pandemic unemployment benefits early, with Georgia, Arizona and Ohio becoming the latest Republican-led states to announce they would cease providing enhanced federal jobless payments…
“The payments, which Democrats recently extended until early September as part of their $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package, will end as soon as June 12 in some states.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/13/politics/pandemic-unemployment-benefits-gop/index.html
“This is a highly unusual move for multiple governors to be taking, and it would certainly be interesting to have a bit more information about why they are so convinced this will be good for their states that they are willing to risk anger from those who are losing benefits.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-14/the-politics-of-cutting-off-covid-19-unemployment-checks
“A sprawling shopping mall in Syracuse, New York, may be driven into one of the biggest municipal-bond defaults since the onset of the pandemic.
“Already struggling before the lockdowns hammered retailers, Destiny USA, the state’s largest mall, said it doesn’t know if it will generate enough cash to keep running and pay its debts this year.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-13/n-y-s-biggest-mall-flirts-with-muni-default-as-future-in-doubt
It strikes me think that it is ironic that the mall’s owner is Pyramid Management Group.
These bonds were sold as “municipal bonds.” Thus, it appeared that there was some state backing or some continuous revenue backing (like tolls), which there isn’t. Also,
So, perhaps there are more of these defaults to be expected in the future.
The governors want their restaurants, stores, and manufacturers to be able to find workers. The low pay offered to workers cannot compete with total compensation packages provided by government programs.
Offer $50 per hour and health insurance and there will be no storage of workers. It is called capitalism.
unfortunately that 50$ hour will be added to the cost of goods and services they are involved in
then no one will be able to afford them, and soon there will be no workers at all
that’s called realism
It does appear to be the case that the workers were so poorly paid in the first place, that the support programmes have given them no incentive to return to their work. Who can blame them? !
this neatly sums up part of the situation
if its true then there’s something seriously wrong with the system there
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rodney-mcmullen-kroger-foods-hazard-pay-record-22-million-dollars_n_609ded66e4b0daf2b59f5ded?ri18n=true
The Kroger situation sounds like something that could have happened. I don’t shop at Kroger. It has huge, poorly tended stores here, and lots of pre-made food. If a person is looking for a large selection of standard American food, it is a good place to go.
I shop at Publix, which is employee owned.
I paid staff a month bonus recently and didn’t take a bonus myself.
I want to do what the Kroger guy did and just take everything … but that’s not a great message to be sending to staff if one wants them to be motivated to go the extra mile…
I’ll never understand this strategy.
If workers go back to work the state collects unemployment payments from the employer, if the worker collects benefits, the state pays those benefits and there can be a cash flow issue, raise employment taxes too high and employers can’t afford employees.
Dennis L.
“Is China serious about credit tightening? …I would argue that, while there is a continued effort to de-risk the financial system, and reduce the influence of large conglomerates such as Alibaba, the government is not willing to touch the third rail of reducing credit. The risks of an economic and financial crisis are too high.
“If China does engage in significant tightening, there would be a major impact on the global economy, lowering the price of commodities, slowing trade, and hurting global sales for everything from cars to luxury goods.”
https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Is-China-serious-about-credit-tightening
“Chinese companies’ dollar bonds hit as Beijing tightens credit.
“Concerns grow among offshore investors as more than $100bn in debts due this year… The prospect of defaults has also forced international investors to reassess how much Chinese government support financially stretched companies will receive. Foreign investors have long assumed that Beijing would bail out state-backed groups.”
https://www.ft.com/content/fa577173-1d7d-4a44-8614-2326835d1969
China’s debt situation is certainly confusing. Part of the problem is that there are many parts of it. Even if one part is constrained, the total isn’t necessarily constrained.
“Already under massive stress from the virus, more Indian workers turn to ‘gig economy’ livelihoods… India’s work culture is at an inflection point.
“The coronavirus pandemic is shaking up the country’s labor force, shifting the focus sharply to gig economy jobs — or on-demand, part-time work given to contract workers.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/14/india-jobs-workers-turn-to-gig-economy-jobs-amid-coronavirus-crisis.html
“Everest climbers caught up in Nepal’s growing Covid crisis…
“The devastating coronavirus crisis overwhelming India is wreaking havoc in neighbouring Nepal, where surging cases have pushed hospitals to the brink of collapse and threatened the climbing industry that is crucial to the Himalayan economy.”
https://www.ft.com/content/2ce28d01-74b0-4371-ab35-b65a45d61396
It seems difficult to find an article these days that discusses hospitals without mentioning the word ‘collapse’. Presumably what they mean is receiving more patients than they are geared up to cope with, which is hardly collapse, but excellent for fear-mongering. If the doctors and nurses were dying off or leaving, as has occurred in parts of Syria over the past few years, that would be another matter.
Well observed, Minority: people have a subconscious belief that hospitals are there to save them in a crisis, so talking of ‘collapse’ will spook them.
It’s completely meaningless.
Stoic philosophy teaches us to despise such manipulation.
Pretty much everywhere, it seems like the number of hospital beds has been falling. Certainly, on a per capita basis, it has been falling. At the same time, the average age of citizens has been rising, suggesting that they will need more hospital beds, not fewer.
This is a chart of hospital beds in the US.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/185860/number-of-all-hospital-beds-in-the-us-since-2001/
This is a chart for the UK.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/473264/number-of-hospital-beds-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/
Even a small epidemic becomes a problem.
Hospital beds are a non problem made into a problem. All you need for a a bed are same-size cardboard boxes appropriately stacked and strapped together. When they’re not needed, they are flattened, put in the sun to disinfect, then stored in a clean place till needed again. Rinse (not literally) and repeat.
The fewer the beds, the fewer the possible deaths from error and malpracice in hospitals.
Always best to look on the bright side……
LOL, all of Nepal is in trouble (again), but people focus on the Everest climbers.
The gig economy already exists in the US. It became much larger at the time of the 2008-2009 recession. It makes it hard for workers to plan their lives.
“Suicides rise in Thailand as Covid decimates its tourism industry. Health officials compare the country’s current economic situation to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when suicide increased by over 20pc…
“There have long been fears that Covid-19, and the restrictions brought in to contain it, could lead to a mental health crisis and a possible increase in suicide rates around the globe.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/suicides-rise-thailand-covid-decimates-tourism-industry/
“Fears loom in Spanish tourism industry as restrictions in Britain, Germany threaten summer rebound.
“Visitors from both countries are key to the success of Spain’s high season and its economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.”
https://english.elpais.com/economy_and_business/2021-05-14/fears-loom-in-spanish-tourism-industry-as-restrictions-in-britain-germany-threaten-summer-rebound.html
It seems all tactics to make people desider ‘green pass’ which probably could become the ‘new normal’ for travels in EU. ‘Green pass’ fits very well with reducing fossil fuels consumptions and introducing more control on people, If power bring people to desider something that actually reduce their freedom is really a masterpiece of black humor. But is also a masterpiece of cunning. So it could sadly stay for long unless something unexpected happens.
Don’t forget that Thailand and Laos are the two lowest countries in the world in term of Covid deaths per million.
Who paid the government to kill the tourism industry?
Tourism still won’t do well this year, I am afraid.
Lights going off in Lebanon now: “An energy company responsible for about one quarter of Lebanon’s electricity supply has turned off its generators.
“Karpowership, a Turkish company, says it is owed more than $100m (£71m) by Lebanon and has not been paid in 18 months.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57112611
“The coming crisis in Idlib…
“Caught between a severe economic crisis exacerbated by Lebanon’s economic meltdown, further U.S. sanctions in 2020, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation is desperate in all of Syria.”
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2021/05/13/the-coming-crisis-in-idlib/
“If you need cash in Myanmar, you have to get up early.
“Queues start forming outside banks at 4 a.m., where the first 15 or 30 customers are given a plastic token that will allow them to enter the bank when it opens at 9:30 a.m. and withdraw cash, according to more than a dozen people who spoke to Reuters.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics-economy/lines-tokens-and-money-brokers-myanmars-crumbling-economy-runs-low-on-cash-idUSKBN2CV0CA
shows that ‘collapse’ takes many forms at different times in different places
it isn’t happening ‘suddenly’
Accelerating, though: the ‘shadow of Mordor’ is creeping over us, and sooner than we think light will be extinguished……
I agree
Good point!
It is hard to believe that the Turkish company allowed electricity generation to go on this long, without being paid.
Updated Bossche Predictions on outcome of mass vaccination during a pandemic of more infectious Sars-2-CoV variants
https://www.geertvandenbossche.org/post/predictions-on-outcome-of-mass-vaccination-during-a-pandemic-of-more-infectious-sars-2-cov-variants
We will see if this is really true.
It is only possible if the virus exists and the injection has any effect on the immune system. As far as I know, you need 140 persons injected to prevent 1 positive (or positive plus symptoms?) person. Taking into account that the PCR test is highly fraudulent (cormandrostenreview.com) and Corona symptoms are completely unspecific I wonder if the there is any effect that is statistically significant.
We dont know what is in the injections. If it is a military operation or aimed to reduce population it is possible that it contains a primer creating antibodies against a virus that does not yet exist outside the lab. If released it could cause millions of ADE, an antibody related storm of the immune system, that is highly deadly. This is the idea of Irish immunologist Dolores Cahill.
or the jabs produce mild spike protein infections with rare lon term effects. But yes the future of vaccine effects are more unknown than the future of the virus, which very well could become more infectious but likely less lethal. 2022 may give us the big reveal.
Two countries where this could be verified well are UK e Israel. Actually, they are always indicated by mainstream media in EU as good examples of successful fight against the virus. Unfortunately, Israel has started a new war, so this couldn’t be analysed correctly anymore. Any excuse for worsening the virus situation could come out. For UK it could take some time. But in the meantime, all main countries in EU are strongly pressing to vaccinate people and also leave vaccinated people to move freely across EU for holidays (green pass). So, everything could become in a couple of months very confused and not vaccinated people could be easily indicated as responsible for any worsening scenario. Although, on the contrary, vaccinated people could be in reality the ones responsible or have some responsibilty. It is not a promising situation and it seems difficult to see things will be analysed correctly. The next two months will be key.
yes Bossche has predicted a wave of illnesses and deaths in Israel “by Summer”. Soon we’ll know.
It does feel as if the CEP Team is waiting for the inevitable…. the problem is they have only experimented in a lab — they’ve not tried to create Devil Covid in a real world situation …
Hopefully this doesn’t go sideways… uncontrolled collapse with 8B healthy humans… would be a nasty situation
Eddy, just imagine 5000 1943 Stalingrads without the benefit of a supply chain.
Thats why Eddy does not want to discuss the possibility that nuke bombs are a fraud. Why, the little people could become uncontrollable.
Imagine Eddy battling in the streets with a sword and shield like in medieval times. It must keep him up at night.
Wow — the end of Greyhound bus lines….
Several transportation experts say that Greyhound Canada’s decision to shut down bus services permanently is going to have a compounded effect on some of the country’s already most disadvantaged commuters and travellers.
The decision to close the bus line’s remaining routes in Ontario and Quebec deals a heavy blow to commuters in those provinces’ rural and remote areas, who rely on both private and public intercity bus companies to travel.
Though the bus company had previously suspended its service in early 2020 amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, several experts, advocates and former Greyhound commuters expressed concern over what the impending lack of reliable transportation options means for certain vulnerable groups and communities.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7860104/greyhound-closure-disaster-communities/
https://youtu.be/o4ZeTdOjLUk
Forcing people to re-settle in the ‘smart cities’, perhaps?
It is clear that in the Re-set plans rural residence will be made impossible except for the very rich and some essential agricultural workers.
This is a continuation of a trend:
Rural bus services are also atrocious in the UK.
US denies Chinese student a visa because father is a police officer
‘How can a child of a grass-roots police officer pose a threat to US national security?’ asks agency applying for the student, who has US university offers
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3133438/us-denies-chinese-student-visa-because-father-police-officer?module=lead_hero_story_4&pgtype=homepage
Now that makes my weekend! Whine all you want you bitch…. the door is slammed shut.
Here’s how you delay the collapse of a housing market
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/05/10/mortgage-applications-spike-to-record-in-the-uk-after-boe-government-stoke-housing-fire/
I like the way the article starts:
I particularly like the part:
“The difference between then and now is that back then the economy was about to fall off a cliff, whereas now it has already fallen off a cliff.”
If the economy is like Humpty Dumpty, trying to put it back together again after it falls off the cliff is not so easy.
But, like the man who jumped without a parachute and is only half-way down , ‘it still feels fine’ for most in the UK.
Just like those who have been injected and feel OK.
I’m getting cramp from bracing for impact. Best go and stretch my legs……
The Repo chart. The Fed has been active since March this year. At zero rates the banks lose interest in the Repo market and the Fed has to take over it?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E1R0l7pXIAIY6l9?format=png&name=small
Stock Market goes up, US $ nosedives.
Stock Market goes down more than 3 days…GAME OVER
That reveals the depth of the FRAUD. Lehman X 1000
Banks until the 80’s/90’s used the Fed Funds market. The FED started charging for interday activities banks use for balance sheet operations. So since then they moved away from Fed Funds and Libor to repo. They are willing to use negative yielding collateral because they are not holding it for the interest, but for it’s function.
Over “Educated” Idiots at the Local Branch: “We don’t give loans to the oil & gas industry any longer”
Barbarian: “Did you get to work in an Oxcart?”
Insolvent.
The chart definitely shows renewed interest in the REPO market. It is not up to the maximum in March 2020, but it is getting there.
Funny how things change so rapidly… wonder when we get the next surge in NZ…
Travellers from Taiwan to Hong Kong will be required to quarantine for 14 days in designated hotels, the city’s health minister has said, amid a recent surge of locally transmitted coronavirus cases on the island.
The measure marks a shift from existing policy, which has allowed arrivals from Taiwan, along with those from mainland China and Macau, to undergo isolation at home.
“As there has been a rising trend in local cases in Taiwan … the government will require all arrivals who have stayed in Taiwan to undergo mandatory quarantine in designated hotels for 14 days,” Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee announced at a Friday Legislative Council meeting.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3133432/coronavirus-hong-kong-makes-hotel-quarantine?module=lead_hero_story_3&pgtype=homepage
Hong Kong’s long-awaited travel bubble with Singapore is unlikely to launch on May 26 as planned amid a recent surge in coronavirus cases in the city state, a top official has said.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3133443/singapore-hong-kong-travel-bubble-likely-be-delayed-after-spike?module=lead_hero_story_1&pgtype=homepage
Yes, Taiwan is now experiencing a big surge in domestically-transmitted cases. The zombies have climbed over the wall, you might say. For a long time there were about 30 cases at any one time. A week ago it hit 100. Now it’s about to hit 200. I don’t think they can contain this. Now the objective should be to slow it down, until Taiwan can get some vaccines.
One super-spreader was a guy running for president of the Lions Club. His campaign apparently took him to a massage parlor (yes, *that* kind) every night. I had no idea the Lions Club was so exciting. Anyway, he had been reluctant to confess this to Disease Control, for fear that the Mrs. would find out, but now he’s famous.
If a person is vaccinated against COVID-19, will they still be able to spread the virus to susceptible people?
An ideal vaccine stops everyone from carrying and passing on the infection as well as protecting them from becoming seriously ill. It is currently unclear whether COVID vaccines only protect against symptomatic and severe disease, or if they can also stop all infection, including asymptomatic infection (i.e. showing no symptoms). If the vaccine is only able to stop the symptoms of the disease, but unable to stop the virus from infecting us and reproducing, then the virus may
NZ Ministry of Health
The problem with the virus doesn’t seem to go away.
Normally they go away with herd immunity… but Sweden is not achieving herd immunity even though they are not trying to impede the virus…
One wonders….what Team Fauci concocted in that lab…. then released on purpose.
Here’s a piece pertinent to the theme of declining real oil prices: https://www.deflation.com/articles/deflation-in-a-sea-of-money
Price of oil/M2 money supply avalanche is trending….DOWN!
That is what I have been saying: It is not possible to print our way out of our low oil price problem.
Nice chart, made with FRED data. I could probably reproduce it.
https://www.deflation.com/articles/-/media/AFA18A9834A74DDF879880AA12405C9A.ashx?h=420&w=600
Pleased to be able to report I’ve done very well in oil shares this year.
I’m pleased that the oil industry has higher prices this year, so that bAU can continue for a while longer. The Collapse has been delayed.
Delta will require new employees get COVID vaccine, CEO says
“Any person joining Delta in the future, future employees, we’re going to mandate they be vaccinated before they can sign up with the company,” Bastian told host Richard Quest.
More than 60 percent of Delta workers already have at least one dose of the vaccine, Bastian said, adding he expects that 75 or 80 percent of staffers will eventually be fully vaccinated.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/13/delta-will-require-new-employees-get-covid-vaccine-ceo-says/
The Corporate Fascist future will it seems not require joining a party, but submitting to perpetual medication with whatever dubious substances they present us with.
Dog Coin? This is the PR Team taking the piss…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/dogecoin-sors-after-musk-tweets-working-doge-developers-improve-system-efficiency
From “Hole in the Head” comment on PeakOilBarrel:
“Refinery will decrease utilisation capacity as it has run out of storage space at the same time will
import diesel to meet shortfall . This is a universal problem now . What to do with the jet fuel and other components if all you can sell is gasoline and diesel .”
https://indianexpress.com/article/business/commodities/facing-low-margins-demand-yorker-refiners-reduce-run-rate-7312761/
This reenforces what Orlov was saying re the need to synchronously balance the heavy versus super light fractions, and that Covid19 is an attempt at this:
comments
Now then look at it again from the supply end, with the refiners get increasingly low quality (for transportation fuel outputs) inputs, From Mike Shellman’s insights:
Chart Stuff | oilystuffblog
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/chart-stuff
“America’s oil future in one chart. Gassy shale oil fields are now turning into oily shale gas fields. ”
&
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/forum/forum-stuff/is-light-tight-oil-getting-lighter
& the much underestimated “Bubble Point Death” Seneca Cliff for tight oil:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/controversial-theory-proven-valid-bubble-point-death-rages-lapierre/
What I wish to highlight is that it is not just supply constraint issues (Peak Oil / EROEI), nor also demand constraint issues (Gail’s observations that consumers find products, especially non-discretionary items, increasingly unaffordable) that are behind current events, but also the REFINERIES in the middle are getting squeezed by both ends into non-profitibilty even while demand remains stubbornly high. This is an underexplored aspect in my opinion.
.
“This reenforces what Orlov was saying re the need to synchronously balance the heavy versus super light fractions, and that Covid19 is an attempt at this” or is it the reverse that covid has led to the imbalance of too much jet fuel etc?
refineries in a profitability squeeze is no surprise, since the imminent economic Endgame is that most all business activity will be squeezed because of decreasing net (surplus) energy.
thanks for that, Luddite. So that’s a new stage in the decline of LTO which had questionable profitability to begin with. I’m guessing that part of the attempted solution for USA oil production and refining might be to increase the input of heavier Canadian production. Perhaps even forcing Venezuela to send some our way, but more likely Canada.
I find this part hard to believe… there will be a reason … but it’s not ‘dummb ass’….
And there’s Orlov (aka jakkass) stating that the US purposely destroyed Venezuela with shale … and tried to wreck russia similarly….
That is just plain BS…. shale was about getting oil onto the market after conventional peaked. Didn’t matter that it lost 300B … if you mix that with conventional you get decent nett output… and you can stagger on…..
What I suspect is at play below is that conventional production has fallen off big time after peaking 15 yrs ago…. mixing in more high priced unconventional to compensate simply doesn’t cut it any more because that leaves too little nett energy …
So the only option left is to reduce consumption … and roll out the CEP… because we have just about reached the End of the Road……
The quality of America’s HZ tight oil has always been less than perfect; in truth, its shit. It requires blending with heavier oil imports that are disappearing rapidly now, from Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador and elsewhere . We have turned our backs on the greatest source of heavy oil in our hemisphere, the Venezuelan Orinoco, and shut down the 2nd best source for heavy oils from Canada, the Keystone pipeline. Heavy oils are typically conventional and capital for conventional stuff has fled the building in search of 7-8-9 and higher percentage interest rates only the shale sector is willing to pay. This is all going to be a BIG problem, soon.
So, what to do with US light, tight oil getting lighter from a sector who can’t control its spending habits and who is essentially unregulated, allowed to drill wells that interfere with each other and that reduce total recovery rates of the resource because of severe pressure depletion?
Export the shit…below extraction costs. That’s the ticket.
America is eaten up with the dumb ass.
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater Eddy. I posted the Orlov video because of the nice articulation of a hitherto ignored topic- the dilemma confronting both governments and refineries – how to hide peak oil whilst simultaneously reduce consumption in a way that refiners can crack out. I have heard noone else cover this important issue.
They aren’t succeeding, partly due to the problems inherent in lies built upon lies, but more so because:
A) the declining quality of the inputs are rapidly making output management extremely difficult;
B) the tight oil plays are losing pressure whilst becoming ever gasier exacerbating the problems for both producers and refiners (Mike’s excellent article and Bubble Point Death links).
Add .gov incompetence and sheer ponerised sociopath onto of this, and you have a real mess and an impending uncontrolled collapse. Unless the world’s population is radically reduced, fast, attempting to maintain a semblance of BAU will lead to seriously catastrophic collapse no later than 2032 for those countries without serious oil reserves and the ability to defend them (leaving only Russia, Iran perhaps and a few other adjoining regions)
Yes there were a few good points… but it’s hard to stomach Orlov’s ‘Russia is so smart and the Americans so dummmb’ … he destroys his credibility by continuing to repeat the MSM lie that the US has been trying to put everyone out of the oil business.. it’s just so ridiculous … particularly in light of the fact that shale is ending.
Orlov will soon be pushing up daisies along with 8B others…. he is in a dream world if he thinks living in Russia will change that
Orlov need to feel good about himself and the choices he made. With other words, either peddle narratives or lie to himself. Perhaps both.
I guess we all gotta ‘feel good’ about the predicament. Actually, no, what we “need” is feel nothing at all about it and accept as is.
If there is something that can be changed it begins and ends with just one person and that person is:
YOU.
’nuff said.
I feel very good about the situation. The Borg is hanging from a 1000ft cliff by a thread….
Orlov is just a hack, singing for his bowl of bortsch – one can’t blame him, but his Russian Exceptionalism is a bi of a bore these days.
“… will lead to seriously catastrophic collapse no later than 2032…” that sounds about right, in the 2027-2032 range.
awwwww
don’t mess up 2032
I’ve got a big bet on for Psaki to be POTUS in 32
I’d be even be willing to become a US citizen to vote for her.
just remember, the P in Psaki is silent, as it also is for the guy in the White House called President Biden.
you want a potus who tweets nonsense at 3am
or one who seems to be getting on with the job he’s been elected to do?
I thought that was the very essence of good governance.
And yes, I knew the P was silent
I had no way to write a silent P on here to make sure those with an oversensitive awareness wouldn’t hear it
Very bad move to refer to Netanyahu as “Bibi”. We’re not only on first name terms, we use nicknames.
?
“That is just plain BS…. shale was about getting oil onto the market after conventional peaked. Didn’t matter that it lost 300B … if you mix that with conventional you get decent nett output… and you can stagger on…..”
Totally agree Eddy.
Thanks Luddite, I notice that in the interview too.
I do have a question – looking at the drop in jet fuel and gasoline, they match. The problem is that even dropping commercial air traffic to zero saves just 6mbpd.
The question is where will they cut next?
Orlov noticed in a comment that they might use spot shortages and he quoted Georgia having half the gas station without gas.
Maybe Gail can corroborate/disprove this?
But the question remain – what do you see as the next step to go down for heavy oil? Construction, shipping, shortages etc?
I think its important to view this fuel supply thing as a fluctuating graph with an overall downward trend
there would have been a similar mirror graph of say, 100/150 years ago, but on an upward trend.
all we understand about (modern) civilisation was created on that ‘upward trend’, (it was supposed to last forever btw). Folks were supposed to buy Ford cars, scrap them next year, and buy new ones. Ad Infinitum. Where could such marketing genius go wrong?
Civilisation is now dissipating on the opposite graph-slope, –bouncing up in places, down in other places.
People in the ‘up’ places think everything is going to be just fine, those hitting the downs realise it isn’t.
none can accept the overall slope is ‘down’. Theres not going to be any major ups from now on.
Secret Space [2005]
I am personally not particularly interested in this:
Me too, Gail. I find ‘Grey’ aliens to be one of the most boring and ugly products of human fantasy.
Now, give me a resplendent, winged and crowned, angel in a nimbus of glory and I’d sit up and pay attention!
If ‘superior’ entities are ‘Greys’, they can pack up and go home now, they lack charisma entirely and should be embarrassed by themselves.
I think we should better pay attention to this kind of unhinged fantasies:
– Most people prefer an insane conspiracy theory to a realistic one. That way they can keep their delusions about the goodness of the human nature and the ability of people to control their destinies.
– One of the ways to disparage people that reveal real conspiracies is to associate them with this kind of insanity (extra points for involving Hitler, jews and aliens).
That being said I have no interest to watch this – I am trying to save my anger for more worthy causes.
Notice how Buzz asks Sibrel when confronted by the footage if him faking lunar orbit … if he believes in aliens too….
Buzz must have skipped the course on logic…..
Was this in the national enquirer?
Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Narendra Modi are, one might say, birds of a feather (if, that is, you want to insult birds).
How did we get such idiots in some of the largest countries on the planet?
You forgot to mention Joe Biden … not only a MOREON… a corrupt MOREON hahaha….
And how about that son Hunter — chip off the old block… here he is in a 3 way with his dog watching!
https://www.shorenewsnetwork.com/2021/04/10/daily-mail-reveals-hunter-bidens-three-way-with-his-dog-and-a-giant-turtle-massive-amounts-of-crack/
The only person stoooopider than a Republican … is a Democrat hahahaa
This is great! I didn’t know half this stuff.
HK is home to the fewest DelusiSTANIS:
Response to the inoculation campaign has been sluggish so far, with only about 1.12 million of the city’s 7.5 million people having taken one dose. A total of 733,196 people, or 9.8 per cent of the population, have received two jabs.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3133358/vaccine-bubble-trouble-rules-fatigue-app-cynicism?module=lead_hero_story_1&pgtype=homepage
Ain’t fooling the yellow man that easy. Chinese medicine never died.
Whitey, however, they’ll gladly stab themselves with cyanide if ordered by big pharma.
I suspect the issue may which vaccine they were offered. Was it Sinopharm? I bet it was. In Taiwan, a lot of people have been refusing AstraZeneca, which is the only kind on offer.
Native Americans were stone or at best early bronze civilization relying on hunting and moving about. Sure there are mounds in the US and pyramids in Mexico, but the civilizations collapsed. Iroquois had some interesting laws, but they also tortured enemies. Europeans brought Iron Age and Industrial Age civilization. Today we would not allow that but in 1800 it was universally accepted.
Palestine had thousands of years of history with civilization. Damascus and Aleppo are among the oldest cities. Phoenicians developed technologies (ship building, dyes …) and the basis of our alphabet. Jews from Europe ignored all the rich history and even pretended there were no Palestinians! There is no comparison.
Israelis will argue the self-serving Old Testament or the fraudulent Balfour Declaration, neither of which would have standing in the ICJ, which Israeli refuses to join. Neither does Israel have a constitution or set boundaries.
It is a failed state.
History is “the winner’s story”.
The Phoenicians, oh thoise phoenicians,
Can you contemplate a Dynasty more than 10.000 years old?
Well, let us talk about “the rich”, it’s pure fun!”
Let’s tax the hell out of ’em!
The Phoenicians, oh thoise (sic) phoenicians,
They’re still there.
The natural civilisation is stone, copper and wood based. Everything else needs a lot of energy and knowledge. If you visit Scotland you understand how it works: for generations you move every day a few stones from the field to a wall. If you travel you carry some seeds so your offspring has some food when they come here. This is for me garden Eden.
Thick walls and iron is only needed for wars.
I do not understand the movement of megaliths like for stonehenge, the pyramids or the Syrian or Hindu temples. Is there a physical law we have forgotten? Or is this the reason why the mediterraneum is so treeless? So that not drought ruined the forests but ruining the forests created the drought?
GW has always been a problem…even before we burned coal
Or is this the reason why the mediterraneum is so treeless? So that not drought ruined the forests but ruining the forests created the drought?
Commanding General at Fort Campbell Issues New Guidelines – Unvaccinated Soldiers Cannot Take Pass or Leave Base – Considered Non-Deployable
Recently, Commanding General MG JP McGee issued new guidelines for unvaccinated soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division during a virtual town hall Tuesday night.
As of today, unvaccinated soldiers can not take a pass and can not take Leave (which is earned from time served). And, according to our source, unvaccinated soldiers are now considered non-deployable.
Previous to this, there was a 20 mile restriction on pass and leave policy. From our source, “This is essentially taking any choice away from soldiers who have sworn an oath to protect and defend this great country. Absolutely embarrassing how they handle something like this.”
Clarksville Now reported:
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In a livestreamed town hall event, Maj. Gen. McGee announced that soldiers choosing to remain unvaccinated should not “not consider things business as usual,” when making travel plans this summer.
“It would be irresponsible of me to allow soldiers to travel unvaccinated throughout the United States and bring that back and have an impact on our soldiers, their families and our overall operational readiness. I’m sure that’s not gonna be a popular decision for some, and that’s quite alright,” McGee said.
McGee said he and his staff are considering a range of options, including limited range of travel and increased reporting requirements for soldiers; however, no final decisions have been made as to restrictions.
Soldiers who are fully vaccinated should expect more freedom of travel, according to McGee’s update.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/commanding-general-fort-campbell-issues-new-guidelines-unvaccinated-soldiers-cannot-take-pass-leave-base-considered-non-deployable/
Amazing! Perhaps he won’t let the unjabbed go out to drop bombs on people?
If the mRNA vaccines turn out to be as bad (lethal) as they were in previous tests with animals, seems like the USA military might be a bit stretched in the not too distant future.
Nasal Vaccines for COVID-19?
— Some argue intranasal vaccines, still in early trials, may be better at blocking transmission
Mucosal Vaccines in the Pipeline
While mucosal vaccines may hold promise, clinical trials have only recently begun. Among 96 vaccine candidates in clinical trials, just eight are intranasal vaccines. Clinical trials are being conducted in the U.S., U.K., China, India, Cuba, and Iran, according to World Health Organization data released on May 5.
Two intranasal vaccine candidates are in phase II clinical trials. One uses a live-attenuated influenza virus adapted to express the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, and is being developed by the University of Hong Kong, Xiamen University, and the Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, in partnership with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The second is a protein subunit vaccine that is being developed by Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute in Iran.
In the U.S., two intranasal vaccine candidates are in phase I trials. The first is Altimmune’s nonreplicating adenoviral vector vaccine called AdCOVID. On March 25, the company released preclinical results in mice suggesting that the vaccine was protective against illness, decreased levels of replicating virus in the nose and respiratory tract, and produced a “robust” IgG response. Past results in mice had shown that IgA antibodies were maintained for at least 6 months after a single dose of the vaccine.
The second is Meissa’s live-attenuated candidate. Preclinical data in nonhuman primates have suggested that the candidate induced mucosal IgA and serum neutralizing antibodies, and was “highly protective” against infection with SARS-CoV-2 in the upper and lower respiratory tract.
Other intranasal vaccine candidates in clinical trials include: Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering & Biotech protein subunit vaccine (phase I/II); the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covishield, a nasal spray version of its ChadOx1 vaccine (phase I); Codagenix/Serum Institute of India’s live-attenuated SARS CoV-2 COVI-VAC vaccine (phase I); and India’s Bharat Biotech’s non-replicating adenoviral vector vaccine.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/92527
White House celebrates end of mask requirement for fully vaccinated
Biden embraced the new guidelines, but cautioned that more people still needed to be vaccinated.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated the new guidelines lifting mask requirements for people who are fully vaccinated, crediting his administration’s vaccination program with dramatically reducing the impact of the coronavirus.
“I think it’s a great milestone, a great day,” Biden said, speaking from the Rose Garden. “It’s been made possible by the extraordinary success we’ve had in vaccinating so many Americans so quickly.”
Earlier Thursday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that people who are fully vaccinated — meaning, two weeks removed from their last shot — no longer need to wear masks or physically distance themselves, indoors or outdoors in most circumstances.
The new guidelines mark a turning point in Biden’s fight against the virus, offering the country a renewed hope that a return to pre-pandemic normally is achievable as Covid-19 cases decrease across the country and as more and more people get vaccinated.
It also offers a clear reminder of the progress that has been made on tackling the virus from when Biden first took office when more than 3,000 were dying each day in the United States and Biden repeatedly pleaded with Americans to wear a mask.
“The American people stepped up. You did what I consider to be your patriotic duty. That’s how we’ve gotten to this day,” Biden said Thursday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/white-house-celebrates-new-end-mask-requirement-fully-vaccinated-n1267285