What allows any type of energy to be sustainable? I would argue that one of the requirements for sustainability is adequate production of taxable revenue. Company managements depend upon taxable revenue for many purposes, including funding new investments and paying dividends to shareholders. Governments depend upon taxable income to collect enough taxes to provide infrastructure and programs for their growing populations.
Taxable income is a major way that “net energy” is transferred to future investment and to the rest of the economy. If this form of net energy is too low, governments will collapse from lack of funding. Energy production will fall from lack of reinvestment. This profitability needs to come from the characteristics of the energy products, allowing more goods and services to be produced efficiently. This profitability cannot be created simply by the creation of more government debt; the rise in the price of energy is tied to the affordability of goods, particularly the goods required by low-income people, such as food. This affordability issue tends to put a cap on prices that can be charged for energy products.
It seems to me that Green Energy sources are held to far too low a standard. Their financial results are published after subsidies are reflected, making them look profitable when, in reality, they are not. This is one of the things that makes many people from the financial community believe that Green Energy is the solution for the future.
In this post, I will discuss these ideas further. A related issue is, “Which type of oil production fell most in the 2018-2021 period?” Many people had expected that perhaps high-cost energy production would fall. Strangely enough, the production that fell most was that of OPEC oil exporters. These oil exporters often have a very low cost of energy production. The production of US oil from shale also fell.
If the ratio of Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI) is to be used as a measure of which type of energy best meets our needs, perhaps the list of items to be included in EROEI calculations needs to be broadened. Alternatively, more attention needs to be paid to unsubsidized taxable income as an indicator of net energy production.
[1] According to EIA data, world crude oil production hit a peak of 84.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the fourth quarter of 2018. Production fell as low as 72.3 million bpd in the third quarter of 2020. Production rebounded to 75.4 million barrels of oil a day, still 9.1 million bpd below peak production in the 4th quarter of 2018.
This drop in oil production was unprecedented. It far exceeded the drop in oil production at the time of the Great Recession of 2008-2009. As of the first quarter of 2021, crude oil production was roughly at its level in 2011. It still has not rebounded very far.
[2] The biggest drop in crude oil production during this period was that of the cartel led by OPEC and Russia. United States’ oil production also fell during this period. Production of the Rest of the World, in total, was fairly flat.
The big concern of OPEC and Russia was that crude oil prices were too low to provide adequate tax revenue for the governments of these countries. This is especially an issue for countries with few other industries besides oil. These oil exporting countries tend to have large populations, with little employment besides government-sponsored projects. Nearly all food needs to be imported, so subsidies for food need to be provided if the many people earning low wages are to be able to afford this food.
If oil prices are high, say $150 per barrel or higher in today’s dollars, it is generally fairly easy for governments to collect enough oil-related taxes. The actual cost of extraction is often very low for oil exporters, perhaps as little as $20 per barrel. The need for tax revenue greatly exceeds the direct expenses of extracting the oil. Companies can be asked to pay as much as 90% of operating income (in this example, equal to $130 = $150 – $20 per barrel, probably only relating to exported oil) as taxes. The percentage varies greatly by country, with countries that have higher costs of production generally paying less in taxes.
When oil companies are asked about their required price to break even, a wide range of answers is possible. Do they just quote the expense of pulling the oil from the ground? If so, a very low answer is possible. If shareholders are involved in the discussions, this is the answer that they would like to hear. Or do they give realistic estimates, including the taxes that their governments need? Furthermore, if the cost of extraction is rising, there needs to be enough profit that can be set aside to allow for the drilling of new wells in higher-cost areas, if production is to be maintained.
Because of the need for tax revenue, OPEC countries often publish Fiscal Breakeven Oil Prices, indicating how high the prices need to be to obtain adequate tax revenue for the exporting countries. For example, Figure 4 shows a set of Fiscal Breakeven Oil Prices for 2013 – 2014.
If a country tries to maintain the same standard of living for its population as in the past, I would expect that the fiscal breakeven price would rise year after year. This would occur partly because the population of OPEC countries keeps rising and thus more subsidy is needed. The fiscal breakeven price would also tend to rise because the easiest-to-extract oil tends to be depleted first. As a result, new oil-related investments can be expected to have higher costs than the depleted investments they are replacing.
In fact, if a person looks at more recently published fiscal breakeven prices, they tend to be lower than the 2013-2014 breakevens. I believe that this happens because oil exporters don’t want to look desperate. They know that attaining such high prices is unlikely today. They hope that by using more debt and reducing the standard of living of their citizens, they can somehow get along with a lower fiscal breakeven price. This is not a long term solution, however. Unhappy citizens are likely to overturn their governments. Such a result could completely cut off oil supply from these countries.
[3] A cutback in oil production is not surprising for the OPEC + Russia group, nor for the United States, given the chronically low oil prices. The profitability was too low for all of these producers.
Oil prices fell in late 2014. Fiscal breakeven prices calculated before that date likely gave a somewhat reasonable estimate of the needed prices for oil exporters to make an adequate profit, at that time. By early 2019, when the first decreases in oil production began, these countries were beginning to become fed up with chronically low oil prices.
It is interesting to note that Qatar, the country with the lowest breakeven price on Figure 4, decided to withdraw from OPEC effective January 1, 2019, rather than reduce its oil production. For Qatar, oil prices in late 2018 and early 2019 were close to adequate. Qatar mostly produces natural gas, rather than oil.
The decrease in US shale oil production reflects somewhat the same low profitability issue as OPEC + Russia exports, with an additional factor added. Besides low prices, there seems to be a well-spacing issue. There are reports that the spacing of shale wells gradually got closer and closer, until the closer spacing became counter-productive. The more closely spaced wells “cannibalized” the output from nearby wells. The extra drilling may also have released needed pressurization, reducing oil availability.
Such a problem would have been a difficult issue to pick up from EROEI analyses because there are not enough of these EROEI studies to see sudden changes. Figure 6 shows the timing of the drop in US oil production, relative to the drop in oil prices:
Figure 6 omits oil from the Gulf of Mexico, because its quantity tends to bounce around, especially when a hurricane hits. Because of this exclusion, the oil shown in Figure 6 reflects a combination of declining oil production from conventional oil wells plus (after about 2011) rising production from shale wells.
Figure 6 shows that production of oil from shale was developed during the 2011 to 2013 period, when oil prices were high. When oil prices suddenly fell in late 2014, shale producers suddenly found production very unprofitable. They cut back on production starting in April 2015. Shale production started rising again in 2017 after prices moved away from their extreme lows. Growth in oil production began to slow in late 2018, when oil prices again began to fall.
The big shutdown in world oil demand associated with the COVID-19 epidemic began in the second quarter of 2020. Shale production fell in response to low oil prices in March through November of 2020. As of April 2021, production does not seem to have rebounded significantly. We have seen reports that workers were laid off, making it difficult to add new production. If, indeed, well-spacing had become too close, this may have played a role in the decision not to ramp up production again. It is quite possible that many drilled but uncompleted wells will permanently remain uncompleted because they are too close to other wells to be useful.
Based on this analysis, it seems likely that US oil production for 2021 will be lower than that for 202o. Ultimately, the lack of adequate profitability can be expected to bring US oil production down.
[4] There are some high-cost oil producers who continue to produce increasing amounts of oil.
The keys to maintaining high-cost oil production seem to be
- Large up front investments to make this production possible with little new investment
- Governments that are not very “needy” in terms of revenue from oil taxes
Even with these considerations, having an unprofitable or barely profitable oil industry weakens a country. Neither Brazil nor Canada is doing very well economically in 2021. These countries will likely reduce new oil investment in the next year or two, if inflation-adjusted oil prices do not rise significantly.
[5] Somehow, “Green Energy” has been allowed to compete in the energy field with huge subsidies. If Green Energy is actually to be successful long-term, it needs to be profitable in the same way that fossil fuel energy needs to be profitable. If wind and solar are truly useful, they need to be very profitable, even without subsidies, so that they can support their governments with taxes.
There tends to be little recognition of the extent of subsidies for renewable energy. For example, allowing the electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to be put on the grid whenever it is generated is a huge subsidy. Such generation mostly substitutes for the coal or natural gas used by electricity-producing plants, rather than the electricity generated by these plants. The many reports we see that compare the cost of intermittent electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels with the cost of dispatchable electricity generated by fossil fuels are simply misleading.
Furthermore, electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels doesn’t need to be sufficiently profitable to pay for the much larger grid they require. The larger grid requirement occurs partly because the devices tend to be more distant from users, and partly because the transmission lines need to be sized for the maximum transmission required, which tends to be high for the variable production of renewables.
The lack of adequate profitability of wind and solar on an unsubsidized basis strongly suggests that they are not really producing net energy, regardless of what EROEI calculations seem to indicate.
It might be noted that in past years, oil exporters have been accused of giving large energy subsidies to their oil producing companies. What these oil exporters have been doing is charging their own citizens lower prices for oil products than the high (international) price charged to foreign buyers. Thus, high taxes were collected only on oil exports, not from local citizens. With the fall in oil prices in late 2014 (shown in Figures 5 and 6 below), this practice of differential pricing has largely disappeared.
“Oil subsidies” in the US consist of financial assistance to low income people in the US Northeast who continue to heat their homes with oil. These subsidies, too, have mostly disappeared, with lower oil prices and the availability of less expensive forms of home heating.
[6] It seems to me that an economy really has three different requirements:
- The total quantity of energy must be rising, at least as rapidly as population.
- The types of energy available must match the needs of current energy-consuming devices, or there needs to be some type of transition plan to facilitate this transition.
- There must be enough “net energy” left over, both (a) to fund governments with taxes and (b) to fund any transition to different energy-consuming devices, if such a transition is required.
Thus, in order for a transition to Green Energy to really work, it must be extremely profitable on a pretax, unsubsidized basis, so that it can pay high taxes. The greater the need for a transition to different energy consuming devices, such as heat pumps for buildings and electric vehicles of many types, the greater the need for more net energy generated by Green Energy sources to help facilitate this transition.
High profitability for energy products is normally associated with a very low cost of energy production. Furthermore, the type of Green Energy available needs to be in a very useful form. In a sense, there are really two different energy transitions required:
- The output of intermittent electricity devices must be brought up to grid standards, using a combination such as many long distance transmission, very substantial battery backup, and the use of many devices to provide the electricity with the precise characteristics it needs.
- As mentioned above, if greater use of electricity is to be made, a transition to electric devices is required.
Both of these transitions will require a significant quantity of energy (really net energy not used elsewhere in the system) to accomplish. If fossil fuel energy is being phased out, an increasing share of this net energy will need to come from the Green Energy sector by way of the tax system. Such a system will only work if the Green Energy sector is very profitable on a pre-tax basis.
[7] Figure 8 suggests that the world has a problem with low energy consumption per capita right now.
There is a strong correlation between growth in total energy consumption per capita and how well the economy is doing. The slight downward slide in energy consumption per capita in 2019 indicates that the economy was already doing poorly in 2019. The huge downward shift in 2020 dwarfs the downward slide in 2009, when the world was in the midst of the Great Recession. My earlier research, looking back 200 years, indicates that low growth in energy consumption per capita is likely to lead to conflict among nations and collapses of governments. Epidemics are also more likely to spread in such periods, because greater wage and wealth disparity tends to occur when energy supplies are constrained.
Any shift away from fossil fuel energy to Green Energy will almost certainly mean a huge drop in world energy consumption per capita because the world doesn’t produce very much Green Energy. Such a drop in energy consumption per capita will be a huge problem, in itself. If the Green Energy sector doesn’t generate much taxable income without subsidies, this adds an additional difficulty.
[8] Conclusion: Examination of the EROEIs for various fuels, using calculations the way that they are performed today, gives inadequate information regarding whether a transition to another set of fuels is feasible.
Researchers need to be looking more at (a) the total quantity of energy produced and (b) the profitability of producing this energy. An economy is only possible because of profitable businesses, including energy businesses. A person cannot assume that energy prices will rise from today’s level because of scarcity. Today’s huge debt bubble is producing very high copper and steel prices, but it is not producing correspondingly high oil prices.
Heavily subsidized energy products look like they might be helpful, but there is little reason to believe this to be the case. If Green Energy products are truly producing net energy, we should expect this fact to be reflected in the unsubsidized profits that these products generate. In fact, if Green Energy products are truly producing large amounts of net energy, they should be so profitable that businesses will be rapidly ramping up their production, even without subsidies or mandates.
WHO officials say the science is unproven about whether giving booster shots to people who have already received two vaccine doses is effective in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
The U.N. health agency has repeatedly called for rich countries to do more to help improve access to vaccines in the developing world.
Tedros pointed to a WHO target set earlier this year to ensure that 10% of the population in countries receive vaccinations against the coronavirus.
“Accordingly, WHO is calling for a moratorium on boosters until at least the end of September to enable at least 10% of the population of every country to be vaccinated,” he said Wednesday.
To help take the heat out of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has been focusing on getting vaccines to older adults, healthcare workers and other target populations in many countries before booster shot campaigns are carried out.
Israel, France, Germany and many Middle Eastern countries have already started administering booster shots, and other nations, including the United States and Britain, are considering plans to do so in the wake of the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Dr. Katherine O’Brien, the WHO’s director for immunization, vaccines and biologicals, noted that a “very limited number” of countries were giving booster doses, though a larger number of nations were contemplating it.
“The evidence is evolving. It’s moving. We don’t have a full set of evidence around whether this is needed or not,” O’Brien said, adding that the main message was that “we need instead to focus on those people who are most vulnerable.”
WHO officials reiterated their call for global “solidarity” to help battle the COVID-19 pandemic and appealed to wealthy countries and corporations to help.
LA Times.com
Those that got the gold make the rules….seems odd doesn’t it?
The vaccine is only advertised as reducing symptoms. No one should assume that it reduces transmission.
These guys at the WHO have deliberately taken out the phrase of “natural aquired immunity” from their science book.
So now they have to eat the soup as we would say in german…
Quite a sour soup for we the people….
July 21 (Reuters) – California power company Pacific Gas and Electric (PCG.N) said on Wednesday it would bury 10,000 miles of power lines in high-risk fire zones as a safety measure after its equipment caused multiple destructive wildfires over several years.
The utility, which called the project a multi-year initiative, maintains more than 25,000 miles of overhead distribution power lines in the highest fire-risk zones, or more than 30% of its total distribution overhead system, according to the company.
The move by PG&E comes days after it said its equipment may have been involved in the start of a recent wildfire in Sierra Nevada, according to a filing by PG&E to regulators published on the internet by a San Francisco Chronicle journalist. (https://bit.ly/3wQpKlW)
The company emerged from bankruptcy last year. It had sought protection from creditors after wildfires sparked by its equipment in 2017 and 2018 drove the utility’s potential liabilities into tens of billions of dollars.
“Following the devastating October 2017 Northern California wildfires and the 2018 Camp Fire, PG&E began to evaluate placing overhead power lines underground as a wildfire safety measure,” the company said on Wednesday.
As part of PG&E’s exit from bankruptcy, California officials established a six-step oversight process to hold the utility accountable if it was deemed to be falling short on safety measures.
In April, however, the officials voted to toughen oversight of PG&E, saying the utility had largely failed to perform required tree-trimming work near power lines in areas with the highest risk of wildfires.
Bury. Baby, Bury…next Sea Walls, Baby, Sea Walls, next…run for the Hills
The article I read on this subject said that PG&E is only burying part of its lines. The buried lines seem to be the smaller, “last mile” lines. Burying all of the lines would be a huge expense.
Eddy, yesterday you said that “Devil Covid is imminent.” And today, you keep repeating that PCR tests, which enable the existence of the whole pandemic narrative, are a scam?? Try to be at least a bit consistent in your shilling, ffs.
I would suggest laying off the PCR tests. They are the least of our problems.
Gail, if the PCR cycles can be dictated by public health officials to get the results wanted, e.g. high “cases” to scare people into getting the Jab and then reduce the cycles to lower the “cases” to “prove” efficacy, isn’t that a scam that if the public understood, could make this whole charade go away? What problems should we focus on instead?
We need to understand that “data” does not make the charade go away.
We have enough other data problems that that effect would get lost in the information we see.
I think that there are changes in reporting, especially for poor countries. If they add more testing stations, the number of cases will go up.
What have you got against Paul Craig Roberts anyway? Could it be those eyes? Those staring eyes?
PCR composed a very good overview of where we stand in relation to the agenda in mid-July. He even covered the PCR tests. Anyone who wants a quick refresher course can read this:
https://www.unz.com/proberts/how-the-covid-pandemic-was-orchestrated/
150 firefighters working over the weekend to wait for a battery to cool down—I suppose these count as green jobs.
————
Fire crews have extinguished a blaze at Victoria’s new Tesla Big Battery, the largest lithium-ion battery in the country, after taking more than three days to bring it under control.
One of the Tesla megapack batteries at the site in Moorabool, near Geelong, caught fire during testing shortly after 10am on Friday.
The Victorian Big Battery, with a capacity of 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt-hours, is three times bigger than the initial size of billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla big battery built in South Australia in 2017.
Owned and operated by French renewable energy giant Neoen, the battery was scheduled to begin operating before this summer’s peak demand period.
Neoen Australia’s managing director Louis de Sambucy said the fire at the site has “subsided” by Friday evening. He said emergency services remained at the site with Tesla staff and contractors to monitor the temperature decline of two affected battery packs.
“Firefighters have successfully completed the operation of opening all doors to the container of the battery, with no sign of fire,” the authority said.
The authority said that, because of the nature of the fire – a 13-tonne battery – firefighters couldn’t put water on it or employ ordinary suppression methods. Instead, they had to let it “burn out” and wait for the container to cool down enough to open its doors.
About 150 firefighters from the authority and Fire Rescue Victoria were on the scene over the weekend, as well as more than 30 fire trucks and support vehicles.
The CFA said some firefighters and fire trucks would remain at the Moorabool site for 24 hours in case the fire reignited.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/blaze-at-tesla-big-battery-extinguished-after-three-day-battle-for-control-20210802-p58f6x.html
Yes, more green jobs! Just what we need. True addition to productivity is pretty much zero, however.
Too funny for words, isn’t it? All that heat going to waste, too……
Don’t worry. Dennis thinks Elon’s whiz kids will solve that problem easily.
> UK supply chain faces collapse in “two to three weeks”, RHA warns government
The UK is facing the collapse of the supply chain in the next two to three weeks, RHA chief executive Richard Burnett (pictured) warned this week. Speaking to the BBC, Burnett said that despite meeting with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps last week to warn him of the perilous situation, the government is continuing to refuse to take any immediate action to tackle the severe HGV driver shortage.
https://motortransport.co.uk/blog/2021/07/27/uk-supply-chain-faces-collapse-in-two-to-three-weeks-rha-warns-government/
Tens of thousands of HGV drivers left UK after Brexit. Lockdown has stopped new drivers doing tests and coming through.
Good
Intriguing.
But there will no milk or toilet roll for you in S. Albans with that attitude.
This is nice. I wonder if they like a cuddle like pussycats. ‘I am trying to maintain my hunter cool and this daft bloke is blowing kisses at me, showing me up.’
> Wildcats return to Netherlands after centuries’ absence
They disappeared centuries ago, but wildcats have returned to the forests of the southern Netherlands, local conservationists have said.
The wildcat, which has longer legs and a flatter head than its domestic cousin, disappeared from modern-day Dutch territories in the middle ages as a result of hunting and forest clearance. The return of the animal, with its distinctive round-tipped and black-ringed tail, is a sign of the rewilding of forests in the southern Dutch region of Limburg, according to Hettie Meertens, a biologist who works for the ARK conservation group.
The number of wildcats has been increasing in southern Limburg since 2013, she said, as they have moved from “saturated” habitats in the neighbouring Eifel mountains of Germany and the Belgian Ardennes to look for new territories.
“The population is small but it is increasing. The situation is fragile, but we are confident in the expansion,” Meertens said, referring both to numbers and and the cats extending their territory to other parts of the Netherlands.
The cats’ return to the Netherlands results from changing forest management that favours nature over wood harvesting. Wilder forests offer the fallen trees and hollow spaces in which they like to rest. Conservationists have also been encouraging farmers to plant “cat-kind” hedges in their fields to provide habitat for the voles that the cats prey on.
Pine martens, a weasel-like mammal, have also returned to the region’s forests since 2015. “The ecosystem is complete with the carnivores. They represent the wild forest and that is very important,” Meertens said.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/04/wildcats-return-to-netherlands-after-centuries-absence
Sounds like a way to reduce the demand for oil products, and thus the price of oil.
Time for UK to pay for its past sins.
UK has to abolish titles for killing Europeans, starting with the Dukes of Marlborough and Wellington.
Unfortunately this article does not give any idea what ‘collapse’ means, I suspect nothing of the sort, and why in 2-3 weeks time.
https://youtu.be/BHVMLPJaCpc?t=497
Now you know why you could never make it as a professional ice hockey player: you are too clever!
Check it out https://www.aier.org/article/sweden-despite-variants-no-lockdowns-no-daily-covid-deaths/
It’s Booster Time … for normdunc!!!!
Why are you fellas so quiet these days — dunc – can you tell us about the 95% efficacy again?
Israel Revives COVID Restrictions As Cases Soar, Warns Of Possible Lockdown In September
TUESDAY, AUG 03, 2021 – 10:25 PM
Despite being the most heavily vaccinated country in the world, Israel has just imposed new restrictions on its population, and the body responsible for generating its COVID policies just admitted that a lockdown in September is no longer a remote possibility.
Israel’s coronavirus cabinet announced Tuesday night that starting Aug. 20, the country will revive its full green pass system. Starting Sunday, masks will be mandatory in all indoor and outdoor gatherings and even fully vaccinated parents responsible for caring for a child in quarantine will be demanded to isolate as well (for children 12 and under).
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/israel-revives-covid-restrictions-cases-soar-warns-possible-lockdown-september
More in Israel, Ireland, Alabama and elsewhere from the Computing Forever guy, who is detailing how as the vaxed keep getting sick and plans for digital serfdom are stalling, politicians are starting to dehumanize the unvaxed.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Ri2iTQsCxze8/
Oh noes…
Demonizing and stigmatizing people… Lemme think… Yup… Rings a few bells? Nah, can’t be…
TIM: HOW DARE YOU? 😡
On second thought…
Why not dust off some of the stunts and shenanigans of the past. How about building ”recreational” spas with fine shower and disinfection “facilities”? It’s a “great” idea that just “works”.
We’re obviously too many and it’s about time for a little “purge”. Plus, we also better spare the schmucks that cause these problems to begin with. Anything else than letting the ~140 IQ perpetrators continue perpetrate wouldn’t quite be “us” if you catch my drift? Übermensch and all that elitist “coziness”.
https://youtu.be/9CINep9Gqhk
Indeed that sounds eerily familiar. How about the persecution of various ethnicities and religious groups? So, why not just release the hounds on skeptics and, dunno, people capable of forging their own reality without the boring suck of in-group therapy sessions administered by the narrative peddlers? Makes me wonder; is the brown shirts in production yet?
Besides we’re already busy with vaxing and chipping up ignorant schmucks because herding around dimwits is oh-so exciting. Yay!
Surely history isn’t repeating itself? Did we learn? Of course not. The rapacious primate is completely and utterly capable of leaning from the past. It’s just how:
MONKEY ONLY KNOWS MOAR!1!1!!2!1111!1!!
“Works.”
https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg
🤣👍
mike and duncan and others who no longer bother to comment much, no doubt think as I do, that when one encounters a bar room philosopher obsessed with his own utterances (1 in 3?) and an excess of colourful (and surplus) adjectives, caps and extra vowels added for effect, then there comes an inclination to leave him to it.
this will no doubt leave him with the certainty of ‘rightness’ on every subject.(because no one is offering contradictions).
that can’t be helped. It is the same collective motivation that one finds in the bible tent. No one there disagrees–therefore the preacher must be right.
but it is as well to bear in mind that those who stand in adoration saying amen to all the conspiracies, in effect need their own egos constantly massaged.
the vast majority do not.
Let’s stop arguing about this. It is also sort of a power struggle between folks with different theories. We don’t need the power struggle here.
apologies Gail
I thought I was just replying to a question
A power struggle would be like the soap suds and the grease fighting for dominance as they both swirl down the drain….
as long as the pipe doesn’t get blocked
Oh, dear. The Delta variant is more of a problem than most people understand.
My 18 year old son has been coughing and generally feeling unwell for a few days. This morning he tested positive for covid19 with a lateral flow test. I’ve not been feeling 100% for the past 24 hours either. Is it the dreaded Delta variant? Have I got covid19 again only 7 months after I was much more ill with it at Christmas? Is there some truth to the government narrative? Or maybe I just had flu at Christmas and have a cold now. Impossible to tell. If not for constant propaganda and restrictions, I would not think my illnesses any different to ilnesses I have had occasionally throughout my life
Having a thus far intact immune system, I’m not particularly concerned whatever I have wrong with me. If I’m not fully recovered tomorrow, I will be the day after. If I had been vaccinated, I would be a lot more worried.
It is not even clear that having COVID-19 before provides protection against the new delta variant. I would like to hear about how more examples turn out. You should probably be tested for COVID-19, if the symptoms are not gone tomorrow. I hope you are better soon.
The Black Swan
How would the markets react if they knew that 70% of Covid cases and hospitalisations were among the vaccinated…while knowing that 70% of the population is vaccinated…and were told about ADE…and then saw that a lot of people started to die in hospitals?
Panic?
The government better stick to the lie that this is “a pandemic among the unvaccinated”.
What you would see in that scenario is civil unrest, violence and governments collapsing. It would look something like the Arab Spring just 10x worse. So yeah maybe it’s a good idea to keep the hoax and Defcon 5 response alive.
The plunge protection team would prop up the markets… as they have done for years…
What is a “covid case”? Everyone who has a positive non-diagnostic test?
What is a “covid hospitalization”? Everyone who has a positive non-diagnostic test immediately before being admitted to hospital for whatever reason?
The WTI broke down from its rising wedge…retest of the trend line and rejection is done…now comes the deflationary crash? One day it will happen…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E73rBvWXoAI-jPz?format=jpg&name=large
It does seem like WTI should start to fall at some point. I see that WTI is at $68.47 now, which is a big drop. Perhaps the hopium before Delta came along is starting to wear off.
“South Africa’s unrest shows that a new age of anger awaits India and Brazil…
“…rage had long been building up in the country, where unemployment stands at record levels (33%), and where many people lack food, power and running water as well as jobs. Those same factors will play a central role when — and there is no “if” here — similarly extensive breakdowns occur in India and Brazil.”
https://www.news24.com/fin24/Opinion/opinion-sa-unrest-shows-that-a-new-age-of-anger-awaits-india-and-brazil-20210803
“Amnesty condemns Colombia police brutality after scores of protesters killed.
““The incidents documented were not isolated or sporadic, but rather reflect a pattern of violence on the part of the Colombian authorities, who have responded to the protest with stigmatisation, criminalisation, unlawful police repression and militarisation,” said the report…”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/02/colombians-mourn-after-deadly-protests-as-amnesty-cites-unlawful-repression
“Paraguay: Unionized truckers stage protest in Asuncion as part of indefinite nationwide strike.
“Over 500 truck drivers affiliated with the Truckers Federation of Paraguay have converged on Asuncion with their vehicles from various parts of the country to stage a protest along the Costanera de Asuncion and in front of the National Congress building. The action is part of an indefinite nationwide strike…”
https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/509036/paraguay-unionized-truckers-stage-protest-in-asuncion-aug-2-as-part-of-indefinite-nationwide-strike
The situation continues to deteriorate, in many parts of the world.
“The terms of China’s massive loan spree. Research looks at how the world’s largest sovereign creditor lends…
“…the contracts are judged by the researchers to be a somewhat odd hybrid of private and public-sector lending standards. This has the potential to hand much more power to the Chinese authorities in the event of things turning sour.”
https://www.ft.com/content/f78ebff8-a4d9-419c-9a76-dcf6cddb3ad9
“China’s factory activity growth slipped sharply in July as demand contracted for the first time in over a year in part on high product prices, a business survey showed on Monday, underscoring challenges facing the world’s manufacturing hub.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-pmi/chinas-july-factory-activity-growth-slips-to-15-month-low-caixin-pmi-idUSKBN2F3057
China now has a fairly wide-spread Delta COVID-19 problem that it can’t really solve. This is not helping. And we know it has an electricity shortage in some parts of the country.
“The risks of endless quantitative easing…
“…even if monetary policymakers are not overly concerned about high asset prices or inflation, they should be worried about another risk that prolonged QE intensifies: the government’s fiscal exposure to future interest-rate hikes.”
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/the-risks-of-endless-quantitative-easing-by-weighty-central-banks-11628017015352.html
The financial side of our problems get worse, rather than going away.
By the way, I finished a first draft of my post, and I am working on a second draft. There is a chance the post will get published tomorrow, but I will be traveling then. We will see.
“Economies reliant on tourism face second Covid summer slump.
“Tourism-dependent emerging economies that were already struggling before the pandemic with stretched finances and ballooning debt are counting the cost of their second successive summer season slump as the spread of coronavirus keeps visitors away.”
https://www.ft.com/content/ab4ad418-ad6f-4dae-a1b1-b7d05369eb3b
“Just for the record 2020 was the worst year ever for airlines…
“Passenger numbers were down 60.2 percent to 1.8 billion, industry-wide air travel demand (measured in revenue passenger-kilometers, or RPKs) dropped by 65.9 percent and international passenger demand (RPKs) decreased by 75.6 percent compared to the year prior…”
https://www.airlineratings.com/news/just-record-2020-worst-year-ever-airlines/
It is hard for anyone to go very far on vacation, with all of the rules governments impose. Distant destinations are less appealing, as well, if there are problems with uprisings regarding poor living conditions.
“One in five UK businesses threaten to axe jobs as furlough support is cut.
“Around one in five businesses have said they are likely to make staff redundant in response to the changing furlough rules… From Sunday, companies are being asked to contribute 20 per cent of their furloughed staff’s wages, up from 10 per cent in the previous month.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/furlough-jobs-business-employment-covid-b1894585.html
“A UK credit crunch is on the cards as shoppers hit the high street again… borrowing is very different post-pandemic…
“There are far fewer credit cards from which to choose, interest rates are higher and fees for spending abroad are more expensive. The median credit card rate increased from 20.9 per cent in the first three months of 2020 to 21.9 per cent in the second quarter of 2021 — despite the Bank of England base rate remaining at an all-time low of just 0.1 per cent.”
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-9857277/A-credit-crunch-cards-shoppers-hit-high-street-again.html
UK problems are hitting UK spending. It seems likely that US rent and Delta problems may hit US spending. China has problems with Delta, too.
It becomes hard to believe the growth spurt will continue.
“Treasury Dept to invoke ‘extraordinary measures’ as Congress misses debt-ceiling deadline…
“Economists say those so-called extraordinary measures will allow Treasury to pay off the government’s bills without floating new debt for two to three months. After that, Congress will need to either raise or suspend the borrowing limit or risk the U.S. defaulting on its obligations.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/02/treasury-to-invoke-extraordinary-measures-as-debt-ceiling-returns.html
“New coronavirus wave is giving credence to the risks of a U.S. stagflation-like scenario.
“The spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus in some U.S. states is leading to the possibility that the economy may be heading into a stagflation-like cycle that could complicate the Federal Reserve’s options for tightening monetary policy in the face of the recent rise in inflation.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-coronavirus-wave-is-giving-credence-to-the-risks-of-a-u-s-stagflation-like-scenario-11628006416
“US household debt jumps by the most in 14 years to nearly $15 trillion in the second quarter…
“Most of the gain came from mortgage originations, both initial purchases and refinances, which have been on fire as the Federal Reserve has kept benchmark borrowing rates anchored around historic lows… But the swelling debt numbers weren’t just about mortgages, with non-housing balances up $44 billion.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/03/household-debt-jumps-by-the-most-in-14-years-to-nearly-15-trillion-in-the-second-quarter.html
“Federal unemployment programs that have paid jobless benefits since March 2020 are poised to end Sept. 6. It doesn’t appear Congress will extend them again. Roughly 7.5 million people will lose benefits entirely at that time, per one estimate.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/01/an-unemployment-cliff-is-coming-more-than-7point5-million-may-fall-off.html
“‘Grandmas buying shotguns’: US dealers see ammunition shortage as sales surge.
“The coronavirus pandemic in the US has been accompanied by soaring gun sales attributed to fears around social unrest and crime…”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/01/us-gun-dealers-ammunition-shortage-sales-surge
Loss of unemployment benefits will be another issue pulling the economy down.
This means less spending by the US government. This is not what is needed.
“Global Banks’ $170 Billion Haul Marks Most Profitable Year Ever.
“Never mind banker burnout, return-to-office headaches, and new pandemic waves. A simple reality stands out for the biggest global investment banks: they’re minting money like never before… JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the standout, earning the equivalent of $131 million a day.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/global-banks-170-billion-haul-marks-most-profitable-year-ever
“U.S. Banking System Has a $168 Trillion Nightmare Looming. It Was Ignored in Written Testimony for Today’s Senate Banking Hearing…
“Wall Street banks have rebuilt that derivatives doomsday machine today – a $168 trillion monster concentrated at four mega banks on Wall Street. But as we read through dozens of pages of written testimony submitted by witnesses for today’s Senate Banking hearing, the word “derivative” did not appear once.”
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/08/u-s-banking-system-has-a-168-trillion-nightmare-looming-it-was-ignored-in-written-testimony-for-todays-senate-banking-hearing/
More parts of the system ready to fail!
The money (and energy) rises to the top, when there is not enough to go around.
I find this funny in a way…. CovIDIOTS are funny … but dangerous… similar to socialists….
https://globalnews.ca/news/8083611/covid-ontario-school-guidance-reaction/
Schools here are back in session, as of August 2.
In general, schools in areas that are predominantly black have a lot more mask requirements and other restrictions than schools in areas that are predominantly white/hispanic. I think all of the schools are “in person,” rather than virtual.
Just thinking … in light of this … is not arguing with a CovIDIOT… similar to arguing with an adult who believes Santa Claus is real?
Testimony of a Spanish doctor about the use of PCR tests to create waves of “infected people”.
“Another secret of the PCR: when on TV they said, we are entering the first wave, in the mail we received a warning: we are going to do PCR with 35 cycles. This means that the magnifying glass looking at the sample (the mirror) increases the view under the microscope by 35 times. When they said, we are out of the first wave, a message arrived: we do PCR at 20 cycles.
When PM Mr. Sánchez already said that we were entering the second wave, they increased the cycles to 35, and so we continued with the waves and with the descents of the waves. Now it is 20 because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything. Now it is 20 cycles because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything.
But if you say that there are people with serious neurological side effects every day, what do they do to you? They suspend you, because the population cannot know the truth. They have told me this: you shut up, you protect your job, your salary, and the population is told what to say.”
https://www.alertadigital.com/2021/07/31/la-doctora-nadiya-popel-voy-a-contarles-un-secreto-como-se-cuentan-las-muertes-por-covid/
Slightly off what has become the usual topic here, but a most interesting read including the many comments.
Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Real Game Changers – by Gordo
Definitely it’s a change in the “balance of power” in our finite world. One of the interesting things to learn is that, apparently, the Russians have mobile nuclear reactors on wheels that can be moved around and provide the necessary power. Really an extraordinary article.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/08/hypersonic-missiles-are-they-a-gamechanger-by-gordog.html#more
Russia is the new dominant millitary power.
I find this news reassuring. The rhetoric coming out of Russian leaders is moderate compared to the foaming at the mouth we often hear from American, European, and to an increasing extent Chinese leaders.
Also, Russia only really needs to stay on the defensive, keep firm and alert, and not get drawn into a major regional conflict in a way that gives the US an opportunity to drain its resources, and bob’s your uncle. The West is going down so fast now that within another decade it may no longer be a major threat and will instead be merely a set of problems to be managed.
“Could Russia Floating Nuclear Plants Change World Economy?
By F. William Engdahl
25 November 2019
While the EU and United States have all but abandoned nuclear energy as a future power source, with almost no new reactors being built and existing ones being decommissioned, Russia has quietly emerged as the world’s leading builder of peaceful civilian nuclear power plants. Now the Russian state nuclear company, Rosatom, has completed the first commercial floating nuclear plant and has successfully towed it to its ultimate location in the Russian Far East where access to power is difficult. It could transform the energy demands of much of the developing world, in addition to Russia. An added plus is that nuclear plants emit zero carbon emissions so that political opposition based on CO2 does not apply .“ ?
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO25Nov2019.php
I posted links here but it went to moderation. You may want to go to ZH for the details.
Vanguard Offers $1,000 To Vaccine Holdouts To Get Jabbed
=================================================
Remember when you were in college and the local clinic would offer you $20 to participate in some “benign” medical experiment? Well, we are now at $1000 and rising fast.
Late last week, when we were stunned to report that Biden had called on states to bribe vaccine holdouts with a $100 “mini stimmy” to get vaccinated, we said that this infuriatingly perverted incentive would backfire spectacularly, as it would not only set expectations for even higher bribes by authorities and employers, but would also lead to far lower vaccination rates as the hesitant waited for ever higher sums of money to get the jab.
Sure enough, just one day later, we also reported that Walmart had upped the ante and was offering $150 for staff to get the covid vaccine – which we now know does nothing to prevent the actual spread of the virus and is therefore not a “social good” but merely minimizes the risk of hospitalization – and we concluded that “the bribes are increasing right on schedule. In 1 month, holdouts should get 4 digits.”
‘Biden Took An Oath To Uphold The Constitution, Not Violate It’: Turley Opines On CDC’s Revised Eviction Moratorium
=================================================
Responding to calls for the CDC to extend the moratorium, the Biden administration originally pointed to a June Supreme Court decision which made clear that only Congress has the authority to extend the program.
On Tuesday, however, the Washington Post reports that the Biden administration “is expected to announce a new action to limit housing evictions, moving swiftly after intense pressure from liberal House Democrats.”
“I Know It Seems Weird”: NIH Director Suggests Parents Wear Masks At Home Around Children
=================================================
he head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggested Tuesday that parents should wear masks while at home around children even if they don’t have COVID-19.
“It’s clear that this variant is capable of causing serious illness in children. You heard those stories coming out of Louisiana pediatric ICUs, where there are kids as young as a few months old who are sick from this,” Dr. Francis Collins said during a CNN interview, although he admitted that such cases “[are] rare.”
Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine? You May Not Receive Unemployment Benefits
=================================================
As companies across the country including Facebook, Walmart, Google, Uber and Disney begin to mandate Covid-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment, workers who are fired for refusing to do so might not receive unemployment benefits, according to WUSA.
I didn’t see the article in moderation. Maybe it went astray, otherwise.
Parents wearing masks around their children is truly bizarre. This is to stop an illness that is extremely transmissible. I suppose the children should stop eating as well.
Yesterday I reminded Gail about Taiwan, and how it got a recent Covid-19 spike under control.
Gail: Taiwan is a small island.
Me: No it’s not! It’s actually a fairly large island. But the more salient detail is its population (nearly 24 million, slightly under Australia’s). Since most people live in a string of cities on the western coast, the population density is fairly high. (Social distancing is more or less impossible here.)
Gail: It is very different from other countries.
Me: In some ways. But you could say that about anywhere.
Gail: The disease will be coming back and back. China is stumbling now with delta. Taiwan shouldn’t think it is the long-term exception to problems.
Me: Oh, we learned that the hard way a few months ago, when we had the spike. “The zombies are over the wall,” I remember writing here. Well, those zombies got beaten back. We won the battle, though not the war. (The war won’t be over until the USA gets Covid under control, which probably means we’re screwed.)
So how did Taiwan do it? Mask-wearing, restrictions on gatherings, contact tracing. Some of this would be difficult to apply in the USA, where half the population thinks mask requirements are an infringement on their civil rights, and there is no public health care system capable of tracking people.
The major negative has been the high death rate from the virus (nearly 800 at this writing).
Taiwan has finally gotten supplies of vaccines, which people are lining up to receive. I’ll let everybody know of any complications on this front.
Bei, I know you have been harping on these three things (“mask-wearing, restrictions on gatherings, contact tracing”), but do you think there may be some other factors in play?
“Masks” (we know from dozens of studies) simply don’t work. This goes for all health settings against all pathogens. So rule that out.
“Restrictions on gatherings”.. Seems the places with lockdowns (outside of Taiwan, at least) haven’t had particularly different outcomes from places that were more lax.
So that leaves assiduous “contact tracing”. Maybe.
It would seem to me that different recorded outcomes could more easily be explained by:
• lower rates of testing (that may not be the case here, but it is an important differential that is generally disregarded in mainstream reporting)?
• lower PCR cycle thresholds once tested, so fewer positives/false positives?
• not chalking up every road accident or stage-4 cancer victim as a “covid” death (as seems to have been incentivized in the US/UK)?
• other differences neither of us have thought of yet? Anti-parasitical use vs. western countries? …
It will take years to tease out all the threads, and (even if we have the wherewithal going forward) I’m not sure to what extent it is worth it, since the analytical waters have been so (intentionally) muddied.
I don’t know why you think masks don’t work. Do you have links to any of those “dozens of studies”? I’ve read the opposite, for example, A href=”https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118″>this evidence review.
However, a lot of people seem to have little clue as to how to wear facemasks, so their efficacy in the real world is much reduced.
You are extremely tiresome. Quit pretending you just fell off the turnip truck and we are back in 2019.
Just type into a search engine, “RCT” “masks don’t work”.
https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy
You will discover finding after finding to the effect that “There were no statistically significant differences in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza, laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections, laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, and influenza-like illness using N95 respirators and surgical masks. “
Let’s have another look at this shall we?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5058571/
“The FFP respirators provided about 11.5 to 15.9 times better protection than the SMs, suggesting that SMs are not a good substitute for FFP respirators when concerns exist about airborne transmission of bacterial and viral pathogens.”
Shall we drop this schtick soon enough?
Useful to search custom dates .. prior to Covid.
I don’t know why you think masks don’t work. Do you have links to any of those “dozens of studies”? I’ve read the opposite, for example, this evidence review.
However, a lot of people seem to have little clue as to how to wear facemasks, so their efficacy in the real world is much reduced.
Maybe you can ask norm for one of his used adult diapers and strap that on?
Apparently that is what people did during the Black Plague … it was very effective
https://vaccinechoicecanada.com/wp-content/uploads/masks-dont-work-denis-rancourt-april-2020.pdf
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/first-randomized-control-trial-shows-face-masks-did-not-reduce-coronavirus-infections-with-statistical-significance/ar-BB1b8zo2
I wish I were getting paid half as much to refute you as you are to troll us.
If mike is not a troll… he’s certainly the most gullible character on OFW… and that says a lot when he’s in the company of nuncdorm…
Not sure why you are so generous.
His pretend exasperation is a nice touch, but still.. too canned.
[Sigh. One more time…]
I don’t know why you think masks don’t work. Do you have links to any of those “dozens of studies”? I’ve read the opposite, for example, this evidence review.
However, a lot of people seem to have little clue as to how to wear facemasks, so their efficacy in the real world is much reduced.
Somehow, the link is including the final double quote, so clicking it won’t get to the page. Here is the link:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
OH I dunno mike … because the CDC said they don’t work… recall my post with the link to that on the CDC site?
Let’s ask mike what he makes of this:
Testimony of a Spanish doctor about the use of PCR tests to create waves of “infected people”.
“Another secret of the PCR: when on TV they said, we are entering the first wave, in the mail we received a warning: we are going to do PCR with 35 cycles. This means that the magnifying glass looking at the sample (the mirror) increases the view under the microscope by 35 times. When they said, we are out of the first wave, a message arrived: we do PCR at 20 cycles.
When PM Mr. Sánchez already said that we were entering the second wave, they increased the cycles to 35, and so we continued with the waves and with the descents of the waves. Now it is 20 because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything. Now it is 20 cycles because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything.
But if you say that there are people with serious neurological side effects every day, what do they do to you? They suspend you, because the population cannot know the truth. They have told me this: you shut up, you protect your job, your salary, and the population is told what to say.”
https://www.alertadigital.com/2021/07/31/la-doctora-nadiya-popel-voy-a-contarles-un-secreto-como-se-cuentan-las-muertes-por-covid/
If I search pre covid i get this …
In community and home settings, the use of facemasks and respirators generally are not recommended.
However, for certain circumstances as described in Table 1, a facemask or respirator may be considered, specifically for persons at increased risk of severe illness from influenza.
Use of N95 respirators or facemasks generally is not recommended for workers in non-healthcare occupational settings for general work activities.
There are important differences between facemasks and respirators. Facemasks do not seal tightly to the face and are used to block large droplets from coming into contact with the wearer’s mouth or nose.
Most respirators (e.g. N95) are designed to seal tightly to the wearer’s face and filter out very small particles that can be breathed in by the user. For both facemasks and respirators, however, limited data is available on their effectiveness in preventing transmission of H1N1 (or seasonal influenza) in various settings.
https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm
This .. is completely useless…
https://imagevars.gulfnews.com/2020/03/30/COVID-19-surgical-mask_1712aadb5ad_medium.jpg
Put a mask on (the proper way) and spray some perfume in the room. Can you smell the perfume? This is all the evidenve you need.
geno, have you seen news articles about Covid being transmitted via flatulence!??
https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/24/ministers-privately-worried-covid-19-is-spreading-through-farting-14983904/
Even Forbes thought it was worthy of “analysis”. (They concluded the risk was minor.)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/04/27/can-farts-transmit-covid-19-coronavirus-here-is-what-is-being-said/
Covid19 is basically viral vasculitis which makes it possible to be transmitted via all bodily fluids. Flatulence included.
Flatulence will get you everywhere.
Could this be why the Chinese began testing with anal swabs? Or is it that they will bend over backwards to get you to bend over forwards?
They also said it spread via tree pollen, so they do have us coming and going.
bravo!!!
Better still… let’s put mike in a room … with some of my empty plastic coal sacks… lock the doors… set them on fire…
I could imagine that if one was hacking one’s lungs up … spewing mucus and spittle everywhere due to a respiratory infection …
That a mask would stop the spittle from flying all over the place … but they would still spread the disease because the virus will make it through the mask — just not with as much force…
Now I am thinking … can you imagine entering a public place coughing and hacking your lungs out .. masked or unmasked … in light of the current situation? And why would anyone be on the street if you were feeling so dreadful?
Seems this guy .. was on the street suffering from advanced covid … and he died… he must have been a tough SOB!!!
I wonder where he was going? Shopping? For a meal? To meet his… luvah? To breath some fresh smog? To play mahjong?
https://imagevars.gulfnews.com/2020/01/31/200131-wuhan-death_16ffaf32a92_large.jpg
This all surmises that most people have no natural immunity to begin with.. remember the petrie dish of the Diamond Princess.
Mark won’t go anywhere near the Diamond Princess. I tried pointing out to him the implications of what happened on that ship, but he couldn’t find any peer-reviewed studies on it in The Lancet, so he ignored my attempt to reason with him.
The thought does occur pretty regularly when I see Mark’s comments that he is more intent on clouding issues than clarifying them. But despite that, I am glad to see him contributing here. His role is a lot like that of a wall in a squash caught. You can bounce ideas off him and see how hard they come back.
Now, why did WordPress surreptitiously change “court” to “caught” there?
It makes me look even more spelling challenged than wot I am, innit?
When I see things like that, I wonder whether people aren’t dictating into their phones or whatever, rather than typing something out deliberately.
Tim, good readers will just skip over the minor spell checker idiosyncrasies.
My shitty English on the other hand, well, apart from the cringes it induces, I can always excuse myself as being a nonnative speaker and writer, if it wasn’t for my Swedish being bad as well.
I suck at languages and I don’t care. Dare to suck.
🤣👍
In Taiwan, the numbers went up, and then they went down again. Surely there must be *some* explanation. If not masks etc., then what? The weather didn’t change that much. Neither did the testing techniques.
If you say that numbers were fudged, then why did they first go up, and then go down again? What purpose would that serve?
It looks like Taiwan mobilized a sensible set of responses, and they worked. But I am open to other explanations, if they can actually explain anything.
In nearby Japan, with five times Taiwan’s population, so far, there have been about 15,000 official deaths from Covid-19 and, with 25% of the people double-jabbed, 900 official deaths from the injections.
Yesterday I learned of the first local death following an injection, a woman aged over 90 who had, up until her jab, been running a restaurant situated along a country road. People accept that she was a casualty of the vax, and that there are risks, but she was old and she might have died soon anyway. Meanwhile, I haven’t heard of any deaths locally from the disease itself, although there may have been some that were not announced.
I have not been advising people not to get injected since the beginning of this year, when the few foreigners I talked to about the issues proved to be extremely averse to learning what I had to say.
These days, with the under-65 just starting to make appointments, several Japanese people have approached me, saying they were going to have their first injection but were worried about the medical consequences.
My standard response is, “Individuals should decide for themselves whether to get injected or not, and others should respect that decision. It’s a personal thing. One’s vaccination status should be between oneself and one’s physician. Not even the government should know. It is none of their business. People have various reasons why they are getting injected. They may think it’s to protect themselves from disease, or to protect others, or in order to work or travel, or in order not to be criticized or ostracized, or because everybody else is doing it, or because they have been told it’s the right thing to do. Before we choose to be vaccinated, ideally we should think about why we are doing it, why we are making that choice.”
That’s it. I am not going to bombard normies with speculation about the Reset, the New World Order, thrombosis, spike proteins, prions or the CEP. I’ll save that for you lot at OFW. As far as I can see, if somebody is middle-aged and still getting their news and views from TV, they are a lost cause. The incredible effectiveness of the MSM propaganda system is all so clear to me now.
Yes Tim we have learned the awesome power of TV/media corporations. They define reality for most people.
No accident that one seldom comes across articles in the MSM about people ditching their tee vee…
Too busy telling us about GW?
Now this is funny… a few people that I have made aware of the maimings from the Injections respond with ‘they must have had ____ vaccine… I had the ____ and there are no side effects’
Catty CovIDIOTS….
‘Mine’s the safe one’?!!
I am sure there are many who have fallen for the line:
‘This vaccine is too risky if you are 18 to 29, but OK if you are 30-50’.
Just like Covid being de-activated as soon as you sit down in a restaurant and take your mask off to eat……
My advise would be (nobody asks though) … to make sure they have a Will in place….
If one’s wife is urging one to get the injection and the wife has not injected… be wary
So far M Fast has not asked if I will be injected 🙂
Tim, that seems nice, but aren’t you tempted to nudge people to look into possible adverse reactions? It’s not only about social context, after all… You don’t have to get into all the other layers to intimate that an experimental gene therapy might not be good for one’s health until proven otherwise.
Nice that people look to you for advice. Where I am, the lines have already been drawn.
I think Tim knows better. The japs will obey their shepherds and follow the herd. Make no mistake.
Westerners (north Europeans especially) will obey whatever seems reasonable for the moment unless they are held at gunpoint.
The herd is such a powerful drug.
Lidia, I’ve considered this at length as the vaccine push has been slowly gathering speed and we’ve been seeing the evidence of harm and evil intent mount up.
I think it is BECAUSE I don’t offer advice that people feel comfortable with confiding in me about their fears. Japan functions on social harmony. People’s thinking and communicating about such matters really doesn’t work the same here as in the West. For a foreigner to be going around nudging people into bucking the social consensus would just cause them to clam up and label me as something akin to what you might find round the U-bend.
All I can do for most people is to ask them to consider why they are making the choices they make and not just go blindly accepting what the media or the government tells them to do.
I do have a group of Japanese friends who are as adamant as I am not to be injected, but it’s a tiny minority among the people I know. Although, I expect there are a lot of people who are not getting jabbed but being very quiet about it because they don’t want to stick out.
There may even be some desperate souls who are paying their doctors a few hundred dollars to pour the contents of the syringe down the sink and make them a paper vaxee. This would mean the doc being paid by the Empire and the Rebels—a nice little earner.
Pink Floyd sang that “quiet desperation is the English way”.. sounds like it is the Japanese way, as well.
Tim, your method is the way to go whether one lives in Japan or the West. Also, I’m sure that your avoidance of obesity, cancer, diabetes, etc., conveys a sense of gravitas and intelligence that encourages others to confide in you about health matters. Plus, having a pleasing personality that does not come across as “know it all” helps too, which you and Yorchichan both happily possess.
If I get a fare taking somebody to the vaccination centre, I tell them I am opposed to the vaccination and ask for permission to try to put them off getting vaccinated. My conscience does not allow me to do otherwise. They always say “go ahead”. They then get told about the deaths and horrific injuries on the adverse events reporting systems, the twenty year history of failed coronavirus vaccines causing ADE and death in animal trials, the lack of risk covid represents to fit and healthy individuals, the evils of big pharma, Mike Yeadon, etc, etc. Invariably, they have not heard any of this information before. As we approach the vaccination centre, I offer to take them back home with no charge for the whole journey if they have decided not to take the vaccine.
So far, it hasn’t cost me a penny.
Trying to find a aspiring vaxee who is prepared to be talked out of getting injected is a bit like Lot trying to find a good man in Sodom & Gomorrah.
I’ve yet to hear of anyone who, after deciding, was persuaded by appeals to reason, emotion or anything else either to take the jab or to refuse it. Most people’s minds seem to have been made up at an early stage and have stayed that way.
If I’d been 70+ I’d likely taken the plunge. Likely gone all the major brands; Pfizer, Sinovax, Sputnik, AZ, Modena. Made it full circle just for the shits and giggles at the jabsters quarters:
“Oh, is it you again?”
“Sure is, let ‘er rip babe, btw, what eugenics programs, sorry, gene therapies I meant, do you got on offer today?”
“Sputnik.”
“Can I control the small Russian buggers with my smartphone?”
“No, you can’t!”
“Why?”
“That’s Vlad, Klaus and Bills jab!”
🤔
I have encountered the same brick wall you have. Very difficult to overcome 18 months worth of sleek, daily propaganda coming from a source almost everyone trusts – the BBC. If the BBC said ‘experts say’ a regular swim in the sea was now required, because the salts in the water prevented CV19, people would do it.
Apparently you end the wave by doing this:
Testimony of a Spanish doctor about the use of PCR tests to create waves of “infected people”.
“Another secret of the PCR: when on TV they said, we are entering the first wave, in the mail we received a warning: we are going to do PCR with 35 cycles. This means that the magnifying glass looking at the sample (the mirror) increases the view under the microscope by 35 times. When they said, we are out of the first wave, a message arrived: we do PCR at 20 cycles.
When PM Mr. Sánchez already said that we were entering the second wave, they increased the cycles to 35, and so we continued with the waves and with the descents of the waves. Now it is 20 because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything. Now it is 20 cycles because people are already vaccinated, and (ironically) they already cure everything.
But if you say that there are people with serious neurological side effects every day, what do they do to you? They suspend you, because the population cannot know the truth. They have told me this: you shut up, you protect your job, your salary, and the population is told what to say.”
https://www.alertadigital.com/2021/07/31/la-doctora-nadiya-popel-voy-a-contarles-un-secreto-como-se-cuentan-las-muertes-por-covid/
Everything that I read on the internet, I have to remind myself that it might not be real or truthful. It is without doubt that MSM tends to obscure the truth
It is coming…
Remember when you were in college and the local clinic would offer you $20 to participate in some “benign” medical experiment? Well, we are now at $1000 and rising fast.
* * *
Late last week, when we were stunned to report that Biden had called on states to bribe vaccine holdouts with a $100 “mini stimmy” to get vaccinated, we said that this infuriatingly perverted incentive would backfire spectacularly, as it would not only set expectations for even higher bribes by authorities and employers, but would also lead to far lower vaccination rates as the hesitant waited for ever higher sums of money to get the jab.
Sure enough, just one day later, we also reported that Walmart had upped the ante and was offering $150 for staff to get the covid vaccine – which we now know does nothing to prevent the actual spread of the virus and is therefore not a “social good” but merely minimizes the risk of hospitalization – and we concluded that “the bribes are increasing right on schedule. In 1 month, holdouts should get 4 digits.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/vanguard-offers-1000-vaccine-holdouts-get-jabbed
Thought for the day:
‘Daniel Schmactenberger puts it well when he says, “If you feel a combination of outraged, scared, emotional, and very certain with a strong enemy hypothesis, you have been captured by somebody’s narrative warfare, and you think it’s your own thinking.” Visit the enemy territory, he counsels, and see what the world looks like from there.’
https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/from-qanons-dark-mirror-hope/
quoting
Thanks for this.
You are most welcome!
On the other hand, those emotions and reactions are also entirely appropriate, and sensible, when facing a real and imminent threat.
One should try to stay as level-headed as possible, and ask:
‘Have these thoughts and feelings been seeded in me by manipulation and propaganda (‘narrative warfare as above’)?’.
We can have real enemies in this life, just like any other creature.
True.
As JMG said: Collapse now and avoid the rush
It makes no sense to get the majority sense what they have to sense.
In some aspect he is right that C19 is a sort fo mass anxiety disorder for sensing that a lot of what you assume civilisation was has in effect been proven wrong.
To clean up that mess is a monstrous task.
From my perspective I do not need a sense making service.
But if it feeds the sheep, go for it!
The next Covid variant could kill up to one in THREE people: SAGE warns doomsday scenario is ‘realistic possibility’ and UK’s vaccine roll-out may even speed up mutant strain’s emergence
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9844701/SAGE-Covid-variant-kill-one-three-people.html
Now we’re talkin! More like 3 in 3 die. Or better still – 8B….
The Nightmare … is held back… by a fraying leash….
Bring on the Boosters!!! All hail … The Boosters!!!
https://cdn1-www.dogtime.com/assets/uploads/2017/05/what-dog-growls-mean-6.jpg
Economic problems by themselves could kill that many. Think of unemployed people in India.
“The goal, they say, should be “to reduce infection of and transmission from vaccinated individuals,” and to “reduce the possibility of variant selection in vaccinated individuals.”
“In minutes from its July 7 meeting, SAGE scientists wrote that “the combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge.” It said at the time that “the likelihood of this happening is unknown, but such a variant would present a significant risk both in the UK and internationally.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/01/health/uk-scientists-covid-variant-beat-vaccines-intl/index.html
Prepping the Cattle…..
“CDC releases study showing 3/4 Delta cases are among the vaccinated, says masks are the answer”
“One of the slides states that there is a higher risk among older age groups for hospitalization and death relative to younger people, regardless of vaccination status. Another estimates that there are 35,000 symptomatic infections per week among 162 million vaccinated Americans.”
https://www.rt.com/usa/530741-cdc-vaccine-delta-study-masks/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/
Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine? You May Not Receive Unemployment Benefits
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fired-refusing-covid-19-vaccine-you-may-not-receive-unemployment-benefits
CSS 1971 commented:
“What corporations and governments are missing is that The Piper, IS going to be paid one way or another. An eye for an eye.
“Lets say they mandate vaccination, and an employee suffers complications… And the rate is running at about 3% so any company is going to see tens to hundreds of cases. The vaccine manufacturer is protected. The government is protected. Which leaves the employer.
“Now whether or not the employer is legally protected or not is moot, because even if they are, the damage remains and the bad feeling remains. And it remains towards people who are physically close to the damaged individual. They know who they are, they meet them physically. They are ‘soft’ targets.
“Lets take another example of a school, where the teachers enforce a vaccination mandate on my children, which subsequently causes them harm. I can get very close to the teachers. I know who they are. I know where they live. I can put hands on them.
“In the event of damage, someone IS going to pay.
“Now, we had a system of testing for vaccinations, We had a legal recourse in the event of something going wrong. Now, not so much. Justice will be done though.”
Employers better think twice about this and consider the long game. What’s going to happen when the “vaccines” turn out to be not so “safe and effective” for their employees?
Let’s try pounding this into the thick skulls of the resident CovIDIOTS….
The PCR tests don’t work to diagnose active infection with covid19.
We all keep saying that don’t we, but we don’t seem able to grasp what it means, because even though we know PCR tests don’t work to diagnose infection we keep accepting all the statistics that are produced as a result of assuming PCR tests diagnose infection.
We say – “0h wow, covid numbers rising despite the lockdown”. Or “massive spike in people getting covid in THIS care home despite precautions”. Or “look the ‘vax’ doesn’t work because people who get it still catch covid”.
No. Wrong. They’re not “covid numbers”, they’re positive-test numbers. It’s not a spike in people ‘getting Covid’ in the care home, it’s a spike of people testing positive. The people who get the vax don’t “still catch covid”, they still test positive.
And the reason why these ‘anomalies’ happen, the reason why vaxxed people can still test positive, etc etc is the same reason a papaya can test positive – because the PCR tests don’t work.
We know it but keep forgetting it. So let’s say it again.
The PCR tests don’t work.
The PCR tests. Don’t. Work.
We all know the danger of false positives if too many cycles are run. This is admitted even by Fauci.
If you run your tests at 30 cycles or more the results are very likely to be junk and any positives meaningless. And, incredibly, most labs performing these tests have been doing just that – running cycles of 30 or more, even up to 45.
But this well known and important fact hides the even more important fact that even when the tests are done properly they still don’t work – in that they are not designed to do what they are being used for.
They don’t diagnose infection or detect active infection. They aren’t, for the most part, even specific for SARSCOV2. They just look to see if you have some random fragments of RNA in your body that someone has identified as being similar to some types of assumed viral RNA.
Even if the test truly finds this stuff inside you, and isn’t just spewing out nonsense from having its cycle threshold set too high, there is literally nothing to show this bit of junk has anything to do with your runny nose, sore throat, pneumonia or death. It might, but much more likely does not.
More https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/03/repeat-after-me-the-pcr-tests-dont-work/
I don’t think that this is a very important issue, in the whole scheme of things.
Au contraire.
The willful manipulation of PCR testing underpins the entire fiasco.
Yes. This demonstrates that this is one colossal LIE.
No ifs ands or buts…. it’s a massive (and very successful) psyop.
There is a distinct possibility that Covid is just another flu … as we can see here… the tents actually had patients https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/
It’s hard for “normal people” to imagine that this is not something gov.s are REACTING TO, but something they are ORCHESTRATING.
It will sound too far-fetched to question why Dr. Mullis, Nobel-prize-winning inventor of the PCR test and declared nemesis of Fauci JUST HAPPENED to keel over dead from “pneumonia” in August, 2019, just before TPTB pandemic war-gaming in October, and the appearance of the “virus” on the world stage in December.
Because we regard ourselves as civilized, such a thing would seem beyond the pale. Yet we easily accept the fact that an urban ‘youth’ might kill someone for a pair of sneakers.
Can we not imagine a person might be killed to obtain a prize of billions upon billions of dollars? Maybe Mullis just happened to die, but the extreme incentive for any and all sorts of lies, fraud, and other remunerative shenanigans remains.
We think of robbers as wearing hoodies and wielding guns, at the same time we’re vaguely aware that the largest thefts take place in Wall St. board rooms. We haven’t conventionally thought of scientists as being party to that degree of rapaciousness, though. Clearly time to get over that!
I also have a hard time believing that something so convenient for covidscam promoters happened by coincidence four months before the wuhan thing. Mullis was simply too authoritative and outspoken a figure to be left alive. It wouldn’t be too easy to discredit him, although we all know that covidio.ts are easy to manipulate, as they crave to be manipulated. When I spoke of Mullis to a biologist friend, many months ago, he replied, “Oh, but the guy is a lunatic who even believes in astrology!” Well…
“The PCR tests. Don’t. Work.”
Actually, they do work. They’ve served as the foundation for the global pandemic simulation we’re currently living through and they enabled the seizing of emergency powers by governments around the world.
Yes… something so easily manipulated is a key part of the CEP.
I agree. They work, but not as advertised. Where would the statistics makers be without them?
“ . . . so it is
15:04 frequently emphasize that pcr test is
15:06 really outstanding test
15:08 for what it was designed for the problem
15:10 is
15:11 it’s being used for something it wasn’t
15:13 designed for . . . “
I fully agree. And if PCR tests are unable to diagnose any disease, what exactly are scientists measuring? Constructs, fictions, mental projections I say. After all, Big Pharma’s business model relies heavily on inventing diseases to sell drugs. But labeling symptoms is different from identifying illnesses… What 2020 has taught me is amazing: to what extent medical science is undermined by moral corruption and scientific fraud. Now i firmly believe allopathic medicine is the biggest of all Big Lies.The best PR stunt ever. And the biggest crime.
JMS, indeed. I used to be more of a believer in “science” before the covid catastrophe. I figured corruption existed around the fringes but didn’t imagine that it was pervasive enough to threaten central assumptions.
The failures and distortions in the process have now become too glaring to ignore.
The temptation must be greater now, as some in the Life Sciences seem to think they are about to become the creators and arbiters of life itself.
To become creators puts them beyond morality, in a sense.
Pretty intoxicating: and if you can make a lot of money on top of that…..
Update re friend with problems related to Injection .. this is a guy who regularly did 10km runs through mountainous terrain….
The thing is … he understood there were no long term studies… but was willing to take that risk but because the epic side effects were hidden and only relatively recently to be found anywhere… he assumed the risks were no greater than for any other vaccine….
‘If I had a rocket launcher’ surely must cross his mind….
‘Off to docs tomorrow for my chest pains which began from the first injection and come every couple days at various strengths mostly manageable but obviously not ideal’
Scientist: ‘What We’re Seeing Is Virus Evolution 101’ — Delta Variant More Transmissible, Not More Deadly
As COVID — especially the Delta variant — surges among the fully vaccinated, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., said the more the variant deviates from the original sequence used for the vaccine, the less effective the vaccine will be on that variant.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/brian-hooker-covid-delta-variant-vaccine-less-effective/
Primed .. and ready for … The Booster….???
“If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die.”
https://sonichits.com/video/Maggie_Holland/If_I_Had_A_Rocket_Launcher
Wasn’t that Bruce Cockburn?
Rocket launchers banned in Canada last year… Sorry, Bruce.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/05/07/canada-gun-ban/
It’s one Bruce’s best songs, but I really love Maggie’s cover version. Her delivery is just so deadpan.
In Scotland nearly everyone aged 40 and up are vaccinated and they counted 400 of 600 Covid hospitalisations in one week. So, at least 65% of the hospitalised were vaccinated…and the true number is higher… somewhere between 65% to 95%…since 5% were unvaccinated children.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/resources/images/12819446.png?type=article-full
“somewhere between 65% to 95%”
You’re just making up these numbers, aren’t you?
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19456273.covid-scotland-people-admitted-hospital-unvaccinated/
Well, Yoshua’s figure might be an exaggeration, but there’s a headline from July 21 in that paper that screams:
“Covid hospital admissions triple in over-60s — and nearly half of patients fully vaccinated”.
Just scroll down the page and you’ll find it.
So the jabs, by definition, are not vaccines.
I’m all for arguing over statistics, but let’s establish some basic facts. Otherwise we will be sloshing around like Norman from here to eternity.
If you want a picture of the future at OFW, imagine Norman engaging in pure unmitigated casuistry—for ever.
Great, I’m all for establishing basic facts. What is a “covid hospital admission”?
“Measure: Number of patients in hospital with recently confirmed COVID-19
Sources, methods and things to note:
This measure (available from 11 September and first published 15 September 2020) includes patients who first tested positive in hospital or in the 14 days before admission. Patients stop being included after 28 days in hospital (or 28 days after first testing positive if this is after admission). […] All patients in hospital, including in intensive care, and community, mental health and long stay hospitals are included in this figure.”
https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-data-definitions-and-sources/
Do we agree that anyone with a positive non-diagnostic test who is hospitalized for whatever reason would be counted as “covid hospitalization”?
The worst thing , even bigger than Energy Depletion and whatever you can name, is the explosion of the Third World Population.
Some UKers still think they did a lot for freedom, but methinks giving the idea of freedom and democracy to the Third World was Wrong, Wrong and Wrong.
They should have been kept in primitive conditions and not deplete the world’s energy.
Energy depletion and all these other problems occurred because they wanted to live like first world population, a question everyone but me is afraid to ask.
A lot of the energy footprint in the first world is skewed since quite a lot of that is used to produce goods for the Third World since they can’t do that themselves.
I humbly think if the pop of the Third World plummets to about 1/20 of what is now, virtually all of the problems the world have should be solved.
My paternal grandparent were Lutheran missionaries in Madagascar in the early 1900s. They taught the people about hygiene. They started bringing health care to Madagascar. They also taught people to stop using old customs, such as allowing only the strongest baby of multiple births to live. Even now, there are initiatives to stop diseases such as malaria.
I am sure that the influence of missionaries of many kinds was at least part of what allowed population to explode. At that time, everyone thought that bringing the wonders of Western Civilization to Africa was a great idea. Over the long term, it has had a detrimental effect.
I am sure that there have been many others bringing the wonders of Western Civilization to Africa over the years. In part, western countries wanted to sell more of their products to Africa. But there really is not space for all of these folks to have an adequate living now.
Useful consumerists is quite “good” to have when energy is in abundance and IC is kicking off big time with oil as its prime mover. Unfortunately opulence isn’t suitable for all traits and characters. Some know intuitively to cut back because moar doesn’t imply “better”, rather burdensome and stressful.
Both of my parents is from families with 10+ children. That was Lutheranism and Læstadianism for you. They surely “delivered” plenty of of consumerists and cannon fodder for the “elites” at their disposal. Why you might wonder?
Nobody knows.
That’s how their genetic and in-group cultural programming goes, I assume.
I have six siblings. My mother said, “If I am staying home with one, I can just as well have more.” My parents also wanted a boy. Six of the seven are girls. Large families were not uncommon at the time, which was before easy birth control. I had classmates in school with more than a dozen siblings.
Gail is your brother the youngest?
Your Lutheran grandparents read the Bible and obeyed the Lord, or at least helped to fullfill the Plan : Genesis 1:28 : “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth …“
I agree, Kulm, it may be seen to have been a great mistake to allow the primitives of Africa, China, Korea, Asia in general, and Russia of course, access to industrial technology and antibiotics, and to reproduce themselves so freely.
Still, no use crying over spilt milk, what’s done is done and everything will soon be corrected by the Great Mother, as ever.
Yes, and that long list of indigenous types in our own populations that are frowned upon………………………………… LOL Fortunately for everyone concerned it did not work out that way. Not to worry, we will be back to feudalism or something like it soon enough, and most of us can go back to living in the mud with no mod cons or healthcare, let alone varied foods imported from sunnier climes. ‘Utopia’ awaits.
Who’s to decide which populations are “worthy” of upgrade? How would you even know beforehand, say if the Spaniards are “worthy”, or perhaps the Laplanders?
It is a matter of temptation. Moar opulence equals better? Or perhaps sufficient quality of life is enough? No?
In any scenario. If more cheap stuff would be readily available for the average schmuck. Mark my words that the usual halfwit would be dashing about the skies in their private jets and burn copious amounts of energy in the process.
It’s just simple rapacious primate psychology. Moar means “attractive” to females (in general) and on it goes until the boom inevitably becomes bust.
I’d say it doesn’t matter. At least they were given a fair shot at living the good life. Pity and compassion is such a powerful drug.
The resources wasted by the wrong people won’t come back since entropy is stronger than whatever the “Great White Mother” (a term the Indians used to call Queen Victoria) can come up with.
What do people have against the Russians? The only Christain nation left standing.
Russia is the best bet of Western civilization if tptb wants the party to continue. Hatred blinds the eyes though
Scratch a Russian and you will see a Tatar – Voltaire
Sounds like a guy who didn’t know very many Central Asians.
Scratch a Russian and you will get a black eye at the very least.
… the only tartar you will find is when you pick up your teeth.
Satanists being Satanists?
Russia may be nominally ‘Christian’ but so what? It is not like any country has ever practiced the gospels anyway, otherwise they would ‘turn the other cheek’, ‘give everything to the poor’ and that would be the end of them. Christianity presupposes an ‘ideal’ world in which every one else acts that way – which is not this world. In practice it is just another way that countries sustain identity and the submission of the population – and claim and organise power. Christianity is not a ‘bad’ thing, it just is what it is. It ‘works’ to an extent.
Most Christians live in Africa today, and then Latin America, and that is certainly how the churches see it.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/more-christians-now-live-in-africa-than-any-other-continent-in-the-world.html
An infographic provided by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary shows that more than 631 million Christians currently reside in Africa and they make up 45 percent of the population.
Latin America is, meanwhile, estimated to have 601 million Christians. Though a smaller number compared to Africa, they make up the majority of the continent at 92 percent.
According to CBS News, Zambia is the African nation with the highest percentage of Christian residents, with around 95.5 percent of the people living there following the religion.
Following not too far behind Zambia on the list of African nations with the highest percentage of Christian residents is the Republic of Seychelles, where 94.7 percent hold Christian beliefs.
Third is Rwanda.
And the Rwandan Catholics took up their machetes the moment the chaos began and slaughtered Tutsi priests, nuns and the people who took refugee there.
Your point?
Well, to cut to the chase, who cares if the Russians are ‘Christians’? ‘Christianity’ never stopped European countries from fighting each other before. Indeed, Europe split in two and Russians were considered to be ‘schismatics’ and not even ‘Christians’. And RC countries were happy to fight each other, and alliances were often formed without any regard to religious profession. Europe has always been about countries, empires, alliances and blocs, and ‘Christianity’ has never rendered it a single force or even defined alliances. And that is not likely to change. In the real world I mean, not in ideological fantasies on the internet.
I was of course just pulling Kulm’s leg, Ed. Nothing against the Russians, although my liver did when I had Russian friends….
“I humbly think if the pop of the Third World plummets to about 1/20 of what is now, virtually all of the problems the world have should be solved.”
Modern industrial civilisation is dependent on a globalised, self-organising dissipative network, and it is going to fall, there is no way around that. It is not like a smaller global population and economy would be able to overcome the looming unprofitability of fossil fuel extraction. Any temporary continuation of the modern lifestyle is entirely dependent on the global economy. It probably would have fallen already without the expansion of China.
It seems likely that the global population will fall by 19/20, including the populations of the West. Collapse may be staggered to some extent, with ‘peripheries’ falling first, but it will spread everywhere pretty fast. IC is a ‘problem’ that will ‘solve’ itself in its own collapse. That will leave humans with other problems – life is always a struggle at base, however safe and comfy it may seem for some of us now. Whatever ‘problems’ people think that IC has, are about to be ‘solved’ by IC anyway in its collapse. Nothing is really worth worrying about too much.
Humans, like other species, expand until they collapse and go through a ‘bottleneck’ of population decline. There is no ‘controlling’ now what happens on the other side of the BN. The material and energetic conditions of the reformation of the dissipative structure will decide that, anyway. It would be a mistake to think that humans are ‘in control’; we ‘are’ only in so far as we are driven by our organic drives to work as parts of the wider dissipative structures that are human societies.
So, don’t worry, nearly everyone will be dead soon enough, and those who survive will do whatever they have to to survive and to prosper in the new material and energetic conditions. Ideologies will emerge, re-emerge or adapt accordingly. That is how it ‘works’. Likely economies will be much more localised, the conditions of life will be much harder, societies will be more obviously and forcefully stratified – much like things always were before the rise of IC. It is not going to be some ‘utopia’, it will simply be what it is, which is always true.
Yep, the boom and bust cycles of the rapacious primate is analogous to the Volterra-Lotka nonlinear differential equations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka–Volterra_equations
“The Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the predator–prey equations, are a pair of first-order nonlinear differential equations, frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems”
Replace the “prey” with cheap fossil fuels and there you go.
Then there is of course steady state solutions to nonlinear biological systems, but that require the boom and bust cycles to integrate stabilizing feedback loops.
“In systems theory, a system or a process is in a steady state if the variables (called state variables) which define the behavior of the system or the process are unchanging in time.“
Speaking of ‘utopia’ and ‘all mod cons’, The Jam were wonderfully cynical. This entire album is a masterpiece of its time.
The place I love is a million miles away,
Its too far for the eye to see
Still its me at least, and you can’t come here
No one is allowed at all
Only animals that love me, will always, only, ever could be
And its always at the back of my mind
The place I love is overgrown now
With beautiful moss and colourful flowers
And goldfish that swim in a pool, there’s a small brick wall
Two Japanese, who would later be called Inoue Kaoru and Ito Hirobumi (the former a Foreign Minister, the latter Prime Minister of Japan), stowed into a British ship on 1863.
They wanted to learn how the steamship worked.
If the sailors knew what would happen to the Repulse and Prince of Wales 78 years later, they would have been thrown to the sea.
It was the moment when the world began to be doomed.
With Japan, who pretended to be part of the West but showed its true face on December 07, 1941, being allowed in, the rest of non-Western world followed, like the fable of the tent and the camel.
Come now–the Japanese weren’t behaving all that differently from the other great powers.
Yup, idiots gonna idiot. It is not a matter of religion or ethnicity in what is a fundamentally cloner herd.
Besides they surely know how to manufacture good automobiles and the usual electronic trinkets.
And that awesome anime, as compared with the western cheesy cliche of hollyweird. 🤢🤮
“Likely economies will be much more localised, the conditions of life will be much harder, societies will be more obviously and forcefully stratified – much like things always were before the rise of IC. It is not going to be some ‘utopia’, it will simply be what it is, which is always true.”
Amen.
before IC humankind numbered about 1 billion. give or take
IC added another 6bn+
that is reality
Yes, and remove the “excessive” 6bn+ and watch the remainder 1bn start to consume, just about exactly as much as the 7bn+ used to do.
It ain’t gonna be pretty that is for sure.
unfortunately we’ve left nothing for them to consume
1913 world pop
Europe, North America, Japan 400 mil
The rest 1.2 bil
Enough said
Even more problems would be solved if the First World was thus decimated.
IMHO this is about removal of rights and regimentation of the herd. If they want to kill they can release the weaponized Ebola or Marburg. If they want to give money the vaxx companies the CBs can just write them each a check for 50 billion, small potatoes. I think Xabier is more on track.
Deaths, cases, variants, booster are just part of theater to get peasants locked into their small boxes with no travel, rationed food and who now what else.
and paradoxically the denizens of the Third World fare better in this segment since there are less control over there
Well practically speaking 90% of products sold on fb does not even trickle their AI. There is no sense to waste datacenter power on a crowd that actually only has an on and an off switch.
The bottleneck means that a filter will be applied no matter what we do. “They” know that they will also be applied the filter. So they at least try to gather more data of the outliers to get a clue thrugh it. If that helps, I do not bet on it.
Every battle plan is useless as soon as the first shot is fired.
Somewhat “They” are trapped in their own simulation panopticon. They try to use it on us because simulation needs constant readjustment.
All models suffer from uncertainty in boudary conditions. That is why we are during “the execrise” constantly subejct to new boundaries. To check out what we do and give them a clue.
Question is if the terminal will be still operating when the results are due.
Looks like the actuaries are using data from Feb 1st to July 15th to make it look like most of the hospitalisations as a percent are among the unvaccinated, by including hospitalisations during a time when the level of vaccinated was low and most of hospitalisations were among the unvaccinated and then taking a vaccination number from a time when the vaccination level is high.
You cannot even trust actuaries in this world!
https://www.covid-arg.com/post/how-many-covid-patients-in-hospital-are-vaccinated-an-update
It is like all professions. There are real actuaries that tell their bosses what is really going on and there are PR department “actuaries” that tell the story their bosses tell them to put out.
There are also consulting actuaries. They work for a variety of clients. If they want to retain the clients, they tell them the clients they want to hear, just as other consultants do.
Even within a company, there are a variety of “clients.” For example, state insurance departments regulate some types of insurance. An actuary will need to figure out how to choose which of various techniques will tell the story their company wants to tell to the state insurance department. With the use of models, it is possible to “prove” almost anything.
Very early in my career, I learned the term “uncalculate.” Given the desired outcome, what assumptions are needed to produce the desired result?
This is why there can be cynical actuaries. Their trust in models is rather low, for one thing.
The german word for it is Wirecard
Possible to make 1+1 = 7?
Sure, depending on the value of “1”.
An manager asks to his staff : how much makes 1 + 1 ?
The IT engineer answers : “1 + 1 equals 1.9999999999999”
The accountant answers : “notwithstanding any omission of error, 1 + 1 equals 2 “
The actuary: “How much do you want is makes ?”
Ask Gail who is an actuary
This group has been hired to show:
“the unvaccinated run a significantly higher risk of hospitalisation than the vaccinated.”
They have gone out of their way to spin the numbers in a way that it looks like this is happening.
In fact, “the unvaccinated run a significantly higher risk of hospitalisation than the vaccinated,” is the wrong issue to be focusing on. The fact that the vaccines encourage the growth of worse variants, and the fact that the vaccines don’t really work against the variants are much worse problems. Longer term, ADE may be a problem as well.
The variants are spinning the story their bosses want told. They may not be smart enough to figure out the real issues, however.
Reality is getting stark in Afghanistan. Taliban has taken most of the countryside and it is now within three cities, provincial capitals, and USA and the proxy government are using planes to bomb the cities. USA and its NATO allies showed in Syria that it is entirely willing to totally destroy cities that fall out of its control, as with Mosul and Raqqa, which were entirely levelled – which raises the question of what is about to unfold in Afghanistan.
It reminds one of the Late Bronze Age Collapse, that we discussed the other day, and the reduction of most of the cities of the east Med to a layer of ash that can still be seen from space. Perhaps that is how most modern cities will end – either through destruction wrought by invaders (maybe organised refugees, as may have been the case in the LBAC) or as a ‘scorched earth’ policy by retreating populations to leave nothing for the invaders – or by the USA and its NATO allies (or analogues) as they destroy any cities that fall out of their control. Entire cities were destroyed in WWII too, with 98% destruction of some German cities.
Ultimately it is all about power, which is the basis of all life and its expansion. Ideologies and ‘moralities’ are just ways of claiming and organising that power. ‘All morality is will to power.’ And so it is in Afghanistan now, as both sides claim ideological correctness (‘the will of Allah’ vs. ‘sin’/ ‘liberty’ vs. ‘totalitarianism’) as the justification for the ruthless overpowering of the other side – even if that means its extermination, as USA and its proxy see it. There is never human life or social organisation without ideology; it is the ideational sine qua non of material life and its continuation. All ideology is aimed at the maintenance and expansion of life, however badly it may be understood or however inadequate it may be – but it always comes down in the end to power.
> Afghanistan: Lashkar Gah residents urged to evacuate amid Taliban battle
General Sami Sadat, who is leading the battle against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, called on people to leave its capital Lashkar Gah as soon as possible. The Taliban are reported to have captured most of the city. But the fighting is continuing and government forces have vowed not to let it fall into militant hands. In a message to residents of the city, Gen Sadat said the army would “not leave a single Taliban alive”.
“I know it is very difficult for you to leave your houses – it is hard for us too – but if you are displaced for a few days please forgive us,” he said.
The Taliban assault in Helmand province is part of a major offensive across Afghanistan. The militants have made rapid advances in recent months as US forces have withdrawn after 20 years of military operations in the country.
“Neither the Taliban will have mercy on us nor will the government stop the bombing. There are corpses on the roads. We do not know if they are civilians or the Taliban,” one resident told the BBC. Another said: “I do not know where to go, there are clashes in every corner of the city.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) says civilians are “bearing the brunt” of the fighting, with the Taliban ground offensive and Afghan air strikes causing the most harm.
General Sadat told the BBC the Taliban were being supported by fighters from other Islamist groups and warned that their gains posed a threat beyond Afghanistan. “This will increase the hope for small extremist groups to mobilise in the cities of Europe and America, and will have a devastating effect on global security. This is not a war of Afghanistan, this is a war between liberty and totalitarianism.”
Lashkar Gah is one of three provincial capitals under attack. Attempts by the militants to capture Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, have continued after rocket strikes hit its airport on Sunday. Seizing control of Kandahar would be a huge victory for the Taliban, giving them a grip on the south of the country. In a third besieged city, Herat, in the west, government commandos are battling the insurgents after days of fierce fighting. Government forces have taken back some areas after a UN compound was attacked on Friday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58068299
Evil Satanists being evil Satanists.
Humans gonna do what humans gonna do.
Oddly enough, Satanism seems not to be a major religion of Afghanistan.
It is the religion of Washington DC where the pentagon is located . The folks bombing the cities of Afghanistan.
Cities are sitting ducks as everyone saw in Syria. The last thing that any force wants to do in a total civil war is to gather one’s forces inside them, especially when the other side has the air force. Cities are to be either left alone or destroyed in that situation – but never occupied? Taliban is Afghan ‘nationalist’ and their objective is not to ‘win’ the war but to operate the ‘modern’ Afghan state and economy and that is liable to be their downfall. Evidently God is all for industrial capitalism in their mind – if only they knew that is ending anyway. They would have ended up with control of what remains anyway.
Part of the role of ideology, at least for the masses, is to pretend that they are the ‘good and holy’, the ‘justified and righteous’. How humans deceive themselves! It is likely because the masses have been domesticated, bred to submission – to a ‘rule’, a ‘truth’. All that is really happening is the adaptation of the species through the survival of the fittest. It always comes down to power and its organisation, and the domestication of the masses is part of that. It is what it is.
Similar to https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-world-be-like-if-society-collapsed
Exactly, besieged cities are no fun whatsoever. I suspect that the Taliban has not thought it through. They would have to entirely win the war before they could rule the peace. IS made that mistake in Syria/ Iraq when they started ruling cities. Their ideology of ‘remaining and expanding’ set them up for obliteration. It seems that the ‘nationalist’ Taliban may make the same mistake. Cities are sitting ducks and USA and NATO are happy to level them. If the war is not entirely winnable then stay away from the cities. We will have to wait and see what happens but the Taliban will be lucky to survive that move. It will depend on how far their enemies are willing to take it – which is not a good position to be in. It may even be that the USA ‘withdrew’ its troops in anticipation of this development.
Some musing on ideology and power..
Most people base their core belief in reality in some sort of narrative what the past was, what the future will hold, and his/her place or mission is in that narrative. We can call the narrative either ideology, or religion or culture. Philosophers over the centuries have had lots of ideas how these narratives work and how they shape the individuals world view, motivations and what effect those have on larger groups or communities etc etc. The main functions of these narratives are the same, but the structure of the narrative changes greatly. Today the main narrative is the idea of linear historical development in to the stars. Where everything just gets better and better as time progresses. Our place is to be happy consumers, working and consuming happily so that some day we or our children will be rich, famous and beautiful.
Leaders have a great instinct to sniff out what narratives have a growing popularity. Where to find a niche to build their leadership in. Then leaders exploit these niches to the best of their abilities. The main narrative is mostly not the leaders invention, but the leader has an instinct how to sell that narrative to the people. Therefore he/ she just exploits the narrative that already has some traction in the crowd. One could think of these as popularity contests between narratives or as Richard Dawkins named them; memes.
Why do leaders exploit these narratives? Well, Power.
Power is a funny thing. There is always someone who holds power. It is not possible to have a large group of people, without someone having power. In a large group of people, there is always someone with more power than others,
The simplest form of power is violence. Do this, or Fast Eddy will bash your head in. That´s power at its simplest. A somewhat more difficult form of power is respect and admiration. If a large group of people “think” someone has power.. well.. then he most certainly HAS power.. It´s influence, trust, reliability, strength of character.. those sort of things.
Now.. how to hold power or how to overthrow an existing government?
If we want to overthrow the existing power structure, then we begin with a grass root public narrative that places blame on existing circumstances on the power structure. Something like: ” We would be safer and have more jobs, if the idiots in the government hadn´t done..” -> this becomes a narrative that gathers up people and therefore concentrates power to the grass root movements leadership.
The simplest form of power is violence. Therefore the simplest form of power to counter the grass root crowds power, is the police. If the police refuses to use violence against the crowd, then they call in the military. If the military refuses to use violence against he crowd, then they call in the military special forces. And the very minute that the military special forces refuse to use violence against the crowd.. well at that very moment the existing power structure no longer exists, and a new power structure has been born. The King Is Dead – All Hail The King!
The thing that puts on a twist on this structure is a narrative. Or an ideology. Now. If the military special forces refuse to fire in to the crowd, then all is lost. The power has been lost. Except.. if there exists a crowd of people that believes the leaders narrative. A crowd of his own. If such an crowd exists, then it doesn´t matter that the military special forces refused to shoot in to the crowds, now the leader(s) can justify their claim to power with this narrative and the other crowd. So.. ideology DOES matter..
So the best way to hold power or to overthrow an existing government and then hold the power, is to both have an strong narrative (strong ideology) that you can successfully sell to large crowds of people. AND by having a monopoly on violence. If you have both.. then you have power as long as you like. In that case you can set of the marketing people, the spin doctors to work your public image, and start eradicating the dissidents so that there can´t be any grass root movements against you. Game Over.
Actuaries in the UK breaking down the numbers of hospitalisations among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
https://mobile.twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1420074353505546241
Yes, a higher proportion of the unvaccinated are in the hospital. So in a sense, the vaccine “works.” The real issues are different from this. The vaccine causes huge long-term problems, even if it appears to work in the sense of preventing those with the vaccine from catching the illness. This is something that is virtually impossible for people to understand.
There are good reasons why there can never be accountability for the chimeras creation.
The NIH grants and the peer reviewed papers are no secret.
It seems apparant that Baric UNC chapel hill developed the chimera and handed it off to Shi.
The lion share of the funding both in the USA and china from NIH.
Regardless of the individual researchers responsibility NIH funded the whole shebang.
That means liability for the chimera is borne by uncle sam.
Im not sure 50 quadrillion US dollars worth of chimera whoopsie bonds on the feds books would be good for BAU.
I wonder if Rand realizes the consequences of his rather comical interaction with Fauci.
Rand; you were increasing the transmisability and lethality of the virus with the NIH grants.
Fauci; Thats not gain of function.
Rand; this sworn affidavit by experts says it is the epitomy of Gain of function research.
Fauci; I resent what your implying
It seems that we are to believe that its perfectly OK to create pathogens capable of wreaking havoc its the release of those pathogens that is not OK. Why is the question not asked is why is gain of function research OK.
The release point of the chimera will never be known. A BSL4 lab has multiple redundancies negative air pressures. It is designed to be fool proof with considerable effort. It may be that research was done outside of it at the Wuhan institute of virology. The wuhan BSL4 was a french designed facility not junk.
All of this speculation assumes a accidental release. It seems clear to me that biological weapons have taken the forefront in nation states arsenals now that the chimera roams. Whether intentional or not the Chimera has certainly changed the perception of how destructive power has the possibility of being deployed and that in its turn has implications for the philosophy of mutually assured destruction. The terror is no longer some unthinkable device stored away but a terror that can stalk while BAU is more or less intact. A terror that has the possibility of exerting degrees of the force deployed not just all or nothing. The neutron bomb was ceased because creating a weapon that exerted a degree of force that did not result in mutually assured destruction was deemed too risky, the risk being that it was much more likely to be deployed. It seems to me that a new arms race has been created. A arms race where even third tier nations can participate. A arms race where mutually assured destruction is in fact not assured. A arms race where a effective safe vaccine is in fact the equivalent of anti ballistic missiles. Not that the current experiment is either effective or safe.
Why was the NIH funding weapon research in china? As mentioned that can of worms can not and will not be opened.
Too many people/countries have taken part in the funding of this nonsense. No one is willing to admit their part in today’s problem.
The US making bio-weapons makes sense. China making bio-weapons makes sense. The two working together on bio-weapons makes no sense. Implies the two are no in fact distinct entities. Very strange.
When you look at the results of these labs, there is not much more than a spike protein found in dishes mixed with cellular debris which is a hypthetical product but as long as grant money flows, why not.
Also the researchers follow the pursuit of happiness!
I doubt the virus “escape” even originated from that lab. How easy isn’t it to have an asset waiting outside for the personnel to leave for the day and get them to be in contact with the virus? Just slap some contaminated material on the car door handle or their clothes, scarves, whatever would do.
Plus it can’t be that difficult to replicate the coof in any competent virology lab?
How easy it would be. How ridiculously easy it would be. Yes, indeed, that’s how I’d do it if it weren’t for my obnoxious scruples.
Muppets gonna muppet.
Peddlers gonna peddle.
Idiots gonna idiot.
Rapacious primates gonna rapacious.
Why you might wonder? Because:
MOAR!
🤣👍
MAGAZINE TOYOTA
How Toyota kept making cars when the chips were down
A global semiconductor shortage has hobbled the auto industry in 2021—but Toyota was able to tame it. Competitors are watching and learning.
BY EAMON BARRETT
August 02, 2021 4:00 AM EDT
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One of the most hopeful signs of recovery from the pandemic slowdown was the global surge in consumer appetite for new cars. But that momentum was brought to a screeching halt by a crippling semiconductor shortage—one that left auto manufacturers slowing or even stopping production as they scrambled to secure enough chips to build vehicles.
The unexpected spike in demand wasn’t the only factor in the shortage: A series of unpredictable disasters also tangled the semiconductor supply chain. A freak cold snap in Texas in February shut down factories at top chipmakers. Drought in Taiwan around the same time threatened to dry up the island’s semiconductor supplies (since chipmaking requires pools of water to wash away industrial chemicals). Then, in March, a fire tore through a factory at Japan’s Renesas—a key chip supplier for the industry.
Aftershocks rippled through assembly lines and car lots worldwide. As early as January, Ford and General Motors warned of shortages. Since then, they have halted assembly lines where they have failed to secure chipsets to power their cars’ onboard computers; GM cut production by 278,000 units through May, and Ford had to reduce global production 50% in the second quarter. European automakers buckled too. Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, and Renault each slashed their manufacturing totals. Thousands of workers were idled or furloughed, while would-be car buyers suddenly faced weeks-long waiting lists. All told, consultancy AlixPartners says the chip shortage will cost automakers globally about 4% of total sales this year—some $110 billion in forgone revenue.
But not all carmakers have suffered equally. While rival OEMs (or original equipment manufacturers, as automakers are known) stumbled, Toyota kept production largely on target until May. The company has said factory closures owing to chip shortages would cause a shortfall of 20,000 vehicles in Japan—less than 1% of Japanese production in fiscal 2021. Toyota’s North American production, meanwhile, hummed along at 90% of capacity for the year through June. That prolonged productivity propelled the company to a rare victory: In the second quarter, it was the No. 1 automaker by sales in North America, marking the first time since 1998 that GM hasn’t held the top spot.
With the global semiconductor shortage now expected by some to stretch into 2022 or beyond, competitors are taking notice. “Other automakers are looking to Toyota and seeing that obviously something has made them less vulnerable,” says Michael Weber, a partner at consultancy Bain & Co. “Now other OEMs are trying to learn from what Toyota has done.”
Toyota’s handy navigation throughout the shortage is more than just good luck: It’s good management. Over the past decade, Toyota has overhauled the way it oversees its supply chain—implementing hard lessons it learned a decade ago after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami devastated swaths of Japan’s industrial heartland. Those gradual reforms prepared the company to ride out the current chip crisis, executives say. And just as the success of Toyota’s “just in time” (JIT) manufacturing model led automakers the world over to imitate the company in the 1980s, the company’s new advances may spawn another wave of imitation.
Unlike many of its rivals, Toyota essentially stockpiles chips. That’s a deviation from JIT, which dictates that supplies reach the production line only when they are needed. (Stockpiles occupy valuable space on the factory floor, as well as on the company’s books.) In practice, Toyota’s suppliers do the actual stockpiling. Like all automakers, the company relies on a multitude of components that contain semiconductors, such as smart displays or audio systems. Toyota requires suppliers of those components to maintain up to a six months’ buffer supply of chips dedicated to Toyota orders—just in case.
According to Tu Le, founder and CEO of auto industry consultancy Sino Auto Insights, most automakers don’t engage in Toyota’s level of micromanagement. But the current shortages show why such Type A approaches are invaluable—especially given that for most chipmakers, the auto industry isn’t the highest-priority client. “If a chip shortage lasts more than three months, it’s not really a chip shortage,” Le says. “It’s poor supply-chain management.”
Few sectors have supply chains as complex as the auto industry’s. OEMs design and assemble the vehicles they sell in their brands’ showrooms, but every OEM relies on a network of hundreds if not thousands of suppliers to provide component parts. And Toyota’s effort to tame that sprawling network stretches far beyond the semiconductor world.
The company learned the value of forging stronger relations with lower-tier suppliers after the Fukushima tsunami struck in 2011. In the aftermath, Toyota struggled as individual parts manufacturers dropped offline. The company readied engineers to help repair suppliers’ damaged plants, but Toyota managers quickly realized they didn’t even know how to find all their contractors and subcontractors. “They didn’t know the sub-supplier’s name, they didn’t know their telephone number, they certainly didn’t know their address,” says Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way, a definitive treatise on Toyota’s production system. In the first hectic weeks after the quake, Toyota managers encamped in a war room, putting out endless phone calls to gather information about their far-flung network of component makers. Details were scrawled on Post-it notes and slapped on the walls.
If a chip shortage lasts more than three months, it’s not really a chip shortage. It’s poor supply-chain management.
Tu Le, founder and CEO of auto industry consultancy Sino Auto Insights
Eventually, those stopgap measures evolved into a comprehensive management system that Toyota dubbed Rescue—the Reinforce Supply Chain Under Emergency system. Rescue is a centralized database containing thousands of nodes that map out Toyota’s suppliers, and its suppliers’ suppliers. When a crisis occurs, supply-chain managers fire up Rescue to pinpoint which producers and parts are at risk of disruption and quickly make alternative plans. During an earnings call last year, Toyota’s then chief of supply chain and procurement, Masayoshi Shirayanagi, said Rescue has shortened the time it takes Toyota to locate the source of problems from two weeks to just 12 hours.
Rescue is also a vital part of Toyota’s Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which specifically calls on suppliers to stockpile chips. Another element of that plan is “parallel sourcing”—using multiple suppliers to source the same part for different marques. If one should falter, Toyota shifts orders to an alternative, to keep production going. That network of alternative suppliers helped it weather factory closures during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020—and could come in handy in crises to come
It looks like we have a long-term chip problem. It is not clear how long Toyota can dodge the long-term problem. For now, they are doing better than others.
Because intensive human-caused climate change has persisted how for more than a half-century, however, scientists can now use data on actual warming in recent decades to refine temperature projections, and the IPCC is likely to do so, Science reported. Research shows that using global warming data from the last few decades can reduce uncertainty and lower the most extreme projections. A 2020 paper evaluated current warming trends, data on past climate change, and research on climate feedback effects, and determined that doubling the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide would warm the Earth between 2.6 degrees C and 3.9 degrees C, substantially narrowing the projected temperature range offered by climate models.
While a robust scientific record of recent warming is helping to produce more precise projections, it also a worrying reminder of how long humans have been altering the climate, Aurélien Ribes, a climate scientist at France’s National Centre for Meteorological Research, told Science. “Observations now provide a clear view for what climate change will be.”
It is too bad that there is absolutely nothing we can do about climate change.
‘Someone’ is ‘optimistic’?
‘The conventional wisdom among climate scientists has long been that if we stopped all carbon emissions today, the climate would continue to warm for decades or even centuries. . . . “It is our best understanding that, if we bring down CO2 to net zero, the warming will level off. The climate will stabilize within a decade or two,” Rogelj told Berwyn. “There will be very little to no additional warming. Our best estimate is zero.” He adds the notion that decades or even centuries of additional warming are already baked into the system as suggested by previous IPCC reports was based on an “unfortunate misunderstanding of experiments done with climate models that never assumed zero emissions.”
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/04/net-zero-emissions-stabilize-climate-quickly-uk-scientist/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/02/donald-trump-climate-change-michael-mann-interview
So does this mean Green Grooopies WON’T sacrifice their children to reduce carbon emissions?
And by sacrifice I mean smother with a pillow… or better still.. hit them in the back of the head with a heavy shovel… that’s the more compassionate way of doing it …. one second they’re engrossed in watching p o rrrrn on their phone .. and the next ….
Why doesn’t Greta make the ultimate statement … pour a gallon of petrol over her head and light a match … do it in front of the Exxon HQ 🙂
Walk the Walk ….
Can you tell Fast Eddy is infatuated with all things f ire? Petrol and Matches… great inventions
I think we have a bit longer than THIS:
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/01/global-extinction-within-18-34-months.html
And?
What’s the plan Herbie?
Plan? Like we planned anything?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BurnIuSY6hw
Best ask Gail that guestion…she raised it here before
With one billion people inoculated into Wuhan laboratories and the super infectious Delta variant infecting them, it’s now just a question of time before we have a kiIIer.
killer = schmuller ; the #1 Q remains will there be DIY antidote protocol for it soon?
anything goes: chicken head boiled with herbal mix or 10,000% daily dose of cherry, ..
My friend Pete believes alcohol ills the virus. He suggest drinking heavily. My I am sticking with vitamin D and C. If a truly killing virus, say 10%, shows up I will self isolate until they food runs out.
You should warn him that alcohol has side-effects.
The reason for why there been a vaccine approved against SARS is because ADE.
The Covid vaccines haven’t been approved either by FDA. The NIH knew of course about the risk of ADE and even supported this paper that talks about the risk and that those who take the vaccine should be informed about the risk.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijcp.13795
I see what you mean. NIH supported this publication financially with award R21AI157604.
Section 1 of the paper is titled, “THE RISK OF ADE IN COVID-19 VACCINES IS NON-THEORETICAL AND COMPELLING”