There is a saying, “Everything happens for a reason.” The fiasco in Afghanistan is no exception to this rule. Even though it is not obvious, the United States is up against energy limits. It needed to pull back from Afghanistan to try to have enough energy to continue in its other roles, such as providing benefits for its growing army of retirees, and building infrastructure to mitigate the COVID-19 downturn.
The fundamental problem is that governments can add debt and other indirect promises of resources that create goods and services, but they cannot actually create the low-cost energy, water and mineral resources needed to fulfill those promises.
The way energy limits play out is not at all intuitive. Most people assume that we will run out of oil, leading to a spike in oil prices. We will then transition to renewables. As I see it, this understanding is completely wrong. Limited energy supply first leads to a need for simplification: Stepping back from Afghanistan would be one such type of simplification. It would save energy supplies and reduce the need for greater tax revenue or added debt.
In this post, I will try to explain some pieces of the problem.
[1] Afghanistan was, and continues to be, in some sense, a “handicapped country.”
Everyone knows that the way a country can succeed in the world market is by providing needed goods or services to other economies at low cost. Afghanistan is a landlocked country. It also doesn’t have any big rivers it can use to transport goods out of the country. It isn’t a member of a trade alliance such as the EU to allow smooth transport of goods out of the country. The difficulty of transit into and out of the country adds a layer of costs that tends to make the country uncompetitive in the world market. No matter how much investment any country makes in Afghanistan, this handicap will still persist.
Also, Afghanistan has too high a population relative to its resources. We know that most wars are resource wars. The fact that Afghanistan has been involved in wars for many years hints at this problem. According to UN 2019 estimates, Afghanistan’s population was 7.8 million in 1950, 21.6 million in 2001, and 38.9 million in 2020, which is about five times the 1950 population. Water needs, in particular, tend to escalate as population rises.
[2] The US doesn’t know how to fight a guerrilla war.
The weapons developed by the US are too complex to be used in a guerrilla war. They tend to break down and require replacement parts. Needless to say, these parts are not available in Afghanistan. Even if Afghan soldiers are trained to use these weapons, they may not be available or suitable when needed.
George W. Bush should have known from the outcome of the 20-year Vietnam conflict (1955-1975) that any guerrilla war was likely to have a bad ending. In Afghanistan, the plan was to train Afghan soldiers, thus keeping US citizens out of the battlefield. This strategy kept the Afghan conflict off the front page of US newspapers, but the overall result seems to be similar.
[3] When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he seems to have had access to more funds than he knew what to do with. Starting a war in Afghanistan probably seemed like a good use for these funds. He could perhaps build military bases, and perhaps raise the standard of living of the people there.
The price of oil was especially low in the 1998 to 2001 period. This allowed tax revenue to “go farther” in providing benefits to the economy, allowing a temporary budget surplus. With such a surplus, getting funds appropriated for any purpose would likely have been easy.
Even more importantly, with a fairly young population, the Social Security system had been collecting funds in advance of when they were needed, with the plan of building up the plan’s Trust Fund for use when a bulge in retirements was expected, starting about 2010. Figure 2 shows one chart that roughly illustrates the overfunding and planned use for the funds. Unfortunately, Figure 2 doesn’t treat investment income in the way it is actually collected; it leaves out past investment income and uses discounted cash flow assumptions for the future, so a person cannot readily estimate net contributions to the Trust Fund balance by year from this chart.
Figure 2 indicates that there was considerable overfunding starting in the late 1980s. The thing that actuaries (and others) didn’t consider is the fact that there is a real difference between debt and the physical resources that will be needed when these older people retire. Retirees will need food, water and energy to heat their homes. They will need medicine and long term care institutions. They should also be able to provide their share of the upkeep of roads and electricity transmission networks.
Debt is a promise of future funds to purchase goods and services, but it doesn’t make the resources required to create these goods and services materialize out of “thin air.” To keep these promises, oil needs to be extracted, refined, and delivered to farmers. There needs to be enough fresh water available to irrigate adequate farmland to produce the required food. There need to be supply lines that are working to deliver the required food. There need to be enough young people who are willing to work on farms and in care centers for the aged. The wages for these young workers need to be high enough so that they too can have food, shelter and other things that we consider necessities.
When the extra Social Security funds were collected, the officials who collected them figured out that as a practical matter, there was little that they could do with them besides spend them at the time they were collected. They couldn’t set up warehouses with food, clothing, building materials and energy resources to keep on hand for 30 or 40 years. If they invested the money in the stock market, the money would simply cause a bubble in stock prices. If they built new factories or nursing homes, they would be unfairly competing with existing businesses.
I am not sure that there is any good record of how these extra funds were spent. My understanding is that they provided a very large slush fund that allowed expanded military activities among other things. From an accounting point of view, non-marketable government debt was substituted for the funds that were spent. Thus, when an actuary looks at the Trust Fund, it is fully funded. It is just that it is funded with more US government debt.
The catch is that the non-marketable US government debt doesn’t actually correspond to any resources. Any food used in 2022 (or 2050) will need to be grown in that year, using resources available in that year. Most clothing used in a given year will need to be produced with resources available at that time. Putting together a model that assumes business as usual forever tends to give a rosy picture because it leaves out this detail.
The 2020 OSDAI Trustees Report provides actual income, outgo, and interest income through 2019. From this report, it can be concluded that the extra Social Security slush fund is rapidly disappearing. In fact, it seems to be turning to a hidden source of required year-by-year funding starting as soon as 2020 or 2021.
In some sense, the “real economy” operates on a “cash basis,” rather than an “accrual basis.” This has not been recognized in our accounting or our models. Ignoring the way the system really works likely leads to a hidden crunch, starting about 2021. We know that retirements were high in 2020, adding to the potential problem. I am certain that President Biden and his advisors are aware of this issue, even though it is never reported on the front pages of newspapers.
[4] There is really a two-sided energy price problem. Consumers can afford only low energy prices but, as the result of depletion and population growth in oil exporting countries, producers need high oil prices.
Figure 3 is a chart I prepared a few years ago. In it, there is a pattern of rapidly rising wages when oil prices were very low. Workers became more productive with new factory equipment and vehicles, produced with oil, and operated using oil products. As a result, their wages rose.
On the other hand, when oil prices spiked, the prices of many goods, including food, airline tickets, and the fuel used for commuting to work, rose. People cut back on discretionary income, such as eating in restaurants and vacation travel. Businesses with fewer customers laid off workers. The workers who could find jobs often found lower-paid or part time jobs. The result was a dip in average wages, both in the 1970s and at the time of the Great Recession of 2007-2009.
We now live in a world with depleted resources. The oil and other types of energy that are available are high in cost, but the prices tend to stay too low for producers when all costs are included. Oil resources from the Middle East and Venezuela, especially, need a higher oil price because the governments of these countries need very high taxes on oil revenue to support their large populations. Even shale oil from the United States needs a higher price than is available today.
If we want OPEC to supply the rest of the world with more oil, the price will need to rise much higher than today’s Brent oil price of about $73. It likely will need to rise to at least $100 per barrel and show that it can stay at this high level. Otherwise, the supposed reserves of OPEC will mostly stay in the ground.
Even the US needs a higher oil price. Its oil, gas and coal production fell during the pandemic in 2020. Through May 2021 (and even later using weekly data, not shown), oil and natural gas production has not rebounded to the 2019 level.
Note that oil and gas production also dipped in 2016. Figure 3 shows that oil prices were also low then. If prices are too low, would-be producers leave them in the ground.
Adding in nuclear and renewables (hydroelectric, ethanol, wood, wind, solar and geothermal) still leaves a large dip in recent production.
President Biden is no doubt aware of the fact that the US’s production of energy products, especially crude oil, is now low. In fact, earlier in August he asked OPEC and its allies to increase their oil production to try to keep prices from rising too much. Why would OPEC want to increase its production, if the US can’t increase its own production at the current price level? All of the producers need a higher price level; it is consumers who cannot afford the higher price level.
[5] The world seems to have already begun shifting to a falling energy consumption per capita situation.
The amount of energy required tends to rise with population because all of the people require food, housing and transportation. Energy, especially oil and coal, are needed for these.
Many countries, including the United States, have been able to hold down their internal energy consumption per capita by moving much of their industry to China and India.
Figure 7 shows that US industrial production reached its peak in 1973, which was shortly after US oil production started to turn down in 1971. This partly reflects auto manufacturing moving to Japan and Europe, where smaller, more fuel-efficient cars were already being sold. Home heating and electricity generation also shifted away from oil to other fuels.
The issue now is that “Ex. Industrial” consumption has been falling since the Great Recession. In some sense, the economy has been losing strength since 2008 and continues to lose strength. Fewer and fewer people can feel like they are really getting ahead. They are saddled with low wage jobs and too much debt.
Figure 8 shows similar patterns for the European Union and Japan. Energy consumption per capita was rising until a few years before the Great Recession, and then it plateaued. It has been declining since.
The pattern shown on Figure 8 suggests that energy prices are still too high for consumers, even though they are, at the same time, too low for producers. Travel restrictions imposed by governments may also be contributing to this pattern.
GDP data indications are prepared on an accrual basis. In other words, they reflect the impact of added debt. If missing energy can be replaced with a promise of debt to pay for more goods and services in the future, made with future energy, then perhaps all will be well. The quantity of debt that is required, relative to the GDP impact, keeps rising, suggesting this substitution is not working very well.
With the addition of growing amounts of debt, GDP increases are reported to be much larger than expected growth, based only on the growth in energy consumption.
[6] We now seem to be reaching the end of the line with respect to what can be done with added debt to make the economy seem like it is performing adequately well.
Interest rates show a very distinct pattern. They rise until about 1981, and then they decline.
When the US economy was growing rapidly, it could withstand high and rising interest rates. Since 1981, the general pattern has been one of falling interest rates, making a larger quantity of debt affordable. Indirectly, these falling interest rates also helped prop up asset prices, such as those of homes and shares of stock. In recent years, interest rates have fallen about as far as they can go. To some extent, these lower rates were made possible by Quantitative Easing (QE). But at some point, QE needs to be stopped.
Today, interest rates are approximately at the level they were during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This makes sense; interest rates to some extent reflect the return an investor can expect to make. Right now, without a lot of government support programs, “Main Street” businesses around the world are struggling. This indicates that the economy is doing very poorly. There are too many people who cannot afford even basic goods and services. Indirectly, this feeds back to commodity prices that are not high enough for producers of energy products.
Recently, governments of many countries have tried a different approach. Instead of loans, they are providing something closer to giveaways. Renters are allowed to stay rent-free in their apartments. Or, checks are given to all citizens earning below some specified amount. What we seem to be finding is that these giveaways produce inflation in the price of goods that poor people buy most frequently, such as food and used cars.
The giveaways don’t actually produce more of the required goods and services, however. Instead, would-be workers decide that they really don’t want to take a low-paid job if the giveaways provide nearly as much income. The loss of workers then acts to reduce production. With lower production of goods and services, a smaller quantity of oil is required, so the oil price tends to fall. The price certainly does not rise to the level needed by oil producers.
[7] In a finite world, longer-term models need to take into account the fact that resources deplete and the population keeps rising.
Any modeler who tries to take into account the fact that resources deplete and the overall population keeps rising will quickly come to the conclusion that, at some point, every economy will have to collapse. This has been known for a very long time. Back in 1957, Admiral Hyman Rickover of the US Navy said,
Surplus energy provides the material foundation for civilized living – a comfortable and tasteful home instead of a bare shelter; attractive clothing instead of mere covering to keep warm; appetizing food instead of anything that suffices to appease hunger. . .
For it is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost, are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.
Now, in 2021, it looks as if this problem is starting to hit us. But no one (since Jimmy Carter, who was not re-elected) has dared tell the general public. Instead, accrual accounting with more and more debt is used in financial statements, including GDP statements. Actuaries put together Social Security funding estimates as if the resources to provide the promised benefits will really be there. Climate change models are prepared as if business as usual can go on for the next hundred years. Everything published by the mainstream media is based on the underlying assumption that we will have no problems other than climate change for the next 100 years.
[8] About all that can be done now is to start cutting back on the less necessary parts of the economy.
President Biden’s abrupt pullout from Afghanistan reflects a reality that increasingly has to take place in the world. The US needs to start pulling back because there are too many people and not enough inexpensive to extract resources to fulfill all of the commitments that the US has made. As mentioned earlier, there are a number of obstacles to success in Afghanistan. Thus, it is a good place to start.
With the need to pull back, there is a much higher level of conflict, both within and between countries. The big issue becomes who, or what, is going to be “voted off the island” next. Is it the elderly or the poor; the military or the oversized US medical establishment; university education for a large share of students or classroom teaching for young children?
We don’t seem to have a good way out of our current predicament. This seems to be what is behind all of the recent internet censorship. Renewables and nuclear require fossil fuel energy for their production and maintenance. The powers that be don’t want anyone to know that nearly all of the “happily ever after using renewables” stories we hear are based on wishful thinking.
“The spectre of high inflation returns to haunt Latin America…
“Inflation causes particular alarm in Latin America because of the region’s long history of price instability, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s.”
https://www.ft.com/content/a243dd40-6143-4085-a86a-727f82a3c2d0
“Chile’s peso leads weekly losses on Chinese copper concerns.
“Chile’s peso lagged its Latin American peers this week as a sharp drop in Chinese copper imports triggered concerns over waning demand in Chile’s top export destination, while Brazil’s real fell more than 1% on concerns over political unrest.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/emerging-markets-latam/emerging-markets-chiles-peso-leads-weekly-losses-on-chinese-copper-concerns-idUSL1N2QC1Z7
Waning demand for copper from China does not sound like a good indication!
China has been pulling the rest of the world economy forward. A cutback in its copper demand likely means the world economy is headed for more contraction.
“Inflation watch: US producer prices surge to another record.
“Friday brought more confirmation of rising inflation after the United States Department of Labor said that its Producer Price Index (PPI) – which measures prices that businesses fetch for the goods and services they sell – jumped 8.3 percent in August yoy…”
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/10/inflation-watch-us-producer-prices-surge-to-another-record
“Here’s an Inconvenient Truth: The [US] Growth Slowdown Goes Beyond the Delta Variant.
“Everyone knew that economic growth was going to slow from the second quarter. But it wasn’t supposed to happen so soon—or so sharply. The Covid-19 Delta variant is the obvious and convenient explanation, but it’s an incomplete one.”
https://www.barrons.com/articles/heres-an-inconvenient-truth-the-growth-slowdown-goes-beyond-the-delta-variant-51631307629
“Atlanta Fed Confirms Economic Slowdown…
“While reduced unemployment benefits or the Delta variant are the most obvious scapegoats for weaker economic growth, the reality is that the current economic slowdown was underway several months ago, with origins back to December 2020.”
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4454642-atlanta-fed-confirms-economic-slowdown
“The economic recovery has a dirty secret… Joblessness is much higher than economic data would suggest.
“The data isn’t cooked or intentionally skewed. Instead, it boils down to the fact that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ economic data isn’t well-suited to measure a labor market during a pandemic.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economic-recovery-dirty-secret-180000611.html
Too many people aren’t looking for work.
JMG:
“Here in the United States, at least, one major consequence is that a very large number of people realized that their lives suck, their jobs suck, and the scant pay and benefits (if any) offered by their employers aren’t worth the miserable conditions, humiliating policies, and grotesque abuses of power that so many of them are expected to put up with in exchange for the privilege of having a job.”
US inflation surging is a major problem, especially for those earning low wages.
“The European Union’s fragile solidarity over Covid is at risk of collapse as German anger at high inflation and massive deficits in southern Europe exposes faultlines which almost destroyed the bloc a decade ago, experts have warned.
“Nations pulled together and shared resources when the pandemic struck, but the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) believes that as recovery stutters and the European Central Bank continues its money printing spree, “the crisis could leave scars and reopen old wounds”.
“Rows are already breaking out. EU funding is an increasingly fraught topic in Germany’s election campaign. Tough talks are expected as nations decide when and how to bring back borrowing rules which were suspended last year.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/10/pandemic-reopens-old-wounds-eurozone-german-anger-rises/
“Norway grapples with temptation of a ‘mini Brexit’… Norway is not a member of the EU but it is closely linked to the bloc through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.
“The deal gives Norway access to the common market in exchange for the adoption of most European directives. Both the Centre Party and the Socialist Left… have called for the marriage of convenience to be dissolved.”
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/norway-grapples-temptation-mini-brexit-101619064.html
“EU Austerity Battle Ramps Up as France Announces New Spending…
“Europe is far from united. On the same day France said its budget would focus on driving economic growth rather than tax hikes, eight EU nations led by Austria wrote a letter in support of cutting debt levels.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-10/eu-austerity-battle-ramps-up-as-france-announces-new-spending
which is why i wrote this in 2018
https://medium.com/future-vision/the-european-union-was-a-construct-of-infinite-prosperity-7a401c225171
it was easy to see it back then
as long as there’s prosperity, everybody is buddies with everyone else.
I remember it fondly! The EU is terrific at kicking the can but…
Have a mate in the hotel industry … during lockdowns many hotel workers were paid wage subsidies and loads of them returned to their home countries because they could still collect… (and also work there)….
With Brexit it is a major hassle for them to go through the visa process if they want to return to work in London….
So they are staying put.
The hotels in London are massively understaffed… he as mentioning that many of them have had to remove half of their rooms from the market… they are that short of cleaners etc….
Wolf Twat:
New Vehicle Sales Plunged Further in August amid Inventory Shortages & Production Cuts: Chip Shortage Wreaks Havoc
The average transaction price for new vehicles spikes to $41,000.
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/09/07/new-vehicle-sales-plunge-in-august-amid-historic-inventory-shortages-caused-by-production-cuts-as-chip-shortage-wreaks-havoc/
I live in the Cleveland, Ohio area. I was looking at new Hondas back in December/January. My trade in was worth approximately $10,500. New car was selling for about $2,000 under MSRP. I just bought the new car last week for MSRP (had to drive to Youngstown, Ohio to find one). My trade in was valued at $16,500. So, came out about $4,000 ahead compared to January. There are serious inventory problems though…..
Actually it is an open question if the EU will break up east / west or north / south.
POLXIT, HUXIT is a meme if you want to search for it.
Austria is in a position of defining the marge. Habsburger and so on.
The Germans can accept a huge trade deficit as long as it paid well and the savings are secured. Germany is high on “saving”.
There will be huge problems in Germany when the savings account is high in numbers but low on vaule.
It will be interesting if “a split” is among economic lines (north vs south) or religious / historic aka wokism / traditions line.
If the latter we will come to know that religion is the primary driver for historical developments.
Had dinner with our mates and fellow CovIDIOT haters this evening …
Husband was telling us his mother – who already had Covid — was advised to take the shot anyway… so she did some months ago … he says she’s been sick with flu symptoms on and off now every couple of weeks… for nearly 4 months
She has warned him not to put this poison in his body.
Is it possible for anyone to comment on the most recent PHE (Public Health England)Technical Briefing 22 released September 3rd? Specifically on the numbers at the bottom of the chart on page 22. Document title: SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and variants under investigation in England Technical briefing 22.
TAE (The Automatic Earth) had a link to this the other day. I downloaded the pdf. The numbers seem to be legit. If so, it would appear that the only remaining reason to get vaccinated (reduces serious injury or death) seems to be crumbling. Waiting for next Technical brief to see if trend continues. Numbers coming out of Scotland for last week from Citi Research Public Health Scotland also show similar trend.
I’ve seen that and the figures you mention are the IFR figures.
1091 died with the untested therapeutic
536 died without the untested therapeutic
So, coerced therapeutics all round it is.
Makes perfect sense 🤔
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1014926/Technical_Briefing_22_21_09_02.pdf
Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid, suggests study. No conspiracy theory, mainstream information.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study
A lot of heart impacts among boys.
We need more of this… to teach the parents a lesson. And to make them suffer during the final months of BAU… they deserve to suffer.
“Europe’s Power Crunch Deepens as Ireland Warns of Blackout Risk: U.K. Electricity prices surged to 2,300 pounds ($3,180) a megawatt-hour as Ireland warned of a power shortfall that could lead to blackouts and the cost of power broke records in Spain, Germany and France.
“Europe is facing an energy crunch as supplies of natural gas remain below what’s needed to satisfy demand. Any unexpected disruption in electricity supply like a power plant shutting off or a sudden drop in the wind can send already volatile prices even higher, heightening the pain for consumers as the winter heating season approaches.
“Ireland, which usually exports wind power to the U.K., is facing acute supply shortages and issued an amber warning earlier Thursday signaling that the country could face blackouts. The Moyle interconnector, which sends electricity across the Irish Sea from Northern Ireland to Scotland, was halted to prevent exports.”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-k-power-surges-over-111903609.html
“Demand in Asia is expected to continue drawing cargoes of liquefied natural gas away from Europe. Industrial production in China and India is putting considerable demands on power generation, much of which is being produced from coal but gas has also been affected, Citigroup analysts said in a note.”
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/9/7/european-natural-gas-futures-hit-new-highs-as-russian-output-dips
It may be that companies in Asia can afford a higher price than household customers in Europe? The market would then direct the gas to them?
https://www.ft.com/content/bf84f4a9-4720-4655-801f-a40d57b634e6
> Electricity and gas prices in UK and Europe hit records
Squeeze compounded by lower-than-expected power generation from wind
Consumers in the UK and continental Europe are facing a growing price crunch for energy as wholesale electricity costs surpassed their highest ever level on Monday, boosted by low wind generation and the rally in natural gas to record heights.
Benchmark wholesale electricity prices in Germany for delivery next year reached more than €90 per megawatt hour, or roughly double the level at which they started the year, surpassing the previous record hit in summer 2008 when oil prices were approaching $150 a barrel.
Gas prices in the UK and continental Europe, which have hit a series of record highs in recent weeks, also rose with day-ahead prices at the UK National Balancing Point, a virtual trading venue for natural gas, reaching £1.31 per therm, more than four times higher than this time last year.
Carlos Torres-Diaz, head of power and gas markets at consultancy Rystad Energy, said lower gas supplies from Russia this year had led to lower inventories in storage across Europe, while greater competition with Asia for liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments had also forced prices higher.
Gas levels in European storage are “way below the five-year average”, he said, warning of tight supplies this winter. These have in turn pushed up the price of electricity, as gas is used in power generation as well as for heating and industrial uses.
The squeeze has been compounded by lower-than-expected power generation from wind. “It is normal to see some seasonality in the wind generation but this summer the generation is even lower than previous years — it’s all related to the summer we have been having across Europe where it has been warm and dry and less windy,” he said.
“Electricity demand has not been that high in the past couple of months, so it is not really demand that is driving the prices high, it is the fuel mix,” he added.
In the UK, there was strain in electricity supplies due to the number of power stations closed for maintenance, after many delayed work last year due to the pandemic.
Prices paid in the capacity market to encourage power stations to add short-term supply jumped to record levels on Monday, with some plants being paid more than £4,000 per MWh for generation.
In the UK, wind was only providing 4.9 per cent of electricity generation on Monday afternoon, compared with an average of 18 per cent over the past year, according to data from National Grid. Coal-fired plants were producing a similar amount — more than double the norm over the past 12 months.
This seems like a bizarre time of year for natural gas prices to be hitting records. This is fall. Not a lot of gas is needed for heating; not a lot of gas is needed for cooling. There are more than 12 hours of sunshine until the summer solstice, so less gas in needed for providing electricity for lighting. There is still some solar energy providing energy, as well, reducing the amount of natural gas required.
This is the time of year that in the US a lot of electricity suppliers other than wind and solar (such as nuclear) find that the rates for buying their electricity are negative, because wind and solar are given priority. This drives the backup suppliers out of business.
That is why I would like our gas company to come out ASAP to fill the tank back up. Normally they wait until we are down to 20 % or so before they do it. Last year we insisted and they did come out. I need to try again. I don’t want to hear: we can’t top it up because we don’t have adequate supply.
Last time we called, they said we were at 29% and as you mentioned very little gas is used over the summer. Our last bill was for about $40 and part of that was charges for tank rental. We have solar hot water, so most of the summer we are just paying for cooking use.
Yes, record prices on last bill. Total almost like the worst two winter months despite much lower consumption.
Backside of electric bill had an ad for solar panels.
Analysts have not been sure why gas exports from Russia to Europe have fallen. Russia has been storing more for domestic use in the winter period, supplying more to other countries, and there could be a strategy to stop the EU mucking about over Nord Stream 2.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/russia-is-pumping-less-natural-gas-to-europe-as-nord-stream-2-nears-completion.html
> Russia is pumping a lot less natural gas to Europe all of a sudden — and it is not clear why
Some analysts have suggested Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas giant, may be limiting its delivery of discretionary natural gas supply to Europe to support its case in starting flows via Nord Stream 2.
“That’s because Gazprom is readying itself for starting Nord Stream 2 and it is hoping to exert an element of leverage in terms of trying to make sure that when all the regulatory t’s get crossed and i’s get dotted, that that process is as swift as possible,” Tom Marzec-Manser, lead European gas analyst at ICIS, told CNBC via telephone.
“If there is less gas around than normal and the price is high then it may streamline that process,” he added.
…. While Gazprom is currently producing above the five-year range, Bonetti said it needs significant amounts of gas for both domestic storage injections as well as much higher year-on-year exports to Turkey. This “may exacerbate their value-over-volume strategy for exports to Europe.”
the politics of gas supply will resolve itself
the demand by Europe for gas is infinite
The supply from Russia is not
I may be oversimplifying things a bit, but the outcome from that will be chaos—in precisely what form is impossible to predict, except that it is going to be unpleasant.
Peaceful world cooperation is predicated on adequate energy supplies.
Historically countries and blocs have a massive punch up when there is not enough to go around. It is basic organic drives in operation – to expand and grow, to dominate and to assimilate to oneself. If they are not able to all expand and grow, then they will compete to dominate resources and to assimilate them to their own growth to the exclusion of the others.
It is no different from what all organic life does. International ‘morality’ is about whatever allows actors to optimise growth. The more that peaceability facilitates growth, the more that it will prevail. Likewise bellicosity. To very large degree, human ideas and sentiments, and actions, reflect the energetic and material base. Thus they are given to change as the latter changes.
Reality is liable to look a lot starker once there is not enough to go around. Self-interest and forceful competition will come to the fore. Bellicosity will be adorned with honours in the way that peaceability is now. The Nobel peace prize will be out of the window, and medals will issued en masse. The icons will also change, along with the ‘virtues’ that underpin them. Gandhi will be out, and Lord Kitchener will be back in.
The world is a flux, and all things are liable to change – the conditions of growth, strategies, ‘virtues’, honours and icons.
hard to argue with any of that
The demand from Europe depends no how high the Euro (Pound and Swiss Franc) are relative to other currencies. It also depends on what these economies can actually accomplish with the natural gas.
At a high price, any home heating with natural gas becomes expensive. People will cut back. This is lower demand.
Goods made in factories using natural gas for electricity will be more expensive to make. The factories can raise their sales price, but that is likely to indirectly cut back its demand for natural gas, because fewer people will be able to afford whatever goods the factory makes. Factories will likely need to lay off workers, because fewer people can afford them. This leads to less buying power in total.
Tell me where you get the idea that “the demand by Europe for gas is infinite.” It sounds like you have been brainwashed by peak oilers who are convinced that the demand for oil is infinite. The overall system has to benefit from high-priced natural gas (or oil or coal). This doesn’t happen. The problem can be disguised for a while by an ever-growing supply of ever-lower interest rates debt. At some point, the luck is likely to run out. There will be a debt bubble collapse. The economy will collapse, like economies have collapsed in the past.
perhaps i should have slanted my comment in a different way.
the demand for heat and comfort and all the things that derive from fossil fuels is infinite
my use of the word ‘demand’ was in the abstract, not in the sense of lining up to buy it.
obviously, as it rises to and beyond the point of affordability, then demand will evaporate in the ‘purchasing’ sense.
but the ‘demand’ will not go away. That has nothing to do with ‘peak oil’, everything to do with mass hysteria.
We collectively ‘know’ that domestic gas boilers make homes comfortable to live in, and petrol makes cars move.
Therefore if they no longer function, it must be someone’s ‘fault’. Stands to reason doesn’t it?
a conspiracy to keep us cold, and at home. We read about those all the time. This is why I constantly try to play whack a mole with conspiracies .
The mob will therefore ‘demand’ that ‘they’ fix things, and make everything work like it used to. When it doesn’t things will get very nasty, convinced that ‘they’ are fixing the price of fuels to exclude the masses. (to kill us all off in other words)
we can see this happening on a smaller scale right now. The ‘demand’ for the return of the ‘American Dream’–some mythical time when life was supposed to be perfect. It wasn’t, cheap oil made it seem like it for a priveleged few for a short time.
Europe has much the same mindset.
I can remember when petrol cost 25% of a British pound per gallon.
When you say “infinite”, do you mean “unbounded or unlimited; boundless; endless”, etc.
In the abstract, as you say, people can make infinite demands—give them the moon and they will ask for the stars—but in a market, they need to cover those demands with payment. So unless they have access to infinite cash or credit, they cannot afford to make infinite demands.
Demand for heat and comfort and all the things that derive from fossil fuels is not infinite, since there are a finite number of people each demanding a finite amount of things. However, demand can potentially be so much higher than available supply that to all in tents and porpoises in might as just well be infinite, which I suppose is one of your main points.
I can remember when the rent on our terraced house was ten bob a week, a pint of beer cost a shilling and you could get a Mars bar for fourpence.
my mars memory only goes back to when they cost sixpence—so you must be even older than me
congratulations on your survival thus far.!!
my main point about ‘infinite demand’, was that that ‘demand’ would continue irrespective of the commodity in demand going into permanent decline..If the ‘commodity’ isn’t there, (for whatever reason) then that would be the result of a plot or conspiracy by others. (intent on evildoing and self serving).
Gates et al want the planet for themselves.. How many times have your read that? Yet people believe it.
if you are in a cold area of the planet, freezing and starving, your lack of heating and food is because ‘a secret cabal’ is witholding what you need. You ‘know’ that there’s oil in the ground. You ‘demand’ that it is supplied to keep you warm.
the word ‘infinite’ can be stretched into a number of subtle meanings.
we have warmed and fed ourselves on the concept that the means by which we did it, was, to all ‘in tents and porpoises’, ‘infinite’ because we allowed the construction of our support structure to come about on that basis.
2 centuries ago, no one said…whoa!!!–we can’t go on doing this, because we live on a spherical planet. Our resources are finite. But the cleverness of humankind would make finite infinite.
we have functioned, as a species, on the Dickensian philosophy that ‘something was bound to turn up’. It hasn’t, and won’t, yet here and elsewhere we read of ‘technological breakthroughs’. Meaning, in effect that BAU must be ‘infinite as far as humankind was concerned.
So now we are warm and well fed, which is an unnatural condition for any animal.
We ‘demand’ that this must always be so. In terms of human survival as a species, that demand is infinite. Even though common sense says it can’t be.
As we get colder and hungrier–that demand will increase, irrespective of it being pointless.
World class geniuses tell us we can inhabit Mars and expand across the galaxy. BS.
The American life style is not negotiable.
thanks…i had forgotten that classic statement, i should have included it in my earlier post.
sums it all up better than i can, because millions believe it, and because they see it as an established immutable fact, they ‘demand’ that it should be so.
In effect, people remain convinced that prosperity, (which is the culmination of the ‘demand’ economy,) is something to be voted for.
The ultimate expression of BAU–no matter what.
this was my meaning on ‘infinite demand’.
no matter how bad things get, that demand will remain, despite all the logical explanations why it cannot be so.
The debt bubble will never collapse at <= 0% interest.
Domestic storage, exports to Turkey, and exports to China seem to be issues.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-gazprom-says-it-has-completed-nord-stream-2-construction-2021-09-10/
> Russia completes Nord Stream 2 construction, gas flows yet to start
Germany is yet to certify Nord Stream 2 pipeline / Russia wants to start gas supplies via NS2 this year / U.S., Ukraine oppose the NS2 project
MOSCOW, Sept 10 (Reuters) – Gazprom (GAZP.MM) said on Friday it had finished construction of the Nord Stream 2 subsea pipeline to Germany, which could allow Russia to double lucrative gas exports to Europe via the Baltic Sea while bypassing and cutting off a source of income for political foe Ukraine.
Although German regulators have yet to clear gas flows, completion of the construction stage means Russia has boosted its energy exporting capabilities towards Europe both from the north in the Baltic Sea and from the south in the Black Sea, where it operates the TurkStream pipeline.
“The head of the management board, Alexei Miller, told the morning meeting at Gazprom that the construction of Nord Stream 2 was fully completed today in the morning at 0845 Moscow time,” Gazprom said.
Gazprom started construction of the 1,200-km long Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany five years ago. Progress of the $11 billion project stalled at the end of 2019 when then U.S. president Donald Trump imposed sanctions.
Construction restarted around a year later with the engagement of Russia’s own vessels.
The route, jointly with the existing Nord Stream pipeline, will double annual export capacity to 110 billion cubic metres, around half of Russia’s total gas exports to Europe a year.
The project has drawn criticism from the United States and Ukraine among others. Washington says it will increase Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies.
The United States is seeking to boost sales of sea-borne liquefied natural gas to Europe, and has touted its super-chilled gas exports as “molecules of freedom”.
Gazprom is Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas, accounting for more than a third of the region’s gas market.
On Thursday, Russia said pumping commercial gas supplies via Nord Stream 2 would not start until a German regulator gives the green light.
…. Before Germany’s energy regulator approves Nord Stream 2, it must comply with European unbundling rules that require pipelines owners to be different from suppliers of gas flowing in them to ensure fair competition.
The German regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur, said it does not know how long it will take to reach a decision on certification but it can penalise the consortium if it starts operations without approval.
It seems like a big part of the reason for the new pipeline is to avoid sending natural gas through Ukraine, and the conflict involved there (with perhaps Ukraine taking some natural gas off the top). There is no reason to expect that total gas supplies to Europe will necessarily be higher.
US LNG sent to Europe will be high-priced because of the high cost of transport across the ocean. US gas shipped to Europe as LNG is not very climate friendly, with all of the natural gas used/lost in transport. But if prices are high enough, US producers will be happy.
“Before Germany’s energy regulator approves Nord Stream 2, it must comply with European unbundling rules that require pipelines owners to be different from suppliers of gas flowing in them to ensure fair competition.”
I think that this is idiocy. There needs to be joint ownership. Competition in supply lines is absurd. Natural gas needs to be regulated like a utility.
The forced competition in the US natural gas since 1981 has led to extra layers of “marketing” and different pricing structures for residential users. Some offer pricing guarantees that are locked in for 6 months, 12 month, or 24 months, for example.
>>> “I think that this is idiocy. There needs to be joint ownership. Competition in supply lines is absurd. Natural gas needs to be regulated like a utility.” <<<
Well said, Gail.
Europe has handicapped itself with renewables and carbon taxes – and Germany is mucking about over NS2.
https://fortune.com/2021/09/10/europe-net-zero-energy-bills-nord-stream-2-russia/
> Europe’s ambitious net-zero pledges hit home—with eye-watering energy bills
Running out of gas as the cost of energy hits record highs, Europe is facing a “power crunch”—one that has been years in the making. As the global demand for gas soars, Europe’s uptake of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, combined with its aggressive shutdown of coal and heavy EU carbon taxation, has caused its electricity supply to tighten.
The continent’s gas crunch is causing extreme volatility, with the U.K. on Thursday seeing its electricity price jump 10-fold during one seven-hour period, to a record high of £2,300 ($3,180) per megawatt-hour (MWh), as Ireland, which regularly exports wind energy to the U.K., itself faced supply shortages.
They’re not alone.
This volatility has brought higher prices, hitting record highs across Spain, Germany, and France. Residential users, meanwhile, bear the brunt of the cost.
The eye-watering bills come as both the European Union and United Kingdom push to become global leaders in decarbonizing their energy grids.
…. Net zero’s net effect
The last lever pushing prices higher has been a knock-on effect of Europe’s efforts to bring down its emissions.
Renewable energy produced by wind and solar, which produces 20% of the electricity in Europe, is intermittent, which means it does not produce power when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. And without batteries, storage is limited.
This summer was a bad season for wind, with output in the U.K. dropping to as low as 409MW on Monday, compared to a record high of 17,600MW set on May 4. Things were equally grim in Germany, with renewable energy output at one point making 8.1 percent less in the country’s total energy makeup.
And another self-inflicted cost is borne from the record high price that comes along with releasing carbon dioxide into European air under the EU’s emissions trading scheme. Normally when gas prices increase, there “tends to be a switch from gas to coal power generation,” says Diaz, but given the tax under the emissions scheme, “there will be less switching that we can expect.”
Wind in Europe is seasonal since ages.
It is low in summer and strong in winter.
That means that renewables would need to “diversify” for wind in winter and sun in summer. Does that mean double the installed capacity? At least I would say! That is why they came up with the Power to Gas thing that has now morphed into a full blown hydrogen frenzy being exploited by the large players squeezing out the “farmers with a windmill” from the market. Sorry guys that you did not do the math.
Also as far as I know Russia would not “limit” supply to Europe, never. That would be too high a strategic business risk.
What could happen is that the price squeezes out the marginal buyers.
Gas power plants with CCS being a little bit low on efficiency?
Russia fulfils contracts.
You can not sign a contract about amount x and a year later order y>x and complain that “delivery” fails.
As long as the next quarterly revenue is secured, who cares?
I am glad I don’t live in Europe. Their intermittent renewables experiment was certain to end badly.
Unless you happen to live in Poland. I’m looking at my yearly report from our electricity provider concerning source and we are still going all out for coal. The mix has changed a bit. Last year we increased use of hard coal from 43 to 47%. Brown or soft coal went down from 46 to 33, renewable went from 3.7 to 11.
Sure they are trying to add in some wind and solar but we will always have coal. And you can bet they are going to use it.
Poland is going to build 2 new nuclear’s. Afik one is on an already abandoned place and the other I do not know. Mrs. Merkel is not amused.
The technoology is said to be “the latest” meaning it will take about 15 years to build them.
Well, I hope my chicken will lay some eggs still in 15 years.
This all points to us being closer to edge than we think… no wonder they have strangled travel and the global supply chain…
Devil Covid soon please
So far, California and Texas have experienced blackouts. Now it is Europe’s turn. Countries that agree to intermittent renewables need to understand that their electricity will be either unavailable part of the time, or very high-priced part of the time.
Oh that’s ok… said the Green Groopie… teething problems are o be expected when saving the world….
If doctors are threatened with the loss of their license for failing to toe mainstream media’s line on how to prevent and treat COVID, how can they satisfy the legal requirements of informed consent?
Now doctors are being threatened with the loss of their license if they fail to toe the line of mainstream medicine on how to prevent and treat COVID.
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) on July 29 announced doctors who “spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation” risk disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the revocation of their medical license.
The American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) on Aug. 26 issued a similar warning, stating physicians who publicly spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic risk losing their board certification.
https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=78
BTW when I spoke to the head of the local clinic and schooled him on Injection Children…. I mentioned informed consent…
He was not aware of the term… I kid you not… he said it must be some sort of legal term in America… not medical.
I suppose when your patients go Baaa… Baaaaa….. there is no need to inform them of anything… they wouldn’t understand.
“Australia Bans Doctors from Prescribing Ivermectin”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/tyranny/australia-bans-doctors-from-prescribing-ivermectin/
More on that…
Ivermectin: Australian regulator bans drug as Covid treatment after sharp rise in prescriptions
Therapeutic Goods Administration concerned people taking controversial medication instead of seeking proper treatment or vaccine
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/10/australian-drug-regulator-bans-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-after-sharp-rise-in-prescriptions
In December 2020 Rai 3 (state-owned Italian tv channel) pubblished a video and a short article on a scientific research about Ivermectin in Trieste Hospital.
The video and the article explained that Ivermectin is normally prescribed for tropical diseases in Asia, Africa and South America.
The scientific research was aimed to understand if Ivermectin could be useful as prevention or early treatment for Covid-19.
Nobody has ever talked again about the conclusion of this research which now might be completed.
https://www.rainews.it/tgr/fvg/video/2020/12/fvg-ivermectina-terapia-anticovid-sperimentazione-400-volontari-ospedale-cattinara-case-riposo-ospiti-e-operatori-d36bfd18-1215-4191-b0cd-36a22a83a1ab.html
According to Chris Martenson who holds a PhD in toxicology, he says it is one of the safest drugs ever. So when the authorities are banning the use or mention of this drug but instead push an experimental drug posing as a vaccine, that should raise a giant red flag.
France: Agnès Buzyn (former Health Minister) indicted for her initial handling of Covid-19 pandemic.
For explanations and details please refer to the articles below or others you can find on the web:
https://www.liberation.fr/societe/police-justice/agnes-buzyn-mise-en-examen-pour-sa-gestion-initiale-de-la-pandemie-de-covid-19-20210910_7HO7ZPZANJDTNJ6GEFIZGTWZ34/
https://www.francesoir.fr/afp-afp-france/covid-19-agnes-buzyn-la-cjr-mise-en-examen
At least one of the allegations (according to Google Translate)
‘Prince’ Andrew has been served with legal papers on counts of repeated child r/pe and battery – although he may yet try to deny that he has been served. A judge will legally decide on Monday whether he has been served and he will then be expected to respond within a given time – otherwise a default judgement will be ruled against him as guilty as charged. A refusal to appear before the court is tantamount to an admission of guilt.
The British state has been issued with MLAT by the USA to hand him over for questioning but they refuse to cooperate. Evidence is also in the public realm that ‘Prince’ Charles has illegally sold titles and even citizenship for money but the police refuse to investigate. Evidence is abundant that the ‘queen’ has illegally vetted all legislation for decades and changed laws to advance her private interests. Everyone is supposed to be of equal personhood and equal before the law in UK but the British state refuses to apply the law to any of them.
> Prince Andrew is served with legal papers at his home for the bombshell sexual assault lawsuit from Jeffrey Epstein accuser who says she was forced to have sex with him as a teen
A document filed Friday shows an affidavit of service was served at the Duke of York’s home in Windsor, England on August 27
Prince Andrew has been served with the paperwork for the bombshell sexual assault lawsuit brought by the Jeffrey Epstein accuser who claims she was raped by the prince as a teen. According to a document filed on Friday, an affidavit of service was served at the Duke of York’s home in Windsor, England, on August 27.
The documents filed on Friday state that Cesar Sepulveda with British corporate intelligence company GCW intelligence went to Andrew’s home on August 26 at 9.30am where he met with security staff at the gate, handed over a business card and was asked to wait…. The following day Sepulveda returned to the Royal Lodge and a police officer at the entrance called a different supervisor who said that the documents could be left with the cops at the gate. The material would then be ‘forwarded on to the legal team’.
Service of the papers starts the clock ticking for Andrew to respond or face a default judgement. Normally defendants have 21 days to respond but a judge may extend that given that the Duke is not in the US. The development comes ahead of the first hearing in the case which is set for Monday when Andrew’s lawyers could identify themselves for the first time.
The royal had reportedly been laying low and trying to avoid multiple attempts by Roberts’ legal team to serve him with the papers.
Roberts’ attorney David Boies told The Sun the legal team have been trying to serve the royal with the papers for the last month and have sent them five different ways. As well as handing them to the police officers at the gate of his Windsor residence, a copy was posted to his address via Royal Mail, a copy emailed to his US and UK lawyers, a copy emailed to the Duke of York’s office and a copy emailed to his lawyers via Barbara Fontaine, Senior Master of the Queen’s Bench Division. Boies said he doesn’t think the prince’s legal team can ‘ignore this.’
‘We will make a report to the court of what we have done. If the court confirms Andrew has been served, the judge will give him a deadline to respond,’ he told The Sun. I don’t really believe his legal team are going to ignore this – but that’s what they have done consistently, so maybe that will happen. If Andrew doesn’t respond there can be a default judgement against him.’
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who will hold Monday’s hearing, will determine whether Andrew has been officially served with the papers.
The lawsuit claims that ‘Prince Andrew intentionally committed battery by sexually assaulting Plaintiff when she was a minor. The allegations says they are ‘including but not limited to sexual misconduct as defined (as) rape in the third degree, rape in the first degree’.
‘The powerful and the rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but one can reclaim her life by speaking out and demanding justice.
‘I know that this action will subject me to further attacks by Prince Andrew and his surrogates. But I knew that if I did not pursue this action, I would be letting them and victims everywhere down’.
The lawsuit states: ‘In this country no person, whether President or Prince, is above the law, and no person, no matter how powerless or vulnerable, can be deprived of the law’s protection. Twenty years ago Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9978529/Prince-Andrew-served-notice-sexual-assault-suit-brought-Virginia-Giuffre.html
A real speaker of the house, as usual, would defend its island, as if it belongs to the core. Question is, if the core needs the perifery, what is the true value of the core?
In the end, the heart could be jealous at the middle finger.
We need eachother. And oil.
I am not sure what you are talking about. Perhaps you misplaced the post?
The judge should just ask him, “Are you being served?”
A person might think that all of this was the plot of a soap opera, rather than what seems to have been going on recently. Prince Andrew has too much power, relative to what little he is required to do to help the UK.
Monarchy is incongruent with modern material, social and political conditions. Nearly all countries have chucked them and got an elected president instead. UK seems intent on keeping the insane vanity project going for as long as possible – the ‘Disneyfication’ of social reality. It has become a massive international embarrassment for the UK.
You may remember the show. It was rerun in the UK. SOAP – as in, completely insane.
SOAP was one of the best sitcoms ever
as to monarchies–they are incongruous in modern times, agreed, but most of the nations who’ve kept them seem reasonably sane in outlook–Norway, Sweden, Holland etc. If you look at the places with presidents, they seem to come up with a new crackpot every four years
the monarchy keeps the same crackpot and saves all the hassle. The monarch prevents another other set of lunatics setting themselves up for the job.
Canada, NZ and OZ could dismiss the queen as nominal head of state–they don’t.
what will happen when she dies is another matter of course, could be big changes.
Uncle Andy has tried to duck the papers, and he reckons that he has not been properly served. However, the serving has been ratified by the Supreme Court of England and Wales. He hopes to get the case chucked on a technicality, which the prosecution thinks will not succeed. A judge will rule on Monday whether he has been served, in which case he will be issued with a deadline to respond to the court.
> Prince Andrew’s lawyers ‘claim court papers in Virginia Roberts rape case were NOT properly served as they plan to boycott court hearing and hope to get case thrown out on a technicality’
Prince Andrew has finally been served legal papers over a civil case for rape and sexual assault. They were accepted by the security chief at his Windsor home after weeks of ‘avoiding’ officials, court documents dramatically revealed. It appeared last night however that Andrew’s lawyers claim the papers were not properly served and plan to boycott Monday’s court hearing into the accusations lodged by Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts.
The prince’s team also hopes to get the case thrown out on a technicality. In a legal filing, his solicitor Gary Bloxsome said the document Miss Roberts signed in 2009 may make her action invalid. It is the first indication of how the prince and his lawyers intend to fight the case after weeks of silence.
Yesterday a new affidavit was also lodged in New York from a London-based ‘corporate investigator and process server’, Cesar Augusto Sepulveda, who was employed to personally serve Andrew with court papers relating to the US action.
He records how he first went to Royal Lodge, Andrew’s Windsor mansion, on August 12 and was met by Metropolitan Police officers guarding the gate who told him they ‘could not raise anyone in charge’. They said they had been ‘instructed not to allow anyone attending there for the purpose of serving court process on the grounds of the property’. And they added that no documentation would be forwarded on, leaving the server with the strong impression they had been ‘primed’. But Mr Sepulveda returned on August 27 and was told he could now leave his papers and they would be forwarded.
The serving has now been ratified under civil procedure rules as required by the Supreme Court of England and Wales. There was no comment from the Duke of York’s legal team last night.
They are now trying to access the sealed document Miss Roberts signed via the US courts because they believe it may prevent the case from progressing. The initial hearing is at 9pm UK time on Monday in a conference call before a Manhattan judge. Miss Roberts’ representatives have indicated they will fight the move by the prince’s team, saying there is ‘no evidence’ he was ever intended to be covered by the previous legal agreement.
US district judge Lewis Kaplan, who will oversee Monday’s proceedings, must now decide whether Andrew has been officially served. If he does, the prince will be given a deadline to respond.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9979079/Prince-Andrews-lawyers-claim-court-papers-Virginia-Roberts-rape-case-NOT-properly-served.html
I heard the Catholic Church is trying to recruit Andrew….
“bannedhipster April 26, 2021”
Ain’t no soap opera.
“The days when [UK] supermarket shoppers could expect to pick up whatever they want whenever they want are over, a food industry expert has warned – as he claimed the supply chain crisis will only get ‘worse’.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9977325/Supermarket-shortages-FOREVER-says-food-drink-federation-chief.html
In Spain I find out what is happening in the United Kingdom through news as it is searched on the web. It seems tremendous what happens there, I do not know if it will extend this autumn winter to more areas of Europe.
I am afraid supermarket shoppers everywhere will run into this issue, perhaps at different times and different places. I can’t imagine that shoppers in Venezuela and Lebanon can find much, today.
Said smaller business like his were suffering because producers had begun only fulfilling orders of big rivals
Note how lockdowns mandate small retail shut but the big boys stay open…. by directing the masses to ‘shopping hubs’ — and reducing what’s on offer … that reduces our energy burn….
Hilarious. Hope this isn’t a repeat. Less than 2-minutes.
Remix of Gladys Berejiklian (New South Wales politician)
Strange! Someone else must be putting this together. It would make no sense for a legislator to actually do this.
I wonder where he children go to school….. just sayin….
This smacks of distraction … surely Charles would not be in need of money… https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a22667018/royal-family-net-worth/
But then again … he does have lineage that involved sisters and brothers and first cousins fornicating… with a bit of Hee Haw Donkey genetics in the mix… he is capable of a whole lot of stoooopidity…
And there’s that Camilla… ‘thing’…. she could be the sister of that Aussie Armenian hag
shudder!!!
The universe does have a peculiar sense of humor – hag indeed – I see Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler there. Her identification with the “combine” (h/t Ken Kesey) reminds me of the Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, it was her ancestors who were exterminated by the “Young Turks”. Maybe she read too much Bruno Bettelheim as a child? The remix was funny in the way that it penetrated the “between-the-lines” obfuscation of political-speak.
she’s got a bit of Ayn Rand going-on too
Maybe she’ll join galt’s-gulchers after she discovers Ivermectin and gets thrown to the wolves. Or, will she have to run out of electricity first?
Yes — she looked vaguely familiar… you’ve nailed it….
She could be the love child of Marty Feldman and Ayn Rand conceived in a sordid back alley during a hard night on the piss… apparently they passed each other coming out of the toilet … and hooked up out back… and never saw each other again
“Chip Crunch May Last a Year Amid ‘Perfect Storm,’ IMI CEO Says.
“Chips are set to remain in short supply for at least a year as demand from carmakers and other manufacturers remains robust, and ramping up production capacity takes time, said the head of Southeast Asia’s Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-10/chip-crunch-may-last-a-year-amid-perfect-storm-imi-ceo-says
“Toyota cuts production target on parts and chips shortages.
“Toyota Motor Corp cut its annual production target on Friday by 300,000 vehicles as a slowdown in output at COVID-19 hit parts factories in Vietnam and Malaysia added to the pain of a global shortage of auto chips.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-cuts-annual-auto-production-target-shortage-chips-parts-2021-09-10/
Toyota was, of course, the company that stockpiled at least some chips earlier.
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/8/30/drying-euphrates-syria-disaster
Earth’s response to her new position is pretty intense
It is hard to imagine how the myth of the first humans coming to life in the Garden of Eden, near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, could have come into being, unless the climate was very different in that time (perhaps 6,000 or 10,000 years ago).
I also understand that there are cities found under the sand of the Sahara Desert. Climate change seems to be a fairly longstanding issue.
The Sahara Desert isn’t that old, judging by the few-hundred-year-old maps available here:
https://stolenhistory.net/threads/annihilated-african-cities-killed-population-establishment-lies-timgad-and-the-richat-structure-atlantis.472/
One of my favorite maps of Africa comparisons – 1635 v. 1802:
https://s3.stolenhistory.net/stolenhistory-net/data/kotk_attachments/12694/1635-1802_african_vanished_cities.jpg
You see… they were burning a lot of coal and oil back then … and that caused GW… and the paradise turned into sand dunes!
It is strange how little we know about Africa’s true history.
Great one by “KorbenDallas”. Thanks
I’d love to visit that cube-farm some day, just to watch ’em fold paper-airplanes and crank-out ‘ancient’ maps.
In our search for historical truth, we may seldom find respite from forgers, propagandists, and controlled opposition. History is a battlefield and the spoils of war range from political legitimacy to resource ownership to national and cultural identity.
the link got me reading the 2.0 version of the site all day, after a long hiatus. that was/is quite the reconstruction accomplished by the main characters over there. even saw a post by KD_2.0 explaining his situation at the point where he took the site dark
Hillcountry, the history of stolenhistory.org is rather odd. Jef Demolder, creator of the “Abyss of Time” blog, had an interesting theory regarding the site being an AI project:
https://jefdemolder.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-end-of-stolenhistoryorg-project.html?view=flipcard
In any case, the various iterations of stolenhistory can be useful resources for stimulating out-of-the-box thinking. Watch your step on the battlefield though; forgers, propagandists and controlled opposition undoubtedly haunt these latest sites.
The Sahara has alternated between arid and fertile periods for 100s of thousands of years in sync with 41,000 year cycles in the earth’s axis. It is due to be fertile again in 15,000 years. The desertification seems to be independent of human activities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara
> For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000 year cycle[8] caused by the precession of Earth’s axis as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African Monsoon.
…. One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when the ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years.[24]
The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years,[25] believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41000-year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.[21] At present (2000 ACE), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years (17000 ACE). When the North African monsoon is at its strongest annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the “green Sahara”. For a relatively weak North African monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the “desert Sahara”.[26]
…. During the last glacial period, the Sahara was much larger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[29] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BCE to 6000 BCE, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[30] Once the ice sheets were gone, the northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[31] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara.[32] The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.[25]
what the heck is ACE? After The Current Era? BCE Before the current era makes sense.
This Wikipedia article is remarkably uncontaminated by the globbly wobbly BS, so it states a lot of well-established facts and educated guesses without trying to distort or politicize them.
The Milankovitch Cycles—obliquity, precession and eccentricity—combine to drive a succession of climatic changes on a scale of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. There must also be other drivers operating on even long time scales since the earth has been cooling for tens of millions of years.
The obliquity cycle, during which the tilt of the earth’s orbital axis varies between 22.1° and 24.5°, over about 41,000 years, is a major factor distributing insolation between the tropics, mid-latitudes and high latitudes, thereby increasing or decreasing the amount of “seasonality” in both hemispheres.
Meanwhile the precession cycle of around 25,000 years by some accounts acts to increase or decrease the amount of “seasonality” in one hemisphere at the expense of the other.
As I understand it—which is not in great detail—the third cycle, eccentricity, changes the shape of the orbit in a complex fashion over the course of several hundred thousand years, from close to circular a more elongated eclipse. This acts to amplify or damp the effects of the precession cycle, which has a modest effect on seasonal climate variation.
i can afford to waste a few minutes of my life’ again.
our current level of human existence is predicated on the stability of the climate over the past 10000 years–ie since the end of the last ice age.
equating the influence of the milankovich cycles over 40k years, and trying to somehow equate and in some weird way hold that up as reference to the changes we have brought about over the last 300 years, is a nonsense which can only be pointed out. (in despair–because it is so widespread)
i do not have the necessary influence to alter minds in that respect.
over 40k year cycles, species have time to move and adjust themselves.
we have built ‘infrastructure during the last 300 years that cannot be moved or adjusted, or evolve.
All around us, is clear evidence that climate change is affecting lives right now.
30m people depend on lake mead for water. The CA snowpack is no longer filling it up., because it isn’t there. Obviously a conspiracy somewhere.
No matter—globbly wobbly is just a joke.
Let’s hope they ‘get it’.
Maybe they could turn this into an amusement park?
https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/000_9HB8WV.jpg
Why is Russians cutting back? Seems like they have to run full steam too.
I explained elsewhere. They are selling their natural gas to China and to others. They also needed more themselves because of a cold winter and hot summer.
I’m looking at the graph of the LTG standard run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth#/media/File:Limits-to-growth-figure-35.svg
It shows that the population peak should coincide with industrial output per capita, food per capita, and resources all already collapsed. Could someone please explain this discrepancy?
Meadows et al have always said that cannot rely upon trajectory of model state curves once past the peak in energy/capita. Lumped/Averaged parameterized models are only for attempted comprehension of complex feedback loops/interactions and do not account for stochastic interactions that cross tipping points and lead to non-average state attractors. Low probability catastrophic events such as extreme pandemic etc are not incorporated (only average death rates allowed-no localized exceedances/departures) = all places at all time are operating at their AVERAGE (all global parameters at their mean in all places.) In real world low energy societies can outbreed the acceleration of deaths in high energy societies during period of decline in per capita energy.
Only Moreons believe literal output of any model that includes non-linear interactions and stochastic effects, particularly at points distant from the origin (reliability of any model’s projections degrades the further the departure from the current state). Proper use of the model is to run with different parameter values to gain some partial clarity as to the magnitude of relative effects and to identify significant tipping point values that push behavior into alternative responses in an attempt to quantify relative risks of varied behaviors. Meadows et al did that and stated that this was their best guess of approximate path if behaviors did not change significantly. They also delineated approximations that would avoid overshoot and lead to approximate dynamic equilibrium (conceptually comparable to so called “steady-state” in the dream world of linear, non-dynamic processes)
Viewed alone and acknowledging the actual stochastic nature of model parameters (also falsely assuming normally distributed distributions and near-linear localized behavior) descent curves can be viewed as expected mean path with ~50% probability that descents will be steeper and 50% will be less steep within an expanding range of possible values as we go futher into the future and as long as avoid tipping points. The only output of the model study to be taken literally is the conceptual written conclusions obtained. In 1972 it appeared possible to chose a non-overshoot progression of human progress – we chose to not attempt to make the changes that would make that possiblity probable.
Thanks! I agree with your statements about the model.
You say, “In 1972 it appeared possible to chose a non-overshoot progression of human progress – we chose to not attempt to make the changes that would make that possibility probable.”
I think that even in 1972, such changes really would not have been possible. They might have looked reasonable in the eyes of the young LTG authors, who were barely out of graduate school. Realistically, keeping births down so that they equal deaths would have been impossible on a worldwide basis. Even China, with its one-child policy, did not accomplish this. There is a very long lag before a reduction in births will lead do something close to level population.
Assumptions about productivity growth were unrealistic too. Investment requirements would have been impossible to implement on a worldwide basis, too.
We humans do not have as much control over a self-organizing system, powered by energy, as the authors hoped.
Brain quantity is no guarantee for success.
Even cold, poor, and hungry people can have sex.
“…evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence and
with no natural predators it began to
reward those who reproduced the most…”
2006 Idiocracy, film by Mike Judge currently free with ads on the Tube.
https://youtu.be/gJDcoqrh1ac
This is just the introduction.
… but who passes through the bottle neck?
The graph shows population peaking later. This is in part due to other of the metrics being “per capita.” So the period between per capita peak and population peak is a period of decreasing prosperity (for the average person). This can look a lot like increasing wealth disparity and pockets of collapse on the periphery, for instance.
That makes sense. But still, when we compare the max pop year with year 1900, the latter has roughly (reading from the graph) the same industrial output per capita, 2x food per capita, and 5x total resources, yet the former is able to sustain 5x bigger population?? Why didn’t the population explode in 1900 already when the conditions were so much better?
in 1900, the average lifespan was under 50
in 2020 it was 79
children survived to reproductive age at a growing rate for 100 years, healthcare, social environment, massively added to that
By the way, the “Food per capita” really incorporates a quality feature, such as how much meat is included, and how much fresh vegetables are included. If people eat mostly at home, as opposed to at conventions, banquets and restaurants, quite a bit less food can be used. So, falling “Food per capita” doesn’t reduce population immediately.
Even poor, cold, hungry people can have children.
Yes, but many of the children will die in childhood. Also adults will be dying of trivial diseases and injuries. And people who need expensive medication or treatments just to stay alive (like very old people) will be done.
Just like in a petri dish, the population will “overshoot and collapse” well after the food source peaks.
How is Europe still standing? Without any resources to speak of and tourism way down; I just can’t wonder how much longer…
If Russia cuts back on its natural gas exports (a very real possibility), it will push Europe downhill.
“A spokeswoman for Gazprom said: “Our mission is to fulfill contractual obligations to our clients, not to ‘reduce the concerns’ of an abstract market.” She added that Gazprom had increased supplies to near-record levels this year.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/furious-europeans-protest-electricity-hyperinflation-christine-lagarde-are-you-watching
How can they cut back? I thought they had to operate at full steam to stay afloat?
when the lifeboat pushes off from the sinking ship
it doesn’t have any spare capacity to rescue every other passenger in the water
The issue with Russia’s natural gas exports to Europe is that because of other natural gas sales, Russia is reaching a point that it has less left over to send to Europe. Russia recently began increasing the amount of natural gas it pipes to China. It has also been increasing its LNG exports. Russia had a cold winter last year, and a hot summer this year, so it needs to refill its own storage. Furthermore, Russia’s pipeline imports (from “stan” countries) have been falling since 2008, perhaps because they are selling natural gas to China.
There may also be an issue with Europe not contracting for enough natural gas for this winter, ahead of time. According to BP, Russia’s pipeline exports to Europe fell from 221.4 billion cubic meters in 2019 to 197.7 billion cubic meters in 2020. I don’t know whether the contractual amount for this year was based on the lower imports in 2020, because of COVID. Europe seems to have needed more natural gas this year to refill its storage caverns, because it had a cold winter last year. The extra Europe has tried to buy on the “spot market” has been high-priced.
Both Lavrov and Novak said that Russia will honor the energy contracts with EU and that energy won’t be use as stick.
If i was Russia, i would melt down the snowflake that calls itself ‘Europe’. Before it needs a new diaper. And i am in Europe. Watching every prime time news talking about migrants and lgbtq community or whatever for about two years now. I’d say, give ‘Europe’ a final tattoo, pierce it where it hurts and say goodbye.
You watch prime time news? Why do you do that to yourself?
It is not about me, Alex.
There is talk that gas reserves are low. I think that Russia contributes a lot of gas to the northern part of Europe, here in Spain we depend a lot on Algeria and this now has a certain conflict with Morocco through which the union gas pipeline passes. On the other hand, we currently have very high MW / h prices … it seems that we may have energy problems when the cold starts.
Peak natural gas production in Algeria was in 2018, making it harder to extract as much. This may contribute to the high prices.
There may be other places in Africa that have LNG exports. The US would be willing to export, too, if the price is high enough. I expect high price is going to be a problem for citizens of Spain who cannot afford high prices. Also, other spending may fall, if natural gas prices are high.
In the past, France exported unneeded electricity, at times, as well, but its excess supply seems to be falling, too. The problem occurs when all of Europe is cold at the same time.
energy lines invariably create conflict
doesnt matter what the actual energy form is
Good point!
Because both the EU and Eurozone still have long-term trade surplus. (While the U.S. has long-term trade deficit.)
“European Union recorded a trade surplus of 14843 EUR Million in June of 2021.”
https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/balance-of-trade
“The Eurozone trade surplus narrowed to EUR 18.1 billion in June 2021.”
https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/balance-of-trade
“The US trade deficit narrowed to $70 billion in July of 2021.”
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade
Europe has its industry in europe and its economy is real tangible one (not financial gimmiks and FIRE) which provides for very hefty trade surplus with all their trading partners.
“America’s Top 10 Vaccinated States Under Siege by Covid Breakthrough Infections” – The most vaccinated states are now all in some version of a surge, although the news wouldn’t cover such a point of view.
By August, with the Delta variant COVID-19 surge across the nation, mass media constantly broadcasts that the pandemic has become one of the unvaccinated; but that’s far from the truth based on a recent TrialSite review of new infection data in the most vaccinated states in America.
Much of the media messaging in August and into September centers on the most current Delta variant-based surge of infections and deaths as a problem in select states with the lowest vaccination rates—often conservative and lower-income—namely states in the Deep South and a couple of states in the Intermountain West (Wyoming, Idaho, etc.).
If only the truth were so straightforward. TrialSite reviewed the top 10 most vaccinated states in the nation and uncovered a very different reality as of Wednesday, September 8, 2021. The expectation going into the data review was that a majority of these highly vaccinated states would have historically low daily rates compared to previous surges in the pandemic.
The opposite is true: the most vaccinated states are now all in some version of a surge, although the news wouldn’t cover such a point of view. Similar to the Israel experience, with waning vaccine effective…
https://trialsitenews.com/americas-top-10-vaccinated-states-under-siege-by-covid-19-breakthrough-infections/
Dolores Cahill (now on the run from UK courts, I believe?) , Mike Yeadon, Sucharit Bakhdi, etc, all vindicated by this surge of dangerous infection and deaths among the vaccinated.
And, of course, by the deaths of so many withing one week of getting jabbed, the clots, major or minor.
All these people swallowed the line that the vaxxes were ‘safe’, and would make them safe – No chance of a ventilator for you, lucky citizen!’
What a horrible, cynical lie.
The Great Lie.
Ah, but Uncle Joe is loosing patience, the velvet glove is coming off…..
quick another ice cream cone
Oceans of Permian…Water
“The (volume and related cost) numbers are very great,” said Lnsp “Naggs” Nagghappen, vice president of Veolia North America. “Every day those numbers are changing, and it’s only going up. Operators contact us every day asking what they can do with this water.”
In the past four years the volume of produced water from HZ tight oil wells in the Permian Basin has doubled, reaching nearly 23MM BWPD at the end of 2H21 (NaturalGasIntelligence).
That equals approximately 4.5 BW for every barrel of oil produced in the Permian Basin and is a lot of water. So much water, in fact, it poses a very real threat to future HZ tight oil production in West Texas, as WoodMac describes in an article, here:
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/single-post/oceans-of-permian-water?postId=46f700e8-6316-4ae7-89e0-4b1db5df1d8d
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/62bf21_8048b91af8c1430983e2c94a1090366a~mv2.jpg
A big reason for production stopping elsewhere is existing wells “watering out.” When the percentage of produced water increases greatly, much more water processing equipment is needed. The energy cost of doing the extraction and processing rises, especially as the well pressure rises. At best, the site ends up with stripper wells that produce practically nothing.
Seems a good time to kill off all the humans… before we hit the Stripper Phase
“ECB Slows Crisis Stimulus in Shift Lagarde Says Isn’t Taper.
“The European Central Bank will slow the pace of its pandemic bond-buying program in the final quarter of 2021, a shift President Christine Lagarde insists isn’t a move heralding a wind-down in stimulus for the euro-region’s still-vulnerable recovery.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/ecb-slows-pandemic-bond-buying-amid-firming-european-recovery
“Italian police raid Covid health pass protesters ‘planning violence’.
“Italian police raided the homes and searched the computers on Thursday of eight people suspected of planning violence during protests against the country’s coronavirus passport.”
https://www.thelocal.it/20210909/italian-police-raid-covid-health-pass-protesters-planning-violence/
Yes, they are very vio/ent, they were planning to throw eggs in a demonstration….
Luckily everything was blocked in time and no egg went broken….
https://mattinopadova.gelocal.it/padova/cronaca/2021/09/10/news/blitz-della-polizia-contro-i-no-vax-ecco-chi-e-sandra-la-cameriera-padovana-che-voleva-lanciare-le-uova-contro-speranza-1.40687015
Is she starting to look like Alan Greenspan?
https://tomluongo.me/2021/08/20/the-fed-says-let-me-squeeze-your-dollars-5-basis-points-at-a-time/
Greenspan was a ‘good friend’ of Rand…. that good?
Slowing the bond-buying problem will hurt the EU’s ability to keep the the economy operating.
“Fed Officials’ Trading Draws Outcry, and Fuels Calls for Accountability. Central bank regional presidents traded securities in markets in which Fed choices mattered in 2020. Here’s why critics find that troubling…
“The Fed has gone from serving as a lender of last resort mostly to banks to, at extreme moments in both 2008 and 2020, using its tools to rescue large swaths of the financial system. That includes propping up the market for short-term corporate debt during the Great Recession and backstopping long-term company debt and enabling loans to Main Street businesses during the 2020 pandemic crisis.
“That role has helped to make the Fed and its officials privy to information affecting every corner of finance. Yet central bankers can still actively buy and sell most stocks and some types of bonds…”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/economy/fed-stock-trading.html
Central bank determines which businesses will survive.
In the end, central banks will act as Warlord 3.0
In coordination with their siblings, your cbdc card will be upgraded with every booster shot. We are in the endgame.
You can only pay for your groceries with your phone, and you can only update your phone when fully vaccinated.
There’s your government, ‘your’ central bank, and your 5G provider. In your face.
Covid vaccine passports scrapped for winter in UK
https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=85
Good blog post about reality and trusted information sources. I don’t always agree with Dave Cohen but he certainly gets me thinking. His Flatland essays (from years ago) are excellent.
https://www.declineoftheempire.com/2021/09/defending-reality.html
Not bad, but I disagree with the ‘Its X or not-X’. For many people yes; for all people no.
It seems to me that the authorites are the ones giving the do or die message whereas the ‘censored’ are talking about a nuanced approach to the situation.
There are so many shades of grey…..apparently
JMG writes about the future NOT being either Apocalypse or Techno-utopia, but a shambolic mixture.
Our dear leader ‘J’ has already gone on record as being ‘The Truth’.
Nonsense, clever, devious but soporific to the masses. She is skilled in manipulation as her ‘herstory’ in the UK Behavioural change unit would enable she to be.
mike do you mind to post a list of books you have read in the past year…. leave off the Danielle Steele please
‘Fact-checking is code for burying a story that counters the establishment’s narrative. When censored, consider it an honor. If what you say is crazy, there should be no need to silence you. They censor people who the establishment fear…..’
https://www.streetsensemedia.org/article/who-fact-checks-the-fact-checkers/#.YTriBp0zY2w
Exactly!
I challenge the CovIDIOTS to fact check any counter narrative — from Ivermectin kills covid to the vaccines are not fully tested… every single assertion – even if it involves and expert in the field… will get a verdict of false…
You’d think the f789ing idi ots would connect the dots on this after a while…
It’s like when you open the BBC and you get an interstitial telling you how the BBC is the Most Trusted Source of News… repeat that enough times and the MOREONS will be humming it all day long …
I urge people to THINK… I know CovIDIOTS have Peas in their heads… (btw – what fills all the empty space around the Pea?… bubble wrap?)….. but this is godawful garbage that is polluting OFW….
Heinous crap….
Good point!
September 10, 2021 NZ Star Date…. OFW was hit by a number of these… but it survives:
https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/atom-bomb-explosion-gif-6.gif
Haven’t you realised by now, Gail? Fast Freddy rarely makes a sensible point with these blockbuster revelations. Fast Freddy never checks further than a headline, read somewhere, often in the latest disinformation source du jour. At least, I don’t recall that he’s ever checked the information thoroughly but I do skip over most of his comments.
I guess it gladdens you that Gurgle/Face-ache/sh#t-tube et al have ‘skipped over’ any commentary contrary to your safe-space expectations.
Order some more cotton wool, wrap yourself up, cover your eyes and hide in the cupboard. Oh and sit up straight when the teacher is talking to you.
I don’t approve of censorship. But I do wish people wouldn’t just accept anything that fits with their view of the world.
You may have noticed that on this site we do question any and all narratives.
My mathematics background tells me the official line is an ‘Orchestrated Litany of Lies’.
Censorship has forced many who question the C narrative to alternative sites. Censorship of their viewpoint is not the way to settle the science. The questions being raised by these voices are not being answered, they are being sidelined and suppressed. Does that not worry you?
You have a habit of sidestepping any issue that contradicts ‘your view of the world’; you ‘bury your head in the sand’, you ‘skip past these comments’ when you have no answer. All of these quotes are your accusations towards others; Its called ‘Projection’.
You arrived right on cue when the Covid Injection post was put up by Gail. I think you are bought and sold by your position/occupation.
++++++++
It’s not a ‘world-view’, Mike: it’s caution, observation, the use of reason, consultation of a very wide range of sources, and, yes, a nose for lies and corruption…..
But we have now moved into an age in which nearly every statement by a government minister, a health bureaucrat, an officially-endorsed doctor or researcher, anyone with a connection to the Wellcome Trust, Big Pharma, the Gates Foundation, the MSM, the WEF, WHO, the UN, etc, must be presumed to be a lie unless proven otherwise.
It’s that bad.
I like to see links to the actual documentation.
I like Douglas Adams, definition of a puddle:
The puddle suddenly becomes aware, looks around and thinks, aren’t I a lucky puddle to have found this hole in the road that fits me so perfectly
That is an absolutely gorgeous metaphor. Species are ‘created’ by the niches that facilitate and determine their existence, as much as they ‘occupy’ them. And humans think that they are ‘this particular that.’
It makes Nietzsche’s ‘ontology’ more intuitive. There is not really any ‘thing/s’ or ‘essences’ – ‘things’ are temporary appearances of the Flux, the endless interconnected flow of becoming.
There is no ‘thing/s’, only becoming. We see the flow in a perceptual extreme ‘slow motion’ that gives the illusion of an ‘endurance’ of ‘things’ rather than a constant flow of insubstantial appearances. ‘Things’ is a ‘perspective’ of humans – as is ‘speed’, which is perceived relative to how our species experiences it.
‘Thingness’ is a projection of the ‘ego’, which is itself an illusion, a constant ‘substratum’ that underlies changing appearances. There is no ‘I’ that can be deduced from ‘think’, there is simply a flow of appearances.
We have evolved to use the ‘subject – predicate’ perspectival structure so as to make appearances into ‘things’ that are ‘understandable’, calculable, and exploitable – grammar is a function of power, a laying hold of ‘things’. Perspective is a function of power.
‘Things’ are an addition to the glitter and glamour of the mind, sparks in the darkness of consciousness as ‘structures’ form around us ‘to’ concentrate the dissipation of energy – which is all that is ‘really’ happening. That is all that ‘we are’ too – our own addition to our own glitter and glamour of our own ‘structure’.
The metaphor of ‘water’ goes back to Thales, the original Eleatic Greek otologist. ‘Being’ is the formless thing that undergoes changes of ‘form’. It has no ‘predicates’, no ‘essence’, no ‘substance’. It is practically nothing but it is ‘all things’.
Adams is a great writer. I read him in childhood. It would be interesting to know more about his own background reading.
Amen, Mirrror!
Covid;
IFR about same as seasonal flu.
94% c-deaths had 2 or more co-morbidities.
Need a PCR test to the moon to detect presence.
Pfizer et et has a business model with fraud at its heart.
Coercion is being applied to inject people with no risk from the infection.
Revolving door between regulators and industry
Big money is bad money.
Deny any of these.
Or just skip over it.
mike’s gone silent … he’s either blown his Pea… or he’s out back with that perty little lamb…. keeping bizzy…
norm do you got any lambs up yer way…. might be better than the blowy dolls… little lipstick and they can be right perty them lambs… right perty …. bit hard to catch though….
I agree
my latest doll is busy right now, reading all the FE comments.
(I bought the upmarket intellectual model, rather than the cheap dimbo-bimbo version.) This one even reads bedtime stories to me.
She keeps turning to me, and saying:
“do wooly brained humans really write all this nonsense?” (Robospeech is amazingly lifelike these days)
Blushing on behalf of my species, I am forced to admit that they do.
“Well, says she,” If I catch you writing anything as daft as this, I’m putting myself in for a product recall–I don’t play with stupid.”.
She is connected to the internet , so that any new developments can be downloaded. (for a small fee of course).
When she reads rubbish on the internet, she instantly relays it to the same doll models anywhere in the world
I should add, that buying the super intelligent doll has certain benefits, in fact its hard to tell her from the real thing.
But the downside is she has 110% recall in any arguments, (just like a real woman) and comes with a nagathon app installed, and a full on ‘I told you so’ reaction.
She keeps hinting about being included in my will.
I wonder if she’s trying to kill me? In the nicest possible way of course.
https://youtu.be/gmQuIpM4h6A
https://www.labradortraininghq.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/when-to-put-your-dog-down-2.jpg
The Elders knew when it was our time…. thank you Elders… I am so adverse to suffering…
It’s kinda surreal isn’t it? Who would have thought? Get ready to say your goodbyes…
It’s been a great run I must say …. especially the last 10 … well 8 and a half… since the bucket list stopped….
One last thing to look forward to — is it virtual reality?
You’re starting to sound like Nancy Lieder of Nibiru Fear Central fame. You may have missed the fact that CDC is saving lives at the border with Ivermectin?
https://alethonews.com/2021/09/05/cdc-gives-incoming-refugees-nobel-prize-winning-ivermectin/
Ivermectin was prescribed pre-COVID to eliminate parasites. The CDC didn’t seem to have a problem with this usage.
Could this be a route to get ivermectin prescribed? Just got back from Bangladesh doc. Plumbing is running like a mudslide. Feedstore is sold out now. They had a huge assortment. The by the pound to spray on the scin of horses is all thats left. Even I am not that ghetto. A pound is like a trillion doses. That $24 amazon horse paste was $6. in the feed stores for the last two years.
You were in Bangladesh?
Nice summary of where we are now hahahaha
Team Vaxpocalypse has lost the plot
I almost feel bad for Megan Ranney, MD MPH; the incoherence and cognitive dissonance on display here is something very special
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/team-vaxpocalypse-has-lost-the-plot
Remember … Alex once worked for the NYT…. all hail Alex… he escaped the matrix
Here’s another powerful Stream of Consciousness piece from Miri Wood. Enjoy
https://syrianews.cc/ivermectin-wonder-drug-and-msm-scourge-of-misinformation-must-stop/
Fast Eddy report … are you there Fast Eddy?
crrkkk…..
Fast Eddy……… Fast Eddy…… ____________ this is HQ calling Fast Eddy…. ______________ … Fast Eddy …. Fast Eddy …. repeat what is your status Fast Eddy….. ______________
ccrrrrkkkk… I am here…. sorry guys I was just taking a piss in the bush….
Sitrep…. please
crrkkkk… Uh…. well… it’s a f789ing mess… green stuff all over the place… shell shocked CovIDIOTS stumbling around… there’s nothing left of OFW…. crrkkk… tell HQ that it was a bad idea to hit them with two Logic Bombshells in such a short time frame…. crrrkkk….
Understood Fast Eddy … do you need laser beam support to fend off the zombies … are they threatening you….
crrrkkk… no need .. their peas have exploded …. they are no longer… functional…. they will all lie down and die soon ….. they don’t even respond when I call out yoo hoo… want some candy?
Oh hold … there’s movement … there are some survivors… I see Tim and Gail.. and here comes Xabier… and Azure… and Last Call is here…and Fred and JMS… lidia at the fire making pea soup with geno …. I see jesse and Student… there are a few others coming out from the shelter….
That’s great news Fast Eddy…. great news….
I actually had my first ever Zombie Nightmare last night. It was getting quite difficult until I finally got my hands on a sword, a lovely shining Scots claymore…
I shall be nervous of falling asleep tonight, lest I encounter……the Fauci.
Or something equally horrible from the depths of Hell. Maybe the UK ‘Vaccine Minister’, the shifty-looking Kurd, who certainly did sell his grandmother long ago.
What could kill the Fauci?
No matter how many of his lies are exposed, there he is, coming on with still more of them, his bony old hands reaching out towards the infants and babies now that schoolkids are more or less in the bag……
Yes, the zombies, Xabier. Beware. Be VERY beware! They can turn up ANYWHERE.
There’s something creepy about that Fauci character… he most definitely should not be left alone with young boys…
He might as well have it stamped on his forehead.
And yet he is seemingly indestructible…….
if you stuck a post in note in corner of your screen with your name on it–you wouldn’t so easily forget who you are, and so have to keep repeating it.
Sound the trumpets! Bang the Gongs!
… .. stand to attention!
Your lord and master cometh…. more trumpet… can we get some cowbell… more cowbell.. a bit more…. that’s more like it!
Okay … hideaway….. you get your arse out here too….
All hail Fast Eddy (and his assistant Alex Berenson) ….. silence!
Prepare for the Kitchen for the Exploding of Peas…. (minions race out and position themselves next to the CovIDIOTS with bowls to capture the splatter…)
Here thee here thee — Fast Eddy doth have an announcement (Fast Eddy snickers as he tries to be serious… I know … think of Greta… nothing funny about that)….
A chart of Covid deaths in Britain since June
Remember what they told you?
They told you the vaccines might not stop infection or transmission but they were still very effective against serious illness and death.
89% of Britons over 16 have received at least one shot. 80% are fully vaccinated.
This is the chart:
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
Something is very, very wrong.
SOURCE: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
DEAD SILENCE DESCENDS ON OFW… YOU COULD HEAR A FEATHER HIT THE FLOOR.
Surely this is a ‘The Emporer has No Clothes’ moment; translation ‘The Injection has No efficacy’.
Now would be a good time to test ‘The Mectin’, and ignore ‘The Science’.
Imagine how a roll out of HCQ or Ivermect would impact that graph. Not going to happen.
This situation is a bast@rdi@tion of science by political wh@res.
I don’t see your point . Recent deaths are a lower than in the past two peaks. Isn’t that what we would expect if the vaccines are working?
I would imagine the initial wave would have removed the vulnerable.
Then, the Injection protocal should buffer/flatten/step down the curve. Seems like there is no impact from the Injection/immune system hack.
Bit like a computer ‘upgrade’ that leaves your computer no better off.
Sometimes the best course of action is no action. Mission not accomplished.
Why would you imagine that? Do you think that the virus actively seeks out all of the vulnerable and must have made a complete pass of the country already?
Mike, can you identify an impact from Injections? An inflection from the injection perhaps? The ‘surge’ has failed in a similar fashion to Afghanistan.
Usually an intervention of any significance will have a measurable/noticeable effect. The curve has ‘flattened’ at a permanent plateau.
Lets call it the pfizer phizzer.
Oh, don’t say ‘it would have been worse’ without the injections; thats not tenable or testable unless you admit to the existance of Sweden.
That’s a difficult question, even for those with more analytical ability than I. However, I do note that serious illnesses in Israel are mainly among the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. This is what the official data show, anyway. In the UK, cases didn’t spike from “Freedom Day”, as many had expected, and deaths are way below what they were at a similar level of cases.
Now, if you don’t believe official numbers, then this is moot. But then you have to say what numbers are you going by to inform your opinion?
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
A comment from another forum sums it up nicely;
‘Also, we’re being told that the vax reduces symptoms. But most covid infections produce zero symptoms. You can’t go lower than zero symptoms. And the currently predominant Delta variant produces milder symptoms already, so the effect of the vax is irrelevant.’
I suspect that is true, low hanging fruit metaphor.
Dennis L.
Just out of curiosity. Are you vaccinated, Gail? If no than why and if yes than why? You are not obliged to respond to this 🙂
I think it’s too early to say. We will know for sure around November (assuming we can believe government stats….).
To try and avoid getting swept up in any narrative i try and set reasonable targets in advance whereby i will assess a thing, rather than look at it in the moment.
When this whole thing broke loose it occurred to me that the lockdown response looked draconian and ineffective for a virus that looked to affect (adversely) relatively few. So i said in advance: if they lift lockdowns and return to normal i will accept that it was an error, if they double down then there is likely more behind it. That “more behind it” became pretty apparent early on: the jabs.
WIth the jabs i’m doing a similar thing: flu season is now coming up in the northern hemisphere so i dediced to wait and see what happens until at least early January 2022. That being said: i don’t like what i’m seeing. Many suspicions have already been confirmed, we are really only waiting for the last shoe to drop here..
Given the high degree of polarization, the best outcome for all involved would be if this turns out to be a big “nothingburger”….
All the best.
Gail,
Not if the low hanging fruit is picked first. The process of natural selection is somewhat lazy, e.g. the cat of prey does not chase the fastest meal but the slowest. Once I heard house cats can only catch injured or weak song birds, the others are too fast for them, or have been selected for.
Perhaps the only reason we are seeing crowding of hospitals is they are now a flow process, surgeries, illnesses scheduled in and more importantly out in set period of time, covid has a different time scale.
Dennis L.
Good point. The folks who use hospitals most tend to be in a debilitated state to begin with.
Maybe this is the equivalent of the ‘sharemarket ‘Dead cat bounce’?
Updated to ‘Dead Vaxxed Dunce’.
Hey norm….
Why is it not possible for a doctor to prescribe Ivermectin in NZ?
Why is it similarly impossible to get it in Hong Kong – it cannot be prescribed … and it is not even stocked by the chemists – nor can it be ordered… you can buy just about anything except for opiate based drugs without a prescription in HK.
Why norm?
https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=76
All coercion; nothing about the science, the risks; nothing all about treating healtcare consumers as thinking competent decisionmakers. Jacinda’s Nudge.
the https://envirowatchrangitikei.wordpress.com/tag/adverse-reactions/
Back in mid 2020 ‘they’ were already figuring out how to induce you to take the untested experimental VX … EWR
From The Health Forum NZ @ FacebookYale University Clinical trials dated July 7, 2020, at the NZ govt website:
“This study tests different messages about vaccinating against COVID-19 once the vaccine becomes available. Participants are randomized to 1 of 12 arms, with one control arm and one baseline arm. We will compare the reported willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine at 3 and 6 months of it becoming available…”
Some of the many options being tested include:
Not bravery message1/15 of the sample will be assigned to this message which describes how firefighters, doctors, and front line medical workers are brave. Those who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are not brave.
Other: Guilt message1/15 of the sample will be assigned to this message. The message is about the danger that COVID-19 presents to the health of one’s family and community. The best way to protect them is by getting vaccinated and society must work together to get enough people vaccinated. Then it asks the participant to imagine the guilt they will feel if they don’t get vaccinated and spread the disease.
Other messages include:
“Other: Personal freedom message
Other: Economic freedom message
Other: Self-interest message
Other: Community interest message”
They really need to work harder at this … not everyone is a MOREON.
However most are MOREONs… they knew they’d never get everyone to join their Bataan Death March
.. did you watch the video … who is this MAD MAN!!! how dare he LIE!!!
https://www.emedevents.com/speaker-profile/christian-perronne
Christian Perronne is a French Doctor who is currently a professor at the University specializing in the field of tropical pathologies and emerging infectious diseases. Moreover, he is also a former president of the commission of the High Council of Public Health for Communicable diseases.
Also, Paris-Diderot graduate, Christian Perronnne is also recognized for his research on Vaccine against the Virus H5N1 of the bird flu. In addition to that, he was also vice-president of the European Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (ETAGE).
https://wiki.projecttopics.org/76657-who-is-french-physician-christian-perronne-10-facts-to-know-about/index.html
I think Christian Perronne needs to give more information about why he is saying what he is saying. Is the problem ADE or something else? Declining vaccine effectiveness would simply leave the vaccinated and unvaccinated the same, I would think.
Recall the nurse who is double jabbed who said most of the patients in the Covid ICU were double jabbed and she was scared … because the double jab is obviously useless?
This doctor says he is speaking to people in Israel and the UK medical communities (I would imagine he has plenty of contacts globally) and he is hearing similar from them…
If I can find this …. he can… and he will be privy to far more detailed information that supports his comments
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
Bossche gets into the science of why this is happening — so why rehash all of that…. dead is dead. Extinction is Extinction … it’s binary
The double vaxxed are dropping like flies because the the vax has caused covid to mutate … and the vax is no longer affecting the virus…
Similar situation being reported in Israel… the difference is that we have the actual govt data … Israel we have a top doctor telling us that’s what is happening…
This is exactly what Bosche predicted…
And now the Boosters are rolling… it will reduce the deaths in the triple jabbed… until…. the virus overcomes the Booster…. and we repeat this…. until the virus completely overwhelms all efforts to stop it …. and then we get to see the Nightmare Scenario…
Seems pretty clear to me -this is the beginning of … Extinction:
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/a-chart-of-covid-deaths-in-britain
Ducky duck go … success!!!
Now why would google block this?
https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/frontlinenews/immunization-expert-unvaccinated-people-are-not-dangerous-vaccinated-people-are-dangerous-for-others/
Excellent! Now try finding that article … google is not indexing it…. surprise surprise….
THERE’S something uncanny in the symmetry between the recent statements of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Prof Christian Perronne, former vice president of the World Health Organization European Advisory Group of Experts in Immunization.
In a recently published article, Perronne, who specializes in tropical pathologies and emerging infectious diseases and also former chairman of the Specialized Committee on Communicable Diseases of the High Council of Public Health under the WHO, said:
“Unvaccinated people are not dangerous; vaccinated people are dangerous for others. It’s proven in Israel now – I’m in contact with many physicians in Israel – they’re having big problems, severe cases in the hospitals are among vaccinated people, and in UK also, you have the larger vaccination program and also there are problems.”
Perronne said “ALL VACCINATED PEOPLE MUST QUARANTINE OVER THE WINTER MONTHS OR RISK SERIOUS ILLNESS.”
This, as he noted the “rapidly deteriorating situation in Israel and the UK.” Israeli doctor Kobi Haviv was quoted as reporting that “95 percent of seriously ill patients are vaccinated. Fully vaccinated people account for 85 to 90 percent of hospitalizations. We are opening more and more Covid branches. The effectiveness of vaccines is declining or disappearing.”
Perronne also said: “Vaccinated people should be put in quarantine and should be isolated from society.”
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1906276/Pampanga/Opinion/Cervantes-Uncanny-symmetry-in-statements-of-Blessed-Mother-ex-WHO-vice-president
Oh, man. Looks like the pendulum is starting to swing!
Given Fast Eddy’s record of posting unchecked articles and graphs, I would not assume any of his/her links/quotes are serious, just like the comments those links are in..
“Fact checkers? Where are my fact checkers?!”
“Will someone please send in the fact checkers?!!”
A chart of Covid deaths in Britain since June
Remember what they told you?
They told you the vaccines might not stop infection or transmission but they were still very effective against serious illness and death.
89% of Britons over 16 have received at least one shot. 80% are fully vaccinated.
This is the chart:
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
Something is very, very wrong.
SOURCE: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
NOTE – GOV.UK… feel free to fact check that
This is Johns Hopkins — do you want to fact check it?
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/image-1-940×524.png
You’d think after this barrage of very troubling information the CovIDIOTS might start to think… hmmm… something IS very wrong ….
normduncmike…. still believe the narrative you’ve been fed?
In for a penny in for a billion pounds?
Let’s see if MORONISM can be cured.
saying things like that will set his barstool spinning
with inevitable consequences
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
The video doing the rounds, with the translated subtitles, is only part of the interview. Indeed, parts of the full interview have been spliced together. In total, the full interview has about 2 minutes more running time. The “Hello” start is there to make the viewer believe that it is at least the unedited start of the video. However, after the “Hello”, 46 seconds is spliced out. A further 18 seconds is spliced out later on and the final minute or so isn’t shown.
So this does seem to be a piece of fiction unless a hebrew speaker can give us a translation of the original interview.
Please, folks, stop believing all the headlines you find in doubtful information sources. Don’t just pick this stuff up and re-broadcast it. Do some checking, especially if something seems unlikely.
Now an Israeli doctor has revealed a bombshell during a television interview. In the interview on August 5 with Israel’s Chanel 13, Dr Kobi Haviv, medical director of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, stated that the majority of coronavirus patients in an Israeli hospital are fully vaccinated, including those with severe disease.
Dr Haviv further specified that: “95% of the severe patients are vaccinated,” adding “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people” and the hospital is “opening more and more COVID wards.” This has led him to conclude that “the effectiveness of the vaccine is fading out.”
Then:
Study: COVID Shot Enhances Delta Infectivity https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=62
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa675c379-abb0-4aa3-ab64-585ab6b92c87_4017x1878.jpeg
You can return to your perty lamb now mike the pariah…
Actually, he didn’t say that 95% of severe patients are vaccinated. Not according to the subtitles that Channel 13 put up, anyway, despite their headline.
let’s move on mike .. if the vaccine worked then there would be no need for ‘waves of boosters’
Shall we discuss why a ‘thoroughly tested vaccine’ that was meant to stop the spread of Covid… does not?
Mike
I’ve tried
but rentahoax is just too popular
“Vaccinated people should be put in quarantine and should be isolated from society.”
An interesting concept when the vaxxed make up roughly 80% of society. And the large majority of the non-vaxxed are children. I must be missing something.
I prefer the let it rip approach. We loose 1 in 1000 and we get back to normal.
Though we will have to ask why our government is building bio-weapons with China.
There’s nowhere near enough spots to quarantine 3 billion CovIDIOTS….
Can we just dig trenches and line them up then strafe them with 50 calibre machine guns?
Where do I volunteer to man one of the weapons?
Seriously … that would be A Lot of Fun!
Anyone can do it — all you have to do is think of one of Smiling Moreons posting their Vaxxies on social media…. you’ll want to give each CovIDIOT an extra burst…. even though you know they are already dead… as a Farewell F789 You.
Which reminds me… normduncmike …
We were promised protection and herd immunity from the thoroughly tested vaccines https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=74
Someone screwed up?
Are you not concerned about the long term side effects… given there are no long term studies?
Not as if it is possible to leave Australia … nor will it ever be… but it sure sounds impressive!
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/qantas-confirms-no-jab-no-fly-policy-for-international-passengers/V57FO3M5J6JWHISO46BUAKMUIU/
I can’t wait till the ‘nightmare scenario’ begins… the CovIDIOTS won’t understand the why … when everyone starts dying like flies… but just knowing they are experiencing extreme horror and despair when their magic vaccines fail them and Devil Covid hits…
I expect that we’ll get full blown coverage of the nightmare… (yippee!!) BECAUSE the goal – as BAU rips open… is to make sure people do not engage in Ripping (murder, rape, cannibalism, looting etc..)
Fear needs to be taken off the charts so the CovIDIOTS self lock …. and don’t come out .. even if they are hungry…. and those not taken by ‘Mareks’ die peacefully from starvation
BTW if a chicken without the latest vax comes in contact with an infected chicken… this is so contagious that there is a 100% guarantee of death.
Keep in mind Mareks was not purposely created by injecting billions of chickens during the height of a pandemic….
One can only imagine what ‘rough beast’ is headed our way.
It cannot come soon enough…. this afternoon would be perfect!
normduncmike… when you are cowering under your bed with the doors locked… think of Fast Eddy… he’ll be specifically thinking of you guys…. and he’ll be smiling….
This doesn’t sound too different from what Biden is planning to do through the Dept. of Labor, according to the WSJ
Biden Boosts Vaccine Requirements for Large Employers, Federal Workers to Combat Covid-19
Department of Labor plans to issue an emergency temporary standard implementing the new requirement
There is an art to lying. You drop a few xanax then read from the script.
Really? Because not too long ago you were extrapolating about the virtues of long-term investing?
Everyone always thinks nothing will happen to them it will always happen to others but unfortunately that’s not how it works.
And there are those who want to transition to ‘renewable energy’… which would only exacerbate the problem because they have you to run two power systems – one for when the sun is shining .. and another running full blast in the background all the time (cuz you can’t flick a switch o n a coal plant) for when the sun doesn’t shine.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/furious-europeans-protest-electricity-hyperinflation-christine-lagarde-are-you-watching
that is where Elon’s batteries come in
Charge all day. Party all night. Never lose memory. Never explode. It’s fun to be Battery. Paraphrased from The Lost Boys 1987. “One thing about living in Ivanpah that I never could stomach, all the damn batteries.”
The current problems with European electricity seem to relate to high natural gas prices leading to high electricity prices, it sounds like. An earlier article talked about Russia needing to refill its own natural gas storage. It had sold more natural gas elsewhere (probably at a better price) besides having a cold winter and hot summer, so it didn’t have enough natural gas to export for Europe to fill its natural gas storage for winter. This leaves a shortage, which Europe is getting the short end of.
Renewables were already high, when transmission and everything else was added in.
Russia has sent all the contracted gas volumes into europe without skipping even one molecule. The Germans even stated it oficcially.
That may be. I expect that Europe also used more natural gas than expected in the past year, so that it really needed more natural gas than contracted for. This mismatch may be what is sending the natural gas price up.
Yes, eu has got all the gas that has been contracted and now they are buying on the spot market.
https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1436069167640289283?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1436069167640289283%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fbiden-eliminates-testing-opt-out-requiring-all-public-workers-and-contractors-get
He looks like a body in a morgue… do the right thing? The right thing…. click bang?
https://twitter.com/i/status/1436078855916331012
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-eliminates-testing-opt-out-requiring-all-public-workers-and-contractors-get
It sounds like maybe there will be some push back for the Biden order.
There should be push back, Biden’s policies are dictatorial.
Shall we dig up wicked old King George III and send him over: that corpse might do a better job than the one stumbling about as President?
GOVERNMENT PUBLIC HEALTH ORDER
ONLY THE FULLY VACCINATED* WILL BE ABLE TO FULLY PARTICIPATE IN OUR SOCIETY.
* the government reserves the right to redefine the term ”fully vaccinated” at any time.
Civil War soon? Looking forward to it.
feels that way.
Americans fighting Americans will make the Chinese take over easier.
Civil war is only possible between two opponents of similar strength. And there is no similarity between the antivaxxers’ weapons and those of the US army. Even guerrilla war is unfeasible when “freedom fighters” doesn’t have a source of income (drugs, diamonds, financing from outside, whatever). So all armed resistance is futile.
The alternative being to rot in a sanitary prison at the mercy of the Health Korps, the only option, if we can qualify this as option, is to hide as best we can and pray pray pray that the central government collapses before we do – just so we have reason to die (of starvation) with a big peaceful smile on our emaciated faces. (I reckon I’m being extremely optimistic here, in lala land mood in fact.)
fine, bro. it won’t be civil. it will be asymmetric.
Hugely asymetric, i would say. As in one David to 1000 gorilla Goliaths.
Taliban as role model for assymetrical take down of Goliath? Soldiers have allegiances outside the military.
The taliban have the unique advantage of a suitable terrain for guerrilla warfare and a cohesive culture, besides a source of revenue, whatever it may be, since you don’t buy weapons with grain expropriated from your nearby peasants. Who would fund the guerrilla warfare against covid-totalitarian states?
There will be many Davids (Spartaci) and as Lastcall reminds, it is just a contract for soldiers who would be fighting someone else’s brother (and sister) on unfamiliar territory until they run home to protect their family from that same threat. Tie goes to the runner.
Perhaps my opinion is skewed by the fact that I live in a country where pseudo-vaccine refusers are less than 5% of the population.
In the USA the situation is a bit different, because the polarization around this issue is much greater there. But where I live, an armed resistance movement would mostly consist of me and my wife armed with scythes.
Also, I wouldn’t rely too much on the inhibiting power of soldiers’ loyalty to their families.That has never been a problem for military leaders, they just have to deploy soldiers away from their places of origin. A soldier might not shoot protesters or resisters in his neighborhood, but he wouldn’t have to, since others would do it for him. It would only be up to him to shoot the mothers and sisters of strangers. Easy.
What f*in society?
Does this mean I won’t be able to attend the Bieber concert?
This is a news really kept under silence here.
EU on Monday removed Is/ael from the list of nations deemed epidemiologically safe.
Although Is/aeli had three jabs, as they have a very high rate of infection in their Country, they are receiving restrictions at arrivals.
Sweden and Portugal don’t accept them (either vaccinated or not).
The Netherlands accepts them only after a quarantine period.
Other EU Countries in random order.
Epidemiologist Nadav Davidovitch, a professor at Ben Gurion University, said Is/ael is currently a strange case […] We have some of the highest rates for both infections and vaccinations.
It seems that vaccination doesn’t fix the infection rate in a Country, in other words, the pandemic goes on and on (better?).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/portugal-sweden-slap-covid-entry-ban-on-israelis-including-those-vaccinated/
I dearly hope the Torah Jews are not falling for this like the secular Israelis.
That’s very interesting. I wonder how many more nations will refuse entry to vaccinated Israelis due to their belonging to a nation that is no longer listed as “epidemiologically safe.”
I’m hoping to live long enough to see the pendulum swing the other way: when the “vaccinated” are deemed dangerous by their own governments and it turns out that their voluntarily injecting themselves was simply an act of them building their own prison cells. In the future, “Unvaccinated” blood will be in high demand, as will “unvaccinated” sexual partners, surrogate mothers, and so on. If “vaccination” is revealed to be a near-certain gateway to ADE and viral shedding then the “vaccinated” are going to have a very difficult time maintaining a place in society. Worst case scenario: they’ll need to be put in quarantine camps until “The Science” can figure out how to disarm their bodies-gone-haywire.
I don’t wish ill on anyone, injected or untainted; we are all victims of the bastards behind this global scamdemic. I’m just waiting to see the jaws drop when our global society becomes even more ridiculous, more farcical.
Fire has long been the traditional method of purification.
“will be in high demand … “unvaccinated” sexual partners,”
Ah, what a rosy outcome, Too good to be true. To make a living as ovary fertilizer is simply the highest dream of everyman, eunuchs included. 🙂
That flies in the face of the sweet promises Jacinda is blowing in my ear telling me I should be able to fly quarantine-free in 2022 if I can the jab….
The thing is…
You can show that to a NZ CovIDIOT… and they will still tell you they are getting the injections because they want to travel…..
I think the real problem is that New Zealand cannot afford the imported oil. They can’t allow citizens to fly outside the country.
There was an English novel called the Bookshop written by a Penelope Fitzgerald.
In 1959, a middle aged widow comes to a beach town to open a bookshop, in a classic, old building where the local elite woman wanted to do an art project, although she never really began doing it.
The widow spends all of her savings to open the bookshop, but the elite woman and her friends, all the important people of the town, try everything to block it.
In the end, the elite woman calls a young relative who is a member of Parliament, who passes a law to seize all old buildings which were not occupied, including the building where the widow’s bookshop was located.
The bookshop was seized, the widow was evicted, and she leaves the town, without a penny.
The End.
However, when Spanish (Catalan to be exact) director Isabel Coixet adapted this into a movie, she adds a character called Kristin. (There were others, but not relevant to my argument.)
Kristin is a neighborhood girl of about 10 n the book, but she is a bit older and helps the widow’s bookshop. After the widow was evicted and left the town, Kristin burns the building with a candle. The movie ends with Kristin , now older, owning her own bookshop.
Basically non-English watchers liked this ending (original to the movie) better, but English critics said this is NOT the book.
The English are accustomed to do their best, even when it creates bad consequences , and are not expected to be rewarded for that.
And, they do know as hell that they CANNOT cross the local squire. It is the unpardonable sin.
The order of town must be preserved.
No English girl of 1950s would have done something like that, but if Kristin did, she would have been sent to juvenile hall , her family ‘politely’ asked to live and her father fired from whatever job he was working at since the local elite woman can fire him by one phone call, and other consequences will follow.
Since the postcarbon world will be very feudal, the English style of psyche will prevail, and the American style of liberty will go to toilet.
I bet you don’t know many ‘modern’ young english. Even the well educated professionals whonmake lots of money are interested in women/men, blow, booze and party. The only thing they hate more than the laxk of the above is someone tellimg them what to do.
Probably in London. And I don’t include the Hindus in the equation. They might think a bit differently.
They might get angry when someone tell them what to do but they will get much more angry when the person they are telling refuses to do what they want.
important take away: fire still burns
Feudal Japan had one sentence for arson – Beheading.
Edo was built with wood, and burnt down quite easily.
Although they could not do the person who committed the biggest arson in Tokyo, Curtis LeMay.
perhaps you should study what happened in Nanking in 1937, and think that LeMay was eradicating a pestilence
I forgot to add that Penelope Fitzgerald was a member of the Elite, complete with an Oxford education and lots of family members in literary and journalism circle
The thermodynamics support your postcarbon argument; with greater energy, particles are free to move around more, to exhibit greater ‘agency’, and our societies in turn exhibit greater permissiveness when submerged in abundant energy.
Exact same thing.
When energy drains from a system, it will bound particles/people into less movement, and greater order. Whether this is symptomatic of an ‘English’ character I don’t know- I tend to think that the UK has struck a sustainable balance between liberalism for the sheltered intellectuals and feudal traditionalism to keep the plebs from sinking the country into a utopian political schema.
Either way, feudalism will prevail when power prevails, and unfortunately chaos tends to nurture hard power solutions to the social contract.
I am not disagreeing but what do you mean by feudal traditionalism for the plebs?
Here in the US we mean endless welfare/pretend jobs for everyone except white males.
It is an efficient use of available energy when there are little to go around. The lord gets everything and the plebs get just enough to survive.
Worked in Japan for hundred of years till Commodore Perry interrupted it in 1853. USA paid for this mistake in 1941.
Paid as in carpet bombing and subjugating Japan and colonizing it after 1945? Damn If that’s paying, I want to pay like that every day.
Was it an adult bookshop? Because that would explain everything.
It said it was the first to stock “Lolita” in that entire area so it might have been ‘adult’ at that time
The ‘moral’ of the book is likely to provoke resentment in the reader against elites, which sits ill with the idea that the story indicates a permanent climate of docility in England.
‘No English girl of 1950s would have done something like that’
Really? Your view of the English lower classes as law abiding does not seem to fit with either the stats or the experience of anyone who actually lives here. You might do well to consult the newspapers.
Societies likely have bred in intellectual docility to humans generally but that does not simply equate with a law abiding English. The picture is much more nuanced. After all, England, like Germany, has had its massive peasant revolt.
Crime in 1950s England – not unknown! Crime per million increased by 3700% between 1900 and 1980.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/olympic-britain/crime-and-defence/crimes-of-the-century/
> During the first two decades of the 20th century the police in England and Wales recorded an average of 90,000 indictable offences each year, a figure which increased to over 500,000 during the 1950s.
The crime rate consequently quadrupled from 250 crimes per 100,000 people in 1901 to 1,000 by 1950.
But the history of crime in the 20th century is dominated by the even sharper rise in offences recorded by the police since the late 1950s. During the 1960s there was acceleration in recorded crime: it was the only decade in the century where crime doubled. Crime continued to rise according to this measure for much of the remainder of the 20th century, with an average of over one million crimes recorded each year in the 1960s, increasing to two million during the 1970s, and 3.5m in the 1980s.
Scrap the bit about ‘per million’. The ‘rate per’ is given only from 1901 to 1950.
We still have no idea what the plot is.
Labor day used to be sales shopping at the mall barbecues at home, traffic on the road. This year, stores closed, sparse traffic and very quiet. Even today very quiet, no planes, no cars, no trucks, no construction.
FE, I liked CEP. Your new stay home and die quietly would seem to speak for food storage. Stay home eat and wait for 99.9% to starve peacefully and quietly at home. Then we inherit the Earth. I propose the Ed challenge lets see who starves first Ed or FE. I did like your post pointing out totalitarians lock down is world wide. I tried a response with a quote that had the N word and it went into the great black hole that is the internet.
Xabier, can you tell us more details on the new super prisons in UK?
Inherit the spent fuel pond radiation ….
” . . . in this episode i
00:05 point out how the uncontrolled meltdown
00:07 of the world’s nuclear power facilities
00:09 will cause atmospheric
00:10 ozone to be diminished thereby leading
00:13 to the loss of all life on earth . . . ”
Yo, Joe, Roll up the Sleeve and take it like a Good Boy!
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday is toughening COVID-19 vaccine requirements for federal workers and contractors as he aims to boost vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant that is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation’s economic recovery.
Just weeks after he mandated federal workers get a shot or face rigorous testing and masking protocols, Biden will sign a new executive order to require vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Yep. Heil And snap ypus boots…this is getting real, folks…
From fracking to kickstart the economy to vaxxing?
That was easy!
Opinion on Scottish independence remains on a knife-edge, with Yes slightly ahead in the latest poll. Most voters support a referendum within 5 years but only a minority within 2 years. Presumably SNP is in no rush anyway, and they would be happy to wait until toward the end of the present Holyrood incumbency.
Time is likely in their favour as the younger group favours Indy, UK is likely to enter a recession and austerity by then, which is always bad in elections for the status quo, and the relatively popular present monarch is liable to pass on, which could ease sentiment; Tories could well be in a full-blown trade war with the EU by then if they do not watch out.
It will be interesting to see what happens. Of course, it is really up them what they vote for. As Gail points out in the article, societies are liable to simplify and to concentrate energy dissipation toward the core, as energy flow declines, while the peripheries do what they can in fresh arrangements. It is what it is.
> Scottish independence support ahead and SNP on 51% in latest Opinium poll
Support for Scottish independence is ahead and the SNP are four points up in the latest voting intention poll from firm Opinium. Sky News commissioned the survey which found while views on Scottish independence continue to be on a knife-edge, Yes is slightly ahead on 51%.
Meanwhile, in both the General Election and Scottish Parliament election voting intention sections of the poll, some 51% of respondents said they’d back the SNP. For Westminster, Tory support was down by four points to 21%, while Labour also saw a loss of support of three points at just 17%. The LibDems saw support slip by just one point to 5%, while 6% of respondents said they’d back “others”. On Holyrood voting intention, the SNP were up three points from May.
Opinium asked voters how much they trust political leaders when they talk about “the current debate over Scottish independence”. Nicola Sturgeon was the most trusted with over half (55%) saying they trust her. Alex Salmond was the least trusted, with 69% saying they do not trust him, followed by Boris Johnson on 67%. Opinium asked respondents about attitudes to COP26 – the majority (55%) believe Nicola Sturgeon would do a better job at representing Scotland at the major climate conference, while just 16% felt Johnson would do better.
Chris Curtis, senior research manager at Opinium, commented: “Firstly, Brexit has muddied the economic arguments that swung the results in 2014. Back then, the median voter thought independence would damage their personal finances and damage the Scottish economy. Now, the median voter thinks that it wouldn’t make much difference to either.
“The next ‘No’ campaign, if there is one, is also going to find it difficult to find a messenger who can appeal to swing voters. Of the 13 Scottish politicians, we tested Nicola Sturgeon was the only one trusted by voters to talk about the date on Scottish independence. Fifty-five per cent say they trusted what she had to say, compared to just 25% who trust the Prime Minister.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19569469.scottish-independence-support-ahead-snp-51-latest-opinium-poll/
In an effort to push vaccination, Walter Ricciardi, first consultant for Italian Health Ministry Roberto Speranza, has recently declared on tv that swabs are not reliable up 30% of cases.
Therefore they are declaring that daily tv statistics for infections are fake up to 30% of cases.
They are declaring that people have been forced to stay in quarantine for 14 days up to 30% of cases for nothing.
They are declaring that stores, companies and various business all over the world had to stay closed and had to pay for sanitation up to 30% of cases for nothing.
Two links for this news:
https://www.lapekoranera.it/2021/09/07/adesso-per-ricciardi-i-tamponi-vanno-eliminati-hanno-un-20-30-di-inaccuratezza/
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2021/09/07/ricciardi-a-la7-green-pass-dovrebbe-essere-solo-per-vaccinati-e-guariti-dal-covid-tamponi-gratis-anche-ai-no-vax-e-impensabile/6313738/
Having accepted that we are facing up to 30% of mistakes, we have a question: what is the percentage that official decisions can be mistakes?
I read on the website posting information on the number of students out sick with COVID for the county where my children went to high school that the schools are no longer requiring quarantines of students exposed to COVID. The site said that last year, fewer than 1% of these cases turned into actual COVID cases. They decided quarantines required too much lost school time for the few cases they would have prevented.
It seems that Georgia is a nice place to live.
Unfortunately they are really going for vaccination at strong and steady pace here.
Whatever you do to stay sane, Student….do more!
It really is no better here in England, although a bit more subtle.
They all clearly have the same aim, however.
Student, there are black parts of Georgia and there are white parts of Georgia. I am not sure it would be nice for anyone violating that line. Basically know your place.
The black areas of Georgia seem to be much more afraid of COVID than the white areas.
“Bank of England faces up to threat of ‘stagflation’ as cost of living crisis looms… stagflation – low growth in combination with elevated levels of inflation… is a very difficult illness to treat.
“Tighten policy and you risk further damaging growth without having much impact on the sort of “cost push” inflation we see today; leave things easy, and you further stoke the inflationary flames…
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it turn into a genuine political “crisis” later this year.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/08/bank-england-faces-threat-stagflation-cost-living-crisis-looms/
“British Council to shut offices in Europe and beyond amid financial crisis.
“Cultural and diplomatic institution to close offices in 11 countries from Belgium to the United States.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/british-council-to-reduce-its-presence-in-europe-and-beyond-to-tackle-financial-crisis/
“Bailey warns worker shortages could produce sticky inflation.
“The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, has signalled he is pessimistic about the current worker shortages crippling the UK economy ending soon.”
https://www.cityam.com/bailey-warns-worker-shortages-could-produce-sticky-inflation/
The economy really needs a high proportion of the population to be workers. Too many retired or in school or otherwise not contributing doesn’t work.
That is certainly true on a fiscal level of state debt, tax and spending. Also, capitalism is a profit- and expansion- based economic system that functions only when it grows.
And with collapsed productivity growth in all ‘mature’ capitalist economies, domestic market and labour expansion is entirely essential to grow GDP and to maintain profits. The alternative is a recession and the failure of companies.
The public and private sectors are both important to the functioning of the society. UK and other Western societies need labour expansion on both counts.
This is from June 2019 (what we refer to now as the good old days).
Highly Leveraged Zombie Companies Threaten the Global Economy
“What truly worries me was in the middle of page 12, “The overall landscape is one of a global economy that has been unable to jettison its debt-dependent growth model. Indeed, aggregate debt (public plus private) in relation to GDP, while it plateaued in the past year, is much higher than pre-crisis.” BIS analysts clearly explain that “At the same time, interest rates – nominal and real – remain historically low, even as economies hover around estimates of potential. And financial conditions in advanced economies, notably in the largest among them, remain accommodative from a longer-term perspective. As a result, should the global economy slow down at some point, it is hard not to imagine that the debt burden would increase further.” Gross Domestic Product (GDP) relative to expectations, global trade growth, new export orders, and Purchasing Manufacturing Indices, all important economic indicators, are unfortunately showing a global slowdown”.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mayrarodriguezvalladares/2019/06/30/highly-leveraged-zombie-companies-threaten-the-global-economy/?sh=3ca5a6b24c39
Of course we all know that the caca runs downhill so get back to work – for free if need be – got to keep the wheels turning
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is calling for easier migration rules to facilitate labour expansion and capital accumulation. CBI always opposed Brexit, which stopped the supply of unlimited labour for British capital to absorb.
CBI successfully campaigned after Brexit, and the Tories agreed to remove any cap on the number of workers entering UK, to lower the lower wage limit to £20,480 to admit more workers for poor paying jobs, and to remove the condition of a prior job offer.
CBI now wants the lower wage limit to be removed entirely for sectors where British capital is able to absorb workers. Ideally CBI wants an immigration system like before Brexit, where British capital gets as many workers as it can absorb and without conditions.
Around 700,000 (350,000 net) already enter the UK per year under the Tories, purely for the sake of capital accumulation, but CBI is insistent on filling vacancies for low paid work.
> Relax immigration rules to fix jobs squeeze, companies urge UK
LONDON, Sept 6 (Reuters) – Britain must relax its new immigration rules to allow in more foreign workers and ease labour shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic and Brexit, a leading employers group, the Confederation of British Industry, said on Monday.
Since COVID restrictions began to ease earlier this year, allowing the economy to reopen, companies have complained increasingly of a lack of workers especially in hospitality, food processing and logistics which has led to gaps on supermarket shelves and restaurant closures.
A shortage of truck drivers has forced some employers to offer signing-on and retention bonuses of up to 5,000 pounds ($6,900), and official data shows a record number of job vacancies.
The CBI said drivers, welders, butchers and bricklayers should be classed as shortage occupations for immigration purposes. This would allow easier access to visas, but also for the employers sponsoring them to pay salaries below thresholds for migrant workers under Britain’s new migration system.
“The government promised an immigration system that would focus on the skills we need rather than unrestrained access to overseas labour. Yet here we have obvious and short-term skilled need but a system that can’t seem to respond,” CBI director-general Tony Danker said.
The government had also failed to follow official advice on which jobs should qualify for shortage status, and rules on what kinds of training qualified for support under a government apprenticeship scheme were also too restrictive, the CBI said.
Britain’s government has been reluctant to ease its immigration rules. Last month the business ministry rejected a call from retailers and logistics firms for an exemption for truck drivers, and said the industry should improve pay and conditions instead. read more
The CBI said it did not expect the end of the government’s furlough programme on Sept. 30 – when several hundred thousand private-sector workers are likely to become unemployed – would make it significantly easier for companies to find staff.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/relax-immigration-rules-fix-jobs-squeeze-companies-urge-uk-2021-09-05/
What do we call it if we have slow contraction and high inflation?
Inflaction?
“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned congressional leaders that the U.S. is on track to default on the national debt in October if the White House and Congress are unable to raise the debt limit.
“In a Wednesday letter, Yellen said that the Treasury Department would likely run out of cash and exhaust “extraordinary” measures to keep the federal government within its legal borrowing limit at some point next month.”
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/571237-yellen-us-on-track-to-default-on-national-debt-in-october
“The Federal Reserve should press ahead with a plan to dial down its massive pandemic stimulus programme despite an abrupt slowdown in US jobs growth last month, according to a top central bank official.
“James Bullard, president of the St Louis Fed, dismissed concerns the labour market recovery was faltering, even after just 235,000 jobs were created in the month of August, and reiterated his call for the central bank to begin scaling back or “tapering” its massive $120bn-a-month bond-buying programme soon.”
https://www.ft.com/content/7c2fc0ce-e7c0-4083-92e8-e81d9235ab45
Running out of cash is a real worry! This has come up several times before.
I am sorry I have not been very much available yesterday or today. I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, visiting my sister here. I attended a memorial service today for a young relative who died recently. I will be flying back home tomorrow (Friday).
“Debt Markets’ Eerie Calm Echoes Eve of 2007 Credit Crisis… Junk bond spreads this tight are a reason for unease…
“Where [Hyman] Minsky would find… grounds for concern is in the credit market. The calm there is stupefying. And in many ways it is legitimately terrifying.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-09/debt-markets-eerie-calm-echoing-2007-is-reason-for-unease
There are lots of reasons to worry about a credit crisis. Rising inflation by itself would be a problem. China’s big problems are a worry, too.
“Inflation splits emerging countries into doves and hawks… More than in the developed world, rising prices already pose a real threat to stability…
“It is a question for policymakers everywhere: which is worse, stagnation or instability. But in emerging markets the stakes are arguably higher if inflation gets out of control.
“Even among the hawks, only Russia currently has interest rates higher than inflation. The rest may have to raise their rates much further yet if they are to bring prices back under control.”
https://www.ft.com/content/cd189742-776f-470c-914a-fee4549a70f8
“China Factory Inflation Surge to Add Pressure to Global Prices…
“China’s factory-gate inflation accelerated to a 13-year high, adding to the pressure on global consumer prices which have been pushed up by a commodities boom, soaring shipping costs and an uneven economic recovery from the pandemic.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/china-factory-inflation-surges-again-as-commodity-boom-persists
“Brazil’s central bank will need to “act fast” to prevent a further deterioration of the country’s inflation expectations, its President Roberto Campos Neto said.
““We are seeing many different inflationary shocks building on top of each other. It’s very important to act fast to prevent inflation expectations from de-anchoring,” Campos Neto said…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-08/brazil-s-campos-neto-sees-need-to-act-fast-as-inflation-speeds
“Bolsonaro Calls on Truckers to Lift Protests Blocking Roads.
“Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked truckers to lift any blockades on highways as concerns over the possibility of a broader strike add to an already charged political climate and worries about galloping inflation.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/bolsonaro-calls-on-truckers-to-lift-protests-blocking-roads
Truckers’ strikes make a real supply line mess, I am afraid.
The DM is having a massive meltdown over the racism of Winston Churchill. He is a propaganda icon of the British state. ‘British’ identity has been reconstructed in the post-war period around historical myths to which he has a certain centrality.
He obviously was a militant racist, and given to statements like ‘the Aryan race is bound to conquer’, ‘I hate the Indians’, ‘I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes’. He was vice-president of the Eugenics Society and he wanted to set up concentration camps for the lower classes in Britain. No one really denies that.
It is hardly ‘rewriting history’ for history to conform to the known facts. Rather it is the avoidance and misrepresentation of facts that amounts to rewriting history, even if that has always been done in his case. History can be approached either as a serious discipline or as a state propaganda exercise.
It seems awkward to say that WC was simply ‘of his time’ when Hitler was of the exact same time. None of them are going to excuse Hitler on that basis or stop saying that he was a racist and an imperialist. The method is entirely inconsistent, and consistent only with state propaganda.
It difficult to say that he ‘saved the nation’, when he started the war simply to protect the British Empire from inter-imperialist competition, as the British state archives themselves reveal. In fact, he completely lost that entire Empire, bankrupt the British state, and destroyed the economy from which it never really recovered.
Nor can it be said that he saved Europe from totalitarianism, the propaganda state, when his war left half of Europe under the Soviet Union with which the British state was allied. It was the peoples of eastern and central Europe who themselves eventually moved away from that – to some extent, anyway. Poland got its independence in 1991 when the USSR was dissolved.
As I say, the defensiveness around WC seems to be about the construction of the post-war ‘national identity’. The British state is posed as an historical force against racism and imperialism, when the British state was a racist, imperialist power for centuries until it lost the Empire in that war.
It is all about reversing historical reality and constructing an identity that facilitates power in the post-war period. The reconstruction of the British state as an historical ‘anti-racist’ force allows for domestic market and labour expansion in lieu of protected colonial markets and labour pools.
It is about ‘gaining the future’ for organised ‘British’ capital through a reframing of the past. It is not surprising that the state wants to edit and write its on own history – but it is extremely imposing in a supposedly ‘free democratic’ age. The idea that is the opposite of authoritarian bourgeois nationalism is ironic to say the least.
> Storm as Winston Churchill charity ERASES his first name and DELETES his picture from its website over ‘controversies’ about his life and views on race that are ‘widely seen as unacceptable’
The ‘grotesque’ and ‘ridiculous’ decision by a charity named after Sir Winston Churchill to rebrand itself today led to calls for its ‘virtue-signalling’ boss and its board to resign for ‘re-writing history’.
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust removed pictures of the wartime leader from its website and is changing its name to the Churchill Fellowship. Today it performed a partial U-turn, reinstating his photograph but insisting the name change remains, claiming the old one was ‘confusing’.
Trustees have agreed to change its name to the Churchill Fellowship and erase him from its website in a new ‘woke’ storm that has sparked fury towards Julia Weston, the charity’s £100,000-a-year chief executive.
Loyal volunteers at the trust said it was ‘rewriting history’ and pointed out the former prime minister has frequently been voted the greatest Briton of all time. One said: ‘It beggars belief that the man who saved this nation in our darkest hour finds himself cancelled in this way.’
One critic tweeted: ‘The virtue signalling lefty that is the CEO Julia Weston, she is a disgrace. Using Churchill’s name to advance herself whilst trying to woke-wash his memory. Has she no shame? Another wrote: ‘You are a disgrace. The board of this charity should be removed #shameresign’.
Tory former leader Iain Duncan Smith, whose constituency is a redrawn version of Churchill’s old Woodford seat, told MailOnline before they reinstated his photograph: ‘I think this is ridiculous. It was set up as the Winston Churchill trust. He is the most popular British person to have lived in poll after poll.
‘What we are left with here is another group of individuals who fail to recognise the most important thing Churchill said to us, which is that those who sit in judgement of the past will lose the future.
‘Without him they would not be sat where they are making these ridiculous decisions. They need to think about that for a second and recognise quite how ridiculous what they are doing will appear to the wider British public who are proud of what Winston Churchill achieved and find all this process of judging historical figures an absurdity.’
…. ad nauseam
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9971917/Storm-Winston-Churchill-charity-erases-website-views-race-controversy.html
Well, if they can eliminate Christ from Christianity, cancelling Churchill from that Trust is a but small step….
Where can I order a Churchill bust? I must get one.
His ‘It is indeed terrible news: and I feel wonderful!’ is the best statement of defiance in the face of disaster ever uttered. If it had been up to him, he would have gone down shooting, unlike that utter coward Hitler.
When St Anthony Fauci of the Syringe (peace be upon him, etc) says anything half as good or honest, I’ll put his picture up too. .
Whatever ‘bust’ does it for you. : ~)
what does DM stand for?
The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid.
“It seems awkward to say that Winston Churchill was simply ‘of his time’ when Hitler was of the exact same time. None of them are going to excuse Hitler on that basis or stop saying that he was a racist and an imperialist.”
To me, examining any historical figure within the context of their time is the only sane thing to do if you have a legitimate interest in approaching history as a serious discipline. But Mirror is of course correct that this is a power struggle – and as such it only masquerades on both sides as a quest for greater understanding.
Those who yearn for the destruction of the British state or at least who want to see it radically re-ordered will naturally want to tear down its icons.
Drawing a moral equivalence with Hitler and attempting to define Churchill first and foremost as a racist – knowing that this is a ticket to instant demonization in febrile 2021 – without nuance or historical context, is a great way to do that.
And of course this is but one battle within a broader struggle. All the leaders of that era were racists, don’t you know? Mussolini, Hitler and Tojo, obviously, but also FDR, De Gaulle and, in his own weird way, Stalin. Even Gandhi:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-50062791
Anyone who is emotionally (or economically) invested in a sense of Britishness founded on misty-eyed nostalgia, as personified by The Daily Mail (not the more left-wing but equally trashy Daily Mirror, Bei Dawei), will inevitably froth at the mouth when they see their hero reduced to a label intended to spark outrage.
I think part of the reason that Churchill gets a pass in the UK for some of his failings, personal and political, is simply that the allies won. Stalin, even with all the blood he has on his hands, is still revered by many in Russia.
I do not see any difference in ‘historical context’ between the fact of personal racism between Hitler and Churchill when they were born a mere 14 years apart and WC outlived him. They were contemporaries. Any such ‘difference’ of historical context is confected as a function of power narrative and it is unsustainable at a glance.
I am more interested in objective analysis that accounts for power narratives than in constructing such a narrative, certainly in this case. It is a very interesting and pertinent case of power narrative as you clearly recognise.
Many feel an impulse to bat for Churchill, perhaps due to peer pressure, personal identity or economic interest. It would perhaps be unusual if they did not, given their socialisation. You seem to be aware of such things, and you can see the role of socialisation and power narratives with British and other icons.
Perhaps the ultimate icon construction is Jesus – he never sinned, and neither did his mum. There is a tendency to idealise icons and to remove any faults. That is harder with icons in the recent historical period, and the tendency is to ignore if possible, or to excuse blemishes and to render them ‘fundamentally different’ to the faults of similar others. A supposed ‘historical context’ is a ‘go to’ way to do that.
Icon construction is a function of social power and anyone with a brain is liable to deconstruct them – although socialisation – and social power – mitigates that.
The British state, and DM, line is that he is a national icon, and therefore he should be constructed as one with a view to social power. They are pretty transparent about that, even if they do not intend to be. It is pretty easy to see what is going on, for me anyway and obviously you do too.
“…obviously you do too.”
Indeed. I am hip to the agendas of both polarities!
Times change. Even in the our own lifetimes and the lifetimes of our parents views have changed. When there aren’t enough resources to go around, some “out group” needs to be marginalized. Or even a sibling.
I remember hearing a story about my maternal grandfather and his brother somehow jointly inheriting a farm which could reasonably only support one family. A religious squabble ensued. One brother had married a Seventh Day Adventist who wanted to observe Saturday as the sabbath. The other married another Lutheran, who wanted to observe Sunday as the sabbath. (This sounds ideal to me. One could feed the animals on Saturday, the other on Sunday.) Eventually, the Seventh Day Adventist brother moved away and pursued a different occupation.
Narratives are a function of power and they are liable to change as the energetic, material and social conditions of power change – and to revert back as conditions revert.
There is no ‘moral truth’ to narratives, there is just historically conditioned strategic power narratives. Sometimes they involve more cooperation than at other, more competitive times.
Society is bigger on cooperation and niceness (within limits) these days, because it allows society to function optimally in more advanced material conditions. Certainly the illusion of it also has a power function.
None of the narratives function as a criterion that transcends historical conditions, or that makes the narratives of one period ‘better’ than those of others. Their function is within the period, not across them.
What matters is what ‘works’ at the time, and they are to be evaluated on that basis.
Citizens are socialised into the narratives of the day. They are generally not given to understand the relativity of the narratives or their power function, which would attenuate their effect.
The ability to ‘see’ is historically attributed to a distinct ‘philosopher’ caste from the masses – gullibility is just ‘how’ human societies tend to function. Clarity may be more common these days, due to education and exposure to public affairs.
pefectly summed up Harry
Churchill was of his time—he took part in the last cavalry charge of the British army…against ‘fuzzy wuzzies of course
He is not really defending WC, so you cannot really rely on him in this case. He is more interested in the power function of narratives.
The British State is ‘anti-racist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ since the fall of the British Empire.
Babylon has fallen so low!
Whatever allows them to make money. The bourgeois power structures remain intact behind the flow of ideology.
Churchill did not bankrupt the British state.
The british state as it existed in 1939, saved the free world from being overwhelmed by a fascist doctrine. Curchill was the driving force.
How?
by keeping the UK island as an aircraft carrier for the USA in 1942.
Had the British state capitulated to Germany, German factories would have remained untouched. That being so, they would have got nukes by, say 1944/5, (they were working on them) By that time they already had the means to deliver them to the US mainland
A nuke on Washington and New York and Moscow–and it would have been game over for the USA—and Everywhere else.
Unfortunately, to do this, UK bankrupted itself. To say ‘Churchill bankrupted the state’ reveals total ignorance of history of the time.
We had to borrow $bns to save the USA. we had no choice. we had just pulled through the depression of the 30s
Churchill personally resisted that capitulation in 1940, when everyone else thought it was hopeless. Roosevelt couldnt do much until Dec 1941.
Yes, Churchill had his faults, a child of the upper classes. Stupid in many respects. ..as we all are.(Gallipoli is a biggie) But he screamed warnings about Hitler throughout the 30s. he was ignored.
then his force of will pulled the nation together, and made him the greatest living Englishman, racist or not.
Those who condemn his faults should examine the full picture.