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Media outlets tend to make it sound as if all our economic problems are temporary problems, related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, world crude oil production has been falling behind needed levels since 2019. This problem, by itself, encourages the world economy to contract in unexpected ways, including in the form of economic lockdowns and aggression between countries. This crude oil shortfall seems likely to become greater in the years ahead, pushing the world economy toward conflict and the elimination of inefficient players.
To me, crude oil production is of particular importance because this form of oil is especially useful. With refining, it can operate tractors used to cultivate crops, and it can operate trucks to bring food to stores to sell. With refining, it can be used to make jet fuel. It can also be refined to make fuel for earth moving equipment used in road building. In recent years, it has become common to publish “all liquids” amounts, which include liquid fuels such as ethanol and natural gas liquids. These fuels have uses when energy density is not important, but they do not operate the heavy machinery needed to maintain today’s economy.
In this post, I provide an overview of the crude oil situation as I see it. In my analysis, I utilize crude oil production data by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) that has only recently become available for the full year of 2021. In some exhibits, I also make estimates for the first quarter of 2022 based on preliminary information for this period.
[1] World crude oil production grew marginally in 2021.
Crude oil production for the year 2021 was a disappointment for those hoping that production would rapidly bounce back to at least the 2019 level. World crude oil production increased by 1.4% in 2021, to 77.0 million barrels per day, after a decrease of -7.5% in 2020. If we look back, we can see that the highest year of crude oil production was in 2018, not 2019. Oil production in 2021 was still 5.9 million barrels per day below the 2018 level.
With respect to the overall increase in crude oil production of 1.4% in 2021, OPEC helped bring this average up with an increase of 3.0% in 2021. Russia also helped, with an increase of 2.5%. The United States helped pull the world crude increase down, with a decrease in production of -1.1% in 2021. In Section [5], more information will be provided with respect to crude production for these groupings.
[2] The growth in world crude oil production shows an amazingly steady relationship to the growth in world population since 1991. The major exception is the decrease in consumption that took place in 2020, with the lockdowns that changed consumption patterns.
Figure 2 indicates that, up through 2018, each person in the world consumed an average of around 4.0 barrels of crude oil. This equates to 168 US gallons or 636 liters of crude per year. Much of this crude is used by businesses and governments to produce the basic goods we expect from our economy, including food and roads.
A big downshift occurred in 2020 with the COVID lockdowns. Many people began working from home; international travel was scaled back. The reduction of these uses of oil helped bring down total world usage. Changes such as these explain the big dip in crude oil production (and consumption) in 2020, which continued into 2021.
Even in 2019, the world economy was starting to scale back. Beginning in early 2018, China banned the importation of many types of materials for recycling, and other countries soon followed suit. As a result, less oil was used for transporting materials across the ocean for recycling. (Subsidies for recycling were helping to pay for this oil.) Loss of recycling and other cutbacks (especially in China and India) led to fewer people in these countries being able to afford automobiles and smartphones. Lower production of these devices contributed to the lower use of crude oil.
On Figure 2, there is a slight year-to-year variation in crude oil per capita. The single highest year over the time period shown is 2005, with 2004 not far behind. This was about the time many people think that conventional oil production “peaked,” reducing the availability of inexpensive-to-produce oil.
[3] Crude oil prices dropped dramatically when economies were shut in, beginning in March 2020. Prices began spiking the summer and fall of 2021, as the world economy attempted to open up. This pattern suggests that the real problem is tight crude oil supply when the economy is not artificially constrained by COVID restrictions.
An analysis of price trends suggests that most of the recent spike in crude prices is due to the tightness of the crude oil supply, rather than the Ukraine conflict. The Brent oil price dropped to an average of $14.24 in the week ending April 24, 2020, not long after COVID restrictions were enacted. When the economy started to reopen, in the week ending July 2, 2021, the average price rose to $76.26. By the week ending January 28, 2022, the average price had risen to $90.22.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Brent spot price on February 23, 2022, was $99.29. Brent prices briefly spiked higher, with weekly average prices rising as high as $123.60, for the week ending March 25, 2022. The current Brent oil price is about $107. If we compare the current price to the price the day before the invasion began, the price is only $8 higher. Even compared to the January 28 weekly average of $90.22, the current price is $17 higher.
Saying that the Ukraine invasion is causing the current high price is mostly a convenient excuse, suggesting that the high prices will suddenly disappear if this conflict disappears. The sad truth is that depletion is causing the cost of extraction to rise. Governments of oil exporting countries also need high prices to enable high taxes on exported oil. We are increasingly experiencing a conflict between the prices that the customers can afford and the prices that those doing the extraction require. In my view, most oil exporting countries need a price in excess of $120 per barrel to meet all of their needs, including reinvestment and taxes. Consumers would prefer oil prices under $50 per barrel to keep the price of food and transportation low.
[4] Food prices tend to rise when oil prices are high because products made from crude oil are used in the production and transport of food.
History shows that bad things tend to happen when food prices are very high, including riots by unhappy citizens. This is a major reason that high oil prices tend to lead to conflict.
[5] Quarterly crude oil data suggests that few opportunities exist to raise crude oil production to the level needed for the world economy to operate at the level it operated at in 2018 or 2019.
Figure 5 shows quarterly world crude oil production broken down into four groupings: OPEC, US, Russia, and “All Other.”
Figure 5 shows four very different patterns of past growth in crude oil supply. The All Other grouping is generally trending a bit downward in terms of quantity supplied. If world per capita crude oil production is to stay at least level, the total production of the other three groupings (OPEC, US, and Russia) needs to be rising to offset this decline. In fact, it needs to rise enough that overall crude production growth keeps up with population growth.
Russian Crude Oil Production
The data underlying Figure 5 shows that up until the COVID restrictions, Russia’s crude oil production was increasing by 1.4% per year between early 2005 and early 2020. During the same period, world population was increasing by about 1.2%. Thus, Russia’s oil production has been part of what has helped keep world crude production about level, on a per capita basis. Also, Russia seems to have made up most of its temporary decrease in production related to COVID restrictions by the first quarter of 2022.
US Crude Oil Production
Growth in US crude oil production has been more of a “feast or famine” situation. This can be seen both in Figure 5 above and in Figure 6 below.
US crude oil production spurted up rapidly in the 2011 to 2014 period, when oil prices were high (Figure 3). When oil prices fell in late 2014, US crude production fell for about two years. US oil production began to rise again in late 2016, as oil prices rose again. By early 2019 (when oil prices were again lower), US crude oil growth began to slow down.
In early 2020, COVID lockdowns brought a 15% drop in crude oil production (considering quarterly production), most of which has not been made up. In fact, growth after the lockdowns has been slow, similar to the level of growth during the “growth slowdown” circled in Figure 6. We hear reports that the sweet spots in shale formations have largely been drilled. This leaves mostly high-cost areas left to drill. Also, investors would like better financial discipline. Ramping up greatly, and then cutting back, is no way to operate a successful company.
Thus, while growth in US crude oil production greatly supported world growth in crude oil production in the 2009 to 2018 period, it is impossible to see this pattern continuing. Getting crude oil production back up to the level of 12 million barrels a day where it was before the COVID restrictions would be extremely difficult. Further production growth, to support the growing needs of an expanding world population, is likely impossible.
OPEC Crude Oil Production
Figure 7 shows EIA crude oil production estimates for the total group of countries that are now members of OPEC. It also shows crude oil production excluding the two countries which have recently been subject to sanctions: Iran and Venezuela.
If Iran and Venezuela are removed, OPEC’s long-term production is surprisingly “flat.” The “peak” period of production is the fourth quarter of 2018. The fourth quarter of 2018 was the time when the OPEC countries were producing as much oil as they could, to get their production quotas as high as possible after the planned cutbacks that took effect at the beginning of 2019.
Strangely, EIA data indicates that production didn’t fall very much for this group of countries (OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela), starting in early 2019. The 2019 cutback seems mostly to have affected the production of Iran and Venezuela. It was only later, in the first three quarters of 2020, when COVID restrictions were affecting worldwide production, that crude oil production for OPEC excluding Iran and Venezuela fell by 4 million barrels per day. Production for this group then began to rise, leaving a shortfall of about 900,000 barrels a day, relative to where it had been before the 2020 lockdowns.
It seems to me that, at most, production for the group of OPEC countries excluding Iran and Venezuela can be ramped up by 900,000 barrels a day, and even this is “iffy.” Iraq is reported to be having difficulty with its production; it needs more investment, or its production will fall. Nigeria is past peak, and it is also having difficulty with its production. The high reported crude oil reserves are meaningless; the question is, “How much can these countries produce when it is required?” It doesn’t look like production can be ramped up very much. Furthermore, we cannot count on continued long-term growth in production from these countries, such as would be needed to keep pace with rising world population.
Figure 8 suggests that, indeed, Iran might be able to raise its production by perhaps 1.0 million barrels a day when sanctions are lifted.
Venezuela looks like a country whose crude oil production was already declining before sanctions were imposed. The cost of production there was likely far higher than the world oil price. Also, Venezuela has oil debts to China that it needs to repay. At most, we might expect that Venezuela’s production could be raised by 300,000 barrels per day in the absence of sanctions.
Putting the three estimates of amounts that crude oil production can perhaps be raised together, we have:
- OPEC ex Iran and Venezuela: 900,000 bpd
- Iran: 1,000,000 bpd
- Venezuela: 300,000 bpd
- Total: 2.2 million bpd
The shortfall of crude oil production in 2021, relative to 2018 production, was 5.9 million bpd, as mentioned in Section [1]. The 2.2 million barrels per day possibly available from this analysis gets us nowhere near the 2018 level. Furthermore, we have nowhere to go to obtain the rising crude oil production required to support the rising population with enough crude oil to supply food and industrial goods at today’s consumption level.
[6] Eliminating, or even reducing, Russia’s crude oil production is certain to have an adverse impact on the world economy.
Figure 9 shows the step-down in crude oil production that occurred in early 2020 and indicates that the world’s oil supply is having difficulty getting back up to pre-COVID levels. If Russia’s crude oil production were to be eliminated, it would make for another step-down of comparable magnitude. Major segments of the economy would likely need to be eliminated.
[7] When there isn’t enough crude oil to go around, the naive belief is that oil prices will rise and either more oil will be found, or substitutes will take its place. In fact, the result may be conflict and elimination of segments of the economy.
Our self-organizing economy will tend to adapt in its own way to inadequate crude oil supplies. Eventually, the economy may collapse completely, but before that happens, changes are likely to happen to try to preserve the “better functioning” parts of the economy. In this way, perhaps parts of the world economy can continue to function for a while longer while getting rid of less productive parts of the economy.
The following is a partial list of ways the economy might adapt:
- Fighting may take place over the remaining crude oil supplies. This may be the underlying reason for the conflict between NATO and Russia, with respect to Ukraine.
- COVID lockdowns indirectly reduce demand for crude oil. A person might wonder whether the current COVID lockdowns in China are partly aimed at preventing oil and other commodity prices from rising to absurd levels.
- Some organizations may disappear from the world economy because of inadequate funding or lack of profitability.
- Additional supply lines are likely to break, allowing fewer types of goods and services to be made.
- The world economy may subdivide into multiple pieces, with each piece able to make a much more limited array of goods and services than is provided today. A shift toward the use of other currencies instead of the US dollar may be part of this shift.
- World population may shrink for multiple reasons, including poor nutrition and epidemics.
- The poor, the elderly and the disabled may be increasingly cut off from government programs, as total goods and services (including total food supplies) fall too low.
- Europe could be cut off from Russian fossil fuel exports, leaving relatively more for the rest of the world.
[8] Countries that are major importers of crude oil and crude oil products would seem to be at significant risk of reduced supply if there is not enough crude oil to go around.
Figure 10 shows a rough estimate of the ratio of crude oil produced to crude oil products consumed in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. On an “All Liquids” basis, the US ratio of crude oil production to consumption would appear higher than shown on Figure 10 because of its unusually high share of natural gas liquids, ethanol, and “refinery gain” in its liquids production. If these types of production are omitted, the US still seems to have a deficit in producing the crude oil it consumes.
Perhaps all that is needed is the general idea. If inadequate crude oil is available, all of the countries at the left of Figure 10 are quite vulnerable because they are very dependent on imports. Russia and the Middle East are prime targets for countries that are desperate for crude oil.
[9] Conclusion: We are likely entering a period of conflict and confusion because of the way the world’s self-organizing economy behaves when there is an inadequate supply of crude oil.
The issue of how important crude oil is to the world economy has been left out of most textbooks for years. Instead, we were taught creative myths covering several topics:
- Huge amounts of fossil fuels will be available in the future
- Climate change is our worst problem
- Wind and solar will save us
- A fast transition to an all-electric economy is possible
- Electric cars are the future
- The economy will grow forever
Now we are running into a serious shortfall of crude oil. We can expect a new set of problems, including far more conflict. Wars are likely. Debt defaults are likely. Political parties will take increasingly divergent positions on how to work around current problems. News media will increasingly tell the narrative that their owners and advertisers want told, with little regard for the real situation.
About all we can do is enjoy each day we have and try not to be disturbed by the increasing conflict around us. It becomes clear that many of us will not live as long or well as we previously expected, regardless of savings or supposed government programs. There is no real way to fix this issue, except perhaps to make religion and the possibility of life after death more of a focus.
Norman, “robots make things but they do not buy things” That was the plot of a science fiction story. It was a world where manufacture was 100% done by robots to keep the economy flowing each citizen was required to use and use up his/her share of the produced stuff.
The hero of the story was a individual who realized he could use his personal robot to wear and wear out his allotted stuff. In one scene we see his robot dressed in golfing clothes using/wearing out a set of golf clubs.
Fear not robots can both make everything and use everything, 😉
i take the joke ed
this how the fantasy arose that robots are going to save us all
they aint
LOL!
The drone dlivery method is only required for gated communities, mansions and palaces.
If you really think someone is doing a single thing for you lay person you must have been dead asleep in the last 2 years.
Whenever you put your faith in big government for any reason, sooner or later you wind up an apologist for mass murder.
The most revolutionary thing you can do is get to know your neighbors.
The Declaration of Independence is so lucid were afraid of it today. It scares the hell out of every modern bureaucrat, because it tells them there comes a time when we must stop taking orders.
There is no better way to return the matter of taxation to full public discusssion than to repeal the withholding taxes on wages and salaries. Only when the American people are confronted with the enormous excesses of government in a personal and direct way – by an annual bill for services rendered – will they be able to make an informed judgment about which services they want and which ones they can do without.
It is curious to note that when for reasons of conscience, people refuse to kill, they are often exempted from active military duty. But there are no exemptions for people who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to financially support the bureaucracy that actually does the killing. Apparently, the state takes money more seriously than life.
Karl Hess
Karl Hess (born Carl Hess III; May 25, 1923 – April 22, 1994) was an American speechwriter and author. He was also a political philosopher, editor, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister, and libertarian activist. His career included stints on the Republican right and the New Left before embracing anarchism.[1]
……
All of this unfolded around the same time as his divorce from his first wife. Hess hereafter publicly criticized big business, suburban American hypocrisy and the military-industrial complex. Though well beyond college age, Hess joined Students for a Democratic Society, worked with the Black Panther Party and protested the Vietnam War.[2]
After his work on the Goldwater campaign, Hess was audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which he believed was in retaliation for his support of the losing candidate. In response, he sent the IRS a copy of the Declaration of Independence with a letter saying that he would never again pay taxes. Hess claimed that the IRS then threatened to put a lien on all of his property and 100% of his future earnings. He was supported financially thereafter by his wife and used barter to keep himself afloat.[5][unreliable source?]
.
.Hess’s life as a welder put him in rapport with a very large segment of the American population who are manual laborers. He eventually came to the conviction that virtually no one in national politics identified with these people anymore. Hess’s revolt against public giantism reflected a distrust toward large-corporate business as well as big government. After Hess had made friends within the New Left and related circles, he began to encounter the young, new-breed appropriate technology enthusiasts[10] (exemplified, by the early 1970s, in the editors and readerships of the Whole Earth Catalog and Mother Earth News).
In the early 1970s, Hess became involved in an experiment with several friends and colleagues to bring self-built and -managed technology into the direct service of the economic and social life of the poor, largely African American neighborhood of Adams-Morgan in Washington, D.C. It was the neighborhood in which Hess had spent his childhood. Afterward, Hess wrote a book entitled Community Technology which told the story of this experiment and its results. According to Hess, the residents had a vigorous go at participatory democracy, and the neighborhood seemed for a time like a fertile ground for the growth of community identity and capability.
Much of the technological experimentation Hess and others engaged in there was successful in technical terms (apparatus was built, food raised, solar energy captured, etc.). For instance, Hess wrote: “In one experiment undertaken by the author and associates, an inner-city basement space, roughly thirty by fifty feet, was sufficient to house plywood tanks in which rainbow trout were produced at a cost of less than a dollar per pound. In a regular production run the total number of fish that can be raised in such a basement area was projected to be five tons per year.”[11] He taught courses and lectured on Appropriate Technology and Social Change in this period at the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont. Nonetheless, the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, continuing on what he felt was a path of social deterioration and real-estate gentrification, declined to devote itself to expanding on the technology. Hence, in his view, a needy community got little value from the application of viable technology.
Subsequently, Hess and his wife, Therese, moved to rural Opequon Creek between Martinsburg and Kearneysville, West Virginia, where he set up a welding shop as partial support for his household. He became deeply involved with local affairs there. Hess built an affordable house that relied largely on passive-solar heating, and took an interest in wind power and all forms of solar energy. The house they built was a 2000 sq. ft. sun-warmed, earth-sheltered structure – constructed mostly using their own labor, and at cost of just $10,000 (mid-1970s dollars). They acquired most of the tools needed for the construction, and the appliances needed for a comfortable modern life, second-hand.[2] By the late 1970s, Hess saw solar energy as emblematic of decentralization and nuclear energy as emblematic of central organization.[10]
Hess wrote for a survivalist newsletter titled Personal Survival (“P.S.”) Letter, which was published from 1977 to 1982. It was first published and edited by Mel Tappan. In the same time period, Hess authored the book A Common Sense Strategy for Survivalists.
Hess ran a symbolic campaign for Governor of West Virginia in 1992. When asked by a reporter what his first act would be if elected, he quipped, “I will demand an immediate recount.”
Lots,more on the Wikipedia page.
Recommend checking him out and his writings/life.
Interesting guy.
Very fascinating life indeed!
Just bought his book titled Dear America, which I read ages ago and can be very pricey. Remember one passage where he lived in a very Conservative, Republican upper neighborhood and he purchased a motorcycle to ride ….it struck him how those around him reacted to change…and not in a favorable manner. From that he began to question
all aspects our our cultural society.
Alex Wade in Rodale Press Affordable Houses you can build featured his owner built house…
Has a number of books he wrote and several about the man himself.
Think he penned the famous Goldwater line …when he was his speechwriter.
Another pioneer that’s fading away from collective memory
Nice points.
Dennis L.
Vaccine Rollout Correlates With 25% Spike in Cardiac Arrest Emergency Calls for Young Adults, Study Finds
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/04/29/vaccine-rollout-correlates-with-25-spike-in-cardiac-arrest-emergency-calls-for-young-adults-study-finds/
mike norm? How’s that mass psychosis working out for you?
The human side of life:
“Sitting in a food tent outside a Warsaw train station on the Saturday before Easter, Porowska said she had hardly been home in the past two months. Her house was a mess. She was exhausted. And she hadn’t had time to prepare for the holiday.”
“I just hope my husband doesn’t divorce me and my son doesn’t abandon me,” she joked. “But really, my hope is that the volunteers do not abandon me.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poland-s-resources-running-dry-as-ukrainian-refugee-crisis-continues/ar-AAWLTkd?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=feacfb77defe4655926de37a3884da99
She has abandoned her son, she seeks fulfillment in a job, raising a child up close and personal is many times a thankless job.
Huberman states children are born with far more neurons than needed, we sort them out, language learning is an example. This time cannot be regained, around four or five we have the neurons and connections for life. Her empathy for the many has caused her to abandon what is in front of her.
Her hope was the volunteers do not abandon her, she willingly faces divorce and loss of her son’s time to do her job. She jokes about her family.
My observation, NUTZ. Is the collapse of Western Civilization due in part to this ethos?
Dennis L.
Dennis, we do not know the age of the son. He could be 14 in which case not abandonment.
This does point to a gender difference in all countries woman welcome refugees with calculating cost to society. The offer unsustainable levels of aid.
Better to have daughters… give them ‘curriculum’ … and send them off to use their skills… where the $$$ is.
> Ukraine war update with Pepe Escobar and Richard Medhurst
(machine translation)
> What happened in Ukraine on April 30: civilians left Azovstal, criminal cases against mercenaries in the DPR
The international edition of the Federal News Agency tells how the situation in Ukraine and Donbass is as of April 30.
Russia
According to data from the evening briefing of the Russian Ministry of Defense, during the day, air-launched precision-guided missiles hit 17 important military facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Eight places of deployment of enemy personnel and equipment, five artillery firing positions of multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), as well as several fortified positions were attacked. In addition, aimed strikes destroyed a warehouse with weapons and a command post near the settlement. p. Pokrovskoe, Dnepropetrovsk region.
Aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces distinguished themselves by the elimination of 200 members of nationalist battalions and 23 armored vehicles. Airstrikes were carried out on nine strongholds and troop concentration zones, two command posts and five storage sites for ammunition and fuel and lubricants.
Russian artillerymen and fighters of the missile forces attacked at least 319 areas occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as 12 more command posts and a couple of military warehouses with missiles and shells for barreled guns.
The air defense systems of our army, in turn, shot down a Su-25 aircraft of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Chervony Yar in the Kherson region, as well as two drones in the sky over Vladimirovka and 12 Smerch MLRS shells in the Kamenka region.
The situation in the DPR
In addition to protecting the republic from enemy attacks, the forces of the People’s Militia of the DPR continued to liberate the region. During the day, the Donetsk military destroyed 34 Ukrainian nationalists, three firing points of D-30 howitzers, one armored personnel carrier and a transport truck. At the same time, one infantry fighting vehicle of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was captured.
The official representation of the NM DPR reported with regret that in the battles for the independence of the republic, three soldiers were killed while performing their military duty today, and 14 more were injured.
Also on Saturday, an important process was launched on the territory of the Mariupol plant “Azovstal”, occupied by the nationalist formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and foreign mercenaries. In the afternoon, 25 civilians were finally able to leave the area of the industrial facility. Among the citizens who decided to take this step were 19 adults and six children.
Despite the crimes of Ukrainian militants, they still have the opportunity to follow the example of their compatriots and leave the factory. True, after all their criminal actions, the national battalions can only count on surrender, while civilians will be assisted in evacuation in any chosen direction.
However, the militants, apparently, are not yet ready to compromise – they are still looking for ways to forcefully break through the encirclement of the RF Armed Forces and the NM of the DPR in order to maintain weapons and freedom. However, all their attempts are promptly suppressed.
Also today , there was a message that the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Donetsk People’s Republic opened a criminal case against captured foreign mercenaries.
In particular, we are talking about two Britons and one Moroccan, who are accused of committing actions by prior conspiracy aimed at forcibly seizing power in the state.
The situation in the LPR
One of the most significant events of that day was the liberation of the industrial zone of the city of Rubizhne from Ukrainian militants. They held this area for a long time and fortified it well, and after the capture of the city by the Luhansk forces, they unsuccessfully tried several times to regain control over it. As a result, the fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were forced to leave their positions and flee. Now we can expect that this area will become safer.
All this is happening against the backdrop of ongoing fighting in Severodonetsk, and especially fierce fighting in Popasnaya. The struggle for this city is being fought in extremely difficult conditions of dense development, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine have turned into a series of fortified areas during the years of the conflict.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the NM of the LPR, and detachments of volunteers have already been able to destroy several strongholds around him. At the moment, the southwestern part of the city is being cleaned up. The next goal of the allied forces is the Popasnyansky car repair plant, which occupies an important place in the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
https://riafan.ru/23158992-chto_proizoshlo_na_ukraine_30_aprelya_grazhdanskie_pokinuli_azovstal_ugolovnie_dela_protiv_naemnikov_v_dnr
“Labor issues, idle trains leave U.S. grain and food stranded – shippers.
“Rail backlogs in the United States are delaying shipment of grains as well as processed flour and corn syrup, contributing to the national problem of inflation, food and grain companies said at a hearing this week.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/labor-issues-idle-trains-leave-us-grain-food-stranded-shippers-2022-04-28/
“Why Everyone Is So Mad About the Economy.
“Downturns tend to cause concentrated economic pain for a few, leaving many others unscathed… In contrast, nobody escapes inflation… Today’s inflation comes on top of a long-simmering affordability crisis, too.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/us-economy-inflation-unemployment-housing/629717/
“‘We can’t even buy food’: New Yorkers protest proposed rent increases.
“Recently proposed 9% hikes for rent stabilized apartments stoke panic as residents call on Eric Adams to roll it back.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/30/new-york-rent-stabilized-apartments-proposed-increases
Labor issues seem to occur when employers are not sufficiently profitable to pay workers enough to maintain their standard of living. The whole system is being squeezed.
Yes, agrees strongly with experience; corollary, owners’ are hostage to their invested capital – robots to the rescue?
Might explain in part companies closing factories; that is not a pleasant job, requires a certain type of boss, not the nicest person, not the greatest job.
Dennis L.
Second thought.
Financialization involves very little capital, plant and equipment. Owners not subject to hostage problem.
Been there, done that, I sold at the top of the curve; who says business school teaches no good lessons?
Thanks to all for the comments, wonderful place to tryout ideas.
Dennis L.
“You can see our nauseating freefall in real time. A friend set forth to shop for a car last week. Her current ride is eight years old and has 110-K on the odo. At two dealerships, there was no inventory of new cars on the lots. The low-mileage used cars were actually priced higher than the new ones (which were not there), and all prices are generally higher than a sinking middle-class can possibly afford. Delivery of a new car could not be promised before September at the earli”est, the sales rep said. I will tell you what this means: it means that the car industry’s business model is broken.
“Similarly, a conversation I had Saturday with the farm-and-garden store owner in town; supplies of everything are off. Wholesale cost of everything is out-of-sight. He usually has a hundred chain saws in stock this time of year. This April, he’s only got ten. Anything electrical — no replacement parts. They’re short on fertilizer and vegetable seeds. Meanwhile, food processing plants all around the country are mysteriously blowing up and burning down. No supper for you, America!”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/shocks-to-the-system/
Can somone fill me in on this?
I work in a place (in Fremont, CA, “silicon valley”) where they make equipment which makes microchips, & business has been strong, lately — I’ve heard of microchip shortages in the car industry.
Sounds like Kunstler is a year behind the times, supply was a bit spotty last year, but this year is great. My work(plastics manufacturing) was having supplier issues but that’s mostly smoothed out now. Sales and profits are up even factoring in inflation. My husband just got a hybrid Camry, there were several on the lot to pick from, there’s a few gaps in the grocery shelves but nothing totally missing. Everything seems fine and no one I know has gotten serious sick or died from covid or the vaccine. It’s all just a bunch of doomers trying to out scare each other. Spring is here. Trees are starting leaf out. Get ready for parties and cookouts.
My lifelong friend had a stroke immediately after his 2nd jab. Is that doomed talk trying to scare somebody?
I’m sorry about your friend but if it was immediately afterwards then he doesn’t count as being vaccinated.
Touché….good one!
Good for whom?
Obviously a delayed reaction to the first jab.
The stroke could have been brought on by worry spread by doomers.
“I’ve heard of microchip shortages in the car industry.”
Car production has been terribly affected here in the UK: “The number of cars manufactured in the UK fell by a third during the first three months of the year, with just 207,347 cars produced – down 99,211 units on the first quarter of 2021.”
https://www.carwow.co.uk/news/6073/uk-car-production-falls-by-a-third#gref
I’ve not heard of any mass layoffs — so I wonder what all the people at the auto factories are doing?
I’m keen to see first-hand reports.
Simple guess on prices: the US has used the reserve status of the dollar to print money to purchase goods. Autos have always been more expensive elsewhere, even Canada. That era is ending; plenty of goods at world prices.
Dennis L.
After Russia defeats Ukraine will Russian oil come back to the markets with a vengeance? I think they might flood the markets with cheap oil so that they can pay for the war and to fix Ukraine am I incorrect on this? Is Russian oil limitless or is it in the decline as well?
excellent question. Russia’s lockdowns, however ineffectual and disrespected, were enforced for several months in spring 2020 and fall 2021. this makes me think that russia is close to starting a decline and authorities wanted to reduce consumption. Russia has some unexploited fields in the Arctic, but bringing them to production is not a given.
That’s not right. Russia just recorded the biggest budget surplus in many years. Russia is selling less oil, but oil prices are higher. Moreover, Europe has been buying MORE gas since the start of the war, apparently intending to fill up now to go cold turkey in a few months. We’ll see how well that works, but I’m guessing it won’t – the EU doesn’t even have the LNG facilities to process all the LNG they would need if there were LNG suppliers to supply it and I just saw headlines that France is shutting down more nuclear. Go figure, it’s like they’re staging a collapse purposefully.
if collapse is being staged purposefully—then what is the ultimate purpose.?
Help big pharmacy with more vaccine shots?
if you’re not joking Gail—sometimes hard to tell on here–i rather think you are,
but for those who think you aren’t, collapse would:
1….make vax production impossible (factory production system wiped out) take a look at the production techniques involved in producing a hollow needle.
2….eliminate the vax profit base, money destabilised, hyperinflation.
3…..remove excess population, making vaxxing irrelevant.
4…..remove the virus ‘power base’ –far fewer human carriers, socially distanced by miles, no longer in close quarters with animals..
5… those left would be too busy struggling to stay alive to be concerned with getting vaxxed
But until collapse actually leads to a huge reduction in fossils fuel availability, the actions of governments help support the pharmaceutical industry over the education industry, the fancy clothing industry, the convention industry and the tourism industry. When there is not enough resources to go around, they direct a disproportionate share of resources are available to the pharmaceutical industry.
Pushing the use of vaccines gives the illusion that governments are in charge and know what they are doing. Related shutdowns can cut down on fossil fuel use. This is a big problem for fossil fuel importers. The shutdowns can also help governments keep order.
The mRNA COVID vaccines mostly have one benefit: they shorten hospitalizations when a person gets COVID. This makes the vaccines very appealing to employers and governments that have to pay for hospitalization after people catch COVID. It also makes they very appealing to US medical groups, who make their money mostly from elective surgery. If there is too much COVID, the elective surgery gets pushed out of the way, by the less profitable COVID hospitalizations. So, the rest of the medical industry strongly supports the vaccines, as well.
At the beginning, it looked as if mRNA COVID vaccines could prevent transmission. This gave hope that the vaccines could actually stop the cycle of transmission. But, as time goes on, it has become clear that the mRNA vaccines increase overall mortality rates in people under age 65. Also, the length of time that they can act to prevent transmission gets shorter and shorter, as more shots are administered. In fact, the mRNA vaccines seem indirectly to increase transmission because people are so lightly sick that they don’t realize that there is a problem. Once the short period of stopping transmission ends, those with the vaccines seem to be more vulnerable to catching the illness than they would be otherwise. This keeps the virus circulating endlessly.
on a following reply to this thread—i ended with:
the above might take years (or maybe only months) to fall into place, and there will be wars and conspiracies to deny it.
but it will happen
(that is my long term view)
******
I said at the very start of this 2 years ago—governments have a knee jerk reaction, they have no more idea of what to do than you or i do. They had to be seen to be doing ‘something’—hence building of emergency field hospitals, which have never been used.
to repeat–the 1921 outbreak killed 50m from a world population of 2 bn
the arithmetic was thus made obvious— hence panic
a direct result of it has been the profit motive kicking in big time for the pharma industry—this is human nature,
yes the virus will take its course, move through the population, and die back. just as it did 100 years ago. And there have been numerous mistakes made along the way. No question about that. Plus all the conspirocrazies on social media.
but a coalition of all governments, world wide, collectively recognising that it presented a unique opportunity to cut commercial activity, thus ‘saving’ fuel resources, stretches credibility too far.
if fuel resource use is decreased by any significant degree, the web of commerce will disintegrate completely. The dimmest brain in the government toolbox can figure that out
once that disintregation is in motion, (as it may well be right now)—no human force can stop it. No government group is strong enough to say: enough is enough.
why not? Because no one can know the necessary ‘diminished level’ at which some form of current civilisation can sustain itself–and if such a process was taking place, the world would descend into murderous chaos very quickly.
Or are we to be ‘selective’ and dispense with say—the population of Africa? There’s 2bn gone. Leave the world with 6bn.
But Americans are the biggest polluters/consumers of all.
Does that then leave Americans to drain Africa of resources, so the USA can carry on as before? That may well be the fantasy that some have.
I don’t.
or is the ‘plan’ to reduce us to 1 bn—ie pre 1700 level.?
if that is so, the ‘industrial world’ will not function at all.—and i mean that in the absolute sense.
As I pointed out earlier—if there’s no one to use oil, oil value vanishes. So the ‘theory’ that nations can somehow preserve national wealth and economic stability by somehow preventing our use of it becomes the focus of conspiramania.
personally. i dont think our elected leaders are bright enough to figure out policy for next week, let alone work out a plot of that complexity–stretching over years.
wealth has only one means by which it is created—by the conversion of one form of material into another, which can be bought and sold. That must increase year on year. Which it can’t of course.
if there are no people, then conversion will not occur. Wealth is not created by passing cash hand to hand.
robots?—robots can only make stuff–they buy nothing. And if people live on bare subsistence, the won’t be able to buy anything either.
So the ‘elite’ I am constantly told about, will be reduced to paupers, just like the rest of us peasants.
I don’t think that I or anyone else said:
The self-organizing economy acts to pull together many pieces that grew up independently:
Many countries figured out that conventional wars were simply too energy intensive to depend on in the future. The military arms of quite a large number of countries decided to look into the use of biological weapons, to work around this difficulty.
There are also viruses that naturally jump from animals to humans.
Pandemics are a known problem. They have happened over and over. Countries are interested in what causes them and what the latest research seems to say is useful for fighting them.
Medical researchers figured out that finding ways to defeat these viruses (whether biological weapons of naturally jumping to humans) was a useful thing to do. In fact, they could make money if they could patent new techniques. Pharmaceutical companies figured out that they could make a lot of money if they could figure out how to quickly make and sell a vaccine that would stop problem virus. (There was a side benefit as well. Some vaccine techniques might be used as drug delivery techniques, allowing the possibility of more money elsewhere.)
Someone clever got the idea of calling the COVID mRNA pre-treatments “vaccines.” The use of this misleading term led people everywhere to think of the “vaccines” as a more or less magical solution. Once a person had a vaccine treatment, the virus could no longer harm them. People assumed that the vaccine would stop transmission and would not cause a large number of adverse effects. People in charge of “vaccines” could logically be put in high positions, when it came to decide what to do about the pandemic.
Johns Hopkins University (with federal money, I am sure) put together a training program called Event 201 to train government officials and influential news media how to respond if/when a pandemic occurred. https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/
Look at this site carefully to see how many influential people from around the world came. The introduction to this site says:
One of the responses, even at this point, was the idea of using fear to keep people at home to stop spreading the disease.
There was also a UK modeling exercise, very early on, that led to the belief that the deaths from the pandemic would be far worse than was really the case.
Also, the only data presented in televised reports was the number of deaths relative to the number of hospitalized patients. This ratio seemed very high, partly because the treatment was entirely wrong, killing the patients, and partly because the large number of people having light cases was not included in the denominator. People everywhere were led to believe that the disease would kill them. Neal Ferguson of the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team came up with an approach to be used until vaccines became available:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
Politicians were, at that time, having troubles controlling angry mobs, because people were unhappy wages were too low, or pensions were too low. China, where the illness broke out, took an incredibly strict approach to trying to control the virus (perhaps because the Wuhan area also was having demonstrations because of low wages).
To some extent, those following the example of China were simply following a pattern they saw used elsewhere. It did seem to calm down some other problems. and it gave countries an excuse to borrow more money and begin new programs, to fix financial problems they were having. Indirectly, these financial problems were the result of the energy limits we are reaching. I doubt that many people made the connection between low wages and low profits corresponding to energy limits.
Volunteers, basically from the pharmaceutical industry (Fauci) and from those investing in the pharmaceutical industry (Bill Gates), took a lead in telling people what to do do. Also, Andrew Cuomo of New York gave COVID briefings that acted to confirm the belief that all of these strange actions were necessary.
NP>>>>>>but a coalition of all governments, world wide, collectively recognising that it presented a unique opportunity to cut commercial activity, thus ‘saving’ fuel resources, stretches credibility too far.<<<<>>>>Many countries figured out that conventional wars were simply too energy intensive to depend on in the future. The military arms of quite a large number of countries decided to look into the use of biological weapons, to work around this difficulty. <<<<<
Which is part of your summary. Just said in a different way.The meaning is roughly the same.
wars are an expensive activity in terms of energy, but in essence they are a commercial activity—young men die in order to make old men rich, by consuming manufactured goods and using fossil fuels.
When WW2 ended, manufacturing switched from war toys to peace toys without a break.
In other words, collective action requires a profit motive.
But to try to keep this thread short.
Viruses, which have their normal and benign environment within animal hosts' jumped to humans as soon as we encroached too deeply into their territory. Numerous diseases are now recognised as zoonotic. To me this seems to be a defence mechanism.
We now possess the means to manufacture vaccines 'for profit'
It was certain that that would happen
If we reduce 'activity' to reduce the use of fuels, then our economic web well break permanently. There will be no way of rebuilding it.
So any 'collective action' will destry the web of commerce on which 'profit' depends. And our existence, as we now have it, must show a profit. (futile, i agree, but there it is)
The details can be argued over to the n'th degree, but that is the endgame.
At the Hopkins conference, they were admitting that future pandemics were certain soall kinds of scenarios were mulled over, and put forward as 'solutions' to future disease catastrophes.
but none i think, were offered in the sense that the future of humankind would be constrained in such a way that commercial interchange would cease, in order to restrict resource consumption and reduce population
'modelling exercises' are like wargames–they work fine until the first shot is fired.
When the “first shot is fired,” you get someone trying to lay out the details. Here, we have the British solution which mirrors what China had already done. Poor countries want to emulate the rich countries. No one really knew what to do. The financial situation was terrible in many countries. Shutting down factories that were underperforming to begin with didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
If people had looked back at what had been done before, such as during the Spanish Flu of 1918-19, any closures were very temporary and local.
Perhaps too cynical. I was a resident in the seventies, large county hospital, more male physicians than female, many more.
Decisions were made differently then than now. I will leave it at that.
There is huge responsibility in caring for people, it is different up close and personal. Screw up and you live with it.
People in power need to make the best decisions they can based on political reality; sometimes they win, sometimes we all suffer.
Dennis L.
i know i keep banging the energy drum
but that’s the only one there is.
without that, increasing year on year, governments are impotent
Thump this drum norm https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=1621
no doubt my use of the word impotent caught your attention eddy
I think the real danger lies in “analysts” even trying to make sense, and with their educated/experienced backgrounds, saying that this or this can play out. Like…the distortion to the macro world by the combination of forces: CBs, planned obsolescence, growth model, ridiculous Wall Street trading schemes and financial ‘instrument’ creations, has so twisted a reliable and operable financial system that to comment further about it simply gives the sinister perpetrators of misery continued carte blanche to extend the downward spiral. I don’t like it.
A guess: Nihilism as indoctrinated in schools of higher learning with Nitzsche as the protagonist. There is something in humans which likes to dwell on the end of times, indeed some even want it brought on.
A guess: I studied many things, math was for me by far the hardest, made it into grad school, Madison, retired early went to dental school, made a living.
Liberal arts are easy, it is what you say it is, perhaps this is a problem, it is a dead end, philosophy is a dead end because it does not run experiments, observe the results and change the hypothesis accordingly. Might I suggest this is more the feminine?
Dennis L.
I studied “fine arts,” painting, and concur with much that you criticize in the arts. But a good art training art institution develops aesthetic understanding, and that understanding is invaluable for sensing the relationship between how things look and how they perform.
But through the years I’ve veered away from “art for art’s sake” to aesthetics-driven “planning” based on incrementalism and continual testing and measuring. Thus we get away from running a polity the “right” way to running the way in which performance can be continually evaluated and corrected. It’s a formula that as yet has no name known to me. Somewhat existentialist…
The stated goal is the 4th Industrial Revolution. You’ll be happy and Own nothing.. Neo-feudalism, rationing, social credit with restrictions on mobility and access to normal life for the commoners managed by Digital ID and CBDCs responding to Public Health Emergencies, Rogue States, Climate Threats and Domestic Terror.. BAU for the stakeholders. Useful idiots and Useless Class dsispensed with.. Fierce defenders of the narrative or self-styled experts get cancelled.. Skilled labor and Managerial Classes continue to enjoy modest prosperity with compliance, providing data for updates and serving as agents/eyes on the street.. panopticon.
there’s only been one industrial revolution (1709-on)
that’s all there can ever be.
i think what you describe is some kind of revolution/social collapse—which is a different thing altogether
norm – mike — let’s discuss this https://metatron.substack.com/p/covid-requiem-aeternam?s=r
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1148232e-f0a1-4203-82f5-ef77a9ea433a_798x794.png
Fake War (again) https://t.me/jermwarfare/12210
New Study Links Many Popular OTC Meds With Alzheimer’s by Joseph Mercola
“Many common over-the-counter drugs contain anticholinergic ingredients, including antihistamine medications sold under the brand names Benadryl and Chlor-Trimeton, sleep aids such as Tylenol PM, Aleve PM and Unisom, the motion sickness medication Dramamine and various cold medicines”
Research Highlights Risks of Anticholinergic Drugs
A June 2019 study[10] in JAMA that assessed the dementia risk associated with various anticholinergic drugs found the link was strongest for:
Antidepressants (tricyclic antidepressants such as imipramine,[11] doxepine or amitriptyline have strong anticholinergic effects,
Antiparkinson’s drugs
Antipsychotics (such as clozapine,[13] chlorpromazine or olanzapine[14])
Bladder antimuscarinics (such as oxybutynin or tolterodine,[15] prescribed for overactive bladder)
Antiepileptic drugs (such as oxcarbazepine or carbamazepine[16])”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/new-study-links-many-popular-otc-meds-with-alzheimers_4428901.html
You have it right, ivanislav! What Russia would like is to sell, perhaps not as much oil, but at higher prices.
“…this makes me think that Russia is close to starting a decline…”
Russia’s Energy Ministry said as much last year:
“In a strategy document outlining prospects for Russia’s critical oil and gas industry, the government said its “base case” — or most likely — scenario is that Russia’s oil production will never again hit the record levels recorded in 2019.”
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/industry-and-energy/2021/04/russia-may-have-passed-peak-oil-output-government
peak for Russian nat gas 2029-2030 with out falling 15% every five years.
/srac
so a smart move on EUs part to switch to their new energy system
/srac off
if there are fewer, and decreasing, points of consumption for oil, then even if it is given away for free, it still will be unusable.
If Putin destroys the stability of world markets, his fossil fuels will warm Russians through their winters for a while, but no more than that.
if oil cannot be used, then it will have no value, and ultimately will be left in the ground.
if oil is attempted to be sold at higher prices, it will kill the market it depends on the sustain its market value.
it isn’t possible to ‘force’ people to consume oil, or even persuade them.
Oil–and coal and gas– use can only
be consumed by the power of purpose, If oil use doesn’t deliver ongoing profit, then it will not be consumed.
the above might take years (or maybe only months) to fall into place, and there will be wars and conspiracies to deny it.
but it will happen.
If the Russians can sell their fossil fuels in rubles perhaps their currency will appreciate and standards of living for the relatively poor Russians will improve.
European leaders and political commentators actually wants to sanction all Russian exports including energy…and in addition to that they want to start WWIII
They love what is happening in Ukraine and want to join the party…they want to be valiant and brave…war is progressive…bloody pacifists go to hell!
At leas this is what I read from most of the liberals in Europe…they are going insane… hurray!
Leaders seem to believe that as long as what happens is their decision, citizens will go along with it. Citizens will re-elect politicians who encourage what seems to be happening, regardless of what steps they may take to prevent it. Citizens will no longer be afraid of a situation that they should logically be very much afraid of.
In some ways, the situation occurring now is precisely the opposite situation of scaring everyone to death with the COVID story, to keep people in their homes. Now, leaders are assuring people that what is happening naturally is not a problem. This makes the population happy, and it goes along with the ridiculous stories that they told their citizens earlier about a transition to renewables being right around the corner.
What sexual equality looks like:
“learning to identify and defuse explosives is something Anastasiia Minchukova never thought she would have to do as an English teacher in Ukraine. Yet there she was wearing a face shield, armed with a landmine detector and venturing into a field dotted with danger warnings.
Russia’s war in Ukraine took Minchukova, 20, and five other women to Kosovo, where they are attending a hands-on course in clearing landmines and other dangers that may remain hidden across their country once combat ends.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/a-huge-demand-ukrainian-women-train-to-clear-landmines/ar-AAWMtG6?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=95eb7f1b4f734fdf882692dadbee8ae2
This is crazy, there are many jobs I don’t like, indeed resent; but it is/was my job so I do/did it; my wife would not be digging mines, potatoes perhaps, but mines no. Good job for grandpa, not kidding, wish no ill.
Dennis L.
A friend of mine volunteered for bomb disposal when in the army: some people like the thrill.
Of course, that poor, woman hastily-trained, is just meant to be another statistic to prove how evil Russians, and only Russians, are.
Criminal.
We men do that, women have a child, one does not risk the child for a thrill. A guess would be it is rite of passage, becoming a man.
Looking at life, some of our social ideas in the US don’t work. It is not that they are “wrong” or malicious, they don’t work.
We live as a group, it is impossible to live alone other than a mountain man and even they had to return to a trading camp, etc.
Dennis L.
Yes, her function is obviously to pull the heart strings of Western people.
It would add to her utility if she were pretty, trained as a nurse, had a handicapped child and a vegetable garden at home from which she fed the parentless street urchins in her community.
In a way, it makes a difference if the woman is without dependents. Without dependents, in some sense the loss of her life is no different than the loss of a man’s life, if he is without dependents.
I have a cousin who is a retired nurse. She was married, but her husband died. They had no children. Her philosophy has been to go help out wherever in the world extra nurses are needed. She went to Africa in at least one epidemic (ebola?), after raising funds to pay for her trip there. She has also helped after hurricanes in the US.
Most of the young Ukrainian men escaped the Nazi leadership and immigrated to other countries…to escape forced conscription military service.
So the stupid women left around have to become cannon fodder.
I suppose we will start seeing articles glorifying women service in the army now.
Nepal bans imports of luxury goods as economic crisis deepens.
“…in a bid to stop the country’s foreign exchange reserves from further depleting amid a deteriorating economic situation… the import of all kinds of liquor, ready-made cigarettes and tobacco products, and snacks such as Lay’s potato chips and Kurkure have been banned.”
https://www.laprensalatina.com/nepal-bans-imports-of-luxury-goods-as-economic-crisis-deepens/
“Nepal is cutting its official workweek, hoping a longer weekend will help save the country’s economy.
“…to save on oil imports—which Nepal needs for transportation—Nepal decided to shorten its workweek… Nepal spends roughly $8.2 million a day on fuel imports, and the country’s state-owned oil company announced in January that it was effectively bankrupt.”
https://fortune.com/2022/04/29/nepal-foreign-reserves-import-ban-alcohol-tobacco-fuel-economic-crisis/
Working less will produce more goods and services???
Makes sense, consistent with TM. Next comment:
Gail, thinking too much of GDP which is generally annual, a rate. Not having discretionary items may slow the rate, everyone gets a piece of pie albeit a smaller piece. It is the job of the chief/boss to see that no one tries to eat someonelse’s pie and every one contributes more to the overall pie than they cost; that was my job for many years, keep the group together, sometimes a person had to leave, cost > income.
Funny, generally remaining people were happy, hated to see the nonproductive person go, happier after – boss did his job. Your mileage may vary.
I wonder if the person leaving found a job more to their abilities and found self respect in being a contributing member of a group.
Dennis L.
you know it is a poor country when the rate of potato chip consumption makes a difference to the budget
From the WSJ:
Tariff Probe Casts Shadow on U.S. Solar Build-Out
Tariff’s would be a clever way to direct capital away from non productive efforts such as solar. A political way to recognize the problems with renewables, stop them, buy time to explore alternatives.
Laughing quietly, fusion is just around the corner.
Dennis L.
Watch this topic:
Hepatitis in children probably related to an Adenovirus, #41 to be precise….
https://orf.at/stories/3262864/
Sigh
So hepatitis is something we should be looking for when adenovirus COVID vaccines are being used on children. Vaccines that use adenovirus strains are AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
Some of the locations mentioned are in the US, so I would presume these would need to be related to the Johnson & Johnson vaccines, since AstraZeneca is not used here.
“Lockdown Drives China’s Jilin Into Contraction in Sign of Covid Zero Costs.
“A Covid lockdown in Jilin forced the Chinese automotive and farming hub into a steep contraction in the first quarter, flashing a warning sign about the mounting economic costs of Covid Zero as Shanghai and other regions currently grapple with similar restrictions.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-29/covid-zero-lockdown-drives-jilin-into-contraction
“Is China Juicing GDP Data? Economists Can’t Help But Wonder.
“China’s reported GDP acceleration to 4.8% in the first quarter from 4% the previous one inspired a bull market in head-scratching… GDP gaining steam at the same time new homes sales dropped 29% in March alone has others struggling to connect the dots.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampesek/2022/04/29/is-china-juicing-gdp-data-economists-cant-help-but-wonder/?sh=ae1b52139c73
Longstanding issue becomes even more apparent. We can’t believe what China tells us regarding GDP.
What about what comes out of the U,S ? Can we trust that?
All of the GDP reports indirectly reflect the huge amount of additional debt and other promises that was required to produce the goods and services. Once huge amounts of debt is not available (in fact a big unwind happens), GDP growth has to turn around.
Another issue is the calculation of the inflation rate. GDP growth is “net” of inflation. The total percentage growth in the production of goods and services is calculated, and from this, the percentage attributable to inflation is subtracted out. To make GDP results look better, all that those preparing the reports need to do is understate the inflation rate. For example, they assume that the many things that make automobiles more expensive are really benefits that we would want to pay for, so that there has been little inflation in auto costs. (This may have changed somewhat recently.) For housing, the index does not look at “mortgage payments” at all. Instead, there is some sort of “imputed rent,” which can be manipulated as desired.
I think all governments cook the books to some extent. The US headline employment rate, for example, fails to include people who have given up looking for work or who are stuck in part-time.
I recall the EU bolstering its GDP some years ago by including an estimation of illicit activities like drug-dealing and the, er, oldest profession.
I’ve been very sceptical these past few years of the *barely* positive quarterly GDP figures in the 0.1% ballpark we’ve seen, particularly, in the UK, EU and Japan. I’m sure governments lean on the national statistical bodies to nudge the figures ever so slightly into positive territory because they do not want the potentially self-re-enforcing social, political and economic fall out that comes with two consecutive contractions and the dreaded “R” word.
But China’s data is particularly notorious. The political structure there and the level of state involvement in the economy inherently encourage fraudulence:
“Local officials depend largely on economic growth – the most important factor in their performance appraisals – to gain promotion. The desire for promotion was also believed to be the key motivation behind the faking of the data.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2063125/liaoning-governor-confirms-economic-data-faked-2011-2014
A guess:
With the internet and information, someone somewhere has synthesized all this data and found metrics which represent what is actually happening.
Perhaps the key is a unit which represents economic throughput less the overhead.
Such knowledge would be very valuable and not made freely available.
The marcro numbers, US,China,German,Japan look to be about $40T, 1% of that number would be large let alone anything with two digits. Something is working, something will work.
Saw reference to digital currency and Twitter; anyone care to take a position opposite Elon?
Dennis L.
Jilin is a province in Northeast China, in China’s “rust belt.”
“Governments Tighten Grip on Global Food Stocks, Sending Prices Higher.
“…policymakers have quickly dropped the language of open markets and begun advocating a more protective approach.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/business/economy/global-food-prices-ukraine.html
“Soy Oil Jumps to Another All-Time High on Global Shortage Fears.
“Russia’s invasion of its neighbor is upending trade of key agriculture crops from a major exporting region, driving up commodity prices and causing nations to go into hoarding mode to avert massive food shortages and potential civil unrest.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-28/soy-oil-around-highest-ever-as-indonesia-expands-palm-export-ban
We are growing beans, doing our part.
Dennis L.
My mate is a hotel GM — they have ordered in hundreds of jugs of cooking oil for their restaurants … expecting a shortage/mass price hikes
And, as we heard from a commenter here, when a country announces in advance that it no longer will be exporting its excess produce, it tends to reduce the incentive to plant a large amount of a crop within the country. So, it tends to reduce production, in total.
Data, example?
Dennis L.
“Global Bonds Set for Worst Ever Month Before Burst of Rate Hikes…
“Fears of quickening inflation have torpedoed bonds worldwide, with a cut in Russian gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria and a red-hot Australian inflation print fueling expectations that the rout may continue.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-28/global-bonds-set-for-worst-ever-month-before-burst-of-rate-hikes
“Stress emerges again in Treasuries market.
“When the world’s biggest and most liquid market shows signs of stress, investors should take note”
https://www.ft.com/content/0ecb9244-46e8-4feb-b4c2-d9b277140d4f
“Nasdaq index marks worst monthly drop since 2008 financial crisis.
“The Nasdaq Composite stock index has undergone its heaviest one-month sell-off since the depths of the global financial crisis, as concerns about rising interest rates and slowing economic growth were exacerbated by softer business updates from tech giants such as Amazon, Apple and Netflix.”
https://www.ft.com/content/fa46a15f-9144-4e7c-a86f-7c75c87611aa
This effect will tend to hurt pension funds. They tend to have quite a lot of their funds in bonds.
If maturities are matched to pension withdrawals, why would notational value be an issue unless one wanted to trade them?
Dennis L
“Euro Zone Barely Grows as Germany Dodges Recession.
“Output increased 0.2% from the previous quarter in the three months through March… The figure reflects a contraction in Italy, stagnation in France and weaker-than-expected growth in Spain. Germany, the region’s largest economy, narrowly avoided a recession.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-29/france-unexpectedly-stagnates-as-war-takes-toll-gdp-update
“Half of France’s nuclear reactors taken offline, adding to electricity demand on European grid.
“On Friday 28 of France’s 56 reactors were shut down due to routine maintenance or defects, forcing EDF to buy electricity from the European grid instead, at a time of soaring demand amid the gas crisis.”
https://news.sky.com/story/nearly-half-of-frances-nuclear-reactors-taken-offline-adding-to-electricity-demand-on-european-grid-12600662
“‘Gas was like our drug’: defiant Poland vows to wean itself off Russian energy
“Moscow’s long-feared halt to supplies has met stoicism, trepidation – and a renewed determination to go it alone.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/30/gas-was-like-our-drug-defiant-poland-vows-to-wean-itself-off-russian-energy
“…under almost every scenario, the next 18 months are going to be a harrowing time for Europe, as the impacts of high prices ripple around the world and governments struggle to power their factories, heat their homes and keep their electricity plants running…
““This is a very dangerous game that is playing out,” said Edward Chow, an energy security scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/04/30/europe-natural-gas-scramble/
“Diesel In ‘Crisis’ Mode As Prices Break Records…
““I’ve started to use the term diesel ‘crisis’, Tom Kloza, head of global energy research at OPIS, told CNBC. “It clearly is a crisis that’s happening before our eyes. I wouldn’t rule out lines, shortages or $6 [price] in places beyond California. I wouldn’t say it’s a shortage yet. Europe, I think they’re headed for a shortage,” he said.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Diesel-In-Crisis-Mode-As-Prices-Break-Records.html
“Rosneft cuts diesel exports from key Russian port to zero.
“Exports of Russian diesel from Primorsk, a key supply source for Europe, are set to drop by over 30% in May from a month earlier to 1.114 million tonnes, data from traders showed on Friday.”
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rosneft-cuts-diesel-exports-key-russian-port-zero-2022-04-29
“‘Doomsday’ fuel plan to push ordinary motorists to the back of the queue [Ireland]…
“Ordinary motorists will be pushed to the back of the queue if the fuel crisis escalates and rationing is introduced amid war in Ukraine. The Irish Independent has learned details of an emergency fuel allocation plan, drawn up to deal with any ‘doomsday scenario’.”
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/doomsday-fuel-plan-to-push-ordinary-motorists-to-the-back-of-the-queue-41602273.html
“An EU Embargo On Russian Oil Is Imminent.
“Members of the European Union are expected to agree on an embargo of Russian crude oil imports as early as next week, according to officials, in a move that would lay to rest a point of contention among its members.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/An-EU-Embargo-On-Russian-Oil-Is-Imminent.html
No no no, stop virtue signalling. Europe needs to block all Russian gas if it is to fully to trash itself!
“Just do it!”
Bizarre!
I am one of the few people who liked the rich guy in Titanic.
When the ship sinks, Rose says half of the ship will die. Cal, the rich guy, says “Not the better half”.
The guy who played him is a grandchild of a Greek Jew who escaped Europe during WW2 in a dramatic way. In other words the survival genes run thru that guy’s family. Although he didn’t become famous after that, he has descendants while Leo doesn’t.
That aside, when the Crunch occurs, it is inevitable that the Better Half are going to be better suited to survive than the other hand.
I myself went thru a bunch of hurdles, and would have perished if I didn’t have survival genes. Quite a few people wanted me to die for reasons I won’t disclose; I lived and quite a few people are unhappy, even now, because of that.
These kind of genes tend to care not too much for others and anything which stands before your survival is your enemy.
The cold truth is the Better Half (although I would probably say the better 1% or so) have the genes to not care a bit when the rest goes down.
Tl.dr. In a population reduction, the kind of people you would see dead are precisely the kind of people who will continue to survive and thrive.
Glad you didn’t die as i always enjoy reading what you have to say Kulm.
Whether I agree or not. We’ve been here many years.
Kulm the Merciless is certainly one of the spices in the rich fruity bun which is OFW!
I read my husband the news bit about 1/2 of French reactors being offline. He said, “of course it’s on purpose, to drive prices up.” I asked, “why would they want to drive prices up when it’s going to crash the economy?”. He replied, “what do they care? It’s not going to affect them.”
Ouch!!!
Blue Pill Outreach Q&A Cheatsheet
After hundreds of outreach sessions, these are the most common Blue Pill responses about the injections, and suggestions for how you can respond.
Particularly useful outside poison centres, now that healthy 5+ year olds are being injected UK nationwide.
Q. You’re making up numbers / where do you get these figures from?
A. These are official UK government figures, from gov.uk pages, the UK Yellow Card system, VAERS in the US and EUDRA in the EU. Further, the MHRA admitted the death and injuries are under-reported by a factor of 10, so the actual figure is likely to be 10x higher.
Q. Well, it’s a choice, isn’t it? / It’s the parent’s choice.
A. Not for young children it isn’t. They can’t read medical journals, they can’t understand the consequences of a medical procedure. When you face these children as injured young adults in 2030, will you be able to look them in the eye and tell them you did nothing?
Q. But they are going in of their own accord / People are not being coerced.
A. People are not being informed of the deaths and injuries after Covid-19 vaccines. The government, media and medical establishment are burying it. Eg, Felicity Jackson in Urmston has seizures and a laundry list of injuries. Her instagram video with millions of views was taken down. Further, many are being coerced by threat of losing their jobs, and hence their livelihood.
Q. Well I took the vaccine and I’m fine.
A. There is very strong evidence of placebos or low dose vaccines being given out. Only a small percentage got the toxic dose. The US VAERS data clearly shows injuries are concentrated around a small number of batches. Eg, EK9788 is the most toxic UK Pfizer batch with 2,641 reports. [Ask them if they have their jab card with them, with the batch number].
The majority who got the placebos then told their friends and family, “well I got the vaccine and nothing happened to me”. Meanwhile those who are injured are dismissed and censored.
Q. Do you have Polio right now? No, you don’t. Or Smallpox or Diphtheria? No. And you have the global vaccine program to thank for that.
A. Vaccines normally take 7-10 years to develop. That’s not to create them; it’s to prove them safe over the long term. And over the short-term, covid-19 vaccines look massively, massively dangerous. Do we have the 2 year data for children? We don’t even have it for adults.
Q. But the vaccine is saving lives. All the hospitalizations / deaths are in the unvaccinated.
A. No they aren’t. 92.2% of the covid deaths in UK hospitals were vaccinated, according to official UKHSA figures, month ending 13th March 2022.
Q. But I / my friend / relative had a bad bout of covid. So we need the vaccine.
A. Both covid can be dangerous and the vaccine can be dangerous. Two wrongs don’t make a right. The evidence of vaccine injuries/death is very clear, and injured people are all around us.
Q. But what’s the biological explanation of how the vaccines are causing damage?
A. Do you know the spike protein? [most have never heard this term, including medical workers]. That’s the small circles on the outside of the coronavirus image. The vaccine replicates only the spike protein part. Your body produces billions of these, which get caught on the inside of your blood vessels. Platelets in your blood then attach to the blockage, causing a blood clot.
Q. Look around! The restrictions have ended. The vaccine did that.
A. The government ended the restrictions, not the vaccine. And they can turn them up and down like a thermostat any time they choose. Get ready for a new variant and more boosters.
Blue Pill Outreach Q&A Cheatsheet – text-only version, part 2
Q. There’s no way the doctors would give out a dangerous vaccine.
A. UK Doctors are paid £12.58 per vaccine dose plus an extra £10 per dose for the elderly and young children, and +£5 on sundays. Most clinics have done tens of thousands of doses.
Doctors are being threatened and silenced. UK GP Dr. Sam White questioned the safety of the vaccine. He was suspended and dragged through the High Court, but won his case. Similarly, Dr. Mohammad Adil, a GP and Surgeon in North Manchester General Hospital with 30 years experience, was suspended from the UK medical register for questioning the covid narrative.
Doctors have mortgages, families, cars and loans. They are putting their own finances and career above your safety. Doctors are not researchers. They follow the protocol of the General Medical Council. If they speak out, they are fired and risk bankruptcy.
It is 100% impossible to determine the two year side effects of a new medication, without waiting two years. So how did Doctors declare it safe after 6 months of testing?
Q. There’s no way the government would do this.
A. The government invested hundreds of billions of pounds in the injections. They made a huge mistake and won’t admit it, since they will be liable for trillions for the injuries and deaths.
Q. But my relative suffered with / died of covid in hospital.
Q. My friend / relative works in the NHS and has seen people dying on wards. How dare you insult their sacrifice.
A. There is strong evidence of drugs called Midazolam and Remdesivir being overused in hospitals. Both are respiratory depressants, ie, they make respiration (breathing) worse. So for people who already have trouble breathing, they are giving them drugs to worsen the problem.
Midazolam is an end of life sedative and painkiller, somewhat like morphine. A small amount is a painkiller, but too much can kill. The official NHS recommendation before covid was 0.5mg per dose. But in Jan 2020 they upped it to 5 to 10mg. In particular they targeted the elderly.
Remdesivir causes kidney and organ failure. Water in the body is not longer processed by the kidneys, so it starts to fill the organs, and then the lungs – hence, liquid on the lungs. Doctors claim this fluid is caused by covid.
These hospitalizations and deaths were used to ramp up the covid death numbers, and fearmongering, to push the vaccine.
Excellent list.
Unfortunately, I suspect most of the fools who were injected are waiting for MSM headlines such as ‘Biggest medical scandal of all time: the vaxxes kill!’ before they will wake up.
Perhaps Norman might like these points refute them one by one, ‘to sharpen his wits’ as he likes to say.
I can add that even established, very effective and generally safe asthma drugs can make respiratory problems worse: the advisory leaflets say ‘If your symptoms get worse after a dose, stop taking at once and see your doctor’.
These leaflets are a model of how truly rare side-effects ought to be made clear to patients – although GP’s never mention them, of course.
But for the pseudo-vaxxes, that doesn’t seem to apply, we are expected to trust blindly: one wonders why…..
Let’s not forget norm is a Professional Vaxxer – or Pro Vaxxer
he never saw a vax he didn’t want to shoot into his arm…
eddy
a healthier obsession, wouldn’t you agree, than constant fixation on the activities of girls of a certain age
So…jabbing a working age individual on a weekday will pay a “doctor” £12.58….£17.58 if jabbed on a Sunday.
Jabbing an elderly person or a child on a weekday will pay £22.58…. £27.58 if jabbed on a Sunday.
https://t.me/DowdEdward/326 high death rates why? https://t.me/DowdEdward/332
blaming long covid haah https://t.me/DowdEdward/328
New Nature study finds a 25% increase in emergency cardiovascular events among under-40 population in Israel during vaccine rollout and third COVID-19 wave
“The weekly emergency call counts were significantly associated with the rates of 1st and 2nd vaccine doses administered to this age group but were not with COVID-19 infection rates.
While not establishing causal relationships, the findings raise concerns regarding vaccine-induced undetected severe cardiovascular side-effects and underscore the already established causal relationship between vaccines and myocarditis.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
Where is that darn mike???? https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=1621
Elon luv covid injection https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1379887294933467139
Who allowed this guy to speak???? https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/35088
Covid Forever hahaha https://7news.com.au/news/coronavirus/nsw-victoria-authorities-detect-evidence-of-two-new-omicron-sub-variants-of-covid-19-c-6622956
Further confusion for the MOREONS https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10762815/NHS-urged-use-terms-chestfeeding-frontal-birth-instead-breastfeeding-vaginal-birth.html Is it possible for a tranny to give birth through it’s repurposed arsehole???? Asking for norm….and mike
Great Reset hahaha Buulshhit https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/35108
New Nature study referenced above is good, and from a reputable peer reviewed source.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-10928-z
The conclusions sections of the paper says:
Also:
So it is the second dose that is the particular problem, or the first dose if the person has already had COVID-19.
New Modelling Study concludes ‘Unvaccinated are a danger to the Vaccinated’; but Real-World Data proves COVID Vaccines INCREASE Risk of Infection by 400%
‘A new study which has been publicised by Forbes, makes the bold claim that “unvaccinated people increase the risk of Covid infection among the vaccinated”.
But this is fake science:
t.me/robinmg/19045
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/04/29/covid-jabs-increase-risk-infection-400percent/
Again … Fresh Hell… aimed at destabilizing https://t.me/robinmg/19059
Dr. Peter McCullough says 30% of vaccinated pilots would fail health screenings because of vaccine injuries
Well-known cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough @PeterMcCullough told U.S. Freedom Flyers co-founder Joshua Yoder that many airline pilots would fail health screenings due to vaccine-induced heart conditions. Yoder, an airline pilot himself, shared his conversation with McCullough in an April 20 interview with Vaccine Safety Research Foundation founder and tech millionaire Steve Kirsch.
“He McCullough said that if every vaccinated pilot were to be screened, there would be somewhere around a 30 percent loss in manpower,” Yoder said.
McCullough @PeterMcCullough, along with Idaho pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, Robert Kennedy Jr., Lt. Col Teresa Long, Lt. Col. Peter Chambers, signed a letter addressed to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and major airlines on December 15, 2021, persuading them to flag all vaccinated pilots and conduct EKGs, D-dimer tests, troponin tests and cardiac MRIs to evaluate their health.
According to Yoder, the most prominent health issues being reported by pilots injected with the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines include chest pains, myocarditis and pericarditis. He mentioned that three vaccinated pilots told him that they are “currently flying with chest pains” and another one said he is being treated by a cardiologist. The U.S. Freedom Flyers co-founder noted that the pilots want to remain anonymous because they don’t want to lose their jobs.
Yoder said his group would like to find a solution for these pilots and collaborate with doctors, the FAA, airlines and unions to come up with a protocol that could give airline pilots “some kind of immunity” and allow them to speak openly about their conditions.
The U.S. Freedom Flyers, an all-volunteer group of America’s transportation professionals, was formed last fall to assist employees in the air transportation industry fight the federal laws about vaccinations.
“I’m afraid if we keep going down this path, at some point it’s going to end in catastrophe. If passengers actually knew what was going on at the airlines and the FAA, they would be livid, and everyone would be jumping on a class action suit against all of them,” Yoder said.
Doctors give warning about adverse events from COVID-19 vaccine
Many doctors have warned that adverse events from the COVID-19 vaccination could cause “a pilot (to lose) control of his aircraft” and bring “untold devastation.”
As American Greatness reported, an American Airlines pilot suffered a cardiac arrest six minutes after landing his Airbus plane at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. Yoder said Captain Robert Snow nearly died when his heart stopped on April 9. “They had to shock him three times with the AED automated external defibrillator to bring him back,” Yoder related.
Snow was taken to Baylor, Scott and White Health Center, which is only ten minutes from both American Airlines and the union (the Allied Pilots Association), yet nobody from the airline or union contacted Snow while he was in the hospital, or stopped by to visit him. The only thing the airline did was fly his family to the hospital to meet with him.
Yoder said it is pretty clear that Snow’s cardiac arrest was caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but the pilot has been going through a series of tests to confirm it.
Snow called the U.S. Freedom Flyers for assistance and the group put together a “world-class” team of doctors and lawyers to help him. Yoder said that Snow is now recuperating at home.
Apparently, Yoder said, the airline industry does not want to deal with the issue.
Forbes publishes all kinds of stuff, 99% of it not medical. Modeling can be made to produce almost any result a person wants, unfortunately.
The Ministry of Truth works with the MSM to turn lies into truths. That is their job.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/04/29/arctic-ice-is-not-rapidly-vanishing-study-finds-similar-trends-over-at-least-200-years/
The Daily Sceptic (https://dailysceptic.org/2022/04/29/arctic-ice-is-not-rapidly-vanishing-study-finds-similar-trends-over-at-least-200-years/)
Arctic Ice is Not “Rapidly Vanishing” – Study Finds Similar Trends Over At Least 200 Years – The Daily Sceptic
Whisper it quietly, but Arctic ice is making a comeback. The coverage is now very close to the 1991-2020 average, well above
Predictions for May 2022?
slightly worse than April 2022.
every day when you wake up is going to be the best day of the rest of your life! cheers, David!
Continued drift to tribal groupings;
wokesters and the awake
greenies and the realists
pro-injection and pro-health
urban v rural
ute owners and not ute owners
bike riders and everyone else
boat people and horse people
dems and not dems
Pro -russia v pro ukietc
… all depends on who the media wants to ostracise
Here comes the second front
Russia has between 1000 and 1500 soldiers in Transnistria. Together with local Transnistrian forces (5000 regulars and many times that in reserves, in addition to police who likely have access to some heavier weapons), they should be able to hold off a total conquest by third-rate Ukrainian forces in the region.
And, it is unlikely that Moldova would get involved from the other direction. Since late last year, Moldova has tried to convince Gazprom to accept the “check is in the mail” treatment, and is always on the verge of having its gas cut off. Moldova has not joined European sanctions against Russia.
https://thedreizinreport.com/2022/04/29/here-comes-the-second-front/
GONZALO LIRA and GEORGE WEBB LIVE
The US is facing possible rolling blackouts in a different section this summer, (probably in addition to California and Texas). This is the “MISO” power grid.
This is one opinion article on the subject:
https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/opinion/2022/04/29/americas-power-grid-facing-real-trouble/9584848002/
This is another article on the subject:
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/miso-prepares-for-worst-case-scenarios-heads-into-summer-with-insufficie/622932/
It doesn’t sound like a huge shortfall. “The grid operator is forecasting a summer peak of 124 GW, with about 119 GW of “projected regularly available generation.””
This is a chart where MISO is located:
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theadvocate.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/f2/ff2917ec-fca1-11e7-b7aa-a76224b91185/5a6124bbda853.image.jpg
Maybe I am dense, but if I were an energy operator in the MISO area I would not pay a penny for extra capacity. If capacity becomes insufficient, I will just do rolling blackouts. This is the beauty of private enterprise. so who is bidding that extra capacity up?
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps and CIA intelligence officer.
> Scott Ritter – Putin, Ukraine, Biden Update
Russians are clearly winning. Russians are going slowly, grinding the Ukrainians down. America doesn’t want Russia to be able to do this again, for example in Finland, later this summer, so the plan is to wear Russia down by prolonging the battle. We are really prolonging the inevitable, and raising deaths, by sending arms to Ukraine.
“We are really prolonging the inevitable, and RAISING DEATHS, by sending arms to Ukraine.”
But that’s the United States M.O., it’s how a crime syndicate operates. Madeline Albright thought that it was perfectly fine that 500K Iraqi children died during the Iraqi war. It’s little wonder that the United States is probably the most HATED nation on the face of the earth.
Scott argues that Russia has a massive military advantage over Ukraine, and that it has already won the war. It may go on for another month, but probably not much longer, before it is concluded.
Russia is exploiting all of its many advantages, progressing slowly with a ‘grinding war’, and taking out Ukrainian forces and equipment while minimising the loss of its own forces.
Ukraine stands no chance, and the equipment that NATO is sending is old and of minimum effect, apart from to get more Ukrainian servicemen killed.
There is no chance that NATO troops will get directly involved, as Biden is aware of the consequences that Putin has warned of.
If Zelenski was a good leader then he would surrender, and he might minimise the territorial losses to Crimea, the Donbas and likely Mariupol. Otherwise Ukraine stands to lose all of the south, and any access to the Black Sea.
NATO is simply getting more Ukrainians killed, ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian’, to try to ‘weaken Russia.’
But Russia is emerging stronger than before. The war has massive support in Russia, and the popularity of Putin has rocketed, such that he is now able to sack whoever he wants.
Russia has learnt from its experiences in the Ukraine, and improved its plans on the ground to a slow, grinding war of minimal cost to itself.
The sanctions against Russia have failed, and they will fail.
It is only a matter of time, maybe a month, before Ukraine sustains so many losses, and so many Russian advantages coalesce, that Ukraine surrenders.
(machine translation)
> What happened in Ukraine on April 29: Kherson region switches to rubles, fuel shortage in Kyiv
Russia
According to the evening report of the representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Igor Konashenkov , during the day today, 38 objects of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were hit by high-precision air-launched missiles.
In addition to 20 platoon strongholds and more than ten areas of concentration of forces and equipment, this number included a fuel depot near the village of Volnoye Pole and a radar station near the village of Pechenegy.
Aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces also hit the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the places of deployment of forces and means of the army of the Kyiv regime. Particularly noteworthy among the targets hit were four depots of rocket and artillery weapons and fuel near Severodonetsk, Chervonnoye and Belogorye.
Russian missile troops near Adamovka destroyed the launcher of the Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), and on the site near Chuguev, a Mi-24 helicopter of the Ukrainian Air Force. Artillerymen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation also distinguished themselves: they defeated 13 strongholds, 64 areas of concentration of manpower and military equipment, as well as seven firing positions.
At the same time, air defense systems left the enemy without six more drones shot down in the sky over the settlements of Plants, Semyonovka, Rubizhnoye, Chervonny Oskol, Lyubimovka and Dry Kamenka.
At the last village, as well as at Izyum and Dmitrovka, the Armed Forces of Ukraine wanted to hit the missiles of the Tochka-U complex, but the shells were intercepted. Another ammunition from the multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) “Smerch” of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation was destroyed near N. settlement Topolskoe.
Today it became known that the already habitual humanitarian actions to provide the inhabitants of Donbass with food and medicines were supplemented by a visit to the region by the Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation Maria Lvova-Belova .
10 tons of cargo targeted at children were also delivered to the Donetsk People’s Republic. During April 27–28, the politician visited a number of facilities: the republican trauma center, temporary accommodation facilities near Mariupol, and others.
The situation is stabilizing not only in the Donbass, but also in the rest of the regions liberated from the Kyiv regime. According to the deputy chairman of the military-civilian administration of the Kherson region , Kirill Stremousov , from May 1, the region will begin the transition to the ruble zone. This process is expected to take about four months.
It will be a new step in the history of the region, the security of which is actively engaged in by Russian troops. So, for example, today the Russian Guard announced the results of a survey of the territory of one of the local children’s camps, previously used by Ukrainian nationalists. Firearms, ammunition and a supply of drugs left by the militants were found there.
In parallel with this, a new administration began to work in the Russian-controlled Mikhailovsky district of the Zaporozhye region . Ivan Sushko , who was elected its head , said that soon the inhabitants would again begin to receive social payments and humanitarian aid from Russia.
However, there were also cross-border provocations by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. As the governor of the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation Alexander Bogomaz said on his personal page on social networks , today Ukrainian troops fired at the FSB border checkpoint near the village of Belaya Berezka.
None of the residents of the village was injured, but the infrastructure was damaged – water and electricity networks. Now their work has been restored…..
https://riafan.ru/23157422-chto_proizoshlo_na_ukraine_29_aprelya_hersonskaya_oblast_perehodit_na_rubli_v_kieve_defitsit_topliva
Army Lieutenant Faces Court-Martial for Refusing COVID Test, Mask
1st Lt. Mark Bashaw is charged under Article 92: Failure to Obey an Order, for his failure to take a medical test, wear a mask and leave the workplace for telework. His case will be heard April 28 – 29 at the Army Public Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Bashaw repeatedly requested consideration of COVID-19 prophylactic treatments for Army personnel. In July 2020, he inquired about the benefits of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
In September 2021, he inquired again about HCQ as well as ivermectin, zinc, vitamin D and vitamin C.
The chain of command responded by saying there were no benefits in these prophylactic treatments and claiming only the vaccines were recommended for COVID.
Bashaw also monitored the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) for adverse reactions to the new mRNA gene technology in the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) vaccines.
He reported in an affidavit, “I started to see the numbers and deaths climb. I knew something was wrong.”
In September 2021, Bashaw read the affidavit of military whistleblower Lt. Col. Theresa Long, MD, MPH, FS.
Long reported serious systemic health risks from the EUA vaccines — such as acute pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest — affecting pilots and their costly aircraft and valuable cargo.
Long recommended to the U.S. secretary of defense that all vaccinated pilots be grounded until they could be medically evaluated.
Bashaw questioned why the leaders at the APHC were not pushing down risk mitigation information to the units, and why instead officers at the tactical level were impeded from pushing up adverse health outcome reports.
Bashaw requested the APHC update its COVID Risk Communication Strategy for Mandatory Vaccination to include VAERS reports with quantitative death and disability data, and qualitative data of the severe adverse events reported by LTC Long.
The APHC refused to acknowledge the severe reactions and deferred the responsibility to the Defense Health Agency (DHA), Immunization Healthcare Division. The DHA, which is primarily a civilian organization, hires civilian healthcare professionals to serve military members.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/army-lieutenant-mark-bashaw-court-martial-covid-test-mask/
he’s not getting it though … the whole point of Lia is to mess with everyone’s reality https://t.me/c/1588731774/11179
Enjoy the charts norm mike
https://jessicar.substack.com/p/a-few-new-papers-are-brewing
@Kim
Thanks to the British foreign office, the Heartland is now a shadow of its former self. There is nothing really to see there.
The coal mines at Donbass was the last resource in Europe worth fighting for.
Europe is without resources, because , like everywhere else, the mouths created by the Green Revolution and the mouths which showed up on their own accord ate up all the resources
++++++++
That’s a fair point. The Reverend Thomas Malthus would not have been a bit surprised this has happened, only that it has taken so long.
America’s power grid facing real trouble
Recently, the grid operator for 15 U.S. states, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), announced some startling news. In an April power capacity auction—which serves as the annual marketplace to ensure sufficient generating capacity during peak needs—prices jumped nearly 50-fold.
Why this stunning increase? MISO President Clair Moeller explained that some utilities simply don’t “have sufficient generation to cover their load plus their required reserves.” That has left them scrambling to obtain back-up power at nearly any cost. Moeller cautions that these states could see an “increased risk of temporary, controlled outages to maintain system reliability.” In other words, get ready for blackouts.
In recent years, America’s electricity supply has endured what one industry analyst described as a “slew of coal and nuclear retirements.” That has translated to the loss of a large chunk of reliable electricity production across the nation.
https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/opinion/2022/04/29/americas-power-grid-facing-real-trouble/9584848002/
Machival said
(I will edit his comment.)
>BAU mostly needs food and water. All other things are basically luxuries that enable the gadgets and obscene wealth we see today in the so called “civilised” world. Through desalinisation, water is virtually infinite. Yes, the process is power hungry but there is enough power to create the water.
Where is the energy coming from? The sun? It is painfully slow.
Without fossil fuel there is no farming as we know it. And there is no fuel to continue to keep 8 billion people fat. And the distribution , all that.
I have studied logistics for some time. The system is breaking down as we speak, long before the END. Good luck transporting the fertilizers and the grains.
Gail has talked about the expensiveness of oil ruining everything for all these years. You should read her older posts.
And who will make the bikes? Who will maintain the roads? The Chinese had a bike-based civilization in the 1960s-80s but that could not be sustained. Even Vietnam, the center of motorcycles, has entered the auto age.
All these ‘luxuies’ are part of the BAU, not something which could be cut.
I warn, the Pfizer Paxlovid drug is dangerous, it is causing COVID relapses, symptoms like COVID and serious illness, be warned, be cautious
https://palexander.substack.com/p/i-warn-the-pfizer-paxlovid-drug-is/comments?s=r
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F64c95086-3727-4560-a316-529dd1ec2abf_1378x990.png
Follmann et al: study shows us that the vaccine is DAMAGING our natural immunity (reduced antibodies to the nucleocapsid ‘more stable conserved protein in SARS-2 virus); MODERNA trial
“Anti-nucleocapsid antibodies following SARS-CoV-2 infection in the blinded phase of the mRNA-1273 Covid-19 vaccine efficacy clinical trial”; shows that vaccine constrains N-Abs natural immunity
norm – question:
How can a new, complex, fast-paced drug that hasn’t been tested long term and lacked randomized clinical trials be described as “safe” to patients before knowing the potential risks?
https://palexander.substack.com/p/follmann-et-al-study-shows-us-that
Published today:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-29/u-s-seeks-urgent-data-on-covid-relapses-after-pfizer-drug?sref=eWpk04kZ
U.S. Seeks ‘Urgent’ Data on Covid Relapses After Using Pfizer’s Drug
Columbia researcher says symptoms returned days after Paxlovid
How common viral rebound is after Paxlovid remains unclear
Three-headed hydra attack from 3 drug companies, Pfizer, Moderna, & Gilead on our children; this drug and vaccine WILL kill your healthy child; NOT needed; have not proven needed; say NO!
Remdesivir/Veklury & mRNA vaccines are harmful to your children, no one, no Fauci, Bourla of Pfizer, Bancel of Moderna, or O’Day Gilead prosecuted case of why this is needed in kids; poor methods/data
https://palexander.substack.com/p/three-headed-hydra-attack-from-3
And Denmark has found Jesus and the nightmare is ending … hahahahaha…
I understand that humans are by nature hopeful….and trusting of the govt – even though they’ve been f789ed over with lie after lie since the CovCON started… so I get why they are believing Denmark signals the end…. get ready to get smashed in the face – again.
It’s a psychological strategy to break the spirit… very effective.
Squeeze, relax, squeeze, relax, is so much more effective than relentless pressure if you wish to break people.
It also fools the less intelligent and observant, who do not see the pattern behind events.
We have only a few months to prepare for what is coming next.
Yes – we are in the eye of the hurricane…
I was hiking with a good mate today — he was mentioning how so many things are so totally f799ed up — expensive energy — food issues — he’s European — and said — NZ is probably the best place to be right now…
He seems to think we’ll be immune from the impact of the rest of the world imploding…. we’ll have electricity because of the hydro… I thought that about 13 years ago as well — but I explained that the hydro won’t do shit when there are no spare parts — and those parts come from all over the world…
To lighten the mood I said don’t worry – I’ve got lots of guns and ammo 🙂
To blow your brains out? How encouraging!
Odd how people don’t get the spare-parts and maintenance aspects of hydro, plus transmission lines, etc.
I think that when it first occurs to a person that we are f789ed… Mr DNA panics… this causes them not to think rationally … they desperately grasp and any thought that makes them believe they can survive..
Planting a garden (not thinking that the hordes have no gardens)… electricity is also crucial to survival — how can you make a low fatte latte frapuccino without electricity??? So they block out all the things that can go wrong and settle on the comfort zone of ‘renewable’ energy – hydro or solar — cuz these make Mr DNA feel better… They are creating a custom mass psychosis for Mr DNA….
The vaxxed idiots are, at root, people who simply cannot see patterns.
Dr Yeadon attributes his professional achievements to careful pattern-seeking in fragmentary data, not exceptional intelligence’ per se.
Fauci needs to shut down this Walgreen shit:
WALGREENS data today, up to April 27th, 2022 showing the failure of the vaccine in stopping infection (promoting infection); see double & triple dose vs unvaccinated; BA.2 dominant sub-variant omicron
Infection rates get elevated the more doses your receive and the longer duration post dose, based on 70,000 tests….
https://palexander.substack.com/p/walgreens-data-today-up-to-april
https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc4041930-e3bb-454f-afae-44920c35e727_1920x1020.png
I am guessing in the next week the comparison will get even worse.
That’s certain to elicit a call from kkr or blackrock.
Popular Retirement Funds Are Getting Hammered as Tech Stocks Plunge
Many of the largest 401(k) funds are down 10% or more this year
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-29/popular-401-k-retirement-funds-get-hammered-by-tech-stock-plunge
I noticed that Moderna stock closed today at $134.41. Its high was $484.47 on August 9, 2021. The price is down about 70% from the high.
Brazil’s Top Farmer To Slash Fertilizer Usage By 25% Amid Shortage
Soaring prices for industrial fertilizer have forced one of Brazil’s largest farmers to initiate plans to reduce nutrient spreading on fields by at least a quarter in 2022-23, according to Bloomberg.
SLC Agricola SA, which manages soybeans, corn, and cotton fields in an area larger than the state of Delaware, will reduce the use of fertilizer by 20% and 25%, Chief Executive Officer Aurelio Pavinato said.
Pavinato’s planned reduction of fertilizer comes as prices have soared to record highs due to shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He said fewer nutrients won’t necessarily affect crop production yet.
“It’s possible to cut fertilizers in a year and have a null impact on production,” he said in an interview, adding there are fertilizer reserves in the soil from previous seasons.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/brazils-top-farmer-slash-fertilizer-usage-25-amid-shortage
I call BS on this … if I fail to replenish my raised beds before the next crop of veg… the next crop is stunted and shitty… cuz the soil is depleted… Not sure what would happen if I put in 25% new nutrients… can’t imagine it would be a great result though
Also National Geographic Magazine just posted a study on vegetables getting less nutritious than 70 years ago,putting our health at risk.
Another focused on the microplastics n food today entering our bodies.
We are on a slippery slope down ward
You just can’t keep producing as much grain and potatoes as previous season without fertilizer even that first year. Crop tons will go down in most cases. Every farmer knows it. But if price of grain goes sharply up then maybe they will earn as much money as previous year but this will cause of course global famine is poor countries.
When Japan struck the Pearl Harbor, some people began to cut the cherry trees at the Potomac.
When they cut the sixth tree, ‘cooler heads’ came out and stopped the process. They called the cherry trees “Asian Cherry Tree”, “Oriental Cherry Tree” or some bullshit like that.
That’s the limit of the West which was too soft on other cultures.
Meanwhile, Victor Starffin, a Russian emigre who was Japan’s best pitcher at that time(although he was never allowed to become a citizen of Japan), was ‘politely’ asked to change his name to Japanese, and Hiroshi Suda spent the next 4 years speaking only Japanese. Japan’s ‘iron man’ in baseball, Sachio Kinugasa (who had the longest continuous game appearance record before Cal Ripken), was black but he only used his Japanese name and we never learn what was his real name.
In the end stage, there would be no bullshit like that. The cherry tries will be all cut to heat the homes of the residents, Japanese, Asian or Oriental or whatever.
When things were better there were more tolerance to fringe culture, rights to the handicapped, rights to this and that group, etc. And bullshit like ‘you can’t develop this land because it is our ancestral burial land’ worked to some degree. And a lot of ‘minorities’ were allowed to keep their names, like Michio Kaku.
As resources dwindle, luxuries like these will die, and the world will become more intolerant and a lot of freedoms people now have will become history since freedom and resource availability are directly related.
Do you think slavery will return to places which believe they’re above such things? A friend recently told me about a Dan Carlin podcast about slavery and about the American civil war and how it ended slavery. It became unpleasant when I suggested industrialism and tapping into coal/oil was a bigger reason for the freeing people from forced labor and it had less to do with fighting wars or becoming more enlightened in that time period. I quickly change subjects and felt bad for even suggesting it was cheap energy which freed people and raised living conditions for everyone like I supported slavery and spit on the graves on veterans. Yikes. It’s hard to discuss finite world topics in polite company. I’m sure it was a combination of things and a combination of problems we face now might see the return of it.
the first discovery of oil in usa was in 1859
slavery ended in 1865
at the time nobody made the connection–obviously–but we can see now that they were connected
Interesting point.
I think that there were other issues before 1965. Population had risen because of better hygiene and more children living to maturity, besides immigration. Soil was degrading because of overuse. Slaves could no longer be as productive. The “slave model” was no longer working. The economy was probably near collapse. Overseas investors financing the purchase of slaves were probably not happy.
true
there were numerous other factors active in that period as well
Most of us don’t have assets, only liabilities. Nothing changed, it just got smarter. Until even the pressure valves like crypto became overbought and reality (inflation) stepped in. Again.
The Kulm-camp voices will become louder.
crypto is think-money
it has no energy input backup, so is a ponzi scheme–it is worth only what someone else thinks it is
hout,
That means you have only expenses which are greater than income which means ever increasing liabilities. Cut expenses, it can be done.
I do not cut grass nor shovel snow, I do replace my own windows; they depreciate over time, period expense over ownership is not that great, no loan interest – a double win.
Dennis L.
Of course. It will return.
Chain gangs were the method to build large things before the invention of mechanical cranes.
Lewis Hine took a lot of photos when heavy equipment were less available. And that was AFTER we had some fossil fuel.
I enjoy this YouTube channel that makes me shutter at the thought of going back before BAU and harsh treatment of the common peasants and city folk…no debt forgiveness for those unlucky souls…either the poorhouse workhouse or exile to some Godforsaken territory…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FtIEV5cd9zU&t=2113s
No student loan forgiveness, no rent or mortgages deferment, or free food stamps, or Chapter 11 or 7 bankruptcy…ect and a million other freebee that we take for granted…government entitlement programs
Worship the land!
Whip the workers.
A crack of whip works much better than incentives.
While this may be true today, nothing lasts forever (so they say), and you are sadly mistaken if you think nature will endure your whip much longer.
Always good to read or hear about slave revolts!
Long live Spartacus!
NATO Troops to Conduct War Exercises Across Europe to Deter Russia
The exercises will include NATO troops from the U.S., Britain, Estonia and Latvia, as well as non-NATO members Finland and Sweden of the Joint Expeditionary Force
Tens of thousands of troops from NATO and other north Atlantic nations will take part in a series of military exercises across Europe in the coming weeks as western countries seek to deter Russian aggression.
The exercises, backed by aircraft, tanks, artillery and armored assault vehicles, will take place in Finland, Poland, North Macedonia and along the Estonian-Latvian border. They will include troops from NATO and the Joint Expeditionary Force, which includes non-NATO members Finland and Sweden.
“The scale of the deployment, coupled with the professionalism, training and agility of the British Army, will deter aggression at a scale not seen in Europe this century,” Lt. Gen. Ralph Wooddisse, commander of the U.K.’s field army, said in a statement.
The deployments will begin this week in Finland, where troops from the U.S., Britain, Estonia and Latvia will participate in Exercise Arrow to improve their ability to work alongside Finnish forces.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/nato-troops-to-conduct-war-exercises-across-europe-to-deter-russia/2954130/?_osource=db_npd_nbc_kxas_twt_shr
This is a show for the home town viewers. It will not change Russia’s view of NATO.
Agreed! How would this deter Russia?
Sounds like an invasion force, but of course it could never be advertised as such. God help us all if it is..
Moderna Montreal factory will make Canada an mRNA ‘leader,’ says Trudeau
The news leaked a day early, but Canadian leaders and biotech company Moderna officially announced Friday that a new vaccine production facility will be created in Montreal, helping ensure a long-term supply of made-in-Canada vaccines.
“Our government promised to strengthen our capacity” for producing vaccines “here in Canada,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at an announcement at McGill University in Montreal.
Canada has a now-infamous trajectory over the last few decades of building up top-notch vaccine research but dismantling its domestic capacity to actually produce vaccines, leaving it dependent on vaccine facilities in other countries.
The facility, expected to be operational as soon as 2024, will employ 200 to 300 people and will be able to produce up to 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses per year, Trudeau said.
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/moderna-montreal-factory-will-make-canada-an-mrna-leader-says-trudeau-1.5881671
I wonder if the protesters will… try to .. B it down?
I wonder why the protestors don’t snatch Pfizer employees – or better still their children — and….
Cuz the virtual reality does not allow that. The game is hard coded… and it does not allow for the obvious … no way you could protect every employee and their families….
Crazy situation. Canada will need to mandate the vaccine to give their vaccine maker some business.
Isn’t it a perfect business model? Using state power to force consumption of a corporate product.
They will attempt this everywhere.
I tried to make this argument 8 months ago:
“A company can not force a person to buy it’s product”
It was moot.
A combination of state and corporation is a historic topic in Itlaly. Student might know more about that.
We all know it.., Sigh.
This was already the case here with Obamacare (previously Romneycare), where we are forced by the State to buy certain flavors of private health insurance.
Last year, I decided to cut costs by opting for the lowest possible (“bronze”) level. So now I get a statement saying that I owe $0.52/month for $1200 “worth” of monthly insurance. The gov. is paying private corporations the remaining $1119.48 on my ‘behalf’.
Nice work if you can get it!
(And you can get it if you try, apparently.)
There used to be a monetary penalty for not going along with this scheme! Trump eliminated the penalty; I don’t think JB has reinstated it although he has rolled back other Trump changes.
If the Aleutian land bridge refreezes Canuckians are in deep doo doo. Thank heaven for gerbil worming.
Beijing seals off homes, shuts venues over COVID-19 outbreak
SHANGHAI — Beijing on Friday sealed off apartment blocks and closed movie theaters, gyms and shopping malls in an attempt to halt the spread of the latest COVID cluster — all while Shanghai said millions of residents in low-risk districts could leave their homes for the first time in a month.
China’s capital is ramping up mass testing among 21 million residents, including in the Chaoyang district, which officials said accounted for the biggest share of cases.
The venue closures, meanwhile, have raised fears that a Shanghai-style lockdown is around the corner.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Beijing-seals-off-homes-shuts-venues-over-COVID-19-outbreak
Have a friend who has lived in HK for 25 years… all of his business is there… he shifted his family to Canada a few weeks ago – will stay till August… putting the kids in boarding school — reason — in case HK goes the way of Shanghai (and now BJ)
What a mess! Terrible for the people; terrible for the world economy.
Credit risk is rising – US CDS IG
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FRhkoQ9XMAE6R3b?format=jpg&name=large
This has to do with the pricing of a certain kind of derivatives (Credit Default Swaps). Higher prices means more concern about credit risk. IG refers to “Investment Grade,” so normally not considered likely to default.
This chart is interesting :
The stock market is going up as many companies only buy their own stock. But this is funny money.
“Risk premium” is where the economy shows where it really stands…
I wrote a long essay but had to delete it because it would be ‘sensitive’ to a lot of people.
Most countries are net consumers, not net producers. And frankly speaking, a lot of countries, mostly located in the global South, are not to be missed too much.
Only the top 10% of the pop in the advanced world, and less than 0.5% of the rest (people like Elon Musk), have a stake on this current world, through real estate, sizable stock holdings, etc.
The rest are discretionary.
Those 10% consumes almost everything, so getting rid of the rest wouldn’t “save” much.
Poland seizes Russian gas assets
Energy producer Novatek has been ordered to hand over its transmission infrastructure to the country’s state-owned firms
Warsaw has obliged the Polish subsidiary of the Russian energy giant Novatek to transfer its gas infrastructure to the nation’s state companies, Government Spokesperson Piotr Müller said on Friday. Novatek, which is on Poland’s sanctions list, on Thursday stopped gas supplies to some of the country’s regions.
“Today Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki requested state companies PGNiG, PSG and Gaz-System to immediately supply gas to grids formally owned by Novatek, on the basis of the crisis management law,” Müller said.
He added that by the order of the prime minister, Novatek’s subsidiary Novatek Green Energy is obliged to transfer the networks to those companies, which will then supply gas to the cut-off municipalities.
https://www.rt.com/business/554722-poland-seizes-russian-gas-assets/
What do you mean by “law” when you change it at will?
This is a wink to all energy companies willing to invest…
This sounds like an approach to make Russia more unhappy with the situation.
UK Calls For ‘global NATO’ To Help Taiwan, Bolstering Security In Indo-Pacific Region
NATO should seek to boost security in the Indo-pacific region, said UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Wednesday batting for “a global NATO” to help Taiwan.
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/rest-of-the-world-news/uk-calls-for-global-nato-to-help-taiwan-bolstering-security-in-indo-pacific-region-articleshow.html
MacKinder’s idea of hemming in the so-called World Island and at-the-time already centuries old maritime strategy of flanking Asia between Great Britain and some Eastern ally (Japan, taiawan, Macau, Hong Kong, The Philippines) is now certainly out of date, but it seems nobody has told the West.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
Later, in 1919, Mackinder summarised his theory thus:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world.
— Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 150
> Any power which controlled the World-Island would control well over 50% of the world’s resources. The Heartland’s size and central position made it the key to controlling the World-Island.
> The vital question was how to secure control for the Heartland. This question may seem pointless, since in 1904 the Russian Empire had ruled most of the area from the Volga to Eastern Siberia for centuries. But throughout the nineteenth century:
> The West European powers had combined, usually successfully, in the Great Game to prevent Russian expansion.
> The Russian Empire was huge but socially, politically and technologically backward – i.e. inferior in “virility, equipment and organization”.
> Mackinder held that effective political domination of the Heartland by a single power had been unattainable in the past because:
> The Heartland was protected from sea power by ice to the north and mountains and deserts to the south.
> Previous land invasions from east to west and vice versa were unsuccessful because lack of efficient transportation made it impossible to assure a continual stream of men and supplies.
> He outlined the following ways in which the Heartland might become a springboard for global domination in the twentieth century (Sempa, 2000):
– Successful invasion of Russia by a Western European nation (most probably Germany).
Mackinder believed that the introduction of the railroad had removed the Heartland’s invulnerability to land invasion. As Eurasia began to be covered by an extensive network of railroads, there was an excellent chance that a powerful continental nation could extend its political control over the Eastern European gateway to the Eurasian landmass. In Mackinder’s words, “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland.”
– A Russo-German alliance.
Before 1917 both countries were ruled by autocrats (the Tsar and the Kaiser), and both could have been attracted to an alliance against the democratic powers of Western Europe (the US was isolationist regarding European affairs, until it became a participant of World War I in 1917). Germany would have contributed to such an alliance its formidable army and its large and growing sea power.
– Conquest of Russia by a Sino-Japanese empire (see below).
The combined empires’ large East Asian coastline would also provide the potential for it to become a major sea power. Mackinder’s “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland…” does not cover this scenario, probably because the previous two scenarios were seen as the major risks of the nineteenth century and the early 1900s.
One of Mackinder’s personal objectives was to warn Britain that its traditional reliance on sea power would become a weakness as improved land transport opened up the Heartland for invasion and/or industrialisation (Sempa, 2000).
A more modern development to which the heartland theory can still be attributed to exist is through Russia’s oil pipelines scandals. Heartland theory implies that the world island is full of resources to be exploited. “Any initiative by the United States to open the market access in Central Asia implies that this state is targeted for the exploration of multinational energy companies.
The efforts of domination for the exploration of natural resources are also apparent in the case of Russia. Study found that Russia wants to have pipelines be transported through its territory. However the Russian energy companies are working on behalf of market interests, they often constrain the behaviour of the state”.
It seems like NATO is likely stretched kind of thin, over on the Ukraine side. It can’t be expected to do much of anything to help Taiwan.
The objectives would appear to be:
1/ Destroy the Russian Federation as a sovereign, armed, regional/global power, and gain control all resources within that territory.
2/ Simultaneously contain, weaken and eventually take control of China.
Meanwhile subjecting the old industrialised and consumerised ‘Core’ regions to population reduction and totalitarian enslavement in pursuit of total political dominance by corporations, and bring to birth nebulous bio-tech fantasies – the devotion of all resources to the re-shaping of mankind through Transhumanism.
‘A hundred years of progress in twenty-five years’, is the slogan doing the rounds. This is, of course, insane.
But it must be rather exciting to have such grandiose projects to work on! Even more thrilling to hoodwink our victims as to what’s really going on.
Methinks the greatest personal pleasure should be if someone could convince a young man to die for his desire.
It works pretty well, so why stop it?
don’t boy spiders do that?
Wel are part of a group; perhaps not that much different than the ants Wilson wrote about. Even ants have territories which they defend.
Dennis L.
not ‘transhumanism’ again
sheeesshhh
“not ‘transhumanism’ again”
Huh?
Dennis L.
>>>>Meanwhile subjecting the old industrialised and consumerised ‘Core’ regions to population reduction and totalitarian enslavement in pursuit of total political dominance by corporations, and bring to birth nebulous bio-tech fantasies – the devotion of all resources to the re-shaping of mankind through Transhumanism. <<<<<
Norman,
Corporations are owned by pension plans, they need, want results. It is not as simple as it sounds.
Every business faces an “S” shaped curve, seems to be a law of nature, happens to stars then sometimes, “boom.” A new beginning with iron scattered to the cosmos.
Dennis L.
Dennis
yup
they got my pension plan too
which is why i want to be wrong
Bank of Russia Rejects Ruble-Gold Peg Idea, Differs With Kremlin
(Bloomberg) — Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina dismissed the idea of pegging the ruble to gold after the Kremlin said it was a proposal under consideration.
“It is not being discussed in any way,” Nabiullina told reporters at a briefing Friday after the central bank cut the key interest rate by 300 basis points. The ruble must continue to have a floating exchange rate, she said, though volatility of the currency will be higher amid capital controls imposed after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kremlin-says-russia-discusses-pegging-115807093.html