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Time and time again, financial approaches have worked to fix economic problems. Raising interest rates has acted to slow the economy and lowering them has acted to speed up the economy. Governments overspending their incomes also acts to push the economy ahead; doing the reverse seems to slow economies down.
What could possibly go wrong? The issue is a physics problem. The economy doesn’t run simply on money and debt. It operates on resources of many kinds, including energy-related resources. As the population grows, the need for energy-related resources grows. The bottleneck that occurs is something that is hard to see in advance; it is an affordability bottleneck.
For a very long time, financial manipulations have been able to adjust affordability in a way that is optimal for most players. At some point, resources, especially energy resources, get stretched too thin, relative to the rising population and all the commitments that have been made, such as pension commitments. As a result, there is no way for the quantity of goods and services produced to grow sufficiently to match the promises that the financial system has made. This is the real bottleneck that the world economy reaches.
I believe that we are closely approaching this bottleneck today. I recently gave a talk to a group of European officials at the 2nd Luxembourg Strategy Conference, discussing the issue from the European point of view. Europeans seem to be especially vulnerable because Europe, with its early entry into the Industrial Revolution, substantially depleted its fossil fuel resources many years ago. The topic I was asked to discuss was, “Energy: The interconnection of energy limits and the economy and what this means for the future.”
In this post, I write about this presentation.
The major issue is that money, by itself, cannot operate the economy, because we cannot eat money. Any model of the economy must include energy and other resources. In a finite world, these resources tend to deplete. Also, human population tends to grow. At some point, not enough goods and services are produced for the growing population.
I believe that the major reason we have not been told about how the economy really works is because it would simply be too disturbing to understand the real situation. If today’s economy is dependent on finite fossil fuel supplies, it becomes clear that, at some point, these will run short. Then the world economy is likely to face a very difficult time.
A secondary reason for the confusion about how the economy operates is too much specialization by researchers studying the issue. Physicists (who are concerned about energy) don’t study economics; politicians and economists don’t study physics. As a result, neither group has a very broad understanding of the situation.
I am an actuary. I come from a different perspective: Will physical resources be adequate to meet financial promises being made? I have had the privilege of learning a little from both economic and physics sides of the discussion. I have also learned about the issue from a historical perspective.
World energy consumption has been growing very rapidly at the same time that the world economy has been growing. This makes it hard to tell whether the growing energy supply enabled the economic growth, or whether the higher demand created by the growing economy encouraged the world economy to use more resources, including energy resources.
Physics says that it is energy resources that enable economic growth.
The R-squared of GDP as a function of energy is .98, relative to the equation shown.
Physicists talk about the “dissipation” of energy. In this process, the ability of an energy product to do “useful work” is depleted. For example, food is an energy product. When food is digested, its ability to do useful work (provide energy for our body) is used up. Cooking food, whether using a campfire or electricity or by burning natural gas, is another way of dissipating energy.
Humans are clearly part of the economy. Every type of work that is done depends upon energy dissipation. If energy supplies deplete, the form of the economy must change to match.
There are a huge number of systems that seem to grow by themselves using a process called self-organization. I have listed a few of these on Slide 8. Some of these things are alive; most are not. They are all called “dissipative structures.”
The key input that allows these systems to stay in a “non-dead” state is dissipation of energy of the appropriate type. For example, we know that humans need about 2,000 calories a day to continue to function properly. The mix of food must be approximately correct, too. Humans probably could not live on a diet of lettuce alone, for example.
Economies have their own need for energy supplies of the proper kind, or they don’t function properly. For example, today’s agricultural equipment, as well as today’s long-distance trucks, operate on diesel fuel. Without enough diesel fuel, it becomes impossible to plant and harvest crops and bring them to market. A transition to an all-electric system would take many, many years, if it could be done at all.
I think of an economy as being like a child’s building toy. Gradually, new participants are added, both in the form of new citizens and new businesses. Businesses are formed in response to expected changes in the markets. Governments gradually add new laws and new taxes. Supply and demand seem to set market prices. When the system seems to be operating poorly, regulators step in, typically adjusting interest rates and the availability of debt.
One key to keeping the economy working well is the fact that those who are “consumers” closely overlap those who are “employees.” The consumers (= employees) need to be paid well enough, or they cannot purchase the goods and services made by the economy.
A less obvious key to keeping the economy working well is that the whole system needs to be growing. This is necessary so that there are enough goods and services available for the growing population. A growing economy is also needed so that debt can be repaid with interest, and so that pension obligations can be paid as promised.
World population has been growing year after year, but arable land stays close to constant. To provide enough food for this rising population, more intensive agriculture is required, often including irrigation, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.
Furthermore, an increasing amount of fresh water is needed, leading to a need for deeper wells and, in some places, desalination to supplement other water sources. All these additional efforts add energy usage, as well as costs.
In addition, mineral ores and energy supplies of all kinds tend to become depleted because the best resources are accessed first. This leaves the more expensive-to-extract resources for later.
The issues in Slide 11 are a continuation of the issues described on Slide 10. The result is that the cost of energy production eventually rises so much that its higher costs spill over into the cost of all other goods and services. Workers find that their paychecks are not high enough to cover the items they usually purchased in the past. Some poor people cannot even afford food and fresh water.
Increasing debt is helpful as an economy grows. A farmer can borrow money for seed to grow a crop, and he can repay the debt, once the crop has grown. Or an entrepreneur can finance a factory using debt.
On the consumer side, debt at a sufficiently low interest rate can be used to make the purchase of a home or vehicle affordable.
Central banks and others involved in the financial world figured out many years ago that if they manipulate interest rates and the availability of credit, they are generally able to get the economy to grow as fast as they would like.
It is hard for most people to imagine how much interest rates have varied over the last century. Back during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the early 1940s, interest rates were very close to zero. As large amounts of inexpensive energy were added to the economy in the post-World War II period, the world economy raced ahead. It was possible to hold back growth by raising interest rates.
Oil supply was constrained in the 1970s, but demand and prices kept rising. US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker is known for raising interest rates to unheard of heights (over 15%) with a peak in 1981 to end inflation brought on by high oil prices. This high inflation rate brought on a huge recession from which the economy eventually recovered, as the higher prices brought more oil supply online (Alaska, North Sea, and Mexico), and as substitution was made for some oil use. For example, home heating was moved away from burning oil; electricity-production was mostly moved from oil to nuclear, coal and natural gas.
Another thing that has helped the economy since 1981 has been the ability to stimulate demand by lowering interest rates, making monthly payments more affordable. In 2008, the US added Quantitative Easing as a way of further holding interest rates down. A huge debt bubble has thus been built up since 1981, as the world economy has increasingly been operated with an increasing amount of debt at ever-lower interest rates. (See 3-month and 10 year interest rates shown on Slide 14.) This cheap debt has allowed rapidly rising asset prices.
The world economy starts hitting major obstacles when energy supply stops growing faster than population because the supply of finished goods and services (such as new automobile, new homes, paved roads, and airplane trips for passengers) produced stops growing as rapidly as population. These obstacles take the form of affordability obstacles. The physics of the situation somehow causes the wages and wealth to be increasingly concentrated among the top 10% or 1%. Lower-paid individuals are increasingly left out. While goods are still produced, ever-fewer workers can afford more than basic necessities. Such a situation makes for unhappy workers.
World energy consumption per capita hit a peak in 2018 and began to slide in 2019, with an even bigger drop in 2020. With less energy consumption, world automobile sales began to slide in 2019 and fell even lower in 2020. Protests, often indirectly related to inadequate wages or benefits, became an increasing problem in 2019. The year 2020 is known for Covid-19 related shutdowns and flight cancellations, but the indirect effect was to reduce energy consumption by less travel and by broken supply lines leading to unavailable goods. Prices of fossil fuels dropped far too low for producers.
Governments tried to get their own economies growing by various techniques, including spending more than the tax revenue they took in, leading to a need for more government debt, and by Quantitative Easing, acting to hold down interest rates. The result was a big increase in the money supply in many countries. This increased money supply was often distributed to individual citizens as subsidies of various kinds.
The higher demand caused by this additional money tended to cause inflation. It tended to raise fossil fuel prices because the inexpensive-to-extract fuels have mostly been extracted. In the days of Paul Volker, more energy supply at a little higher price was available within a few years. This seems extremely unlikely today because of diminishing returns. The problem is that there is little new oil supply available unless prices can stay above at least $120 per barrel on a consistent basis, and prices this high, or higher, do not seem to be available.
Oil prices are not rising this high, even with all of the stimulus funds because of the physics-based wage disparity problem mentioned previously. Also, those with political power try to keep fuel prices down so that the standards of living of citizens will not fall. Because of these low oil prices, OPEC+ continues to make cuts in production. The existence of chronically low prices for fossil fuels is likely the reason why Russia behaves in as belligerent a manner as it does today.
Today, with rising interest rates and Quantitative Tightening instead of Quantitative Easing, a major concern is that the debt bubble that has grown since in 1981 will start to collapse. With falling debt levels, prices of assets, such as homes, farms, and shares of stock, can be expected to fall. Many borrowers will be unable to repay their loans.
If this combination of events occurs, deflation is a likely outcome because banks and pension funds are likely to fail. If, somehow, local governments are able to bail out banks and pension funds, then there is a substantial likelihood of local hyperinflation. In such a case, people will have huge quantities of money, but practically nothing available to buy. In either case, the world economy will shrink because of inadequate energy supply.
Most people have a “normalcy bias.” They assume that if economic growth has continued for a long time in the past, it necessarily will occur in the future. Yet, we all know that all dissipative structures somehow come to an end. Humans can come to an end in many ways: They can get hit by a car; they can catch an illness and succumb to it; they can die of old age; they can starve to death.
History tells us that economies nearly always collapse, usually over a period of years. Sometimes, population rises so high that the food production margin becomes tight; it becomes difficult to set aside enough food if the cycle of weather should turn for the worse. Thus, population drops when crops fail.
In the years leading up to collapse, it is common that the wages of ordinary citizens fall too low for them to be able to afford an adequate diet. In such a situation, epidemics can spread easily and kill many citizens. With so much poverty, it becomes impossible for governments to collect enough taxes to maintain services they have promised. Sometimes, nations lose at war because they cannot afford a suitable army. Very often, governmental debt becomes non-repayable.
The world economy today seems to be approaching some of the same bottlenecks that more local economies hit in the past.
The basic problem is that with inadequate energy supplies, the total quantity of goods and services provided by the economy must shrink. Thus, on average, people must become poorer. Most individual citizens, as well as most governments, will not be happy about this situation.
The situation becomes very much like the game of musical chairs. In this game, one chair at a time is removed. The players walk around the chairs while music plays. When the music stops, all participants grab for a chair. Someone gets left out. In the case of energy supplies, the stronger countries will try to push aside the weaker competitors.
Countries that understand the importance of adequate energy supplies recognize that Europe is relatively weak because of its dependence on imported fuel. However, Europe seems to be oblivious to its poor position, attempting to dictate to others how important it is to prevent climate change by eliminating fossil fuels. With this view, it can easily keep its high opinion of itself.
If we think about the musical chairs’ situation and not enough energy supplies to go around, everyone in the world (except Europe) would be better off if Europe were to be forced out of its high imports of fossil fuels. Russia could perhaps obtain higher energy export prices in Asia and the Far East. The whole situation becomes very strange. Europe tells itself it is cutting off imports to punish Russia. But, if Europe’s imports can remain very low, everyone else, from the US, to Russia, to China, to Japan would benefit.
The benefits of wind and solar energy are glorified in Europe, with people being led to believe that it would be easy to transition from fossil fuels, and perhaps leave nuclear, as well. The problem is that wind, solar, and even hydroelectric energy supply are very undependable. They cannot ever be ramped up to provide year-round heat. They are poorly adapted for agricultural use (except for sunshine helping crops grow).
Few people realize that the benefits that wind and solar provide are tiny. They cannot be depended on, so companies providing electricity need to maintain duplicate generating capacity. Wind and solar require far more transmission than fossil-fuel-generated electricity because the best sources are often far from population centers. When all costs are included (without subsidy), wind and solar electricity tend to be more expensive than fossil-fuel generated electricity. They are especially difficult to rely on in winter. Therefore, many people in Europe are concerned about possibly “freezing in the dark,” as soon as this winter.
There is no possibility of ever transitioning to a system that operates only on intermittent electricity with the population that Europe has today, or that the world has today. Wind turbines and solar panels are built and maintained using fossil fuel energy. Transmission lines cannot be maintained using intermittent electricity alone.
Basically, Europe must use very much less fossil fuel energy, for the long term. Citizens cannot assume that the war with Ukraine will soon be over, and everything will be back to the way it was several years ago. It is much more likely that the freeze-in-the-dark problem will be present every winter, from now on. In fact, European citizens might actually be happier if the climate would warm up a bit.
With this as background, there is a need to figure out how to use less energy without hurting lifestyles too badly. To some extent, changes from the Covid-19 shutdowns can be used, since these indirectly were ways of saving energy. Furthermore, if families can move in together, fewer buildings in total will need to be heated. Cooking can perhaps be done for larger groups at a time, saving on fuel.
If families can home-school their children, this saves both the energy for transportation to school and the energy for heating the school. If families can keep younger children at home, instead of sending them to daycare, this saves energy, as well.
A major issue that I do not point out directly in this presentation is the high energy cost of supporting the elderly in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. One issue is the huge amount and cost of healthcare. Another is the cost of separate residences. These costs can be reduced if the elderly can be persuaded to move in with family members, as was done in the past. Pension programs worldwide are running into financial difficulty now, with interest rates rising. Countries with large elderly populations are likely to be especially affected.
Besides conserving energy, the other thing people in Europe can do is attempt to understand the dynamics of our current situation. We are in a different world now, with not enough energy of the right kinds to go around.
The dynamics in a world of energy shortages are like those of the musical chairs’ game. We can expect more fighting. We cannot expect that countries that have been on our side in the past will necessarily be on our side in the future. It is more like being in an undeclared war with many participants.
Under ideal circumstances, Europe would be on good terms with energy exporters, even Russia. I suppose at this late date, nothing can be done.
A major issue is that if Europe attempts to hold down fossil fuel prices, the indirect result will be to reduce supply. Oil, natural gas and coal producers will all reduce supply before they will accept a price that they consider too low. Given the dependence of the world economy on energy supplies, especially fossil fuel energy supplies, this will make the situation worse, rather than better.
Wind and solar are not replacements for fossil fuels. They are made with fossil fuels. We don’t have the ability to store up solar energy from summer to winter. Wind is also too undependable, and battery capacity too low, to compensate for need for storage from season to season. Thus, without a growing supply of fossil fuels, it is impossible for today’s economy to continue in its current form.
‘I challenged you to disagree with my summary of the union of concerned scientists and say why. Yesterday’
I will look into this. The design of these things differs for different plants, so it isn’t easy drawing general conclusions. One thing to keep in mind is that there are two types of fuel storage pond. One is relatively small and part of the refuelling well. Partially irradiated fuel is stored here during fuel shuffling operations. This fuel has high decay heat. And this pond is part of an elevated concrete structure. It is feasible that seismic damage could cause cracking and leakage of shielding water if the pond is not fitted with a stainless steel liner. Recently irradiated fuel has high decay heat. Even 1 month after irradiation, the decay power of the fuel is still 30kW/tonne. That is sufficient to overheat the cladding, causing it to burst or melt if all cooling water is lost. When that happens, volatile fission products that have leaked out of the ceramic fuel pellets and contained by the cladding, i.e iodine and ceasium, will leak out. Whilst the amount of fuel stored is small, the high decay heat makes fuel damage much more probable.
In long term fuel storage ponds, loss of cooling water is far less likely because these ponds are underground structures and fuel is mostly liw decay heat. There are several metres of shielding water covering the top of the fuel. Most of the fuel is old. For fuel that is 1 year old, decay heat will be 10kW/tonne. After 10 years, 1kW/tonne. For perspective, a fast boiling electric kettle is about 3kW. For fuel this old, it would take a very long time to boil off several metres of covering water. Once it is boiled off, cooling would be via air convection and thermal radiation. I could work out equilibrium temperature based on thermal radiation and known fuel rod diameters.
Awesome, Peter. That would be great. My understanding is that over the last decade or so is that they’ve changed the racking guidelines for spent fuel so that the new fuel going in is more evenly distributed throughout the pool and not clumped altogether in the nearest spot or whatever.
You’re writings on the matter give the distinct impression (to me anyway) that criticality is not an issue WRT spent fuel pools. That is not my impression. What is your position?
Relevant link:
https://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/spent-fuel-damage-pool-criticality-accident/
‘We’ are ‘saved’?
“Breaking News: Dr. Greer announces discovery of 4 new energy technologies that could save the earth!”
If a major energy company had access to zero point energy sources, why would they not patent them and then make a fortune out of them? Suppressing them so that they could instead drill for oil (which is very capital intensive) makes no sense to me. Any company director with access to superior technology will use it to become a trillionaire.
Then again, a lot of anti-nuclear pressure groups in the west were backed by the Soviets. The Soviets were huge exporters of oil and gas to western Europe. The last thing they wanted to see was a nuclear powered Europe. So they filled the west with anti-nuclear propaganda to derail western nuclear energy programmes. We live in the shadow of that lunacy today.
“If a major energy company had access to zero point energy sources, why would they not patent them and then make a fortune out of them?”
Because they are already making a fortune out of the product that they have expertise in. They are billionaires with international clout. Why would they want to make machines that could be a one-off purchase that might produce energy cheaply for years or even decades?
And what would the military-industrial complex think about having to give up their wars? What would the US politicians think, who enjoy their nefarious games with foreign countries? Just look what happened to Trump, after he declared he wanted no more “body bags”.
And just how easy would zero-point be for lone individuals to manipulate? How easy would it be to weaponise? Ask yourself what it was that managed to turn most of the Twin Towers to dust and smoke, back in 2001.
There is some evidence that zero point energy purveyors have been intimidated or even popped off by the big players.
Infinite Energy, But Not For The Masses | Andrew Johnson
Which raises an important question: Why would the military lug around tanker loads of fuel for planes and trucks, if there was a convenient ZPE device that they could use?
It makes zero sense to me that these people would just sit on an infinite energy source, if they could be using it for strategic advantage. If someone like Trump or Biden knew about such a thing at the start of their term, you can bet your bottom dollar that they would milk it for all it was worth. They would be pushing to commercialise it as quickly as possible, so that they could ride the popularity they recieved when the economy boomed as a result of the new energy source. Either it has been hushed up so much that even POTUS and the defence secretary don’t know about it (highly unlikely) or it does not exist.
Why was ivermectin banned during the “pandemic”, when it was found to be highly effective against COVID?
Pony paste back in stock at the farm supplies!! I think I have six tubes now at $7.99 apiece. I consider that a $42 vaccination. Perhaps I can use the receipt as a vaccine passport?
Fun video. If I have time and money on my hands in my old age, I will give building some of these machines a shot! And maybe hoodwink a few investors, too 😉
Here we have zero logic on display
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Why ‘monetary policy’ is required?
In equilibrium {and assuming no involuntary unemployment}:
W/P = [1 – aΠ – {(pm.M) / P.Y}].Y/L
Where: W/P = real product wage: pm = price of raw materials: M = amount of raw materials.
An increase in pm will lead to a fall in the demand for labour and the equilibrium real product wage.
This will shift the AS schedule to the left.
With unchanged AD there will be an excess demand for Y.
This will stimulate an inflationary process.
Hence, the Fed, is using monetary policy to try eliminate the excess demand.
Equation from: P300: Sargent, J.R. 2004. To Full Employment: The Keynesian Experience and After.
Eliminate excess demand = turn the economy from growth to shrinkage.
Keeping the price down will keep the economy shrinking, because there is not a growing supply of cheap to produce energy products available.
Hey FE, are CEP and UEP officially kaput?
Anything replaced them?
hahaha
It looks like permanent lockdowns will be coming back along with mandatory vaccinations if this article is correct https://unherd.com/thepost/joe-bidens-pandemic-plan-or-bill-gatess/
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Soaring Deaths of Young Americans.
In the first two and a half years of COVID, 150 thousand more American under 45s have died than expected. However, almost half of those deaths have occurred in the last twelve months.
https://metatron.substack.com/p/soaring-deaths-of-young-americans
https://substackcdn.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%2Fb166dfad-ba0a-41ed-bec2-06c8d6821a14_2856x1951.png
Good, sobering read at:
https://thesaker.is/on-going-seriously-boom/
Of course, as is well understood by the OFWers much the same level of utter ruin would be achieved simply by removing a civilisation’s high EROEI source(s).
So, while some in the West see Russia’s unwillingness to engage in ‘shock and awe’ tactics as a sign of weakness, it is likely to be quite the opposite. Ergo, reduce energy availability and wait… and the wait is driving Western ‘elites’ mad.
Of course, modern Western civilisation, predicated in the main as it is on short-termism, enlightened(?) self-interest, and decentralised, low hierarchical-power-distance cannot quite understand (or accept) cultures that do not share these values and attributes, and thus seeks to demonise or delegitimise them.
My impression is that Russia doesn’t need to give results on a short basis.
And China even less.
I remembered when I joined in the past a big Company listed on the stock exchange.
My Sales Director said: ‘we need to give immediate results, you know.. we are listed… Investors look at the quarterilies…’
Sobering indeed.
But alas:
🇷🇺🇹🇷‼️Shoigu held telephone conversations with the Minister of Defense of Turkey – Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
The head of the Russian Defense Ministry conveyed to his Turkish counterpart his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a “dirty bomb”.
🇷🇺🇫🇷 Shoigu held telephone conversations with the Minister of Defense of France, the topic was Ukraine
▪️We discussed the “dirty bomb”, a provocation with which Ukraine can carry out
▪️The situation in Ukraine has a steady trend towards further, uncontrolled escalation
https://t.me/intelslava
📞🇷🇺🇬🇧On 23 October 2022, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, has held telephone talks with UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace.
They discussed situation in Ukraine. General of the Army Sergei Shoigu conveyed to the British counterpart his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’.
@mod_russia_en
This is why the UK and Russia are both building Tesla coils like the big one in Texas? Save the last of the oil for the Camaro guys.
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Vaxxie, vaxxie, so obsessed, Wore your mask and took your tests. Still got COVID, every strain, Spike proteins inside your brain. Short of breath at 24, “Dr. Fauci, gimmie more!” Proteins tangle and misfold, Amyloidosis taking hold. Swollen heart at 25, “Thank Moderna I’m alive!” There’s no cure for microclot, Getting worse with every shot. Heart attack at 26, Prayed to Pfizer for a fix. Vaxxie, vaxxie, death is lurking, Doctor says, “that means it’s working.” Died of SADS at 27, All good vaxxies go to heaven. Obituary headline noted: “Anti-Vaxxer Dies of COVID.” His family is quite upset, But they’re alive, at least on net. And, they say, “it’s for the better,” Without the vax “he would be deader.”
https://metatron.substack.com/p/young-texans-are-dying-at-unprecedented/comment/9922552
+++++++++
You may have read the Zerohedge article, CDC Director Infected With COVID, Despite Max Vax And Boosters
She received the new booster on September 22 and came down with COVID on October 22.
I did and was hoping she gets cancer – turbo cancer!
just to point out to the Duncs out there, that one month after would mean by their bogus “facts” that she would have been at maximum “protection”.
I wish ChromeMags would return and give us his story, since he was eager for the vaccines to arrive.
Does anyone really believe that these elites are really submitting to the real jab? But you can be sure of they all have their private stashes of ivermectin /HCQ
Taking the “injections” and then “ admitting” they still catch COVID but still preaching the necessity of more jabs is meant to confuse people.
“Gee, if I hadn’t taken the booster, my pericarditis or cancer would have been far worse, or I could have died!” Unbelievable.
People just can’t deal with the cognitive dissonance. These injectees have been played. They will keep corralling us until it is too late. Come to think of it, see what Castrudeau has just declared north of the border, I wonder if the Supreme Court reversal of some of the infringements on the 2A in the Bren case are just lull us into a false sense of security, seeing that none of election fraud, Hiilarygate, Russiagate, etc has gone anywhere.
Every criminal act is politically asserted initially as an “allegation” – a statement or accusation without proof. And there these criminal acts will remain- allegations- as long as the evidence, no matter how material, no matter how indisputable, is never allowed to see the light of day.
Gail have you seen the photo ZH posted along with their usual theft of your articles? Hilarious!
Cropped photo from Hunter Biden’s laptop?
This is a link to the article.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/tverberg-why-financial-approaches-wont-fix-worlds-economic-problems-time
This is a link to the image.
https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/teaser_desktop_2x/public/2022-10/istockphoto-137447289-612×612.jpg
They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity. I don’t mind. I have a Creative Commons license on my site that lets others copy my articles for free. The lady in the photo is younger and better looking than I am.
“The lady in the photo is younger and better looking than I am.”
Gail its the look on her face! Combined with your/our constant theme- you cant eat money!
For what it’s worth that lady is not visible in Italy or at least from my pc, but only other kind of pictures of general advertising…
🙂
Ok so who’s Tyler Durden on OFW? He obviously is a fan
I don’t know. Tyler Durden is the pseudonym for the editors at Zerohedge. They have put up nearly all of my recent articles. My last article actually was up twice on Zerohedge. We didn’t receive all of the notifications because they only go out the first time the article is copied over.
Tyler Durden was a character in fight club. At the end of the movie they blow up the World Trade Center… before 9-11
Yes, Sam.
It is true.
That scene almost had no sense inside that specific movie and very few people talk about that…
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Adverse Reactions to COVID Vaccines I Came Across During Their First Year on the Market
I have spent the last year working to document this. It is a lot to take in but it needs to be said.
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/adverse-reactions-to-covid-vaccines
Wanna inject cancer? Well why not – it’s worth the risk — the vaccines saved 20M lives – have you NOT HEARD????
“No genotoxicity has been provided. The components of the vaccine formulation are lipids and RNA that are not expected to have genotoxic potential. That being said, the novel lipids possess an acetamide moiety which is classified as possible human carcinogen (IARC Group 2B) with debated genotoxic mechanism, which should be discussed further…as the lipids contain an acetamide moiety which has been linked to carcinogenicity in animals, including liver tumors, potentially related to genotoxicity, and liver distribution and functional effects have been observed in rat, an extended discussion of these lipids is requested.”
As this testing was typically required for any new pharmaceutical and relatively easy to do, I interpreted it to mean that Pfizer had discovered their vaccine caused significant genotoxicity and felt their best option was to pretend they had never studied it so they would have plausible deniability when cancers inevitably emerged in the future (pharmaceutical companies frequently fail to report undesirable results as they almost never suffer consequences for doing so—the SSRI saga which in many ways is the best precedent we have for the current debacle is the only case I know of where pharmaceutical companies were eventually penalized by the courts for this criminally deceptive behavior).
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/cancer-rates-are-increasing-and-may
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The transition to renewable energy has always had more to do with political ideology rather than with engineering practicality. The refined metals and concrete needed to build out an energy supply system based on intermittent renewables, will be 10-100 times greater than a competing fossil or nuclear based energy system of the same capacity. And these energy systems do not eliminate the need for fossil fuel power stations, which are still needed as backup powerplants.
The best that wind and solar power have achieved, is to marginally reduce fuel use of load following fossil fuelled power stations. And they have done so at enormous expense in terms of money and physical resources. Trying to replace a legacy energy system with an alternative that requires 1-2 orders of magnitude more energy intensive materials, in a world where surplus energy is shrinking and supply chains are crumbling, is clearly a fool’s errand.
The real alternative low ECoE energy source, has been apparent since the 1940s. Nuclear fission (and fusion in hybrid reactors) have been a viable alternative to fossil fuels since the first commercial light water reactors were built in the early 1970s. Since then, politicians and anti-nuclear activist groups have done everything in their power to block the expansion of nuclear energy. The burden of regulation, legal challlenges and design complexity resulting, have stretched out build times and pushed new build costs through the roof. On top of this, the 1990s natural gas boom meant that no western country built nuclear reactors for a 20 year period starting in the mid 90s.
Trying to restart that industry now, with minimal scale economies, an untrained workforce and crippling regulation, is proving time consuming and expensive. None the less, developing this technology at scale is the real alternative to fossil fuels. Uranium contains over a million times as much stored energy as oil. And nuclear reactors can produce heat and electricity at a power density that rivals the best fossil fuel powerplants. We do not need to transition to low power density, high ECoE intermittent renewables that leave us freezing in the dark. The real alternative to fossil fuels has an even lower ECoE.
Nuclear power presently provides about 10% of global electricity. At this rate of consumption in once-through, open fuel cycle, uranium ores with concentration greater than 0.1% will be exhausted in one thousand years. We can expand nuclear power production for several decades before depletion becomes a problem. But given the scale of our energy needs, nuclear fission reactors will eventually need closed fuel cycles. The technologies needed to achieve this were largely developed by the 1990s. But with uranium resources being relatively cheap, there is no commercial need at present to recycle nuclear fuel. When prices reach such levels, technologies such as the sodium cooled fast breeder, the fusion-fission hybrid and accelerator driven reactor, can breed fissile plutonium or 233U from thorium. Both can be used to produce MOX fuel.
One of those useless polluters is you. Another is whoever you happen to love. If you really don’t care enough to save them, what are you doing here? Is it just about getting a kick out of watching the world burn? Are you happy to burn with it, or is it only fun if you get to watch other people burning?
Did you ever care for a 5 month old pig on its way to the slaughter?
The anti-nuclear movement was the only worthwhile protest movement that’s ever existed.
Notice you didn’t respond to my challenge yesterday Peter. Why is that?
If you’re gonna bring it you need to bring it.
What challenge?
I challenged you to disagree with my summary of the union of concerned scientists and say why. Yesterday.
This is controversial. Nuclear depends on fossil fuels, as much as wind and solar do. It is made possible by fossil fuels. Once we are short of fossil fuels, it will be impossible to build more nuclear power plants and the transmission lines that they need. Keeping the transmission lines operating would be another problem, without fossil fuels. There is also the problem of needing to decommission the reactor and take care of the spent fuel, after the life of the nuclear power plant is over.
I really doubt that, at this late date, it would be feasible to scale up nuclear. It takes many years and a huge amount of materials to build another nuclear power plant.
The world has “overshot” its need for a whole lot of other things besides fossil fuels. We have too many people for the amount of arable land on earth. Fresh water is in very short supply for much of the world. The quality of metal ores is falling lower and lower. Most bodies of water are badly polluted.
People’s expectations are far too high, today, relative to what can actually be done for a population of 8 billion. The problem is almost certainly overshoot and collapse, in a manner somewhat similar to what happened to past civilizations.
I am not proposing that anything can preserve the status quo. A collapse of the global trading system is baked in now. The problem is due as much to demographics as energy resource depletion. Populations are ageing and collapsing in parts of the world that are industrialised. World population will probably reach 8bn next year, but will never reach 9bn.
But collapse will not effect all places equally. East Asia has terminal demographics and depends upon long supply lines for its energy and food. Chinese demographics are so terminal that their population will fall by half by 2050. And that assumes nothing else goes wrong for them. Russian demographics will lead to the collapse of the Russian state before 2050 and possibly within the next decade. The Chinese state is unlikely to exist as a unified entity a decade from now.
But North America may be relatively unaffected by these problems, because it is a resource rich contintent with generally better demographics than most of the rest of the industrialised world. At this time, North American manufacturers are relocating their supply lines back to North America. Some European countries will fare better than others. Britain, France and Scandinavia could do relatively well in the new era. Germany and much of Eastern Europe is headed for collapse.
Whilst nothing can save the globalised system, some places will suffer implosion, whilst in others a high degree of prosperity will survive.
In states that do not collapse due to demographic or supply chain issues, nuclear power could be one of the key energy sources that allows industrial civilisation to continue. The important thing about nuclear energy is that nuclear reactors do not require the level of material resource investments of other energy sources. They produce a huge amount of energy per unit steel and concrete needed for their manufacture. And under the right conditions, they could provide the energy base needed for a new industrial revolution.
The problem is that people are frightened of nuclear energy. The public have a greatly over-inflated impression of its dangers.
Whilst nothing can save the globalised system, some places will suffer implosion, whilst in others a high degree of prosperity will survive.
I doubt it. The collapse is happening everywhere.
I think the collapse is happening everywhere, but perhaps at a somewhat different rate. Haiti has helped lead the way. There are many other poor countries that are already in fairly advanced collapse, but we don’t hear about them. The EU is headed toward collapse, as is the UK, Switzerland and Japan. The US may be a little behind some other countries, but it needs international trade to continue its current level of prosperity.
Peter
In the process of coming to terms with the reality of complexity theory as it relates to industrial collapse, all of us here have bargained with that process. Doing so constitutes due diligence. We’ve all been where you are, more or less. We’ve seen the possibility for compartmentalized collapses only to see, from higher ground, that view dissolve, over and over again. If you’re newish to collapse theory, then you’re particularly deep into one part of the process, waylaid perhaps, like Ulysses. If you’re not new to collapse then you’re clearly deep in denial; I suspect that this is the case because you clearly express a deep desire for the continuation of industrialism for a reason I cannot fathom. Well I can fathom it but I can’t feel it thank goodness.
http://www.paulchefurka.ca/LadderOfAwareness.html
A complete collapse of industrialised agriculture would doom 80-90% of the world’s population to starvation. Those remaining would have much lower incomes and harder, shorter lives. Before modern medicine, 1 in 10 women died from complications in pregnancy or childbirth. Most children did not reach adulthood. Most men (that reached adulthood), did not reach middle age. Their life expectancy was shorter than women, even factoring in child birth complications.
I cannot see any silver linings to the end of industrialism. Maybe it is our destiny to collectively suffer the end of modernity. But I for one, will not be dancing on its grave. You would need to be crazy or sadistic to actually wish that sort of hardship on anyone. Let alone 8 billion people.
Intelligent people can hold two ‘opposing’ thoughts in their mind at the same time, Peter. Radical honesty and sadism (Eddy) are not mutually inclusive. In fact they’re mutually exclusive. Radical honesty and compartmentalization are also mutually exclusive.
Acceptance and attempts at deep adaptation is the evolutionary/biological response that the radical honesty undertakes.
Radical honesty on your part would be prefacing your nuclear fantasies with the appropriate caveats, as thought experiments. Not as (pretend) solutions.
Food would magically appear to feed the remaining people… Oh?
You’d think the 8B ravenous predators would carry out a scorched earth policy – eating anything that moves or grows — then set about eating each other.
And then there are the ponds…
Hi Peter;
Nice post. I have similar sentiments. What you outline is also why nuclear power is not a good idea if you want to avoid suffering/hazard for people in the future.
Nuclear power creates hazardous waste. You say its not a extreme health risk I disagree but regardless. It is a hazard and it lasts a long time. Its hazard last far longer than our ability to create safe storage for it even if we continued to have abundant energy in the future. Without abundant energy its almost certain that safe storage of the waste will not be continued.
The power created from nuclear that is consumed instantaneously versus the liability of storing the waste that is basically forever might be the most selfish short sighted decision in history. It is a decision only supported by a few not the people as a whole. Of course when energy runs out people might make poor decisions also.
Just like renewables nuclear power can not replace oil as a base material. Your not going to make fertilizers plastics and pesticides from electricity. Nuclear can not feed the humans on the planet in liu of fossil fuels even if we wanted to turn the planet inhabitable from waste in the future. Definitely tough times ahead but the liability of nuclear waste only makes the situation much much worse not better.
Even from a $ perspective once you add the cost of storing the waste- even for a tiny portion of the time period of hazard it presents- makes it the most expensive energy ever produced and its still going to create suffering in the future. Really nuclear power is a representation of humans inability to comprehend finite resources and exponential function and to shrug and say not my problem. Just like the debt. Its madness.
Myself even if I was to start the process of starving to death tomorrow I could not advocate nuclear power. The plants are all well past their designed service life but keep on getting re certified as the nuclear industry owns those that certify. The only sane action is to shut down these things decommission them safely and do our best to store the toxic materials with half lives of millions of years while we still have some spare fossil fuel to do so. I would welcome that action. I am not holding my breath.
Splitting the atom is power that humans are not intelligent enough to wield. Explain to me why any civilization that would rack up this sort of debt- a imaginary thing- is responsible enough to wield splitting the atom. If civilization was a teenager we would be grounded not keys to the Lexus. Hell if the toxic materials only prevailed for a week or a year id say hell yes its worth the risk. What we are doing is insane.
Fukushima three cores losing all containment sitting there in the water table from shitty old GE plants their certification extended way past their design life. Yet we continue to run the same old pieces of crap . Yes that 1970 fiat breaks down i dont care how many new parts you add. Freakin insane. I cant see how any one can make the argument for anything other than decommissioning and a storage facility in geologically stable bedrock.
It’s very clear that a strategic nuclear weapon exchange is not only possible but probable as we speak. This will create conditions where the slip shod two bit storage of waste currently may well fail. At the very least as we witness large power outages on account of war we should be reassessing and shoring up our two bit waste storage.
Responsibility means you; look to the future and consider others. Where are those actions? I ask again. How can any sane person who cares about the future of human inhabitants of this planet advocate anything other than immediate decommission of these ancient accidents waiting to happen and safe storage of the materials in geologically stable bedrock while we still have some fossil fuels left to fulfill a responsibility that we all own done?
We dont have control of a lot of things and there are most probably bad times ahead but we do have the capability of doing this now but we dont because crooks own and regulate this snake oil power generation just like everything else. Arguments that Chernobyl and Fukushima were like dropping the groceries in the parking lot are only arguments to sustain our not my problem failure to take responsibility for what every single one of us has ownership of.
[Edited by Gail to add paragraph breaks.]
I expect that early modelers expected that the cost (either “energy cost” or “total cost”) of long-term storage of spent fuel was close to trivial. All that is needed is to haul it over to a geologically stable cavern and deposit it there. I expect that they also thought that money is a store of value. Thus, requiring a deposit for decommissioning costs would work our well. What could possibly go wrong?
The issue I see is that nuclear isn’t alone in causing problems. We have mercury spread all over the planet through the use of coal-fired power plants. We have lead spread in many parts of the world through the use of lead as an additive to gasoline for many years. I understand that may solar panels are considered hazardous waste. Mining rare earth minerals seems to generate a great deal of waste.
We cannot fix all of these problems. I am doubtful we can fix any of them. Nature (operating through the laws of physics) will fix the problems in its own time. This happens through new generations of both plants and animals adapting to the changing conditions. This happens by natural selection. Parents produce more offspring than are, in some sense, “needed.” Each of these offspring will differ at least a little from the other offspring. Through the mechanism of survival of the best adapted, the ecosystem will gradually adapt to the changed condition.
We humans can expect that our greater use of resources will adversely affect quite a few plants and animals, but this is not something that we can fix, I am afraid. It is something that just “is.” Extinction is something that all plants and animals can eventually expect. If humans pushed some species along faster in that direction than would otherwise be the case, perhaps this is just the way it is.
We humans are not really “in charge,” as far as I can see. There seems to be some sort of Higher Power that keeps the Universe growing and expanding and dictates the rules about the way things turn out (such as the rules of physics). If we are not in charge, perhaps we should not feel terribly guilty that things do not turn out in a way that would seem to be optimal, at least in our limited understanding of the whole purpose of the Universe. Perhaps the Higher Power has a different view of the purpose of the Universe, and things are not as bad as we perceive.
The concern about nuclear waste gets to be a lot like worrying about humans being responsible for climate change. Maybe it is just the way it is.
As far as I can see, today’s world economy cannot tolerate any more complexity. Part of this is the fact that there is no way to transition to an all-electric economy. This by itself argues against a big scale up of nuclear. All of the nuclear waste adds to the problem.
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Covid-19: Hong Kong’s outdoor mask mandate to stay until children’s jab rate increases ‘significantly,’ John Lee says
https://hongkongfp.com/2022/10/22/covid-19-hong-kongs-outdoor-mask-mandate-to-stay-until-childrens-jab-rate-increases-significantly-john-lee-says/
Poison your children or wear masks everywhere forever!
Following this news, what is not clear to me is why China is imposing vaccination in Hong Kong and, at the same time, pursuing the Covid-zero plan in the rest of China.
A sort of ‘special’ program dedicated to Hong Kong citizens?
Aný suggestion from OFW readers?
Thanks
Because HK is China’s financial centre — and the expats who operate the financial centre were leaving — and it was impossible to convince others to replace them…
They have removed the quarantine requirements so people can come and go again — but the mandates remain — the masks remain … so I doubt removing the quarantines will change things… masks indoors and outdoors – seriously?
these policies are aimed at reducing energy consumption. different mainland-HK policies are useful for experimentation and to keep the (more) rebellious HK locals at bay.
Inflation/Deflation:
https://www.yahoo.com/now/helium-shortage-doctors-worried-running-110000674.html
Medical costs rising/falling? If there is no He, no MRI’s, then MRI machine’s become worthless, area containing them becomes worth less, skills of those employing MRI’ become worthless, retraining expenses, increase in aggregate education costs of former MRI employees, if income constant result in decrease in return on education worth less in terms of cashflow, lower money velocity, deflation.
It goes without saying that He balloon sales will fall with loss of income to those delivering He, and all associate supporting industries. One might say a bust.
Only takes loss of one small part to render an entire set of machines/skills/ people redundant.
Deflation again.
TM’s latest post, if I may try and summarize: The goal is not to make money, the goal is to lose the least in terms of obtaining useful stuff.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/
It is direct to TM from Google, Edge does not want to directly link to blog.
Dennis L.
I agree. Losing any necessarily element, such as helium, will make the overall system less able to produce finished goods and services. The economy must shrink back, unless a suitable substitute can be found. On average, people will tend to get a little poorer, one way or another. I would think that some governments could make this look like inflation, (or hyperinflation), rather than deflation, if they badly overspend their income, in the manner of Liz Truss’ attempted fixes for the UK economy.
This is a direct link to Tim Morgan’s latest blog post.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/10/19/242-the-dynamics-of-global-re-pricing/
This is the post from October 19 that we saw earlier. Tim does cover some of the same things I cover.
The transition to renewable energy has always had more to do with political ideology than with engineering practicality. As Tim correctly points out, the refined metals and concrete needed to build out an energy supply system based on intermittent renewables, will be 10-100 times greater than a competing fossil or nuclear based energy system of the same capacity. And these energy systems do not eliminate the need for fossil fuel power stations, which are still needed as backup powerplants.
The best that wind and solar power have achieved, is to marginally reduce fuel use of load following fossil fuelled power stations. And they have done so at enormous expense in terms of money and physical resources. Trying to replace a legacy energy system with an alternative that requires 1-2 orders of magnitude more energy intensive materials, in a world where surplus energy is shrinking and supply chains are crumbling, is clearly a fool’s errand.
The real alternative low ECoE energy source, has been apparent since the 1940s. Nuclear fission (and fusion in hybrid reactors) have been a viable alternative to fossil fuels since the first commercial light water reactors were built in the early 1970s. Since then, politicians and anti-nuclear activist groups have done everything in their power to block the expansion of nuclear energy. The burden of regulation, legal challlenges and design complexity resulting, have stretched out build times and pushed new build costs through the roof. On top of this, the 1990s natural gas boom meant that no western country built nuclear reactors for a 20 year period starting in the mid 90s.
Trying to restart that industry now, with minimal scale economies, an untrained workforce and crippling regulation, is proving time consuming and expensive. None the less, developing this technology at scale is the real alternative to fossil fuels. Uranium contains over a million times as much stored energy as oil. And nuclear reactors can produce heat and electricity at a power density that rivals the best fossil fuel powerplants. We do not need to transition to low power density, high ECoE intermittent renewables that leave us freezing in the dark. The real alternative to fossil fuels has an even lower ECoE.
Nuclear power presently provides about 10% of electricity. At this rate of consumption in once-through, open fuel cycle, uranium ores with concentration greater than 0.1% will be exhausted in one thousand years. We can expand nuclear power production for several decades before depletion becomes a problem. But given the scale of our energy needs, nuclear fission reactors will eventually need closed fuel cycles. The technologies needed to achieve this were largely developed by the 1990s. But with uranium resources being relatively cheap, there is no commercial need at present to recycle nuclear fuel. When prices reach such levels, technologies such as the sodium cooled fast breeder, the fusion-fission hybrid and accelerator driven reactor, can breed fissile plutonium or 233U from thorium. Both can be used to produce MOX fuel.
Duplicated comment for some reason. Should probably delete.
(Reuters)
‘BEIJING, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Chinese former President Hu Jintao was unexpectedly escorted out of the closing ceremony of a congress of the ruling Communist Party on Saturday.’
This was surely organized to give a message to someone or a to a specific ‘political’ group in China.
It is interesting, but it will be very difficult for us to know what is behind that.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/former-chinese-president-hu-jintao-escorted-out-party-congress-2022-10-22/
I don’t know what is going on. I notice the comment,
“On his way out, he [Hu Jintau] exchanged words with Xi and patted Premier Li Keqiang, seated to the right of Xi, on the shoulder.”
Isn’t Premier Li Keqiang the person that has been rumored to overthrow Xi. I thought that Li was more lenient on COVID shutdowns, among other things.
Yes I noticed the comment and also the postures and expressions of them.
Hu seemed very worried and seemed to ask Xi:
‘Ok, me ne vado, ma possiamo parlarci dopo?’
And Xi seemed to say:
‘Sí, sicuramente. Ci parleremo. Vai tranquillo’…
😀
For those of us who don’t understand Italian:
‘Okay, I’m leaving, but can we talk later?’
‘Yes, definitely. We will talk to each other. Go quietly’…
I refer to the video…
Sorry. it is so familiar for me to use automatic translator that I thought it was also for you.
‘Ok, I go away, but can we talk together later?
‘Yes, surely. Don’t worry, go away now…’
If you watch to the video inside the article that should be plausible.
That’s fine! I used an online translator because I am sure there are hundreds of people who will read your comment in Italian and scratch their heads in incomprehension. Some will then be moved to use a translator. Others will remain perplexed. So I thought that since I’ve gone to the trouble to translate it for myself, why not share it with them in order to save them trouble. That will also reduce the amount of internet usage and electrical usage and wear and tear on keyboards and time and labor involved in dozens or hundreds of people searching for the same translation, thereby potentially extending bAU for a few extra precious milliseconds…..
(Euroweeklynews)
‘Tragedy as 12-year-old boy dies after playing in a football match in Madrid’
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/10/22/tragedy-as-12-year-old-boy-dies-after-playing-in-a-football-match-in-madrid/
It is something that happens quite often lately…
In case one is looking for similar events of young people dying suddenly here, one can visit also the following website:
https://www.eventiavversinews.it/
An asthma attack? hahahahahaha….
How about a heart attack but we’ll refer to it as an asthma attack… sounds better.
Just like that NFL player who was barely touched — who apparently has a serious head injury — he’s be removed from the roster and they’ve signed a replacement…
This is the new PR strategy… make it up.
The fentanyl hoax.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/w5SYu99N09vD/
I think I would like more/better evidence than simply this video.
Clearly, those selling Fentanyl would like to get you addicted, rather than try to kill you.
Making Fentanyl to look like oxycodone or children’s cereal would be very strange. It likely would end up killing someone, rather than addicting them.
Maybe the story about enough Fentanyl being imported into one county of Florida to kill 2.7 million people is untrue. Maybe it is a story to drum up support for the police.
I am afraid I didn’t watch the whole video, but this seemed to be the direction it was going.
He actually made all those same points later as you Gail. I just kind of enjoy the guys ranting style.
If they are willing to spend 20 years trying to perfect a spike protein weapon, then certainly introducing fentanyl to create more fear and death- to protect us from the drug dealers and a convenient excuse of it coming across the border due to lax border security is kind of like a parallel to the Patriot Act after 9-11 to protect us from the “terrorists”
No need to stay in Afghanistan any longer to guard the heroin production. Heroin has served as a decoy while Fentanyl was slipped in. It’s those damn Chinese/sarc. Besides, it was costing too much in fuel, supplies etc to stay in Afghanistan when there were bigger fish to fry like Russia and China, plus leaving all the weapons is a great way to continue destabilization of the region in absentia.
Those in big pharma who promoted Tylox, Percocet, Oxycodone are convenient scapegoats and expendable, but are great cover for this Fentanyl.
As Dave Matthews Band song said: “Don’t drink the water.”
Perhaps the occupation of The Ghan was about securing a source of Opium to create enough Super Fent to kill whatever the Demon Vid doesn’t kill?
Then you follow with the nukes?
And as that island — Taiwan — worries about the threat of a standoff between the US and China, the world’s economy holds its breath. That’s because there could be trillions of dollars’ worth of economic activity tied to that one company: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s biggest chipmaker.
Industry watchers say an escalating dispute between the US and China over Taiwan could drag down the global economy, given the fact that no other company makes such advanced chips at such a high volume. If TSMC goes offline, they say, the production of everything from cars to iPhones could screech to a halt.
“If China would invade Taiwan, that would be the biggest impact we’ve seen to the global economy — possibly ever,” Glenn O’Donnell, the vice president and research director at Forrester, told Insider. “This could be bigger than 1929.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/tsmc-us-china-tensions-may-dictate-fate-of-global-economy-2022-10?amp
As Gail has repeatedly points out …a lot can happen that derails the entire world economy
Suppose for a moment that this is all part of the plan to usher in the Great Reset? Yeah I know, it’s just conspira-see theory.
Or maybe the western nations are pushing for a reset because of their debt and lack of energy. The other nations are pushing back and trying for retrenchment. Seems more likely to me… again I know I harp on this but the system is entering triffens dilemma. It can’t go on forever…
One thing called the reset Is where all the people lose everything but the government continues to be able to print money. Another thing called reset is the government prints so much money that it becomes worthless. There is no sign of that even now the dollar is still used for all real commodity trades. They say alternatives are on the horizon and those alternatives really depend on Russia and China not getting blown up. One thing is not disputed. The continuance of the USA government is dependent on printing money. Most of the treasuries out there turn over in four years or less. 10 year treasuries? We could be speaking martian by then the shorter treasuries work just fine as “prime collateral”. Even if the fed stops tightening the next four years mean much larger part of the money the government is borrowing will go to interest as the old low interest treasuries have to be replaced at higher interest rates This means of course they need to print /borrow more. So how many more of these four year refinancing periods do we have even if dollar remains the reserve currency? Thats why there is a great reset talked about- a reset where a digital world currency that the west controls becomes the reserve currency. Yup its not ours. Its yours too. You just didnt know it. Its the ONE.
Its also why the stakes are so high in the Ukraine. If Russia loses its over as autonomous nation. Noncontinuence of the Russian state. If the USA loses they lose the ability to transition from their bankrupt status and transition to a new digital world currency. Noncontinuence of the USA state. All the marbles as Jef put it. Thats why IMO any objective analysis is that Ukraine will go kinetic all gloves off. No one is planning to lose here.
“By the time you got to the first Bush administration, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they came out with a national defense policy and strategic policy. What they basically said is that we’re going to have wars against what they called much weaker enemies and these have to be carried out quickly and decisively or else there will be embarrassment—a way of saying that popular reaction is going to set in. And that’s the way it’s been. It’s not pretty, but it’s some kind of constraint.”
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/noam-chomsky-populist-groundswell-u-s-elections-future-humanity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
I think that the Great Reset is the Great Debt Default. The people who are operating behind the scenes now would like to continue operating behind the scenes, even with huge debt defaults.
Precisely.. that’s why they want to “redefine” everything. If they can create another central bank than maybe they can keep it going another 10 years! And David would get his retirement 🥶
I am retired!
ch-ching$ ch-ching$.
I mean more of it 😉. Not just the few years you have used thus far
Another decade of quasi BAU without WW3 would be a godsend. Not going to happen. The energy sand in the hourglass. Event within two years. Hah get the joke two years?
I remember when I thought two year BAU sustainability predictions were funny. Better times. The curious thing about my perception is the past seems better times while I would say many peoples perception is the future is better times.
I really think the smartest people live day to day. They can say whatever we will see. In some ways this allows them to more easily adapt to circumstances with appropriate behavior. Just as scientific models can be flawed personal models can be also. Just as there is truth to the analyzing trends there is truth to “no one knows what the future holds” My little habit (our little habit?) of analyzing trends is not necessarily the best way to live. You know when I was younger I never dreamed I would be that old man on the corner with the “the end is near ” sign! HAH!
When I was a young man I lived in a large city. There was a old man with long white hair and beard who was a fixture downtown. He had a sign that was attached front and back to himself the size of his body. It read “symptomatic nerve gas” and he would repeat that phrase over and over as he roamed a four block area. What a kook I would think. HAH!
When I was a student, we similarly saw a tall, wildly-bearded old man plodding the streets outside the Colleges with a big sign.
The rumour went round that once in his youth he’d been one of us, and we looked on in wonder and perhaps some fearful misgivings that one day it might go wrong enough for us to end up the same way.
His sign though, only advertised the craft market and nearby tea shop (literally a ‘sandwich board). Perhaps he’d struck a good deal on sandwiches and cakes? If so he wasn’t doing so badly.
Well, I have the beard now, though I stick mostly to the woods….
No need to invade the island
Just fly 10,000 drones to TSMC factories
A semi conductor fab has layers and layers of supply of noxious chemical and gases. Lovely things like silane and hydrafluoric acid. You have never seen so many cable trays in your life. A single tiny fragment in one of those cable tray and the entire tray will have to be replaced. And rather sensitive devices. Your never going to calibrate the steppers again after a kinetic event and if you do they will never be the same. Only 15 million a pop for one of those puppies. Everthings a race car in a fab running on the edge. The equipment goes down a lot even without kinetic events. Not exactly robust in regards to kinetic events I would imagine. Oh about a trillion times more fragile than a undersea pipeline. Talk about a China in a bull factory. It wont take much and poof. HAH. How do you like us now China? China might of already have taken Taiwan if the loot wasnt so fragile. Not much good to conquer only to have the loot go poof. And I promise you if China was to invade and dominate every single fab would have a poof event. Thats why Taiwan might well come to terms with China. Taiwan has massive leverage. If the fabs dont suffer mysterious poof incidents. Both China and Taiwan know that mysterious poof incidents could occur. Its not just Taiwan that has leverage. China is damn good but there are limits in reverse engineering. 15 micron line widths are not real forgiving for close but no prize clones of real OEM equipment. Quite the conudrum for China! because if poof its gone baby. How frustrating to have the pivotal technology of the century omost within reach. All that GO playing, intellectual property theft and millenium planning only for POOF. HAH! Better luck next time. In a millenium or two.
A friend has suggested to me that an internal shift of the Taiwan government to ally with the Chinese is a possible outcome. Citizens of Taiwan could simply vote for a government in favor of allying with China.
The idea seems strange to me, but with problems with long-distance shipping, alliances in the future would seem to need to be with close-by nations. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
I would guess the the Taiwanese are looking at Ukraine and thinking having the USA supply weapons for a fight with a superpower next door is not very desirable. China has been amiable to special economic zones and Taiwan will get some autonomy. If they do it they are smart. Negotiate terms while they still have some power to do so. It wont happen if The swamp has anything to say about it. How do you cut China off from semiconductor manufacturing if Taiwan is part of China? You dont.
Money can be printed, electricity cannot.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/uk-grid-operator-offers-households-money-not-use-appliances-amid-energy-crisis
I don’t think OFW saw how things would evolve, but the commentariat here seems to have the general outline more or less correct.
The social aspect is very dramatic and for me unexpected, unknown, pick one or add one of your own.
This article talks about using smart meters to hold down household electricity use during peak utilization periods. In particular, people could not cook their food during popular cooking times, or even use microwaves to heat precooked food up.
If people are heating their homes with electricity, I would expect that this would become restricted as well during peak times.
I wonder if this scheme will work.
I know that where I live, smart meters (of some sort; they vary a lot) were installed in all households a few years ago. The prime purpose of these meters was to transmit monthly utilization back to the electric power company so that a meter reader did not need to visit every home. I don’t know what additional powers these meters have; I am sure that they vary from place to place. They are not connected up, except outside the house, so I doubt that they can tell what a given household’s high demand is coming from– a refrigerator, or a hair dryer, or a device that provides oxygen to a patient. I doubt that the scheme would work with the limited smart meters we seem to have.
I had a small apartment in Charlotte, NC about 10/15 years ago and it was in the middle floor. I rarely had to use air conditioning and the only appliance to speak of hooked up was the refrigerator. My electric bill was only $15.00/20.00 a month and during winter used an electric blanket to keep me warm at night.
Here in Florida the bill is well over $125.00 a month and rising.
Mainly because of air conditioning….for a small house.
That is considered on the cheap end for an electric bill here.
Because of inflation been hearing from co workers of them cancelling subscriptions and cutting back where they can.
Inflation is putting the squeeze on many here…my car insurance increased significantly this 6 month billing period…the car is almost ten years old and paying more than when it was new….comp and collision is a small part of the bill, have a $1,000 deductible..my car insurance in NC was HALF!
The point of it all
Florida property insurance premiums will likely spike again, Citizens CEO says
Mahsa Saeidi
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The CEO of the state-backed Citizens Property Insurance says he expects another spike in premiums after Hurricane Ian.
Citizens CEO Barry Gilway told 8 On Your Side Investigator Mahsa Saeidi it’s likely some premiums will spike by 20 to 30% next year, statewide.
According to data from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, more than 550,000 claims have been filed in the wake of Hurricane Ian. That number is expected to rise.
Two and a half years ago, Citizens had approximately 400,000 policies. They now have surpassed 1 million policies.
Mr. Gilway says all homeowners with insurance through private companies should expect their premiums to spike by 20 to 30% next year, unless there’s significant reform. Citizens caps its rate increase at 12% next year.
The reason for the price hikes? The soaring cost of reinsurance, insurance for insurance companies.
So should we expect to see a 20 to 30% increase every year moving forward?
“If we don’t fix the problem,” said Mr. Gilway. “The bottom line is: It’s ridiculous levels of litigation in the state – absurd levels.”
Can’t see how working class folks will be able to able to afford to live here,
Unless they do without….good luck with that…
Lawyers seem to be very active in Florida, pushing up the cost of all kinds of insurance.
Yes, Indeed, Lawyers are oversaturated here… constant advertisements..on billboards, tv, radio and print ….beyond ridiculous in scope.
Herbie – had a book years ago authored by a former state insurance regulator. He spent a chapter explaining the correlation between insurance companies’ bond-portfolios and premiums charged. His contention was that the bond revenue was the prime driver behind premium increases, not the payout end of things. Now that there’s bond principal to be concerned about, to the point where Janet Yellen is consulting with banks to see if they need a liquidity backstop in the secondary markets, I’m thinking these Florida-style disasters are coming at the worst time for the insurance industry. I’d imagine something analogous is true for annuities, particularly if there’s a ‘flood’ of redemptions due to increased financial need and the additional selling of older bonds affecting the solvency of the companies involved in those contracts.
Some of the guarantees by insurance companies (for example, on annuities) are backstopped by derivative contracts. If interest rates rise too high, or the stock market falls too low, it could be that the derivatives market will be hit with terrible results. Of course, big changes in currency relativities could also hurt the derivative contracts.
Hi Gail – great post! You keep raising the bar of understanding. Thanks.
Derivative counterparties and their viability make for interesting and often vague ‘word-salad’ in older BIS white-papers investigating subjects like clearing and settlement and such. Lots of promises out there but one must wonder about liquidity. Haven’t read those papers since around 2010 but they seemed to be attempts to prove that on-net there’d be no problems going forward if they got the counterparty clearing part right. That’s a good point you make about currency relativities. Hard to imagine the software involved. Could be why older ‘quants’ are raising oysters on the east coast or chickens in Kentucky these days. A natural human reaction to discovering there’s no controlling the Frankenstein finance those elaborate equations enabled?
hahaha https://conspyre.tv/video/13156/the-insane-truth-about-electric-vehicles-in-3min
A point that isn’t even in this video:
Europe can’t keep the lights on without electric cars. I wonder how they expect to add electric cars to the system.
Here in QT I am told that there are limitations on expansion of the city because there is not enough electricity … and upgrades would require big $$$.
I parked at the underground lot a few weeks ago and what did I see — a fleet of half a dozen or so EV SUV’s … with the council logos all over them.
https://www.qldc.govt.nz/20-08-06-more-electric-vehicles-on-the-way-for-qldc-fleet
Cost?
from $68,990 + ORC
https://brendanfoot.co.nz/vehicles/kia-niro-ev
This is why I did not vote during the recent elections. The options are vote for stupid – stupider – or stupidest…
And it’s impossible to know which one is which.
Strange world we live in.
Cancer Rates are Increasing — and May Get Much Worse
Wiped Out Immune Systems Take Time to Manifest
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/cancer-rates-are-increasing-and-may
Ya but the vax saved ’20M lives’… it was 6.5M two weeks ago – that this rate we’ll be at a billion saved soon!
Who cares about a bit of cancer
ANTWERP, Belgium—I spent nearly three hours in this historic city on October 11 in an interview with Geert Vanden Bossche, who has devoted years to studying the complex interplay between vaccines and the human immune system. In our talk, this Belgian veterinarian-turned-virologist and vaccine researcher made unsettling predictions for the future.
I can only hope that Vanden Bossche, 62, is wrong. Let’s for the moment assume he is, that there are significant variables that can and often do intervene. That will make this story easier to read as well as write.
From the start, I asked Vanden Bossche to speak, uncharacteristically for him, in as simple terms as possible.
The short version is this: He predicts a vicious wave of covid-19, with cases already rising in parts of Europe. The coming re-emergence of SARS-CoV-2 will escalate quickly, he contends, and make all other waves pale in comparison. It will, he believes, be driven by the vaccinated, or more accurately, by the misdirected and scientifically dubious policy of repeated mass vaccination.
Vanden Bossche has long asserted that the global covid vaccination program, unprecedented in human history, would put enormous pressure on the virus to mutate; his warning has repeatedly been proven true. While the unvaccinated gained long-lasting, adaptable natural immunity from covid infection, the vaccinated harbor a confused and mostly unhelpful array of old-variant anti-spike antibodies; Vanden Bossche believes these so complicate the immune response that more serious disease from new variants will result. In the vaccinated, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, he predicts, will imminently turn a corner from more contagious to more virulent.
https://rescue.substack.com/p/is-geert-right-lets-hope-not
Bossxhe and Pfizer CEOs are vertinarian ruend virologist. What a cosmic coincidnce
So far, Geert Vanden Bossche has been wrong. Perhaps the damage to immune systems will change things but the evidence so far seems to be toward Covid becoming more and more like the common cold.
Just a bit of clarification with Bossche. He has been very careful to state the if we continue down the path of leaky vaccinations, our chances rise for a very negative outcome. He states that this outcome is something we must avoid at all costs.
However, he has certainly elucidated us on how this industry operates. For that risk he is taking, I am thankful.
Very different from the common cold – the contagiousness is extreme.
Now it’s been super charged with lethality in the Boston Lab…
Hopefully the plan is to introduce… that to a world filled with VAIDsies…
Why else would they breed the contagious variants with the Death Stud?
Throw in the Super Fent … and get ready to party!
What we cannot lose sight of — is that BAU is on its last legs… they won’t just allow ROF without a fight