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Most people have a simple, but wrong, idea about how the world economy will respond to “not enough energy to go around.” They expect that oil prices will rise. With these higher prices, producers will be able to extract more fossil fuels so the system can go on as before. They also believe that wind turbines, solar panels and other so-called renewables can be made with these fossil fuels, perhaps extending the life of the system further.
The insight people tend to miss is the fact that the world’s economy is a physics-based, self-organizing system. Such economies grow for many years, but ultimately, they collapse. The underlying problem is that the population tends to grow too rapidly relative to the energy supplies necessary to support that population. History shows that such collapses take place over a period of years. The question becomes: What happens to an economy beginning its path toward full collapse?
One of the major uses for fossil fuel energy is to add complexity to the system. For example, roads, electricity transmission lines, and long-distance trade are forms of complexity that can be added to the economy using fossil fuels.
When energy per capita falls, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the complexity that has been put in place. It becomes too expensive to properly maintain roads, electrical services become increasingly intermittent, and trade is reduced. Long waits for replacement parts become common. These little problems build on one another to become bigger problems. Eventually, major parts of the world’s economy start failing completely.
When people forecast ever-rising energy prices, they miss the fact that market fossil fuel prices consider both oil producers and consumers. From the producer’s point of view, the price for oil needs to be high enough that new oil fields can be profitably developed. From the consumer’s point of view, the price of oil needs to be sufficiently low that food and other goods manufactured using oil products are affordable. In practice, oil prices tend to rise and fall, and rise again. On average, they don’t satisfy either the oil producers or the consumers. This dynamic tends to push the economy downward.
There are many other changes, as well, as fossil fuel energy per capita falls. Without enough energy products to go around, conflict tends to rise. Economic growth slows and turns to economic contraction, creating huge strains for the financial system. In this post, I will try to explain a few of the issues involved.
[1] What is complexity?
Complexity is anything that gives structure or organization to the overall economic system. It includes any form of government or laws. The educational system is part of complexity. International trade is part of complexity. The financial system, with its money and debt, is part of complexity. The electrical system, with all its transmission needs, is part of complexity. Roads, railroads, and pipelines are part of complexity. The internet system and cloud storage are part of complexity.
Wind turbines and solar panels are only possible because of complexity and the availability of fossil fuels. Storage systems for electricity, food, and fossil fuels are all part of complexity.
With all this complexity, plus the energy needed to support the complexity, the economy is structured in a very different way than it would be without fossil fuels. For example, without fossil fuels, a high percentage of workers would make a living by performing subsistence agriculture. Complexity, together with fossil fuels, allows the wide range of occupations that are available today.
[2] The big danger, as energy consumption per capita falls, is that the economy will start losing complexity. In fact, there is some evidence that loss of complexity has already begun.
In my most recent post, I mentioned that Professor Joseph Tainter, author of the book, The Collapse of Complex Societies, says that when energy supplies are inadequate, the resulting economic system will need to simplify–in other words, lose some of its complexity. In fact, we can see that such loss of complexity started happening as early as the Great Recession in 2008-2009.
The world was on a fossil fuel energy consumption per capita plateau between 2007 and 2019. It now seems to be in danger of falling below this level. It fell in 2020, and only partially rebounded in 2021. When it tried to rebound further in 2022, it hit high price limits, reducing demand.
There was a big dip in energy consumption per capita in 2008-2009 when the economy encountered the Great Recession. If we compare Figure 2 and Figure 3, we see that the big drop in energy consumption is matched by a big drop in trade as a percentage of GDP. In fact, the drop in trade after the 2008-2009 recession never rebounded to the former level.
Another type of loss of complexity involves the drop in the recent number of college students. The number of students was rising rapidly between 1950 and 2010, so the downward trend represents a significant shift.
The shutdowns of 2020 added further shifts toward less complexity. Broken supply lines became more of a problem. Empty shelves in stores became common, as did long waits for newly ordered appliances and replacement parts for cars. People stopped buying as many fancy clothes. Brick and mortar stores did less well financially. In person conferences became less popular.
We know that, in the past, economies that collapsed lost complexity. In some cases, tax revenue fell too low for governments to maintain their programs. Citizens became terribly unhappy with the poor level of government services being provided, and they overthrew the governmental system.
The US Department of Energy states that it will be necessary to double or triple the size of the US electric grid to accommodate the proposed level of clean energy, including EVs, by 2050. This is, of course, a kind of complexity. If we are already having difficulty with maintaining complexity, how do we expect to double or triple the size of the US electric grid? The rest of the world would likely need such an upgrade, as well. A huge increase in fossil fuel energy, as well as complexity, would be required.
[3] The world’s economy is a physics-based system, called a dissipative structure.
Energy products of the right kinds are needed to make goods and services. With shrinking per capita energy, there will likely not be enough goods and services produced to maintain consumption at the level citizens are used to. Without enough goods and services to go around, conflict tends to grow.
Instead of growing and experiencing economies of scale, businesses will find that they need to shrink back. This makes it difficult to repay debt with interest, among other things. Governments will likely need to cut back on programs. Some governmental organizations may fail completely.
To a significant extent, how these changes happen is related to the maximum power principle, postulated by ecologist Howard T. Odum. Even when some inputs are inadequate, self-organizing ecosystems try to maintain themselves, as best possible, with the reduced supplies. Odum said, “During self-organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency.” As I see the situation, the self-organizing economy tends to favor the parts of the economy that can best handle the energy shortfall that will be taking place.
In Sections [4], [5], and [6], we will see that this methodology seems to lead to a situation in which competition leads to different parts of the economy (energy producers and energy consumers) being alternately disadvantaged. This approach leads to a situation in which the human population declines more slowly than in either of the other possible outcomes:
- Energy producers win, and high energy prices prevail – The real outcome would be that high prices for food and heat for homes would quickly kill off much of the world’s population because of lack of affordability.
- Energy consumers always win, and low energy prices prevail – The real outcome would be that energy supplies would fall very rapidly because of inadequate prices. Population would fall quickly because of a lack of energy supplies (particularly diesel fuel) needed to maintain food supplies.
[4] Prices: Competition between producers and customers will lead to fossil fuel energy prices that alternately rise and fall as extraction limits are hit. In time, this pattern can be expected to lead to falling fossil fuel energy production.
Energy prices are set through competition between:
[a] The prices that consumers can afford to pay for end products whose costs are indirectly determined by fossil fuel prices. Food, transportation, and home heating costs are especially fossil fuel price sensitive. Poor people are the most quickly affected by rising fossil fuel prices.
[b] The prices that producers require to profitably produce these fuels. These prices have been rising rapidly because the easy-to-extract portions were removed earlier. For example, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, “Frackers Increase Spending but See Limited Gains.”
If fossil fuel prices rise, the indirect result is inflation in the cost of many goods and services. Consumers become unhappy when inflation affects their lifestyles. They may demand that politicians put price caps in place to somehow stop this inflation. They may encourage politicians to find ways to subsidize costs, so that the higher costs are transferred to a different part of the economy. At the same time, the producers need the high prices, to be able to fund the greater reinvestment necessary to maintain, and even raise, future fossil fuel energy production.
The conflict between the high price producers need and the low prices that many consumers can afford is what leads to temporarily spiking energy prices. In fact, food prices tend to spike, too, since food is a kind of energy product for humans, and fossil fuel energy products (oil, especially) are used in growing and transporting the food products. In their book, Secular Cycles, researchers Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov report a pattern of spiking prices in their analysis of historical economies that eventually collapsed.
With oil prices spiking only temporarily, energy prices are, on average, too low for fossil fuel producers to afford adequate funds for reinvestment. Without adequate funds for reinvestment, production begins to fall. This is especially a problem as fields deplete, and funds needed for reinvestment rise to very high levels.
[5] Demand for Discretionary Goods and Services: Indirectly, demand for goods and services, especially in discretionary sectors of the economy, will also tend to get squeezed back by the rounds of inflation caused by spiking energy prices described in Item [4].
When customers are faced with higher prices because of spiking inflation rates, they will tend to reduce spending on discretionary items. For example, they will go out to eat less and spend less money at hair salons. They may travel less on vacation. Multiple generation families may move in together to save money. People will continue to buy food and beverages since these are essential.
Businesses in discretionary areas of the economy will be affected by this lower demand. They will buy fewer raw materials, including energy products, reducing the overall demand for energy products, and tending to pull energy prices down. These businesses may need to lay off workers and/or default on their debt. Laying off workers may further reduce demand for goods and services, pushing the economy toward recession, debt defaults, and thus lower energy prices.
We find that in some historical accounts of collapses, demand ultimately falls to close to zero. For example, see Revelation 18:11-13 regarding the fall of Babylon, and the lack of demand for goods, including the energy product of the day: slaves.
[6] Higher Interest Rates: Banks will respond to rounds of inflation described in Item [4] by demanding higher interest rates to offset the loss of buying power and the greater likelihood of default. These higher interest rates will have adverse impacts of their own on the economy.
If inflation becomes a problem, banks will want higher interest rates to try to offset the adverse impact of inflation on buying power. These higher interest rates will tend to reduce demand for goods that are often bought with debt, such as homes, cars, and new factories. As a result, the sale prices of these assets are likely to fall. Higher interest rates will tend to produce the same effect for many types of assets, including stocks and bonds. To make matters worse, defaults on loans may also rise, leading to write-offs for the organizations carrying these loans on their balance sheets. For example, the used car dealer Caravan is reported to be near bankruptcy because of issues related to falling used car prices, higher interest rates, and higher default rates on debt.
An even more serious problem with higher interest rates is the harm they do to the balance sheets of banks, insurance companies, and pension funds. If bonds were previously purchased at a lower interest rate, the value of the bonds is less at a higher interest rate. Accounting for these organizations can temporarily hide the problem if interest rates quickly revert to the lower level at which they were purchased. The real problem occurs if inflation is persistent, as it seems to be now, or if interest rates keep rising.
[7] A second major conflict (after the buyer/producer conflict in Item [4], [5], and [6]) is the conflict in how the output of goods and services should be split between returns to complexity and returns to basic production of necessary goods including food, water, and mineral resources such as fossil fuels, iron, nickel, copper, and lithium.
Growing complexity in many forms is something that we have come to value. For example, physicians now earn high wages in the US. People in top management positions in companies often earn very high wages. The top people in large companies that buy food from farmers earn high wages, but farmers producing cattle or growing crops don’t fare nearly as well.
As energy supply becomes more constrained, the huge chunks of output taken by those with advanced degrees and high positions within the large companies gets to be increasingly problematic. The high incomes of citizens in major cities contrasts with the low incomes in rural areas. Resentment among people living in rural areas grows when they compare themselves to how well people in urbanized areas are doing. People in rural areas talk about wanting to secede from the US and wanting to form their own country.
There are also differences among countries in how well their economies get rewarded for the goods and services they produce. The United States, the EU, and Japan have been able to get better rewards for the complex goods that they produce (such as banking services, high-tech medicine, and high-tech agricultural products) compared to Russia and the oil exporting countries of the Middle East. This is another source of conflict.
Comparing countries in terms of per capita GDP on a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) basis, we find that the countries that focus on complexity have significantly higher PPP GDP per capita than the other areas listed. This creates resentment among countries with lower per-capita PPP GDP.
Russia and the Arab World, with all their energy supplies, come out behind. Ukraine does particularly poorly.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is between two countries that are doing poorly on this metric. Ukraine is also much smaller than Russia. It appears that Russia is in a conflict with a competitor that it is likely to be able to defeat, unless NATO members, including the US, can give immense support to Ukraine. As I discuss in the next section, the industrial ability of the US and the EU is waning, making it difficult for such support to be available.
[8] As conflict becomes a major issue, which economy is largest and is best able to defend itself becomes more important.
Back in 1990, the EU had a greater PPP GDP than did either the US or China. Now, the US is a little ahead of the EU. More importantly, China has come from way behind both the US and EU, and now is clearly ahead of both in PPP GDP.
We often hear that the US is the largest economy, but this is only true if GDP is measured in current US dollars. If differences in actual purchasing power are reflected, China is significantly ahead. China is also far ahead in total electricity production and in many types of industrial output, including cement, steel, and rare earth minerals.
The conflict in Ukraine is now leading countries to take sides, with Russia and China on the same side, and the United States together with the EU on Ukraine’s side. While the US has many military bases around the world, its military capabilities have increasingly been stretched thin. The US is a major oil producer, but the mix of oil it produces is of lower and lower average quality, especially if obtaining diesel and jet fuel from it are top priorities.
Huge pressure is building now for China and Russia to trade in their own currencies, rather than the US dollar, putting pressure on the US financial system and its status as the reserve currency. It is also not clear whether the US would be able to fight on more than one front in a conventional war. A conflict with Iran has been mentioned as a possibility, as has a conflict with China over Taiwan. It is not at all clear that a conflict between NATO and China-Russia is winnable by the NATO forces, including the US.
It appears to me that, to save fuel, more regionalization of trade is necessary with the Asian countries being primary trading partners of each other, rather than the rest of the world. If such a regionalization takes place, the US will be at a disadvantage. It currently depends on supply lines stretching around the world for computers, cell phones, and other high-tech devices. Without these supply lines, the standards of living in the US and the EU would likely decline quickly.
[9] Clearly, the narratives that politicians and the news media tell citizens are under pressure. Even if they understand the true situation, politicians need a different narrative to tell voters and young people wondering about what career to pursue.
Every politician would like a “happily ever after” story to tell citizens. Fortunately, from the point of view of politicians, there are lots of economists and scientists who put together what I call “overly simple” models of the economy. With these overly simple models of the economy, there is no problem ahead. They believe the standard narrative about oil and other energy prices rising indefinitely, so there is no energy problem. Instead, our only problem is climate change and the need to transition to green energy.
The catch is that our ability to scale up green energy is just an illusion, built on the belief that complexity can scale up indefinitely without the use of fossil fuels.
We are left with a major problem: Our current complex economy is in danger of degrading remarkably in the next few years, but we have no replacement available. Even before then, we may need to do battle, in new ways, with other countries for the limited resources that are available.
You will show respect!
r-e-s-p-e-c-t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQnrbdChHrg&ab_channel=FrogLeapStudios
so, is this guy Italian?
Crypto Bank Silvergate to Shut Down and Liquidate, after FDIC Examiners Show up. Shares Collapse Entirely
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/03/08/crypto-bank-silvergate-to-shut-down-and-liquidate-after-fdic-examiners-show-up-shares-collapse-entirely/
https://media1.tenor.com/images/295fb9ab49a0809d1eca1277fd63b54f/tenor.gif
I wonder how long crypto currencies can continue.
USDT and USDC (stable coins, each worth one dollar) will probably be the last to leave the scene. Very useful for circumventing sanctions, so the market for them is strong.
I think Bitcoin could become very important over the new few decades. Payments network are some of the most complex systems we have. From the point of tapping your card to the merchant actually gets their money – which takes between 7 and 30 days – a whole host of intermediaries are involved, each taking their cut, especially if foreign exchange is involved. Bitcoin is a far simpler network. The existing payments network is also centralised, so many points of failure. Bitcoin isnt. So if we start to see regional electricity outages, payments will suffer majorly.
Its a misconception that Bitcoin requires the energy of a small country to work. The network could run on 3 laptops. All it needs is consensus amongst a majority of nodes for transactiosn to be legitimate.
Also, reaching resource limits was only possible with fiat. Since fiat is a claim on resources, and theres no limit to these claims beyond the stroke of a bank managers pen, resources depletion has been accelerated. That wouldnt be possible with Bitcoin as its issuance is tied to underlying physical reality (by the creation of electricity to mine new Bitcoin) and is at a fixed rate, halving every 4 years.
Bitcoin could be the money of the transition. This is all assuming the stone edge isn’t visited upon us within 20 years as some posit here.
Interested in peoples thoughts on the above.
You either don’t understand the technology or haven’t thought about the implications of what you’re saying. I’m not expert, but consider:
>> “All it needs is consensus among a majority of nodes”.
In your example with three (or any small number) computers, what this means is that I can take over the network and double-spend if I *temporarily* acquire a majority of computing power. Might it be beneficial to me to rent a botnet or Amazon cloud instances for a few dollars to then double spend a much larger amount on our mini-network? Yes.
So the reason to participate in and only use the full bitcoin network is that it’s hard for any individual to acquire half the network compute, even temporarily. For a smaller network, not so much.
I said 3 laptops to emphasise that Bitcoin doesn’t need 100,000 nodes and the electricity consumption the size of Switzerland to work. Bitcoins electricity usage is a function of all the electricity available. As that goes down, so will Bitcoin electricity usage, but it will remain just as secure because the cost of the electricity needed for a successful attack would be proportional and therefore unattainably high as it is now. Also, Bitcoin nodes can run anywhere, as long as theres a 4G connection. Thats why so many nodes are run off electricity that would otherwise be wasted like flared gas, hydro when water is low and output isnt enough to sell to grid etc. That makes it more durable in an unstable electricity future.
Now think of all the power usage of the existing payments network, all the buildings and central servers with their single points of failure, all the Anti-Money Laundering complexity, involved in moving a payment from one computer to another, often taking 30 days. With reduced electricity and regional outages, that payment network is in trouble.
A much simpler decentralised payments network like Bitcoin seems like it could be very useful in the transition.
I said 3 laptops to emphasise that Bitcoin doesn’t need 100,000 nodes and the electricity consumption the size of Switzerland to work.
And Ivan explained why it does in fact need 100,000 nodes to work.I guess you didn’t read his post.
You clearly didn’t understand my reply.
You clearly didn’t understand my reply.
The system you described could not work and would not be used by anyone because it could be too easily hijacked.
That’s what I understood Ivan to have said.
Read my reply. The electricity to run, and attack, Bitcoin is proportional to the amount available. The number of nodes go or or down proportional to that. So the effort to attack it remains the same. This criticism has been put to Bitcoiners ad nauseam for a decade. Its still around. This is going off track anyway. My point is the extremely complex existing payments system is much more likely to fail before Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is the likely candidate to take that value.
My point is the extremely complex existing payments system is much more likely to fail before Bitcoin
You’re doing what most people do which is think/worry about payment systems and currencies, not supply chains.
My prediction is both the current payment system and bitcoin continue to operate beyond the point both are useless because there is nothing to buy.
We’ll agree to disagree.
Max, I originally thought your point was that folks could set up mini-networks. That’s DOA. But it seems your point is that the entire Bitcoin network could shrink for a while and remain useful during that period.
I think it could be useful to get money out of countries when their currencies fail, basically helping you to move to a higher point on the global Titanic. We have finite lifespans, so depending on one’s age, moving to a higher spot might secure the rest of one’s life.
Nice metaphor. Ya i meant an environment of reduced electricity availability wont affect its security. It could also see a lot of value rush to it with the bank failures.
Are you vaxxed max?
I never got vaxxed no. Which was a difficult thing to do in Ireland – one of the worlds most locked down countries. For 2 years they closed everything, and banned the unvaxxed from entering the few things that did open. It was clear to me from the beginning that if you’re under 70, you’re grand. I do think anyone over 70 should get the covid vax though, I encouraged my parents in their 70s to take it, which they did.
Do you own an EV? Solar panels?
Trying to categorise me? I’d like an EV, but its too expensive. Have a diesel tractor and a diesel loader. No solar panels. Many people are installing them here but given we dont get much sun, its a waste of time. Irelands great for wind.
Why would you like an EV?
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max
i’m confused about bitcoin—you can maybe explain it——
I have (say) $1000 in bitcoin, I wish to pay for goods from you in bitcoin, to the value of $1000.
now—if bitcoin is rising in value, then you will eagerly exchange your goods for my bitcoin—but i might not want to use my bitcion if they will be worth more tomorrow.
but—-if my bitcoin is falling in value—i will be eager to offload them onto you—but you on the other hand wont be keen to take them, as they will be worth less tomorrow—while i course–have your physical goods.
i’m not very bright when it comes to real world economics, and i fully accept i might have missed a trick there,–but can you explain the conundrum i have just outlined above?
If you can’t then bitcoin is, as ive always said, a ponzi scheme.
and can never function in the real world
Norman,
Rising and falling in value compared to the dollar. Indeed the dollar is more stable. In the long run, Bitcoin should be more stable than the dollar. I think of money primarily as a unit of account that values the worlds natural capital. How many dollars are there in the world? Nobody knows. How many Bitcoin? 21 million. It should therefore stabilise in the long run and assume its role as a fairer unit of account. With the dollar, those close to the money printer benefit, by the time the money the rest of us its inflation. Since there is no central issuer and nobody can create more bitcoin (beyond its inflation rate), Bitcoin would lead to much less inequality. As I said above it is a tool that can be used to shrink the finance system. Its already doing this – if you want to send money from, say, the US to Nigeria using Western Union you pay 9% and wait 5 days for settlement. With a company like Strike (who use the Bitcoin network), its 2% with instant settlement (Bitcoin is a bearer instrument moving value at the speed of light).
You also touch on an important point – people wont buy stuff if their bitcoin is rising in value relative to the dollar. In our current era over over-consumption, thats probably a good thing.
You also touch on an important point – people wont buy stuff if their bitcoin is rising in value relative to the dollar. In our current era over over-consumption, thats probably a good thing.
That’s not a good thing, it would destroy the economy.
“That’s not a good thing, it would destroy the economy.”
That’s happening anyway. The economy the evolves out of this one won’t be based on mass consumption. People who lose their job could be put to work on the nationalised energy systems that seem inevitable.
ultimately there is only one ‘nationalised energy system’ and that is to productionn and delivery of food and water
Max
Money can never be other than a unit of energy exchange.
eg—I work your land—you pay me wages
I take those wages, and buy the necessary food to provide the energy to work someone else’s land, take a holiday, buy a pair of shoes—whatever.
But if you paid me in a currency that is inherently unstable—ie–something that people acquire as an investment, then the money system doesn’t work.
If you pay me today in bitcoin, and i go to buy a pair of shoes next week and find they cost 100x as much (in bitcoin) then wages become worthless
this is why bitcoin is a ponzi scheme.
Bitcoin is worth only what someone else will pay you for it.
Yes—it works for a short time, and a few people will make a lot of money, but ultimately must collapse. The money made be a few depends on the gullibility of many. That is the basis of the ponzi scheme.
If it were otherwise, governments would pay everyone in bitcoin. They don’t.
Norman, its 13 years old, its still a young money. One definition i use for money is its information about the energy used by someone providing value to someone else. Printing more of it, which is what happens every time a bank gives a loan, is misinformation. Bitcoin provides a more honest account. Bitcoin needs to stabilise and prove itself an inflation hedge before it can be as useful as i think it can be. It doesnt at all resemble a ponzi scheme. Its much simpler than most make out, a digital unit of account and nobody can make more of it. Now this is to address the “market” economy ie the abstraction upon abstraction upon abstraction between fiat and real goods and services. Bitcoin wont help so much with the real economy, when sooner or later there wont be enough goods to go round, though it could reduce discretionary consumtpion.
the only thing that will reduce discretionary consumption is lack of ‘stuff’ to consume
I would guess giving people the option of a hard money ie you cant make more units of it, would have some impact on discretionary spending. Theres probably data on that somewhere. Also a lot of peoole in countries with collapsing currencies are using it to save their life’s savings. The countries with top usage are the ones with collapsing currencies eg Turkey, Argentina.
max
i dont have an economic background, so i cannot be definitive—but i fear those countries are clutching at straws
Perhaps.
I like Austrian Economics (which Bitcoin was based on) and Friedrich Hayek. Heres what Chat GPT says about money and Austrian economics (I think you can see why this could be important during the transition):
“Austrian economists view money and time preference as intimately related concepts. Time preference refers to the degree to which individuals value present consumption versus future consumption. In other words, it is a measure of how much people are willing to forego immediate consumption in order to receive greater consumption in the future.
Austrian economists argue that time preference plays a crucial role in the value of money. The value of money is not determined solely by its purchasing power at a given point in time, but also by its purchasing power over time. In other words, the value of money depends on how much people value present versus future consumption.
According to Austrian economists, a high time preference (i.e., a preference for immediate consumption) leads to a low value of money over time, because people are willing to spend their money quickly and do not value the future consumption as much. On the other hand, a low time preference (i.e., a preference for future consumption) leads to a higher value of money over time, because people are willing to save their money and invest it in the future.
Austrian economists also argue that changes in time preference can have significant effects on the economy. For example, if people suddenly develop a higher time preference and become more focused on immediate consumption, this can lead to inflation and economic instability, as people spend their money quickly and the value of money declines. Conversely, if people develop a lower time preference and become more focused on future consumption, this can lead to economic growth and stability, as people save their money and invest it in productive assets.
Overall, Austrian economists view money and time preference as closely related concepts, and argue that changes in time preference can have significant effects on the value of money and the economy as a whole.”
thats another take on it Max
but if the output of net energy does not exceed to production of money, year on year, then the perceived value of money will evaporate.
in accelleration of money flow started when we began to create goods in cheap quantity 250 odd years ago.
Production of cheap goods required workers to man the factories, they needed wages, they used those wages to buy more goods. Their increased income allowed more of their children to survive—who in turn need edmore jobs to produced yet more goods.
the critical factor in that progression was that the (cheap) energy available for the production of ‘goods’ had to stay ahead of the wage demands of the people producing them.
That is the ‘law of economics’ in our time.
If that equation reverses, then the economic balance of the world goes into chaos—which is exactly what is starting to happen right now.
ie, its not a shortage of energy that is the problem—-the ‘stuff’ that energy produces is becoming unaffordable. Energy is ‘available’–but it is no longer cheap.
That is borne out by the escalating cost of houses (the ultimate energy package)—they are becoming unaffordable. Same applies to food. I watch food cost jumping by a third or more. I can absorb that—but millions can’t. Hence you get foodbanks.
None of this is related to ‘economic plans’–just the situation all of us have created as we head to Wile e Coyotes favourite cliff
Norman, yes thats why I distinguish here between the market economy – money making money eg wall street – and the real economy – the manufacturing of real goods and services. The finance sector is supposed to connect savers with borrowers and to spread risk. But its mushrooming in size, quadrupled in the last 30 years. Its now extracting money from the economy without producing any real value. Paul Vockler, the former head of the Federal Reserve, said “The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM”. Thats what Im saying Bitcoin addresses. Throw in a bit of Austrian Economics and it also lessens the likelihood of people spending money on nonsense they dont need, and therefore planning for the future. And planning for the future is the process of civilisation. Im working on an essay on this topic, will post here.
will be interested to read it max
but the only ‘economy’ is the one involved in goods and services
the other one is the process of money exchange which is dependent on notional values
Norman, its 13 years old, its still a young money.
It’s not money and it can’t exist without a lot of energy being consumed.
It’s about to run into serious trouble because of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate which has caused a run on one of the main stablecoins (USDC) that make the whole Ponzi scheme possible. Plus the US goverment is crackng down on it.
Also a lot of peoole in countries with collapsing currencies are using it to save their life’s savings.
A common fairy tale told by bitcoin fans. Most crypto bros are people in the West who think they should live like millionaires because they own some imaginary tokens they paid pennies for.
It can’t work because the resources don’t exist for millions of crypto bros to leave the workforce and buy Ferarris.
you are quite correct withnail
but it’s an impossible reality to put across i’m afraid
Given your relentless critcism of the US, and the dollar backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government, Im surprised you wouldn’t see value in a money taken out of the hands of government and backed by mathemtics and game theory? The bitcoin netowkr coiuld run on 3 latops, as I explained.
A money backed by energy isn’t a new idea – Henry Ford proposed one. Ford suggested a currency backed in kilowatt hours (kWh) – Bitcoin is “backed” by energy input. “Under the energy currency system the standard would be a certain amount of energy exerted for one hour that would be equal to $1.” – Henry Ford.
And then there is the famous Friedrick Hayek quote: “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government. That is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.”
Technology didnt allow Ford and Hayek to realise their dream, until Bitcoin. If Henry Ford and Hayek are crypto bros, then count me in!
https://medium.com/capriole/the-energy-standard-b726edeed588
max
with regard to your comment about Ford and bitcoin
Ford was wrong
Ford controlled the production of cars from iron ore to finished product (except for rubber)
He increased profits by paying his workers enough money with which to buy the cars they made
simple as that
It was supposed to be a perpetual motion machine–they don’t work. Ford couldn’t see that. Wars are driven by resource greed—he didn’t know that either.
Infinite materials=Infinite products= infinite profits
That was Ford’s prime intention—
The UK Lockdown Files, “They Lied To Us” by Chris Martenson
https://peakprosperity.com/the-uk-lockdown-scandal/
A bigger piece of the whole sad story.
One reason for the media to leak it may just be to incriminate Hancock and draw attention away from bigger ‘operators’, who include Gates, Farrar, Michie, Whitty, van Tam, Vallance, etc. Lots more within the UK. Gates I’ve included because he regularly visits 10 Downing St.
AFAIK Farrar, Michie & Whitty have gone on to better-paid jobs at (or advising) WHO. Why … reward for helping to run the ‘pandemic industry’ and terrorising >80% of the UK population?
Hancock reportedly wants legal immunity. What for …? He hasn’t really told us anything yet, what we know mostly leaked out. He resented being interviewed by a ‘freelance’ reporter while travelling on the London Underground.
Follow the money: media exists to sell ads, if it bleeds, it leads. Talking heads are just that, they are given a script and need to act the part so as to sell ads; it is teh same with movies, etc.
Politicians are now actors, they read scripts. Not sarcastic, thinkers are not generally good presenters.
Dennis L.
Sounds like bad news for the norms…
Exosomes, Kinetic Proofreading and Direct Expression: How the Spike Protein “Teaches” T-Cells to Attack Self
The Pfeyezer Exosome Mechanism and mRNA Expression (Along with Wild Spike) Studding Cells with “Attack Me” Signs
https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/exosomes-and-kinetic-proofreading
Thanks Eddy. I contributed my exosomal take to the discussion there though I don’t expect much interest because they’re probably wedded to the spike narrative. It’s good that Walter is entering the exosomal avenue of inquiry.
https://substack.com/profile/39169803-reante
Sorry I did that wrong. The comment:
https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/exosomes-and-kinetic-proofreading/comment/13462081
Isn’t it Frightening ? Dr. Robert Malone and Professor Ian Brighthope discuss the mass roll out of Lipid Nano Part…
https://thenobodywhoknowseverybody.substack.com/p/isnt-it-frightening-dr-robert-malone/
The only way you can get people like this to agree to participate is if… they believe what they are doing is necessary …. that to not act would open the Gates of Hell.
This message is not well-received … by anti-vaxxers… but isn’t it quite obvious?
Surging leukemia diagnoses, sudden, happening among children and young adults; is this due to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID mRNA technology gene injections? Lipid-nano particles (Makis)
Lipid-nano particles (LNPs) that accumulate in bone marrow, as well as adrenals, testis, ovaries, spleen, liver as per Japanese biodistribution study? The LNPs carrying the mRNA payload causing it?
https://palexander.substack.com/p/surging-leukemia-diagnoses-sudden
For so many to commit such evil … there must be good intentions involved.
Oh no, one of the many side effects of long Covid!
“For so many to commit such evil … there must be good intentions involved.”
This is possibly the most insane thing I have ever read.
People will always justify the most horrible things as “for the greater good” or “in the name of a god of love” or whatever.
Fast Eddy, congrats – you are insane, delusional and incredibly naive about the human nature.
You are missing the point … and it does not matter if you agree or not — they don’t give a f789.
The PR Team is telling us that what appears to be evil is actually good – is necessary. The alternative if far more horrifying.
All explained here https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=220
I don’t expect you to understand any of this … the reason the PR Team can run this Utopia series is because nobody will connect the dots… cuz the world is filled with MORE-ONS.
But when you have a 1500HP intelligence level such things are obvious… it takes not effort to make the connection … at this level of intelligence one also realizes that humans are f789ing stooopid – pretty much all of them… did I mention they ring a bell and celebrate when they list a company — celebrating the pillage.
Idiots.
I am getting very close to the point of having to completely avoid all interaction with them… they disgust me.
More Tee Vee. More Radio. More Facebook. More Boosters!!!!
Fast Eddie is sane unfortunately the uep looks very plausible I will post evidence shortly the elders are the good guys our only chance now is gold hydrogen 2025 if we are lucky
I don’t get the resistance to UEP… we’ve know since before OFW that there would be a moment… a tipping point … where the energy situation would become critical…
That happened in the year or two before Covid was launched.
Did everyone think that the Elders would not have something up their sleeves? That they’d just let it go Full Re Tard ROF?
Did ya’ll think there would be some magic formula that would allow them to defy physics and math and keep this shit show going for many decades?
The end of the road … is the end of the road. There ain’t nothing after the end. The end.. is the end.
Let’s summarize — they created covid …. (a flu) — murdered thousands with Remdesivir and Midazolam + ventilators — CNNBBC ran horror headlines scaring the shit out of the MORE-ONS…
Then like magic they had ‘The Vaccine’ … and the MORE-ONS trampled each other (any deaths from that blamed on long covid haha)… to get that shot (right norm?)
Promised that it would stop the MORE-ONS from getting covid.
Then they got covid – then Dawta Fawchi and Fizzer said — no we never said that we never tested for that…
Oh… but but… it will stop you from getting severe illness! Ooooh the MOREONS orgasmed over that and Shot more Rat Juice! Safe and Effective Save and Effective….
Fizzer and Fawchi know that this is also BS – they see the data — the more Rat Juice the higher the chance of getting the Vid + dying … then there are the vax injuries… then there are the endless mutations…
Did they stop pushing their Rat Juice? Naw… they pushed and added Paxlovid… studies show that giving Paxlovid to a Covid sufferer promotes mutations….
Hmm.. now why would they give useless dangerous products to the MOREONS — knowing that doing this causes the virus to mutate — with the risks of create a Marek’s type of illness?
Why would they inject their Praetorian Guard (US military). Why inject babies? Why inject anyone other than the at risk with an experiment?
Wake the f789 up people. I know nobody likes this outcome. It’s worse than your worst nightmare. We’ve got MOREONS with some of the most heinous side effects popping up all around us … I just spent time watching a child suffering from a wrecked immune system — it’s an endless sniffle and cough… but what’s next – cancer? The Horror The Horror….
But… but there is a worse nightmare out there… it’s the nightmare that comes if UEP fails… if they fail to exterminate us…. you know what is gonna happen.
They are doing evil … to do good. Good is all relative of course… most would argue that extermination is not good… but it is … if extermination is baked in one way or the other… and we can choose a method with the least amount of suffering.
This is why every country on the planet is pushing the Rat Juice. No dissenters. None.
They understand that this is necessary. It’s what you do when you are running out of the substance that allowed you to feed 8B MORE-ONS.
It’s probably the only intelligent thing that humans have done in their entire history.
Thank the Elders for this … if not for them we’d have Roffed the f789 out of each other years ago.
Enjoy the eye of the storm while it lasts
Yup. It’s the Degrowth Agenda baby. They ain’t stupid, and it’s their show.
The moral of this story is that the people in charge are amoral.
The moral majority don’t want to recognize this because it would be bad for morale.
Why make it any more complicated that it needs to be?
Think of it as the gangsters, hucksters, and grifter having taken over everything, and are milking the system for all they can cream cream off it and, now that they can no longer keep the show on the road by cooking the books, killing off the people they owe money to.
As a general description, this seems to fit what’s going on as far as I can see.
Extermination is an act of kindness
Excellent summary.
The question I have .. is do Geisha Girls offer Lap Dances? (for $$$ of course)
Excellent question.
Real geisha don’t do this for mere mortal, except perhaps occasionally for the billionaire class.
But they will dance and play the shamisen for you, keep your sake cup full, place tasty morsels in your mouth with chopsticks, and clap when you perform your karaoke rendition of My Way or Heart of Gold.
For lap dances, you might get lucky with an onsen geisha, although these ladies who entertain guests in hot spring resorts have upped their status in recent decades and are now at least semi-respectable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onsen_geisha
Great info. I’ll have to visit Japan without M Fast… or ‘go golfing’ a few times if she is along
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/a7/29/f0a72930a509d0668eff7dbebec6b1b9.jpg
hey norm … wanna join? Here’s yours:
http://yopizzajump.y.o.pic.centerblog.net/kv35pgmi.jpg
My son revealed to us that he had problems with “kidney pains” but it went away before he could get into a doctor. He would not tell us anything more about it.
He is fully vaxxed, against our advice and counsel.
So I am wondering if there is a kidney pain vax symptom.
If related, he might have been reticent to admit it to us.
Anybody know?
Does he party?
I know someone who had kidney issues due to sniffing loads of ketamine… it went away when he was told to stop.
But he no longer enjoyed the out of body experiences and the K-Hole Experience
Going big on Robo (Robitussin DM – 12oz of cough syrup) is a good alternative if you want to switch things up a little bit on the kidneys. 8-plus ounces is out of body territory. I never went that big. 4-6oz is an absolute ball.
Check https://openvaers.com/
Absolutely, the spike can damage the kidneys.
Just google vaccination kidney injury and you will find a slew of scientific papers on it.
There are also quite a few drugs that can cause acute kidney infection (AKI).
But regardless of the cause, kidney pain is something a person would be wise to get checked out. In many cases, treatment can be effective. Sometimes just drinking more water can normalize the situation, or if the cause is a bacterial infection, antibiotics may do the trick.
I know an elderly woman who developed severe and painful nephritis post vaccination, and she recovered fully after a month in hospital.
They cite Covid as the cause … but we all know that it’s the Covid Vaccine…
COVID-19: Issues related to Kidney Failure, Kidney Transplant and Hypertension
https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/08/12/covid-19-issues-related-to-kidney-failure-kidney-transplant-and-hypertension/
Tally ho – MORE Boosters for the Rapacious MORE-ONS
Let’s see what’s on norms tiny mind: https://www.huffpost.com/
“[6] Higher Interest Rates: Banks will respond to rounds of inflation … by demanding higher interest rates to offset the loss of buying power and the greater likelihood of default.”
My monetary theory proposes that banks will demand the highest possible interest rate on their loans regardful only of the competitive marketplace. CB baserate increases and rapid CPI change give the “free market” oligarchy cover to crank hard on the extraction. I don’t consider elements such as the margin between their deposit rates and their lending, or loss of purchasing power of the currency to be significant in their calculations. With fractional reserve (say 10%) lending out a deposited thousand dollars can create ten thousand of loans, multiplying the margin ten times. What a disgusting racket and who said what about fooling the people?
“An even more serious problem with higher interest rates is the harm they do to the balance sheets of banks, insurance companies, and pension funds. If bonds were previously purchased at a lower interest rate, the value of the bonds is less at a higher interest rate.”
Yes yes this is true, but it isn’t a problem whatsoever. Balance sheet constraint? Cry to the regulators. It’s proposed quite credibly that Japan’s commercial banks were bust for a couple of decades after Showa went and propped up by BoJ. Remember the AIG swaps? Mark to fantasy?
Insufficient distinction is given in my view between the impact of floating and fixed loans. It’s only a portion of funding up for reset over any period. Imagine the losses that would exist on the balance sheets of Japan’s commercial banks were it not the the BoJ QE of the past decade which has funded them to the tune of trillions or quadrillions by buying up almost the entire JGB market formerly held in private hands as rates fell. The monumental accounting losses of the past year as interest rates rose then were transferred the taxpayer. One cannot surpass these guys for comedy.
Hmm… zero mention of this heart attack
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=virgin+pilot+heart+attack&ia=web
i’ve noticed lately that search engines are becoming less useful, in that most seem to have taken away the ability to search via date ranges. now you can only search during the last year…memory holed.
the only 1 i’ve found not following this trend is brave; the DDG search you linked now provides a single result, while brave has many:
https://search.brave.com/search?q=virgin+pilot+heart+attack&tf=pw
Google and Duckgo both have custom search date ranges.
Virgin Australia flight from Adelaide to Perth forced to make emergency landing as First Officer suffered heart attack 30 minutes after departure on March 3, 2023
https://makismd.substack.com/p/virgin-australia-flight-from-adelaide
Having spent nearly a month amongst many pro vaxxers I can say with confidence that even if they know about this … it doesn’t change their minds
right norm? What you think – they think … CNNBBC (HUFF) tells them what to think
Stoooopid MORE-ONS
Chris Martenson mentioned that finally the Australia MSM have decided to make the connection between the CV1984 vaccines and the surge in deaths.
Thanks for updates FE
The new GA nuclear plant made me wonder how much excess net energy will there be during nighttime. For that matter how much everywhere?
To get a very rough idea I found this quickly :
https://www.groovygreen.com/excess-nightime-grid-energy-could-power-more-than-70-of-electric-vehicles/
I think we waste a crazy amount kind of like flaring natGas.
I don’t think that nighttime grid energy is wasted. Nuclear electricity in the US tends to be level, night and day. Electricity generated using coal and natural gas are added to it, as needed, especially during the daytime. Also, hydro, wind and solar. No one intentionally wastes natural gas or coal energy.
The energy that tends to be wasted is wind and solar energy that is generated when it is not needed, such as spring and fall and weekends. If enough batteries are added, it can be saved until later, but that is usually later the same day.
Natural gas is often flared because it is not economic to extract. The cost of all of the collection pipes is not worth installing, relative to the low amount of natural gas available at a particular well, especially given the low price natural gas usually sells for.
“ No one intentionally wastes natural gas or energy!” I’m gonna have disagree; I have been in a lot of billionaires mountain houses and they all have heated driveways sidewalks and travel over 30 miles must be done by helicopter. Heating a driveway at -20 below hmmm yeah that’s reasonable… some of these people are the same ones crying climate change
I don’t think that utilities intentionally waste natural gas or coal.
I have seen heated sidewalks. You are right. There are some pretty unnecessary use of fossil fuels.
Unless the energy is used to extract and transport resources/food… it is generally wasted.
Consider ski lifts… ice rinks… bowling alleys… sports stadiums….
Also flaring in regions of concentrated fields has all but disappeared. A short pipe takes the gas to a newly built aluminum foundry, where it is used. UAE now produces far more aluminum than the USA, and so does Saudi Arabia.
I have given serious thought to heating my relatively short drive and sidewalk in MN. Help is getting hard to find and often times my walks are shoveled poorly. It is demographics, always demographics.
Dennis L.
I think we waste a crazy amount kind of like flaring natGas.
In remote fields it would take more energy to build the natural gas infrastructure than the gas is worth. So it’s not really being wasted.
Yes, we all saw the ‘cruise ship’ comment.
Biber (Heinrich not Justin) is my ‘go to’ for string solos.
musica poetica
No doubt that Vatican SA has helped create the best jingles and advertising images ever, from Cantigas de Santa Maria to Caravaggio.
Unfortunately for the company, they couldn’t make the transition to animated imagery, being overtaken in that department by Coca-Cola, Nike and a myriad of other big corporations.
still not enough
Headline in bold:
Pakistan has defaulted, says the country’s defence minister
“… the solutions to Pakistan’s economic problems are within the country and not the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — whose crucial $1.1 billion loan Pakistan is desperately trying to secure.
“Presenting a solution to address Pakistan’s economic woes, Khawaja Asif said that golf clubs were built on 1,500 acres of government land and Pakistan can pay off a quarter of its debt by selling two of its golf clubs …
“‘For the last 32 years, I have seen politics getting disgraced in Pakistan,’ he further said.”
tbsnews.net/world/global-economy/pakistan-has-defaulted-says-countrys-defence-minister-587290
this is a sample for quality comparison and entertainment purposes only of Third World journalism analysis/discussion, also from the same Bangladesh portal news item as the preceeding:
“Stricken by a balance-of-payments crisis as it attempts to service high levels of external debt amid political chaos and deteriorating security, Pakistan’s economy is going through a crisis. Inflation has rocketed, the Pakistani rupee has plummeted and the country can no longer afford imports – causing a severe decline in the industry.
“Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves stand at around $3.19 billion as of 10 February, reflecting the miseries of the $350 billion economy struggling to fund imports as thousands of containers of supplies were stranded at its ports, stalling production and putting jobs of millions of people at risk.
“Life for the Pakistani masses, which was already tough given the current state of the country’s economy, got even harder after the petrol price surged to a historic high of Rs272 per litre — in line with the IMF’s demands.”
Now what could they be???? cranking utilities transport prices high interest rates inflation privatise goGreen???
works every time, till the next crisis
IMF will Scotch Tape that appendage back onto BAU… they’ll keep taping the rotting parts off for as long as possible… to let one fall off and have the pigs eat it … would be a bad look … it would spook the mob of imbeciles
“Presenting a solution to address Pakistan’s economic woes, Khawaja Asif said that golf clubs were built on 1,500 acres of government land and Pakistan can pay off a quarter of its debt by selling two of its golf clubs …
Golf courses need continuing inputs of water, fertiliser, herbicides and mowing.
They are not a productive asset, more of a drain on resources. In a country like Pakistan with shaky supplies of the necessary inputs, I’d say they are worthless.
What if your job were maintaining the golf course?
Dennis L.
The US military maintains 234 golf courses around the world.
They don’t worry about “productive assets”…they can steal the inputs from the occupied country.
Right up there with ski hills and roller coasters… bowling alleys … ice rinks… sports stadiums
A line from US Utopia stood out … the mastermind says — how much evil do you have to do to be considered good….
And when he is accused of being a monster … he insists that to not take action would result in a far more horrific outcome… therefore what he is doing (killing and sterilizing) is good.
Will watch S2 over the coming days
Mexico is nationalising both their FF resources and their Lithium resources. You all know what that means…
Time for the US to bring them some democracy;
https://thehill.com/policy/international/3887479-graham-says-he-will-introduce-bill-to-set-the-stage-for-us-to-use-military-force-in-mexico/
I am afraid you have made the right connection. Someone is getting in the way of the US using Mexico’s resources.
Could be the elites of Mexico making sure they get their 10%. They are smart enough to not pick a fight with the US DOD/CIA/NSA.
They are probably making a deal with China to build lithium battery factories in Mexico and drill for oil.
It’s one thing for Russia to assert itself on the other side of the globe, quite another for Mexico.
Mexico asserting itself? Like Canada? Mexico can tell their voters they are free and tough but there is a limit.
The Feds will soon be all over Mexico making sure Obrador does things “right” after the deaths of the US medical tourists.
I doubt they have the power any more. It’s just the usual bluster and political grandstanding.
After a day of posts about bad news, I’d like to send you a nice song. I hope you like it.
It comes from the great Django Reinhardt.
Good night
Great one Student! Heres one of my favorites;
Bad news sells!
this is for you FE, same author but on good vibes
Hope this is better for you 🙂
ever hear this one, Student?
To all true Yes fans, it’s the Clap!
Imagine what Segovia could had done with Rick Wakeman on keyboards?
Very nice music, thanks to everybody for replies. Have a nice day.
Not sure, he may have played in Madison once as I think I heard him. It seems he was pretty boring, his fingers are too big to be very technical I should think.
Checked, he played Madison in 1969, I was there. Concert was boring to my memory. Seem pseudo intellectual, not that much different than dancing most Argentine Tango.
It is something I noticed in Madison, tendency to elevate what is mundane to high art so as to be part of a group that “gets it.” Does this sound familiar to current discourse?
Dennis L.
It is something I noticed in Madison, tendency to elevate what is mundane to high art so as to be part of a group that “gets it.” Does this sound familiar to current discourse?
Dennis, it’s simply that there is a universal tendency among people who don’t appreciate high art to consider it mundane and to make judgements about it that they have no business making.
Also, Segovia was a pioneer, and not in the clichéd sense. When he first picked up the guitar, he didn’t have Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton or even Jimmy Hendrix to inspire him. The Spanish guitar was basically an instrument of torture back then used to irritate diners at Spanish restaurants. He taught himself how to play the guitar, and over time he turned playing the guitar into what some people may consider high art and others may consider mundane.
Moreover, he accomplished this despite having fingers the size of knockwursts.
Of course, he couldn’t compete with this this army of pluckers.
Segovia was an immense talent but taste is subjective, and I never really liked the “Spanish” style of guitar playing.
take Andres, give him long thin fingers, and let him smoke lots of weed, and who knows, might have been fun.
if Howe’s wild creativity was due to pot, then thank God for grass.
maybe add a sparkly cape:
Horses for courses?
The Yamnaya overran Europe ~5000 ky, and maybe ~40% of modern European ancestry overall is derived from Yamnaya, more in the north. We are still reconstructing the picture from the archaeology, and this new study pushes back the date for evidence of horse riding. It is a very nice paper.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade2451
> First bioanthropological evidence for Yamnaya horsemanship
Abstract
The origins of horseback riding remain elusive. Scientific studies show that horses were kept for their milk ~3500 to 3000 BCE, widely accepted as indicating domestication. However, this does not confirm them to be ridden. Equipment used by early riders is rarely preserved, and the reliability of equine dental and mandibular pathologies remains contested. However, horsemanship has two interacting components: the horse as mount and the human as rider. Alterations associated with riding in human skeletons therefore possibly provide the best source of information. Here, we report five Yamnaya individuals well-dated to 3021 to 2501 calibrated BCE from kurgans in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, displaying changes in bone morphology and distinct pathologies associated with horseback riding. These are the oldest humans identified as riders so far.
Introduction
Multidisciplinary sources of evidence for earliest horsemanship
Using horses for transport was a decisive step in human cultural development. Trade and cultural exchange as well as conflicts and migrations leapt with the increase in speed and range provided by horsemanship. Archeological, archeozoological, and paleogenetic research into the beginnings of horse domestication and the initial expansion of domesticated horses (Equus caballus) has recently seen much progress (1, 2), as has our understanding of the appearance of horse-drawn fast chariots with spoked wheels ~2000 BCE (3)….
A man and his steed…
🐎 🚲 🏍️
May it be of species equus caballus, habebat vehentem or autŏbĭrŏta. Yes it is the proper mode of transportation for Rapacious Primate physiology.
Nobody real shuffles his or her rear end around more than absolutely necessary in a couch with a wheel in each corner and a motor up front.
🤢 🤮
In the mean time:
PROJECT, PROJECT and PROJECT
THE STATUSES AND PRESTIGES
FOREVER AND EVER
IN THE PERPETUAL WHEELS OF FOLLY
https://youtu.be/meiU6TxysCg
🤣👍👍
The Secret behind China’s Ghost Cities
https://youtu.be/wJ8JBTIVUVw
You cannot taper a Ponzi. It is not a secret that China build a lot to ensure that the Ponzi is kept going. Not a secret if you think hard about it
Think of the number of jobs building the ghost cities created. Also, how much coal, concrete and steel. Coal extraction is now constrained. It is possible to get more coal out, but it is higher cost coal. It isn’t possible to continue building like this, even if China wanted to. But the jobs need to be replaced, somehow.
Clearly, with the demographic problem China has, its population will never need the apartments of these ghost cities.
Ultimately, these ghost cities will just degrade, I am afraid. The “investments” will be lost.
The explanation these two narrators gave sounded better than any I had heard before.
I know that there is no tax on real estate investments. This is part of what allows the situation to grow.
I think that there is more overbuilding than these empty apartments. I think that there are empty sports stadiums, for example. Also, there are very-nice little used roads.
China will have an impossible problem maintaining all of this complexity. I expect that the unused buildings either will have to be blown up, or they will fall down by themselves.
There are a lot of abandoned sports facilities in Greece that were built for the 2004 Olympics.
i always think the athens olympics made a neat equation
the games cost $11 billion
the population of greece was 11 million
Amazingly, just about every Olympic facility ends up like that, no matter the nation or how much they spent on it in the first place.
Are construction projects perhaps a cheaper way to maintain a group than police, batons, etc? It gives hope, it gives something to do while many large projects proceed apace, e.g. railroads.
People want and need meaning; currently that has been achieved at all levels by the jab.
Dennis L.
china is just one big ponzi scheme
but i guess that applies to all o us to a greater or lesser degree
I have not been keeping up with global oil production for the last 10 years or so, but am astounded at Figure 7. So-called conventional oil, the graph’s “Gulf of Mexico” crude and “Other Crudes” and what really keeps the global economy going, has gone from about 70% of USA-based oil / liquid fuels supply developments to just over 20% today. This alone should have started ringing alarm bells ringing long ago. But alarm bells don’t count for much these days.
Yes, but the overall volume is still increasing. It does have a lower energy density, being shorter chain hydrocarbons, but still not a rapid decline.
also Yes, but…
our nice neighbor to the north produces something like 4 million bpd of heavy oil, and most of it is exported to the USA.
win/win.
or, I should really write WIN/WIN!!!!!!!
it’s right there in broad daylight, I don’t see why people can’t acknowledge it, that the light tight oil LTO is blended with the heavy Canadian oil in US refineries and by doing that, we produce all the diesel and jet fuel we need.
now, Nature didn’t have to be aligned like that, with the perfectly Amazing! combination of lots of heavy in one country and lots of light in the bordering country, but that’s the REALITY.
though to be sure, there will be plenty of alarm bells needed in the 2030s.
Exactly. Everyone here is excited for the apocalypse, but we’re probably going to be waiting a few years! Until then, party time!
And don’t forget your boosters.
oh yeah, party like it’s the 2020s!
I am here and not at all excited for the apocalypse; it is to be avoided at all costs and I have the fabric of the universe on my side.
Spaceship earth is a miracle, it takes not only earth but an entire solar system, sun and planets; Jupiter is a wonderful garbage collector for various large rocks, not even a burp.
Screw up too much and the fabric of the universe will make certain corrections and in the end they will have thought of something.
Dennis L.
our nice neighbor to the north produces something like 4 million bpd of heavy oil
It doesn’t really. That isn’t net production. Huge amounts of diesel and natural gas are used in mining this tar and turning it into something like oil.
In the meantime, the economy has been kept going by huge and increasing levels of debt. How long can the system hang together with such huge debt levels? I know that some here think if not a few years perhaps a decade or two but I am not so sure. Which of course is why most more advanced economies are headed for CBDC.
The US Department of Energy has done its best to hide what is going on by changing what is being reported from “Crude Oil” to “Total Liquids.” The Total Liquids include all kinds of non-crude stuff.
One thing that Figure 7 doesn’t seem to include is “Refinery Gain.” The US liquids production includes about 1 million barrels per day of Refinery Gain. This gain when the US “cracks” long molecules of heavy oil (often imported from Canada) using natural gas produced in the US. The volume of the liquid with the shorter molecules is less. You can get some amounts from this EIA table of production, though November 2022.
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1667260800000
US refineries use about 18 mbpd (production 12+ and imports about 6) so the refinery gains are about 5%.
smallish, but it helps some.
world crude + condensate in November was 81.9 mbpd.
is it edging up to surpass the 84 mbpd record?
probably not, but it’s interesting.
In a hunter-gatherer or small village setting, the self-interested and psychopaths can be identified and removed from the gene pool. In modern society, there are near-infinite potential novel relationships to feed on.
That is why Collapse is certain. It is built directly into the hominin population.
We do not know much about historical HG societies, and it is now questioned whether the few remaining HG societies can function as analogues. In those scattered bare survival groups, it was liable to be natural selection that selected behaviour traits rather any modern morality. Cooperation and self-assertion likely played balanced roles in survival, but again we do not know much about historical HGs, as they obviously lived long before any records.
Small villages existed within already stratified societies, and the internal imposition of village morality (whatever that was really like) would not have freed the village from subjugation and exploitation. If anything, the eradication of self-assertive traits from the village likely would have rather reinforced their status as subjugated rather than self-assertive, and at the mercy of those who were. Villages existed within broader, stratified breeding trends and pacific conformity is liable to be a recipe for subjugation.
In the Ballad of Narayama, mentioned by a smart poster here during the last thread (and IMHO one of only two movies worth watching in my lifetime), a particularly poignant scene is the one where a village family who suffered crop failure is stealing from other gardens. The village convenes and decides to kill them all. They are then taken from their house and buried alive in a chaotic scene. The family was not particularly psycho, just hungry. So I have no doubt that there will be quite a bit of natural selection, including psychos.
I saw that discussion, sounds like a worthwhile film.
The movie describes rural life in the 1800s, when life was particularly resource constrained. The invasion scene happens seconds after the mother lovingly gives one of her children a boiled potato. When buried, some family members try to climb out and are whacked in the head by the villagers.
The movie centers around the fact that at 70 one grandma should be taken up the mountain and left there to die of starvation, to spare resources for the younger generation. She is active in family affairs until the end, and the family does not want to take her up the mountain. But she understands what needs to be done, and first breaks her teeth on a rock to look older, then forces her son to take her up. When her son drops her at the top he cries, so she has to slap her. Incredible movie. Consider all the Hollywood crap we were subject to.
This is great. I will recommend it to my mother. The more misery, the better, as far as she is concerned. Also, anything with gypsies.
I am very keen on hunting gypsies with my high powered rifles… is there anywhere that this is legal – other than Italy?
Why do I remember these scenes from a movie I saw once 40 years ago? Because the movie had the ring of truth. Most of us OFW readers, born and raised in a sea of lies, must have had this thirst for truth for a long time, with our brains doing a preliminary selection of remembering/forgetting. So did the tales from my grand aunt about sharecropper life in Padania circa 1910, whereas tales from luckier parts of the family were more edited in long term memory. The underlying thread for both movie and grand aunt is resource constraints.
I’ve been asking questions locally about this question of burying people alive in Japan in days of yore. It may have happened from time to time. But it is also possible that a lot of tall tales were told to scare the children. In any case, there were many people in many places living at close to subsistence level for centuries and below it for extended periods.
However, I must state that everyone I spoke too insisted that that sort of thing never happened around here. Maybe up in the savage north of the country but not in the civilized west.
Also, I must emphasize that the movie the Ballad of Narayama was based on the 1956 novel of the same name written by Shichirō Fukazawa, who was a sensationalist writer who liked to shock people.
Fukazawa’s story has parallels with Salman Rushdie’s. In 1960, one of his short stories was published in a magazine, which precipitated the murder of an unrelated woman who was working as a maid in the home of the publisher, serious injury to the publisher’s wife, and also led to death threats against the writer himself.
In the story, there is a dream sequence in which leftists take over the Imperial Palace and behead the Emperor and Empress, as well as the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, before an enthusiastic crowd. This enraged a lot of rightists, nationalists, etc. But it was a work of work of fiction, just as the Ballad of Narayama was.
In Sweden we got this thing called “Ättestupan”, which literally translates to ”kin cliff”. You get the idea.
I reckon waking mom and pops up there and shoving them over the edge must have been very rare back in the day in sparsely populated areas.
But hey, the rapacious primate MUST project their genome to the next generation irregardless. It’s all about being “normal” and expressing the statuses and prestiges which is an archaic primate trait that severely wafts all over the place.
Little food? Cold winters? Lack of cheap fossil fuels?Aww, fsck that and BREED!
The stink of unchecked monkey business.
🤢 🤮
I was going to say something similar.
Ubasute (abandoning your elderly mother) is Japanese mythology. Nobody has been able to find evidence that it was ever a custom.
What made the movie credible, of course, was that human life in a constrained resources scenario will in fact adapt (rapidly) to it by generating such “traditions”. The movie made it clear that there was not enough to go around, and it is easy to believe it because it was the same in other parts of the world where industrialization had not arrived yet. I am not as expert as you are in Japanese mountains but I have seen them enough to know there is little space for crops there. Italian mountains when my mother was a child were the exact same, with people barely hanging on to life thanks to the century old practice of saving chestnut trees and cutting everything else.
* We do know from the archaeological record that the Magdalenians (Ice Age Europeans) ritually cannibalised their own group members, which was no doubt a source of food – so it really depends what one means by ‘psychopaths’.
Humans tend to adapt to their material and social conditions, and they can act in some pretty strange ways. History is not really a morality tale, rather mores and customs adapt to the prevailing conditions.
And widespread evidence of inter-group HG warfare for resources is now accumulating. Our understanding of historical HGs is now changing.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hunter-gatherers-warfare-stone-age-jebel-sahaba
https://theconversation.com/finding-a-hunter-gatherer-massacre-scene-that-may-change-history-of-human-warfare-53397
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1607996113
Nice links.
The title of the last link is “Resource scarcity drives lethal aggression among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in central California.” It is interesting that the researchers didn’t say, “Overpopulation drives lethal aggression . . . ,” since most times, the big driver of resource scarcity is too much population. I suppose changing weather patterns could also be involved.
Humans have babies. Who knew?
It is a difference between wanting babies for selfish reasons and babies happening because of, well, animals tend to engage in sexual behavior for obvious reasons. Like, survival of the species.
However wanting children for selfish reasons is insane. Not wanting children for selfish reasons is entirely rational. Children happening is, well, it happens. 🤷
Behaving like the animals we are must be made as obstinately subjugated as possible.
Repeat after me:
CHILDREN HAPPENS!
Don’t forget it.
🤣👍👍
Mr DNA overrides the logic most of the time. If not for Mr DNA we’d be extinct already
Yes, I’ve got little gripe with Mr DNA, problem is when delusions in the myopia of ordinary creates good little attaboys amateur hour eugenicists out of plain old sexuality.
8B Hypers eager to project their “eminence” as progeny into a bleak future. Appalling, isn’t it?
Why don’t you join the foray and become an extra Vicious Rapacious Primate when the survival of your progeny is under scrutiny?
Yes, you can do it. We need more obnoxious tinfoil hat ConSpiRaCy TherOristS cloners walking Eden powered by pesky fossils.
👶 👶👩🍼
Aww, so cute!
🤣👍👍
We all want life and the good life, and warfare is a subjunct of that? (‘Subjunct’, a good word that forcefully asserted itself there.)
It all comes down to the employment of resources toward our own advancement and betterment? We would not exist at all, let alone be human without those basic tendencies toward the appropriation of resources to our own betterment?
Being human has its price, and it is what it is? Being anything has its price? We reach ever forward into the light of being, but it necessarily casts a proportionate shadow? It is a struggle in various ways?
And the further we get, the uneasier we feel about the entire process? Maybe that is part and parcel of our advance? Or maybe it is our weakness? No one ever said that humans are perfect?
It is doubtful that anyone even knows what I am on about? The lot of humans is to be tormented by the principles of reality, and generally by each other, but we still survive?
“Hell is other people.” Not exactly, but there is a lot of truth in that one.
is this multiple questioning Mirror his best self?
why is subjunct not spell-checked?
who’s on first? why did the chicken cross the road?
if the Universe is not fully knowable, are questions the answer?
do humans get to decide, or not?
will there be any resolution?
if not then why not?
Wars happen because evolution of the smart rear end is slow and devolution of the dimwit is even slower.
It is difficult when both the smart rear end and mediocre got a few nukes at their disposal.
But wars certainly drives technological advancement. Without them Normal would still be projecting his success by the number of horses and cows in the barn, rather than horses under the bonnet and likes on instagram.
To all the ‘peace loving’ sanctimonious hypocrites projecting their statuses and prestiges using modern tech:
“WE” WANT IT BACK!
AND THEN BACK TO YOUR SUBSISTENCE FARM!
GOOD RIDDANCE!
Yes indeed, send your progeny to die in yellow man’s land. It’s what you implicitly want. Oh yes.
https://youtu.be/EPhWR4d3FJQ
https://youtu.be/ajtqOCf_vCs
Let’s sing along:
(etc.)
🤣👍👍
Interesting. Thanks
Stagflation, Russia Sanctions. Summary:
The West is headed into stagflation. Long-term indicators suggest that USA, Europe and UK are headed into recession. Data suggests that inflation will continue to rise even as recession bites. The same happened in the 1970s, and it was very difficult to solve. Energy prices are still liable to rise, and Western states and central banks are now in massive debt. Household debt is rising, mortgage rates are rising. Central banks cannot lower interest rates as inflation is high, but they cannot raise them high enough to reduce inflation without inducing an outright depression, so they are caught in a protracted inflationary recession with high inflation, high interest rates and contracting economies like in 1970s, and massive debt. Yet they still talk about sanctioning China.
Europe got through the winter by piling debt, exacerbating inflation and weakening budget positions to try to keep energy problems at bay. Energy costs are still double after Russia sanctions, inflation is high and severe pressure is on European and UK businesses, businesses are relocating, output is down. They have created higher inflation, lower output and government debt is exploding – so high inflation, high interests rates even as the economy shrinks. They are lying about the energy situation, they are still importing energy from Russia via third parties, and increasing gas purchases from Russia. Their self-inflicted energy problems remain unresolved, and stagflation is the cost of getting through the winter. They would massively compound their problems if they sanctioned China. [They then discuss China.]
They cannot get out of the stagflation situation and they are trapped in their own lies now, which are piling up. The governments should plan their retirements. UK and German governments are in serious trouble in the polls. Russia knows how weak they are on the battlefield and economically. Indicators are that Russian growth is accelerating. Prices in Russia are flat or falling, while the cost of living crisis spirals here. Bloomberg constantly lies about the Russian economy, and Western leaders keep the lies going to keep the war going. They are trapped in the stagflationary consequences of their own insane policies and hunkered down in their own lies. The business community is not going to be impressed.
> Stagflation, Russian sanctions success
I think we may see stagflation or deflation. Anytime a bank fails, with uninsured deposits, think of it as huge amounts of money disappear from the system. It is the same effect as when a company goes bankrupt with fewer assets than liabilities.
So in the wave of bank and company failures, the money supply shrinks.
Probably the largest inflation reduction will come with the crashing housing market.
Food and fuel will increase in price, but the Fed can “destroy inflation”.
The trick is in limiting the carnage. It will be huge.
Yes what we need is a situation that cannot be papered over the the Central Banks…
We need a Pushing on a String Scenario ….
Then this f789ed goes to the bottom where it belongs
There are only two ways to stop inflation which are:
1) Find a new source of affordable energy that can grow
2) Destroy the lives of millions of citizens.
At this time, with “high” interest rates, every small to midsize bank is technically bankrupt. Every low interest loan they have on the books is technically values at less than book value.
Expect a massive Fed driven consolidation (i.e rescue or buyout of bankrupt banks) that will eventually result in one bank (or group of national banks) standing and owning all assets, which are of course….worthless and only valued in an ever inflating central bank currency.
This is the ultimate end game of financialization in the US that will destroy value that anyone has accumulated in the worthless currency.
With a nationalized banking system (supposedly with the Fed) stepping in to “protect” everyones accounts, the CBDC currency can be forced on everyone that still has “numbers” in their account statement, i.e. balances.
It is of course the end game of fiat, coupled with computers enabling financialization, i.e robbery on a national scale.
Expect destruction of assets on a massive scale.
The world is insolvent with these interest rates.
Recall pre Covid the zombie companies… they were being loaned $$$ just so they could pay the interest only on their debts…. recall the muni crisis thing…
Interest rates are 3x higher now … how are they not collapsing?
There is a lot going on below the surface … that is not being divulged…
Again – CNNBBC do not exist to inform … they might hint at stuff.. but generally they only give us what they want to give us — and that is part of an agenda … decided by the Ministry of Truth and PR Team.
Good analysis overall, but I’d make some corrections on a couple of minor points:
1. “Wind turbines and solar panels are only possible because of complexity and the availability of fossil fuels.” This is more accurate for solar panels than it is for wind turbines. The technology of wind turbines is relatively simple and would likely survive even significant lowering in overall ability to make complex products.
2. Your analysis on competition between producers and consumers of energy I think is correct. But on the longer run, the free market solution would be unviable because of excessive volatility in prices. At some point, and preferably sooner rather than later, energy producers would be nationalized in order to keep energy prices stable, with energy rationing if required.
3. Interest rates initially will go higher, as you say. But in the longer run, as most loans will effectively operate as shark loans, people will avoid taking loans and will move towards funding methods that don’t use loans (shares for companies, crowdfunding for other sorts of projects). Eventually, a view of banking close to that of Islamic banking will be the mainstream.
Regarding (1), Wind turbines are surprisingly sophisticated today. This is a website that describes the parts of the wind turbine. https://windmillstech.com/wind-turbine-components/
The nacelle is a particularly important part. China is a the leading exporter of nacelles.
https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/executive_briefings/ebot_wind_turbine_nacelles.pdf
Regarding (2), governments are part of the complex structures that are built up. They are subject to collapse, without enough energy. Financial systems are also subject to collapse. I wouldn’t count on governments being around to fix the problems.
Also governments tend to stabilize prices at way too low a level. They want low prices for consumers. What is needed is very high prices. The IEA in its 2015 forecast that I linked to elsewhere in the comments shows $300 per barrel oil in 2015$. There is no way that governments will stabilize prices at the level producers require.
Regarding (3), the problem as we go forward will be that fewer and fewer finished goods and services will be produced, because fossil fuel supply is dropping. On a per capita basis, goods and services will probably be dropping rapidly. Jobs that pay reasonable wages will be disappearing. It won’t matter what kind of funding approach is used, it will be impossible to cover up this problem. Shares of stock will be worth less and less over time. The system just won’t work.
“Wind turbines and solar panels are only possible because of complexity and the availability of fossil fuels.” This is more accurate for solar panels than it is for wind turbines.
There are thousands of tons of concrete and steel in large wind turbines as well as hundreds of pounds of rare earth metals and at least 50 gallons of lubricating oil.
We can’t possibly build such things without fossil fuels.
But in the longer run, as most loans will effectively operate as shark loans, people will avoid taking loans and will move towards funding methods that don’t use loans (shares for companies, crowdfunding for other sorts of projects).
Won’t work because there will be no profits. Growth and profits come from cheap and increasing supplies of energy.
Scientists discover how to make electricity ‘out of thin air’
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/clean-energy-air-enzyme-electricity-huc-b2296599.html
Excellent! I think we should set off a chain reaction that turns all our air into energy. Then we can collect it in tin cans and jam jars so that we never run out.
Dr Grinter said: “Once we produce Huc in sufficient quantities, the sky is quite literally the limit for using it to produce clean energy.”
This is fantastic news. Take my money!
Can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.
It’s idiotic and going nowhere.
As for your frequent reference to my “2x solar”, you’ve definitely strawmanned the point I made, which is: you don’t need summer-to-winter storage that Gail always alludes to, if you simply build out double the year-round desired baseload capacity. Whether we will actually do that (we won’t), and whether it is sufficient to run a society (it’s not), is another matter entirely. But I do think it could buy time.
Double the base load doesn’t work in areas that are too far north. There is nothing you can do, other than add diesel storage for backup in winter
We have never gotten a renewables-only system to work, anywhere on the globe.
All true, but “double the baseload doesn’t work in northern areas” is much different than “doesn’t work at all anywhere”. We don’t need a perfect-everywhere-for-everyone solution for it to be worthwhile in many places.
It is better for societies (those that have the option) to actively reorganize around intermittent power and to roll out massive solar investments than to be surprised victims of decline.
It will only buy time, but maybe that extra time will yield the scientific miracle that we need.
A PV/turbine system that supports some is better than a system that supports none.
It’s only a srawmanning when you choose to ignore the ‘seasonal’ Jevons Paradox dynamic and economic dislocation of quadrupling summer loads that would occur in a 2X Solar Civilization, as previously detailed. You’re ‘reinventing the wheel’ because there IS no altering the civilizational logic under the maximum power principle, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Permanent willful bargaining with collapse is, let’s say, a special kind of idealism. It’s no friend to the critical thinker.
When the Taiping Rebellion was faltering in 1864, the leader of the revolt, who claimed he was the younger brother of Jesus, got sick. He said the “Heavenly Dew” was the best medicine, and ate nothing but that for a couple weeks and died.
At least he did cheat the end of the rebellion which came forth about a month after his death, where almost all of his followers were killed, by taking this strange medicine.
@Max
The novel “One Second After” tells the story, tl, dr, the diabetes girl does die. There was no diabetes alive six months after the nukes fell.
There is a way to get out of this. Some laborer living in “Hillbilly country” in USA was a diabete and he ate like , well, a lumberjack but he spent so much calorie that there was excess sugar and he lived till his 90s without any major issues
There is another way. An almost carbo-free diet, akin to the Atkins diet. eat very little carbo which could be converted into sugar, and , again, be very active.
I put this to her. She replied if i ever mention the e word again (energy), shes leaving.
Well I advise you not to bring it up again, then! Most people don’t like to think about this stuff.
Its a strange thing. I would say 9 out of 10 dont like it. I say this because I told about 9 people and they all said a version of “who cares”. Im the 10th and I can think of little else. I do think its probably because most people cant change their minds, regardless of facts presented to them, but a small minority can. But maybe thats self-congratulatory.
I have met only one other person in real life that is on the same page as me with respect to the energy picture. There may have been a few others, but the topic never came up.
You can’t say “life as we know it is going to collapse world-wide within 30 years (or much much sooner depending on the country)” to the average person who is just going about their 9-5 job and looking forward to the weekend. It’s just totally beyond the scope of their world view.
Sometimes I’ll get an angry response, even from a long time friend. Its amazing the vast range of reactions in humans to an idea, even within a close knit group.
NPCs
This site is mostly about energy and lack thereof. Humans have been around a long time, longer without exogenous ff energy than with it. Societies which survive and thrive seem to have one thing in common, trust among members, e.g Hasidic Jews, Amish.
We do not survive as individuals, we survive as a group and we can have a better life within a group than outside. An extreme example may be drug addicts living homeless on the street. The problem is individuals lose some of their “freedom” to the needs of the group. It appears overall life is better with a group and without some personal freedoms than learning all of life’s lessons as an individual. A group also gives individuals a place in the world, average people; the truly exceptional can make their own place in the world, they are poor examples for the rest of us as displayed on the cover of People, etc.
Loss of trust is horrible for all concerned. Our latest experience with a certain pandemic is emblematic of this problem. Some used their positions of trust for personal gain, they lost trust not only for themselves, but for their group, e.g. governance. The greater good is real, but if it is used as a shield for too much personal gain, trust is lost.
The Judeo-Christian group once received an owner’s manual, the The Commandments, a book of rules. Our society is without a manual that has survived the test of time; it is a painful period of history.
So, an old man rambling. Life has never been easy, mankind is pretty tough, we will make it. We at OFW are a very small group.
Dennis L.
Humans made it through ice ages. They likely can make it through pretty much anything else that hits, including the “climate change” we keep getting warned about.
Adaptability is the key, which is why old ways, let alone old rule books, could well be impediments to survival.
The Magdalenians (Ice Age Europeans) seem to have made it through the LGM in the Iberian refuge (there is another new archaeogenetics paper on that), but ironically not through the abrupt warming period of the Bølling–Allerød interstadial ~14,000 ky. The terrain transformed to woods in just a few centuries, and they retreated ever further north in pursuit of reindeer. They were set in their ways, which were ritualized, and they did not shift their economy to the new conditions.
The Villabruna (WHG) fishers expanded from warmer climes, likely following the rivers through the Balkan LGM corridor into northern Italy and then throughout Europe from there during the Bølling–Allerød, and they entirely replaced the Magdalenians. So, the point is that humans are indeed very resilient, but they also need to be adaptable or at least adapted. Religions change all the time as material and social conditions change, and it is very unlikely that post-collapse humans will be wearing wide brimmed hats and waving around the rules of the OT. If they are for real.
humans made it through ice ages—??
but an ”ice age” took maybe 20k years to arrive—-time enough for a few hundred thousand ”humans” to gradually drift south to where ir was warmer
they didnt actually make it through ice ages–they moved out of the way
Don’t cramp the boy’s style, Norman. He tells pleasing tales fleshed out with dramatic flourishes. If you cloud the issue with inconvenient facts, you may discourage him from exercising his considerable talents. Think of the potential loss to art!
Humans are, indisputably—although some may dispute it—creatures of the tropics. They don’t survive in the cold very well without extensions such as fire, clothing, weapons, and various other technologies (even eskimos had some of these), complex communication systems, morals, mores, family values, religion, philosophy, a sense of humor, strict gender rules and other cultural attributes.
Surviving the last glacial maximum—hands up all of you who thought LGM meant little green men?—would have necessitated either moving to where it was still warm enough to survive, or developing ways of living—cultural adaptations—and or genetic adaptations. The fact that some people did survive in some pretty cold places during the LGM is a good indication that they did that.
Mirror is fond of writing “we know…” or some variation on that, without specifying who “we” are. But most of the time, we—in this case archeologists and palaeontologists—don’t don’t know as much as some of them think they know. They have hypotheses and theories and they collect evidence and make observations and they try to use their imagination and make assumptions about what must have been so long, long ago in the light of the evidence and the logical reasoning they have engaged in. But this isn’t the same as knowing.
No one is saying that they lived on top of the glaciers. The climate and environment in the Iberian refuge actually worsened after the LGM due to the Heinrich 1 event, leading to colder, more arid conditions and to the loss of arboreal vegetation. (* Heinrich event, any of a series of at least six large discharges of icebergs that carried coarse-grained rocky debris, apparently from North American ice sheets, into the North Atlantic Ocean at latitudes between 40° and 55° N, where the debris was later deposited on the ocean floor as the icebergs melted.) The Iberian Magdalenians survived not only the LGM but H1!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818118300237
> The Last Glacial Maximum and Heinrich event I on the Iberian Peninsula: A regional climate modelling study for understanding human settlement patterns
The spatial distribution and dating of archaeological sites suggest a poor occupation of southern Iberia by hunter-gatherers after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and during Heinrich event 1 (H1) compared to Northern Iberia. The H1 was a period of cold and arid climate conditions and is suspected to have played an important role in the population dynamics in Europe at the end of the Pleistocene. In this study, the potential influence of climate change on the human settlement patterns in Iberia is analysed based on regional palaeoclimate modelling. Here, the WRF model is used to simulate continuous time slices of 30 years of climate conditions representative for both the LGM and H1 at high spatial resolution. The model results indicate that, apart from a general decrease in temperature, a considerable decrease in precipitation over southern Iberia occurred during the H1, that agrees with the available climate proxy data. The analysis of ombrotypes unveils extremely arid conditions, particularly over southern Iberia and during the growing season (summer), which could have constrained the availability of food and water to the inhabitants. The total area in Iberia that can be characterized as ultrahyperarid in summer enlarged from 2% (13 K km2) during the LGM to 22% (148 K km2) during the H1. Likewise, the reconstruction of vegetation types shows an increase of non-arboreal (open shrubland, grassland) types at the expense of arboreal types in southern Iberia for H1. Thus, the different climate conditions and changes in palaeovegetation between the LGM and H1 probably played a major role in the decrease of the hunter-gatherer populations in southern Iberia.
We are a small group but we are ornery.
this guy “B” always puts out some excellent material
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgzGrcrwpjjQJLtBsQxhhGQrnHzDq
I believe B has posted here before and maybe still does occasionally.
Good articles and regularly posts new thoughts. Very much in line with the thoughts here.
Your link just asks me to install some google shit, so this one might work better.
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/?source=user_profile————————————-
“A top UN official has warned that “urgent” measures are needed to help 52 countries facing debt repayment problems that put some at risk of default. Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Development Programme, told AFP that 25 of the 52 were spending more than a fifth of government revenues servicing external debt.”
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230305-un-development-chief-sounds-alarm-over-debt-distress
https://climateandeconomy.com/2023/03/06/6th-march-2023-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
Here it is possible to find the 52 countries about which it is asked a write off of 30% of debt (if I have understood correctly)
The list includes: Ukraine, Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Zambia,Tunisia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, El Salvador, Tajikistan, Mozambique, Nigeria, Egypt, Laos, Cuba, Nigeria, Iraq, Angola, Congo
https://www.undp.org/publications/dfs-building-blocks-out-crisis-uns-sdg-stimulus-plan
The download from the link says:
So, this group has low GDP measured in US dollars and a lot of very poor people.
One of the group of 52 (Ukraine) is making all of us fall into a catastrophe.
In fact, the entire list of “Climate and Economy” stories is of concern. Some I noticed include:
1. “Uh oh! The crypto collapse has reached the real financial system.
“Silvergate, one of the most important banks in crypto, is in big trouble. Maybe existential trouble… Silvergate was a pass-through point for crypto… So Silvergate’s troubles are a problem for the entire crypto industry.”
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/4/23623964/crypto-silvergate-bank-run-stablecoins-dollar
2. “French shipping giant CMA CGM warns demand is deteriorating.
“A downturn that began in the second half of last year “remained at play in 2023, as market conditions in the transport and logistics industry continue to deteriorate,” the world’s third-largest container line said in a statement Friday… The bleak outlook from the French transporter is in line with European rivals A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and Hapag-Lloyd AG…”
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/trade/exports/insights/french-shipping-giant-cma-cgm-warns-demand-is-deteriorating/articleshow/98440537.cms
3. “U.S. Bank: Truck freight volumes continue to decline.
“The volume of freight moved by truck in the peak shipping season of 2022 dropped by the largest year-over-year level since the heart of the pandemic, according to the latest U.S. Bank Freight Payment Index. Fourth-quarter truck freight shipments contracted 7.1% year-over-year…”
https://www.fleetequipmentmag.com/truck-freight-volumes-decline/
4. “Food supplies to Australia’s biggest supermarkets can no longer be guaranteed after the shock collapse of one of the county’s biggest trucking firms.
“News broke late last month that Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics – one of Australia’s biggest trucking firms, which services major supermarkets, including Coles, IGA and Aldi – had been plunged into receivership.”
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/receivers-of-collapsed-trucking-giant-admit-continuity-of-food-supply-cant-be-guaranteed/news-story/0e994f116738dd4188dfc6a5abb4e848
Notice that all of these stories are true before the big increase in interest rates that Powell and others around the world are asking for. The economy is already shrinking!
All of these look consistent with not enough / running out.
The pressure if building for the Death Virus to emerge… More Boosters More Paxlovid!
This is not about protecting these nations nor peoples it is about bailing out the banks again. The IMF will step in strip the ownership of everything and give the banks their full due.
Better for these peoples to default now on 100% of the debt. Of course that will not be allowed troops from the first world would show up before that is allowed.
True, but guys with guns show up and tell the leader “take the IMF loan and this bag of cash for you, or you and your family get a bullet”.
exactly!
We have to get past the idea that TPTB play by the rules.
repression oughta impress ’em:
Pakistani police arrested on Monday Lt-Gen (retd) Amjad Shoaib and prominent supporter of former prime minister Imran Khan on charges of inciting the public and government employees against national institutions particularly the armed forces, officials said. …
Magistrate Owais Khan is the complainant in the FIR. It was registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code …
a senior leader from Imran’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf opposition party, condemned the arrest of the 80-year-old Shoaib, saying such actions would “bring nothing but more hatred and anxiety” …
Posing as an independent analyst and commentator during the TV appearances, Shoaib had been supporting PTI and criticising his former institution, the Pakistan army.
The charge against Shoaib, which carries a seven-year sentence, came after he appeared on BOL News channel on Saturday criticising authorities for keeping Imran’s supporters jailed, especially in remote areas of the country.
They were arrested amid Imran’s latest campaign dubbed “fill the jail cells” with detainees — or “Jail Bharo Tehrik” in Urdu — as a way to pressure the government into holding early elections.
gulftoday.ae/news/2023/02/27/pakistani-police-arrest-prominent-imran-khan-supporter
what next? A fill the hospital beds campaign??? oh, wait …
actually “fill the cells” is a rather quaint strategy; until they move on to fill the stadia
(DW)
‘Ukraine updates: Bakhmut may fall within days — NATO chief
6 hours ago
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Russia could capture Bakhmut “in the coming days.” Meanwhile, Germany said it inspected a ship suspected of carrying Nord Stream pipelines explosives. DW has rounded up the latest.’
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-bakhmut-may-fall-within-days-nato-chief/a-64915709
While I don’t doubt the pipeline was purposely blown up; I do doubt the story of finding explosives marked for blowing up the pipeline 😂… Wiley coyote was seen on board as well?
“We investigated ourselves and found ourselves innocent! Honest!”
(Fuori dal Coro – Italian tv program)
In this short video you can see the report broadcasted on the TV show ‘Fuori dal coro’. It shows the activities of illegal immigrants who run the drug trade from the inaccessible woods around Varese (a very important city in the north of Italy).
These are groups organized in a paramilitary manner.
They train themselves with weapons, create bunkers to defend themselves from law enforcement and have recently stolen chlorine and nitrogen that can be used to make explosives.
They shot towards people who try to go to them.
But they reach you if you phone to a pusher looking for drug.
A journalist went there to describe the situation.
For those who understand Italian or Spanish, but the images are also self explaining in case one doesn’t know those two foreign languages.
https://voxnews.info/2023/03/08/paramilitari-africani-hanno-occupato-50-mila-ettari-di-territorio-italiano-video-choc/
@student
Thanks for the summaries, very interesting!
You are welcome!
‘Fuori dal coro’ is actually a main stream media program, but it is almost the only one talking of particular issues and then no other person or program dares to echo the news, so, after an episode, everything falls down without any sound for the general audience…
https://mediasetinfinity.mediaset.it/programmi-tv/fuoridalcoro_SE000000000632
My partner is 35 and has type 1 diabetes (so her body cant make insulin). She relies on about 5 injections of insulin a day to live. Should I be preparing for a supply shock in insulin, and if so, what can I do? Im in Ireland.
you should probably research what you can do.
I have done and theres not a lot I can do, beyond hoping the whole thing stays together for a few more decades.
Talking of insulin . What people don’t know that the first item the Japanese government purchased and rushed thru after the Fukushima disaster was not food or water but insulin or else the disaster would be x 10 times . Modern medicine is a miracle . Yet how many users of this drug even know who devolped it ? Too busy watching Tik tok . Then I am asked , why are you hopeless or is it hope less ?
A ketogenic low carbohydrate diet was used for those with diabetes prior to the discovery of insulin in 1921.
See this blog by a doctor who has Type 1 diabetes:
https://asweetlife.org/why-i-chose-a-ketogenic-diet-for-diabetes-management/
fascinating, thanks
Cholera came and went, and tended to be localised.
Localised in densely populated slums where it spread rapidly and killed lots of people. There is a whole suite of other diseases as well that go together with dirty drinking water and no sewage facilities.
I can’t imagine it and and similar diseases were not bigger killers overall in the 19th century than surgeons not washing their hands, which is bad too.
“Modern medicine is a miracle ” at making a small percentage of the population wealthy.
Medicine solves nothing, it simply maintains the disease requiring continued use. If the solution came along it would destroy the market. Addressing the cause of disease will destroy the market.
Capitalism never solves anything it only works if the “solution” allows the problem to persist and even better if it generates additional problems.
Modern medicine performs miracles in traumatology and surgery, but its business model does not allow it to cure chronic diseases, quite the contrary.
I think a noticeable exception is antibiotics. But otherwise I am inclined to believe that the UK’s National Health Service should be renamed to National Ill-health Service. The biggest single leap forward in the UK’s health was the introduction of soap and concept of cleaning oneself regularly, in the late 19th century. Death rates fell in the UK during WW2 because of rationing. And as Gail has mentioned already, rates of cot death in the USA fell dramatically in 2021 looks like due to CV19 movement restrictions, parents could not get their new-borns vaccinated (with ‘regular’ vaccines) as usual.
The biggest single leap forward in the UK’s health was the introduction of soap and concept of cleaning oneself regularly, in the late 19th century.
Actually it was the introduction of clean mains drinking water and sewage services that made the biggest difference.
It wouldnt matter if you were washing regularly if the drinking water gave you cholera.
Good point!
Cholera came and went, and tended to be localised. In her book ‘The Butchering Art’, Lindsey Fitzharris describes the extreme difficulty Joseph Lister had in convincing the medical community / surgeons that they should wash their hands and equipment after / before every surgical operation. The amount of surgeons that died in Victorian England as a result of a small cut, thus letting in the bacteria from the person they were operating on, was quite astounding.
MOO
People don’t die from small cuts. Surgery patients aren’t proverbial lepers. Take a step back and think about that for a moment.
They might die after a thousandth ‘cut’ (trauma).
Reante,
“People don’t die from small cuts”
Now not so much, but back in the 19th century they certainly did, especially surgeons or anyone else that got a cut, however small, in hospitals. It has been a few years since I read ‘The Butchering Art’, referring to Victorian surgery which damned few people survived, but I do remember that Lindsey Fitzharris mentioned lots of surgeons that died from small cuts, because of deadly bacterial infections. This stopped more or less when the medical establishment began to understand that Joseph Lister was right, and hands and medical equipment got cleaned. A fascinating book. At the time, most people thought Joseph Lister’s ideas on cleanliness were nonsense. Things changed almost overnight when a famous American professor changed his mind and agreed with Lister.
Reante,
“People don’t die from small cuts”
Now not so much, but back in the 19th century they certainly did, especially surgeons or anyone else that got a cut, however small, in hospitals.
Rupert Brooke, who wrote the (in)famous World War I poem that begins ‘Now God be thanked that has matched us with this hour’ died an unheroic death from an infected insect bite in 1915 on the voyage to Gallipoli.
MOO, Withnail,
Then how do homeless people exist in crowded squalor and zero ‘sanitation?’
It’s not the small cut and it’s not the bacteria. Bacteria can only eat dead or dying stuff. They can’t eat healthy uncut cells because the bacteria in the context of a cut would be anaerobic bacteria, and anaerobic bacteria would die from eating healthy, oxygenated cells, so they don’t/can’t. They anaerobic bacteria on the knife could eat the killed cells that were cut, and shit out toxic metabolites against the surrounding uncut cells that might damage them but the second that became a problem for the body it would send white blood cells to squirt the anaerobes with peroxides in order to kill the them and that would be the end of it.
Little cuts don’t kill people. Chronic systemic disease kills people whether that disease was diagnosed or not, acknowledged by the mortician or not. Sometimes chronic disease kills people coincidentally to a small cut that doesn’t heal because that person ain’t doing too hot. Doctors perform surgeries one week and die the next week all the time.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation.
Make it make sense! 🙂
You have to plan for the worst scenario of an insulin shortage or product price management within your country or the EU. Make a plan. You may have to move eventually. US producers have high selling prices compared to Canada forcing low income earners in the northern US to make regular trips across the border where insulin prices are considerably lower. Ireland is currently enjoying an economic boom due to government inward investment policies. If the economic scenario changed there could be some major issues for such a small country and Ireland would once again have emigration.
Thanks. It’s difficult to come up with a plan, especially since any time I talk about this stuff my partner thinks Ive completely lost my mind (hard to blame her). And shes the one who needs the insulin.
best to have a contingency plan available in secret if possible–just research the subject yourself for now.
its almost impossible to change someones mind if they are otherwise determined not to
There are at this point a dozen videos on youtube of diabetes 1 people managing their disease without insulin. of course a ketogenic diet is more expensive.
I did not know that (the official health advise is without insulin a T1 diabetic dies quickly), thank you
They also say that you need a vaccine for covid, or that your body is trying to kill you by producing cholesterol, a necessary nutrient.
A search for “low carb diabetes 1” produces several decent videos, but “low carb down under diabetes 1” produces first five videos which are ideal for you. Bernstein in particular has been doing it for 50 years now. If you come to this site, you need to be redpilled about most things. You will not get avocadoes in a socio-economic collapse, but I am far to the North of you, in a rural area and can do it easily.
Also they have been bullshitting you about the fact that it can not be cured. If she engages in prolonged fastings, at 35, her body will clear quite a bit of dead pancreas cells, and the burst of cell generation following that will make some new beta cells. Those will be functional if she does not abuse them. It will be minimal insulin production but useful within a low carb context, and it can be increased with further fasts.
That’s great stuff drb. A huge psychological hurdle to get over is — let’s call it the second dirtiest secret in the world since we already used up the first — deprogramming from the allopathic cultural belief that we can’t heal from chronic disease. Putting the fear of ‘god’ into sick people, and sick peoples’ loved ones, is a primary way that whole populations
are controlled. It’s right there alongside the fear of being destitute.
I recommend a nutrient dense loading phase before a prolonged water fast. Healing during prolonged fasting requires no calories beyond what you have stored in your body already but does require lots of nutrients of which most people don’t have adequate reserves.
Things to consider, even if leading by example is the most traction you can get. How’s your boy?
That was a question to Max btw. No need to reply of course.
He is good thank you for asking. He doesnt have T1 diabetes despite the 1 in 20 risk. And I agree, I have first hand experience. I got lyme disease and 14months of 25 pills a day (mostly antibiotics) kind of reduced the affects, but they’d come back when I stopped. Eventually I found a wise old lyme disease doctor in Germany who put me on a course of vitamins and probiotics – tailored to me based on test results – and the results were remarkable. Also all the old Greek philosophers lived into their 90s.
Yes, in the old days I used to get into a fast with eggs, bacon or sausage, and avocado. Out of a fast, same meal. Now I fast a lot less, food is more limited but more pristine in Russia. Also I generally eat once a day, so I get a 23 hrs fast every day.
Awesome. Dialed in. You must be feeling good!
It’s good to be able to play soccer for an hour at a good level at 65. Also, yes, mental balance and clarity improved by orders of magnitude w.r.t. the gluten and fruits days.
Official health advice is always and everywhere pure unadulterated rubbish.
Never trust drug pusheres about the benefits or quality of their stuff.
https://ifunny.co/picture/there-should-be-a-law-requiring-doctors-and-scientists-to-3zEtZzG48?s=cl
I’d recommend to consider a ketogenic diet. A healthy keto diet is based on olive oil and vegetables and reasonable amount of meat, fish and eggs. Carbonate allowance is about 20g per day, mostly from fruits. It is highly anti-inflammable. After some months you dont miss bread and sugar at all! All those veggies are a bit expensive though.
Keto changes the metabolism to aquire energy from ketone bodies that come from fat. The glucose based metabolism stops completely.
My understanding is that the injectable insulin, regular, Lente, etc requires refrigeration. If there is a problem with the grid, generators or transformers, all of that could suddenly quit, especially if there is an “event.” If I were a brittle type I insulin dependent diabetic and it sounds like she has to take both types twice a day plus a coverage, I would look into an implantable insulin pump or at a minimum, make damn sure she has a decent back up power source ( eg., a Bluetti AC 200 max with an extra 300 watt hr battery, 700watts of solar panel recharging capability and supplemental Honda generator like the ES 2000 with storage capacity in NATO 20 L jerry cans which could be filled quickly, either to charge your batteries or power a refrigerator, plus a back up refrigerator because appliances today are built like crap – you absolutely can not rely on them. Insulin stores for about what, a month? Admittedly this may seem like prepper sensationalism or overkill for the non diabetic person, but in your partner’s case, the insulin supply chain and refrigeration is literally her lifeline. Even if she got an implantable insulin pump that functions well, I would still consider these power and refrigeration backups
Thank you. I will look into this. Everyone thinks im insane so it wont be easy. I feel the world needs a mini “event” to bring others on board. or maybe we are indeed the mad ones.
Max
I recommend the much-maligned GAPS diet, which is also a low-starch/sugar diet. It healed my hypothyroidism over the course of four years. Since you grow grassfed beef the high bone broth requirements won’t be cost prohibitive.
Is she a firstborn, your partner?
I will check out GAPS. Yes food wont be an issue for us. My dad spent the first 30 years of his life eating what his dad grew on our farm and little else. Shes 6 out of 7 (catholic irish surprise surprise)
Nice to fall in with a big family. That’s good as firstborn health issues can be more intractable because they often start in the womb as childbirth doubles as an evolutionary structural, placental detox for the mother, with the firstborn coming on the heels of a longer toxin loading phase than subsequent children. Here’s a link to a good one-year update on a person who looked to the GAPS diet for helping with type-1 diabetes but also had other really serious issues as well. I was gratified to see the 3-5yr expected timeframe referenced for a full(er?) healing as that accords with the four years I mentioned it taking me to heal my thyroid but I also wasn’t hardcore about it. The author is insightful and goes on to mention another program with which they’ve supplemented the GAPS protocol. No mention of bone broth specifically, or the quality of the bone broth which is the cornerstone of GAPS. Cheers.
Thank you, you’re a fountain of knowledge!
https://diabeticdharma.com/gaps-year-one/
Max, check out Open Insulin
https://openinsulin.org/
maybe make your own.
I will, thank you.
(Comedonchisciotte – Strategic Culture)
The above two websites post an interesting article about political narratives and work of the intelligence, focusing about the Ukraine-Nato versus Russia conflict (and viceversa if you prefer) and talking also about the management of Covid.
”How Could Western Intelligence Have Got It Wrong, Again? They Didn’t. They Had Other Purposes (by Alastair Crooke.March 6, 2023)
The West now faces the task of de-fusing the landmine of their own electorate’s conviction of a Ukraine ‘win’, and of Russian humiliation.”
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/03/06/how-could-western-intelligence-have-got-it-wrong-again-they-didnt-they-had-other-purposes/
https://comedonchisciotte.org/lintelligence-occidentale-non-sbaglia-lo-fa-di-proposito/
Tell the people in NATO the story they want to hear, even if it is not true!
gail , I had posted a comment in reply to Max Mushroom about 2-3 hrs ago but is is not posted . Please check .
Sorry! I am the person who has to approve all of the posts that get caught in the filter. I live in the Eastern US. The time you refer to is in the middle of the night, here.
Peak-Oil Fears Cast Shadow Over US Supply Outlook as Costs Climb
Top shale companies say US production to crest by decade’s end
Worries about output topping out resurfacing after long hiatus.
(Bloomberg) — The specter of peak oil that haunted global energy markets during the first decade of the 21st century is once again rearing its head.
Major US oil producers are warning that production from one of the fastest growing sources of supply appears likely to top out by the end of the decade. ConocoPhillips and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. are among those saying the American shale-oil juggernaut soon will be a spent force as the best drilling targets are exhausted and financing new wells gets more difficult.
“You see the plateau on the horizon,” ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance said during a panel discussion at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston on Tuesday. Once US crude production peaks around 2030, it’ll plateau for a time before commencing a decline, he added.
Government and private-sector researchers have been cutting forecasts for 2023 US oil-supply growth in the face of surging cost inflation, labor shortages and investor demands that more cash be diverted from drilling to dividends and buybacks. Although output in the world’s biggest economy is set to continue rising for a least a few more years, the zenith is fast approaching, executives and analysts said.
“I wish we could get world leaders to realize that we need hydrocarbons for another 50 years,” said Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield, who expects US production to peak in five or six years.
Before the dawn of the shale-oil revolution, theorists like the late investment banker Matthew Simmons were issuing dire warnings that the Middle Eastern oil bonanza that fed more than half a century of unprecedented economic expansion across the Western world was unsustainable.
But those fears were swept aside as fracking and horizontal drilling innovations perfected in US natural gas fields were adopted by oil drillers, who unleashed billions of barrels of crude that had been locked in heretofore impenetrable shale.
Shale-oil production began to surge early in the last decade, pushing overall US output to roughly 13 millions barrels a day in late 2019. But publicly traded oil companies have come under immense pressure to prioritize investor returns over production growth and it is in part why output is expected to peak, said Helen Currie, chief economist at ConocoPhillips.
Rising costs that squeeze profits also are discouraging management teams from pursuing some drilling projects. Commodity-trading house Gunvor Group Ltd. estimates that inflation in US oilfields will reach about 25% this year and 15% to 20% in 2024.
“It’s not about any downgrade to the resource or any negativity but it’s really about the pace of development of these resources,” Currie said.
https://news.yahoo.com/peak-oil-fears-cast-shadow-224403506.html
woah, they must be the guys who give likes to davidinacentury here. did I come to Russia five years too early?
The last resort of disinformation is to mess with the timeline, to push it back further than reality, in order to subconsciously peel off the doubters and weekend warriors.
The WSJ has, as its lead article on the online version, U.S. Shale Boom Shows Signs of Peaking as Big Oil Wells Disappear
America’s biggest oil gushers are shrinking, evidence that companies have drilled through much of their best
I wouldn’t count on OPEC increasing its oil supply. With a great deal of luck, OPEC’s supply will decline a little less slowly than that of the US.
The CERA conference, with all of its oil executives, is the reason we are seeing all of these more “doom-filled” articles.
I love a good Doom! But I keep being disappointed… I want the shit show to wrap up …
I said my final goodbyes to people back in Canada … so anytime now… anytime at all
I can fit total collapse into my schedule tomorrow – I am flexible
The UK is re-activating its two back-up coal-fired power stations.
Emergency coal power plants used for first time as UK sees cold snap
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64879044
“Two old coal-fired power plants have begun generating again as the UK expects to see its coldest night of the year so far.
The plants had been put on standby in case of shortfalls, but started feeding power into the grid this afternoon.
National Grid blamed high demand and a shortage of electricity from other sources.
The coal plants began operating in 1966 but were due to close last September.
However, operators have kept them open for an extra six months at the request of the government, amid fears of possible power shortages.
Temperatures are expected to drop to -15C (5F) in some parts of the UK on Tuesday evening, with snow sweeping parts of the country…”
Here in NE Scotland, this last couple of days we have had our first decent snowfall (maybe 4 inches) not just for this winter, but probably in the last 10 years. Persistent air flow from the Arctic. Forecast is for the whole of GB to get decent snow fall between now and Saturday, as warm, moist air from south of England moves north and clashes with the cold, Arctic air, causing heavy snowfalls as it moves north. It will melt quickly, but the UK is not in general not used to snow, in any quantity, and even half an inches worth tends to cause traffic chaos.
The above article seems to be implying that there is still the potential for winter power cuts. Over the last 15 years or so, since the UK became a net importer of gas supplies again, it is usually this time of year, March – April, that the big industrial users of natural gas are threatened with getting their gas supplies cut off to keep the lights on. I believe that gas supplies have never actually been cut off, but the 24-hour advance warnings have gone out often enough. Having said that they have never been physically cut, gas prices tend to go so high for a few days that some users cannot afford to use any, so effectively cut.
Trying to get more power from coal fired power plants sounds like a good idea.
When it comes to storage of natural gas, there are two limits a person needs to be aware of:
(a) Running out of natural gas in the storage facility. This doesn’t seem to be a problem now.
(b) The quantity of natural gas that can come through available pipelines in a minute or an hour. This is often the limit that is hit, when it is cold out. The pipeline capacity can’t drain the storage facility fast enough, and transfer it to the generating units. If home heating or hot water heating needs the natural gas, it is usually given preference over electricity generation, because re-lighting all of the home heating units that use natural gas is a problem.
It is the fact that huge amounts of natural gas are needed simultaneously that is the problem.
I think that keeping only two coal-fired power stations in reserve was a big mistake. We will find out soon enough.
Imagine you could only purchase $35 worth of gasoline a week.
Would you have your groceries delivered?
Would you have food delivered instead of dinning?
Would you watch movies at home instead of the theater?
Would you want to work at home instead of office?
Would you want to live in the country or city?
You see where I’m going.
I have thought about contigencies.
Our family cabin is 175 miles away.
I bought 2 – 5 gallon gas cans to store enough fuel for a one-way trip to cabin.
We re-fill 10+ gallons of gas for storage at cabin before we leave for home.
I would hope that the people who grow your food can get fuel for their machinery, and fuel to transport the food to cities, or living in the city will not be a good idea at all! Also, all the garbage from the city needs to be transported out. Somehow, fertilizer is needed for the crops, too.
Our county uses an incinerator for garbage. I believe NYC does also. The ash from NYC is barged out to sea about 100 miles and dumped in one spot. Wonder what they use to burn the garbage? Without that fuel there will be mountains of garbage and no existing trucks to move it.
I live in the rural UK and only use 20 litres of diesel per month!!! Average for 2022. £32 ($40) worth including VAT and duty. ~215 kWh in energy content.
Admittedly I don’t drive as far these days (age 68). I also use some public transport. But even in the 1990s, consumption wouldn’t have exceeded 40 litres/month; again plus some public transport (most long journeys by train).
In England, 150 miles is seen as a very long way. In the USA, I expect it’s just halfway across one’s own state. Bill Bryson’s books have tried to explain the huge differences between the two countries, despite the common language.
You conveniently forget to calculate the BTU’s (British Thermal Units) sunk when manufacturing and for upkeep of that diesel vehicle of yours.
Good for you, David!
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Future rhymes with the past?
Will US ‘Democracy Missions’ be spread more locally again?
Retreat from Europe and bring kindness to the America’s?
“The US appears to be destined by Providence to plague the Americas with misery in the name of freedom,” Simón Bolivar in 1829, nine years before Nicaragua became the first Central American nation to declare independence. In 1912, the US sent 2500 Marines and has continued attempts to dominate even via terrorism. The US has overtly invaded Nica 14 times. (Goddess and the CIA only know how many covert actions.)
https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/three-women-discover-the-americas-best-kept-secret-nicaragua/
Boarding soon … cruise missile warming up?
‘Turbo Cancers’ are on the rise in COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated, Neurological injuries, mental health issues, change in behavior in family members; DeAnna Lorraine on Stew Peters talks to Dr. Makis
Doctor mortality (younger ones) in Canada is increasing and massive TURBO cancers, aggressive unusual cancers out of the blue, very rare & very aggressive; spike protein is the CULTPRIT!
https://palexander.substack.com/p/turbo-cancers-are-on-the-rise-in
Great. Excellent. Hopefully we soon get 1 in 5 jabbed having some sort of brutal outcome haha
The UK is still trying to booster its population, but now focusing on the let’s say more vulnerable. From yesterday:
Covid booster jab to be offered this spring
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64876657
“A spring booster vaccine against Covid-19 is to be offered to people at most risk of serious illness from the disease to protect them this summer.
UK vaccine experts say it should be available to everyone over 75, care-home residents and anyone extremely vulnerable aged five and over.
Vaccinations in England and Wales are to start in early April, with Northern Ireland’s rollout from mid-April.
Scotland’s booster campaign will start in the final week of March.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said hospital admission rates for Covid-19 in autumn 2022 showed that the risk of becoming seriously ill from coronavirus was noticeably higher in people over 75.
As a result, they would gain the most from protection from an additional vaccine dose this spring, with health chiefs warning against complacency.
Anyone who lives in a care home for older adults and people aged five and over who are defined as immunosuppressed are also to be offered a booster jab.
They include people who’ve had organ transplants or who have blood cancer, and those undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer…”
Yes, they tried also here.
What happens is that ‘the more vulnerable people’ suffer the most from adverse events and they are so weak that for them are often fatal.
So it is also way to get rid of people not useful for the system, of course without intentions…
Compulsory euthanasia …
Not called that, of course.
I need to persuade my 80 year old Guardian-reading Great Aunt not to take it.
She had shingles after the last booster which nearly finished her off. She hasn’t made the connection.
You’d be wasting your time…
I listened to an argument about why a child is missing so much school … constantly sick — fully boosted. Every excuse But the Jab was given…
According to Chris Martenson’s latest blog which is behind a paywall. He now says that Australia has now started to make the connection between excess deaths and the CV1984 vaccine.
Excerpt:
ALERT: False Flag Probability On The Rise
Peak Insiders
By Chris Martenson on
March 7, 2023
0
“Various narratives of the Deep State & authoritarian crowd are now falling apart. This is when “they” become most dangerous. Consider: Ukraine has lost Bakhmut revealing that the combined force of all of NATO’s hardware, money, and “advisors” was not sufficient when matched against a private Russian mercenary force (“Wagner”) consisting in no small part of conscripts. The January 6th narrative of the Democrats has been exposed as a complete set of lies The vaccines are now being openly fingered in Australia’s MSM as culprits in their horrifying excess death statistics The Nordstream pipelines were taken out by the US,
Interesting that these stories are getting out into the MSM in Australia. I noted the story above about food perhaps being a near-term problem in Australia, because of the collapse of one of the biggest trucking firms.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/receivers-of-collapsed-trucking-giant-admit-continuity-of-food-supply-cant-be-guaranteed/news-story/0e994f116738dd4188dfc6a5abb4e848
Australia has awfully high energy costs for shipping things in or out. It also is awfully far away for most tourists. It may be hit sooner than others. Or there may be more push back about the vaccine mess.
In my brief time at Tim Morgan’s place I learned from the Aussie commenter, rainsinger, that Oz has a long and continuing history of a soft national socialist politics, with the current party in power being that historical NS party if I’m not mistaken. So it stands to reason that the Oz MSM would be on the leading edge of the Degrowth Agenda’s shift to ‘revolutionary’ national socialisms.
FWIW, back in the day when I was into Radio Veritas and that esoteric/exoteric subculture, one of my favorite characters was an Aussie eternalist named George Kavassilas who always insisted that Oz was the elites’ testing ground for cultural programming.
I watched S1 of the US version of Utopia… there are some slightly different twists vs the UK version …
There is no way that was not put out there by the PR Team to toy with the MORE-ONS… it’s incredibly close to what has gone down
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I really enjoyed you latest blog post. Today, it’s not just the fog of war we are suffering from. There is the fog of economics. In fact, there’s a fog around just about everything these days. Your posts remind me of what the fog really is. Thank you.
You are welcome. I have a had a hard time writing short summaries of what my posts are about because the topics get to be so complex. It would be easier if the answers were as simple as the models of economists suggest.
Bidets SOTN speech was on back of rising job numbers, but hours worked actually declined. So that is likely more part time work.
So Gail says;’ Our current complex economy is in danger of degrading remarkably in the next few years, but we have no replacement available.’
Economy is even more visibly degrading now post plandemic and Ukie situation.
The real action is the BDI;
‘The most obvious of these is the Baltic Dry Index – a measure of dry goods being traded around the world – which has fallen from its 2021 supply-shock peak and is now below its November 2008 low point:’
Further;
Indeed, container shipping prices are collapsing from the highs recorded in 2021, as global trading seizes up… a practical example of the old adage that “the answer to high prices is high prices.”
Leading to;
‘ It is only a matter of time before we get the first run on a bank, after which we will find ourselves in a new credit crunch as banks cease lending to each other.
This, I believe, is the story the bond market is trying to tell us… that the “inflation” really was temporary – a product of a once and done spending blip as economies reopened and consumers spent the money they had saved, into a global supply shock as producers failed to keep up with demand. This situation has since gone into reverse. Demand has crashed, unsold inventory is rising, disinflation has already begun, and deflation is coming to a high street near you in the not-too-distant future.
The only question that remains is just how much of the quadrillions of dollars’ worth of derivatives which – with the help of 12 years of QE and low interest rates – reinflated the pre-2008 bubble, will turn out to be bad? Most likely – as I have written many times over the years, everything which turned out to be “too big to fail” last time around, will be revealed to be too big to save this time.’
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/02/13/a-not-so-soft-landing/
Second to last paragraph, insightful, thanks.
Dennis L.
I am afraid that Tim Watkins is probably right. He, too, is a disinflation fan.
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OFW blog needn’t worry about intermittent electricity for the short term:
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-power-nuclear-reactor-electricity-voglte-startup-305145dc46cc1752c2d9371fa70aea35
Our electricity bills have been helping pay for the new Vogtle reactors for quite a few years. Hopefully, they will work as planned, and fuel for them will continue to be available. Russia is the leading country for processing uranium, I understand.
The USA gets some of its uranium from Russia, used to be from the programme to deactivate old nuclear missiles. Interesting article from January 2023 reviews the current status:
The U.S. imports uranium from Russia. What if sanctions end that?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/01/21/uranium-imports-russia-nuclear/
“After the end of the Cold War, U.S. and Russian leaders agreed that Russia would dismantle some of its nuclear weapons and send them to the United States to be repurposed and used in civilian nuclear reactors — the megaton to megawatt program. That ended in 2013. Over the course of the 20-year program as much as 10 percent of U.S. electricity came from fuel fabricated from Russian warheads.
In 2021, the United States purchased 14 percent of its uranium from Russia.”
The gist seems to be that the USA is considering sanctions on importing Russian-sourced uranium and that it can handle this ok.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said that “at worst, some long-term Russian supply contracts could not be executed, and that would perhaps raise the price of electricity 1 or 2 percent.”
But, he added, “given that we’re spending $100 billion plus to help Ukraine out, it would be a rounding error.”
That’s a lie though, they are not really spending $100 billion to help Ukraine out. They are giving them old stuff from warehouses and claiming it’s worth $100 billion.
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