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There is a reason for raising interest rates to try to fight inflation. This approach tends to squeeze out the most marginal players in the economy. Such businesses and governments tend to collapse, as interest rates rise, leaving less “demand” for oil and other energy products. The institutions that are squeezed out range from small businesses to financial institutions to governmental organizations. The lower demand tends to reduce inflationary pressure.
The amount of goods and services that the world’s economy can produce is largely determined by fossil fuel supplies, plus our ability to use “complexity” in many forms to produce the items that the world’s growing population requires. Adding debt helps add complexity of various types, such as more international trade, more advanced education, and more specialized tools. For a while, the combination of growing energy supplies and growing complexity have helped pull economies along.
Unfortunately, the world’s oil supply is no longer growing. Without an adequate oil supply, it becomes difficult to maintain complexity because complex solutions, such as international trade, require adequate oil supplies. Inasmuch as we seem to be reaching energy and complexity limits, nothing the regulators try to do to change the debt and money supplies–even reeling them back in–can fix the underlying oil (and total energy) problem.
I expect that the rich parts of the world, including the US, Europe, and Japan, are in line to be adversely affected by high interest rates this time. With their high levels of complexity, they are among the most vulnerable to disruption when there is not enough oil to go around.
The problem I see is that rich countries expect to maintain service economies that are fed by huge streams of manufactured goods and raw materials from poorer countries. This pattern appears unsustainable to me, in a world with falling exports because of energy problems.
I expect a significant change in the trading of goods and services, starting as soon as the next few months. Major financial changes may be ahead, fairly soon, as well. In this post, I will try to explain these and related ideas.
[1] Growing debt is a temporary substitute for growing energy supply of the right kinds.
Economists seem to believe that the economy grows because of an invisible hand. I believe that the economy grows because of a growing supply of energy products of the right kinds, together with a growing supply of other raw materials, and a growing supply of human labor. The economy grows in keeping with the laws of physics.
Debt does help provide an extra pull, however, because it enables growing “complexity.” Even in the days of hunters and gathers, it was helpful for people to work together and share the benefit of their labor. A type of short-term debt results from the delayed benefit of working together, even if the delay is only a few hours.
In modern times, debt can help build a factory. The factory can provide more/better output than individual people working by themselves using available resources. There needs to be a way of paying for the delayed benefit of the human labor involved in the whole chain of events that leads to the finished output. Growing debt can help pay workers, long before the benefit of the factory becomes available.
Debt can also make high-priced goods more affordable. A car, or a home, or a college education is more affordable if it can be paid for in installments, as income becomes available to pay for it.
[2] Diminishing returns on added complexity is one issue that puts an end to the ability to grow debt.
As an example, we are slowly discovering that it doesn’t make sense to provide everyone with a university education. Yes, advanced education is of benefit to a percentage of the population, but, in general, there are not enough jobs that pay sufficiently well for it to make economic sense to provide advanced education for everyone who would like to attend college. If debt is provided to finance everyone who applies for advanced education, there are likely to be many loans that can’t be repaid.
As another example, long supply lines can provide cost savings for a manufacturer, but if there is a disruption in any necessary raw material, the whole manufacturing operation may need to be temporarily suspended. The high cost of such a suspension may encourage shorter supply lines or the provision of more stored inventory.
[3] US total debt as a percentage of GDP already seems to be hitting a limit, quite possibly related to diminishing returns on added complexity.
Figure 2 shows that the US ratio of debt to GDP started increasing shortly after 1980. This was about the time that Ronald Reagan became President in the United States, and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in the UK. There was a need to get energy costs down, and growing debt was one of the tools used to accomplish this. With added debt, new types of hopefully less expensive electricity generation could be added, using debt. Electricity producers were encouraged to compete with each other. The new approach led to less concern about providing adequate upkeep for transmission lines. California is one state where this approach is starting to catch up with the electricity system. Costs are rising, and reliability is falling.
Figure 2 shows that the ratio of US debt to GDP hit a maximum in 2008. An even loftier level was reached in 2020 because of the debt added at the time of Covid-related shutdowns. Now, however, the system doesn’t seem to be able to maintain the high debt level. The quarterly analysis used in Figure 2 highlights how quickly the added debt rolled off.
Analyzing US debt to GDP ratios by sector provides some insight regarding the reason for the fall in the ratio of debt to GDP since 2008 in Figure 2. (The amounts used in Figure 3 are on an annual basis, rather than a quarterly basis, so the shape of the graph is a little different from that in Figure 2.)
Figure 3 shows that the category I call Financial+ Debt has played an amazingly large role in the growth of total debt. One of the issues bringing about the 2008-2009 Great Recession was defaults related to Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and Collateralized Debt Swaps (CDSs), involving debt that had been cut into layers and resold. Various tranches of this debt would then default, as the economy slowed. It became clear that this approach to adding debt is very risky. The elimination of some of this type of debt is likely one of the reasons for the drop-off in Financial+ debt after 2008.
It also becomes clear that there are interactions among the different types of debt. Back in 1947, Federal Debt related to World War II had begun dropping off. To provide civilian jobs for all the people who had served in the war effort, it was helpful to add other debt. More recently, the big run-up in debt of the Federal Government seems to have taken place partly to try to offset the huge loss of debt in the Financial+ category.
Figure 4 shows the gross debt of the Federal Government, relative to GDP, on an annual basis.
The gross debt of the Federal Government is now at a higher level than it was when the Federal Government borrowed money to fight World War II! Part of the rise may very well be the need to keep total indebtedness high, to prop up the economic system in general, and energy prices in particular.
[4] In previous posts, I have shown that oil prices seem to be very sensitive to manipulations of the Federal Reserve.
In Figure 5, below, I also make the point that the popping of a debt bubble can cause oil prices to fall precipitously. With the high level of debt that the world economy has today, major defaults are a worry. Because of this concern, central banks today seem willing to bend over backwards to prop up failing banks. If a substantial number of banks are propped up, this will add to inflationary pressure.
Another point that Figure 5 makes is the importance of high oil prices for producers, and the importance of low oil prices for customers. A big part of today’s conflict with respect to oil supply has to do with the affordability of the oil supply, and the fact that such affordable prices for consumers tend to be too low for producers. For example, the European union has attempted to pay Russia for oil at $60 per barrel, partly to hurt Russia, but also to try to bring costs down to a more affordable level. Oil producers tend to cut back supply, as OPEC has recently agreed to do, when prices fall too low.
[5] One thing that people forget in trying to find substitutes for oil is that any substitute must be inexpensive if it is to be affordable. They also forget that they need to consider the cost of required changes to the entire system in any cost estimate.
We often see cost estimates for wind energy and solar energy that consider only the cost of the generation of intermittent electricity. Unfortunately, an economy cannot operate on intermittent electricity. At this point, there isn’t even a single island that can operate its electricity system solely on renewables (including hydroelectric energy, in addition to wind and solar).
In theory, a very high-cost electricity system could be put together using some combination of long-distance transmission lines, batteries, and overbuilding, to try to have enough electricity available for periods of long periods of low electricity generation. But even this would not fix the problem that arises because the world’s agricultural system is mostly powered by oil, not electricity. We cannot get along without food.
If electricity were to be used for the agricultural system, at a minimum, we would need to figure out how to transition all the machines used in fields to use electricity, rather than oil. We would also need to figure out what to do about products that are manufactured using the chemical products that we get from oil, such as herbicides and pesticides. Natural gas or coal is often used to produce ammonia fertilizer. If all fossil fuels are eliminated, a new approach to ammonia production would be needed, as well.
[6] Natural gas cannot be counted on as an inexpensive fuel for a transition to renewables.
Some people hope that a ramp up in natural gas production can be used to help substitute for oil, and thus aid in any transition. A problem that many people are not aware of is the fact that shipping natural gas over long distances as liquified natural gas (LNG) is very expensive. A calculation I saw a few years ago indicated that when LNG was shipped from the US to Europe, adding shipping costs roughly tripled the cost of the natural gas.
Part of the high-cost problem is the need for a huge amount of infrastructure. Natural gas sold as LNG must be compressed, transported at very low temperatures in specially made ships, and then brought back to a gaseous state at the other end. Pipelines are needed at both ends. There is also a need for inter-seasonal natural gas storage because natural gas is often used for heating in winter.
With this huge amount of infrastructure, there is a need for debt to finance all the pieces. When interest rates increase, the result is particularly expensive for those planning to produce LNG for overseas shipment. Such high overhead costs are likely to discourage the building of new LNG export facilities unless long-term contracts at high prices can be obtained in advance.
[7] A huge amount of today’s debt relates to plans to transition to renewables. If these plans cannot work, many debt defaults are certain.
Almost certainly, massive amounts of debt obligations are destined for default if the transition to renewable energy is not successful. The very existence of such liabilities can be expected to lead to widespread problems. Some of this debt will be held by banks; other debt has been issued as bonds or by derivative financial instruments. Pension funds would be badly affected by bond defaults. Derivative financial instruments are likely of many types. Some seem to back exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Young people who have spent thousands of dollars to pursue specialized degrees in fields directly or indirectly related to renewable energy will find that their investment has mostly been wasted. They will not be able to repay their student loans, a large proportion of which is owed to the US Federal Government.
[8] In fact, student loans in general are likely to be a problem for repayment.
The problem with student debt extends beyond students who obtained their training planning to go into the field of renewable energy. In fact, many former students in fields other than renewable energy are already finding that they cannot repay their student loans because there are not enough jobs available that pay sufficiently high compensation. Also, some individuals who took out the loans were not able to finish their courses of study, so they did not gain the skills needed to secure higher-paying jobs. These individuals, in particular, have problems with repayment.
Figure 6 shows that, in total, the amount of student loans debts owed to the Federal Government is about equal to the debt outstanding on motor vehicle loans. Since Covid began, there has been forbearance in debt repayment, but this is likely to end later in 2023. There seems to be a significant chance of defaults starting when this forbearance ends.
It might be noted that there are more student loans outstanding than shown on Figure 6. Besides loans made by the Federal Government, there are also bank loans, amounting to a smaller total.
[9] Falling interest rates since 1980 seem to have played a major role in allowing the US economy to stay on the growth track it has been on.
Up until about 1979, the US economy grew about as quickly as oil consumption, and, in fact, as growth in total energy consumption. Since 1979, the US economy seems to have grown a little more quickly than consumption of oil or of energy of all types combined.
The strange thing that happened around 1979-1981 was a peaking of interest rates on US Treasuries. As I will explain, it was these falling interest rates that indirectly allowed inflation-adjusted GDP to grow faster than oil or total energy consumption.
Figure 7 shows that during the period 1952 to 1979, consumption of both oil and total energy were (with short interruptions) growing rapidly. The extra oil and other energy could be used to leverage human labor. Thus, productivity could be expected to grow. In fact, the Fed chose to raise interest rates to slow the economy during this period, based on Figure 8.
Higher interest rates on debt would be expected to make monthly payments for buying a home or car more expensive. They would also tend to hold down prices of assets, such as homes or shares of stock, discouraging speculators from trying to make money by investing in homes or shares of stock.
Most of the time since 1980, interest rates have tended to fall. Falling interest rates can be expected to have the opposite effect: They reduce monthly payments for items bought on credit. Because they make homes and factories more affordable, they tend to raise asset values. Also, the existence of more debt encourages more complexity, such as in cases where a large company purchases a smaller one, using debt. Also, as asset prices rise (for example, a rising home price), leaving more equity, there is the temptation to borrow against the newly available equity to buy something else (for example, home furnishings or a boat). Thus, falling interest rates tend to pull the economy forward.
I believe that the indirect impacts of falling interest rates are behind the huge growth in debt, especially in the Financial+ category, seen in Figure 3. This debt looks likely to hit even worse default problems than happened in the 2008 era, if interest rates remain high, or rise to even higher levels.
Furthermore, without the support of growing debt, GDP growth is likely to fall back to being equal to the growth in energy or oil supply. If a loss of complexity starts occurring, GDP growth could even start to be smaller than growth in energy or oil supply. Of course, if shrinkage of energy consumption occurs, economies can be expected to contract.
[10] Poorer nations will be able to consume much more oil for themselves if they can push down the consumption in areas that use oil heavily, such as the US, Europe, and Japan.
With their high per capita oil consumption, the combined oil consumption of Europe, Japan, and the United States amounted to almost 38% of total oil consumption in 2021. This can be seen on Figure 1. If this consumption could be brought to zero, the rest of the world could consume about 60% more than they would otherwise.
Of course, the US currently produces most of its own oil, so its oil cannot be obtained unless the US economy collapses to such an extent that it cannot access the oil that it now extracts and refines. As indicated in the introduction to this post, the US is very dependent upon imported goods. Even goods used in the extraction of oil, such as steel pipe used to drill wells, and computers, are imported. Furthermore, whether or not problems with imported goods occur, financial problems seem likely in the near future, either caused by collapsing debt, or by the issuance of excessive new governmental debt to try to offset the problem of collapsing debt. Such financial problems are likely to make imports of required foreign goods difficult. Problems such as these might be one way the US loses access to its own oil.
A loss in a “hot” war could also reduce the ability of the US to access its own oil. Poor countries most likely covet the US’s oil resources. In my opinion, the more oil the US leaves in the ground related to climate concerns, the more vulnerable the US becomes to other countries’ trying to access its resources. For most of the world, adequate food supply has priority over climate concerns.
If total world oil supply is shrinking, as seems likely with OPEC cutting its output, poorer countries around the world are now becoming concerned about finding workarounds for this expected oil supply shortfall. One workaround would be for oil exporting countries to reduce their exports to countries that are not their close allies. Another approach would be for the poorer nations of the world to reduce the quantity of oil now used for international transport by cutting back on exports of all types of goods to richer counties.
Changes to the international financial system may be very near. There are now stories about greater cooperation among countries of the Middle East and China. There are also stories about moving away from the US dollar for trade.
[11] I have written in the past about the world self-organizing economy being built up in layers and being hollow inside. We can imagine the loss of Europe, and perhaps the United States and Japan, as being rather like an avalanche, removing some unsustainable parts of the system.
Our economy is a physics-based self-organizing system that looks as if it could keep growing forever.
As the economy grows, new businesses are added. We can envision them as new layers, added on top of existing businesses. The growing consumer (and worker) base helps push this growth along. At the same time, unneeded products and businesses tend to fall away, making the center of the structure hollow. For example, the world economy no longer makes many buggy whips, since horses and buggies are no longer the primary means of transportation.
Built into this system are financial and regulatory structures, operated by banks and governments. When the rate of growth of the energy supply is constrained, the system starts encountering more debt defaults and banking crises. I think that this is where we are today.
In a way, the economy with all its debt is like a Ponzi Scheme. It depends on a growing supply of energy and other resources to continue to be able to pay back its debt with interest. The higher the interest rate, the more difficult it is to keep the whole arrangement operating.
Something will have to “give,” as the growth in oil supply turns to shrinkage. In theory, what is lost could be the operation of the whole world economy, but the system does seem to hold together, to the extent that it can, if adequate energy supply exists for even part of the global economy. That is why I think that the near-term result may be more of an avalanche than a complete collapse.
We don’t know exactly what lies ahead, but the situation does look worrying.
Saudi totally splits from USA?
“Hey Biden, do you remember when you slagged me off in public?”
This, plus the Brazil-China trade deal, plus the Iran-Saudi peace, are the really impactful events of the last 2-3 months. The rest of the Gulf appears to follow the Saudis, too. I am amazed.
The world seems to suddenly have changed. The dollar is no longer a safe haven. Everyone wants to trade in another currency. China and the East are beneficiaries of this.
The US has had an empire around the world, in some ways similar to the Roman Empire. But the US is losing it, in some ways similar to the way Rome lost it. They overstretched what they could do, added more debt, and debased the currency.
Now Saudi Arabia is selling some of the US Treasuries it owns.
China, as is well known, finances Silk Road projects by selling US treasuries. Sort of a reverse money laundering, and a good excuse to get rid of them. Other projects, say Neom in Saudi Arabia, are essentially the same thing.
Interesting observation, Dr B. Reverse money laundering! haha
Makes sense to me that it’s conceivably a better use for their trade surplus in offshore infrastructure rather than a US treasury fuelled landfill economy.
I too am amazed at the speed with which the tectonic plates of finances are now moving
feels historic
I’m quite happy to hold USD… to bill in the pegged HKD (to the USD) and get remunerated in USD…
Last man standing is last man standing – and if the USD goes… ROF begins…
“I’m quite happy to hold USD… to bill in the pegged HKD (to the USD) and get remunerated in USD… ”
That arraignment makes CGI have the substance of granite by comparison.
Ed Dowd ‘disagrees’?
‘As another financial guy personally told me yesterday, the US dollar is still the world’s reserve currency. While 100% of global trade used to be conducted in the dollar, with the recent exodus, it’s now “only” 97%.
The dollar will cease to be the reserve currency only when that number goes below 30%, which is what he says happened with the British Pound. It took over 20 years for the British Pound to get to the point where it lost its world reserve currency status.
My financial guy friend says this is something that cannot and will not switch overnight – and Ed Dowd seems to agree.
“Because right now, the taxicab driver is telling you that the dollar is going to end. Well, the dollars’s not going to end. The dollar’s going to fail up. It’s going to Moon.”’?
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/the-incoming-financial-collapse-and-what-you-should-do-edward-dowd/#comments
Your numbers are wrong. Not sure where you got the 97% from.
The arguments that the dollar will persevere are based on the large amounts of dollar denominated debt creating demand for the dollar.
The arguments that the dollar will fade are based on the fact that most of the world despises the USA and are rejecting it eliminating demand for the dollar.
The dollar denominated debt is not sustainable. As nation states sell their treasury’s that leaves only the banks to hold them.
I have often stated if the fed buys treasuries its the end of the dollar because that is the USA buying its own debt. Guess Im wrong because the fed is the largest owner of treasuries. So no problem here. The fed will create the dollars to buy the treasuries. Dollar denominated debt will continue to create demand for the dollar. That demand will be met by fed buying treasuries. Thus the dollar will hold value. The fact that all the energy and manufactured goods are priced in yuan doesnt matter.
Just dont expect anyone to trade yuan for dollars because all you can buy with dollars is debt and mega expensive f-35s and no one wants either (except the fed).
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4546772-who-will-buy-our-treasury-debt
I am not sure the speaker is right about Saudi Arabia being a major holder of US treasuries, and that Saudi Arabia selling its Treasuries is a problem.
https://ticdata.treasury.gov/Publish/mfh.txt
It looks to me as if Saudi Arabia is 16th on the list of Treasury holding countries. The big Treasury holders that are selling are Japan and China. Smaller ones that are selling Treasuries are France, Saudi Arabia, So. Korea and Norway. There are several other countries buying more, especially the UK and Belgium.
Saudi Arabia no doubt owns shares of US companies. It could be selling those off–I just don’t know.
through Luxembourg and the Caymans, rehypothecation and encumbrance by use as collateral or repos no one has any real picture at any given time of ultimate “ownership”
we have to wait until it seizes up and returns again to some semblance of stability to see
no one knows the future
Degrowth Agenda theater. House of Saud drawing ever closer to being deposed. Time to release the 9/11 files lol.
Archaeologists have uncovered ancient dwellings from the Bronze Age and a Roman-period settlement in Newquay, England.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2023/04/bronze-age-and-roman-period-settlement-discovered-in-newquay/146830?amp=1
Excavations were conducted by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit in preparation for a housing development project, where the team found three Bronze Age roundhouses and a Roman-period settlement – consisting of an oval house, a large processing area (thought to be used for cereals) and two rectangular buildings (probably former barns).
Cornwall, despite being connected to the Roman road system, was relatively isolated from the primary centres of Romanisation. While the road system extended into Cornwall, only three notable Roman sites have been identified: Tregear near Nanstallon, which was discovered in the early 1970s, and two others discovered more recently at Restormel Castle in Lostwithiel (found in 2007), and a fort near St. Andrew’s Church in Calstock (discovered in early 2007).
Sean Taylor, Senior Archaeologist at the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, said: “The Roman house is similar to buildings found at Trethurgy Round near St Austell in the 1970s and are of a type unique to Cornwall. The rectangular agricultural buildings on the other hand are fairly common throughout Roman Britain but this is the first time that they have been discovered in Cornwall.
According to the researchers, Bronze Age structures have been found at various sites across Cornwall over the past 30 years, however, the discovery of a cluster of roundhouses in such a small area is still a rare find.
Excavations of the structures also unearthed Bronze Age Trevisker ware pottery, a distinctive regional pottery style that originated in Cornwall and continued to be produced for almost a millennium.
“It’s starting to look like this part of Newquay, alongside the River Gannel, was a very important and densely populated area from the Neolithic (c 4000BC) onwards. The estuary undoubtedly formed an important link with the outside world throughout prehistory,” said Taylor.
Our own civilization will only leave an immense residue after collapse like above.
Macron splits from USA?
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-china-america-pressure-interview/
Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron
The ‘great risk’ Europe faces is getting ‘caught up in crises that are not ours,’ French president says in interview.
Europe must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.
Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”
He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party have enthusiastically endorsed Macron’s concept of strategic autonomy and Chinese officials constantly refer to it in their dealings with European countries. Party leaders and theorists in Beijing are convinced the West is in decline and China is on the ascendant and that weakening the transatlantic relationship will help accelerate this trend.
“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said in the interview. “The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction,” he said.
…. “Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’? If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Europe is more willing to accept a world in which China becomes a regional hegemon,” said Yanmei Xie, a geopolitics analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics. “Some of its leaders even believe such a world order may be more advantageous to Europe.”
…. In this meeting, Macron and von der Leyen took similar lines on Taiwan, this person said. But Macron subsequently spent more than four hours with the Chinese leader, much of it with only translators present, and his tone was far more conciliatory than von der Leyen’s when speaking with journalists.
Macron also argued that Europe had increased its dependency on the U.S. for weapons and energy and must now focus on boosting European defense industries.
He also suggested Europe should reduce its dependence on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar,” a key policy objective of both Moscow and Beijing.
“If the tensions between the two superpowers heat up … we won’t have the time nor the resources to finance our strategic autonomy and we will become vassals,” he said.
Russia, China, Iran and other countries have been hit by U.S. sanctions in recent years that are based on denying access to the dominant dollar-denominated global financial system. Some in Europe have complained about “weaponization” of the dollar by Washington, which forces European companies to give up business and cut ties with third countries or face crippling secondary sanctions….
Alex Christoforou reports on the Macron and Ursula situation in China. China is trying to buy time. The message Macron gave in an interview was not the message that the collective West expected Macron (with Ursula’s guidance) to give.
We are never told the truth … so this is just more distraction
Notice how nothing is published re the banking crisis that has no solution … they have not need to utilize it to promote and agenda to lead the herd in a direction .. so they say nothing.
Everything is either fake — or only announced if it has a purpose — and I can guarantee – that purpose is never one of providing the truth about an issue.
Reducing fossiles in a world of fossile agriculture means to reduce carrying capacity. An organic agriculture may be able to provide 1/30 of the populace.
The transition of depleted soils to organic production usually takes seven years.
Please allow me to exclude all ethical and absurd implications of the following thoughts to reduce complexity and point to the problem!
If we wanted to prepare for a world without fossiles to provide at least these 1/30, we would need to start transitioning seven years before the crash of fossiles.
If we could split all arable land into two halves and use one half for transitioning, this land could provide 1/60 of the populace. It would take another seven years to transition the second half. That would create a bottleneck.
But while we transition the first half fossile production must be kept up for the second half. As we have splitted the land the second half worked with fossile products could only provide 50% of the people.
If population were reduced to 50%, so we could transition the first half, population reduction would decrease GDP and crash fossile production. So the second half worked with fossiles couldn’t provide people long before the seven years are over to make the first half at least produce for 1/60. It would mean a period, where not even 1/60 could be fed, and there is no difference to a sudden crash without any preparation.
There is no way that respective amounts of food could be stored for seven years or such, not to mention that we needed a respective surplus.
When carrying capacity sinks, overuse of resources occur. That seems to be a natural law in biology. The overpopulated rabbits not only eat all grass but also its roots, so the next year even less grass can grow.
If we started transition privately, let’s say on 0,001% of the arable land, these sources of food would surely be overused by the hungry, they would eat all livestock and seeds and the partly recovered soil will be overused to grow more fruitful plants.
If we calculate with the worst, according to ‘experts’, the rate of leucemia and infertility will grow rapidly the next 10-20 years. Let’s assume that over the next 20 years the population were reduced to 20% – that is 1/5 and not yet 1/30 or 1/60.
Transition of the organically worked half takes only seven years. If fossile production could be kept upright the fossile worked half could feed 50%. Population were only 20%. Transition could work easily!
The crucial point is to keep fossile production upright on a level that fossile agriculture would not crash too much. Are there any ways thinkable apart from a self-organizing capitalist system?
Energy is needed to provide fertilizers and fuel for agro equipment and transport. Energy is also needed to maintain machines and infrastructure – to get fossile energy out and to keep fossile agriculture working. But energy is also stored in machines and infrastructure. A car can last 30 or 50 years. A road needs repair but can be used for long years with little repair. A transition only needs seven years.
In our system we need GDP to make the banks work, that finance to pump out oil, which allows agriculture and delivery. Such a system does not seem to be highly efficient.
Is there a thinkable way, that reduced amounts of fossiles are kept upright for 10-20 years with old equipment and repairs? Under a centrally planned economy, perhaps?
Let’s sum it up in more tangable numbers:
An organic agriculture could support about 3 of 100. That is the number of people that could at best survive after the end of fossiles.
A halved agriculture worked with the help of fossiles could support 50 of 100. That would make 53 of 100 together with the transitioned half. A population decline of 70% equals to a population to feed of 30 of 100. A transition would be possible under the above assumptions.
I know that these thoughts have a lot of absurd, inhuman and very sad implications. To me this reduction of complexity seems necessary to see the underlying predicament. On this blog, commenters are talking about human extinction – which has not less implications. 3% of mankind to survive is more than 0%.
Population reduction does not imply necessarily to kill people. It could also mean to reproduce less and let the old people enjoy the life that is naturally granted to max. Transition time then would probably be much longer, I haven’t looked into the numbers, yet. To think of possible harming effects of vaccinations: What is done is done, decisions made cannot be unmade – however sad they are. The only possibility we have is to make the best out of it and enjoy the life that is granted to us at the most! That applies to all of us. To those that are religious: we have never been promised eternal life on Earth but in the heavens!
Conclusions. To switch the running system based on fossiles to a system without fossiles and without substitutes like alternative energy, nuclear, fusion, free energy, energy harvesting from space and whatever – because there are serious doubts, that these could ever work – there would be needed:
1. The use of all arable areas and open spaces additional to the land in agricultural production. That could be rabbits or sheep fed by grass from communal spaces, the use of suburb gardens, balconies, roofs and parking lots. As long as there is still fossile production, raised beds might be useful. This is necessary to keep fossile agriculture as large as possible to provide as many of the living people as possible and on the other hand start a transition at least on the surplus areas
2. To increase the efficiency of food production independent from fossiles, by better organic gardening techniques, more resilient seeds, rediscovering old sorts and seeds as much as restoring soil and a natural environment wherever possible
3. To think of a way to keep up the most crucial provision of fossiles as long as possible and spend them on agricultural production instead of the immense overhead of our current luxury system. To enable lives is worth more than a new car or some luxury holidays!
The last is the most difficult aspect for me to think through, and I am not sure if that could work.
I am open to any withering comments!
easiest thing in the world, to take pencil and paper and write your problem in neat fractions.
it comes under my definition of wish economics, wish science and wish politics
i hold an honorary doctorate in all three
unfortunately it requires energy-wealth to be even distributed (not money-wealth).
I have more energy-assets than average, (though not much), i will not willingly surrender it before my inevitable demise. Then my family will eagerly speed me to my rest in the great BS farm in the sky, and divvy up whats left.
But thats as far as it goes.
Most people think the same way–it is a fact of life that we will not willingly surrender what we have.
Humankind has not evolved to do that.
We have evolved to go forward until we meet a force that stops us in our tracks.
Norm,
His land descriptions “feel” about right. Land abuse is secondary to the expense of equipment and inputs; have personally seen and experienced it, crp is a way to achieve his goals if the land was purchased right, pretty tough now. Land costs are >$13K/acre in my area for the best land, rent would be >$400/acre, you get the picture.
For physical goods, Starship is the only hope and that does not supply P and K which is running out. Zn could be supplied with Starship, terrestrial mines are exhaused in <5 years. Who would have thunk Zn?
Summary: It is going to be bumpy.
Dennis L.
Lucid and logical approach in evaluating our transition in a power down industrial agricultural segment of modern society.
The citizens that make up your approach need to be on the same page, so to speak, of your aim of a doable reduction.
I followed, as best I could, your reasoning and am predisposed to this line of thinking, having been following here for some years, and before that Permaculture, ect.
In modern society, it was drilled into me that people were set free of the drudgery of tilling the soil to pursue other meaningful aspects of living as part of advancement”. Today the average landowner is a farmer of grass and uses more artificial chemicals on it in total than growing our food in some regions at their home.
The cultural mind shift would be immense and I remember a story, if true or not, of the early settlers in Plymouth Massachusetts ignoring the advice of Native people’s in growing survival winter foods method, because of preconceived notions.
Not to mention vested interests that will pressure to maintain the status quo for their own survival.
Of course, the very layout of our modern suburban structure wll prove to be an obstacle in this orderly reduction.
Jay Hanson of Dieoff fame, may have been on mark when in an interview regarding human behavior in pointing out that the Japanese did not accept going back to the rickshaws after the United States set up it’s oil embargo.
Folks don’t react in that manner.
I recommend reading the whole interview below on his own experience with the system…
https://dieoffinterview.tripod.com/
Thank you for your post…
in the great bronze age collapse it was the marginalized hill people who smashed the faltering city states. The herdsman pillaged and sacked the coastal regions and utterly decimated the “ruling classes’ of the mediterranean world.
As volcanism unleashed from the suns wrath darkened the world the tough, war torn eaters of flesh and drinkers of blood and milk turned their gaze to the flatlands and smiled.
so it will be again.
To be proactive is to destroy all modern vestiges of agriculture. Remove the corporate farms via raiding, starve out the cities.
Maybe some of the current destruction of corporate food production facilities is a harbinger?
Abel’s children will inherit the earth. But first they must exterminate Cains vile offspring.
Grainfields are an insult to the oversoul, cities are a slap in the face of Eden……both must be laid waste.
those who live by or profit from them are not human regardless. The hive creatures must be driven to extinction.
What was life like after the Bronze Age collapse (Extended Version)
I watched most of this video and found it amazing in context…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uM6JSS3l-IQ&t=2337s
The movement of people…the ebb and flow of tribes, clans, nations during this period following the trade of resources and goods, along with conflict ..something we see in our own world today
Exactly! The Elders/elites are aware of this … their protectors will slit their throats when they realize that their basis for power is gone…. or worse … skin them alive.
Better to kill everyone in advance
How I wish just prior to the release of Phase 2 of the virus… I could have 15 minutes on BBCCNN to explain what is about to happen and why.
People would be splattering tomatoes at their screens and screaming ‘id iot’ … because as we know nobody likes the truth – they react with anger when you force it upon them (try showing a Vaxxer data on the vax injuries if you want to observe this phenomenon)….
But I would continue on detailing how humans are a nasty vile beasts that commit heinous acts on a daily basis and finish with how I eagerly await the extermination.
Then I’d smile – flash the middle finger … turn and walk off camera….
And soon after… the dying would begin.
May it kill all lawyers and grain farmers in the first wave. Bankers and police in the next.
may the furin cleavage site do its work.
Telegraphic summary: for a while we will have to eat each other.
Boil the bones of the starved.. and suck the marrow
There are forage foods like acorns that humans have used in the past to survive famine. Cattails have roots that you can extract starch from , canna root can be processed with same technique. Surviving winter requires storage of dried grains/corn , dried starch, root cellars for potatoes, apples and root crops. Think rodent control. Chicken and duck eggs are super important and a big fat pig grown during the summer and killed at Christmas can help get you through spring famine months. To survive a hard transition you may need to find food others have forgotten or don’t know how to use.
Dependable rain is very important to any reversion to organic production and stock can be moved from pasture to confinement to collect manure for intensive garden areas. Fast growing trees can be planted to provide leaves and sticks to compost close to garden areas. Moving lots of compost is very labor intensive.
So reverting to ancient food crops, and farming techniques is something you can practice on now to prepare for a potential crash. Do a little planning and grow some field corn , dry it and get a grinder. Learn how to nixtamalize your dried corn. Grow some peas and beans for dried storage. Think of gardening to grow staples rather than greens. Greens can be foraged, learn which leafy greens are locally available and what season they grow in. Then make a commitment to not use any foods you didn’t personally grow or forage yourself. Get your family to make same commitment then feed yourself for a month or two for practice. It isn’t as hard as it might seem, humans are amazing foragers. The practice will improve your confidence in surviving an emergency.
There are lots of people that may decide to take your food if they are starving so keeping a couple hundred pounds of acorns ,that they don’t know how to process , in dry storage. Foods others ignore might be what gets you through the first couple years of a hard crash.
Ok Bruce… you can be our test monkey… you unplug and do this for a month .. come back and tell us how it went.
Otherwise don’t pollute OFW with this delusional nonsense.
And btw – there are 4000 spent fuel ponds ready to spew poison for centuries.
10 in a straight row eddy
the rumours were of malicious intent—–you’re not slowing down after all
i wish i was young enough to spare the time to read them
You have the attention span of someone who has been Rat Juiced 7x
yup
i keep circling in my goldfish bowl
waiting in vain for intellect to show itself magnified in the curved glass
Dear Mr. Ed, You would be surprised to see how easy it actually is. I could provide more details about how to process acorns with a blender and mason jars for leaching. But yes my wife and I have lived off acorns , eggs, fresh greens and other crops I have stored for a little over a month. The second time we grew field corn and wheat and had dried supplies that along with acorns got us over three months without using store bought food . It is all kinda bland but no problem with adequate calories to maintain health and body mass. People lived this way for thousands of years. I don’t know why you think it is so difficult other than your own lack of experience in gardening, foraging or actually putting food on the table.
Yes but have you completed the Fast Eddy Challenge:
– no petrol
– no electricity
– no buying anything
– no medicines
– only eat food that you produce now (no eating the canned stuff or bought foods from pre Challenge days – only what you grow or gather)
I’ve read a lot on the early settlers of North America – first hand accounts… and I never came across the words ‘it was easy’… many were on the verge of starvation …
I guess you know better than them
I think the challenge is doable but I would use my solar electric . I think the idea of closing the gate, no car, no petrol and nothing from the store is easy but without solar electric to run refrigeration and a grain mill it gets a lot harder.
I have a handwritten autobiography by a great grandfather who wrote about post civil war years on the prairie in Northern Iowa. A very hard life .
How interested do you think people are in working examples ?
Of course if solar was no longer an option you would be reduced to a stone bowl and a mortar to process acorns and grains. Still doable but way less relevant to people who simply wanting to drop out. Not to piss you off Eddy but I have made stone bowls and mortars by hand, no steel tools. Milling grains by hand is time consuming but not impossible.
Growing a couple hundred pounds of corn and grains with a shovel and hoe is also possible but would require some sort of tank for water storage around here because it doesn’t rain anywhere near enough most years.
I really would like to take you up on your challenge Eddy. Wish there was an official competition with someone interested enough to verify results.
The real challenge is finding a woman who has enough faith in you to agree to helping accomplish the workload and agrees to the Spartan diet. As long as we can have solar I’m good. Like I said before we already did most of your challenge but solar runs water pumps and carrying water would really be tough but I do know where one artesian weep runs year round.
Re. Containment ponds. I live within twenty miles of nuclear silos so the containment ponds 40 miles up wind seem less an issue.
The how about you Just Do It.
Think of it as a dry run for what’s coming.
The good thing is… there won’t be a hungry violent mob turning up at your front gate demanding food… it’s not possible to trial that aspect of doomsday.
Also you won’t have to deal with the cancer causing toxins from the spent fuel ponds.
Edward. Nature is a whore. That rabbit makes his burrow under that discarded piece of OSB and it makes the bestest burrow ever. He could care less about its fossil fuel origin. All he knows is he is bunny king.
Im offering luxury TEOTWAWKI TM residences in New Guinea built to meet the fast eddy challenge in style for a mere 5.9 mil. These are custom built to fulfill basic necessities while meeting the stringent requirements that the luminary fast eddy brilliantly proposed. Full time Reki master available for the health room at a small additional charge.
Is it better to create agriculture infrastructure and have it stolen by pirates or not create it and leave the resources intact for a time when harmonious societies can use them? Is infrastructure creation truly noble or just another means of consumption mechanism and ego fulfillment?
Seems to me that that second one is a lot like asking, “Is life worth living?”
Notice how doomies never try to learn how to be hunter gatherers?
That’s cuz there are not TEE VEE shows telling to think that this is a viable option.
Hunting and Gathering is illegal and those ecologies largely don’t exist anymore anyway. Silvopasture is legal ‘hunting and gathering,’ which is why I farm that way.
Give me consumption mechanism or give me death?
“Consumption mechanism” in this context is a dysphemism for self-reliance, for the DIY, responsible securing of food clothing and shelter.
Oh good I was thinking my solar powered loom and my roomba alpaca shearing drone were consumerism. Pfeww what a relief. Im going to need another straw bale dome to store all these necessity’s however. Three just isnt enough.
jig we’re in a deep hole. Be kind to yourself, and then try harder. And you’d better make it five just in case. And that’s it! 🙂
“be kind to yourself”
“I deserve”
These are not quite the most popular consumption mechanisms of all time. They are the exact same ideas that a thief indulges in. Thiefs have very strong consumer mechanism. “why do you have and I dont”?
The most popular consumer mechanism being
“god has chosen me to consume”.
All of them using but denying the fundamental truth that force determines consumption. I dont like thieves but they are correct. Ownership does not exist without force. In the absence of goverment force individual or tribe force must be provided for ownership to exist. A simple examination yields the conclusion that the exertion of force can easily dwarf the energies needed to provide sustenance. Thus ownership beyond the most simple possesions does not work toward self reliance but against by nature of the amount of force required.
This is easily demonstrated yet commonly denied. Why? Acquisition of resources ie consumption mechanism is programed into us from before the time we throw a fit in the shopping line for a candy bar. If one consumption mechanism is denied another is adopted.
I will say you are honest in your “be good to yourself” response. I note the word “self”. I consider that more honest than the “i consume for the greater good” mechanism. I notice you had a strong reaction to my demonstrating consumer mechanism in relationship to “self reliant” purchases. This is not uncommen. You will get strong responses questioning any consumer mechanism. This gets into the ideas that “earning” and “owning” are real principles seperate from force. Look theres that word “self” again. “Yourself” I am merly posing a question. The original poster who requested feedback has not responded. The question I pose is consumer mechanism truly good for self? I am not immune from consumer mechanism. Feedback was asked for and I think the question is pivotal to the issue.
The reason tribes didnt really take to ownership is it took too much energy to maintain. That energy was needed for survival activities. There were not a lot of surpluses.
I do believe we have the right to engage in our birthright of participation in the planets abundance. I submit that we are ill qualified to do so in a skillful manner and previous civilizations had more skill. We are trained to store resources like a squirrel who stores nuts only to forget where he buried them.
Thanks! You make good points.
Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount includes Matthew 6:19-21. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupts, and thieves don’t break in. For where your treasure is, your heart will be also.” This would seem to be recommending similar behavior.
Television and advertising of all kinds seems to preach the opposite message. Keep up with everyone else. Buy every new thing that comes out. Feel jealous if your neighbor gets a new car or swimming pool.
We each have to choose which path we will follow.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break in. But spend the treasures in heaven (aka The VIP Room at your nearest gent’s club)….
Maybe writing posts on OFW, rather than vacationing around the world. Of course, I am still flying to Boston to visit my grandchild.
That’s another way to use up treasure… I don’t have any offspring to visit so Hi Ho Hi Ho .. it’s off to the VIP Room I go!!!
Could be worse… imagine using up the treasure on SSS… she’d just pass most of it to the p.imp in exchange for meth
jig
I don’t like consumer consumption anymore than you do, which is why I’m a hardcore homesteader.
You are oversimplifying the complicated terrain.
“Thus ownership beyond the most simple possesions does not work toward self reliance but against by nature of the amount of force required.”
My tractor and skidding winch and chainsaws and axes and purchased fuel enables me to convert my mediocre, listless timber plantation ecology acreage into mostly coppicewood maple silvopasture because that is my life context, my home context. If I lived on a turnkey off-grid ex-Amish farm, say, I wouldn’t need any of those tools. And these tools are only working against my immediate self-reliance but not working against my lfuture self-reliance because the sooner I get the job done then the more capacity for zero- consumer consumption I will have. You’re perfectly entitled to say that these ends don’t justify these means, at which point I would ask you why. After hearing your stated reasons why, we would have a back and forth that would probably result in me saying to you, to be kind to yourself. Again. 🙂
I have stated here before that my philosophy of action is to only engage in industrial activity in order to not have to do so in the future. In other words, I don’t do anything recreationally and everything I buy is ultimately in direct service of improving the homestead. That’s how my animism manifests in my life.
“The reason tribes didnt really take to ownership is it took too much energy to maintain. That energy was needed for survival activities. There were not a lot of surpluses.
I do believe we have the right to engage in our birthright of participation in the planets abundance. I submit that we are ill qualified to do so in a skillful manner and previous civilizations had more skill. We are trained to store resources like a squirrel who stores nuts only to forget where he buried them.”
Your frustrations are the result of lostness. I say that WADR. Foundness comes from wholeness. From having pieced together all the functional pieces of this done–shattered world so that one can find a home in it. Your lostness is evident at the margins of what you write. You’re 90pc there — and your heart is certainly in the right place — but you just need to put the final pieces of the puzzle together. I’m not saying this to pull rank on you (you’re free to disabuse me of this characterization by, likewise, arguing where it is that my analysis is wanting), I’m saying it in the interests of transparency and the truth itself, and I won’t shy away from taking on one of the leadership roles in that process. Exploring truth wherever it leads us is the ultimate purpose of this commentariat, IMO, because that’s what will best hone our individual patterning abilities that will guide our decision making process during collapse.
Insufficient energy resources is not the reason why tribes didn’t privatize land. If that was the case then the white man couldn’t have privatized the land either. Right? It wasn’t a technical problem IOW. Tribes didn’t privatize land, via agriculture, for CULTURAL reasons. For animist and post-animist/proto-religious reasons. In your saying that the (structural) surpluses we’re not there, you’re not realizing that surpluses only exist in agri-cultures – in agricultural civilization. If the Red Man chose to farm — and he could have — then the surpluses would have been there, just like they were when the white man came and chose to farm.
You talk about “birthright” yet you refuse “deserving.” Which is it, jig? You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. No civilizations have had any skill in participating in the planet’s natural abundance because the civilizational logic (farming) is one of extermination of all natural abundance that does not directly serve the narrow interests of the farmer that seeks to raise the human carrying capacity of his farm. True participation — true skill — is the animist living within the carrying capacity of the existing ECOLOGICAL carrying capacity rather than the self-separated ‘human carrying capacity.’
Your politicized mischaracterization of squirrels, above, along with your recent statement elsewhere, to Eddy, that “nature is a whore,” speak starkly to your emotional lostness and frustration. And I get it it, man, given the circumstances. But both instances are classic examples of Shadowplay wherein the inner pain gets projected outwards onto the undeserving.
Squirrels aren’t being careless and greedy. They’re being prudent and hard-working. Trees rely on squirrels to spread their seeds beyond their dripline. A mouse (or whatever it was) seeking shelter under some nasty ass particle board doesn’t make the mouse a whore. I trust that I don’t need to explain why.
When, out of fury, you start mirroring the Machine’s disdain for Natural Law — from whence we all came, and you, the Red Man, most recently — that’s when I say to you that you need to be kind to yourself, because you’re really just expressing disdain for yourself, my righteous brother.
Your enslavement is not your fault. Your conscious mind knows that but your subconscious mind has been raped by the Machine. Coming alongside the land is what healed my subconscious self-loathing. From what you said about your previous land ownership, it sounds like you have already had at least a taste of that in the past.
Cheers.
And the mountains will block the cancer causing toxins from the spent fuel ponds.
You’re welcome, Eddy.
the borg have literally engulfed all productive land ecologies with their “agriculture” and their metastatic cities. What more “infrastructure” is needed and where will it go?
Fly sometime from say Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to say Galveston Texas, USA………look down…….checkerboard fields and center pivots almost the entire way……..a continental cancer……where one time imperial herds of millions moved like living waves.
kill the borg, every single damn one…..
Now we are talkin!!!
I 100% agree… this vile infiltrator .. this menace… this evil… must be exterminated… must be scrubbed off of the planet and driven into extinction.
The good thing is … it is self exterminating. Just sit back and watch it happen
Hi Jan,
I agree with many of your points.
The world’s human population reached about 1 billion around the year 1805, with minimal fossil fuel use and largely regional, organic agriculture. I’m curious how you calculate we need to go to 1/30th of the world’s current population, or about 270 million people.
Accounting for greater knowledge of organic agricultural production, but also a degraded environment, a less stable climate, biodiversity and other factors, maybe a long-term sustainable population could be 1~2 billion?
This transition will require far more human and animal traction power than in current use, and food distribution will generally be on a far more regional scale.
Depending on many factors, transitioning to organic agricultural production can largely actually be accomplished in many soils in three years or less.
There are many other factors affecting population numbers, like insulating our homes so we are not cutting all trees down to keep from freezing to death.
I agree that there is going to be a ‘bottleneck’ transition period going from where we are now to a long-term sustainable future. The best we can do now is to be thankful for and enjoy the lives we have, and to reduce suffering.
Thanks and good health, Weogo
I have zero experience with gardening or animal husbandry, but my impression is that farming and small animal husbandry (chickens) is a royal PIA replete with losses, unpredictable natural events, predation, theft, even on a subsidence level. My theory or layout has nevertheless been the protein source (chicken coop); in the center of four growing fenced in plots, and free ranging the chickens on three of them along with compost supplementation and rotating the planting on each once every four years. Not enough plots Jan? Do I need seven?
Disease and drought not withstanding, in my mind, the biggest problem would be the need for fencing ( 1/2 inch wire cloth and various other forms of above and below ground fencing) to protect the garden and the chickens. For my money simple things like baling wire, screws, and fence material may be extremely valuable. Ditto for hand tools and saws.
I suspect that deer ( which can require double fencing) would not be a problem as they would soon be hunted to near extinction for food.
But my cynical take is that the situation would be analogous to the joke about what to do in the case of a bear attack, and that you say I don’t have to be able to outrun a bear (35mph) I just have to be able to run faster than the guy next to me.
Only with this SHTF scenario, you do not have to be able to survive on your preps forever, only so that you survive longer than the other 90% after which things may become more “manageable.” Even still, I tend to agree that you would need to coalesce into small communities of like minded hard working, not lazy, people.
Exactly.
This is why the Doomies never take the FE Challenge.
Deep down they know that their endeavour will prove futile. But they must maintain the delusion.
Unplugging completely – even for a few days — would implode their fragile reality ….
In fact their mind has mechanisms to protect them from truth – from reality … just as a Vaxxing Im BE cile will refuse to acknowledge the dangers of the Rat Juice…
If you try to force either side into RealitySTAN by continually pestering them with facts and logic … on either issue — they will get angry or just walk away and refuse to engage….
A doomie will NEVER – and I repeat NEVER — walk the walk and try the FE Challenge.
They can’t – to do so would result in total despair as they realize their delusion is utter rubbish… that would leave them fearing the end of BAU … fearing the collapse… fearing certain death.
And that would drive them insane.
So they keep on bantering about rotating crops and how to make the best compost.
For them it’s all real. Just as real as those who believe man has passed through the deadly Van Allen Belts and walked on the moon
there is only one FE challenge
figuring out what the hell he’s banging on about today
Thank you Jan.
A lot to unpack!
Thank for all feedback and considerable suggestions!
I guess, I am now a hopeful aspirant to Norms honorary titles?
I am especially impressed by the Acorn idea – it opens a new world of thinking to me.
And, yes, I see the problem of especially phosphate depletion. But as much as I have read, minerals should be a lesser problem when a healthy soil is maintained and the land is levelled, so they cannot be washed out.
Phosphate depletion can probably only be compensated by bringing back all residue taken from the land. But as agriculture was also possible 200 years ago and is probably 12.000 years old, it seems a minor problem.
World population before industrialisation is usually estimated with 500 million. I have found the more likely number of 250 million. In the end the actual numbers don’t make a difference. In any way the numbers are horrific enough.
8.000 million people divided by 250 million is 32. If we assume, that carrying capacity led to this restricted growth a return to the old way would provide roughly 1/30 or 3% of the current population. If it were more, I’d be happy!
Of course I cannot know, what others keep secret. But considering, what the Canadian prof says in no 150 corona-ausschuss dot de, it is in English but you have to scroll a lot, the DNA impurities of any current mRNA technology should lead to a raise in leukemia and infertilities. As sad as this were, it could turn out to be of help for still a lot of kids and offspring, so that at least some of them may have a chance!
If we know, that surplus gardening areas are needed, there may be a possibility to start local projects without any further explanations but with an eye towards inflation and job loss supported by the public hand – for example by making unused public spaces available to gardeners.
I don’t have the illusion that a split of agricultural land could be in reach, it is just an assumption to point to the problem. But as BASF halved ammonia production – we had that before – and Chinese production may soon be under sanctions, the normativity of the factual may soon lead to the same results.
The mind follows the possibilities of reality – to learn this early is part of the conditio humana.
A crash should include several steps of lower complexity with some stability. These would teach the hard way what we are trying to anticipate.
Talking about extinction, the key point to avoid a strong bottleneck besides population decline seems to me to keep up a minimum of fossile production independently from economic failure. If that turns out to be impossible, the outlook could become even worse than the mentioned scenario, which is bad enough!
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Hey norm … if one in every 100 flights crashed… would you fly in a plane?
go to bed eddy
your comments get dafter as the day wears on
you might be lucid by morning
The parallel to what you are involved in every few months – has clearly been lost on you norm…
As expected
I was thinking back to those early “pandemic” days of astonishing MSM propaganda. I remembered this article in the Guardian about ivermectin:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/31/a-human-is-not-a-horse-so-why-is-a-livestock-drug-sweeping-america-covid-ivermectin
By Arwa Mahdawi.
A human is not a horse. So why is a livestock drug sweeping America?
“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. You are, I’m afraid, a homo sapiens living in a world so deranged that people would rather poison themselves with worm medicine meant for farm animals than take a vaccine meant for human beings.
If there wasn’t an effective way to protect yourself from Covid, I would understand the appetite for experimental preventatives. But we have vaccines! Similarly, if ivermectin was the sort of horse medication that had fun side-effects, I would appreciate the enthusiasm for it. But there are no fun side-effects! The side-effects of off-label use are (if you’re lucky) diarrhoea and (if you’re unlucky) death.”
=======
The Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi is not a medical expert and usually does amusing satirical opinion pieces. So what was she paid, and by whom, for writing this propaganda? But I don’t know about ivermectin, so I decided to look at what an unbiased and independent medical professional had to say about it. I found this video by Dr John Campbell, who looked at the data a year ago and found ivermectin to be astonishingly effective against COVID: 70% more effective in reducing mortality than remdesivir. This man has been on a fascinating journey from echoing the official advice that he initially trusted, to having his eyes opened wide due to his willingness to open his mind and follow the evidence.
Ivermectin, more evidence – Dr. John Campbell.
https://rumble.com/vwpi0x-ivermectin-more-evidence-dr.-john-campbell.html
=======
The good doctor points out that ivermectin is not a protected drug and costs only pennies to produce, so it is not good for profits. The sly way in which he introduces these sarcastic barbs and then points out, with an incredulous expression on his face that this is not official advice of course, makes me laugh out loud at times. He reminds me of the fictional UK prime minister Francis Urquhart in the UK TV drama “House of Cards” (1990), who when asked certain sensitive political questions by a female journalist would answer with a smirk, “YOU might think that. I couldn’t POSSIBLY comment!” That phrase became a meme for a couple of years after the series, with members of the public delightedly repeating it at opportune moments.
“YOU might think that. I couldn’t POSSIBLY comment!”
https://youtu.be/xJFiByfiRTA
And that fictional prime minister murders the poor young woman in the end. Even Boris wasn’t as bad as that!
Independently by the now discovered good effect of Ivermectin against Covid, the Guardian article was also ignorant because Ivermectin has been used for various human treatments against many diseases since a long ago.
”It is called ivermectin and it is an antiparasitic drug widely used in some countries in Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia as prophylaxis to prevent oddly named tropical diseases such as river blindness. In these countries covid is reported to have affected less than elsewhere enough to attract the attention of researchers.”
(it was 2020. No one has ever known what happened to that research…)
https://www.rainews.it/tgr/fvg/video/2020/12/fvg-ivermectina-terapia-anticovid-sperimentazione-400-volontari-ospedale-cattinara-case-riposo-ospiti-e-operatori-d36bfd18-1215-4191-b0cd-36a22a83a1ab.html
Thank you, Student. We have had to endure some disgusting propaganda around the world, and all so the pharmaceuticals could push their expensive flawed products and make obscene amounts of money. They’re an absolute disgrace. People died who could have been saved, with cheap effective drugs like ivermectin and chloroquine. It’s all coming out now, but far too late for those who lost loved ones.
From the start of the lies(horse paste), I’ve asked anyone that repeated the lies two questions.
1 Is Ivermectin on the WHO list of essential medicines?
2 Is the WHO a veterinarian organisation?
Most will give a negative answer instantly for question 2, but never know the answer to question 1. Invite them to look it up, or show them this
http://list.essentialmeds.org/medicines/58
Here’s a decent compilation of one man’s journey of discovery over the last 3 years, with various official links that you can use when faced with a BBC viewer.
https://silee.substack.com/p/the-changing-world-order-connections
Thank you, Fitz. I’ve started reading the substack link.
The thing is ..
This worked — if you took Iver you would be labelled a fool…
Let me repeat this … MOREONS do not think. They are no different than parrots. They can speak – but they cannot think. They repeat what they hear on BBCCNN.
“Mike Gill (whistleblower) speaks about the ongoing corruption, that he has witnessed in the United States.”?
https://rumble.com/v2h22mm-interview-w-mike-gill-whistleblower.html
Hubbs\
I would not be too certain of the new BRICS axis /multipolar world thriving and taking over the when the US/Western hegemony falters. Very possibly they too could start quarreling amongst themselves when energy and food get tight.
===
Of course not.
the entire course of civilization basically stops there, for ever.
With the resources spent in a million direction, all advances stop.
kul,
Starship and 20% of the population does 80% of the work. It will be different, it will self organize, life will go on and for some be better, not worse.
Dennis L.
Some more relaxing music from Maok
The career of this musician is quite interesting: His career extends from avantgarde rock to todays relaxing music. It is no wonder – when you age, your (population) energy level goes down and you search for rest and peace
From Planetarium Ostrava, Czech Republic, where he had 2 concertes 2 weeks ago and I with my friend visited one of them.
https://youtu.be/4Jb3Wi9Gt7I
https://youtu.be/HjURYLoAU-g
odd https://t.me/downtherabbitholewegofolks/72391
Cancer https://t.me/DowdEdward/2795
Friend with cancer had heart attack too – was told chemo caused the heart attack…
https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/do-cancer-treatments-affect-the-heart
How do chemo and radiation damage the heart?
Some types of chemotherapy (primarily in a class of drugs called anthracyclines) weaken the heart muscle from a buildup of calcium and other chemical reactions in the body that release harmful free radicals. Thus, chemotherapy side effects include cardiomyopathy (an enlargement) or congestive heart failure. However, chemotherapy does not increase the risk of heart attack, Storozynsky said, because chemotherapy usually does not impact blood flow to the arteries.
These doctors should be tortured for lying
Brett Weinstein states that the mice that have historically been used in experiments have genetic bias towards repair and cancer (as opposed to cancer protection but then weaker repair), so measures of tissue damage generally and cardiac damage in particular are suppressed.
From a humanitarian standpoint the peace talks between Yemen and Saudi are fantastic news. We have heard next to nothing about this in the west just like we have heard next to nothing about the saudi yemen war. This along with the Saudi Iran reconciliation was the result of China. These actions coming so close together in time represent Saudis commitment to the BRICS in no uncertain terms.
Saudis former agreement to price oil in dollars resulted in a Saudi holding a lot of dollars. A lot of those dollars was spent with the USA MIC for Yemen war efforts and to keep military strength against Iran. At the same time Saudi is discarding the dollar it appears to be discarding its supposed reason for buying the very expensive USA weapon systems. USA has pretty much always offered Saudi the privilege of buying the best weapon systems they have. It appears to me the saudis are no longer interested and that reflects both accelerating de dollarization and a complete snub to the USA MIC. Saudi just cut oil output contrary to DCs wishes. Saudi has served the USA its divorce papers, has a new honey, and is not answering USAs texts.
There is some sort of significant internal civil conflict in Israel. At the same time Israel goverment seems clearly intent on inciting Iran and Hezbollah.
This is the background of the middle east as the Ohio class submarine USS Florida sails to the Persian gulf armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles. Peace is not good for business and the MIC definitely wants to key Saudis car while helping Israel slash Irans tires. They need a excuse however launching cruise missiles as a response to Saudi ending a horrific war and reconciliation with Iran is awkward to say the least. Saudi has pulled off a masterful stroke probably eliminating its oil facilities from Iran attack if hostilities break out but what price will it pay if any for quitting the gang? Iraqs Kuwaits Saudis and Irans oil all transit through the strait of hermez, what would be the consequences for the west if that oil left the market on top of the Russia oil being removed from the market? Its unthinkable but we seem to be in times where very strange things happen.
You say, “Saudi has served the USA its divorce papers, has a new honey, and is not answering USAs texts.” Not buying US weapons will be an economic problem for the US. Around where I live, Lockheed is a major employer.
Also,
“Iraqs Kuwaits Saudis and Irans oil all transit through the strait of hermez, what would be the consequences for the west if that oil left the market on top of the Russia oil being removed from the market? It’s unthinkable but we seem to be in times where very strange things happen.”
You could be right. A properly placed bomb in the Strait of Hormuz could close off the strait. The object of the bomb might be to try to raise oil prices. It wouldn’t work as planned.
If Saddam had nuclear weapons in the last days would he have blown up the world?
The Saudis embracing peace and not buying USA MIC weapons is a not just a economic blow. This is a two fold dollar detachment/demand reduction from real goods. Dollar detached from oil. Dollar demand reduced as not needed for USA MIC weapons. MIC weapons are one of the domestic product the USA has to offer the world. Yes there is wheat and corn but these are basically oil energy conversions.
Open rebellion.
When Russia finishes the job in Ukraine its not just status that is lost. Russia becomes the premier arms supplier to the world. If your a friendly nation you can buy export versions of hyper-sonic Kalibr right now. Khinzhal- not so much. The USA is still stuck in its legacy “top gun” military hardware. F-35. No comment needed.
THe russian hardware isnt cheap but its way cheaper than the USA hardware. Russia hardware reflects next gen paradigm to boot.
The USA mystique of the Iraq wars has wore off. The total domination of the fourth largest army in the world gave every country a pause for consideration including Russia. Russia hit the drawing board in response.
Syria was the start of international consideration that Russia had some excellent military hardware. The world also noted that Russia backed its ally Syria and didnt cut and run. I think its safe to say the outcome would have been very different in Syria had Russia not intervened. The Arab world noted the ISIS ISIl phenomena was yet another addition to the long list of USA shenanigans. Its also noteworthy that the 2014 Ukraine cou was implemented after Russia intervened in Syria. Putins speech in Munich made it clear things had changed that the USA shenanigans were intolerable. Looking back boy was that was a understatement!
My worry is the MIC is a rather powerful entity in the USA. State department and Raytheon openly shuffle personal back and forth reminiscent of the treasury and fed. Recent events seem clear that the MIC will see little or no business internationally in the future. Whats the solution? THe one tool they have now that sanctions are defanged. Fireworks. Fireworks to keep market share. F-35s flying with Maverick on the stick. It just so happens Israel has F-35s. But in this environment- where its openly asked if WW3 has already begun- what would an attempt to regain market share entail? I dont think fireworks will stay localized. To my mind its pretty clear. BRICS have decided- enough with the shenanigans already.
This is yet another way Saudis resigning the club hurts. If Iran threatened Saudi oil production Carter doctrine could be used to initiate hostilities. Now they are BFF. THe Carter doctrine could have (maybe) made an Iran OK corral sort of non shenanigan like. Amazingly suddenly its USA and Israel the loners.
Ironically the Carter doctrine asserted force could be used against any nation that threatened energy transport. Just who would that nation be now that Saudi and Iran are BFF? You cant make this stuff up.
Either way were in for a rough patch in the USA. My vote is for fade away not burn out. Where was that ballot drop box? Ahh right next to the lockheed martin $500 million campaign donations.
Maybe it wasnt such a hot idea to blow up two of the worlds oil producers and to threaten to blow up the other three? Nah thats crazy talk. Why on earth would the other three team up? Go figure.
For the life of me… I can’t understand why Putin doesn’t just throttle back the gas to Ukraine…
Discuss
Its going to Europe and they are paying in Rubles. Russia doesnt want to break its contracts. It wants to do business. As long as they pay in rubles the arrangement benefits Russia. Russia has no interest in freezing Ukrainian citizens. If a few Ukrainian soldiers keep warm also oh well.
Its a diferent sort of war than WW2. In many ways Putin acknowledges the EU idea that Europe is indivisible now. He after all is a liberal. Sure theres going to be some sore feelings for a half century or so but in the end Ukraine is a Russian suburb. They want it assimilated not destroyed. Chechyna is the model. It wasnt so long ago Russia was blowing Chechyna up but thats water under the bridge now. Ukraine will come around. Especially after the DC dollars dont buy nothing.
Mass D https://t.me/c/1588731774/17283
Echoes Of New Century’s Collapse Amid Sudden Firesale Of Real Estate Loans As One Bank Sees 40% Downside
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/echoes-new-centurys-collapse-amid-sudden-firesale-real-estate-loans-one-bank-sees-40
We live in interesting times…
CRE is a slow motion train wreck … TBTB? And big enough to rip the guts out of BAU…
https://wolfstreet.com/2023/04/08/what-are-old-office-towers-now-worth-when-they-finally-sell-amid-record-spiking-vacancy-rates-not-much-huge-losses-everywhere/
Happy Times
It is easy to believe that the real estate representing office building will sell for prices far below what those offices are currently being carried on the books for. In fact, probably much less than the mortgages carried on some of them.
I was discussing SStack with a MOREON — I said I follow people there because they are not censored and they are more likely to be attempting to get at the truth because they are not MSM – which is a propaganda machine.
They suggested SS was more likely to be filled with fake news because they can write whatever they want and there is no control over what they publish. I was advised to ‘be careful’
And for them a circle… is a square
Sound familiar norm huff-boy hahaha
Why do you even bother engaging them unless you get to bash their heads. No?
Had no choice… we were visiting …
Mass D. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sfsu-responds-alleged-assault-riley-gaines-praising-protesters
“We previously discussed the disgraceful attack on former swimmer Riley Gaines who was reportedly assaulted when she tried to speak on her views on transgender issues at San Francisco State University (SFSU).”
SFSU Responds To Alleged Assault On Riley Gaines… By Praising The Protesters
—-
The world has changed!
funny https://t.me/leaklive/13389
You may recall a paper on Covid being retracted recently from a journal? That was by Dr. Mark Skidmore and he’s interviewed here by Greg Hunter of USA Watchdog.
https://usawatchdog.com/attacked-for-telling-truth-about-deadly-cv19-vax-dr-mark-skidmore/
What an interesting interview, intriguiging really.
Dr. Skidmore surveyed people, asking them if they knew anyone who had been injured by (1) Covid or (2) a Covid vaccine. If they did (or if they had themselves been injured), to describe the injury to the person they knew best. An awfully log of people came back with stories of serious Covid vaccine injuries.
I only know two people who had issues with Covid – both early 30’s – fit… and the problems occurred after they had their 3rd Rat Juice … hospitalized overnight with very high fever
They are also both stooopid dun ces
An opt-in survey doesn’t seem like a particularly robust method, giving results of limited usefulness. I know of only one person who was likely badly affected by the vaccine and none who have died from it. Survey respondents were not known to have any medical training and none of the reported incidents were validated. I presume there was no duplication of reported incidents (where social circles overlapped). I’d like to see some robust research in this area but this doesn’t seem like it fits the bill.
VAERS is well known to be inadequate and inaccurate in terms of collecting vax injury event info. It’s commonly estimated to under-report events by a factor of 40 – 100.
RFK Jr’s Fauci book talks about how an AI-style, automatic event collection system (via scanning of medical incident reports) was proposed to overcome VAERS limitations.
Since the last thing that the Medical Industrial Complex wants is an accurate vax injury reporting system, Fauci made sure it never happened.
CNNBBC say VAERS is unreliable – people can fake the inputs… funny though — was it 50 deaths were reported from the Pig Vax to VAERS – and they shut the vax down…
This is the purpose of VAERS… it’s meant to be the canary … then you go back and try to find out why they died.
But BBCCNN don’t tell the MOREONS that.. and the MOREONS are stooopid im be ciles… so what I just explained would never occur to them.
Discuss this norm
Mike – you know many more — but they will claim their disease is unrelated to the Rat Juice – unless the problem started within hours of the shot.
I know loads of people like this including 3 fitness instructors who had heart damage. a stroke – and seizures… only the one with the heart issues is blaming the vax.
We could start to have a logical exploration of causal(s) if the substance(s) were molecularily identified. We could start to have a logical exploration of causals if we had widespread monitoring of actual proteins created in populations via independent laboratory blot tests.
Start being the key word. Hey I know why dont we “start” prior to injecting six billion people! Why didnt some one think of this before?
Why do these simple obvious and foundational practices not occur?
Is the DOD warp speed OTA contract method of manufacture conducive to these practices?
Narrative propagation with censorship is the anti thesis of science.
Good question! Very good question!
I will wait keenly, even excitedly, in anticipation of Mike coming up with a good answer to it.
But without holding my breath of course.
Mike is a norm acolyte… if you ask a hard question he goes onto silent mode
Mike only knows two people with vax injuries… hahaha… how many saved mike? 20 million? 50m?
Was he still alive?
Double plus over the top
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Z1OPJ0ni2Uj6/
Excellent – a cure for stupidity https://palexander.substack.com/p/hear-hear-so-far-hes-malone-lost/
Mass D
https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/46728
https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/46723
https://palexander.substack.com/p/the-anus-of-canada-is-british-columbia
Lara Logan discusses events on the USA southern border
Discussed is
Unprecedented surge in Chinese nationals entering USA
Chinese and Mexican Cartel affiliations
Mexican cartels are international in nature largest syndicate in the world
Narcotics as a universal currency
Drone usage on southern border.
Cartels have watchers and buy all drones at best buys in texas when they arrive-buy the pallet.
There are so many drones flying that at times USA military or border patrol can not fly.
Cartel infiltration into every aspect of business and culture on USA side.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/X5JUXD0CnBWS/
(Corriere della Sera)
Sudden death for former mountain bike world champion Dario Acquaroli during training on the Alps.
https://www.corriere.it/sport/ciclismo/23_aprile_09/dario-acquaroli-morto-5f439e2e-d6f2-11ed-abda-87da1fb8b4f0.shtml
Additional info https://www.ilmessaggero.it/persone/dario_acquaroli_morto_malore_campione_mountain_bike_chi_era_ultime_notizie-7335970.html
Having embedded with a few CovIDIOTS of recent trust me… they are unaware of this stuff or if they are they absolutely are not awakening. ZERO dot connecting.
Was discussing the Olympics with someone recently – they said they like to watch synchro swimming .. someone else says did you see that swimmer who passed out and they had to rescue her as she sunk to the bottom of the pool? Someone else says ya – she held her breath too long.
hahahahaha… I say nothing. It’s like trying to explain to a MORE-ON how it is not possible to fly through the intense radiation of the Van Allen Belts without frying hahahahaha
Clown World full of f789tards who are dying in droves now hahaha
I feel — GREAT!
Will a massive slaughter of the have nots, the less enfranchised and the less connected by today’s winners be inevitable?
Yes.
To protect what we have,
to protect order,
to keep what civilization has wrought to this day,
a mass reduction of the number of have-nots will be inevitable.
It is a nasty, thankless task whose planners will be vilified for centuries, although they will not be punished.
But civilization has to be maintained, and measures will be taken to ensure that happens.
Kulm is such an enthusiastic fellow. He wants to spend energies to do something that will happen regardless.
Will rape become the natural way of life?
Yes.
It always has been and always will be. We are talking about women by the way so it really isn’t even a question.
Men need what they need and that is simply reality and should be understood and protected.
This is necessary for the continuance of the superior species.
It is a nasty, thankless task whose planners will be vilified for centuries, although they will not be punished.
But civilization has to be maintained, and measures will be taken to ensure that happens.
Ladies are you good with this?
Rape has a couple flaws and one possible flaw
rapist has to get close
rapist has to get close while victim is alive
if rapist leaves victim alive payback possible
Escrima is great for all but I find it particularly suitable for women as a skill set. Generally instructors will clue women into knife skill sets a little faster than men. Flow principles of empty hand and stick transfer directly to edged weapon. Some women take to knife skills more than firearms. Knife is more intuitive there is not the shoot no shoot dilemma. Muscle memory dictates flow and cuts eliminating the shoot or freeze dilemma. Frankly most women dont freeze they overreact. If children are present its 15rds before a word is spoken. Women who take to rifles and handguns tend to not have good knife flow. Women who take to knife flow tend to suck at handgun and rifle but do well with a shotgun. There are always exceptions to rules.
When does that bull elk get taken down? In rut.
The rest of the year he is one crafty stealth machine.
In rut hes a moron.
I reckon it would be fun to stick a knife into a MORON… more fun that shooting one
None of its fun Eddy. Its trauma a weight that crushes humans. If its fun its time to look in the mirror for you have become what you fight. Martial arts are one means by which we try to cope with the trauma. Victim acceptance has its own trauma. Implicit to martial arts is a deep commitment to humbleness. Did you notice the instructor said Kumbyah at the end? That was just for you.
The other thing edged weapons have going for them is they dont entail the same rigid security that must be instituted around children as firearms. Taking on the burden of instituting that security is significant and is expensive. Even if you do so the firearm is not easily accessible in a safe.
Edged weapons are less heavy of a burden to carry spiritually than firearms. Training in their use involves spiritual training to carry weight something firearms training does not. Escrima starts with stick, the lightest burden after empty hand. All humans struggle with the weight. If they did not they would have lost the light. Women struggle in their own particular way. Sometimes edged weapons are more suitable for them to retain the light but reject victim acceptance. Often women when first rejecting victim acceptance mistakenly pursue masculine paradigms of force application. The role models the media presents us with for women and force application that seem quite popular invariably are portrayed as strength in the masculine and hardness. This is rather hilarious for the feminine has its own assets in force application and they are considerable. The feminine pulls that one pick up stick out. Too bad so sad. The feminine mimicking the masculine often creates weakness not strength for strength always lies in acceptance. Mimicking may be a start a exploration but strength always lies with acceptance of whats within. Acceptance of natural qualities and development of those natural qualities is not comparable to a artificial facade. False paradigms are revealed when testing conclusions. Thats why testing conclusions is important.
Fun in relative terms… as in more fun that shooting.
Anyone can stab and kill. No fancy lessons needed.
Theres actually some truth to this. Simply focusing intent on placing steel in someones body has power. Thugs understand this and think they have a magic key of willingness to destroy. To say technique can not increase effectiveness is ridiculous. The flip side is usually reaction time creates a situation where the aggressor is greatly favored. That goes for unarmed as well as armed. Thats why whats known as muscle memory as a component of flow is so important.
But as I mentioned there is some truth to what you say. Military knife technique is quite coarse. Prison knife technique is quite coarse.
You accent a fundamental question. If we observe willingness to destroy and find it effective but reprehensible why should we cultivate it? Thats the beginning not the end of a exploration into force application and what we are. Simply designating it a reprehensible but necessary task where merely accepting the task allows its completion is a start but only that. It also creates a dilemma. If thug spirit is deemed reprehensible but effective we are divided and conflicted in our efficiency. Thug spirit is regarded as a talent but hidden away. My experience is this is not a healthy way to live. The question of what one is beckons always. For if a little thug spirit has power what does a lot create? Thus the path of exploration of what we are with a teacher and with others also exploring has value not just skill acquisition.
Doomies who refuse to feed the mob will experience this
Actually, it did happen in Paraguay after most of its male population was killed in a war against Brazil in the 1870s
Apart from some quite disgusting fantasies here, it is a good idea for women to have some martial arts training and be mentally prepared to fight off attacks from men. Martial arts do not require to look like a bulldog. Rape has nothing to do with reproduction or sexual desire.
Protect children, too!
Unarmed self defense classes for women are worthless. Nothing happens in the real world the way it is set up in a dojo. If a man wants to make a woman compliant, he can do it with one swipe of his hand. A group of men?
But there are things you need to know for self defense, like keep your car doors locked and your windows up. Don’t leave your open drink unsupervised in a bar with people you don’t know. But the idea that women and old folks can fight young men? Modern propaganda.
Your best self defense training is to make sure you can sprint 30 yards (to where there are people/witnesses).
Our best defense is well maintained public security. When that goes…
Wrong. Even these free four day courses yield women able to protect themself from rape. What is going to come out of your dumb ass trap next “might as well enjoy it”? Like the cops asked my friends mother back in the 70s “did you enjoy it?”.
http://rad-systems.com/
throughout history, the act of copulation for most of humankind has been brief and unimaginative.
in physical terms, the only difference between it and rape has been nominal consent.
Rape has nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with power and control of others weaker than oneself.
until fairly recently consent itself was implicitly given by marriage—ie rape could not exist within marriage—conjugal rights overrode what might be called rape…female pleasure was largely irrelevant, even the female orgasm was disputed until a century or so ago.
so what changed?
liesure, privacy…plus physical safety.
With a lock on the bedroom door–you can take all weekend.
Such a thing was unknown to most of our ancestors.
>> it is a good idea for women to […] be mentally prepared to fight off attacks from men
Men are so much stronger that a female greatly elevates the risk of serious bodily harm or death by fighting. If you’re a woman, you either need a gun, to be part of a community that will protect you, or to run. If you’re a mother, you also need to consider the impact that your death or injury would have on your children. Sometimes life hands you only bad options.
You all need to move to England.
In my county rape is an non-important(their wording) trivial issue. So much so that the police have no interest and victims are advised to leave an online report(if they insist on making a big deal over nothing).
Quite glad my daughter moved away.
You seem to imply that I advocate for it. I don’t.
A general comment, addressed to no individual ivan. Just another depressing sign of where we are headed.
On the subject that I mentioned, one of the things that the police now list as non-important was crime. If they are not doing the job the public are paying them to do, what are they doing and for whom?
normalizing rape so that the Doomies don’t get upset when the droogs gang their daughters and wives… some rogues my swing the other way … how do the doomies feel about a little ‘in and out’ involving their good selves?
Discuss
https://youtu.be/lNMscS9p6c4?t=195
“Sometimes life hands you only bad options.”
True.
If firearms are owned allocate 10x to 20X the cost of the firearm for training and secure storage. Personal defense firearms absolutely useless without training involving shoot no shoot role playing preferably with simunitions.
Secure storage failure. Every firearm owner should watch.
WARNING EXTREMELY DISTURBING
https://www.bitchute.com/video/xBbRpdaxcVH7/
Bit odd that they’d upload that ….
educational video
As it seems, civilisation cannot be protected by any of these measures, by ‘squeezing people out’. Neither hierachially nor regionally. Reducing the populace means a decrease of GDP, which leads to loss of technology and thus reduces the ability to get fossiles out of the ground and to distribute them.
I am more concerned about food than about civilisation.
unfortunately it is civilisation, (in the form that we currently know it) that delivers your food.
If you imagine otherwise, try to imagine your local supermarket being stocked by deliveries with horse and cart
That is the point!
To deliver by horse and cart is impossible. There are sound historical studies showing that cities were historically limited in growth because it was impossible to provide them. Rome managed with its ports.
If I remember right, 100kg of grain transported by ox cart over Roman roads doubled its price every 15kms, because the oxes need so much food. There are theories that the growing palaces and vineyards around Rome prolonged delivery distances and the higher efforts added to the fall of Rome.
Without fossiles, most of the people fp sure need to live next to the food produced.
Rome was a slave economy—that was its main energy resource, it was also sustained by tribute from conquered territories (N Africa)
It wasn’t a system that could vastly expand population growth
We use oil instead
both systems are finite
It was per example sustained with wheat from Egypt, a favourable ground for wheat production because 1) fertile (of course) 2) connected to the Nile as a major waterway, so it was easy to supply Rome. No oxen cart transport needed that doubled its price every 15km.
I did not look into it but I’d bet these agricultural serfs harvesting the wheat in Egypt weren’t allowed to go away and travel where they wanted to or choose their job.
And the ancient greek city we know of were I think supplied with grains from Ukraine, also here, favourable soil and most of all favourable water transport.
Futhermore I read, England was good to start the industrial revolution, i.e. coal-burning rotary motion machines substituting manual or animal labour, because England had so many waterways to transport the commodity.
you are quite right about england, the industrial revolution and waterways
the industrial revolution started 200 yards from uk’s longest river.
the Romans could only sustain themselves by trubutes fron occupied contries—hence ‘bread and circuses’
The Col. explains what is going on in Bakhmut, which seems close to falling.
Russia intended from the start to use Bakhmut to draw in 10s of 1000s of UKR forces to eliminate them. It is a transport, storage and communications hub, a keystone in the UKR defence of Donbass, so UKR would play along with that. Russia could have taken it long ago.
The land is soon drying out and Bakhmut will be useful to the Russians to expand north and westward, so it looks like Russia will stop playing with UKR, take Bakhmut and move on with Bakhmut as the new center of gravity for Russian advances, possibly across the Dnieper.
We will likely see major movements in May or most likely June, when the field is solid, which has been the case in the area for centuries, since Napoleon, as you cannot really do much in a sea of mud.
It is doubtful that UKR will exist as a state at the end of 2023. The conditions there and the losses are horrific. The western media as a whole simply lies about the situation in UKR and talks up UKR chances of winning.
Meanwhile USA state is talking up a war with China….
“Colonel Douglas Macgregor sits down with Stephen Gardner to update us on the Ukraine Russia war. Colonel Douglas Macgregor shares thoughts on Scott Ritters battle assessment, China, North Korea, Biden, the US dollar and de-dollarization.”
> Col. Macgregor: Ukraine Is Being OBLITERATED
The video starts out with Col. Macgregor saying that things are not going to change dramatically with respect to Bakhmut until the land dries out, which he expected to be the May or June timeframe. Until this happens, it is difficult to move troops and equipment.
I think most ground in donbass will be solid in a week or two. In the past the Colonel would have been right, but this has been an extremely mild winter and the soil has thawed weeks ago.
Russia will begin its march to Kiev as soon as they see the ground will support their equipment.
Why “march on Kiev”? I think they will just focus on the combatants and avoid cities.
They will march on Odessa, and then on to Moldavia.
I do think you’re right about the eventual aim, but I also think the best strategy (armchair general, here) is what they’ve been doing, which is to fight far from the areas that they hope to eventually take. No sense destroying Odessa if you can destroy the army first, far away from there, and with shorter supply lines.
Not that any of us would know for sure – these are previous assessments I have heard:
Dmitry Orlov
(has written good books. He has turned gurmpy and a little arrogant these years, none the less I think a lot he says is still worth listening)
Russia aims to take Bakhmut and a little beyond, so that UKR artillery can only reach now unpopulated hinterlands, and not populated cities.
It is not Russia’s aim to take Kiev or the rest of UKR, for it is an economic basket case, and for that Russia will now invest in the extant new russian provinces to rebuild and integrate them.
Makes sense to me at least – yes the black soil of the rest of UKR is valuable, but maybe not so valuable to Russia. It now possesses what remains of UKR industrial base and most importantly, its only warm water port at the black sea.
One central thing Orlov also says: “Russia now has a lot of time, it is enduring in its present state, while we are not…”
Can you ask him why Russia doesn’t turn off the gas?
Also ask if I jump up on a moving escalator will I land in the same place
Mild winter? I guess that was why Putin didn’t turn off the gas… it was mild… nobody would notice
The Col. is willfully ignorant of the reality of a finite world having finite natural resources and that that is what US foreign policy is and has been all about for the last century. His predecessor, Smedley new fully well how it works.
“USA talking war with China”
With Obrians disclosure that the Taiwan semiconductor plants will be destroyed rather than let China have them I dont think war with China will happen soon.
China wants those plants!
Half of the entire worlds trade passes through the strait of Taiwan. War in Taiwan will have immediate effects on every human on the planet if and when it occurs.
With the OHIO class submarine USS Florida heading to the Persian gulf loaded with 150 tomahawks the Inevitable Israeli strike on Iran seems possible in lieu of recent events. The Florida is one of four Ohio class subs that are not part of the nuclear triad that fields Trident missiles. The Florida is combat proven having provided the platform for tomahawk strikes on Libya. There is a preference to use combat proven ships in military operations.
Another CGI war..
TSMC being blown up is a sham story . If TSMC blows up so do ASML and NXP in Netherlands , Carl Ziess in Germany , Samsung in Korea . NVIDIA ,INTEL and AMD in USA. These are the big boys and add the small vendors and all the pension funds , hedge funds who are invested in these companies . It is only a narrative .
add Siemens in Germany and SMIC in China.
I respectfully disagree Raviji. I dont know if you have been paying attention but a certain country has been on a bit of a tear blowing things up the last couple decades.
Nordstream. Said they would blow it up. Blew it up.
pagulwallah
China has time. pagulwallah doesnt. China will wait.
If Petrodollar and Eurodollar fail, that is the end of advancement of civilization.
Without them, large scale investments on big projects can’t be made anymore.
Which means no more tech advancement forever.
advancement in China and Russia and India.
Printing more, evidently, is the best way to advance civilization.
Debt seems to be necessary to add technology and complexity in general. We think of complexity as advancement. It is for a while, until its energy needs cannot be met.
I have been surprised in reading about India that it could not provide very much debt internally for companies that wanted such debt. They needed to go to the US, or I suppose, Europe.
Maybe debt is needed initially to advance new technology, but energy and natural resources are required to sustain it.
surplus energy can deliver technology
technology cannot deliver surplus energy
that law is an absolute, and constrains humankind
The history of the development of technology since long before history began to be written, would show, if one could read it, that new technological developments have often gone hand in hand with increasing amounts of surplus energy.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him how to fish and provide him with access to appropriate technology, such as a net or a rod & line or even a cormorant or two, and you potentially feed him for life.
And if you don’t think that applies to surplus energy, then give him an axe and a saw and watch how much surplus firewood he can secure.
The peoples of Arabia and the Persian Gulf have been sitting for millennia on energy resources beyond the dreams of avarice or Ali Baba, but they were unable to turn these resources into surplus energy until they were handed the technology of oil exploration, drilling, pumping, storing refining, pipelines, supertankers, etc.
you missed the point tim—as usual
all the harvesting methods do is produce firewood–they do not produce surplus trees.
true—the saudis sat on oil for millennia, but could do nothing with it until ‘technology’ arrived to make use of it.
but no method oil harvesting can produce a single barrel of surplus oil–only access what is already there.
what we have done is find new technologies by which we can access and consume resources at a faster and faster rate—we are forced to do that to maintain gdp and ‘profit’
we pour oil into the technology of engines—but the purpose is to produce more and more engines with which to burn it—there is no other way to make increasing wages this year with which to pay last year’s debts.
those technologies have not delivered surpluses–merely consumed them.
you missed the point tim—as usual
No, Norman. I don’t think so. I hit the point out of the stadium, as I often do when you pitch an erroneous generalization. 😉
all the harvesting methods do is produce firewood–they do not produce surplus trees.
No. the harvesting methods (the technologies in question) (think saw, axe, chainsaw, winch, cable system, log-grappler and 10-ton log-carrying truck) produce a lot more firewood (the energy source in question) than could be produced before the technologies were introduced.
So there! (sticks tongue out)
https://parade.com/.image/t_share/MTkwNTgwOTUyNjU2Mzg5MjQ1/albert-einstein-quotes-jpg.jpg
to repeat my question tim
please tell me where the ‘technology’ of harvesting wood—no matter how efficient—produces more trees.
you even repeated my question–then garbled on about harvesting methods
i thought i was the one guilty of constant verbal evasion
all the harvesting methods do is produce firewood–they do not produce surplus trees..
That was not the question, Norman. We were discussing making available surplus energy, not producing more tees.
You are evading again.
It’s tiresome. And I’m sure you can stop it if you want. But you don’t want to act like a grown-up. You prefer to act out like a little boy who has just discovered how to upset other people by breaking the basic rules of etiquette.
I learned how to do this at the age of seven and I outgrew it by the age of twelve. You seem to have kept the habit into your dotage—an amazing feat of staying forever young.
You have the nerve to complain about FE and you describe yourself as polite when the truth is that your own debating style is beyond rude.
The technology allows access to the wood from trees that would not otherwise be accessible. Try felling and breaking up a large tree to turn it into firewood without “technologies” and you’ll comprehend the size of the surplus energy these technologies make available.
tim
if you cannot see what a tree is—-ie a block of embodied energy, then i formally give up
2 lines of reality. not 50 of ‘i’m right’ waffle
when the tree is cut down, its energy is available for re use—either burning re-using or decomposition—that’s all there is.
it does not and cannot give me in return more than the sum total of the tree, no matter how sophisticated the chainsaw
Welcome to the world of NOF.
Sponsored by Huffpost.com
I agree. Any of those things can stop the process. Growing population helps keep the process going as well. Falling population becomes a problem, because then demand goes down. There is also too much infrastructure for the smaller group of people.
I would not be too certain of the new BRICS axis /multipolar world thriving and taking over the when the US/Western hegemony falters. Very possibly they too could start quarreling amongst themselves when energy and food get tight.
Maybe part of the BRICS axis /multipolar world, for a short time. Every part is dependent on every other part.
Nothing seems historically stable for a long time. The longest examples are the Chinese empire and Japan during the European Renaissance and Enlightment periods.
Systems geared for stability and persistence. Other than that – a look at a historical atlas, i.e. the changes in political power over regions on a timescale, shows constant change, and violent change at that.
It is our fate.
As is with nature, there is never a stable ecological equilibrium, there is a constant fluctuation, i.e. predators may become numerous, then prey falters, then predators falter, then prey becomes numerous again, then predators become numerous again…
No reason to believe it was otherwise with humanity before our written history.
all living systems work like that Curt
we’ve just added clothes, houses and wheels to convince ourselves that we will work it out differently
even with eddy in the role of god, we won’t
And yet, apparently, everyone of us here on Earth today has ancestors going back millions of generations right back to the dawn of life.
If a single one of your ancestors died before it had the opportunity to produce offspring, you wouldn’t be here.
You are a descendent of survivors who had the right stuff!
and there would be no terminator movies either
Fast, an object in motion stays in motion. This is demonstrated by jumping up. The Earth speeds to meet the rising sun and the jumper does the same.
This leads to a pet peeve of mine. In many movies space ships are continuously firing their engines. This is because the producers and the audience think if they turn off then the space ship stops, will not move. This is false an object in motion stays in motion.
Sheesh, he’s pulling your leg like norm said FE cured him.
Like he helped that guy up at airport. “Mate careful of those evil vaxers”
(Unlike I polishing me bronze point:)
So im tryin to to explain to an antivaxer this ain’t disc world. Im challenged and irked by my illiteracy.
It’s obvious from a plane or go east and return kinda doesn’t cut it.
Concise explanation? Lydia?
The explanations I am reading don’t cut it.
Spin a globe – put your finger above London —- as it spins different cities will appear below your finger. How is that any different than if you hovered a helicopter over a fixed position using a computer to ensure it remained in one spot
That one spot that the computer would be calculating, what would it be relative to?
If the one spot was relative any object, the helicopter would have to move at the same velocity as the object in question, be it the sun, or a distant star, or an even more distant galaxy.
There is no place or state of absolute rest or movement in the Universe. And no one point or one velocity is any more privileged than any other in terms of being “at rest” or “the zero point” or “ground zero”.
All such measurements are relative to some object or other.
If you “get” this, it should induce a state of profound satori in you such that when you next visit the VIP Room, the girls will notice a distinct radiance emanating from your skin and beams of piercing laser-like red light emitted from your eyes.
girls have always done that with me anyway
(and you think i’m joking)
The jet airliner example is more clearcut … if it flies with the spin of the Earth you should get to you destination more quickly than trying to fly against the spin. In fact you’d go backwards unless you were flying super sonic…
Remember the basketball ending up in the other players hands – but there was no pass clip? It’s been taken down https://t.me/downtherabbitholewegofolks/61743
Similar.
We are in a simulation.
In the case of objects in the air, the air is pushing them around and the earth’s surface is pushing the air around.
Just as air resistance will slow down a falling object and limit the speed of its decent under gravity (For this reason, in a stable, belly to earth position, terminal velocity of an average adult human body is about 200 km/h (about 120 mph—or a a bit more if you are an American), so the air that is moving roughly in line with the movement of the rotating earth, will resist the movement of an object such as an aircraft that attempts to move through it.
Aircraft that travel at high speed are designed to be aerodynamic to enable them to move more efficiently through the air.
This video looks at why it isn’t faster to fly west than to fly east. It also doubles as an explanation of one way we “know” that the earth is roughly spherical and rotating.
On the other hand, if THEY can lie about the moon landings and nine eleven and the vax and the two Joe Bidens, THEY can certainly lie about the shape of the earth. Perhaps Mercator had it right after all.
They would stay that — to conceal the matrix
the nightly audiences for covidrama are melting away tim
so a fresh fakery has to be found
and you go along with it
In the US it takes noticeably less time to fly west coast to east coast than it take to fly east coast to west coast because the wind blows west to east. People who live in north/south countries may not appreciate this.
Eddy, let it go. The atmosphere spins too.
eddy has picked up the earth rotation thing, because the covidrama audience has stopped filling his virtual theatre===it’s called attention seeking.
he will continue to to enter the stupid comments contest as long as people keep replying to them
that makes me as daft as he is—well nearly
If you jump in the air 3 feet — and you land in the exact same spot — that indicates that the Earth is not spinning.
🙂
Try jumping out of a car at 100km per hour….
Again, 100km per hour relative to what?
When you jump 3 feet into the air, the surface of earth is rotating below your feet at several hundred kmph, and your body began the jump while moving with the same velocity as the earth’s surface, so the relative difference in the horizontal speed that you and the earth are moving in would have been close to zero kmph.
But you should not land in the same spot.
If you jump on a moving walkway in an airport … you won’t land in the same spot.
i keep having the recurring thought of casual viewers, looking in of OFW for the first time
thinking—”just what are these nutters going on about”
OFW used to be an exchange of worthwhile ideas—some good—some bad
now it’s inhabited by flat earthers commenting just to call attention to themselves
this thread is just a continuance of WTC and moonloonery
Eddy sees covidrama playing to ever diminishing audiences—so finds another thread of daftness to latch onto
Ya any sensible person who read OFW comments insisting we’ve been to the moon must think this is an insane asylum.
Anyone who believes that nonsense… is beyond help…. and needs More Boosters hahahaha
Have you ever jumped 3 feet into the air while on a moving walkway in an airport?
I tried it once and was tased by the security staff!
It’s safer to try it on a moving train with a high ceiling.
Exactly!!!!
They can’t have people testing that theory cuz it will expose the matrix!!!
My airport thing is that I refuse to go through those xray machines that they have installed in recent years…
I tell them I have severe myocarditis after taking my 4th and 5th Rat Juice shots… and those machines can upset my cardiordiscorythym or whatever… I also enjoy the pat down .. but would prefer if it was done by a woman.
I assume they assume I am mentally ill – which is perfect
On 6th April, former Scottish National Party chief executive Peter Murrell was arrested by the police and then released without charge by the police, pending further investigation into party finances. He is the husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Andrew Rawnsley of the Guardian gives his analysis today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/09/as-the-snp-loses-its-iron-grip-on-scotland-labour-must-seize-this-golden-opportunity
EXTRACTS.
==========
Some images are so potent that they become indelibly etched on to a nation’s retina. I think we can say that of the scenes when police raided the home of Nicola Sturgeon. Police Scotland used incident tape to cordon off the location and erected a large tent over the front of the house. The optics of this are beyond ghastly for the SNP.
Sixteen uninterrupted years of power is an extremely protracted stretch. Arrogance, complacency, entitlement, decadence and exhaustion can be among the symptoms exhibited by a party that has been in power for too long. It is now a bit late for the new
leader to try to distance himself from the old regime. During the leadership contest, Humza Yousaf was anointed by the Sturgeon establishment. His principal rival, Kate Forbes, launched an excoriating attack on his record: “When you were transport minister, the trains were never on time. When you were justice minister, the police were strained to breaking point. And now as health minister, we’ve got record high waiting times. What makes you think you could do a better job as first minister?”
The SNP’s demands for a second referendum on independence have also run into a brick wall, with the supreme court ruling that it requires Westminster’s consent to be lawful.
The Labour party has a golden opportunity to project itself as the agent of renewal on both sides of the border. The SNP has not looked so vulnerable in many, many years. What has been seen cannot be unseen.
==============================
When was someone named Hamza Yusuf a scot?
It seems to be becoming a thing on these islands for major political leaders to be of South Asian heritage. That is fine, so long as they can do the job, which is how it goes for everyone.
> Leaders of UK, Scotland, Ireland, London Now all of South Asian Heritage
Politicians of South Asian Heritage seem to be having a moment in the British Isles, with politicians claiming Indian and Pakistani history holding several of the most powerful political offices in the islands.
Humza Yousaf was elected the leader of Scotland’s ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) on Monday, and on Wednesday will be sworn in as First Minister. In doing so, the Pakistani-heritage politician will join several other South Asians dominating the top of British politics.
As First Minister, Yousaf will lead Scotland’s devolved government — roughly equivalent to a U.S. State government — which is one of four constituent home nations in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, also has South Asian heritage and was born in England to parents of Indian Punjabi heritage, a region on the India-Pakistan border.
Yousaf is the United Kingdom’s first national leader of the Muslim faith, while Sunak is the first of the Hindu faith. Meanwhile, administering home affairs for the Sunak government across the United Kingdom including policing and border control is Buddhist Suella Braverman, who like many Anglo-Indians has parents who came to the United Kingdom from India.
Braverman is only Britain’s second Indian-heritage Home Secretary, in fact. The senior ministerial position was recently held by fellow Conservative politician Priti Patel.
As well as the national Prime Minister, the Scottish First Minister, and the Home Secretary — one of the highest offices in the land — the Mayor of London, the capital and largest city, is also of South Asian heritage. Mayor Sadiq Khan was born in London to parents who came to the United Kingdom from Pakistan in the 1960s.
The political state of the UK shares the geographical area of the British [and Irish] Isles with another state, the Irish Republic. The Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, also has South Asian heritage, his father an Indian immigrant doctor.
First they took over the corner shops.
Then they took over the talking shops.
Uganda 1971-1979?
So what has brought the SNP low? My thoughts – well, it had been riding high for a long time. As the saying goes, “Nothing lasts for ever”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVnzA7wzLRA
=======
What else? Why was a situation allowed to develop where the SNP Chief Executive and SNP leader / First Minister were married? Let me affirm here that Mr Murrell must be presumed innocent UNTIL or UNLESS it is proven otherwise. This is not about Mr Murrell. It is about checks and balances. The Scottish parliament lacked those. Why? The finger must point at the UK government that created that system.
Here is an article from 2021, when Ms. Sturgeon was under fire:
The five flaws of Scotland’s government
The Salmond-Sturgeon clash has exposed serious weaknesses that need urgent remedy
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/comment/five-flaws-scotlands-government
Most importantly, boundaries between the SNP, the Scottish government and the Scottish civil service are blurred. The article discusses that.
And another important one (extract):
=====================
The role of the Lord Advocate is controversial
The clash has also raised questions about the role of the Lord Advocate. The post, currently held by James Wolffe QC, is the senior Scottish law officer. He or she is the principal legal adviser to the Scottish government and represents it in civil proceedings, also sitting in Cabinet. But the post also entails being head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Office, heading up the criminal prosecution system and representing the public in some areas.
The dual role as prosecutor and politician has been controversial since the start of devolution in 1999. There are competing demands that the Lord Advocate be independent as a prosecutor yet politically accountable as a legal adviser. Salmond himself decided to reduce the frequency with which the Lord Advocate sat in cabinet but recently Wolffe has attended a majority of those meetings, a point which Scottish Conservatives have challenged.
Formal separation of the two roles, overturning five centuries of tradition, would arguably require legislation in Westminster. A simpler solution might be to stop including the Lord Advocate within the cabinet. Either way, the Scottish Parliament is putting intense pressure on Wolffe to account for his decisions in the Salmond case.
========================
The other reason for the SNP’s troubles, of course, was that one of our regular commenters was an outspoken supporter of Nicola and the SNP. And his black hand inevitably turns to dust anything that it touches. Look at Russia with its “Special Military Operation” that would be completed within two weeks. Said commenter gave Russia his full orgasmic support, and nearly 14 months on Russia is stalled in a fruitless war of attrition. The kiss of death once more, you see. And a broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck, so the saying goes.
So what will said commenter do now? Well, he claims to be British, but he’s against everything Britain stands for. He’ll probably start his own movement and call it “The League of Traitors.” It will fail abysmally, of course – as usual. Truth is, he’s probably just a nihilist who is against everything. I do enjoy his performance in this video, though. 😉
Unionist parties fancy that the finance issue will be a ‘death blow’ for SNP. I would not too sure about that, and we will have to wait and see. Scots can, and often do, support independence without supporting SNP, and SNP supporters are not necessarily attached to a particular SNP administration. It is not all as ‘cut and dry’ as Unionist parties may like to make out, and support for Scottish independence is likely to be a lot more robust than some are making out. Polls are not showing any major movement, and support for independence/ UK remains at the knife edge. So, let’s wait and see what happens, the press do not necessarily understand Scotland as well as they are making out.
Meanwhile SF has surged in the polls in the Republic today with 37% support. Add in the support for Aontu (a traditionalist SF split), PBF and some of the independent candidates, and basically SF support is over 40% in the south, which is completely unprecedented. SF is also over 30% in NI, so it is likely to become the largest party of government both sides of the border at the next elections. So, it is ‘interesting times’ for UK, a weakness of Unionism in any part of UK is liable to increase the pressure on stresses elsewhere, and we will just have to wait and see what happens in the coming years. It is liable to be a story with many chapters before any ‘final chapter’ is reached.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fine-gael-plunges-poll-sinn-095902329.html
Fine Gael plunges in poll as Sinn Fein surges ahead
Support for Fine Gael has plummeted eight percentage points, an opinion poll has indicated.
A survey carried out by Behaviour And Attitudes (B&A) for the Sunday Times has put support for Fine Gael at 15%, Fianna Fail at 21% (up one percentage point), and the Greens at 6% (up one point).
This is seven points down on the Fine Gael vote in the 2020 general election, and the lowest support for the party recorded in a B&A poll.
Meanwhile, support for Sinn Fein is at 37%, up five points since the last survey in March, in one of its strongest polling results.
The findings come after the Government was strongly criticised for lifting its winter eviction ban at the end of March, despite soaring rates of homelessness and high rents…..
Aontu are on 2%, up two points, while independent candidates are collectively on 8%, down one point. There is no change for the Social Democrats (4%) or Solidarity-PBP (2%).
While walking out in the sunshine yesterday in a local park, I got talking to a Nigerian man of 58. He seemed quite shrewd. After talking about our scamdemic, I asked him how COVID had affected Nigeria. He said it hadn’t. “We took chloroquine in the first two days, and the COVID disappeared. Chloroquine is a medicine we use for malaria. We have a lot of mosquitoes in Nigeria, and they bite you and give you a fever. Whenever I got bitten as a boy and was in bed with a fever, my mother would just give me some chloroquine – it’s readily available at all our chemists – then within two or three hours I’d be out playing football again.”
I took it that he meant hydroxychloroquine but didn’t ask. I told him that we’d had lots of propaganda against such drugs during the “pandemic”. And one Guardian article said ivermectin was dangerous and was just used by vets on animals (the man smiled and shook his head at this), but that eventually I had found this group on the internet called Front Line Doctors, who explained that it was very effective and was used all over the world against infections: in India, Africa.
I asked him if he’d had the vaccination. He said no. I told him that I hadn’t either because of all the injuries. He looked puzzled, but I explained. I said if you go to rumble.com and search for “vaccination injuries”, you’ll see it. As I was talking, he took his mobile or pad or whatever it was, and looked it up. “I’ve bookmarked that for later”, he said. I told him that I’d been shocked by the lies around the “pandemic”, and that I never used to believe that we had propaganda in this country (UK). He threw his head back and chuckled when I said that.
Then we got onto Ukraine and 2014. “The Americans overthrew the government in 2014”, he said. “In Odesa the Ukrainians were throwing the Russians out of windows. They lifted up one man and put him in a rubbish bin.” So that was one shrewd Nigerian. And I learnt something about malaria and chloroquine.
“wrong thinking is punishable, right thinking will be as quickly rewarded”
48:48
https://archive.org/details/star-trek-tos-original-effects/Star+Trek+TOS+-+Orginal+Effects/Season+1/Star+Trek+-+1×01+-+The+Cage.avi
Interesting!
The naturally occurring event earthquakes shook Turkey so hard they forgot all about their opposition to Finland joining NATO.
Luxury watch theft has become so rampant that Audemars Piguet whose timepieces start at $55,000 is offering a first of its kind warranty against theft
by Sayan Chakravarty
https://luxurylaunches.com/watches/audemars-piguet-theft-protection.php
Over the last few years, there has been an alarming rise in thefts related to ultra-expensive and rare watches. The menace has become big that even well-known celebrities have been hit by such robberies. Last year, a $2 million Richard Mille was stolen from F1 superstar Charles Leclerc in Italy while he was walking on the streets of Viareggio with his friends. As this steep surge in watch-related crimes is adversely affecting the watchmaking industry, companies have been forced to find ways to tackle the situation. Swiss luxury watch brand Audemars Piguet has just announced a first-of-its-kind service program that guarantees to replace clients’ stolen watches.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Chief executive officer François-Henry Bennahmias explained that the industry-first program by AP offers to replace, refund, or repair any stolen or damaged watch bought in 2022 or 2023 for two years. It’s a brave move by the company considering the fact that AP watches have an average price of CHF50,000 (about $55,000). “We listen to our clients and we have to look also at what’s going on in the world right now. We have important cities in Europe and in the US that are not as safe anymore,” said Bennahmias. “We have important cities in Europe and in the US that are not as safe anymore.”
Watches? They make those still…maybe for fitbits to exercise….come on now..
Not safe anymore, imagine that Pilgrim….
Strange!
a two million dollar watch what a jerk. Come on over to NYC and give it a try with two watches.
For those who enjoy this day in some way, Happy Easter!⚘ Thanks for the lively commentary & interesting ideas shared here. As always, very grateful to you Gail for your fine work.
and a Happy Easter to you
Thank you. Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate the day!
By the way, on Wednesday, my husband and I will be flying up to the Boston area to see our soon-to-be 15-month old grandson and family. We will be flying back on Saturday.
Hopefully, I can keep commenting somewhat while doing this. I always worry about computer problems while away from home and staying in a hotel.
Here, in Slovakia, I can see how hard it is to believe that Russia is imploding. I am an outcast of my family. For decades, the growth was supported by Russia. They can not believe that there are other suppliers of costly natural gas and oil who would like to have markets. They can not believe that the decline of the perifery without the cheap resources from Russia will be accelerated. No matter what you do.
I think that the position of friendship from the side of Iran towards Russia is insincere. Iran is just waiting for its chances to ramp up.
Like a protestant in Slovakia after Lizzy Bathory’s antics?
I do not bath in blood. Today, we have mineral salts or waters for bath available.
Iran has longterm contracts with China. I guess oil is only a door opener for other products, Iran would like to trade with the West and to undermine sanctions.
Apologies if this has already been posted.
Christine Legarde interviewed by Borat posing as Zelensky……..?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ48fbcRxVw
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/follow-a-clown-get-a-circus?
Norman isn’t going to like this one bit, but the clinching evidence, nay, proof, that Apollo 11 didn’t reach the moon was provided by Alexander Popov and Andrei Bulatov in 2013.
They analyzed a Super 8 film shot by Philip Pollacia of the Apollo 11 launch that showed a continuous record of the rocket’s progress during the first 170 seconds of the launch.
In this film, at the 105th second mark, the rocket begins to pass through a bank of cirrus clouds. The upper layer of such clouds is located at an altitude of ~26,000 feet (8 kms). So “we know that at the time of ~105 sec the rocket is flying at an altitude of ~26,000 feet (8 kms) whereas according to the Apollo 11 timing. at this moment it should be far, far above the clouds, at a height of 79,000 feet (24 kms).
“Based on the results of this study, it is experimentally established that:
1) at the 105th second into the flight the rocket was three times behind the stated ascent rate;
2) at the same time (or more accurately, in the interval of 107-109 sec) the rocket travelled nine times slower than it should have done, according to the NASA record.
Did this Saturn V rocket get to the Moon? Based on these experimental results, it must be concluded that such a slow rocket most likely ended up in the waters of the Atlantic. Moreover, it carried no space craft, and had no astronauts aboard.”
https://www.aulis.com/apollo11saturn_v.htm
This is the nail in the coffin for the Apollo story. Sorry Norman. They’ve been pulling your leg all this time.
oh well—i must look on the bright side
leg pulling for years has finally given me 2 legs of the same length
life always comes into balance if you wait long enough
From the link website posted above..
About AULIS
We are a team focused on studying the Apollo record, the possibilities of future human space travel and sending humans to Mars successfully
We are a close-knit team of researchers, editors and authors primarily working together to study the Apollo record and analyse all aspects of the Apollo Moon landings.
Aulis Publishers is based in the UK and was founded over 25 years ago to provide a flexible outlet for articles, papers, books, streaming films and DVDs. The aim of Aulis Online and its associated websites is to promote greater awareness and stimulate different thinking. Aulis publishes works that ‘fly in the face’ of orthodoxy and established thought. The intention is to present alternative ideas and discuss new ways of viewing the future of mankind.
The findings regarding the discovery of anomalies and inconsistencies in the Apollo record strongly indicate that the manner in which the 1969-75 program actually played out is most certainly not a conspiracy theory – but rather the program was a very successful operation fully authorised by the United States.
As a government agency NASA acts in the interest of the national security of the United States, and when viewed though the lens of ‘National Security’ any action always contains a military component. The US manned space program, up to and including Apollo, was a weapon of choice in the ‘technological cold war’ the United States government was pursuing with the USSR. Consequently the historical record of these programs, as supplied by NASA itself, was a component of this ‘war’ and US government policy.
……
About AULIS
We are a team focused on studying the Apollo record, the possibilities of future human space travel and sending humans to Mars successfully
We are a close-knit team of researchers, editors and authors primarily working together to study the Apollo record and analyse all aspects of the Apollo Moon landings.
Aulis Publishers is based in the UK and was founded over 25 years ago to provide a flexible outlet for articles, papers, books, streaming films and DVDs. The aim of Aulis Online and its associated websites is to promote greater awareness and stimulate different thinking. Aulis publishes works that ‘fly in the face’ of orthodoxy and established thought. The intention is to present alternative ideas and discuss new ways of viewing the future of mankind
I attempted to uncover the funding for this group that was formed some 25 years ago…unable to do so…rather odd…
These were the first ‘fact checkers’… hahahahahaha
Hahahah…Russkees spreading fact news…
Thank you very much, Tim. This and other evidence on the Aulis site are very compelling. The researchers are very systematic, use public source materials, and apply basic math and physics to show that what NASA presented could not possibly be what it claimed. They also respond well to the criticism they received. I think this is quite damning evidence.
My question to you, Fast Eddy, and others: how will they fake the planned moon expeditions this time? Won’t it be possible for observers on earth, with technology available now, be able to disprove NASA’s claims quickly and irrefutably? Or will the expeditions be forever postponed for one reason or another?
Maybe the reason that Soviets lost the Space Race is that they didn’t have the equivalent of a Hollywood to pull off a fraud …
There wont be moon expeditions… you are being played…. this PR will just fade away — we won’t go — cuz we can’t — but like the announcement below — everyone will forget about it and move on to the next lie.
Bush unveils vision for moon and beyond
President seeks $1 billion more in NASA funding
Thursday, January 15, 2004 Posted: 2131 GMT ( 5:31 AM HKT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Saying “the desire to explore and understand is part of our character,” President Bush Wednesday unveiled an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the mission as a steppingstone for future manned trips to Mars and beyond.
https://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/14/bush.space/
People really are f789ing D-umb.
I think you missed my point. NASA seems to be closer in its talk/plan of going to the moon now than in the last 20 years. I also am skeptical that it would be possible, so I simply wonder how they might fake it this time if they get to the point where they actually make a show of an attempt. But I suspect you’re right — they’ll do a slow wind-up to occupy attention for now, and then it will fade as some new event/crisis comes along.
Sure we are … any day now …
Just like this right? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181119-why-flammable-ice-could-be-the-future-of-energy
BTW – how do we survive the Van Allen Belts?
Note how he doesn’t say — you just fly quickly through and then it won’t affect the machine or the men?
https://youtu.be/4O5dPsu66Kw?t=178
I ask again — how do we survive the Van Allen Belts?
That’s the thing with DelusiSTANIS… they belong there… they believe whatever BBCCNN tells them to believe
‘Virtuals vs the Physicals
The “thinkers” are at war with the “doers”. The working class versus the elite. Both have enough ammo to win battles, but the outcome is uncertain, and the result will change how we view our world.’?
https://mikeboyd.substack.com/p/virtuals-vs-the-physicals?
Of course, there is not enough energy for either group, in total.
The thinkers seem to be in an especially bad place, for now.
The centres of the towns and cities turn into warehouses for e-shops.
https://www.trend.sk/spravy/odvratena-tvar-online-nakupov-centra-miest-pustnu-kvoli-skladom-predajcov?itm_brand=trend&itm_template=hp&itm_modul=suhrn_sprav&itm_area=denny_suhrn_sprav&itm_position=1
“Attacked for Telling Truth About Deadly CV19 Vax – Dr. Mark Skidmore“
Ecerpt: His troubles began when the study he conducted showed nearly 300,000 CV19 vax deaths in just the first year of injections. The report went viral, and it was a top trending study on social media that 17 million people read. Dr. Skidmore has published dozens of peer-reviewed scientific papers, but this peer-reviewed study is now being retracted by a top scientific publication. On top of that, Dr. Skidmore is being investigated academically for essentially telling the truth about the deadly CV19 vax.
https://usawatchdog.com/attacked-for-telling-truth-about-deadly-cv19-vax-dr-mark-skidmore/
It is terrible to realize that the generations before us lived in poverty and that their poverty was alleviated using the technology just temporarily. And that they lived in a greater simplicity.
It is terrible to see people around you covering up their failures to escape their poverty lying to themselves that all is o.k., although they are clearly hitting the wall. The wall of the rising complexity.
It is terrible to see the advancing wilderness of other species which are best adapted for the environment that is no longer suitable for the humans because of the depletion and pollution.
It is terrible to see the opening abyss between the rising needs and demands and the impoverished and ageing reality.
no it’s all good really.
for tens of thousands of years, early humans scraped by as hunter-gatherers with a poverty level of existence.
but that is what the evolving Universe produced, so who are we modern humans to say that was terrible?
and it looks like our luxurious civilization will end soon, and future humans will most likely be back to being impoverished hunter-gatherers.
so what?
if the past tens of thousands of years of poverty was good enough, then the future tens of thousands of years of poverty will be good enough also.
be born, eat, reproduce, die.
what’s the big deal?
the Universe doesn’t seem at all concerned with all humans living happy and meaningful lives.
probably because the human species is just one of millions of species destined for eternal extinction.
many of us get to rock bAU tonight, baby, but that is irrelevant to the evolution and extinction of all species.
not to mention the red giant death of our Sun in the distant future.
it’s all good, really.
que sera sera.
and it looks like our luxurious civilization will end soon, and future humans will most likely be back to being impoverished hunter-gatherers.”
If Starship works, we will play another inning, couple that with chatGPT and the future could be something other than the horrible, dark drama reference on this site so often.
Dennis L.
Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda.
you are beginning to catch on I see.
I have noted that several persons in my limited sphere are now finally realizing that perhaps the jig is up in a bleak global future perspective.
When I mentioned to one how convenient it was that the Americans are returning to moon missions just as their dollar seems to be imploding……the response was…..they are faking it all aren’t they?
the responder is as compliant and socially all encompassing as is possible.
from the mouths of babes……..of course its fake as f…..!
the archons are trying to prepare for the great war in heaven,…..they must try to keep the soul trap operational.
And even as we escaped poverty, our diet did not improve all that much. Diseases of civilization are rampant in every corner of the economically prosperous world. Yes, we have much better dental care, but the proper solution to dental problems is not to have them, as our distant ancestors used to (15,000 years ago or prior). And since you are what you eat, we are still weak, sick, and unhappy, just for longer.
On a Keto diet dental decay stops immediately. We don’t have better dental care. We just compensate what we have ruined before.
Of course. But keto is not sustainable at current levels of world population.
1. Agreed on diet, it good calories are expensive. In extreme one has to literally fun after them and face a somewhat upset bear in the worst case.
2. I was a practicing dentist for forty years. Caries sort of disappeared in the mid 1970’s, it has never been explained to my knowledge. An article in the 1980’s, Nature, looked at fluoride and caries, correlation was good, but order was wrong, caries were declining before introduction of fluoride.
Dennis L.
Interesting!
Do you have a theory for #2?
The possible future of drone warfare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fa9lVwHHqg
Existing drones in use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4np2YFojcs
Drones for Ukraine
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-drone-advances-6591dc69a4bf2081dcdd265e1c986203
from a Putin speech
“the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode.”
Robot wheeled vehicle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ap1XQ5hI48
Israeli version you can buy today
US made robot tanks and legged platforms.
Tank-let supplied to Ukraine
ignore the picture it is just click bait
the tank-lets aren’t real?
that would have been a game changer.
U would have conquered Russia by summer.
Vlad the Great would have been deposed.
Putin the Magnificent would have been imprisoned.
I think it said they got six of them. Not a game changer. If they had got 6000 with fuel and munitions and spare parts and train repair crews then that would have been a game changer.
So now, “My Robot can beat your Robot?”
Dennis L.
“Israeli version you can buy today.”
Finally a solution to car jacking in major US cities. Just need a place to sit comfortably, air conditioning and perhaps sirius for music.
Dennis L.
Bentley offers a closed atmosphere option to protect you from chem, bio, radiological attacks. When I get my Bentley I am getting that option and the stretch option.
Did SVB just sink without leaving even an oily slick??
as I recall it, NorthernRock blew up May 2007 and it took a year for the wheels to fall off afterwards
Choice bits of Powell on his meanderings towards Damascus
“Turns out it’s a heck of a lot easier to create demand than it is to bring supply up to snuff,” Jerome Powell mused at the press conference. 19.6.21
https://mikesmoneytalks.ca/where-shortages-show-up-the-wtf-plunge-in-retail-inventories/
“So our tools don’t really work on supply shocks. Our tools work on demand. And to the extent, we can’t affect really oil prices, or other commodity prices, or food prices and things like that. So we can’t affect those…” Jerome Powell press conference 4.5.22
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/05/06/in-brief-mid-term-blues-the-central-bank-myth/
Is it not a fundamental premise of MMT that monetary policy changes generally take from twelve months to eighteen to visibly impact economic data? This round started January 2022. I don’t think there’s any doubt from the economic data that the global economy has begun to slow, but the fat lady is just clearing her throat. Anyone who says at this point they’ve tightened too little or too much or just the right is just guessing what will result. Straight down post-peak rate market declines are rare, more often rallies “running the shorts” generate huge counter trend surges, viz Sornette. It’s a reliable milking machine for HFT. Just one of the many feeds, of course, of the bezzle
That giant sucking sound you can hear is not the righteous being raptured, it’s the net wealth of the indebited class streaming to the warmth of its creditor mommy’s bill-fold as the collateral values sink and interest rates rise
Michael Huson suggested that SVB, however, “was left holding the bag when Mr. Powell announced that not enough American workers were unemployed to hold down their wage gains, so he planned to raise interest rates even more than he had expected. He said that a serious recession was needed to keep wages low enough to keep U.S. corporate profits high, and hence their stock price.
… “This sudden shift on March 11-12 left SVB ‘sitting on an unrealized loss of close to $163bn – more than its equity base.'” Hudson’s inner quote from FT
unz.com/mhudson/why-the-bank-crisis-is-not-over
NC reports that FDIC chief Martin Gruenberg wrote in his prepared testimony: “The ten largest deposit accounts at SVB held $13.3 billion, in the aggregate,” and also that nearly 90% — $18 billion — of the DIF loss stemming from SVB is “attributable to the cost of covering uninsured deposits.”
banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Gruenberg%20Testimony%203-28-23.pdf (original testimony)
Two weeks post SVB:
Fed officials recognize market propensity for front-running any Fed dovish pivot musings. Now, after a quick $700 billion shot of Washington liquidity, a downdraft in market yields, and a surge in stock prices, the Fed faces the possibility of loose conditions underpinning inflation dynamics. For now, their strategy appears to be to create whatever liquidity the banking system might require, while relying on rate policy to sustain a semblance of an inflation fight.
https://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2023/03/weekly-commentary-that-was-interesting.html
I asked last month: how is this not a massive looting operation? Michael Hudson, from the above, explains “What Biden really meant was that this is not a taxpayer bailout. It does not involve money creation or a budget deficit, any more than the Fed’s $9 trillion in Quantitative Easing for the banks since 2008 has been money creation or increased the budget deficit. It is a balance-sheet exercise – technically a kind of “swap” with offsets of good Federal Reserve credit for “bad” bank securities pledged as collateral – way above current market pricing, to be sure.”
Colour me unconvinced as to probilty of this recent operation. Let’s have a look at the collateral inside the BTFP loans held by the top ten depositors and whether this was handed over at 100% used to gain liquidity costing 4.5%pa. I understand it, big SVB borrowers were required to keep their balances with the bank. Come on, show us any collateral they’ve signed over is NOT a doggie waste bag of shares in dead Silicon Valley crap. Borrow against it from the bank and then walk away with the money hahaha Better than pump and dump
Isn’t this SOP in Shanghai?
askin’ for a friend …
A completely different narrative altogether of these same SVB events (perhaps not mutually exculusive) from blog-artist DeepthroatIPO who views the SVB operation as a further escalation in the hybrid war he sees taking place between the US/West vs China in the economic sphere. I’ve read and thought a lot about his work for the last five years, maybe longer, but as he averages less than one post a year, he’s able to put very detailed substantiation as to his somewhat otherwise wild theoretical speculations. All on the one theme – that China through the Caymans is using the financial clout from their trade surpluses over the past ten years in a hybrid war to destroy the USD and the unwitted. Fascinating theory but it certainly chimes with what’s unfolding.
His latest analysis
deepthroatipo.com/how-to-wreck-a-big-old-gsib-bank/
not only discusses SVB but also offers an overview of his overall financial concept of credit. Sure, it’s only the internet but this dude purports to be a “forensic accountant” running an insurance agency in upper NY state, and from his work is clearly a very qualified intellectual force.
The “murder weapons” of choice used to dispatch the late, great Credit Suisse, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature, et al…. and soon to be, if we don’t figure this out, a graveyard full of unsuspecting, naïve, “hey I’m making a ton of money for not asking questions” banks/bankers ….is not interest rates, inflation, mismanagement, or misjudgment. It was/is:
1.) An army of highly coordinated, stealthily disguised Chinese Communist Party-Axis sponsored/funded ShellCos,
2.) A closed RMB/Yuan allowing the CCP to underbid the rest of the world (booking revenue in “real” floating money while mainland costs are paid in onshore “monopoly money”), causing a colossal, consistent Chinese trade surplus…..and
3.) A failure of our bureaucratic/technocratic/globalized regulators and Central Banks to understand the threat and respond accordingly. They don’t see it because they are not looking for it.
It’s not easy to pick an isolated quote to give an idea of the full depth … however, this dude I do recommend and the latest actually gives an outline of his full theory as he’s previously developed it and suggests how this time it’s the implementation under way
or maybe the internet is a tool of enchantment, delusion and satisfaction
YVMV
Thanks! You have some very interesting quotes there. I hadn’t realized that Jerome Powell had made comments like, “Turns out it’s a heck of a lot easier to create demand than it is to bring supply up to snuff,” and “So our tools don’t really work on supply shocks. Our tools work on demand. And to the extent, we can’t affect really oil prices, or other commodity prices, or food prices and things like that. So we can’t affect those…”
We will see how the Silicon Valley Bank scenario plays out. A whole lot of money has been spent on it, already.
‘ “So our tools don’t really work on supply shocks. Our tools work on demand. And to the extent, we can’t affect really oil prices, or other commodity prices, or food prices and things like that. So we can’t affect those…”’
The ‘tools’ are necessary to counteract the effects of rising oil and commodity prices on the economy?
In equilibrium :
W/P = [1 – aΠ – {(pm.M) / P.Y}].Y/L
Where: W/P = real product wage: pm = price of raw materials: M = amount of raw materials.
An increase in pm will lead to a fall in the demand for labour and the equilibrium real product wage. This will shift the AS schedule to the left. With unchanged AD there will be an excess demand for Y. This will stimulate an inflationary process. Hence, the Fed, is using monetary policy to try eliminate the excess demand. ?
From: P300: Sargent, J.R. 2004. To Full Employment: The Keynesian Experience and After.
I have finished some of the big things that I wanted to finish. So if you have questions about Russia I can spend some time. But I am very concentrated on my work, because of the substantial economic opportunities this country presents, so I do not follow the press all that much. I can certainly describe what common people around me think and do.
OK Dr B, thanks. I’m interested in the rural land tenure. One is given an unforgettable view into it in Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol etc but that was all the good ol’ days. Then Soviet collectivization and gulags, and now what? A Yeltsin legacy of oligarch latifundia? Small viable landholdings? Mixed ag or monoculture? Are there co-operatives?
Mixed. In fact quite mixed both in ag and holders. First the ag part.
Russia grows its own fruits, obviously mostly in the South, but they can not compete with the warmer areas south, Iran and Azerbajian. As soon as the Volga thaws boats come all the way up and the offerings are impressive. Recently I bought some lemons which were the best I have ever had (from Uzbekistan, and I lived in the Mediterranean and California). Probably Meyer but clearly positively affected by desert growing. There are wineries as far North as 51N (!), and in those locales they get to crop both winter and summer wheat, so 2 crops a year. Western level cured meats and cheese are readily available, so a food industry is rapidly forming. With the exception of beef, all traditional sources of meat (chicken, pork, lamb) are quite developed, lamb specially being a small scale operation everywhere.
As far as holders, the Minister of agriculture is the largest landowner in the country, but there are operations at the 15,000, 700, 40 hectares that I know of that make a living. I live in a village where 7 families practice communal cropping on privately owned land.
Locally (57N), there used to be only haying and dairy as late as 1995, what with snow coming in September and disappearing in May. But now it comes in November and was all gone (one meter of it) ten days ago. So there is wheat, oats, hay and corn silage (dairy is still king), and a million household operations involving dairy goats, chickens, the occasional cow or a few pigs, huge gardens with traditional storage vegetables.
Land near the villages remains kolkhoz land (say, 5 hectares per village) and people get out ancient plows pulled by ancient tractors to grow 1000 square meters of potatoes or wheat out of the prairie. Everything they grow is superior to storebought. Honey is a significant crop because pastures are rich in forbs and therefore in flowers, and everyone has a few hives, some making a living out of honey. A friend is looking to make 1000 square meters of hops this year, which grow wild around here, to see if he can get something going. Another is quite successful with a tiny (1000 square meters) chicken operation.
taking the long view of history—this tells you a lot about Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Jones_(journalist)
why should the russians be accused of something happening in Ukraine? do you think that even the people in power were russians? have you watched another 007 movie and want to tell us about it?
i can let you have a blinkers removal tool if you like drb—though yours might just be glued to your head
do try to read history in the broad context, not just yesterdays news
you might learn something
History written by whom? does it involve 60 M? because without 60 M citations I can not even think. Anyway, do not worry. The Ukrainians got a measure of revenge on their tormentors during WW2. Granted, it was revenge on people only ethnically affiliated to said tormentors, not the actual CHEKA guys themselves whose descendants now live in the West. But it is better than nothing, and your country is now all behind the reborn avengers, and the government is 100% double passport guys and gals. I see them as hate filled, mentally and physically stunted fanatics, fighting someone else’s war (the worst are not local, and not Ukrainians), but maybe I am wrong.
i do not possess the necessary mental agility to process your comment drb
it obviously means something to you—what, i cannot fathom
i must therefore move on.
That link tells nothing of Russia Norman, but it does reveal its purpose when we read
“his murder was likely committed by”
You say
“i can let you have a blinkers removal tool”
Obviously an unused tool, if you consider your link to be “a long view of history”.
Expand your reading a bit and you might be surprised at the lack of important, relevant, information, in the stories you have been fed.
https://lenabloch.medium.com/lies-concerning-the-history-of-the-soviet-union-56bff2a6689a?source=user_profile———17—————————-
And some truly bad people that your trusted publications kept hidden from you(and look where that’s gotten us).
https://t.co/h2fwOWoneb
i’m not fed anything
i seek out my own food
I’m curious about
> any experiences with government regulation, licensing, or paperwork, that was necessary
> ever been to court there?
> do you often hear about extortion attempts by government or organized crime?
> bribe culture
Yeah it’s all negative stuff, but these are the tropes about Russia, and it’s hard to know as an outsider how much is truth versus fiction. Thanks for any insight.
the answer to the last 3 is no. Specifically bribe culture seems to have disappeared. This is however a problem because no matter how long you have driven in your home country a driver license here will cost you hundreds of hours of classes and lessons which I do not have. I have an informal agreement with a doctor friend in case vaccines return, but it does not cost me any money. Not that anyone respects any vaxx rules in the countryside.
Please don’t be negative about bribe culture however. There may be vaccine passports coming worldwide in a couple of years. You may be much better off getting a, say, Azeri passport and getting also said medical passport for a trifling fee plus box of chocolates (please respect local etiquette) without being unduly punctured multiple times. I’d rather bribe than expose myself to myocarditis.
On to the first question. It is a mixed bag. Banking is light years ahead of the West (good news), as are tax forms and telephones, for simplicity and ease of use. And I really mean light years. One bank has recently made it easier for expats to move money.
Rules for emigrants are very cumbersome and getting through some bureaucratic hoops is impossible without local help (paid and unpaid). Lots of time wasted. Generous financing rules for starting small businesses and starting families allow a non-citizen to also get support, but again, you need local help.
The good news is that there is a lot of interest in attracting immigrants. I have been invited to sessions with members of the Duma to discuss simplifications of the emigration procedures. I have not gone, but will start attending those next month. One particularly grievous problem that made it nearly impossible recently for US citizens to apply for residence (entirely the US fault) seems to have been alleviated thanks to numerous pleas from US expats. All in all, this is a reasonably adaptive and flexible system, and certain pillars of the social state have not been touched. You still get 20 working days paid vacation, plus 40+ days of holidays, plus of course 100 days in saturdays and sundays, every year.
Thanks, interesting. Russia hasn’t adopted the woke nonsense, but they do seem to be toying with some of the NWO stuff (vaxx passports perhaps – according to you, CBDC and biometrics databases from what I read). Prison planet, nowhere to go.
I concur with your assessment. Russia has 40+ years of hydrocarbons more than the West, and so it is 40 years behind in crowd control. But it will come as supplies decline.
Yes, they want to do biometrics but there is a lot of room for acting undetected locally. These measures seem aimed at controlling city spaces and crowds, but I fail to see any impact in the countryside, unless you are stupid. There is also a remarkably strong back to the land movement.
Some expats drink the local Koolaid and are sure to be disappointed. Russia now is a country with reasonable energy supplies. Later it might turn into the West. Vaxx passports are a western feature, but for a while I will have to fly back to the West occasionally and it may be a need. Here I have always flown without showing anything other than my passport.
Those resources could ultimately turn out to be either a blessing or a curse, depending on whether there is WMD escalation.
(meaning, whether it leads to WMD escalation over those resources)
I replied to this but it has not gotten through yet. fairly long answer so I will wait.
What about the spent fuel ponds in Russia – and nearby western Europe?
Discuss
And of course Japan…
hahaha https://twitter.com/i/status/1644705622451945472
Vaccine deaths! Not quite like lemmings, but close.
Oh no. Since they went over to the other side, peace continues to be breaking out all over the middle east. How’s this for the latest dastardly blow against defense
A Saudi Omani delegation is said to be on its way for ceasefire talks in the week ahead. In Sa’naa.
english.almanar.com.lb/1814232
arms sales? what’s going to happen to them???
If they only had as many sand as we have currency.
So much water, and not a drop to drink.
Maybe the arms all go to Ukraine, and perhaps wars agains China in Taiwan, and even a war in Iran.
hahaha https://twitter.com/BigRedPill_007/status/1644670765772488706
Holy SHIT!
🙂
And people are still standing in line afterwards. Unfazed.
*Come take this shot so you DON’T die.
oh I know why we don’t travel by hovering in a chopper – cuz a helicopter cannot fly to high enough altitudes due to thin air… so the mountains would smash into it as they spun past at 1700km/h
But hang on .. helicopters can’t fly 1700 km/h.. so why don’t they have to worry about the mountains hitting them during flights?
The Earth rotates on its axis once each day. Because the circumference of the Earth at the equator is 24,901.55 miles, a spot on the equator rotates at approximately 1,037.5646 miles per hour (1,037.5646 times 24 equals 24,901.55), or 1,669.8 km/h.
https://www.thoughtco.com/speed-of-the-earth-1435093
Question:
If you hovered in a helicopter in one spot for 3 hours in New York City … then you landed… where would you be?
Instead of jet liners why don’t we build giant helicopters that have extra fuel tanks and travel by hovering in place and letting the earth spin then land in our favourite holiday destinations?
oh no eddy. Not flat earth.
Well its logical I suppose. You start talking about flat earth and ancient civilizations so the NZ vax police dont show up and shoot Hoolio. Im down. Restrict act is here now too.
organism 46b
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oeh6WXiZXgA
[We may have lost FE to FE. A moment of silence, please.]
Superficially, I’d answer your questions using the same reasoning you’ve used to debunk the lunar landings and space propulsion. No atmosphere; no friction. Atmosphere; friction. This is just my 5-cent Lucy van Pelt take on it.
The earth is rotating, but there’s a layer of ‘sludge’ that gets denser as one gets closer to the surface. There’s an unimaginable amount of water vapor. If you’ve ever tried “running” in a swimming pool vs. running on solid ground, that might render the idea. We can see a certain degree of this suspended material (water-vapor clouds and particulate pollution) that stays *relatively* steadier in space as compared to the earth’s rotation, but there’s even more that we can’t see.
When you’re flying in an airplane (you’ve flown way more than me), do you feel like you’re moving at 600mph, or whatever? You don’t. You only notice *relative* differences, like when you’re going 1700 kmph and the wind happens to be going 1730kmph (in whatever direction).
If the earth is flat, why is it the case that flights west-to-east take less time than flights east-to-west, hmm?
eddys rotation question was just attention seeking
not even eddy is that daft—he just gets something out of people arguing about silly things he says.
If you jump in the air you should land a few feet from where you started.
Hey norm – how about you get in an elevator on the 60th floor ..I cut the cable … then you jump just before it hits the ground.
Uhm, you do…?
You just have to be open to considering different points of reference.
eddy?
a differing opinion to his own???
go wash your mouth out and say 100 hail marys for uttering such blasphemy
You don’t need any helicopter! A long rope and the right mounting point would be enough! That is also the danger of trampolining. You jump up in NY and you land inmidst the British fog. There is a song about it: It’s raining men, haleluja…
I don’t think FE mentioned flat earth. That sort of popped up as a conversation stopper, rather like “con-spira-cy theorist” and “far right rac-ist scum-bag” have a tendency to do.
And “Eddy, have you stopped beating your dog yet?”
But it’s a good question all the same. And it has a fairly straightforward answer.
You may think a helicopter hovering over the same spot on the surface of a rotating spheroid such as the earth is “at rest”, but it isn’t. It is moving at the same speed and in the same direction as the moving spot it is hovering over BECAUSE it is tracking that spot.
The pilot is using the propellers and the steering to keep the machine above a certain spot. If he/she didn’t do so, and instead merely maintained altitude, the machine would drift. I agree with Lidia that the wind would exert a force on the machine, just as it does on an open umbrella. Also, and gravity (which according to Einstein is not really a force of attraction between all objects with mass, as Newton thought, but is a result of the warping of space-time) ensures that the machine, if left to its own devices would follow trajectory that brings it down to earth.
One of the neatest experiments known to all annoying physics nerds that demonstrates that rotation of the earth is a real phenomenon is Foucault’s Pendulum.
“When Léon Foucault first performed the experiment in 1851, the concept that the Earth revolves was nothing new or radical; the pendulum’s accomplishment was to provide a proof that did not require minute observations of the stars or other objects far removed from Earth. Foucault’s pendulum is a highly localized, easily prepared experiment whose result is clear, powerful, and accessible even to the non-scientist. In short, the pendulum provides everything a science teacher could ask for in an instructional experiment.”
https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/n2k/visibility/Alison_Errico/Soft%20Moon/pendulum.html
perfect link here for eddy and his ilk, worth a read folks. Confirms most of what I’ve been saying for years.
https://www.fatherly.com/life/anger-management-expert-why-men?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
Brilliant quote from above>>>>>“They don’t have to deal with the consequences of angry diatribes and don’t have to fear retribution,” he writes. “They can say whatever they want to whoever they want and get away with it. They can rant and rave, call people names, make false statements about people, start or contribute to rumors, and sometimes ruin lives — and forget all about it when they walk away from the screen.” This behavior, he concludes, is nothing short of cowardly.<<<>>>A lot of angry men have a core sense of inferiority. They feel like they don’t measure up.<<<<<
The internet is a perfect place to express anger. Doing it in real life is likely to lead to some pushback (or worse).
how many times have i said:
“saying that in RL would bring a punch in the mouth.”—
the pedo nonsenses–se xdolls—adult diapers…and so on in endless monotony—nothing to say?–keeping repeating what you’ve already said, even at 3 am. (50 shades of Trump there I think?)
It gets trotted out online because this is the only safe place to do it
as in the article I linked to—says it better than I can
Incidentally, bought a stash of adult diapers last week.
They are for George, the Labrador, who is on his last legs and can’t always hold his water.
Although if he dies before he gets through them all, I plan to keep the remainder for the eventuality that I might need them for myself.
When I dress George in style, I have to cut a hole in them to accommodate his tail.
His kidneys are failing and he’s on blood pressure meds in order to reduce the burden on his kidneys. It seems to be working as a stop-gap measure, but it’s only a very temporary solution.
Nursing George through to the end looks set to be my biggest job this year.
You can always post the left over ones to norm …
Like the Giant Fat Bastard who provoked Fast Eddy found out in Wellington.
In the words of Fast Eddy ‘You Fat Old f789’. hahahahaha
https://www.huffpost.com/
https://www.huffpost.com/entertainment/
And why don’t jet airliners always fly in the direction the Earth is spinning? If they fly at say 1000km per hour — you’d add another 1700 allowing them to cover distance at 2700 km per hour.
If they fly against the spin how do they get anywhere – they should go backwards at 700km per hour.
Air resistance, it is a cube of velocity.
Next question please.
Dennis L.
do not overtax eddy’s brain cell
it is already multi-functioning
Sounds like … bullshit.
CTG would have a better answer… something to do with a simulation
whatever eddy says is fake
is———
fake
any alternative makes him very angry—–he is likely to bust out of his shirt and trousers and turn green
you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry
Fast is not angry – he is just calling bullshit on the explanation
eddy
i have no doubt that your gggggggggggrandfather helped to put Galileo under house arrest for his BS theories
Plenty of observations that we are in a simulation. Similar to the people who could not see the dangers of vax, people cannot accept that we are likely to be in a simulation.
MOREONS come in many flavours
Plenty of evidence that some of us are in a simulation.
Well, make that all of us, because our reality is virtual reality. It’s the way our sensory/cognitive system functions.
But no compelling evidence that the physical Universe itself is not real.
And then, there’s this:
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘I refute it thus.’”
(From Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson)
No we cannot prove the universe is not real… just as if primitive person was to be shown the movie The Martian – and it was explained to them that this was ‘real’ and that a man is actually walking on Mars … they’d think that was absolutely real.
Just as many fools absolutely believe the moon landings are real.
Evidence to the contrary (e.g Van Allen Belts) is not relevant.
i think you may have mentioned fake moon landings before eddy
now do go to bed and catch up on those much needed zeds
BTW – Rat Juice causes brain damage
Are you saying that human consciousness is a simulation?
Humans are not conscious … they are parrots who repeat what they are told… they are circus and barnyard animals.
A handful lead by Fast Eddy have risen above that… probably no more than a dozen out of 8B
FE, you just do not follow/ subscribe to the appropriate Telegram channels for UKR videos. There is a flood of vids coming out daily. I have seen the channels but I do not look at them often. There are some Twitter channels that do the vids too. If you are into seeing that vid stuff then there is loads of it going on if you know where to look.
Eg.
https://t.me/s/boris_rozhin
https://t.me/s/Murad_Gazdiev/
ooooh they blew up a box with a drone – war!!
https://t.me/boris_rozhin/82593
They look like staged photo shoots – military exercises — bit of CGI – video games.
Fake
Go to the Israel stuff for real war
They have been outted using footage and photos from other wars and claiming they were taken in UKEY… it’s all fake…
Back in February, 40 first-generation Starlink satellites were struck by a geomagnetic storm and fell to Earth in a somewhat spectacular fashion. Now, at the time, SpaceX already had thousands of satellites in orbit, and even though losing a few can be costly and a bit of a bummer, that’s the reality of doing business in space. Geomagnetic storms caused by an interaction of Earth’s magnetic field and solar activity happen somewhat frequently, and while NASA is working on a way to predict them more accurately, these kinds of accidents are bound to happen.
But it turns out the next generation of miniature Starlink satellites aren’t faring a whole lot better. In late March, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the “V2 Mini” satellites were “experiencing some issues,” and since then, at least one has been deorbited. Unless they’re able to course-correct, a dozen or so more might be on their way down.
Meanwhile…to the moon
This is humanity’s crew,” NASA Director Bill Nelson said at a splashy announcement event at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
According to NASA, the mission of the Artemis II will be to test the Orion spacecraft’s life-support systems to “prove the capabilities and techniques required to live and work in deep space in ways only humans can do.”
They won’t land on the moon during the 10-day trip, slated to begin no earlier than the end of 2024. But if all goes well, their work will pave the way for a touchdown by a subsequent crew.
The astronauts learned of their crew assignment at a previously scheduled meeting. And all three showed up late.
On Monday, NASA revealed the names of the astronauts who will fly to the moon as part of the Artemis II mission. The four-person crew includes the first woman, Christina Koch; the first African American, Victor Glover; and first international crew member, Jeremy Hansen, from Canada, ever to take part in a lunar mission.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/space-news-starlink-satellites-orbit-pink-moon-richard-branson-nasa-165913306.html
So the crew won’t really land on the moon in 2024. That, by itself, makes the 1969 story of men walking on the moon suspect.
No it doesn’t!
hahahha…
I see it’s all very real to you … most people have a range of delusions that are very real to them …
e.g. norm? His reality is that the injections are safe and effective. That is very real to him.
Here we have someone trying to explain to men that they cannot ever be women … but they also reject that .. they believe they can get pregnant and have periods hahaha that is a powerful delusion https://t.me/c/1588731774/17282
6 times there in a very short period of time, last visit there also a nice trip with a jeep.
6 times there, a travel of 384.000 km and back, but all the other space human travels were only around 2.000 km from earth, not more distant than that.
It happened in 1969.
We are in 2023.
Still we are not able to repeat.
That doesn’t quite add up.
we haven’t returned to the moon because
a–there’s nothing there to make the trip worthwhile
b—we can’t afford it
there may be another trip or two there by the chinese or whoever–but it will be just a vanity project.
nothing meaningful will come of it because there’s no profit in it.
“nothing meaningful will come of it because there’s no profit in it.”
Yet.
Dennis L.
unless you’re going on vacation, a journey has to return more on the journey than was expended
simple economics
therefore moontrips must bring back ‘something’ of greater value that the journey cost
the elemental construction of the universe is known—there are no ‘miracle’ elements out there.
so lets say beneath the moons surface is a solid gold ‘crust’.
whoopee—we’ll all be rich….er—no. Gold is one of the underpinning elements of the current economic system.—a billion tons of new gold would destroy the world economy that made the moon trip possible in the first place.
Fossil fuels then?
Nope.
Fossil fuels are useless until they are converted into something else, and that usually mean heat application.. We cannot make ‘stuff’ off earth and ship it back–because the cost would be astronomic–to put it mildly.
The same would apply to any form of extraction and use I’m afraid.
We are stuck with what we have.—or rather what we no longer have.
This has been a one trick wonder.
We introduce a new monetary system based on the Moon Rock standard. That would stimulate a rush of Moon Rock diggers.
blessed are the cheesemakers
The concept of “sour grapes” is at least 2500 years old.
silly person—do try to think for yourself drb
its embarrassing
“b—we can’t afford it”
Not true. Until now, the USA has owned the world’s reserve currency, and as Dick Cheney noted, “Deficits don’t matter”. Until they do, of course.
money is a token of energy
moonshots represent surplus energy
there is no surplus energy—not in sufficient quantity to carry another apollo program
Stop trying to apply logic to this!
And why would we go back anyway? We know all there is know about the moon.
Just like we know all about the depths of the ocean so have no need to send submersibles down there ever again
oh—i dunno
different regions of the moon might have different cheese flavours
if nobody’s been there—how can it be proven otherwise???
Norman, you are more profound than you look.
You’re right. We shouldn’t just assume it’s Camembert all over.
On the other hand, this assembly of individuals and the undoubtedly new methods and technologies developed and to be deployed since some a half century ago need to be tested on a practice run.
In my mind having this mission deemed a failure will be a poor reflection on the reputation of the United States edge as leader of cutting edge state of the art advancement in many fields.
Too many things can go wrong and it’s best to be prudent than careless.
Doubt any of the team of specialist for the Apollo mission are still able to consult in any meaningful way. So, in many aspects like starting over in a different direction, since it is a different mission goal.
I may point out that the astronauts will orbit the moon and back, something Eddie claims is not possible.
We shall see…but so far it appears it’s an all green go.
without fakery—eddy would lose the will to live
This should explode the moon groopies’ delusion … but keep it mind we pound norm with horror stories involving the deadly injections on a daily basis… yet…
https://youtu.be/lm220Urp6SU
All together now — you cannot cure ____________. Facts and logic are not relevant to … _____________ people
Such people need more boosters… it is perfectly acceptable to engage in SCAD.
If so the truth would surely soon have leaked as it did with the WTC in 2001?
The moon landings coincided with US peak oil (1970, for the lower 48 states). Overall the world was ~75% of the way up Hubbert’s peak. EROEI was still high.
The USA was desperate to prove its superpower status. The USSR had been the first country to send a man into space.
just what i’ve been saying all along
the apollo project was a vanity project—nothing more.
going off-earth has nothing to offer in material gain
the chinese may or may not do it—but it will not alter the vanity aspect
—and still no one answers—why 6 missions?—Fake one mission—just maybe.
But 6??–that really is taking vanity too far. The Americans havent been back to the moon because they can’t afford it. Nobody can, same applies to all the other space nonsense—it has no point, and just drains our fast-depleting resources even faster.
That does sound like a reasonable surmise. In 1969, inflation was already starting to become a problem, even though the peak in oil production was not hit for the lower 48 states until 1970.
journeys have 2 purposes
1—business–ie, you return with a profit over and above the cost of the journey itself
(and yes–that includes medical care, education, food shopping etc etc)
or 2—a holiday—where the journey is made just for the pleasure of going wherever.–ie you go because you can afford it.
if you can’t afford it, you stay home.–
if you can afford it, you go on a world cruise for your own pleasure, and to impress the neighbours.
If you can’t afford to make a journey, or if it’s impossible for you to make it, you can still pretend to make it. And you can still tell your friends you made it and send them fake “wish you were here” postcards, can’t you?
As a vanity project?
And especially if you happen to be a sociopath who lies as a default setting just to see how much you can get away with?
on your last paragraph tim—just who might you be referring to?
and yes, we had a guy here in uk who pretended to go to sea in a canoe, drowned and hid in the attic at home to claim the insurance (google it)
he was of course found out to be a consummate liar and fantasist (and career angry person)—which might also cross reference to your last paragraph
>you can still tell your friends you made it and send them fake “wish you were here” postcards<
No you can't, Tim. There are no postboxes on the moon, believe it or not.
And we had to go there 6 times to understand that there is nothing to do with the moon…
ahahahahah 😀
NASA, ultimately, is a job creation scheme for Ph D’s
it took a little while for reality to sink in
on your last paragraph tim—just who might you be referring to?
The guys in charge of the US military, political and financial system who made the decisions to spend zillions on projects such as Apollo or the Vietnam War.
neither of those ultimately made a ‘profit’ other than to rocket makers and weapons makers
so they were vanity projects
I see… so peak oil caused them to stop going to the moon… hahahahahaha…
Didn’t Jeff Bezos take a joy ride on a rocket into low orbit?
I don’t think a mission to the moon would make much or a dent in overall energy supply…
But hey – people believe the Rat Juice is safe and effective… so why not believe whatever you want… to each his own reality/delusion
PR advanced course — The Necessity of Feeding the DelusiSTANIS to Maintain Their False Realities
A Canadian?! What about Native Americans? Mexican Americans? Cuba Americans? Chinese Americans, Indian Americans? But no! A Canuck. Not even a Quebecois! There are three groups of naive Canadians not one is included. Talk about racist.
In fact, the world’s fleet of coal plants actually grew last year, according to a second report released Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor, which tracks energy projects around the world. That report found that coal capacity grew by 19.5 gigawatts in 2022—enough to power roughly 15 million homes—mostly because of new plants built by China and India. While the United States retired a record 13.5 gigawatts of coal power last year, China added 26.8 gigawatts and India added 3.5 gigawatts, with both countries planning to build more new plants this year.
China alone has approved nearly 100 gigawatts of additional coal power plants, an astonishing number in light of the most recent climate report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which warned that the next seven years may be humanity’s last chance to rapidly wind down fossil fuel use in order to stave off runaway global warming. Each gigawatt is the equivalent of installing more than 3 million solar panels or over 330 utility-scale wind turbines, says the U.S. Department of Energy.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07042023/earth-could-warm-3-degrees-if-nations-keep-building-coal-plants-new-research-warns/
Build it and there will be coal,
There is a limited part of the world who buys into the view of “We need to move away from coal.”
China has a lot of coal, but it is far from populated areas. The problem is getting the energy that is extracted from the coal back to populated areas. Trucking it using oil doesn’t really work. Building transmission lines and keeping them working is another option. The transmission line route seems to be the route China is taking. We will see if China can really scale up its renewable energy and its transmission lines as much as it would like. Also, whether it can keep the solar panels clean and the wind turbines operating in a dry, sandy part of the world.
thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/08/04/2023/qatar-to-build-two-more-880mw-solar-power-plants:
KSPP, one of the largest solar power plants in terms of size and capacity in the region, has a total capacity of 800 megawatts. It has been built on 10 square kilometres area in Al Kharsaah.
The plant includes more than 1,800,000 solar panels that utilise sun tracking technology to follow the movement of the sun to ensure the most efficient use of land and to maximise the daily production. The plant utilises robotic arms and treated water to clean the solar panels at night in order to enhance the plant’s production efficiency.
[As a news source from Qatar, I find thepeninsular.com much more readable than aljazeera, which being aimed at the West is too splattered with hair swishing wokesses, both visually and editorially. In contrast, being aimed at the Gulf, thepeninsular is the Al Thani family communicating to a local and generally better informed audience.]
Do they allow someone in a supermax to access internet?
Kind of a shame to give in and use technology after all of these years and his one-man crusade against it. Poor Ted. I think we can all agree that he was the real victim in all of this.