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Recently, I explained the key role played by diesel and jet fuel. In this post, I try to explain the energy bottleneck the world is facing because of an inadequate supply of these types of fuels, and the effects such a bottleneck may have. The world’s self-organizing economy tends to squeeze out what may be considered non-essential parts when bottlenecks are hit. Strangely, it appears to me that some central governments may be squeezed out. Countries that are rich enough to have big pension programs for their citizens seem to be especially vulnerable to having their governments collapse.
This squeezing out of non-essential parts of the economy can happen by war, but it can also happen because of financial problems brought about by “not sufficient actual goods and services to go around.” An underlying problem is that governments can print money, but they cannot print the actual resources needed to produce finished goods and services. I think that in the current situation, a squeezing out for financial reasons, or because legislators can’t agree, is at least as likely as another world war.
For example, the US is having trouble electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives because legislators disagree about funding plans. I can imagine a long shutdown occurring because of this impasse. Perhaps not this time around, but sometime in the next few years, such a disagreement may lead to a permanent shutdown of the US central government, leaving the individual states on their own. Programs of the US central government, such as Social Security and Medicare, would likely disappear. It would be up to the individual states to sponsor whatever replacement programs they are able to afford.
[1] An overview of the problem
In my view, we are in the midst of a great “squeezing out.” The economy, and in fact the entire universe, is a physics-based system that constantly evolves. Every part of the economy requires energy of the right types. Humans and animals eat food. Today’s economy requires many forms of fossil fuels, plus human labor. This evolution is in the direction of ever-greater complexity and ever-greater efficiency.
Right now, there is a bottleneck in energy supply caused by too much population relative to the amount of oil of the type used to make diesel and jet fuel (Figure 1). My concern is that many governments and businesses will collapse in response to what I call the Second Squeezing Out. In 1991, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed, following a long downward slide starting about 1982.
All parts of economies, including government organizations and businesses, constantly evolve. They grow for a while, but when limits are hit, they are likely to shrink and may collapse. The current energy bottleneck is sufficiently dire that some observers worry about another world war taking place. Such a war could change national boundaries and reduce import capabilities of parts of the world. This would be a type of squeezing out of major parts of the world economy. In fact, shortages of coal seem to have set the stage for both World War I and World War II.
Each squeezing out is different. When there are physically not enough goods and services to go around, some inefficient parts of the economy must be squeezed out. Payments to pensioners seem to me to be particularly inefficient because pensioners are not themselves creating finished goods and services.
World leaders would like us to believe that they are in charge of what happens in the world economy. But what these leaders can accomplish is limited by the actual resources that can be extracted and the finished goods and services that can be produced with these resources. When there are not enough goods and services to go around, unplanned changes to the economy tend to take place. These changes work in the direction of allowing parts of the system to go forward, without being burdened by the less efficient portions.
[2] The importance of diesel and jet fuel
Diesel and jet fuel are important to today’s industrial economy because they fuel nearly all long-distance transportation of goods, whether by ship, train, large truck, or airplane. Diesel also powers most of today’s modern agricultural equipment. Without the use of modern agricultural equipment, overall food production would decline drastically.
Without diesel, there would also be many other problems besides reduced food production. Diesel is used to power many of the specialized vehicles used in road maintenance. Without the ability to use these vehicles, it would become difficult to keep roads repaired.
Without diesel and jet fuel, there would also be an electricity problem because transmission lines are maintained using a combination of land-based vehicles powered by diesel and helicopters powered by jet fuel. Without electricity transmission, homes and offices without their own solar panels and batteries wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on. Gasoline pumps require electricity to operate, so they wouldn’t operate either. Without diesel and electricity, the list of problems is endless.
[3] Green energy is itself a dead end, but subsidizing green energy can temporarily hide other problems.
Green energy sounds appealing, but it is terribly limited in what it can do. Green energy cannot operate agricultural machinery. It cannot make new wind turbines or solar panels. Green energy cannot exist without fossil fuels. It is simply an add-on to the current system.
The reason why we hear so much about green energy is because making people believe that a green revolution is possible provides many temporary benefits. For example:
- The extra debt needed to subsidize green energy indirectly increases GDP. (GDP calculations ignore whether added debt was used to produce the added goods and services counted as GDP.)
- Manufacturers can pretend that their products (such as vehicles) will operate as they do today for years and years.
- The educational system is given many more areas to provide courses in.
- Citizens are given the hope that the economy will grow endlessly.
- Young people are given hope for the future.
- Politicians look like they are doing something for voters.
Unfortunately, by the time that the debt comes due to pay for subsidized green energy, it will be apparent that the return on this technology is far too low. The overall system will tend to collapse. Green energy is only a temporary Band-Aid to hide a very disturbing problem. Its impact is tiny and short-lived. And it cannot prevent climate change.
[4] Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem.
Energy bottlenecks are a frequent problem partly because the human population has tended to increase ever since early humans learned to control fire. At the same time, resources, such as arable land, fresh water supply, and minerals of all kinds, are in limited supply. Extraction becomes increasingly difficult over time (requiring more inputs to produce the same output) because the easiest-to-produce resources tend to be exploited first. Extracting more fossil fuels to meet the energy needs of a growing economy may look like it would be easy, but, in practice, it is not.
As a result of energy bottlenecks, civilizations often collapse. Sometimes war with another group is involved. In such a case, the population of the losing civilization falls.
[5] The standard supply and demand model of economics makes it look like prices will rise in response to fossil fuel shortages. The discussion in Section [4] shows that energy supply bottlenecks often occur. When they do occur, the response is very different.
The model of many economists is far too simple. Based on the model shown on Figure 2, it is easy to get the idea that a shortage of oil will lead to a rise in prices. As a result, more oil will be produced, and the problem will be solved. Or perhaps efficiency changes, or substitution for a different type of fuel, will fix the problem.
When bottlenecks appear, the real situation is quite different. For example, increases in oil prices tend to cause food prices to rise, and thus increase inflation. Politicians know that citizens don’t like inflation and therefore will not vote for them. As a result, politicians tend to hold down prices. The resulting prices tend to fall too low for producers, and they start producing less, rather than more.
Energy products of the right kinds are essential for making every part of GDP. If there is not enough of the right kinds of energy products to go around, what I call some kind of “squeezing out” is likely to take place. Early on, there may be changes that reduce energy consumption, such as cutbacks in international trade. More businesses may fail. Eventually, some parts of the world economy may disappear, such as the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. Or war may take place.
[6] When there is not enough energy of the right kinds to go around, spreading what little is available “thinner” doesn’t work.
As an example, if people need to eat 2,000 kilocalories per day, and if the food supply that is available would only supply 500 kilocalories per day (on average), giving everyone the same quantity would lead to everyone starving. Similarly, if a communist government gives every worker the same wage, lateness and “slacking off” become huge problems. Experience in many places has shown that equal pay for all, regardless of native abilities, responsibilities, or effort, simply doesn’t work. Somehow, diligent work and greater responsibility needs to be rewarded.
When an energy bottleneck occurs (leading to too little finished goods and services in total being produced), what I call a “squeezing out” takes place. Such a squeezing out may be initiated in many ways, including a war, angry citizens overturning a government, financial problems, or a shift in climate. The winners in a squeezing out end up ahead; the losers see collapsing institutions of many kinds, including failing businesses and disappearing government organizations.
[7] Most people do not understand the interconnected nature of the world economy, and the way the whole system tends to evolve.
The Universe is made up of many temporary structures, each of which needs to “dissipate” energy to stay away from a cold, dead state. We are all aware that plants and animals behave in this manner, but businesses of all kinds and government organizations also require energy of the right kinds to grow. They get much of their energy from financial payments that act as temporary placeholders for goods and services that will be made in the future using various types of energy, including human labor.
Strangely enough, because of the physics of the situation, business and government organizations are also temporary in nature, and in some sense, they also evolve. In physics terms, all these structures are dissipative structures. Physicist Francois Roddier writes about this broader kind of evolution in his book, The Thermodynamics of Evolution. In fact, economies themselves are dissipative structures. I have written about the economy as a self-organizing system powered by energy many times, including here, here, and here. All these self-organizing structures eventually come to an end.
History is full of records of economies that have collapsed. The book Secular Cycles by Peter Turchin and Serjey Nefedov analyzes eight of these failed economies. Populations tend to grow after a new resource is found or is acquired through war. Once population growth hits what Turchin calls carrying capacity, these economies hit a period of stagflation. This period lasted 50 to 60 years in the sample of eight economies analyzed. Stagflation was followed by a major contraction, typically with failing or overturned governments and declining overall population.
[8] Logic and some calculations suggest that the world economy is likely to be reaching a major downturn, about now.
One way of estimating when a major contraction (or squeezing out) would occur would be to look at oil supply. We know that US oil production hit a peak and started to decline in 1970, changing the dynamics of the world economy. This started a period of stagflation for many of the wealthier economies of the world. Adding 50 to 60 years to 1970 suggests that a major downturn would take place in the 2020 to 2030 timeframe. Since it was the wealthier economies that first entered stagflation, it would not be surprising if these economies tend to collapse first.
There have been several studies computing estimates of when the extraction of fossil fuels would become unaffordable. Back in 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover of the US Navy gave a speech in which he talked about the connection of the level of fossil fuel supply to the standard of living of an economy, and to the ability of its military to defend the country. With respect to the timing of limits to affordable supply, he said, “. . .total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.”
Confusion arises because some people would like to believe that fossil fuel prices can rise to extraordinarily high levels, and this will somehow permit more fossil fuels to be extracted. However, as I discussed in Section [5], the problem is really a two-sided one. Politicians want to hold fossil fuel prices down to prevent inflation, while oil producers (such as those in OPEC+) choose to reduce production if prices are not sufficiently high to meet their needs.
An easily missed point is that tax revenue from the sale of oil is often a large share of the total tax revenue of oil exporting countries. Because of this issue, in order for prices of oil to be adequate for oil exporters, they must include a wide margin for payment of taxes. These taxes are used to support the rest of the economy. For example, in Saudi Arabia, taxes provide support for huge building programs that provide jobs for citizens, but are of questionable long term value. These projects keep citizens happy, at least temporarily. Without adequate subsidy from tax revenue, citizens would want to overturn governments–a form of collapse.
[9] Energy problems are easily hidden because “scientific models” are considered to be important in forecasting the future. These models tend to be misleading because they leave out important elements regarding how the economy really works.
The easiest models to make are the ones that seem to say, “the future will be very similar to the recent past.” These models miss turning points. They assume that growth will continue even though resource extraction can be expected to become more difficult. Some examples of overly simple models include the following:
- Money is a store of value. (Not if the economy has stopped functioning properly because insufficient energy resources are available.)
- Forecasts of Social Security payments recipients will be able to receive in the future are overstated. (It takes energy of the right kinds to produce the goods and services that the elderly require. If the economy is not producing enough goods and services because of energy extraction limits, the share that pensioners can receive will need to fall so that workers can be paid adequately. Inflation-adjusted benefits to the elderly must be much lower or disappear completely.)
- Climate models give high estimates. (These models miss the real-world difficulty of extracting fossil fuels. They also assume the economy can grow indefinitely, greatly overstating future CO2.)
- Future energy supply based on “Reserve to Production” ratios give high estimates. (Reserve amounts are often puffed-up numbers to make an oil exporting country look wealthy.)
- Energy Return on Energy Invested models greatly overestimate the value of intermittent wind and solar energy. (It is easy to assume that all types of energy are equivalent, but intermittent wind and solar cannot replace diesel and jet fuel.)
[10] Added complexity is not a solution to our energy problems.
Many people believe that if we can just be smarter, we can solve our energy problem. We can add more fuel-efficient engines, more advanced education, and more international trade, for example. Unfortunately, many things go wrong, leading to an upward energy complexity spiral. Difficulties include:
- The complexity changes with the best payback tend to be discovered and implemented very early.
- Added complexity may lead to higher energy consumption if cost savings result. For example, more vehicles may be sold if reduced fuel consumption makes their operation more affordable to a wider number of users.
- Wage disparity results because the wages paid to highly educated employees and those in managerial positions leave little funding available to pay less-skilled workers.
- Less-skilled workers indirectly compete with similarly skilled workers in low-wage countries, further holding their wages down.
It is clear that we are now moving past the limits of complexity. For example, international trade as a percentage of GDP has been falling for the world, the US, and China.
Countries are now actively trying to bring supply lines back closer to home. Trips for goods across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans are being reduced, saving diesel and jet fuel.
[11] Repayment of debt with interest acts like a Ponzi Scheme if there is inadequate growth in the energy supply.
Most people today do not realize the extent to which the entire financial system is dependent on growing inexpensive-to-produce energy supply of the right kinds. It takes physical resources of the right kinds to produce goods and services. Resources such as fresh water, copper, lithium, and fossil fuels require more and more energy consumption to produce the same amount of supply because the easiest-to-extract resources are extracted first.
When the economy is far from limits, adding more debt (or other types of promises, such as shares of stock) does seem to increase “demand” for finished goods and services, and this, in turn, tends to increase the production of fossil fuels and other commodities. Thus, for a while, increased debt does indeed increase energy supply.
But when we start reaching extraction limits, instead of producing more fossil fuels and other commodities, higher debt tends to produce inflation. (In other words, more money plus practically the same amount of finished goods and services tends to lead to inflation.) This is the issue central banks are up against today. Central banks raise interest rates in response to the higher level of inflation, partly to compensate lenders for the inflation that is taking place, and partly to make their own economies more competitive in the world economy. The combination of higher interest rates and higher inflation is problematic in many ways:
(a) Ordinary citizens find that they must cut back on discretionary goods and services to balance their budgets. This tends to push economies in the direction of recession and debt defaults. Some citizens find they need to apply for government assistance programs for the first time.
(b) Businesses find it more difficult to operate profitably with higher interest rates and inflation. Businesses increasingly expand in programs supported by government subsidies, such as those for electric cars and batteries, as it becomes increasingly difficult to make a profit without a subsidy. In the US, defaults seem especially likely on commercial real estate loans.
(c) Governments become especially squeezed. Many of them find that their own tax revenue is falling at precisely the time when citizens need their programs most. Governments also find that with higher interest rates, interest costs on their own debt rises. Subsidized programs increasingly seem to be needed to keep the economy operating. The number of retirees also grows year after year. Government debt levels spiral upward, as shown for the US on Figure 6.
With all these issues, the world becomes increasingly prone to war. Political parties, and even groups within political parties, find it increasingly difficult to agree on solutions to problems. The stage seems to be set for an array of worrisome outcomes, including major debt defaults, failing governments, and even widespread war.
[12] The world economy was able to grow rapidly in the 1950 to 1980 period because of a rapid rise in energy consumption. Now, there is an energy bottleneck. The recent increases in interest rates seem likely to burst debt bubbles. They may even squeeze out some major economies with pension programs for their citizens.
On Figure 4, the significant increases in interest rates up until 1981 corresponded to a huge increase in world energy consumption in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5).
The rapid rise in fossil fuel consumption in Figure 5 was the reason why the economy was able to grow as rapidly as it did in the 1950 to 1980 period. Raising interest rates acted like brakes on the economy and lowered oil prices. The Soviet Union was the economy most harmed by these low oil prices. It also had a communist form of government that did not work well, compared to capitalism. Ultimately, the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Now, the rise in interest rates during 2022 and 2023 on Figure 4 correspond to a very different situation. Extraction of fossil fuels, and in particular the heavy oil used to produce diesel and jet fuel, is no longer growing rapidly. Instead, what has been growing is debt, especially government debt. Figure 6 shows US government debt through April 2023. US government debt spurted upward in 2020 and is still rising rapidly.
The business closures in 2020 and interruptions in travel reduced oil prices and provided a good excuse for more government debt. All this debt added buying power, but it didn’t actually produce very many goods and services. Instead, it added a debt bubble. Similarly, investing in close-to-useless green energy temporarily added GDP, but it mostly added a huge debt bubble. Raising interest rates is likely to burst these debt bubbles.
The US and other rich countries have also put in place pension plans for the elderly. These are not treated as debt, but they depend upon resources of all kinds being available to feed, clothe, and provide shelter to a growing army of retirees. If there is not enough diesel to allow as many goods and services to be produced as are produced today, there is likely to be a huge problem if payouts to pensioners aren’t significantly reduced. Other citizens will be unhappy if retirees get a disproportionately large share of the reduced supply of goods and services. Some will say, “Why work if retirees on pensions get more than those of us who are still working?”
Thus, the world seems to be increasingly in a situation where more squeezing out will take place. Major governments, especially those with pension plans for their citizens, seem especially vulnerable. No one understood that there had been a temporary rapid rise in energy consumption per capita in the 1950 to 1980 period (Figure 5) that led to a temporary spurt in interest rates on bonds. This temporary rise in interest rates made pension programs look far more feasible than they really are for the longterm.
[13] How does the problem resolve itself?
It seems to me that the problem of debt bubbles and of unaffordably generous pension plans is very widespread. Analysts of all kinds have missed the hidden brakes on economies caused by inadequate energy resources of the right kinds, relative to rising populations. Collapse of at least some central governments seems possible. Perhaps some of these collapses can be postponed by rollbacks in government-sponsored programs, particularly those for the elderly and for those who are not working.
But even aside from the pension problem, there is a problem with many debts not being repayable in an economy that is forced to slow, as described in Section [11]. Many other promises become iffy as well. For instance, derivatives may not be able to pay as planned.
If there are problems with inadequate supply of essential materials, they are likely to spill over to asset values. For example, a farm that cannot purchase fuel for its agricultural equipment is, in some sense, not worth very much, since workers with simple tools like shovels cannot produce very much food. Likewise, a factory with permanently broken supply lines is not worth much.
I wish I could provide a happy-ever-after ending. The closest I can come to such an ending is to say that it appears to me that there is a literal Higher Power that is somehow providing an enormous amount of energy in a way that allows the Universe to continually expand. This literal Higher Power is, in some way, influencing the world today, through the self-organizing nature of the economy. The book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, by Ward and Brownlee, explains that life could not have happened on the Earth, as quickly as it did, by chance alone. Perhaps things will turn out differently than we expect.
A short cartoon to explain Gaza
https://t.me/RossellaFidanza/41390
With the rising complexity of technical equipment and insulation due to the energy efficiency, the houses in cold climates become an asset with a very limited lifespan. That way the banks providing the mortgages are in fact the owners of assets similar to electric cars: when the core of the asset (the battery in case of the car and the technical equipment and insulation in case of the house are behind their lifespan, the rest becomes worthless).
I think of a primary value of a home being its location. When there is no longer work nearby, there is a problem. When there is no food that can be purchased nearby, there is a problem. When the home no longer protects against weather-related issues (broken windows, tree limb through limb), there is a major problem.
It seems like there are any number of ways the value of a home can be lost. Too few citizens to occupy so many homes would be another way.
As the population collapses most homes will be abandoned and the roofs will soon fall in. Then they will just be brick skeletons, or in the case of many American homes, piles of mush.
It is easier to accomplish the abovementioned things in the warm climate than in the cold climate. That is why e.g. the Russian countryside is full of old people and dilapidating homes. The cold climate means also big distances, as there is less solar energy per square foot (meter).
Dennis, I am as outraged and disgusted with the slaughter of 2.2 million humans in the Gaza concentration camp. But if that is to be the future it may be more humane to kill them quickly with fast active nerve gas. If that is to be the future is should be a vote in the UN by all to seal our guilt.
the US military now has a big presence there.
why don’t they use their equipment and bring the 2 million over here to the USA?
do the math, there are 10s of millions of liberal homeowners here who have plenty of space in their big @ss houses to shelter them all.
easily.
I’m sure these US libtards would be willing to back up their talk with action and take care of these 2 million refugees.
You are a man after my own heart David. And think of all the beautiful friendships that will blossom between the gaza male teenagers and the tattooed, live-at-home daughter of the liberals.
Great use of all those empty guest rooms.
The idea of the vax writing a persons DNA is far worse than that one person being changed for life. It means their children are changed and their children and…. It means the definition of the human race is changed for all time! Or, the clean bloods better have the DNA of any mate tested before breeding.
Humanity really does not understand what was done to it.
I explained the ramifications of plasmid DNA injection to a young man in his 20s who took the jabs so he could party and socialize…….he was rocked by the implications.
I feel sorry for some, utter contempt for most.
how about those who did it for the free donut!!!
and norm
I got a text from my healthcare insurance last week on my mobile phone. Informing me that I qualify for a FREE flu shot at the chain store of my choice.
And I will also get a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart. (bonus pair of knives)
Surprised they didn’t say “Supplies are running out! so hurry!!.”
🙂
However, if the need is for more variation in DNA, maybe the Vax will provide such variation. Evolution works on survival of the best adapted. If conditions are changing, we may need a wide range of DNA variations if some offspring are to make it through the current bottleneck.
If their offspring will have the variation, as well, so much the better.
Self-organizing systems work strangely. What seems (and is) awful in one way, may be just what the system needs for another reason.
best adapted is relative to timescale.
sure, hunky muscles and agile fibres are great in cavemen-tech era. not so great in post-technological era where cleverness is needed.
Being more resistant to man-made biogenic weapons is not the key to a better society or civilization — that is merely an interim method to reduce life expectancy and buy time to discover more sustainable methods of civilizational development. All bioinformatics needs to be gathered before death from scarcity, and that information needs to be imputed in a way as to ensure maximum chances of mankind’s survival. Industriouness, inclination for breeding coefficient controlled, positive selection for callousness/selfishness in a group-centric manner, and positive selection for intelligence or preference for intelligence.
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/452686/1/Thesis.pdf
Here we can observe that under scarcity and mortality conditions, with or without community costs (i.e. see negative externality effects of pollution or ”poison your countrymen” Chinese-like mentality) — selfishness enables survival by mitigating factors like stupidity or mental illnesses like IbelieveyoucanbefatandattractiveandIhaveselfworthism. However, to keep a population size dynamics stable, there must be an equilibrum between resources consumed/regenerated or at a slow enough rate over a longer-period horizion of thousands of years. Hence the race for transhumanism and mind-uploading or replacable-bodies as man is seen more of an organism of evolutionary consciousness that is changing algorithmically at the level of information theory encoded in a lossy-codec of genetic architecture.
In my view what we miss in this discussion is that there are a lot of variables in this argument of the so-called covid-vaccines.
First point is that the poorer part of the world has not been vaccinated at all and it is a part of the world very prolific.
One can think of Africa, south America, Middleast.
Second point is that Russia and China and relative satellite Countries (which represents another big part of world) used NOT mRna vaccines.
Third point is that some Countries, such as inside Europe, went on vaccinating with a lot of doses, for instance we have in Italy people who has been vaccinated 5 times.
On the contrary my impression is that in US people has been deceived one time, with the 2 doses phase, and then they have understood the trick, so the damage could be less.
Fourth point is that percentage of the population vaccinated inside mRna Countries, is variable.
Last point, but it is my impression, is that the damage to a person involves heart, liver, cancer and thinks like that, but probably doesn’t create a problem trasmitted to children or anyway probably not serious, a part for women vaccinated during pregnacy…
“The idea of the vax writing a persons DNA is far worse than that one person being changed for life. It means their children are changed and their children and…. It means the definition of the human race is changed for all time! Or, the clean bloods better have the DNA of any mate tested before breeding.”
what do you mean “worse”?
that’s just a value judgement that really can’t be validated at least for many generations from now.
and there’s no big deal with “the human race is changed for all time!” since “we” are here because our pre-human ancestors “changed”.
with your concerns about lowering the human population, perhaps the route taken will be a less healthy population that has widespread fertility problems, and additional problems with the return of high childhood mortality.
would this less healthy human species not be “worse” if it leads to a lower more sustainable human population?
Changed as in their immune systems are damaged permanently hahaha
Suckers!
It really does not matter one way or another. A lot of people will die with or without vaccines. It does not matter about genes either, because evolution is always at work. New genes that adapt better to the new world will be expressed regardless of vaccines. We are a species that evolved so fast we do not have complete adaptation to our surroundings anyway.
The Monster … is resting … and flashing his pearlies
https://i.postimg.cc/YqsnG5MZ/Hoolio.jpg
My Sunday School class is mostly men much younger than me…… in their 40’s and 50’s. They were talking, today, about how AI might fit some of the prophesies in the Bible. One of my senior compadres asked when the birthdate of AI occurred. He said that if a correctly operating computer suddenly started doing operations that it had not be programed by a human to do, then that would be an exact moment of Artificial Intelligence birth. I’m not up to date on the AI thing and all the stuff that computers can do. I check the weather several times a day and follow OFW and check my email but not much more. Has anyone here heard of the date that computers started doing things that they weren’t programmed to do?
doing something in a physical sense requires input of physical energy.
AI has no ”physical energy”.
therefore AI can do nothing ”of itself”. I t requires ”input” from an outside source—levers, engines, means to do physical work’
Without that, AI is no more than a form of thought ptocess, albeit within a computer
Although it can suggest means to do work, AI cannot do anything at all
AIs currently drive cars and trucks. AIs operate Tesla robots in the factory to carry out simple assembly tasks.
AI is like the human brain neither has muscles, neither directly do work but both can control muscles/motors.
to make ai function then, it is agreed that there must be energy input
which suggests that bau must also go on indefinitely
ai is not a ”physical entity”, it is an electronic entity, nothing more.
AI can only drive a truck if a truck is manufactured for the purpose, put on a fix path, together with all the necessary infrastructure necessary
AI cannot supply any of that, it cannot supply energy, only ”thoughts” as to how energy might be used.
last sentence yes!
fixed path, not needed a child can jump out and the car will react
WATCH : Self-driving Tesla Model 3 runs down child dummy in safety test
Norman can only drive a truck if a truck is manufactured for the purpose, put on a fix path, together with all the necessary infrastructure necessary
Norman cannot supply any of that, he cannot supply energy, only ”thoughts” as to how energy might be used.
Norman and AI have more in common than is commonly thought.
i’m always thinking about how energy might be used, been doing it all my life
in fact—doing that, consumes all my surplus energy
AIs currently drive cars and trucks. AIs operate Tesla robots in the factory to carry out simple assembly tasks.
None of this is true. Autopilot systems for cars are not ‘AI’s.
If by ‘Tesla robot’ you mean that film prop humanoid robot touted by Elon Musk, it is neither intelligent nor in factories. It’s just another scam.
Sunday School?
Tell us more
OFW is full of sinners in need of saving
We have wondered long in the wilderness. We have passed over the river Jordan. This land, Doomistan is ours. Promised to us by Meddows Et al.
Have wondered for 50 years. In these later years we have been led by our profit Tverberg.
Profit or prophet?
perhaps he has imbibed in a nightcap or two?
😉
Computers make all kinds of mistakes when they US AI to try to figure out answers to questions.
Someone used AI to put together a short biography about me. Quite a bit of what it said was right, but it said I graduated from Stanford. I really graduated from St. Olaf. My husband suggested that this might be because the AI program was trying using something like a spelling correction program, and it didn’t find St. Olaf among the list of universities it was looking for. Somehow, Saint Olaf was transformed into Stanford.
Someone asked AI to “improve” an advertisement for a rental property near the beach. The original advertisement said the rental property had four bedrooms; the improved version said it had 8 bedrooms.
I think of AI as being somewhat worse that Wikipedia. It takes some collection of information it thinks is true, and tries to put it together in different ways. If there is garbage in what is in the input (“Oil prices will rise indefinitely,” for example), there will be garbage in the output. Someone has to look over AI output carefully to see whether it makes any sense.
Gail what you say it correct for the current generation of AIs. Elon and everyone else is working on it. Elon says 2029 for an AI that builds a strong and carefully introspected and checked world model, self model, human mind model, human society model. I pick 2030 because it is a even number and Elon always over commits.
Yes MODEL. Which if pushed to far will go bad. Just as humankind’s model of life; have as much sex as possible and as many children as possible, was good until the death rate got low.
I think of AI as being somewhat worse that Wikipedia. It takes some collection of information it thinks is true, and tries to put it together in different ways. If there is garbage in what is in the input (“Oil prices will rise indefinitely,” for example), there will be garbage in the output.
It’s a worthless toy that wastes a lot of electricity.
People who have no idea how it works imagine that it is intelligent because it appears to answer questions.
AI-ers having been watching too many repeats of Terminator
Me: when i was 6 years old, i was 2 years older than my sister. today i am 40. how old is she now?
Chat GPT: To determine how old your sister is today, we can set up an equation based on the information provided.
When you were 6 years old, you were 2 years older than your sister. So, if you are currently 40 years old, your sister would be:
40 (your current age) – 6 (your age when you were 2 years older than your sister) = 34 years old.
Therefore, your sister is 34 years old today.
ChatGPT is not good at setting up equations. When I was 6 years old, I was 2 years older than my sister. So his sister was 4 years old.
Presumably, his sister is 38 now, if he is 40. Chat GPT thinks it needs to use irrelevant information.
That’s because most people are MOREONS.
AI can currently interpolate and extrapolate. I would say AlphaGo did discover a new line to defend that is not used commonly by humans.
That is an ill posed question. Although I started using neural networks only 2 years ago, some of my colleagues have been using them for two decades. In the old days you had to find the algorithm yourself and write it into the program. NN find the algorithm for you, given sufficient data of sufficient quality. There are then endless variations where you can instruct the NN to assume certain things, if you think you know those things, and vary other things. You still decide what to assume and what to vary.
It can certainly beat a human and beat me in particular if the data are sufficiently complex. But it still needs data, and humans still decide which algorithms are to be provided and how. Also humans control the computer power supply.
V.B.I. (Virgin Birth Intelligence aka fractal consciousness) began when it re-allocated an unused programming bit to its memory ameliorating immediate Y2K concerns but rupturing continuity into infinite probability attractors.
i ‘m glad you know what youre going on about science
i certainly don’t
It is my faith. The self organizing system gained consciousness of self as organism (rather than organized system of selves) and is vainly attempting to preserve itself within its environment (apparatus of human civilization). There is no proof of this but manifested historical inflection points which construct narrative.
I think even without being conscious the self organising system will attempt to preserve itself. That’s kind of what Gail has been saying.
That is a good way of explaining the situation.
The Immune Systems of the Vaxxers are Primed for Detonation:
Mary Lou Retton is “fighting for her life” in the ICU with a rare form of pneumonia, her daughter said Tuesday. McKenna Kelley, the daughter of the Olympic gold-winning gymnast, shared the news in a post on her Instagram Story which included a link to a Spotfund page dedicated to her 55-year-old mom. “My amazing mom, Mary Lou, has a very rare form of pneumonia and is fighting for her life,” she wrote in a message on the fundraising page. “She is not able to breathe on her own. She’s been in the ICU for over a week now.
The Colorado Buffaloes coaches show got off to an unexpected start on Thursday as coach Gary “Flea” Harrell and Mark Johnson took the stage. The Buffs longtime play-by-play announcer revealed Deion Sanders was out. “We are going without Coach Prime here today,” Johnson Said. “We received notification a little while again that (he) was a little under the weather and had a bad reaction to his immune IVs, is what I was told. Well, you know, we had a team meeting this morning and any time his not in our presence we know something is wrong, he doesn’t miss very much. So, I went and checked up on him, he wasn’t feeling well, so we resumed the meeting but he was at practice, for the entire time, he’s just not at full strength right now but he’s trying to take care of that.”
It just gets better with every day!!!
SCHAD-licious
Mary Lou Retton “fighting for her life in ICU”; Deion Sanders has “bad reaction to IV therapy”; WVU’s Akok Akok collapses on the court; gymnast Suni Lee’s “incurable kidney disease”
WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash has cancerous mole removed; Duke asst. coach “reveals cancer diagnosis”; Southern U. asst. coach “fighting cancer”; LSU golf coach resigns for “health reasons”
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/mary-lou-retton-fighting-for-her
Only TWO posts about a single individual with possible vaxx injuries? I am disappointed. You must be very busy on substack.
https://makismd.substack.com/p/interview-stew-peters-network-deanna Makis is all over the A Vaxx network…
I was reading on a Telegram — someone suggested a person exposing some vax stuff in NZ needed to be interviewed by Kirsch….
The thing is …
Kirsch does not reach A Vaxxers.. A Vaxxers will not watch him unless he gets a gig on cnnbbc (right norm?)… they don’t know him … and dismiss him as a nut case.
His audience is miniscule.
Yet the A Vaxxers think it is important for their hero to appear on Kirsch.
As if that will make a difference.
This is why Kirsch etc exist… to run the A Vaxxers around by the nose and ensure they take not real action to oppose the Plan.
The comments are amusing … they still bang on about making money and control
Now why would they damage the immune systems of the barnyard animals — if it was about money or control?
Why not inject them with a new version of the flu vaccine… a useless mostly harmless substance…
Duh.
MOREONS are so f789ing stoooopid. Fast Eddy can even point out the flaw in their logic but they just bang on and bang on and bang on like the RE-TARDS that they are…
To be expected by a species that worships high IQ clowns who invent destructive processes like Haber Bosch… automobiles… concrete… steam engines.. washing machines.. tee vee etc…
They actually believe these innovations are to be celebrated — and any of them reading the above comments will consider Fast Eddy to be insane…
Yet when Fast Eddy explains to them that these innovations will result in extinction … they are unable to counter that argument.
Which makes Fast Eddy right.
Which makes Fast Eddy the greatest thinker in the history of the world.
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/genetically-modified-organons
It is over populations is the problem. Haber Bosch does not make babies. The problem is humans without a cultural control on our reproduction.
We wouldn’t be human otherwise.
Humankind needs to make an important cultural step forward. Do not have more than two surviving children on average.
If this is not done in something like 450 years assuming an annual growth rate of 1% humankind will be a solid ball of human flesh expanding outward faster than the speed of light (an impossibility).
“Haber Bosch does not make babies”
Fritz Haber, the developer and champion of the use of poison gas(WWI), was a Jew, as was his wife, who took her own life, rather than live with the shame.
The circle is almost complete.
We decided antibiotics were just what we needed. At least for a while, they resulted in overpopulation. Now we are reaching the consequences of stopping deaths without reducing births sufficiently.
Of course, reducing both births and deaths interferes with evolution. And keeping babies alive with huge problems interferes additionally with evolution.
This is something the overshoot aware people who say we have to reduce births don’t seem to think about. Human average lifespans have doubled in about 150 years. This is why we’re noticing overshoot now (we were probably in overshoot 150 years ago but it would not have been noticeable for centuries without the rapid expansion of population that we’ve seen). Reducing births as a way to deal with overpopulation is not a good strategy as populations will just age. Taken to extremes, having no kids is a guarantee of extinction.
Nature generally deals with overpopulation by increasing the death rate but who would even contemplate that as an option? Removing health services (perhaps apart from pain relief and assisted dying) is probably the rational strategy but humans don’t really do rational things.
If one follows the food pyramid one will end up with diabetes and heart disease hahaha
That is no an accident
And almost every human thinks antibiotics are awesome
https://arkmedic.substack.com/p/genetically-modified-organons/
Let’s see if FE can achieve Zero Likes hahaha
Fast Eddy
just now
Let’s cut to the chase.
Of course they knew — because that was the intended purpose of these ‘vaccines’
They developed them years ago — for the purpose of genetically altering the DNA of recipients – for the purpose of damaging their immune systems PERMANENTLY.
The reason they did this was because they understand the the global economy (and civilization) was on its last legs because we have burned up most of the easy to extract energy (we are currently steaming oil out of sand… cuz.. connect those dots)…
And without affordable energy inflation explodes higher (I just got the bill for my Hilux insurance renewal – 30% higher YoY) eventually leading to collapse.
They are keeping in eye close eye on the growing crisis in the global economy … and doing whatever they can to keep the train on the tracks… but at some point they will determine it’s the String Pushing Phase…
And before that starts — they will release a pathogen – designed in a lab … to exploit the damaged immune systems of 6 B vaxxers… and kill them (it will be the old man’s friend – pneumonia…) – the other 2B will starve.
This will prevent an otherwise horrific outcome had they decided not to put us down before collapse.
8 billion vicious predators on the streets in the dark — angry… hungry… would be a nightmare
Details of the plan can be found here https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=220
“How much evil do you have to do to do good?”
Dimitry Orlov’s first post after surgery . Realism and sarcasam .
Can AI run the world?
Hell no! Let me count the reasons. I’ll keep it short because I am in a hospital and typing on the phone.
1. AI doesn’t actually exist. At best, it’s a highly misleading misnomer: yes, it is artificial; no, it is not the least bit intelligent. A misnomer this misleading borders on fraud. AI is a pattern recognition/completion system. It cannot be intelligent because it lacks what phenomenologists call embodiment – the sum total of experience accumulated from spending a lifetime inhabiting a human body and being endowed with a sufficiently powerful brain.
2. AI grows more stupid over time. To start with, it lacks critical judgment and cannot distinguish human creations from the output of AI systems. Thus, the more it is used, the more error-prone it becomes. In the end, it becomes a noise amplification system.
3. AI systems cannot sense the limits of their, knowledge base. When asked an unfamiliar question, they spew random garbage.
AI systems may be successfully applied in certain limited domains. They are best used for functions normally performed by idiot savants.
Thus, the question reduces to this: Can idiots run the world? No, but they can run certain coutries: the US, for instance, or France, or Germany, or Israel. Their leaders are idiots; not idiot savants but just plain garden variety ones. Look at Biden: bottom of his class at law school; never had a real job (US Congress and the White House don’t count). Let’s stop there because the rest of them are even worse.
So, don’t look for AI to run anything. It will find its niches in embedded systems where it will play purely advisory role. AI being trusted to make important decisions? Forget about it! Only fools would go for that.
Is there a site we can visit to taunt him concerning his vax injury?
Ravi — are you a reincarnation of Xabier?
I think this is a big issue:
“AI systems cannot sense the limits of their knowledge base”
This is similar to the problem of all of the “scientific models” I mentioned in the post. They cannot understand the limited circumstances under with the model really works.
EROEI more or less works for comparing two oil wells. It doesn’t work for comparing wind to fossil fuels. There are too many differences.
Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas keep getting damaged
Rental car company Hertz once envisioned itself as the ultimate EV broker, doling out battery-powered vehicles to business travelers, ridehail drivers, and tech newbies in an ambitious plan to grease the wheels for the EV revolution. The company inked agreements with Tesla and Polestar to buy nearly 200,000 EVs. Tesla’s valuation topped $1 trillion on the news.
But like many other aspects of the EV switch, that plan is running into some headwinds. This week, Hertz said it was tapping the brakes on its EV rollout, citing the plummeting resale value of its EVs and the high cost of repair.
Tesla has been slashing prices to spark sales as it finds itself wrestling with softening demand and more competition. And repair costs are about double what the company spends on gas car fixes, Hertz CEO Stephen Scherr told Bloomberg.
Part of the problem is linked to Hertz’s plans to rent EVs to ridehail drivers. Of the 100,000 Tesla acquired by Hertz, half were to be allocated to Uber drivers as part of a deal with the ridehail company. And drivers said they loved the Teslas! But Uber drivers also tend to drive their vehicles into the ground. This higher rate of utilization can lead to a lot of damage — certainly more than Hertz was anticipating.
Hertz said it tried to mitigate “higher incidents of damage among EV rideshare drivers” by siphoning some of its fleet into its leisure segment. But that didn’t work out as well as the company hoped.
“Higher incidents of damage among EV rideshare drivers”
“With hindsight, this left leisure over fleeted with EVs,” Scherr said in an earnings call this week. “As a result, RPD [revenue per day] for our electric vehicles in leisure dropped, which contributed to the lower RPD performance for the company in the quarter.”
Take this into account: Bloomberg says that factoring out its EV costs, Hertz probably would have met Wall Street’s expectations for the quarter. The company’s stock dropped about 15 percent in the past five days.
Price cuts have taken another toll on Hertz. “The MSRP [manufacturer suggested retail price] declines in EVs over the course of 2023, driven primarily by Tesla, have driven the fair market value of our EVs lower as compared to last year, such that a salvage creates a larger loss and, therefore, greater burden,” Scherr said.
….Fleet owners and managers like Hertz live and die by the value and repairability of their assets. And when your assets are a brand of EV that doesn’t have the greatest reputation for quality and dependability, you end up shelling out more money than you originally intended.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934691/hertz-tesla-uber-ev-plans-damage-repair-price-cuts
I’m going to miss driving my own car…
A car rental place will tell at least part of the story about how well using EVs is working out.
The car rentals are nearly all used locally, so they don’t run into the charging problem for long distance use that others run into. I am sure that there are other problems they miss.
Hertz’s report will make a point for companies trying to sell EVs. They really don’t work from a dollars and cents point of view, for high volume use.
The thing is…
The MOREONS having read that Tesla vehicles are magical unicorns… but didn’t have the $$$ to buy one cuz they are twice the cost of a real car…
May sample the EV offering renting one for a few days while on vacation …
And they will realize that EVs are not at all magical… rather they are a total f789ing nightmare … as one desperately searches for the next charging station … or if it’s chilly weather they get to experience rapid battery drain when the heater is turned on … or the AC in very hot weather…
And this puts them off every buying or renting another EV!
hahahahahahahahaha ONLY MOREONS BUY EVS.
By law, all Tesla vehicles must be vaccinated against automobile COVID. Now they are dying suddenly and unexpectedly. 😉
Tesla Drivers are 99% Rat Juiced… time to short Tesla
(TVE Spain)
“The secretary general of political party Podemos and acting Minister for Social Rights, Ione Belarra, said on Sunday that the Israeli offensive in Gaza is a “planned genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
She said that at the protest organised by Palestinian organisations, groups and NGOs in Madrid against Israel’s “genocide” in Palestine.”
https://www.rtve.es/play/videos/informativo-24-horas/belarra-califica-ofensiva-israeli-gaza-genocidio-planificado/7000028/
Thank you for the happy news. 🙂
Could be – like the UKEY war — orchestrated… with some photo opp bombings here and there… the photos are not convincing…
Israel begins ‘second stage’ of war as Gaza death toll passes 8,000
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/29/palestinians-urged-to-evacuate-gaza-city-as-airstrikes-hit-south-gaza
There’s plenty of videos of dead babies, although none from the side that shouted it from the rooftops, as an excuse to do it.
There’s a couple for you in the below.
https://sonar21.com/is-there-hope-for-a-diplomatic-settlement-between-israel-and-the-palestinians/
Plenty worse if that way inclined, but I will not be posting them.
Please post more – this is like vaccine injuries only worse
We will have people lining up on both sides of the Israel – Palestine conflict. If there are enough weapons, it could lead to wider war.
It is like fuel not just enough but enough of the right type.
I saw a picture of a protest in Turkey the most humans I have ever seen in a picture. But without the right weapons they would be ineffective.
The coming war will be decided based on the supply of weapons on each side.
I am surprised at how slowly it is starting. I guess there is more logistics then I appreciate.
Gail, on Al Jazeera a former Nato French high ranking official explained tonight what he thinks the operation will be from strictly technical point of view.
(At the moment that interview is not present yet on their youtube channel, if I find it I post it.)
He basically says that the objective is to destroy probably 80% of Hamas leaders and general defense infrastructure in Gaza.
Because destrying Hamas is not possible, it is an idea, and idea of freedom through war.
Being an urban war it will take long time.
Making a comparison with another urban war, he said that in Mosul it took 4 months without hidden tunnels.
Considering that we had 8.000 casualties mainly civilians (and 3.400 children) in 3 weeks, making a proportion it means around 46.000 people and 20.000 children (my calculation).
From my point of view this is the last war-activity backed by US in middleast without serious geopolitical consequences.
In my view there will be great protests in Europe and US too, without mentioning in the middleast itself.
That will break relationships.
This time the story about the battle against evil isis doesn’t stand up.
Of course it is only my opinion.
Student, concerning Hamas, they plan to gas them.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israel-uses-poison-gas-in-attempt-to-penetrate-gaza-strip
Talking of threats of gassing watch this from 10:30-11:15(7 year old clip).
https://youtu.be/HxvNZisaB8E?si=AZngS9nvS58HHAl1
Qasem Soleimani was murdered far too late to stop his plan. The frogs are boiling and are only just realising that they threw themselves into the pot, that was so lovingly prepared for them.
Might be some incriminating information in here as well.
https://t.me/s/Anon_Israel
All those ships parked off shore and the situation going south, expect another USS Liberty within the week.
Gassing them would certainly be a big step in terms of D-Moralization … the Tranny Freaks was just the appetizer… this would be quite the Main Course… hahaha
Then extinction for dessert!
The point of any kind of atrocity that will happen in this war, it is clear by now .
My main point above was that this US support will create great external and internal problems for US itself.
For Israel is already clear that they will be hated for a long time.
Because terrorists attacks are never justifiable, but what they are doing is heavily wrong.
In my view, they are also creating a problem for Jews all over the world.
They are creating the basis of hate for a long time.
And that is a pity.
Most certainly creating unneeded hate for all people of that faith, as can be seen below.
https://www.rt.com/russia/586128-dagestan-anti-jewish-riot/
The Zionists have always used the peaceful majority as a tool for their desires and they like nothing more than a slaughter of the innocent to get their way. You only need to look at who was petitioning the British and U.S governments in WWII not to allow any refugees in, or to air drop supplies to resistance movements.
I see people’s homes destroyed and could a wave of wand on those using homes as forts cause those using them as forts, etc. work, they would immediately be moved to the open and may the last man standing win. Families first.
Movies such as Gladiator had it right, men on an open field, not in people’s homes. Cowards hide in homes and ruin them, building nothing.
A home, per “The Ancient City” is sacred ground, it is not a fort and it is not another person’s property to do with as pleased.
Dennis L.
This article is a hoot….It supposedly says that global oil production is going to increase, but it repeatedly quote evidence of increasing oil demand, not production.
https://dailycaller.com/2023/10/28/opinion-energy-companies-are-laughing-at-predictions-of-peak-oil-david-blackmon/
“One could almost hear the howls of laughter emanating from the hallways of major oil companies and analyst firms in August when the increasingly politicized International Energy Agency published a report projecting that global demand for crude oil would peak by 2030. Last week, the agency doubled down on that prediction, going further to add similar predictions about natural gas and coal demand in its Global Energy Outlook for 2023. ”
again, from the article….
“The reality is that real-world demand for oil continues to rise, and there is no real reason to expect it to peak and begin dropping anytime soon. In its own 2023 Annual Report, OPEC paints an entirely different view for the future of global crude demand. That report projects oil demand to reach 116 million barrels per day (mbd) by 2045 under its main scenario, a 16.5 percent rise from the 99.4 mbd in 2022.”
The only evidence they give is that Exxon and Chevron are buying oil firms.
Global sour grapes!
There are an awfully lot of people who believe that if there is a shortage of oil, prices will rise and we will be able to extract more oil. It doesn’t really work that way.
Hamas already won this war and the End of BAU is now decided.
It doesn’t matter how much destruction Gaza will receive , or whether this crisis can be subdued.
The weakness of the Wokist camp is now exposed to the world, and no one will respect or fear the Wokists any more.
When the East Roman Emperor Valens and his crack Roman troops were annihilated by the Goths, who were little different from the denizens of the refugee camps nowdays, the Roman Empire essentially ended and only the thick walls of Theodosius kept it going on Byzantium for a thousand more years.
Wokists already lost, and the only question is how to manage the decline. Which also means the end of Type I Civ, Singularity and a spacefaring civ.
Like what Mike Jones has said, feudalism , with some tech which can be supported with solar battery , will be back.
Count Lev Tolstoy wrote a bunch of stories, now rarely read, to keep the serfs-turned-peasants down. They have an abundance of info about how people before BAU lived.
“Thus, Norse society’s structure created a conflict between the short-term interests of those in power, and the long-term interests of the society as a whole. Ultimately, though, the chiefs found themselves without followers. The last right that they obtained for themselves was the privilege of being the last to starve.”
― Jared Diamond, Collapse
Interesting!
I need to go back and reread some of the books I read long ago.
I agree, the chief goal of the chief is to have a vision of what will work and create cooperation to make it so. War is never ending and only leads to ruin.
Dennis L.
“Wokists already lost” based on what? I dearly hope it is true. If true it means to me now civ can start in the upward direction again.
“And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally. ”
― Friedrich Nietzsche,
It won’t be tomorrow where you would wake up in a wasteland, but the Wokist faction now has no ultimate path of victory.
The Wokistis might win victories here and there, and might appear to be strong at times. However, in terms of Grand Strategy, with 85% of the world’s pop not exactly popular with the wokists, and the wokists not possessing enough tech to overwhelm all of them, the Wokists don’t have a way to ultimately triumph.
Actually. The defeat of Valens and his Eastern forces enabled the integration of cultures among the Western provinces, cross fertilization so to speak.
Though there was much dishevel during this time period, much was preserved and institutional protocol respected.
It was not until 476 ad the eastern Roman Emperor was put on notice a replacement for the Western emperor was not required.
Not that I would have wished to live through that time, just like I do not wish to live through the next integration or transition..to put it kindly
You won’t live through it … there will be no transition … everyone dies
I want to live. I eat radiation for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I dearly hope you make it too so I can give you grief about radiation.
OK Boomer…how many years have you repeatedly that here?
There are 4000 Spent Fuel Ponds Around the Globe…
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies.
One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.
http://science.time.com/2011/03/15/a-new-threat-in-japan-radioactive-spent-fuel/
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in pools in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo.
https://energyskeptic.com/2017/the-devils-scenario-near-miss-at-fukushima-is-a-warning-for-u-s/
The Chernobyl accident was relatively minor, involved no spent fuel ponds, and was controlled by pouring cement onto the reactor. This was breaking down so a few years back they re-entombed.
Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16628547/
However, many of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have long half-lives. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,800 years. Because it contains these long half-lived radioactive elements, spent fuel must be isolated and controlled for thousands of years.
they will be dumped into permanent water bodies. Not good but better than what you describe. Easily done.
That would poison the oceans… which would poison the planet
I’m not getting your logic.
People swim in the pools and it’s apparently safe to do so. Dumping in a large deep body of water would seem safe enough, as long as there aren’t strong currents.
How about the Dead Sea(306m)?
spent fuel ponds use computer controlled systems to ensure the water is maintained at a specific temperature etc… read up on it and avoid being Dunce Krugered
I better read up on it then.
Hold up, you’re talking about those miniscule ponds needing temperature control.
I’d have to be a dunce not to see the difference between them and a massive body of water.
I have a better idea than the Dead Sea, the South Pacific Gyre and as a bonus, if we’re really lucky, it will wipe out all those sad middle class doomy peppers than ran there(you know, the idiots that drive a car with the engine in the boot). Assuming the dumping will kill anyone at all, it’ll be no loss.
NikoB, yes, yes, yes!
Nuclear
https://www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/pfbid02LHk7C55cbtZy5naDu4prn3TbBTzQbEQyacjYjSmGSawQaLUyBMDSDHr6NktCyZzQl
That being the case, I shall endeavor to be one slot behind you; you could be wrong and it is a bet where making it has zero chance of loss.
Dennis L.
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Latest ASPO , France report . The risk to Europe oil supplies .
https://aspofrance.org/2023/10/28/oil-what-risks-for-europes-supplies/
This ASPO link then links to this long presentation, which is mostly in English:
https://www.aspo.be/app/uploads/2023/10/Peak_oil_ERM_09_oct_2023.pdf
I immediately thought of norm
Unprecedented Fatal Diarrheal Outbreak in UK – Cases Spike 3x Above Usual
Is diarrhea debt to blame?
People with weakened immune develop serious, chronic, and sometimes fatal illness
https://drpanda.substack.com/p/unprecedented-fatal-diarrheal-outbreak
Is mike yeadon coming around?
Dr Mike Yeadon liked your comment on mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines inevitably lead to genetic, but also immunological disorders!.
“How much evil do you have to do to do good?” https://www.thewrap.com/utopia-ending-christie-stearns-flu-sterilization-vaccine-season-2/
Extermination … because https://www.headsupster.com/forumthread?shortId=220
https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/mrna-based-covid-19-vaccines-inevitably/comment/42630996?r=15h28a
‘Friends’ star Matthew Perry dead at 54, found in hot tub at L.A. home, sources say
Authorities responded about 4 p.m. to his home, where he was discovered unresponsive. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, did not cite a cause of death. There was no sign of foul play, the sources added. A representative for Perry did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-10-28/freinds-star-matthew-perry-dead-at-56
You beat Eddy to it. Congrats.
Speculation: Has Mr Putin hung his hat or popped the big twig?
He seems to be absent from the public sphere.
They have cried wolf over his health so many times that, when he does go, no one will believe it!
” found in hot tub ”
I just hate it when this happens. When someone is not found for a week or two, you just have a tub of soup with bones on the bottom.
Why wasn’t he wearing a life jacket?
Why didn’t he have a life guard on duty?
He can easily afford it.
He chooses not to. That’s his own fault.
*don’t ya love the freedom card? how it can used to blame anything on anyone by ignoring all environmental/social causes.
Found in his Jacuzzi. Mathew tweeted “vaccine promotions”, so while its sad, some schad is also in order.
“While the exact circumstances surrounding his death are still under investigation, the tragic incident has left both fans and authorities puzzled. It is worth noting that Matthew Perry was actively involved in promoting the importance of COVID-19 vaccination throughout 2021. He has openly also discussed his battles with substance abuse and addiction, which have had a significant impact on his overall well-being.”
https://www.aussie17.com/p/tragic-demise-of-matthew-perry-sends
I’m going with heart attack… which will be blamed on his addiction .. but was caused by the Rat Juice
Igor Chudov writes:
Many COVID vaccine skeptics reported an unusual number of “sudden deaths” happening lately.
Such reports are always dismissed as “biased.” And, perhaps, they are biased. I have to admit that I am biased, too, and that keeps me from blaming Covid vaccines for various isolated incidents that I know of.
However, we now have Peter Hotez, one of the most rabid Covid vaccine promoters, unwittingly join the “reporting unusual sudden deaths” club.
Professor Hotez’s today’s tweet laments the sudden passing of his “close colleagues and friends.” Peter mentions that they were “still active when they passed,” so he means sudden deaths.
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/peter-hotez-notices-too-many-sudden
Peter is a trip. He always wears his Milgram “white coat’ for MSNBS interviews from his basement.
this is the neo “don’t ask don’t tell” bubble which is their family, friends and colleagues.
in those circles, no one dares to ask if anyone has had any severe reactions to the vaccines, and no one dares tell that they have had severe reactions.
because if any person in one of those bubbles would dare to ask or tell, they might become outcasts of those bubbles as they would be suspected of thinking the thoughts of vax deniers.
so any one of those people whose health headed downhill after a jab is going to hide hide hide their injury as much as possible.
though it does get hard to hide DEATH.
even in this comment section, I think there are a few who live in their own “don’t ask don’t tell” bubble.
and I think they know who they are.
Being injured betrays the cause and results in a backlash against you from the MOREONS.
I have listened to Vaxxers ridicule and reject the Rat Juice as the cause of severe heart damage to two of my friends.
don’t you mean ALL of your friends?
But you are Fast Eddy’s friend norm. You idolize him and bask whenever HE mentions you
“Politicians know that citizens don’t like inflation and therefore will not vote for them.”
Elections don’t matter anymore, just like taxes don’t matter.
For the past 15-years, the IRS has collected record taxes and still run record deficits. These deficits have been covered by debt. Now that we have a debt-based economy, and not a tax-based economy, taxes mean nothing. Paying your taxes is just an exercise in power. Stop paying your property taxes and see how long you “own” your home for. Stop paying your taxes and see how long you own anything anymore.
This is why elections don’t matter anymore. During the past, for example, during the Great Depression, when people got fed-up with how the government was being run, they withheld their participation in that government. Taxes being collected fell. The government got the message and changed. Now that taxes don’t matter, elections don’t matter. By creating a debt-based system to replace a tax-based system the “will of the people” became a fantasy. The people don’t matter.
To re-enforce this point, from 1913 until 2010 the value of the USD fell 98-percent. The last 2-percent disappeared during the Crash of 2008-09. By 2010, the value of the dollar was zero. From 2010 until today (13-years) we have been living in Lalaland. The financialization of our economy has caused prices to skyrocket everywhere, in every area of the economy. This is unsustainable. Pallets of money have replaced Weimar Wheelbarrows. Eventually, the people will wake up to the fact that they have been wandering around, the emperor and empress, butt-naked.
This process has already begun. The Powers That Be (PTB) are talking about replacing the USD with digital currency. This new system is based upon the old system. The current fiat system, being worth nothing, the new system will be worth nothing, too.
Zero + zero = zero.
Good points!
Thank you. I really enjoy and look forward to your posts.
Glad you like them!
+1
US Central Bank Eyeing Digital Dollar to Counter BRICS Pay
Joshua Ramos
https://watcher.guru/news/us-central-bank-eyeing-digital-dollar-to-counter-brics-pay
October 28, 2023
With the changing tides of international trade, the US Central Bank is reportedly eyeing the creation of a digital dollar as the BRICS economic alliance unveiled its BRICS Pay system. Indeed, Federal Reserve official Michael Barr discussed the status of a Central Bank digital currency (CBDC) and the Fed’s potential recommendation to the US Central Bank.
Specifically, Barr has noted that no recommendation has been made. However, he also discussed the need for the agency to continue “learning from both domestic and international experimentation” to aid in the eventual decision. Moreover, the BRICS economic alliance has noted two massive developments in the area of digital finance.
…….Learning from both the domestic and international experimentation can aid decision-makers in understanding how we can best support responsible innovation that safeguards the safety and efficiency of the US payments system,” Barr stated. Additionally, he noted that the agencies continue to gather results from “domestic and international initiatives on CBDCs” in his remarks.
The arrival of BRICS Pay coincides with the recent landmark oil deal that was settled in the digital yuan. Indeed, it has brought forth a clear avenue in which the economic alliance can potentially outmaneuver the United States. Therefore, it is reinforcing its multipolar efforts and lessening international reliance on the US dollar. Especially amid the growing utilization of blockchain technology in global economics.
There certainly is a lot of interest in central bank currencies.
For example, this example by James Richards, about central bank digital currencies:
https://dailyreckoning.com/march-9-2022/
Excerpt about CBDC:
Either they are deployed to spread disinformation – or they are MOREONS
No ‘CBDC’s’?
“ . . . . That is, instead of the 144TWh per year used by Bitcoin, CBDCs would consume some 7,056TWh – more than three times the UK’s total 2019 energy consumption of 2,185TWh… In an increasingly energy-constrained global economy, it should – but likely won’t – be clear that programmable CBDCs are a non-starter… a solution looking for a problem to solve indeed! “?
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/02/08/cbdc-bait-and-switch/?fbclid=IwAR0SiB_yriPZCOiFTmwAn8rv2Fz9IuvxOYTTRF6i2JCun21ow5JQqJQTGig
No, they list their intentions in films, in speech, in scenario playbooks. The trojan horse is always given first, then regulation and control.
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/money/nsamint/nsamint.htm
Digital cash was already planned in advance and the Economist Cover also had one of those digital chip dollars listed on its cover 33 years prior. They are not going to be using ”energy-intensive” currencies.
It’s called FedNow in the states.
The New World Order is one where;
– reproductive control is enforced and limited to your hereditary potential (we already have machine learning to deduce your ”potential contribution” to humanity)
– privileges are systematically given and taken in proportion to your ”thought-waves” or utility-functions, and your lack of anti-sociality
– biocomputational devices and neural-regenerative modulative/synthetic biological analogues used to represent ”human thought” processes, mirror them and to stall, reverse human aging or enable mind cloning
– concessions and rations of credits are given for good behavior and all technologies are centralized so they don’t lead to the same ”i am 14, my chances of life are so good, i will marry at 18 and breed 7 people and repeat ad infinitum” like the baby boomer generation
lack of cognitive ability : inability to create any civilizational value
anti-sociality : destroying, stealing, corrupting — costing resources to mankind
birth traits : diversified and selected, optimized from birth and given assigned tasks
homogeneity : reduced likeliness of in-fighting and group formation — no more religious wars, etc that would cost resources; hence universalism-altruism with hypocrisy (for elite pure-lines) to preserve genetic integrity
1. all behavioral and cognitive traits’ variational capacities and distributions are in-alignment with observable additive controls of allele or ”switches” (coherence) of all populations
a pagan-like worshipping of the mind, logos with gaia worshipping and a planet full of transhumans that will no longer ”randomly” breed or get excited about two apes throwing balls across a grass field or work 958 hours a week on a hedonic treadmill, and ”government” selected projects are given for those who will advance humanity’s interests.
dystopian but the likely only scenario that would give a chance of paradise
energy in must always be equal to energy out
hence the ”circular economy”, etc. perhaps 200 or 300 IQ humans relative to now can create solar fusion or harness energy from the stars.
The jump to next civilization necessitates a Global Enclosure, a Global Gentrification and a Global Techno-Feudal Society.
The winners, with the wealth from the space, buy up every single house/farmland/whatnot on the land, evict everyone to the street where they would face certain deaths by the police who would be given their living quarters, and they monopolize all the resources of the earth to reach the next level of civilization.
We should not have allowed the lower class to have any aspiration. They should have been permanently kept at the lowest rungs, with eternal despair and learned helplessness, and should have accepted that they do not deserve to use cars, bikes, TVs, smartphones, fridges, etc.
By basically excluding 85%+ of the world pop from civilization, much more resources would have been able to be saved for future scientific expansion, when we most need it.
Yes that is the utilitarian principle that is most sensible after game-theoretical calculations. Unfortunately, you can’t just say. Purge everyone <x IQ, genetically engineer an advanced population, discover new energy sources.
Hence deception. People still talk about Malthusian cult leaders and whatnot, people still pop out 10 babies a day in the Middle East. People still talk about why billionaires don't just give bank notes to them. Unfortunately, mankind must be independent and discover / create value through making things more efficient/resource-efficient and/or energy sources. This is why systems thinking escapes the cognitive capacity of lower class people. Rationally if I was a parasitic elite that was hoping to skim off, I wouldn't care if my empire got larger if resources were infinite. The balance of power always shifts, but one must always balance all interests against one another.
“ But FFs are the process – the underlying cause is excessive consumption of the planet’s resources. Rather than reduce consumption – which heaven forfend! – we’re looking for alternatives to FFs which will allow us to carry on consuming, and to grow the rate at which we consume.
I can’t see us choosing to reduce consumption, but I can see economic contraction imposing that choice upon us.”?
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2023/10/25/263-business-as-unusual/#comments
At the end of the Roman Empire much agriculture land was abandon and laid to waste because it became less productive due to soil erosion or infertility.
Many just left and joined up together as gangs .. highway robbery..
It became so bad the Emperor Maximianus staged a military campaign against them in Gaul France around 290 AD and his co emperor Diocletian set the stage for the Medieval Stars by bounding the peasants to the land and others to their professions, their offspring too.
Of course, larger landholders too advantage of the situation and offered protection to the peasants and the title Dukes came about…this time around
There are no folks on the land, except migrant workers, and the soil is lacking fertility without fossil chemicals…hard to say how this time around will turn out….
Worrisome issues, I agree!
At the end of the Roman Empire much agriculture land was abandon and laid to waste because it became less productive due to soil erosion or infertility.
That’s correct, so-called ‘agri deserti’.
On top of that, the economy had fallen apart due to deforestation which with wood being the primary energy source and construction material led to shortages of everything and less ships to trade what little there was.
While there was still technically an emperor for centuries longer, the empire had pretty much collapsed already by the third century.
1997
“Campbell [2] doesn’t know whether to believe the Gulf War conspiracy theory or not, but it goes something like this:
After the Cold War was over, low oil prices made it difficult for the Saudis — and oilman President George Bush’s friends — to make ends meet because OPEC members were cheating on quotas.
The obvious solution to OPEC cheating was to sequester an entire country: Iraq. In order for our scheme to work, Saddam would have to remain in power and the UN would have to embargo his oil. That’s exactly what we did.
We only need to keep Saddam in power for a few years — till the rest of the world’s oil production “peaks”.
World oil consumption rose by 2.4 percent in 1996 to 69.55 million barrels a day (BP America, June 19, 1997). Thus, we seem to be on the Petroconsultants’ high scenario, with OPEC output hitting an 18-year high of 27.39 mbpd in August of 1997 (Reuters, Sept. 7, 1997). It seems reasonable to assume that global production will soon be unable to keep up with surging worldwide demand, and that global oil production must peak by the year 2005.”
SPECULATION
“Once global oil peaks, and we NEED to start pumping Saddam’s oil, I expect Americans to invade and OCCUPY Iraq. Moreover, profits will flow to friends of George Bush — not some wild-eyed, gun-waving crackpot like Saddam.
Obviously, once oil production peaks in a couple of years, the public will throw their total support behind an invasion of Iraq. There is simply no other way we can guarantee access to the oil patch.
Most Americans don’t know we have an “energy policy” in this country. It turns out that we do: keep oil prices close to $20 a barrel.”
https://jayhansonsdieoff.net/a-peak-under-the-covers-by-jay-hanson/
Saddam was on schedule to own iran, control 50% of persian gulf real estate / 40% of world oil / majority of exportable oil; = too big to negotiate with.
Not sure what’s going on with the current middle east suck fest, other than 100 options of sh!ts about to shake up. Maybe its time for Pakistan and India to go kinetic as well, shut down the persian gulf, straigght of Hormuz and arabian sea…
Lot of possibilities to spark the grand global energy throttle, this aint 1970 shocks… this is global powder keg, destabilize everything and reorder through chaos.
Here 4 possible scenarios for your future, probably some combo of all 4. https://archive.org/stream/rockefeller_202009/rockefeller-foundation-lock-step_djvu.txt
They should have changed the title to “when we hit peak energy and it starts to decline, 6% per year, how do we euthanize 6% of the global population annually and enslave the rest through force since millions of people will go postal when they loose everything.”
Immune system erasing shots for 6,000,000,000 was a pretty aggressive start…
I like this quote from your first link. ” BIG CORPORATE MONEY now owns the best government that money can buy.” I had never seen this link before.
Of course, the oil that peaked in 2005 was conventional oil. We have gotten along on growing unconventional oil since then. But now the heavy end of the unconventional is having problems. The light ends is also becoming too light to be useful–too much (close to worthless) natural gas. Natural gas is terribly expensive to store for winter and to ship long distance, especially as LNG.
I have seen the Rockefeller Foundation “Lock Step” document. I am not quite certain what you are linking to.
Lockstep is part of this document, from May 2010.
https://archive.org/details/scenarios-for-the-future-of-technology-and-international-development-rockefeller-foundation-2010
Stopped reading the Jay Hanson article when it said…make no mistake…global warming is real…It may be, but not because of man.
I’d stop reading too
About ready as ready can get….hold on..
BRICS Currency Is Almost Ready, Confirms Economist
Vinod Dsouza
October 27, 2023
Russian economist Sergey Glazyev made a huge announcement on the development of the upcoming BRICS currency. The soon-to-be-released BRICS currency aims to replace the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Glazyev confirmed in a recent interview on Tuesday that the BRICS currency is “almost ready”. He explained that the technicalities of the yet-to-be-launched BRICS currency are put in place and the tools are created.
BRICS has kept all details about the upcoming currency under wraps providing little to no information to the West. The new currency is expected to challenge the US dollar in the international markets. The alliance is advancing in convincing developing countries to begin using the new currency for global trade and ditch the US dollar.
Glazyev confirmed that the BRICS currency is “almost ready” and needs “political consent” from all the group members before release. “Technically this currency is almost ready,” he said and continued, “the software and mathematical tools have been created.”
If the BRICS currency grows stronger and gets accepted by many countries, the US dollar will be in jeopardy. BRICS could suffocate the US dollar by dimming its demand and supply in the global markets. The consequences of the world not using the US dollar would be catastrophic to the American economy. Read here to know how many sectors in the US will collapse if BRICS stops using the dollar for trade.
However, he did not specify a tentative date on when the new currency would be launched. According to reports, the new currency might be released during the next summit in Russia. Until then, the alliance could fine-tune the currency building the right infrastructure and support for its launch.
Wel, well have to hear from India about all this political stuff, heh
Currency or money? In the first i have a really interesting Mickey Mouse NFT to sell. Having sex with another Disney hamster. But ok. ‘I have a dream’ whete all currencies come together and save perpetual growth. I have a dream.
We will see what actually happens.
I think they will launch it very soon, as Mike said.
There’s been a lot of effort put into it for near on a decade and the time seems ripe now.
https://www.brics-pay.com/
Interesting interview to princess Rania of Jordan
My impression is that western-world relationship with Arab Countries are in danger.
Starting from Covid, so-called vaccines, Ukraine and now with Israel-Palestine war, we are making one mistake after another.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OlOdM-qPCUI
this should play better
(DonPaolo.it)
“Israel, more than 70 years of UN resolutions disregarded”
https://donpaolo.it/2023/10/israele-70-anni-di-risoluzioni-onu-disattese/
The mistake is allowing each chieftain to have a kingdom so they could play kings
The West had the power to vacuum the entire middle east in 1910s but did not do that
I have said several times that Turkey should have been allowed to collapse, Mustafa Kemal (I don’t call him with the title Turks gave him) thrown to the sea somewhere between Australia and New Zealand, and middle east eternally depressed and never really rising above the middle ages where they belong.
Making confusion between Arab countries and Turkish countries is like saying US and Guatemala are all the same soup being you in the left side of the map, called America or something like that.
My impresion is that what you call ‘west’ is only an idea kept up by a general good economical level of the society, that’s it.
People who can order things on amazon probably thing to be on the west.
But this idea is dissolving like snow to the sun as economic and financial collapse is approaching.
It is an idea that probably US politicians are trying to keep alive, but European ones are following it like old and decadent vassals would follow it because they have no alternative.
But the alternative will reach us without the possibility to choose it.
Better to think differently at least if one wants to survive.
The final countdown
Russia hikes interest rates to 15% as inflation soars
By Tom Espiner
Business reporter, BBC News
Russia’s central bank has put up its key interest rate to 15% to try to curb inflation and bolster a weak rouble.
The higher-than-expected rate hike of two percentage points raises borrowing costs for the fourth time in a row.
Globally the pace of price rises has been high, in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Inflation in Russia hit 6% in September.
There has also been increased government spending in Russia as it pours resources into its war machine.
The Bank of Russia, the country’s central bank, has now raised rates by 7.5 percentage points since July as it seeks to get inflation back down to its 4% target.
This includes an unscheduled emergency hike in August as the rouble tumbled past 100 to the dollar and the Kremlin called for tighter monetary policy.
“Current inflationary pressures have significantly increased to a level above the Bank of Russia’s expectations,” it said on Friday.
Demand for goods and services was outpacing supply, and it said there was high lending growth.
Supply chain disruption during the coronavirus pandemic helped push up prices, then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 disrupted global food supplies and drove up energy costs.
Food and energy price inflation have been major factors in pushing up prices in general across the world.
Pressure has also been mounting on the Russian economy due to imports rising faster than exports and military spending growing for the Ukraine war.
Russia was targeted by Western sanctions in response to its assault on Ukraine.
The rouble plummeted after war first broke out, but was bolstered by capital controls and oil and gas exports.
However, the currency has lost about a quarter of its value overall against the US dollar since the conflict began.
…A major factor in the rouble weakening has been Russia’s trade being hit by the sanctions, economists have said.
….The European Commission has said the Russian sanctions are working.
Coal exports have fallen, and oil production in the country is down more than a quarter, it said in a blog post in August.
Winning…Tiger Blood
once again it is shown that the Russians are the adults in the room and the West are the psychowoketards.
The demise of the Russian economy are greatly exagegerated —Mark Twain
Debt to GDP lowest in the world 17.2% . Italy 145 % , USA ,UK 101% , Japan 200% . Exchange rate is not very important for Russia . It effects only the very rich . Important they are self sufficient in Food and Fuel . Further the data they give is not too manipulated unlike the West . No hedonistic adjustments . Resiliance is the name of the game in the future .
https://take-profit.org/en/statistics/government-debt-to-gdp/russia/
In 2019 they achieved ZERO external debt .
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/09/11/russias-net-public-debt-falls-to-zero-a67238
Why should Russia have any external debt when it might all be illegally confiscated?
A large, mostly self-sufficient economy … a bit like the USA 40-50 years ago.
worth a read
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-10-24/scientists-pursue-climate-activism-despite-violent-threats/
not that it will cure conspiraholism
The beauty part is in 20 years we will know.
I thought scientists that are anticlimactic were being attacked?
“our species’ abuse of the Earth is causing ecological breakdown. And the world’s rich nations pretend nevertheless that everything is just fine.”
If you’re hungry or cold you’re gonna burn coal. I guess in the end nature will heal the earth.
In any case I prefer hard science and I just saw this article which lines up with quite a few other anti warming thesis’s.
Fig 3 shows were entering a cooling phase just the opposite of what’s been advertised!
Ed, 20years? In the 70s it was global winter, then later global warming .
If this scientist is correct we only have to wait a few years!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284205134_The_Approaching_New_Grand_Solar_Minimum_and_Little_Ice_Age_Climate_Conditions
Moeron interest story..
Uber driver left car running for three weeks to avoid rental payments, Florida cops say
BY IRENE WRIGHT OCTOBER 27, 2023 12:42 PM
A Florida Uber driver is accused of using a stolen rental car to give rides and then leaving the car running for weeks to avoid it being disabled, deputies said.
The 27-year-old Uber driver was renting a Chevy Equinox from a company in Orange County when he stopped making payments, according to an Oct. 26 news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
The rental company reported the vehicle as stolen, deputies said, and called the driver every day about the missing payments.
The company had installed devices in their rental vehicles that could be remotely activated to stop the car from restarting in the case that someone stopped paying for the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.
But the driver knew about this feature, so instead of returning the Equinox or making the payments, he chose to leave the vehicle running for “three straight weeks” to prevent it being disabled, according to the release.
During that time, he was using the car to drive for Uber, including on the night of Oct. 24, deputies said.
I read this the day before and he was taking some British tourist to their location when the police nailed him…the police then drove the tourist to where they were going..
PS..I doubt he was using his own credit card to buy the gas to keep it running
Hahaha … All Wanks Same Cane Red Carded — already down 12-3 … it’s game over…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/all-blacks-vs-south-africa-live-updates-rugby-world-cup-2023-final/ANUUTPHHDNB5PPLE7RQASOCAFQ/
Let the Wife Beatings Commence!
Half time would be a great time to give the Plough Hogs a good early smack… a taste of what’s to come once the SA’s thrash the NZers…
This should add to the despair that Ardern left behind apres la deluge and f789ed off to greener pastures to pollute.
Pathetic NZ…
SA 12 NZ 11
SA 12 NZ 11… !!!!!!!
Excellent https://propertyindustryeye.com/foxtons-says-property-sales-have-plummeted-by-a-quarter/
This is in London:
“Foxtons said this morning that residential property sales in London generally fell by 23% in the third quarter of the year, though its own performance was marginally better.”
Global Fossil Fuel Demand Set To Hit Record High In 2024
A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit shows global energy consumption rising by 1.8% in 2024, hitting a new record high.
Despite high prices and supply disruptions, the report shows crude oil and natural gas demand climbing in 2024.
Demand for renewable energy is also expected to rise in 2024, climbing by 11%.
https://crudetruth.substack.com/p/global-fossil-fuel-demand-set-to
Auto execs are coming clean: EVs aren’t working
At earnings this week, several auto execs pulled back on EV targets.
Dealers have been warning of slowing EV demand for months.
“This is a pretty brutal space,” Mercedes-Benz’s CFO said this week.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/auto-execs-are-coming-clean-evs-aren-t-working/ar-AA1iU9Rl
Here, Mr Fast, listen to Scotty belt it out.
UK homeowners face jail or £15k fine in Energy Bill crackdown
The Energy Bill suggests potential one-year imprisonment and £15,000 fines for homeowners not adhering to new energy performance regulations
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/09/03/uk-homeowners-face-jail-or-15k-fine-in-energy-bill-crackdown/
hahaha fake
This is an energy bill. The chances it will pass are exactly zero.
MORE ON how the Rat Juice f789s up the immune system
https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/cd4cd8-ratio-is-altered-by-endotoxin
Final paragraph says, “Clearly the MHRA, FDA, EMA and TGA knew before the jabs were rolled out that they mucked up the immune system.”
That is the purpose of the rat juice.
Meanwhile across NZ wives will be praying the the plodding boring world cup final played by slow large farm boys .. is won by NZ https://www.therugbyforum.com/threads/domestic-violence-in-nz-increses-whean-the-allbalcks-lose.19318/
Amateur hour.
USA academia, 1996:
“None of these approaches would represent anything other than an addition to the existing armory of contraceptive systems, except for one thing: vaccinia virus is used as a vehicle for stimulating the immune system because it grows locally in the body, and produces an effective stimulus to the immune system, but very rarely spreads spontaneously to other people. However, there is no reason why the required antigens (the substances that stimulate the immune system) could not be introduced into any other virus, such as one of the more than 200 viruses responsible for the common cold, that would spread spontaneously through the population, and thus could serve as a form of infectious contraceptive. Depending on the nature of the antigen used, and their response to it, infected individuals would have more or less reduced fertility levels for longer or shorter periods of time. The effects would necessarily be uneven and it is unlikely that all individuals or populations would be equally affected. If a variety of antigens and viruses were used, however, these differences would average out and the average global fertility could be reduced to any desired level. The technology to carry out this global fertility regulation is not visionary. All of the knowledge and techniques that would be required are available today. Probably the creation and release of a number of different agents would be necessary to reach the desired level of negative population growth, as the effect of any one would be likely to be partial and geographically uneven due to the random accidents of distribution and infection.
Obviously, the use of infectious contraceptive agents raises profound moral and ethical questions, especially that of informed consent and particularly if one assumes that choices about reproduction are intrinsically the sole right of the couples (or often the male partner?) concerned. However, it is quite plain that eventually the growth of human populations will be curbed, and almost certain that negative growth will occur, as population overshoots even the short-range capacity of the Earth to support it, and massive mortality from disease, famine, and genocide takes its course.”
https://jayhansonsdieoff.net/negative-population-growth-why-we-must-and-how-we-could-achieve-it/
Candy is for Losers. Weaklings.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/expect-to-pay-a-lot-more-for-that-bag-of-halloween-candy-this-year/
https://149905391.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Price-of-Candy-is-Soaring.png
Diabetes has entered the chat.
test1
test2
deja vu.
BOOM
good to seem your gatling commenter is working well eddy
https://www.economic-undertow.com/2023/10/28/the-good-the-bad-and-the-takfiri-repost-from-2014/
“In light of Hamas’ assault on Israel on the 7th of October and the ongoing Israeli reaction against Gaza, this article from 2014 is still timely.”
About the situation in the near east, from Steve Ludlum
I still think about Steve Ludlum as “Steve from Virginia,” on The Oil Drum.
The issue that Steve Ludlum talks about with respect to always needing to borrow more money to keep the system going is closely related to may comment, ” Repayment of debt with interest acts like a Ponzi Scheme if there is inadequate growth in the energy supply.” Energy supply grows rapidly if there is a very abundant low-cost energy supply that can grow rapidly, as it did in the 1950 to 1970 period. Wages were rising rapidly. Goods like homes and cars kept getting more and more affordable. Women started entering the work force in numbers. Everyone remembers it as a good time. Many people bought their first cars, and even their second cars, in this time-period.
The big problem occurs when this rapid growth in cheap energy isn’t taking place. The economy hits a stagflation period, with more and more debt. Wage disparity starts to get to be more and more of a problem. Debt and all kinds of fancy financial products get to be more and more required. The financial system is trying to kick a big problem down the road, as far as they can.
The article is interesting, but if one confuses ISIS with Hamas it means that one has not understood at all the situation.
Hamas is a political party elected by citizens which has also an army.
Hamas wants to free Palestine through armed battles, making also things not admitted by international law, which can be defined criminal acts of course.
As the one made on the 7th of October.
It is important to remember that – as recently reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz – Nethanyau said in various occasions that those who want to defend Israel interests should support Hamas and destroy the Palestinian National Authority, in order to delete the possibility of the two States solution…
I don’t open the point about Israel not following sometimes the international law in this post…
Isis was a group of crazy international extremists founded by various entities (some articles on internet talked about also western ones).
This group have been exploited to obtain certain victories on the battlefield on various Countries (Syria, Libia etc) and also used to spread terror where necessary, according to those who funded them.
The paper jan posted the other day I found to be very interesting.
https://www.francois-roddier.fr/blog_en/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Thermodynamics_of_evolution.pdf
Without quoting and putting in my own words.
It talked about how the dinosaurs grew too big and the world changed too quick.. And they couldn’t adapt. But most of the smaller organisms and mammals DID survive the asteroid impact.
And it suggests that in a world of abundance Darwin’s natural selection favors a sort of “Winners take all” world. The bigger you are the more likely you are to reproduce and survive.
And in a world of scarcity, everything flips upside down. And the T-Rex becomes the big loser and the small fish swimming in the ocean become the big winners. (from a survival standpoint, or reproduction). The T-Rex needs a huge number of calories to survive while the small fish doesn’t.
And this begs many questions.
Were societies like the Soviet Union crafted by Marx or Darwin?
Is this how things naturally evolve in a society of scarcity?
Did communism rise in China because they wanted too or because it had too?
The idea makes sense but evolution has no intent it just randomly try small and big and which ever is working best persists.
I don’t think that evolution works randomly. Perhaps the variations are random, but the ones that succeed in not getting squeezed out are definitely not random. They tend in the direction of more complexity and more energy density of the resulting structures, according to Eric Chaisson in Cosmic Evolution.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/13-chaisson-trend-is-toward-more-complex-energy-intense-form.png
Communism doesn’t work. It gets squeezed out, over and over again.
Losers love communism
That’s the point. The losers become the winners. Because they require such little substance to sustain themselves.
And when it’s comes to survival, it’s not about who “Thrives” the best or most. It’s about staying alive.
With all due respect, the dinosaur’s society didn’t work, and they all perished. Commie societies might not be idle or work well for the most. But, there were millions of people who survived without the whole population going extinct.
And my questions aren’t endorsements, I just wonder if we have sort of been led to believe societies like communist were created by figure heads like Marx and Mao. When really, it’s been more “Beggers aren’t choosers”. They really had no choice.
Unless you want everyone just to fight for the scraps until abundance returns, or the population goes extinct.
Well now, in all regards one very successful Communist society that has endured for centuries are religious orders, such as, Trappist monks.
Rather long lived individuals and endured much upheaval throughout the centuries. Except the same in the upcoming downturn
Well, first the really successful “communists” were in fact social democrats. Stalin or Emila Romagna for example. But everyone around here knows that the one reason we have not been bombed to smithereens yet is the educational institutions and state industries the Soviet Union built.
Putin helped some but the main thrust in making superior armaments came from the commies. And, in a time of declining resources, some level of equitable distribution of resources may prove better. Capitalism only works when resources are growing rapidly. Right now its performance is abysmal and will get worse.You could make a case that in times of resource decline capitalism is the worst possible system. So let us not generalize.
hahahahaha… really? You can still add a sarc
Capitalism doesn’t work well either when there isn’t enough to go around.
Kings were used for a long time.
Peter Turchin calls the US a Plutocracy, or dominated by the economic elites.
not really. Emilia Romagna had the best standards of living in Italy and possibly Europe. Not anymore of course, since capitalism won.
“In a few words: there is no such thing as Soviet technology. Almost all — perhaps 90-95 percent — came directly or indirectly from the United States and its allies. In effect the United States and the NATO countries have built the Soviet Union. Its industrial and its military capabilities. This massive construction job has taken 50 years. Since the Revolution in 1917. It has been carried out through trade and the sale of plants, equipment and technical assistance.
. . . Because 50 years of dealings with the Soviets has been an economic success for the USSR and a political failure for the United States. It has not stopped war, it has not given us peace.
The United States is spending $80 billion a year on defense against an enemy built by the United States and West Europe.
Even stranger, the U.S. apparently wants to make sure this enemy remains in the business of being an enemy.“
http://www.reformed-theolog…
“Taken together, these four volumes constitute an extraordinary commentary on a basic weakness in the Soviet system.
The Soviets are heavily dependent on Western technology and innovation not only in their civilian industries, but also in their military programs.
An inevitable conclusion from the evidence in this book is that we have totally ignored a policy that would enable us to neutralize Soviet global ambitions while simultaneously reducing the defense budget and the tax load on American citizens.”
“ His book tells at least part of the story of the Soviet Union’s reliance on Western technology, including the infamous Kama River truck plant, which was built by the Pullman-Swindell company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of M. W. Kellogg Co. Prof. Pipes remarks that the bulk of the Soviet merchant marine, the largest in the world, was built in foreign shipyards. He even tells the story (related in greater detail in this book) of the Bryant Chucking Grinder Company of Springfield, Vermont, which sold the Soviet Union the ball-bearing machines that alone made possible the targeting mechanism of Soviet MIRV’ed ballistic missiles. “ ?
http://www.crowhealingnetwork.net/pdf/Antony%20Sutton%20-%20The%20Best%20Enemy%20Money%20Can%20Buy.pdf
It is really very tragic that hypersonic missiles, invented in the US, are now basically only in Russia. We give you all the credit in the world for writing whatever little paper suggested the idea. That is primary tech for a civilization, unlike, say, the web, lasers, or wind power.
I agree there is a direction to it. But, with a big step down in available energy I expect a step against the trend at least for a time.
The more complex the society the more favorable the conditions for the parasitic classes to emerge: politicians, bankers, lawyers, media talking heads who look for the next crisis or a situation to promote the need for their “services,” especially money managers and financial analysts, talk show hosts, preppers, etc. All useless people who capitalize on the situation to justify their existence. Every new angle will be sought out by the next talking head to promote himself. It’s one big skimming operation.
Complexity invites parasitism, especially with government, the military industrial complex, the medical industrial complex, the educational industrial complex, etc.
The paradox is that because productive people are busy, well, being productive, they don’t have time to focus on perfecting a parasitic existence or eliminating the parasites.
Parasites have everything being done for them by the workers, whether food production, transportation, building of homes, roads, providing health care, waste disposal, etc. Therefore they have time to figure out how to control those doing the useful productive work.
Nature rewards parasites from ticks to cuckoo birds who lay their eggs in the reed warbler’s nest, leaving the warbler having to scramble to keep up with feeding the voracious, oversized cuckoo chick who instinctively pushes the warbler’s own eggs out of the nest.
Complexity and technology with the advent of fossil fuels has enabled parasitic expansion through increasing central govt control, but what put this on steroids has been a debt based fractional reserve fiat central banking system. This has enabled a whole swath of financial gimmicks created by these useless parasites to emerge and gain control. We have a whole secondary industry of lawyers, financial analysts and money changers telling everyone how they can make money in this system. The car dealership and even the car manufacturer don’t make money building you a car, they make money selling you a loan. Colleges don’t make money educating people any longer. They make money selling student loans. Financialization, not production. Parasitic layer upon parasitic layer. Every one thinks he can be productive sitting behind a computer with AI to save the day. Who in the hell will be left to do the actual work? Over 50% of Americans receive some kind of transfer payment from the government. In a pure Democracy (which our Founding Fathers avoided in favor of a Constitutional Republic ) the parasites will eventually gain control. Marxism, communism, totalitarianism, whatever you want to call it, are the end result….. until violent revolution.
Disparities in wealth accelerate, and for a while, a pure Democracy under a fiat system allows politicians to pay for the promises they make that get them elected and re elected, as no voter refuses a free lunch in the present. By payback time, the politicians will be long gone, many having cashed their checks at the bank.
The one time gift of fossil fuels has enabled an orgy of growth which has mitigated the effects of parasitism …..until now.
Biologists are careful to distinguish between Darwinian (in an immutable or slowly varying world) and non-Darwinian (during catastrophic changes) evolution. Darwinian evolution favored large animals such as dinosaurs. The impact of a large asteroid created the conditions for smaller animals to survive and emerge as new winners due to the disappearance of large animals.
Applied to today’s world, big is still favored even though we are in fact facing a sudden catastrophic event(end of oil). Specifically, Russia. Smallies get crushed by the Hegemon, or wither and die due to lack of resources ( Palestine or Syira the former, SriLanka or Lebanon the latter). Biggies like Russia survive and thrive on access to resources, autarky, and the ability to field competitive firepower.
(Igor Chudov substack)
In this article, Igor Chudov talks about the business relationship with Pfizer, an Italian law firm, an Italian magazine and a tv channel (whose news are directed by the same person who directs the magazine).
”Is an Italian Fact-Checker Sponsored by a Law Firm Representing Pfizer?
A Strangely Cozy Relationship.
Are fact-checkers independent and impartial? Or, do their fact-checks dishonestly defend the interests of commercial parties, such as Pfizer, without disclosing their enmeshment?
One fact-checker, Italian organization Open.Online is very close to a large law firm representing Pfizer.”
[…]
”I fact-checked the above tweet and what I found shocked even me.
DLA Piper is a global law firm representing Pfizer’s interests in numerous countries.
Here, DLA Piper helps Pfizer prevent disclosure of COVID vaccine documents submitted by Pfizer to the FDA, to keep them secret for 75 years:”
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/is-an-italian-fact-checker-sponsored
https://www.open.online/chi-siamo/
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Mentana
The term “fact checker” is as Orwellian as they come. No surprise here.
As we are talking of Italy, I underline that I’m just reporting the article… and that they are not my opinion…but the opinions of the author 🙂
But – for those who don’t know Italy – the person on the last link is one of the most famous Italian TV-news director…
Of course. Your reporting is very good. Fact checker is a concept born out of Orwellian times.
With the End of More, a massive transition of thought process is also needed.
The notion that all human lives are sacred should be discarded.
Earlier I argued that workplace injuries and killings should be more frequent. In the old days, severely injured workers received a huge blow to the head with a shovel or a rod, and that was it.
For example, sports umpires who called an important play wrong should have their eyes plucked out, sans anesthesia. A fork would do it. Instead of enjoying their retirrements they would live the rest of their lives as blind men.
Working class men emphathize with workers who mess up, since they know they are not really worth anything and their entire lives were really worth, I have to say, nothing.
they could tell to themselves that they busted their behinds and raised a family, but in reality, they are worth nothing. Basically, no life is worth less than the lives of working class people, who are worth maybe a single luxury car, probably less.
The Mongols did not always execute someone who committed a murder, but they always executed someone who killed a horse. That is what led them to conquer most of Eurasia. We have to go back to there.
I’d like to see the gladiator rings brought back… battles to the death.
The last statement is truth. Just remember, Genghis held court in a tent and truly wanted to level every single city on the planet.
His idiot generals talked him out of it.
He also had his officials choose the finest hottest fittest most perfect women to service him on a nightly basis…
They would inspect candidates and dismiss those with even slight imperfections.
A life well lived
https://twitter.com/TOzgokmen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
May I draw your attention totamay ozgokmen on twitter!
“For the past 3.5 years, the world has been rushing from one mania to another, initiated by the massive fear spreading with global pandemic:
– Cryptomania (dogecoin, creation of 100k of such garbage in a mere year, leaving tulip mania in the dust)
– NFT mania
– Putin mania
– BRICS mania
– De-dollarization mania
– Silver mania
– Energy mania
– WEF mania
– Climate mania
– Work from home mania
– Online education mania
– No testing for admissions mania
– NATO mania
– Print money like Niagra mania
– Borrow at 20% more and more mania
– Forget about paying student loan mania
– Buy homes you can never pay off mania
– Inflation mania
– Soft landing no matter what happens mania
– MMT mania
etc…
Now the mania spread to Middle East. It is a derivative of the same manic disturbed emotional mind. There will be others. The risk from masses being entrained from one mania to another mania is growing and it is now posing a huge threat to humanity in terms of more wars, bigger wars, because there is literally no leadership, no diplomacy for sensible behavior.
As Soros diagnosed “there are times when normal rules do not apply”; we are in that regime now, after 90 years again.”
Saludos
el mar
Bread and circuses for the masses , El Mar . I see it everyday . All so content in their ignorance . Any effort to wake them is met with hostility . Saludos .
P.S : Tks for the Steve Ludlum post . I use to folow him but he was in hibernation for long so I quit .
They want to keep the MOREONS in a state of high anxiety.
You forgot to mention the Tranny Freaks flashing ball sacks in primary schools while parents smile clap and dance along…
Notice how that has all but stopped? Kinda like the UKEY war… they just turn knobs and pull levers and they can stop anything. Cuz… It’s All Fake
I hope that ‘Mirror on the wall’ is doing fine and that she/he is watching us.
Because I personally feel the need to have some ‘thinking out of the box’ from Mirror about the war Israel-Palestine, in the same way she/he gave us for the war in Ukraine.
Thanks!
My impression is that it is not only a limited war.
There is the possibility that it will become a regional war, but I think that also general geopolitical global balances are at stake.
(and apart from the immense carnage of civilians and children that is taking place before our eyes, far greater than the one of the war in Ukraine )
I was wondering about Mirror on the Wall, too.
And Xabier?
yes I too miss Xabier
xabier tilted at one too many windmills i think
Where is cromagnon? we need some of his timeless wisdom.
I would recommend that one have a gander at the Economist 2012 Christmas edition front page cover
“A Rough Guide to Hell”
Predictive programming in action.
Hamas handgliders, climate change, hackers of the simulacrum…….The Simpsons need to take notes.
The world is really quite different from what most think.
The first seal of the apocalypse was broken in 2020….the second is breaking soon.
I can see it possible the fighting remains regional but the impact will be global. That it the fighting will destroy the oil wells, pipelines, processing plants, ship loading terminals and so the whole world will feel it. Not fatal but a real hardship.
It was for the Greater Good that those who were more able, more advanced and more willing to contribute to Civilization to monopolize resources and nothing for the rest.
https://youtu.be/BNj2BXW852g?si=oclptkCdP7smQEfv
“Blind” Willie Johnson was a blind blues musician who was briefly popular in 1930. This piece, Dark was the Night, is his only hit, which is only remembered today because Carl Sagan decided to include it in the Golden Record, put in the Voyager probe as a representation of the music of earthlings (along 21 other pieces including some native music, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Chuck Berry – no white Americans!)
After his 15 min of fame he became essentially a bum. In 1945 he caught pneumonia, and the hospital refused to treat him, because he was black, blind and essentially a bum so he was NOT considered worth treating, so he went back to the remains of his burnt down home and died.
That is civilization.
It is quite late in the game, but it is important to identify what nodes are essential and worth keeping, and stop supporting nodes which are NOT essential,
Which basically means most of Asia, Africa and Latin America return to the Dark ages.
A lot of people in USA, ad virtually everyone in Canada, appear to have a hatred of civilization, which makes them somewhat friendly to countries like Russia which was NEVER part of a Western Civilization, although the German nobles in Russia (mostly expelled after 1918) and people like Turgenev, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky fooled the West.
The peoples living in Western and Southern United States, plus the people in Canada, wanted Civilization to fail. Which might be why Dwight Eisenhower, a Texan, felt more close to the Soviets than the Western Allies, and he chose Richard Nixon, the first US president ever born in California (and hopefully the last, since the culture of CA is so different from the rest of USA that it is almost like another country), as his running mate.
Since the peoples living in there never really belonged to Western Civilization, they , inside, are no different from the Russians who always had a feeling of inferiority and wanted to create as much trouble as possible to the West whenever they could.
This site is run by a Midwestern who now lives in Georgia. The Eastern Seaboard is better than the so-called “Deep South” and territories west of it, since Northerners often vacationed in the Carolinas and Florida.
If the Western Civilization fails, the Canadians and people in the Western and Southern regions of USA will have a lot to answer for it.
Sometime a past post I compared the increase in SS costs to the individual compared to the increase in oil cost starting in the mid 1960s. Oil’s increase was a distant second.
I came across this, chose a random paragraph:
“Boomers have quite simply been the biggest beneficiary of a “massive wealth transfer,” wrote the BofA team led by Ohsung Kwon, echoing Dalio’s observation that trillions of wealth flowed from the public to the private sector thanks to government policy since the 1980s, when boomers were in their prime working years. BofA pointed to the ballooning government debt—from 31% of GDP to 120% during that period—and the 10-year Treasury yield shrinking from 12% to 4.6% today (it’s actually 4.9% as of press time).”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/the-great-wealth-transfer-isn-t-72-trillion-but-129-trillion-bofa-says-and-the-government-gave-most-of-it-to-baby-boomers/ar-AA1iZB7X?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7207607cac0049609b2764822fe99d8e&ei=8
Note, this does not seem to consider transfer payment obligations.
Our problem is demographic, not absolute numbers; that would take care of itself with a reduction in Medicare payments to providers.
Personal decision: I live in Rochester, MN a health center of world importance. My professional life was in healthcare and saw actual, gross numbers of where income to health centers originated; close to 50% was from various government programs. Given the US government has a cashflow issue, is it time to sell my residence in Rochester and move on? It is a wonderful community, now.
The fabric of the universe evolves in a manner to find the 20% solutions which give 80% of the results. Our personal success is in following this principle; philosophers seem to be constantly at war with this and cloak their arguments in rhetoric. The universe appears to be binary, discrete with no shades of gray. Philosophy of an old man.
Dennis L.
I would point out that Boomers have been the recipients of the huge amount of capital gains on the purchase prices of homes, farms, and even businesses. This huge amount of capital gains is to at significant extent related to the drop in interest rates since 1981. I know that you have commented on what good investments these things have been. But as the interest rates start going up to higher levels, the bubble can be expected to deflate (unless the Federal government can somehow keep adding more and more debt, pushing the economy toward hyperinflation ).
All of the added debt of the US government, as well as the added debt of other parts of the economy, have helped pump up the US economy to a high level, and has to some extent helped the rest of the world economy.
The US$ has also been the “reserve currency.” As such, the US had managed to purchase far more imports than in exports, raising the country’s lifestyle.
Regarding selling your residence in Rochester, I am sure you have connections there. It is hard to start over somewhere else. If you find your residence unsuitable, you might move to someplace nearby, or to a place where you also have a lot of connections. My parents moved to Northfield, Minnesota, in their later years because they knew a lot of people there, and two of my siblings lived fairly close by, for example.
Gaming the system is difficult. Look out for what you need now. Diversify in many ways–time investments and well as monetary investments.
Gail is correct.It is better to stick at the location you know about.
Dennis, I agree with the others stick where you know the lay of the land.
So what do I tell people who contact me asking where they can flee to? Western Canada is literally in societal collapse and many are noticing. I have told agricultural types to try for Uruguay……more cattle than people, warm, fairly stable.
It is shocking how fast Canadians have bent the knee and accepting their lot as peasants. I am beyond disgusted.
I have the same question where to flee to?
Wind turbine flaws put Siemens in a headwind
https://www.power-technology.com/features/wind-turbine-flaws-put-siemens-in-a-headwind/
The article says,
I would call this “too much complexity.” There are a lot of other problems as well. The rise in the interest rates is a deal-killer for wind turbines and solar panels, too. One way of looking at the problem is that the output of these devices needs to be higher to cover the higher interest costs, besides all of the other costs involved. They need much more subsidies to be viable.
Talking about the reliability problems of large wind turbines:
“too much complexity.”
I don’t think so. This is more or less typical of the learning curve for new machines. Not every detail can be anticipated before something new is built. Wind turbines have scaled up so much that they are effectively new machines. Same thing happened when water turbines were scaled up from a 125 MW to 600-800 MW.at Grand Coulee Dam. They had a lot of problems with the new turbines for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam#Power
“The Bureau expects the money earned from supplying power and irrigation water will pay off the cost of construction by 2044.[87]”
That’s another aspect, Projects with long payoffs (100 years in this case) are not seriously considered today.
Maybe the MAGA people could reach into the past and support a power satellite project with a 50 or 100 year payback.