Running Short of Tailwinds for the Economy

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Tailwinds often make jet planes fly faster than they would regularly fly. In this post, I talk about economic tailwinds that help the economy grow more quickly.

Strangely enough, the economy seems to move from tailwind to tailwind, as new resources are discovered, as population expands, and as central banks figure out new ways to fix the economy. In this post, I will describe some tailwinds affecting the economy. Many of these have recently lost their value or are likely to lose their value in the future. The long-term trend seems to be toward tailwinds becoming available to some parts of the world economy, but there may be major dips and shifts with respect to which segments of the world economy are favored.

[1] The tailwind of very low oil prices

Before 1972, the US economy had the tailwind of a good supply of oil available at very low prices. Goods could be made cheaply with oil products, and new devices, such as automobiles, could be operated very inexpensively. New technology could take hold quickly because resources, including energy resources, were easily available. For these reasons, the economy could grow very quickly, with little use of debt.

Figure 1. Average annual inflation-adjusted oil prices, based upon data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute.

Data from the US Bureau of Economics shows that the US economy experienced an average annual growth rate of 4.8% between 1932 and 1972, which is very high by today’s standards. The same data shows that the US economy’s average annual growth rate was 2.7% for the period 1972 to 2022.

[2] The tailwind of falling interest rates and near zero interest rates

From 1981 to 2020, the world economy had a tailwind of generally falling interest rates.

Figure 2. Chart by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, showing interest rates related to 3-month and 10-year US Treasuries, with US recessions noted in gray. Chart has been annotated by Gail Tverberg to point out time of generally falling long-term interest rates.

On Figure 2, the top line (in red) shows 10-year interest rates. The lower line (in blue) represents interest rates of 3-month Treasuries.

In the US, many mortgage rates have tended to follow 10-year interest rates. We all know that as mortgage rates fall, homes become more affordable to buyers. As more homes become affordable to buyers, the “demand” for homes goes up. More homes are built, stimulating the economy. Similarly, buying farmland becomes more affordable. Factories become more affordable. There are more people bidding for these goods, so the selling prices tend to rise.

Figure 2 shows that short term rates have also been falling, but in a more irregular way. The fact that these rates have generally been falling has also greatly aided economic growth, since many industrial and financial loans are very short term.

It appears to me that the temporary rise in short-term interest rates between 2004 and 2006 ultimately caused the Great Recession of 2007-2009. See my academic paper, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis. Note the delayed impact of the rate rise. It is far too early to assume that the recent rise in interest rates will have no serious detrimental effects on the economy.

To try to keep the economy operating after the Great Recession, short term interest rates were brought down to close to zero for most of the time between 2008 and early 2022. These low interest rates encouraged investors to pursue new ventures that were very “iffy”– they might produce a positive return, or they might lose money. In fact, government subsidies were added, inviting investors to pursue “opportunities” that were likely to be money losers.

With this long-term tailwind of falling interest rates, capital gains were very easy to obtain. Homes became worth increased amounts, as did farms, seemingly by magic. Shares of stock tended to rise. People began to believe that there was little risk in borrowing money for questionable ventures. New high technology businesses in Silicon Valley blossomed.

In some sense, interest rates that rose in the 1960 to 1981 period (to keep the economy from racing ahead too fast) had stored up momentum that could be used in the 1981 to 2020 period.

We are now past that period of falling interest rates. In fact, we are in a new period of rising interest rates because of depleting resources, and the upward pressure these depleting resources place on inflation rates. Furthermore, a 200-year history of US interest rates shows that the recent near-zero interest rates have been an anomaly. We cannot expect interest rates to go back to the recent low level for any extended period. An interest rate of 5% or more is normal. The economy has benefitted from the temporary gift of falling interest rates, and of near zero rates, but this period is likely past.

[3] The tailwind of rising debt, relative to GDP

The fact that debt is rising, relative to GDP, is closely related to Tailwind [1] and Tailwind [2].

Figure 3. Ratio of the increase in US debt to the increase in US GDP for 5-year periods, based on data of the US Bureau of Economic Analysis.

How much debt does it take to create one dollar of GDP? In theory, both the buyer of a product (such as a vehicle), and the various organizations involved with creating the product and shipping it to the end user, will need debt to move the process along. If the government is adding a subsidy to move the process along, this will add another layer of debt.

Figure 3 shows that prior to 1981, when oil prices were low (Figure 1), it took less than one dollar of debt to facilitate the process of creating one dollar of GDP. Oil companies were sufficiently profitable that they could use their profits to reinvest in new wells as old ones depleted. They did not need to add debt to make the process work. While products such as homes might need debt for the buyers to afford them, many other products did not. In this early period, government subsidies were much more limited than today.

After 1981, the ratio of debt to GDP steadily rose. The rise was particularly steep after 2001, when China was added to the World Trade Organization (Figure 1). As China ramped up its manufacturing, the price of oil tended to rise because more oil was needed for manufacturing and shipping the goods China made. More debt was required to import this higher-priced oil, causing at least part of the increase in the debt to GDP ratio. The dip in the debt to GDP ratio in the 2014-2019 period seems to correspond to the period of lower oil prices shown in Figure 1.

In some sense, it is strange that GDP does not consider the added debt that an economy requires in order to create the goods and services that it produces. Logically, it might make sense for GDP to measure the value of goods and services added, net of the additional debt required to make these goods and services. We can see from Figure 3 that this net approach would only work up until 1981. Since 1981, it has become necessary to add more debt than the amount of additional goods and services produced. If the interest rate is 0%, perhaps this is not a major issue, but if the interest rate rises to 5% or more, a huge amount of interest to be paid. Repaying debt with interest becomes a serious problem unless the borrower is able to find a truly profitable use for the funds.

[4] The tailwind of higher population

If population is growing, there is a need for many new things, including new schools, roads, stores, and homes. This puts pressure on GDP to grow. Figure 4 shows population growth, excluding the impact of migration.

Figure 4. Natural population increase (based on births minus deaths) as a percentage of population based on data from World Population Prospects 2022 published by the United Nations.

In the 1950s and 1960, part of the reason that GDP in the More Developed parts of the world was growing rapidly was because population was growing quickly (Figure 4). This tailwind had mostly disappeared by the mid-1990s. Now, if one of the More Developed parts of the world shows population growth, it tends to be the result of increasing immigrant population.

Figure 5. World population estimates as used in the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy by the Energy Institute. OECD is a slightly different grouping of highly developed countries than UN’s grouping. Thus, non-OECD corresponds to the population of less developed countries.

Total world population (Figure 5) keeps rising, even though birth rates have been falling because people in less developed parts of the world have been living longer. This adds to migration pressure because there are not enough goods and services available for the increased population.

[5] The US tailwind from playing “King of the Mountain”

In March 2022, the US Federal Reserve started raising interest rates. These higher interest rates can be seen as a way to push the US$ higher relative to other currencies, especially relative to currencies of poorer countries, such as Argentina and Turkey. By pushing the dollar higher, oil and other commodities become relatively cheaper to the US, and relatively more expensive to those countries with currencies whose value is low relative to the US$. Also, the higher interest rates make the US a more attractive country for other countries to invest in.

The US move to raise interest rates higher can be viewed as a “King of the Mountain” move. High interest rates can perhaps be withstood by strong economies, but they cannot be withstood by weak economies. For example, many of the poorer countries of the world have loans from the International Monetary Fund. As the US dollar strengthens relative to local currencies, these loans become more difficult to be paid back. The fact that recent interest rates are higher also makes it harder for borrowers to repay debt with interest. Weak businesses and perhaps weak governments around the world will tend to be squeezed out.

One thing that may help the US in trying such a move is that fact that US debt has a kind of moneyness quality that the debt of other countries does not have. This occurs because the US$ is the reserve currency, which in turn is related to the US being the world’s hegemon. The question becomes: How long can the US maintain this lofty position? Other countries are likely to push back and find ways to work around the use of the US$, if it is to their disadvantage.

[6] The tailwind from the “Green Energy Will Save Us” narrative

Figure 6. Figure by Gail Tverberg illustrating an economy that is trying to turn to a different direction, while the standard narrative is that business as usual can continue forever, thanks to the miracles of Green Energy.

The standard narrative about green energy saving the world from its climate change gives great opportunities for governments to subsidize wind turbines and solar panels, battery manufacturing plants, and the building of electric vehicles. These subsidies create more debt, which helps push the economy along.

The educational system is also stimulated by the “Green Energy Will Save Us” story. Educators have new courses to teach and new subjects to write academic papers about. If students are interested in studying these subjects, the US government is willing to provide debt-based funding to the prospective students. This adds another source of debt to stimulate the economy.

Of course, there is the hurdle of paying this debt back, especially if interest rates are at a new higher level. This game would not seem to be able to go on very long unless some green approach actually works. Such an approach needs to work in current devices, be low-cost to manufacture, and be affordable to customers at a price that generates taxable revenue.

[7] Over the very long run, tailwinds do seem to help the Universe grow and become more complex and more energy intense.

Eric Chaisson, in the book Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, writes about the Universe gradually becoming more complex and having greater energy intensity. He shows images such as this one.

Figure 7. Image similar to ones shown in Eric Chaisson’s 2001 book, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature.

We don’t understand why this happens. Evolution seems to happen in every part of the Universe. Many parts of the Universe are short-lived. Each new part of the Universe varies in random ways from its predecessors. Evolution happens through the survival those that are the best adapted to their surroundings. This happens at least partly through the laws of physics. There may be some other force involved as well. Economists talk about the Invisible Hand being helpful. Those who are religious may think of the Hand of God being involved.

We know that the Earth has survived for a very long time, despite being hit by large meteors and despite major changes in climate. In fact, early humans lived through glacial periods. There are times when economies and populations fall back considerably, but somehow the world ecosystem recovers. It may even adapt in a way that allows more opportunity for growth.

Thus, even as the economy seems to be running out of today’s tailwinds, somehow there may be future tailwinds that will push the at least segments of the world economy along in a somewhat different direction. We simply don’t know for certain how things will turn out.

About Gail Tverberg

My name is Gail Tverberg. I am an actuary interested in finite world issues - oil depletion, natural gas depletion, water shortages, and climate change. Oil limits look very different from what most expect, with high prices leading to recession, and low prices leading to financial problems for oil producers and for oil exporting countries. We are really dealing with a physics problem that affects many parts of the economy at once, including wages and the financial system. I try to look at the overall problem.
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3,079 Responses to Running Short of Tailwinds for the Economy

  1. Fast Eddy says:

    https://drpanda.substack.com/p/pandemic-2-mystery-respiratory-illness

    Given the PR Team has focused on ‘the children’ … could this be one last ‘get your kids vaxxed’ blast of fear…

    So that they get as many as possible vaxxed… before releasing the Real Deal pathogen?

    • Student says:

      I wonder if China realizes that they are officially becoming the bird of bad news.
      Someone should explain them that if they go on like this nobody will want to hear neither the word ‘China’ anymore.

  2. Fast Eddy says:

    The facts are the “undiagnosed pneumonia outbreak” is actually caused by the flu and other known pathogens and not by a novel virus.

    The recent surge in respiratory infections has been attributed to a combination of common viruses and bacteria. These include influenza viruses, rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenoviruses, and the bacterium mycoplasma pneumoniae.

    Mycoplasma Pneumoniae

    Mycoplasma pneumoniae may warrant closer attention. Outbreaks, recurrent or severe infections are signs of a weakened immune system.

    While Mycoplasma pneumoniae is generally characterized by a slow replication rate, long incubation period, and relatively low transmission rate, its association with primary immunodeficiency does raise concerns.

    This particlular outbreak of mycoplasma pneumoniae in China is characterized by macrolide resistance, meaning it is resistant to commonly used antibiotics like azithromycin (Z-Pak). However it can be successfully treated with fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as levofloxacin and moxifloxacin.

    Outbreaks Occurring Around the World

    “We found no known DNA or RNA viruses, no bacterial pathogens, no fungal pathogens,” says Needle, “We were sort of at a breaking point.”

    Until finally, a clue: A short segment of DNA belonging to what — as far as Needle can tell — appears to be bacteria that no one has ever described before.

    “We think this may be a pathogen,” he says, “It’s something novel. It’s in a proportion of the cases. It’s funky.”

    Specifically, it appears similar to a genus of bacteria called Mycoplasma, which lack cell walls.

    See all the headlines from around the world announcing this is hitting in multiple countries:

    https://drpanda.substack.com/p/pandemic-2-mystery-respiratory-illness

    Yr of the Rabbit has 10 weeks remaining….

    Anyone feeling a bit… anxious…????

    • Foolish Fitz says:

      “Anyone feeling a bit… anxious…????”

      No, why would I?

      “We think this may be a pathogen,”

      Think, as in, don’t know.

      “It’s something novel.”

      Like Sars covid 2(sounds like a sequel)

      “It’s in a proportion of the cases.”

      What proportion. 0.0001%?

      “It’s funky.”

      Whoever said that, gives themselves and the the whole game away.

      Fear porn deserves an F Eddy, but is a handy tool to distract from real world events and they’re ratcheting up at an ever accelerating rate.

    • Love this: ” It’s in a proportion of the cases.”

      Proportion 1/100,000? 1/10?

      Doesn’t matter.. trust us, it’s “a proportion”.

  3. I AM THE MOB says:

    EUROPE NOW!

    Mysterious child pneumonia cases spike in parts of Europe as COVID-like surge continues in China

    https://nypost.com/2023/11/29/news/child-pneumonia-cases-spike-in-netherlands-as-surge-in-china/

    • Sam says:

      🫤 meh… people are so desperate for something to happen. This will disappear in a month

      • Fast Eddy says:

        Or maybe not…..

        If you read the entire article… we see the PR Team is in action coordinating this globally….

        Perhaps this is a final test of the system… or it could be a precursor to the release of the Real Deal…. done to increase the anxiety levels yet again — before Letting ‘er Rip.

        The PR Team is thorough and clever… impossible even for The Greatest One… (HP1500) to be certain … but this does fit nicely with UEP… you must admit…

        This is an ominous development:

        https://drpanda.substack.com/p/pandemic-2-mystery-respiratory-illness

        Mycoplasma pneumoniae may warrant closer attention. Outbreaks, recurrent or severe infections are signs of a weakened immune system.

        “We found no known DNA or RNA viruses, no bacterial pathogens, no fungal pathogens,” says Needle, “We were sort of at a breaking point.”

        Until finally, a clue: A short segment of DNA belonging to what — as far as Needle can tell — appears to be bacteria that no one has ever described before.

        “We think this may be a pathogen,” he says, “It’s something novel. It’s in a proportion of the cases. It’s funky.”

    • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

      get all your boosters now!

      do it for the children!

  4. Advancement of Civilization has to come with strict control of resources, not to be touched by people who have no business using them, and very strict caste system which basically keeps people who have NO stake on Civilization out of it.

    Auguste Renoir was a famous impressionist painter, but because he was a potter, which was treated like a pariah back then, he was treated much less equally than other famous names like Manet, Monet, Degas, de Lautrec (notwithstanding that he was a cripple libertine) , and so forth.

    Auguste’s son Jean became a film director since the film industry was new and there were more openings.

    In 1937, he made the film the Grand Illusion and wrote the scenario for it, about a PoW camp during the Great War. Tl, dr, three French PoWs, de Boeldieu, an aristocrat; Marechal, a commoner, and Rosenthal, whose origins are obvious, are imprisoned where the aristocratic German PoW camp commander von Rauffenstein befriends de Boeldieu and laments that after the war their class would die out.

    In the end, de Boeldieu gets killed, while Marechal and Rosenthal escapes, although we don’t get to learn whether they survived the war.

    The message was clear – the days of the Old Order, the class which brought humanity would die out (de Boeldieu was married but had no children yet so his line died out, and the German commander is also childless) while peoples like Marechal and Rosenthal would carry on, along with a German peasant woman they meet on their escape with a daughter.

    Jean Renoir fulfilled his fantasy of killing off the elites, which the French elites did NOt take lightly, so he had to make the film The Rules of the Game, which reaffirms the role of the elites who are strong and immune from consequences, with Renoir himself playing Octave, a good toady of the aristocracy.

    after that movie he left France and did not return.

    That is what happens when people have no stake on civilization have the chance to run things. They will fulfill their fantasy of killing off the only people who can drive civilization, no matter what the consequences are.

  5. I laughed when Fast Eddy brought the article that 38% of Europeans no longer eat three meals a day.

    That was the norm before Gabby Princip thought her stupid country was worth killing 10 million people.

    During the Belle Epoque, about 15% of the people in Europe had the wherewithal to sit at cafes to watch the world, or wander around the Ringstrasse doing nothing like the narrator of Robert Musil’s book.

    The poor stayed poor. Breakfast was the heartiest meal they had every day, they took light lunches, and they could not afford dinner . In luckier days they ate ‘supper’ and if not they just fasted till morning, which is why the word ‘breakfast’ came from.

    And Civilization advanced in leaps and bounds, about to leave the poor, plus the colonials, behind forever.

    Every discussion I have on this ends with punching Charles “Chucky” Fitrzclarence and his 400 Woircester men, whose harm to Civilization cannot be calculated. I would rather see the poor of Europe eat 1.5 meals per day, the colonials still under European rule and Serbia, Poland and Czechoslovakia not existing while the top crust entering Type I Civ and beyond, than now.

  6. raviuppal4 says:

    Interesting information in OSB comments section . Excerpt .

    stephen.bowers
    8h

    Anne/ Mike,

    Hmm.I think the jury is out. I really wish that people like GS really tried to understand the topic or get out. Banks are as bad if not worse than the IEA and EIA if forecasting. The consensus for petchems in 2024 is grim, and it is likely to persist into 2025. I have never seen it this bad. in over 25 years.
    One line caught my eye. Solid growth in Petchems . Total BS. The petchem business is oversupplied to the point that run rates on the base chmical plants are down to 70%. The US and China have added so much capacity, and still adding, that has collpased margins and few are making any money. The demand for polymers is weak and supply still growing. Idiotic expansions just a demand flatlines due to comsumer demand falling. Same problem as EV’s.

    • Interesting! Temptation to oversupply segments that look a little promising, especially if they seem to have higher margins that gasoline/diesel/other uses.

  7. raviuppal4 says:

    A comment on the Lula oil field of Brazil . The easy oil is gone .
    “GERRY MADDOUX
    IGNORED
    11/28/2023 at 10:00 am
    Things have gotten very political at the EIA, as you are aware. They are barely worth paying attention to.

    I appreciate your highlighting the importance of the pre-salt oil. To emphasize positives and negatives, the pre-salt oil has been protected for a very long time, and it is pristine–almost no toxins and just the right gravity. The field off Brazil resulted from a rift from Africa, to which accrued the smaller piece of pre-salt.

    Now this. To get to the pre-salt oil you have to go through over a mile of water, then over a mile of hard rock, at least a mile of salt, and then, finally, you’re in the pre-salt oil. The biggest problem is the mile-thick layer of salt. This is not Morton’s. The crystals are soft and the composition changes. Salt creep occurs (just like the salt creep now forming on the walls of the caverns of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve).

    There is an immense amount of pre-salt oil down there, but to really make it buzz the price of oil is going to have to double where it is now. Or close. I mean, we’re taking about drilling over three miles down, with the lowest level being a mile-thick layer of complex salts that turn into something akin to talcum powder. I personally think we will get to the point where we rely heavily on the pre-salt oil–it’s almost as good as Malysian Tapis. But the price is going to have to go much higher than it is now, no matter what Petrobras says.

    I’ll bet George Kaplan, Mike Shellman, or Coffeeguyzz know a lot about pre-salt. I would like to learn more about it. I understand that there’s NO sulfur in it.

    • important to bear in mind ravi—that our economic system exists only on the surpluses of oil energy, not oil energy per se.

      if you have to go 3m down and charge twice as much then there will not be enough surplus energy left over to make it worthwhile

      unless of course we burn through it twice as fast to keep our wheels turning at the same speed as now.

    • Probably ending up in Lula’s pockets

      Rename it to Bolsonaro Field and maybe oil will return

    • Awfully lot of layers to go through to get to the pre-salt oil. I am sure that the government needs a pretty big cut as well. It will be really difficult to get the price of oil high enough to support this drilling.

  8. Mrs S says:

    The Scottish government are planning to force housebuyers to rip out the gas boiler in their new place and install a heat pump. And this has to be done within two years of their purchase.

    It’s so insane that I hardly have words. Scotland is very poor, and it has badly insulated housing stock. I can’t think of a worse place in the world to do this.

    But they seem desperate to switch off the mains gas.

    https://dailysceptic.org/2023/11/29/house-buyers-in-scotland-set-to-be-forced-to-rip-out-gas-boilers-and-install-heat-pumps-within-two-years-of-purchase/

    • I am guessing that the leaders think that they will need whatever gas is available to balance whatever wind and solar electricity is available. Home heating will have to play a secondary role to other uses for energy supplies.

      It is crazy to assume that Scotland will actually be able to ramp up electricity supplies to heat homes in winter with heat pumps. Instead, invest in long underwear. What did people do before home heating? How will water pipes be kept from freezing? I know that in the US South, it is sometimes necessary to keep water pipes dripping so that they don’t freeze. Builders are often careless about where they put these water pipes in parts of the country where the temperature rarely falls below freezing. If they are in outer walls, they may freeze if the temperature falls too low.

      • Mrs S says:

        Before gas central heating people used coal fires. I grew up with a single coal fire in the living room as the only source of heat.

        But the UK government have recently banned the sale of coal. So yes, perhaps it will have to be thermal underwear and a cold dinner.

        • twas ever thus Mrs S (Christmas day in the workhouse)

          cold gruel too—-no doubt you’ll be asking for more???

        • Student says:

          Thanks for your story,
          Is it still possible to buy wood for a wood stove in your Country?
          Thanks

          • Mrs S says:

            Yes, they wouldn’t be able to stop people selling wood.

            You can still buy a wood stove but it has to be up to certain environmental standards. You can also buy what is called ‘eco-coal’ which is made of olive stones.

            I am trying to persuade my husband to get a second solid fuel stove. Including installation they quoted us £3k, which is not an insignificant amount.

    • Cromagnon says:

      When the English crown and their sychophantic Scottish lords managed to drive out the Clans of the borders in the 16th century Scotland lost the genetic legacy of resistance to utter BS that it needed. Now its just a cool damp place that no one really wants……..

  9. I go around to watch a bunch of podcasts, mostly for a few minutes since they say what has to be said in the first few minutes anyways.

    There are still a bunch of optimism, believing that TPTB would do something to stave off the coming collapse somehow.

    I understand why they are in such heavy denial, since that means basically t he end of everything in the English speaking world.

    Peoples living in the English speaking world are going to suffer what they forced peoples not speaking English for the last 500 years, with interest.

    Peoples who came from other cultures but emigrated to these countries would be less than welcome from their home countries.

    In short peoples in English speaking countries will face situations like this in their hometowns

    https://youtu.be/0E11KVUlm3w?si=4bMhw01w0YE6vBeV

    The British and Americans, not the walking zombies but those who know something, know the peoples not speaking English will hold them accountable, so they are doing their best to avoid that fate. how successful, I don’t know, but given the course of things going, not too much I guess.

  10. I AM THE MOB says:

    How to be useless

    Follow the Daoist way – reclaim your life and happiness by letting go of the need to produce, strive or serve a purpose

    “He argues that we should reject casting ourselves and our doings in terms of how much we contribute in the first place. Framed in terms of today, we should not reduce ourselves to tools that serve others, or the economy, the greater good, or even our future selves (for example, the urge for young workers to work very hard to secure their future career). Rather, as Zhuangzi put it, drifting, easy wandering, not caring about praise or condemnation – this is true freedom.”

    https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-wander-free-and-easy-through-life-by-being-useless

    • There are an awfully lot of young people (and not so young people) who find it impossible to earn enough money to support getting married and having a family. Some of these people even have advanced degrees. Perhaps the Daoist way would support them.

      According to the article:

      ” Zhuangzi doesn’t altogether spurn usefulness. Rather, he argues that usefulness itself should not be life’s bottom line.”

      “A useless life is free and easy wandering. By letting go of our concern over whether we (or things in our lives) are useful, we can become happier by being more in line with nature, we can celebrate the wondrous diversity and difference of people and of things as good in their own right, without thinking of some bottom line. You are not a mere tool, but a glorious part of a wild and diverse Universe.”

      • Cromagnon says:

        Lions are not Daoist.

        Lions are returning to the western world.

      • ////You are not a mere tool, but a glorious part of a wild and diverse Universe.”///

        np—who doesn’t need to eat

      • Dennis L. says:

        “Some of these people even have advanced degrees. Perhaps the Daoist way would support them.”

        Advanced degrees in what? I am seeing posted $70K salaries plus benefits on the walls of the EE department in a two year
        CC.

        Have seen posts industry is looking the other way regarding college degrees, mostly worthless for making a living.

        Personally know young man, dropped out of college, civil engineering, not a smart move, girl friend, purchased a home, looking for downed trees on my land to burn for heat. He works, he will make it.

        This is the land of opportunity, but it isn’t free and our universities have put out useless courses and debt.

        Still the optimist here.

        Dennis L.

  11. Student says:

    (Splash 237.com – Marittime news)

    “COP28’s debatable influence on shipping stirs controversy”

    Gail, when in the article one finds:
    …”We’re expecting at least some of the spotlight to be – justifiably – fixed on green hydrogen during COP28,” she said, maintaining it was critical to “priority set” and ensure shipping is at the “top table” when it comes to accessing the quantities of green hydrogen required to produce green methanol and ammonia.”…
    What do they mean by ‘accessing the quantity of green hydrogen required to produce green methanol and ammonia’, do they think to do it without fossil fuels??

    https://splash247.com/cop28s-debatable-influence-on-shipping-stirs-controversy/

    Many thanks for your comment
    Have a nice day

    • drb753 says:

      Presumably they are thinking of producing hydrogen by splitting water (through electrolysis) using fossil fuels minimally. Similar to what the Dutch did with windmills to pump wetlands, you put up a bunch of renewables (wind and solar) and let them do their thing. when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, lots of hydrogen is produced. when they don’t it doesn’t.

      • Student says:

        Ok, thank you.
        Now I see that what Saudi Arabia has in mind with NEOM maybe is not so crazy

        https://www.neom.com/en-us/about

        • drb753 says:

          Yes, I am familiar with Saudi Arabia, and near NEOM they are thinking of a giant PV farm. it will still dust up. in the Neom region, the wind kicks up only at night, diminishing the intermittency. I and others put forth a small R&D for green hydrogen production using PV near Neom, and there were also big multinationals in the hunt and we were summarily executed.

          • Student says:

            drb753, do you mean that your Russian company work in that area?

            • drb753 says:

              It was a joint proposal of some academics from USA (I am still one as I teach online) and Arabia, together with some high tech small companies. Russia was not involved.

            • Student says:

              Thanks drb753, you are very kind to reply to my question.
              If I can do it, last one: did you leave Bologna for going back to Russia in relation to the Ukraine chapter?
              Thank you.
              Have a nice evening.

            • drb753 says:

              I left Bologna when I was 24. I left the US by way of other countries in mid-2020 before landing in Russia in early 2022. In Russia I raise cattle, and do not do research.

          • am genuinely fascinated by the neom project

            am i being a pessimist, or can it sustain itself over the long term?—ie, when it’s completed, there will be no resource going in, and none coming out

            if i’m missing something—i’d like to know what it might be

            • drb753 says:

              To be perfectly honest Norm, we were in it for the money. We presented four projects and I was only interested in one. We got small amounts of funding (about 100k$). Neom will go like the rest of world cities once it can not receive sufficient amounts of energy. But, it is essentially entirely electrified (including local transportation), and it is in the mildest part of Saudi Arabia climate wise, the surrounding land is semi-arid, not a total desert, so it will last longer than other cities.

            • your reply confirmed my own thoughts on it drb

              a vanity project to create emplyment

            • drb753 says:

              I agree with your assessment. I interacted with many middle managers, mostly westerners, and the corruption was palpable. The better ones were non-Saudi Muslims, the rest was entirely forgettable.

      • I think that hydrogen is being considered as a “battery alternative.” If its temperature is low enough, it can be transported as a liquid. I would rather see the intermittent electricity stored as a liquid that doesn’t need such a low temperature, such as methanol.

  12. Fast Eddy says:

    Precarious finances: 38% of Europeans no longer eat three meals a day

    Nearly one in two Europeans think that they face a high risk of falling into a precarious situation in the next few months, succumbing to rising prices and relatively stagnant pay. The 2021 at-risk-of-poverty rate for the total population of the EU stood at 17%, as per Eurostat.

    https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/11/26/one-in-four-europeans-say-their-financial-condition-is-precarious

    • Jan says:

      The working market is getting much more tough, inflation is at a felt 30%, social security payments stay on the level of 2019. Heating and electricity became significantly more expensive. A lot of people struggle to pay the rent.

      To give an example, an elderly couple we know have 900,- EURs per month (12x), the very cheap rent (usually at least 700,-) eats up half, electricity and heating another 150,-. Public transport, national TV tax and certain health payments have to be added. Not much left for food, clothes, communication.

      The governments impose extra payments, like Austria a new yearly 250 EURs for the highly critizised national tv. Additionally they started a carbon tax. The elites are celebrating a permanent party, spending public money, while the average citizen cannot afford good shoes. In Austria, the largest oppositional party meanwhile has more acceptance in polls than the coalition. One of the large real estate companies with very close connections to the government is filing for bankruptcy these days. In Germany, the government tried to generate illegally probably 260 billion EURs, unclear still, that is 45% of the US military budget, as a ‘shadow household’. We will see, if they can survive that.

      A lot of people see the energy problems and the bad economy as a consequence of false political decisions. It seems that in the next election period the right winged parties will get more influence, like in Italy. At the moment, a lot of them promise back to the economy of the 80s, less EU, less WHO and less war payments. I am afraid that a back to the economy of the 80s is not possible and people will be very disappointed. The very strict mandatory vaccination laws led to a split in society. Also the state of justice has lost a lot of reputation. And corruption seems to spike.

  13. Fast Eddy says:

    Hmmm… very little coverage of HSBC’s disaster in china https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hsbc+china&iar=news&ia=news

    • The write down on loans being contemplated of 6.3 billion pounds is probably less than the $10.5 billion in 2007 of subprime loans. (I didn’t do the math to figure out the comparison in the same currency.)

      HSBC is an awfully big bank. It could be argued that it can withstand such a write down.

      Otherwise, a person would expect to see stories about this.

  14. Fast Eddy says:

    HSBC is facing a “hit” of more than £6.3billion as a result of unsecured commercial property loans into China, a UK-based tax consultant has warned.

    Bob Lyddon branded the situation a ‘disaster’ – and warned of a “financial contagion” risk which could have a knock-on effect on Britain’s economy.

    https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/1838394/financial-contagion-hsbc-china-hong-kong

    I read that PE firms have 1.5 trillion invested in China… no doubt that’s all vapourized

    What about all the other banks with massive exposure to that shit show

    • According to Wikipedia:

      originally The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

      In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 trillion in assets under custody (AUC) and $4.9 trillion in assets under administration (AUA).

      HSBC has offices, branches and subsidiaries in 62 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, serving around 39 million customers.[11] As of 2023, it was ranked no. 20 in the world in the Forbes rankings of large companies ranked by sales, profits, assets, and market value.

      After raising a capital stock of HK$5 million, the bank commenced operations on 3 March 1865.

      In 2007, HSBC wrote down its holdings of subprime-related mortgage securities by $10.5 billion, becoming the first major bank to report its losses due to the unfolding subprime mortgage crisis.

      HSBC has its world headquarters at 8 Canada Square in Canary Wharf, London.

      Despite being domiciled in the UK, HSBC generates around two-thirds of its profits in Asia, with China contributing 44% of the bank’s profit in 2022.

      • raviuppal4 says:

        HSBC is a money laundring enterprise like BCCI . They were established during the China ” opium wars ” to handle profits by the British companies from sale of opium in China . Their representative was caught in India carrying suitcases rpt suitcases of cash from the residence of the Ambani family . Nothing was done ( they are too powerful ) but to avoid trouble they were told to wind up their operations . They have paid fines over fines for being involved in ” white washing ” operations worldwide .

  15. Lok Perro says:

    ent, Rockefeller foundation run all the key positions in government) “stops” gof research, off shores tech to chinese military….hmmm…..
    https://archive.is/WXznA

    2019, crimson contagion, “a dangerWhen oil cozies up into terminal decline shortly, 1-10% per year, the objective of _________, is to eliminate 1-10% of the population per year to keep modern industrial society functioning as it shrinks, a tall order. Gonna suck arse

    https://expose-news.com/2023/11/18/1991-document-describes-new-world-order/

    75% of folks already shot the juice? What did Milgram discover. 80% have no critical thought, blindly follow any directives.

    3/4 of the global population are slowly developing aids, (hiv was spliced into covid virus according to nobel prize winners), they will be docile and not rise up, and will be easyy to kill as required.

    Look at the time line-

    2005- Chn top brass admit plan is to defeat america with biowarfare.
    https://rense.com/general85/China'splantoconquer.htm

    2010, Rockefellers: dangerous bioweapons coming
    https://archive.org/stream/rockefeller_202009/rockefeller-foundation-lock-step_djvu.txt

    2013, US (Carnegie endowment, Rockefeller foundation run all the key positions in government) “stops” gof research, off shores tech to chinese military….hmmm…..
    https://archive.is/WXznA

    2019, Crimson contagion: a deadly virus is coming!!!”

    2019-present: PLA spreads sars cdna clone globally (nasty shit, not a pandemic, mutates out after 1st host) to line up 6B suckers to shoot up nanotech aids.

    2021- bang 6 billion arms with hiv shots, some multiple times…

    Fast forward to the past year. Reedley biolab, chicoms in a CA warehouse with thousands of gallons of lethal pathogens, caught red hammered. Local gov forwards to the feds, cdc destroys the evidence, a hundred gallons of poison labeled in code, they “didn’t know what it was”, destroyed ALL the evidence, nothing to see here……no harm no foul. Chicoms have no laws, no morals, no ethics, no bill of rights, cheat if it can be gotten away with; they do have a green light and million man armies ready to poison you from the shadows…have been for the last 4 years………………………They’re your new boss but you don’t know it yet. It’s already set in stone.

    Anyway they’re going to try to kill 5% or so of you annually from here on out. They got most the $ and resources in the world, all the key positions in all major government with all their technology, all the universities, all the major news companies, all the tech companies, and 80% of the public can’t think critically (and now have HIV). The chinese system is the emerging global governments chosen template. They’ll bring fleets of thousands of mobile execution vans to your towns before long, dragging all the wrong thinkers into the night, harvesting their organs with no anesthesia. If they get their rat juice passport in place with the coming bioweapon attack, you’re done. Poison injections mandatory to participate in society. With all the tech data harvested they will target unwanted individuals with particularly nasty shots to get you out of here sooner.

    Type in “chinese slums” and watch how life is going to be for everyone next decade.

    They plan to smoke everyone out of the countryside, no where to go, they’re not playing games folks. Emergency powers are coming back permanently, your rights are going bye bye. Jobs and retirement are going pooooof. Major events impending. BAU is like 112 year old they/them on life support. Watch out for the aircraft, try to distinguish between the usual barium and aluminum being sprayed vs ebola and antrax. Good luck!

    P.S. They can easily fuck their own plan up and end up nuking the earth while jockeying for position or calculating wrong somehow and leave us with ROF or nuclear winter. If not, welcome to the most diabolical high tech dictatorship of all time. I’d give .0001% chance the common man smokes out the eugenicists horray!!, just so we can head directly into ROF :'(

    • I certainly hope that you are wrong.

      I am guessing that the self-organizing system will create a different outcome than this.

      • Cromagnon says:

        I am hoping the self organizing system starts to produce lions in the declining human population just like it has done every single other time there has been a collapse in “civilized” life.

        May they rampage through the human hive hastening the return of multitudes of other species.

    • ivanislav says:

      >> hiv was spliced into covid virus according to nobel prize winners

      Okay, so the virus is bad? Or the vaccine is bad? Both?

      Hard to keep up with the tin foil hats.

  16. Fast Eddy says:

    U.S. Navy Medical Officer Exposes Defense Department Data Showing Alarming Increase in Heart-Related Issues Among Pilots Following COVID-19 Vaccination: Myocarditis Up by 151%, Heart Failure by 973% (VIDEO)

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/u-s-navy-medical-officer-exposes-defense-department/

  17. Fast Eddy says:

    Fundamental nature of health

    An amazing 18-minute video – essential elements of individual health, profound, rarely spelled out

    https://denisrancourt.substack.com/p/fundamental-nature-of-health

    • Kowalainen says:

      When one is not rife with envy and jealousy it’s difficult to realize how the Usual Suspect Rapacious Primate perceives existence. It is no wonder fictive status hierarchies is so effective for souped up monkeys.

      However, when it dawns upon oneself.
      😳

      What could possibly go wrong with bolting a large neocortex on a crusty primate baseline? You guessed right; the cheap and nasty primates egotistical fantasies, and coping mechanisms, amplified by a factor 100. 10.000 when suckling on the petroleum wellheads.

      Burn, baby burn those pesky fossils.

      The monkey copes by gaining and projecting statuses and prestiges, and then defecating downwards from ascending the hard fought top branch. The smarter monkey can defecate with better accuracy.

      It’s still a shit show. Did anyone think misanthrope?
      Stop confusing objective reality with humanoid chauvinism.

      🤣👍👍

    • Peaker says:

      Denis Rancourt is one of the outstanding minds of our time…

    • This is a really good video, in my opinion.

      He talks about many related things.

      He starts out by saying, “Psychological stress and social isolation are dominant determinants of an individual’s health.”

      He points out that stress causes a suppression of the immune system. Quite of a bit of this stress comes from the hierarchical nature of society. People at higher levels of the hierarchy tend to have much better health than those at the bottom.

      The dominance hierarchies are controlled by
      (1) the degree of authoritarianism – probability that the lower status person will win
      (2) Violence of the society– how much a person will suffer from a loss, if a lower status person loses to a higher-status person.

      An economy that goes too far toward authoritarianism and violence quickly gets to a situation where there are a few people in charge, and everyone else is at a very low level, with poor health outcomes.

      If the courts become corrupt, low status people have no way of winning against high status people. [Newspapers, segments of governments, I would ask.]

      Medicine is a massive killer. It is set up to maintain the hierarchy. Governments will move in the direction of mandating treatments.

      Near the end, Rancourt looks at all cause mortality. One thing he discovered is that all cause mortality spiked in response to the vaccine rollouts. He says the result looks like a mass poisoning.

      You need to listen to the section before the end to understand his reasoning.

    • Cromagnon says:

      Excellent.

      I would also add that IMO his observations bolster the argument for this reality being an artificial construct.

      Everything is programming.

  18. Solar flares are likely to be a problem in the next few days/weeks.

    Space Weather News for Nov 28, 2023
    https://spaceweather.com
    https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

    STRONG SOLAR FLARE: A sunspot directly facing Earth erupted today, Nov. 28th, producing an M9.8-class solar flare only percentage points below category X. The explosion almost certainly hurled a CME toward Earth, joining 2 to 3 more CMEs already en route. These events set the stage for geomagnetic storms later this week. Developing story @ Spaceweather.com.

    Solar flare alerts: Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when strong solar flares are underway.

    ———

    We need to unplug things that might be affected, if I understand correctly, but how can we work then? Are appliances that are plugged in but not currently operating, like a clothes washer, affected?

    • This is what the National Weather Service suggests:

      https://www.weather.gov/safety/space-before

      Prepare for an electrical outage, in 25 words or less.

      Someone else suggests this:

      https://lifehacker.com/how-to-prepare-for-a-solar-flare-hitting-earth-because-1848076402

      How to protect your household electrical system from power surges from solar flares

      You can’t do anything about transformers exploding from magnetic storms, but you can protect your household electrical system. Make sure your home is surge-protected with both a whole-house surge protector and run-of-the-mill power-strip surge protectors. This is a good idea for both massive, worldwide magnetic catastrophes and everyday power surges.

      Prepare a basic disaster survival kit is essential

      Like making sure your house is surge-protected, putting together a basic disaster kit is a good idea even if a solar flare never hits—loss of power could come with earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and some drunk guy driving into the pole across the street, so you want to be prepared. There’s no way of knowing how long the power would be out due to a magnetic storm, so exactly how much you should prepare is a personal decision. The basic survival kit guidelines laid out by the government seem like a good place to start.

      You should not overlook having some cash on hand, though. If international communication systems fail, you likely won’t be able to use the ATM, and hard currency could prove very useful, especially if the outage persists over time.

    • hkeithhenson says:

      “unplug things”

      There might be switching surges as the power company reroutes power, but it will be no worse than lines being blown down in a windstorm.

    • hkeithhenson says:

      “transformers exploding”

      I will be very surprised if a single transformer explodes. The power grid operators are keenly aware of the need to reduce the load on some transformers. What happens with a CME hitting the Earth is that the conductive mass compress the Earth’s magnetic field. The moving field induces current in the power lines which complete the loop through the Earth. The near DC current saturates the transformer iron which makes the AC current go way up and overheats the transformer.

      The worse of these is the long lines from James Bay down to the NYC area. But not long after the last time this happened they installed blocking capacitors in the lines which keeps any DC from flowing.

      We shall see.

      • Nope.avi says:

        No power delivery company is really prepared a solar flare. These comapnies haven’t really come up with any innovations to deal with frequently occuring disruptions due to weather on Earth.

    • adonis says:

      there is a possibility that the elders are planning a false flag attack on the financial system what better cover than a solar flare that could take out the internet for months allowing them to bring in a whole new system

    • hkeithhenson says:

      “coal is around the $120/ton mark”

      “I will refer you to the publicly available financial forecast information.

      https://www.basinelectric.com/News-Center/news-briefs/Directors-approve-Basin-Electric-and-subsidiary-financial-forecasts-for-2024-2033#:~:text=Over%20the%2010%2Dyear%20period%2C%20projected%20lignite%20coal%20deliveries%20from,estimated%20at%20approximately%20%244%20million.

      the forecast predicts that average coal prices will range from $18.66 to $26.81 per ton”

      Dakota Gratification mines 16 million tons per year.

      • Keith

        I quoted USA and Australian coal prices today

        your references appear to offer forecasts

        if the forecast is that coal will drop by 90% or so, we will just have to wait and see.

        even taking into account the differences between lignite and anthracite–it seems an awful lot to me.

        • hkeithhenson says:

          “I quoted USA and Australian coal prices today”

          Those prices include transpiration. Shipping anything a long ways makes it expensive.

          “wait and see.”

          Not long. The time range started in 2024.

      • https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal

        “Newcastle coal futures increased to $128 per tonne as demand from China is set to rise as temperatures are falling. ”

        https://www.eia.gov/coal/markets/

        Average weekly coal commodity spot prices
        dollars per short ton

        Central Appalachia – $73.45
        Northern Appalachia – $53.65
        Illinois Basin – $51.00
        Powder River Basin – $13.95
        Unita Basin – $29.75

        Quality and shipping costs vary greatly.

        • hkeithhenson says:

          “Powder River Basin – $13.95”

          If someone gets serious about using PV and coal to make liquid fuels, they are going to put a new processing plant next to a cheap coal source. A nearby pipeline to export the product would be essential, and a lot of flat land for the PV.

          Actually, the first one will probably be constructed in Qatar where they already have a gas to liquid plant, in fact two of them that output around 14000 bbl per day. At 4 bbl/ton, it would use 3500 tons of coal per day. Coal would come in by ship, but I don’t know what it would cost. They already have the cheap power.

        • hkeithhenson says:

          “vaxxed injured”

          Although I don’t know any who claim to be injured, I would be surprised if there were not some. That’s just the nature of vaccines going back to smallpox.

          If there is a lot of injury and no benefits. then the vaccine is a bad idea. Are you making that claim?

  19. I AM THE MOB says:

    IT’S HERE!

    US city raises alarm over leap in hospital cases as world fears Chinese illness spike
    Hospitals in Washington DC are on high alert after a spike in a mysterious respiratory illness, as scientists fear the outbreak from China is spreading

    https://www.the-express.com/news/health/119695/washington-dc-hospitals-respiratory-illness-spike

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Get your 7th Shot of Rat Juice…. step right up… heart attack – stroke – blood clot — get them shot while it’s hot!!!

      When the A Vaxxers said the Vaxxers were over the shots… I said — all we need is a bit of fear injected into the narrative… and they’ll be clamouring for MORE>

      It’s not as if they suddenly cured themselves of their stooopidity.

      norm – when do you get 8?

      And be sure to get the grand kids boosted… so you can stay safe

    • Angelo Babli says:

      WASHINGTON DC ARE ON HIGH ALERT
      Thanks. Back wearing masks when in public and no more bars until I get a better understanding what the hell is going on.

      • Fred says:

        “Back wearing masks when in public”

        Yes, yes, yes! Mask up and boost baby boost, you know it makes sense.

        And remember it’s never too early to fill your belly with that propaganda.

        • Angelo Babli says:

          I haven’t got COVID yet; if I did, it didn’t affect me.

          I was used to masks for other reasons, so wearing them for COVID is like wearing glasses; it’s no big deal. I need to talk slightly louder, but on the other hand, I received many compliments from women about my eyes.

          Masks are alright; driving in traffic or rain, that’s bad.

          • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

            okay all well and good.

            so now…

            if these sarscov2 vaccines are so great, how many have you had?

            really, if they’re so great…

            how many?

            • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

              otherwise, I think our new friend here has some ever growing doubts about the many jabs he has taken, in his short time here at OFW.

              it may have dawned on him that putting a substance into his system that creates trillions of spike proteins may not have been such a wise move.

              ANGELO!

              hello, anybody home?

              do you regret all your jabs or do you still retain your previous confidence in the vaccines?

            • Fast Eddy says:

              Hey angelo — so they say long covid is caused by the spike protein…

              Yet they inject you with stuff that makes your body produce epic amounts of spike protein…

              Please explain to me how that might be considered… a good idea.

              hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaahaha How can people be so f789ing D.UMMMB

          • Fast Eddy says:

            Whenever I see someone wearing a mask… in light of the fact that the best masks N95 … have a warning on the box that they cannot protect the user from respiratory illnesses (viruses are too small… they pass right through).

            I immediately label the wearer as a stoooopid MOREON… a non-critical thinker… someone who relies on bbccnn to tell the what to do

            I see them as one would a cockroach

      • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

        yes Angelo because each additional exposure to the spike protein either by variants or by vaccines does greatly increase the chances of severe health damage.

        but bigballsBabli, why won’t you tell us how many exposures you’ve had?

        you’re not afraid to, no?

        we’re all here to help.

        yes, really.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        Can you send us a photo of you in your mask?? Maybe wear two … and don’t forget to disinfect your hands 60x per day…

        And more boosters… always more boosters….

        Go Angelo go …. we will rejoice if you end up with an injury … we really will… cuz it’s best when the true believers drop

      • JMS says:

        Who lives in the fantasy world of masks & viruses cannot really hope to have a better understanding of what the hell is going on. Sorry to say, your beliefs about health and illness are owned by bigpharma PR department. You should pay an intellectual property fee every time you speak out on the subject.

        • Fast Eddy says:

          Add him to this list of fools who pollute OFW

          • Student says:

            Periodically this blog has new Troll characters.
            Usually they are people completely in line with western governments’ narrative, but who mainly or partially accept the positions of this blog.

            They try to put our discussions in ‘right’ tracks and stimulate doubts in the audience.
            The objective is to think: “if a person like me (who accept the idea of possible collapse of societies) says that we should take the experimental jab, maybe is right…”

            I wonder why we fall for it every time.
            We should have understood it.

  20. Nope.avi says:

    NORM: i thought i was making the point that there is no ”alternative system”—obviously i missed a few pointers—my fault.–must do better!!

    ////They will replace the current one if they want it to. ///

    hmmmm—who might ‘they” be? vague ‘theys’ are not good enough.

    ///They are the people who who run the world’s economic system. If they agree on a new economic system, it will happen. Hint: They aren’t the elected leaders.//

    To repeat it:

    it is only possible to create wages by changing one energy form into another.

    communism, capitalism or any other ism—you wont escape that rule, unless you enter a monastery.—that’s what our elected leaders reject or do not understand.

    ////You are so fixated on the present and on life since the industrial revolution. They know a system can work with no wages and that would allow a tiny minority, of which they are part of, to live very comfortably. At least, for a while.////

    yes we will hang on to bau as long as possible—including violently—but eventually all ”isms” run out of energy.—no one can guess how long it takes of course
    if a country runs out out of energy—it runs out of wages.
    whereupon it prints money as a substitute.

    ////You are so fixated on the present and on life since the industrial revolution. Wages are not necessary for an economic system to function. Profit is all that is necesssary.Profit can occur with no wages or very high wages. Profit allows everything to be run, for laws to be enforceable. As long as the important jobs are paid relatively well, everyone else doesn’t need to be paid at all.

    And you cannot pay wages for very long on borrowed money

    //// This is a free market economist’s opinon, which of course is wrong, since most countries who are having trouble paying off loans to the IMF would have been collapsed back into the Stone Age by now. Unfortunately, there’s is no such thing as a fre market in the real world. Debt defaults aren’t a big deal as long as there is enough of a surplus to keep everything going. Debt defaults for countries don’t mean no one will invest in a particular country ever again or there will be a severe trade embargo. Trade embargos are driven by politics, not by upset investors. ////

    • Fast Eddy says:

      How’s the weather in the utopian DelusiSTAN?

    • Angelo Babli says:

      //// are these Norm or you? ////
      I thought it was Norm until I got to the last paragraph. Now, I am not sure.

      • guest says:

        Nope’s responses are between ////

        The fact that there are corporations intentionally llosing money for esg reason is more than enough proof that there is an alternative economic system being planned and lots of safeguards to prevent the current one from collapsing. There aren’t bank runs anymore because banks limit how much money can be moved around.

        • guest—i can see the confusion as these comments progress in sequence

          in future i shall put ///np…xxxxx/// in front of mine—–thank you for making the point

    • if you don’t have wages nope—then you must acquire your daily sustenance some other way.

      that gives you a choice:

      1—you till your own acreage—and live exclusively off it.—no inputs of any kind.

      2—you become a hunter-gatherer.

      Now—to get to your suggested option:
      /////Profit can occur with no wages or very high wages. Profit allows everything to be run, for laws to be enforceable. As long as the important jobs are paid relatively well, everyone else doesn’t need to be paid at all. /////

      what you described is a slave labour economy.—If you didn’t recognise your description as slave labour, —then i cant exchange further on this.
      if you did, i can only hope we don’t get there.—it was, in any event, bonkers.

      yes—the industrial revolution altered our lifestyles, simply because we figured out how to convert fire into rotary motion.—so yes, i focus on that as being critical.
      and it happened in my own backyard—and i dont mean that figuratively.

      • Even slaves need food and clothing and some sort of shelter. If they are to work someplace different from where they live, they will need transportation, too. This is why the demand for slaves can drop to zero in a collapse.

        • Nope.avi says:

          “This is why the demand for slaves can drop to zero in a collapse.”
          Can you cite examples? I think you’d be right if collapse ended with a 100% reduction in population. In other scenearios, I’m not sure demand would drop to zero.

          I imagine even in a collapse situation, there would be tough guys, whether they are crimminals or people with military training , it doesn’t matter, trying to improve their situation by getting others to work for them at the threat of violence. The demand for slaves would be coming from those people.

          • Revelation, Chapter 18 warns about a future collapse, like the collapse of Ancient Babylon.

            11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes anymore— 12 cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13 cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and human beings sold as slaves.

            14 “They will say, ‘The fruit you longed for is gone from you. All your luxury and splendor have vanished, never to be recovered.’ 15 The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand far off, terrified at her torment. They will weep and mourn 16 and cry out:

            “‘Woe! Woe to you, great city,
            dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet,
            and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls!
            17 In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!’
            “Every sea captain, and all who travel by ship, the sailors, and all who earn their living from the sea, will stand far off. 18 When they see the smoke of her burning, they will exclaim, ‘Was there ever a city like this great city?’

        • slaves in numbers can be a source of surplus energy, but what they produce has to be exported.—they also need non-slave guards.

          the single slave is a problem, because he/she needs 2 non-slaves at least to prevent escape, or attacking his owners, or poisonng his food,—or whatever.

          • TIm Groves says:

            Then again: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes*—who will guard the guards themselves?

            Thus began a great Roman job creation pyramid.

            *A Latin phrase found in the Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–348), a work of the 1st–2nd century Roman poet Juvenal.

          • I think slaves are a reflection of surplus energy, not a source of it. I mean, one does need to feed them beyond mere subsistence. If you can’t pay to feed a horse or a car, you wouldn’t have them.

            • i think slaves are a pre requisite of having and using surplus availble energy

              take sugar cane—useless as a cash asset unless you have an army of slave labouerers to process it–the use of slaves made sugar energy very cheap to get hold of.

              (otherwise it grows and stays where it is)

              for 2 centuries it was worth using slaves (feeding, guarding etc) for the EROEI that sugar delivered.
              then oil energy replaced them, and the energy market moved elsewhere.

              coal was another example, useless until it is processed and moved.—coal miners were effectively slaves, paid no more than subsistence wages.

              now that energy source has largely moved on, and we’re looking for something else.

      • Nope.avi says:

        Most early civlilzations had slave labor economies.
        It’s unpleasent to imagine from your position but it is much more sustainable than what you are enjoying now.
        The Industrial Revolution made slavery unecessary because we began to partially substitute fossil fuel energy for human slave labor. In places where fossil fuels never became cheaply available, slavery is still the “cheap energy” that fuels the economy. I figured we could discuss this as-a-matter-of-fact but you seem squemish about it.

  21. Fast Eddy says:

    Burn….

    Meanwhile, land lease sales, offered by both government and private players, have fallen to their lowest levels since 2009, according to MSCI. In the government’s case, Chow said, it is not just due to the developers’ lack of appetite to bid, but also the government’s decision not to sell at bids below its assessed values.

    Of the two land sites the government managed to sell this year, one was valued in September at HK$5,392 per square foot in Kowloon’s Kai Tak area near an MTR station, down from more than three times as much for a nearby site barely four years ago, at HK$17,600. It was the lowest value in Kai Tak since 2014.

    The other site, at a prime location in Hong Kong Island’s Kennedy Town, was sold in July at HK$7,071 per square foot, the lowest value since 2002 for property in the same neighborhood, according to data from industry consultancy JLL.

    A developer who asked not to be named described the situation as a downward spiral caused by a triple whammy, inflicted by the local currency’s dollar peg, along with rising interest rates and a worsening consumer appetite.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/shuchingjeanchen/2023/11/28/hong-kong-property-market-enters-a-great-stagnation/?sh=760e052e30aa

    • Less land leased, means less building. This pushes the area closer to recession. It looks like property values might fall, unless governments take steps to try to prop them up.

  22. Fast Eddy says:

    Pope hospitalized with lung inflammation; Stephen Colbert’s appendix bursts; Ozzy Osbourne reveals spinal tumor; Cher’s look worries fans (“She can’t even walk”); Jamie Foxx “still struggling”

    PGA Tour winner John Senden “battling Parkinson’s”; “‘Bachelor’ Star Hailey Merkt Shares Health Update Following Cancer Diagnosis”

    https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/pope-hospitalized-with-lung-inflammation-0ef

    • Tim Groves says:

      That’s quite a toll of illness, pain and misery!

      But these poor people can take some small comfort from the knowledge that they would have been even worse off without the 4th booster.

      I for one wouldn’t want to deprive them of that.

      It’s also worth noting, as the chatbots like to say, that unjabbed people often get sick, endure painful diseases and die in tough circumstances.

      In a case known personally to me, a close friend died from the consequences of breast cancer last Friday and was cremated on Monday. I attended the funeral, saw her in the coffin, and I am still shocked and shaken by the sight and the accompanying thoughts.

      She first developed symptoms of cancer 13 years ago at the age of 43, but was treated and made what seemed like a full recovery after radiation treatment and the removal of some lymph nodules. All was well until about May of this year, then the cancer returned. She went to hospital but refused to undergo chemotherapy (as she had also done 13 years earlier). She was a woman of principle. Instead, she tried some alternative treatments, that ultimately didn’t stop the cancer, and she decided to recover at home or die trying.

      She was anti-vax, anti-chemo, very kind to people and animals, helpful to others, and would never say a bad word about anyone or call them a moreon. One of those people who made the world a better place for everyone around them. My own world is a smaller, colder, less welcoming place without her.

      I hadn’t seen her for about six months, when she still looked hale and healthy, and I had heard she was “not feeling well” but didn’t realize she was so sick. Neither she or her husband broadcast the details. But I was invited to the funeral, and I was glad of that. However, when I saw her face lying in the open casket, it was the face of an extremely old person emaciated almost to the point of being mummified. And I couldn’t help but ponder on how much she must have suffered over the past months.

      Thank God at least for morphine. But compared to that slow lingering death from cancer, I would much prefer to die suddenly and unexpectedly.

      So good luck to the Pope, Ozzy Osborne, Colbert, Cher, Foxx, Senden and Merkt. I sincerely hope they will all go on to recover, I remember, guys, it would have been even worse without the vaccine.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        How cool is it that the Rat Juice has been proved to reignite cancer many years after the Vaxxers thought they were out of the woods.

        The Rat Juice is truly magical

        • Kowalainen says:

          It’s trivial to be “kind” and “compassionate” when one is allowed to subdue the darker personality aspects by burning copious amounts of fossil fuels as the coping mechanism for various and nasty Rapacious Primate instincts and tendencies.

          In the mean time, together, let’s chant:

          YOLO!
          HYPERS GONNA…
          (etc.)

          🤣👍👍

      • Adonis says:

        Unfortunately the cull has begun whoever is not aware and continues to endorse the jabs is uneducated when it comes to planned pandemics just a quick update to those here that are believers they are giving cattle mrna jabs so milk and beef is infected if you happen to consume you’ll probably end up with a wrecked immune system the elders will attempt to get at us anyway they can next will be chicken pork and fish who knows how they would jab these animals I think seafood should be safe,goodluck everybody on keeping yourself safe as it is getting harder now.

    • Excerpt:

      Patricia Kowsmann: Basically, the idea that this company is like a bank or should behave like a bank, but in fact has no controls in place to make sure that the company is not being misused by criminals. So basically what they said is that Binance for a long time pretended to comply with the rules. It actually didn’t. It was processing a lot of transactions that actually came from criminal activity, and it is this idea that it was using new technology to break the law.

      Ryan Knutson: How did CZ respond to these investigations?

      Patricia Kowsmann: There was a lot of, “Well, yes, we started this company in a way that wasn’t following the rules, but nobody was.” And ever since 2021, this speech has been, “We are taking this seriously. We will put controls in place. We are hiring a lot of people in compliance to make sure that everything, all the rules are being followed.” What we found in our reporting is that for a long time they kept saying that and in fact they weren’t doing exactly that. There are a lot of internal messages that came out through these investigations where you saw people inside Binance literally saying, “It would be nice that we had X and Y, Z control in place, but if we do, we are going to lose customers and CZ doesn’t want that, so let’s not do it.”

      • Nope.avi says:

        Nope.avi, reporting from n DelusiSTAN, everyone knows that crypto wasa speed trap for the foolish and crimminal.

        Basically, the demographic of daytime television.

        Crypto was about serious as the name Sam Bankman

        who is fried, not baked.

  23. Fast Eddy says:

    Humans enjoy fighting and killing … https://t.me/leaklive/17041

    Remove the food – and the police …. and watch what happens

  24. Fast Eddy says:

    Spain .. is it the light.. or does this seem more ferocious than usual https://t.me/leaklive/17025

  25. Fast Eddy says:

    Calls to ‘Stop the Shots’ Intensify

    A growing number of groups worldwide, led by doctors, medical organizations and activists are demanding an end to COVID-19 vaccine campaigns, citing contamination, injuries and lack of informed consent.

    vigilantnews.com/post/calls-to-stop-the-shots-intensify

    Too late .. the die is cast (pun intended hahaha)

  26. Fast Eddy says:

    Awwwww.. he’s a LIAR!!! https://t.me/downtherabbitholewegofolks/89963

  27. Fast Eddy says:

    See how easy it is to get the MOREONS who insisted no more.. to take more hahaha

    They didn’t cure themselves of STooopidity … they just needed a bit of fear and to be told what to do…

    right norm?

    HAVE YOU NOTICED THE RAMPING UP OF COVID FEAR IN #NZ MEDIA?

    In the past few weeks there has been a lot more publicity about our

    “eighth covid wave”.

    This has translated into a MASSIVE upsurge in covid vaccination.

    I look every week, and the usual total number of doses administered per week sits between

    4,500 – 5,500 per week.

    In the past week

    27,240 DOSES ADMINISTERED

    3,245 Second Boosters (e.g. dose 4)

    23,582 Third Boosters (e.g. dose 5)

    #nz #mrna #informedconsent #covidvaccines

    • ivanislav says:

      >> HAVE YOU NOTICED THE RAMPING UP OF COVID FEAR IN #NZ MEDIA?

      I can’t speak for NZ, but here in USA, Costco workers are wearing latex gloves and more maskers are about than usual.

  28. Fast Eddy says:

    Apparently afterwards they are going to march to a few of the clinics in the area with shot guns and get some justice… https://t.me/TheHealthForumNZch/3824

    • Support group for the vaccine injured:

      Are you vaccine injured or have lost a loved one through the injection?

      You are warmly invited to come and connect with a supportive group of peers who understand first hand what you have been through.

      With a chance to share stories and resources and reempower yourself you are certainly not alone!

      Strength through connection

      • Fast Eddy says:

        Strength through connection….

        Hahahahahaha… the f789ing MOREONS survived attempted murder… and their response is to gather … join hands and sing KOOMbaya…

        Humans truly are stooopider than cockroaches…. no wonder the Elders treat them this way

      • Fast Eddy says:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binance

        Rather light on the genesis of this thing… given Bitcoin is a Deep State creation (and everything is fake) .. assume this is also

  29. Fast Eddy says:

    Prices of New Houses Drop Further, -18% Year-over-Year, Sales Drop, High Inventories Rise Further, Supply Jumps

    https://wolfstreet.com/2023/11/27/prices-of-new-houses-drop-further-18-year-over-year-sales-drop-high-inventories-rise-further-supply-jumps/

  30. Fast Eddy says:

    Huge Collapse in New Home Sales on Top of Steep Negative Revisions

    https://mishtalk.com/economics/huge-collapse-in-new-home-sales-on-top-of-steep-negative-revisions/

  31. A friend of mine reminded me that entering into a war is tailwind to an economy, if there is little/no threat to the enemy severely damaging local infrastructure.

    Clearly, the US sending arms to Ukraine is a tailwind to the US economy, if it allows it to produce more arms and send them to Ukraine. It also allows the US economy to have an excuse for borrowing more money–spending in excess of revenue taken in as taxes.

    Also, Russia attacking Ukraine is a tailwind to the Russian economy. It gives an excuse for factories making armaments to operate full time, employing more workers. It adds to debt needs. There is little chance of Ukraine damaging Russia’s major infrastructure. The only loss is of population, but, as we all know, the world has too much population as it is. The embargo against oil exports has allowed Russia to use more oil itself. Russia’s oil production has been above OPEC+ quotas.

    I would think that the “War on Terror” is a tailwind for the US economy. It is an excuse to keep military spending high. The 20-year war in Afghanistan was, to some extent, a tailwind to the US economy.

    The huge amount of airport security is another way to stimulate the economy, in every country.

    When I visited India quite a few years ago, I was amazed by the number of different steps I needed to go through, with each station manned by different people. There was someone outside the airport, checking documents. Then there was a huge book I needed to sign in. There were separate lines for looking at my suitcase and carry ons. I thought at the time, “This is simply a way of making work for otherwise unemployed individuals.”

    When my husband and I visited Japan a few years ago, we were amazed at all of the make-work government projects people were involved in. They were creating roads, with virtually no traffic. They were paving the hillsides next to roads and also the bottoms of creeks. I could see how Japan was keeping its government debt rising to the moon. This is how Japan can keep its unemployment ratio very low. Investing in wind and solar are other make-work projects.

    • Dana says:

      The excessive numbers of medical administrators and paper pushers is a make work program here in the US.

      • I understand that the huge coding requirement for US hospital medical costs (also dental costs) comes down to a huge make-work program as well. No one is really interested in analyzing this data from the point of view of making the system work better. People can study all of the detailed instructions and make a career out of the coding.

    • Under Flowerpot says:

      I was involved with a multi-year multi-hundred person make work project. It defied my technical understanding that it could be happening. However once I understood the borrow money and engage in stock buybacks scheme, then there was no technical failsafe even in a profitable for-profit company to expunge this excuse for more debt. I later suspected that it was reputation death from other technical folks to work on the project at the company because from a technical point of view the project was a drag on resources. So unintentionally, accidentally, ignorantly and unfortunately I fell into this project.

      In the grand scheme of things, only inside the company, one can make a determination of merit, and once one compares debt financed work to all debt incentivizing all work, um, by the grace of …, there goes seemingly everyone. There is another famous ancient lawyer who talks about the futility of debt redemption through effort alone.

      However I had read stories of forestry activities in the Great Depression that essentially were the same as my observations. And I started to understand that Silicon Valley is a mill town like any other. Where investors seeking yield will pay yield-workers for a thrill of more yield, as long as you buy housing and such from the company store.

      So I am watching Gail edge more and more closely nudge closer (as I intuit) to an entropy understanding of energy demand. A potential fusion of concerns about heat and information as entropy. She has far better words, I simply do not have them, but I suspect they are out there. The information encoded into a debt instrument (or invention), and more energy is sought to retire/service the debt instrument (or monetize the invention).

      • Cromagnon says:

        There is something profound in your intuition. Only civilized humans engage in these type of economic shenanigans for reasons that appear nebulous at best.
        The rest of biological existence operates following a hardline photosynthetic playbook.
        Let just see how the simulacrum deals with our lifeform in the longer term.
        I of course suspect that the next species to achieve Homo level awareness will have ringed tails or be bipedal with a talent for mimicry……..

        • Kowalainen says:

          It’s got nothing to do with being “civilized”. Rapacious Primates mimicking their equally vile brethren is just make believe civilization enabled by cheap fossil fuels.

          I reckon the next somewhat concious species roaming the realm will be more of a civilizational than a faux “civil” species.

          It is all about conceptualizing and projecting civilizational survival instinct one specimen at a time out into the world.

          Not likely gonna happen with “souped up” primates. It’s just too ridiculous to fathom. Just have them superglued to depleting wellheads until they explode from gluttony or get mentally ill from coping with the Monkey Business.

          🙈

      • With all of these strange shenanigans going on, I am reminded of the article posted a few days ago by Tom Luongo.
        https://tomluongo.me/2023/11/24/what-are-the-saudis-really-preparing-for/

        It was announced the other day that Saudi Arabia and China are opening a $7 billion local currency swap line. It prompted the highest-trafficked tweet of mine ever.

        My later elaboration for “Mark”:

        They [the Neocons] most certainly are flying by the seat of their pants, Mark [his conclusion]. What is happening now is pure desperation as they try to figure out how to extend and pretend this war through the election cycle to maintain the possibility of the ages-old enmity versus Russia.

        But the KSA flip is real. Swap lines are a precursor to intervention. My tweet was high concept but it goes like this:

        1) Announce swap lines
        2) Start taking real amounts of yuan for oil
        3) This breaks the peg of the Riyal to the USD when oil is relatively strong, not in crisis mode
        4) The substitution of the CNY for the USD is existential for the US who then attacks the KSA exchange rate, pulling money out of the country…
        5) SANCTIONS ON KSA.
        6) Expanded swaps to convert USD encumbered assets with Riyal assets, once USD are verboten in KSA.
        7) China provides them, with loans repayable in CNY.

        Moves that occurred 10 years ago are instructive of why we are where we are today and where we may be headed.

        The announcement of the swap lines is likely a pre-announcement of an Economic Hitman-style attack on Saudi Arabia by the US. It’s not really that difficult to foresee.

        For historical context, Russia was hit hard in 2014/15 by the collapse in oil prices. In retaliation for “stealing Crimea” an attack on oil prices was organized by President Obama and the gaggle of usual suspects to trash the oil price.

        In June of 2014 oil closed at $112.36. And the price began dropping the first trading day of July 2014 and didn’t stop until the end of 2015.

        Those of us who follow oil easily remember the strange drop in oil prices in 2014/2015.

        Saudi Arabia helped that process by expanding production, thinking they would take Russia’s market share as the Russian ruble collapsed and Russia’s foreign exchange reserves were drained.

        The key to the anticipated win was that Russian companies, mostly the big State Owned Enterprises like Gazprom and Rosneft, had a lot of dollar-denominated debt which was about to mature and needed rolling over. . .

        The rollover problem for the debt is always the big problem. Is it possible to pay it back with interest, and get new debt to offset?

        China stepped in at the height of the ruble’s collapse to give Russia a swap line between yuan and rubles. China paid off Gazprom’s debt. Russia paid them back in yuan, which they were going to get freely because of these swap lines then and Power of Siberia in the future.

        The article goes on, explaining how Saudi Arabia can be trapped in a similar situation.

        • Student says:

          Arab Countries and Middle East ones have realized that if they don’t put a break to US’s and Israel’s way of treating people in the region, they will soon find themselves crushed like beetles in the same way that 14.500 palestinians have been killed in their homes, hospitals, schools or street in the last 7 weeks.
          Without any care for children, women, elders, wounded or weak people.

          They have clearly realized that Arab and Middle East lives have no value for US and Israel.
          One must think that it is too dangerous to leave a situation like this.

          Will you leave a power do the same things to Canadian people without being extremely worried in US?

          They have to put a break if they want to survive.
          And in my view, they have even endured much and for long.

      • Dennis L. says:

        How then shall we live?

        What is the point of any of our existences from an earthly view? When we pass, what do we leave, what do we have other than the experience? Who will judge the value of the experience?

        Please note, I am the optimist here; I strongly believe biology is the result of considerable effort, it is our job to find the answers in the fabric of the universe.

        Dennis L.

        • Kowalainen says:

          How about attempting individualism while acknowledging the importance of others without trying to make yourself into that which you are not?

          Look, nobody really gives a fsck about you, not even the so called “people” in your life with “empathy”, all they want is to revel in their emotions, just like pigs in mud.

          Like wise old Gautama tried to teach:
          Don’t be so awfully faux as you cope with the suck of existing. It’s better just to exist, and isn’t it by default enough as the alternative is nonexistent?

          But perhaps most people need a grand goal to project their insecurities onto the world, and into the next generation of equally mentally ill Hypers?

          • Tim Groves says:

            Harsh words! But wise ones too! And not directed a Denis, but at all of us.

            I have been feeling depressed in the mornings, and grieving for the past few days in response to the loss of my close friend. But now I realize I have been reveling in my emotions, just like a pig in a mud hole.

            This realization makes me feel much better, and now I shall proceed to revel in that, or perhaps I should say, “wallow” in it.

            • Kowalainen says:

              I reckon we’re all like the occasional pig in mud, but at least it’s good to know that we’re voluntarily reveling in the dirt.

              People pretend to give a rats rear end, because affordable FF’s enable us to play make believe, and we got the time to be vested in our emotions, egotistical fantasies of eternal life, and delusional projections into a rather bleak future.

              https://youtu.be/e9e2zPpG5zE?si=aKbaJTvtJTIsKY-s

        • Under Flowerpot says:

          I see your “How then shall we live?” And I raise you “Turn from your evil ways!”

          Your optimism is off-beat. The Theologically Correct situation is that “G-d does not sin”, forgetting the Theological gotcha-counter, presented in Malachi, I believe.

          That the Divine is limited to, or more imaginatively has an indeterminant free-hand, of the Pareto rule instead of having to deterministically keep selecting/pruning “the fog of multi-verse” is a delightful optimism. The Creator ought to enjoy learning from his Art instead of living in his debugger full time.

          I agree that biology is the result of considerable effort. Evolutionists and Intelligent Designers are vehement over starting conditions. “Oh yeah, my Original Causation is more naïve than yours.” And in keeping with some intersection of the simulacrum, previously I have opined that the Zero-th Law of Thermodynamics guarantees Bayes Rule is always computed, but likely barely encoded. This gives rise that a substantial quantity of matter interactions are actual-cross-literal computations. And we are lucky to infer from the “computation trace” of everything all at once to make sense of what is going on.

          My Amish ancestors might not like how I came to know more than I should about computation.

          • Kowalainen says:

            Let me summarize that rather intellectual yada-yada.

            The divine programs a game (of life) of which there is no tractable proof of how the endgame will unfold.

            Let’s call the game StarCraft, or SimCity. And it’s fun to play and watch.

    • Dennis L. says:

      “The only loss is of population, but, as we all know, the world has too much population as it is.” This was in regards to Russia.

      Demographics is the problem, Russia has been dying for some time, 1.42 children born to a woman in 2020-2025.

      Russia is losing this war as it is losing priceless people. Projected populations 2023 144.4m, 2040 134.7m, 2050 133.1m to 135.8m. Median age in 2023 39.2, 2040 42.14, 2040 44.87

      USSR population in 1939 was 170.5m. Russia sacrificed its youth and saved the baby boomers in US from death in WWII.

      Russian deaths in Ukraine are somewhere between 50k and 300k, the US only lost 50k in Viet Nam, some of those who came back were horribly maimed, I cared for a number of them at the VA. War is not romantic.

      Dennis L.

    • Fred says:

      “The huge amount of airport security is another way to stimulate the economy, in every country”.

      I have to pick you up on this Gail.

      Not all economic activity is born equal, as Russia has so capably demonstrated recently. Any pointless activity is actually a net drain on an economy and society, beyond the money printing phase that has an inevitable use by date.

      One can argue that much of Western ‘GDP’ is just paper shuffling fueled by money printing.

      Ultimately if you want to do something useful, you have to manufacture stuff and if you stop that you lose your sovereignty. As Ukraine has illustrated, much of the West has lost the ability to manufacture necessary amounts of required stuff and/or the allocated funds are siphoned off or wasted.

      Great illustration is the funds provided by the West to renovate Ukraine’s energy system – all gone, poof, nothing tangible resulted.

      • Yes, GDP is mostly a computation of the amount of waste. Destructive practices are given the same or greater value as creative or conservative practices in the GDP scheme of things, truly conservative practices having zero or negative GDP reporting effects.

  32. raviuppal4 says:

    Copy/paste from comments on Kurt Cobb’s blog . The LNG economy .
    ” Couple of problems with an energy economy based on extensive LNG importation + exportation.
    First is that typical seaborne transportation of natural or methane [or swamp] gas consumes about 5% of the product being shipped. The ERoEI or ‘energy return ratio’ [easier to pronounce + explain to people] thus drops further compared to shipment by pipeline.
    Second is the reality of multiple sites of point-source fugitive methane release in the entire chain of natural gas infrastructure. The dilemma here is exemplified by a critical cross-over point. If as much as 3% of methane escapes then the ultimate ‘levelized cost’ of heat-trapping gases is as severe as that associated with the extraction + combusion of coal. Logically, above 3% the contribution to climate change is ironically even more severe.
    Natural gas is not a bridge fuel after all, but rather a bridge to that small Alaskan island, speaking metaphorically.

  33. MikeJones says:

    It may surprise you to learn that silica – essentially sand – is the world’s second most consumed resource after water.

    In fact, silica is an essential component of modern society.

    From concrete buildings and construction, to glass and manufacturing, to cell phones and computer processing chips… silica is everywhere!

    More recently, silica is gaining attention for its role within the clean energy transition.

    It’s a primary component for solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, wind turbines, electrical vehicle batteries… and now, thermal energy storage.

    In a groundbreaking project, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is using silica sand to develop long-duration thermal energy storage.

    For a decarbonized world, this is significant because it enables electricity storage over a period of days – rather than 2-4 hours.

    Widespread construction due to industrialization, population growth, and urbanization has already tripled the global rate of sand use —far exceeding the natural rate at which sand is being replenished by the weathering of rocks.

    The construction industry alone consumes roughly 40 to 50 billion tons of sand annually, enough to build a wall of 27 meters high by 27 meters wide that wraps around the planet every year.

    Add to that modern uses in energy storage, batteries, solar and wind energy, and electronics, and it’s not surprising some scientists are claiming it constitutes one of the greatest sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

    …..An additional $110 Billion is expected to be invested in solar by 2030.vii

    Over $36 billion is funnelling into in the EV industry.viii

    And $160 billion is earmarked for the expansion of wind power.

    Every single one of these industries requires large amounts of high-purity silica.

    Now keep in mind, purely domestic supply is not going to be enough to satisfy the coming silica demand. As a result, the United States is angling towards strategic partnerships with neighbors both to the North and the South.

    https://tomorrowinvestor.com/america-gains-another-edge-in-the-battle-for-clean-energy-supremacy/15240/?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral&tblci=GiCE-hsobYc8HcJOY1mpYW-0l0Fgw2eJE5aTJ3ghYgv0tyDwvUco6cfSvPfd3a_DAQ#tblciGiCE-hsobYc8HcJOY1mpYW-0l0Fgw2eJE5aTJ3ghYgv0tyDwvUco6cfSvPfd3a_DAQ

    The future is SAND..Plastics is the past..invest now

  34. ivanislav says:

    Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Not the Future of Energy || Peter Zeihan
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXUdalkdniM

    Peter Zeihan says capital is drying up for the companies working on this stuff – I presume this is US-specific but he didn’t say.

    • postkey says:

      “The Westinghouse AP300™ Small Modular Reactor is the most advanced, proven and readily deployable SMR solution. Westinghouse proudly brings 70+ years of experience developing and implementing new nuclear technologies that enable reliable, clean, safe and economical sources of energy for generations to come.
      Our AP1000® reactor is already proving itself every day around the globe. Currently, four units utilizing AP1000 technology are operating in China, setting performance records. Six more are under construction in China and one AP1000 reactor is operating at Plant Vogtle in Georgia while a second nears completion.” ?
      https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/ap300-smr/twclid/2-12i1qwjigi51ns54gt8fwic8o?utm_campaign=westinghouse&utm_medium=social-p&utm_source=twitter

      • ivanislav says:

        Yeah, I wasn’t saying he’s right. He’s a flipping maroon. Among his past claims:
        * the M777 howitzers are game-changers and will allow the Ukrainians to wage a decapitation strategy against Russian command and control
        * Russia is using human wave tactics

        The most obvious counterargument is that every nuclear submarine is proof that SMRs work.

        • drb753 says:

          I think it is more of a fuel problem than the specific reactor. Besides the traditional ones, SMR and molten salt, not to mention pebble beds, all will probably work. The bottlenecks are in mastering and producing sufficient breeders (once you have fissile isotopes, you can burn either uranium, which is running low, or thorium, which is not), and disposing of waste cheaply. I should also add that traditional reactors are very inefficient, with a 0.3% uranium potential energy to electrical energy efficiency, so any improvements there would be greatly appreciated.

          • I would agree that fuel is likely to be a problem. It would need to be imported, and there would processing that needs to be done. Keeping these chains working would be a problem.

            Security of these individual reactors has been a concern, as well. Obvious military targets, for example.

          • raviuppal4 says:

            drb , Zeihan is called ” Jim Cramer of Geo politics ” . Anyway SMR , molten salt , pebble bed etc, etc are not going to come online . Nuclear is over . All air , no punch .

      • Jan says:

        Nuclear is somewhere about 4% of the used energy. When fracking drops out in about 5 years, 30% will be missing, in Europe and in the US probably more as the oil producers have declared to join the BRICS.

        That would mean within 5 years the capacity of nuclear energy generation has to be increased by at least 500%. Including electric installations, e-cars and such.

        Good luck with such a plan!

        • nuclear energy and ff energy are interchangeable in a few applications, mostly they are not

          • hkeithhenson says:

            “mostly they are not”

            Coal and electricity from nuclear or PV can make jet fuel and diesel for less cost than pumping oil.

            Recently I have been talking to people at one of the largest nuclear generating stations in the world about this. For part of the year they could make more than is needed. The extra power could be used to make synthetic fuels.

            • keith

              //////Coal and electricity from nuclear or PV can make jet fuel and diesel for less cost than pumping oil.////

              i serriously want some kind of documented peer reviewed evidence for this.

              in the meantime, accept some evidence from a scientific dimbo like me—-

              fossil fuel, in whatever form, is of very high density, and delevers energy directly at the point of extraction—ie i can dig coal out of the ground, and burn it immediately.

              on the other hand, pv power is so diffuse, as to be useless for concentrated energy conversion and use. Sunpower per sq metre cannot be altered.

              the laws of physics dictate that you cannot convert the energy collected by an array of solar panels, and convert that energy into that concentrated in a barrel of oil, other that perhap by having solar arrays so vast there would be no room on the planet for us.

              yes–i know about ”space collectors”—but put away your calculator and think.

              we have to put pv arrays in space, to collect sufficient power –in theory–to manufacture jet fuel, so that we can use it to maintain bau here on earth.
              even writing such claptrap makes me feel dafter than usual.

              keith, i have no doubts about your past scientific acheivements—but on this occassion i think you’ve completely lost it. maybe its old age—i have the same problem sometimes.

              i only write this down as some kind of sanity safety valve for myself

            • hkeithhenson says:

              “peer reviewed evidence”

              The idea is too new to be peer reviewed yet. In fact, there are no papers yet.

              But you can follow the logic and economics.

              A ton of coal in a cheap submerged arc furnace takes 3 MWh of electric power to turn it into 16 MWh of syngas. That gas makes 4.25 bbl of diesel.

              The coal costs $20/ton and the power at 1.35 cents per kWh costs $40 for a total of $60 or less than $15/bbl. The capital cost to convert the gas to diesel is $8/bbl. The submerged arc furnaces will likely cost less than $2/bbl, so the whole process makes diesel for $25/bbl or less than a dollar a gallon.

              Cheap power and coal seems to be a way to make cheap diesel or jet fuel.

              I can support all these number if you disagree with any of them.

            • Finding an adequate supply of cheap coal is an issue now. High quality coal near population centers has pretty much been depleted. There is some difficult to access coal. Also, there is a lot of very low quality coal, also quite difficult to access. Transportation of coal usually uses diesel (overland or by ship). This tends to raise the price of the coal.

              World coal supply has not been growing for years. On a per capita basis, its supply is down.

              https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Coal-production-by-part-of-the-world-to-2020.png

              https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/World-coal-consumption-per-capita-to-2021.png

              I think that the reason that a lot is being said about how awful coal is really a “sour grapes” response to lack of supply. Notice how much of the world’s coal that China has been producing.

            • today’s price of coal is around the $120/ton mark

              https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/coal-price

              current price of coal inAustralia is $142 ton
              dunno where your $20 coal is coming from.—figures above seem to indicate 6x or 7x that—no wonder your stuff isn’t peer reviewed.

              i’m a know-nothing—and it only took 2 clicks to ”review” that.—i thought it was too cheap when i read it—before i checked it.

              Gail also deals with the ‘cheap coal’ problem.–there isn’t any—and even if you can find some, with cheap labour to get at it, any enterprise will burn through it in no time—jevons paradox again

              The British Empire was run on cheap coal and iron—, when my grandfather was paid £2 a week to dig it out.

              those days have long gone.

              And even if we take your figures at face value, and produce cheap diesel, you still run into the problem of using it—fuel means nothing until it is burned—and that takes a lot of ancilliary equipment.

              it may be that your mate in coober pedy is indulging in mutual figure-boosting and self-agreement…..that such stuff is viable.

              yes i know there are vast coal deposits there–but $20 ton?

              we burned our way to our present state through profligate fuel use—there seems to be a fixation that we can go on forever.

              tried to advise you keith—chuck that calculator away and get a logic implant—it will work better.

            • hkeithhenson says:

              What’s behind China’s mysterious wave of childhood pneumonia?
              Scientists expected a surge in respiratory disease, but what is happening in China is unusual.

              https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03732-w

              More or less expected as a rebound from the measures to control Covid.

              The unusual feature is a lot of bacterial infections.

            • Withnail says:

              today’s price of coal is around the $120/ton mark

              https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/coal-price

              current price of coal inAustralia is $142 ton
              dunno where your $20 coal is coming from

              I pointed out exactly the same thing to Keith last blog post. He ignored it and continues to falsely claim coal is $20 a ton.

            • keiths calculator functions to different laws of economics than everybody else’s—its as if he bought a very early one, around 1970, and its function stuck there.

            • hkeithhenson says:

              “different laws of economics”

              Gail listed Powder River coal at $13.95. I did a copy/paste from an email I got from Dakota Gasification where they use 16,000 of coal tons per day making synthetic methane.

            • I pointed out that there are simultaneously many different prices of coal, depending on where it is from and its qualities. All of the numbers can be right.

              Only a tiny fraction of coal is close to $20 per ton, and it needs to be transported long distances using oil, greatly increasing its delivered price, I expect.

            • hkeithhenson says:

              “Only a tiny fraction of coal is close to $20 per ton, and it needs to be transported long distances using oil”

              Right. If someone were to implement this coal and solar power to synthetic diesel, they would build the plant next to the coal mine.

            • JesseJames says:

              “compliance coal, which meets the Phase II low-sulfur requirements of the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act.” is undoubtedly, very expensive.

              This is probably what all Western nations have been blackmailed into using.

            • hkeithhenson says:

              ” which meets the Phase II low-sulfur requirements ”

              Conversion to diesel by this method emits no sulfur no matter how much is in the coal.

          • hkeithhenson says:

            “lot of front-end investment”

            I agree. The high cost of electrolytic cells using platinum is a killer. But there seems to be a way using coal and electric power that is much less expensive. It will take a while for this idea to catch on, but it seems to make economic sense.

            • Keith

              with respect, there always seems to be much about your witing and comments that suggests—something that will ”catch on”—or be a good idea, or–theories are well advanced—have been calculated etc etc.

              i think of solar umbrellas, space elevators, asteroid mining, energy from the sun—space manufacturing–(i could go on)

              Whereas our problems seem to be here and now. And all the above (apart from the nuisance of actually inventing the means) require high intensity industry here on earth, and here and now, today.

              but, when i point out that future collapse of energy supplies will lead to future hyperinflation (prior to economic collapse)
              That is arrogant prediction on my part.

              interesting.

            • Norm, hkh is one of those “technology cannot fail, it can only *be* failed” sorts. So familiar.

              When it doesn’t actually work out, it’s due to a failure of imagination.

            • oh

              i put failure down to a flat battery in his calculator

            • Withnail says:

              But there seems to be a way using coal and electric power that is much less expensive.

              Do you imagine there is economically mineable coal lying around spare in countries like the UK?

              It’s all long ago been used up.

    • Any kind of energy with a lot of front-end investment is a no-go in a situation with 5%+ interest rates. Too much debt is involved. The return on investment has to be very high. This is a problem for (solar panels + batteries) and offshore wind. Maybe onshore wind can work to a limited extent.

    • Withnail says:

      The projects are being cancelled in the US because small reactors make no sense. Go big or go home.

  35. Fast Eddy says:

    Did the Covid jab make a famous doctor’s cancer WORSE? Belgian immunonologist claims his lymphoma exploded like ‘fireworks’ after getting booster

    Immunologist was diagnosed with cancer of the immune system last summer

    Scans showed his cancer exploded ‘like fireworks’ after getting his booster jab

    The medic believes the swift spread may be a ‘very rare’ side effect of Pfizer

    Pfizer and Moderna have found no link between mRNA vaccines and cancer

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11266837/Did-Covid-jab-make-famous-doctors-cancer-WORSE.html

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/09/mrna-covid-vaccine-booster-lymphoma-cancer/671308/

    • Rodster says:

      “Pfizer and Moderna have found no link between mRNA vaccines and cancer”

      Shocker! Has Albert Bourla taken his own product or is he still using fake vaccine passports to enter European countries?

  36. raviuppal4 says:

    We are in a pickle and we shut our eyes . Post by Anne on OSB ( Mike S ).
    ” Goldman’s latest supply forecast – up 1 million for 2023 (I’ll believe it next April if I see it in the real numbers), but only 0.3 million in 2024. That means drilling hard enough to make up for 0.7 million of 2023 decline, plus the 0.3 million we’re supposed to add to our exports. My personal bet is that the Big Event next year will be the grudging admission by the EIA once they can’t hide from the numbers that we’ll be flat at best in 2024. Not a good look for an election year so it’ll take awhile, but could make for quite the short squeeze in Exxon and Chevron.

    • One of the questions now is, “What happens to interest rates in 2024?”

      If interest rates drop, as the market is expecting, then an increase in drilling can take place.

      The observation has been made that a great deal of US government outstanding debt is rolling over in 2024, because so much of recent debt has been short term. If the US also is ramping up borrowing because of major deficit spending, there is a question whether all of this additional government debt demand will raise interest rates. The US can, in theory, use QT to try to get the rates back down. But will this work adequately?

      US government debt demand rising at the same time that private debt demand is rising (with lower interest rates) may also tend to raise interest rates.

      • raviuppal4 says:

        Gail , lowering interest rates is not going to bring down the rate of inflation . Inflation is governed by several factors main being demand and supply , labor , money supply . If we have a trillion dollar deficit then the money supply will increase , at the same time supply chain constraints will constrict supplies of essential material leading to higher prices , labor in the oil patch is already a major , major ( I have repeated major ) problem . So costs will go up but selling price is constrained by affordability . No logic in drilling more if the producer can’t make profit . Anyway , drill where ? There are no places left to drill . Shale was the hail Mary pass and that party is over . Drilling dry holes is not very intelligent . Your premise is incorrect .

        • Fast Eddy says:

          Throw in deep depletion of affordable energy … you push the pedal harder with more cheap $$$ and the engine revs without being able to get into a higher gear —- and eventually red lines then the whole shebang blows to pieces

        • raviuppal4 says:

          PA oil with 40 years of experience confirms everything I said yesterday .
          ” PAOIL
          IGNORED
          11/28/2023 at 11:29 am
          Much tougher. Been drilling oil wells for 40 years. Sold oil at $15/barrel and gas at $2 in the late 80’s and survived. Made money and grew the company from 2007 to 2014 when oil averaged more than $100/barrel and gas was usually better than $5. Today it’s as tough as it’s ever been. Oil’s at $75 but gas is less than $2 when you account for basis (charges due to geography). There are three big factors: 1) Inflation. We’ve had to raise wages big time just to get people to show up…let alone work. Worse than wages are the steel products–which is everything we use. Tubular prices have doubled. Pickup truck prices are nuts. If you just look at the rate of inflation today’s $75 oil is like $60 oil three years ago…but in reality my breakeven price has climbed a lot faster than the rate of inflation. We’re holding on at $75 oil; 2) Crazy regulations. What’s coming out of the feds and state governments is designed to drive up our costs and put us out of business–its not designed to accomplish sensible environmental goals. I could write a book on that one…or you could just look at the stack of regulations…which are thicker than books; and 3) it’s damn tough to find good property worth drilling. When I started a sweet little well would give back a couple thousand barrels in the first year. Now its considered good around here if you get 1000 barrels in the first year. And to get that we’re drilling wells in tougher locations and using more sand and water. I guess that is your higher EROI, because we’re burning more diesel fuel and hauling in more stuff to make a go of it. I don’t know anyone in the industry that is out there smiling and feeling relaxed about $75 oil.

          • you are at the sharp end ravi

            seriously—you should write a more comprehensive piece on the subject

          • raviuppal4 says:

            Now Mike Shellman confirms . The costs are out of Wazoo . Ralph Nader wrote ” Unsafe at any speed ” maybe I will write a book ” Shale unprofitable at any price ” . 🙂
            https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/increases-in-cost-of-supply

            • Fast Eddy says:

              All data points are imploding … slow mo…

              The Elders and their minions are monitoring.. and acting…

              https://drpanda.substack.com/p/pandemic-2-mystery-respiratory-illness

              Mycoplasma pneumoniae may warrant closer attention. Outbreaks, recurrent or severe infections are signs of a weakened immune system.

              “We found no known DNA or RNA viruses, no bacterial pathogens, no fungal pathogens,” says Needle, “We were sort of at a breaking point.”

              Until finally, a clue: A short segment of DNA belonging to what — as far as Needle can tell — appears to be bacteria that no one has ever described before.

              “We think this may be a pathogen,” he says, “It’s something novel. It’s in a proportion of the cases. It’s funky.”

          • raviuppal4 says:

            Follow up by PAOIL . I like his sign off line ” end of rope ” . Enjoy .

            Dennis, we could maintain production and cut costs. 1) drill fewer wells and abandon growth; 2) ignore well plugging and leave it for the next generation; 3) cut benefits; 4) don’t replace trucks, rigs, bulldozers and excavators. Or we could actually make money by terminating drilling and laying off 1/2 the staff–over the next 10 years depletion would cut our production by half, but it would be a fat & happy 10 years. But neither of those options are the way a guy wants to run a business. What I’m saying is there is no joy in the patch. Our little patch only makes enough oil/gas to power the USA for 1/4 of a day–but I know everyone in the patch; ALL of us are seeing the same “end of rope” signs.

          • Fast Eddy says:

            Inflation will not be brought under control… impossible

            Time to kill everyone

          • hkeithhenson says:

            “PA oil with 40 years of experience ”

            Very informative. Could you tell me where you got this?

      • moss says:

        Gail, interest rates at present levels are causing immense stress, even if it’s not feeding through yet to the stock market.
        I’m emailing you a jpg of bank pool unrealised losses with yield rises over the past two years – and further back. I expect insurance and pension pools will be much the same, or perhaps worse losses because of the nature of the securities they’ve stuffed in their reserve pools.

        No One Knows the Future

        @Ravi – pray tell, please, what’s “Anne on OSB ( Mike S )”
        It took me forever to find out what your POB was …

    • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

      “… flat at best in 2024.”

      very nice.

      also will Canada be flat or up?

      US + Canada black goo crude production 19+ mbpd.

      but I repeat myself.

  37. MG says:

    Recently, I was thinking about the tailwind of the immigration of the better suited population.

    After the medieval wood energy collapse, Wallachians were invited into the mountainous area of the Carpathians in Slovakia and the neighbouring countries.

    https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CW%5CA%5CWallachians.htm

    https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/hiperboreea/article/8/2/204/216637/Wallachian-Colonization-and-Traces-of-the-Vlachs

    That way the population of the people with suitable genetic properties and know-how introduced the shepherd culture in the areas of Slovakia that were depleted by the previous human activity.

    • Cromagnon says:

      That is precisely what is about to happen to vast swathes of the continental interiors of all inhabited continents. The oil energy collapse will remove field agriculture almost entirely from all but the most fertile, easily irrigated most accessible to large (er) populations.
      Say good bye to grid roads, home electricity and to motorized transport across the entire heartland of the USA and Canada From the 90th meridian to the pacific coasts the land will either blow away, or return to grasslands.

      Humans that remain will ride 4 legged transport and hunt everyone else.

      Blood meridian days are a coming.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        If not for UEP and the spent fuel … if anyone survived slavery would be a thing again…

        Make Slavery a Thing Again MSTA (pronounced Mistah)

  38. Fast Eddy says:

    Recency bias can stretch back 40 years. It’s been over 40 years since the U.S. experienced a deep recession (what I call a “real recession”) which is characterized by elevated inflation, interest rates, yields, unemployment, defaults and bankruptcies, none of which can be reversed with air-drops of “free money” because higher inflation, rates and yields all limit central bank money-printing and fiscal “free money” via deficit spending.

    Without air-drops of trillions of dollars in “free money”, the accumulated excesses of the economy have to sort themselves out the hard way via defaults, bankruptcies, insolvencies, layoffs, tightening credit and reduced spending / consumption.

    https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-millions-of-renters

    Of course the CBs understand sorting out the hard way = Ripping Off of Faces..

    Hence UEP

  39. Fast Eddy says:

    China’s escalating push to have its banking behemoths backstop struggling property firms is adding to a maelstrom of woes for the $57 trillion sector.

    Already stung by soaring bad loans and record low net interest margins, lenders such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. may soon be asked for the first time to provide unsecured loans to developers, many of whom are in default or teetering on the brink of collapsing.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-28/china-s-property-lifeline-exposes-banks-to-big-losses-job-cuts?srnd=premium-asia

    hahahaha.. 57 trillion!!!

    I know – let’s extend 57 billion trillion of unsecured loans and try to fill the black hole

    hahaha… that should totally f789 the banking system

    • China really does have a huge debt problem.

      The article says:

      Shares of the big four state lenders including ICBC are trading near record low valuations of 0.3 times book value in Hong Kong. That’s about the same levels US banks were trading at during the global financial crisis.

      It is hard to believe that the property sector is $57 trillion in China. There are something like 1 billion people in China. The property sector would thus be something like $57,000 per person.

  40. Fast Eddy says:

    We are checking on office rents in Hong Kong … and they are plummeting .. down close to 20-30% YOY.

    We will insert our landlords head into a vice…and squeeze a discount out of him….

    Deflation is a bitch.

  41. I AM THE MOB says:

    Stephen Colbert suffers ruptured appendix; “Late Show” canceled as he recovers

    NOVEMBER 27, 2023 / 3:08 PM EST / CBS NEWS

    Late night host Stephen Colbert is recovering from surgery for a ruptured appendix, he said on Monday. “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which airs on CBS, was canceled this week as Colbert recovers.
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-colbert-ruptured-appendix-late-show-canceled-as-he-recovers/

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Hopefully the spike is what ruptured him… I hope he ends up with Turbo Cancer.

      I want him to fester and suffer before dying

  42. I don’t think I would believe everything this author says, but some things make sense:

    https://internationalman.com/articles/it-will-happen-suddenly/

    Excerpts:

    Crashes in the Markets

    Major bull markets rarely end with a whimper. They end with a major upside spike. And, unfortunately, brokers and investors alike tend to think that, if the market has been up for the last week, the last month, or the last year, it can be expected to be up again tomorrow. This makes them prime pickings for governments who may choose to falsely inflate a given market, creating an upside spike to encourage investors to toss their last few coins into the pot, just before the bottom drops out.

    In previous eras, it could take time for people to sell, and even in panic times, the bloodletting was not instantaneous. However, with the Internet, all that is necessary is a major sell-off by one entity—one that goes through the stops of a large number of investors, and in a flash, the market goes though the floor. (Editor’s note: Stops are orders placed with a broker to sell a security when it reaches a certain price.) The average investor wakes in the morning to find that he has been wiped out.

    Commitments by Governments

    Should there be a currency crash, as is expected in many countries, promises made by governments will be abandoned suddenly, as though they had never existed. Whilst millions of people will find themselves lost, unable to function without their entitlements, governments will evade their guilt through finger-pointing. Tories will blame Labour; Labour will blame the Tories. (The equivalent will take place in other countries.) The net result will be the disappearance of entitlements, either in part or in total. . .

    When an empire collapses, it dies slowly. Unless it comes to an end through conquest, it deteriorates in a series of sudden jolts. Its leaders grasp at anything that might cause a delay, even if this means a worse outcome in the end. The process may take years and even decades. However, it is in the first few years that the major events occur—the events that create the most significant damage. . .

    Just as Julius Caesar was at his peak of power when his fellow members of the Senate drew their knives, a powerful nation is coddled right until the time of its fall. In this regard, the US will see the greatest abandonment of loyalties that any nation will experience.

    (The greater the empire, the greater the pretence of loyalty to it. And the greater the abandonment when the fall comes.)

    When an empire collapses, it dies slowly. Unless it comes to an end through conquest, it deteriorates in a series of sudden jolts. Its leaders grasp at anything that might cause a delay, even if this means a worse outcome in the end. The process may take years and even decades. However, it is in the first few years that the major events occur—the events that create the most significant damage.

    • Hubbs says:

      He’s trying to sell you something. Store your gold overseas in a Singapore Vault. Get a second passport and second residence. Maybe start your own Vineyard while you’re at it. Yeah. Right. The Dreamer.

      RIP Ray. We miss you.

  43. About the Amish

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/11/22/running-short-of-tailwinds-for-the-economy/comment-page-3/#comment-443817

    I stopped reading when I read the banker’s name was Bill O’Brien

    The Amish is now a collateral for Mr. O’Brien

    The Irishman owns the local Amish community now.

    —-

    Dennis L. tends to ignore counterarguments which does not fit his narrative, but I give them seven days before their resistance becomes armed, which violates their doctrine.

    Nestor Makhno taught the Mennonites living in what is now Ukraine the joys of pacifism, and the tuition was rather expensive.

    The Amish, like the bubble boy, live in a bubble made possible by modern FF based civ. They are allowed to continue their cosplay because they are mildly interesting and generally harmless, but when the bubble ends, their fates will tend to be rather ugly. A boy holding a submachine gun will end such a community in a heartbeat

  44. Fast Eddy says:

    Prepping us for the Pathogen:

    The headline news of the day!

    “FRESH FEARS Experts reveal 4 viruses that could trigger the next pandemic – from brain-swelling ‘flu’ to an eye-bleeding fever. And where in the world these outbreaks are likely to begin” (the Sun, 2023.11.27):

    https://live2fightanotherday.substack.com/p/bright-pandemic-prospects-five-upcoming

    • Keep people scared and at home.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        YES!

        Remember 2019… we all knew the system was about to snap… we were wondering what the CBs would do this time around to kick the can…

        Everyone was surprised by the unleashing of Operation Warp Covid… the the Rat Juice… just wow!…. It took me about a month to work out WTF they were up to … but then it hit me… like a diamond bullet in the forehead… they are exterminating us!

        Initially I thought they’d lock the world down and starve us… but then we got Warp Speed Rat Juice… after a bit of to and fro — Fast Eddy realized that they were destroying the immune systems — for the purpose of being able to control when the extermination commenced…

        Brilliant (and yes Fast Eddy is brilliant for working it out… only 1 out of 8B+ has worked it out…)

        We can see the data points coming in … very grim… far more grim than 2019… we also see that they cannot repeat what they’ve done since GFC…without triggering hyperinflation…

        Can anyone see how they kick the can without being able to flood the world with low cost $$$?

        I can’t.

        Therefore we are approaching the end of the road. We must be.

        6 Billion have damaged immune systems.

        They are now hinting at a deadly pandemic…

        The Year of the Rabbit ends in Feb….

        Let’s have another look:

        https://youtu.be/Z_O_Ly8REqk

        • Jan says:

          The Binary poison scenario has the advantage to create a sudden, calculable crash point instead of a series of uncalculable tipping points in the longtime-damage scenario.

          At the end it all comes out to the same: we need to find a new nutricional basis like we did after the ice age, after the raise of the forests and after the Neolitic Revolution. And of course what we will develop will lead to a carrying capacity that will allow more or less population.

          I would have liked to see, that our scientific and trade apparatus is used to prepare this development. For example, it would be of great advantage to grow Kerria Lacca (no electricity without) or the silk worm or Russian Dandelion on all continents. But people highly oppose this idea and prefer to deal with the Kardashians or jab side effects, what can I do?

          People are shocked, because they cannot believe, what their fellow humans are able to impose on others! Why is that? Too many illusions?

          Using land for agriculture over longer periods, more than 30 years, leads to the growth of plants, that cannot be fought against without iron tools. As iron is widely available if it can be stopped to rust away, I suppose agriculture after petrochemical agriculture will look similar like in the Middle Ages. It means it is worth it to collect some seeds!

          That does not look too bad for me.

    • Ed says:

      There are now videos of people spontaneously dropping dead all over China. Isn’t this exactly where the last show started?

      • ivanislav says:

        Links please.

        • Ed says:

          I was wrong. It seems to be a social thing. People push someone and they fall to the ground. Basically a social game.

      • Rodster says:

        “I see dead people”

        • Fast Eddy says:

          The thing is …

          If you were extremely sick … with say the flu … would you be walking around outside … and dropping dead?

          Or would you be tucked into bed resting …

      • Jan says:

        There are several ways how the jabs can cause cardiovascular problems. These effects have been shown in autopsies and they can be theoretically explained very well. The problem is, that we don’t know what was in the jabs. Remember, that five German professors of Chemistry have testified in court, that the Pfizer jabs cannot have contained what was officially declared. The official color as declared by the producer cannot be caused by the declared ingredients. This includes nano particles. Without nano particles all mRNA and DNA fragments cannot reach the cells. It is possible, that the whole thing is a large scam. To rise antibodies could have been caused by a lot of other ingredients. Also felt side effects may have been caused by other ingredients.

        A state, that obligates 70% to inject a substance, while its authorities cannot even say if this substance contains nano particles, is in my eyes a failed state. Sooner or later this will lead to large political changes.

        From my point of view: Eddy’s Binary Poison scenario is still possible. A longtime side-effect scenario is still possible. And a scam is still possible. For each scenario we have convincing proof.

  45. Ed says:

    The AI companies are working on robots now.

    Tesla has the Optimus robot made in house.

    OpenAI has Neo from 1X.1X is an Engineering & Robotics company based out of Norway that specializes in producing androids that are capable of human-like movements.

    Google has RT2.
    https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/rt-2-new-model-translates-vision-and-language-into-action/

    Microsoft has Ameca.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCt72Iadtg4

    Meta has
    https://siliconangle.com/2023/10/20/metas-habitat-3-0-simulates-real-world-environments-intelligent-ai-robot-training/

    NVIDIA has Eureka
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz-SpPSZUBI

    Should be some good robot basketball games in two years.

    • Maybe these robots will change the world, and maybe not. We have limitations on computer storage for all of the data needed, and we have limits on electricity. There are also limits on debt. Something will tend to go wrong, somewhere.

      • ARiverOfLiver says:

        Gail,
        what are the chances of a dystopia with robots and electronic surveillance (AI) ?

        I see some pros and cons. Yes, AI can save the govts money but the cost of high-tec is incredibly high. If the internet and chip manufacturing was not propped up (by intelligence services and the MIC) I doubt anybody could afford a PC or cellphone.

        I really hope for all our sakes that the cost is too high in the coming energy poor world, because I know most people will be more than happy to sell their minds and bodies for the cost of an Iphone.

        • for any given physical movement of any consequence, a robot will consume more energy than a human being.

          so you can carry on watching repeats of terminator

          no robot is going to steal your clothes

        • Withnail says:

          Gail,
          what are the chances of a dystopia with robots and electronic surveillance (AI) ?

          Zero. The future is collapse. There won’t be any more electricity or industry. We will all be dead.

          • Fast Eddy says:

            We have a winner!!!

            This is what happens when you poison the soil — and litter the planet with 4000 spent fuel ponds.

    • Just because something has two legs does not make that being a human

      I do not give a crap about two legged beasts calling themselves humans being made irrelevant.

      Rednecks should be put into the first block for extinction.

      • islamisthechosenreligon says:

        People with an axe to grind with “Rednecks” tend to be black or “Muslim”.
        Are you “Muslim”?

    • Withnail says:

      Tesla has the Optimus robot made in house.

      No it doesn’t.

    • Young people cannot afford diamond rings any more. I understand that other stones, or no stone at all, are being used in wedding rings. There are also good “fake” diamonds available.

      • drb753 says:

        That is the problem. Anyone with a 1500C oven can make diamonds these days. And they can add things and make them blue or green. and they are also relatively cheap.

        • hkeithhenson says:

          “Anyone with a 1500C oven can make diamonds these days.”

          That’s news to me. As far as I know it takes very high pressure to make diamonds, though thin films can be vapor deposited.

          Got a pointer to this information?

      • Nope.avi says:

        We’ll be in trouble when people can’t afford lab made diamonds.

        They’re still expensive, though, just not as expensive as the natural stuff. If energy costs were much lower, the prices differences between real and sythnetic would be dramatic.

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