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In the US, companies that want to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals need to get advance approval for their plans from the US Department of Energy. There was a recent news item saying, “Biden pauses LNG export approvals under pressure from climate activists.” After looking into the situation, I 100% agree with Biden’s decision. There is no sense in the US adding more approvals for added LNG capacity at this time. This is the case, completely apart from climate considerations.
When looking into the situation, I found that the US already has a huge amount of LNG export capacity approved but not yet under construction. The likely roadblock is the need for debt financing. One obstacle is the need to find investors willing to make very long commitments–as long as 25 years, considering the time to build the LNG plants, plus the time that they are expected to be in operation. Issues that could be expected to get in the way of long-term investment would include:
- Today’s relatively high interest rates.
- Today’s low US natural gas prices (Henry Hub natural gas price is currently $1.64 per million Btus, a near-record low), discouraging investment in natural gas extraction.
- The possibility that US oil and natural gas extraction from shale formations will reach limits within the next 25 years.
- The possibility that overseas buyers will not be able to afford exported LNG at the prices needed to make extraction profitable. For example, a selling price of $25 per million Btus would probably greatly reduce the quantity of LNG that could be sold in the EU.
- The possibility of construction delays caused by broken supply lines.
- The possibility of fires causing significant down-time in operating facilities.
- Even if natural gas is available for export, and even if LNG export facilities are built, there is the possibility that the rest of the system, including specialized LNG transport ships, may not be available in sufficient quantities.
In this post, I will try to give some background on this issue.
[1] Many people seem to believe that the US can easily ramp up natural gas production for export if it chooses to do so.
There seems to be a common belief that the US has an almost unlimited supply of oil. Natural gas is produced together with oil, so a corollary to the high supply of oil is that the US has an almost unlimited supply of natural gas.
At the same time, there are many parts of the world with an inadequate supply of natural gas. Many of these countries are trying to add wind and solar power generation. Natural gas is very helpful for balancing wind and solar because electricity production from natural gas can be ramped up and down very quickly, filling in when intermittent sources of supply are not available.
The European Union (EU) is one area that has very inadequate natural gas supply (Figure 1). The EU is also known for its use of wind and solar power, so it needs natural gas for its balancing ability.
If it is true that the US has a huge supply of US natural gas, all that would seem to be needed to solve the EU’s wind and solar balancing problem is for the US to export natural gas to the EU.
The modern way of exporting natural gas seems to be as LNG, transported by specialized ships at a very low temperature (about – 260°F (-161.5°C)). It appears that all that the US needs to do is to ramp up its natural gas production, and with it, its LNG export infrastructure.
[2] Natural gas prices vary widely around the world. US prices are much lower than elsewhere. These differences would also seem to support building more LNG export facilities.
Figure 2 shows that US natural gas prices are much lower than elsewhere. This has especially been the case since 2008 when the shale boom began, making it look as if the US can easily export natural gas if it likes. Even with the cost of shipping included, it looks as if consumers in the EU and Japan might find US LNG attractive in price.
[3] Natural gas tends to be cheap to extract but getting it to the customer and storing it until the right time of year is an expensive headache.
Natural gas is a fuel that is disproportionately used in winter to heat homes and businesses. This heat can be provided by burning the natural gas directly, or it can be provided by first burning the natural gas to produce electricity, and then using a device, such as a heat pump, to provide heat.
If natural gas can be utilized close to where it is extracted, there tends to be a huge cost advantage over long-distance transport. Clearly, one reason is that utilization near the point of extraction reduces transit costs. Also, empty gas caverns that can be used for storage are often available near the point of extraction. This storage approach is much less expensive than building specialized tanks for storage. These cost advantages are one reason why US natural gas prices shown on Figure 2 are much lower than those in the EU and Japan.
[4] Low natural gas prices in the US are now well “baked into the system.”
With natural gas prices remaining low for around the past 16 years, individuals and businesses have adjusted their consumption patterns based on the assumption that an abundant supply of inexpensive natural gas will be available permanently. US natural gas production has approximately doubled since its low point in 2005, and consumption has almost kept up.
Many changes have taken place since gas prices fell. The US electrical system has significantly reduced its reliance on coal and instead increased its utilization of natural gas. People have built oversized homes based on the assumption that cheap natural gas will be available to heat them. Businesses have built factories in the US under the assumption that electricity costs of the US will continue to be low compared to those in Europe, Japan, and many other parts of the world, indirectly because of the US’s inexpensive supply of natural gas.
These low electricity and natural gas prices give the US a competitive advantage in making goods for export. With the shift away from coal for electricity production, the US can now say that it has reduced the carbon intensity of its electricity. Politicians like the competitive advantage for the US as well as the lower carbon intensity. Few of them would vote to go back to earlier ways, even if it was possible to do so.
[5] Natural gas tends to be utilized close to where it is produced. The early form of natural gas export was by pipeline. In recent years, LNG exports have increased.
Figure 4 shows that, consistently, about 75% of natural gas is used in the region where it is extracted. This happens because natural gas tends to be inexpensive close to the point of extraction. The use of inexpensive resources helps make an economy competitive in the world market, making them attractive for local use.
Pipeline trade tends to be inexpensive if the distance is short. The disadvantage is that pipeline gas tends to be inflexible; prices are often locked in for long periods. Pipelines can be a disadvantage if they pass through another county. The country allowing transit will likely want to make a charge for this service; this can lead to conflict. Pipelines can easily be blown up if countries start fighting with each other.
LNG is the newer approach to exporting natural gas. Its advantage is its flexibility; its disadvantage tends to be its higher cost when the entire cost of the operation is considered. There need to be export facilities where the natural gas is chilled and loaded into specialized tankers. Investors, quite possibly from another country, need to invest in the specialized tankers used to transport the LNG. At the other end, there is the need for regasification plants and for gas pipelines to the facilities where the gas is to be utilized.
Recouping the total cost of the system can be a problem with LNG. If prices are set under long-term contracts pegged to the price of oil, as has been the case between Japan and Russia, advantageous prices for the producers can be obtained. (Note the high prices Japan has been paying in Figure 2.) Of course, with long-term contracts, the flexibility of the system is lost.
In some years, there has been more LNG capacity than required in Europe. Exporters without long-term contracts started selling natural gas at spot prices, depending upon the balance between supply and demand at the time of the sale. (Notice the lower natural gas prices for Europe in Figure 2). It is not clear to me that investors can earn enough on their investments, if they are forced to depend on spot prices, which can easily fall too low if there is excess supply.
On the other hand, if the LNG market gets tight, as it did in 2022, spot prices can jump very high, making it difficult for LNG buyers to find affordable supply.
[6] An analysis by the EIA indicates that the US already has a great deal of LNG export capacity at some stage of development.
The most recent EIA analysis of LNG capacity in the process of being developed is shown at this link.
The above analysis was performed using data as of the end of 2022. It shows that at that time, the amount of liquefaction capacity was
- 37.0 billion cubic feet/day (Bcf/d), considering existing, under-construction and approved liquefaction capacity.
- 18.7 Bcf/d, considering existing and under-construction liquefaction capacity.
More recent information is also available. A release dated January 26, 2024, by the Department of Energy says,
The United States is the global leader in LNG exports with 14 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in current operating capacity and 48 Bcf/d in total authorizations approved by DOE to date, over three times our current export capacity.
This quote seems to imply that the total authorizations increased from 37.0 Bcf/d to 48 Bcf/d, based on an unpublished, more recent, analysis.
The 14 Bcf/d in current operating capacity is far above recent LNG export amounts. The actual quantity of US LNG produced in 2022 was 10.8 Bcf/d based on the data underlying Figure 5. Based on data through November 2023, I would estimate that amount of LNG produced in 2023 amounted to about 11.7 Bcf/d. These comparisons suggest that the actual amount of LNG produced may lag significantly below the stated export capacity.
If we compare the total exports authorized of 48 Bcf/d to the actual production amount (about 11.7 Bcf/d for 2023), the ratio is over 4, implying a very high amount of authorized additional LNG production capacity.
[7] The EIA model shown in Figure 5 indicates that several conditions need to hold for LNG exports to ramp up substantially.
(a) Figure 5 indicates that for NGL exports to increase significantly, both oil and natural gas prices need to be high. With low oil and low natural gas prices, exports do not increase much at all, regardless of the infrastructure built. (As I noted in the introduction, US natural gas prices are now very low. World oil prices are not very high, either. Thus, the model indicates that not much ramping up in NGL exports should be expected, even if more export capacity is added.)
(b) To enable export of the maximum amount of LNG overseas, “Fast Builds” of the rest of the infrastructure also needs to be high. In other words, there must be rapid growth in the number of LNG transport carriers and in receiving facilities for the exported LNG.
(c) The fact that the gray shaded area (indicating the scenarios the modelers thought likely) does not extend to the Fast Builds scenario means that the modelers consider this scenario unlikely. Even if infrastructure is built on this end, other parts of the system likely won’t be in place.
(d) Hidden in the assumptions is the fact that the citizens at the receiving end of the LNG must be able to afford electricity made with high-priced natural gas and products such as fertilizer, made with high-priced natural gas. If citizens at the receiving end cut way back on their use of natural gas (by not heating their homes as much, or by doing less manufacturing using electricity, or by making less fertilizer with natural gas), export prices are likely to fall.
[8] The reason why oil prices need to be high for high LNG exports is because much of the natural gas extracted is produced at the same time as oil.
If oil prices fall too low, US production of oil from shale is likely to drop (as it did in 2020), and with it the production of natural gas. With low oil prices, US natural gas extraction is also likely to lag. In this scenario, the natural gas necessary to support the hoped-for rise in natural gas exports won’t be available.
With both high oil prices and high US natural gas prices, consumers in the EU and elsewhere will have an especially difficult time affording the high cost of imported natural gas from the US. The problem is that if natural gas costs are already high before all of the cost of processing it to make LNG and shipping it long distance are incorporated, its cost will be doubly high for buyers in the EU (and elsewhere). Furthermore, the budgets of EU consumers will already be stretched by high oil prices, making high-cost LNG even more unaffordable.
[9] People believe that fossil fuels can rise arbitrarily high, but this is not true. Unaffordably high prices are the limiting factor for LNG exports.
Farmers are particularly strongly impacted by high oil and natural gas prices. High oil prices tend to make the cost of the diesel used to run farm equipment very high. High natural gas prices tend to make ammonia fertilizer very expensive. If both oil and natural gas prices are very high, the combination will tend to lead to very high-cost food. Citizens generally get very unhappy about very high-cost food. Farmers tend to protest, as farmers in Europe have done recently, because it becomes impossible for them to pass their high costs on to consumers.
There are clearly many other parts of the economy affected by high oil and natural gas prices. With high natural gas prices, electricity prices tend to be high. Families find their budgets stretched because of the high cost of both home heating and transportation. Food costs are likely to be high also. Economies tend to be pushed into recession by high oil and natural gas prices.
[10] A wise approach would be to go slowly in building LNG export capacity.
If excess LNG export capacity is built, those building the liquefaction plants will find the return on their investment very low.
In a self-organizing system, new technology is usually slowly adopted. Investors see a niche that appears to be profitable and build a little at a time. They wouldn’t try to put a huge amount of LNG export capacity in place without making certain that a little bit works. This same approach is used by manufacturers trying any new technology; they start on a small scale and then gradually scale up the process.
The US has already approved a very substantial amount of future LNG liquefaction capacity. It seems to me that there is a need to pause the acceptance of new applications for a while to see whether the many LNG facilities in the queue can actually be built and can sell the LNG they produce profitably. Perhaps profitable new LNG plants can only be built if firm long-term contracts at quite high prices can be signed.
Going slowly would seem to be an appropriate approach for now.
Pope Francis has cancelled some of his Saturday engagements because of a health issue, the Vatican has said. The pontiff called off his engagements because of a “mild, flu-like state,” an update from the Holy See Press Office said.
The Vatican added on February 24 that the day’s engagements had been cancelled, but that this was a preventative measure. Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said the weekly Sunday Angelus address had not yet been confirmed.
Pope Francis, 87, has suffered recent health issues including breathing problems, which he is prone to because of a bout of pneumonia in his youth in Argentina that led to the removal of part of his lung.
The pontiff had to cancel a planned visit in December last year to the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai due to lung inflammation.
In March last year, Pope Francis was treated at a hospital in Rome for bronchitis.
Following his release from hospital in early April, the Pope said he “wasn’t frightened,” followed by “I’m still alive you know.”
https://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-health-issue-flu-1873036?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Lots of Charts for Gail…and BAU Tonight Dave
Production & Exports of Crude Oil & Petroleum Products Soar to Record in 2023, SPR Gets Refilled (Slowly)
by Wolf Richter • Mar 4, 2024 • 41 Comments
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/03/04/us-production-exports-crude-oil-petroleum-products-soar-to-record-in-2023-strategic-petroleum-reserve-gets-refilled-slowly/
US oil production boom has dramatically changed global energy dynamics.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Crude oil production in the US soared to a record 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, up by 158% since 2008, when fracking started becoming a significant factor.
The surge in production in 2022 and 2023 was a result of much higher oil prices starting in 2021. In commodities, the cure for high prices is high prices because they encourage producers to ramp up production, and the surge in supply then brings down prices. Frackers can ramp up production with astonishing speed, as we have seen.
In 2018, the US became the largest crude oil producer in the world, and has kept that position since then. By 2020, the US – which had long been desperately dependent on imports – became a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products on an annual basis, exporting more than importing.
bAU tonight, Herbie.
“Since August 2023, the SPR is being slowly refilled.”
very very very slooooooowly, see the graph.
good oil article.
Wolf Richter did a very good job on this article, in my opinion. He took data that is easily available from EIA reports and made nice charts using the data. The article is well worth reading. I have quoted some similar numbers myself.
Now Zerohedge is claiming:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/treason-bombshell-report-reveals-biden-has-secretly-flown-320000-illegals-united-states
“Treason!”: Bombshell Report Reveals Biden Has Secretly Flown 320,000 Illegals INTO The United States
‘Hypervaccinated’ patient had 217 COVID-19 jabs in less than three years, scientists say
https://news.sky.com/story/hypervaccinated-patient-had-217-covid-19-jabs-in-less-than-three-years-scientists-say-13088008
that sure is a lot of saline.
Strange!
While the faithful are waiting (probably in vain) for the Second Coming of Fast Eddy, here is an analysis of why the Fifth Coming of George Galloway has gone so well.
Keith Woods writes:
This week in the UK, George Galloway was elected to parliament with a landslide victory in a by-election in Rochdale. On its face, these results are quite remarkable: Galloway finished with almost double the amount of votes of his closest rival, an independent who received little media attention, and both soundly defeated the Labour and Conservative candidates.
This was of such concern to the British establishment that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave an address from 10 Downing Street to warn the country of “extremists undermining democracy”. Sunak specifically identified Islamism and far-right extremism as the forces seeking to undermine “the world’s most successful multi-ethnic multi-faith democracy”.
I’m no PR guru, but I’m not sure how wise it is to respond to a landslide election victory by saying it undermines democracy. The subtext of this speech was that Galloway had won by appealing to the Muslim population of Rochdale — who make up 30% of the constituency — over their outrage at the war on Gaza.
Voices of official Britain have spent the days since complaining about the “sectarian” and “divisive” nature of Galloway’s campaign, apparently concerned it would further this sectarianism and division to come out and say what they actually mean
….
One interesting aspect of Galloway’s campaign is he produced different election material to appeal to Muslim and White voters. While his appeal to natives focused on family, patriotism and law and order (specifically promising to target grooming gangs), his appeal to Muslims asked they protest Labour’s complicity on the slaughter in Gaza by electing someone with a long track record of standing up for Palestine and Muslims worldwide.
Despite his leftist bona fides, Galloway is one of the last of an older breed of British socialists, and it’s interesting to read his appeal to White voters still taps into family values, rejection of trans ideology, and British patriotism.
Galloway has always been a masterful politician, and his instinct to appeal to White voters on these issues rather than typical left-wing appeals was very wise. This strategy was a success, and for official Britain, this is a worrying sign of something terrible stirring under the feet of the establishment: identity politics.
More here:
https://keithwoods.pub/p/george-galloway-and-the-inevitable
Maybe citizens get tired of the strange way the economy is behaving now. Any change would seem to be for the better.
Keith Woods shows a chart based on opinion polls that suggests the ruling Conservatives are going to be wiped out in the next general election. In the 650-seat House of Commons, they are projected to drop from the current 372 all the way down to 17 seats. The main beneficiary will be Labour, who are projected to go up from 200 to 515 seats.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2f871e73-b6ff-491c-9a4b-c74adcda541b_951x946.jpeg
But TPTB have already extracted Jeremy Corbyn, who was the main threat to their agenda on the left, and replaced him with what seems to be a cardboard cutout of Tony Blair.
Incidentally, here is George G on Covid and the Vax from 2022.
George bought into the Covid narrative to the extent of believing the that the jabs would, while not preventing infection, would at least make the consequences of infection less severe. Here, he says that he has had the first two “jabs” and that he intends to have the “booster” when it becomes available.
However, what set him apart from the vast blob of politicians who shilled and in many cases are still shilling for the Military and Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex is that George flat out declared himself against two things that the complex was urging on the rest of us, namely:
“I’m entirely opposed to mandatory vaccination. I’m entirely opposed to vaccine passports.”
I think this is well worth noting.
This video seems to suggest that George Galloway would be a reasonable candidate for voters to elect. He is at least sensible about mandatory vaccination.
This is well worth watching if you like to see snotty-nosed and supercilious TV interviewers get put firmly in their place.
George Galloway interviewed by Sam Coates of Sky News on the occasion of the latter’s recent victory in Rochdale. After this session, I expect Sam headed to the nearest pub and shouted to the bar-person: “A double whiskey… No, make that a triple.”
“Oil supply is looking tighter and prices could climb as US production outlook gets cut in half this year, RBC commodities chief says”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-supply-looking-tighter-prices-004019033.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9uZXdzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAF9peFTe79ES-9VN6K8m3U03W9igEVYqjY4raeVLxooA0Tx2F0lhX5UzlCk03FueBI61umW0R6ctg2HfOtfb8QrZs0dfsSyhjpwq1BVy1O7KBeKcHY4TqScyPcAe540ZAjEl3lRdEpYbdM-s7FsnSUtnGgJqCKR7MBax5sHl_LOr
Maybe, they tend to cut oil production because they don’t hope to make enough profit to cover the rising costs, as depletion ensues.
first an awkward quote from the article:
“The US, which saw a “blockbuster” year for oil production in 2023, isn’t likely to churn out crude at the same speed it did last year. US production growth could crater in half from 1 million to just 500,000 barrels a day this year, Croft predicted…”
the illogic of the first sentence is visible based on the facts of the second sentence.
the second sentence states that US oil production will continue to grow this year by about 0.5 mbpd, so production will be higher than 2023, though the growth RATE will be lower.
smaller growth is still growth.
this is a beautiful story, US production is still growing, and Canadian might be growing too.
will US + Canada hit 20 mbpd this year?
whether yes or no, it’s still bAU tonight, baby!
The article is generally poorly written. Later it says,
“At the same time, the world’s oil demand is rising, and could peak around 1.2 million barrels a day in 2028, the IEA estimated.”
I tried to follow the link through, or to find a real IEA quote about 2028. Following the link through, all I could find was a reference to an article saying that India’s demand (consumption) growth was expected to lead the world in 2028 at 1.2 million barrels per day (or something similar to that).
The real IEA quote I found was this one:
https://www.iea.org/news/growth-in-global-oil-demand-is-set-to-slow-significantly-by-2028
The forecast from June 2023 says:
“. . .annual demand growth is expected to shrivel from 2.4 mb/d this year [2023] to just 0.4 mb/d in 2028, putting a peak in demand in sight.”
So the Yahoo article doesn’t even agree with what IEA says.
The increase in prices is not very much. This analyst says:
“Crude prices are set to climb, with Brent potentially hitting $85 this year.”
Brent is right now $81; a few days ago it was $82. Are we supposed to get excited about Brent hitting $85?
The author of the article is assuming that the increase is already mostly factored into current prices.
Thanks for the criticism of this article….I am scouring the net for information on oil but it is difficult to find the truth out there. I look to Art Berman for oil news I read somewhere in mainstream tearing Art apart for his doomer perspective. There have been a lot of chicken littles calling it….most of the people on here were calling for it in 2017 and then again 2021.
the truth?
lots of NA oil, about 20 mbpd, soon it will be declining but slooooooowly.
truth bomb: the 2050s are going to be brutal.
Good riddance to bad rubbish .🤞
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/victoria-nuland-leaving-post-ukraine-ropes-us-policy-shambles
Ugly as they come, inside and out.
The article is certainly negative on Victoria Nuland. It sounds like The Powers That Be finally figured out that she is too hawkish in Ukraine and elsewhere, and probably fired her. The article says, “Just over a week ago, she was talking about “tightening the noose” around Putin to CNN.” Maybe that is what pushed TPTB over the edge.
The link has further links to videos of Nuland’s that were embarrassing to the US.
She was a hero to Civilization
She kept the roof from caving down for all these years.
She is pure evil.
Public service announcement: This is why you never short stocks. Limited upside (double your money, minus fees) and unlimited downside. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent; your returns are path dependent, not dependent on being “right” about the final outcome.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NVDA:NASDAQ?window=MAX
I have followed the advice of the GreyEnlightenment guy (avoid foreign stocks, concentrate on US based tech stocks) and that did help a lot.
Today is the last day, and I don’t know whether Fast Eddy will return by the next time this blog reopens. I sense that he has had enough, and this time it will probably be a long hiatus.
Meanwhile Dennis L will spread his Starship religion like some Western preacher.
Hey kul,
When it opens again, Starship will have launched, or you can say, “I told you so.”
When I opened the browser came across 8 things people do to live longer. I have them, including a meaningful life. Came across a book by armedumedia, project for the remainder of this year.
Whatever works for you is great and I wish you all the best.
Dennis L.
Again that is little more than relaunching the Columbia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdKltNx42AQ
I have no intention to say I told you to so to you. It is a futile effort.
Musk has to show something to his investors , all these vulture funds who need something to justify his bloated wealth since he has not really delivered anything which is new.
I understand you love informercials and will believer whatever they say in their ai-generated clips, but I will believer when they actually bring something tangible, like Columbus bringing new plants, animals and slaves to prove that he did what he claimed to do.
Fast Eddy has dropped one or two truth grenades over at Honest Sorcerer. Maybe all he has time for? Not sure…
okay but has he been replying back and forth with Sasha?
day 20 here, so maybe on the next OFW article, we can hope to get some good copy and paste of his devastation of Sasha, all in his highly biased opinion of course.
otherwise, we might all have to chip in and post more, to fill in all of this blank internet space that would have been filled by Perth Paul.
Perth Paul?
There’s a lot of speculation about Eddy. He did just move or is moving, isn’t he? If so, we should expect him to be away for a while.
I for one enjoy the absence. covid happened 4 years ago, the vaccines 3. we still have 2000+ comments, that is 100+ a day, some of them quite readable. I don’t have a lot of time, with some of my cows calving early.
Fast Eddie brought up the outer space nonsense and the ongoing harping of UEP of the Elders…tired of posts of individuals dying untimely …it happens everyday….as well as, multiple births
Oh this for you…you hero
The Unspeakable Things Genghis Khan Did To His Enemies https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n1L7oEpMfWE&t=243s
RedHanded1969
2 months ago (edited)
Genghis Khan was a great military strategist but not a great ruler.. He did not improve the culture of his ppl, just their ability to conduct wars. The Mongolian empire did not last long after his death. Kublai Khan was a better ruler..
Fast Eddie will be back..he’s got no other place to go
As my brother once said, “when i eat fish, I eat the meat and spit out the bones” Sure FE had some bones, but I for one enjoyed his posts…
I’ve missed what happened exactly to Fast Eddy.
Can you or someone update me about?
Thanks!
He is moving to Perth, Australia. He has not posted for some time. Likely busy with the move.
These disappearing acts of Eddy have been recurring since he popped up here as “Paul” and, later, “Tolstoy grandson”. He had been away for many months before convid.
I’m willing to bet though that he’ll only return when and if “The Pathogen” is released, or when and if his mythical ROF season begins.
he keeps getting abducted by aliens
then even they get tired of him faking it
then another bunch of aliens grab him
then they get tired of his soapboxing and utter bs.
now i think he’s on the galactic blacklist—
Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are earning under $30,000 a year, and it shows how stark the retirement crisis is
Juliana Kaplan Mar 4, 2024, 10:45 AM ET
A new report from Senator Bernie Sanders signals a looming retirement crisis for Americans.
Many older Americans are financially vulnerable, with over half living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year.
Potential solutions might include enhancing Social Security checks and setting up automatic retirement accounts.
Americans’ struggle to comfortably retire could prove costly — a 2023 Pew Charitable Trusts study suggests that, as more households with older Americans become financially vulnerable from 2021 to 2040, state governments will take a $1.3 trillion hit — and devastating for retirees, who may find themselves cash-strapped and unable to afford healthcare or housing in their later years.
And, for some, the retirement crisis is already here. Just over half of Americans over the age of 65 are living on incomes of $30,000 or less a year, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The largest share — just under 23% — have incomes between $10,000 and $19,999.
Many Americans hoping to age out of work may also not have retirement accounts to fall back on, or to use as a cushion. Just 42% of Americans 75 and older held retirement accounts as of 2022, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance. Similarly, only 51% of Americans 65 to 74 held retirement accounts.
Some lawmakers, like Sanders, have proposed potential legislative solutions, like beefing up Social Security checks, setting up kids with automatic savings accounts, or automatically setting up retirement accounts for lower and middle-income Americans whose workplaces might not offer them.
All of that comes as older Americans see their adult children leaning on them financially, as Gen Zers and millennials weather their own economic storms.
Yep, Bernie is on top of it all….can’t afford now with high inflation…let’s make them invest
Years ago, elderly people lived with their children or grandchildren until they died. They helped with household chores. They didn’t expect to live by themselves in their own homes forever. They also didn’t expect to live in “Independent Living,” “Assisted Living,” or “Nursing Home” facilities. They didn’t expect a huge amount of money to be spent on treatments that might extend their life span, either.
It is only a very rich economy that can afford such luxuries. Somehow, these kind of facilities need to be mostly squeezed out of the system.
Yup, my paternal grandmother, husband killed working on the railroad, helping a friend have Christmas off. He was yard foreman, if you want people to work with and for you, you pitch in. That is what they call a boss.
Dennis L.
Doesn’t the old commie think he lived long enough? It is time for him to open the way for others.
Pretty much applies to us oldies… overpopulation has two sides….
To each according to their needs, etc.
Funny how they pretend that the Ponzi scheme social security will still be around in a couple of years.. What a scam…
Yep, they pay you with worthless fiat currency…like it’s been done before
(Marittime Executive)
Despite Egypt has no money and it is almost not earning anything as Suez Canal is not working properly, it is planning a second lane in the Canal for the next years.
I’m sure it is receiving money from IMF because I’ve recently read something about it, but I’m almost sure they will receive money from wealthy Arabian Countries, US and Israel or indirectly linked to them.
It seems a sort of reward for all the money lost for Houthi attacks and for the difficult position in which Egypt is in now due to the millions liters of blood are leaking out from Rafah border till Sinai and Cairo.
When they stop the music they can probably hear the screams of dying children.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/despite-collapse-in-traffic-suez-canal-is-planning-a-two-lane-future
Any excuse for more (un-re-payable) debt is a good one. It will provide jobs and hope. The funds will indirectly allow more imported goods, including food.
Maxim Gorky wrote the play “The Lower Depths” (literally, On the Bottom) in 1902.
A bunch of lower class people live in a boardinghouse which is little more than a homeless shelter, at Nizhny Novogord (which was named after Gorky during USSR) and the innkeeper lording over the residents who have to whatever to stay in there or freeze to death.
A pilgrim named Luka, whose origin nobody knows about, spreads hope and the lives of the residents seem to improve for a while as they find new directions.
But, unlike the hollywood movies , the reality in Russia back in 1900 was harsh, and soon as reality creeps in all of them meet bad ends , with no changes whatsoever in the end, as Luka has already left for another town.
It can be argued that Luka, which was a parody of Count Lev Tolstoy and his followers who wrote about Xtian piety and all that shit (which are rarely read in Russia after 1917) made the lives of the residents even worse by giving them false hope.
A scene in Kurosawa Akira’s Lower Depths, adapted to feudal Japan
Most of the smarter people I encountered around 2015 and 2016 are gone and this site is now dominated by Dennis L’s optimism, which means it is now near the end of its life.
Dennis’ argument is little different from Pascal’s argument “There is an infinite payoff if heaven exists and I believe. All I lose is some worldly pleasure”. Pascal was a Jansenist, which is kind of a Catholic answer to Puritanism, and lived ascetically.
However we won’t know whether Pascal’s sacrifice was worth it since no one can prove whether he went to paradise as he imagined.
In reality, Dennis’ argument is similar to what Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were thinking while cornered at a barn in the middle of nowhere, thinking they can make it to Australia.
We now that the world ecosystem has taken many major changes in direction in the past, in the direction of making the Earth habitable for humans. For example, a change in climate caused by a meteor hitting the has precipitated such a change. The book, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, gives many examples of these events.
Maybe Dennis’s views are a bit extreme, but the Earth could see unexpected changes that are outside of what we can imagine in today’s world.
I am with Dennis these ideas of space resources have been brewing for over half a century. Within 20 years Optimus will be building throughout the solar system. The renaissance will pale in comparison. The enlightenment of one billion ASI exploring meaning and purpose will sing down the centuries to come.
There was another Dennis, whose surname I don’t know but he went the name of Reservegrowthrulz or something like that in a peak oil site I do not recall anymore. He claimed he was one of the elites and said things like the special forces seizing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
He successfully destroyed that site, moved on to build his own bbs which didn’t last too long, and faded away.
Let Dennis be Dennis and let Kulm be Kulm. If you feel Dennis is injecting too much optimism you know how to deal with that with your arsenal of literary references.
A strange thing is happening lately when I visit this website the second time in a row.
The second time the browser says that the connection is not private and I run the risk that my data can be stolen.
I cannot surpass this block neither if I try to say that I don’t care.
If I delete cache then I have access to this website with no problem.
This happen also if I use a VPN.
Has anyone experienced something similar?
Are perhaps commentators of this blog under external surveillance?
(Surely we don’t discuss something that ‘the system’ may like..)
Thanks
what browser do you use? does it happen with all browsers?
I wanted to write it in my message but then I prefered not to mention it in order not to help those who scan this site 🙂
(..but anyway I’ve the impression actually that those who want to scan this site already knows who we are, one by one..)
Anyway, you are right, I will check with other browsers on other appliances and then I’ll get back on this point.
try opera.
I’ve noted lately scripting all over various sectors stalling sites, not OFW though, and needing a fiddle with my scripting source blocker.
Curiously, some sites now seem to function better with first party cookies blocked
It’s all such a moving target one never assumes onself in any conceivable immaculate state
Excerpt . ” We live in a world where the stock markets of Japan and the United Kingdom reach record highs as their economies slip into recession, while the United States manages to stay afloat courtesy of a monstrous deficit guaranteed by monetary and military hegemony. Regardless of the crash or drastic correction in the making, the ongoing financial market party (with very few invitees) is inextricably connected with the euphoria of war. Why? First, military production for “long-term security commitments” is now an essential support for increasingly sagging real growth as measured in GDP. For example, 64% of the $60.7 billion allocated to Ukraine in the latest aid package will be absorbed by the US military industry. The source here is not Putin’s TASS but the Wall Street Journal, which also admits that since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, US industrial production in the defence sector has increased by 17.5%. ”
https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/trust-in-institutions-and-the-war-dividend/
Interesting article!
It starts out:
I would agree that the system is not working any more, and that mainstream media is not describing the problem to the world.
He also talks about the profits now going to the owners, rather than the workers:
The article is well worth a read. The author is Fabio Vighi, Professor of Critical Theory and Italian at Cardiff University, UK.
Bitcoin today, $62843.9. Gold $2114.73. Gold costs money to store, is not easy to transact, Bitcoin has easy transaction, money is mostly for transactions.
No sarcasm intended. I think financially one can fade sites like this and do fine.
Something in doom does not work either in prices going to the moon(0il) or collapsing, pick anything.
For me, Starship offers hope for man, earth is tired and needs a break but it is beautiful and a wonderful spaceship. We need it. it is priceless but as for making wealth, it is tired.
If you are a young, talented Chinese, why not bet on the moon? If you lose, what do you lose?
Dennis L.
hi Dennis, isn’t the Fabric of the Universe so amazing that after 13+ billion years of this evolving Universe, the sentient species has created Bitcrap?
besides being a species that is perpetually at war with its own kind.
impressive!
Ah, david. How many tens’ of thousands did you make? Not sarcastic.
Not sure why, but some people become incredibly negative. There was(is) a former professor who abandoned his job(tenured) and moved to the desert to wait for the end of the world – he is still waiting.
It is not a linear path, it is a stairstep with a few down, but in general, things get better for everyone.
Lack of faith is currently a huge problem, that too will resolve itself as in the former USSR, Christianity returned. It is a system which works, not perfect, but good enough for many.
Dennis L.
You are being sarcastic to him. Is he your friend? Why are you interested upon how much he might be making?
I have debunked your ideas, again and again. OF course a true believer will never change his belief but I am not trying to convert you or anything.
I wonder why you linger in a blog talking about limits. There are plenty of place to talk about your conrucopianism.
I’m cool with Dennis.
to me it’s not negative thinking to ponder the vast centuries of humans at war with each other.
obviously the Fabric of the Universe has its hand in this, and so it is what it is, and there is no realistic end in sight to human warfare.
when not fighting, humans do other stuff, it’s what all animals do, look for resources, and with abundant resources on hand, humans use creativity to try to do newer stuff.
some is pretty cool, though ultimately to be erased by that very Fabric of the Universe that insists on our Sun growing into a red giant and burning up the entire Earth.
and that’s not negativity either, just the Universe doing what it will do.
it’s all good.
I usually find myself in sympathy with your opinions, David, and even more so the tone in which you deliver them.
But all in all, whether it’s Dennis, Kulm, David, Norman, FE, or any of a dozen others, it’s all good.
This comment section is far better than Letters to the Editor of my local paper, far better than any roundtable discussion program we’e likely to find TV.—no offence intended to fans of The View!
And the wonderful thing is that when truly irritating commenters show up, they tend to leave quickly because they can’t get any traction. It seems we have a healthy ecosystem, or biome, around here.
“If you are a young, talented Chinese, why not bet on the moon? If you lose, what do you lose?”
why not?
in the face of the nothingness of eternal death, we all have nothing to lose.
david,
Can’t speak for others, for me it is a journey, learn a bit every day.
There was a young woman of TOD, convinced her husband not to apply or go the tenure track, the world was going to end, lived in the country, adopted a great many children, had her own blog. She is gone, think she moved to the city.
She was a Catholic who turned Jewish; many of you here will know of her.
It is hard to retrace steps in one’s life, hard to live a life without regret, hard when there are pivot points and someone in your group has made a mistake to take time and fix that mistake.
Starship is rumored to launch in nine days, there is hope and if not that one, there are more on the way.
Dennis L.
I think you should open your own blog where you can praise your starships 24/7.
I know the tune is simple to the point of being simplistic—and after all, if it had more than three cords, it would be jazz—but just I can’t get it out of my head.
While I understand the many reasons why people would like to own BTC as the “anti-dollar” and a companion to gold and silver, the irony is that while people are thinking their transactions made via BTC are annonymous, we don’t know if, who, and how many whales there are out there annonymously buying and selling BTC which can gyrate prices violently. It seems especially with the advent of ETFs, people may be speculating and day trading BTC rather than using it to actually make purchases. I can’t recall the statistic where it was claimed that over half the BTC is never transacted, even accounting for those people who acquired it at the bottom, but then lost or forgot their keys, leaving their BTC stranded forever in cyberspace. My friend who works in avionics at the US Coast Guard base urged me to buy it at @ $10 way back. He bought 10. I said “nahhh” and missed out. But he lost his keys to all ten of them. Go figure.
If Bitcoin cannot be exchanged for a legal tender (currency) guaranteed by the state, it has no value.
It is clear what is dependent on what!
If sellers will take bitcoin directly, however, Bitcoin will have value. It would seem like Bitcoin could act somewhat like a local currency.
USA crypto platforms (European ones too) are now positively Orwellian. Without naming names, a friend of mine moved some money through one of these. They called him, let him know that they knew he was running those coins through a mixer, then canceled his account without warning. He lost about 300 dollars (surely he can try to recover them, they were left in the canceled account) but got the transaction he wanted. There are ways to move money but crypto will, within this year, not be available anymore.
Hubbs,
I don’t think anonymity is the reason, there are a limited number as I understand it, it is a means of transaction which cannot be diminished by printing more money.
That is also a shortcoming, the universe continues to grow and so shall we.
Dennis L.
Today’s gloom seems to be related to this:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/gloom-doom-apples-iphone-sales-china-plunge-24
Gloom, Doom: Apple’s iPhone Sales In China Plunge 24%
On the other hand, the gold price today seems to be $2,139, so headed up further.
Fascinating interview by Pepe Escobar of Sergei Glazyev, Russian author, Kremlin advisor and financial co-ordinator of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the BRICS10 with respect to introduction of new digital currencies’ platforms and commodity currency concepts. He wrote The Last World War – The US to Move and Lose (2016) which I reviewed here last Oct.
Their conversation covers rigging of international financial markets to the benefit of speculators and the losses worn by commodity producers, nations issuing weak currencies or requiring loans.
For the moment price is determined by Western speculation. We produce these commodities, we consume them, but we do not have our own price mechanism, which will balance supply and demand. During the Covid panic, the price for oil fell to nearly zero. It’s impossible to make any strategic planning for economic development if you do not control prices of basic commodities. Price formation with this new currency should get rid of Western exchanges of commodities. My idea is based on a mechanism that existed in the Soviet Union, in the Comecon. In that period we had long-term agreements not only with socialist countries, but also with Austria, and other Western countries, to supply gas for 10 years, 20 years, the basis of this price formula was the price for oil, and the price for gas.
Very oblique allusion is made to the personal enmity running between Glazyev and Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank of Russia who is considered to be under the close wing of the evil Vlad. Her policies are regarded by him as erroneous and responsible for holding gold and foreign reserves of the nation offshore where 300B ended being seized by the holy mafia. Accordingly, Vlad is unconvinced and reluctant to ease the way forward with Glazyev’s proposed non-USD restructuring. The October BRICS10 annual summit in Kazan will be the critical point for the political implementation towards the next step.
The interview provides some very worthwhile observations on commodity markets and particularly on the international trade in oil and gas.
The problem was our regulators, educated by the IMF, and the second problem was corruption. If you trade oil and gas in dollars, a large part of profits is stolen, there are a lot of intermediate companies which manipulate prices. Prices are only the first step. The price for natural gas in the first deal is about 10 times less than the final demand. There are institutional barriers. A majority of countries do not allow our companies to sell oil and gas to the final customer. Like you cannot sell gas to households. Nevertheless, even in the open market, quite competitive, we have intermediates between producer and consumer – at least half of the revenues are stolen from government control. They don’t pay taxes.
unz.com/pescobar/rocky-road-to-dedollarization-sergei-glazyev-interview
When prices rose too high in the 1970s, regulators added more layers of intermediaries to provide “competition.” Of course, they added an additional layer of expenses, and a different seller who can go bankrupt and leave the customer without service.
Guess:
Extremely high capital costs require cash flow to maintain and produce. That is risk and man always tries to put risk on someone else.
Mining has never been very profitable, a good oil well is a gold mine.
Dennis L.
Good points!
Also, if a well produces natural gas, rather than oil, it may not be profitable. It depends on the price of natural gas, and how far the well is from markets. We used to talk about “stranded” natural gas that was too expensive to extract and ship.
The shipping costs for natural gas are outrageous.
Norman, is this you?
If not, you’ll be wanting to grab one of these while stocks last.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc7bdab34-476a-43e0-b497-1f62d78a55f7_852x926.jpeg?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
looks like ive been outed
except ive got more hair and it isnt grey
Trump fan has massive heart attack at rally (2nd in a month)
Got any Warp Speed jokes?
Trump fan has massive heart attack at rally (2nd in a month)
A no doubt obese middle aged American has heart problems and you think that’s caused by the vaccine.
living in a conspiratorium—what other reason could there be?
“Science” certainly has taken on a lot of untrue meanings.
The division of labor between the elites and the rest was a bit less enforced in the last 80 years or so.
In the old days, the ‘working class’ worked from dawn to dusk, and beyond after electric lights were invented, while having not enough to maintain themselves and their family (if any) while the people who did matter lived comfortably without having to worry about anything.
It was a fact of life that most people’s life would start and end with back breaking labor, with nothing to show for in the end, and when someone got sick, he/she was just kept at home until death, a process very well described by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
we are going back to these days , when civilization advanced by leaps and bounds, leaving two legged animals behind.
In the old days, the ‘working class’ worked from dawn to dusk, and beyond after electric lights were invented
There was already gas lighting before electric light that enabled night shifts
Sure Kulm
The titular president of the United States is conducting and active war against the United States constitution and the people of the United States. Yet there is no reaction.
But if there was a reaction, would you hear about it?
surely if it were to be a bit more closely correlated than the butterfly in Formosa and the hurricane in the Yucatan
one would …
not much escapes the tin foilers
at that upon which buddha doesn’t want you to dwell he sets the Fake News parrots
“…But if there was a reaction, would you hear about it?…”
Yes, Moss ‘the bot’ will get back in an instant….
I stand corrected. ” … the Fake News parrots and the bots.”
One ought to keep in mind, however, that hearing about something is quite different altogether from being able to establish its veracity.
Good point. As far as I can tell the farms strike in Europe is over. No news about it for a week.
Somewhere on the news headlines I saw that the strike was over in France after the govt had made many concessions to the strikers.
Maybe this was being shadowbanned so as to not encourage the others?
Don’t really care so at the time didn’t make a note of the site
There seem to be article about the concessions made.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/snapshot-of-farmers-protests-and-its-not-over/
Map: farmers protests lead to concessions almost everywhere
I
Thanks.
Yes, they have just given some concessions also in Italy.
The government gave reductions on taxes.
My impression is that EU governments are now trying to bypass the real problem, which is diesel, with any kind of possible ‘escamotage’.
Any action is welcome.
EU governments need to avoid to talk of the problem, expecially now that are actually making war to the Country that give them most of the diesel !
😀
It is almost funny how much people can be fooled !
Farmers are in fact one of the few example of group or ‘social class’ of people (said in the old way) which still has some kind of internal choesion, like used to be for all in the past.
So it is a sort of power that governments are obliged to keep in consideration.
(Otherwise ‘who cares’, like for the others).
On the contrary, in fact normal citizens are now completely devided, atomized, dazed by games, socials, woke cultures, media manipulations, absence of Religions that make them to be ruled so easily.
It is strange how self-organizing systems work.
“The absence of religions makes people easy to rule.” Somehow, people believe the new religion, suggested by politicians and mainstream media.
People will believe any narrative, no matter how absurd.
Why would they spend all that money protecting something on the moon?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/china-will-install-a-sprawling-all-seeing-surveillance-system-on-the-moon-to-protect-its-planned-disneyland-sized-lunar-base-from-suspicious-targets-its-space-agency-claims/ar-BB1jjyeB?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=f06e1451f1284b63abe6a98ebd652bbb&ei=35
Everyone knows space rocks are worthless and the Chinese are known to be terrible businessmen, n’est pas?
It’s rocks I tell you, just worthless rocks. Nothing to see here, move along.
Dennis L.
>> The nation wants to use the ‘successful experience’ of its authoritarian Skynet surveillance system to protect the planned base against ‘suspicious targets’, according to a research paper written by scientists at the nation’s space agency that was published in an academic journal.
To protect you need to do more than just see the threat. You need to be able to reach out and neutralize/eliminate/kill the threat.
I will believe this when I see it.
They spend a lot more money to sillier projects. Just another pork barrel
Create jobs, or perhaps this is still one step removed: give people the idea that advanced education is worthwhile because jobs in this sector will be available.
Chicken and the egg. No education, advanced technology impossible, no advanced technology no reason for advanced degree.
I argue for it simply because, TINA.
Dennis L.
A glorious day.
Our Dear leader, President Trump, peace be upon him has had a favourable ruling from SCOTUS.
Even jewish fake news propaganda purveyors CNN reported on the ruling:
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/supreme-court-opinion-trump-ballot-03-04-24/index.html
Such an important ruling; even these fake news jokesters had to report it.
President Trump’s path to the Whitehouse is now clear.
It is written.
5 minutes of your time , Wet My Beak .
https://eand.co/why-trumps-re-election-chances-are-rising-28ad9d9adadf
I keep wondering whether something dramatic will change the race. For example, a supposed attack by another country. “We can only keep the country together by choosing Biden.”
“Russia’s borders do not end anywhere…. Strategic boundaries of a particular state directly depend on how far its political power extends, how strong and sovereign this country is. For example, strategic borders of weakening states coincide with geographic ones.”
My my, Medvedev (former Russian president) gives his take on how the world works.
He makes a key distinction between geographic borders and strategic borders that we may perhaps understand as the sphere of influence that is necessary for the security of the state.
The eastward expansion of NATO seems to have had a profound effect on Russian thought and Russia intends to openly meet the challenge.
USA seems to be pulling out of Europe, so Europe NATO will have to make decisions about whether it wants to proceed with conflicts with Russia on its borders or to seek accomodation and a common security structure.
https://english.pravda.ru/news/russia/159079-medvedev-russia-borders/
Medvedev: Ukraine is, of course, Russia
It is important to understand where the Russian borders are outlined in our time and what they may look like in the future, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said.
Dmitry Medvedev: Russia must return what’s hers
Speaking at Knowledge. The first Marathon of the Knowledge society, Medvedev said that territories on both banks of the Dnieper River were part of Russian strategic and historical borders. Therefore, all attempts to “forcibly change them, cut them off alive” are doomed, Medvedev said.
To expand, Medvedev quoted President Vladimir Putin.
“The president was succinct and to the point about our borders when he said: “Russia’s borders do not end anywhere.” This is a very good quote,” Medvedev said.
Strategic boundaries of a particular state directly depend on how far its political power extends, how strong and sovereign this country is. For example, strategic borders of weakening states coincide with geographic ones.
Russia does not need someone else’s land, but it will not give up on its own land, he added.
During his speech, Medvedev also said that the Russian administration had no plans to recreate the USSR. Russia does not have any territorial disputes with neighbouring countries either, he added.
“The near abroad, as a concept, is not just a figure of speech, but a reflection of the essence, a key point. We have no territorial disputes with the states included in this belt. Over the years since the collapse of the USSR, we have maintained profitable trade cooperation and comfortable interpersonal communication with them,” he said.
Speaking about Ukraine, Medvedev noted that its population was part of the all-Russian civilisation.
“One of the former leaders of Ukraine said once that Ukraine was not Russia. This concept must disappear forever. Ukraine is, of course, Russia,” Dmitry Medvedev said.
Russia must return its historical lands, he also said.
“Dozens of generations of our ancestors had been building the Russian Empire for centuries — Great Russia, Little Russia and New Russia. These parts must return home,” he said.
Other states that recognise the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia thereby agree with the entry of the Donbass and Novorossiya into the country.
“These regions are an integral part of the Russian Federation, they are enshrined in our Constitution. Every state that recognises the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, thereby recognises — I repeat, recognises — the entry of these regions into Russia,” he said.
There are countries that try to think differently, but this “is not so important,” Medvedev said.
Thanks, that is informative on how borders can be viewed.
Dennis L.
This sounds like a country working in the direction of becoming a hegemon–or at least expanding its borders to include all those who speak Russian.
A nation that defends its citizens rather than killing them what a nice idea.
Russian is just a Ukrainian dialect. The lower classes overbreed, so now the Russians outnumber the Ukrainians.
“By summer, the Russian army may break through Ukrainian defences, reach Odessa and liberate Transnistria.”
A new article on the English language Pravda website seems to be pretty open that Russia will take the south of UKR (Odessa) this summer and the disputed Transnistria. Russia seems to be confident that Europe/ NATO can and will do nothing about it.
Europe seems to be changing with a strengthened Russia, a weakened NATO, a shift to a more openly ‘realist’ Russian geopolitical posture and a collapse of any pretence of a common European ‘law’ or security strategy. Interesting times.
https://english.pravda.ru/world/159069-transnistria-odessa-russia/
Transnistria prepares to become Russian region, but Odessa will come first
Transnistria to become part of Russia after Russian forces take Odessa
Transnistria prepares to become a Russian region. Deputies of the region appealed to the Russian Federation seeking protection for Russian citizens of the unrecognised republic. The Russian army will enter Tiraspol [the capital and largest city of Transnistria] soon.
Transnistria was never part of the new Moldova
On Wednesday, February 28, deputies of all levels of the unrecognised Transnistrian Moldavian Republic (also known as Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, PMR) gathered for a Congress to appeal to Russia with a request to “take measures to protect” 220,000 Russian citizens of Transnistria “in the face of increasing pressure from Moldova.”
The pressure, according to them, is expressed in the total economic blockade and criminal prosecution on charges of “separatism,” although Transnistria did not join the Republic of Moldova after the Moldavian SSR ceased to exist. There was a war for independence of this part of the USSR, which de facto ended with the creation of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic. A republic has all attributes of a sovereign state – constitution, parliament, president, coat of arms, flag, currency, army.
The situation in Transnistria remains critical. Many companies have to shut down their work due to the blockade, there are shortages of essential goods and medicines.
Deputy Assistant [USA] Secretary of State for Eastern Europe Christopher Smith visited Tiraspol before Congress where he met with the President of the PMR [TRA] Vadim Krasnoselsky.
It appears that the parties failed to agree to revoke the appeal to the Russian Federation even though it is the United States that puppeteers Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
The PMR voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2006. Tiraspol’s recent appeal to Russia resembles the request from the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic (DPR and LPR) in February 2022, after which President Putin decided to start the special operation in Ukraine. Many expected that Moscow would announce its recognition of the PMR, and the process of Transnistria’s entry into the Russian Federation would begin.
Yet, there is no common border between Russia and Transnistria and it is only possible to lift the blockade from the unrecognised republic only by liberating the Odessa region.
Chisinau controls everything that goes to Transnistria after Ukraine closed the Transnistrian section of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022. Thus, the rotation of as many as 1,500 Russian soldiers from Transnistria is no longer possible.
Ukraine has long been targeting warehouses in Kolbasna
Kyiv believes that one should help Chisinau “eliminate the Transnistrian thorn” and gain access to ammunition depots in return – Europe’s largest reserves in the village of Kolbasna. This was voiced by Ukrainian MP from the European Solidarity party Alexey Goncharenko. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin shares the same idea.
“We do not need a Russian enclave on our and Moldova’s way to the European Union. This is a tumour inside, and we must cure it in an appropriate strategic way. There is a large ammunition depot there, it has been there since the time of WWI. There are many threats there, and we need to make them explode,” he said.
Russia needs to take the Odessa region to reach Transnistria
Russian military leaders have repeatedly stated that the Russian forces need to access Transnistria. Acting commander of the Central Military District Rustam Minnekaev said two years ago that one of the tasks of the Russian army was to establish total control over Donbass and Southern Ukraine. This would make it possible to ensure a land corridor to Crimea, influence vitally important objects of the Ukrainian economy and reach Transnistria, he said.
The General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces has not abandoned this idea. It is impossible to secure the Russian Black Sea Fleet without taking Odessa.
By summer, the Russian army may break through Ukrainian defences, reach Odessa and liberate Transnistria. The West promised to support Moldova, but Western countries become increasingly divided. It appears that the West will only “condemn” Russia’s actions and continue supporting Chisinau [MOL] in words. All warehouses in Kolbasna are mined. If they explode, the blast will equal a 7-7.5 earthquake in power. It is worth noting that Kolbasna lies approximately 2 km from the Ukrainian border.
If Chisinau and Kyiv try to occupy the region, one can expect toughest and most unexpected radical decisions, and the moment will come when Russian troops enter Transnistria to protect Russian citizens there.
Russia may be annexing a fairly big piece, with Odessa and Transnistria.
Hi Mirror, some background on the current situation with respect to Transnistia here
voltairenet.org/article220517.html
This looks like something that could happen in other poor countries, as things go downhill:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/gangs-overrun-haitis-two-largest-prisons-freeing-nearly-4000-criminals-us-urges-all
Gangs Overrun Haiti’s Two Largest Prisons, Freeing Nearly 4,000 Criminals As US Urges All Americans Exit
I noticed this article as well. Keep in mind that I live in Cobb County, GA, but at the other end of the county:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/chaos-georgia-six-flags-violent-mob-invades-ends-shootout-police
Chaos At Georgia Six Flags As Violent Mob Invades – Ends In Shootout With Police
Many will flee to South Florida and have employment at airports, warehouses, grounds, ect
very large community here already
I found a write up of the incident in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The gunfire was reported as taking place outside of the park.
https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/from-fun-to-fear-family-recalls-six-flags-chaos-mayor-calls-for-change/TZTNQ3XH2NCQRAYDPQX7KB3V3Q/
Family recalls Six Flags chaos; mayor calls for change
From fun to fear: Fights inside park, followed by gunfire
Syere Littlefield is almost certainly Black, based on his first name and also the demographics of College Park.
The online article links to a Facebook post with photos saying:
Later, the article says
Later update:
This 15-year old is a repeat offender. The earlier shooting seems to be near where he lives.
The working class over throws the oligarchs????
Behind a paywall, but the headline says it all:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/hedge-fund-manager-us-issues-1-trillion-debt-ever-100-days-just-imagine-pace-deficit
Hedge Fund Manager: The US Issues $1 Trillion In Debt Every 100 Days… Just Imagine The Deficit Spending In A Deep Recession
Maybe they thrown the US $ Dollar under the Bus… the handwriting is on the wall and grabbing what can be got before the actual total collapse.
The BS of reducing the national debt has been going on now for decades…
Just like reducing carbon emissions or reducing population, reducing pollution and waste, reducing our weight, ect.
It’s a game to continue BAU..
Thank you, Gail, like you wrote..hard to imagine how this will work.
Seems like an exponential treadmill.
It is very hard to invest today except for knowledge which unfortunately is perishable in that all of us pass.
This world is changing incredibly quickly, Intel along with Arm are moving into AI, I think chips are now down to 17 nanometers and heading for 3. This is literally countable atoms in size.
I am amazed at what RaspberryPi is capable of doing in IoT.
Social cohesion in my opinion is going to be a huge challenge, How does one keep up? If someone has a very good AI, and ChatGPT 5 is rumored to be senescent, they will forever be one step behind.
If the universe is 26+ B years old, it has been at work twice as long as we thought. We humans are only 300K or so years in development, where are we in a mere 1m years?
Dennis L.
Gone, gone forever. Dreams thwarted at the door.
This world is changing incredibly quickly
Technology wise you mean? There have been no significant new inventions in decades.
Someone commented that it will be once every 100 days, then once every 60 days, 30 days and wahlah! hyperinflation
A different book analogy than Nineteen Eighty-Four:
https://fee.org/articles/california-s-politicians-appear-determined-to-bring-atlas-shrugged-to-life/
Then there are lifestyle communities like the bay area. OpenAI is doing fine work but keep in mind there compute hardware is located in Washington state near the hydroelectric dams.
Published guess:
1. Starship works
2. Starship makes it easy to install very large solar arrays in space with associated DC to AC conversion equipment.
3. Musk has considerable experience in AI and the funds with which to build suitable machines and
4. Musk launches them into space, hooks them to his solar farm and moves information to and from earth.
5. A true, literal case of “vertical” integrtion.
That would be a real world test of the energy value of information if measured in bits.
Dennis L.
#2 YES YES YES I am hoping.
Behind a paywall, based on a Goldman Sachs analysis:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/russian-oil-no-longer-sells-discount-nobody-complies-western-sanctions
No enforcement was a major issue.
Sanctions without enforcement won’t work.
Mon Dieu! No carbon? Can’t be, it will never fly.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/world-s-largest-liquid-hydrogen-powered-aircraft-engine-tested-in-us/ar-BB1jii5S?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=a19ef18fffcc4009a12b2d2ffba886af&ei=12
No, I didn’t read it other than saw something about fuel cell. Pollutant would then be water, no noxious oxides of N secondary to high temperatures.
Now, all we need is a cheap source of Pt, where could we find some of that stuff?
Dennis L.
Many hurdles to make the technology commercial, however.
It is all in the imagination
There might be some universe out there where pigs can fly.
More good news:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vtnDMnjhklo
They are more or less $1.5k/unit.
Starship launches this month, maybe 3/14/24. Ten days? There are more starships in assembly, there is another launch tower in assembly.
Plenty of energy in space, plenty of stuff in space.
We are the manufacture of the ribosome, phylogeny recapitulates ontology. With the Neptune robots, I see space workers.
Next, we understand the universe better and we travel it with means yet unknown. Preposterous? Return to the American Civil War, tell the generals that flying machines with cannons would make such warfare impossible in 150 years. Return to the early twentieth century when some fellow in a patent office said, energy and matter are the same. Nah, can’t be.
Now, who/what invented the first ribosome, who created all this?
Our solar system has everything we need, we are reaching out to touch it with our remote senses, we’re reaching out to manipulate it with our remote manipulators and they are designed very similar to human beings, coincidence? It took the universe billions of years to get that one right.
I mentioned abiotic H, it comes out of the ground. Imagine that, were C in the ground could one have abiotic oil? Where did the H come from? Certainly not our friendly dinosaurs. The universe if full of H, some would say I am full of ….. Uranus has 2.3% methane in its atmosphere, where are the dinosaurs?
Burn methane, ruin our biological planet, the universe will not be happy and burn we shall not. But, we will not shiver in the cold. We are the apex of development, it has been a heck of a journey, the most interesting part is just beginning.
Now, a new day.
Dennis L.
Bookmark Dennis
We May Finally Know How The First Cells on Earth Formed
NATURE 04 March 2024 ByDAVID NIELD
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-may-finally-know-how-the-first-cells-on-earth-formed
A key part of the new findings, made by a team from The Scripps Research Institute in California, is that a chemical process called phosphorylation may have happened earlier than previously thought.
This process adds groups of atoms that include phosphorus to a molecule, bringing extra functions with it – functions that can turn spherical collections of fats called protocells into more advanced versions of themselves, able to be more versatile, stable, and chemically active.
These protocells are widely thought to have been vital building blocks for biochemistry more than 3.5 billion years ago, perhaps emerging from hot springs under the ocean along the way to the evolution of more complex biological structures.
“At some point, we all wonder where we came from,” says chemist Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, from The Scripps Research Institute. “This finding helps us better understand the chemical environments of early Earth so we can uncover the origins of life and how life can evolve on early Earth.”
With some tweaking of temperature and acidity, the researchers were able to get the chemical reactions they were looking for, proving that phosphorylation may have been at work as protocells developed in the primordial ooze.
“The vesicles were able to transition from a fatty acid environment to a phospholipid environment during our experiments, suggesting a similar chemical environment could have existed four billion years ago,” says chemist Sunil Pulletikurti, from The Scripps Research Institute.
Yes to the Mother Starship…with Fast Eddie and Hoolio
Nice find.
We have been doing experiments like that for many years, in the sixties in an honors biology seminar(lead by prof, PhD from Watson) we looked at these reactions. They never got as far as phospholipids as I recall. This was the Miller-Urey experiment which used methane, hydrogen and ammonia in a closed chamber with electrical sparks. Amino acids were produced as well as organic compounds.(I vaguely recall flasks of black gunk).
The problem remains the ribosome(the fellow who lead the seminar was at the time one of the leading world researchers in ribosomes, ultra centrifuges with chambers hanging from piano wire, very exciting when the wire broke).
There is an Uncommon Knowledge session with three people, one of whom was a mathematician and the problem with evolution is the number of combinations is(was) greater than the age of the universe, this may have changed now that JWT has suggested the universe is 26B years of age, not 13+.
Much to discover.
Dennis L.
Yes, much to discover…would be nice to create life from a chemical soup mix..one step closer to being Godlike…amen
We are the manufacture of the ribosome, phylogeny recapitulates ontology. 🙂
Perhaps you meant ontogeny?
Yes, old man screws up again, thank you.
My excuse, too early in the AM, laughing quietly. Dragged that one up from the sixties, left a few parts off.
Dennis L.
We are the apex of development, it has been a heck of a journey, the most interesting part is just beginning.
Actually we are about to return to normality. Life for the descendants of the survivors will be nasty, brutish and short, just like it used to be.
I was on the edge of my seat for HOURS..but we had takeoff
Engineers determined that a small crack on the hatch seal wouldn’t present enough of an issue to abort the launch, and the mission achieved liftoff at 10:53 p.m. Mission crew members on the ground cheered when the first-stage booster separated and Dragon proceeded toward space shortly before 11 p.m.
Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
The Dragon spacecraft was launched by the Falcon 9 rocket, which SpaceX describes as a “reusable, two-stage rocket,” making it the first reusable rocket of its kind. Once it detaches from Dragon, it will land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The crew, set to return in the fall, will spend six months at the ISS. Days ago, administrators revealed they had found a small air leak at the space station.
“It’s not an impact to Crew-8, but I didn’t want anybody to be surprised,” ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano said at a Crew-8 mission briefing. He said that managers don’t believe the leak will affect crew safety but that “teams are watching it.”
While aboard the ISS, often referred to as a “floating laboratory,” the crew will perform more than 200 science experiments as part of the long-term mission to prepare humanity for long-term stays in space.
See..and Fast Eddie claimed it couldn’t be done..so there
UK MP claims he was told all the vaccinated will die of cancer soon
UK MP Andrew Bridgen was told by a Senior Minister in the tea room at the UK Parliament:
“You can speak out all you want. It doesn’t matter. You are vaccinated. You will be dead of cancer soon.’
https://twitter.com/Resistance20001/status/1763292309892800740
Time will tell, hell of a time to be in the life insurance business if this is true.
Personally, don’t have a clue.
Dennis L.
Life insurers need to be selling annuities. They pay only as long as people are alive.
perhaps dear Kate the next to go
the cancer with the name Turbo
Or Prince William. You know what happened to his mother, once she started making political comments.
Eddy must be so proud of all his children carrying the torch
We could post a few more timely deaths stories…but Gail did fine with the Haitian unraveling of Port au Prince
Fast Eddie needs some pics and videos of it to keep him happy
I thought Eddy had no children?
Only Hoolio and his adherents here, above.
He’s like Mr. Chips in that respect.
Anyone can be him really. Very limited repertoire to learn.
Should sign up for disability insurance.
Let it be noted that Andrew was simply reporting what he was told, and the situation in which he was told it. Andrew didn’t necessarily believe the statement, and it is clear to me from the context that the other MP, a senior minister, said it as wind up, a tasteless joke, a verbal “jab” if you prefer, a form of harassment, with a view to shocking Andrew and, if possible, ruining his day. If his is the calibre of senior Members of Parliament in the UK, it’s no wonder the UK is in such a mess.
While the COVID jabs are poisonous and have been deadly to some of the people who took them, there is no evidence that they are universally deadly, or even that they are of uniform composition. So if you are still up and running after having had one or more jabs, look on the bright side; it might never happen.
Although I agree in general with you, cancer risk is high on my own assessment of possible long term effects. Spike itself was shown to be oncogenic (see Jiang & Mei 2021 in “viruses” showing inhibition of DNA damage repair via hindering of BRCA1 and 53bp1 proteins). See also ” S2 interacts with p53 tumor suppressor and BRCA” (Singh 2020 paper in translational oncology). There is a whole cottage industry of substack writers who have also been diving into the literature. Some of the better ones are moriarty, doorlesscarp and arkmedic that have also indicated oncogenic risks in addition to neurodegeneration risks and whole range of other possible interferences with key metabolic – including immune function – pathways.
An interesting paper caught my eye recently, “comparative analysis of bat genomes” by Zhang et al from 2013 published in Science. , which if I understand well, hints that high metabolism needed to sustain flight in bats generates so much reactive oxygen species that positive selection on p53 and BRCA2 are needed to keep the DNA damage in bats under control….Brunet Rossinni published a review of aging in bats, which live substantially longer then would be expected based on their size and metabolic rates. Their superior DNA repair and immune systems may very well be the reason that they can host pathogens that would be far more dangerous to other mammals if they could make the “jump”. As a biologist I would appreciate if anyone has access to the full paper. Best regards.
That information makes me wonder about skunks and the rabies virus.
Interesting:
Record figures point to robust holiday travel, spending during Chinese Lunar New Year globaltimes.cn/page/202402/1307172.shtml
To recur to our topic, the recent collapse of China, to my mind no convincing evidence yet that that I’ve seen indicates a collapse is even threatening let alone already occurred. The stockmarket is being somewhat juiced I understand by selling constrains, but present levels while below bubble levels are reasonably stable as stockmarkets go. Since opening after the lunar new year holiday it has bounced strongly. Interest rates are low. Credit expansion robust … (but it is always wise to keep in mind that in Jan and Feb, because of the varying timing of their new year, 12 month comparisons can be very skewed unless a two month average is used)
However, recent weeks seem to have been globally demonstrating the maddness of crowds in the everything bubble. Regularly, one has to pull back one’s eyes to their sockets …
Meanwhile, as western MSM spreads its venom, China’s FM remonstrates
These attacks on China are aimed at covering up the misconduct of the Five Eyes alliance itself, Wang said. The US has established a large cyber arsenal, which includes typical weapons like the “PRISM” program disclosed by Edward Snowden, the Project “CAMBERDADA” by the US media, the Equation group by the Shadow Brokers, and Vault 7 by WikiLeaks. These cyber weapons put the critical global infrastructure and people’s life and production in all countries in jeopardy.
globaltimes.cn/page/202402/1306945.shtml
In this morning’s South China Morning Post, Andy Xie examines the bubble in China and why its popping will not produce the lost decade or three as in Japan following 1989
A bubble bursting can be good news as it forces an economy to restructure and become more competitive. China is experiencing some deflation as its property bubble deflates. Some observers have been quick to make comparisons with Japan, warning that not dealing with deflation – that is, not printing massive amounts of money – risks making China into Japan 2.0.
The real lesson from Japan is the opposite. Deflation was a symptom of Japan’s malaise, not the cause. Losing competitiveness to its neighbours is what made Japan struggle, so the right recipe was to nurture new, competitive industries.</EM
scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3254094/why-japans-nikkei-freak-show-should-scare-chinese-investors
An underlying issue for both China and Japan is fossil fuel problems. Japan never had fossil fuels, but as oil prices rose, and as other countries with less expensive fuels began to compete, it tended to lose out.
China is running into fossil fuels problems, too, with its coal supply having topped out. It has also promised its people fancier homes than the economy can really afford. I am worried about its future, also.
I already cited the greyenlightenment posting list of debunking Turchin.
The current elite overproduction is merely continuing a trend which lasted till 1914, and ended because of Gabby Princip, Joe Gallieni and Chucky Fitzclarence.
In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae died at Boulogne in 1918. At least he partially paid for the crime of the Canadian backwoodsmen at the second battle of Ypres in early 1915; if they had cracked , instead of standing past by inventing the method of avoiding gas by putting urine soaked underwear to their noses, Western Civ could be saved somewhat .
After the Great War, there were lots and lots of vacancies in the ranks of elites, thru which people who could hardly be called as elites sneaked into there. The overproduced elites are mostly scions of the fake elites produced during the 20th century, with few lines going prior to 1914.
Whether these faux elites are the kind of people to run the world is debatable , but it is all we have got. Plus lots of Asians and other parts of Third World, who do NOT have a stake in the modern civilization.
I’m glad these brave Canadians helped me, a commoner who contributes nothing to civilisation, consume lots of resources.
Super-rich warned of ‘pitchforks and torches’ unless they tackle inequality
Global elite told at London’s Savoy hotel of real risk of ‘civil disruption’ if more is not done to help struggling millions
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jun/30/uk-super-rich-beware-pitchforks-torches-unless-they-do-more?CMP=share_btn_tw
Militarized police will mow them down with ease.
Global totalitarian state will take over to save civilization.
I can hire half of the working to class to kill the other hale -f Jay Gould, an ancestor of Stephen Jay Gould.
Militarized police will mow them down with ease.
Global totalitarian state will take over to save civilization.
No spare energy for any of that. Here’s a peek at the actual future in Haiti where armed gangs of raiders now rule. Of course it will be much worse in the global collapse.
There is a third class of target in a nuclear war that no one talks about, oil refineries/storage/piping/wells. Normally people talk of two target types cities and military stuff.
If a third world war starts it would make sense to destroy your enemies oil related targets. In ways a 20 year pause could be good for the planet and human kind.
That would be rude to the elites that chose mega yachts over bunkers. I hope they have fishing tackle, desalinators, and can get to shore to pick coconuts without getting killed.
Wonder how many are smart enough to included some masts and sails?
The moste efficient way to take down an adversary in a major war will not be to take out cities in a manner reminiscent of Hirsohima & Nagasaki.
Taking out major nodes, i.e.transformer sations in the electrical grid will suffice to collapse a country. These are bespoke contraptions that it will take years to replace, if ever.
A WW3 could therefore be a quick & “clean” affair compared to the general picture of total nuclear annihilation.
Of course you would need to have the capacity to achieve this, peferrably without withoutgoing nuclear.
I’m afraid we in the US don’t have the capacity to take out the major intersections in the grids of other countries. Leaders aren’t thinking this way, either.
Really? How do you know what the U.S has? I am sorry love your posts but every once in a while I am shocked by your ignorance . The U.S has the capacity to wipe out the planet of human population Russia does too. A world war would kill us all….. Kulm too.
Even if we had the capacity to wipe out the population of the planet 20 or 40 years ago, it doesn’t follow that we still have this capacity today. Weapons and delivery systems tend to degrade with time, unless someone is carefully tending to this issue. There need to be trained staff to oversee these weapons.
I have doubts that today, we have the capacity to wipe out the population of the planet. There is not enough of a profit incentive to maintain old systems. They tend to degrade over time.
Agree with your thoughts on that. I posted a while ago about the sorry state of the Minuteman lll and how it was a risk to attempt to launch it. Basically the US, if it fires it’s missiles, will be lucky if 10% find their targets. The rest could go off anywhere, including in the silo. Russia need only wait to see what you haven’t destroyed yourselves and then send a couple of Vanguards to finish the job.
The U.S has the capacity to wipe out the planet of human population
They would destroy the cities and their populations and regress us to a pre industrial time but that’s going to happen anyway.
I concur but it is worse in the US due to the over-reliance on forced air heating, air conditioning, and remote supply of food. Most everywhere you have radiators, less AC, and local food supply. Cities would do poorly but semi-rural areas would be able to reorganize some.
Taking out major nodes, i.e.transformer sations in the electrical grid will suffice to collapse a country. These are bespoke contraptions that it will take years to replace, if ever.
That’s absolutely right. You can destroy a city with a few well targeted non nuclear weapons. They aren’t needed any more. Obsessing about them is low IQ stuff.
and all-out nuclear war would be quite problematic for the supply chains for dark chocolate.
just nuked cities would be far less problematic.
Posts like these send shivers down my spine.
I’m here to give everyone the shivers.
I have a 12-15 month supply of 85%-cocoa chocolate. No fridge or freezer needed. It keeps a long time at room temperature, thanks to the saturated fat.
The raiders will like that. They might even leave you alive.
Perhaps we don’t know everything, H to the rescue?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/researchers-just-discovered-a-massive-jacuzzi-bubbling-with-almost-pure-hydrogen-a-lucrative-source-of-clean-energy/ar-BB1jgq2U?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=82008e95887140169619eaf2ebd75971&ei=11
Have seen the same thing referenced for an area around Paris.
This has to increase the efficiency of H, it doesn’t have to be made first. Of course it will run out next week, but it came from somewhere and the universe is full of the stuff. A shot of Pt and electric cars work, if it is only the battery which is a problem, given a fuel cell the fellow with the best production techniques wins and tire wear is so yesterday. We need Pt, if one is going to “mine” in space, make mine Pt please.
N. MN has recently discovered a deposit of He, so a shortage of ballons should not be an issue for few years, MRI’s as well.
Starship launches this month, go Starship!
Dennis L.
There are a lot of hurdles to be overcome before hydrogen available in nature can make a meaningful dent in our total energy needs.
Starship only exists in Robert Heinlein’s imagination.
Time will tell, kul. I am most hopeful and given the universe may have taken not 13 but 26 B years to get us this far; my money is they will think of something.
Dennis L.
“Ends Energy Crisis”: MUFG Says Global LNG Market Will Shift Into Oversupply In 2025
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/ends-energy-crisis-mufg-says-global-lng-market-will-shift-oversupply-2025
My BS meter just broke down . 😂
Hopefully it can be fixed because BS will be provided throughout 2024.
There’s a “Fake News. Fake News” parrot goin cheap, you know.
Would that suffice?
Its correct because we are going into a GREAT DEPRESSION that will be 10 times worse than the past. That will leave a glut of energy on the market.
yes I agree, but will it be in the 2020s or later?
my bet is all in on the 2030s.
Economic depression? Sorry, it will be in the 2020s. It is collapse that will come quite a bit later.
The chart assumes a huge increase in exports from the US in 2025–more export capacity added in 2025 than what had been added in all past years combined. Even if this capacity were added (under what is listed as “maximum capacity” on the application), it is hard to believe that that much capacity would really be used. There would be too much of a reduction in US natural gas supply, for one thing.
Current prices are not high enough for OPEC+:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/opec-extends-oil-output-cuts-through-mid-year-bid-further-boost-price
OPEC+ Extends Oil Output Cuts Through Mid-Year In Bid To Further Boost Price
This is really a no-change decision for OPEC+. We will see what actually happens elsewhere.
original OPEC Press Release here without the ZH reinterpretation
opec.org/opec_web/en/press_room/7305.htm
This press release is sufficiently confusing that it could be interpreted in two different ways–just extending the old cuts, or adding another 2 million barrels a day in cuts. Perhaps we will need to wait and see what really happens.
“Hotshot Wharton professor sees $34 trillion debt triggering 2025 meltdown as mortgage rates spike above 7%: ‘It could derail the next administration’
” … The warning isn’t chiming alone. Since the beginning of the year an increasing cacophony of alarm bells has been ringing out: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says there will be a market “rebellion” over the issue while Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan says it’s time to stop ‘admiring’ the problem and instead do something about it.
“This fear is echoing outside of Wall Street, too. The Black Swan author Nassim Taleb says the economy is in a ‘death spiral,’ while Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says it’s past time to have an “adult conversation” about fiscal responsibility.
” … If markets do indeed rebel across the globe and throw the world’s largest economy into disarray, the ripple effects will be felt across borders. Unfortunately, Gomes believes there will be no avoiding it: ‘A government that runs into funding difficulties, that cannot convince investors to fund its debt, that government is going to probably have to raise taxes. There’s no way you can protect yourself from that.
“‘Any exposure you have, whether it’s mortgages or loans, is really hard to avoid in any dimension. It’s bad across the board for the country but it’s hard to avoid exposure wherever you live in the world.'”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hotshot-wharton-professor-sees-34-trillion-debt-triggering-2025-meltdown-as-mortgage-rates-spike-above-7-it-could-derail-the-next-administration/ar-BB1jfnRI?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=d2b667fe1dd1497887ee8953460d2c66&ei=9
I agree, but what if there is more stuff than we suppose and what if it can be obtained without 90%(guess) of the pollution.
I am the space nut here, watching Starship in March.
Going to post a link to H in another reference. H is being found which means no conversion, pollution is water when combusted and it is fuel cell friendly. Cheap Pt makes this a game changer.
If this is true, invest now, the future is bright. Interest may be a challenge.
Dennis L.
there is no more ”stuff”
the don gets potus
economic collapse through 35 trn debt
the don declares emergency–martial law to cope with unrest
uses army to dissolve the senate—half of whom agree with him–the other half ”gets locked up”
(soldiers follow whoever pays their wages btw, not any constitution)
there wiill be no 2028 election
Norm ‘ “the don declares emergency–martial law to cope with unrest
uses army to dissolve the senate—half of whom agree with him–the other half ”gets locked up”
Read my post just below yours .
Assuming there is a 2024 election
Assuming there was a 2020 election
Norm the future is very difficult to predict. My guess is business as usual.
Dennis L.
yup
i can predict anything except the future
i was doomerizing back in 05—still bau, for me, but not for a lot of other folks
thats the problem
getting the timescale right
there wiill be no 2028 election
Elections don’t matter. Democracy does not exist.
So true.
To answer the question of the title, “What happens when the imminent collapse of civilization becomes common knowledge?,” here are some possibilities. These are just human reactions to the knowledge, including governments and corporations. Flash! They are human:
1. Hoarding. That all-American pastime. Toilet paper, water, canned goods, flour, and sugar. Gas can sales will skyrocket. Lines will form at gas stations. Refineries will struggle to keep up despite rising gas prices.
2. Corporate gouging will no longer become a corollary of inflation but the main culprit. That and the rising cost of oil.
3. The government will attempt to control inflation with interest rate hikes, causing many corporations, including oil companies, to file for bankruptcy for inability to service debt.
4. Rising unemployment will mean more pilfering and robbery, much of it involving food and cash.
5. There will be protests devolving into riots.
6. Government agencies will ration food, water, and gas.
7. Public schools will be closed.
8. The military will be asking for more recruits amid wars and rumors of war. Many people will be desperate to join just for the food and shelter they can no longer afford.
9. Martial law will eventually be declared.
10. The wealthy will head for their bunkers and mega-yachts.
11. Mass tax evasion the government can’t control.
12. The government will eliminate the few economic safety nets afforded to Americans for lack of government funds, or ….
13. The government will print more money to keep said safety nets, fueling even more inflation.
14. The government will eliminate subsidies to oil companies for lack of funds, resulting in even more bankruptcies in the oil industry, or ….
15. The government will take over oil companies and fund a desperate “Manhattan Project” style attempt to accelerate extraction of oil sands in Canada and Venezuela, whether those countries like it or not and adding to the climate problem.
These are preliminary reactions to the realization of most people that their way of life is about to end. It is United States centric, but I think the rest of the world will have similar reactions.
https://glenhendrix50.medium.com/what-will-happen-if-imminent-civilization-collapse-becomes-common-knowledge-ce26418e93e5
I don’t think this is possible:
“Government agencies will ration food, water, and gas.”
Rationing food, water and gasoline is practically impossible. It takes a lot of advance time to set up, and a whole lot of people to implement.
It is a whole lot easier to scare people into staying home because of some imagined problem if they go out. Telling people that they would catch Covid-19 and that it might kill them worked for a while. There was a huge drop in oil use. There were many fewer meals eaten away from home, leading to a huge drop in food use.
Water is used in irrigating food and as part of many types of electricity generation. If less food is eaten, this by itself, holds down water consumption.
I don’t agree . Was there not rationing after WW2 in Europe ? I have lived under food rationing regime in India . What do signs at petrol pumps reading ” Maximum 20/30 litres per fill ” mean ? Better , make prices so high that it becomes unaffordable . Rationing by other means . I am talking about a time when there was no digital world . Today it is much simpler with hi tech . Fix the payment terminals at the petrol pumps not to dispense fuel above 20/30 litres . What can you do ? My daily withdrawing limit at the ATM is Euro 1000 . What can I do ? No, less food is not eaten only more food is eaten at home than eaten away from home . There is a shift in consumption pattern . A human body has to consume 2000 calories per day — eat at home or eat away from home , the body is not interested .
There is more food waste at restaurants, but otherwise I agree. Rationing by price is already happening. I used to buy ice cream, but at $6/pint, I can do without it.
WW2 was in the days before Artificial Intelligence and home printers. Trying to send out little ration booklets to people and not miss anyone is a difficult exercise. We have a hard time with counting people in censuses.
The big overuse of food is in the commercial and banquet food industry. Much food goes to waste, planning for what people might order, or partially eaten food. If people would simply eat at home, or make un-fancy meals to take with them to work, there would be much less food waste. The fancy foods provided for universities likely result is a lot of waste, also. People don’t think of this in rationing. You need an excuse to shut down these big operations.
The big shortage is of diesel fuel and jet fuel (which are very similar). Europe uses a lot of diesel in its cars. This is a problem. Perhaps 20/30 liter limits help. It is far too valuable a fuel to be using in automobiles.
Outside Europe, diesel is used mostly in agricultural equipment, big trucks (lories), operating trains, operating ships that travel long distance, and in many kinds of off-road equipment, such as those used for digging ditches. In these uses, it is very difficult to substitute away from diesel. Ships can perhaps shift to less energy-dense fuel because its energy needs are fairly uniform and it has big storage capacity. But any type of equipment requiring big bursts of power needs diesel.
Getting people off of airplanes is difficult, unless one comes up with an excuse like not spreading a pandemic. Jet fuel use out of China does seem to be way down, however.
So what’s with “hoarding?” Will you not get yourself some toilet paper & canned goods when the time comes? “That All American pastime.” My experience is modern people don’t keep shelf-stable food on hand & have to run to the store (or have deliveries) for much of anything. In the past, homes often had a large pantry stacked deep with boxed & canned goods, many of them homemade. Today most people look down on canned goods, prefering to eat fresh. I know a lot of young families that have very little in their homes in the way of a food supply. I wish they did.
Hoarding doesn’t work quite as well as a person would like.
We eat an awfully lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. These don’t last long. We discovered when our refrigerator broke last year that frozen foods don’t last very long without power, either.
Canned food is OK, but it takes up a lot of space. You have to keep rotating what you have, so the timing doesn’t exceed the expiration dates on the cans. I find this hard to do, except for things we eat frequently (beans and canned tomatoes, mostly).
Otherwise, the food needs to be dry food, and you need a way to cook it. You also need a reasonable supply of fresh water. These are issues people don’t often think of. If electricity is on, it is not too much of a problem. It gets to be more of a problem, otherwise. Much of the world’s population seems to live in apartments.
Humans are adapted to a diet that includes some cooked foods. Raw food that goes through a blender can sort of substitute, to some extent. It is hard to get enough calories, however. Heat also kills pathogens. Raw freshly caught fish works, but we don’t have access to much truly fresh food.
Most canned food has a much longer shelf life than the expiry date suggests.
They just need to be stored in a relatively cool, dark and dry place. A normal cellar is sufficient for this.
When the collapse happens neither your food nor your cellar will remain yours for long.
No question. But the collapse is not an event, but a process that extends over a certain period of time. And no one can predict exactly whether we are talking about years or decades.
Prevention cannot save me from collapse, but it can help build some buffer for crises that will (and have already) increasingly occurred during this process. There couldn’t be a better investment. If I don’t have to panic on the first day of a crisis about what I’ll have to eat tomorrow, but know that I can easily survive 14 days, then that’s a much better starting point. Especially psychologically. This means you can also concentrate on other, perhaps important things.
Again, Lewis Dartnell thought about this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWeFl5iMeOs
This is his speech at the Royal Institution, meaning the highest of high of UK are aware of this too
This may be interest to some here since the topic of Hunters and Gathers has been brought up here. Gail has mentioned a relatively small population remaining after collapse of BAU can begin the fruitful and multiply mantra..
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/archaeology/stone-age-genetic-inbreeding/
A genetic study of some of western Europe’s last Stone Age hunter-gatherers has revealed a possible strategy in ancient societies to avoid inbreeding.
It is the first time the genomes of several Stone Age hunter-gatherers who lived near new Neolithic farming communities have been analysed.
Researchers sequenced and analysed the complete genomes of 10 individuals found in modern-day France. The ancient people lived between about 8,300 and 6,760 years ago. They were found in 3 burial sites: Champigny in north-east France, and Téviec and Hoedic in the north-west..
They lived during the late Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) – a period of human cultural development which in parts of France persisted until about 6,500 years ago.
The beginning of the Mesolithic came about after the end of the last Ice Age. Mesolithic humans were still hunter-gatherers, but more temperate climate conditions saw significant changes in human society. This included new settlement patterns and technologies as well as the emergence of subsistence toward its end, leading to farming and animal husbandry during the age known as the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows bloodlines and kinship were not the only factors involved in shaping these ancient communities. And different families living together might have been a strategy to avoid inbreeding.
“This gives a new picture of the last Stone Age hunter-gatherer populations in Western Europe,” says senior author Professor Mattias Jakobsson from Uppsala University, Sweden. “Our study provides a unique opportunity to analyse these groups and their social dynamics.”
With the emergence of Neolithic farmers, their relationships and interactions with the last hunter-gatherer groups is relatively unknown.
Previous research based on isotope data has suggested that the last hunter-gatherer communities deliberately assimilated women from their Neolithic neighbours. But the new genetic study shows that they mixed with other hunter-gatherers.
“Our genomic analyses show that although these groups were made up of few individuals, they were generally not closely related,” says first author Luciana G. Simões, researcher at Uppsala University. “Furthermore, there were no signs of inbreeding. However, we know that there were distinct social units – with different dietary habits – and a pattern of groups emerges that was probably part of a strategy to avoid inbreeding.”
Other research has also shown even isolated Mesolithic groups avoiding inbreeding.
The sites are unusual among Mesolithic burials because it had previously been assumed that individuals buried together must have been related.
“Our results show that in many cases – even in the case of women and children in the same grave – the individuals were not related,” says co-author Dr. Amélie Vialet from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in France. “This suggests that there were strong social bonds that had nothing to do with biological kinship and that these relationships remained important even after death.”
How these living arrangements came to develop in these societies remains a mystery.
Now, let’s do the same study of the Deep Southern States
At some early point (after farming began), one of the reasons for one group to attack another group was to get a combination of (1) potential wives for the young men, and (2) potential males, to help in road building, making mines, and other heavy work that people would not volunteer for, regardless of the wages. The attackers might also get additional land on which to grow crops.
If what I remember reading is correct, this would also have tended to mix up the gene pool.
Yup, it is always a woman, biology.
“(1) potential wives for the young men,”
Dennis L.
Demographics?
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-tells-people-65-and-older-take-more-covid-19-booster-shots
There is only so much weight the young can carry.
Dennis L.
Peter Turchin argues there are too many elites! ie (elite over-production)
Bring back the WOLVES!
The elites certainly want to run the world, now. We have the WEF. We also have the rich individuals who seem to be above the law. We have folks like Bill Gates and others who are big owners of assets. Even if these are allegedly “not-for-profit,” they wield great power.
There is also the problem of big corporations. These corporations advertise on television and other major media. They determine what news is shown on TV and in the new papers. Big Pharmaceuticals are the biggest advertisers on TV. They make people think that pills are the answer to all their problems. These big corporations also have revolving doors to top regulatory posts in government. They make decisions based on what is profitable for pharmaceutical companies and other large companies.
But that’s all conspiracy theory! That’s what people like Norm, tells us. 🥳
if we get economic collapse–”big assets” will be worth zero, there will be no ‘power’. Somehow i dont see Bill Gates as a warlord… do you?
land is ”worth” only the energy that be extracted from it…..if you dont have tractors, that means human muscle…. you cant fertilize land with $$$–unless as mulch
outside the warm sun latitudes, land doesnt produce much with muscle power alone. (check where the first cities evolved–if you dont get that.)
without his world game of ”pass the parcel”—bezos becomes a pauper.—gold bricks are worth nothing if they cant be exchanged for some form of energy.
Gates and Bezos et al are smart—they will have worked out the above without my help.
yet this elite fixation goes on—they want the planet for themselves.
ever tried thinking for yourself Rodster??
I think you have a good understanding of land.
Dennis L.
I see all those drug advertisements on TV when I am on the elliptical trainer at the YMCA where as a “captured” viewer I am fed a diet of MSM outlets like CNN, MSNBC, FOX etc. Even as a physician, I am bewildered by the litany of disclaimers and side effects on these ads that no lay person can possibly understand, to the point that disclaimers comprise the bulk of the advertisement!
But then again, big pharma doesn’t care about that. They aren’t directing their advertisements to the viewers trying to plant these drugs in their minds in order to get them to request these meds from their doctors. That’s what I used to think.
No, big pharma just splatters all these ads on the media to legitimately front these media companies billions of dollars so that behind the scenes, the media will promote an agenda, like vaxxes, masks, and all forms of control. It’s bribery in plain sight.
But , but, but, we at big pharma aren’t making secret donations to the media! Look! We’re buying advertising like any other honest company trying to promote sales.
No erstwhile company would waste money with these kinds of advertisements unless they were being used to launder what are essentially bribes to the media. The media has been captured by big pharma.
Wait! there’s more. Just in.
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-tells-people-65-and-older-take-more-covid-19-booster-shots
And from the December 2023 AARP Bulletin page 7, a reader asks:
“I’m up to five covid boosters. Should I really be signing up for another shot now?”
AARP’s response via its authorized spokesperson who signs off simply as ” RN” :
“Yes. If you get a COVID vaccine this fall, you need to hustle and catch up. The most recent shot, which was released In September 2023 , isn’t actually a booster. It’s a new vaccine that targets the latest variants. So even if you got the previous booster, you’re not fully protected from the current versions of the virus.”
This RN also cites in her response David Montefiori , director for AIDS Vaccine Research and Development at Duke University Medical Center who stated:
“And as immunity wanes in the population , we’re going to see increased numbers of infections and increases in hospitalizations and deaths.”
My new rule of thumb is to assume the ostensible purpose is diametrically opposed to the real, underlying, purpose.
Everything makes far more sense that way.
It is fiercely competitive:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/inside-the-secretive-and-highly-lucrative-education-system-of-the-super-rich/ar-BB1je4L4?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=936bf8177c244eb8b5ff29cf7a245953&ei=2
The best marry the best, last I saw they are not divorcing(men can rent recreation as needed) and they can afford the best education for their children.
Today, could not get off the north side of my town, the public education system has been destroyed. It is impossible to break out with a second rate education and even with access it is important to know how to use an educational establishment. If you know, they you know.
Dennis L.
Something similar in science.
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it…”
Max Plank, Scientific autobiography, 1950 p. 33,97
Simpler version: Science progresses one funeral at a time.
Simpler version: evolution is made possible by death, e.g. dinosaurs, one way or another the universe was going to change things and we know if the universe needs iron, boom! Finesse does not seem to be a strong point.
Dennis L.
Planck did not teach his children the importance of leaving progeny and one of his children got killed by joining the July Bomb Plot instead of just lying low.
Sophie Scholl and her conspirators died without issue. Johann Reichhart, who cut her head , was the 8th of a generation of executioners, and after the war, the Americans used him to cut the heads of war criminals. His oldest son and successor to the position killed himself after West German abolished the death penalty, since his skills were no longer useful, but his tombstone, presumably erected by another of his sons, shows he didn’t die a poor man.
https://www.thefifthfield.com/biographical-sketches/johann-reichhart/attachment/reichharts-grave/
To his last day he always called the people he executed with the numbers he assigned to them, and always got very upset if anyone talked about Sophie Scholl and her conspirators. He corrected them by naming the Scholls with the numbers he assigned – for him, the Scholls were just another number.
It is people like him who build civilizations.
Simpler version: evolution is made possible by death, e.g. dinosaurs
That’s true. Death is essential to evolution.
Peter Turchin grew up in USSR, and are not really familiar with the English tradition. Gregory Clark wrote better about this.
What happened is an elite overproduction does produce the Flynn effect. The top of top stays at the top, and the lesser ranks take the next class, kicking out the next class to the lower rung, and so one until the lowest of them die out.
Gregory Clark’s site has full of such papers.
https://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pcl48.htm
Younger sons of the nobility and the gentry became traders, soldiers and politicians. In Jane Austen’s Emma (1815), the older son, George Knightly, became a squire who tended the land, and the younger son, John, became a lawyer in London, and he was lucky enough to get a dowry by marrying Emma’s older sister.
On the contrast, Catholic countries put their younger sons to the monasteries, keeping them out of the gene pool (except when they had ‘natural offspring’ but since they also tended to enter the clergy or nunneries their impact on the gene pool was minimal at best) so the weeding out of lower quality genes among the lower classes did not take place.
According to Gregory Clark and also our Norman, the experiment continued until around 1800. I have read extensively about it and it continued all the way to 1914. In D. H. Lawrence of Sons and Lovers, partially based upon his own life, the union of a miner and a middle class woman (who had fallen to bad times) produces 2 sons, one of them die without issue and the other one also leaves the town unmarried, with no chance of a marriage in his rank. That was the reality back in 1913.
We are encountering more and more men who cannot marry today. Many of them are too poor. Others have autism or ADHD that interfere with their marriage prospects.
Gail,
It is very hard to be a man, it is mostly a thankless task.
We are pushing sex to children who are still growing and it is coming at them too fast, the same is true of drugs which once experimented with are very difficult to leave and valuable time is lost. Much directed at children is at too fast a rate.
Autism and ADHD are real, they seem coincident with vaccination. I am not an expert, don’t have an opinion, correlation only.
In days of old if a man had a job he could hold his head high and someone would marry him and two can live more cheaply than one if they have a set of time tested rules, not a narrative. Church was cheap compared to all the “experts” of today. We outsourced our sanity and mental health for a few more dollars for the elites.
It has never been easy, I love and use technology, but had time to grow and mature and still can’t really use my cellphone and don’t want to learn.
Dennis L.
It should be noted that this social phenomena would “normally” (in the context of ecologically derived, population dynamics) have led to open civil warfare in most of the western world already and open loss of control by elite forces.
What is different this time is the phenomena of gender based population “male sedation”. The combination of online porn, online gaming, social media criticism and legalized marijuana…..has decreased the normal population response in young males…..which is to form warbands and then burn this entire woke sh*tshow to the ground. They would ultimately kill all elite forces that get in the way and take all the self empowered women as slaves along with everything of value not nailed down.
It will be interesting to observe if this sedation trend holds or not…….
with cataclysm of course, the sedative will wear off really, really fast…..
Part of my history and our nation’s history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Memorial_Hall#/media/File:Ward_Memorial_Hall_Nov2011.jpg
I think the domiciliary can be seen to the left.
The VA site now mentions rehabilitation efforts, Can only speak for myself, these men returned from service broken in body and I think spirit. Corny as it may seem, humans except for a very small percentage, say 5% are not meant to kill one another.
Perhaps the men I saw were part of the 95% who killed(Viet Nam) and found solace in each other’s experiences. In my time we didn’t have busy bodies, we had a bar on National Avenue as I recall. The men seemed at peace with each other’s company. The dom was somewhat like a barracks, it was home.
Dennis L.
You lived in the North and did not see the people from the Southeastern part of United States who would jump at the first opportunity to kill others. They love killing.
They are only hesitant to join the military now since they don’t want to die for the wokists. Which is why Trump might be called back since they are willing to die for him, although the events in 2021 does show that they might not be that loyal to him in the end.
I dearly loved living those years in Dixie…….
Kudzu and the yellow pollen dogwood season were my favorite memories, along with the orange red clay soil, summer heat thunderstorms with lightening and winter black ice in Charlotte NC.
Yes, the people were nice enough to this Yankee transp!ant
I’m still trying to understand the article (Peak oil and the low-carbon energy transition) that I posted below.
It says:
Global gross and net-energy of oil liquids production is determined from 1950 to 2050.
Energy required for production is estimated to be 15.5% of the actual gross energy.
This is the chart from that :
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0306261921011673-ga1_lrg.jpg
In 2020 it shows about 60 mb/d of energy.
For energy needed it’s about 75 so a difference of 15
Which corresponds to the statement above.
It seems like a lot.
Moving over to 2050 it shows almost as much “ oil energy “ will be needed for extraction of the same amount.
That’s my interpretation.
We already have a problem with not enough oil, relative to population.
These folks are wasting their time, putting together a model of a different problem that they think we should be concerned about. I wouldn’t worry about.
hey Ag, the mboe “million barrel oil equivalent” is now about 60 on that chart, I have no idea what this measures in the real world, if you figure that out, please let me know. Global crude oil now is about 84 mbpd and with “all liquids” it’s 100 mbpd. Is the graph just WRONG?
THIS is what I quote:
“We determine the energy necessary for the production of oil liquids (including direct and indirect energy costs) to represent today 15.5% of the energy production of oil liquids, and growing at an exponential rate: by 2050, a proportion equivalent to half of the gross energy output will be engulfed in its own production.”
ignoring the confusing graph, THIS makes sense.
today 100 gross units gives about 85 net units of energy from oil.
that’s pretty great, the 85 units are “surplus” and are used to run IC.
by 2050, 100 gross units will give about 50 net units of energy from oil.
that’s not as good as now, but it is still 50 units of “surplus” energy to run what remains of IC.
of course, total oil production will be much lower in 2050 as well, so that’s the other big factor.
all in all, surplus energy from oil is pretty great in 2024, and I will be long dead and gone by 2050.
que sera sera.
I see zero surplus in 2050. I think total liquids includes NG which doesn’t seem to represented much here. Like Gail says the energy differs by type. So I guess that’s why they measure in PJoules. I tried looking up total oil by pjoules but I’m not a grad.student.
The question is how do they measure “energy needed”?
They currently have it increasing rapidly which if true paints a bleak short term outlook. Then the rate slows? The models probably wrong but still useful.
That means it’s not really useful drilling in 2050 unless you need the black gold for special needs.(definitely not getting slurpees in SUVs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY
But not feelin fine.
at this point in time, I am going with the judgement that the graph is useless and doesn’t give anywhere near a good picture of reality.
I’m also unclear on whether they’re saying the required production energy should be subtracted from the produced energy to get at net available energy, or what…
Charles Hall and others needed good projects for their graduate students to write academic papers on. EROEI fit the bill.
If you assume all energy is alike (which it is not), and that you can measure a big enough piece of the system to be meaningful, and that timing makes no difference, then you can say something useful with EROEI. You can perhaps say, “This oil well is more efficient than the one in the state next over,” for example, based on EROEI.
EROEI calculations were a big part of what have supported the wind and solar fad. Wind and solar look very good, if you ignore the fact that what you are getting out is a very disorganized form of electricity. It isn’t where it needs to be; it is at the wrong time of year. It is at the wrong time of day. To work around the problem, you need big investments of oil and of coal, to make the system work.
Our financial system does a better job of sorting things out than EROEI. The calculations assume all energy is alike in value. Natural gas that would otherwise be burned at the wellhead is a very inexpensive form of energy (because the big cost is transport and storage). Oil companies will use steel from China, made with coal, to drill their wells, for example. They will use electricity, made by burning almost anything other than oil.
“Charles Hall and others needed good projects for their graduate studens….” Clever.
Universities need professors who can get grants, grants have provision for generous overhead to the school admiistration.
Dennis L.
There is actually a little truth to what they are doing, which is why it is appealing.
“All models are wrong; some are helpful.” This is another model. It turns out not to be very helpful. Falling energy per capita is a different model. That is a major worry of mine.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/crew-evacuates-commercial-vessel-after-houthi-attack-red-sea
>> Saturday morning’s headlines are dominated by the news that “Rubymar,” a bulk carrier, that was hit by missiles from Yemen’s Houthi rebels last month, has finally sunk. This marks the first vessel to be fully destroyed in the multi-month Red Sea crisis.
I’m a little unsure what happened here … I saw a video alleging to be the Rubymar sinking a week or two ago, but it’s only being announced now as having happened. So either the original video was fake (an unrelated ship), or they’ve been keeping quiet about it for quite some time.
“But in the end, it may be Trump who forces them to face reality.”
NATO is probably over, for good geopolitical reasons, and it is going to fall to Trump to make the obvious clear about that.
USA is pivoting toward China and it is anyway unable to support Europe with Russia, while Europe, for its own economic and political reasons, does not want USA to make trouble with China and it is, for its part, incapable of supporting USA in east Asia anyway. So USA and Europe NATO have divergent interests and capacities of focus.
In that case Europe is not going to be able to replace USA in Europe or to compete militarily with Russia. It is also questionable whether USA can compete with China.
https://www.compactmag.com/article/trumps-inconvenient-nato-truths/
Trump’s Inconvenient NATO Truths
…. The bad news from Ukraine makes clear that there are good reasons to fundamentally re-evaluate NATO’s mission and structure going forward. The difficulties with simultaneously supplying allies in Ukraine and Israel have shown that the United States no longer has a surplus of artillery shells or tanks or missiles to spare for another conflict, and won’t be able to rebuild its stocks anytime soon.
The problem is particularly acute given the looming threat of conflict with China over Taiwan. Europe doesn’t particularly want to join such a fight, nor could it do much to help, if it did. Militarily, Europe lacks the ability to project power to the other side of the world, and at the moment, the European economy is so weakened that imposing sanctions against the People’s Republic would trigger a crisis with major political fallout. In other words, the interests of the main players who make up NATO no longer align: Washington needs to “pivot to Asia”; the Europeans want the Americans to continue to back them against Russia, while avoiding escalation with the Middle Kingdom.
But this growing rift seems almost impossible to discuss openly. This is where Trump comes in. Despite the prohibition on acknowledging the divergence of US and European interests, the prospect of NATO’s dissolution is, in fact, being raised by pundits and journalists in the West—but only as a crazy idea that might be implemented if the Scary Orange Man is allowed back into the White House. Unpleasant truths about the alliance’s increasing unsustainability can only be acknowledged indirectly, in a psychological displacement whereby the very real structural problems NATO faces are transmuted into the quirks and obsessions of one man. The implication is that if only Trump loses, NATO will be fine and the status quo can be maintained.
We have seen this phenomenon before. During his 2016 campaign and his term in the White House, Trump’s views on China were ridiculed as idiosyncratic and extreme. Immediately after he left the White House, however, his China policies became the mainstream consensus; indeed, the Biden administration has gone further than Trump in some respects. It is no mystery why this happened. Because he was willing to offend the pieties that had prevailed for decades, Trump was able to recognize the objective logic of great-power competition that was driving a wedge between Beijing and Washington. In the end, that logic won out over petty partisanship.
The fact that the Western political establishment refuses to admit increasingly obvious truths speaks to a serious intellectual and ideological crisis. For those in charge in London, Berlin, and Stockholm, it is apparently easier to imagine the heat death of the universe than the disbanding—or even serious restructuring—of NATO, much as Washington politicians and pundits were unable to contemplate the fracturing of Chimerica not long ago. When the unimaginable starts to look inevitable, our ruling elites don’t have the words to talk about it; all they have is Trump, Trump, Trump. But in the end, it may be Trump who forces them to face reality.
The reality is that the US doesn’t have the military strength to protect NATO countries from an attack by Russia. The US is losing its ability to be the world’s hegemon. Maybe Trump is better suited to working with this reality.
I am not a doomer, but perhaps this time around the loser wins.
Too much debt, it is a mess.
Dennis L.
As an external commentator, being just an Italian citizen, what I’m concern about Trump is how easily has been fooled by deep state with a) stolen previous elections, b) Covid, c) the vaccines story.
My impression is that he didn’t understand what was coming.
I don’t say anything, about this, concerning Biden, because, on the contrary of Trump, I think that he is only an executor, so one doesn’t expect anything from Biden.
I only hope that Trump, in case of win, will be better suited this time to contrast US internal powers, its oligarchs and other internal or external attacks and also that he will be helped well to fill his great gaps cultural knowledge of the other Countries (because US ha also an influence on the rest of the world).
About oligarchs I actually would like to say that in my view also US has them, such as Gates, Bezos, Musk, Soros, Murdoch etc., people with incredibly economic power during these times (also beyond their Nation and Continent), able to influence public opinions, modify policies, with many people and business depending on them.
Having said that, again as an external commentator, I’m more worried of another Dem presidency.
One Italian comic once said that the US elections are so important also for us that US should allow also us to partecipate 🙂
Student, Italians carry exactly as much weight in US elections as US citizens do right now.
Very bad news, as we count nothing.
Having said that, I tell you that if I were born in US I will be happy of that, although remaining critic of some issues.
I had an aunt in Denver (sister of my grandmother) who unfortunately died when I was young and I’m sorry I didn’t have the time to spend some time with her and let me stay for vacation in US visiting and understanding your Country better.
It is not excluded that I will go to meet his sons.
I still have an helmet of the Denver Broncos that I received from her when she come to Italy to meet her sister in the ’80s 🙂
All the best
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
Graphs tell the story.
Denmark conservative leader dies during party meeting, from brain clot.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2024-03-02/danish-conservative-peoples-party-leader-soren-pape-poulsen-dies-party-says
Dropping like f*** flies!
>> “”He collapsed in the middle of what he had devoted his life to … the last thing he experienced was a big round of applause from his party colleagues,” it said.
An intense moment can cause these things at any age. Perfectly normal. New normal.