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Historical data show that, to date, a reduction in energy availability has mostly affected the US, European countries, Japan, and other advanced economies. I expect this situation to continue as energy limits become more of a problem. Advanced economies will start looking and acting more like today’s less-advanced economies. The world economy will face a bumpy path in a generally downward direction.
In this post, I give an overview of our current predicament. All economies are subject to the laws of physics. We are biologically adapted to needing some cooked foods in our diets. We have also moved away from the equatorial regions, so many of us need heat to keep warm. With a world population of 8 billion, we are a long way from meeting all our energy needs with renewable sources alone.
The world’s fossil fuel supplies are depleting, but politicians cannot tell us the true nature of our predicament. Instead, we are told a “sour grapes” narrative: “We need to move away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change.” What this narrative, in fact, seems to do is shift an ever-greater share of fossil fuels that are available to less-advanced economies. It may also spread out the use of fossil fuels over a somewhat longer period. But there is no evidence that this narrative actually reduces the overall quantity of carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the more advanced economies are likely to be hit sooner, and harder, than the less advanced economies by the problem of energy limits, pushing them on a bumpy road downward.
[1] Economies tend to collapse because populations rise faster than the resources (particularly energy resources) required to support those populations.
We are dealing with an age-old problem: Humans are able to outsmart other animals, and for this reason, human populations tend to rise except when external conditions are quite adverse.
The necessary steps needed for humans to outsmart other animals began about one million years ago, when pre-humans first learned to control fire. With the controlled use of fire, humans could
- Cook food to make it easier to chew and digest.
- Kill pathogens by cooking food or boiling water.
- Scare away wild animals.
- Keep warm in colder climates.
- Eat a more varied diet, with more protein. Primates eat mostly plants; humans are omnivores.
- Spend less time chewing food and more time working on crafts.
- Indirectly, the shape of the human body could change. Teeth, jaws, and guts became smaller; brains became larger.
After 1800, when fossil fuel consumption began to grow, human population started to rise at an unprecedented rate. With coal, it was easier to make metal tools, including cooking utensils, in reasonable abundance. While it is possible to smelt some metals using charcoal (made by partially burning hardwood, then cutting off the air flow), doing so tends to lead to deforestation if more than a small quantity of metal is made.
Figure 1 indicates that population had started rising well before 1800. Thomas Malthus wrote about the difficulty of increasing food supply as rapidly as population in 1798. The problem of rising population exceeding resources is an age-old problem.
[2] The physics reason for the limited lifespan of economies is not understood by many people.
In many ways, economies are like humans and hurricanes. In physics terms, all three are dissipative structures. They need to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds to remain “alive.” All dissipative structures are temporary in nature. No dissipative structure, including an economy, can stay away from a cold, dead state permanently. Usually, dissipative structures are replaced by slightly different dissipative structures. This process allows long-term adaptation to changing conditions.
Dissipative structures are self-organizing. They seem to act on their own. Our human leaders may believe they are completely in charge, but this is not really the case. The economy seems to choose its own course, just as humans and hurricanes do.
The energy products that humans require are food products, some of which need to be cooked. The energy products that economies require are of many kinds, including solar energy to grow crops, human energy to tend the crops, and many types of fuels including firewood, coal, oil, and natural gas. Electricity is a carrier of energy produced by other means. Much modern equipment uses electricity, but trying to transition to an all-electric economy is fraught with peril.
In today’s world, energy products of many types act to leverage human labor. As far as I can see, growing fossil fuel consumption is the primary reason why human productivity grows.
Oil is especially important in farming and transportation. Coal and natural gas are important in steel and concrete manufacturing, and in providing heat for many processes. Years ago, oil was burned for electricity, but today coal and natural gas are the fuels typically burned to provide electricity. Fossil fuels are also important for their chemical properties in many different goods, including in plastics, fabrics, drugs, herbicides, and pesticides.
Using renewable energy, alone, sounds like a good idea, but it is not possible in practice. Forests were the major source of energy to support the economy before the advent for fossil fuels, but deforestation became a problem long before 1800. The world’s population, even at one billion, was too high to sustain using biologically renewable sources alone.
At a population of around 8 billion today, there is no way that wood, and products derived from wood, can support the energy needs of today’s population. Doing so would be like humans trying to live on a 250 calorie a day diet instead of a 2000 calorie per day diet.
What are referred to as modern renewables (hydroelectric power and electricity from wind turbines and solar panels) are really extensions of the fossil fuel system. These devices can only be made and repaired using fossil fuels. In addition, today’s electrical transmission system is only possible because of fossil fuels.
[3] Advanced Economies tend to be “advanced” because of the large amounts of fossil fuels they use to leverage the labor of their citizens.
In my analysis, I use the term “Advanced Economies” to mean countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Other than Advanced Economies” are then equivalent to non-OECD countries. I use this terminology because it better describes the reason why these two groupings have such different indications. Also, it is not intuitive that such a difference underlies these two groupings.
My analysis shows that energy consumption per capita is much higher in Advanced Economies than in Other than Advanced Economies, for all three energy charts shown: oil (Figure 2), all other kinds of energy grouped together (including renewables) (Figure 3), and electricity (Figure 4).
It is clear from these charts that the general trend in energy consumption per capita in recent years is down in Advanced Economies, while the general trend in energy consumption per capita is up for Other than Advanced Economies. To me, this means that the self-organizing economic system favors Other than Advanced Economies in the bidding for scarce energy resources.
One interpretation might be that Advanced Economies are using energy products in a wasteful way, compared to Other than Advanced Economies. The self-organizing world economy in some sense tries to maintain itself, even if some less efficient parts need to be squeezed down or out.
The narrative we hear from politicians and others is that Advanced Economies are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change. This seems to be the narrative the self-organizing economy provides to people who live in Advanced Economies. I will discuss how this occurs, and its lack of success in reducing overall carbon emissions, in Section [5] of this post.
[4] Figures 2, 3, and 4 (above) reflect the impacts of several events leading to a squeezing down of energy consumption per capita.
The following are some events that indirectly squeezed back the energy consumption growth of Advanced Economies:
- Oil prices spiked in 1973-1974, leading to recession, indirectly in response to US first hitting oil limits in 1970.
- Severe recession, in response to Paul Volker’s increase in interest rates in the 1977 to 1980 timeframe.
- China was added to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001, allowing it to ramp up its manufacturing using coal. This primarily represented an increase in energy consumption by Other than Advanced Economies. At the same time, it removed a great deal of manufacturing from Advanced Economies, so their energy consumption should have been reduced.
- The Great Recession of 2007-2009.
- The 2020 pandemic and its response.
A person can see the impacts that these changes have had on per capita oil consumption (Figure 2), energy other than oil consumption (Figure 3), and electricity consumption (Figure 4), by looking for these dates in the charts, and noticing what changes in trends took place.
Figure 2 shows that there were very large cutbacks in oil consumption per capita in Advanced Economies, prior to 1983. In this early time frame, cutbacks in oil usage were fairly easy to obtain. Some examples include:
- US-made cars in the early 1970s were large and fuel inefficient, but Japan and Europe were already making smaller vehicles. By importing smaller vehicles, and making smaller ones in the US, major savings could take place in oil usage.
- Some oil was being burned to generate electricity. Such generation could be changed to natural gas, coal or nuclear.
- Home heating often used oil. Such heating could be replaced with heat based on natural gas or electricity.
With respect to China joining the WTO in 2001, and this action leading to much greater consumption of coal for manufacturing, these actions ironically followed the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. According to this protocol, Advanced Economies indicated that they planned to reduce their own carbon dioxide emissions. They did this by outsourcing manufacturing to countries not affected by the Kyoto Protocol. These countries were poor countries, including China and India.
It is possible to see the effect of this ramp up in energy consumption by Other than Advanced Economies in both Figures 3 and 4, starting about 2002. In theory, energy consumption per capita by Advanced Economies should have fallen at the same time, but it didn’t. This is one reason why carbon dioxide per capita started rising rapidly in 2002 (Figure 6).
One squeezing-out event disproportionately affected “Other than Advanced Economies.” This was the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991. All the countries involved in the Soviet Bloc were affected. Manufacturing in these countries dropped at about this time, as did all types of energy production and consumption. This can be seen as a small dip in the “Other than Advanced Economies” line between 1991 and 2001 in Figures 2 and 3.
While the Soviet Union had plenty of fossil fuels, the world oil price was very low (indicating oversupply). As a result, the country was not getting enough revenue for reinvestment in new oil fields and to repay debt and meet other obligations. The world’s self-organizing economy squeezed out the least efficient oil producer, which was the Soviet Union. The fact that the economy was Communist, and thus allocated resources and rewards in a strange way, may have also played a role in the collapse.
Figure 5 shows the widespread impact of the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union.
[5] The narrative, “We are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change,” seems to be self-organized by the dissipative structures underlying Advanced Economies.
The real story is that fossil fuels are moving away from us. Somehow, we must adapt, very quickly, to this disastrous situation. But this is not a story that politicians can tell their constituents, or that universities can tell their students who are studying for future job opportunities. Instead, they need a “best case” scenario: There is perhaps something we can do; we can transition away from fossil fuel use quickly.
It is not possible to explain to the public what is really happening. Instead, a “Sour Grapes” scenario is presented. In this narrative, the current economy can continue, much as today, without fossil fuels. (This is clearly nonsense in a physics-based economy, with today’s “renewables.”) We should move away from fossil fuels because they add too much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
It should be noted that this “we-can-move-from-fuels narrative” has been spearheaded by the International Energy Association (IEA), which is an arm of the OECD. (I mentioned earlier that I have equated OECD with Advanced Economies). Countries included in “Other than Advanced Economies,” at best, claim lip service to limiting carbon emissions. Their primary interest is in raising the living standards of their populations. To a significant extent, the fossil fuels that Advanced Economies decide not to use can be used by Other than Advanced Economies.
Figure 6 below shows that the efforts of IEA/OECD to reduce carbon dioxide emissions have worked in precisely the wrong direction, on a world basis. Preliminary data for 2023 shows that world carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels rose by another 1.1%.
The plan to reduce carbon emissions for participating countries was first specified in the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The World Trade Organization (WTO) began a little earlier than this, in 1995. The purpose of the WTO was to increase world trade and thus the total goods and services the world economy was able to produce. In some sense, the Kyoto Protocol and the WTO had opposite objectives. The only way more goods and services could be produced was by using more fossil fuels.
Figure 6 shows that fossil fuel emissions increased sharply after China joined the WTO in December 2001. China was able to ramp up its industrial production using its very large coal resources. It is not clear that the Kyoto Protocol did much besides encouraging Advanced Economies to move their manufacturing elsewhere. This paved the way for the industrialization of Other than Advanced Economies, mainly by burning coal. At the same time, the Advanced Economies have been turned into service economies that are dependent upon Other than Advanced Economies for manufactured goods of nearly all kinds.
NASA says that when carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere, it stays around for 300 to 1000 years. NASA also reports that the increase in atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa was the highest ever in 2023.
The increases shown on Figure 7 are relative to a large base. As percentages, they range from about 0.2% per year in the earliest periods to about 0.6% per year in recent periods.
In summary, whatever the Advanced Economies are doing to restrict emissions still leaves the world’s emissions from fossil fuels, as well as atmospheric emissions, rising fairly rapidly. Given the self-organizing nature of the world economy, I am doubtful that there is anything we humans can do to fix this situations. The people in Other than Advanced Economies need fossil fuels to feed their growing populations, and to give them the basic necessities of life.
[6] Figure 8 shows the path that Advanced Economies seem to be following.
In my opinion, with less oil and other energy per capita, Advanced Economies have become increasingly hollowed out, with more of their manufacturing transferred to Other than Advanced Economies.
In Figure 8, economies start out small, with growing resources per capita. As resource limits are hit, economic growth slows, and well-paying jobs become harder to get, especially for young people. In agricultural economies, the problem is that farms need to get smaller and smaller if there are too many surviving children, and they all want to be farmers. Clearly, too small a farm will not feed a growing family.
In the case of Advanced Economies, they become hollowed out because they find themselves increasingly dependent on imported goods and services. Other than Advanced Economies, with lower wages, less overhead for heating/cooling homes and health care, and lower energy costs, can produce manufactured goods more cheaply than Advanced Economies.
As Advanced Economies lose manufacturing and industries such as mining, they also become more dependent on debt and government programs. This added debt becomes increasingly hard to service, especially when interest rates rise.
Advanced Economies become particularly vulnerable to adverse changes because they have lost the ability to manufacture many of the goods required for everyday living. In fact, it becomes a problem even to fight wars, because many of the materials required to make weapons need to be imported from overseas.
Over the long-term, collapse may occur, but this collapse is unlikely to occur all at once. Instead, it can be expected to be what is sometimes called catabolic collapse, which takes place in steps. Parts of the economy will hold together as long as there are resources to support those parts. Future changes in Advanced Economies can be thought of as being somewhat like the changes to the economy in 2020 (indirectly related to Covid-19), but “on steroids.”
[7] Some of the kinds of changes that can be expected.
We don’t know precisely what changes to economies lie ahead, but these are some ideas of things might happen to Advanced Economies before a full collapse.
[a] Loss of the “hegemony” of the US. In the years since World War II, the US has taken on the role of the world’s policeman. But the US has been having increased difficulties when it comes to actually winning the wars it gets involved in. It is very difficult for the US to make weapons in quantity when large parts of the supply lines involve other countries. Also, today’s weapons aren’t necessarily suited to dealing with today’s attacks, such as by the Houthi Group in the Red Sea.
Changes may already be starting. We hear about Victoria Nuland’s recent abrupt retirement as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is described as “a determined advocate of tough policies toward Vladimir Putin.” She is being replaced, at least temporarily, by John Bass, who oversaw the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
[b] Loss of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. The US has had a financial advantage, as long as all other countries had to first change their currencies to the US dollar, in order to trade among themselves. This arrangement allowed the US to import more than it exported, year after year. It also allowed the US to use sanctions against other countries to cut off their trading abilities.
Changes already seem to be starting to reduce the role of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. In May 2023, Reuters reported, Vast China-Russia resources trade shifts to yuan from dollars in Ukraine fallout. Also, the BRICS nations have been working on an alternative currency, as a possible replacement currency for trading. And, of course, there are all kinds of cryptocurrencies that might be expected to facilitate purchases across borders.
[c] Major loss of trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific freight trade and passenger travel. An easy way to save oil would be to stop shipping goods as far as producers do today. Unfortunately, quite a bit of what we purchase in the US has supply lines that start in China.
Without trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific supply lines, many goods the US depends upon would disappear from shelves in the US. Computers and telephones, for example, might become unavailable, as would many drugs, especially low-cost drugs. Even high-quality steel drilling pipes, used for oil extraction, might become difficult to obtain.
It is not clear how the US would deal with this issue. It is likely that the economy would need to find substitutes or get along without whatever is lost due to broken supply lines.
[d] Significant defaults on financial promises of all kinds, including bonds, loans made by banks, rental contracts, and derivatives. Ultimately, a decline in asset prices seems likely.
The amount of debt and financial products used in Advanced Economies is at record levels. If a major recession occurs, debt defaults and derivative failures can be expected. Some renters will default on their contracts. Bank failures can be expected, as well.
Politicians will not want to throw people out of their homes; they likely won’t even want to take their automobiles away. Instead, it is likely to be those who are counting on wealth from long-term promises made by poor people who lose out. For example, some of today’s wealthy people may find their wealth disappears when renters cannot make payments on their apartments or farms.
If bank lending starts becoming a problem, peer-to-peer lending may start to take a larger role. This would seem to be the equivalent of replacing taxis by Ubers and replacing hotels by private citizens renting out rooms. The total amount of debt available will fall. With less debt available, asset prices of all kinds will tend to fall.
[e] Much more interest in reusing old buildings, old furnishings, and old clothes. Also, making use of salvaged parts of buildings and spare parts from old mechanical equipment, including automobiles.
If the making of goods that depend on overseas supply lines becomes difficult, substitutes such as previously used goods will likely be in demand. For example, we may go back to sourcing replacement parts from automobiles parked in junk yards.
Local entrepreneurs will find ways to make use of whatever goods can be used again. Such work may be a new source of jobs.
[8] We are likely to have a bumpy road ahead. Energy and the economy work together in very strange ways. While the path is generally downward for the world, the part of the world that uses energy very sparingly has a better chance of maintaining and even increasing its standard of living.
Our self-organizing economy puts together all kinds of narratives that lead us to believe that we certainly know the only path forward (and, in fact, we can control the economy to follow this path). But the system doesn’t behave the way we think it does. We assume that if we in the United States or Europe stop using fossil fuels, it will reduce the world’s use of fossil fuels. For example, stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2021 was considered a great environmental victory. But now we read, Canada could lead the world in oil production growth in 2024.
This extra production will likely be going west to China and to other Asian destinations. Canada’s expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline will open in April 2024, adding 590,000 barrels per day of export capacity. If US protestors don’t want Canada’s “tar sands,” many people in China and other poor countries certainly want it. The very heavy oil that Canada produces is ideal for producing diesel, which the world economy is short of.
Likewise, the US may have bypassed easily mineable coal in its rush to shift electricity generation to natural gas. If the US cannot maintain its military strength, this coal becomes a valuable resource for any military power that wants to test its strength against the US. This available coal makes war against the US by other powers more likely. It is well known that a major reason for wars is to obtain energy resources for one’s own people.
We don’t know what is ahead. The “truths” that we are sure we know, aren’t necessarily true. The world economy seems likely to head downward slowly, but this general downward movement will be in spurts. Trying to predict exactly what is ahead is close to impossible.
If you want to learn more about my philosophy you can just click my sig which is linked to my blog.
The world does not bend to sentimental tales – the Kageyu (Inspector) in the movie Hara Kiri
When I quoted this line Fast Eddy had said “When men were men”.
No mercy, no compassion, only efficiency and preservation of the system.
I don’t talk about my personal life here, but suffice to say that I am nice to people whom I consider important for my survival, so it is unlikely that they will shun me when I need their help since I have proven my usefulness to them before.
Although I am not a LEO, a close comparison would be a hard assed cop, who show no mercy whatsoever to the suspects but polite to his superiors or family members, and gets to retire in a cops-only retirement park, guarded by fellow former cops, and loved by his family while vilified to the end of the days by his victims.
Civilization is declining because such kind of people were replaced by crybabies and whiners. To cross the border to the next stage of civ a complete technocracy, with all the resources to civilization drivers and nothing whatsoever for the rest, was needed and now it seems to be too little and too late.
Ironically King Hubbert basically founded the study of technocracy, knowing it would be needed in a postcarbon world. I have studied it, but few people now seem to be aware of it
Technocrats, probably coming from industry and going back to industry, lead to a society that is directed in the direction of making the most profits for industry. We have encountered this in the US (while socialism has been more popular in Europe and Canada). Government indirectly by and for the big corporations and the people in charge of those corporations works for a while, but ultimately it must fail also, as resources fall too low.
Here we disagree. There is no shortage of resources only a current shortage of how to get them and what to do with them once they are obtained. That will be solved.
Dennis L.
A marooned sailor on a raft has a water shortage, even though he is surrounded by water all around.
He calls someone who says do this and that to desalinate the sea water.
Such method is useless for him who has to drink water now.
And who will solve the problem? Those who have no stake on civilization won’t do that. And Musk is 50 years too late.
Looks like you are in full denial mode now. That’s OK. It might not sink with you now but at least it won’t convince others to have false optimism.
I try and look forward, not backwards; time will tell.
Dennis L.
Time has told the story many times before. There is usually no comeback in a situation similar to now. Just some flashes of hope then abyss.
““History never repeats itself. Man always does.”
― Voltaire
kul,
“No mercy, no compassion, only efficiency and preservation of the system.”
Not sure about that one, you may find once in the 99th percentile things get pretty competitive and sometimes a bit of mercy has merit. Luck is always welcome and can trump talent.
Civilization will go forward, it is the way of the universe which is not deterministic but say inventive. Try something, if it works build on it, if it does not, next.
Dennis L.
Civilization will go on, but not necessarily forward. There are a bunch of incidents when civilization went backward, like the entire dark ages.
Plus, in the old days, if one region regressed another region filled the slack. Now the whole world is one so if USA regresses, as seen now, the world regresses.
Next? Where did the resources for ‘next’ come from? There was no next during the middle ages. Until Henrique the Navigator of Portugal, who was the one who started the whole exploration process, began expanding the resource bases there was no ‘next’ and there will be no next this time as humans will be stuck on earth after the collapse of the current civ.
A hard cop….
Now that is funny.
More like a guard at Auschwitz
Or maybe you could join the IDF and go kill a bunch if kids
That fits your personality to a T.
Black hole sun
Won’t you come
And wash away the reign.
Black hole sun = eclipse?
Yes!
R.I.P Chris
Global oil markets
Global oil prices and inventories
The Brent crude oil spot price averaged $83 per barrel (b) in February, an increase of $3/b from January. Prices rose in February in part due to continuing uncertainty and increased risk around the attacks targeting commercial ships transiting the Red Sea shipping channel, as well as an anticipated extension to voluntary OPEC+ production cuts, which were officially announced on March 4. The OPEC+ voluntary production cuts are an extension of the existing production cuts that were announced on November 30, 2023 and are now extended through the second quarter of 2024 (2Q24). The announcement also included an additional voluntary production cut from Russia.
Brent crude oil spot price and global inventory changes
We expect that the extension of the OPEC+ production cuts will tighten global oil supplies in the near-term. The current OPEC+ agreement has two types of production cuts. The first cuts are officially stated production targets, and the second cuts are additional voluntary cuts pledged by some OPEC+ participants. Although our previous forecast had assumed that some of the OPEC+ members would maintain some voluntary cuts through 2Q24 in an effort to balance markets, this new announcement pledges the continuation of cuts for all of the members through the first half of 2024. Because some OPEC+ members are extending these voluntary production cuts and because Russia added new voluntary production cuts, we now expect oil markets to be much tighter in 2Q24 than we previously expected. We forecast global oil inventories will fall by 0.9 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2Q24; last month, we had expected inventories to remain relatively unchanged in 2Q24.
We expect that the tighter oil market balance during 2024 will keep the Brent price above current levels, averaging $88/b in 2Q24, $4/b higher than in last month’s STEO. We expect it will remain relatively flat for the rest of the year before increasing inventories (when OPEC+ supply cuts are set to expire) start putting slight downward pressure on the price in 2025. We forecast that the Brent crude oil price will decrease from an average of $88/b in January 2025 to an average of $82/b in December 2025, averaging $87/b in 2024 and $85/b in 2025.
Our forecast of global oil balances and their impact on our crude oil price forecast remain significantly uncertain. Although no oil production has been lost because of the attacks on commercial shipping traveling through the Red Sea, production could still be disrupted or some oil production in the Middle East could be shut in, which would likely cause oil prices to increase. It also remains to be seen how strictly the latest round of voluntary OPEC+ production cuts are adhered to, which has the potential to add additional oil supplies back on the market and lessen the expected tightness in near-term oil balances and the corresponding upward pressure on oil prices. In addition, we forecast global oil demand to grow by 1.4 million b/d in both 2024 and 2025. Higher or lower demand growth would affect global inventory levels and oil prices.
Global oil production
Following the incorporation of the new OPEC+ voluntary production cuts, we now expect that global liquid fuels production will increase by 0.4 million b/d in 2024, down from growth of 0.6 million b/d in last month’s STEO and down from an increase of 1.8 million b/d in 2023. Although OPEC+ production cuts limit overall growth in 2024, production outside of OPEC+ grows by 1.5 million b/d, driven primarily by four countries in the Americas—the United States, Guyana, Brazil, and Canada. This growth counteracts the decline in crude oil product subject to the OPEC+ agreement, which falls by 1.1 million b/d in 2024. Global liquids fuel production increases by 2.0 million b/d in 2025 in our forecast, driven by an increase in OPEC+ crude oil production of 0.9 million b/d as existing OPEC+ production targets expire at the end of 2024, while production that is not subject to the OPEC+ agreement increases by an additional 1.1 million b/d. this looks like the real peak oil is beginning so prepare for the downslope ready for 1000 us dollars a barrel get yur popcorn ready.
The hamster wheel of US oil production .
https://www.oilystuff.com/single-post/the-hamster-wheel
P.S ; Fast Eddie in the comments section .
Fast Eddy LIVES…so nice to see he is still breathing, thank you. Please, if there is another Fast Eddy siting do post it.
Fast Eddy wrote
This demonstrates perfectly the desperate situation we are facing… and keep in mind .. conventional sources of oil are continuing to deplete so shale MUST grow.
Mike not me reply
Actually, US shale oil production does not HAVE to do anything. Which is a good thing because its growth is about over. Next up on the time line is decline catches up, and whats left of US tight oil no longer gets exported.
From Fast Eddy’s comment:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/british-energy-production-plunges-record-060000775.html
British energy production plunges to record low
A windfall tax on operators is a sure way to get production to fall faster than it otherwise would. I suppose it mostly affected the benefit that companies might have received from spiking oil prices in 2022.
Electricity is doing no better:
More on the lies of ” Saudi America of oil ”
https://www.hfir.com/p/public-us-oil-production-is-a-lot-d54
This is another report, similar to one we saw yesterday. According to both reports, production for 2022 was understated by the EIA, but production for 2023 was overstated. In the view of the author the real growth in production was about +500k b/d, but the distortion made it look like growth was higher than it was in 2023. The lack of momentum will affect 2024.
From your quote of the IEA announcement:
” we now expect oil markets to be much tighter in 2Q24 than we previously expected.” => higher prices
” We expect it will remain relatively flat for the rest of the year before increasing inventories (when OPEC+ supply cuts are set to expire) start putting slight downward pressure on the price in 2025.”
Of course, if the voluntary reductions are made because these countries don’t really have the oil to pump, there is no reason to expect them to disappear. Or perhaps a small amount of oil can be expected from the few countries that have oil, if the price is high enough for these countries to justify selling this fuel.
“we forecast global oil demand to grow by 1.4 million b/d in both 2024 and 2025”
Not unless the oil is really available. The world will enter recession, without enough oil.
“we now expect that global liquid fuels production will increase by 0.4 million b/d in 2024, down from growth of 0.6 million b/d in last month’s STEO and down from an increase of 1.8 million b/d in 2023.”
Look at that trend in liquid production! The trend in crude oil production is no doubt much worse.
“this looks like the real peak oil is beginning so prepare for the downslope ready for 1000 us dollars a barrel get yur popcorn ready.”
This looks like adonis’ comment. It does look worrying.
Why the rich needs more, more and more money
https://greyenlightenment.com/2017/04/12/the-misplaced-logic-of-attacking-the-rich/
https://greyenlightenment.com/2016/05/12/why-do-the-rich-need-so-much-money/
>We need to get over this ‘muh liberties’ nonsense and understand that your liberties and freedoms go out the door if your survival is dependent on someone else (taxpayers).
>Also, capitalism is about incentives. When you create a negative incentives, it creates externalities, possibly in the form of companies moving overseas, job loss, or economic stagnation. Second, as I explain earlier, capitalism is expensive and the failure rate is high. Venture capital is mostly funded by wealthy, exmaples being the Space-x and Blue Origin rocket programs, both very costly and funded by billionaires Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively. If taxes were much higher, such programs may not exist.
Tl. dr. more wealth to the top means more innovation and therefore more advances.
This guy does idolize people like Zuckerberg since he appears to own lots of FAANG stocks, but that aside,
which is why i never stop condemning the so-called ‘National Heroes” of 1914, who signficantly hindered civilization’s advances by killing off all these people who had been selectively bred for 400 years, and breaking the German, Russian and Austrian Empires whose riches were claimed by peoples who had no business on them, as well as necessitating social changes which made those in the top having to share the accumulated wealth they were using to grow tech by leaps and bounds.
It would have been much better for the elites of 1910 to retain their opulence so civ could grow faster, and the people still living like this
Paris, the rich and poor in 1920s (clips of Paris slum in 1910 were hard to find)
https://youtu.be/mPSOfTGQGFo?si=jCTdPVRB68nLXrvn
Leopoldville in what we now call Congo, 1951, which would have been similar to 1910 since not much investment to the lot of people was made there
https://youtu.be/OT0UdQ8ma70?si=Hhy8rKNNySehGRto
All of these would have been worth it if humankind had advanced further on the way.
Whistle-blower Annie Machon, an ex-MI5 agent, believed that MI5 assassinated Princess Diana,and they did it because she was going to start campaigning on behalf of the Palestinians. Video from 2011.
The Real Reason Why Princess Diana Was Assassinated
https://rumble.com/v3gg2yp-the-real-reason-why-princess-diana-was-assassinated.-ex-mi-agent-testifies-.html
Perhaps. There are a lot of folks who would be upset by a member of royalty campaigning for the Palestinians.
Wasn’t she romantically involved with someone from the M.E.?
Yes, Dodi Fayed.
https://greyenlightenment.com/2023/09/06/the-characteristics-or-traits-of-top-performers-and-why-youre-screwed/
Why today’s winners are Gods:
tl, dr,
1. They don’t work harder but they work smarter, and they have some trick, which no one else can figure out, which makes them win every time
2. They are always consistent. Never taking a day off, always making money
3. Whatever they do cannot be reproduced, copied by others
4. No major setbacks in life.
They never really have troubles in their personal lives. Never. And never have failed.
The adage of misfortunes make someone stronger is no longer true. Misfortunes just ruin a person, and there is never a coming back.(5 and 6 are just rephrasing the above)
7 . Lots of free time. No time to be distracted for daily , mundane tasks.
Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk, etc all came from at least upper middle class. Never had to worry about their next meal, next rent, next whatever, and they got the necessary education they craved since their families could afford it.
So lots of people are getting cancer. My brother-in-law had cancer in some of the glands in his neck a few years back, well before the scamdemic. He was cured and is still going strong. However, he was advised to have his teeth out before his treatment, which he did. Now he has falsers. I myself, though never having had cancer, was advised to have a palate after losing the bridge on the bottom right of my teeth, leaving a four tooth gap (too many sweets when younger!). Eating with the palate was horrible, so now I just go about semi-toothless, despite the entreaties of my dentist. He more or less tried to convince me that my jaw would drop on one side, and I’d end up walking lopsided.
So my brother-in-law had his cancer treatment, which was brutal, he said, and he suffered side-effects of nausea and temporary hair loss. (More than anything, I myself hate having nausea and sickness). In addition to having to wear dentures, he afterwards developed cataracts, which is a typical result of cancer treatment, so he had to have an operation for them. If I ever get cancer myself, I’m just going to let it run its course or else go the Swiss clinic route. I couldn’t be bothered with all the hassle and side-effects of treatment.
Of course, two of the British royal family currently have cancer and are receiving treatment for it. Will Kate have had her teeth out by now? Our commenter Tim Groves had a few things to say about the videos of Kate. I found it suspicious that he knows so much about her. He said that the Kate in the video didn’t have dimples but the real Kate did. He has been suspected of impersonating her before, so I asked the Japanese embassy if Tim has dimples. No, he does not, came the reply. QED. Very suspicious, Tim, if you are reading. 🙁 Will Tim be buying himself a vomit-covered cancer wig, I wonder? Yuck!
First, devastating to have loved ones, friends and coworkers facing cancer.
Sorry this happens, and years ago read one out of every three of us will come down with some form of cancer in our lives.
My Sister dealt with it at a young age too. The Doctors ignored her troubles because they thought she was too young for colon cancer.
She was not and by the time it was diagnosed, too late.
So, over thirty years later, I go on YouTube and listen to a young woman with the same exact story my sister had to endure before she was finally heard and had proper treatment. Pleading with Doctors and just being brushed off..
Sad….
I’m wth you, Zemi, will not endure any of that if the big C hits me.
Life is not fair, that’s one thing I agree with Klummie
Sorry to hear about your sister, Mike. The NHS sent me a kit for colon cancer when I reached a certain age. Yuck! But I did the test. It came back that they’d found blood. I was astonished, but I went to get the recommended colonoscopy (yuck!).
They found two polyps, one of them two centimetres long, which they excised, since there was a high probability they could have turned cancerous. I went back for a checkup last year – everything still all clear now!
Smart to have it done and good it was taken care of before anything happened.
I too got it done a all clear, lucky us.
Take Care 😘
Yellen arrives in China to widespread acclaim and grovelling officials
globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2024/2024-04-05/8f0737ef-48e8-49d9-ba79-dd4e496d06a8.jpeg
In the phone call between the presidents of the two countries on Tuesday evening, Biden is probably asking for China to permit Yellen’s visit, as we can see Yellen kicks off her visit very soon after the phone call, which means that the US has prepared for the visit for a long time, and they are just waiting for China’s green light, Jin said.
“According to this, we can have a conclusion that the US is asking for something urgent. Washington’s national debt problem could be the top of the agenda. Yellen might ask help from China in the field of monetary policy,” Jin noted.
globaltimes.cn/page/202404/1310047.shtml
Thank you.
Dennis L.
Let’s hope Yellen can avoid the psychedelic mushroom this time.
I couldn’t get your links to work. This is another I found:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-arrives-in-china-to-talk-trade-green-technology-tensions
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrives in China to talk trade, green technology tensions
This is another:
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/me/maine/politics/2024/04/05/yellen-calls-for-level-playing-field-for-us-workers-and-firms-during-china-visit
Yellen calls for level playing field for U.S. workers and firms during China visit
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-03/us-yellen-trip-to-offer-insight-on-chinese-economy-as-data-visibility-wanes?sref=eWpk04kZ
Bloomberg has a nice chart showing how investment in the industrial sector has grown, as investment in the property sector has retreated in China.
Not sure why unless your ISP blocks Globaltimes – the official English language news from the CCP. Full story:
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, a US senior official who is believed to be pragmatic and less hawkish toward China than many of her peers, has arrived Guangzhou, capital of South China’s Guangdong Province, and kicked off her 6-day visit to China from Thursday to Tuesday (April 4-9), with Chinese experts saying on Friday that Yellen is trying to seek helps from China to solve US economic challenges, and they said US officials need to adjust its arrogant attitude and speak nicely when asking helps.
He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the State Council, has met with US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Guangzhou. The two sides discussed in-depth key issues related to the global, economic and financial fields of China and the US.
He said the main task for this meeting is to implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state in their meetings and telephone dialogue, and seek to provide appropriate responses to key concerns in China-US economic relations, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday.
“I opened meetings with Vice Premier He Lifeng for frank and substantive conversations on our bilateral economic relationship. It is crucial that the two largest economies in the world seek progress on global challenges and closely communicate on areas of concern,” Yellen said in a post on social media platform X on Friday afternoon.
On Friday, Yellen also had round-table discussions with economic experts and business leaders from the US and some other countries from Europe and Japan to discuss the economic situation of Chinese market, as well as opportunities and challenges linked to the Chinese economy. Yellen also attended an event with leading representatives of the American business community in China, hosted by AmCham China, and delivered remarks on the bilateral economic relationship.
According to her released schedule in coming days, which expected to include meetings with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and senior Chinese officials who in charge different economic and financial sectors of China, analysts said Yellen’s trip eyes on further stabilizing the China-US relations as US President Joe Biden doesn’t want a fragile and uncertain bilateral ties with China, and Washington needs China’s cooperation to solve its headaches at home: a national debt problem and save US backward production capacity by adding pressure to China’s development in new energy technologies with the pretext of “overcapacity.”
Jin Canrong, the associate dean of the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Friday that “Yellen is an official who is different from the hawkish ones in Washington who actively push for confrontation with China, she is relatively pragmatic and moderate.”
In the phone call between the presidents of the two countries on Tuesday evening, Biden is probably asking for China to permit Yellen’s visit, as we can see Yellen kicks off her visit very soon after the phone call, which means that the US has prepared for the visit for a long time, and they are just waiting for China’s green light, Jin said.
“According to this, we can have a conclusion that the US is asking for something urgent. Washington’s national debt problem could be the top of the agenda. Yellen might ask help from China in the field of monetary policy,” Jin noted.
The Congressional Budget Office warned in its latest projections that US federal government debt is on a path from 97 percent of GDP last year to 116 percent by 2034, which is higher even than in World War II. The actual outlook is likely worse, Bloomberg reported on April 2.
The CNBC reported on March 1 that the debt load of the US is growing at a quicker clip in recent months, increasing about $1 trillion nearly every 100 days.
Li Yong, a senior research fellow at the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Friday that in this visit, the Biden administration is seeking the further stabilization of China-US relations in the presidential election year. “The two sides are expected to discuss about coordination on macroeconomic policy and trade, and this is not only important to China and the US, but also significant to the world.”
But as a US official with pragmatic and relatively friendly image to China, Yellen this time presented her tough stance in some areas. According to the website of US Department of Treasury, “During her engagements in China, Secretary Yellen will advocate for American workers and businesses to ensure they are treated fairly, including by pressing Chinese counterparts on unfair trade practices and underscoring the global economic consequences of Chinese industrial overcapacity.”
Washington will not allow “a glut of Chinese production to wipe out American manufacturers of green technology,” Yellen has warned ahead of a trip to China, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Li said the US should take the issue about “overcapacity” more objectively, because China’s productive capacity is determined by the global demand and the efficiency and market size of China.
Lü Xiang, a research fellow on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that Yellen’s expression is a bad signal for China-US trade ties, as this is implying that when the US development in areas like new energy and electric vehicle (EV) is facing backward or even failure, Washington is trying to contain China’s productive capacity to protect its backward capacity.
“This is very disappointing, as this is indecent for a US Secretary of Treasury to blame and contain China’s development in advanced areas to protect US’ backward productive capacity,” Lü noted.
At present, China’s EV export and photovoltaic industry have unshakable status in the world market, the US’ measure to contain China in these fields will receive no outcomes, Lü said. “Chinese economic and financial officials can give Yellen a good lecture about how to mobilize resources in the market and whole society to develop a new industry. The EV industry is an example of the success of China’s market economy.”
Chinese analysts said that Yellen and the Biden administration should understand that, if they are coming to China to ask for help and cooperation, they need to adjust their arrogant attitude and speak nicely, and don’t ask for unfair competition to confront and contain China, who will never submit to pressure based on hegemonic logic.
Try this link Gail(top two articles).
https://www.globaltimes.cn/
Bhadrakumar also wrote about it yesterday and points very much to the financial side.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/biden-reaches-out-to-xi-jinping-with-eye-on-financial-stability/
going live on monday:
RBZ unveils new gold-backed ZiG currency to replace Zimbabwe dollar
https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/rbz-unveils-new-gold-backed-zig-currency-to-replace-zimbabwe-dollar/
seems like quite a significant event. zim to be added to the axis of evil in 3…2…
They will have a hundred trillion trillion ZIG note in a few uears
The portrait of Arthur Harris would be a good fit for there
This one is worth the time, SF on her academic journey and how it worked out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiBlGDfRU8
It may be a metaphor for the problems facing academia, and as always, follow the money.
She mentions children. The universe has a fabric and it is not unreasonable for the universe to create sentient beings, us, it was necessary to grow a universe, or for all we know a number of them and it took >20B years. That is patience.
We humans in addition to being sentient also replicate, er. reproduce. That was one of the issues Sabine faced.
I did research, biology, many years ago. Sleep is optional, equipment fails and six months of preparation is a slick of ultra centrifuge oil on the floor near the end of a 24 hour run. I was a junior at Madison, shared an office with graduate students and had my own key to the building. Nice, but decided math was easier, it is, nothing breaks, but I am not that bright by a long shot. So, a dentist. For Sabine, YouTube. She has a PhD in theoretical physics. I am envious, if you are that bright, you can make a living, YouTube in case you missed it.
Academia is hard, grants bring in money to support administrations, I was reminded of this. Grift, it is always grift. Now it is intersectional studies or something.
Enjoy, it is a good story.
Dennis L.
It is because everyone was given a chance to have a shot which led to an overglut
She has already failed your talented test since she did not earn enough credentials to impress you
That is the fact of a winner take all society. Only the top gets everyone, the rest nothing.
She is merely one of the many also rans who will be left behind as the top echelon of humanity moves on to the next level of civ
kul,
She has the credentials, she won the grants when she played the game.
Albert got his Nobel when working at a patent office, he did not have to apply for a grant to discover relativity.
Said politely in the interest of understanding.
I am envious of her talent. Money is trivial, with a moderately good environment(Ukraine is currently not a good environment) hard work and intelligence does very, very well with an assumption of good health. Hawking even beat that one.
My bet is on Starship and a cubic mile of Pt.
Dennis L.
Sabine thinks you don’t have free will, Dennis. But she can’t prove it. Her theory fails the Karl Popper test – it is not falsifiable.
“I don’t believe in free will. This is why.”
I agree with that, we play the cards we are dealt.
Dennis L.
We do play with the cards that we are dealt, but we do usually have a choice – or limited choices – as to how to react – unless we are in a situation where there is indeed no choice. So I disagree fundamentally with Sabine. I am not the equivalent of an automaton.
I wrote to one of the worlds leading quantum physics theorists, he wrote back. I wrote to Sabine she added me to her email block list. I find that people at the top always write back, be it science or business.
Sorry about that.
Enjoy your observations.
Dennis L.
Even though this is a watered down version of the original proposal, it still looks like an approach that makes it increasingly impossible for the US to make the transformers needed to support growing wind and solar production and also transformers needed to replace ones that break for some reason (end of life, storm, etc.).
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-doe-slaps-energy-efficiency-regulations-key-power-grid-components
I don’t see why the US within a few years can not equip itself with the facilities to make amorphous alloy.
Don’t we need to be able to make better quality steel to begin with? I thought that most of what we were doing was secondary reprocessing of steel. Or using steel someone else produced.
It is not a lot of steel. There is still good quality coal in Wyoming. Not economic, yes. But it is not a lot.
To build them the machines have to be purchased from China to begin with
USA has eaten the seed corn and all the technicians are now old and retired or dead
You might be right. If that is the case, transformers are just the tip of the iceberg, and Congress is staffed 100% with idiots, doing window dressing while the Titanic sinks. I worked with incredibly good engineers in the US, but that was nearly 40 years ago. I have not met a good engineer there in 20 years though.
And even if you get an “American” engineer, chances are they would have names more commonly seen in Guangzhou or Calcutta
The incredibly good ones were all white, and sons of working class people. Your dystopia will not have those.
A new hidden way of QE is being proposed.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/proposal-move-bank-regulation-goalposts-signals-underlying-problems-financial-system
Shipping problem over quickly. (Problem for vehicles will be much longer.)
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/baltimore-bridge-collapse-us-army-corps-engineers-says-channel-fully-reopen-end-may
Baltimore Bridge Collapse: US Army Corps Of Engineers Says Channel Fully Reopen By End Of May
Impossible .
They must think that the channel is wide enough for boats to go around the sunk ship.
Has the ship sunk?
The Dali has sunk a few feet. Its bottom is resting on the ground, but the many shipping containers are far above water. In fact, it seems to be resting on top of a buried natural gas pipeline.
But did it sink due to a hull breach, or because the bridge weight is pushing it down? Because the latter is a temporary condition.
I haven’t heard of a hull breach.
So once they clear that span completely, including taking that steel off the ship, it will be fully reopened.
Today is the last day
I don’t think the solar eclipse will lead to anything
However that does not help the decline of Western Civilization at all
The seizure of most rights from peoples who are unlikely to advance civilization was not done in time and now it seems to be too late.
Well i guess it is slight bit of progress to see that our vile child recognizes that his delusional super villain goal is not going to be accomplished.
But of course, being the sociopath that he is, he laments the fact that he did not get to impose the massive suffering on the rest of us.
poor little vile child
That means the End of Civilizations
No more advance of civ, no more chance of space conquest
And far fewer scum bags who want to make others suffer for their delusions.
The lack of fossil fuels dooms modern civilization not the lack of vile , sociopathic adult children like you.
And space conquest is just the delusion you use to justify the evil you wish to inflicted on others.
https://greyenlightenment.com/2015/01/06/autopilot-nation/
https://greyenlightenment.com/2018/07/27/winner-take-all-economics/
https://greyenlightenment.com/2016/02/01/peak-everything/
>I call this the Hobbesian-Locke dichotomy. For a lot of the country, things are Hobbesian (bad, gloom) – but for the enlightened and wealthy, things are ‘Lockean’ (good, optimistic, prosperous). My money is on ‘Locke’ prevailing, even if for the average American things are kinda glum.
Not much different from the Spanish conquest of the New World, where all the gold from there became the property of the King and Queen of Spain, plus a few explorers like Cortez (whose family is still Dukes in Spain) and Pizarro (who took a sister of Atahualpa as his mistress and his line, still extant, is descended from the daughter he had with her) and the people living in Spain did NOT benefit from the riches at all. I have cited that land reform in Andalusia, which still had the same land structure as they had in 1492, was only completed in 2001, in the 21st century.
To fund the space researches the wealth has to be concentrated in the hands of the top, suffering to the rest ignored.
Again you just try to justify your vile, sociopathic desire to inflict misery on others for your fantasy of space conquest.
And your historical examples of the vile things that other sociopaths have done does not justify the evil you want to do.
As we descend down the ragged stairwell of catabolic collapse, there will be many crisis. And it is very clear to anyone who interacts with you that you are a sociopath. They will recognize that You are a clear and present danger to them thier families, and thier community.
Best case: you are shunned
Worst case: long pig gets served for dinner.
Would a 4.8 earthquake possibly be related?
This is now being reported, with the epicenter 40 miles west of New York City.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/a-4-8-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-new-york-city-northeast-c3b593eb
No reports of aftershocks or damages.
I’m in the northeast, a few hundred miles from the epicenter.
shake shake shake, the house was shaking for a few seconds.
Ed, over to you, can you report?
Yes 100 miles north of NYC I heard rattling. I thought it was a mouse or cat knocking stuff about. I did not feel any shaking.
I think tomorrow is the last day for comments.
Charles Hugh Smith on dysfumctional societies and falling birth rates:
“These structures enforce what isn’t allowed and superficial compliance, but they can’t force what actually makes a society functional: the convictions, hopes and values that inspire individuals to marry, raise a family and pursue self-expression via achievement. What actually happens in societies controlled by the Surveillance State and Surveillance Capitalism is decay and decline, as young people abandon ambition, marriage and raising children by lying flat and letting it rot, expressions of young people in China that speak to youth everywhere where compliance is more important than individual liberty.
If you doubt these dynamics, please observe the dismay of authorities as their national marriage and birth rates collapse. All sorts of explanations for this collapse are offered, except the ones that count: societies that require an appearance of consent are inauthentic, hollow shells.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr24/Orwell-Huxley-Kafka4-24.html
Belter of an article – and spot on. Large mammals do not procreate well in captivity, as the Chinese surely know from their pandas.
As many others, he fails to see a connection to the master resource.
Charles Hugh Smith says that we live in the roaring 20s all over again. I think that is exactly the problem. We cannot see the problems around the corner. Lots of debt and a few people prospering, while growing wage disparity is a problem.
I am not saying it is easy nor dismissing the stresses of the young. But, CHS sees something, life is more than stuff, economics is secondary to biology and without biology there is no economics and thus no political thought.
The frontier in all areas has advanced and it is like a sphere; as it moves out the surface increases by the square of the radius. Simple observation, much of the fraud in science and medicine, is secondary to the incredible amount of knowledge necessary to become recognized.
Attending a presentation this PM at Mayo, AI in medical imaging. Looking at the presentations, they are incredible surgeries, wonderful for the patients; incredibly expensive. How do we as a society continue to provide this level of care?
AI will be a challenge, to say it is going to be disruptive is an understatement. Or, as I am fond of saying, it is going to be bumpy.
Dennis L.
CHS is 70. He has enough followers to sustain him for the rest of his life, and his resume does not mention any children. If he has any I don’t think he talks about them too much.
So he can care less about how the young will fare since that does not affect him.
The days of people like him are going to end with him.
What is the probability that US sanctions on Russia are dropped within 1 year? 5 years? Just curious on people’s thoughts.
It really don’t matter because the US no longer matters.
Irritating response. It matters to me because I have a financial stake in the outcome. Hence the question.
In their desperation the U.S will undoubtedly drop the sanctions, as the realisation dawns that Africa refuse to replace all the resources that were lost, but by then it will probably be too late for them, as Russia will be dealing with more honest partners(who also have worthwhile resources) and will see no point going through the inconvenience of dealing with collapsing liars for a fist full of funny money. This will happen between the spring of 2025 & summer 2026.
The corporation will be livid and so will encourage it’s Washington outpost to go all in. The silo doors will open and ignition sequences will start, to be shortly followed by a loud farting sound as the ancient museum pieces mostly fail to take off and blow in the silos. Unfortunately for the U.S some missiles make it out of the silos, but none clear the coast before blowing and turning the greater majority of the U.S into radioactive wastelands. Thankfully, unlike their MAD leaders, U.S sub captains, remembering the historic lead of the level headed russian sub captain, will not join the insanity and so refrain from launching, which will in turn stops the Russian and Chinese from launching and so brings an end to the troubles, as the quivering Europeans will do no more than their usual and turn on each other, whilst blaming everyone else. England and Wales will get designated as a mental institution and strangely seem quite content with that.
Whatever you have invested in the west, will evaporate like a summer morning mist.
Liberal use of the word “will” in the above has no bearing on reality(apart from the last short paragraph).
I like to think that I have more than a year to live. Entertaining all the same. On second thought, I suppose death by ground-zero nuclear blast might be a cool way to go, so bring it on.
Nobody is going to use nuclear weapons. I have said repeatedly here that they are no longer needed and haven’t been for decades.
I am doubtful that they would detonate as planned. And, people are afraid of their wide-ranging after effects.
Gail makes a good point, nuclear is complex, much in the west is old, support structure has been dismantled and as important people who know how to make them are old.
Britain test fired a missile and it fell into the sea.
Dennis L.
EU are such clowns.
This was in response to Student.
Something weird is going on with comment nesting. Oh well. F’ing technology in the 21st century. Crap piled on top of crap. Tens or even hundreds of megabytes of libraries to send a text message.
Know the feeling, understand the stakes; damn hard to figure that one out but…
Real stuff that doesn’t depreciate that much, land. But, it doesn’t make much money unless mined, etc. Also, when sanctions end, more products of the land come on market and of course, there is space.
Knowledge is a good investment, but perishable biologically. Also, those at the frontier are very, very bright.
Best investment, children, biology, replicates, adaptable, comfort for the lucky in the latter years of life. Have a number of them, better chance of getting a good one; this seems to be how biology works, we are biology.
Dennis L.
In my view, US could change its mind on Russia very easily and quickly, the funny thing is that I don’t think Europe will change its mind on Russia quickly and it will have been perfectly fu…d by US
😀
US has a more pragmatical approach, Europe an ideological one.
Once that EU journalists and politicians have been told to make propaganda against Russia are not able anymore to change that because they have constructed a castle of bull…t in which they have started to believe on it.
If Trump were re elected, that would be a very convenient face saving development for the US in a way, as it would then have an excuse for reproachment with Russia, given that Trump had stressed peaceful coexistence before. Maybe the same would occur with China. I think China has enough problems looming that it would like to avoid any kind of hot war, but no doubt would like to carry on its quiet subterfuge of the US. Trump might actually threaten China more than the Biden, as Trump would be attacking the underbelly of China.
In fact, if I were Russia, I would always sleep with one eye open when it comes to China, as ultimately China may be eyeing Russia- a long term strategy mind you. They share a long common border, not a separation by vast distances and oceans.
Chinese-Indian border disputes give a clue. Of course China would rather get economic control through trade and other means. I don’t buy the argument that China has never invaded another country (well, maybe briefly Vietnam after the US left) and therefore is not, nor will ever be militarily aggressive. The US up to now had always carried a big stick. China wasn’t because it couldn’t until now.
For this reason, Russia, needs to keep eternal vigilance, and the capability to defend itself from everyone, as the whole world looks longingly at its vast reservoir of natural resources.
Not clear. Appearances have to be kept up. The elites might be becoming more accepting of a second Trump term, in which case sanctions would be dropped, while there could be a war on Iran and a war on China, and in the end Trump would be the fall guy when the mother of all depressions hits.
But Trump would surely encourage fission forces within the US, and probably other things which will make it harder for the elite to control the core, like reforming the CIA. If I were you, I would decide already now, if Trump is elected, sanctions will disappear. If he is not, they will not. And make your financial decisions based on that.
I would like to think you’re right, but I am not sure that anything will change even if Trump gets in. He is an old man. He was totally ignored without consequence by the military when he told them to get out of Syria.
What is a 2M army good for? surely not for Ukraine. Trump alone might not do the trick, but Trump and 0.5M russians armed with hypersonics surely will.
Hrmmm….
The Russians have found that they are better off not doing business (directly) with the west. So if sanctions by the west are dropped the Russians may turn around and put an embargo on doing business with the west.
Yeah, when they stopped the grift to the west, their economy improved. So much for indispensable, should be sobering to some.
Dennis L.
As the financing from the banks is needed more and more, the pretended profitability of the businesses becomes prevalent.
The war in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran will stay regional. It poses no threat to North America. The global minority has lost interest in fighting Russia.
France is kicked out of Africa and so is broke. Micron’s hail Mary fight with Russia will do him no good. Who will put him down? No one cares.
The war in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran will stay regional. It poses no threat to North America.
That might be true if North America didn’t depend on the rest of the world for its survival.
Starship, AI and ironically a diverse population. With the latter hopefully not everyone has a dumb idea at the same time.
Dennis L.
It is indeed difficult to see an upside to the steps Macron is taking.
“France is kicked out of Africa.” End of cheap uranium.
“Who will put him down? No one cares..” Cancelled, bummer.
Dennis L.
“The Progress on National EV Charging Stations”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/the-progress-on-national-ev-charging-stations/
Excerpt: Governments globally are in a rush to transition away from fossil fuels. The US government threw $7.5 billion at the fabricated problem in 2022 to build a network of EV charging stations. The Infrastructure Law of November 2021 promised to build half a million charging stations throughout the nation by 2030.
So, how is the government doing on this lofty promise? They have built a grand total of SEVEN charging stations in four states since the bill was passed. The Department of Transportation has failed to comment on the slow roll out, while the Federal Highway Administration insists they are carefully choosing their locations, with their paid for politicians claiming it will be “as easy as finding a gas station.”
We are still pretending that the problem is lack of charging stations not lack of grid capacity.
Right. There is a maximum on the amount of electricity that we can put into these vehicles. Perhaps people can drive only in the daytime in summer, if we add more solar panels. How useful will that be?
We don’t have the electricity needed to actually run out the equivalent of today’s ICE cars as EVs. The many folks who live in apartments would have a hard time charging their vehicles without public EVs. The idea that we can build these, and supply them with electricity, is based on wishful thinking.
I think it’s fair to say that Fast Eddy’s absence from the comments section of the Our Finite World blog means that his attempts to get Jacinta Ardern’s attention have borne fruit.
Can anyone here confirm that the two really “hit it off”?
it does say something about him, that his absence here carries such weight to those who still feel the need to turn comments about him, as I have done previously, and am doing now.
maybe it’s like having a painful irritating tumor removed, and day after day the healed patient can’t help but think about and talk about its absence.
but Perth Paul will likely have a drive-by comment or two soon enough, and then return full time.
*shudders*
Bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse’ than COVID, scientists warn
https://nypost.com/2024/04/04/us-news/bird-flu-pandemic-could-be-100-times-worse-than-covid-scientists-warn/
so keeping paying those “scientists” big $ salaries to continue to do this important work.
If it gets into dairy. Watch out!
I know what you mean.
Explosive diarrhea will make public gatherings a nightmare.
The aerosol effect alone will make it more transmissible than COVID-19.
Leaders cheer for this
[ The video is just an example to give the idea 🙂 ]
Bird flu pandemic could be ‘100 times worse’ than COVID, scientists warn
What the ‘scientists’ mean is that the next lockdown for an imaginary threat will be 100 times worse. But we already knew that.
I hope so. Work is requiring I go into the office full time. I enjoyed working from home and have a nicer office at home than I do at the office. I miss the C19 days. Hopefully BF24 starts soon. As for how work is going the supply chain issues have resolved. The only problem was bit of a bullwhip effect of customers having ordered too much and slowed down their ordering. BAU going strong. Lots of spending. Lots of sales. Everything is derived from oil. Truck loads of chemicals and plastics coming and going while we add value.
*Karen’s salivating
I am afraid you are correct.
I am too lazy to do this, but I have suggested taking a chart of oil by product produced in say 1970 and comparing it to 1980, 1990, etc. to 2023 the last date good data is available I would guess. Then do a BOE comparison to see not the total barrels of “oil” produced, but the barrels of equivalent oil compared to a base year of 1970 or any convenient date. My guess is the energy output is down significantly and there would be a peak and then a slope. Straight line approximation going forward should be good for say five years.
From Copilot, of course.
“A barrel of oil equivalent (BOE) is a unit used to standardize different energy resources to the energy content found in a barrel of crude oil. It allows analysts, investors, and management to assess the total energy accessible to a firm. Let’s delve into the comparison between BOE and propane:
BOE (Barrel of Oil Equivalent):
Represents the energy content of a barrel of crude oil.
Standardizes various energy resources (such as oil, natural gas, coal, and renewables) to the energy content found in a barrel of oil.
Conversion: One barrel of oil is generally considered to have the same energy content as 6,000 cubic feet of natural gas.
Calculated BOEs per day (BOE/D) are crucial metrics for evaluating energy companies’ performance.
Used for reporting total reserves by exploration and production companies.
Facilitates easy comparison of energy assets over time and against other similar energy companies.
Propane:
A hydrocarbon gas commonly used for heating, cooking, and as a fuel.
Propane prices are influenced by supply, demand, and seasonal factors.
Historically, propane has traded around 50% of the value of crude oil.
When propane deviates significantly from this historical percentage, it impacts demand and supply dynamics.
High propane prices relative to crude oil can reduce demand for propane as a petrochemical feedstock.
Conversely, low propane prices relative to crude oil can lead to increased exports and petrochemical consumption.
In summary, while BOE standardizes energy resources, propane’s relative valuation to crude oil affects market dynamics and influences industry decisions. ”
I asked about propane.
Now, has anyone seen my cubic mile of Pt?
Dennis L.
“has anyone seen my cubic mile of Pt?”
Like all imaginary things it is in the astral plane.
Ah, that is where it is.
Imagination is a wonderful thing. Imagine a light bulb and there is light, very bright idea.
Dennis L.
This is the End of the Balance of Power shit promoted by London to keep the Cockneys and the Midlanders safe.
One can only imagine what a United Europe would have done, and United Kingdom has been its biggest enemy against it.
I had to laugh when Boris Johnson talked about uniting Europe. It seems he thinks everyone is stupid, since a quick search will show that he supported Brexit.
Are the people of UK happy that Europe is about to be run over by the Hordes, now? They are authoritarians and do not really give two seconds about Balance of Power.
“One can only imagine what a United Europe would have done”
You’d need bloody a vivid imagination, if you looked at their history, which is needlessly bloody. Emotionally stunted, squabbling halfwits are not generally very good at playing the united front.
“United Kingdom has been its biggest enemy against it”
More like a harsh matron, giving you a good slap and placing you firmly in your place and on the thankfully rare occasion that you managed to find half a dozen competent leaders, the Russians stepped in and gave you a well deserved kicking(you always bring it on yourselves and blame everyone else).
“I had to laugh when Boris Johnson talked about uniting Europe. It seems he thinks everyone is stupid”
His name is Alexander, but at least you have confirmed your second sentence.
“Are the people of UK happy that Europe is about to be run over by the Hordes, now?”
Indifferent would probably be the term you’re looking for and don’t worry about the hoardes, they’ll soon realise that it’s a backwards looking place. Until then, happy Quds day🙏
Seems United Kingdom is still unrepentant, while enjoying its occupation by people from the Subcontinent.
(the last comment might not have posted correctly)
UKR expects its frontlines to collapse and there is ‘nothing that can help Ukraine now’.
NATO has failed to match Russia for technology, materiel or manpower in the war of attrition.
It was always liable to end that way as Russia has a serious military-industrial base and NATO does not.
People have been telling UKR to negotiate now – the Pope, Elon Musk – but UKR seems to want to do this conflict to the bitter end.
“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now”.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-great-risk-front-line-collapse-war-russia
Ukraine is at great risk of its front lines collapsing
According to high-ranking Ukrainian officers, the military picture is grim and Russian generals could find success wherever they decide to focus their upcoming offensive.
KYIV — Wayward entrepreneur Elon Musk’s latest pronouncements regarding the war in Ukraine set teeth on edge, as he warned that even though Moscow has “no chance” of conquering all of Ukraine, “the longer the war goes on, the more territory Russia will gain until they hit the Dnipro, which is tough to overcome.”
“However, if the war lasts long enough, Odesa will fall too,” he cautioned.
…. Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia will decide to target its strength in an offensive that’s expected to launch this summer. In a pre-offensive pummeling — stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south — Russia’s missile and drone strikes have widely surged in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it hard to guess where it will mount its major push.
And according to high-ranking Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzhny — the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces until he was replaced in February — the military picture is grim.
The officers said there’s a great risk of the front lines collapsing wherever Russian generals decide to focus their offensive. Moreover, thanks to a much greater weight in numbers and the guided aerial bombs that have been smashing Ukrainian positions for weeks now, Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the front line and to crash it in some parts,” they said.
They spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“There’s nothing that can help Ukraine now because there are no serious technologies able to compensate Ukraine for the large mass of troops Russia is likely to hurl at us. We don’t have those technologies, and the West doesn’t have them as well in sufficient numbers,” one of the top-ranking military sources told POLITICO.
…. “Zaluzhny used to call it ‘the War of One Chance,’” one of the officers said. “By that, he meant weapons systems become redundant very quickly because they’re quickly countered by the Russians. For example, we used Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles [supplied by Britain and France] successfully — but just for a short time. The Russians are always studying. They don’t give us a second chance. And they’re successful in this.”
“Don’t believe the hype about them just throwing troops into the meat grinder to be slaughtered,” he added. “They do that too, of course — maximizing even more the impact of their superior numbers — but they also learn and refine.”
The officers said the shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles supplied by the U.K. and U.S. in the first weeks of the invasion came in time, helping them save Kyiv — and so, too, did the HIMARS, the light multiple-launch rocket systems, which were used to great effect, enabling them to push Russia out of Kherson in November 2022.
“But often, we just don’t get the weapons systems at the time we need them — they come when they’re no longer relevant,” another senior officer said, citing the F-16 fighter jets as an example. A dozen or so F-16s are expected to be operational this summer, after basic pilot training has been completed. “Every weapon has its own right time. F-16s were needed in 2023; they won’t be right for 2024,” he said.
…. “We don’t only have a military crisis — we have a political one,” one of the officers said. While Ukraine shies away from a big draft, “Russia is now gathering resources and will be ready to launch a big attack around August, and maybe sooner.”
So, Musk may not be too wide of the mark after all.
This is hardly a surprise.
Zelensky wants depopulation of Ukraine and he is going to get it.
A certain other country needs a new destination.
of which Zelensky is a citizen.
A certain currency needs a new destination.
And that currency doesn’t give up easyli, and certainly won’t give up its prime military base in fossil fuel land.
End of Western Civilization before Eastern Despotism
As you write, Western civilization is complete despotism, as opposed to Eastern Despotism which, at least in Russia, is impossible to enforce. So things are looking up.
Best move Ukraine joins BRICS and agrees to complete de-nazification.
14 minutes . Layman language . Why the US can’t use the oil it produces .
Particularly poignant for David, since it talks about chocolate depletion while those 20M barrels a day are all worthless strawberry.
Aaand, cocoa prices have quadrupled, might increase by a factor of 8 this year. really dark chocolate is one of the best indicators of depletion. Right at a time when people need it the most.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/oil-trader-andurand-gets-ballsy-cocoa-bull
ha, I laugh in the face of high cocoa prices.
though I am now becoming persuaded that I must greatly increase my stocks, which I had been keeping steady at about a 2 week supply.
extreme times require extreme measures.
perhaps a 3 or 4 month supply, since the world surely is becoming more unstable.
Now there is a story out that vanilla beans seem to be in short supply, too.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/dear-mr-president-vanilla-bean-shortage-could-be-nearing
good little video, near the end he is riding up the slope of increasing Canadian production and their increasing exports to the USA.
Canadian heavy oil is the dark chocolate here.
I don’t see any problem with this complex system right now, it works great and the USA produces so much diesel that it exports over 1 mbpd.
someday this complex system will break down, perhaps in the 2030s or 2040s.
ask me if I’m worried about that!
Herein I name cocoa futures the “OFW Doom Index”. They tell us in advance what is going to happen.
I can’t tell if he is assho## or an idi#t.
He is the first thing if he is lying, and he is the second one if he is just saying what they told him to say.
Because (leaving apart the subject about keeping the Oil in the ground..) he says that the problem of export and import of Oils in US is just a problem of the typology of refineries in the Country, instead of being a problem related to the typology of Oil present in the Country..
Actually, as we all know here, it is the second one, because Shale Oil doesn’t allow to produce certain kind of fuels, see diesel
So, if one changed refineries, one still couldn’t produce diesel with US Oil…
But, exactly in the way he explains things, one, on the contrary, could think that if US decided to change typology of refineries (making huge investments) could just solve the problem.
He just touches a little bit the real problem of typology of Oils, (without explaing) at timing 11.05, but he carefully skips to mention the real issue.
In my view, it is a clever and well packed way to fool US citizens.
Student, he is just saying that if you put shale oil in those refineries the pipes will clog, even though it is very light. The conventional crude from abroad is essential for mixing to a point where the oil still flows.
I remember hearing about this issue before. The heavy part of the tight oil from shale precipitates out too early, before it is even heated, creating a terrible mess. It has to do with other characteristics of the oil. It has to do with the paraffins vs the asphaltenic crude. One tends to dissolve the other.
I had posted a comment written by Gerry Maddoux ( refinery engineer) on the mixing of light oil and heavy oil . Maybe Gail can search for this in the archives and repost it .
I think this is the comment you are thinking of, but the comment is not by Gerry Maddoux.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/02/14/should-the-us-add-more-lng-export-approvals/comment-page-1/#comment-452801
Yes, this is a layman’s introduction to the problem. We originally had strawberry oil. Now we have chocolate oil. The refineries cannot handle the change over, which is why the petroleum companies, who are only interested in profits, export part of our oil and we need to import other oil. And we really need to worry about climate change.
I am not sure that this is exactly the story I would give people.
The refineries are set up to give the mix of fuels that consumers need. The oil we are now drilling is way too light; we need more heavy oil from elsewhere to balance it out. Otherwise, there would be little diesel and jet fuel.
The “oil” numbers you read about represent many kinds of hydrocarbons, in a mixture. We need the mixture that our built infrastructure requires. We don’t have the resources to build new electric semi-trailer trucks, if the physics actually could be made to work to produce huge trucks. The roads could not handle all of these heavy vehicles. We need fossil fuels to maintain our roads.
to be precise, he says we used to have chocolate, but it is depleting. we got plenty of strawberry now.
because everyone knows that there is a significant drop from chocolate to strawberry. so it is in the petroleum industry right now.
Yes , Gail this was what I was asking for . Got mixed up with names . Tks .
I can search old comments for any word. I used the word “precipitate” to get back to something close. It is hard to search for something non-unique.
What is oil ?
Great post by Goehring and Rozencwajg again – reinforcing the idea that all US oil basins have basically rolled over = production > 50% of estimated available reserves. This article goes into their version of the EIA “adjustment” math and predicts we could be down 1 million b/d by on crude production by year end 2024.
https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/is-us-oil-production-surging
I’m not on board with this whole “under reporting” of production issue they’re writing about here. Producers in Texas at least divide what comes out of the ground into 3 buckets – crude oil, condensate, and gas. I have no idea what they tell the EIA every month and since the EIA apparently doesn’t audit it and royalty, working interest owners and the Texas University Fund don’t collect their checks based on it I don’t really care. It’s fairly well known that condensate will find its way into a crude tank somewhere if it can meet the vapor pressure specs. Due to how the gas gathering systems are set up and the need for producers to quit allowing light ends to “weather off” in trucks and tanks, a bit more liquid is collected at compressor stations and gas plants. This “bit” is mostly butanes and pentanes. These will also get blended into crude, again if they meet the vapor pressure ceiling limit. Keep in mind that condensate blending is nothing new at all and should be in the numbers marked “crude and condensate” in the EIA reports. The NGLs left in the gas after all this wringing out in the field go into a separate system designed to handle high pressure liquids and mostly heads to Central Kansas, East Houston, or Corpus Christi. Contrary to some reports, the pieces that come out of them generally do NOT find their way back into the so-called crude oil stream.
I’ve pulled the numbers for liquids production reported by compressor stations and gas plants in Texas, and although quite a few of them don’t bother to report, the volumes from the ones who do don’t add up to anywhere near the 700k barrels of “adjustment” we hear about in the EIA numbers as what they need to close their bookkeeping gap.
Bottom line of all this – it appears to me that at least some of the barrels that we think are crude are really condensate and NGLs, which aren’t worth nearly as much as actual oil. So that “BOE” people keep talking about is increasingly made up of lower value hydrocarbons.
Gas in the Permian today has risen in value to almost broken – ($.015)/Mmbtu before gathering, treating, and processing fees. Yee-haw! You’re much better off selling it as ethane if you can get it in the line. So it can go over the dock to India and China.
Copy/paste from ”The oily stuff” .
Also read
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/04/03/side-effect-of-us-natural-gas-boom-record-ethane-production-exports-for-the-petrochemical-industry/
These folks may be onto something. The huge adjustment factors used by the EIA hardly make sense. And we also have the issue of the “drilled but uncompleted wells.”
Ethane, produced in the Permian, is of little value. This EIA page has some interesting charts:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrocarbon-gas-liquids/uses-of-hydrocarbon-gas-liquids.php
It is clear from the charts that US production of ethane has been growing significantly, year after year, while the amount used by industry is falling.
The EIA blurb at that site says:
I am starting to like the below site. Wilkerson has been on a number of podcasts, his background is incredible. Alkhorshid, moderator, asks a few questions and listens, it appears he is currently a Professor(assistant?)of Civil (Geotehhncal) Engineering at University of Brasilia. Looks like PhD Cyprus(?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4xw9GPqfuU
Wilkerson talks at length about Israel, America and MIC as well as Dominion Energy and shipping LNG to Europe.
Follow the money and generally one gets an approximately good guess.
Some are envious of money, I am envious of intellect; it is very portable and well trained very valuable. Engineering filters out all the unnecessary stuff, but the credit load is very high. Of opinion you need a high credit load to learn a trade, e. g. engineering, medicine and at one time dentistry.
Dennis L.
Argentina’s Milei takes his chainsaw to the state, cutting 15,000 jobs and spurring protests
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina said Wednesday that it had cut 15,000 state jobs as part of President Javier Milei’s aggressive campaign to slash spending, the latest in a series of painful economic measures that have put the libertarian government on a collision course with angry protesters and powerful trade unions.
Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced the job cuts in a news conference, portraying them as key to Milei’s promised shake-up of Argentina’s bloated public sector.
“It’s part of the work we are doing to reduce state expenses,” he told reporters, describing the dismissed workers as a drag on taxpayers.
“They perhaps did not have a very defined job,” he said.
Hundreds of defiant employees — some notified of their termination last week and others before that — stormed their workplaces in Buenos Aires and nearby cities on Wednesday, beating drums, decrying their dismissal as unjust and demanding their reinstatement.
Hmmm, looks as some aren’t happy about being cut off of BAU..
Can’t wait till it happens in the richest nation on Earth…
That should be entertaining
Governments need to greatly shrink in size, if there aren’t enough resources to go around. This would seem to be one way of making the shrinkage happen.
I think you have hit another one correctly. This will be interesting for all of us, I kind of hope it begins tomorrow, and of course, tomorrow never comes.
Geoffry West has very interesting ideas on socioeconomic heart attack as societies grow , picked him from Nate Hagens. . West is very into scaling laws, 80-20 is one of those laws, approximate but for me close enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my9a9Ftr7ek
On Nate Hagens he graphs city size and energy usage, log abscissa, slope is 1.15 as I recall which suggests a limit to size. Income per capita is same scale. Opening comments refer to socioeconomic heart attack as societies grow.
Geoffry theoretical physicist and former president of Sant Fe Institute. He is now 83, like him even more as he is older than me and still alive, hope.
Dennis L.
If governments shrinks ie.. firing people from their jobs won’t you have a back feed loop? More unemployment and slower economic growth?
It takes energy to provide economic growth. If we don’t have enough fossil fuels, both energy consumption and economic growth must shrink. The jobs provided by government are to significant extent dispensable. We can get along without them.
You are right that economic growth will shrink. This is exactly what happens. And the government portion of economic growth is likely to shrink more than the rest.
If governments shrinks ie.. firing people from their jobs won’t you have a back feed loop? More unemployment and slower economic growth?
There isn’t any real growth any more anyway, hasn’t been since 2008.
Thanks for linking to this. I have only watched the first few minutes so far, but I want to listen to all of it. I very much enjoyed reading Geoffry West’s book, Scale.
I think that the issue you note is important:
Again, for the last time:
80-20 is what the world was during the era of industrialism. It was always 99-1
Vilfredo Pareto supposedly proposed the Pareto Principle but it was Joseph Juran, in 1941 (read: During world war 2), who made it into a principle. He used Pareto’s name since no one would pay attention to a nobody from Romania like him; Pareto merely had stated that 20% of all Italians owned 80% of everything.
It is more like 999,999,999″1 but that will make everyone give up so they call it 99:1.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/recycling-bin-landfill-major-flaw-plastic-recycling
From The Recycling Bin To The Landfill: The Major Flaw In Plastic Recycling
I talked to two owners of recycling companies and they both said they only recycle 5-8% and the rest is either sold to another country or it goes to the landfills.
Mixed paper and plastic seems to be a particularly useless thing to try to recycle. People put recycling in the same category as vaccines–somehow, a new kind of salvation. They don’t stop and think about the real situation.
Still no report from anyone on the Dali about what happened.
Good point. I am sure that the authorities don’t want too many questions raised.
Of course they are not, the lawyers are advising they don’t talk.
An interesting take…
https://radiofarside.substack.com/
According to the latest post:
Corporations at the top of the pile looks like where the US is now!
Not everything on this site is correct nor accurate, but in this case it seems then general ideas were correct.
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-releases-hidden-trove-covid-19-vaccine-injury-reports
This is from the CDC, I assume released recently. I noticed tinnitus was among the complications. Poland, director of Mayo’s Vaccine Research Group reported tinnitus within a very short period of his second shot and had to pull over to the side of the road. This was self reported by him on a podcast or at a seminar.
Going to Mayo continuing ed. Friday, will be interesting to see if any thing recent on the jab is reported.
I also followed John Campbell, an early strong advocate of the jabs, he is now somewhat skeptical.
Life is a process.
Dennis L.
“John Campbell…is now somewhat skeptical.”
‘Somewhat’ is a gross underzaggeration.
Citizens have been taught to believe that vaccines are likely to be very helpful. The idea of bad long-term effects has not even occurred to most people. They also have a great deal of faith in elected officials and what they say.
Of course, on the opposite side, from the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, vaccines can be extremely profitable, especially if mandated. The pharmaceutical industry has huge motivation to keep adverse results from the public. The people working for the CDC are basically the same people working for industry because a huge amount of specialized knowledge is needed to be in this field. Workers go back and forth between the CDC and industry. Also, to a significant extent, funding for the CDC comes from industry. Anthony Fauci was part of the pharmaceutical industry. Asking Fauci and the CDC for advice in handling the vaccine was similar to asking the fox to guard the hen house.
Campbell is a bumbling /clod/oaf whom I dismissed three years ago after watching his pen on paper analysis for just 10 minutes. Later I learned he isn’t even a PhD or MD…. just a nurse!!! You’ve got to be kidding me! Talk about a You Tube opportunist.
He had/has a narrative and last I looked >1M subscribers so is well followed. We are surrounded by narratives told in a manner which convinces a great many people to join in.
I am an anti lemming lemming, somewhat of a contrarian, not a very good mathematician but trained to disprove theorems by finding a contradiction. You may have noticed that trait on this site. Have you heard the one about mining space for Pt?
Dennis L.
I understand that John Campbell has a Ph.D. in nursing. He is a retired teacher of nurses.
https://www.youtube.com/@Campbellteaching
Geert Vander Bossche is a veterinarian by training. He is outside of the pharmaceutical/human people medicine industry.
I come to energy and the economy without a background in energy or physics or what is specifically taught as economics in universities. What I have learned about these subjects comes from working with the financial system over the years and meeting or corresponding with many of the researchers in the field. Also, looking at freely available data.
I have heard that people who can best see what is going wrong with a system usually come from somewhat outside the system. They don’t have to be the best educated, just have some common sense.
Oh, I see. a PhD in nursing, you mean like “Dr” Jill Biden?
I guess sometimes a toy airplane maker can make a real plane- at least in Hollywood.
I see the following about “Dr. Jill Biden.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/dr-jill-biden/
“In 2007, she received a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in educational leadership from the University of Delaware. When her husband, then-Senator Joe Biden became Vice President and the Bidens moved to Washington, DC, Dr. Biden began teaching at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), where she continues to do so today.”
An Ed. D. isn’t quite a Ph. D., and educational leadership is a pretty soft subject.
Great movie.
Vander Bossche is essentially correct.
But most will refuse to see it even as multi millions die off.
Campbell was super slow off the mark but reality seems to be creeping up on him. I don’t really follow him.
Most PhDs I have known have their heads so far up their colons they could not see “reality” even if it is the doogie against their cornea.
Narratives are strange things. I am quite certain that human populations are going downward right now….but the narrative is “wait a couple of decades”.
I am certain that total energy available to the human enterprise has been falling since 2018……but the narrative is sometime in the 2030s…….
I am certain that this entire reality is a Veneer of false sensorial inputs….but the narrative is….what you see is what you get.
Most humans have wasted their lives,….they did not pay attention,…….maybe I did also.
“I am certain that this entire reality is a Veneer of false sensorial inputs….but the narrative is….what you see is what you get.”
Are you saying that everyone’s life is similar to the concept behind the Truman Show movie? Are you saying that most of the people we encounter are “Reality tv” actors , actresses , or computer generated imagery?
“Most humans have wasted their lives,…”
I thought the whole point of life was making friends and influencing people? If you start out doing manual labor and retire as a c-suite you are seen as a success…if you have a lot of children you are seen as a success…
Most people aren’t doing both of those things but are still seen as successes in their peer groups.
“they did not pay attention”
They pay attention to the “false sensorial inputs” fine. Everyone wants to have a model of how the world works. Most people have a rudimentary understanding of economics and science and that is enough for them.
Campbell is a bumbling /clod/oaf whom I dismissed three years ago after watching his pen on paper analysis for just 10 minutes
I’ve never had the strength to watch one of his videos.
It is necessary to “dumb down” presentations in a way that ordinary folks can understand them. Campbell’s simple way of telling what is happening can be understood by a wide range of viewers. In some cases, it may be overly simplistic. But it gets the point across, without people having to understand a huge amount of background.
Hubbs, credentialism AND envy in the same paragraph?
“Dr.” Campbell has been having a lot of fun bumbling his way through the pandemic, all the while making explanatory videos so simple that the laity can understand them.
Xabier and were both woefully disappointed in him when he advocated for the jabs. I thought he was well-meaning but gullible at the time.
It seems his run-in with the second or third shot caused him to develop permanently raised blood pressure, probably due to the jab juice frying the walls of his heart or some of his major blood vessels. He has learned his lesson from sustaining that damage and is now a severe critic of the Covid injectables and the medical system that promoted them.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Experience keeps a dear school,
yet Fools will learn in no other.”
Still, I wouldn’t look down on the nursing profession as they do save countless lives and limbs, and they do relieve and prevent a lot of pain and discomfort. The fact that most of them were also caught up in the COVID scam and went along in lock step with the narrative and the rules they had been handed down doesn’t detect from that.
And this is a list of minor averse events and of short period time.
My electrician who died of a stroke would certainly have wanted to have tinnitus…
An earlier comment by postkey;
‘The fact is that five times in the last four years, DC has been doing QE by just another name (what I call “backdoor QE”) to avoid the embarrassment of direct QE.
This is how you print resources; oil, lithium, pharmaceuticals, iron ore, water, military supplies.
When you issue debt to the fracking industry on a never never basis you have basically ”printed the oil”.
Similarly for the imports from China; you have printed all those consumer goods.
The ‘fools’ faith.
‘…..fiat money is backed entirely by the full faith and trust in the government that issued it.’
Control P; Its a fantastic scam huh?
“This is how you print resources; oil, lithium, pharmaceuticals, iron ore, water, military supplies.
When you issue debt to the fracking industry on a never never basis you have basically ”printed the oil”.
Similarly for the imports from China; you have printed all those consumer goods.”
no, using 2023 as an example, there was sufficient surplus energy available in 2023 to produce everything that was produced in 2023.
that is maybe too tautological for some, but there is always a total world production based on available surplus energy, and financials such as debt are just a way of directing more production into specific industries.
throwing more 2023 debt towards widgets instead of FF would have produced more widgets and less FF.
debt directed towards essentials is the wise move.
There is either stuff or there is not stuff.
You can “print” demand for resources in one particular country.
If there are available resources within that country that can be cheaply extracted, and supply lines within that country, perhaps the approach will work.
These resources don’t necessarily exist within that country. The extra debt can cause the currency to fall in world markets and make the purchase of imported goods and services more expensive. Liz Truss of the UK tried this approach not too long ago, and found this out. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/23/1130782408/how-liz-truss-aggressive-tax-cutting-policy-led-to-her-downfall The US has been somewhat protected from this happening since the US$ is the reserve currency.
Not a big surprise:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/biden-halts-attempts-refill-spr-oil-price-soar
This last statement seems to have been made by “Bob McNally, president of consultant Rapidan Energy Group.” Selling more SPR reserves, to get the price down!
Celia Farber writes:
Forget Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine: Have You Felt Guilty For Opposing A Force You Could Not Name? You Were Right: It’s AI.
“The result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions.”
“We’ve killed people with collateral damage in the high double digits, if not low triple digits. These are things that haven’t happened before.”
“There was hysteria in the professional ranks…They had no idea how to react at all.”
“Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy.”
—’Lavender,’ the AI Machine Directing Israel’s Bombing Spree In Gaza
A lengthy investigative report has come out detailing use of AI in Gaza bombing targets that all but eliminates human judgment for when, or whether, bombing a structure to kill a suspected Hamas operative is justified, rendering the new warfare mechanical, ruthless, and post-human, even by the standards of any previous warfare.
The report, in 972 Magazine (citizen journalists both Israeli and Palestinian) by Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, is a game-changer, that left me with shaking hands, after I finished reading it. It relies on six Israeli intelligence sources who explain in great detail, partly due to their own distress, a dystopic reality that could potentially reconcile both sides, once everybody faces this brutal revelation.
“The Lavender software analyzes information collected on most of the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip through a system of mass surveillance, then assesses and ranks the likelihood that each particular person is active in the military wing of Hamas or PIJ. According to sources, the machine gives almost every single person in Gaza a rating from 1 to 100, expressing how likely it is that they are a militant.
Lavender learns to identify characteristics of known Hamas and PIJ operatives, whose information was fed to the machine as training data, and then to locate these same characteristics — also called “features” — among the general population, the sources explained. An individual found to have several different incriminating features will reach a high rating, and thus automatically becomes a potential target for assassination.”
Welcome To The Machine
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/israeli-journalist-breaks-bombshell
Some of you think I am into science fiction, perhaps I am, but I am uncomfortable with AI after a certain point. It is wonderful for searches, it is wonderful for software syntax, but deciding where and who to bomb in my mind is not a good idea.
It would be nice if we could live and let live to a reasonable degree.
Dennis L.
The War24/7 website is back under new people.
Google translate:
https://warnews247.gr/war-monitor/oukrania/dramatikh-analush-politico-h-oukrania-diatrexei-megalo-kinduno-katarreushs-ths-emprosthofulakhs-ths/
Dramatic Politico analysis: Ukraine is at great risk of its vanguard collapsing!
In black colors, high-ranking Ukrainian officers describe the situation prevailing on the front line of the war with the Russians continuing the hammering with undiminished intensity.
The military picture on Ukraine’s front line is bleak with Russian generals able to focus on their impending offensive, betting on success.
While Musk isn’t Ukraine’s favorite commentator, the billionaire businessman’s predictions aren’t really that different from the warnings Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been issuing in recent days.
According to the war-torn country’s leader, if the deadlocked multibillion-dollar package from the US is not approved soon, Ukrainian forces will have to “retreat, step by step” . He even warned that some large cities are in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy.
Apparently, Zelensky’s warnings are part of a broad diplomatic effort to free up military aid that his forces so desperately need and have been short of for months — from 155mm artillery shells to Patriot air defense systems and drones.
But the sad truth is that even if the package is approved by the US Congress, a massive resupply may not be enough to prevent a major upheaval on the battlefield. And such a setback, especially amid election campaigns in the US and Europe, could well increase Western pressure for negotiations that would obviously favor Russia, leaving the Kremlin free to escalate the conflict in the future whenever it chooses.
Essentially, everything now depends on where Russia decides to focus its forces and launch a broad offensive in the summer. In a blow ahead of the major offensive – stretching from Kharkiv and Sumy in the north to Odesa in the south – Russia’s missile and drone strikes have ramped up widely in recent weeks, targeting infrastructure and making it difficult to guess where will launch its great military operation.
According to senior Ukrainian military officers who served under General Valery Zaluzny – head of Ukraine’s armed forces until his replacement in February – the country’s military image is not good. They stressed that there is a great risk of collapse on the front lines of the war, where Russian generals plan to focus their attack.
In addition, thanks to significantly more guided air bombs that have been crushing Ukrainian defenses for weeks, Russia will likely be able to “penetrate the vanguard and wipe it out in some places ,” they said.
“There is nothing that can help Ukraine now, because the necessary technological infrastructure is not there, able to brake the large troops that Russia is likely to mobilize against us. We don’t have those technologies and the West doesn’t have the right stockpile,” one top military source told Politico on condition of anonymity.
Senior Ukrainian officers, however, have reminded that relying on Russian mistakes is not a strategy, and have expressed bitterness over the mistakes they claim hindered the Ukrainian resistance in the first place. Mistakes made by both the West and Ukraine.
They were also scathing about the Western incursions, saying supplies and weapons systems came too late and in insufficient numbers to make a difference against the Russians.
“Zaluzny calls it the ‘War of One Chance,'” one of the officers argued, stressing that:
“By that, he means that the weapon systems become redundant in a very short time because they are quickly dealt with by the Russians. For example, we used ‘Storm Shadow’ and ‘SCALP’ cruise missiles supplied by Britain and France with success but for a short time. The Russians are always watching us. They don’t give us a second chance. And they are successful at it .’
As Politico points out, Ukrainian officers claimed that anti-tank missiles supplied by the UK and the US in the first weeks of the war arrived on time, which helped them save Kiev. So did HIMARS, the light multiple launch missile systems, which were used with great success, enabling the Ukrainians to push Russia out of Kherson in November 2022.
“However, often we just don’t get the weapons systems when we need them — they come when they’re no longer needed,” said another senior officer, citing F-16 fighters as an example. About a dozen F-16s are expected to enter service this summer after basic pilot training is completed. “Each weapon has its own time to be effective. The F-16s were needed in 2023. Not in 2024 ,” he added.
And that’s because, according to the same officer, Russia is ready to confront them: “In recent months, we began to observe missiles launched by the Russians from Dzhankoy in northern Crimea, but without the warheads. We couldn’t figure out what they were doing and then we realized what happened considering their range,” he said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the top Ukrainian officer explained that Russia was calculating where to best deploy the S-400 missile systems and radars in order to maximize the area they can cover to target the F-16s, keeping them away from the first line and the logistical hubs of Russia.
“We need shells, hundreds of thousands of shells and rockets ,” one of them told Politico, estimating that Ukraine needed 4 million shells and 2 million drones.
“We constantly told the Western partners that we have the war experience, that we can understand war on the battlefield. They have the resources and they have to give us what we need ,” he added. Europe, for its part, is trying to help Ukraine make up for its huge shortfall in artillery shells.
Finally, he stressed that they also need a lot more men brandishing weapons.
Ukraine currently does not have enough troops, which exacerbates the problem of sluggish Western support. However, Ukraine has yet to give the go-ahead for conscription. Authorities are concerned about the political fallout from the mobilization measures amid recruitment and evasion of recruitment documents.
Zaluzny had already publicly called for the mobilization of more troops from December 2023, estimating that Ukraine needed at least 500,000 additional men. Since then this plan has been discussed and then forgotten.
Yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law lowering the minimum conscription age from 27 to 25. But that’s not going to change the situation significantly.
“We have not only a military crisis, but also a political one,” one of the officers also said, adding:
“While Ukraine is avoiding a major strike, Russia is now gathering resources and will be ready to launch a major offensive around August, and perhaps earlier.”
““We need shells, hundreds of thousands of shells and rockets ,” one of them told Politico, estimating that Ukraine needed 4 million shells and 2 million drones.”
Good luck! The West can’t supply those things.
They need concern for fellow Ukrainians and stop taking money from the collective West. They have allowed their youth to be slaughtered for a few pieces of gold.
Assuming it was not posed or Photoshopped, the picture here of the young boys in battle gear going to the front was depressing. Most/many of them will never be the same person and whatever is left of them will find life in the domiciliary with other survivors as only someone who has been there can understand. The alternative is the streets and street drugs.
We have people in Washington who live in a bubble and have no idea what their actions do to other human beings. It is upon reflection of this old man I am seeing part of my residency at the VA. Wonderful training, with the passage of time insight into humanity.
Mumblings of an old man.
Dennis L.
One thing that makes me wonder if the photo is real is the recent announcement that the minimum draft age is being lowered from 27 to 25, so as to make more men eligible. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-conscription-mobilization-251058a942a253f3eaec2c53373adf03#
The average age of soldiers is reported to be 40 in some reports.
Can the west or Russia afford to rebuild Ukraine? Even if the plan is to rebuild just basic infrastructure it’s still more than they can afford.
Russia can, we can’t.
not the West, but yes Russia has the natural resources to rebuild all the oblasts it has annexed so far and will annex this year and next year.
and true, the leftover non-Russia northwestern Ukraine will be impoverished probably forever.
I am doubtful that there would be enough near-by consumers who could afford to buy the goods and services produced by the rebuilt infrastructure, to justify building it.
Russia is already well underway rebuilding Mariupol. But I doubt the very large, very old Mariupol steelworks will ever function again so it’s hard to see what jobs will be available.
Politico really is a 100% propaganda rag.
“Pentagon launches tech to stop AI-powered killing machines from going rogue on the battlefield due to robot-fooling visual ‘noise’ “?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13265405/us-pentagon-tech-ai-killing-systems-battlefield.html
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/04/03/3rd-april-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
One of AI’s biggest problems is that it lacks common sense.
According to the article:
Yes, I am all for it prospecting space, I do not see automating killing machines. Who would have thought Terminator would come so soon?
Dennis L.
“Pentagon launches tech to stop AI-powered killing machines from going rogue on the battlefield due to robot-fooling visual ‘noise’ “?
Anything rather than talk about our inability to produce basic weapons of war.
The greatest mistake of human history was considering Russia as a Western country.
It should have been treated as an Asian country, like India or various sheikdoms in the Middle East.
Treating it as a Western country when in essence it was not was a fatal oversight by the Anglo-American Establishment.
Thank God Russia isn’t part of the collective “West”
Yes, with the Asian scientists Mendeleev, and the Asian authors Tolstoy and Turgenev (Pushkin was African, and Gogol, being an Ukrainian, was a European).
Groan.
Dennis L.
Mendeleev was, by any metrics, more accomplished than Moseley. Although of course Moseley died young.
Please give it a break. When I had cataract surgery had a choice between a white surgeon and an Indian. I wanted and chose the Indian, my personal experience was they are meticulous. Came out with 20/15 one eye 20/20 the other. Good enough for an old man.
Dennis L.
Demographics, always demographics.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/this-worker-was-demoted-at-age-68-and-her-pay-was-cut-30-she-s-fighting-back/ar-BB1l0ZCq?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=43ed4930373740beaaf6e50cd697020d&ei=35
A guess: The problem is the need to make room for the young and money is a problem. She made a good income, if you read the article is now having financial issues.
For a while we will have a declining economy, the old must make way for the young; this is not going to be easy and SS will be an area where this occurs.
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” Macbeth.
I am 77, active, etc., deeply sense my time is coming to exit stage left, bummer.
Dennis L.
She is still not doing that badly.
Given that she had to sell her house because her not-too-tiny income was reduced, it seems she fully expected to have the income she was enjoying till the day she dies.
She would be ‘talented’ with your definition, but it seems she was not that smart , financially at least.
Not too long ago, it was possible for a US company to require retirement at age 60, or some other selected age. Or they could remove job “perks” like a title and office. I know that this was true in the US. I was told that this was true in Sweden. I would not be surprised if this is not still the rule in some places.
Employers want to encourage younger employees. They want to open up spaces for them.
It is not pleasant for some of us to come to the end of our professional involvement, but the young must have their time and we who are older must step aside.
At school(CC) my concern is I do not and will not take a space that could be used by a young person. Not sure how I shall handle that one, I was first on the lists for next fall.
Currently police and FBI are encouraged or required to retire at 55. My father was grandfathered or whatever, worked to 65, loved being a cop, Captain at the end.
Dennis L.
Dennis, Yes, in the tabloid headlines a Rock Star admits it’s time ..
The Independent.com
The Who frontman Roger Daltrey has stated “I’m on my way out,” just weeks after celebrating his 80th birthday in March. After being in the rock band for six decades, the musician recently decided to step down as curator of the annual Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) gigs.
For the past 24 years, Roger has helped to raise £32m for specialised NHS units to help young cancer sufferers. Opening up about his decision in a “backstage diary” for The Times, the performer explained: “I have to be realistic. I’m on my way out.
The average life expectancy is 83 and with a bit of luck I’ll make that, but we need someone else to drive things. I’m not leaving TCT – I’ve been a patron since I first met the charity’s founders, Dr Adrian and Myrna Whiteson, more than 30 years ago – and that will continue.
“But I’ll be working in the back room, talking to the government, rattling cages,” he told the publication. Roger explained that he had concern over how many words he had to remember ahead of recent shows he had performed and said he was nervous beforehand.
been in hibernation. For the whole of January, I lost my voice completely.
“I live like a monk and if I went on tour for a week I’d be fit as a butcher’s dog again, but tonight, for the first time in my career, I think, ‘Blimey, this is hard’.”
The rock legend celebrated his milestone 80th birthday last month, with a beer brewed especially for him to mark the big day.
I wore out two of their albums…Live at Leeds and Who’s Next..
Yep, I’m old too
Thanks,
Dennis L.
The Who – Slip Kid
Having been a businessman, always curious why things work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPXcCRTLP2E
This is a presentation on AI by Sequoia Capital in March, 1924. It is short and this segment speaks of Musk.
At the start two racing shells are depicted, a Japanese shell with 4 rowers and one steerer and an American one with four steerers and one rower. The American shell loses, the rower is fired.
The experience of very few leaders and mostly rowers has worked well for me in the past; I agree.
FWIW, perhaps some ideas of why some things are not working. Ex Soviet Union would be the boat with everyone wanting to be a leader. I think women are too groupie to make things work, not all, but most, An extreme example would be as a mother having multiple births and constantly throwing out the lowest performer. Not cool.
No solutions, observation. Sequoia is pretty good at finding and helping businesses grow and work. You all know my thoughts on Starship, for mankind it is existential.
Dennis L.
Tesla, up or down?
Where is the value? Cars themselves or the production knowledge to make cars? What about the knowledge gained from employing Optimus to build cars? What about the AI gained from self driving cars calling home? Did Tesla allow leveraging into Starship?
Batteries don’t seem to work, but H might/will and fuel cells await cheap Pt.
So on hold and possibly the cheapest most well thought-out manufacturing process in the world. Can the knowledge be contained in AI? This avoids the problem of the knowledge walking out the door.
A guess, no more.
Dennis L.
From an e-mail sent by my brother: The demise of EVs, etc. from the China Observer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6YF1patoZo
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The first youtube link is a 19 minute video about the electric vehicle industry in China. China has very much subsidized the EV industry and encourage people to buy these vehicles (since it can make electricity with its coal, but it is very short of petroleum supplies). China very much overestimated the amount of demand that might be available. Also, the Chinese people have relatively little money to spend on these vehicles (homes costs too much; too much wage disparity). Tesla started cutting prices a while ago, and other manufacturers have followed suit. This means that profits are down, on the relatively fewer vehicles that are sold. The low prices on today’s EV are indirectly affecting used car prices and even gas car prices. Barriers to entry for a company making EVs are low. They are making them in a flimsier and flimsier way. The result is that they damage easily and start fires. Would-be customers are able to see that the cars aren’t green and have lots of problems. The industry seems to be rapidly contracting now.
Tesla’s high stock price seems to have been back on November 5, 2021. It was $407.36 then. Current price is $167.94. It is difficult to keep the hype growing.
With respect to the AI, I think of the video you linked to before (IRRC) explained the problem. It explained why today’s AI always hallucinates. The changes needed to fix the problem would be overwhelming. If we don’t have electricity for AI that hallucinates, we certainly don’t have electricity for AI that doesn’t hallucinates.
Dennis, here is an idea that will make you a billionaire. Get some electrons, store half of them as electrons and half as protons. then combine them and pronto! you have hydrogen to sell.
drb,
Realize the humor, looking at and for possible solutions which are within our engineering competencies.
I am more concerned about the social than I am the stuff, the solar system has plenty of stuff and my guess/hope is Starship will deliver the physical goods. It is very possibly existential. Without some sort of help/hope we face a very troubling transition.
Dennis L.
‘The fact is that five times in the last four years, DC has been doing QE by just another name (what I call “backdoor QE”) to avoid the embarrassment of direct QE.
Notwithstanding the “not-QE” (which really was QE) in 2019 when the Fed bailed out a cash-dry repo market (which, by design, no one understood), the DC magicians have been doing trillions worth of QE-like liquidity measures without having to call it, well QE…
That is, the Fed and Treasury Dept. have been pulling liquidity out of the drying Treasury General Account, the now retired “BTFP” measures, and the intentionally confusing reverse repo markets.
More recently (and equally as well intentionally confusing to the masses), the Fed is quietly on the verge of allowing the Fed banks to use unlimited leverage to buy unlimited amounts of USTs off the Fed’s balance sheet via the removal of what the fancy lads call “Supplementary Reserve Ratios.”
This latest trick, by the way, is just off-balance sheet QE, and yet another symptom of the big banks becoming branch offices of the Fed, as our centralized becomes even more grotesquely, well…centralized, which is a classic symptom of a desperate and debt-soaked regime.
But just in case none of the foregoing tricks of backdoor QE have convinced you of what basically amounts to just QE, we can get our clearest signals from—you guessed it: THE BOND MARKET.
That is, one of the most obvious examples of “backdoor QE” is the Treasury Department’s open yet ignored trick of issuing most of its recent debt from the short duration end of the yield curve.’?
https://vongreyerz.gold/the-implications-of-fatal-debt-expect-more-lies
Hrmmm
It looks like the we might eventually get to the point where the US gov nationalizes all the banks.
Cut out all the rent seeking owners ,
cut the pay of bankers dramatically,
and write down many of the loans,
and end up with a small but still functional financial system???
all it will take is a revolution. lol
Hudson characterizes the US’s problem in not being able to re-industrialize or ramp up imports as a problem with having too much debt. I would characterize the problem as an energy problem, in the US and the world.
It is pretty clear that debt and the many other kinds of promises cannot really pay back as promised. Whether or not governments can stay together well enough to create a functional financial system with greatly reduced debt remains to be seen. It could break into pieces first.
The whole West is deindustrialising. Used up all our good coal long ago.
Does Hudson still not realise that money is a derivative of energy…? With all his IQ he is missing this point.
Why? Because energy is invisible.
… money is a derivative of energy …
asserting something does not make it true
I would suggest that Hudson regards money, emitted by the creation of loans with interest, provides a mechanism for control on the part of the emitters (oligarchs) of the borrowers and concentration of wealth in society in their own hands through compounding and the seizure of the collateral of defaulters.
A derivative is the pricing of a contract in accordance with the price fluctuation of some other asset.
correlation is NOT derivation
Today’s winners will fight and destroy the revolution to the bitter end.
People like me run the world , not the dreamers.
as far as I can tell from your scientific pronunciations, you should not trusted with repairing a light switch. With Eurasia on the ascendance, how are you going to beat all the guys who went through taxing coursework and successive selections in Russia and China? They would have no tolerance for fools.
According to the link, “the Fed’s hidden (real) mandate to save Uncle Sam’s sovereign IOU’s from sinking in price, then you will be able to easily foresee (rather than date predict) the future of risk assets, gold, BTC, the USD and yes, inflation.”
Information in Postkey’s comment above is an excerpt from the post.
Then:
This ends,
The catch, of course, is that the US was originally trying the opposite approach–higher dollar than any other currency. Lots of countries are doing worse than the US. Something can’t work.
“I am extremely wary of the emerging establishment media narrative that the current epidemic of mental illness is not real, and that lazy workers are merely using it to dupe unsuspecting medics into signing them on the sick. Not least because this is a mirror image of the stigma that persisted through the 1990s – if you can’t see it, then you’re not really ill… you just need to pull yourself together, etc., ad nauseum. Certainly after two years of the most extreme disruption that was lockdown, followed by the unhinging of the economy for the majority of the workforce, and given that social cohesion had begun to break down long before SARS-CoV-2 popped onto the world stage, we should hardly be surprised that more people are becoming clinically anxious and/or depressed – particularly the young, who have seen their future plans trashed over the past decade or so.”?
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/04/02/was-i-wrong/?fbclid=IwAR0GPtE90gUH49P_EA0azPwuYt-tg_G1Rhiz-pfWemKzcVnTCAE40__6hTM_aem_AZyJVJVJNFq3-IVDr2GXJIjfirKh1-9qVcZk_3kXwZBQSPcocoollsxKR3l7QYfhTDre7wsyl3FrLQRJWZs8opif
This is a long post, telling about Tim Watkin’s personal experience in treating depression and the approach that he thinks might work: having people who have personally recovered from depression counsel those currently struggling with the problem.
Follow the money. The ‘depression industry’ is huge, a major Big Pharma profit stream. Nevermind about the unfortunate side effects of the Pharma treatments e.g. a deranged society.
Andrew Tate talks eloquently about ‘depression’ on the back of his time in solitary in a Romanian jail, on the usual BS sexual assault charges.
“If I refuse to accept depression exists, how can it effect me?”
If I refuse to accept bullets exit, how can this gun kill me?
Bullets are real, depression is mostly a mental construct invented to keep a chunk of the Medical Industrial Complex busy. (A small proportion of people have real chemical imbalances, but these are rarely tested for).
Jon Rappoport does good rants about the psychiatric industry and how they invent more conditions every year, without any objective diagnoses. Of course, Big Pharma has pills to match the invented conditions.
Mostly, people are sad or depressed, because Western society is so f–d up, socially, morally, economically – pick your metric.
It’s fascinating how things go in cycles. 30 years ago Russia was in the dumpster and the West was on top of the world. Now everything is reversed and the West is way worse than the Soviet Union. At least they could build useful stuff. Most of the infrastructure in Eastern Europe hails from the Soviet Union era.
Read the book ‘Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime’ 2013 by Dr Peter Gotzsche. He’s especially critical of producers of psychiatric drugs; among other points their patients are more vulnerable to advertising B.S.
However, I think that part of Russia’s unhappiness with the West stems from the fact that it needs a higher price for its exported oil (and coal and natural gas). Russia doesn’t get the respect or the high prices it deserves. Russian oil disproportionately makes diesel fuel and jet fuel, which we need.
Of course, Russia has huge overhead expenses because it is so far north and so geographically disbursed. It needs a lot of fossil fuels just to keep homes heated in winter. Homes need to be substantially built. Distances are terribly long, making transportation costs high. Russia doesn’t have many good ports for exporting its products, either. (Shipment by water is usually the cheapest way.)
The world economy tends to favor “efficient” economies. Russia isn’t efficient. Some global warming would help.
Poster child for decline and depletion . Mexico .
The company’s latest figures, released late on Monday, showed that Pemex pumped an average of 1.55 million barrels per day (bpd) in February, its lowest level since 1979.”
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/crude-output-mexicos-pemex-slumps-more-than-four-decade-low-2024-03-26/
And “”They have spent an unprecedented amount of money supposedly rescuing Pemex and it’s becoming clear that this did not result in increased production,” said Carillo.”
Mexico guarantees PEMEX bonds which are mostly $ denominated. PEMEX is by far the most indebted oil company in the world. If PEMEX collapses so will Mexico.
There seems to be some question about whether Mexico will be able to keep supporting PEMEX.
Bloomberg reports:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-10/moody-s-downgrades-pemex-corporate-family-rating-to-b3-from-b1-lsfewmgx?sref=eWpk04kZ
Pemex Rating Cut at Moody’s on Government Reliance
–Rating cut on ‘probable shift’ in support from next government
–Debt has ballooned to about $106 billion amid production slump
Feb. 9, 2024
If Mexico’s central government fails, the US won’t be able to depend on imports from Mexico. This could be a problem.
Lauren Boebert hospitalized, underwent surgery for blood clot, campaign says
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/lauren-boebert-hospitalized-underwent-surgery-for-blood-clot-campaign-says/
We are all curious about her jab status… Hope she shares it.
Microsoft and Open AI to build $100 billion computer .
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/forums/topic/debt-rattle-april-2-2024/#post-156059
My Copilot said
I’m afraid I can’t communicate offline. As an artificial intelligence, I require an internet connection to process and respond to your queries. If you’re offline, I won’t be able to assist you. However, once you’re back online, I’ll be here to help! 😂
Interesting, didn’t know that but makes sense. I use Copilot a fair amount, it is helpful and beats digging through indexes in books.
Dennis L.
The Automatic Earth commenter making this post can’t imagine Microsoft and Open AI building a $100 billion computer but says, “But I can easily imagine why they would spend a hundred billion on getting people to BELIEVE it.”
The refining capacity of the world’s top 3 refining countries to decline by 3 % per year .
https://peakoilbarrel.com/bad-weather-drops-us-january-oil-production/#comment-772827
I am not convinced about this reasoning. Based on the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy information, total world refining capacity has been level since 2018. This is still pretty dreadful. It implies that world oil supply cannot be expected to keep up with world population growth, whether or not it actually declines. Our problem is a “per capita” one, in my opinion.
Gail, I read a while back that current per capita consumption in the West/developed economies is 4 times higher than in 1970.
The consumption being talked about was everything material, but the implication was that overall energy consumption (i.e. all energy sources, not just oil) had increased to match.
That conflicts with your lower per capita oil (energy) consumption metrics.
Since 1970 there’s been a massive increase in consumption in China, probably India too and other parts of Asia too.
What I’m getting at is something seems off in the data somewhere. On the one hand it seems we’re worse off energy-wise, but on the other hand consumption is way up compared to 1970 and there’s way more people too.
So the system is creaking and looking wobbly, but keeps chugging along. What gives?
our collective GDP is comprised mainly of debt
you buy a house worth 1/2 mill—that adds to gdp today
but that debt is based on energy availability–to you–over the next 25 years
which it won’t be.
What is happening is that the West has moved a large share of manufacturing to the “Other than Advanced Countries” group. The West still gets the advantage of the huge amount of energy used in making the goods. But these goods are now a whole lot less expensive for the Advanced Countries to buy for many reasons:
1. Coal is a cheap fuel for making electricity, steel, and concrete.
2. The new factories put up in Other than Advanced Countries were state of the art, so more efficient.
3. Workers in these countries have been willing work for lower wages, partly because they were in warmer countries. They did not need to spend so much on heating.
4. These countries were willing to put up with growing pollution from electricity generated from coal. They did not install the expensive scrubbing machines required in the West.
5. China used to use “cogeneration” from coal-fired power plants, located in the center of cities for heat in winter. This used waste heat from the power plants to heat homes. Homes in the northern half of China were heated with this waste heat. To some extent, this is still done. This is very inexpensive heat for homes.
6. Workers did not receive all of the healthcare benefits and other benefits.
7. Currency relativities favor the US$ over other currencies because of its reserve currency status; the US can issue more debt to buy stuff.
Imported “imputed” energy use that comes from all of these low-cost imported goods is not included in energy consumption figures!!!
Have you ever been stoned in the street?
Me neither—at least, not since the sixties, man.
However, Geert Vanden Bossche issued a chilling message about just such an event during an interview on the KunstlerCast podcast Friday, which was caught by the Vigilant Fox, who published a transcript.
He said, “If these people would now go out and say, ‘Oh, wait a minute. We have been making some mistakes. It wasn’t all right … We have to revise our opinion.’ These people would be stoned in the street.”
“They have no choice” other than to keep pushing the big lie, Dr. Bossche said.
“They have no choice. They have no choice other than to stick, even if they completely see how wrong they have been, they have no other choice. They can only hope that something will happen that will distract from this issue, that will distract me. But it won’t. It won’t. And so, they keep silent, or they just continue along the path that they have been walking along so far. But I can tell you that many of them must be desperate.”
Bossche continued.
“Being together, they feel protected. This is a big lobby. And they think that everybody thinks that the other will protect them, right? Which is not the case. But this is this typical feeling. You all have committed crimes, but you are a big rope. And it’s like the mafia, and you feel all together, you feel like a big team, and nobody can penetrate into the team, et cetera. It will collapse because the truth will surface.”
https://vigilantfox.news/p/dr-geert-vanden-bossche-issues-bone?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=z6oe1
How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”
-― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“To believe” is a verb that refers to the act of holding a particular idea, concept, or opinion as true or valid.
“To imagine” is a verb that refers to the act of forming mental images, ideas, or concepts that are not present or directly perceived by the senses.
Based on the above understanding, imagining has to precede believing, regardless of the truth or validity of what is imagined or believed.
For instance, there is a crude, rude and nasty rumor going around on the internet that Yuval Noah Harari was one of Klaus Schwab’s bum boys.
I am not in any way attempting to affirm or deny that rumor, but I would like to point out that before you decide to believe it, or disbelieve it, you first have to imagine it.
And once you’ve imagined it, I defy you look at Yuval or Klaus in quite the same way anymore and I would expect you’d have a hard time taking either of those dudes as seriously as you might formerly have done.
In the above quote, Yuval is using “imagined” implicitly in the sense of “real,” “true,” “actual,” or “existing.” In much the same sense that John Lennon employed it in his song “Imagine.”
But “imagine” doesn’t necessarily mean that at all. It is possible to imagine “real,” “true,” “actual,” or “existing” things as well as “unreal,” “fantastic,” “unbelievable,” or “imaginary” things.
Imagination is a vital component of human thought and consciousness. From “She loves me, she loves me not,” to “Have I returned that library book?” to “Has Kate run off with Fast Eddy?” to “I’m going to have shepherd’s pie for dinner and it’s going to be delicious,” we are creatures who run on imagination.
All “orders” of the kind mentioned by Yuval, are imaginary. That doesn’t mean they may not also be real. When he uses that word “imagined”, I don’t think it quite means what he imagines it means.
I wish there was an edit feature because I don’t always take enough care before pressing the REPLY button!
=> In the above quote, Yuval is using “imagined” implicitly IN OPPOSITION TO the sense of “real,” “true,” “actual,” or “existing.” In much the same sense that John Lennon employed it in his song “Imagine.”
I know the feeling. Takes more time to proof read a post than type it .
Dennis L.
Have you ever been stoned in the street?
This morning, it was pretty cool.
Tucker Carlson aired an eye-opening interview on Monday featuring medical doctor and molecular geneticist Dr. Michael Nehls. And no, it wasn’t on retinal surgery, corneal replacement, or anything like that. It was eye-opening in the sense of alerting people to things they might not have been aware that they weren’t aware of before.
In the segment, Dr. Nehls, author of The Indoctrinated Brain, provided a detailed examination of the unprecedented attack on mental freedom that occurred during COVID, a situation Carlson described as “the most evil thing ever done.”
Tucker asked, “Why, after the mRNA vax was shown not to stop transmission, did governments continue to push it on their populations?”
Nehls answered that it wasn’t about health or making money. It was about “conquering the human mind.”
“And it’s even worse than that [undermining the ability to think],” he continued.
“So, if you shut down this production [of new nerve cells] and force the hippocampus to memorize all these different stories, these fear-mongering narratives, then these narratives will enter the brain. They will be memorized in the hippocampus, but for a cost: they will override pre-existing memories.”
“So what happens,” said Nehls, “is you override with the narratives, with the fear narratives, with the technocratic narratives, you override your pre-existing memories, your individuality, or your personality, and change it.”
“If intentional, this would be the most evil thing ever done,” replied Carlson.
“Absolutely,” agreed Nehls.
So, are we scared yet?
I haven’t watched the interview. It seems you need to subscribe to view it. And I’m not ready for that kind of commitment just yet. Norman would mock me relentlessly and I’d never be able to hold my head up around here again. but it is an interesting “take” on the why of the plandemic.
https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-michael-nehls/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Many are ready to do it again. At some point we should ask ourselves if we should really try to interfere with natural selection. The stupid have always done less well than the less stupid. And the population has to go down now.
carlson pulls up interviews that bolster his own agenda and thought processes
the wackier the better
oh no—”they” want to control your mind—it must be right cos this medic is saying so.
////“If intentional, this would be the most evil thing ever done,” replied Carlson.////—total BS.
just audience pulling, worth nothing more.
not mocking you tim—i actually read your comments on ofw.—but quoting carlson of all people is asking for derision.
Thanks Norman.
Have you got a list of people one can quote without asking for derision? I get the feeling it would be shorter than the list of people you can’t.
Tim
anyone electing to sit next to Carlson is on that list
a few gems….
https://newrepublic.com/post/172149/10-fascist-things-tucker-carlson-said-air
Except Norman, we are all far-right now
I woke up one morning and thought I was moderate and then saw that I was far right 🫠
I always thought my heart was anarchist, but in 2020 I found that the bastard is a hardened fascist. I was pretty shocked, of course.
But most of my friends and acquaintances had it worse. I thought they were left-wingers with a scientific background, but in 2020 I found that they were just uncritical idiots.
I agree w/ Norm. Tucker is a little preppie twerp born with the silver spoon of opportunity served on a silver platter. I sense he has no genuine interest in solving problems but like Alex Jones and others, only using them to advance his own ego and financial interests. He is so phony even if he does address the issues like e.g., Chris Martenson who describes himself as our “information scout.” It is a fine line distinction. I understand that to address a problem, you first have to understand the problem, but there is a point when it is no longer useful to identify problems when no one is willing to do anything about them.
People don’t perceive the ramifications of our situation and how maintaining the parasitic status quo has expanded throughout our criminal corporatocracy. No one wants to do anything to change the system, just virtue signal. The problem is, it is no longer possible to do anything incrementally (vote, change the laws, peacefully protest, or even economically boycott) as the corrupt system is now too hardened and the population too dependent on govt largesse. $ for votes. It will take a sudden mass uprising across the board Bastille style to overwhelm the deep state. Forget about Trump vs Biden vs Kennedy this NOV 5 solving any problems.
Our Founding Fathers knew this day would eventually come, and gave us the 2A, but it is a moot point if no one is willing to act…at least not yet.
we have an energy resource problem, not a political problem
those who see and recognise that, have a more sane take on the mess we’re in
to keep on arguing plots and politics misses the point entirely
but what do i know?
(no need to answer that all at once)
to keep on arguing plots and politics misses the point entirely
Nothing anyone can do to avert going over the cliff.
Hubbs,
I don’t wish to be part of nor in an uprising; that would be horrible beyond belief. If guns were the answer, Iraq/Afghanistan(pick your favorite among any) would be paradise. Everyone with a gun on every corner leads to chaos.
Don’t have solutions, trying to see what needs to be done to adapt. When I see the crowd going over a cliff, flip a coin and go right or left to the line of march; be an optimist, it may be a gentle slope not a sudden drop.
I think it is going to be tough and that does not imply being mean to everyone around you. A group does better than an individual. In American my deepest hope is we can stay together despite the differences.
Fossil fuels are leaving us, but perhaps the future is electric. Better ideas are welcome.
Dennis L.
People still do not understand Gail’s point “it is per capita” problem.
Also, many demand one universal solution for the whole planet. A nation by nation solution is more tractable.
The US needs to
1) close the borders to new immigration
2) deport all 30 million illegals
3) stop energy exports, we need it
4) stop food export, we need the soil and its nutrients
5) stop all our wars, we need the energy, money, people at home
6) enforce our exclusive rights to ocean resources as far out as possible, mostly fish for food
7) national work camps for all feral citizens
8) 40 acres and a mule for all who want to farm by hand
9) build nuclear reactors as fast as possible, use low pressure designs that are cheaper and faster to build
10) install as much solar PV in the sunny parts of the US, CA, NV, AR, NM, local contribution only not a national solution
11) open/reopen all uranium mines in the US and Canada
Will the US do any of these? I expect no.
Anyway Norman, top marks for changing the subject and avoiding the issue—did you used to play Rugby? You’d have been a good defender—I am not particularly interested in the political stances of Tucker Carlson. My interest is purely in the views of Dr. Nehls, author of The Indoctrinated Brain, who has provided a detailed examination of the unprecedented attack on mental freedom that occurred during COVID, a situation Carlson described as “the most evil thing ever done.”
I applaud Tucker for giving Dr. Nehls and many other highly censored dissidents a platform, but what interests me is the “brainstorming,” to borrow a word, by which many people’s minds were attacked, hacked, and conquered, and they were indoctrinated without them having the faintest idea that the indoctrinating was going on.
////by which many people’s minds were attacked, hacked, and conquered, and they were indoctrinated without them having the faintest idea that the indoctrinating was going on./////
sorry tim
i do try to give credence to your comments, and i freely admit to my own level of codswallop sometimes
but that load of bs leaves me just with the option of eye rolling.
it is beyond coherence
I call it the “War on Youth”. It was never about virus – people claiming to have a respiratory disease without any respiratory systems are mentally ill. Yet the media and the government demanded (mandated) that we take them seriously.
It was about abuse and humiliation. So yes, it was evil.
in 1919/21 the same virus went through the human population and killed 50m people
it faded away
this virus did much the same thing—but back then there was no ”social media” to spread conspiracy theories—it just ”happened”.—no cabal of elders wanting the planet to themselves—and Chinese technology extended to rickshaws….so they couldnt have started it.
It was a chicken farm in the USA as i understand it.
this outbreak is fading away.
still—a ship crashing into a bridge gives us another set of conspiracies.
can’t keep a good conspiracy down
What people, such as yourself, tend to miss about Covid is the SARS part. But sure, why bother to try and understand infectious disease when you can just slander people…
in 1919/21 the same virus went through the human population and killed 50m people
Wasn’t that influenza which is a different virus family?
Yep, but don’t tell Norm that. He can’t be wrong otherwise he’ll self combust…
apologies—it was a different virus—my mistake
but bear in mind, that virus killed 50 m—no plots, no chinese conspiracy, no elders trying to bump us all off.
and noooooooo social media.
the 2020 virus killed 2.5 m—and ‘they” are trying to kill us all
Norman admits to making a mistake!
Is this a first in OFW history?
By the way, there is a hypothesis going around that much if not most of the death during the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic was actually due to the over-administration of aspirin. It seems you can take too much of that.
let me have the right overdose
i’ll take it
but bear in mind, that virus killed 50 m
The British naval blockade on food and medical supplies for Germany and its allies which lasted from 1914 to 1919 had a lot to do with that. Allied civilians didn’t really have enough to eat either though weren’t starving to death like the Germans.
most wars have a prime objective of starving the other side
check your history books
If there are not enough food resources to go around, perhaps that objective is what is needed.
In the Bible, they talk about killing the inhabitants and their livestock. There is only room for so much livestock as well.
By the way, there is a hypothesis going around that much if not most of the death during the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic was actually due to the over-administration of aspirin
The answer is obvious. Widespread malnourishment was the reason it was so deadly. Do people here not know what conditions were like in Europe 1918-19?
The malnourishment was closely related to peak coal in the UK. UK had been the big exporter of coal, so it affected other areas besides the UK, as well.
The problem with coal was that the cost of coal production was too high, relative to its selling price. Workers could not be paid enough, given its low selling price. Coal mining was also very dangerous. Workers in mines found that the wages that they could earn as soldiers would be at least as good, or better, and the chance of death no worse. There later were laws trying to stop coal workers from leaving mines for the war.
the 2020 virus killed 2.5 m—and ‘they” are trying to kill us all
Did it kill a single otherwise healthy and fit person under 40 anywhere in the world? If so please name one.
@Withnail
But Srivinasa Ramanujan still demanded vegetarian food while others didn’t have enough to eat
Someone, higher than GH Hardy, should have told the Tamil to go back to Bombay and eat all the vegetarian food he craved.
Withnail, the Spanish flu wasn’t just in Europe, though, was it?
Nodalodapeople knowaboutdis (say it at ridiculously high speed!), but the United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu in 1918—more casualties than it lost in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.
Norman, I think the single biggest shortcoming in your thinking is that you don’t question your own prejudices. Instead, you appear to regard them as valid judgements to be accepted almost axiomatically—as in “I think it, therefore it is correct.”
This leads you to make all kinds of category mistakes. But on the upside, relying on unquestioned prejudices frees you from the drudgery of having to actually think analytically or critically about any new information that you may bang up against.
Also, in this habit of not questioning your own prejudices, you are far from unique. Among the people I attempt to talk to about subjects deeper than the weather and what’s in the tabloid news this week, nine out of ten of them share your inability to hold a serious discussion.
Perhaps inability is not quite the word. I suspect you could if you really really tried, but you don’t want to make the effort, and you don’t want to admit that you can’t be bothered, and so you cover up your laziness by making some smug remark, or attacking a person’s character or reputation in order to draw attention away from the point they have made.
I’ve witnessed you doing this for years now, and am not sure whether you are consciously doing it, but I suspect it is an unconscious habit that formed long ago and it has become second nature to you and is under the control of a bunch of autonomic neurons residing in your cerebellum.
The “Spanish flu” was also related to the misuse of aspirin. The new untested wonder drug from pharma.
* symptoms
I think that this idea of overwriting existing narratives with new (fear inducing) narratives is an important one.
Christianity can be a “happily ever after” narrative. No matter how bad things are now, they will be OK in the end.
Governments have tried to overwrite this narrative with, “Governments are all powerful now; you can expect government programs to take care of you forever, here on earth. You don’t even need to have children.”
We here know that this can’t be. It does leave the door open for a lot of immigration.
Overwriting this with a narrative that we need to stay at home, use excessive germ killers, and take vaccines becomes a problem. Too many people become depressed.
Not Catholicism, where there is no guarantee of free salvation. One can be stuck in limbo (that word comes from Dante’s Divine Comedy) forever.
Taiwan earthquake . TSMC ????
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/multiple-buildings-collapse-after-taiwan-shaken-pair-powerful-earthquakes-tsunami-warning
Fortunately, the tsunami warning has been taken down.
Big earthquake though.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/asia/taiwan-earthquake-tsunami-warning-intl-hnk/index.html
Surely the batch of chips that was being made has to be thrown away. But no more than that.
Will a 7.3 earthquake require the resetting of the precise chip making equipment ?
you are right and I forgot. the UV etching beam. But if that is the case, that is a major disadvantage. They should maybe move their production to Xinjang.
(Continuing the post on Paul Erdman)
He turned himself in, did time, 2 or 3 years I think, and with his notoriety wrote some thrillers during the 1970s which were best sellers.
His perhaps best known book was the Crash of ’79. I picked up that book in a used book store some years ago, and it was fun to read, although obviously dated even by that point of time.
Since that book was written before Khomeini, the Shah is the villain. At the end there is a war between Israel and Persia.
After all is said and done, it was found that someone had put cobalt into the nuclear missiles launched, and all of the middle east oil wells are now unusable. Even Erdman chose not to consider its implication and ended that book very abruptly at that point.