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There are many myths about energy and the economy. In this post I explore the situation surrounding some of these myths. My analysis strongly suggests that the transition to a new Green Economy is not progressing as well as hoped. Green energy planners have missed the point that our physics-based economy favors low-cost producers. In fact, the US and EU may not be far from an economic downturn because subsidized green approaches are not truly low-cost.
[1] The Chinese people have long believed that the safest place to store savings is in empty condominium apartments, but this approach is no longer working.
The focus on ownership of condominium homes is beginning to unwind, with huge repercussions for the Chinese economy. In March, new home prices in China declined by 2.2%, compared to a year earlier. Property sales fell by 20.5% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period a year ago, and new construction starts measured by floor area fell by 27.8%. Overall property investment in China fell by 9.5% in the first quarter of 2024. No one is expecting a fast rebound. The Chinese seem to be shifting their workforce from construction to manufacturing, but this creates different issues for the world economy, which I describe in Section [6].
[2] We have been told that Electric Vehicles (EVs) are the way of the future, but the rate of growth is slowing.
In the US, the rate of growth was only 3.3% in the first quarter of 2024, compared to 47% one year ago. Tesla has made headlines, saying that it is laying off 10% of its staff. It also recently reported that it is delaying deliveries of its cybertruck. A big issue is the high prices of EVs; another is the lack of charging infrastructure. If EV sales are to truly expand, they will need both lower prices and much better charging infrastructure.
[3] Many people have assumed that home solar panel sales would rise forever, but now US home solar panel sales are shrinking.
A forecast made by the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie indicates that US solar panel installations by homeowners are expected to fall by 13% in 2024. There are many issues involved: higher interest rates, less generous subsidies to homeowners, not enough grid capacity for new generation, and too much overproduction of electricity by solar panels in the spring and fall, when heating and air conditioning demand is low. The overproduction issue is particularly acute in California.
For each individual 24-hour day, the timing of solar energy production does not match up well with when it is needed. With sufficient batteries, solar electricity produced in the morning can help run air conditioners in the evening. But storage from summer to winter is still not feasible, and batteries for short-term storage are expensive.
[4] It is a myth that wind and solar truly add to electricity supplies for the US and the countries in the EU. Instead, their pricing seems to lead to tighter electricity supplies.
Strangely enough, in the US and the EU, when wind and solar are added to the electric grid, electricity supplies seem to get tighter. For example, one article says, Most of US electric grid faces risk of resource shortfall through 2027, NERC [regulatory group] says.
Charts of electricity supply per capita show an unusual trend when wind and solar are added. Figure 1 shows that, in the US, once wind and solar are added, total electricity generation per capita falls, rather than rises!
The EU, using a somewhat shorter history period, shows a similar pattern of declining total electricity generation per capita, even when wind and solar are added (Figure 2).
I believe that the strange pricing systems used for wind and solar in the US and EU are driving out other electricity suppliers, especially nuclear. With this system, intermittent electricity enjoys the subsidy of going first at the regular wholesale market rate. Other providers find themselves with very low or negative wholesale rates in the spring and fall of the year and on weekends and holidays. As a result, their overall return falls too low. Nuclear is particularly affected because it requires a huge, fixed investment, and it cannot be ramped up and down easily.
Besides the foregoing issues affecting the supply of electricity generated, there are also factors affecting the demand for electricity. Electricity generation using wind and solar tends to be high priced when all costs are included. The US and EU are already high-cost areas for businesses to operate. High electricity rates further add to the impetus to move manufacturing and other industry to lower-cost countries if businesses desire to be competitive in the world market.
On a world basis, in 2022, wind and solar added about 13% to total world electricity generation (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Electricity generation per capita for the World based on data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, prepared by the Energy Institute. Amounts are through 2022.
Based on Figure 3, with the addition of wind and solar, the upward slope of the world per capita electricity generation has been able to remain pretty much constant from 1985 to 2022, at about 1.6% per year. But the US and the EU, as high-cost producers of goods and services, haven’t been able to participate in this per capita growth of electricity.
Instead, China has been a major beneficiary of the shift of manufacturing overseas from the US and EU. It has been able to rapidly increase its electricity supply per capita, even with wind and solar. It has also been adding both nuclear and coal-fired electricity generation capacity.
Thus, this analysis produces the result a person would expect if the physics of the world economy favors efficient (low-cost) producers.
[5] It is a myth that the US and EU can greatly ramp up the use of EVs or greatly increase the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) without relying on fossil fuels.
Both EV production and AI are heavy users of electricity supply. We have seen that the US and the EU no longer have growing per-capita electricity supplies. Ramping up electricity generation would require a long lead time (10 years or more), a major increase in fossil fuel consumption, and an increase in electricity transmission lines.
The State of Georgia, in the United States, is already running into this issue, with planned data centers (related to AI) and EV manufacturing plants. The state plans to add new gas-fired electricity generation. It will also import more electricity from Mississippi Power, where the retirement of a coal-fired plant is being delayed to provide the necessary additional electricity. Eventually, more solar panels are planned, as well.
[6] It is a myth that the world economy can continue as usual, whatever happens to energy supply and growing debt. China’s homebuilding problems could, in theory, lead to debt bubbles crashing around the world.
The world economy depends upon a growing bubble of debt. It also depends on an ever-increasing supply of goods and services. In fact, the two are closely interrelated. As long as a growing supply of low-priced energy of the types used by built infrastructure is available, the economy tends to sail along.
China, with problems in its property business, is an example of what can go wrong when energy supplies (coal in China) become expensive, as supply becomes increasingly constrained. Figure 5 shows that China’s per-capita coal supply became constrained in about 2013. China’s per capita coal extraction had been rising, but then it dipped. This made it more difficult for builders to construct the homes planned for would-be homeowners. This is part of what got home builders in China into financial difficulty.
Finally, in 2022, China was able to get coal production up. But the way this was done was through very high coal prices (Figure 6). (The prices shown are for Australian coal, but Chinese coal prices seem to be similar.)
Building concrete homes at such high coal prices would have resulted in new homes that were far too expensive for most Chinese citizens to afford. If builders were not already in difficulty from low supply, adding high coal prices, as well, would be a second blow. Furthermore, all the workers formerly engaged in home building needed new places to earn a living; the current approach seems to be to move many of these workers to manufacturing, so that the popping of the home building bubble will have less of an impact on the overall economy of China.
There is now concern that China is ramping up its manufacturing, particularly for exports, at a time when China’s jobs in the property sector are disappearing. The problem, however, is that ramping up exports of manufactured goods creates a new bubble. This huge added supply of manufactured goods can only be sold at low prices. This new low-priced competition seems likely to lead to manufacturers, around the world, obtaining too-low prices for their manufactured products.
If other economies around the world are forced to compete with even lower-cost goods from China, it could have an adverse impact on manufacturing around the world. With low prices, manufacturers are likely to lay off workers, or give them excessively low wages. If wages and prices are inadequate, debt bubbles in other parts of the world are likely to collapse. This will happen because many borrowers will become unable to repay their debt. This is the reason that we have been hearing a great deal recently about raising tariffs on Chinese exports.
[7] The world’s biggest myth is that the world economy can continue to grow forever.
I have pointed out previously that based on physics considerations, economies cannot be expected to be permanent structures. Economies and humans are both self-organizing systems that grow. Humans get their energy from food. Economies are powered by the types of energy products that our built infrastructure uses. Neither can grow forever. Neither can get along without energy products of the right types, in the right quantities.
We become so accustomed to the narratives we hear that we tend to assume that what we are told must be right. These narratives could be based on wishful thinking, or on inadequate models, or on a sour grapes view that says, “We don’t want fossil fuels anyhow.” We know that humans need food, and that economies will continue to require fossil fuels. We can’t make wind turbines or solar panels without fossil fuels. What do we plan to do for energy without fossil fuels?
In a finite world, economies cannot continue forever. We don’t know precisely what will go wrong or when it will go wrong, but we can get a hint from the recent failures of myths that our economy may change dramatically in the not-too-distant future.
(Transports Europe)
Ukraine is forcibly enlisting Ukranian truck drivers as soldiers when they come back to the Country after their normal job of shipments of goods.
https://www.trasportoeuropa.it/notizie/autotrasporto/kiev-recluta-i-camionisti-ucraini-che-entrano-nel-paese/
Truck drivers get to leave the country. My guess less will be returning.
What about their families? Are not truck drivers necessary for a functioning country? To what extent can collapse occur and the war conttinue?
Considering the size of the Ukrainian army at the start of this and several mobilizations casualties must be well over half million.
I don’t blame Ukrainian men for not wanting to enlist in the army.
It all makes sense now the elders know that the collapse is 100 % coming so what do they do set up some renewables and electric cars that they can use once mad max starts for you and me it will be kill or be killed for the elders they will probably have their own private army and decades worth of frozen food that is why they are trying to stop companies from developing fossil fuels
The elders may think that they can make a scenario such as this take place, but I am doubtful that they can “pull it off.” They need too many ordinary workers to provide ongoing necessities, like fresh water and fresh food. These workers have little interest in keeping the elders alive. They would be just as happy killing off those in charge, and having everything for themselves.
“The world is not paying attention to the fine detail . Quality matters .”
Not a whole lot of natural selection for that.
Everyone seems to favor sound bytes and short videos, like the ones you see on America’s Funniest Videos (one of the longest running shows on tv in America) or on TikTok.
Some people say this trait is something socially selected for so everyone doesn’t notice embarrassing details about our shortcomings but that’s just it, it’s a theory.
The real story about what is happening is amazingly complex. People accept the sound bites that they hear from Mainstream Media, which are terribly distorted. They are used to short sound bites. They have come to believe that what television says is the truth. There is no need to dig deeper.
So, the question I will put is…is this the way humans are naturally…because they want to belong “fit in”? or is this something socially engineered….and if is…who benefits?
It can’t be the people running the tech companies…they seem to be susceptible sound-bytes just as much as the layperson.
Everyone wants a happily ever after story. Businesses certainly do. Parent certainly do. Politicians need a happily ever after sorry. This can be given in short sound bites and reinforced over and over. This, and if we would just stop using fossil fuels, our problems would be over.”
I looked at some stats for the United States national debt and I have to say….it’s not that bad. Yes, the U.S. government spends more than it takes in revenue, but not by an order of magnitude or anything.
I have to say… the hand wringing about the national debt has been overblown…if the official stats are accurate.
Also of note, one of the unwashed massed made the observation online that the U.S. should embrace protectionism and or stifle the economic rise of China and other countries because other countries becoming wealthier and more powerful would threaten the U.S. reserve currency status and if the U.S. dollar lost its reserve currency status it would be “hell” in the U.S., which probably means that person thinks the United States would not survive in its present form without the special status its currency has around the world.
I value your opinion.
There is a lot of loaded words in your statement
Hand wringing
Order of magnitude
Could you provide some reasons why the debt levels are acceptable?
What would be unacceptable debt levels?
What metrics do you base your opinion on?
Where is good vs bad debt levels and why?
Is there a level of where debt is bad? If so where is that and why?
As you mention the government spends more than it takes in
Is this Ok? Obviously this leads to more and more debt.
Is that ok? Are there limits? If so where are they?
Real inflation is above 10%. Does debt cause inflation?
What is a healthy inflation rate?
I agree with you that protectionism can not preserve reserve currency status.
What would preserve reserve currency status? Will it endure regardless of debt? If demand for the dollar ends for settlement what would be the effects?
If there was no dollar demand for settlement would dollar retain value?
Raising interest rates has not decreased inflation to historically desirable levels. What is the cause of the inflation?
Biden has stated government spending does not cause inflation. Is that true? (Trump spent almost as much every administration has spent more and more).
I’m happy to clarify on my previous posts.
The hand wringing is from pundits who make themselves loaded statements like “your great grand children will be paying this debt” and “we’ll all be speaking Chinese soon”. This stuff was mentioned a number of times in certain circles during Obama;s presidency. In retrospect, it may have been an attempt by the “Deep State” to scare people (into paying their PRIVATE debts.) Although I’m not sure how many deadbeat fiscally conservative debtors there are out there.
The rhetoric around the national deficit since 2008 wasthat the U.S. debt was so large and unmanageable that it couldn’t even be serviced with current tax revenue. The debt would have to be at least ten times the tax revenue in my estimation for that to be true on top of very high interest rates. Neither of those conditions were present during the Great Recession.
“Biden has stated government spending does not cause inflation. Is that true? (Trump spent almost as much every administration has spent more and more).”
Dick Cheney in retrospect was right.
Deficits don’t matter.
I’d say they don’t matter.. until they do.
We don’t know when they will matter.
All I know is that money that could have been available as capital is now going into paying for things that have a questionable return for all players.
I think you think most of the debt is bad and I agree.
I remember someone saying that under Trump government spending was higher than ever. What was that money spent on?
It was what was theorized as “helicopter money” in the Great Recession years , the government directly giving people money to spend at home and definitely not stimulate the economy.
The results were predictable….the average person went out and tried to consume more every day goods partially out of fear and because they received the equivalent of a significant wage increase. The problem was there were less goods and services to purchase and THAT was what caused inflation.
There are some very “clever” people managing industrial civilization and it’s likely that they have a contingency for hyperinflation. I’m not saying that it will work but they want to “experiment”.
Back in the days before 1970, when inexpensive oil and coal supply were rising rapidly, government debt could go into purchasing the material for making electricity transmission lines, interstate pipelines, and interstate roads. In fact, very little needed to be imported. The new infrastructure really did help the economy. Businesses could cheaply ramp up manufacturing, using new debt to build factories.
Once the price of oil started to rise, this whole pattern became unsustainable. Too much debt was required, relative to the benefit provided to the economy. The US found a need to ship manufacturing overseas because overseas manufacturing would be cheaper.
The US started specializing in adding debt and financial products. Also, services of all kinds, including education (more than for jobs available) and high cost health care. These used less fossil fuels, but the economy cannot run on them.
But due to the hockey stick path of exponential compounding, what looks sustainable at first goes frightfully out of control in a deceptively shorter period of time.
No wonder Hemingway’s character described how he went bankrupt as “Slowly at first then suddenly.”
The left hand side of the exponential function appears innocuous and allows our normalcy bias to get established, but by then it’s too late.
Chris Martenson described this delusion in his doubling of the water volume in the stadium in this Peak Prosperity example, or Einstein’s remarks about the power of compounding interest.
It is a bit confounding, but servicing the debt has been more expensive in the past by a fairly wide margin.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S
Wondering
China not buying treasuries
Yellen n Blinken say slow production
Xi says go away.
Honey badger don’t care
China making lots of dollars
Leveraged shorts in comodities to bring prices down in comodities to install dollar confidence and make money fed proxy SOP
China takes other side of fed comodity shorts with big money
That surplus should be buying treasuries.
Big no no
Yellen Blinken not happy.
Lehman event or other to slow since China wont?
SOP to install dollar confidence create financial uncertainty
It’s not the USA consumer they need to slow its China buying materials
Trading surplus dollars for materials not treasuries- bad China!
China spending its dollars into materials contributing to dollar fears?
How will they slow China to stop it spending its surplus dollars into comodities?
How does the US find buyers for more and more Treasuries? This becomes at least part of the problem. Also, what can the US really trade for goods that it needs but does not manufacture itself?
Where does the money come from? You know my answer. Loans created under license specifically to purchase treasuries. Theres nothing there that breaks the formal rules with capital requirements suspended. A financial organization can take a penny and create a trillion dollars to buy bonds. With no mark to market even if the bonds fall in price the books balance.
The only problem is depositors if they want their money. They are not needed. They are only needed if there are capital requirements. A financial organization can sit there with bonds on its books. It created this much money. The bonds are worth this much. Books balance.
There is no other source. Technically one bank with license to create money from the fed could own 50 trillion in treasuries or 1000 trillion.
There is no other source that can provide the quantities needed. But look at another aspect. All the treasuries ever “offered” are “sold” not only that but at terms determined by the “seller”. That simply can not happen unless a infinite money creation is set up. And when you examine the structure the buyer and seller are both in the same club. The separations are this: The fed is private. The banks licensed by the fed are not the fed. This is how it was set up from the beginning! Technical seperations that do not amount to a half cup of beans.
What’s happening is bonds are now going on books of financial organizations with no depositors. The depositors asking for money the bank used to buy treasuries caused problems. Get rid of the depositors – no problems. Maybe somones dog deposits a trifling sum but no capital requirements means no depositors needed.
It’s been this way from the beginning. The 43 trillion in bonds wouldn’t exist otherwise. It’s just more noticeable with the sovereign buyers gone and the banks that have obligations to depositors saturated.
Why do you think the government can spend whatever it wants? Every single politician knows that. They are drama actors in a soap opera. They are cut from one cloth. Spend. There are no barriers. That’s pretend.
I’m afraid you are right in your analysis.
Re always been this way
No mark to market and no capital requirements are recent changes. No capital requirements means infinity and beyond.
Wow! The economy is saved. Only problem is that other players in the world economy are not stupid. More debt is not equivalent to more finished goods and services to trade.
blast, wot’s your “SOP”, pls?
it’s usually standard operating procedure.
could be sweet ongoing prosperity, I doubt it is that, but I’ll go with it.
it’s SOP tonight, baby!
Pritzker Doubles-Down With $827 Million Taxpayer Handout To Troubled EV-Maker Rivian
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/pritzker-doubles-down-827-million-taxpayer-handout-troubled-ev-maker-rivian
Excerpt: “As a CNBC headline recently declared, “EV euphoria is dead. Automakers are scaling back or delaying their electric vehicle plans.” Since then, the news is no better. Ford announced last week that it is losing a stunning $132,000 per vehicle. Hertz announced last week a second round of sales of its EV fleet due to heavy maintenance and depreciation costs. For the first quarter of this year, EV sales continued to slow and the share of EV sales for all autos actually decreased. While total EV sales are still up a bit from last year, the growth rate is not nearly enough to put EV makers on a path to profitability.”
Illinois thinks it has lots of money to give away to make EVs. I live in Georgia. We are “losing out” on Rivian’s EVs. I don’t feel at all badly about it.
In the meanwhile just 50 km away from where I live .
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/04/belgium-s-ports-drowning-under-glut-of-chinese-electric-cars-some-are-parked-here-for-a-year-sometimes-a-year-and-a-half_6670373_19.html
It is interesting trying to reconcile Kevin Walmsley’s remarks in view of the glut of Chinese EVs washing ashore on Belgium’s shore.
Is part of this EV pileup due to the rapid innovation of the Chinse EV makers which results in obsolescence by the time these cars arrive in these foreign lots (as well as EV grave yards in China? )
Even as buyers realize that EVs are not all they are cracked up to be, they realize that prices will drop, and quality and features will improve if they wait before buying?
>> The […] group of G7 countries has mastered the art of hunting as a pack. They have become a global authority with enormous power, undermining any parallel structure. […] although BRICS can be regarded as a breath of fresh air, there are still mammoth stumbling blocks that threaten the bloc’s very effectiveness.
https://infobrics.org/post/41084/
Haven’t fully read it yet, but this opinion piece shows that Russia recognizes the timidity of its partners.
I am sure that is hard for the BRICS to know what to do to counter the G7.
I don’t think the BRICs have to do anything to counter the G7.
Since the BRICs include the world’s most efficient manufacturers together with the largest exporters of the cheapest oil, natural economic development is resulting in the increasing marginalisation of the G7 day by day. The G7 will find themselves, in the context of declining supplies of cheap oil, being increasingly outbid for that oil by those producers China et al – who can use it most efficiently.
The continuing, but declining, use of the US dollar as a means of exchange, is relatively inconsequential. Far more important is the declining use of the US Dollar (in the form of USTs) as a store of value. For that, no new BRICs currency is necessary, or even desirable. Central Bank purchases of gold show that the Central Banks of the BRICs have no intention of using the Yuan, or anything else, as the new reserve currency.
Every single day the BRICs account for more of global output than the day before. The ball is very much in the G7’s court.
The G7 hasn’t been keeping up with the BRICS for a long time.
The game plan has been everyone falls behind together.
This game plan entails persuading BRICS to reduce fuel to use fossil fuels to fight climate change, to reduce fertility, to accept migrants with different cultural values.
This is true. BRICS membership should come with russian bases, A2/AD, and some anti ship missiles. or else…
re: the Japanese Carry Trade Last month Ravi, I seem to recall, suggested that that yen credit market could be as great as USD20T (without an attribution) and this time, some pages back, quoted his buddy “HH from POB” proposing that this trade was dominated by Japanese banks themselves in order to fund lending USD into China for foreign direct investment. This is quite a novel idea which I’ve been turning over in my mind and wonder as to it’s plausibility. If these USD loans were to have been secured by short dated JGB, surely the almost 50% fall in the exchange rate of JPY:USD would have required a very noticeable demand for these bonds as collateral topup? As their yields definitely are not falling, the idea doesn’t just make sense to me.
On the other hand, DN from CBB, as Ravi would say, stated in his weekly market commentary a few days ago that with respect to the carry trade
A rapidly devaluing currency risks unleashing inflation and a bond market crash in Japan. A BOJ forced to accelerate policy “normalization” risks unmasking epic financial imbalances at home and abroad. I’m assuming so-called yen “carry trade” levered speculation mushroomed into the trillions, while creating demand and liquidity abundance in about every nook and cranny of global debt markets – certainly including the U.S., peripheral Europe, China, and the emerging markets.
Leveraged speculation has profited handsomely from zero rates, yen devaluation, and telegraphed assurances of ongoing accommodation. All bets are off when Japan belatedly recognizes the imperative of major policy tightening to stabilize the yen.
creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2024/05/weekly-commentary-instability.html
In this same commentary, Nolan also provided an interesting statistic:
According to the Institute of International Finance, global debt last year rose to a record $313 TN – a gain of over $100 TN since the start of the pandemic. I assume this includes all the other currency credit markets converted to USD as it had been my understanding the USD alone was somewhat above 200T, but it’s a very rapidly expanding bubble these days. Watch out!
I would be interested to know what is actually going on with respect to the Japanese carry trade and also with the debt in China. The idea of lending quite a bit of it to China sounded plausible to me, but, you are right, there are things that don’t quite make sense.
Gail, Doug Nolan is a former fund manager (now fund advisor) who I imagine apart from being immensely wealthy is a very well connected financial world operator. However his views as to China in my opinion are extremely skewed to the toe the line narrative, perhaps because his input appears limited to Reuters Bloomberg CNN FinTimes and it’s what he truly believes, or perhaps because he appreciates the price to be paid for speaking truth. Consequently I regard his views on Japan, being on our side, as more balanced. I gather from the cited commentary he sees the carry trade as opaque and his views as to its size speculative.
There are several paragraphs also as to his views on China also in the commentary. He tends to conflate the two, considering Japan and China to be in almost the same precarious state with respect to their credit bubbles. However, being an adamant China basher (along with Putin etc etc), I tend to discount his grasp of reality on this topic and instead consider more seriously the views of others, like Michael Hudson who, in his China analysis is very well informed, quite balanced, and has reasonably calm expectations for it in resolving its issues. Prof Hudson discusses this at depth in his recent two part interview transcript:
geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/03/28/china-economy-western-media-myths/
geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/04/09/us-waging-economic-war-china-radhika-desai-michael-hudson/
The human world is hitting limits because we need a lot more cheap energy to overcome the existing limits of the human environment created by the humans. The human world is simply shrinking. The green energy can not stop it.
the 2050s are going to be brutal.
Yes, especially for someone like me pushing up daisies and being stepped on after being picked to the Bones.
For others not so lucky…crunching on a rat baked on an open
flame
The ‘Rat Eaters’ of Bihar: India’s poorest people?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GuZP8FWS4JA&pp=ygUmVW50b3VjaGFibGVzIGluIGluZGlhIGNhdGNoIGZpZWxkIHJhdHM%3D
the 2040s are going to be brutal.
yes you are probably correct.
the 2050s will be brutaller.
Nah! Don’t worry at this rate we won’t make it much past 2032! How did you go broke a little at first then all at once! We are failing now…buckle up buttercup you will be on the ride too! 😎
yes Yosemite Sam, don’t worry.
right now we are in the little at first phase.
enjoy it while you can.
your all at once phase might be in the 2040s or 2030s.
do you live in the future or what?
The unprecedented attack on Israel from Iranian soil as a result of Israel’s attack on the Damascus Embassy amounted to the mother of all target practice sessions for US aircraft. Iran gave three day warning and provided the paths the missiles would take. The attack was launched in three waves. First the el cheapo long range flying mopeds. Then subsonic cruise missiles. Last but absolutely not least, a handful of balistic missiles. The US pilots got to shoot down the mopeds and cruise missiles like rounding up stray doggies on a cattle drive. Without doubt marvelous target practice. All the balistic missiles struck their targets. They demonstrated evasive maneuver capability on final approach and were not intercepted by the heavily defended air base.
Without a doubt Irans missiles would overwhelm Israel’s and US air defense on sheer volume. Even the mopeds have to be shot down requiring usually two air defense missiles. All air defense would quickly be consumed in a real attack. Exactly what the attack was choreographed to show with US participation. All of Iran’s good missiles will hit their targets regardless.
Now consider the 150,000 missiles in Hezbollah’s hands. Yes most of them rusty junk. But even Hamas homemade bottle rockets required two air defense missiles.
A saturation attack on Israel would start with the junk missiles. Air defense would be consumed intercepting just a small fraction of those. After that all missiles launched would strike Israel.
As soon as it became clear that the rocket attack was going to overwhelm air defense criteria for existential threat would be met. Israel would strike Hezbollah with its enhanced radiation weapons using them there because of close proximity kill radius and minimal fallout. They would be deployed out of both air assets and 155 artillery and would be followed by an immediate invasion of south Lebanon having killed all humans there with the neutron radiation from the detonations. No fallout safe for troops.
Israel’s five dolphin class submarines each with 16 popeye thermonuclear missiles not nuetron bombs would strike Iran. Each about 250kt, the sweet spot for nuclear warhead delivery. It is because of the dolphin nuclear capability we do not provide Israel with tomahawk cruise missiles. They would be nuclear armed and deployed on the dolphins and the US does not wish to directly participate in the Israeli nuclear program. The effectiveness would be limited by delivery system capabilities. Should Iran fit their balistic missiles with similar yield nuclear weapons and deploy them Israel would cease to exist along with Gaza. Jordan Lebanon and Egypt would be subject to fallout depending on wind direction.
It is my belief the religious order a “fatwah” declaring nuclear weapons to be unholy is still observed by Iranian military. That of course is just a guess. Whether a nuclear strike by the dolphins would prevent Iran from assembling a nuclear weapon and fitting it on a balistic missile after the fact is anyone guess.
If Pakistan is capable of fielding a nuclear device with their level of technology Iran is many times more capable. Not sure what France was thinking when they went on their nuclear proliferation spree with pakistan, India, south africa and Israel.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/interlocking-strategic-paradigms
We seem to be reaching the same problem that Rome did before the fall. We cannot adequately defend ourselves from what would seem to be much smaller adversaries. We may have big weapons, but our adversaries have a range of sizes of weapons. We soon use up our supplies, trying to take down their small weapons. And they often have larger, more advanced ones, as well. We cannot win against such adversaries.
5x16x250kT
Iran would do well to station many nuclear submerged AI mines. Say 600x10kT
good both for subs and for aircraft carriers.
An interesting report on the Iranian attacks .
https://thecradle.co/articles/delivering-a-true-promise-an-insider-account-of-irans-strikes-on-israel
Blast makes a good comment:
>> Inflation is the measure of hesitancy to hold and use the dollar as a trading instrument. To counter it incentives are created the primary interest rate. This has been viewed like it’s an absolute physical law. Interest rates up inflation down but that is nonsense
I want to underline this. My take is that INTEREST RATES ARE TO PREVENT CURRENCY FLIGHT, NOT TO FIGHT INFLATION. That’s why interest rates are rising *after* money printing and massive inflation; people trust the currency less and need to be enticed to hold Treasurys.
In other words, the Fed printed a bunch of money during Covid, people are like “wtf maybe I should get out of the dollar and buy real things that maintain value?” (that’s already happened with rising prices for everything) and the Fed comes along and is like “No no, stay in the dollar ecosystem like Treasurys, we’ll give you a decent return / make it worth your while.” The Fed wants to keep the grift going (steal a percentage every year) and so are incentivized to keep people holding dollars and accepting dollar-yielding assets. If they don’t raise interest rates, people will go elsewhere and the currency collapses, which risks creating structural changes in the financial and political system to the detriment of those in on the grift.
This guy is Biden’s economic advisor . 1min 30 sec video will have you hitting your head against the wall . Guaranteed ,
https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1786467722790048050?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1786467722790048050%7Ctwgr%5E06e75ac31a1bde3d3d11b9cbedb50eaa1d3cab5b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theautomaticearth.com%2F2024%2F05%2Fdebt-rattle-may-4-2024%2F
you were not kidding.
Who’s funding the government
It’s not your taxes
It’s FED buying treasury bonds printing money to fund the government
What’s backing the money – bonds
Why pay taxes if they can print money?
To keep up the illusion of you funding the government 🤷♂️
The Fed has out done the devil by making the world believe that the USD / treasuries have value . 😂
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhat-does-the-quote-The-greatest-trick-the-Devil-ever-pulled-was-convincing-the-world-he-didnt-exist-mean&psig=AOvVaw273ZYRzowFIlY1Ch4qR9pg&ust=1715093585408000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCMDcltSj-YUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
Taxes also create dollar demand somewhat like dollar demand from trade settlement.
But you are correct tax revenue does not fund the spending. It may serve as a means of reducing consumption and demand reducing inflation. It also serves idea that there is a pot of $ some where that can taken. There is certainly wealth discrepancy. Take a trip to south America.
3000 billionaire in the world say 2 billion apiece. Confiscate 100% of their wealth. That’s only 6 trillion. Less than two years of printing.
Those pockets of wealth are insubstantial compared to control p. Infinity is quite large.
unfortunately multi billionaires do not keep stacks of coloured paper under the bed.
Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, because he owns sheds, by which we all play his game of pass the parcel
no doubt bezos might have $100m in loose change down the back of the sofa, but probably not more than that.
seize his ”assets”–the sheds, and amazon would likely collapse through lack of investor confidence.
not fair, i agree, but thats the fine mess we’ve got ourselves into.
Thanks! I hadn’t thought about high interest rates being to prevent currency flight.
It seems like there might be more than one reason for high interest rates.
Banks clearly don’t like having to pay very much for short term deposits. Higher interest rates help this.
—
By the way, I will be attending (and speaking at) a conference here in Atlanta, starting this evening, through mid-day Wednesday. So my time on OurFiniteWorld.com might be limited.
Have fun, Gail.
I saw a few folks I knew this evening. I speak on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Interest is faux productivity on a faux asset that is in reality by all common sense definition a liability. That’s the magic of treasuries. A liability is not just cancelled but turned into a equal and opposite asset. Except for the treasury but since the ability to pay with a token that would have any value does not exist it’s a moot point.
The debt is not something repayable; it is a reservoir of magic supplying the world with the reserve currency it so desperately needs. Interest is part of the magic. Real physical assets do not pay interest that’s just one of the reasons faux liabilities turned into assets with economic alchemy are better. If for some reason the magic does not satisfy Jerome puts on his sorcerer hat and shazam adds more magic. Infinite assets constructed from zeros and ones by a masterful economist are clearly superior as they are not limited by physicality only the economist imagination and skill.
You are right:
“Real physical assets do not pay interest that’s just one of the reasons faux liabilities turned into assets with economic alchemy are better.”
Kevin Walmsley is a class act. I’m not sure he is fully on board with the ramifications of the future global energy supply, but his reporting is otherwise refreshing for its frankness and insightfulness. And even his post log images of China are a nice touch.
Just as the green energy, climate change, CBDC, GMO food, COVID pandemic, and migration/invasion psyops are destabilizing the global community, the entire military industrial complex may be the ultimate ace in the hole kill switch for the globalists. Military balance of power could be effected overnight, as Mr Walmsley implies.
If we thought green energy was a boondoggle, it doesn’t hold a candle to the MIC or its false reassurances.
Another very good presentation. China’s hypersonic aircraft make US aircraft carriers obsolete, since the aircraft carriers can easily be sunk.
This is another boondoggle.
It is not just the aircraft carriers that are obsolete, but the staff and the jets using them. Our whole system of moving jets around this way doesn’t work now.
Scary to think about being on one of those carriers if the shooting starts. Missiles could not be stopped flying toward Israel. That was from Iran, not Russia and China! The recent events more a demonstration of capability than anything else. Those carriers are a big target, I’m no expert, but perhaps too big? I saw a video of an Iranian drone buzzing a carrier at night, how hard would it be to use a suicide drone it that situation? Especially in wartime. Remember the Forestal. All those bombs and missiles are rather flammable. Makes you wonder.
Here is Ben Davidson, speaking of the alleged coming Earth disaster. He speaks of his belief in God and of the jumps in evolution. So why must God be so cruel? I ask our resident Christians, Gail and Dennis L., to write a letter of protest to Mr. God.
Earth Disaster is Coming – Major Pep Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jujmUx7wE44
===========
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsRXZ1afhLw
Don’t Be Cruel
Dedicated to Mr. God.
>> why must God be so cruel?
I wonder that a lot. Nature is cruel – why? It seems that either God doesn’t exist or he does exist and is cruel or just doesn’t give a crap about us. Maybe we’re the ants of the universe; no higher beings pay us any mind. Something to ponder. Or maybe there is some dimension to all of this that we don’t understand: that suffering makes one strong or wise or something like that. I would like answers, but don’t expect to find them in this life.
an estimated 100 billion humans have lived so far, and it is quite possible that many more 100s of billions could live in the next 10,000 or 20,000 years, even if the population drops to the half billion to one billion range.
20,000 years from now, one trillion humans may have lived and died.
there are a few special people in my life, and the memories of us will be completely erased by then.
one trillion humans all erased.
it would take a great leap of faith to believe that the “real” God would find something special about any of these slightly hairy primates.
One day, David, all these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
boohoo, sometimes Reality is inhumane.
I might want to choose to live to 2100 and see how IC goes, but I don’t seem to be given any say in the matter.
“Or maybe there is some dimension to all of this that we don’t understand”
The Christians like to say that “God move in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform”. The perfect cop-out, if you ask me.
You have to wonder if JC and the crucifixion were a false flag.
if FE had been an apostle—it would have been another fake
There certainly would be some advantage to convincing one’s enemies to turn the other cheek, submit to injustices, and be rewarded only in the afterlife.
a ”cruel” nature implies deliberation
which is itself a nonsense
nature has no ”concept” of what we perceive it to be. Nature is the abstract entity which humankind has given it—just as ”god” is an abstract entity which humankind offers as an excuse for that which happens to work in our favour—or not.
and which is exploited by charlatans who capitalise on that belief.
the planet itself may well have a form of intelligence we cannot conceive of, but that is just a way of preserving itself against our predations.
There you go again, Norman, selling your version of the hokey old religion of Gaiaism.
The Earth does not protect itself from our predations. It is indifferent to our presence. It is merely the sandbox in which we play in until we mature enough to go into space, the final frontier, etc., etc., where we will explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly split infinitives that no one has split before.
At least, that’s the impression I get from reading Dennis, Kulm, and Keith on the subject/
The idea that the planet has a form of intelligence or is preserving itself is just as outlandish and unscientific as the idea that nature is cruel. Of course, such things may be stated metaphorically, and I would not begrudge anyone the poetic license to describe the situation in such terms.
But Norman, as Dr. Namaroff (Peter Cushing) said to Professor Heitz (Richard Pascoe):
“We are men of science. I don’t believe in ghosts or evil spirits, and I don’t think you do, either.”
To which Professor Heitz replied:
“That’s one of the most unscientific remarks I have ever heard. I believe in the existence of everything which the human brain is unable to disprove.”
tim
if i can gently haul you back out of the pit of conclusion
i said
”the planet may well have”
unlike yourself, i do not propose certainties of which i have no proof.
////….until we mature enough to go into space, the final frontier, …////
space has not purpose tim, other than to fulfil the aspirations of fantasists.
and i think the earth does maybe protect itslf from our predations.
microbial life is the dominant species here—look what happens when we tread too heavily on their habitat
The sideswipe of disaster
Was bound to come one day
We thought it would be warfare
Or a strike from outer space
Instead the smallest of us
Those we cannot see
Know that we have done enough
To bring Earth to her knees
So they’re rising up to save her
(it’s their home too you see)
To reassert their power
And cull us with disease
They’ve been around since life began
While we but late arrived
They know the way survival works
As we still stumble blind
They’ve decided we’re too many
And numbers must reduce
Our skill at procreation
Must now end our lease
The microscopic creatures
For whom we shed no tear
Are cutting down our evil ways
And reducing us to fear
Suddenly our world is slowed
By unseen policing hands
Our destruction of the planet
Must cease by their command
Now we dare not touch each other
Or follow travel’s tide
We cannot strike our enemy
Only use a mask to hide
The things that made us wealthy
Our ships and aeroplanes
Are now being used against us
To spread disease’s bane
So our commerce of pollution
Must be put on hold
For fear the bugs will find us
And leave our bodies cold
Thinking of ourselves as gods
That never was our due
To take their world as property
we had no right to do.
Norman MAY WELL be a poet
The words he’s written show it
Though his imagery is sparing
His perspective is quite daring
That his verse is rather terse
Makes its impact none the worse
And while at times his lines
come quite close to making rhymes
The reader never really knows
If it’s poetry or prose
https://end-of-more.medium.com/bugs-rule-ok-55d15d8ca66e
“>> why must God be so cruel?”
So ‘mankind’ can have ‘freewill’? {If ‘freewill’ exists?}.
“So ‘mankind’ can have ‘freewill’?”
We have limited free will. We are born into a world and must accept it as we find it. Some have cruel parents. Some have little or no education. Some are born into poverty-stricken or war-torn countries.
It may be this is the best the universe can do, it gets things right 20% of the time and that gets 80% of the results, the other 80% don’t work and the goal is to limit the damage.
I am not sure where it is written “God”, i.e the universe is supposed to always have things turn out in a way which is convenient for us.
My opinion only, your mileage may vary.
Dennis L.
So you’re cool with the cruelty of the food chain. Great. I’ll set my pet lion on you so that it can have a special feast. Maybe you’ll enjoy the experience, or maybe you’ll just find it agonising. Either way it will be over very quickly.
We are fortunate that we are at the top of the food chain. Millions of animals suffer agony every day. It’s no wonder that some humans think we live on a prison planet.
By your logic god will fail 80% of his/her/its projects. That is not god, but some wild spirit out there playing god
Not necessarily. It is how things work.
What the universe does is always “the best it can do”. Can’t see how it would be any other way.
This fellow seems to be worried about the world’s geomagnetic poles switching. It has happened before.
This is another video by someone else that was advertised at the same time. It suggests that climate change can occur in the build-up to the geomagnetic change, and that that might be happening now.
“This last major geomagnetic reversal triggered a series of dramatic events that have far-reaching consequences for our planet. They read like the plot of a horror movie: the ozone layer was destroyed, electrical storms raged across the tropics, solar winds generated spectacular light shows (auroras), Arctic air poured across North America, ice sheets and glaciers surged and weather patterns shifted violently.
During these events, life on earth was exposed to intense ultraviolet light, Neanderthals and giant animals known as megafauna went extinct, while modern humans sought protection in caves.”?
https://theconversation.com/earths-magnetic-field-broke-down-42-000-years-ago-and-caused-massive-sudden-climate-change-155580?fbclid=IwAR0ZgP1y35DPaquBxFAm4AMLGo8vXWtIQkfc47q7yIHWmJvJnZ0HphK35G8
This does sound concerning. Not something that we humans can stop by trying to use less fossil fuels.
In the meantime we are getting lots of beachings of animals, e.g. whales, as their navigational systems are affected by Earth’s weakening magnetic field and the increasing speed of its polar shift. That’s according to Ben Davidson and others.
Mass fish deaths in Vietnam .
Starting to look in this area, H.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPafpvm1g3w
Fuel cells are a good candidate, if Al can be used, solves the cubic mile of Pt conundrum.
We know fossil fuels have a limited future. Whether global warming is an issue seems to be an unanswered question, but is it worth the risk?
Val has a Masters in Physics from Moscow Instituted for Physics and a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University.
https://paw.princeton.edu/article/journey-here-val-miftakhov-03-skys-limit
Cursory search does not show any large business experience in technical, was in marketing and sales for six years at McKinsey.
We have to store energy to eliminate the renewable variability problem, they will think of something.
A cubic mile of Pt would seem to be a good backup plan.
Dennis L.
There are people peddling free energy here and there.
Some people do believe it . I am not a techie and I won’t say whether they are feasible or not.
However, even if it is feasible, will it be able to maintain today’s infrastructure?
No.
It cannot maintain modern civilization.
Some of them use the Pyramids or other ancient structure as an evidence of free energy. However, did the structures have indoor plumbing? No.
That answers the question about how a free energy civilization would operate.
Someone mentioned Fadi Lama’s The West Can’t Win below. I actually listened to the podcast and bought that guy’s book.
I have not finished it, but at the conclusion he ends the book with the famous George Orwell quote,
>If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.
His book, in gist, says that the so-called Military Industrial Complex has given up and the “Money Powers” , who repressed the entire world, will now just repress the Western country internally.
He said that as long as the people in the Western Realm revolts and throws out the ‘financial elites’ and recover their civilization, they will suffer the Orwellian fate above.
I learn almost nothing about what that guy actually is. I think Fadi Lama is a pseudonym, since his interesting name is only found in context with his book. All we know about him comes from what he described himself.
But I don’t think he has street experience. The people in the Western Realm won’t revolt. They are completely desensitized and will do nothing as long as the bread and circus continue, although the quality of such will decline exponentially.
But, more important than that is with the defeat of the financial class, there are going to be no ability to finance the type of activities which will lead humanity to the next level of civilization, since the Hordes are unable and unwilling to take that direction.
The gist is
“Military Industrial Complex has given up and the “Money Powers” , who repressed the entire world, will now just repress the Western country internally.”
They would like to. Whether they really can is another question.
” The people in the Western Realm won’t revolt. They are completely desensitized and will do nothing as long as the bread and circus continue, although the quality of such will decline exponentially. ”
As a Chinese guy said to me today, the reason the western people are so stupid is that for most life has been so easy for them that they have never needed to be really smart. I totally agreed.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ed/62/12/ed6212faa86192ea385dcc3f063481b6.jpg
Farm worker ‘bleeding in eyeballs’ after catching bird flu in first case of transmission
“This revelation shows the first sign of HSN1 virus spreading from mammals to humans. The World Health Organisation said that this is a “milestone” that is of “enormous concern.” The images of the patient, plus further details about his case, were published in a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.”
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/farm-worker-bleeding-eyeballs-after-32734369
Probably some illegal
No great loss
You know what is really ironic is that the two biggest drivers keeping inflation down are;
1. Chinese labor (imported goods)
2. Illegal immigrant farm labor (food prices)
Most Chinese labor is pretty expensive compared to Southeast Asia and other poor countries. Exception in the forced labor among the Uyghur population.
Sorry to interrupt your indifference to the poor man’s suffering, but the good news is that, other than the bleeding eyes, the worker experienced only mild symptoms, and made a quick recovery after receiving antiviral treatment.
This is, of course, a major disappointment for to the people who want to scare us into another round of pandemic panic, and also for the people who insist that viruses don’t exist.
Summer Olympics from 26th July in Paris but absolutely no pitch or fervor . All is quiet , wonder why ? Is it boredom or what ?
I doubt it happens, that’s real reason I bet.
The Olympics have been cancelled on three occasions—in 1916, 1940, and 1944.
Since these cancellations all coincided with world wars, the cancellation of this year’s games might be indicative of us being in WW3, even if it hasn’t been officially announced yet.
But even if the games go ahead, without Russia’s participation they will lose a lot of their interest for true sports aficionados. The main highlights will be seeing who “does a Damar” during the competition.
And delayed in 2020, held in 2021.
Russians have always participated in some funny names during the years they were banned.
However the days for Olympics are over. Nobody is going to bother to watch sports events which no one really cares and not really heard about.
I agree with your prognosis for the Olympics. It isn’t looking good.
When they finally took off in 2021, the Tokyo Olympics were held largely without a live audience at the venue, which led to the popularization of the word 無観客 (mukankyaku = specatorless) in Japan.
I haven’t been following the goings on at the Olympics since Ben Johnson was stripped of his Gold Medal for the 100 meters sprint and it went to Carl Lewis instead. But I suspect most people thought the Tokyo Games were a farce.
And coming up next, we have the Osaka Expo 2025, which is already being billed as a fiasco. Who in 2025 is going to get excited over a site full of poorly constructed prefabs filled with variations the same old Tomorrow’s World technology that will transform our lives for the better?
Thats about where I lost interest too. That said, this coinciding war theory is leaving a mark.
I will be boycotting the Olympics since its one big joke now who knows how hot it will be this summer to if anyone dies from the events .
Copy/Paste
Bill Gates doesn’t seem to be moving his right arm these days. I’ve seen this in a couple of his recent video appearances, and it strikes me as odd.
Has he had a stroke? A vaccine industry? Wanker’s cramp? Tennis Elbow?
Whatever it is, I hope it clears up soon. Bill is a very gestural figure. I much prefer his talks when he’s waving both arms about.
Stroke.
I saw another interview he did recently, the same thing happened. But, later in the interview the opposite happened. He was moving only his right arm. Which looks like it might be a balance thing. That’s why he can’t use both, he has to hold onto something for stability.
Thanks!
Bill Gates
Bill Gates To Invest $100 Million For Alzheimers Research
sraychev@bpsdigitalmedia.com | November 26, 2017
We recently blogged on reports from the medical community that a breakthrough cure for Alzheimers may be here by the year 2025. Alzheimers: Research Last week, Bill Gates announced that he is investing $100 million dollars for alzheimers and dementia research. Mr. Gates believes that a cure is possible with innovative approaches …
And this too
Does Bill Gates Have Autism Or Asperger’s?
Although it’s unknown, many experts think Bill Gates has autism or aspergers.
Golden Steps ABA
August 3, 2023
He also appears to have difficulty understanding other people’s feelings and reactions, which is common among those with autism. In addition, Gates displays many of the behaviors associated with autism.
He is known for his obsessive attention to detail, which is a common trait among those with autism. He is also known for his intense focus on his work, which is another common trait. Gates has also been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, which is considered to be on the autism spectrum.
So, he may have had a mild stroke..very common for a man at his age..
Seems he is very concerned about health issues in general.
Is it stress from lockdowns/masks?
The shot side effects?
Old age?
Diet from ultra processed foods?
Fake meat he endorses?
Who knows?
In his early 60s Gates already looked quite old. It’s the effects of the truly ‘wondrous’ US diet.
I somewhat doubt he had the injection.
In FE’s absence, which I’m sure we are all lamenting, the COVID Circus has rather dropped off the OFW radar. But out in the Blogosphere, the Substack Galaxy, and the Telegram Globular Cluster, the conflict continues, and today I picked up some exciting new developments.
Tim Truth has doubled down on his assertions about the dangers of Ivermectin. His latest post is entitled, “The Deadly Toll of Ivermectin: Blindness, Comas & Deaths Induced By The Neurotoxic, Genotoxic Poison — Dissenters & Conservatives Are Being Culled By Ivermectin Shills”
https://timtruth.substack.com/p/the-deadly-toll-of-ivermectin-blindness
Essentially, he has done for the dewormer what the “medical freedom” movement has done for the jab—put doubts into people’s minds as to whether the stuff is safe and effective or downright suicidal.
The likes of Pierre Kory and the 2nd Smartest Man in the World will doubtless be analyzing the data TT has assembled in an attempt to debunk it, or at least to interpret what it tells us, minus the tabloid style headlines that have come to characterize TT’s posts.
In another development, Mike Yeadon has come out with what I supposed could be described as a “bombshell” in a comment on the documentary Epidemic of Fraud: “All These ‘Early Treatment’ Promoting Doctors Are Frauds and They’re Aiding and Abetting the Perpetrators…”
“All these early treatment promoting doctors” presumably includes Drs. Kory, McCullough, Trozi, Zelenko, Chetty, Lawrie, and anyone else who attempted to use IVM or HCL on COVID patients rather than stuff them into a respirator, sedate them, and ply them with Remdesivir or Midozolam. So Mike is firing that accusation like a shotgun rather than a rifle.
“By reinforcing the notion of “early treatment” of a non-existent disease, they’ll have helped reinforce the propaganda that there was a pandemic and that there might be other pandemics,” he added.
https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/dr-yeadon-comments-on-epidemic-of
These are strong words and powerful claims from TT and MY. I’m not sure what to make of them, but at least the COVID circus isn’t boring at the moment.
For your information and for everybody, one of the most important Research Center of the world, the Sheba Medical Center of Tel Aviv has always left on its website the result of its own Study of the good and effective result of the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19
This demonstrates how easy is to fool the average western person.
😀
New Sheba Study Indicates That Ivermectin Can Reduce the Length of COVID-19 Infection
NEW SHEBA STUDY INDICATES THAT IVERMECTIN CAN REDUCE THE LENGTH OF COVID-19 INFECTION
Ivermectin is being used on COVID-19 patients, and is an FDA approved broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent, most commonly used in developing countries
While the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic continues around the world, many countries still lack adequate supplies of vaccines. However, even in Israel, which has the highest vaccination rates in the world, doctors are looking ahead and attempting to find treatments that will address the possibility of future mutations and help countries that lack the necessary funds to purchase large stocks of vaccines.
According to a new study conducted at Sheba’s Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease, one viable and readily available treatment option can be found in Ivermectin, a broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent, most commonly used in developing countries. The study, directed by Prof. Eli Schwartz, indicated that Ivermectin reduces the duration of COVID-19 infection.
https://www.shebaonline.org/new-sheba-study-indicates-that-ivermectin-can-reduce-the-length-of-covid-19-infection/
in the absence of the faker in chief, seems we can rely on you as understudy to take the lead in the long running covidrama tim.
Sorry to disappoint, Norman, but I no way could I keep up with the machine-gun posting the Eddy used to thrill us with. The underlings can never replace the boss, can they?
I suppose we’ll have to wait for what will probably be the Fourth Coming of Fast Eddy for normal service to be resumed.
In the meantime, would you like some more news on that other great national soap opera, The Windsors? Waiting to learn the fate of Kate is getting as nail biting as contemplating who shot J.R. in Dallas.
Keep us posted!
My experience with the pony paste was quite miraculous. I do now have a affinity for apples and oats and whinny occasionally.
It’s a personal choice. Since the consequences of choosing wrong is possibility if your lungs slowly filling up with green goo I would never presume to make that choice for anyone.
I am responsible for my dog’s health. No injections for him.
My belief is early treatment protocol might well have saved my life.
Are the recipients of the IVM packs in India dropping dead?
I see bitchute videos claiming vitamin d is hazardous too.
My guess is the pharmaceutical industry has a sense of humor.
Where I at it’s awful rare to see a mask. Covid is a non topic. Taboo I’ve learned not to discuss it or the MRNA shots.
If you want to find out if someone is injected you lie and say you’re injected. Injected people will tell you if they are then but will often lie and say they are not if you don’t. Mostly I don’t sweat it. Mostly.
I started feeling ill around recently boosted people.
Probably psychosomatic. 🙂
Frequent Hardship.
Comparing 30,000 years of human history, researchers found that surviving famine, war or climate change helps groups recover more quickly from future shocks.
What Makes a Society More Resilient? Frequent Hardship.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/science/resilient-societies-climate-change.html
Comparing 30,000 years of human history, researchers found that surviving famine, war or climate change helps groups recover more quickly from future shocks.
An aerial view of a complex stone city ruins at the base of a mountain range.
The city of Caral thrived in Peru between about 5,000 and 3,800 years ago. It was then abandoned for centuries before being briefly reoccupied.Credit…Wirestock, Inc., via
By Carl Zimmer May 1, 2024
From the Roman Empire to the Maya civilization, history is filled with social collapses. Traditionally, historians have studied these downturns qualitatively, by diving into the twists and turns of individual societies
But scientists like Philip Riris have taken a broader approach, looking for enduring patterns of human behavior on a vaster scale of time and space. In a study published Wednesday, these methods allowed Dr. Riris and his colleagues to answer a profound question: Why are some societies more resilient than others?
The study, published in the journal Nature, compared 16 societies scattered across the world, in places like the Yukon and the Australian outback. With powerful statistical models, the researchers analyzed 30,000 years of archaeological records, tracing the impact of wars, famines and climate change. They found that going through downturns enabled societies to get through future shocks faster. The more often a society went through them, the more resilient it eventually became.
“Over time, you will suffer less, essentially,” said Dr. Riris, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in England. “There tends not to be wholesale collapse.”
…Every population suffered downturns. Some lasted only a few generations, while others went on for far longer. Around 8,200 years ago, the Near East suffered a population crash and did not recover for more than 2,000 years.
The ways in which people had lived led to different rhythms of collapse and growth. Societies that had raised livestock or farmed the land grew more quickly, but they also became more prone to downturns. Dr. Riris speculated that growing crops or tending herds of animals had made people more vulnerable to changes in the climate.
“Societies that had raised livestock or farmed the land grew more quickly, but they also became more prone to downturns. Dr. Riris speculated that growing crops or tending herds of animals had made people more vulnerable to changes in the climate.”
Didn’t anyone stop to think that food per capita started to get constrained, as population rose? This is why such populations became more prone to downturns. Also, if food per capita was high, putting aside reserves for times of poor weather would work. But if food supply was already constrained, reserves would tend to be unavailable. The poor weather would collapse economies.
I wonder what people did besides growing crops and tending herds of animals. Fishing comes to mind. At least in early days, fish were relatively abundant. Fishing is a form of hunting and gathering. Other hunting and gathering would work also.
The US has been depleting its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). It will probably never replenish it. It has something in common with ancient economies depleting their reserves. There are high reserves of grains, but mostly in China.
societies in the past who ”recovered” simply found more and different resources to do it with.
people ignore the fact that the world has 10x as many people in its society as existed in previous eras.
no ”new resource” is available to allow that number to recover.
seems to me that any form of recovery will support only 10% of us at most–probably far less.
If you want to see what the US foreign policy establishment is thinking.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/american-aid-alone-wont-save-ukraine
The article makes a good settlement sound more feasible than it really is.:
Russia just put z on a criminal wanted list which means no negotiations.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-05-04/russia-puts-ukrainian-president-zelensky-on-its-wanted-list
Zelensky is now a problem for the West, not for Russia.
The reason why they are probably writing like this is that West needs to prepare its audience for a probable ‘false flag’ against him.
The BRICS economic alliance is reportedly set to create a central bank of its own in order to issue its native currency. Indeed, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, recently noted the creation of such a bank as central to the eventual creation of BRCIS currency.
Ryabkov was asked about the ongoing development of a BRICS common currency. Specifically, RIA Novosti was asked about the status of the project. In response, Ryabkov identified the issues facing its continued development and some of its most urgent steps.
In a recent discussion with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, he expressed that the BRICS alliance must first create a central bank to issue the common currency. Specifically, Ryabkov noted that issue as paramount to the eventual creation of the asset.
“I would not say that this idea has been shelved,” Ryabokov said in a press conference reported by state-owned news entity RIA Novosti. “Its implementation, as we all understand, involved, among other things, such aspects as the creation of a single issuance center, the creation of a central bank that sets a common basic discount rate,” Ryabkov said.
Thereafter, Ryabkov noted the vital impasse that the alliance now finds itself. Specifically, he stated that the 15-year-old alliance has just doubled in size through its recent expansion. Therefore, he claimed the bloc is “hardly ready for such steps and experiments.” However, he also noted that “this does now mean the idea has been postponed.”
Those states create a rather confusing status report on the project. It does, however, give insight into its necessary developments. Specifically, Ryabkov ensures that the creation of a central bank is an important part of the project itself.
https://watcher.guru/news/brics-to-create-a-central-bank-to-issue-its-native-currency
Debt and interest rates seem to be important to every financial system. No one is interested in simply barter with an intermediate counting device to tell what goods are worth. They want to be able to borrow money, and, in this way, help the system grow. How long it lasts is a big question.
>> the bloc is “hardly ready for such steps and experiments.”
So after more than a decade blathering about the demise of the dollar, Russia and friends are still unable and unwilling to create an alternative to the dollar. Or just use gold – what’s so difficult about this? A spineless lot, all of them in the Global South.
I agree totally, especially after the financial shenanigans the United States orchestrated and still continues to this day.
Everyone knows how the end game will eventually end up.
Apparently, there is mutual mistrust and vying for position as it’s all put together. It has been pointed out here that this group is managing the decoupling so not to shock the system in a freeze up.
From certain actions (eg. taking over the US base in Niger), it would seem that Russia has the balls to do it. But Russia still demonstrates a lot of indecision and seemingly chooses to fight with one hand behind its back: why is Russia still selling oil for anything but Rubles? Why not issue your own gold-backed currency? Is it incompetence or is it lack of will / 5th column / parasites in charge?
The USA has been pushing too hard on Russia for the longest time…
Russia is essentially a third world economy that sells commodities and it’s manufacturing base is of course weapons…WEAPONS are the ultimate entropic product…
The workshop of the world, China, must alliance with Russia and work as a unit..
Having the populous nation of India just adds there is power in numbers…even if lacks money..
When the SHTF it will be the greatest show on Earth and it will hold its breath
Art Berman seems to think the US camel pee will peter out in a few years.. certainly by the end of the decade…
Can’t wait for the long lines again at the pump
I like Art, but he has been wrong since the days of ASPO, or to be generous, early.
Dennis L.
Hope he’s wrong again! He even admits to the charge about it on a recent talk.
Well, I suppose he’s due to be correct eventually…hopefully by 2030 at the earliest!
I don’t get this argument. A weak ruble is extremely protective of the budding russian industry. For example with friends we are looking to make machines for artisanal italian gelato here. No way we can compete for the next ten years unless they are much cheaper than the italian counterparts.
Likewise my ag. machine supplier, which started a few years back, can not compete with John deere stuff, though in five years they might. We bought a reaI cheap crane to move silage from them, and it had so many problems it would take me pages to explain. They fixed it over numerous visits and now it works. The next one they sell is going to be far better thanks to us. I still can not get a locally produced seeder which can plant both corn and small grains, and so my silage is oats, rye and vetch. Pretty good but not optimal.
What about Chinese? I am seeing hints they may be making good equipment.
It appears you are not in the US, not sure but think the JD equipment sold outside of US does not have all the pollution equipment.
That stuff is incredibly expensive to maintain.
Dennis L.
correct. the weak ruble allows russian industry to compete with the chinese.
drb, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the monetary side of economics, so maybe the following is off base, but …
When a country prints currency, it devalues all holders of that currency, so Russia is giving value away to Europe or USA for free when it holds these currencies or uses them in trade. Russia and all the rest need to make the USA eat its own inflation. This excess buying power is what allows the USA to maintain any semblance of a military.
I would think Russia can still have a weak currency if it finds that beneficial, while forcing others to use their currency for exports; if that by default strengthens the currency, it would simply allow Russia to print *even more* while also gaining control over the ledger. For example, Russia could print Rubles and buy foreign assets and technologies if a weaker Ruble was desired. The two issues (strength and trade currency choice) interact, but this relationship can be accounted for and overriden by a range of policies.
Well first and foremost I would say Russia considers itself an adversary of the US now and probably China too. They understand that debt will destroy the USA so why would they stop it from continuing its mad debt accumulation.
2nd They understand both the structural and moral risk that comes from reserve currency issue both countries having extensive experience with it for centuries. They are very cautious too enact any system that takes on a life of it’s own that is not in the interest of their sovereign nations witnessing especially the failure of the Bretton Woods attempt to keep moral and structural risks in check.
3rd. They are trading just fine! Both countries are quite comfortable establishing exchange currency rates with limited time agreements that both feel is fair. This is how it was done for millennium. Both Russia and China are used to having fluid exchange rates with multiple countries knowing the goods they have available and their worth. Done it for millennium. While both countries have enjoyed using the dollar a luxury because of its ease of use they have no problems doing it the old fashioned way.
4th these are big countries with lots of products to offer. Its smaller countries with less products that get more relief from a reserve currency. Establishing an exchange rate can lead to bad deals or lack of trade. All the BRICS are big boys with lots off valuable resources who can set short term exchange rates that they know are fair. If someone gets a little stung, no big deal. It all comes out in the wash for the next deal.
5.Reserve currency? We don’t need no stinking reserve currency! The BRICS nations are pretty sick of the manipulation games that has gone along with the pound then the dollar. These are trader cultures and they embrace doing it the old way as a rejection of reserve currency shenanigans. They come up with their own mix of gold currency and oil and it works just fine for both parties. Not their first rodeo.
In less hostile times the dollar was part of the mix especially with the smaller nations whi prefered to get dollars for their goods then use the universability of the dollar for purchases. That wont go away tomorrow, but gold will start to fulfill that smaller niche role as dollar refutal accelerates. In the end they may come up with a universal token but considering that the USA is about to take a headplant from credit expansion in regard to reserve currency, they just soon do it the old way just now. They’d just soon avoid a nuclear exchange, so it’s not trying to steal reserve currency gig its cont need your reserve currency gig. Get lost. Not needed not wanted. Dont go away mad just go away.
You may very well be right. The whole idea of a reserve currency may recede. Having a reserve currency goes along with a growing economy and growing debt, but if those things disappear, maybe a reserve currency is not as useful. With less international trade, perhaps bilateral temporary trade relativities would work.
Im just guessing here but I think a significant part of the inflation we are seeing is Chinese reluctance to accept dollars for payment. There are so many of them! China is not comfortable storing them in treasury wealth tokens. A wealth token whole purpose is that it can be spent when needed but the USA can not pay the debt it has issued, so the wealth token becomes something different as it becomes clear that only a fraction of the wealth tokens can be paid. And they are paid with another arbitrarily issued token to boot!
People say the bonds will always be paid because the government will just create the money but the money wont be worth anything.
That’s not really true. Treasury cannot create money, it must sell bonds. If you say bonds can be sold in infinity to the fed that’s true but thats buying your own IOUs minetization of debt. All the shenanigans involved with the treasury auctions amount to one thing, denying that the fed buys treasuries and concealing the proxy by which they do. You can’t have it both ways either the fed buys the bonds in infinity to create the cash or the bonds dont get paid.
Where it’s claimed there is a distinction is that the majority of the bonds are not on the feds books directly (although a lot are) but financial institutions granted federal license. That distinction is premise of the fidelity of the entire dollar/ treasury system.
Inflation is the measure of hesitancy to hold and use the dollar as a trading instrument. To counter it incentives are created the primary interest rate. This has been viewed like it’s an absolute physical law. Interest rates up inflation down but that is nonsense because it is the totality of human perception known as a market that governs dollar hesitancy and the shenanigans bring into question whether that totality of perception that establishes fidelity actually exists!
That’s why the fed ideally has zero on its books because the premise is if the treasuries are held by fed licensed proxy not the fed the totality of perception called a market establishes fidelity. That the licensed proxy experts free will creating totality of perception known as a market. Never mind that the proxies ability to create money is a function of the fed. The premise is they are autonomous entities choosing to purchase treasuries based on sound financial basis. When the fed says it is “reducing its balance sheet,” it is a play on this basic premise that a zero balance sheet represents fidelity. At the same time the fed balance sheet is portrayed as a holy cleansing for toxic assets anything on the feds books is worth what it says it is and that’s that.
Needless to say these countries that have been trading for millennium are not fooled but whatever the dollar worked and still worked so they go along. Not wanting to get blown up certainly helps with this but the true fidelity is in the totality of perception called a market, and the human psyche always revels against threats extortion and manipulation.
In this old fools assessment that’s what we witness the human psyche inherent rejection of manipulation. Belief in that rather than modern economics makes me a unsophisticated redneck hick albeit a proud one.
Modern economics acts like it doesn’t matter that the part of the world that holds the resources and manufacturing is disgusted with the USA. But they know full well that fidelity lies in the totality of perception known as a market. They know full well what their shenanigans are. They know full well what’s coming. That’s why they are showing up at Xi s desperately offering club membership except it turns out they built their own club. The USA ain’t in it. It’s called the get lost club.
All of a sudden the illusion falls away.. The resource nations dont need credit. But the credit issuing nations have little resources. If the resource nations dont use credit the credit issuing nations get no ability to consume resources.
The whole illusion was that it was voluntary. That there was free will that creates the totality of perception known as a market which in turn creates fidelity. But the reality the physicality is if there is no credit participation the credit issuing nations have no access to goods and resources and perish.
You have these ideas that are self evident. That countries that have resources own them. That they control their consumption. Then you have the reality the physicality. Other nations must have these resources to survive. How do they acquire the resources? The best way is trade. What if it turns out they have nothing to trade? If the resource owning countries are nice they will give resources for stuff the poor country has. Trinkets. Artwork.
The other way is to take the resources. Negate ownership. The country owning the resources might resist. The country acquiring the resources might persist. Both apply force.
The idea of ownership makes life comfortable. No fun living when force might be applied at any time. So this is a strong rule understood by all. But if access to resources is removed a new set of rules takes precedence. The idea of existential threat takes precedence over the idea of ownership.
Valuing ownership creates order and this allows a pleasant existance. If existential threats arise things are less pleasant. Force determines outcomes.
You can say “Get lost!” and not choose to share consumption. If consumption is required for continuance, existence is threatened. Force determines who consumes the resources.
Ultimately it is beneficial to the world community if nations cultivate productivity so they have something to trade. This helps avoid war. I think bretton woods had a this in its composition. To avoid war countries must be productive and live within their means. Otherwise more base operating principles arise. Bretton woods was not just about golf. If a country just consumed and did not produce it ran out of gold as it was finite. Bretton woods demanded productivity from countries.
That’s the problem with get lost. That’s why cultivating productivity in each country and diplomacy are critical. We know what creates war. If wars is to be avoided all countries must cultivate productivity, so as to have something to trade so resources can be distributed based on a degree of fairness. A world where we can live in peace and the truth of the physicality of our existence. This is what keeps despicable things from happening. Young people dieing. Children dieing. Blood lust.
Yes the planet is finite. That’s the problem with believing in unicorns. It is demanded we manage our physicality in a fair manner or base actions result. Technology in combination with base actions results are predictable.
Spilt milk.
Thanks for all of your thoughts.
You are right about countries needing to have something to trade. If they have nothing to trade, they have a major problem.
And there likely is a real issue with who is buying all of the debt the US government is now trying to issue.
My quibble is not that they don’t have their own reserve currency, but that they still use the USD or EUR. This wasn’t clear from my post. Every country should say something like: if you want my goods or commodities, buy it in my currency or gold.
If you want to layer a BRICS-currency on top, that’s also an option, but in any case, don’t complain about USD and then give it legs by using it.
US treasury lifts sanctions to allow transactions to Russian banks for energy transactions .
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/30/7453599/
This is reported in Pravda, but it doesn’t get reported in most US press.
The original from the treasury .
https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932846/download?inline
blast,
I am not sure Russia considers itself an adversary, more the US has lost trust all over the world. Perhaps we are being “cancelled.”
The Us company US Blackrock has apparently purchased a great deal of farm land in eastern Ukraine. How will they collect rents?
“Dont go away mad just go away.” Maybe, the US does not seem to have a “heavy” industrial base which gives “weight” in stuff to trade. Financial products seem mostly designed for the skim and grift.
A guess: AI is going to simplify finance, once that is done many “financial products” will be seen as less than worthless.
Time of great change,
Dennis L.
Historic shipping company closes down in Chapter 7 bankruptcy
A 92-year-old trucking company has permanently shut down and filed for Chapter 7 liquidation. Is
Kirk O’NeilMay 4, 2024 7:00 AM EDT
The trucking industry has faced significant financial distress since the Covid-19 pandemic ended. Higher costs from increased interest rates and rising inflation cut into shipping company profits and competition tightened as trucking demand declined….
Pride said in a declaration by its foreign representative that as the pandemic subsided, demand for trucking services decreased, diesel fuel prices soared, interest rates rose, and an oversupply of trucks and truck drivers in North America negatively impacted the trucking industry.
https://www.thestreet.com/retail/historic-shipping-company-closes-down-in-chapter-7-bankruptcy
We probably will see more trucking companies with financial difficulties.
“Buried in the work of the ancient Chinese political philosopher Han Fei is the apocryphal tale of an overzealous salesman from the state of Chu. The story takes place at the time of the Warring States, a period in China’s history from 475 to 221 BC, before unification, when seven competing states spent two and a half centuries fighting one another for regional supremacy.
This nameless man, keen to profit from the military turmoil of the time, decided to start selling spears and shields. Hoping to attract the attention of potential customers—and perhaps empowered by the lax consumer protection laws of ancient China—he began to make bold claims about his wares. To some he said “my shields are so hard that nothing can pierce them”; to others he whispered “my spears are so sharp that they can pierce anything.” But one passerby, who happened to hear the salesman make both these claims, turned to him and asked: “But what would happen if someone struck your shield with your spear?” The man was unable to respond. The puzzle of an invincible spear striking an impenetrable shield resonates to this day in the Mandarin word for “contradiction” or “paradox”: máodùn literally means “spear-shield.” Our modern talk of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object is a science-flavored take on the same conundrum.
But with the growth dilemma we face a form of this puzzle in the real world. We are confronted with a pair of seemingly irreconcilable demands: a powerful pull toward more growth due to its promise and an equally strong pull toward less growth on account of its costs. If anything, this dilemma is even more extreme than the ones in those stories: not so much an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, but two unstoppable forces pulling in opposite directions, threatening to tear our societies apart.”
Susskind, Daniel. Growth: A History and a Reckoning . Harvard University Press. 2024
Growth does reach a limit, agreed. But the economic system can only grow or collapse. This causes a real dilemma. No one wants collapse.
Worsening Weather Is Igniting a $25 Billion Market
As companies and investors come to grips with meteorological risks, they’re looking to a niche corner of Wall Street for protection.
Marty Malinow’s mom never could get her head around what her son did for a living. To friends, she said he was “a stockbroker that does something with the weather.” Malinow couldn’t really object — he knew most people had no clue about financial contracts based on things like sunshine, rainfall and wind.
That’s beginning to change. Against a backdrop of rising climate volatility and social shifts, demand for weather derivatives is surging. Average trading volumes for listed products jumped more than 260% in 2023, according to the CME Group, with the number of outstanding contracts currently 48% higher than a year ago. And that publicly traded corner could make up as little as 10% of all activity, according to industry estimates; outstanding derivatives
Oh well, nothing we can do about it…
https://www.bloomberg.com
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/worsening-weather-is-igniting-a-25-billion-market-1.2068834
Just more ‘financialization’ leading nowhere.
(Al Arabya)
“Exclusive: Saudis should feel proud to be part of polio eradication team: Bill Gates.
Al Arabiya English’s Riz Khan sat down for an exclusive interview with American philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh.
The two discussed several topics, including the latest $620 million partnership announced between Saudi Arabia and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to eradicate polio in several countries.
Commenting on the partnership, Gates told Khan that Saudis should take pride in being part of the polio eradication team.
“Saudis should feel proud now they’re on the polio eradication team. We need more of that generosity,” Gates said in the exclusive interview.
The Microsoft co-founder said he had discussed the disease during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year. The Crown Prince “agreed to be a very strong partner,” Gates said.
According to Gates, the main challenges ahead are to bring the number of polio cases back down to zero in Africa and achieve the milestone of zero cases for the first time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
After eradicating polio, “we’ll go after other diseases like measles and malaria, which are also quite horrific,” Gates said, adding that he was optimistic.
In the wide-ranging interview, Khan and Gates touched on several other topics, including global conflicts, like those in Ukraine and Gaza, and how they can divert funds and attention from health initiatives.
Gates also highlighted the crucial role of media in spreading awareness and encouraging philanthropy. He also addressed the misinformation around vaccines exacerbated by the pandemic.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2024/05/02/riz-khan-sits-down-for-exclusive-interview-with-bill-gates-in-saudi-capital-riyadh
An article from 2019 says,
https://apnews.com/article/health-united-nations-ap-top-news-pakistan-international-news-7d8b0e32efd0480fbd12acf27729f6a5
More polio cases now caused by vaccine than by wild virus
Too bad about all of the misinformation about vaccines.
Rotary was part of that program, it was perhaps the single largest project of Rotary. We called it PolioPlus in my time.
Dennis L.
“it was perhaps the single largest project of Rotary”
I can think of 1285210000 reasons why that was. Second largest single bri.., erm donation from the bmgf and only topped by one(1.6bn) of the many payments to gavi.
For those wondering if you have a place in the new normal, ask yourself if you, or the organisation you work for, has been bought by Bill. If the answer is no, you don’t.
Thanks Gail.
Incredible!
(The Guardian)
“Ukraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.
The ministry said it would “for the first time in history” use a digital spokesperson to read its statements”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/03/ukraine-ai-foreign-ministry-spokesperson
Finally Ukrainian blacks are properly represented. Does she replace Sarah Ashton Cirillo, nee John?
Why don’t the politicians call for tearing down the walls of the extermination camp called Gaza? Why do all three candidates for president support the extermination camp?
Crazy world we live in. Too many voters on the right and left support Israel, whatever they do.
All you can do is swear never to vote Republican or Democrat again. Swear on your grandmother’s grave. Libertarian or socialist. Jill Stein is a crazy unicorn believer but at least she gets this. I’ll vote libertarian till I die. You gotta give respect. Naomi klein stands for Judaism. Constance Owens stands for Christ. Now at we know whose human. If you compromise on this you support it. Its outragous. Shame.
Not Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who calls for an end to military aid to Israel.
In memory of our champion 🏆 who is no longer with us..
A Boeing whistleblower who warned about manufacturing defects in the 737 Max line of planes before being fired in 2023 died on Tuesday after contracting a fast-spreading infection.
Joshua Dean, 45, reported having trouble breathing a little more than two weeks ago and was taken to the hospital where he developed pneumonia and the antibiotic-resistant infection called MRSA, leading to his death, the Seattle Times first reported. The mechanical engineer and former quality auditor at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage of the beleaguered 737 Max, was in good health and was known for living a healthy lifestyle prior to his illness, his aunt told the Times.
Fortune …don’t mess with Elders
A lesson most Europeans and Asians are aware of but childish Americans are not
I think the headline of this article is misleadingly broad. The issue seems to be Britain turning away from Net Zero, not Europe in general.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-ditch-net-zero-while-biden-clings-to-it-britain-climate-change-cost-94f826e3
Europeans Ditch Net Zero, While Biden Clings to It
Unaffordable climate commitments have two leftist British parties racing to exit stage left.
Of course ‘liberal democracy’ cannot be squared with any serious attempt to reduce CO2 emissions.
The ‘plebs’ are voters are they will vote for BAU when they realise that the alternative is no BAU.
They determine the party in government and indeed they think/ imagine that they are the ‘purpose’ of society and that it exists to facilitate their organic drives and their fancies.
‘Liberalism’ (‘freedom’) and ‘democracy’ (plebiscites of sorts) are ideologies that developed when constant economic growth was the norm.
The ‘modern’ ideologies ‘work’ in those conditions but they are completely unadapted to a situation of decline.
We live in bourgeois societies that are all about giving people what they want and letting them do what they want (all called ‘freedom’).
Of course it is not going to work out. You can have ‘liberal democracy’ or you can have ‘net zero’ with all of its implications for jobs and consumerism.
The states have pretended that ‘liberal democracy’ is compatible with ‘net zero’ and that ‘renewables’ would square the circle.
It was all imaginary and now they are gradually facing up to that with the voters. The states are idiot liars so of course they have no handle on reality.
It is the same with the UKR conflict. The states are idiot liars and they actually expect that to work out for them.
It is like when people say that they are ‘Catholic’ or whatever and they are obviously devoid of any basic virtues and damned 10000x times over.
Arguably humanity needs to go through another bottleneck and another bout of evolution. It is just trash at this point.
Perhaps climate change will have some positives on that count.
Sometimes the ‘cooler heads’ are the worst kind of people to be around when decisions are made.
For example, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, some patriots came with chainsaws to cut down the cherry trees at Potomac River.
Unfortunately electric saws were not invented at that time, and when they cut the 4th or 6th tree (accounts differ slightly), ‘cooler heads’ prevailed and these people were expelled, and while US troops were perishing in the Pacific Theater, the Japanese cherry trees, temporarily renamed “Oriental Cherry Trees” even though no other Asian country raised cherry trees, continued to blossom and continued to mock the US troops dying in the pacific.
In 1990s USA had plenty of time to destroy the Russian Republic, to make it fracture into hundreds of entities, but the ‘cooler heads’ at CIA and other intelligence agencies, who got to develop some rapport with their Soviet counterparts, dissuaded those who wanted to do that.
At the battle of Gettysburg, General George Meade of the US Army did not destroy the retreating forces of Robert E. Lee, from the rebel side, since they were friends at West Point. (There are other reasons but that was the reason often cited at that time)
Lincoln was furious, but it is said he had an order of firing Meade in the cabinet but never used it. Still, Meade was never put into important posts again, and for becoming the winner of the most famous battle fought in US mainland, his name is not really known now.
Just by recognizing the independence of Chechnya, USA would have destroyed the Russian Republic, without firing a single shot.
Not destroying Russia when it could became USA’s biggest blunder.
The British historian Alastair Horne wrote that Tallayrand, Napoleon’s chief diplomat, going over the side of Czar Alexander I was the cause of Napoleon’s fall. In a sense, the CIA agents influencing US policies to maintain the integrity of Russia, because of the sake of their counterpart KGB agents, including Putin, became the cause of the fall of Western Civilization.
Damn the mocking cherry trees! I bet Chucky also mocked someone when he did the deed.
Don’t know about how Chucky thought but the people of Worcestershire actually built a moment to commemorate their fkup.
Ironically it is precisely the kind of people Wellington called as ‘the Scum of Earth’ who are most enthusiastic on British patriotism. I think they like to be scums.
Also, I wonder if a dozen more nuclear states would have been a wise course of action.
A dozen nuclear states with missile tech similar to Pakistan, no hope of improving it
A menace to their neighbors, not much so as far as the overall picture is concerned.
As it was stated in this thread a few days back, there are many 235U nukes in Russia. Those last essentially forever. And no, the missile tech was far above Pakistan today even in 1991. Even Ukraine has missile systems better than the Patriots for example. And even if you have only subsonic ballistic missiles to deliver it, we now know that if you precede them with a swarm of drones they will get delivered. What you say makes sense from an empire point of view, but this is hardly the only unexpected quirk of the nuclear era.
As late as 2017 Russia had no ability to strike back if attacked, which is why an invasion of Russia till 2017 was viable.
The nuclear weapons of the various former Russian republics would have been even weaker, and most of them aimed against each other.
this is totally incorrect. ICBM were always there for example, for retaliation on american soil. at no time was the USSR/Russia behind the US in missile technology, or in land war technology. I think you are daydreaming. There was sufficient air access denial, at least to deny air support for a land invasion. what they did not have was air and naval assets. The US had a hard enough time in Serbia in the 1990s. Or Israel in 2006. Not to mention afghanistan. It is like you missed the last 25 years of military history.
UKR admits that it is ‘tick, tock’ on the fall of Chasiv Yar. UKR is losing this and other key strategic fortifications and logistic hubs. It faces collapse all along the lines in Donbass.
UKR is set to retreat across the Dnieper river through the middle of UKR.
Russia indicated this week that it fully intends to take Kharvik in the NE, and it has opened a front there, and also Odessa in the south.
It may well be ‘game over’ for UKR this summer.
NATO is still pretending that UKR is not headed for a total wipe out but there is more to winning wars than the mass production of lies.
Putin To Breach Zelensky’s ‘Impenetrable Fortress’ After Avdiivka?; Kyiv Intel Chief Fears The Worst
The fall of Chasiv Yar, a strategic town in Donetsk region, is now just a matter of time, said deputy chief of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate. “It is just a matter of time before [Russian forces take the strategic town of Chasiv Yar]…Not today and not tomorrow, of course, but everything will depend on our reserves and supplies,” he was quoted as saying by The Economist, as per Sputnik International. Chasiv Yar was once reportedly touted as an “impenetrable fortress” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Watch this video for more information.
Losing an “impenetrable fortress” would suggest Ukrainian leaders had been lying about the strength of their forces.
“Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef”?
https://energyskeptic.com/2024/lab-grown-meat-is-energy-intensive-and-up-to-25-times-worse-for-the-climate-than-beef/
We also know that processed foods do not match up well with what our body needs. People who eat a high percentage of processed foods tend not to live very long. Lab-grown meat cannot be very good for people. They would be better off buying a can of beans and eating them, or buying a bag of dried beans, then soaking, cooking and eating them. Add garlic, onions and spices of your choosing. They are good for a person, too.
Agree.
Dennis L.
How Eating Chips Ruined a 17-Year-Old’s Life
A teenager and his parents were arguing about his diet full of junk food, again. As a picky eater, he didn’t like a lot of home cooked meals, and thought that he should get to eat what he enjoyed if he was going to eat at all—fries, and Pringles. His parents said he was too picky, and his meals weren’t providing enough nutrition for a growing teenager. But the boy adamantly refused to eat other options.. After all, eating unhealthy food was still better than eating nothing, right? Let’s get into it!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wFtoeJKxG1Q&t=8s
” The diplomatic manoeuvres by which France had assured that Germany went to war remained concealed . . . “?
https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/lob74-halls-of-montezuma.pdf
I was hoping that ‘our resident historian’ could ‘enlighten’ me?
This author indicates that there have been narratives invented since at least 1917, to further the myth of America’s “good guy” role.
I think that World War I and World War II grew out of inadequate coal extraction, first in the UK (WWI) and in Germany (WWII). My understanding is that France never had very much coal.
Population in the US had risen rapidly in the US, partly as a result of increased immigration and also because of better hygiene. The US was likely reaching too many people, relative to resources, as well. Wealthy farmers were able to buy machines (most likely using debt) that produced food very inexpensively. Farmers without machines could not compete–the cost of farming using much hand labor was far too high.
The article says, “in 1913 Wilson had signed the Federal Reserve Act. . . . Those banks had also become the principal creditors of Britain and France in their war against Germany. . .Until late 1915 the Allies seemed a sure bet. Their creditors were convinced the war would be won quickly. By 1916 faith in a quick end to the slaughter had disappeared. Much worse were the serious fears of an adverse decision, either a victory for Germany or an end to hostilities with conditions disadvantageous to Britain and France (and hence their US bankers).”
So, the US entering World War I was necessary to help out the bankers/Federal Reserve. Furthermore, entering into the WWI allowed the US to issue more debt and find employment for more displaced farmers. Making Germany the bad guy had an advantage, since the bankers were financing the Allies (France-Germany) in this conflict.
I don’t know anything about France’s “diplomatic maneuvers assuring Germany,” however. All of Europe was short of coal, relative to its population.
Germany was not exactly short of coal. The problem was most of the coal was in the province of SIlesia, called Upper Silesian basin near what later became the Czech border, at that time the Austrian border.
Woodrow Wilson made sure the Poles got the Upper Silesian basin, whose coal was used to give the Poles, the Mexicans of Europe, somewhat better standard of living rather than advancing German industry and therefore civilization. Other than some Polish movies not watched outside of Poland and France , Poland’s contribution to civilization is rather limited.
Also, it was really England’s coal problem that started WWI. Germany was doing relatively better then, which is why it was winning.
kul,
I find you perhaps somewhat like Wilson, you seem to want to meddle in the world.
My current belief is we discover the universe, all groups are going in the same general direction, some take detours. Until those paths are explored, one does not know which is better.
The US is meddling all over the world, convinced in everything we are best.
I would like to see us look internally, deal with the issues we have and then allow others to look in and make their own choices.
Other than running an experiment, it seems impossible beforehand to predict the outcome unless one has an example in history to follow.
This is why we have religions, a simple set of rules which works 80% of the time with 20% of the effort which is good enough.
To each his own; I have a deep belief that I never tell a man how to do his job. If I don’t like the way it is being done, I move on; perhaps observe from a distance occasionally to see if I can learn something.
Dennis L.
IF what Wilson did was positive for Civilization I would have praised him.
What he did was extremely detrimental to Civilization. He gave the best lands of Europe to peoples who didn’t know what to do with that, and also awarded back the regions Germany had won back to USSR< making it stronger.
Different peoples develop differently. the Polish people have not really contributed too much to civilization. Copernicus was a German. Chopin was a French. All Maria Sklowdowska and her daughter did were ensnaring smarter men, with no contributions of their own. Sienkiewicz, whose Quo Vadis is probably the only body of Polish literature known outside of that country, is seldom read today.
In other words if Poland remained dependent and part of a country the world would have missed little. Maybe a few directors known in Francophone countries, but then most Polish worth something just move to Paris if they have a shot.
Different peoples develop at different rates. However the world no longer has the luxury to wait for them as things are moving much faster than before, and giving resources to such peoples are simply huge mismanagements
I don’t know whether I am the resident historian you are talking about, but in short Wilson f’ked up by jumping into a war Germany had won , fair and square.
USA cheated Germany the gains in the east, which would have kept most of what was the more profitable areas of USSR in Western hand, instead of benefiting USSR.
USA is like Rome, who claimed descent from the Trojans, but did not really add anything to the world’s culture and philosophy.
Trump is the second US President which did NOT come from those who built USA, after JFK. Even Obama had a better stake in USA than Trump. Not surprisongly he had little actual power, but he gave the hordes a badly needed breathing space.
Hillary Clinton’s attempt to collapse Russia and grab its resources would have succeeded. and we would not be worrying about the Hordes overwhelming the West, although it would have been quite a lot more woke than now.
” The diplomatic manoeuvres by which France had assured that Germany went to war remained concealed . . . “?
“Putin’s fuel problem: How Ukraine is sapping Russia’s diesel and gasoline
Ukraine is taking out oil refineries inside Russia, cratering Moscow’s supplies and sending local prices soaring.”?
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-russia-diesel-prices-skyrocket-ukraine-war-drone-strikes-oil-refineries/
I don’t know if there is really a problem about that for Russia, but looking on various articles, it seems that Ukraine is about to collapse, attacks on refineries or not….
“The Russian Steamroller Rolls On as Ukraine Braces for Impact”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-5124-the-russian-steamroller
It will be interesting. Russia seems able to bear the burden of this conflict. While their logistics capabilities might not extend to the dnieper there is plenty of work still to be done within their operational area. Kramatorsk is still to be cleared. Clearing this area will provide security for donbass and western Russia. In the medium to long term we might see consolidation where Russia establishes some semi permanent defensive positions.
Russia’s adaptation to the western missile systems with EW means the effectiveness of the western provided missile systems is reduced in the extreme. This in turn makes resource losses easier to bear and improving logistics possible. Odessa or Kiev will take investments in more trucks to improve logistics. Certainly not impossible. I think that’s what we are looking at. A consolidation period of several years where Russia establishes strong control of the donbass . Continuing EW development rendering western missile systems ineffective preventing attacks on logistics such as kerch bridge. All the while lessening the burden of the losses entailed by the conflict. Then perhaps the decision to make the investments necessary to go forward. Or not. What’s important is to get to a place where the losses from the conflict are minimized and the burden sustainable. That may be achievable by securing the donbass. Chasing AFU to Moldova works against that.
The situation is likely to continue for a long time as long as the west is able to provide resources. What is winning needs to be defined. IMO winning for Russia is minimizing losses establishing security and making the cost of the conflict bearable. It appears that’s exactly what they are doing. Working on providing security for their refineries amongst other things. Losing for Russia would be to focus on taking territory that Russia does not want and can not control creating excessive resource losses. It seems to me ultimately this was destined to become what it is a test of longevity of economic systems. Credit expansion vs resource based.
The real question is whether this conflict will expand to other means either kinetic or economic. If there is escalation in one there is likely to be escalation in the other.
It’s interesting that we see adaptation in Russia improving their EW against the entire array of non nuclear NATO munitions but not similar innovation in the NATO weapon systems such as secondary or even a third targeting system. Iran is adding targeting systems using commercially available components. The innovation found in the USA amongst its farmers and industry does not seem to extend to the MIC. it’s clear Russia has learned a lot about NATO weapon systems and no doubt that is passed on to China Iran and North Korea. No doubt this has implications for nuclear weapons targeting also particularly because of the trend of smaller yield more accurate nuclear weapons.
Interesting way of putting the situation:
“It seems to me ultimately this was destined to become what it is a test of longevity of economic systems. Credit expansion vs resource based.”
How long can credit expansion and money printing sort of work?
Regarding, “the trend of smaller yield more accurate nuclear weapons,” I wasn’t aware that anyone (except perhaps Iran) was making nuclear weapons any more. So many were stockpiled, it seemed like enough.
It’s not like box of nails that you put on a shelf. Yes there is moratorium on detonation testing. There is constant maintenance ensuring function. Yes ongoing design improvements. Gone are the old Soviet big megaton shotgun MIRVs.
In reality no current nuclear weapon has actually been detonation tested.
But when I referred to trend it was the trend of ten years or so. When trying to destroy hardened targets such as ICBMs in silos accuracy beats megatonage. Smaller yield devices can be made smaller and weigh less so delivery system can be faster and have more range. As they calculate effectively accuracy is huge so if their is EW that makes accuracy 100 meters instead of 10 it is a big deal with hardened targets.
The move to smaller yield more accurate nuclear weapons is good news. They dont push the dust high enough for a long term nuclear winter effect.
Speaking of test bans the recent USA underground nuke test that they said technically was nota nuke is the shape of things to come. There is an incredibly wide variety of nuclear reactions possible. You see this proposed in micro nuclear power reactors. IMO this is the next nuclear weapon use. Yes they can be made so small that the detonation is not much different than a regular bomb. The radiation can be tailored for different effects not necessarily lethal but harmful. This allows the possibility of escalation that is significant but far short of a large thermonuclear device. After all, technically it’s not a nuclear detonation just a nuclear reaction. It’s about versatility in options, perceived limited escalation and possibly plausible deniability.
Then things are witnessed like steel girders turning to dust as they fall. Somthing happened. They just smile. Mini nukes? Your crazy man. Nukes make a big mushroom cloud. Theres a double flash. Everything incinerated. Everyone knows that.
Statements by recent POTUS about the need to “catch up” in regard to “tactical” nuclear weapons is not hard to find. You dont want just sledgehammers when all sorts of screwdrivers and wrenches are available. When you have a big job you need power tools.
Then if you’re a complete moron with a god ego you can make fun when an option is deployed and a satellite launch fails. What other tool would a god ego moron deploy? What fool discloses a covert option? Is there other examples of deploying non covert but sophisticated strikes that demonstrate god ego? Would a god ego be attracted to the tools in pandora box? Would a god ego look for solutions to non military problems in that box? Should any one man or group of men have access to those tools?
Were in deep deep poo Gail.
Interesting. Both sides could be working on new types of weapons. I suppose they could use some of the old weapons as material for these new weapons, if they decided to.
” The situation is likely to continue for a long time as long as the west is able to provide resources ”
The West has no resources . It is only providing paper money to enable Zelensky pay the salaries of the soldiers and govt employees . I had earlier given a breakdown of the 61B package , out of which only 16 billion ( $ 3 billion needed per month) was for UkR , the rest was recycled back to the MIC in USA . The West is trying to but time . Many financial problems will start when UKR collapses . How will Blackrock etc treat the money it paid to Zelensky for the agro land ? What about the $ 50 Billion owed to WB/ IMF ? What about amounts owed to EU ? Nobody has any information on the derivative bets on the default by UKR . It is a black hole . Today David Cameron promised GBP 3.7 Billion per year in eternity to UKR knowing well that he will be out of power in the next elections . The West is now caught between a rock and a hard place .
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uk-vows-arm-ukraine-long-it-takes-commits-37bn-annually
Meh with no mark to market they can still value the deeds for whatever while the Russians grow vodka potatoes on the land. Add them to a MBS and sell it to a pension fund.
The link/source they provide says 55 rubles per liter = ~60 cents per liter = ~2.30 dollars per gallon. Still sounds pretty good.
https://tass.ru/ekonomika/20641185
Locally diesel is 62.30 per liter, down from 62.90 last summer. 95 gasoline about 55, 92 gasoline about 49. 92 gasoline had always been above 50.
Sounds like something created to further the US narrative of “Ukraine is winning.”
“I warn you again, US Border services tells us 11 million illegals came to the US in last 3 years, 4 million more by November 2024, 400 were hardened terror cell terrorists, 100 ‘gotaway’, in US, we do not know their names, where they are; I warn, Bataclan terror attacks are coming, “?
https://palexander.substack.com/p/i-warn-you-again-us-border-services
Total population
Denmark 5.9 million
Finland 5.5 million
Total 11.5 million
Best of luck .
The wall was the first stage..next one will probably more effective….
That is not a very high ratio of terrorists to total illegals. The US has had a shortage of low-paid workers. The illegals seem to be filling that niche.
Energy is only one of many problems that threaten the global future, although it ranks with population growth as one of the most serious. In both instances, to be effective in time, action should have been taken forty or fifty years ago. Peccei realized that there was not much time left when he built a sense of urgency into The Chasm Ahead [1], in 1968. Now, almost forty years later we are still faced with all the problems Peccei described, plus a few more, and every one of them has been aggravated by the passage of time, the growth of population and the inaction of governments.
Pollution of land, water and the atmosphere is now reaching a truly menacing level and many aspects may be irreversible in a declining world economy. Special interest groups will continue to exacerbate the problem. Because of the tragic deterioration of the educational system, huge numbers of young people emerge ill-equipped, lacking the knowledge, the dedication and the discipline the future will require of them. The pressure of population growth will increase the unrest in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the dozens of other unsettled regions and it will take a great deal of pride-swallowing and leadership to achieve any vestige of world peace. The combination of man-made climate change, population growth and conflict will cause mass migrations, faced with countries determined to protect their own people from the competition from unwanted immigrants. Terrorists will thrive on these unsettled conditions and will find it easy to cause further disruption. The burgeoning trade in drugs will feed the confusion. Conditions will increasingly favour the spread of epidemics such as AIDS, TB, and Avian Flu.
In the meantime countries will find it increasingly difficult to find the capital and the energy to replace the crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, city services, etc. It stands to reason that if more people are admitted to this finite planet, individual expectations must fall. Yet it is often political suicide for a leader to say so. Consequently, political action will be too late, as usual.
The question arises as to whether it will ever be possible to address all these problems before they get completely out of hand. Reason says that it will not – that there will be global chaos within the lifetime of people already on Earth. However I like to think that events can transcend rational prediction. If we have no faith in the future, why do we live? It is impossible for me to imagine the loss of all the results of man’s genius, from the great works of art and music to the astounding complexity of the chips in the state-of-the-art computer on which this book has been prepared. Intellectual, artistic and technological achievements represent an indispensable record of the continuity of intelligent life on Earth. I cannot envisage that continuity being broken.
The 20th Century was the age of incredible technological achievements. Perhaps the 21st Century will be the age of miracles. If it is not, the human race as we know it is unlikely to see the 22nd.
Maybe we need to focus on the present rather than trying to guess what might happen in the future. The self-organizing economy works strangely. We really don’t know what is ahead. I believe that there is a God behind the self-organizing system, but even if you don’t, the system operates in ways we can’t understand.
We have the privilege of living in a time with the highest energy consumption per capita. For example, we have heated homes and vehicles to transport ourselves. We have a medical system that can help quite a few problems, and grocery stores with food to eat. We can get potable water from our taps.
We also have family and friends, and the ability to communicate with them, and help each other, both now and the future. We can also enjoy the beauty of nature. We can help others, through volunteer organizations. We need to focus more on today, and on helping others. For the long term, I would recommend living close to family and friends. It will be difficult, if it becomes hard to travel.
Wise words to think about, much appreciated, thank you
Let’s see if I can get past WP censor
The spirit animal of Columbia University is the lion. I want to make a banner
Columbia Lions Hunt Mass Murderers
or
Columbia Lions Eat Mass Murderers
Which do you prefer?
Columbia Lions Are Pussies
all yours, no charge.
At least some one says mass murder is wrong.
I say that mass murder is wrong, and I oppose it.
I doubt that my bold statement here will stop it.
after all, murder is natural.
At Columbia University, University Professor, as high position, Jeffery Sachs speaks out for free speech and for Gaza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l99u2JNnorQ
The spirit animal of Columbia University is the lion. I want to make of banner
Columbia Lions Eat Genocidal Killer
and take it around Manhattan. To the UN, the embassy of Turkiye, the embassy of the Zionist entity Israel, etc…
“The green new deal and switch to “alternative’ energy looks like it’s going exactly as planned: costing the taxpayer trillions of dollars and generally pissing everybody off. That was the case with a number of solar panel owners who are now finding it difficult to get their panels serviced, according to WBAL TV.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ive-been-totally-ghosted-after-install-solar-panels-become-maintenance-nightmare
The solar salesmen are not “into” repairing the systems. The systems are complex. They include inverters, various meters, and wiring. Animals of various kinds can disrupt the wiring. Inverters have short life times.
There may be warranties on the solar panels themselves, (assuming the companies are still in business), but keeping the whole installation operating as planned likely needs the homeowner to be heavily involved, assuming the necessary services and replacement parts are available.
once the oil is all gone all we will have left will be solar so unless individuals can re-invent solar to assist in the transition to fast eddie challenge world for those people they will have nothing maybe most affluent westerners fall into this category they will be useless in the coming fast eddie challenge world maybe that is why the elders created the covid jab to give them an easy exit from the coming fast eddie challenge world.
China has been hiring IBM and Intel retired lithographers for the past 12 year to teach them how to make litho machines and do chip making lithography. Now China is the world leader in both the making of litho machines and the making of world leading chips and the making of world leading AI machines.
American politicians are running around we must investigate how did China get ahead? Americans know when they invest all they get are many dead Ukrainians and a few dead Russians. China when it invest saves Americans who had their pension stolen by IBM to pay the CEO a 600 million dollars leading bonus and it get to be the world leader of the worlds most important industry. Go figure.
Chances are these lithographers grew up eating Chow Mein than Hash Browns.
the drawings of the animation Bambi, in 1942, was drawn by a Tyrus Wong, born in Taishan, Guangdong Province, in Qing Empire back then. Alas, the beauty of outsourcing!
Not that the United States did the same with it’s manufacturing base …
Remembering reading a long while ago a WSJ article on how whole factory machines were being shipped over to CHINA and the line crews were stunned.
Some warned that if they go you will be unable to control ownership ..
The legacy knowledge fades away…
Also as a note China insisted on latest technology transfers …
Or at least partial ones to leap ahead…yes, they have/had a plan.
Good luck bringing it back to America now if we need to supply our own needs.
Maybe China will allow old technology infrastructure to be sold…LOL
To grow industry for the world, there is a need for both cheap labor and cheap fuel of the right kind.
The direct use of coal is one of the types of cheap fuel. Oil, if it is cheap enough, can also be the basis for industry.
The US significantly reduced its industry starting in 1974, when the oil prices rose.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/US-industrial-energy-consumption-per-capita-1024×621.png
It was cheaper to buy imported goods from elsewhere, than goods made with high priced oil. We had coal to smelt iron, but it was cheaper importing steel from elsewhere. The Kyoto Protocol pushed production overseas to a greater extent.
How to run an economy on the weather.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2017/09/how-to-run-the-economy-on-the-weather/
If we can adapt the functions of our economy to work on intermittent energy without relying heavily on storage, the green transition becomes straight forward.
Whilst possible, I think this would be tough for most people. When the wind is strong, you work double shifts snatching whatever sleep you can in between. When the wind is weak, you get time off. If we can learn to live that way, a green energy transition is doable.
You can go for months at a time, with very inadequate wind, and then have wind that is too strong to operate the machines in.
If you are dealing with solar, it is certain that summer will produce far more solar energy than winter. What you need is heat for winter. Wind energy is poor at providing heat and not very reliable.
Our current world economy uses about 20% electricity, and 80% direct energy from the burning of fossil fuels. This is a big deal to try to change. The IEA says
https://www.iea.org/news/clean-sources-of-generation-are-set-to-cover-all-of-the-world-s-additional-electricity-demand-over-the-next-three-years#
“Electricity accounted for 20% of final energy consumption in 2023, up from 18% in 2015.” You are finding substitutes for electricity, not for fossil fuels.
I’ve raised this issue many times. It can work for those industrial processes that can be stopped and restarted – things like electronics assembly. For other things, like glass or steel production, it wont’ work very well or at all. Anyway, at the end of the day, electricity is only 20% of energy usage.
You also need to find other work for these employees, when the wind isn’t blowing.
When my husband and I visited an exhibit about the old wind farms in Holland (at the actual site of the wind turbines), the wind turbines were only used to pump water out, so the fields didn’t flood. There was a family living in the tiny area inside the wind turbine. They also worked as farmers in the area. Their main involvement was to adjust the cloths over the blades, if more of less pumping action was needed. They could also communicate by signals to other farmers, doing something similar a short distance away, so that they would all add more pumping action at the same time.
Milling probably wouldn’t be a full time job for anyone. They would likely need to have another occupation, much of the time.
Well, they adapted, they used renewable energy and lived on site, they were a family, self replicating.
Something has happened to my country, people giving up, living on the streets, drug of choice. Cities are dying, no one can run a shop due to theft.
Renewable energy worked, it will work going forward in various forms.
Watched a Tesla video, stock is up, Tesla is looking at robo cabs. If one has robo cabs, most driving is local for many, that solves the battery problem. Optimus in 2025 for about $20K.
Interesting thought: Look at the total cost of driving, include healthcare costs secondary to accidents. Shift of money from healthcare to robotics?
Dennis L.
Anybody heard of this guy Fadi Lama and his book “Why The West Can’t Win”?
He was interviewed by Mike Adams today ……covers his backstory and gives an overview of the book
Here’s an interview from a few months ago where he focuses exclusively on energy, offering up charts and tables to support his arguments:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/lCoOFm4j9KFv/
About 40 minutes long….all worth a watch. His analysis of oil begins at the 18:07 mark. In particular, he goes into the power of the petrodollar and the economic warfare waged on other countries by manipulation of oil prices.
Is he right about everything? I don’t know…..maybe some of you lot will. He’s not an IYI….he’s an engineer who worked in manufacturing.
Well, dear Jon, if the cowboy can’t afford a horse, the horizon will show its ugly face.
Here are parts 1 and 2, not sure if there was ever a part 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ANJPdkJAZQ
I know, it will never work but:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/hydrogen-powered-train-breaks-world-record/vi-BB1l4Kqp?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=edbc10ea1b6e4226cfb1a9ff5171357f&ei=14
There is always comfort in news which is affirming rather than deffirrming.
Found this store.
https://www.fuelcellstore.com/
I admit to liking this sort of thing, don’t expect to make money personally, but hands on experience is nice.
It is amazing what can be built these days with the right knowledge.
Dennis L.
Education , Research and FUB,
It is for entertainment value.
It is precisely for people like you who still think there are hope so they can feel better
comment cut
… whatever to today’s winners, poverty which would make Oliver Twist or Andersen’s Little Match Girl think that they are living in luxury for the 95% – 99%, and summary cutdowns for those who do not belong but have aspirations.
The control of all possible resources, and no allowance of wastage.
Humanity failed to make the mental transition, which is why it will fall short of its goals of conquering the space.
humans tried to conquer Space.
Space won.
Why humanity is going to fall short of reaching the next step of civilization?
Humanity did NOT get ready to transform itself into a spacefaring civilization.
Those running the world should have cluded more than 95% of the population from consuming things.
Space travel, ton of platinium, whatever you
“Why humanity is going to fall short of reaching the next step of civilization?”
It was fossil fuels that gave humanity that supercharged leap as the industrial age was born. There was all types of possibilities including using the cheap low hanging, easy to get at fossil fuels to find another type of cheap and abundant energy source. We squandered that and now fossil fuels is in decline because it is no longer cheap to extract and bring to market. Consumer prices are in direct correlation with cheap fossil fuels.
We will be lucky if we see another dark age because those in charge are doing their best to depop the planet because they see there are too many of us and not enough resources to go around.
And the fossil fuels were wasted to give the lower and lower middle classes in the English speaking world a better life.
The Joads in Grape of Wrath, who supposedly lost everything, drove a truck from Oklahoma to California. I do not recall poorer people outside of North America owning a truck at that period of time.
Alas, if only Chucky hadn’t “done his duty”!
The crime of Chucky and his 200/400 Worcerstershires cannot be calculated.
Without them ‘doing their duty’, we would not have seen 20th century’s favorite dictators, as well as the Russian Revolution and all these woes following that.
In return for all of these more marginal people in the Anglophone world, especially North America, lived somewhat better for the next half century. Was it worth that? I don’t think so.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Norways-Cash-Flow-From-Offshore-Fields-Crashes-Due-to-Low-Natural-Gas-Prices.html
Norway’s Cash Flow From Offshore Fields Crashes Due to Low Natural Gas Prices
At some point, producers quit and go home, if the prices are too low for too long.
US natural gas prices are very low, too. This is a recent EIA chart.
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/img/20240502_NGSP.png
Shale gas production is flat since the last 18 months and it is negatively priced at WAHA . The traders are crazy or what .
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-april-26-2024/#comment-774490
Natural gas in storage is more full than expected, for this time of year. Take away capacity in Texas is low.
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/weekly/
EIA has a figure of natural gas production by production, with downloadable data. It is clear that Utica production is now way down, looking at the chart. Marcellus is close to flat.
The world is not paying attention to the fine detail . Quality matters .
” It is becoming more and more evident.
https://archive.md/IOVil#selection-5942.0-5944.0
“As you can see, associated gas production has reached an all-time high, while implied US oil production remains stagnant at around ~13 million b/d. After the January cold snap, associated gas production only declined slightly, while US oil production failed to regain momentum.
According to our estimates, US oil production will still fall. more in the coming weeks, reaching ~12.8 million b/d in June before recovering at the end of the year. And as all veteran oil analysts know, when you start to see overall gas production surpassing oil production. you know the basin is closer to the end than the beginning This is an alarming trend and something everyone needs to pay attention to
Road ahead
The world is not prepared for what will come if shale oil production. American reaches its peak. The Permian Basin single-handedly rescued the world from a structural oil supply deficit, so as the Permian peaks, so does non-OPEC supply growth. From 2025 to 2030, the topic will focus on the lack of production growth outside of OPEC and what happens to global demand for oil at a price of XXX dollars. We are entering a new paradigm and this alarming trend is not receiving enough attention.
Meanwhile, oil analysts simply believe that capital discipline is resulting in slower US oil production, but we see something much worse. While we don’t expect the Permian to go into free fall any time soon, the lack of growth in itself will be enough to send oil prices skyrocketing.”
Copy/paste from Quark in Spain .
Mike S confirms this in his latest post .
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/5fcbcbb3ee90ec001721308c/is-the-permian-losing-market-share?postId=66364db7dcf3a7001064d102&origin=notification&utm_campaign=0311fc62-cd45-44e0-9fa4-737837beb006&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=cd201b4e-c4a8-41fd-b454-aaf9ba29f897&cid=fa335351-37bb-44a6-9899-f8c34b4a0f81
This does look frightening. We depend a lot on the Permian Basin.
As you quote:
“when you start seeing overall gas production outpace oil production, you know the basin is closer to the end than the beginning. This is an alarming trend and something everyone needs to pay attention to.”
Mike S says: “We spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars exporting the good stuff to foreign countries. Now we’re left with the debt, the plugging liability, and we’re covered up in associated gas that is not worth diddly squat. Some of us saw this coming years ago.”