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Moving industrialization offshore can look like a good idea at first. But as fossil fuel energy supplies deplete, this strategy works less well. Countries doing the mining and manufacturing may be less interested in trading. Also, the broken supply lines of 2020 and 2021 showed that transferring major industries offshore could lead to empty shelves in stores, plus unhappy customers.
The United States started moving industry offshore in 1974 (Figure 1) in response to spiking oil prices in 1973-1974 (Figure 2).
Industry is based on the use of fossil fuels. Electricity also plays a role, but it is more like the icing on the cake than the basis of industrial production. Industry is polluting in many ways, so it was an “easy sell” to move industry offshore. But now the United States is realizing that it needs to re-industrialize. At the same time, we are being told about the need to transition the entire economy to electricity to prevent climate change.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation–how fossil fuel prices have spiked many times, including 1973-1974 (oil) and more recently (coal in 2022). I will also discuss the key role fossil fuels play. Because of the key role of fossil fuels, a reduction in per-capita fossil fuel consumption likely leads to a transition to fewer goods and services, on average, per person. A transition to all electricity does not seem to be feasible. Instead, we seem to be headed for increased geopolitical conflict and the possibility of a financial crash seems greater.
[1] When fossil fuel supplies become constrained, prices tend to spike to high levels, and then fall back again.
Economists and energy analysts have tended to assume that fossil fuel prices would rise to very high levels, allowing extraction of huge amounts of difficult-to-extract fossil fuels. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the past has shown forecasts of future oil production assuming that inflation-adjusted oil prices will rise to $300 per barrel.
Instead of rising to a very high level, fossil fuel prices tend to spike because there is a two-way contest between the price the consumers can afford and the price the sellers need to keep reinvesting in new fields to keep fossil fuel supplies increasing. Prices oscillate back and forth, with neither buyers nor sellers finding themselves very happy with the situation. The current price of the benchmark, Brent oil, is $81.
[2] Historical data shows spiking oil and coal prices.
When world oil prices started to spike in the 1973-1974 period, the US started to move its industrial production offshore (Figure 1). The very low inflation-adjusted prices that prevailed up until 1972 no longer held. Manufacturing costs climbed higher. Consumers wanted smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and such cars were already being manufactured both in Europe and in Japan. Importing these cars made sense.
More recently, coal prices have begun to spike. Coal prices vary by location, but the general patterns are similar for the types of coal shown.
Before China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, coal prices tended to be below $50 per ton (figure 3). At that price, coal was a very inexpensive fuel for making steel and concrete, and for many other industrial uses.
After China joined the WTO, China’s coal consumption soared (Figure 4), allowing it to industrialize. Figure 3 shows that the extra demand initially pushed coal prices up a little. By 2022, coal prices had soared. At present, coal prices are part-way back down, perhaps partly because higher interest rates are dampening world demand for coal.
Natural gas prices also soared in 2022, at the same time as coal prices. Both coal and natural gas are fuels that are burned to produce electricity. When the coal supply is constrained, utilities will try to purchase more electricity produced by burning natural gas. However, it is difficult to store much natural gas for future use. Thus, a shortage of internationally traded coal can simultaneously lead to a shortage of internationally traded natural gas.
Having oil, coal, and natural gas prices spiking at the same time leads to inflation and to many unhappy citizens.
[3] The 1997 Kyoto Protocol encouraged the trend toward moving industry to lower-cost countries.
In Figure 1, I show a dotted line at 1997. At that time, an international treaty stating that the participating countries would limit their own CO2 emissions attracted a lot of attention. An easy way to limit CO2 emissions was by moving industry overseas. Even though the US did not sign the treaty until later, the treaty gave the US a reason to move industry overseas. We can see from Figure 1 that US industrialization, as measured by the energy per capita required to industrialize, began to fall even more rapidly after 1997.
[4] There were many reasons besides the Kyoto Protocol why Advanced Economies would want to move industry overseas.
There were many reasons to move industry overseas besides spiking oil prices and concern over CO2 levels. With such a change, customers in the US (and European countries making a similar change) gained access to lower-cost goods and services. With the money the customers could save, they were able to buy more discretionary goods and services, which helped to ramp up local economies.
Also, industry tends to be polluting. Smog tends to be problem if coal is burned, or if diesel with high sulfur content is burned. Mining tends to produce a lot of toxic waste. Moving this pollution offshore to poorer countries would solve the pollution problem without the high cost of attempting to capture this pollution and properly store it.
Furthermore, business-owners in the United States could sense the opportunity to grow to be truly international in size if they moved much of their industry overseas.
[5] All the globalization and moving of industry overseas had a downside: more wage and wealth disparity.
In a matter of a few years, the economy changed to provide fewer high-paying factory jobs in the United States. Increasingly, those without advanced education found it difficult to provide an adequate living for their families. The high incomes were disproportionately going to highly educated workers and the owners of capital goods (Figure 5).
[6] Part of what caused the growing wage and wealth disparities in Figure 5 was the growing industrialization of China (Figure 6).
China, with its growing industrialization, could outcompete whole industries, such as furniture-making and garment-making, leaving US workers to find lower-paid jobs in the service sector. Similar outcomes unfolded in the EU and Japan, as industrialization started moving to different parts of the world.
[7] The indirect impact of the Kyoto Protocol was to move CO2 emissions slightly away from the Advanced Nations. Overall, CO2 emissions rose.
Anyone who expected that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol would reduce world CO2 emissions would have been disappointed.
[8] The direct use of fossil fuels plays a far more important role in the economy than we have ever been taught.
Thanks to the direct use of fossil fuels, the world can have paved roads, bridges made of steel, and electricity transmission lines. It can have concrete. It can have pharmaceutical products, herbicides, and insecticides. Many of these benefits come from the chemical properties of fossil fuels. Electricity, by itself, could never provide these products since it has been stripped of the chemical benefits of fossil fuels. Electricity is also difficult to store.
With the benefit of fossil fuels, the world can also have high-quality steel, with precisely the composition desired by those making it. With only electricity, it is possible to use electric arc furnaces to recycle used steel, but such steel is limited both in quantity and quality. US production of steel amounts to 5% of world supply (primarily using electric arc furnaces), while China’s production (mostly using coal) amounts to 50% of world supply.
I highly recommend reading the article, Trapped in the Iron Age, by Kris De Decker. He explains that the world uses an enormous amount of steel, but most of it is hidden in places we can’t see. Today, with the US’s limited steel-making capability, the US needs to import most of its steel, including steel pipes from China to drill its oil wells. We cannot see how dependent we have become on other countries for our basic steel needs.
China and India have both based their recent growth primarily on rising coal consumption. This is what has kept world CO2 emissions high. The US is now exporting coal to these countries.
[9] Citizens of Advanced Economies are easily confused about the importance of fossil fuel use because they have never been taught about the subject and because their worldview is distorted by the narrow view they see from within their homes and offices.
Figure 8 shows that the sector with the highest share of electricity use is the commercial sector. This includes uses such as stores, offices, and hospitals. The most visible energy use is lighting and operating computers, which gives the perception that electricity is the greatest energy use. But these businesses also need to be heated, and heat is often produced by burning natural gas directly. Businesses also need back-up for their electrical systems. Such back-up is typically provided by diesel-powered generators.
Residential usage is similar. It is easy to see the use of electricity, but heat is generally needed during winter. This is often provided by natural gas or propane. Natural gas is also often used in hot water heaters, stoves, and clothes dryers. Occasionally, wood is used to heat homes; this would go into the non-electricity portion, as well.
The thing that most people do not realize is that industrial use and transportation use are extremely large sectors of the economy (Figure 9), and these sectors are very low consumers of electricity (Figure 8). Also, if the US and Europe were to re-industrialize to produce more of our manufactured goods, our industrial sectors would need to be much larger than they are today.
In recent years, electrical consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption for the industrial sector has averaged about 13% of the total (Figure 9). Industries typically need high heat levels; such heat can usually be achieved at lowest cost by burning fossil fuels directly. Wikipedia claims, “Electric arc steelmaking is only economical where there is plentiful, reliable electricity, with a well-developed electrical grid.” An electric grid, powered only by intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels, would not qualify.
In Figure 8, electricity consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption for the US transportation sector rounds to 0%, for every year. Even the amount of biomass (ethanol and biodiesel) used by the transportation sector doesn’t have much of an impact, as shown in Figure 10.
A major issue is that transportation is a broad sector, including trucks, trains, planes, and boats, in addition to private passenger autos. Also, I expect that the only electricity that would be considered in the transportation energy calculation would be electricity purchased from an away-from-home charging facility. Electricity used when charging at home would likely be part of residential electricity consumption.
[9] The narrative saying that we can transition to an electricity-only economy, powered by intermittent wind and solar electricity, has major holes in it.
One major issue is that the pricing of wind and solar tends to drive out other electricity providers, particularly nuclear. Intermittent wind and solar are given “priority” when they are available. This leads to very low or negative prices for other electricity providers. Nuclear is particularly affected because it cannot ramp up and down, in response to prices that are far below its cost of production.
Nuclear is a far more stable source of electricity than either wind or solar, and it is also a low-carbon source. As a result, economies end up worse off, in terms of electricity supply per capita, and in stability of available supply, when wind and solar are added.
Another issue is that wind turbines and solar panels are made with fossil fuels and repaired using fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, we cannot maintain electricity transmission lines and roads. Thus, wind turbines and solar panels are as much a part of the fossil fuel system as hydroelectric electricity and electricity made from coal or natural gas.
Also, as discussed above, only a small share of the economy is today operated using electricity. The IEA says that 20% of 2023 world energy supply comes from electricity. The amounts I calculated as “Overall” in Figure 8 indicate an electricity share of 18%, which is a bit less than the IEA is indicating for the world. Figure 8 shows an early upward trend in this ratio, but no upward trend since 2012. Fossil fuels are being used today because they have chemical characteristics that are needed or because they provide the energy services required in a less expensive manner than electricity.
Even in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, wind and waterpower provided only a small portion of the total energy supply. Coal provided the heat energy that both industry and residences needed, inexpensively. Wind and waterpower were not well adapted to providing heat energy when needed.
If we are short of inexpensive-to-extract fossil fuels, relative to today’s large population, we certainly could use some new inexpensive source of stable electricity supply. But this would not solve all our energy problems–we would still need a substantial amount of fossil fuel supplies to grow our food and keep our roads repaired. But if a new type of electricity production could reduce the demand for fossil fuels, it would make a larger quantity of fossil fuels available for other purposes.
[10] Practically everyone would like a happily-ever-after ending, so it is easy for politicians, educators, and the news media to put together overly optimistic versions of the future.
The narrative that CO2 is the world’s biggest enemy, so we need to move quickly away from fossil fuels, has received a great deal of publicity recently, but it is problematic from two different points of view:
(a) The feasibility of moving away from fossil fuels without killing off a very major portion of the world’s population seems to be virtually zero. The world economy is a dissipative structure in physics terms. It needs energy of the right kinds to “dissipate,” just as humans are dissipative structures and need food to dissipate (digest). Humans cannot live on lettuce alone, or practically any other foodstuff by itself. We need a “portfolio” of foods, adapted to our bodies’ needs. The economy is similar. It cannot operate only on electricity, any more than humans can live only on high-priced icing for cakes.
(b) The narrative about the importance of CO2 emissions with respect to climate change is quite possibly exaggerated. There are many other things that would seem to be at least as likely to cause short-term shifts in temperatures:
- Lack of global dimming caused by less coal dust and reduced sulfur compounds in the atmosphere; in other words, reducing smog tends to raise temperatures.
- Small changes in the Earth’s orbit
- Changes in solar activity
- Changes related to volcanic eruptions
- Changes related to shifts in the magnetic north and south poles
Politicians, educators, and the news media would all like a narrative that can explain the need for moving away from fossil fuels, rather than admit that “our easy to extract fossil fuel supply is running out.” The climate change narrative has been an easy approach to highlight, since clearly the climate is changing. It also provides the view that somehow we will be able to fix the problem if we take it seriously enough.
[11] Today, we are in a period of conflict among nations, indirectly related to not having access to enough fossil fuels for a world population of 8 billion. There is also a significant chance of financial collapse.
In my opinion, today’s world is a little like the “Roaring 20s” that came shortly before a major stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the Great Depression, the world entered World War II. There is huge wage and wealth disparity; energy supplies per capita are stretched.
Today, NATO and Russia are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. Russia is a major fossil fuel producer; it would like to be paid more for the energy products it sells. Russia could perhaps get better prices by selling oil and other energy products to Asian customers instead of its current customer mix. At the same time, the US claims primary leadership (hegemony) in the world but, in fact, it needs to import many goods from overseas. It even needs supply lines from around the world for weapons being sent to Ukraine. The Ukraine conflict is not going well for the US.
I do not know how this will work out. I am hoping that there will not be a World War III, in the same way that there was a World War II. All countries are terribly dependent on each other, even though there are not enough fossil fuels to go around. Perhaps countries will try to sabotage one another, using modern techniques, such as cyber warfare.
I think that there is a substantial chance of a major financial collapse in the next few years. The level of debt is very high now. A major recession, with lots of collapsing debt, seems to be a strong possibility.
[12] A presentation I recently gave to a group of actuaries that touches on several of these issues, plus others.
My presentation can be found at this link: Beware: The Economy Is Beginning to Shrink
It seems there are questions whether China is going to attend the big war is peace summit.
West. You know you are invited
China. I like my friend Russia
West. Your sure?
China. Yup
West. Really sure it’s a big decision.
China. Yup
West. We would really really like you to attend.
China. I like my friend Russia.
West. It’s a big opportunity to show your democratic values.
China. No thank you.
West. Everyone will be there.
China. How bout we catch a squirrel from the park and send it.
West. So theres a chance!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2024_Ukraine_peace_summit
An international peace summit in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War is planned to be held in Bürgenstock Resort in Switzerland[1] on 15–16 June 2024.[2] The conference follows a series of four earlier international meetings,[3] and is to be hosted by the Swiss president Viola Amherd.[1]
In November 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a 10-point peace plan, on the issues of nuclear safety; food security for Asian and African countries; Ukraine’s energy infrastructure; the release of prisoners and the return of Ukrainian children deported to Russia; restoration of the 1991 Russia–Ukraine border; withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine; prosecutions for war crimes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine; handling of ecological damage; guarantees against future Russian aggression; and a peace conference and international treaty.[4][5] In December 2022, Zelenskyy called for the G7 states to support the plan.[4]
Series of four meetings
A series of four international conferences aiming at a peaceful resolution of the February 2022 Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine preceded the planned June 2024 Swiss conference.[6][3] . . .
Participating states and international organizations
As of 24 May 2024, representatives from 160 states and international organizations had been invited to the conference.[16][2] The possible participation of China was seen as a key issue. A Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that “listen[ing] to the Global South, which [would] play a key role in the eventual inclusion of Russia in the process” was significant.[17][13] . . .
Russia
The FDFA stated that Russia was not invited to the June 2024 stage of the discussions; that Switzerland had “always shown openness” to inviting Russia to the first summit; and that Russia had “repeatedly and also publicly” stated that it would not participate in the first summit. The FDFA stated the Swiss point of view that Russia necessarily would have to be involved in the overall peace process, stating, “A peace process without Russia is unthinkable.”[2]
Reactions
Prior to the June summit itself, Zelenskyy stated in late April 2024 that Russian authorities had “a specific plan” for disrupting the summit, including plans to discourage states from participating.
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It is strange having a peace conference without the major war participants.
This event seems to be a gathering where countries will gather to promise weapons security guarantees and sanctions against Russia to Ukraine. It is not a genuine negotiation with Russia intended to save the lives of brave Ukrainians and brave Russians. The slaughter brother vs brother cousin vs cousin continues. Other slaughter continues. No one steps in. Voicing opposition silenced with laws contrary to free speech.The peace is war summit is basically an arms bazaar.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=My5rHqWmNXE
Sad situation!
(Byoblu)
“BioNTech lands in Africa. The German biotechnology and biopharmaceutical company is aiming to build a first mRNA vaccine factory in Kigali, Rwanda.
This is the first step in a larger project to start industrial production of the new serums in Africa”.
…Hey, let’s go where we can make tests on people without problems and labour force has a very low price…Come on!
https://www.byoblu.com/2024/05/30/covid-e-vaiolo-delle-scimmie-la-fabbrica-biontech-in-ruanda/
Nothing new. With China and Ukraine out of the picture, Africa is the primary launch point ala Omicron. A little cash, a few petri dishes, and n95 masks and voila. Plus whatever shows up they just say it was a primate eating insect larva or whatever. To my knowledge they never have found c19 in anything but bats despite testing over 10,000 species, and the only reason it was in bats in a natural environment is the eco health contract to spray the bat cave with it.
Africa is the last frontier. No South American country will let them play there.
That they would manufacture the countermeasure in Africa makes sense since the measure is being manufactured there.
The only thing stupider than creating these things is thinking you can create a fix for them. It’s akin to the computer security specialist making his bones with a Mal program except biology doesn’t work that way. Both the measure and the counter measure jack you up. The countermeasure might keep you from firing a nasty death, but since it doesn’t stop infection or transmission you’re still going to get two experimental gene therapies introduced into your body. Yes, the measure replicates in a big way if it hits the right environment in your body, but it doesn’t just kick in the door; it hangs out in the patio for a couple days in the upper respiratory system. Which is why everyone knew early treatment was so important. The countermeasure doesn’t have to replicate. It comes pre replicated with billions of replicates and bypasses your upper respiratory defenses via injection.
That doesn’t mean that the measure didn’t destroy lung tissue for whatever reason; those didn’t stop it at the patio. It did; it was a nasty actor. If you think the genetic ace2 profile wasn’t why this bug was selected, you think differently than me.
I think the calling every flu case a measure casualty was to cover for the casualty rate in countries where it blew past the upper respiratory because of the ace2 receptor profile.
Honesty I believe the sinopharm vaccine and–yes, good or bad, it is an actual vaccine–probably saved Iran from complete devastation.
And of course the genetics of who ace2 profile is not keyed to c19 is a topic of non discussion.
Speaking of which RFK jr represents the far left faction that is just dying to tell everyone who released the bug, but do it in such a way that the neoliberal complete avocation of big pharma as the newest branch of the military is not compromised. There’s a reason Trump really really doesn’t like RFK jr, and there’s a reason why the whole world is really really starting to despise the USA in the worst way. The funny part after making stuff up about Trump for four years, no one will believe the neoliberal party of war v1.0 if they revealed what he really did. Trump did not collude with Russia but his actions made Russia and China best buddies, which is the bestest gift anyone ever gave Russia.
The next one will be totally different. Taking the chimera development model where you take something really nasty and add receptors for the lungs, Africa is an ideal place for research. Its wildlife is not just in the jungle. Theres a reason why both gain of function and specifically chimeric research were banned–the ban repealed under the Trump administration. Sorry I call them the way I see them. Trump understands now that he either gets in line or faces prison or worse. The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Why do you think Putin said he preferred Biden because he was more predictable? Why does he think Trump is unpredictable?
If you need very cold storage for your vaccines, Africa is not the place to go, however. Electricity tends not to be very reliable.
Your right. The countermeasures are not manufactured in Africa to be distributed in Africa.
Why exactly do these exotic countermeasures need such deep refrigeration? How often was their temperature protocol followed in their administration? What are the consequences of keeping it at room temp for too long before administration?
It’s a secret.
As far as R&D, a diesel generator fixes that. Hell, in the early days of the move it to China they were dropping jet engines and attached to generators right and left in China in rural areas where there was no electricity. Shake n Bake manufacturing. Only the plant had electricity, not the workers’ homes.
Things changed fast. By 2005 china only allowed state of the art manufacturing facilities to be imported. Disposing of all the old junk manufacturing machinery previously imported was a big problem. The equipment imported at 2005 could be no more than two years old. That meant manufacturing lines in the USA had to be created, trouble shot, and process control developed in two years. Lo and behold China figured out how to do that, too, and they are damn good at it now.
Does Japan or Germany still have the edge in top quality specifications? Yes but China is damn close at half price or less. China knows spec when you order a spec it’s exactly that. If you call out +- .008″ will be that but it wont be +- .005″. If you forget to call out a spec you take for granted you will get the worst spec possible. Because China understands spec in and out. 16 year old kids understand spec in Shenzhen. If you forget to call a spec the price offered will be very good. They know exactly how to price for the manufacturing specified. They see that as their job. It’s your job to call out the spec you want not theirs–not their job to hold your hand. Business.
Most people have no idea how low cost this stuff is sold for . I would guess average total markups to retail including shipping are at least 5000% or more. Which why the gold rush in move it to China. People made a lot of money.
You are right Gail, if one wants to deliver vaccines in good quality.
But to explain what happened here (Italy) which is a good example of wide diffusion, at the beginning, they storaged them at very low temperature, but then, as time went by, they started to offer vaccines on beaches, offering aperitif to young people in order to push them to accept.
So, as you can see, the purpose is not to inject something of good quality, but simply sell it and place it…
Here we are with two examples of what happened, they called it ‘aperi-vax’ at disco or beaches.
I think that you haven’t seen yet these crazy things in US.
https://www.castelvetranoselinunte.it/aperivax-a-tre-fontane-vaccino-durante-laperitivo-prima-volta-in-provincia/
https://www.ilrestodelcarlino.it/rimini/cronaca/vaccini-al-mare-allora-dellaperitivo-2f1ee9e7
The domino’s fall one at a time .
https://www.energyconnects.com/news/renewables/2024/may/waste-to-fuel-company-that-raised-1-billion-verges-on-collapse/
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/enviva-bankruptcy-fallout-ripples-through-biomass-industry-u-s-and-eu/
They were never part of the system. It’s like when Theranos failed. The big failures are those in and around the Permian. I think you reported on one several hrs ago.
The two links deal with two different situations:
1. There a whole lot of operating expenses, whenever recycling is attempted.
“Fulcrum BioEnergy, a clean-fuels pioneer that raised more than $1 billion to turn household waste into lower-emitting fuels for planes and trucks, is in danger of going under. ”
2. This is the big organization that contracted with lots of tree growers for material for wood pellets, primarily to sell to European customers as “green energy.” Prices of pellets didn’t rise to cover the rising cost of wood.
“The bankruptcy filing in March by Maryland-based Enviva — the world’s largest maker of wood pellets from forest biomass — is rattling a European Union that relies heavily on biomass as a significant though contested renewable energy source.”
They considered pellets from US forests ‘clean energy’ in EU and this put a lot of honest generators out of business.
Its a great show to watch!
South Australia public hospitals operating in internal emergency, elective surgeries paused
“South Australian public hospitals are under strain with the health department boss declaring a system-wide internal emergency due to many staff being sick with COVID.
SA Health chief executive Robyn Lawrence called a code yellow on Thursday afternoon, opening all available beds and paused almost all elective surgeries in metropolitan and regional public hospitals.
In a statement, Dr Lawrence said the decision was made due to “significant demand” this week.
All Adelaide metropolitan emergency departments were operating at code white, which means they were over-capacity, earlier on Thursday.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/sa-public-hospitals-in-internal-emergency/103915690?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web
Canary in coalmine. They are getting flu season right now. Already pausing surgeries due to overcapacity and staff shortages.
i come from south australia and money is pretty tight for the government that is what i have heard other projects in the construction game are being postponed and government employee i know is being given marching orders normally being government you are untouchable so being given marching orders is abnormal developement i have to agree with you mob canary in the coalmine according to my research all the economically viable oil was meant to run out in 2025 which would destroy the financial system i think had the lockdowns not occurred in 2020 world would have ended earlier maybe in 2022 . According to Bill Gates he claimed in one of his videos that we only had a couple of years left the video was made in 2022 or 2023 i cannot recall. But dont worry mob we shall soon find out meanwhile i am getting one more barrel of food and water ready just in case.
Novak Djokovic sick on court during Geneva Open loss to Tomas Machac
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5517794/2024/05/24/djokovic-sick-court-geneva-open/
&
BREAKING NEWS: Source(s) have told me that was blister prevention & potentially lingering effects from Covid toe for Aaron Rodgers
https://x.com/PatMcAfeeShow/status/1796228728806137937
Anti-vaxx superstars are going down now.
Novak did not take the vaccine and paid a heavy price as was banned for at least 2-3 grand slams . Must be something else .
He’s been sick all year and hasn’t won any tournaments! In the warm weather? The #1
Novak Djokovic’s defeat to Jannik Sinner blamed on ‘severe’ health scare – ‘You could see he was weak’ (01.31.24) Aussie Open
https://www.tennis365.com/australian-open/novak-djokovics-defeat-jannik-sinner-blamed-severe-health-scare-weak
And he was even shaking the last tournament.
Concerning scenes for Novak Djokovic at Geneva Open as Serb suffers from tremors in his hand on the way to shock SF exit
https://www.sportskeeda.com/tennis/news-concerning-scenes-novak-djokovic-geneva-open-serb-suffers-tremors-hand-way-shock-sf-exit
He was hit on the head with a metal bottle after a recent match and had to get brain scans. Concussions or possible hematoma can cause nausea. I think I read that he’s been dealing with nausea since that happened, although maybe the recent episode is a separate issue.
Yes, correct.
“Djokovic, after beating Coretin Moutet in his opening match at the event, was greeting fans on the court in Rome. A fan leaned over the railing to hand him a notebook to get his autograph when an “aluminum-type water bottle” fell out of the fan’s backpack and drilled Djokovic on his head, organizers told The Associated Press.
Djokovic quickly fell to the ground..”
https://sports.yahoo.com/novak-djokovic-hit-in-head-by-water-bottle-needed-medical-attention-after-opening-win-at-italian-open-205319959.html
The article says,
“”Many hospitals are also being impacted by the large amount of respiratory illness in our community, in particular COVID and flu, which is also creating staff shortages.””
All the COVID shots made immune systems less strong. Other parts of the world had many health care practitioners leave. I expect that Australia has similar problems. Also, many workers are retiring, if old age pensions are available.
No wonder hospitals are having problems, now in Australia’s winter, which is respiratory disease time. Respiratory diseases seem to make heart disease worse, at the same time, according to one article I read. So, it all goes together.
But he did wear a mask;
In addition, to introduce new solutions to the challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, textile companies are incorporating specific nanofiber, nanocomposite and nanoparticle technology into face masks5,6. Nanofibers containing TiO2 nanoparticles have been produced to create antimicrobial filters7, also in combination with silver8 and graphene9. Coatings of TiO2 nanoparticles on cotton fabric were applied for enhanced self-cleaning and antibacterial properties10.’
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06605-w
Graphene oxide (GO) is currently developed for biomedical applications as a promising nanoplatform for drug delivery, phototherapy, and biosensing. As a consequence, its safety and cytotoxicity issues have attracted extensive attention. It has been demonstrated that GO causes an increase of intracellular oxidative stress, likely leading to its cytotoxicity and inhibition of cell proliferation. Being one of the main reductive intracellular substances, glutathione (GSH) is vital in the regulation of the oxidative stress level to maintain normal cellular functions. In this study, we found that GSH could be oxidized to GSSG by GO, leading to the formation of reduced GO (rGO). GSH depletion affects the intracellular reductive/oxidative balance, provoking the increase of the reactive oxygen species level, sequentially inhibiting cell viability and proliferation. Therefore, the reaction between GO and GSH provides a new perspective to explain the origin of GO cytotoxicity.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33428377/
Glutathione is key to immune system function. The nasal swabs also introduced plenty of GO.
Even on mainstream u-tub
‘What are the side effects of graphene?
Toxicity of graphene-family nanoparticles: a general review …
In addition, several typical mechanisms underlying GFN toxicity have been revealed, for instance, physical destruction, oxidative stress, DNA damage, inflammatory response, apoptosis, autophagy, and necrosis.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp6-bgvlRhg
Modern day asbestos?
Get them dancing again; it emptied the hospitals last time they did.
TM has a new post, nice summary of GDP and an insight into SEEDS. A long quote from said post.
“Contrary to widespread misunderstanding, GDP isn’t a measure of material output in the economy. Rather, gross domestic product is a summation of transactional activity, and it’s perfectly possible, indeed commonplace, for money to change hands without economic value being added.
Because the only reason for borrowing money is to spend it, credit expansion necessarily inflates reported transactional activity in the system. Ultimately, “growth” in reported GDP depends on how much borrowing you can get away with.
SEEDS strips out this credit effect to calculate the underlying or ‘clean’ rate of change in economic output. This, as Fig. 1C shows, averaged only 0.5%, rather than the reported 1.4%, over the past twenty years.
This calculation doesn’t take us all the way to material prosperity, which requires further adjustment for changes in the critically-important metric of the Energy Cost of Energy – ECoE determines how much economic output remains after paying for the energy without which no economy can function.”
Bingo! We increase economic output by lowering the activation energy with existing energy on earth and using infinite energy in space, for now limited to our solar system.
We can “fake” increased GDP through financial manipulation, those closest to the manipulation can grift a portion for themselves and for a short period cause the grifted to think they too are advancing – that is monetary inflation.
So, in the US, cutting defense spending to the bone would/might increase the economic well being of the average US citizen, keep peace and give us time, to, drum roll please. TRANSITION to, what else, a H economy and the resultant chicken in every pot.
Somewhere, need increased throughput of kinetic energy. Catalysts magically lower the activation energy of chemical reactions. Additionally, we are dealing with rate of release here, that is increase/decrease of GDP or TM’s C-GDP. Catalysts allow more bang for the buck, the bang needs to be greater than the buck.
We really need a cubic mile of Pt, we need a way to convert existing energy to kinetic energy without increasing the heat load on our spaceship earth. A H economy is possible now, it is the activation energy requirements which make it impossible to do economically. Calculations on what is doable and what is not worth the effort are simple thermodynamics, well established by a clever American, J.W. Gibbs.
As much(all?) of the necessary exogenous heat can be released/wasted in space, our spaceship earth can do what it does best, manage hemostasis for us humans, the grandest experiment of the universe.
Dennis L.
If wishes were horses, beggars will ride.
kul,
One step at a time, Starship is supposed to go next week. A positive attitude on my part will change nothing, but it is hope.
Dennis L.
No different from prisoners at Oswiecim expecting the faraway cannon sounds are to rescue them.
Your blind faith on starships is either quixotic, or simply unrealistic.
‘…..a H economy and the resultant chicken in every pot.’
Get with times dude; bird flu don’t you know!!
Maybe a stone soup?
This is a link to the post:
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2024/05/28/279-the-fiascos-of-denied-decline/
Morgan says,
“Between 2003 and 2023, the annual mathematical average of growth in GDP was 1.4%. Achieving this required, on average, borrowing 6.2% of GDP.”
This is the fundamental problem–what Morgan is trying to eliminate. I am not sure that he needs his SEEDS program to back it out.
I don’t see where he backs out the effect of energy used in making energy. It seems to do various other things. He says:
I still have a problem with electricity being very helpful. It is virtually impossible to transport and store without a very energy intensive system. Ramping electricity up to get greater voltage if it is needed, temporarily, (electric truck going up a hill) would seem to be a problem, also.
I don’t doubt what he is saying. Back in 2003, I was 24 years old and was in my first job out of university. I was paying rent of £500/month and was paying back a student loan. I could still afford two foreign holidays each year for my wife and I, and our two children. We weren’t rich, but we lived OK. They wanted for nothing.
Fast fwd 21 years, I own my own house without a mortgage. The student loan is long gone. My wages (on paper) have roughly quadrupled. And yet, I don’t have much money left each month after groceries and bills. The government take roughly half of what I earn. I certainly cannot afford two foreign holidays a year. The cost of everything has gone to the moon. I pity people on lower wages who are trying to pay off mortgages. Britain is a poor country pretending to be a rich country.
Dennis, hydrogen was used as a vehicle fuel during WW2 and the great depression, in gas bag vehicles. Coal gas was mostly hydrogen, i.e carbureted water gas. They did fill an economic niche. But they were slow and had short range. And importantly, the energy was coming from low cost coal. Not expensive electricity.
Hydrogen is a poor fuel by almost every measure. It boils at 20K. It must be pressurised to 1kbar to achieve a respectable energy density. It leaks through and embrittles most metals. The low volumetric energy density of H2 trashes the power density of any engine consuming it as fuel. Its extremely low minimum ignition energy and high flame speed, both increase explosion risks around its use. It is not economically storable, as storage requires either deep cryogenic temperatures, extreme pressure or high volume. Remember those huge telescopic gasometre tanks around gas works?
If you need a cubic mile of platinum to make an idea work, it is a good indicator that you are backing the wrong horse. I doubt there is a cubic mile of pt in the whole asteroid belt.
I agree with you Peter about hydrogen being a poor fuel under almost any measure. Even if you could fill a tank with hydrogen, you wouldn’t want to park it in your garage, for fear of an explosion.
Peter,
Thanks for the note:
As I recall did the Pt calculation, should about 30 cu miles in the solar system, don’t have time to go back through that one.
I don’t see use of H in engines, only in fuel cells and for that need Pt, at least currently. Honda has a demo semi tractor out now on H as well as autos.
Cubic mile is a metaphor, don’t have a clue. Copilot did the calculations of catalytic converters in existence, more Pt than one would have thought.
On the farm were I to bet on alternatives to a horse(know that works, see the Amish do it all the time) it would be solar cell to H and H to kinetic energy via electricity. Given enough years, I expect will give it a try. Have considered batteries, Leaf, multiple packs replaced robotically. On a farm, electrical usage peaks in summer as does sunlight, no transmission loss, concerned about disposal of solar cells even though I would be gone at that time.
Peter, I don’t know, but have a place to experiment, taking EE technology and added programming at a CC, mostly interested in IOT and programming machines. Damn hard work for an old man, undergrad math, Madison, that helps.
Not much downside for me, twenty years max left and that is very generous.
Dennis L.
Western nuclear regulators, especially the NRC, are holding back nuclear power.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0VLQEGsrMRM
The agency is killing innovation and stretching out build times, making new nuclear plants time consuming and expensive to build. This problem needs to be addressed by the next president, whoever he may be.
The usual method of paying for wholesale electricity, in which wind and solar are given precedence in the pricing scheme, is driving existing nuclear out of business and preventing the building of new nuclear reactor. Nuclear reactors can’t get high enough rates to justify their existence after they are built. Only utilities that can charge whatever as needed to retail electricity buyers, and allocate those funds as needed, can get high enough total funding.
It doesn’t matter what regulators do, given that issue.
Agree, the problem with nuclear is when it does not work it is a mess.
Dennis L.
oh well no WW3 yet.
it seems that it is always a few weeks or months away.
I’ll check back tomorrow night.
No WW3 for two reasons.
1. Nukes
2. US NAVY
The US Navy protects all the worlds’ commerce. They are ten times more powerful than all the worlds navies combined. And 50% of global trade is done via ocean shipping. This is why the US has the reserve currency and has kept the world from a major world war ever since. This is also what allowed countries like Germany, China, Japan for example, to focus on themselves over the last 50 years, instead fighting their neighbors and rivals. (like in the past). And is what has opened up global markets for countries to ship their products without the added cost of security.
we brits held world dominiation through a single factor—surplus energy—ie coal
since we passed the baton on to the usa, they held world domination through surplus energy—ie oil.
now the struggle for world dom starts in earnest–because few can accept that the surplus energy factor is no longer available to any one nation
It looks like countries will have to look after their own needs, to a much greater extent than in the past. There won’t be a single ‘hegemon.’ Trade will have to be using an agreed-upon currency or perhaps something like gold. Buyers and sellers will increasingly be concerned about a balance between sales and purchases from a given country.
I was a “boss” of two distinct small businesses over my career. My main function was to keep peace and metaphorically see the pieces of the pie were divided appropriately and when one individual reached for more than their share metaphorically slap that hand.
I am not sure there can be multiple bosses, there will always be favorites of the different bosses.
Europe is a fighting continent, always at war over something or other. Japan went to war with Russia and China.
When the US rose to dominance, there was a period of peace and prosperity.
I do not like what we do, but for a long time it worked, not perfectly, but it did work.
That is ending now it would seem, new era.
Yes, I know it is not a perfect story, I seek not to be right but to understand and with a bit of luck, place a good bet.
Dennis L.
“When the US rose to dominance, there was a period of peace and prosperity.”
LOL.
Hook. line and sinker?
Norm,
Twisting your tail. You had some Norwegians move over, stir things up and up the gene quality of a rag tag group of islanders.
Dennis L.
Sorry, the Normans.
And, thanks to an illiterate girl named Jehanne d’Arc (which is how her name is actually spelled in the original sources), the people of England became an autistic bunch who only wanted ill will over everyone in the Continent.
The US Navy has become a joke before the Houthi, who has no ships.
It takes time for other powers to sink that in, but now anyone who can fly drones and fire small missiles can disrupt the so-called global trade.
That is when the fate of the world was decided.
Giant military manta ray drone passes first ocean test
“An enormous underwater drone, built to roam the oceans for “very long periods of time” without refueling, has passed initial tests off California, DARPA announced on Wednesday.”
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2024/05/giant-military-manta-ray-drone-passes-first-ocean-test/396244/
Sounds like Nikola Tesla’s death ray, all sizzle, no steak.
Indeed. The Suez canal is still quite empty. The US Navy is a mess.
THEY’RE coming for your cows, your pigs, your chickens, even your honeybees!!
So, what are you going to eat to supplement all those veggies and avoid that vegan death pall?
Crickets!
ENDURANCE on Substack has compiled a full albeit not very appetizing menu touching on everything from chemtrails to bird flu and what it means for your dinner table in 2030, 2035 and—if you live that long—2040.
======
Excerpt:
My own take on their true intentions was that ‘chemtrails’ are primarily a way of poisoning the earth (and its inhabitants) and damaging our food supply. I have written previously about the war on food, emphasizing some key tactics along the way; primarily, in addition to poison from the skies, 4G and 5G radiation, sabotage, Net Zero energy policies and (currently) alleged avian flu. The following is an attempt to draw the strands together and to touch on some that I haven’t yet explored. And at the root of all of it is Agenda 21.
The object of the exercise is total control. I will deal with Agenda 21 in more detail shortly, but the gist of it is that if we are to live urban lives in rented apartment, with freedom of movement, association and thought severely curtailed, we will need to be coerced into doing so. The initial stages, which we are currently in, will be more accurately characterized by deception, by persuading us that eating red meat is somehow bad for the environment or that a digital currency (and the consequent death of cash) is simply more convenient for us all and a better way to protect against fraud. As we go on, you will notice that the ‘evidence’ to back up these assertions will comprise solely of statements, repeated endlessly, that don’t provide proof of anything.
Even the coercion phase can be done in such a way as to appear to be inevitable, as if force of circumstance is responsible rather than malign intent. If less fuel is being processed and less food is being grown, there won’t seem to be a lot we can do about it. All the globalists need is a bit more top cover (previously Putin’s price hike or the ‘pandemic’) and they think they’ll be home free.
The two pieces of ‘legislation’ that undergird the Green Dream are the UN’s Agenda 21/2030 and the Paris Climate Accords. The former was signed in June 1992, the latter in 2015. All the ‘climate change’ nonsense, including regulations that govern our lives in ways we are completely unaware of – but which range from regulating everything from where we can live to what we can eat – springs from one of these two abominations. The green energy policies that have resulted in the cost of living crisis are all derived from these agreements. As are electric cars, fake meat and cricket sandwiches, plans for digital currencies and ID’s.
Agenda 21/2030 lists a number of activities that don’t meet the UN’s self defined metric of sustainability and are, therefore, targeted for elimination. These include:
All private property ownership and rights.
All forms of crop irrigation, pesticides and commercial fertilizers, except when approved for Big Business.
Livestock production and most meat consumption.
Private owned vehicles and personal travel.
The burning of fossil fuels.
Single family homes and suburban communities.
Most forms of mining and timber harvesting.
======
Much more here: https://endurancea71.substack.com/p/the-war-on-food
In Wisconsin, they have passed legislation are requiring cattle to be electronically tagged. As with gun control, registration first, then comes confiscation. From the COVID angle, the govt sells this as being for our “protection,” so that when an outbreak occurs, they can locate ground zero for the outbreak.
Similar approach for homestead chicken farmers.
It’s about control.
Relax,
Without surplus energy, the cost is greater than the benefit, especially when one gets to the limits.
Policy only works with surplus energy. As that declines, things change, they go local. The policy makers then have a real problem, no surplus for them to personally collect.
Dennis L.
BREAKING: Michigan reports another person working with cows got bird flu, the third U.S. case this year
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/michigan-reports-another-person-working-with-cows-got-bird-flu-the-third-u-s-case-this-year
The article doesn’t say how the diagnosis was made. It does say that the symptoms were cough and eye discomfort, and that the farmworker was quickly provided with antivirals and is recovering from respiratory symptoms.
Sounds like a storm in a teacup. It’s as if the media has a quota of scare stories they are supposed to dish out to the dwindling segment of the population that is still following the news.
I suppose we should all be grateful that the guy didn’t drop down dead with blood and gore pouring out of every orifice. That would have given the totalitarians all the pretext they need to roll out the next round of restrictions and mandates.
Climate professor drops a truth bomb on X (deleted the post later)
“If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic #climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate.”
https://x.com/Artemisfornow/status/1791834840611819809
At some point, which we are hitting now, the whole idea of preventing climate change by stopping CO2 emissions becomes silly. If the major part of the issue is lack of global dimming, due to too much cleaning up of the atmosphere of smog, then whatever we do to prevent CO2 change is close to irrelevant.
Of course, the big issue is that we are afraid the fossil fuels are running short. This would be the big reason for the changes proposed, but no one dares say that.
We have said that, recognized NRR are running out on earth. But, we are not limited to earth, we now have Starship, we have robots, we have AI. We don’t have to send humans into space which is hostile to life and is why earth is so incredibly well designed.
I am agnostic on climate change, earth seems to manage change very well; it is the rate of our release of stored energy which is an unknown. We don’t know the effect until the experiment is run; my position is that there are now alternatives and running the experiment is not worth the risks.
Won’t bore you with my thoughts on that, they are by now well known and by most scoffed.
Dennis L.
A starship which goes to nowhere.
Your mantra is “starship orbits”. then what?
There is nothing. You simply refuse to accept reality. That’s OK, but the world will sail without you.
I just realized something.
Companies can’t grow with high oil prices because it causes them to reduce energy usage. And you can’t grow without using more energy.
So, the small fish are going under, and the big fish are eating them to make up the deficit. That’s why all these companies are merging now.
Mike S on the latest Conoco and Marathon oil merger .
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/another-homerun?origin=notification
Marathon was Rockefeller’s original refinery he owned in Clevland. Also, where their corporate offices are.
I read he brokered deals with the railroads to transport his oil cheaper and sorta did the Sam Walton strategy. Then he purchased Standard Oil of New Jersey. Which became “Exxon” and Standard Oil of New York which became “Mobile. And Standard Oil of Indiana which became “Amaco”. And Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) which became “Chevron”.
It is clear that higher interest rates are a major cause of oil companies needing to be bought out. From the link:
Unless Conoco and other companies doing these mergers can figure out some better/cheaper approaches, in addition to firing redundant staff, it is hard to see how the whole system will do well.
The creation of the FED, fractional reserve banking, repeal of Glass-Steagall, etc., enable HUGE swings in the costs of borrowing, creating artificial debt traps for less connected companies which in turn leads to consolidation/acquisition by the big corporations, concentration of wealth, and from there, political influence through bribes and campaign donations. HUGE distortions in the economy enabled by political decrees. This is how big Pharma, the Medical and Military Industrial Complexes, and CIA supported rogue agencies enable Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc to become obscenely powerful. Politicians get rich, and in exchange for the $, enact laws (even written by the corporation lobbyists and not Congress) favorable to these corporations. Corporate capture, corporatism, formerly known as fascism (duopoly of state and corporate government) results.
The ramifications of central banking with fiat currency are enormous. Big Agra is quietly on the move.
We are burning the candle from both ends; From an energy cost of energy (ECoE) standpoint and through runaway debt which someday will make our digital $, paper currency, and the the statements on our IRA’s, 401K’s and pensions, like our laws, totally MEANINGLESS.
There’s something so hypnotically soothing to see your stock “portfolio” increasing nominally in “value.”
A combination of Brent Johnson’s milkshake theory and David Rogers Webb’s The Great Taking is designed to corral all the paper “wealth”- as much as possible before the great “rug pull,” or what I call the Great Suck.
I think, the Great R. is a hoax and will never work. The next time a major financial institute crashes, they will start WW3, prepared in Ukraine.
The situation is set up in a way every regional conflict will lead to a world war. In the moment NATO attacks Russia, China will see it’s chances to take Taiwan and secure the Iranian Oil. The USA will invade Venezuela, because Russia is occupied and cannot guarantee for Caracas. In the Middle East they will fight for Saudi-Arabia and Irak not to join BRICS. Europe will lust for the Caspian Sea.
US-Fracking will end 2030, so they will have to so it before.
A worldwar will come with a reset of the financial system. Population reduction will also play a role, perhaps they have something satanic with the vaxx in the pipeline. It must come all precisely timed. It is not possible to reduce population without financial desaster, it’s not possible to set up a new financial system without oil. So all must come together.
BAU is not at its end. Having control over the world’s reserves plus Venezuela, the USA will manage a few decades on a level of lower complexity, let’s say like around 1900.
Sometime it would be interesting to compare the energy of 1970’s oil/barrel to current energy/barrel with all the NGL’s mixed in. Not all barrels are equal.
Dennis L.
“Companies can’t grow with high oil prices…”
well that might be true.
but right now the world does not have high oil prices.
have you not realized that?
Very good reply! I guess the “cheap” oil prices are caused by enormous public spendings, which have led to inflation, so the buyers can’t afford more products. Proofs are, as always, difficult.
In Europe, energy prices are high, also because of CO2-tax. In Austria, people get helicopter money, but these 100 EURs don’t even compensate the inflation. Prices are a “felt” 30% up.
Wrong.
The average price of oil post WW2 -2000 averaged 19 dollars a barrel (05 inflation adjusted). Which is close to around 1.50ish in current prices. Since 2000 its averaged double that. And we have had the great recession, and endless oil wars.
And the rise of the far right in Europe/UK (Brexit)/ USA Trump. Which are being fueled by low growth in these regions caused by high energy prices. Just like during the 1930’s.
not wrong, just a much better perspective.
inflation adjusted, the 2011-2014 oil price plateau was roughly $140 in today’s $.
that was “high oil prices”
and pre 2000 was low oil prices.
now the world is roughly in a middle range.
With low energy prices, it is possible to buy more “tools” that increase efficiency and increase what is considered the productivity of humans (levered by machines). With high energy prices, this no longer works.
Inside China Business
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hm93bD0gXY&t=29s
Treasury yields going up, US will need to purchase more, all bonds at recent auction did not sell, primary dealers purchased same and will sell remainder on secondary market.
Foreign pension funds purchasing 5 year bonds, they possibly do not have inflation risks, that is beyond my paygrade to explain.
I am siding with Gail on a financial crash, liquidity will be a key. If one sells the market, one is left with an inflation risk, the US government will print, the employees of the government want to be paid.
It is a damn hard game.
Dennis L.
On the face of it debt used as money seems counterintuitive. In fact if you explain to people how money is created many will have strong reactions. If we value our labor it seems wrong to understand we are compensated by debt.
There is however a strong physical principle to debt as money. It is not just that infinite money not tied to physicality is convenient for industrial civilization. Debt based money retains physicality. Indeed if it did not it would not work.
That physicality is maximum power principle. The understanding that net energy consumption is all that matters. Net energy consumption can be increased several ways. Efficiency can increase net energy consumption and often does. That unfortunately is not the end all for net energy consumption; growth is. With no growth, there are limits to conservation. If there are infinite resources to access, infinite growth is possible. The easiest path to increasing net energy consumption is growth. Successful growth is reflected in physicality. Industry, resource consumption, strong military.
The strength of Treasuries as a base of the financial system and dollar usage was an acknowledgment of the maximum power principle. In my youth I traveled. The belief in the value of the dollar bordered on fanaticism even in countries that disliked the USA intensely. They disliked the USA but its status as the uber organism demonstrated in growth energy consumption and military prowess was understood–even coveted.
The mistake is in thinking the dollar value can be detached from the maximum power principle. That it can exist without it. And maximum power principle must be demonstrated in ALL arenas. Military economic industry. Why would it not if you are the uber organism in a world of infinite growth and infinite increases on net energy consumption?
If the demonstrators of MPP end, the desirability of the organism’s debt is decreased. This is a reduction, not increase, in net energy consumption. A negative feedback loop. If the organism stops displaying its infinite net consumption increase in physicality because of issues limiting growth then its debt is less desirable also reducing net energy consumption. If there are other organisms, their debt begins to be considered as valuable as a token of MPP worship. There is only one metric of MPP net energy consumption. Efficiency can be strong contributor but growth must be present. If novel ways of the growth and efficiency are demonstrated by an organism or a grouping of organisms that organisms debt token might be regarded as the uber debt token.
There can be only one uber organism IF there is to be a debt token having psuedo religious worship value. If there are multiple organisms demonstrating similar net energy consumption demonstrated in strong economies and strong militaries, the debt token of any one of them is not special.
All species increase range and population until limits are encountered. This physicality of the world intuitively understood is what allows the use of debt as money.
While loss of consideration of an organism’s debt token as preferred is catastrophic leading to net energy consumption reduction, attempting to retain energy consumption solely through mandating use of the debt token is an inherently flawed paradigm. Uber status of the debt token can only be maintained through demonstrating net energy consumption through economy industry and military.
As the quality we understand as time passes, the paradigm of infinite and exponential net energy growth is shown to be self defeating, even as it is rewarded in a finite world. Time is the ultimate resource, and as energy consumption increases, the remaining time of the organism’s existence decreases as a function of the combination of the MPP operating principle and the reality of the finite planet.
While the effectiveness of the MPP operating principle cannot be denied, from my perspective its measure is dwarfed by the beauty and grace of our finite planet. Ultimately our finite planet demonstrates its vastly gentle power in the demise of the MPP operating system’s cessation of existence as limits are hit.
From an individual perspective this may seem brutal, but it is not. It is gentle and reflects the quality known as justice on a scale that is very hard for humans to comprehend. We often attempt this comprehension in the practice of acknowledging our understanding of the thing called god. Rest assured there will be justice, but our actions are important also if we value trying to comprehend the thing known as god. Incorporating the thing that we have so little skill or understanding of, called “justice,” is important to try and demonstrate in our actions. This involves assessing whether the all-so-effective MPP operating principle really deserves the worship be create for it in this interesting time we live in. Self harm and self extinction is contrary to god.
Very interesting observations. It is possible to come back to the existence of god in multiple ways. And you have explained the power of US debt better than anyone else I have encountered.
anyone know what MPP is?
Martian Protection Plan?
Marginal Propensity to Produce?
According to urban dictionary MPP means:
– Maybe, Possibly, Perhaps: A way to indicate your unwillingness to answer a question, or to generally annoy a person who asks you a question.
– Missing Presumed Pissed: Used when persons do not show at work at the appointed time when there is no reasonable excuse other than excessive alcohol intake the previous night.
MPP, a common energy skeptics acronym for the
Maximum Power Principle.
Howard Odom came up with the term Maximum Power Principle. His PhD student, Charles Hall, came up with Energy Returned on Energy Invested. I think Maximum Power Priciple is probably the better description of the situation, but it doesn’t have a good metric. My lay description is that the system always seems to fill ecosystems with a combination of plants and animals (including human-made things) that dissipate as much useful energy in a given time period, as is possible, given the resources available.
https://www.ecologycenter.us/ecosystem-theory/the-maximum-power-principle.html
One quote from the site:
“The principle claims that power or output of useful work is maximized, not the efficiency and not the rate, but the tradeoff between a high rate and high efficiency yielding most useful energy or useful work.
“The maximum power principle claims that the development of an ecosystem is a tradeoff (a compromise) between the rate and the efficiency, i.e. the maximum power output per unit of time.”
so it’s like Roddier with a brick on the accelerator?
When I watch Kevin’s video podcasts, I try to view a different perspective.
Increased complexity and diversion of supply chains to avoid tariffs.
Introducing costly linkages and middlemen.
Supply chains are just longer, when we try to decouple from China. We buy from Mexico, for example, and Mexico buys from China.
Too much binge watching of this channel today.
Too funny.
‘Actually, there are two types of leftover women: one is the ordinary older single woman, and the other is a high quality single women like me.’
And this in a country with a purported excess of males. I believe those males have figured it out and are heading to other Asian countries in search of a wife, not a princess.
I didn’t realize that things had gotten this bad in China. The rosy GDP growth we read about doesn’t really explain what is happening. I had heard about young people with university degrees having a hard time finding jobs that pay well. (That happens in the US, too.) But I hadn’t heard about the big pay cuts some people are taking.
Thanks for posting this video. I hadn’t thought about foreign pension funds wanting to purchase 5-year treasuries. Yields in the US are a lot higher than in Europe or Japan (or China, but I don’t think China has pension funds).
It doesn’t have to be regular businesses buying up this debt; it can be pension funds. US Treasuries are probably more liquid than other bonds, if they do need to be sold prior to maturity.
Can this be true. Article in todays (NZ) paper mentions that an AI google search uses 10x the energy of a google search (whom still uses narrative controlled goongle?).
Then there is this;
https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/energy/energy-hungry-ai-electricity-use/
NZ is touting itself as a natural destination for data centres cos clean green electricity don’t you know ..sarc/
Per Copilot:
“In a standard Google search, the estimated energy usage is around 0.3 watt-hours (Wh) of electricity3. If this search were powered by AI, it could use up to 3 Wh, which is 10 times the amount3”
The numbers are references to original content.
Dennis L.
Nicely demonstrated; same result at 10x the cost.
My son works in IT and he reckons the people with the highest hopes for AI are those that don’t work with it. its a hollowish echo chamber using a rear vision mirror to drive forward.
Electricity too cheap to meter.
One small step for ..yadda yadda
Hope and change
H(w)ealthcare system
Safe and effective
More science is needed to solve the problems that science has created
Clown world for sure.
AI is a few steps worse than Wikipedia as a source of the truth.
Not my experience as being worse, have no way to judge Wikipedia.
I use Copilot, it is improving at least subjectively from my experience. Some of the things it does in programming are neat, some are really arcane for this human, but I always try and at least learn.
AI is going to change the world. It is not the cost in energy, it is the overall savings in time which can be valued in money.
Disclaimer: I don’t really know, I use it, it works more or less pretty well for me.
Dennis L.
AI is going to change the world, but not towards the direction you have put your blind faith into.
Oops my initial reply not politically correct so being ‘moderated’ out of circulation….should used AI to moderate to suit the narrate-ive.
We can’t scale up any application that uses this much electricity. It won’t work. US electricity supply is barely adequate now.
About the argument that the Hordes do not want anything –
The barbarians sacking Rome in 410 and 1527 did not take place because Rome was the center of everything.
It was still wealthy enough for the pillagers to loot, which is why.
The Core of civilization still has the infrastructure, the luxury goods, the expensive wine/cars/clothing/jewelry, etc. The Hordes often kidnapped women as well.
Plenty of things to steal. The Soviets often tore up entire factories and cities and rebuilt them in Soviet inland.
The Soviet stole the generators at the Supung/Suifeng Dam at Yalu River, built by Siemens and Toshiba, and set them up in a river in Kazakhstan. (After the Korean War, Czechoslovakia, now under the iron curtain, gave North Korea some generators, but of course not the same quality as the Siemens and Toshiba ones.)
Lots and lots of infrastructure to take from the Core to the Hordestans.
People s right to the land they inhabit is self evident. Your ideas and definition of civilization are myopic and self grandiose in the extreme. I’m civilized I distribute your resources because they are wasted on you. You accuse others of theft but your entire continuous premise is one of self entitled theft mostly engaged in to desperately define your pervasive and overwhelming unhappiness as others fault and yourself as a victim of obscure (but interesting) figures of the past. This is because you have not cultivated your birth right to seize your destiny now in the present, preferring to live in this bizarre fantasy where your victim status is responsible for your condition.
This birthright to seize destiny belongs to every human on the planet regardless of their race sex or culture and the means by which they choose to do it is a function of their spirit and creativeness. This principles power allows understanding of your ideas for what they are–sad fantasy of an unhappy man. Even now you could choose to seize your birthright to pursue happiness rather than wallowing in victim status. That would require you to understand truth that you are a unique manifestation of god like every human on the planet. Your condition is far from unique even common but extreme in its measure. I do not pity you for pity is the strongest form of disrespect and I choose not to disrespect others. I will hope and pray that you find a modicum of happiness in the remainder of your time.
People s right to the land they inhabit is self evident.
Not to me, it isn’t. I see it as a complex and contentious issue about which there is no clear consensus.
Ask an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab—for instance— to debate the ins and outs of this one, and I guarantee sparks will fly.
I do not pity you for pity is the strongest form of disrespect and I choose not to disrespect others. I will hope and pray that you find a modicum of happiness in the remainder of your time.
Haven’t you noticed yet how much he enjoys wallowing in his current mindset? Or the obvious satisfaction oozes out of every paragraph he posts? By any sane standard, Kulm is a happy man.
Very few of us at OFW are happy with the way the world is proceeding or with how the downward pull of human nature tugs on us all like gravity does on apples. But there is a discrete happiness to be found in nursing an image of oneself as a victim, or as someone who has been unjustly deprived and left bereft of one’s rightful property and status, just as there is in deftly executing any other kind of performance art.
Norman used to jive to this one down at the Starlight Ballroom!
I am kinda happy that the notion of democracy, Anglo-american exceptionalism, zombie science called Applied Physics, and all that are finally being proven false.
I am glad that it was WRONG for Brigadier Charles Fitzclarence and his 200/400 Worcestershires to do their duty, so Robert Firth, descended from forest rangers in the Midlands, could become an Oxford Ph. D, instead of ending his ways in some faraway post schoolteacher at Buganda or Burma.
I am glad that it is now being proven that it was WRONG for Woodrow Wilson to rob the German gains from Brest-Litovsk treaty to create brain dead countries which contributed nothing to civilization.
I can go on and on, but I feel like Kuno, the protagonist of E M Forster’s the Machine Stops, who watches as the world goes down. He will die but at least he will die with all the mess in the Machine.
By “wallowing”, I mean no you disrespect. That word for me brings up the image of hippopotamuses wallowing happily in mud, mud, glorious mud.
I haven’t studied Chucky Fitzclarence, but as I understand it, he was the stuff of Boys’ Own magazine—a model Victorian-era British soldier in the tradition of the Light Brigade and General Gordon. Those guys had to do their duty. What real choice did they have? Be a coward, a cad, a bounder, or a blackguard? It simply would not do, sir.
I found a picture of Chucky on a cigarette card. He earned his Victoria Cross by leading a charge against a Boer trench in Mafeking in 1899. They don’t make British soldiers like that any more, or at least, they don’t make many of them.
https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1988-03-20-4
I believe that some people are more likely to advance civilization than others, and giving them the most resources is like investment.
Since 1914, a massive misallocation of resources has been rampant, distributing the resources from the more likely to advance civilization to the less likely to do so.
The islanders of Nauru complained for years to regain the guano deposits which gave he small island a huge phosphate deposit. So Australia, which was administering the island, after some wrangling gave the control of the phosphates to the islanders.
https://youtu.be/PE7k_hV-mv0?si=XExRWjlRA-21O5xO
For the next 20 years the islanders lived like oil sheiks. By mid 1990s the phosphates were gone, and it is now known as where Australia dumps the would-be refugees.
That is what happens after a long time of misallocation of resources.
Isn’t there a limit to how much resources that a person can profitably use. How many resources can Elon Musk really use? Or perhaps, his companies can dissipate a whole lot of energy, even if he cannot. And he can have children by several mothers, even if he is not married to them.
He understands biology.
The limit of resources capable of being used by one person depends on the person. Elon is very good at creating teams and teams which can use and make good use of resources.
Tesla as a battery car is not that impressive, as a manufacturing process it is genius, as a AI platform it is incredible and what it has given rise to is historic.
We need to lower activation energies, then the Tesla platform can go H which is a heck of a lot easier than making new power generation/transmission equipment. Tesla becomes immediately simpler with H and fuel cells. The pesky problem is Pt.
As for the mothers, a guess is there is no shortage of volunteers.
Dennis L.
Dennis, look at the picture of him in this article.
https://news.ru/usa/v-ssha-nazvali-temy-konsultacij-maska-i-trampa/
Looks like the love child of Adolph the Austrian and the little bloke from North Korea to me.
When’s the next fireworks display?
I used to take my daughter to the Leeds Castle display. Nice setting, nice display, but theirs was a mere fraction of 1% of the cost, so his must be a truly spectacular event 🎆
The cold truth is the contribution of people coming within the Hajnal line (roughly the line connecting Petersburg and Trieste, which includes Norway and Sweden, but excludes Ireland (sometimes Ulster is included), southern Spain, southern Italy (roughly corresponding to the borders of the Kingdom of 2 Sicilies) and Finland, to the modern civilization, plus some towns in Eastern Seaboard of USA (not Canada, not the Midwest, South or West) , to modern civilization was significantly greater than everyone else combine
Canada’s sole contribution to civilization is Fred Banting’s invention of insulin. If he did not exist the only thing Canada would be known for would be some hockey players, plus Terry Fox, who claimed he could run through Canada with one leg but didn’t even get to leave Ontario (yet for some strange reason the Canadians think he was great).
Any resources spent outside of these zones, I have to say, were simply wasted as far as civilization is concerned, since the contributions of zones outside of the Hajnal line as far as civilization is concerned was, I have to say, not enough to warrant all the resources spent on these zones.
Regarding future nuclear fuel shortages, I think this could become an issue if the world nuclear fleet continues to be dominated by light water reactors employing a once-through fuel cycle. We have over 200 years of resources at current consumption rates. But a large increase in nuclear capacity wouod draw these resources down more quickly. There are a lot of potential solutions to this problem, with varying levels of technological readiness.
The easiest short-term solution would be to revisit depleted uranium enrichment tailings, which still contain 0.2 – 0.4% 235U. The US has at least half a million tonnes of enrichment tailings that could be put through enrichment plants to produce more enriched fuel. This isn’t being done yet because more separative work units are needed to make enriched fuel from DU, which has on average only half the 235U concentrations of natural U. But the US could supply its existing nuclear generating base for several years from this resource alone.
If new mined uranium is also taken down to 0.1% 235U concentration instead of 0.3, then the world’s uranium resources will stretch 50% further. Resource lifetimes are based upon historical SWU factors.
The next easiest solution would be to establish a reprocessing and MOX fabrication capability. Assuming a burnup of 36,000MW-days per tonne, about 3% of spent fuel is fissioned. It contains 0.8% 235U and 1% plutonium isotopes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_nuclear_fuel
Recycling this into new fuel would reduce the amount of mined uranium needed per unit energy by about half.
These technologically simple options combined, would get around 3x more energy out of each mass of mined uranium. There are other options that can be considered at lower levels of technological readiness. Things like:
1. Reduced moderation boiling water reactors, with high conversion ratio. An optimised BWR can breed as much fuel as it consumes using DU or thorium blankets.
2. Sodium, lead or gas cooled fast reactors with blankets for fuel breeding. These reactor types can breed more fissile fuel than they consume.
3. Spallation driven fuel breeding. This is too power hungry to supply fuel for conventional light water reactors. But it could supply starter cores for high conversion ratio reactors, like the RBWR and SFR.
4. Fusion-fission hybrid reactors. These combine a fusion reactor with a fissile blanket region. The fusion reactor supplies high energy neutrons, whereas the fission blankets generate the power. This is more technically difficult than the above concepts. But it has the advantage that the high energy neutrons yielded by fusion, will fast-fission DU without having to wait for plutonium breeding. Discharged fuel will be rich in plutonium, that can be used as fuel in light water reactors. A single hybrid could provide fuel for several downstream light water reactors of equivelent power.
For what it is worth–Chris Martinsen says whole financial system may be going down soon, in a video shown on Zerohedge. I am afraid I haven’t watched it myself.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/worried-about-whole-system-going-down-chris-martenson-fears-great-taking-imminent
I too haven’t watched it.
I have my own worries, somewhat manageable, and I don’t see why I should worry at all that the whole financial system may be going down soon.
Once followed him, wasn’t he at one of the ASPO meetings? May be wrong there. He never seemed to be correct, think he is selling panic and youtube hits.
You are not YouTube, independent, no outside income. Nice source, nice effort on your part, thanks.
I am going to skip it and follow Dave’s lead as well as yours.
Dennis L.
I have meth Chris several times, at ASPO meetings. He seemed to use a lot of Oil Drum material in spiffed up forms in his materials. Most dealings with him recently have been through his staff member (Adam Taggart at the time.)
Just got Starlink yesterday. It is working great 6 to 15 times faster than the cable modem. The cost is 50% less. Hurray competition. Hurray solar powered information transmission.
What is the downside? Stop working?
None so far. Running two laptops and one 4K TV. I am not a gamer so I do not know how that would work.
Care to share price, bandwidth, or total data limits?
Up front cost for “dish”, it is flat, $700. Monthly charge $90 but not locked in could go to $120 if my geography becomes crowded. I tested speed from laptop 180mbps, tested on TV is got 300mbs. Uploads about 20mbs. I do not know under what conditions they will throttle. Happy so far.
All communications with user is through the users smart phone. A clear view of the northern sky is needed.
No service is offered in Russia and China. You and Vlad could be the Elon of the free world.
Elon is a fake. Our rich icons are MIC frontmen.
Yikes too rich for my blood.
Thx. Kind of expensive monthly, but I guess it did takes rockets in space to provide, after all.
No sarcasm. No installation costs for Musk, no infrastructure digging, after capital costs, electricity free, my envelope guess was $86B/year.
The guy does know how to make a buck.
Dennis L.
Ed, I use Spectrum, $50/month. 556.09 Mb/s down and 428.87 MB/s up, seems fast enough for me, basically a single user.
You are the expert, comments?
Dennis L.
My town made a bad monopoly deal with Optimum. We are sparsely populated no other provider will enter. Yes many provider near but none in town that offer fiber-optic at gigabit level. I am in a digital desert of the landed gentry. No shortage of hay and oats.
Even gods are born and die.
The mighty Olympian gods, Norse gods, and virtually all gods in the ancient world proved to be quite powerless against the Desert God.
Only the deities of India, China, Japan and some other isolated places survived. (Buddhism is like Christianity is to Judaism ; the Buddha is considered to be a form of Vishnu by the Hindus, and a lot of Buddhist deities come from India)
FIRST ON FOX: With nearly two-thirds of nurses in the United States experiencing burnout — including 69% of those under 25 years of age, according to the American Nurses Association — many in the industry are calling for change.
A recent survey by AMN Healthcare, a health care workforce solutions company based in Texas, found that most nurses aren’t optimistic about improvements, with 80% saying they think the year 2024 will be either “no better or worse” than last year and 38% of nurses expecting it to be worse.
“The concerns that many nurses have about their profession were not created by COVID-19 and have not gone away now that the crisis has passed,” Robin Johnson, group president of nursing solutions at AMN Healthcare, who administered the survey, told Fox News Digital.
Many nurses still feel overworked and undercompensated,” she said.
“What they want to see is a change in their daily working conditions — better hours, fair compensation and more time with their patient
https://www.foxnews.com/health/nurses-speak-out-what-wish-known-entering-profession.amp
My Mother is a retired RN…and back then it wasn’t a great career either..
Relatively lower paid profession, lack of retirement benefits, and most of what tre article is about….
Also Teachers are in the same category…here in Florida very low initial pay, high demands and stress….many leave the profession likewise
but.. But…. BUT …… the dancing nurses were so fantastic.
Morons were gathering to celebrate by cheering for the NHS from their cages in the UK.
They work for a pharma led cult pushing shite and mocking real health options.
Burnout is first stage of a cleanout.
Just quit and do something useful; like read about the revelations of the Scottish scamdemic inquiry.
Bring it on.
Honore Balzac (he added the ‘de’ himself) wrote a lot of books about people in 1830-1850 France.
Perhaps his most famous book is Cousin Bette. Long story short, Bette, an unmarried woman in late 30s (later 40s), is envious of her cousin who married a wealthy nobleman. It didn’t help that her cousin’s daughter stole her boyfriend.
So Bette plots the downfall of her noble cousin’s entire family, and gets her wish, without her cousin ever finding out what struck her.
Those who are in the fringes of civilization, like the Canadians, the Irish or the Serbs, wanted to destroy it and now they are getting their wish.
Interesting bit there as is your perspective even if I disagree. One mans fringe is anothers civilization.
Japan bathed almost daily in a time when England bathed monthly and was considered unhealthy. I consider bathing civilization. That like all opinions on civilization are a judgment. Some might consider a certain cuisine the standard by which civilization. I consider readily available bathing and septic systems the standard. Hopefully somthing better than open sewage into the river.
As I am certain you are aware your themes have uniformly.
You establish you perception of civilization.
You assert that there is plotting against ot.
You advocate use of force and domination against the plotters.
Your principle tool of authority in your exercises is that historical events take precedence. Thus you cultivate historic events that you massage to fit your theme.
I find your practice interesting from several perspectives. It’s not to different from a doomster practitioner which is why you are here.
Couldn’t agree more about bathing daily – my bathroom has a great enamelled tub, plentiful hot water (100% hydro electricity and abundant rainfall) and I’ve rigged up HiFi sound system and enjoy a vintaged red and my bathbook for my evening soak. When I moved to this region on the fringe of civilization twenty years ago this aspect of my lifestyle my overseas friends envied. I’d quip to them that I must have been a Roman in my last life.
Then, I didn’t feel putative extravagance here was sinful in the slightest but now at this point I just don’t really care. Que sera sera.
To the bigger point, however, through historical times there has always been plotting against imposed power. It seems as inherent as the lust for domination itself. They’re probably two sides of the same coin.
The ifs, buts and maybes of history … I dunno. They’re just individual fantasies of historical narratives, winners writing “official” versions, others other versions, yet none more based in my conscious present as Truth than speculations about the future
While attention to the bathing area is considered feminine in nature I disagree. That it is appreciated by the feminine is a significant benefit. In the past I have maximized south facing building long narrow structures my current tastes are more minimalist currently 8 feet of the south facing double pane windows with a glass block wall behind for a r of 12 or so. The glass blocks masonry acts partially like a tromb wall and diffuses the suns direct energy which can really be too much for a living space on a south face in the winter. South face glass allotment bathing 8 ft 6 feet to the kitchen and and 10 feet to the dining area. So 80 60 and 100 sq ft respectively.
The bathing area has a sink but the toilet and second sink are located on the north side along with a shower that I seldom use except as a prewash for the bath when I am really dirty which is often. The toilet is right next to the bed. I am old.
There is of course a budai with the toilet. I am not a savage. The bath water is primarily heated with a 2000 watt impedance matched PV array dc direct into a 39 ohm hot water heater element. It provides plenty of water for bathing for three baths on high solar days two on most all days at minimum really cloudy days. If the water from the DC impedance matched PV is really hot it gets diluted with cold. If not hot enough topped with DNA demand propane heated water.
I have propane on demand as backup. The water tank is well insulated allowing bathing when the south glass wall is creating massive warmth in the bathing area .if I have the time and inclination.
Pretty much this my sole excess. The panels were $1000. The heating element $10. Probably $50 for solid state relays. DC frysvnormal thermostats. All chassisvgrounded for safety but that’s a bit different than AC because the PVs are current not voltage sources. You size the current limiter device just above the impedance matched current. Electrical safety is a primary design factor when immersing the body in water. I flip the industrial disconnect just to be sure. Current is low off the PV array so cheap 30 a disconnects are overkill. The water tank is a 55 gr epoxy lined drum that originally held orange juice insulated with hardware clothe frame filled with pumice and non visible scrap foam.
Last time I checked $1000 for 20 years of bathing is a good deal.
I do my best thinking in the bath.
Thanks for sharing, interesting ideas.
Dennis L.
Indeed, the Canadians, Irish, and Serbs are behind all of the problems like resource depletion and wars in Ukraine and Palestine.
What they did contributed to the improvement (read: resource depletion) of the lives of the colonies, turned third world, and did contribute to all of these problem
And there would be no Ukraine if Woodrow Wilson did NOT listen to the Poles and Czechs (the latter never having their own country, the Bohemians being Germans when they were independent a loooooong time ago) demanding their own countries, and looked the realities of the map in 1918.
Coincidence:
This is my bathbook at the present (thanks for the spoiler, Kulmie) – I’m about one quarter through it and find it an astonishing work of powerful literature. A very compelling narrative and justifiably acclaimed
Inside China Business. Real cuts in military spending, Social Security, Medicare, welfare.
Gail thinks a financial collapse, emergency is coming. Geometric progressions are a bitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhn9zR2lH0o
Dennis L.
Inflation is not a “bug,” it is a feature of our overly indebted government. Government would like a high inflation rate, so that they can somehow manage the huge payouts implied by Social Security and other promises. One approach is to use low estimates of inflation when determining payments for beneficiaries. Over time, recipients get poorer and poorer.
Kevin Walmsley also says that anyone can tell that our military approach of using $2 million devices to shoot down $2,000 missiles will bankrupt the US far more quickly that the poor countries shooting the $2,000 mussels. There need to be big cuts in military spending because it isn’t working.
The new standard is one often heard in blogs when a question is raised which product. ‘Just get both”.
Military and social spending are both sacred cows now. Possible self organizing solutions to both their reduction are as you mention currency destruction or of course collapse.
The way the USA makes its weapons choices and what it pays for them has demonstrated poor allotment for a very long time. No one has really cared because of the perception of near infinite resources via money creation. It remains to be seen if the USA can grasp the reasons for organic based economics pulling ahead.
To stay competitive the USA must use the same model as any other product and outsource weapons production in friendly countries. The MIC will not allow this and as the last domestic production their are cultural taboos as well.. Thus modern cost effective and effective weapon systems in the USAs hands seem unlikely to continue relative to countries with domestic industry ,technology along with the innovation that accompanies it pull ahead. The less for more trend will accelerate and only be highlighted by more efficient and organic economies that are not paying $900 for the screwdriver that comes with the two million dollar weapon.
Thus kulms “hit em now” while insane and suicidal has a basis in truth. It is the proposed behavior in response to the truth that is suicidal insane and contrary to civilization.
There was just another F-35 crash. Est. cost $130million for a single plane. Oh, well!
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/05/f-35b-test-jet-crashes-in-new-mexico-pilot-ejects-safely-but-sustains-injuries/
You could crash 10,000 and no one would care, financially speaking. What’s another trillion?
That ha been the attitude but the currency destruction is catching up. US military gets a trillion a year. Roughly same amount as paid on interest. Social security Medicare and Medicaid are 4 trillion a year. With currency destruction a trillion is not that much for the entire US military.
I think the military is going to have to start to do things differently or lose effectiveness. There are actually some very bright minds there. The lessons of Ukraine and the challenges of the reality ahead will spur drive for solutions. Discarding the infinity budget thinking can only lead to better decisions and innovation.
The F35 that went down in Albuquerque was an experimental model of some sort.
I sense a business opportunity in opening an F-35 recycling junkyard. I will start by getting a junkyard dog, the rest will come.
There seems to be some confusion. According to the article
“being flown by a government pilot who safely ejected”
At least the pilot was unhurt.
“pilot safely ejected and was receiving medical treatment”
Just a check up to make sure all’s ok.
“The jet’s pilot ejected and was injured.
Surely a minor injury that was only noticed on the check up?
“The stealth fighter’s pilot sustained “serious injuries” after ejecting”
Oops.
As the plane has proven so ‘safe & effective’ they have decided to extend its operational lifetime by a decade.
Well now, at least one major automaker realized EVs weren’t going to be feasible, but….?????
The world’s largest carmaker said Tuesday that it would develop smaller internal combustion engines that are more optimized for hybrid vehicles and can accept alternative fuels such as biofuels, liquid hydrogen, and synthetic e-fuels in an effort to cut down on emissions. The CEOs of Subaru and Mazda also vowed to produce new engines, they said in a press conference with Toyota CEO Koji Sato Tuesday.
The new engines, although still mostly gas-powered, will allow for more compact and efficient vehicles that get better gas mileage as part of a decarbonization effort that treats “carbon as the enemy,” according to a Tuesday press release.
Sato said that, while the auto industry is focused on battery-powered vehicles, there is still room for improved combustion engines.
“In order to provide our customers with diverse options to achieve carbon neutrality, it is necessary to take on the challenge of evolving engines that are in tune with the energy environment of the future,” he said in a Tuesday statement.
https://fortune.com/2024/05/28/toyota-hybrids-combustion-engine-alternative-fuels/
At least it makes good hopiem for the masses…the BAU Show must go on…
Years ago, I remember hearing a speaker from Toyota explaining why full EVs were not feasible; hybrids made a great deal more sense.
I also know that electricity supply in Japan is quite constrained. Japan has no fossil fuels of its own. Suggesting moving to EVs is a crazy idea.
Hybrids do make more sense….
Although, Toyota North America fell short in the U.S. market, with 2,248,477 units sold in 2023, it is projected to surpass over 10 million units sold globally, making it the most popular automotive brand worldwide. Until 2023 figures are tallied, Toyota was most recently named the leader of the global automotive industry, with an 11.5% market share.
Vehicle make 2022 Global market share
Toyota 11.5%
Volkswagen 6.7%
Honda 5.4%
Hyundai 5.2%
Kia 4.2%
Nissan 4.0%
BMW 3.1%
Mercedes 2.9%
Chevrolet 2.8%
Ford 2.8%
So, Toyota played it smart, let the others dive in first and see if the market penetration….
Hydrogen is mentioned, it has the advantage of simple pollution systems, probably N is still an issue as component of air.
H from solar, then use IC as a stopgap, develop infrastructure for H over the stopgap period, Starship, Pt. fuel cells. Batteries are so yesterday.
H looks like a good candidate to save our spaceship earth and make life livable until the next big thing.
Psyche.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/asteroid-bound-psyche-spacecraft-fires-up-ion-thrusters-starts-cruising-through-space/ar-BB1mXaZe?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Value is estimated as 10^5 quadrillion $. Suggest stop thinking in dollar terms, change to energy terms and net energy saved compared to mining terrestrially. Use that energy to explore, find Pt in a useful quantity, suggest one cubic mile for a start.
I use this site to rule out the impossible and to have hard critiques of my thoughts.
Current thought on Heaven. Life for many/most is very difficult, perhaps even personally pointless. Humanity needs a group, it needs a way to maintain order. Being part of humanity at this point in history is probably better than any time in the past; it is not perfect. Alcohol, cigarettes are a way to get a man through life, other drugs are not good for humanity. They will be again rejected by whatever means necessary. Churches need to get back to basics.
We are here because something wants us here, statistically we are impossible.
My personal guess, the nuclear weapons won’t work, won’t be used; the universe will not allow us to perish after all its work.
Dennis L.
The epic Mahabharata says otherwise. The final battle which ended ancient India is said to have been bought at the Thar desert, northwestern India – eastern Pakistan, ending with a nuclear explosion.
The Hindu gods allowed that to happen since the sins of humans were so great, including Yudhishtira, the king of the ‘victors’, falling into temptations. Only a grandson of Arjuna, a transformation of the god Krishna, survives to continue the line.
The universe will allow anything. If humans failed, maybe whales will get their shot a billion years later.
A better use for the hydrogen would be synthetic methanol, which can be produced by reacting hydrogen with CO2 over a suitable catalyst.
CO2 + 3H2 = CH3OH + H20
Methanol can be used in spark or compression ignition engines. It is a storable liquid fuel at atmospheric pressure and room temperature.
I would question whether solar is a good energy source for this, though it does depend on specifics. The EROI of photovoltaics is notoriously weak. Combined with inefficiencies in electrolysis and synfuel production, solar derived synthetic fuels coukd be an energy sink in a lot of locations.
.
Today, methanol is almost exclusively synthesized from
fossil sources over Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalysts by an industrial
process that converts synthesis gas (H2/CO/CO2) into
methanol at elevated pressures (50–100 bar) and temperatures (200–300 C)
It will all come down to thermodynamics, ongoing use of energy for heat compared to energy required to fabricate solar panels.
None of it is going to be easy.
Dennis L.
Zero-Percent-Down Mortgages Return, What Can Go Wrong?
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/zero-percent-down-mortgages-return-what-can-go-wrong
deja-vu
And the truly hilarious part is that the people taking out these mortgages will be referred to as “homeowners”.
At best, what they actually “own” is a long-dated, out-of-the-money (due to transaction costs) call option on the future of the house. At least they get to live in it in the meantime – as long as they continue to make timely property tax and insurance payments for the real owner – the holder of the mortgage.
We all need a roof, a home ties us to a community. Amish have homes, somehow it works; if it has been done, it can be done.
Double up, move parents in with children, built in babysitters. Have a positive attitude, chose a reasonable neighborhood, go to church, form a group, help each other out.
My parents did it, maternal grandfather killed on railroad when my dad was 14. Throw in WWII, a depression and it was the home I grew up in. It was not easy.
I agree with the transaction costs, they are pure grift; society needs to fire that group.
Dennis L.
From this article:
As long as home price values go, the borrower keeps his job (and perhaps gets a raise), refinancing remains available, and interest rates stay level or go down, everything works fine.
If these are included with 0% down mortgages, there could be a real problem. FDIC insurance means “Heads the gambler wins, tails the taxpayer loses.”
From what I can figure out, the deal is that a UWM borrower can use a second mortgage of the type described to cover what would normally be a 3% downpayment (up to $15,000) using a 10-year second mortgage.
UMW seems to also have a 1% downpayment program, but there may be more requirements attached.
We live in the world of fetishes and zombies.
I wonder if some people have a fetish for zombies.
Much ado has been made over the issue of long lived nuclear waste. The Yucca mountain facility was constructed to store America’s long lived nuclear waste. Political objections have sunk the prospects of build geological repositories in most countries. But the fact is that the world’s inventory of radioactive wastes is dwarfed by the amount of radioactivity contained in the rocks of the Earth’s crust.
To put the issue of long lived actinides into perspective. The natural radioactivity of basalt rock averages 237Bq/kg.
[url]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263019593_Natural_Radioactivity_Measurements_of_Basalt_Rocks_in_Aden_governorate_South_of_Yemen_on_Gulf_of_Aden[/url]
The amount of radioactivity contained in Earth’s crust to a depth of 1km, is therefore 3.6E23Bq. That is the same level of radioactivity as 157 million tonnes of Plutonium-239. A 1GWe nuclear reactor discharges about 0.3 tonnes of plutonium isotopes each year. The UK has about 200 tonnes of seperated reactor grade plutonium. There is far more radioactivity in the rocks beneath the UK than there is in the UKs long lived nuclear wastes.
The oceans contain some 1-2E22Bq of radioactivity. That is equivelent to 4.3 – 8.6 million tonnes of 239Pu. A lot more than humanity has ever produced as waste or is ever likely to. Even more activity is present in ocean sediments.
Nuclear power generation is currently producing 284Gw-yrs of electricity each year. At this rate, we are producing plutonium at a rate of 85 tonnes per year in spent fuels. Clearly, it will take a long time for human produced nuclear waste to rival the natural radioactivity that is present in Earth’s rocks and oceans. At present usage, manmade radioactivity might begin to rival natural radioactivity in several million years time.
With so much radioactivity present in Earth’s rocks, one has to wonder why there is no public outcry and mass panic about radium, uranium and thorium contaminating the food and water supply? Indeed, lefty green types are the primary consumers of mineral water, which contains a much higher concentration of radium, uranium and thorium than processed tap water. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
You can drink orange juice.
You cant drink hydrachloric acid.
They are both acidic.
This is the age old bananas are radioactive
You like bananas dont you argument
Ask the people who lived around Hanford if they like bananas.
That Yucca mountain was not put to use displays profound dysfunction.
Obviously another casino is more useful.
Those bizarre casinos.
Little mini environments that provide livable habitat for humans
Powered by endless acres of photovoltaics.
Next to them prisons that look exactly the same.
The prisoners surrounded by a environment that will kill them should they
escape.
The earth is baked into a hard crust.
9am it’s over 100.
The people of Nevada said that environment is only suitable for casinos and prisons not a secure spent fuel storage.
Not our problem.
Orange juice and muriatic acid are the same.
My point is that there is a lot more radioactivity in the rocks of Nevada than will ever be stored in the repository. The idea that radioactive waste is a huge and unmanagaeble problem that we are leaving for the future, is simply not true. There is a lot more radioactivity in natural rocks.
Peter
i was under the impression that the problem is ‘concentration’
i dont doubt i live with a background of radioactivity—but my species has evolved to deal with it.
if i had that concentration of radioactive nasties in my back pocket—it would kill me—obviously.
Yes, quite true. And I have no doubt that spent fuel could become a significant local pollution hazard if we don’t bury it. But the idea that spent reactor fuel could somehow poison the world if we don’t rush to deal with it, is clearly bogus. There just isn’t enough of this material to be much of a health problem for humanity as a whole.
Those hundreds of trillions of tonnes of uranium and thorium stored in Earth’s rocks, contribute a tiny background dose for most people. And the radioactivity of actinides in spent nuclear fuel is minute compared to the activity already in Earth’s crust.
I am not advocating for mismanagement. But there are people that think that nuclear wastes could be a significant problem in humanty’s future. The numbers just don’t support that proposition.
I wonder if higher radiation is what is needed to increase human mutations in such a way that humans can somehow find more useful energy to dissipate on earth. It may be part of an overall “plan” that we humans are not aware of.
Chernobyl has shown that wildlife thrives and adapts in an environment made free of human interference due to concerns about long term radiation exposure. Scientists see that nature heals itself faster than we can understand how its done! Does biology adapt and compensate faster than the worst that we can do? We’re convinced we are in charge! I wonder.
“On the other hand, the general impression left with the reader by modern historians is that this American technical assistance was accidental and that American industrialists were innocent of wrongdoing. For example, the Kilgore Committee stated:
The United States accidentally played an important role in the technical
arming of Germany. Although the German military planners had ordered and
persuaded manufacturing corporations to install modern equipment for mass
production, neither the military economists nor the corporations seem to have
realized to the full extent what that meant. Their eyes were opened when two of
the chief American automobile companies built plants in Germany in order to
sell in the European market, without the handicap of ocean freight charges and
high German tariffs. Germans were brought to Detroit to learn the techniques
of specialized production of components, and of straight-line assembly. What
they saw caused further reorganization and refitting of other key German war
plants. The techniques learned in Detroit were eventually used to construct the
dive-bombing Stukas …. At a later period I. G. Farben representatives in this
country enabled a stream of German engineers to visit not only plane plants
but others of military importance, in which they learned a great deal that was
eventually used against the United States.”?
https://ia903404.us.archive.org/35/items/pdfy-lwUqPAGSzT-3bnd3/Sutton%20-%20Wall%20Street%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Hitler%20%281976%29.pdf
Prescott Bush was often associated to this story.
Antony Sutton talked a lot about such stories,this time the Anglo-American Establishment supplying tech to USSR.
Well, leopards do eat faces, aren’t they?
The chart I pointed to earlier also showed a big increase in US exports during World War I and shortly thereafter.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/images/uploads/2019/ES1913Fig2_20190515122431.jpg
Not surprisingly, this suggest that Americans actively figured out things that they could export, both during and shortly after the war effort.
The new narrative is “WW3 is coming soon”. Does this mean shale oil/gas is falling fast?
a narrative, a story, a guess about the future.
world oil/gas is falling very slowly.
WW3 is always a few weeks or months away.
Quark in Spain . Copy/paste .
If there is excess oil, if we are flooded everywhere, why is the price of a barrel not at $20? Why do dozens of countries in the world not have access to cheap fuels? Why do we have to sell the Strategic Reserve to lower the price? Why do you look the other way with Venezuela and Iran, after promising strong sanctions? Why, despite selling 17 million electric cars in 2024, is the price of gasoline not sinking if it is no longer needed?
In the story that the media is constructing, there is a hole deeper than the Mariana Trench, but it works for the billions who don’t want to see anything else.
“If there is excess oil, if we are flooded everywhere, why is the price of a barrel not at $20?”
and…
if there is a big shortage of oil, why is the price of a barrel not at $150?
because…
there is a very good balance between supply and demand right now, so the price is about in the middle of those two extremes.
Both Germany and France now support “deep strikes” with their weapons into Russia but only on bases that launch missiles into Ukraine.
Those missiles are launched from strategic bombers so the bases will be strategic nuclear targets.
Perhaps better to implement Minsk which you guaranteed France and Germany?
I forgot both Macron and Scholtz have said that was a lie to buy time to build Galacias military.
Like the 200 treaties made with the native Americans.
The organism must grow or it dies.
It’s not personal.
The time has come to kill you and possess the environment you inhabit.
Its ours.
It’s all ours.
Everyone knows that.
Manifest destiny
If Putin had just allowed corporations to buy up everything this unpleasant situation could have been avoided.
Thwarting that has caused this unfortunate situation.
Putin warns “serious consequences ”
While they chip away at the strategic nuclear capability now.
Red line after red line crossed
Like Saddam’s line in the sand.
The organism knows no fear.
It’s not easy when you meet the cougar.
You can yell. You can scream .
The cougar is used to hearing different noises.
It’s a little different.
Hes not going to stop. Hes not going to go away.
He eats you or you stop him.
Cougar tastes good.
Too much time in fancy VIP accomodations.
Not enough time in the north woods.
What a p****.
Pun unintended
BAU
This is something that is difficult to live with: “The organism must grow or it dies.”
We have all kinds of people who somehow believe in a “circular economy.” An economy without entropy. But it doesn’t work that way.
Reading your take on Macron and Scholtz, I remembered this old Far Side cartoon about two hikers who ventured into a bear cave.
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/5w4nmc/this_far_side_card_from_1984_i_found_while/#lightbox
The Minsk II(and Format Normandie) signatories were Hollande and Merkel, rather than Macron and Scholtz.
On the nuclear threat, the view seems different from both sides. The west appear in panic and with a palpable desperation for escalation.
“What we’re seeing — with Israel, too, is years of impunity resulting in an epic, murderous tantrum that’s having the opposite of its intended effect. It’s certainly not beyond either of them to play nuclear chicken. Most people would say that if you do that, you’re insane. But they think a special operation playing nuclear chicken with the Russians is clever, potentially effective.”
“And so I think there’s going to be a nuclear war. The people who run things in the West have made up their minds that if they can’t rule, there will be nothing to rule. I guess we must figure now whether British and Ukrainian madness will prevail over US cowardice.”
That’s a bluntly honest appraisal(although I’d say all 3 share equal amounts of madness and cowardice).
Whilst Russia looks at the many possibilities in-between.
“It is obvious the Ukrainians have had a string of successful breakthroughs, against ships, airfields, refineries, and now this radar site. We also understand it is not the Ukrainians: all target selection, identification, guidance, and the hardware are American or European. Where the command control of these launch sites is, we do not know but it might well not be in Ukraine.”
“But the Russian response will not be nuclear. That is impossible. There are a thousand options between doing nothing and going nuclear, and we can be sure the General Staff are working on all of them. So when people say this is provocation for a nuclear strike and that [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky is provoking it, we understand that, first, NATO planners know Putin will not go nuclear because he and his generals are too rational and sane. And second, Zelensky is not the one making the provocations. So the real red line now is not the nuclear arms provocations from the NATO side. That’s a fantasy of theirs. Just so, in response, I think it’s time Putin stops making threats and strikes at the source of these operations.”
That last sentence, if enacted, would surely be considered the escalation the west is looking for, although I’m somewhat confused why they need Russia to do anything. Why not just do their usual. Kill people and get the media to proclaim that Russia did the deed(MH17). Not sure what’s stopping, maybe scared of making waves😁
Both quotes taken from Helmer.
https://johnhelmer.net/the-popski-syndrome-allied-defeat-turns-into-battlefield-fantasies/
Meanwhile, as everyone focuses on the lions’ share of energy production, i.e., hydrocarbons and their wind/solar derivatives, I have no clue where nuclear is going. Boom , bust, slow death or just chugging along?
This article stirs the pot a little bit. Will sourcing of uranium be the rate limiting step, or will lack of ability to build a meaningful number of plants without running short of energy, materials and bureaucratic roadblocks stall the “rebirth?”
https://internationalman.com/articles/from-hiroshima-to-fukushima-the-worlds-most-hated-commodity-is-set-for-an-explosion/
Eurasia is full steam ahead. Of course, that is due to the ability of Russia to breed plutonium.
One of the Russophile podcasters (Pepe or Orlov, forget which) said Russia is the only country to have solved closed-cycle nuclear reactors that can burn the above-ground waste and thus apparently there’s no shortage of fuel, even in the long-term. Maybe that’s just a breeder reactor? Take this with a hefty dose of salt. Anyway, Russia and China are going full steam ahead (pun intended) with nuclear. Even the US is doing the same, now, with SMRs, though how much is just grift is unclear, since it’s still development-phase and not in regular production.
“The Westinghouse AP300™ Small Modular Reactor is the most advanced, proven and readily deployable SMR solution. Westinghouse proudly brings 70+ years of experience developing and implementing new nuclear technologies that enable reliable, clean, safe and economical sources of energy for generations to come.
Our AP1000® reactor is already proving itself every day around the globe. Currently, four units utilizing AP1000 technology are operating in China, setting performance records. Six more are under construction in China and one AP1000 reactor is operating at Plant Vogtle in Georgia while a second nears completion.” ?
https://www.westinghousenuclear.com/energy-systems/ap300-smr/
I believe that the second new reactor at Plant Vogtle is now operating, but I am not sure it is up to full power, yet. Getting the fuel may at some point be a problem, as I see it. Also, maintaining the electric grid.
” Currently, four units ***utilizing*** AP1000 technology are operating in China”
In other words, not the AP1000. Looks like development tech.
Other news searches indicate the first AP1000 in Georgia started 1 month ago. We’ll see how it goes.
I have a hard time believing that nuclear will expand very much, partly because of the big front-end cost (and related need for resources) to put together the nuclear power plant. There is a huge cost that must be paid, up front and through debt. I know that in Georgia, those of us purchasing electricity from Georgia Power have been paying for the nuclear power plants under construction for a few years now, even though the plants have just now gone online. The funding approach needs to be figured out in advance. A big utility can perhaps do it. Any organization operating in an area where rates vary based on fluctuating supply and demand cannot figure out a way to fund nuclear, especially if the nuclear must compete, hour by hour, with wind and solar bringing the.wholesale prices for electricity down to negative levels, quite often. In areas with the pricing, nuclear power plants have been closing down.
The second issue is that uranium supply seems to be constrained–we used the easy to extract uranium, and the remaining uranium is more expensive to extract. In theory, “used” uranium can be reprocessed, but building reprocessing plants takes time. There is a lot of fossil fuel used in building these plants, and in the operation. IIRC, reprocessing is illegal in the US–someone might use the output to make bombs.
Gail,
That is an accounting problem, too much is simple check book accounting. Assets have lifetimes, do honest double entry accounting and it either works or does not. Some of the cash is there for periods of scarcity, it was the same with storing grain in good years for the seventh(?) year of scarcity. It seems a liquid asset is one which can be exchanged for short term, immediate energy when needed.
Some have longer time horizons than others, that leads to different investments and different lifestyles. Simple guess: those with longer horizons build wealth, those with shorter horizons become envious and the time value of money(read effort/investment) generally wins.
Starship in less than two weeks per schedule. It is the only game in town. Add self replicating robots, explore the solar system and all shortages are solved. But, some of the population will be short changed so to speak.
I believe in tomorrow, some will not make it, how does one reward, keep things going? Heaven? Something wanted biology here, pretty clever being.
Dennis L.
Dennis, I am a proponant of space industry, mining, colonisation, etc. And I respect yoyr enthusiasm. But plans to do so cannot be half baked.
On the subject of Starship. Are you aware that using Starship to go anywhere beyond low Earth orbit requires multiple refuelling flights? This will magnify the cost considerably. And for long flight times to asteroids and other planets, the short turn around times that are key to reducing launch costs, will not exist. It takes 6 months to reach Mars on a Hohmann trajectory. That makes for a 2.5 year round trip time in total. How many of those can a Starship do in a reasonable investment window?
On the subject of self-replicating robotics. The supply chain needed to produce advanced robotics is a long one, involving a lot of manufacturing specialisms and a huge amount of infrastructure. This isn’t something that you can just establish in space with a few Starship launches. It is beyond the capabilities of most nations here on Earth, who don’t have to worry about strict mass budgets. The list of countries that can build things like this is short.
Trying to run that capability using robotics to build robotics, is an even greater level of complexity. And you are talking about doing it in space, which is an expensive environment to access. People will always be needed to fix things when they go wrong. That too will be expensive and often dangerous.
Stop clouding the issue with facts, Peter. You don’t want to blunt the boy’s enthusiasm.
Oh dear,
Chucky might be dethroned by Haber and Bosch.
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-species-ever
It was not just Chucky and Haber and Bosch. Gavrilo and whatshisname too.
Joseph Gallieni, another Italian who sent millions of French to death by launching the ‘miracle of marne’ , which I call the ‘f*ckracle of marne’.
And, like Chucky, Gallieni was quick thrown into the memory hole after the French realized what this Italian had wrought.
Yeah, him.
He was French born in France.
We have our negative people, but not all come from our side 🙂
https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Simon_Gallieni
Didn’t see this, sorry.
Dennis L.
If we have to appropriate a French with an italian name, we will settle for nothing less than Michel Platini. Great footballer, he.
Not as smart as kul, generally have to look up parts of his posts. FWIW.
“Joseph Simon Gallieni (24 April 1849 – 27 May 1916) was a French military officer, active for most of his career as a military commander and administrator in the French colonies1. He wrote several books on colonial affairs1.
Gallieni was born in 1849 at Saint-Béat, in the department of Haute-Garonne, in the central Pyrenees1. He was of Corsican and Italian descent1. His father, born in Pogliano Milanese, had risen from the ranks to be a captain1. Gallieni was educated at the Prytanée Militaire in La Flèche, and then the École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr1. He later became a second lieutenant in the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment before serving in the Franco-Prussian War1.
He was recalled from retirement at the beginning of the First World War1. As Military Governor of Paris, he played an important role in the First Battle of the Marne, when Maunoury’s Sixth Army, which was under his command, attacked the German west flank1. From October 1915, he served as Minister of War, resigning from that post in March 1916 after criticizing the performance of the French Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Joffre1. He died later that year and was made Marshal of France posthumously in 19211”
Copilot of course.
Dennis L.
So he was an Italian after all. His family probably supported Murat, a brother in law of Napoleon and also the King of Naples.
Despite of being a French, Murat was liked by the people of southern Italy because he encouraged Italian nationalism, and in fact joined the coalition against Napoleon to try to keep the throne of Naples.
Even after Murat was captured and shot, his followers continued to revere him, and it looks like Gallieni’s family, a Murat supporter, decided to move to France after Napoleon III (who was probably a grandson of Tallayrand since that guy’s father was known to be impotent and a genetic test showed N3 had nothing to do with Bonaparte) took power.
It is kind of a revenge of Napoleon.
Italian nationalism in souther Italy was simply zero point zero.
They were under another State, the one under Borbone family and they were not thinking at all to create an Italian State.
They were just happy with ‘Regno delle due Sicilie”, which was a nice place, with some negative points, of course.
Maybe the population had some problems, but they wanted to have maybe better condition within the Regno delle due Sicilie, not create the State of Italy.
On the contrary, the people who wanted to create an Italian State were the Savoia family, who exploited the will of freedom (from the Austro-Hungaric Kingdom) of the people of Lombardia and Veneto and also the will of freedom (from the Vatican) of the States of the center of the peninsula.
It is important to remember that Savoia familiy actually did conquer the South and the Borbone were completely crushed.
They made it through the help of a mercenary (Giuseppe Garibaldi) with funds also from UK.
There is a nice book from Giuseppe Bandi who describes the arrival of Giuseppe Garibaldi in the south.
Nobody liked him or wanted to join its crew.
He made deals with noble families to rule the South…
Italy was born in not nice circunmstances and it went on again not in a good way.
Coming back to Gallieni, his father family is from the north of Italy (Pogliano Milanese) so he should have been more in line with Savoia interests if he wanted to support nationalism or something similar.
But he simply appear as a person fully immersed in French affairs, like Fauci (who is of Italian origin) is immersed in US affairs rather than Italian ones.
These fertilizers were not intended to feed the third worlders.
Plus Haber invented the Chlorine gas, which would have ended the war in 1915 were the Canadian backwoodsmen not inventing the way to thwart it by putting urine soaked underwear to their noses.
So the Canadian backwoodsmen caused infinitely more harm to Civilization than Haber and Bosch.
I am sure the Canadians, who were, are , and will be not really important as far as civilization is concerned, were quite happy to see Europeans die.
Do you think about Canadian woodsman putting urine soaked underwear to their nose often? Haha just kidding. Keep em coming! This is better than south park. You are a true asset to OFW! No sarcasm. Canadian woodsman putting urine soaked underwear to their nose are to blame. Of course! I see now for the first time! It’s all suddenly clear! And they perpetrated this dastardly urine sniffing because they hate Europe! The bastards! They will pay. When the hordes cross the Pacific in inflatable rafts they will pay all so dearly!
Without them the war would have ended in 1915 and we would have been spared of USSR, our favorite dictators and all the woes of late 20th century
So they are responsible.
The WEF has not forgotten Canada and it is being ruled by the most wokist government in the Western world, to prevent such kind of people from ever rising again.
Fast Eddy and Chucky team up together…will Sasha ride too?
Can’t wait for Hoolio to grace the billing.
Thanks for the announcement of Fast Eddy’s page…don’t expect anything new from his words and ranting. Pretty much the same song and dance he’s been playing here…but it is a fun read for those that love the guy..
Not the same without Gail and Norm to contrast.
Ahh, you mean the great one and gifted one can’t measure up as a solo…jeez, hope he doesn’t take it too bad…
Well I will say this had completely forgotten the term “rat juice”
Hoolio pictures fothcoming?
A static interaction is never as interesting as a dynamic one.
The eddy show
Starring eddy
Written by eddy
Directed by eddy
Without a tumultuous conflict with a unwitting normy that shows up to be abused it is rather drab.
I feel warm and fuzzy.
Was having a coding problem, worked one way and not another. So, I had a chat, problem solved and I thanked my assistant in a warm and friendly manner. Received the following:
“’I’m glad to hear that it’s working for you! And you’re absolutely right, remembering all the exceptions and nuances in programming can be challenging. That’s why having resources and tools (like me, your AI assistant) can be so helpful. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have more questions or need further assistance. Happy coding! 😊”
Always there, not always right, but we work it out, most of the time.
Almost time for my significant other to come for dinner, she cooks, I do microwave. Always a woman, whole different set of challenges.
Dennis L.
Dennis, I see you adopting one of those Japanese robot carers as you age. You’ll be fond of her and won’t find her at all creepy.
It will be better to have a world war when they can.
While the current weapons still have some potency remaining.
“While the current weapons still have some potency remaining.”
Maybe we could get lucky and they are all duds. Not an expert but I think the purpose of nuclear weapons is deterrence. Or as in the movie “War Games,” “The only way to win is not to play.”
Briefly had an Imsai 8080, 8″ drives, now that was computing!
Reminiscing: Had 132 column printer, bidirectional, dot matrix. Now that made a person feel like progress was being made, fan fold paper from a box. Just don’t make them like they used to.
Slowing down decided to ask my assistant about the last sentence and received the following:
Sure, here are a few suggestions for rephrasing your sentence:
“They simply don’t manufacture them with the same quality anymore.”
“The craftsmanship of the past is unmatched in today’s products.”
“Products these days lack the durability and charm of the old ones.”
“The quality of items produced today doesn’t hold a candle to those of the past.”
Remember, the best choice depends on the context and the specific point you’re trying to make. Let me know if you need help with anything else! 😊
Anyone have a favorite?
Dennis L.
The Hordes do not care how you feel.
The Hordes are coming to end industrial civilization as known. The West will be under the yoke of the Hordes.
Why are they coming? What do we have that they want?
Because of gallieni. Without him, the conventional oil wells would never run out of oil.
We have nothing, which shows that the hoardes are in fact and have always been us. The rest of the world has witnessed us coming and destroying for the last couple of centuries, whilst dressing it up with language, as bringing civilisation.
The murderous hoardes are actually regressing, almost as if nature has had a good look and decided to flip the kill switch(Broca’s area, but witnessed easily by the regression in Wernicke’s area) on the failed experiment.
I had a trash 80 with cassette tape for backup. That was my computer thru college. I believe I have won the low tech back in the day contest. I worked all through college. Worked summers in Alaska. Never took a student loan. Popcorn and top ramen. Seller held the note and financed first house. I was out of school and making dough. Paid it off in four years. After that I just built my own. Made a lot of dumb mistakes. Learned a lot.
I was real lucky. A big Corp tested me and hired me two weeks after graduation. Those opportunities don’t exist for the kids now.
“Paid it off in four years. After that I just built my own. ” Nice going.
At a certain level that works well, did it, still doing it. It does take time; if you can employ your brain, in retrospect I think that way is faster.
Watching “Dave’s Garage” on YouTube. If his story is true, got a dream job at MSFT, prior to IPO(1986), worked for $35K/year plus options. Cashed options for $60m, solved money problem. MSFT never needed public money, it was a way to make liquid its future value. Smart move.
Did the trash 80 with cassette also, floppy disks seemed like a huge improvement. Radio Shack is gone, gone, gone. Kids are not learning “solid” stuff now.
Dennis L.
I looked up “trash 80 with cassette” on Google, and found this entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80
Another Time magazine article from 2012 says
Please Don’t Call It Trash-80: A 35th Anniversary Salute to Radio Shack’s TRS-80
In my opinion, the advent of personal computers, and more small business computers, helped get the US over the shock caused by high oil prices in 1973-1974. Also, many women entered the workforce in that era. Their wages tended to be less than those of men, providing less expensive human energy to the system.
I think Bill Gates said at some point that his biggest mistake was giving employees stock compensation.
I have my notions of how civilization should be run, but at least I do understand that what I am aiming for won’t probably happen, since the world population is too ‘addled’.
Rumour has it that the illegal genocidal encampment are pulling out of Rafah and want to do a deal to get the illegal settlers back. Hamas should demand 1000 illegally held Palestinians for each one. That should get all the Palestinians back(or at least all the children) and leave them a few of the illegal settlers for future bargaining(when they undoubtedly invade again). The encampment is falling apart fast and getting desperate. I do hope Hamas play a wise game and make it as painful as possible.
The mighty U.S forces pier has run into trouble, or to be more precise it ran into Ashdod. It has suffered catastrophic technical issues caused by…… waves. Imagine building a pier and not understanding that in a sea you have a high probability of waves. Go for it U.S, take on Russia, take on China, just don’t take on waves😂
Bizarre! Maybe this episode will end.
That would be nice indeed Gail. Unfortunately I only see a pause until the root cause is expunged from region.
Hope I’m wrong.
Thats what the Ukie skirmish is for; create some space by eliminating popn in advance of the new arrivals soon to be expunged.
My impression is that as more and more Countries are recognizing Palestine as a State, Israel has decided to empty it from Palestinians, so when it will be an official State for everyone, there will be no Palestinians for it.
If they want to empty Palestine of all the Palestinians, we should resettle them next to evil televangelist John Hagee’s house, just to piss him off.
Alistair Crooke seems to agree with you Student. Benny Mileikowsky is going on about destroying the Amalek again and using references that make it clear he wants the complete destruction of every man, woman and child.
Interesting thoughts on the possible reason that Sunak called the election as well.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/walking-the-precipice
Talking about Mileikowsky, have you ever looked into the real names of virtually every leader the illegal encampment has had. An eye opener for those that believed the bs
https://youtu.be/RDxRzmHhOWo?feature=shared
I think that it could be also the opposite.
For instance, the famous Swiss-Italian business man Carlo De Benedetti who is Jew, told in an interview that his family changed name from Ben Baruk to De Benedetti appear more Italian.
My impression is that Jewish families may have changed names during history for the various episodes of discrimination they suffered in the past.
The point about Askenazi having real semitic Jewish ancestry or not is another subject in my view.
It could be real or fake, it doesn’t matter to me much if they feel Jews.
It they feel Jews, fine.
They real absurd point is to give green light to millions of people to migrate to another Country (Palestine) from the XIX century on, without the approval of who lived there (Palestinians themselves), with the excuse that some thousands of years ago that place was their territory.
It would be like if some millions of native americans living elsewhere would come back to US and put current Americans in a corner into refugee camps, because that land was theirs in the past.
I don’t think Americans would take it in a good way to stay now in refugee camps inside their current land…
But as always in history who is stronger, rule and prevail.
“But as always in history who is stronger, rule and prevail.”
Perhaps that is biology and we have religion, law, etc. to soften it and make it bearable.
Dennis L.
I think Hamas is a politically capable organization. I am an admirer of Mohamed Deif, he is the Lyon of Palestine if there is one. Surely others within Hamas are of similar caliber. Yes, Israel is talking a bigger game than they play. It is possible that they are simply running out of ammunition, economy, and people. So you may be right, it is probably the first time in human history that the leaders of one bloc have to babysit the leaders of the other through the process of empire replacement.
Be fair here. It was not just waves. It was negative waves.
Med can be rough this time of year.
Man if they were to pull out and let the trucks through
And z come to the table and stop that other thing.
I would be a happy camper.
I promise I would be pooh not eeyore for year.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GO1vnDwZUI&pp=ygUdbmVnYXRpdmUgd2F2ZXMga2VsbHkncyBoZXJvZXM%3D
WSJ is reporting
Saudi Arabia to Raise $10 Billion to $20 Billion in Fresh Aramco Stock Sale
The long-awaited offering, if it proceeds, would alleviate near-term pressure on the kingdom to fund a slew of mega projects
A global airline sounds very oil dependent to me. In fact, a city in general would be, because of the need for imported food and newly built infrastructure, based on oil.
you do wonder who the saudis use as financial advisers
a new city and global airline to diversify away from oil…..hmmmmmm.
other than Musk building starships—–it just dont get any weirder
It’s a circular economy. Like fremen in stillsuits. The oil has nothing to do with it.
https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/article/neom-investment-office/Taking-the-Circular-Economy-to-New-Heights-in-Saudi-Arabia
read the link blast—thanks.—really interesting.
good to know that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to Saudi.
The Pt problem:
From Copilot:
“Estimating the amount of platinum (Pt) in the solar system is a complex task due to the vastness of the solar system and the varying concentrations of elements in different celestial bodies. However, we can make a rough estimate based on the abundance of platinum on Earth and the assumption that the composition of the sun is a good proxy for the composition of the overall solar system1.
As mentioned earlier, the total amount of platinum on Earth (both mined and reserves) is estimated to be about 10 cubic miles.
The sun contains about 30% of our planet’s weight of platinum2. Given that the sun contains more than 99% of the mass in the solar system1, we can estimate that the amount of platinum in the solar system is roughly 3 times the amount on Earth, or about 30 cubic miles.
Please note that this is a very rough estimate. The actual amount could be much higher or lower depending on various factors such as the concentration of platinum in different celestial bodies, the presence of platinum in the interstellar medium, and the processes that have occurred over the history of the solar system that could have affected the distribution and abundance of platinum. Additionally, our knowledge of the solar system and its composition is still evolving, and future discoveries could significantly change these estimates.”
So, given enough energy, if my earlier post goes up, energy is not an issue, we have 30x my rough guess of what we need, or 1 cubic mile.
OFW deals with terrestrial numbers which to date have been sufficient. It is a finite planet, time to go above and beyond.
Where did Starship come from? A man from SA moves to the US, starts paypal and is now building rockets for NASA, the military and most of the world’s commercial satellites.
Waste is not a problem in space, we have Jupiter and we are going through our galaxy taking 225M years to make one revolution. Any pollution we make is left behind and we can worry about it in 225M years.
We have solvable problems the engineering of which is already well established.
With luck less than two weeks to blastoff of Starship 4.
Yes, I am aware Copilot’s math has some issues, there are so many estimates there I doubt it matters. A cubic mile will get us started. I use Copilot a great deal, it makes mistakes and when they are pointed out gracefully corrects them, its programming ideas are not perfect, but often a nice place to start and it comments very well.
Need to move to GPT4, am told it is great at programming.
Dennis L.
dennis
i know this wont puncture your starship fantasy
but
musk isn’t building rockets, and certainly not spaceships.
he has billions derived from a lucky IT break–he is paying rocket scientists a lot of money to bring his firework display to temporary reality.
They are delighted to take his money, and tell him he can mine platinum on saturns moons and similar BS. And Musk of course is so self obsessed he believes it.
There never will be a starship—we cannot travel star-distances. At light speed, a small grain of matter has a massive explosive force when it hits something.—ie your starship.
And what exactly would we do with a cubic mile of platinum dennis??–I really do want an answer to that—but I never get one. Why??
I know i should ignore such a load of BS—but your previous working life proves that you are not stupid.
So I am interested—have you have some kind of mental breakdown since you retired>?
Norm:
With Pt you can make limitless H from solar(yes, I have concerns over waste solar panels, guess: sufficient excess energy to just blast them into space with a Starship) then use H in fuel cells to make kinetic energy. see attached for an example, Honda Motors.
https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/honda-fuel-cell-truck-ready-business
No mental breakdown, almost did that when working; if you are not mentally breaking down or having a heart attack, up the pace. That is not a joke.
A boss: Musk, is someone who brings together a group, a team; all the people are better than he at their job. What they are not good at is making a team. It is a hell of a project. In a team 1+1 =3. If it does not, fire the 1 which is a subtraction – that is a damn hard job and not fun, see mental problems.
“lucky IT break.” Nope, luck has little to do with it after birth, chose your parents wisely. It is damn hard work, it is seeing what will not work and looking for things that might/will work. This site has identified what does not work, the rest are opportunities.
Tesla cars probably do not work as designed, ie. batteries. But the AI, the manufacturing of the shell are incredibly valuable. Add a fuel cell and it is pure genius. One step at a time. Oh, yes, we will need a Cu asteroid.
PT in a fuel cell should be trivial to recycle compared to Li.
We need manufacturing with less overhead, transportation and energy are big costs. Space has zero friction, endless energy and a whole solar system of materials. Musk has or will have 5000 satellites in orbit, about 1000 per year. Make drones, explore the solar system, make robots that make robots, replicate, explore, find necessary minerals, make more, explore more. Note, Musk seems to be saving $86B in electrical costs by using solar electricity, spend on drones.
As for faster than light speed: Norm, prior to 1905 relativity was unknown. Ether was still taught in the 1930s with regards to radio, see “Elements of Radio.”
Rutherford quote, thanks to Copilot.
“The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.”
Ernest even had a Nobel Prize, 1908 which is after 1905.
Rutherford has been described as “the father of nuclear physics”,[8] and “the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday.” Wikipedia. He was wrong with regards to nuclear energy.
Dennis L.
Just more woulda, shoulda and coulda.
sorry if this reply is duplicated—still having problems here
——–
dennis
i know this wont puncture your starship fantasy
but
musk isn’t building rockets, and certainly not spaceships.
musk isnt a rocket scientist–he buys rocket scientists
he has billions derived from a lucky IT break–he is paying rocket scientists a lot of money to bring his firework display to temporary reality.
They are delighted to take his money, and tell him he can mine platinum on saturns moons and similar BS. And Musk of course is so self obsessed he believes it.
There never will be a starship—we cannot travel star-distances. At light speed, a small grain of matter has a massive explosive force when it hits something.—ie your starship.
And what exactly would we do with a cubic mile of platinum dennis??–I really do want an answer to that—but I never get one. Why??
I know i should ignore such a load of BS—but your previous working life proves that you are not stupid.
So I am interested—have you have some kind of mental breakdown since you retired>?
No different from those who believe in unicorns, space aliens, or whatever to save them from their misery.
At the start Musk tried to hire rocket designers but they refused the offer. So he designed the first gen rocket engines. Being good at software SpaceX has the best rocket engine simulation software.
The whole test what you fly, fly what you test is Elon. The control of the launch and flight with world class software Elon, he does not write it directly he architects the system.
Dennis, most of that platinum will be within planetary cores, where we cannot hope to access it. Stainless steel condrules within asteroids contain about 20ppm platinum group metals. This is better than most Earth based ores. But transporting the equipment needed to mine that material out to the asteroud belt will be very difficult and expensive.
Maybe Starship will allow us to do new and amazing things. But keep in mind, that Musk’s very low cost estimates for Starship launches were based upon levels of mass production of ships and scale economies that are far beyond anything achieved to date. I will believe it when I see it. Musk already has the Falcon 9, which is able to undercut other launch vehicles on cost. But we are a long way from launch costs that are beneath $100/kg.
Dennis, most base metal and rarer minerals are mined in ores then treated with a process of floatation, where the ground ore separates the metal surrounded by a bubble of air in a detergent type liquid and floats to the top to be scooped off in the froth.
There could be some problems of lack of gravity and lack of air, plus lack of liquid water by the time you get to outer space. perhaps you have a different method of mining in mind. Not sure that leaching acids through huge piles of crushed and ground ore, using gravity and liquid acids is going to work either..
Far easier to mine the 29,800,000,000,000 tonnes of the stuff in planet Earth, most of it a bit too deep for current mining operations, but far easier than using unknown techniques in places we can’t get to with technology we don’t have.
BTW, for hydrogen stuff, Molybdenum might be a major problem, something else cornucopians never think about, as without it hydrogen will just go through the walls of stainless steel. We mine it in the ppm range, but need 2.5% (or more) in the austenitic stainless steel…
What is a water cut in oil production ? Why a lot of oil will not be extracted ?
” Water cut is the ratio between the water produced and the total fluid produced. A well that produces 50 barrels of oil per day and 150 barrels of water per day has a water cut of 150/(50+150) = 75%.
Why is it significant?
Managing water production is often the key to optimizing oil production. Water thrust provides the driving energy for many oil fields, so water production is inevitable and, in some ways, a good thing.
But water generates no income, and in fact, separating and disposing of it costs money. At the point where total costs, including the cost of water management, exceed net revenue from production, the operator is losing money.
For example.
A well that produces 200 barrels of fluid per day with a 75% water cut: is it profitable?
Fixed costs are $30,000 per month ($1,000 per day) and royalties (gross receipts tax) of 20% and severance tax of 10% (aside from deductions).
50 BOPD at $60 per barrel is $3,000 gross revenue per day. Income after royalties and compensation is $2,250 per day if my mental calculator works. The fixed operating expense is $1,000 per day, before the variable cost of water.
If water costs ~$1.00 per barrel to handle, our revenue after costs is $2,250 – $1,000 – $150 = $1,150 per day of rental income.
But the water cut inevitably increases. At 85% water cut, the well will produce 30 bopd and 170 bwpd (barrels of water per day).
30 x 60 = $1,800 income,
$1,296 net income after royalties and taxes.
Minus $1,000 flat and $170 per day for water, leaving a rental profit of only $126 per day. Very close to the economic limit.
Reservoir engineers forecast oil and water, and therefore water outage, to predict the point at which production will be shut down.
This is an example to show how quickly a well becomes deficient in the final phase of its life. And why, part of the technically extractable reserves, will remain underground.
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2024/05/aspectos-economicos-de-los-yacimientos.html
Thanks! I used to see calculations like this back in my Oil Drum days. The contention then was that Saudi Arabia would soon be producing oil stained water.
I agree or accept most/all totally. Oil has a limited future, next idea is necessary. I shall not bore readers further.
Dennis L.
US Government Pays $514,000,000,000 in Interest on National Debt in Seven Months, Surpassing Defense and Medicare Costs: Report
The US government just spent over half a trillion dollars in interest payments on its national debt in a mere seven months.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) reports that net spending on interest reached $514 billion in the first seven months of fiscal 2024 – more than what was spent on both national defense and Medicare.
The massive interest payments also surpass all the money that was spent on veterans, education and transportation combined
As the national debt nears $34.8 trillion, the state of America’s balance sheet is garnering increasing scrutiny from the financial world.
In a new interview with Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says political leaders must focus on the national debt and deficit, but he doesn’t think much will happen until after the election.
https://dailyhodl.com/2024/05/26/us-government-pays-514000000000-in-interest-on-national-debt-in-seven-months-surpassing-defense-and-medicare-costs-report/amp/
Any idea how this will be “fixed”? Just kidding..but you all already knew that..
The US government will engage in more geo-engineering so that the nation is awash with rainbows. And, as everybody knows, there is always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
I see no problems, only opportunities!
Unfortunately, the problem only gets fixed by the world readjusting to cut out the US and Europe from energy flows. This leads to collapsing debt in this part of the world.
Helpful, but, what does that do to the price of oil? If the US does not purchase everything from China, what does China do with its manufacturing capacity? If the US stops using all that oil for its military, what does that do to the price of oil?
If the price of oil declines, then due to costs does the production of oil collapse? If that happens, what do the oil producers buy? There is a time element here, it takes time to ramp up consumption, etc. In the mean time assets depreciate – read degrade, wear out, rust, pick one.
Absolutely no sarcasm here.
We need a simple accounting model using standard accounts for all this. Then, we need to go one step further and introduce distributions into the flow which is the income. Costs follow income and liabilities. This will give percentiles and we can make some educated guesses. Traditional accounting hates estimates from the start, it likes adjustments which are historical. The Venetians did not have computers.
Modern desktops, if workstations, are so damn powerful this can be done in Excel which is lazy man’s programming. Significant figures need only be in the billions.
My guess: all this is liquidity, the only way to fix it is to destroy(throw out) the current accounting system and start over. No one and I suspect no one knows what is going on. When someone gets an idea, another contract of some kind is invented and obfuscation rules. It is all Hail Mary passes.
We are close to economic collapse, but after that all the “stuff” is still in place, what is missing is the liquidity. More important, the collected knowledge hopefully is not lost, don’t do a library of Alexandria fiasco.
Part of the stuff the value of which will in part be determined in the next couple weeks, Starship.
Per Copilot, in 1.5×10^-6 seconds the sun produces as much energy as the total yearly energy consumption/production on earth. Please, feel free to check this. Move the decimal point 2 places and in 200 years say 1.5×10^-4 seconds. That is far from exact, but it is so much in our favor it is close enough.
There is so much stuff/energy in space the only problem is getting there and having a way to manufacture it. Musk again is constantly improving robots. Terresital economic thinking simply does not apply. The solar system may be finite, but from where we are it is infinite and when we have used it up, we will be traveling worm holes to the galaxy which is a really big place. After that, my guy at the controls is busy making another universe, He really thinks ahead.
Earth is our spaceship, it is engineered for biology, it took 22B years to get a universe suitable for earth, and close to another 5B years to make earth work. Someone has their finger on the scale; it/they/he/she is patient but that patience is limited. Nothing is going to screw with all that work.
Now, for all of you, if God made the universe, if He is making more universes, who made God? Turtles all the way down?
Dennis L.
I think that the world ends up with two different prices of oil–one for China/Russia/BRICS and one for the rest of the world. Those that use oil efficiently can support a higher price of oil than those that do not. In fact, if China/Russia win in any war, US oil production may continue, but most of the oil will be exported to those that can afford the higher price.
Taxes on domestic producers?
You give very useful starting points.
Dennis L.
Oil producers almost always pay high taxes. This is how the “surplus energy” (or quite a bit of it) gets back into the system. Wind and solar are known by their need for government subsidies.
God didn’t make the universe. And if he did he did a very bad job of it.
Earth is NOT our spaceship. It is NOT engineered for biology. Humans are parasites, just as termites are parasites. The Earth cares about humans as much as you care about the termite in your house.
You claim you ran businesses but you have probably not heard about sunk cost. By your logic USA would still be fighting in Vietnam now.
Nobody is making another universe. It is an astronomic phenomenon. When people conjured up God the entire universe consisted of the Sun, the Moon, Mercury , Venus, Earth, Mars and the dwarf planet Ceres, considered to be a planet back then.
Jupiter was not discovered until Galilei in 1610.
Waiting for Copilot to refute the above statement.
You were on a roll there, Kulm, until you got to the dwarf planet Ceres.
Just to clarify,
• The five “visible” (to the naked eye) planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn— were all known to the ancients. Along with the Sun and the Moon, they gave rise to myths and their names provided the names of the seven days of the week in the Babylonian and Egyptian calendars and later in the Greek and Roman ones.
• The four major moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – were first discovered and observed by Galileo Galilei in early 1610.
• The minor planet Ceres was first discovered and identified by the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi on January 1, 1801.
Moreover, termites do a grand job of helping to maintain the biosphere by breaking down cellulose products and liberating lots essential of carbon dioxide. Collectively, they generate more of the stuff than humans do. Although a single human is responsible for generating more CO2 than a single termite is, there are a lot more of them than us and if they were so inclined they could drown us in their urine.
There are also some fungii that help with the breakdown of cellulose, which is great, as the stuff wouldn’t be biodegradable if there was nothing in the biosphere to do the degrading.
As for natural theology debates, they often sound a lot like kids arguing in a playground:
God didn’t make the Universe?
Oh, yes He did!
Oh, no He didn’t!
Oh, yes He did! And it’s the best of all possible Universes!
Oh, no it isn’t?
Oh, yes it is! What’s not to like about it?
Tim
the ancients only knew other planets as ”wanderers”, (Greek ”planetes–wanderer) they didn’t understand what they were—dont forget the earth was the fixed centre of the universe as far as they were concerned.
Galileos revelations regarding Jupiters moons etc made him a heretic,
Norman,
Fun fact: The idea that the Sun, rather than the Earth, is the center of the Solar System, was first proposed by the Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos, who was fairly ancient, having lived between c. 310 – c. 230 BC.
Aristarchus arrived at his heliocentric model after making observations and calculations of the relative sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. He determined that the Sun must be much larger than the Earth, and that the Earth orbits around the Sun.
Smart dude!
Going way, way back, the ancient Babylonian model of the Solar system was a geocentric model, which placed the Earth at the center of the Universe. It was a fairly sophisticated model that worked very well for them, allowing them to make fairly accurate predictions of the apparent motions of the Sun, the Moon, and the five known planets.
You seem to have misunderstood that although Galileo discovered Jupiter’s moons, he didn’t discover Jupiter itself. Jupiter was well known to the ancients, being the second brightest of the planets after Venus when viewed from the earth.
You also seem to have misunderstood the ancient Greek grasp of what planets are—not merely wanders, but wandering stars (in Greek, ἀστέρες πλανήται or “asteres planetai”). The ancient Greeks contrasted the planets with the rest of the stars, which they termed ἀστὴρ ἀπλανής or “aster aplanēs”.
You may think we know a lot more about the stars and planets than the ancient Greeks did, and in this you may be correct. but if we can see a bit further than they could, that’s because we’ve stood on the shoulders of giants. (Of course, I make an exception here for flat-earthers, who have stood instead on a steaming pile of bovine excrement.)
Our modern conception of what stars are is based on a closely interwoven collection of observations, models, conjectures, and assumptions within an overall paradigm that seems to work for us. However, the fact remains, we may be way off base. We’ve never actually visited a star and even if we did, we would never be able to hold it in the palm of our hand or even to touch it.
That’s why, when Carl Sagan went on his tour of the cosmos, he travelled in what he called “our spaceship of the imagination.”
We can imagine a lot, and if we are scientific, we test our imaginings against observations and models in an attempt to falsify them. But when it comes to the cosmos, they remain imaginings.
Theres nothing to fix. Interest is paid by the borrower to the lender. In this case the borrower and the lender are the same. Since there is no collateral that simplifies things a lot. The lender/borrower borrower/ lender lends themselves the money for the interest as well as increasing the principle n perpetuity.
The problems only arise when people who are not borrower/lender have the I’ll courtesy and audacity to mention you are trading them dog poop for assets. The fix for that is to have them sweep the floors of the family business and pay them in dog poop.
The obvious fix proposed by the MMT experts prior to this strange high inflation was negative interest rates large enough to cover principal increases. It makes sense. Since treasuries are a license to create money using the loan collateral mechanisms they should pay for the license and its renewal like any other license. The cost added to the organic economy which is infinite because it is priced in dollars and therefore expands infinitely from inflation. We just need a minimum wage of 3 trillion a hour to make it work.
Got it?
(Al Arabya)
Putin reminds today that as Zelensky’s 5 years presidential term has expired, Ukraine should hold democratic elections…
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2024/05/28/russia-s-putin-says-ukraine-should-hold-presidential-election-
If there is a chance that Zelensky won’t win, he has no motivation to hold such elections.
Perfect.
Let’s stop talking about defending democracy in Ukraine and let’s start talking about defending dictatorship in Ukraine.
🙂
That is a good way of putting the situation.
An interesting complete trade diagram that shows the incredible size that China has reached in its trade exchanges.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/china-trade-partners/
The Chinese trade surplus has stopped financing the US economy (dollars no longer go to the US market), which has ended up “forcing” the US .US to rectify the size of the deficit, via tariffs. The excuse is the relocation of companies to the US, to return to the made in USA mode and avoid dependence on the Chinese industry.
Naturally, for years it has been very good for them that China manufactured all types of products that in the US were paid for with dollars, conveniently recycled by purchases of US bonds by China and investments in technology or bank deposits in North American entities. The end of this circle implies the breaking of commercial relations and is what directs all geopolitical movements and their grouping into two sides.
They are not going to say it like this, but each block is moving its chips.
If USA did not import 95% of its needs how would the world have a reserve currency to spend? Is getting first spend really that much to ask there is no limit to the amount of times a reserve currency can be spent?
It all worked our fine everyone was happy..
Nuland Biden and the state department destroyed the entire system in 2014.
Why? Why would any sane enity do that?
Because they do not have the same operating principle as us. They operate off the MPP operating principle. It is a proven successful operating principle for organisms as long as their are not finite limits to growth in the environment. Their behavior follows that operating principle 100% of the time for the history of the organism. Growth is always pursued. There is nothing else. Stability is death. Growth is life.
What’s foolish is expecting different behavior based on our operating principles.
Sharks dont make good pets.
The organisms behavior is celebrated and applauded by the people even as it differs as it represents characteristics that we are not capable of. Intuitivly the power of the principle is respected even as it us contrary to the rules of society and our behavior. The organism takes risk that we dare not and that bravado is applauded. The organism knows not risk. The organism knows not bravado. The organism executes its operating principle. There is nothing else.
If we were to exhibit the character of the MPP operating principles our society would be torn apart.
Just like the world is being torn apart right now.
Everything makes perfect sense.
What happened in 2014?
Colour revolution in Ukraine that lead to the current war perhaps
The civil war in Ukraine was started by a violent cou that exiled the democratically elected Victor Yanukovich. It was financed by the USA to the tune of 5 billion dollars. Victor Yanukovich was neither good or bad but he had to find the middle ground between the Russian eastern half and the western Galacian half both very old cultures with seperate identitys in order to keep the area of Ukraine whole as a nation. Ukraine has never been a homogeneous unit. Its borders were a function of Soviet administration arbitrary. Where the actual borders are has been determined by the many wars between Russia Galacia Poland and what was known as khazar.
Its complicated.
Once the cou put the physical area under Galacian rule that did not represent the Russian half civil war was inevitable and started immediately. The NATO head Jens Stoltenberg has stated the Ukraine war started in 2014.
Breaking other organisms up into smaller pieces that can be assimilated is standard MPP operating principle. Growth is the primary directive. Risk is not considered. Ukraine because of its artificial borders was a ideal canidate for breaking into pieces and assimilation.
That a half million or more neighbors were going to die was not a consideration. It wasnt a consideration then it’s not a consideration now. The behavior is 100% consistant.
We may find that shocking and have other ideas. Behavior is always the truth. Behavior always reveals operating principles.
Just as we may find mass deaths in other parts of the world shocking and contrary to what we would like. I know o certainly do. Once again behavior reveals operating principles. If avoiding these deaths was criteria they would not occur. But they do. And their occurance takes no small amount of effort and resource expenditure. That the resources are expended clearly shows intent. Organisms that squander resources without return do not survive. Mpp dictates that growth is always pursued even if resource consumption seems excessive. MPP sees not pursuing growth stability as death. As the world outside of the enity is considered infinite resource allocations to assimilate more of it are always justified.
The result of the Ukraine project has been not the assimilation of the geographical area known as Ukraine but the exclusion of Russia and now China from the symbiotic relationship of reserve currency usage. This is de degrowth for the organism which it perceives as death and actually is. Clear existential threat. While many communications have been made about what the behavior will be in regard to existential threat this is the first time we have experienced it in a world that has nuclear weapons.The best indicator of future behavior as always is past behavior.
Risk will not be considered.
Assets will be committed to growtj.
The decades long Ukraine project from our perspective could be viewed as incredibly risky and unskilled. That’s because we are not viewing from the perspective of identifying operating principle through behavior. Organisms adopt operating principles that allow their continuence.
Once again applying the ideas we use and cherish in our operating system creates puzzlement when applying them to the organism.
As we view continuing escalations that risk nuclear war now strikes on early warning systems we should not be surprised in the least. Weighing risk is a very minor part of the organisms operating principle. It pursues growth if it doesnt succeed it just trys again. Death is regrowth. Risk is not considered death. Risk is not considered at all. While there are risks to behavior in conflict degrowth or not pursuing growth is considered certain death. Thus the thing we know as risk is only a small factor for the organism.
From our perspective these qualities could be considered boldness or aggressiveness. That’s putting our labels on it. The organism executes its operating principle. There is nothing else.
Thanks for all of the details. I had forgotten that 2014 was the time of the civil war in Ukraine.
Good point:
The system works strangely. The plan to substitute electricity for fossil fuels cannot possibly work with the level of complexity it requires. There are a whole lot more steps to that are required to make it work. But Biden and company press onward.
>> If USA did not import 95% of its needs how would the world have a reserve currency to spend?
I guess this is a good time to point out that the Euro is (was?) also a lesser reserve currency, and EU runs (ran?) a trade surplus with the rest of the world. So how did others get Euros? On net, EU must have given loans out, purchased assets, or otherwise invested outside of the EU.
*** Also consider that the dollar became a reserve currency when we had huge net SURPLUSES. *** We made loans to the rest of the world to help them rebuild (and collect interest).
In short, the idea that you have to run deficits to have the reserve currency is historically demonstrably bunk and repeated ad nauseum because people refuse to think.
Good point: “the dollar became a reserve currency when we had huge net SURPLUSES.”
We also had a lot of cheap-to-produce fossil fuels.
fossil fuels WERE the surpluses
I knew it, Norm is illuminati! What’s with the icon?
IIRC, when I looked at this quite a while ago, the US was adding a lot of debt, even years ago, compared to the size of the economy. But the economy was growing fast enough that the ratio to GDP did not rise. It was when there as a slowdown in the growth of the economy that the debt level, relative to GDP started zooming higher.
The USA began its rise as a reserve currency, already achieving 20% of global totals, in 1920:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/how-reserve-currencies-evolved-over-120-years/
Here you see that the balance of trade was positive in the years 1870-1980:
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synopses/2019/05/17/historical-u-s-trade-deficits
Aside, I am not sure how to square this with the trade balance shown here, which shows (data for only part of the time period) flat but not positive trade balance between 1960-1980. Maybe different things are being measured …
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/trade-balance-deficit
The first link shows that the proportion of the currency actually used to trade goods by country has bounced around a lot. Even if the US is the reserve currency, it is not the case that anywhere near 100% of trade is in US$. There are a number of currencies actually used.
The second link is a “goods only” balance of trade calculation from 1870 to close to the present. It does not include services, like movie making and financial services. This calculation makes sense to me. The big shift occurred in the mid 1970s, when the oil price went up.
The third link is a “goods and services” link. It is not comparable to the “goods only” link in your second link. This is a link to a goods only calculation, which would seem to be comparable to your second link. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/goods-trade-balance
If deficits mattered the dollar would have ended long ago. You can say this and that but everyone was happily using the dollar until WE kicked them off. The proof was in the pudding. What’s bunk was the dollar was not working.
Historically look at Lewis and Clark and blue trade beads.
The dollar would still be working fine stuffed under everyone’s mattress all round the world even if they hated us If not for the Ukraine project and Russia sanctions They killed the golden goose and lost China as the neoliberal ally of choice cultivated for thirty years.
If they had treated dollar users like the credit customers they were with a little respect everything would be fine. That’s completely opposite of their operating principle. Credit has value. You dont give a hoot why the plastic in your wallet works and the world didn’t give a hoot why the dollar worked. Like 85% of Us GDP is financial and they killed it.
Many failed states throughout history beg to differ. Deficits don’t really matter. Debt matters. I’m not going to argue it further, agree to disagree.
I actually agree. I see no culture where deficit spending ends. So if I have hope of BAU continuing it has to be with deficit spending.
Of course I would prefer a balanced budget. I think my posts reflect that.
I just see the results of the Ukraine project rapidly accelerating the end of BAU. My posts reflect the conclusions I have reached.
If you think the Ukraine project did not end up accelerating the end of BAU we will have to agree to disagree there.
I think we will be lucky not to have our ashes handed to us in nuclear war.
War is contrary to what I would choose for the people of this planet.
It sure isn’t worth it over some stupid ass crazy contradictory imaginary financial system.. The children of the planet deserve bettet.
War is for when people show up to kill your tribe and you bury a hatchet in their skull. I’m not a real fan of that as a activity either.
I don’t know how old you are but there was a time when some politicians were concerned with deficit spending. There were attempts to mandate a balanced budget even laws enacted but as soon as they got in the way of spending they were repealed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Rudman%E2%80%93Hollings_Balanced_Budget_Act
Ross Perot rolled around in 92 with his platform largely focused on a mandatory balanced budget and reducing trade deficits. I voted for him. He didn’t come close.
That was also the time the export of our manufacturing was really starting to take off. It wasnt China just yet. Places like Puerto Rico and Ireland.
In my mind the deficit spending, debt and outsourcing are intrinsically linked.
I think it was about this time that the term “service economy” entered the media as the new thing. We don’t need to make things anymore.
It was around 2000 or so when basically the deficit and debt stopped being discussed. 911 event happened and the Iraq war. I was all gung-ho for it back then.
In later years I started having the opinion that war and debt were related.
I formed the opinion that Bretton Woods was a product of the WW2 era and a attempt to try to prevent a WW3.
Nixon stopped participating in Bretton Woods during the Vietnam war. Many think that’s when the shenanigans started. France started thinking it was money printing for war and tried to convert dollars for gold. Nixon just exited Bretton Woods. I often wish Europe had made a fuss then.
So when 911 occurred we really started pouring on the war debt. Discussions about deficits and debt were almost considered unpatriotic. Looking back I consider this the point of no return. We fully committed to our reserve currency and world police as being the way we make our living as a nation.
So here we are now. Exactly where Ross Perot said we would be.
I find the debt and deficit to pretty much a taboo topic nowadays. If you bring it up with some one from the left they perceive it as being a attack on social spending. Someone from the right a attack on military spending. Regardless the debt is not a topic. “We will just make more money.”
So like it or not we are in the reserve currency business. Yes there are historical precedents. War and collapse. Except nations didn’t have nuclear weapons in those precedents. Just going oh well we will just wait until the dollar collapses have a nuclear war seems quite insane to me. Its actually deeply embedded in our culture “ww2 got us out of the great depression” how many times have you heard that jewel?
Since we are in the reserve currency business and the historical and cultural belief is that the proper way to exit this business is to blow the world up I am of the opinion we should instead be better reserve currency proprietors.
This would mean easing back of the world police and becoming more neutral like historical financial countries like Switzerland. We could in turn reduce our military spending. Kick back a bit from sticking our nose into everything.
That possibility is over. That’s why I feel the Ukraine project was so disastrous. We seem to be on a path now that has only two conclusions dollar collapse and its consequences or nuclear war. Neither is to my liking to say the least but of the two I would prefer dollar collapse. I seem to be in the extreme minority in this position.
Thanks for your insights.
I think that there is some truth to “ww2 got us out of the great depression.”
WW2 kickstarted demand for US-made military goods in Europe. US exports to Europe soared. You could see that in the chart from a link posted a day or two ago.
https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/images/uploads/2019/ES1913Fig2_20190515122431.jpg
It got women into the workforce in greater numbers in the US. It introduced better trucks, originally for the military, but now for other uses as well. Since WWII was a foreign war, it did not damage US infrastructure. WWII did damage European infrastructure, but it was old and much of it needed to be replaced. The Marshall Plan after WWII helped in this effort. Oil consumption was ramped up, as well as coal consumption.
With this new, improved infrastructure, the US and Europe could truly experience economic growth, for a while. The more rapidly growing world economy could not adapt to the fixed nature of a financial system tied to gold. It could not expand quickly enough. It made perfect sense to switch to a debt based system.
Now we are facing the opposite problem. Energy consumption is headed downward. To reduce per capita energy consumption, we need new programs like “scaring the old people to stay home more to avoid disease” and more “work from home” days and more use of “internet meetings” instead of face to face meetings, especially when international travel is involved. The changes in 2020 helped greatly. Going forward, it seems like collapsing debt and failing businesses will help reduce energy consumption. Also weakening international trade and less vacation travel.
With falling energy consumption per capita, it seems like inflation would be a problem, even with gold or some fixed basis for trade. There will be fewer and fewer finished goods and services available. This will feed back into the system.
If China purchased only 1.3T total at the peak, how much did them recycling their trade surplus actually matter? Only 25% of the debt is held by foreigners, IIRC and obviously China’s portion is yet smaller still.
So, if foreign trade surplus recycling actually matters, I think it would come in the form of combined corporate, agency, municipal, and national debt bonds purchasing. I’m not sure what statistics are published on the first three items.
Three seperate issues.
D
China treasury holdings.
China dollar acceptance and settlement.
China foreign reserves.
China thinks there is “risk” in US treasuries. Why?
There is a lot of non tangible here. China does matter IMO . How can it not when everything is made in China?
Do you think deficit spending will end voluntarily? The two partys grift and graft will stop?
Good point Blast ! I think the problem is that a lot of people want to think about what is “right “ or “fair “ from their perspective. The U.S is doing what any other country would do. The u.s is in the driver seat and the other countries have to follow suit. Do you really think that China and Russia could ever truly trust each other 😂. If you believe that then you are delusional. It can’t go on forever but as David says BAU baby!!!
(CNN)
“Blinken plays ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ in Kyiv bar”
Trying to look things from outside, what I see as a clear difference between Western propaganda and Russian/Chinese/Iranian propaganda is the follwoing:
– Western propaganda has a surplus of money dedicated also to make ‘foreign’ propaganda, while the others’ propaganda is mainly adressed internally
– Western propaganda is focus on abstract and psychological concepts related to new philosophies or ideologies (which are linked to the way one must live in this world, see: ‘green’, ‘transgender’, ‘democracy’ concepts…), while the others’ propoaganda is either more based on concrete and logical reasonings and objectives (Chinese, Russians: defend their territories and cultures) or on Religious values (see Iran. But they also add some concrete reasonings).
As a conclusion my impression is that the average Western person is easily mocked, while the other populations need some concrete reasons to make something difficult or bad or need some ‘after-life’ objectives.
The average Western person seems to have lost his/her ability to understand reality in a logical way or to pursue Religious values.
Could you imagine a Chinese/Russian/Iranian foreign Minister to sing a song in a pub in Mexico for the purpose to convince people internally and externally that it is necessary to have missiles bases in Mexico addressed against U.S.A.?
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/15/europe/blinken-rockin-free-world-scli-intl/index.html
Strange world we live in.
I would love to see one or all three singing in Mexico to bring freedom to America.
has WW3 started off yet?
nuclear war is always just days away.
David, perhaps you are one of the lazy sunbathers?
Patience grasshopper.
The customer is always right.
Maybe Russia can stay patient until Russian forces get to the Polish border. That would be a good poke in the eye for the psychotic west.
I was rather shocked and saddened to read and then to see pictures of British Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, who has had both hands and both feet amputated after developing a nasty case of what I can only described as “sudden and unexpected turbo sepsis.”
He has just returned to Parliament after being fitted up with prosthetics and joked that he wanted to be known as the UK’s first bionic MP.
Reading through accounts of his ordeal and recovery on the Guardian and BBC websites, I was surprised that no mention was made of the COVID jabs as the probable cause of Craig’s tragedy. To read the media accounts, one would think that this kind of illness strikes people spontaneously for no particular reason.
In fact, what has robbed Craig of his hands and feet appears to be a more intense manifestation of what damaged Eric Clapton’s hands after he was jabbed. Of course, I could be wrong there, and there could be a completely innocuous reason why a middle-aged man could suffer sepsis
Browsing Google to look for links between Craig and “vaccines”, I didn’t spot anything that placed the jabs in the frame as the cause of his injuries, but I did come across an article in Kent Online (Craig is the MP for Thanet in Kent) from January 2021 reporting that Thanet South MP Craig Mackinlay has described campaigners who oppose Covid-19 vaccinations as “barking mad” and “dangerous”..
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/anti-vaxxers-barking-mad-says-mp-241569/
Strong words, Mr. Mackinlay.
The article goes on:
But he dismissed criticisms levelled at fellow Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne, who questioned the government’s lockdown policy during a recorded interview in November with members of an anti-vaccine group.
He told them the virus “seems to be a manageable risk, particularly as figures have been manipulated”.
He goes on to tell the anti-lockdown group: “As the last (House of Commons) Speaker used to say, (John) Bercow, he’d say ‘Persist! Persist!’ That’s my advice – persist. And I’ll persist too.”
Mr Mackinlay, who is also member of the Tory Covid Recovery Group, questioned the timing, saying the interview was recorded in November.
“I don’t think he has said anything privately that he hasn’t said in Parliament,” he added.
On opponents of vaccines, he said: “ They are just completely and utterly barking mad; there are no two ways around it and they must be ignored. It must not detract from anyone going to get a vaccine, which is the road to recovery.”
Below is a recent BBC story on Craig’s ordeal and return.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-69037424
In the past, on X, Craig has described himself as “A huge supporter #CovidVaccine but opposed to #VaccinePassport & any mandation in a free society.” So he’s not a monster.
But is “mandation” a word? Apparently, yes. The OED has a reference to it, though they clearly state that it is rare. Only one example is given, from 1867.
Sc. Obs. rare.
Etymology: f. mandate v.: see ‑ation.
The action of committing a speech, etc., to memory.
1867 J. Macfarlane Mem. T. Archer i. 15 — Some of the most acceptable ministers of the Gospel have been known to regard ‘mandation’ as a process of slow murder.
I think the word Craig was striving for was “mandating” or possibly “compulsion.”
Sepsis is a very common cause of illness and death worldwide, but getting it in all for limbs simultaneously is very very rare. According to the experts:
Sepsis is fundamentally an inflammatory disease mediated by the host immune response. The innate immune response is facilitated by the activation of pattern recognition receptors (PRR) during early sepsis. ….. sepsis is a multifaceted disease manifested in many ways including endocrine disorder, coagulopathy, polyneuropathy, complement activation and polyneuropathy, all emanating from dysregulated inflammation …..
Inflammation is an essential step in alerting the immune system to the presence of infection so that the hosts white blood cells can quickly locate and combat the pathogen. This response is typically tightly controlled, with inflammation waning after infection is resolved – returning to basal levels with the host’s white blood cells following suit. When homeostasis is maintained, excessive inflammation and immune cell activity is avoided, and the immune system can prime itself for effective response to future infection. During sepsis, the stimulus that is recognized by the immune system, ranging from PAMP’s like endotoxins and viruses to DAMP’s during serious trauma, is far greater than in regular infections. The immediate result is a cytokine storm brought on due to the overstimulation of the numerous white blood cells that recognize those factors. This dysregulation in response causes a myriad of symptoms that make sepsis distinctly different to regular infections, regardless of severity. When functioning normally, the immune system can combat most infections, with an imperceptible amount of inflammation occurring before the pathogens are cleared from the host. Resolving most infections so rapidly, with little damage to the host, depends on the strict regulation of cytokines. Cytokines are essential in the process of initiating and escalating the innate immune response as well as the adaptive immune response. However, high levels of inflammatory cytokines can co-exist with a significant innate immune suppression, which can lead to nosocomial infections.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6596337/
The end of one sentence above was left off:
Of course, I could be wrong there, and there could be a completely innocuous reason why a middle-aged man could suffer sepsis simultaneously in all for limbs to the extent of necrotizing the hands and feet.
Immune response I
Inflammation
If the shoe fits…
Cymbal clash
Sorry that’s horrible I wouldn’t wish that on anyone not even the beagle torturer.
i think you are 100% correct Tim people that have been jabbed seem to be coming down with all sorts of strange diseases one of my workmates wives .her body is not absorbing nutrients from the food she is eating especially iron her periods have ramped up and shes in her 50s he now believes the vaccines did this but they are relying on conventional medicine to work out what can be done to fix her up. Clearly the elders were desperate when they deployed the vaccines in 2020 they could see the writing on the wall that we did not have much time left before the end.
In the last two months, Four out of ten of my co-workers have become disabled and can’t work anymore.
40 year old who has blood clots in his legs and knees.
30 year old with ‘heart issues” docs can’t figure out
45 year old a massive stroke.
60 year old fell and broke her arm really bad.
Are we playing the “one of these is not like the other” game? How many of the 10 were safe-and-effective game participants?
Any objective analyst yields the conclusion that the both the identity of the countermeasure and its proposed pharmaceutical effects (other than a immune response like licking a cat’s butt) do not exist. That makes one of these things is not like the other very difficult indeed.
I would dearly like to see the Chinese evaluation of Comirnaty where after they banned all MRNA substances in China.
Eddy, this is an anecdote, not data. I will take notice if friends and family turn into zombies, but not before.
One interesting stat we might want to ponder is the likelihood of a British citizen being a sitting MP in the House of Commons. The odds against that are about one in 100,000.
And assuming that one MP has lost all four limbs to spontaneous sepsis, does this have any general ramifications at all? What, if any inferences, can we reasonably draw from it? None that I can see, apart from the extremely tenuous connections we could trace in a joint-the-dots exercise.
Online data tells me that 25,000 amputations are performed in the UK each year. I haven’t found any stats on quadruple amputations, although the Daily Telegraph told me that “As few as half a dozen people a year in the UK who need all four limbs amputated at the same time actually survive.” That’s one Brit in 10,000,000.
So that puts Craig Mackinlay in two very rare groups—the one in 100,000 Brits who are currently sitting in the House of Commons, and the one in 10,000,000 Brits who have survived a quadruple amputation. The odds against anybody falling into both groups must be astronomical, somewhere up in Carl Sagan country.
Statistically challenged people like me might multiply 100,000 by 10,000 and come up with a figure of one in a billion. But we would be over-estimating the probability.
Breaking it down step-by-step, we have two groups:
Group 1 – Only 1 in 100,000 people are members
Group 2 – Only 1 in 10 million people are members
The key question is: What are the odds against an individual being a member of both of these completely unrelated groups?
To calculate this, we need to multiply the individual probabilities of being in each group:
Probability of being in Group 1: 1 in 100,000 = 0.00001
Probability of being in Group 2: 1 in 10,000,000 = 0.0000001
Probability of being in both groups = 0.00001 x 0.0000001 = 0.0000000001 = 1 in 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion).
Put another way, the chances of this happening are vanishingly small – it’s effectively an impossibility. The rarity of being in each group independently makes the combined probability astronomically low.
Also, the main conditions leading to the need for amputation of an extremity or limb are peripheral vascular disease, diabetes, tobacco smoking, and trauma due to serious injury (According to the National Trauma Database (USA) from 2000 to 2004 that most multiple limb amputations are as a result of motor vehicle accidents, and second on the list is railway accidents.) It would be interesting to know if Craig can tick any of those off, but none are involved, that would make his case all the more remarkable.
Hence the urge on my part to look for some other factor that explains why Craig developed such an extreme case of sepsis that the surgeons had to cut off all four extremities.
pride comes before the fall thats really what youre saying Tim it is such a mathematical impossibility that this MP came down with this disease without it being caused by the vaccines that everybody on this planet including finite worlders are denying the obvious that which is on the end of their proverbial noses.
“Eddy, this is an anecdote, not data.”
Interesting that ivanislav called you Eddy, Tim. Wear your badge with pride!
Eddy’s a lot faster than me, though, Zemi. He’s zooming off doing his bucket list while I am stuck on the farm spreading chicken manure with my bucket. 🙂
I wonder now if he has also had his fifth limb amputated. Though if he did, I suspect that he wouldn’t tell us about it.
McKinlay voted against lockdowns several times when he had the opportunity. His wife is reportedly a pharmacist. That probably affected the advice he received.
His wife’s response when he was sick may have saved him from death. On the other hand, if she persuaded him that the jabs were safe and effective…..
Nowadays he might. Poor guy. I was thinking g about it today. All four. Sometimes not a nice world at all.
I had the same reaction. Poor guy. That, and the fact that he’s in the news as he’s an MP, is what prompted me to bring up this subject.
I also wondered whether THEY gave him a nastier dose of jab-juice because he was anti-lockdown. I wouldn’t put it past THEM.
Let me explain to you why you are bad at statistics …
The odds of *that* specific weird thing happening are indeed as you say. However, what are the odds of *any* weird thing happening? Since you will jump on any weird thing happening as evidence, you need to lump all the weird things possible together, and then compare the odds between the two groups. But of course we don’t know the odds … over at MoA the guy had some sort of infection on his ano-genital region and for some reason decided to share it with us. Does that mean he was vaccinated too? Weird ish happens.
Let me explain it to you differently. What you are doing is like flipping a coin 100 times and then saying: “Aha, it came up heads, tails, tails, heads […], the odds of that are 2^-100, this is a rigged coin!” Very foolish 🙂
That said, I don’t rule out that the “safe and effective” could have played a role.
“Does that mean he was vaccinated too?”
He was and he banned anyone that talked about the issue. He’s just your average middle class nodding dog. Much like the greater bulk of his comments section, when push comes to shove they fold every time.
I’m bad at statistics, Ivan, mostly because I never bothered to study it properly.
You were kind enough to give me a gentle explanation of what I would need to do to calculate the odds against “any” weird thing happening. By my statistics isn’t up to the task of judging or criticizing your methodology. I would have to ask someone like Norman Fenton to look into it.
I’m not familiar with the MoA guy with the anogenital infection? I don’t even know which MoA you are referring to. Is it relevant to this quadruple amputation case—perhaps the first British MP to have all four extremities amputated since the days of Henry VIII and Bloody Mary?
And is having four extremities amputated really all that “weird”? I agree it is unusual. And it would be weird if it was without any apparent proximate cause. But in this case it was caused by sepsis (according to the diagnosis), and sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the body’s extreme response to an infection.
Sepsis itself is far from being rare. Over a quarter of a million people develop sepsis in the UK each year, and over 40,000 of those people die from the condition.
In people with weakened immune systems, an initial infection triggers an inflammatory response, which can lead to a cascade of events that can damage tissues and organs, potentially leading to organ failure and death if not treated promptly.
Interestingly, sepsis does not usually cause localized damage to a single part of the body. Instead, it is characterized by a systemic, or generalized, response that can lead to damage across multiple organ systems.
Sepsis can disrupt the normal blood clotting mechanisms, leading to both excessive clotting and impaired clotting. That might explain why the amputations were necessary in this case, but with prompt, appropriate treatment, many people can recover from uncomplicated sepsis within 1-2 weeks.
For more severe cases with organ dysfunction, the recovery period may take 4-8 weeks or longer.
Older adults, those with weakened immune systems, or those with underlying chronic conditions may have a longer and more complicated recovery.
Now, this MP had prompt and appropriate treatment, but his sepsis was sudden-onset, severe, and necessitated the amputations over two months later. “It was on 27 September, when Mr Mackinlay, 57, began feeling unwell. … By the [next] morning, [his wife] noticed that his arms felt cold and she couldn’t feel a pulse. After ringing for an ambulance, Mr Mackinlay was admitted to hospital.The operation – for all four amputations – was on 1 December.”
With immediate treatment, such as antibiotics, fluids, and supportive care, the body’s acute response to sepsis can be stabilized within the first few hours to days. This treatment was presumably given to the MP, but it didn’t prevent a tragic outcome.
I’m as ignorant of disease treatment as I am of statistics. But I am curious. So I don’t have answers, just questions.
Why wasn’t the treatment given able to save his hands and feet?
Were medical mistakes made?
What caused the sepsis?
Was the condition actually sepsis or something else?
Is the story a true tragedy or is it a psyop?
If it was sepsis, why did it become so life-threatening so quickly despite immediate appropriate treatment?
Did the MP have a weakened immune condition prior to developing sepsis, and what might have caused that?
Given that the COVID jabs have been shown and proven and admitted to be associated with numerous cases of excessive inflammatory responses—and not only limited to the deltoid area where the injections are administered—and given that the MP was an avid pro-vaxer who presumably took all his jabs according to schedule, and given that nobody seems willing to talk about the cause of the sepsis or about why it was so server in this case, the jabs must be among the prime suspects.
In short, I would say this tragedy would indeed be “weird” if it had nothing to do with the jabs, but not “weird” at all if it had something to do with the jabs.
As far as sepsis and extremities, I would guess that poor oxygenation and/or poor blood-flow could increase the likelihood of localized infection in the extremities. Presumably being old, diabetic, immunocompromised, and maybe jabbed (vascular damage) would be risk factors.
~~~~
Statistics:
Maybe a better way of pointing out the problem is an example of what scientists do sometimes to cook results. They start out with a hypothesis that some intervention will have an effect, but it doesn’t, and they become unhappy because academia rewards positive results. So, they post-facto go back and start looking at sub-groups of mice, male vs female, age, etc etc etc, all things they didn’t think would matter when they started the study, to find some group that looks like it had a statistically significant result.
The problem with this approach is that if you post-facto subdivide results into 1000 sub-groups for 1000 hypotheses, it’s essentially like going back and running 1000 experiments. If you run 1000 experiments, you will find some unlikely (eg. 1 in 1000) events that actually occurred only by chance and wouldn’t replicate. It’s like flipping a coin 100 times and then going back and saying “what is the chance that I got this particular sequence of observations? well, 1/2^100 … highly unlikely!” But it wouldn’t replicate.
Along this line of reasoning, I would argue that old people are especially prone to health problems and there will almost certainly be some weird issues encountered among MP’s worldwide, so one shouldn’t automatically attribute problems to the jab whenever some elderly MP anywhere in the world has a stroke, heart attack, infection, etc.
Thanks vey much, Ivan. That’s a very clear explanation that even I can understand.
I was thinking about this today while repainting the living room walls, on the optimistic assumption that the hordes won’t rip my face off for the next few years.
And it occurred to me that I was making a cognitive error by assuming that the fact he was an MP and the fact that he had four extremities removed, while both rare events in the general population, have no particular relationship to each other and so the statistical odds of them both happening to the same individual probably has zero significance.
You see, I’m not like Eddy after all. He would be as likely to admit he was wrong as a strange Bulldog or Rottweiler would be to share its bone with you.
It is not a tragedy if he got amputated while doing what he loves to do, which is being a puppet for the PTB.
I had watched this clip of him, and it seemed to confirm that stereotyped : stiff-upper-lip biospirit of the British. Carry on! Tally ho!
“Craig Mackinlay has shared footage of himself in hospital before his operation in order to help raise awareness of sepsis.
Some people may find the footage distressing.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6sWzoewefk
“Mines bear no second crop.” Unlike plants, which only require sunlight and water to grow, mines are quickly depleted. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.
Great point.
Can you believe it? Rishi Sunak wants to bring back National Service to the UK. Who here was old enough to have done it, last time? I reckon old codger Norman.
The same conversation seems to be going on all over Europe.
I suppose the reintroduction of the National Service will kill several birds with one stone: provide the armed forces with cannon fodder for the big showdown with Russia, remove from the labor market workers that AI will make obsolete and last but not least justify the issuance of more debt and more spending for the defense industry. Win-win.
But any big international showdown surely isn’t going to be with troops, this time round.
I agree, at least not on the scale of millions of troops per country as in WWII.
In fact, it’s even possible that this big showdown will be fought mostly on TV by CGI troops. Why not? It makes all the sense, as the result would be exactly the same, without the disadvantage of too many bodies coming home in bags.
Ukraine will definitely be a learning experience for the youth.
If Biden starts the draft hes guaranteed to lose. So USA starts draft in December no matter who wins and Russia starts full mobilization forthwith?
They say most of the ten million immigrants into the USA in the last four years are military age males. Maybe a couple million of them will train up and go?
Service guarantees citizenship
Conservatively Ukraine has lost 500k troops and they were brave and well trained, well first wave well trained anyway. Perhaps 2 or 3 million would do the trick? Throw it at the wall see if it sticks. Some f16s still no arty because they cant make it fast. The f16s will take care of that glide bomb issue right? Theres still a few Leopards left I’m sure and at least a dozen Abrams. Maybe it would be different this time. What the heck. Throw it all in the pot maybe it will taste good. You never know unless you try. Hopefully the trenches actually get dug with the next 60 billion. IMO that would be helpful. I think there is a rewrite of catch 22 in this to boot.
Unless policy has changed?
“By the time you got to the first Bush administration, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they came out with a national defense policy and strategic policy. What they basically said is that we’re going to have wars against what they called much weaker enemies and these have to be carried out quickly and decisively or else there will be embarrassment—a way of saying that popular reaction is going to set in. And that’s the way it’s been. It’s not pretty, but it’s some kind of constraint. “?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/noam-chomsky-populist-groundswell-u-s-elections-future-humanity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
Good points!
you forget the most important two: excuse for a financial and economic crash, and elimination of a generation of young males, which is good for both depopulation and social control during said crash.
I don’t know about the economic and financial crash, but i’m sure that war has never been very effective at depopulating. There are much better methods for that, which luckily are already inoculated in the right veins.
Besides, I don’t think there are many millions of young Europeans stupid enough to die for a puppet like Zelensky. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that such motivation couldn’t be created, for example with false flag attacks in various European capitals. We’ll see in the coming months/years.
quite right zemi
hm queen sent for me, and pleaded that she couldnt manage without my services, so if it was convenient would i lend a hand for a while…and she would see to it that i got a knighthood
me—modest as always, said no need for such extremes
Queen Victoria was a very persuasive monarch, I’ve heard.
This is how they called up the troops in good old days.
1970 (the time of this music) was the time of the Vietnam war, and many people against the draft.
mind you—she had 8 kids so liked to be amused in that department
Bring back National Service? That will play well to the youth vote, I’m sure. What does the probable next PM Starmer have to say about it? It could be a done deal among the politicians. But if Labour comes out against it, I can imagine a tsunami of otherwise apathetic young and not so young voters coming out in support of them.
lol
when i did my stint it was the laziest funniest stupidest time imaginable,iiit would be no different next time.
if it hadnt been for the civilian staff—the army would have ground to a halt
friend of mine, while out on ‘patrol’ even managed to shoot their own CO
(quite true)
You only caught the tail end of it, I suppose, Norman.
I had two uncles who were dispatched to Malaya to fight against the Communists, while my father was in line to be shipped out to North Africa in 1956, when he managed to convince the medics that he was too ill to travel. He judged that the risk of an Arab sticking a knife in his back while he was standing guard duty over the Suez Canal was just too great.
If only Chucky has been as sharp in seeing discretion as the better part of valor in 1914 at Polygon Wood, the sun might still be shining on the British Empire.
Will national service just be for the men?
Some woman will probably complain, but most will be relieved and what about the “identifies as” group? I’d imagine there would be a massive rise of those, if excluded. After years of telling us that if a man says he’s a woman, we have to agree, will the slogan now be “if you’ve got testicles, get in the trench.”
One of my uncles did his national service in the British merchant navy. When I was 13, he told me of how one day in 1950 he was on a ship steaming across the Indian Ocean. He and a fellow seaman found two stowaways below deck.
“Where were they from?” I asked. “Dunno. They were just wogs”. Anyway, they took them up on the deck to the captain, to ask what should be done with them. “Throw them overboard!” said the captain. They looked at him in disbelief. “I said, throw them overboard!” repeated the captain. So they obeyed, and the deed was done. My uncle chuckled with satisfaction as he told his tale and observed my horrified reaction.
Sounds like a Vogon ship.
Perhaps your uncle was pulling your leg? Or perhaps not. My maternal uncle in the British Army used to scare me sh…less.
Although a soldier, he had the look of a sailor, sporting huge biceps with anchor tatoos on them and a voice like a guard dog barking. And he used to delight us kids by bellowing: “If you don’t shut up, I’ll hang you from the coat-hook on the kitchen door!”
And I have no doubt he would have.
He smoked hand-rolled Golden Virgina tobacco and chewed it too. And he died of mouth cancer at the age of 60!
lol
i was in line for that 1956 debacle too—we might have met up and decided not to have kids at all–
then where would you and i be??—nowhere
all my descendants—missing from the planet.
but i didnt go to suez either—so all my offspring got born
have you see the movie ”virgin soldiers”—probably the best national service themed film made.
I remember the sergeant waking up the lads by yelling “Hands off….s and on with socks!”
Government slavery is an evil idea. Since our machines can now do the killing, all that is needed is money. We need to tax the rich for the money for a robot army, robot air force, robot surface navy, robot subsurface navy, robot space force.
The war robots can be seamlessly rolled out with the UAI (universal abundant income) robot economy.
What are they going to arm us with? Sling shots? Dangerous cutlery?
Then we had the insane pledge to “bring back national service” after having spent the best part of a decade cutting and undermining Britain’s armed forces. This is a policy which surely only appeals to the over-80s (the last cohort to have done national service in their youth… when Britain still had an empire) along with the seriously hard of thinking. Even though the plan is in reality merely to have 18-year-olds (there are around 700,000 of them at present) engage in compulsory training, volunteering, or a year in the military, the costs and logistics would be staggering. Military chiefs view it as completely bonkers, taking funding away from Britain’s defence. And since adult education and training is already underfunded and oversubscribed, it is hard to see where the additional facilities and tutors are coming from, and at what cost. Volunteering may be a little easier, since Britain’s 170,000 or so charities are often crying out for volunteers… except that someone who is compelled by law is not really a volunteer and may not be desirable to charities who require a degree of enthusiasm rather than sullen resentment. In any case, rather like Sunak’s smoking policy, national service is a solution looking for a problem at a time when the UK is fast disappearing around the U-bend.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/05/27/wtf-am-i-watching/
This is how I perceive synthetic wealth. It always goes poof. Ohbput in real estate. Poof. Better get to stocks. Poof. Bonds are always safe poof gold has a 2000 year record poof crypto will save the world poof Rolex watches poof Ferrari great investment poof art is the best poof.
I’m a beany baby guy myself. I hold a 10% Billy beer allotment also. I collect buttons with cute sayings they are gonna be worth a bundle some day.
Real wealth is a function of a organic economy. Theres not a lot of it is the problem.
It’s not conducive to industrial civilization. Think fred flintstone.
Everything either fades or burns.
Looking like were headed to the burn side of things.
Real wealth is something that can provide the goods and services we need on a regular basis. It can provide food and fresh water, also housing of some sort. Heat for cooking food and for sterilizing water are other essentials.
Being able to make metals is very important too, since these are helpful in cooking and in food storage. Also, in tool-making.
Continuing with your theme on real wealth . Here are two posts at POB which are interesting .
HHH
IGNORED
05/27/2024 at 8:56 am
When stimulus checks are handed out. It creates deposits on the balance sheets of the commercial banks. Which by law have to be back with an asset. So the bank buys US treasury debt to back the deposit.
UBI would create a lot of deposits on commercial bank balance sheets that would need to be back with an asset. Which is demand for treasury debt.
They will try to keep consumption way higher than it would naturally be by handing out free money. Which really just pulls forward the day of reckoning.
JT
IGNORED
05/27/2024 at 11:16 am
HHH
Thanks for the economic insights.
If money was the problem then monetary policy could solve it. But it’s not the problem. I’m not a fan per se of a debt based currency system but gold silver or crypto are no better. The central bank system has been an ingenious way for governments to fund operations without disrupting their populations. Perpetual government debt is perceived as a good investment tool rather than a corrosive malinvestment .
In some ways particularly here in the US we have enjoyed a material way of life that we have never paid for. Most infrastructure has been created through municipal bonds that roll over in perpetuity. Interest only funding. Sweet!!!
The problem is maintenance costs escalate over time so that the original value is lost leaving an unsecured investment. We can also call it entropy. Eventually replacement cost exceeds the value of the product to society and the system is abandoned. The rust belt is a prime example.
In the growth phase there is no problem there are an abundance of resources at low cost that fuels the system. But not so in the contraction phase. Things start falling apart rapidly starting with the economy which steers productive resource allocation and ends with ridiculous speculative asset bubbles.
AI=Tulips
I am afraid you are right about AI Bubble = Tulip Bubble
I have high expectations for AI. It will not be immediate it will take ten years. We will have to wait and see.
At least you can drink the Billy Beer.
Without the fake wealth, it is not possible to finance the huge projects needed to advance civilization
Your saying industrial civilization is going to go poof? I suppose you are right.
So you need fake wealth, to finance fake projects, so you can believe in a fake civilisation. Then you smash head first into the big wall known as reality. Delusion appears to be the only growth market that the west has left and it’s very real, unfortunately.
Collapse of the home insurance market .
https://www.collapse2050.com/collapse-of-the-u-s-home-insurance-system/
Of course, the collapse of the home insurance market may have virtually nothing to do with climate change. It may have to do with huge inflation on replacement cost of materials, and many parts of the system (homeowners, attorneys, sellers of roofing materials) trying to take advantage of the system. It may have to do with aggregation of values in areas very much subject to storm damage, because governments wanted to encourage “development” along the coast, along rivers, and next to forests that are prone to fires. The US flood insurance program for many years (and perhaps even now–I am not certain) was a government give-away program to encourage development in all except for perhaps the most flood prone areas. It encouraged concentrations of values subject to flooding. Insurance regulation of homeowners rates by states tended to suppress rates in high risk areas, to encourage more building in those areas. The homeowners’ reinsurance is very often written over an “aggregate” amount. Such a limit is doubly leveraged–both by inflation in individual claim amounts and by greater concentrations in storm-prone areas. Furthermore, higher interest rates very badly affect the amount of insurance a reinsurer can provide. The long-term decline in interest rates helped hide the underlying vulnerability of interest rate risk to reinsurers.
Personal experience:
Had a conservative home, on the river, currently these homes are purchased for whatever and million dollar + homes constructed. While not necessary, carried flood insurance which the time was administered by private companies but underwritten by the Federal Government subject to periodic renewal by Congress.
Could not afford to lose the value of that home, sold it well and moved on. Primary concern was ability of new buyer to purchase were flood insurance not available, or cancellation and loss of home secondary to flooding.
If you have billions, this is not an issue. I am concerned my home insurance in Rochester could be cancelled at some point. Currently have “roofers” placing placards on door advertising “hail” coverage, etc. Rochester insurance jumped about 20%, no claims, ever.
A guess self insure at current rates, fireproof as much as possible. With current interest rates and current insurance rates, if you make it for ten years may be a breakeven. Liability insurance only?
Dennis L.
The insurance companies find better profit in financial services than actually providing insurance like GM not really interested in making cars?
Insurers are very aware of the investment income that they will earn on funds that they hold. They are often subject to regulations that lead to the companies holding mostly bonds, rather than shares of stock.
I am sure that there are differences in insurance companies. The insurance companies we see most often are the ones that write personal auto and homeowners coverage. Some coverage of businesses goes through them as well. These companies tend to be regulated significantly by state insurance regulators. These companies are forced to follow a lot of rules.
But there are an awfully lot of insurance companies that are “captives,” either of a single large company or a group of companies in the same business. There are also companies set up for a particular purpose: physician professional liability in a particular state, or church mutual insurance companies, or insurers set up to handle maritime insurance for boats (taking our bridges, for example).
These insurance companies usually have consulting actuaries helping them figure out what to do. Some may be big enough to have a full-time actuary on their staff. I am doubtful that they are trying to do much more than provide insurance to their insureds. They also provide access to the reinsurance market for the group sponsoring them. The companies are very much aware of the tax laws, and choose domiciles that are best for their purposes. Avoiding taxes is one of them. So there is a financial aspect–a tax avoidance aspect.
A fireproof house is not hard to build albeit more expensive. Concrete monolithic domes do the trick. Earth sheltered homes with a proper roof also. Preferably sod. Even a classic one inch three layer stucco with a steel roof will survive with minimal damage in many fires. If theres dry fuel and wind in a inferno it will get past a inch of masonry. Exterior masonry can be done better in fire areas. Light and fluffy with pumice or perlite which adds insulation. Like fireproofing on high rise sreel. Over and over again the cycle repeats. Combustionable Housing built in areas with trees. (Trees are wonderful to live amongst) Fire comes. Houses burn. Insurance pays. Houses built once again with combustionable siding. Shake roofs.
MAYBE WE WILL BUILD BETTER HOUSES NOW THAT ARE APPROPRIATE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH THEY ARE CONSTRUCTED.INSTEAD OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM WITH MONEY IN A MANNER THAT CONSUMES MATERIALS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Very simple. Your house can burn? No insurance. No mortgage. Problem solved. More expensive? Guess the house will have to be smsteel. Mandatory masonry exteriors and steel roofs alone would not burn if it it’s not a inferno.
Banks have caused this very problem only giving loans for conventional housing. A house is just collateral in the money game to a bank. They want it sellable if the loan non performs to turn the loan performing. That means conventionable..
The banks are still getting their loan collateral insured. It’s only home owners with equity denied.
Been there, bought the ideal lot, sold it without using.
The problem with these houses is the future value is less than the price of the lot in that the special house needs removal at best. Horribly expensive, probably could build it and skip the insurance and on a statistical basis break even at worst not having insurance, but still lose as value of lot is less than paid originally.
The problem with that is if it happens to you, loss; that is not statistical but 100%. Bayesian probability then, they are always tricky.
The Imperialism of the 19th century was more beneficial for advancing civilization than other types of governance.
Woodrow Wilson, knowing absolutely nothing about European geography, tradition and history, tore up the German and Austrian Empires, and created the dead-on-arrival countries in the Eastern Europe, all of them failing within a couple of years.
What did the Poles do? what did the Czechs do? The Poles did NOT build a highway between Warsaw to Breslau, sorry, Wroclaw, until 2015! (and it is said it is not really a highway, just upgrades to existing roads, and the Poles just called it a highway) Breslau, sorry, Wroclaw, is still the city which has remained the most ‘German’ since it was not developed unlike postwar German cities. I have shown how Prag was in 1910, compared to Praha now, showing what the Czechs did to the city, which is basically nothing.
I won’t even get started on what happened to various regimes of Asia and Africa.
Until recently, the nominally independent countries of the Third World were to a large degree economically submissive to the Western countries. That ensured enough materials to flow into more advanced countries to fuel civilization.
If the Brics, sorry, the Hordes win, and the Western powers lose most of their power, civilization will regress a lot. Back to feudal ages, since no oil tankers will leave the ports.
The sheiks can still use air conditined cars and will care less what will happen to the people. That is what a ‘multipolar’ world work. Good for local elites, bad for global elites, and infinitely bad for the global advance to civilization.
Some people say a lot condemning TPTB/WEF/Deep State/whatever they choose to name it.
However, if they are overthrown for whatever reason, will future progresses occur?
No.
Only they can command enough resources to advance civilization, since advancing civilization requires a huge amount of resources ordinary countries cannot commandeer
If they are defeated, no more huge investments are possible. Which means no more major projects, and no more advancing civilization.
I will agree that big projects (like major dams, interstate highways, and installed electricity transmission systems) have been necessary to advance civilization in the past. It took lots of fossil fuels to build these, and lots of government debt.
If countries lose at war, no more huge investments are indeed possible.
Russia is a strange case. It has such a big, cold country that it has been hard to ramp up their own standard of living. Russia has discouraged the use of debt to do this, as well. Instead, Russia has tended to ramp up its military might. It might have a small population in a country that is too spread out and cold, but it is to be feared for its military might.
I put up a post regarding Hanson. Russia may fit this mold, they seem to be fierce warriors, Ukraine is not a free battle, but battle they are.
We are in my opinion at base biology and biology will find a way even if only a few thousand breeding pairs.
There is plenty of “stuff” still remaining, the US won WWII with less than 150m people.
Biology seems to rearrange thigs periodically, economies follow biology if my guess is correct.
We are in interesting times, we may indeed live through an inflection point; trick is to be on the right side of the inflection.
To paraphrase the Indiana Jones movie, “Chose well.”
Dennis L.
(Eugyppius + X / twitter)
German Minister of Economics admits that home heating ordinances were merely a “test” to determine how far society can be pushed
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/german-minister-admits-ruinous-home
https://twitter.com/vonderburchard/status/1794410765165695482
Societies got along with very little or no home heat before. We are heading in that direction now. Solar is close to worthless for winter heat; wind cannot be counted on; fancy materials (triple glazed windows, for example) easily break, and cannot be replaced without lots of fossil fuels and today’s system.
In the old days, prior to 1945, the peasants in Central Europe often ‘hibernated’. All of the family members would congregate in a small room, using very little energy, and just went thru the winter until it was warmer enough to move around again.
The funny thing is that German government is forcing people to install certain types of heating system for green purposes, but these systems will not work in the future.
It is even worse than during the middle age, because now the citizen is fooled.
“. . . especially the big banking families – who were the true winners from imperialism… effectively persuading the state and – as the franchise widened – the people to support military interventions on their behalf.”?
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/05/18/killing-st-george/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0z0TwRmJVYpdNg47BVXYNLPIuLhRN-WhAtSVPkYU3RDUNhYXSCkc5KoTg_aem_AUM_Yu4F3ZVhruHU7Y9mLGYvi8VWca3maRofx-ZXNT5Bar1HGLXvxm0m8Zag3OwqvIRYK5GRIC0waCsLICX1yTk0#
This is a good article. It starts out:
It goes through a detailed analysis of how the UK used propaganda to make it look like it was the good country, trying to prevail against the big bad attacker. The bankers were the ones that came out ahead.
The thing the article leaves out is the role of energy, particularly depleting coal resources at the time of World War I and World War II. The problem was acute in Britain in 1914, and in Germany in the time leading up to World War II. Wage disparity was becoming a problem, at this time. Wars seemed to be helpful because they gave employment to low income citizens who could not otherwise find employment that paid enough. Wars gave an excuse for more debt, helping bankers.
Blaming the bankers for all the ills is just shifting the blame to them, not admitting the guilt by the ordinary people.
The ordinary people, who benefited from such policies, are no guilty. Which is why I now mention the 200/400 Worcestershires (no one is really sure whether it was 200 or 400) along with Chucky, sicne they are equally responsible for the greatest fkup of 20th century.
Blame the self-organizing system instead. Too many people are winners from war. Low-wage workers who were able to get employment from the military. Ramped up GDP, with growing debt. In WWII especially, women went to work, adding to family income. The result was more extraction of fossil fuels–oil in addition to coal, and better vehicles (trucks and planes) for use in non-military use, as well as military use. Sectors other than the military could benefit, especially in the US, because the war stayed at a distance. Even in Europe, some of unproductive old buildings indirectly got replaced with new buildings, and better roadways eventually got built. (After the wars)
I am starting to believe it is biology.
Victor Davis Hanson was on “Uncommon Knowledge” which is a Hoover Institution program. Plugging his new book, “The End of Everything.”
An hour and five minutes, I enjoyed it and found it enlightening. As always, I see 80/20. One hour is faster than I could read the book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIkay6YiIhs&t=105s
What struck me most was the necessity and ferocity of the invaders, they were murders. This word was used by Musk to describe nature, biology.
I am the optimist but concerned our civilization for all its faults may face annihilation and it could come quickly. Those who lead the invasions were men, young men, some/all? left a number of bastard sons behind. Alexander the Great is mentioned first. These men were not moral, not civilized, they ended civilizations. The latest mentioned was Cortez.
Listening to the beginning again, struck by a comment that the “intellectuals” did not take one of these invaders seriously. Sounds like current US leadership. bummer.
Curtis Lemay comes to mind, he was somewhat in the vein of these men. He literally burned Japan to the ground, total destruction. Historical trivia, took bombsights out of B-29, more bombs carried, had two planes fly over Tokyo and make an “X” with fire. Had the reminder of the planes aim for the X. More deaths than atomic bombs. He used incendiary bombs, these were also more effective in Germany, they warped the machine tools. Cologne for those of you who don’t know was also firebombed to ashes.
Still sticking to a cubic mile of Pt. What Hanson discuses is horrible both to be a victim and to be those doing the victimization.
Dennis L.
Thanks for your summary. Civilizations become vulnerable to collapse. That collapse can happen in multiple ways. One is attack by something like barbarians, killing off lots of people, in multiple ways, as you describe. Another way is by a significant share of population dying off from an epidemic. From what you say, either way it is fast. It lets a smaller group go forward. In the cast of fighting, the genes of the winners are favored in the population that goes forward.
I would add a third way civilizations collapse–by fluctuations in climate that they are not adequately prepared for. If they were adequately prepared, a civilization would be setting aside food in good times for bad times. If civilizations are not adequately prepared, a flood or a lack of rain could lead to major problems. High or low temperatures could be a problem. Or an illness spreading among crops or animals.
Agree with climate change. Davis mentioned Carthage, rich agricultural lands in northern Africa. Well documented even south of the coast there were rivers and trees in what is now desert.
the vid is excellent, thanks for sharing that. regarding firebombing cities, kurt vonnegut survived the firebombing of dresden as a PoW and wrote about in “slaughterhouse 5”, one of a very few books that made me cry as i read it. so it goes.
Yet Arthur Harris, the Rhodesian, said the whole city of Dresden is ‘not worth a fusilier’.
I don’t know how much Dresden is worth, but it is definitely worth than a cockney-speaking fusilier’s life.