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The world economy is an amazingly complex, physics-based, self-organizing system. The three major elements are extracted resources including energy resources, human population, and demand coming through the financial system.
All three of these elements tend to increase over time, but both population and extracted resources tend to hit limits because the world is finite. Financial demand is emphasized by politicians because it seems to increase without limit. The extraction limit is not obvious: It is the amount that consumers can afford to pay for resources and the products they create. This limit cuts off resource extraction at amounts that are far below the amounts that geologists calculate are available for extraction.
In this post, I will offer some insights into how the world economy actually operates.
[1] There is a close relationship between world energy consumption and economic growth.
The fitted years are 1965 to 2023. The R2 =.98 tells us that there is a close relationship between energy consumption and GDP.
[2] There is a physics reason why energy consumption and economic growth are related. The economy requires energy for a similar reason to the reason why humans require food.
Physics tells us that every action, even the movement of molecules, requires energy dissipation. Within the economy, this energy can be human energy, energy from the sun, or energy from sources such as burned biomass or fossil fuels.
In physics terms, the world economy and many structures within the world economy are dissipative structures. These structures are self-organizing, and they often grow over time. Examples are plants and animals, hurricanes, and businesses.
Dissipative structures require energy of the right kinds for their continued “life” and for growth. Animals require food for their continued life and growth. Hurricanes get their energy from warm sea water. The fact that the economy is a dissipative structure has been known since 1996 and is written about today.
[3] Starting long ago, humans became adapted to eating some cooked food. This change led to humans being able to outcompete all other animals. Eventually, this change led to populations outgrowing available resources and collapsing.
According to Discover Magazine, pre-humans first began to build fires to cook food at least 800,000 years ago. The consumption of cooked food allowed early humans to have bigger brains, smaller teeth and jaws, and more time for activities other than chewing, such as making crafts.
Humans are now adapted to having some cooked food in their diets to get adequate nutrition. (A few people today try to consume a raw food diet, but they often use a food processor or juicer to break down cell walls.) As a result of the adaptation to eating some cooked food, two major changes took place:
(a) Humans were able to achieve dominance over other plants and animals. They could use fire directly to scare away other animals, and they could use fire to help make better tools for hunting and agriculture.
(b) Because of this dominance, the population of humans has tended to grow until some kind of limiting condition is hit. The resulting pattern is often called overshoot and collapse.
History shows a repeated pattern of overshoot and collapse. A population would grow until the carrying capacity of the local area was reached. Food surpluses would become lower and lower, so less food could be saved up for fluctuations in rainfall and temperature. Eventually, civilizations would succumb to one or another problem: disease, attack by a neighboring group, climate fluctuations, or governments overthrown by unhappy citizens.
We tell ourselves that overshoot and collapse cannot happen now, but human population is high relative to fossil fuel resources, and intermittent wind and solar are not working out well as substitutes.
[4] The financial system provides growing demand through debt and many other financial promises. An important aspect of this financial demand is its time-shifting ability.
Figure 3 shows my view of how the economy works. Debt is indeed important because it helps pull the economy forward. For example, it helps an entrepreneur afford to build a factory and hire workers. As long as the investment pays back well enough to repay the debt with interest, the system seems to work. GDP tends to grow. (Figure 3 also shows five other parts of the system, but I am leaving these to the reader to review.)
Debt is not unique in pulling the economy forward. Shares of stock issued with the promise of dividends act similarly to debt because they allow investment before a new product is made. Pension plans, even if not funded, stimulate the economy because citizens decide that they don’t need to save for the future (or have children), if they can depend on the government pension plan to take care of them. Even inflation in the price of a home or shares of stock can have the effect of adding to demand. For example, a person owning shares of stock can sell some appreciated shares of stock and use the proceeds to build a new factory.
It is the time-shifting aspect of debt and related promises that is important. With the help of debt and its equivalents, people can spend today to build a road or factory that will provide a long-lasting benefit. The hope is that the total return will be high enough that the debt can be repaid with interest, or that dividends can be paid on the shares of stock.
If the economy is growing quickly, interest rates can be quite high without slowing the economy. If energy costs are very high, or if all industries are stagnant, it may be difficult to get any payback at all from a debt-related investment. Instead, interest rates may need to be very low, or debt defaults become likely. Economic growth is likely to be low, or even negative.
In one their analyses of borrowing by governments over eight centuries, Reinhart and Rogoff unexpectedly discovered the phenomenon of low defaults among rapidly growing countries. They reported, “It is notable that the non-defaulters, by and large, are all hugely successful growth stories.”
[5] Models become very important in today’s economy. They often are misleading, even if they are supposedly scientific.
The easiest models to build are ones that assume the future will be very similar to the past, or that the trend from the past will continue. These models tend to be popular with citizens because they suggest that good times will continue indefinitely. Such outcomes are what everyone would like to see, so these models tend to be accepted as “scientifically valid.”
In a finite world, many kinds of patterns are constantly changing. Depletion of resources and rising population are particular stressors. Figure 4 shows the base scenario of a 1972 computer model of resource depletion, population growth, and pollution growth.
The model used was an engineering-type analysis of the physical quantities involved. This approach did not show growth continuing indefinitely. Instead, it showed a major downturn about now.
I have looked at the model myself, and I have talked with Dennis Meadows, who oversaw the analysis. The model looks at resources used in each six-month calendar period. The share of these resources needed for getting these resources out and transformed into usable work cannot be too high, or the economy tends to collapse. (Nature doesn’t use accrual accounting!)
In such a calculation, quick payback of an energy investment becomes very important. Also, the amount of supplementary equipment, such as electricity transmission lines and batteries required, becomes important. I would expect that wind, solar, nuclear, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) would do relatively poorly in such a calculation. Oil, coal, and burned biomass would do much better because their energy payback is immediate–when they are burned. Furthermore, oil, coal and biomass require relatively little specialized equipment for transportation and storage.
[6] Narratives are created to accompany the questionable models that have been developed.
One popular narrative is that Financial Demand is all that really matters. Politicians have significant control over the Financial Demand shown in Figure 1. They can see that if they can create more debt, they can perhaps get some of the money that the debt makes available down to ordinary citizens. With more money, citizens can perhaps buy more goods and services from the world economy.
Historically, raising financial demand has worked well because the extraction of fossil fuels and many other resources were well within physical extraction limits. Higher demand would lead to higher prices, which in turn would lead to more extraction. But as we get closer to the physical extraction limits, this approach works less well. The problem is that at some point, finished goods (such as automobiles and groceries) become too expensive for consumers if prices rise high enough to satisfy producers.
Because we are now reaching extraction limits, the added debt approach works much less well, as the short tenure of Liz Truss as Prime Minister of the UK in 2022 shows. The problem for countries other than the US is that with added debt, their currencies tend to drop relative to the US dollar. Thus, while perhaps their citizens can individually buy more, the cost of imported goods and services, especially energy, tends to rise. Overall inflation tends to be higher. This causes citizens to become very unhappy.
The US is in a unique position because it is currently the holder of the “reserve currency.” Its currency can’t drop relative to the US dollar. However, since 2020, the US has added huge amounts of debt, as have other countries around the world. Asset prices have also risen because of temporarily low interest rates. Newly made goods and services don’t increase in proportion to the rapidly growing debt and other financial stimulus. What tends to happen instead is inflation, as we have recently witnessed.
[7] One popular narrative is that if enough demand can be added to the economy through financial manipulations, energy prices will rise sufficiently to allow the needed amount of energy to be extracted.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. Affordability is important to the consumer, so oil prices can’t rise too high. At the same time, prices cannot fall too low, for too long, or producers will stop extracting oil. Instead, oil prices tend to spike and then fall back. They are to some extent not very acceptable to either buyer or seller. Whether the buyers or sellers are more disadvantaged varies over time. A similar pattern holds for other resources, as well.
[8] A third narrative is that climate change caused by excess CO2 is the world’s worst problem, and that the world can voluntarily move away from fossil fuels and fix this problem.
Unfortunately, the world economy can no more move away from fossil fuels than humans can move away from eating food. In fact, moving away from fossil fuels would likely lead to starvation for a large share of the world’s population. In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote about his concern that population was growing too fast relative to food supply. The timing was shortly before fossil fuels began being used very widely. World population at that time as only about 1 billion. World population today is over 8 billion.
In part, the climate change narrative seems to be an excuse to move manufacturing from Advanced Economies to economies that make extensive use of coal, as it tends to be a cheap fuel. The latter economies also tend to have lower wage and benefit levels, so there is a definite cost advantage. China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The result is easy to see in Figure 8 below. The US now exports coal to India and China, among other countries.
As a person might expect, world CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use have soared.
[9] The truth is that there aren’t enough resources to go around to support a growing world population. We are reaching a turning point where the total amount of goods and services that the world economy can produce will soon turn down. (This is not unlike the situation modeled in Figure 4, above.)
While the narrative we hear endlessly is “We are moving away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change,” I believe the real issue is that fossil fuels are leaving the world because we are hitting extraction limits. No one wants to hear such an awful story, however. The climate change narrative is a “sour grapes” version of the story that is more palatable to listeners.
Figure 8 below shows that the year 2020 should have been a wake-up call that the world needs to cut back on diesel and jet fuels. Diesel fuel is heavily used by agricultural machinery, large trucks, trains and boats. Of course, jet fuel powers jets. With rising world population and a growing economy, it would be expected that their consumption would continue to grow. Diesel and jet fuel are both “middle distillates,” which are most abundantly supplied by heavy oils such as Urals oil from Russia and oil from the Oil Sands in Canada .
Between 1990 and 2018, consumption of diesel and jet fuels increased by an average of 1.7% per year. Between 2018 and 2023, there has been no increase at all–in fact, world consumption for 2023 is slightly lower than in 2018. If the 1.7% per year growth pattern had continued, consumption of this combination of fuels would have grown by 8.8% during the five-year period from 2018 and 2023.
In a sense, there is a shortfall of approximately 8.8% of the diesel and jet fuel combination. Some airline schedules (especially in Asia) have been cut back. Farmers in Europe are protesting because the selling prices for the crops they grow are not high enough to cover today’s diesel and fertilizer costs plus other costs of production. Diesel is a problem fuel and fertilizer is very energy dependent. If the price of groceries rises high enough to cover the costs of diesel and fertilizer for farmers, grocery costs become unaffordable to many citizens.
[10] Added complexity looks like it would be a solution to inadequate energy and other resource supplies. Instead, added complexity leads to wage and wealth disparities and frequent system breakdowns.
Complexity can take many forms, including greater specialization; more education for some of the workers; larger, more hierarchical businesses; greater globalization; and ever more complex devices. Such devices can often use energy products more sparingly. Because of these potential energy savings, many people assume that such devices can allow the energy supply that is available to be stretched to cover all the economy’s needs.
In practice, it doesn’t work this way. Instead, added complexity often adds to energy demand instead of reducing it. For example, moving significant manufacturing to China starting in late 2001 was a type of added complexity. This change added to world coal demand and increased CO2 emission because the goods produced in China and shipped elsewhere were cheaper and therefore more affordable than goods made in the US or Europe.
Another issue with complexity is the susceptibility to breakdowns it produces. Just this past week, there was an example of this with the update of CrowdStrike computer software that took down computer networks around the world. Another example is the problem Kia is having with engines shutting down unexpectedly. Nature uses complexity, but it also incorporates redundancy so that unexpected breakdowns are not a frequent result.
A third problem with complexity is that it leads to supply chains for practically everything manufactured in the US or Europe needing to go through China. This makes the US and Europe dependent upon suppliers in China. Even military goods have supply chains running through countries that we are at odds with, including China. This means that China can, in many ways, “hold the US hostage,” by refusing to sell the US rare earth minerals, or by refusing to provide parts of supply chains needed for military armaments.
Perhaps the most important problem of all with added complexity is the wage and wealth disparities that it leads to. With added complexity, there is more specialization. A few workers with considerable training and advanced degrees get high paying jobs. The wages for these workers, plus the wages for managers, leave little funding left over for less trained workers. Also, competition with workers in low wage countries tends to hold down wages for less-skilled workers.
Besides the wage disparities, some people, mostly those who are already high-wage earners, become owners of these companies. If stock prices rise, this increases the wealth disparities between the rank-and-file workers and those at the top of the hierarchy. The higher-wage people also tend to purchase homes, and the price-appreciation on their homes adds to their wealth.
Physicist Francois Roddier, in his book The Thermodynamics of Evolution, explains that this growing wage and wealth disparities are to be expected when energy supplies are short, and added complexity is attempted as a substitute. Already wealthy people tend to get a disproportionate share of the goods and services produced by the economy, while poor people increasingly get squeezed out because of the physics of the situation.
[11] Ultimately, not enough goods and services to go around leads to conflicts of many types. These include conflict within political parties, within countries, and among countries.
I believe this issue is behind the conflict we are experiencing today. I will leave this issue for another post.
[12] Slowing growth is likely to lead to bankruptcies and financial collapse.
This is another issue that I will leave for another post.
[13] Conclusion
I hope these thoughts are somewhat helpful. I have only touched on a few aspects of how the economy really works. Perhaps I can offer more ideas on this subject in the future.
WSJ has very negative news to report. US stock markets are way down this morning.
Dow -2.7%
S&P -3.5%
Nasdaq -4.9%
Russell 2000 -3.5%
WTI 72.55
Also, it sounds like the US government is intentionally trying to pop the commercial real estate price bubble.
https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/fannie-mae-freddie-mac-commercial-property-lenders-brokers-rules-116907c2
Fannie, Freddie Are Poised to Tighten Real-Estate Lending Rules
Move comes as federal regulators and prosecutors step up efforts to root out commercial mortgage fraud
I would think that apartments are only a small piece of the bubble. But perhaps that is all that the Federal Government has its fingers directly in.
As I was saying:
“Lower debt service costs will hand Chancellor billions of pounds more for October Budget”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/05/treasury-borrowing-costs-plunge-global-interest-rate-cuts/
All good news for government borrowing.
The system can survive a 15% haircut on stock prices. It cannot survive higher interest rates. That, and eventual currency destruction, is the line of least resistance.
Just adding:
The last couple of days have seen market participants seeking safety in bonds – driving interest rates lower.
The system ends when market participants realize that sovereign bonds are not safe, and flee all paper assets in the direction of physical goods.
We’re not there yet.
You say:
“The system ends when market participants realize that sovereign bonds are not safe, and flee all paper assets in the direction of physical goods.”
Aren’t there other options, as well:
1. World war, or civil war, or both.
2. Hyperinflation, with nothing to buy.
3. Much defaulting debt and deflation.
That’s a good observation. In essence, if given the choice between:
a) a halving of the stock market; or
b) doubling of interest rates
what would the big wigs choose?
I think you are right, if interest rates go much higher we are looking at deflation and depression.
I agree that high interest rates are a problem. Today’s economy has such a huge amount of debt and such high asset prices that only a very low interest rates will work.
Good point! Let’s see…
If the BOJ rate is 1% it is more than the tax collections . FUBAR .
More from the Honest Sorcerer. Good summary about peak oil.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/has-peak-oil-become-self-evident?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1498475&post_id=147302991&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=16win7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson said it so well in his moving song. “Wondering Aloud Again”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmIbJ81MbKI @ 2:50
A commentor posted the lyrics @2:50
“There’s the stillness of death on a deathly unliving sea
And the motor car magical world long since ceased to be
When the Eve-bitten apple returned to destroy the tree
Incestuous ancestry’s charabanc ride
Spawning new millions throws the world on its side
Supporting their far-flung illusion, the national curse
And those with no sandwiches please get off the bus
The excrement bubbles
The century’s slime decays
And the brainwashing government lackeys
Would have us say
It’s under control and we’ll soon be on our way
To a grand year for babies and quiz panel games
Of the hot hungry millions you’ll be sure to remain
The natural resources are dwindling and no one grows old
And those with no homes to go to, please dig yourself holes”
“And it’s only the taking that makes you what you are.”
@6:02
Love that song…..Mother Goose off the same album is another lovely acoustic song.
Thanks! That is a very good article from the Honest Sorcerer, pointing out that while we are running short of oil, electricity can’t save us either.
The song from 1970, with the lyrics you quote, is good too. That is from before when we were aware that US oil production was hitting limits.
System managers will be far from displeased by the large market moves in the last few days.
The turbulence has resulted in a large shift into bonds. The US 10 year currently trading at 3.77% , compared to 4,19% a week ago. The rise in bond prices ( fall in yields) allows the central planners to borrow just a little more, just a little bit longer.
They will sacrifice everything else in order to keep that ability. Look at the disturbances of the last several days in Britain, and then just imagine – or look forward to the time – when they will neither have the resources to keep people quiet with welfare, nor to pay the police.
The rising bond prices also help keep banks from collapsing. If 10-year interest rates are bit lower, it will help mortgages rates lower. This will help both would be homeowners and would be renters. Interest is a big expense for owners of property.
TEST. Fascists.
TEST. Riots.
Middlesbrough is one of those northern English towns where people feel left out. Many there voted enthusiastically for Boris Johnson and his Conservatives, along with his policies of Brexit and “levelling up”. Boris is now discredited and long gone.
Now Middlesbrough is one of those northern English towns suffering riots by the disaffected.
Town resembles battle zone as protesters wreak destruction and menace police and neighbours
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/04/thats-my-car-you-fascist-thugs-far-right-rampage-engulfs-middlesbrough
======
Extracts:
About 300 people gathered at Middlesbrough’s cenotaph at the gates to Albert Park at 2pm. They had been encouraged to turn up by posts on social media. A striking number were men and women in their 50s and 60s.
“We’re fucking angry,” said one woman in her 60s. “I know we’re only plebs from a poor town.” Another shouted: “This is our way of life that’s at stake.”
It was starting to get ugly. There were racist chants. Windows were smashed, including one which, with grim irony, had a sign on it: “Middlesbrough – moving forward.”
A young girl, probably 12, was on the march with her mother and siblings. She was red-faced and tearful. “I don’t like it, mam, I want to go home.”
The marchers headed back towards the cenotaph, this time snaking through terraced streets to the west of Linthorpe Road. Several homes of working-class people had their front windows smashed for no discernible reason.
At least two parked taxis had all their windows broken. Other parked cars were chosen randomly to have their windscreen smashed. One car owner bravely and furiously confronted them: “That’s my car,” she shouted. “You fascist thugs!”
Children used bricks and stones to smash windows of a new development of affordable homes.
============
MY THOUGHTS.
Does car insurance cover damage from riots? I don’t drive, so I don’t know. It’s been another hot summer in British terms, though not so hot as last year, and people are said to be more prone to riot when the temperature is high. There has been a spate of recent stabbings around the country, usually by young people. Two Sundays ago there was one just three minutes away along our road, in a churchyard. A young man suffered life-threatening injuries.
The riots are being organised by agitators to a large extent, but they are tapping into a genuine anger in parts of the population. Many of these people are barely managing economically, but still the immigrants and the refugees boats arrive.
Will this all calm down when the autumn comes? Or is discontent here to stay?
The same newspaper reports protests in Nigeria without mentioning ‘fascist thugs:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/03/why-are-nigerians-protesting-young-people-were-roused-by-events-in-kenya
..and in Bangladesh:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/05/bangladesh-pm-has-resigned-and-left-country-media-reports-say-sheikh-hasina
What point are you making, clickkid? That phrase was apparently used by an enraged woman in Middlesbrough after having her car windows smashed.
If that ‘enraged woman’ did make that comment about her car window being smashed, then obviously she is correct to use the word ‘thug’, but what allows her to deduce that said ‘thug’ is also a fascist, and even if the thug were fascist, then what is the relevance? Is the damage to my car more or less thuggish depending on the politics of the perpetrator?
I think not.
This publication is making an attempt to frame the entire protest in such a way as to influence the readership, and it’s rather tiresome.
Of course I could be wrong Zemi.
Perhaps following the destruction of her car window the lady questioned the thug on his opinion of Mussolini’s corporate state in 1930s Italy, and his answer allowed her to assume he was a fascist.
Of course her car window – and her insurance company – still couldn’t have cared less.
“Fascist” is a general insult, used by a certain age group. Such violence has of course been used by fascistic groups, such as during Kristallnacht in 1938. It’s possible that the Guardian journalist invented the comment, of course. It’s also possible that the woman who had her car windows was not your standard woman.
Understanding the Bangladesh issue . It is China cornering India . China destroyed SAARC headed by India . India is now surrounded by countries controlled by Beijing . Pakistan , Nepal , Bangladesh , Sri Lanka , Bhutan , Myanmar , Afghanistan , Maldives . Punishment for joining the QUAD ( US , UK , Australia and Japan) . It is a resource war . The issue was water in the Teesta ( Brahmaputra) river which flows from China to India via Bangladesh . China wants to build dams as control traffic as a part of the OBOR project . The instigator is ISI ( MOSSSAD are kids ) from Pakistan . Watch a new govt hardline Muslim and pro China . Geo politics .
P.S ; All countries were members of SAARC headed by India . SAARC has eight member countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka .
“Or is discontent here to stay?”
We, who follow the energy story know the answer.
Every Western city is a Sarajevo (90s) or Beirut (80s) waiting to happen.
“Not enough to go around” is the underlying problem. We started running into it in 2019, with riots in many places, and behind the scenes financial problems in later 2019. In early 2020, we started seeing shut-ins, allegedly to stop the spread of covid, but just as likely, to stop the riots and to reduce oil usage.
Now riots are starting to be seen again. This is today’s news:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/05/world/bangladesh-protests
Bangladesh’s Leader Resigns and Flees Country After Protests
The country’s army chief said an interim government would be formed, as demonstrators successfully challenged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s harsh rule.
June 25, 2024:
https://apnews.com/article/kenya-anti-government-protests-clash-police-nairobi-51c2091fe6046dda8478badd230cfb17
Chaos in Kenya as protesters storm parliament
I am afraid that we are heading for another period of major disruption. A possibility is a major war, and people being warned to stay inside and use fewer resources because of war. Wars can temporarily make an economy look good.
The following areas are in deep collapse or collapse . Latin America excluding Brazil , Africa , Middle east , Indian subcontinent . The West and Anglo Saxon nations are floating on air . Watch out below .
Japan markets down another 10% on Monday morning.
it’s the end, the Collapse this week looks very certain.
all the doomers who were unhappy that the Collapse was delayed can now be happy that the world is collapsing.
it seems odd to me to be happy about the Collapse, but it seems there are those who dearly desire it.
oh well, to be continued.
Oh no, back to January 1989!
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/NI225:INDEXNIKKEI?window=MAX
If the current collapse follows the back of the January 1989 collapse, it will take many years. It will end up at about 25% of where it is currently.
Repeat-the-same-thing-until-a-new-thing-comes-along humor, gotta love it. They don’t make humor like that in these last days of BAU.
But the good thing about the last days of BAU… is that it’s BAU babeeee! You see, it’s hilarious cus I’m repeating something I’ve already said. Amazing!
hey Karl, who said I’m in this for the obvious humour?
isn’t there a Marxxxist schmarxxxist blog you can return to?
there must be somewhere you can find like-minded Komrades and you can get all happy by sharing your future dreams/deelusions about the coming end of all exxxploitation and the arrival of universal humanity.
the idea of the end of all exxxploitation is hilllarious.
the idea of the dawn of universal humanity is so funny.
I must admit, when it comes to humour, you are way better than me.
right Karl?
The yen’s risen against the US$ by over 10% in the last month, and the Nikkei index usually drops when the yen rises.
Still, a 23% drop in the index in one month is a serious roller-coaster.
Since January this year, the banks in Japan have been heavily promoting so-called Shin-NISA (New Nippon Individual Savings Accounts), a tax exemption program that allows regular savers to invest in the stock market without paying tax on their capital gains or dividends over a five-year period.
The idea is to get small savers out of safe, close to zero interest investments into higher risk, higher return product that funnel those nest eggs in to the stock market.
See where that’s leading?
But Japan has been here before. Starting the 1980s at around 6,000 yen, it ended 1989 at a record high 38,915 yen. Then the bubble burst. By October 1998 it had fallen to 12,879 yen.
It bobbed up and down with the dot com bubble and 9/11, and then, during the first half of March 2003, it dropped below 8,000 yen for the first time in 20 years, partly due to tension involving the approaching U.S. war with Iraq. After the 2008 “Lehman shock,” the Nikkei 225 fell to a post-bubble low of 7,100 yen in October, and the following March it broke that record by closing at 7,054.98 yen.
This abysmal 20 years of stock market performance was then followed by 15 years of more ups than downs, culminating in this year’s record highs.
All of which goes to prove that what goes up must come down, and what goes down sometimes comes up again, but don’t count on that.
In Dollar and in Yen terms Japanese stocks are virtually unchanged on a year ago. The Yen is down 0.18% vs the Dollar, while stocks are up 0.66%.
People talking about ‘Crashes’ are way off the mark. The piddling 2 to 3% losses today are nothing compared to where levels have come from.
david,
Perhaps there is no place to hide. The US debt will not work much longer without huge inflation which guts the value of bonds in future purchasing power.
Dennis L.
And if Alex Soros gets his way and they put a moron to the White House, which you seem to support, USA becomes a Third World country.
Of course you will say Alex Soros is ‘talented’. Frankly speaking the world will be a better place if all of the people you called ‘talented’ were lobotomized.
War seems to be a popular option when things get too bad. Excuse for more debt, and more hiring of people who otherwise would be unemployed or have a very low wage. GDP for a while can look very good.
The stock market for tomorrow may be disturbed, if I understand this zero hedge article. Japan’s problems could spread to other stock markets.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japanic-monday-japanese-bonds-stocks-halted-after-plunging-bear-market-everything-crashes
Japanic Monday: Japanese Bonds, Stocks Halted After Plunging Into Bear Market As Everything Crashes Everywhere
There are all kinds of derivatives being held by banks. Something, somewhere is going to trigger a big problem with derivative markets. I am sure that there are other things that could go wrong, too.
An article behind the paywall at Zerohedge seems to be related. It is called,
The $20 Trillion Carry Trade Has Finally Blown Up
Japanese markets appear to be actively trading – the fx, JGB and stoxk exchange indicies are going up and down …
Reputable analysts agree no one knows the size of the carry trade and its additional derivative exposures nor where the bodies are buried or, more probably today, lie rotting on the surface
ZH never let the truth get in the way of harvesting one more click. They should stick to trannie boxers.
Much bigger volatility in the past few hours in the cryptomarket
coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/
A monumental moment of truth is going to occur there when the assets backing so called stable coins get called upon!
This is probably a good point:
“A monumental moment of truth is going to occur there when the assets backing so called stable coins get called upon!”
There aren’t any real assets backing so-called stable coin, are there? Dissipated stranded electricity is gone for good, as far as I can see.
Ehrlich is also concerned about chemical pollution, which has already reached the most remote corners of the globe. “The evidence we have is that toxics reduce the intelligence of children, and members of the first heavily influenced generation are now adults.”
He treats this risk with characteristic dark humour: “The first empirical evidence we are dumbing down Homo sapiens were the Republican debates in the US 2016 presidential elections – and the resultant kakistocracy. On the other hand, toxification may solve the population problem, since sperm counts are plunging.”
I was reading this article from paul ehrlich which basically says humans are getting dumber due to toxins all around us which would explain all the bad decisions made to date which will not change ever so the end is definitely coming.thanks to our chemically overloaded world
Paul Ehrlich? He may well be onto something regarding toxins but try him on the explosion of genetically-low-IQ African and other cohorts vs. Europeans and East Asians. White Europeans once 30% of world pop., now not even 8-9%?
I’d assumed Ehrlich was a normal/”normal”? scientist [back when I assumed that in itself was a real thing] until I listened to him on podcasts with Guy McPherson, wherein Ehrlich came off (to me) as the less-sane of the two. He never missed an opportunity to let everyone know how much he liked traveling and wine. Never an exchange without him talking about various wines and wine-tourism types of things, so his concern about others’ hedonic excesses always rang quite hollow for me and, while I agree with him in some broad strokes, he often seems to sound like’s he’s just talking out of his ass and worse, like he enjoys talking out of his ass. That’s just my impression from exposure to him in that venue.
Your earlier citation aptly reflects his acutely unscientific Trump Derangement Syndrome (Biden somehow less “kakistocratic” than Trump?). He seems to enjoy pushing fashionable, yet boring and tendentious, political buttons to the utter detriment of any kind of broader scientific case he might mount, imo.
When he says “WE ARE” dumbing down Homo sapiens.. who is the active “we”, I’d like to know?
Ehrlich … judging by his remarks, he is a midwit who makes a great example of the Dunning Kruger effect.
I saw a seminar of his in Stanfoo, I think 1989. He did struck me as a corrupt scientist. Back then we did not know we were ultimately all corrupt.
“ I think everybody
36:01 has sobered up and concluded what Schultz said the other thing is Schultz and most of his colleagues are on very
36:07 thin ice they’re close to being voted out of office and he’s trying to say please please please I’m not going to
36:13 send you to war relax and the Germans will not tolerate a war against Russia . . . “?
Hurray!
okay I think it’s obvious.
WW3 will begin on the 79th anniversary of nukes dropped in 1945.
so August 6th or 9th.
that gives us a few days to prepare!
it has been nice knowing you all.
and as many out there might hope for, IC will collapse and the workers of the world will no longer be exploitted but will be freed from their chains.
what a glorious future in post WW3.
no more exploittation, just a glorious universal humanity.
for those unhappy that collapse has not yet come, I wish for you all that collapse will come very soon.
West exhausted, Ukraine losing, NATO refuses peace
Everyone knows at this point that Russia is going to win in Ukraine. USA, Germany, UK, everyone has run out of stuff to send to UKR and UKR is unable to replace its manpower losses. Russia is steadily advancing through key fortified UKR positions now, the frontline is set to split in two and UKR faces a complete collapse of the lines and a retreat all the way back to the Dnieper river in the middle of UKR.
The main sticking points to negotiations are that Russia insists that UKR concede legal ownership of the Donbas to Russia and that UKR agree to neutrality and never to enter NATO. The first point is unacceptable to Zelensky and the second point is unacceptable to NATO, although the ‘right’ of any state to enter NATO has no basis in the NATO Washington Treaty or in international law which is whatever states agree to anyway.
The wider fallout of the UKR conflict is that much of the world no longer sees USA/ NATO as a serious prospect and states, particularly in SE Asia, are queueing up now to join BRICS. All that is left to the west now is how to spin the whole matter domestically to keep the NATO bloc together although that is a challenge now as states, especially in central Europe, no longer see NATO as ‘powerful’ or the ‘winning side’ to join.
> West exhausted, Ukraine losing, NATO refuses peace
Alex and Alexander discuss how poorly Ukraine is doing and why no peace settlement between Russia and Zelensky is possible.
” much of the world no longer sees USA/ NATO as a serious prospect”
And how does NATO see itself?
Stuffed with sexual deviants focussing otherworldly concerns.
Excellent analysis of the current world geopolitical crisis by Brandon Smith.
Be afraid. Be very afraid!
The Trigger For WWIII Just Arrived – What Are The Implications For Americans?
https://alt-market.us/the-trigger-for-wwiii-just-arrived-what-are-the-implications-for-americans
Extract:
“The prospect of world war is immense. Israel will not be able to fight in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran all at the same time. Energy exports in the region will definitely face a slowdown, if not a complete breakdown. At that point the war won’t just be about Israel, it will be about a global energy crisis. I don’t see any scenario in which the US government doesn’t get involved.”
This sounds pretty worrying!
Another analysis by CHS
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/the-usual-stimulus-tricks-wont-work
Doesn’t mean they won’t resort to them. They will print again and then try to deal with the fallout. When they start printing, crypto will take off again. Everything like last time, but compressed in time as everyone anticipates the next steps in the sequence.
“the next steps in the sequence”
And there it is ivani. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh, my mistake, a lot less.
I noticed this post too, and I thought it was good. One thing CHS talks about is China’s dream of making more and more goods for more goods. But eventually it leads to overproduction, relative to the part of the world population who can actually afford those goods.
CHS says:
“This is the problem with overproduction as a model of endless growth: it eventually overwhelms demand and the income needed to pay for it.
Also, China (with all of its cheap coal, which CHS doesn’t mention) led the world economy ahead for a long time. Now China can no longer do this. Instead, it is trying to compete by making the same new high tech items that the West is trying to make: semiconductor chips, EVs, and batteries for example. This isn’t working out either.
First its slowly, then its all at once.
Are we at all at once or is this still slowly?
From 2008:
‘Second, Iran is Persia, and the reason the Persian Gulf is called the Persian Gulf is that Iran owned it for at least 25 centuries until the governments of Britain and the US took it away from them. For more than two decades there have usually been about two dozen US and British warships stationed in the Persian Gulf. How many Persian warships have you ever seen in Chesapeake Bay?’
‘….Most of the population was raised in government-controlled schools, and they see the government as God-like, the solution to all their problems.
Over the next ten years I think the war and its cost will expand, and the economy will worsen. Lots more inflation, business failures, unemployment and poverty.
The U.S. government’s size, power and taxes will grow, as the population demands that their political God do something, anything, to save them.
But it’s a false God, so it will not only fail, it will continue making things worse. As Ronald Reagan said, government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.
I think there is a 90% probability the great crisis will be upon us within ten years. One reason is that the whole generation of baby boomers was lied to about economics. And now, the World War II generation is retired, and everything is being run by the boomers.’
https://www.bluestockingpress.com/maybury_interview.htm
Interesting. I found this Wikipedia article about Maybury:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Maybury
“Be afraid. Be very afraid!”
oh no!
I was having such a nice weekend and now I have to not just be slightly worried but actually be very afraid!
wow, WW3 any day now.
well it’s been fun interacting with all of you since 2017, well maybe except for that Fast guy sometimes.
this is probably the last few days of OFW so I wish all of you well as you try to manage living thru WW3.
any advice or tips?
since I’ve never lived thru a WW.
tip one leave the northern hemisphere
“I mean there’s this obsession with multiple Wars on multiple
4:15 com continents that we cannot possibly win one of which is against China you
4:21 know China is uh well there’s an old saying in the Navy a ship’s a fool to fight a fort and it simply means that if
4:29 you’re going to use air and Naval power against something like China you have no chance whatsoever of winning I think
4:34 there’s also privately a recognition that China presents no threat to the Philippines or anybody in Southeast Asia
4:41 nor does China want to invade Taiwan there is no evidence for preparations to do that there are no massive forces
4:47 Gathering anywhere to do it . . .
“I’d say you can sleep well tonight we thought that he’s going to
14:49 ask for a some sort of permission to go after Hezbollah but he was talking about more about Iran and he wants a war with
14:58 Iran the you think he’s really serious in what he’s talking about no of course
15:03 not he’s not serious he can’t have a war with hezb because he will lose a war with Hezbollah and he can’t have a war
15:08 with Iran because he will lose a war with Iran it’s not serious nobody in the United States is taking this seriously
15:14 yes we have the French Cooks on the right and the French Cooks on the left both of whom meet in the same spot
15:21 because they are unabashed supporters of this Zionist criminal entity we call Israel but um nobody’s going to war with
15:28 Hezbollah or Iran that’s the quickest way to a death sentence for Israel there is um he was playing to the base there
15:36 will be no war with Iran there will be no war with Hezbollah it just isn’t going to happen it’s a fantasy on his
15:42 part the Israeli Defense Force has said we can’t do this we are out of Tanks we
15:48 are out of spare parts we are out of ammunition we can’t defeat Hezbollah we
15:54 can’t defeat Hamas “?
No ‘war’?
The price of oil is falling.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodities
Meeting of the American Women Boxers Association, 1930.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDrizZArZZDsDn-gqSvhZ0nfSb2Bq2stTdqWLZQe3-dGHzA063dQSWCVLpJ7MIAgheFOGK1uYjoWyZkCnlmiqawpwv8Rp6jaYvPlD7guF9wsAVB55A7czYLFpk1O359_xDKaicxT_JecfE/s1600/vlcsnap-01354.jpg
President Lukashenko of Belarus attends the Annual Military Cosplay Parade.
Cap that if you can!
https://storage01.sb.by/iblock/a41/a41633058f8ac623c2f01358dc442772/b908f5f4107115086060a260cdb73f7c.jpg
The 21st century’s most perplexing question: “Is she a MAN?”
Lin-Yu-Ting, Taiwanese female boxer.
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2024-07/240730-lin-yu-ting-vl-1245p-aba595.jpg
But have you seen the waitresses in Taiwan?!
https://i.imgur.com/NxZQ4h9l.jpg
https://soranews24.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/08/boys-maid-cafe-top.png
https://i.imgur.com/pu23WIB.jpeg
=============================
No wonder Xi Jinping wants to invade Taiwan.
https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_social_share_1024x768_scale,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2023-05/230523-xi-jinping-mb-1404-230f79.jpg
Why the American dream is dead
https://youtu.be/vu7IJ-HDIos?si=Q3ami_h4cjkR6QuP
This video would be a whole lot better if the authors had figured out that there was (and continues to be) an energy problem that underlies the changes that are taking place. The economy at the time of Reagan suddenly shifted to the use of what I would call “more complexity” to solve problem, because inexpensive energy supply had stopped growing as it had in the past.
Reagan was one of many leaders who could sense that there was a need for change. It wasn’t that he or other leaders were necessarily bad, or led us astray, it was that it was increasingly difficult for resources per capita to keep growing. Young people are less and less well-off, on average, because of this problem. It looks like the problems that lead up to collapse.
Later, the narrator talks about the owner class vs the worker class. Without enough “goods and services” made possible by cheap energy supplies to go around, it was inevitable that the owner class would have more power than the working class. This is the way the economic system rations “not enough to go around.”
At the end, the narrator talks about building programs to help the poor, even though governments theoretically should help the poor, but aren’t. This sounds a lot like things some churches are trying to do. But, as a practical matter, it is hard to do very much. Many of the poor people are around the world. There really aren’t enough goods and services to go around, unfortunately.
A lot of the agricultural land was converted into an urbanized area, which means that the food needs to be transported from some other parts of the world. Costly energy for its transport means that there is less energy for the production of the quality food.. The price of the food can be held low only with lowering its quality.
Good points. Companies in food production can make a lot of money by making food tasty (lots of sugar or artificial sweetener) but without the fiber and the nutrients that our bodies need. Advertisers can advertise these close-to-worthless foods to children and adults. If everyone is eating these over-processed foods, there couldn’t be a problem, could there?
Imagine that the populations have been increased using the high sugar content simple foods like potatoes. But the rising complexity requires the complex quality food. You have no choice: you either improve your diet or you die.
At MIT, as part of a class at the Media Lab (cough-DARPA-cough) I was sent out with other students to research some of the religious cults active in urban college areas in the late 1970s.
One fellow student and I went to visit the “Moonies” at their ‘lair’ (my description) at the old “21 Club” in a
very swanky building on a very swanky street in downtown Boston.
There we were proffered a meal of potato soup: bits of potato floating in water: the main and only course.
Later on, I read something suggesting that Moon adherents (among other cult adherents) were fed a very-low-protein diet to keep them docile.
—
In retrospect, this ‘class project’ was clearly a kind of spy mission I was too young and naive to catch on to.
Other students visited with groups like the Hare Krishnas and the Scientologists. The latter were really aggressive trying to get us all to take their “personality tests”.
Another intractable issue with “the poor” is that the majority of them are unlikely to be cognitively or temperamentally capable of contributing to higher-level enterprises in any way, shape, or form.
No-one really wants to talk about this.
Let me put out the idea this world war is just like WW2. The people versus the bankers. Let us hope the people win this time.
Winning is a narrative. Whining is another.
Exactly.
I am afraid we may have a situation with both/all sides coming out behind. The bankers will especially come out behind because of many defaulting debts.
If trade permanently is greatly reduced, the whole system could come out behind. We need trade, besides huge quantities of raw materials, to make our current system work.
As I noted in my post,
Once the largest economies in the world fail at growth, there will be a huge amount of defaulting debt.
In a two economy reality, only gravity will win. Until then, it is debt and word salads.
Rothschilds as a family have done fairly well.
businessmen/rothschild-family-net-worth/richest-
Supposedly about $400B, enough for a roof over one’s head.
Dennis L.
This is just about the worst metaphor. So Russia was the bankers? I don’t disagree that Germany was the people. But German people only. Likewise, in Asia Japan was the people, but Japanese people only (if you know any Chinese ask them). Resource constraints do not allow for all the people to identify as the people.
I disagree. Resource constraints, climate change etc are all part of the terminal structural crisis of capital (not just capital-ism), which also creates opportunities for all (exploited) people to begin constructing a universal humanity. Divide et impera is not cheap, so it needs relatively cheap surplus accumulation to function.
“… which also creates opportunities for all (exploited) people to begin constructing a universal humanity.”
oh yes, the world has never had a universal humanity, where no people were being exploited.
it will be amazing for humanity to have this for the very first time!
maybe after WW3 ends?
People will be treating each other with R-E-S-P-E-C-T! and cocoa trees will grow at 57 N latitude.
and peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars
it’s the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!
the Age of Aquarius!
Aquarius!
Tropical crops [and temperate crops during the winter] not growing in temperate lands is part of why there is a global not regional exploitative system, which is ipso facto circling the drain. And unless you regress to blaming the Big Bad Other for globalism, localized exploitation is not only impossible but would be even worse at dealing with the crises created by globalized exploitation than the globalized system.
Perhaps hunter-gatherers were the most equal, with the least exploitation of others. The least “complexity.’
We have eusocial insects of many kinds, with division of labor. That seems to be the way the system works.
Repeating what I said ironically, brilliant. Good to see you’re still spicing up the collapsosphere with all the acerbic wit of a depressed teenager.
I think you missed my point though. The world absolutely had no exploitation of people before, when the need for it wasn’t/couldn’t become generalized in a given population and ultimately progress towards universality. It is precisely because exploitation is today universal and terminally crisis-ridden as a consequence thereof – something the world hasn’t had before – that universal emancipation is the only viable long-term alternative to it.
Now that’s over and done with, please regale me with some jokes about BAU continuing into the 2040s. Still funny after all these years!
“I think you missed my point though. The world absolutely had no exploitation of people before, when the need for it wasn’t/couldn’t become generalized in a given population and ultimately progress towards universality.”
I don’t think I missed your point, just that your point seems abbsurd.
as an example, there never was any slavery ever ever in past history?
please regale us more with your imagined past and its universal wonders.
“as an example, there never was any slavery ever ever in past history?”
david, breh, sorry to break to ya… basic reading comprehension is a vital component of BAU continuance.
but that aint a problem cus i got enuf for the both of us. and we all know what that means……. BAU tonite baby! so funny. um, lol.
basic writing clarity is totally optional here though, as you are showing.
seriously, is this some Marxxist stuff where in the future the exploited masses will throw off their chains and live in a glorious unexploited future?
I hope your glorious unexploited future arrives soon.
since you seem unhappy with BAU, I wish you all the collapse your heart desires and soon.
and peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars
it’s the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!
the Age of Aquarius!
Aquarius!
HHH
Ignored
08/04/2024 at 9:19 pm
Japanese stocks are down another 6.5% or about 2400 points. And the week has just begun.
Where the hell is the Japanese plunge protection team at 🤣
I’m just going to point out this isn’t necessarily an unwinding of carry trade. It’s an unwinding of Japanese stock market due to BOJ decision.
Money leaving the Japanese stocks turns into Japanese yen before it is moved elsewhere. A lot of this money leaving the stock market won’t be staying in Japan.
They literally sacrificed their stock market to boost their currency. The currency can strengthen more if stocks continue selling. But the majority of that money won’t be staying in Japan so it amounts to a temporary fix in their currency depreciation.
your HHH doesn’t make a whole lot of sense here Ravi.
The carry trade by definition borrows in Japan to invest offshore in higher interest rate environments, usually leveraged bets in high yield govt bonds. Essentially the interest rate differential is assured but swapped for currency risk (as repayment is in yen).
Money doesn’t “leave” Japanese stocks at all! One buyer exchanges yen to the seller for stocks. There’s no demand/supply implication whatsoever. It’s true (according to analysts) most of the recent stock price surge in the Nikkei has been caused by offshore buyers who may or may not repatriate their capital, but the huge rally today in JGB would seem to indicate much of it has stayed onshore.
It’s my opinion the surge in the yen was more likely resulting from Japanese investors repatriating offshore capital. If offshore capital in Japan was fleeing, they’d be selling yen …
the dude is punching way above his paygrade
Moss , HHH was asked to rethink his assessment . An update on his response .
HHH
Ignored
08/05/2024 at 6:30 am
There is nothing to rethink. Due to direction their central has chosen. Which is to not support the economy or asset prices. Japan has become sale Japan.
The yen can strengthen massively right before it implodes. It’s just part of the process of actually getting your money out of Japan.
Of course we all know their central bank will cave and reverse course at some point. I don’t think it will actually take all that long either. As their banks stocks are getting slaughtered.
Ultimately they will have to accept a much lower valued Yen.
From a Eurodollar point of view. If your a bank would you really want to expose yourself to the mess that is taking place in Japan? Perhaps Japanese government debt gets rejected as collateral in the Eurodollar system. If that happens the Japanese ability to access dollar liquidity becomes extremely impaired and costly. Don’t be fooled by the strengthening Yen. It’s a short term phenomenon due to the selling of assets.
The real carry trade unwind is when Japanese banks lose their ability to leverage Japanese debt as collateral to make dollar denominated loans across the globe.
CLO derivatives in the US blowup then as Japanese banks looking for yield have to exit due to insufficient collateral.
That’s the real carry trade unwind.
No doubt he/she/it cannot “rethink” twaddle … waste of time refuting point by point some idiot wrong on the internet.
However, the yen collapsed massively two years ago. The time to get your money out was THEN, at USD=100yen.
“Of course we all know blah blah blah” typical unsubstantiated nonsense
who’s he/she/it to be pontificating at the level at which “they” will have to accept the yen?
maybe you should be reposting this sort of stuff on ZH?
No one knows the future
Classic weekly commentary from Doug Nolan this weekend
The unwind of levered yen “carry trades” gained momentum. … After trading to 161.76 on July 11th, the yen has rallied 10.35% to 146.53 to the dollar. Over this period, the Mexican peso is down 15.7% versus the yen, the Brazilian real 14.3%, the Chilean peso 13.1%, the Colombian peso 12.9%, the Argentine peso 10.8%, the Turkish lira 10.4%, the South African rand 10.1%, the Hungarian forint 9.6% and the Indian rupee 9.6%. Huge leveraged speculating community “carry trade” losses continue to mount.
creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2024/08/weekly-commentary-critical-leap.html
Beyond the carry trade, however, he is seeing dislocation everywhere and he suggests that last month’s peak may be the top of this cycle. Friday’s VIX didn’t do much to instill a sense of stability in a skittish political situation.
So, while we wait with baited breath, let’s back to ZH for trannie boxers.
I’ve never seen this place at such a mindless level …
You see what happens Larry when you push the right buttons?
“Millions” Wasted On Electric School Busses As Maryland Pivots Back To Diesel
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/millions-wasted-electric-school-busses-maryland-pivots-back-diesel
WIT82 , the word is ” stranded assets ” . Bob Hirsch warned about this 30 years ago . The world was not listening . The MTV generation was busy watching Michael Jackson , now they will pay they price . Sorry , I can’t find his interview . The future stranded assets are wind farms , solar panels , ev’s in the short term and anything that needs diesel in the medium term , The party is over .
Talking about being stranded . FUBAR .
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/greater-50-50-chance-spacex-may-save-stranded-boeing-starliner-crew-iss
What a problem for NASA and Boeing! What a problem for the Democrats! Nothing seems to work right.
Make the government astronauts fly back on a DEI-built space craft, since they mandate DEI requirements on all government positions and funding.
For example, university professorship applications require diversity statements / a political oath.
Really? I must have lost touch. Can you get away with a word salad or do they really look into it?
The DEI stuff is a considerable part of the scoring criteria and so you need actual activities that promote that agenda … for example, one white guy I know did inner city outreach to underrepresented communities. Just being a good or even great scientist is not enough. In his particular case, he was actually a true adherent to that religion so it wasn’t fake, even if it was calculated.
PS – This guy was successful in getting a professorship. I also know two women who wouldn’t have gotten professorships on the basis of their publication record, but did for having the right gender.
That is probably only for advancement from assistant to associate. If you are a postdoc getting a position at a university you may not have had many chances to do DEI. But I wonder if one could get away with something like guest posted, increasing production of copper in chilean mines by introducing a culture of respect? I bet it would pass muster at most universities.
That was actually for postdocs to get assistant professorships, from which the path towards tenure is generally straightforward, albeit high pressure. No one cares if postdocs do DEI because the professors just want capable hard workers.
So basically now a postdoc has to find a way to waste time doing DEI while also doing his or her real job. that is tough.
It cost around $160,000 for a diesel bus, while around $500,000 for a electric bus. You could buy 2 and 1/2 diesels for one electric bus. There is no way it can come close to penciling out, even if the electricity was given free to charge it.
Electric Buses Are A Scam*
By Adam Something
Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqHsXv7Umvw
Adam Something talks about how diesel buses counter intuitively can be better for the environment than electric. Poor countries can buy more of them than electric buses thereby pulling more cars off the road, reducing more congestion and fuel use.
There seem to be a lot of scams.
Everything I have seen suggests that hybrid (gasoline/electric) make the best use of available resources. They aren’t terribly heavy. They don’t need special charging equipment.
Well, at least I got one thing right. Camry, Hybrid, the batteries needed replacing at about 104K miles however.
Dennis L.
I think you have a point, but I also think FE’s logic of “we build ski lifts” and nonsense also applies.
Renewables, I think are things to give people jobs and make them feel useful/virtuous. FF demand is going to drop like a rock and likely already has started in most of the developed world. And it will be ENTIRELY credited to renewables and EV’s. Even if that’s only part of the story.
They can’t just say “people are becoming so poor in America they can’t even afford to own a car.” Which is causing FF demand and carbon levels to decline.
They will say “Thanks to the explosive growth of EV sales global FF demand and carbon emissions are finally headed in reverse.”
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
-Confucius
It seems like we have run into other versions of this story before.
Gail , maybe but I cannot recall . Several years ago I saw a movie ” Teahouse of the August moon ” starring Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford and based in post war Japan . Brando (Japanese ) tells Ford (American )– A man must find the balance between his ambition and his limitation . I guess we crossed the red line as Vladimir Putin put it . 😁.
Hey Ravi, if you liked that movie, there’s an infinitely more interesting Brando one also shot around the early 50s in central Kyoto rather than rural Okinawa, “Sayonara”.
Apart from the very interesting dynamic between the occupation forces and the nips, there’s some wonderful early colour footage of the Higashiyama area, temples and particularly the Sento Garden, my favourite garden in all the world.
There is a US federal government sponsored program that practically gives away electric buses (which is likely separate from the buses in the Maryland article). They are available cheaply in low income areas. According to this report, “Eighty-nine percent of committed electric school buses are in school districts with the highest percentages of people of color (defined as “people of color” in the EPA’s EJScreen data).”
There are many articles about electric buses being a problem:
Dec 2023: California is pumped about electric buses; rural schools say they are a pain.
January 2024: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/electric-buses-are-sitting-unused-in-cities-across-the-us-heres-why/ar-BB1hqxsF
March 2024: https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/breakdowns-recalls-fuel-skepticism-of-electric-school-buses
Breakdowns, Recalls Fuel Skepticism of Electric School Buses
The director of the New York Association for Pupil Transportation said 20 out of 100 electric school buses are down on any given day, due to problems with the buses or with their charging devices.
The “transition” is over before it even began. In a decade or so, the real one will begin, in which a good part of the population will more or less slowly return to the mobility levels of the early 1900s.
Or before. In the early 1900s, we had horses to pull carts. We don’t have as many horses now.
Buffet and Berkshire just sold half his Apple stock. Just to hoard a bunch of cash?
You know something big is coming when the whales start moving..
This does sound worrying. Magnificent seven are not likely to stay on top for long.
I don’t know I see oil companies buying back their stock
Sam , they need the money for mergers and acquisition’s . The stock market’s basic parameter for valuation is years of reserves . There are no new discoveries so best to companies that have a good 2 P . Checkout the result of the Exxon buyout of Pioneer .
https://apnews.com/article/exxon-mobil-oil-pioneer-f128ea2bc05b04bb03816bca2dbeaa0a#
Now I understand why Caterpillar wound up its manufacturing in Belgium . US wants to go to war with Xi . Must be crazy . Insane engineering capacity .
The United States core business is war. Meanwhile China’s core business is, business and making money. It is why the US has boxed itself in and now needs China just to function. They now produce most of our pharmaceutical drugs, car parts and computer chips.
On the flip-side, all that fancy equipment is mostly for the purpose of building ghost cities and factories, so there’s that.
Some of the fancy equipment is for making solar panels. Now, too many of the solar panels are covering up cropland in China. Finding buyers for the rest is difficult, also. A big shakeout in the solar panel manufacturers seems to be not far away.
I agree on shakeout.
Was at MREA for one day, one of my favorite places; assembled six panels on the ground. Very labor intensive, electrical connections between panels are challenging, expensive and done in less than ideal locations on roofs or in fields.
Building connection is not that difficult, but much more complex and subject to maintenance problems than a simple panel for a house from a utility. Inverters are delicate, electrolytic capacitors which fail eventually always.
For all my optimism, don’t think it works. People however are very genuine and pleasant. I would do it again, maybe it gets easier/better in a few more years?
Dennis L.
The big cranes would have been handy for the US to have when it wanted to fix the bridge that the ship ran into near Baltimore recently. It was the fact that the US couldn’t fix it easily that kept the port unreachable for quite a few weeks.
Looking at the huge cranes, there would also need to be very substantial roads for these machines to operate on. Their heavy weight would severely stress any road that they are operated on, even with the large number of wheels. Using these machines would send up the cost of road construction and repair.
These cranes would be most helpful in building high-rise buildings and bridges, I would expect. High rise buildings require electricity for elevators and for pumping water up to high levels. If electricity becomes very intermittent, or not available at all, these buildings become uninhabitable.
The article actually says:“DENNYS: where you can order a $18 plate for one person instead of making it at home for 4 people for the same price,” one snide commenter remarked.
Sorry, I read “making it at home,” and “taking it home.” The quantity of food is vastly more than I would eat, but perhaps not enough for four people.
Denny’s $18 breakfast platter — up from $5.99 — gives customers sticker shock: ‘Unreal!’
https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/business/dennys-18-breakfast-platter-up-from-5-99-gives-customers-sticker-shock-unreal/
Grand Slam for whom? I think we’re the pitching now.
That is no surprise. It is why places like that are seeing traffic way down and the trend will continue. People are finding it much cheaper to eat at home or bag their lunch for work. I remember as far back as 2005 when a Taco Bell crunchy taco was only $.79 and in 1994 they were $.39
Today they will cost you $2.19 for a basic taco, and floor traffic is also down at Taco Bell. Now they have their $7.99 value meal for a limited time which in 2005 was $4.99 and you got more than you do now.
As the article mentions, you can blame inflation, rent increases, and employee wages for the increase in fast food prices. Fast food businesses can’t absorb those labor costs and stay in open. The math just doesn’t work. Politicians never understand that for every action, there’s an opposite reaction. All they care about are votes. They were the first state to push for a $20 minimum wage, to please their voters. California has become a certified sh*thole thanks to California politicians.
Some place in the article it mentions that the $18 breakfast is really enough food for four people. If you could take it home and share it, the cost wouldn’t be so outrageous. Once people have paid this outrageous amount, they feel they need to eat the massive number of calories in it.
Of course, a big part of the cost is labor. US restaurants have always featured huge servings to justify their high cost.
Here is a photo of Irish jockey Oisin Murphy relaxing before a horse race last year. I was in such shock when I saw it that I feared for my life.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G2C10Xk3P5xLUtrmWqSayyZSHjGAzwiB/view
” . . . you should read the the peace
15:24 proposal by Pompeo was in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago it’s
15:29 effectively this is the same um this is the same goal saying listen let our
15:35 peace should be include like a half a trillion dollar Lend Lease uh for for
15:40 Ukraine again this goes under peace plan by the way uh and and is great because uh this is weapons um well the US get to
15:49 sell a lot of weapons not just to the ukrainians but to the rest of Europeans so the US will build up its in in
15:56 military industrial base its ability to yeah produce all this weaponry and uh
16:01 and uh not only the arms manufacturing doing well but with this land Le the ukrainians have to pay also in their
16:08 resources all of these weapons are of course going to weaken a strategic rival which is the which is Russia by
16:14 perpetuating this War uh you will have a NATO revived again pompe also said new
16:20 purpose for NATO and uh lastly I would say well this wasn’t explicitly said but
16:26 implicit the as long as this war continues the not just the ukrainians but the Europeans will remain very loyal
16:32 and obedient and this is great in a time of economic rivalry with countries like China because you don’t want countries
16:39 to go out and suddenly diversify their economic Partnerships and uh trade with
16:45 the Chinese on especially on strategic Industries which the US are competing with so there’s a lot of benefits to
16:52 keeping this waro going and so why would you end it . . . “?
Professor Glen Diesen in “The Neocon’s NEXT Big Scheme: Trap Russia in Ukraine.” The part you quote lays out the potential “benefits” to the US, if the war goes on endlessly. Of course the Neocons miss the point that we cannot really win such a war. We need to step back.
The Neocons have prospered under Biden. They perhaps should be associated with today’s Democrats.
‘Professor Glen Diesen in “The Neocon’s NEXT Big Scheme: Trap Russia in Ukraine.” ‘
‘… resources all of these weapons are of course going to weaken a strategic rival which is Russia by…’
Umm, hello, the US has been trapped in the euro area hyper-focused on the ‘enemy’ and has been hollowed out and weakened by this action. The Russians are actually re-gaining a resource while the US manages a squabbling play-pen of Euro ego’s.
The collapse of the USSR would seemed to have unburdened Russia and it has renewed vigour. The US is stuck n same-old same-old.
$ 100 billion in 3 days . This debt is not going to be repaid .
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/forums/topic/debt-rattle-august-2-2024/#post-165378
100B in 3 days is a trillion a month. Are we getting to that kind of rate?
I remember seeing an article from a few months ago noting that the US national debt was accruing at a rate of a trillion every 3 months; I think that was around 6 months ago. If we’re at a trillion a month now, the pattern is suggestive that we’ll be at a trillion every 10 days by the end of the year. Slowly, then all at once.
the first trillion in debt took from 1789 to 1981, approx 200 years; half of that first trillion was accrued between 1974 and 1981. now we’ve gone from a trillion every 100 days to a trillion every 30 days; the first reports i can see of the trillion every 100 days come from march of this year. it’s quite a sight to behold. i like the old example of lillies doubling on a pond and the pond being covered completely in 100 days, and asking the question when is the pond half covered, as of course almost no-one understands exponential growth well enough to correctly answer, day 99. but it’s also interesting to pose the question, wen do you even notice the lillies, if we call noticing 10% pond coverage, because even that is on day 97 (12.5% coverage)…looks to me like we’re at about day 98 on the US national debt so i don’t think we’ve got another year before she cannae take no more, jim. i’d guess by early next year the US will be in obvious hyperinflation, war will ensue to cover what’s really going on and that deagel forecast will be looking ever more likely.
“to a trillion every 30 days”
… so what’s the doubling period at that rate? It gives some measure of how close we are to the end
Because it is faster than exponential it is difficult to estimate. The US created a lot of debt in 2020 but then slowed down for a couple of years. If Lurker progression is correct, then the doubling time is of order four months and we are 8 months from a crash.
One really stup*d question… can they just fake the number for debt issued? Maybe it is already under reported?
A lot of debt is not really included. For example, the FDIC supposedly insures bank deposits up to $250,000 per depositor. It doesn’t really have money to do this (beyond a few small banks failing). The US government would need to issue debt to do this. Similarly, there are some guarantees on pension benefits, but virtually no money to do this. Medicare is not funded in advance, to any significant extent. All of the nuclear guarantees are unfunded. No doubt there are more.
According to this, yes.
https://missingmoney.solari.com/fasab-statement-56-understanding-new-government-financial-accounting-loopholes/
I mean wwhy don’t just say a fake number like USD50b instead of USD100b? Who knows? Or just don’t report it.
There is also a huge amount of “agency debt.” For example, lots of loans for homes, with very little downpayment. Low income borrowers apply for these. If they default on these loans, the government is supposedly backing the whole program.
I don’t think so. Lately, the numbers that have been floated are more like $1.9 trillion per year.
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60419
I wonder if part of the problem is that it is hard to keep the government debt bubble rising fast enough to keep the economy going. For a while, the debt bubble was rising at $1 trillion every three months, which is the equivalent to $4 trillion per year. But now, it is rising less rapidly. More excuses are needed to keep the debt bubble inflated. WW3 comes to mind.
What the hell is going on in the UK?
Damn, near going into martial law.
Who’s is OFW spotter in the UK? Norm?
UK Riots LIVE: Sunderland police station set on fire as cops face ‘serious violence’
The whole of the city centre seems like its on lockdown – helicopter overhead, sirens, and gangs of young lads in balaclavas on bikes – old racists with England flags
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-riots-live-least-15-33386398
In the Atlanta area, there is a Trump-Vance rally scheduled this afternoon from roughly 3:00pm to 6:00pm. There is a long list of prohibited items, everything from alcoholic beverages to banners to aerosol cans to weapons. Tickets seem to be available free, downloadable to a person’s cell phone.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/08/02/donald-trump-rally-saturday-in-atlanta-what-to-know/74645368007/
The area where this is being held is a downtown area. The area has a problem with homelessness and general decline. The majority of nearby residents will be Democrats, not Republicans. The best method of transportation from the suburbs to this area (especially on weekends) is by car. Most Republicans will need to drive to this area.
I suppose that there could be possible disruptions, especially outside, but I don’t know. The whole thing seems to be during daylight hours, reducing the chances of problems.
That’s all the brain dead morons whipped up by Yaxley Lennon and the bbc. Someone should tell them that the man that committed the crimes they are pretending to care about was born and bred in Britain.
Someone should also ask them why they are kicking off in Sunderland, when the incident(excuse) happened on the other side of the country. Someone show them a map please(and explain what it means).
Authorities have of course been encouraging all this, as for them it’s a two for one deal. Blame the other for their mess and as a bonus use it as an excuse for ever more draconian measures. Somewhat fortuitous that just as it’s all falling apart, we are openly genociding and about to start a massive war, along comes a foreign sounding person who kills kids(odds on he’s got some connection with the security services, just like the London bombers, the Manchester bomber and the London bridge execution).
The way that they are pushing everywhere suggests that they are quite desperate for it all to kick off before the enormity of the situation dawns on the public. Looking very much like we’re all about to be Gaza’d😉
How much longer can these people survive and will they be allowed to die before the US asks Russia to rescue them?
Sorry, that was a reply to Gail about the astronauts. No idea why it ended up here.
Good question!
Here is the answer . Broken Britain .
Hanton his recent book, Vassal State – how America runs Britain, Angus Hanton shows the dominant role that US companies and finance play in owning and controlling large sections of what remains of British industries. This US takeover was accepted and even encouraged by successive British governments from Tory Thatcher to Labour’s Blair. ”
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/07/02/broken-britain/
Voting counts, yeah, right! 😆
“Illegals Lining Up for Driver’s Licenses – To Vote since they lack Cars?”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/immigration-world-news/illegals-lining-up-for-drivers-licenses-to-vote-since-they-lack-cars/
I do not have a Driver’s License and Vote. You can get a non-driving Photo ID and vote.
How do you know those people in the photo are not citizens of the United States. They all look African American too me. You do realize it is perfectly legal for non-whites to vote, and that people of color are Americans too, not just white people.
More worries about expanded war in the Middle East.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tonight-iran-state-tv-suggests-attack-israel-just-hours-away
Tonight? Iran State TV Suggests Attack On Israel Is Just ‘Hours’ Away
The WSJ has an article on this, also.
Israel, U.S. Prepare for Severe Iranian Retaliation
Tehran and its allies have told diplomats retaliation will be ‘heavy and swift’ but won’t telegraph when or how, raising the risk of war
This whole situation has been driven by one side. The side that killed the Syrian Druze children, claimed those children as their own and then used those children they slaughtered as an excuse(yet again) to attack. This and the 3 following illegal attacks performed almost simultaneously, were all coordinated with the US(2nd attack was from a US base) for the purpose of escalation, which shows the desperation.
If Iran, as is it’s right under international law(UN confirmed) waits before taking it’s legal and just retribution, don’t be surprised to see the genocidal encampment strike beforehand, as staying on high alert is draining and they have shown that there’s not much left to drain, apart from the barbarity of the European Invaders and even that barbarity will drain quickly when they are faced with any more than killing children at distance.
If the US interferes, in an attempt to stop Iran, all US bases in the region, those ships in the Western Mediterranean and around the Gulf States, will come under attack(bases first, ships if it escalates). Hezbollah have P-800 Onix anti ship missiles and just the other day an F35 on the Lebanon boarder had to go supersonic(that’s the stealth coating gone) and run to avoid a new AA missile that none of the F35s systems could counter. Lose air superiority and all that’s left is the Sampson option. Would a group raised on a weird mix of fear, hatred and entitlement really have the spine to finish themselves off, or will they just run back where they came from, as so many already have?
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, like Putin, is very careful with the words he uses, so they might be worth consideration.
“We are in an open battle on all fronts, and it has entered a new phase.”
“must await our inevitable response”
“there is no debate or argument about this.”
“The decision is now in the hands of the frontline, its circumstances, and the opportunities it offers. We are looking for a solid and well-studied response, not a formal one.”
The way things stand I’d say there’s a better than even chance that the kiddie killers wil escalate again, before reprisal. They’re just waiting for the rest of the white killers to line up behind them, because behind the propaganda their not capable of winning the fights they start(apart from those against the children, which to be fair, are the majority).
A very sad story!
When there is not enough to go around (fresh water, arable land, fossil fuel resources) with rising population, then Israel feels it must fight. Fighting indirectly also helps the US, if it helps justify more debt for military support for Israel, and thus helps keep the debt bubble inflated.
It is a strange world we live in. A person would think that the Jewish religion would prevent this kind of thing, but the way I read the Ten Commandments is that they are rules for living with people inside your own group. If there are not enough resources to go around, then the rules regarding fighting against another group are different.
Maybe the Deep State and their Neocons will eventually get their wish of a global hot war before the US elections.
Report on the Secret Services role on January 6, 2021, has been hidden from investigators.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-harris-dhs-accused-covering-crucial-january-6th-report
Another apparent male in female boxing:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/xy-marks-spot-second-olympic-boxer-who-failed-gender-test-beats-woman-tears
From X:
“Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, whose DNA sex test revealed the presence of XY chromosomes, beats Sitora Turdibekova easily on points. The Uzbek walks off without shaking hands.”
This new phenomenon cuts across geopolitical lines apparently. First it was BRICS t*anny beating up a G7 woman, and this time is a US ally beating up a BRICS woman. I point to all of you how perverted the Olympic games are, if female boxing is included.
All part of the globalist humiliation ritual.
Chicken coming home to roost
A circle which began on 1912, when the Americans used Jim Thorpe, a native who was not considered to be human at that time, in the olympics finally ending with this.
Female boxing got us here in the first place.
Micheala Tyson , ROFL .
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/forums/topic/debt-rattle-august-3-2024/#post-165432
If beating someone at sports with unfair but legal advantage/s is perverted, Real Madrid fans would be the scum of the earth (not that they aren’t already).
They have f(l)ags, so that doesn’t count.
Every currency seems to need a ETF to make it work. Because we cannot afford reality anymore.
There will be more tears than wine at the table of consequences.
The one thing I love about the Woke agenda is watching them trying to explain the rules when there are none. That’s how we got to non-binary gender. The fall of the West.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/08/02/shame-is-dead-in-the-western-world/
“What kind of people are running the Olympics and International Boxing Association that they allow men to brutalize women?
A female boxer, Angela Carina, was paired with a man, Imane Khelif, in a boxing match that lasted 46 seconds. It is shameful that the Olympics and the International Boxing Association support the physical abuse of women. These organizations are criminal to allow a man to declare himself a woman and to step into a boxing ring with a woman.
What kind of excrement is Khelif who is proud of besting a woman?
What we are witnessing in the abandonment of biological gender and the entry of men into competitions between women is the death of shame.
Khelif is not ashamed.
The Olympics association is not ashamed.
The boxing association is not ashamed.
It is shameful enough that female boxing exists as it is an unladylike activity. Boxing is violence, not a sport.
Feminists should see this as the Olympics organizers glorifying male violence against women.”
It is a wonder that everyone does not boycott the Olympics when the games themselves are used to boycott countries that refuse Western orders. The Olympic games, once amateur competitions, are now circuses corrupted by money just like everything in the Western world.
There are articles out saying that Imane Khelif was female at birth. This is one that is not behind a paywall.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/who-is-olympian-imane-khelif-an-algerian-woman-boxer-is-facing-anti-trans-backlash
He/she reminds me of the Aerosmith song “Dude looks like a lady”.
I’ve been boycotting the Olympics since 1988.
It hasn’t made a damn of difference to the Olympics, but it’s been one less distraction for me.
Pertinent, given current stock market action:
https://global-macro-monitor.com/2019/03/05/beware-of-trannies-that-lag/
This article is about
1. We construct a relative performance index (TRP) of the Dow Transports and Dow Industrials Index
2. In all three large and major 2018 sell-offs, the TRP signaled an impending correction 7-18 trading days before markets rolled over
I am guessing what happens is that the Dow Transport Index starts falling, as soon as the combination of oil prices and interest rates becomes a problem for these companies. The Dow Industrials are hit (indirectly) by higher oil prices, but not until a bit later.
When I looked at a daily oil price chart, I had expected the Transport Index peak dates to correspond to oil price peaks, but they don’t. The years 2018 and 2019 were years of generally rising interest rates. It may have been the higher interest rates, combined with the oil prices, pushed the transport stocks down faster than the industrials.
Key Ukrainian fortified positions are now falling like strawmen with the soldiers literally abandoning their positions and running away.
The implication is that the Ukrainian frontline is about to lose its strategic coherence and that it is headed toward a complete collapse.
Russia has masses of troops ready to flood over into Ukraine once the Ukrainian fortified positions have been removed and the war is thus won.
Russia will then implement all of the objectives of the SMO.
USA/ NATO reckoned that they were going to collapse the Russian economy and indeed the state with sanctions and isolation and in any case defeat Russia on the field with its UKR proxy.
That is not how it worked out. So what happens next?
Ukraine, front line slow motion collapse
Alex and Alexander talk about a slow motion collapse on the front lines in Ukraine.
Dumping F16’s in a fire pit is a stupid idea. The power of the West dissapears with its debt based currency model. And the vulture cannot only smell it, it knows.
Where can i buy Russian ruble? Ahhh, cut off. I can buy bitcoin though. Yeah right
How about Digital Rubles?
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/cryptocurrency/digital-ruble-2025/
There are ways.
Yeah. Driving to Russia and buy cash rubles. I haven’t sought it all out. Gold and silver is also a bridge. Just a little bit. My stock to flow ratio is very low. In my mind i live like an animal.
The Olympics was a place for gentlemen athletes to compete.
Its commercialization beganecause of the Americans.
https://youtu.be/r6xU6DiRKCg?si=HmxfYgSZW7tJbvS7
In 1908 olympics, at the marathon the Italian Doranto Pietri was leading, and he fell after entering the final run, and the gentlemen there helped him to finish the race.
That is gentlemanship, and that is civilization.
However, the AMERICAN, Johnny Hayes, who came in second protested.
Not much record remains about how he created a shitstorm there. but at that time the Olympic Committee wanted the money from USA, so they disqualified Pietri and awarded the Gold Medal to Hayes, who was later found to be a member of the local IRISH running club.
A proper treatment to Hayes the Irishman was a discreet shot to his head with a silent Beretta , ruled a suicide.
That was when the Olympics began to be corrupted.
The Americans, getting uppity, now increased the stakes on 1912 by featuring Jim Thorpe , an Indian (I don’t use bullshit terms like “Native American”).
That was too much even for the olympic committee, who found Thorpe was playing professional football and disqualified him, awarding the Gold Medal to a Swede.
Even them Americans were willing to use peoples who were not considered to be full humans by standards of that time for a greater ‘glory’.
On the wake of the Ukrainian War, the IOC awarded the Gold Medal to Thorpe’s descendants to curry favor to Americans, which in my opinion was wrong.
The current degradation of olympics is just a culmination of such degenerate behavior of Americans who would have used even a space alien if such was available.
The Americans always had a ‘savagelike’ quality, best demonstrated by Huckleberry Finn of Mark Twain.
With the original cultured americans mostly having existed , the battle is between savages and those who have nothing to do with american tradition.
Sad! The problem seems to happen over and over.
Paul Craig Roberts his take today on his website.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/08/02/shame-is-dead-in-the-western-world/
USA has no right to say anything about this since it tried for 110 years to make Jim Thorpe, who was not considered to be a human at that time, to make the sole gold medal winner for all these time.
Thorpe was indeed human, no matter what these sad imbeciles believed.
All you have shown is that white people are largely racist as well as thick and that becomes more apparent as you go up the power structure. That’s not news to the bulk of the world’s population. It’s been obvious for centuries.
Enjoy the genocide in Western Asia, it’ll be the white Europeans last. The most uncivilised people this planet has witnessed, will soon turn their mental derangement on each other(again) as their ability to brutalise others wane and that will be the end of the demented aggressors. The roses have all died and the true putrid stench of the rotting garden is now obvious to all.
It is civilization vs barbarism.
If they are going to destroy the peoples who gave them all the modern amenities they can name, they can enjoy living under Eastern Despotism.
I’ve mentioned before how the perversion of language would be our undoing and you give a fine example. We in the west are not civilised, but we do fit the barbarian role rather well. We gave the world destruction and useless gimmicks dressed up as progress, but there was only regression and a despoiled planet to show for it. Our whole means of understanding was a gift from the East and we did the only thing we understand with it, abuse and destruction.
If you’re looking for a barbarian, you need only look into a mirror. All that is to come, we have wrought upon ourselves.
How the mighty have fallen .
https://mishtalk.com/economics/intel-announces-15000-job-cuts-15-percent-of-its-workforce/
yes, 27% down right now on the day. they are having serious stability issues in their consumer (non-server) segment as well.
That 25 billion dollar investment in Israel was not a good idea.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/intel-halting-25-billion-factory-expansion-israel-israeli-media-report-2024-06-10/
the 25 billion never materialized and is on hold presumably until the war is ended and the future situation is clear
Israel is a very dry country. I thought that chip making required lots of fresh water (besides lots of electricity). Israel has neither. It also lacks political stability.
Why would anyone put a chip making company in Israel?
And TSMC is constructing a plant in Phoenix ,Arizona another water starved state . Geniuses at work .
This has sounded ridiculous to me, also.
But I was told war is good for the economy .
https://medium.com/@hrnews1/breaking-samsung-pulls-out-of-israel-amid-moral-and-economic-decline-2f6f0b242edb
Sooner or later the growth phase has to end.
Peak pc sales was in 2011 with a moderate rebound due to the frenzy of smartworking during the pandemic.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/263393/global-pc-shipments-since-1st-quarter-2009-by-vendor/
Peak smartphone was in 2016, we are 400 million units down from the peak.
https://www.statista.com/chart/12798/global-smartphone-shipments/
We have also to consider that the car sector is in decline, and new cars also use modern chips.
Finally, we need to consider the fact that a lot of people will cut discretionary spending and focus on essentials.
The days of buying the latest smartphone as a status symbol I think that they are officially over for good considering the fact that the populations have to face an increase in the price of energy bills and food.
I am afraid you are right. But the way the economy will go down is not obvious. The system seems to hang together better than most of us would expect. Even World War III is likely to leave most people alive and parts of systems still working.
The world economy, as a dissipative structure, will try to utilize energy resources wherever they can be found. People are inventive. They will make things work, even when they seem to be badly degraded. The equivalent of using stone from walls around cities to build new buildings.
The “Climate change is our worst problem” narrative will go out of fashion, at some point. Some people somewhere are likely to make something work, such as thorium in nuclear reactors. But it will require a lot of inventions to get very far. The downhill trend will likely continue.
On our hobby forum, I was debating with a cornucopian who claimed that the West needs more immigrants to stave off the dire effects of depopulation on economic growth. I argued that more immigrants would not save us from depopulation, given the rate at which we are using up our resources. And in any case, more immigrants means requirements for still more resources.
He countered: “Consider that water, wind, gravity and sand are much used resources and they tend to be used more and more. We do have an indicator for the present, now: scarcity of resources. The only real scarcities today are chocolate and oranges. One is caused by under-investment due to vastly unequal division of income between countries, the other is mainly a consequence of a plant disease. Moreover, there are substitutes for both products: bean paste with artificial colouring and taste additions for chocolate and mandarins for oranges. Neither is of course connected with population developments. Conclusion: there is no indication that the world is anywhere near full.”
I had not claimed the world was full, but anyway. I replied: “Really, you are a comedian! You ought to do standup. Go round the world telling that to the hard-pressed people of various countries, and see how long it takes for you to be attacked by angry mobs.”
I accused him of being an ostrich and advised him to google the word “polycrisis” and check out the daily offerings on the “Climate and Economy” website.
“I was debating with a cornucopian who claimed that the West needs more immigrants to stave off the dire effects of depopulation on economic growth.”
Even within the bounds created by the assumptions of your cornucopian that makes no sense.
Most immigrants to the West come from countries with higher economic growth than the West. By migrating to the West they cannot create more growth in their destination than they take from their source. A doctor from Ghana who emigrates to London (there are more Ghanaian doctors in London than in Ghana) is not more productive than he was at home. In fact he is probably less so. Whereas in Ghana he was treating people with malaria, typhoid and hepatitis. in London he will be spending a lot of time merely dealing with the ‘worried well’.
A migrant to the West will of course raise his income, but he doesn’t need to be more productive, in order to do that, because it is often the case that a worker in a less productive job (or on welfare) has greater income than he would have at home in a more productive job. There are many skilled workers or academics from ‘Third World’ countries doing menial jobs in the West.
30% have mental issues due to contact with the spike-protein, infected or injected, for 6 months. The causing mechanism is detected and proven. We dont know, yet, what happens after multiple contact, perhaps Joe Biden is a victim.
Mental issues can be dementia or anxiety. But heavy anxiety or PTSD flashbacks may cause strange perceptions on reality, too.
People refused to think about the idea of peakoil before Covid. Only very little people were able to look for strategies. In Gagaland and Zombierepublic we have now to check first, if the person is to pity or a sparring partner.
SARS-COV-2 spike S1 subunit induces neuroinflammatory, microglial and behavioural sickness responses. Frank MG, Brain Behaviour and Immunity, 2022
https://shorter.me/O9XOn
Eddy was wrong. They are not culling us. They convert us into Zombies. Vaxxed and unvaxxed. What could be done? Unprocessed food, traditional cooking, no sugar, no seed-oils, to repair the brain butter or animal fat, keto or carnivore, eggs, fish, if you are vegan consider vegan keto, no sugar, nut oils, coconut oil, olive oil, try to reduce carbonates as they raise insulin. Avoiding insulin reduces inflammation. Classical music, walks, meditation help to heal the brain. Reduce stress.
The Binary poison may be a mechanism to induce the promised 20% lethality of the next pandemic. New Zealand has allowed forced injections recently. The next pandemic will not try to avoid the mistakes of the last.
Hi Jan. I enjoy your entries & thought you might want to know that I’m receiving some of them with a warning ” This message seems dangerous.” Not all, but some, including this entry. Perhaps the link. Anyway, good work on annoying the tech gods😉, & thanks for your insights!
“ZombieRepublik” Good one!
I think many people were already there before the COVID jabs viz Trump Derangement Syndrome etc.
COVID just caused them to upgrade their memberships to “Gold for Life” status.
50% will either die horribly, give birth to monsters, or become a monster themselves.
“Here’s what happens as rates normalize: all our money goes to pay interest. Once the credit card is maxed out, our borrow-and-spend consumption dries up: No more GDP “growth” funded by debt.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly24/unwinding7-24.html
What Charles Hugh Smith, who writes some good stuff, seems not to realise, is that interest rates cannot ‘normalize’ without killing the system.
A monetary system like ours continues as long as interest rates fall into that Goldilocks Corridor of being neither too high nor too low. With the accumulation of debt the width of that corridor becomes narrower and narrower, until the Central Bank simply has no way ahead, but is trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, to switch metaphors. If rates go too high the economy dies. If rates go too low the currency dies.
The events of the last few days show just how narrow that corridor is becoming.
Spoiler Alert – the currency will be sacrificed.
I agree:
” interest rates cannot ‘normalize’ without killing the system.”
It is the huge drop in interest rates between 1981 and 2020 that allowed the system to grow. Long term interest rates started going up as early as August 2020, in response to more borrowing demand by the US government (and higher inflation rates). Now, with higher inflation rates, it is difficulty to stay away from higher interest rates.
Yes but the inflation is only temporary; we are sliding into a recession/depression the media won’t dare talk about it because they want to keep the election biased to the democrats.
If inflation falls too far, then that means the real value of debt is increasing, meaning that the real economy must contract as a greater and greater proportion of current income goes to service debt.
History shows that this is never tolerated for long, and that the currency unit will be scrapped, or have a few zeroes added on to prices, , bringing an effective jubilee and starting all over from scratch.
This can happen in a relatively orderly way through devaluation or a currency reset, or in a relatively disorderly way through hyperinflation.
I don’t know how it can happen in an orderly way. When devaluation starts to happen how are they going stem the tide? No one wants to catch a falling knife. I went to see one of the FED members speak and he admitted that they were really nervous and scared that the system was broke for good. If you watch old videos from that time you can see the fear on their faces. They don’t know what they are doing! It is too complicated. Another aside is that when the economy was cratering the Obama administration brought out this Idiot named Austin Goolsbee to “explain things” I came away with a holy cow these guys are only in their positions because of elitism. Guess where Austin Goolsbee is now!
that being said I hope your right and I’m wrong.
As a consequence of degrowth, all promises for the futures cannot be paid. It means a currency reset has to some extend also reset all credits, assets and pension funds. As this is unfair to the landowners and houseowners, Klaus Schwabs talkings about: You won’t own anything… might have a yet unrecognized meaning.
The next risks to come:
1. Deteriorating economy in Europe and military build up to compensate it
2. BRICS creating an own currency and eventually closing their markets
3. End of Fracking
4. New pandemic with 20% lethality
5.War
Sooner or later, after the election, a huge correction is to come.
Yea that’s how I see it too. Except the wars will be fought internally at first….I don’t know about the end of Fracking but everything else lines up….
Rigs down , frac spreads down .The decline is ongoing .
https://peakoilbarrel.com/short-term-energy-outlook-july-2024/#comment-779199
https://peakoilbarrel.com/short-term-energy-outlook-july-2024/#comment-779200
Prices (combined with geology) are not high enough to justify as much drilling has been done in the recent past. Declining frac spreads indicate that customers cannot afford the high prices being charged in the market.
It looks like the only way this will be fixed is by falling output and perhaps spiking prices. Of course, spiking prices will send the economy into a tailspin. Otherwise, WW3 and grab for resources from others.
Still in denial mode .
https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/european-german-industrial-fatigue-endures-cannot-be-blamed-on-energy-anymore/
Causes of Germany’s current industrial problems (not directly Europe’s energy)
Volkswagen is 51% state owned. That might be an interesting info, which explains something!
So much for climate change and what about all those lovely EV’s the gov’t is pushing people to buy? Is there enough electric supply to meet the demand? That’s just Microsoft, what about Google, Apple, Nvidia, IBM etc jumping on the AI bandwagon.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/microsofts-electricity-use-has-doubled-between-2020-2023
“Microsoft’s Electricity Use Has Doubled Between 2020–2023”
Big Tech’s AI arms race has a significant energy cost. For example, a study found that training OpenAI’s GPT-4 used up to 62,000 megawatt-hours, equal to the energy needs of 1,000 U.S. households over 5-6 years.
A comment I made yesterday shows that backup electricity prices are already spiking in particular areas (Maryland, Virginia) because of the demands of new data centers.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/07/22/how-does-the-economy-really-work/comment-page-4/#comment-464682
so, very close to Washington. One wonders why.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/08/01/23/88063447-13700321-image-a-9_1722552803619.jpg
This “star”, a “rapper” named Ice Spice, thinks it’s cool to post a picture of herself like this. Apart from the cheeks, she has legs so short that they barely reach the ground! Today’s fashions, eh?
Short legs, good centre of gravity, very interesting possibilities in myriad areas of endeavour.
What is this creature.
Worse than “Idiocracy”.
Much worse.
better than having arms so short your knuckles barely reach the ground
“In the 24 years that have elapsed since the year 2000 we humans have dug, drilled and blasted more minerals/metals/fuels from the earth’s surface than we did in the ENTIRE 20th century. Way more.”?
https://x.com/EconomyClimate/status/1819309038401704111
A finite world is made to adjust to whatever changes it is given. The world is populated with many kinds of dissipative structures. The best adapted to the current situation will survive. Some of the others will not. New dissipative structures will be formed. This is simply how the system works.
Clearly, we cannot keep digging out more minerals/metals, fuels indefinitely. Something will change. That is the way the system operates.
(Luogocomune) Olympics: the long shadow of Soros
Nothing that is happening in Paris is accidental. There are no “gaffes” on the part of the organization, no “procedural distractions,” just as there were no “communication errors” in the opening ceremony. Everything was absolutely planned and calculated, down to the last comma, including the controversies. Indeed, especially the controversies.
The purpose was precisely to “break”, to provoke, to push the boundaries of common feeling far beyond the current limits, precisely in the name of that “open society” that for many years now has become the mantra of George Soros and the globalist elite headed by Klaus Schwab.
According to this philosophy, no ideology can stand as arbiter of truth, while individual rights are placed at the highest level in the scale of values, to the detriment of all others, and of tradition itself.
“Gender” theory, with all that it entails, is the first-born child of this philosophy, which while cloaked in a sense of universal justice, in claiming to defend individual rights, aims to undermine the very foundations of society.
Here then, in the opening ceremony, is the desecration of the Last Supper with the vulgarity, insisted upon and emphasized, of a ragtag band of trans-sexuals and transvestites with neither art nor part. But whom someone certainly selected with great care and spruced up carefully before sending them out into the world of television.
And here it is that, in the course of competitions, an “Algerian boxer” with strong masculine traits is with impunity allowed to fight an Italian boxer/clearly a woman), in the name of alleged “Olympic requirements,” which are far from transparent. But then, if one asks to see the scientific data that would guarantee the “female” status of the boxer in question, one comes up against the “right to privacy” of the athlete herself/himself. And thus collapses another pillar of our society, the one that wanted male and female sports strictly separated from each other.
Let us remember: it is in the philosophy of the “open society” to systematically demolish the pillars of our shared and commonly accepted culture. And these episodes in the Olympics are succeeding in full.
Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is just “procedural blunders,” “organizational distractions,” or “professional incompetence.” It’s all calculated to the thousandth, and the game is succeeding him to the hilt, thanks precisely to the stupidity of our homegrown journalists, who stop to discuss the athletes’ chromosomes, and make no effort to understand instead the monster stirring in the shadows.
Massimo Mazzucco
https://luogocomune.net/news-internazionali/olimpiadi-l%E2%80%99ombra-lunga-di-soros
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Sort of sad the way things work today. Somehow, the system is trying to force changes in the thinking of everyone. Perhaps the change in thinking will simply be, “We don’t really want to bother planning for and watching these Olympics in the future.” Stopping the Olympics would be a way of reducing oil consumption by getting rid of one non-essential service.
Have you ever been to a store in America! I could go in there with a bulldozer and get rid of 95% of everything. That’s completely waste. There is waste everywhere in all countries. Those are the things that have to be removed. How much energy does Kamala joe Biden, Trump use? I’m sure it’s enormous. Maybe this will be the reorganization of things to allow humans a little more time.
Look, look, over here, at the monster stirring in the shadows.
Don’t look over there at the plutocrats and the M.I.C., there’s nothing to see?
YES! The degradation is a planned part of the 5th gen war against the west.
A society that refuses to defend itself is doomed. Thankfully China and Russia have a working society. Sadly India still has its barbaric society intact.
Depopulation:
A close family member is soon to give birth and was admitted to hospital a bit early.
The maternity wing is an impressive, almost new building with state of the art facilities.
Just before going there I’d come across articles about the coming population collapse. The projected population curve looks eerily like the oil production forecast/Seneca curve.
I’d also been watching the well-below-replacement birthrates in almost all Western countries for a while. Nothing to do with the jabs really (not in a significant way so far at least), just societal trends.
Then I remembered the film “Children of Men”. The film is set in 2027 when two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse.
It dawned on me in the hospital that there is a very good reason why they’ve spent a ton of money on the maternity facilities. We’re soon going to reach a point where children are going to be rare and valuable.
Just like the economy is more subtle and complex than we think, societal trends are the same. Collapse may be for very different reasons than we imagine e.g. not enough people to keep our current society operating.
People will have more children when they feel they need to. No amount of “culture war”, feminism, or “natalism” can convince them in either direction. Midwives, not maternity wards, are a potential growth sector.
Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”
-Gore Vidal
That’s an incorrect statement, but a politician said it so who cares amirite.
I wonder how one models a demographic collapse. I find it difficult to get my head around. There are, of course, obvious implications (e.g. pensions, economic decline) but what about skills deficits, availability of services, societal cohesion? Some of the reproduction data coming out of the far east (e.g. South Korea) is staggering.
All systems will be at work: criminality, suicides, alcoholism, low birth rates, early divorces (and knock on effects, such as childern who grow up thinking no marriage), abortion, war, and just loss of will to live. later, death by exposure and malnutrition, more war.
Yes, Mr Kim does not need to invade South Korea. He merely needs to ensure that the Pill continues to be distributed south of the DMZ.
There is a positive feedback loop in this ageing population thing, which is not often noted.
Let us suppose that the productivity of a country’s economy is such that 40% of the population can be supported as non-productive, typically divided between children and students on the one hand and the old on the other hand. Let’s say that the beginning of the process half of the unproductive are young and half are old.
As the society ages, more and more of the unproductive sector will be at the older end, meaning that fewer children can be supported, leading to an increased ageing of the population, and so on and so forth.
Obviously, this loop must eventually be broken, and probably in a short, sharp manner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Korea
Numbers of births in South Korea now down over 75% on peak year, which was 1960.
The birth rate is tied to “social optimism”. That’s why post WW2 created the baby boom. This is well understood by countries that have gone to war a bunch. Like Israel. for example.
Yes. This issue needs more attention.
Some speculate that this will eventually turn around when sub-groups with high birth rates – Amish, Orthodox Jews, Gypsies etc. eventually form such a large proportion of the population that they become decisive influences on the stats.
Until the 1960s the actual number of children had a very limited connection to the innate propensity to have children. If this propensity is in any way genetic, then what we are experiencing now is very intense selection for the desire to have children, given the ubiquity of contraception. Since we know that religious people have more children, this is also selection for religiosity.
Perhaps eventually the socioeconomic fabric decays to such an extent that the reliable production and distribution of contraceptives can no longer be guaranteed.
And then we come to fossil fuels ……. 🙂
“Until the 1960s the actual number of children had a very limited connection to the innate propensity to have children. If this propensity is in any way genetic, then what we are experiencing now is very intense selection for the desire to have children, given the ubiquity of contraception. Since we know that religious people have more children, this is also selection for religiosity.”
The selection question is interesting, will politics become less liberal as a result? What parent wants their child to make a career on Only Fans?
eeeek this wasn’t supposed to happen!
The sudden strengthening of the yen appears to be blowing up the nip sharemarket. No one coulda seen this possibility, no?
One of the things I’ve noticed over the course of many boring decades of market watching is that when the world becomes increasing “volatile” the nips, who have vast offshore assets of all classes, bring their money home and cause the demand for purchasing yen to jump. If this continues to happen in the immediate future, it’s going to throw the carry trade into reverse because what had seemed like assured profits from the weakening yen will go into reverse and cause ugly losses for the funds and deleverage in offshore markets in which the proceeds of borrowings are being held.
Yep, it’s gonna be a scream
At the moment, Bloomberg is showing Tokyo (just opened) down 4% Fri morning
When I look at the WSJ website, the Nikkei was down 5.81% at the end of the trading day. Wow!
US stock exchanges were down yesterday, and they are down again today. The tech-heavy NASDAQ is particularly down. It is down another 2.17% so far this morning.
Oil prices are also down. WTI is shown at 74.26; Brent at 77.77.
The US dollar is down. Gold is up, at $2,508.
Pros: it works, it’s Samsung .
Moreover, the battery’s initial batches have already been delivered to EV manufacturers for testing.
Cons: hi cost but the cars probably won’t be more expensive than the expensive teslas. Many more.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/samsungs-ev-battery-600-mile-charge-in-9-mins
The key is a 9min charge not the double range.
Of course solving mass driving won’t solve the energy problem but it could lower oil /gasoline demand significantly.
Doomsday is going to be postponed or dragged out for a long while.
Probably wipes out the resale value of other EVs.
Sounds like the charging stations will be very expensive and put a huge strain on the grid..
US, Europe and Japan have no possibility of handling very many EVs if the batteries have to be recharged using grid electricity. Electricity supply is too low. There is not electricity for all of the hoped for charing stations, I expect.
Its not just the total amount of electricity.
In 9 min you input about a household’s week worth of electricity. It is the rate it uses electricity.
Yes. the cables might melt.
Not just that.
it is the spikiness of the demand.
Say a thousand cars want to charge up at the same time. For those 9 minutes demand for electricity spikes by ~720 megawatts.
You can’t do that to the grid.
Each charging center would need to have a huge number of these same batteries on site to smooth out the demand. probably around 8-10 mega watt hours worth of batteries to handle times of high demand.
Nothing that variable prices can not fix.
Probably the 9 minutes after people get home from work. That is when other people are cooking dinner and air conditioners are operating.
” Nothing that variable prices can not fix. ”
also called
” Rationing by other means” .
I don’t disagree Ravi. But EV owners will wake up in the middle of the night to go to the charging station.
Put this in here?
Chinese scientists develop materials to greatly extend life cycles of SS lithium batteries
The researcher team led by Cui Guanglei and assisted by Ju Jiangwei, Cui Longfei and Zhang Shu, designed homogeneous cathode materials that have revolutionized the paradigm of composite cathodes in solid-state lithium batteries. A solid-state lithium battery constructed with 100 percent active materials maintains 80 percent of its initial capacity after 5,000 cycles.
This innovation has addressed the challenges arising from the traditional solid-state lithium batteries, resulting in the production of solid-state lithium batteries with high energy density and long cycle life.
Typically, solid-state lithium batteries involve using composite electrodes containing active electrode materials, conductive electrons, and ion-conducting additives. But there are difficulties in achieving a perfect match between the different components in terms of chemical, electrochemical, and mechanical properties, leading to various interface issues that significantly degrade the battery’s energy density and lifespan.
globaltimes.cn/page/202408/1317185.shtml
I believe that 98% of a lead-acid battery can be recycled; heavy for sure, and only suited for stationary use, but environmentally light?
Simplicity….
versus …
Complexity
The same rabbitholes, bigger rabbits gonna get stuck.
‘ Compared to LIBs, however, there is a limited understanding of the recyclability of SSBs. Here we review the present strategies for indirect recycling of various SSBs, such as resynthesis, and direct recycling, such as reconditioning, focusing on promising SEs including oxides, sulfides/thiophosphates/halides and polymers. We consider the recycling routes adapted to different SEs, consisting of pretreatment as well as mechanical and metallurgical processes. Future recycling solutions will need to meet the demands for robust, energy-efficient methods with minimal environmental impact, while delivering high recycling rates and good secondary material quality.’
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01463-4
Against this background, the Braunschweig scientists believe that a reusable and multi-product recycling plant, which can recycle as many different cell chemistries and solid-state battery types as possible, is the most promising solution for the future. This includes other next-generation batteries such as lithium-sulphur and sodium solid-state batteries.’
https://magazin.tu-braunschweig.de/en/pi-post/recycling-of-solid-state-batteries/
More Hopium.
How much energy does this recycling cost?
Intro says: ” tailor-made recycling processes for the different types of solid-state batteries need to be developed.”
All batteries to be somehow separated into the many different kinds of solid-state batteries in use. Then there needs to be a technique developed for each of these kinds of batteries. I expect that these techniques will be both human labor intensive and energy labor intensive.
These batteries tend to catch fire easily. This is one of the issues that needs to be worked around in recycling. This needs to be taken into account, as well.
There are cute “charging stations in a shipping container” popping up around Sydney.
Their USP is that they’re quick and easy to install because . . . . there’s a diesel generator in the container.
Go green wokies. Free booster with every recharge.
Just what we need! Lots more diesel generators to power the EVs.
Seems like one of those clickbait sites to me. 600 mile charge needs to be seen to be believed.
I would love to see someone try and balance the grid with everyone fully charging their EV car for 9 minutes. The damage that would cause… who dreams up this nonsense?
This will be a new form of terrorism. “Everyone start charging at 9am. Tell your friends. By 9:01 … electric grid down … CHAOS!”
College towns against Trump take matters in their own hands!
I am not even sure if physics can handle that 9-min charging. Is it possible for that to happen?
This is the earlier comment by Stephen Bowers that ravi wanted posted:
The US exports circa 4.5-5mbpd of shale oil . Why does it not replenish its SPR ? Finally I got the answer from Stephen Bowers at ” the oily stuff ” . Long but worth it .
stephen.bowers
6d
Anne/ Mike,
I know exactly why they do not want to put LTO into the SPR. Crude is categorized in two main ways.
The PONA is used for the whole crude and primary products (naphtha, jet, diesel)
Paraffins (sometimes divided into normal and iso paraffins)
Olefines
Napthenes
Aromatics
The residue and especially the vacuum residue is categorized in terms of SARA
Saturates
Aromatics
Resins
Asphaltenes
The main refineries in the US are concentrated in the south and a are heavily into lower API crudes, which have a lot of atmospheric residue, that contains a large amount of vacuum gas oil (VGO) which feeds the hydrocracker and FCC units. The gasoline fraction from the FCC makes up the main component in the gasoline pool ( RON Octane approx 91-93) that means it does not need much octane booster. The second largest component is reformate produced on a reformer using heavy naphtha (you may see this listed as N&A naphtha on pricing reports).Reformate has a high RON octane between 94-100 depending on the severity of operation. Generally speaking the olefines and aromatics have high RON, naphthenes middle and paraffins low. There is one exception with paraffins ( and a few more) which is iso-octane (2,2,4 trimethylpentane) which has an octane of 100 and is the reference fuel used to assess octane numbers. Phew.
Since the US has a very high gasoline/ crude ratio about 0.45, then certain crude types are preferred, in fact are required to meet the demand of the varous fuel types. LTO would not produce the required gasoline output with the current refinery configurations, and it would severely reduce crude throughputs if run as is. Some can be blended into the crude charge but would have to be balanced with even heavier crude, and this is where the fun starts.
LTO is generally regarded as a paraffinic crude. A lot of heavy crudes have high resins and asphaltene content. Asphaltenes are soluble in aromatic solvents but insoluble in in paraffinnic solvents. Indeed vacuum residue is often processed in an SDA (solvent de-asphalter) to remove the asphaltenes, which contain heavy metals. The solvent can be propane, butane, pentane and up to heptane.
Many years ago I was working in a big refinery owned by the company with a double cross in its name. At that time they were processing a range of ME and North Sea crudes. They bought in a ship (shit) load of Souedie from Syria and mixed an asphaltenic crude with a paraffinnic crude( Forties). Fatal. The asphaltenes precipitated in the feed tank, it became a solvent desaphalter, and the asphaltenes dropped out in the crude pre heat chain ( heat exchangers) and desalter. A total disaster and there was about two weeks of running this shit which fouled everything in the crude unit and beyond. The desalter washed out huge amounts of sludge which then overloaded the waste water plant.
Another example is the recent change to ship bunker oils. The low sulphur bunker oil introduced another instability. Blending heavy residues with heavy low sulphur gas oils also caused issues. I digress
Were the SPR to be filled with LTO it would become the world’s biggest SDA. The LTO would precipitate a huge amount of asphaltenes which would drop out eventually and settle into the bottom of the SPR as a thick sludge pool.
I hope that this helps explain the situation because in the oil business, there is not black and white, just shades of grey.
I have attached a copy of Basrah( Iraqi) Heavy crude assay which is a 24 API heavy asphaltenic crude. This crude will be on the limits of stability. Look closely at the residue and the RON of the naphtha cuts. This shit is very similar to the Saudi crude. Just do not mix it.
Guess what you will not get this from the numerous internet experts who have never touched a drop of crude in their miserable lives, because you have to have skin in the game to work this out. Seeing is believing and nothing beats having your ass on the line.
My addition : Thinking that 10 API ( Tar oil) + 48 API ( shale oil) =29 API at the refinery gate is ludicrous .
The issue seems to be that there are several different variables that need to be kept in mind, when finding suitable types of oil putting together in a refinery. US light tight oil isn’t really compatible with Canadian oil sands oil for this use.
“The devil is in the details.”
Nevertheless, I am sure that quite a bit of the Oil Sands oil ends up in US refineries, especially the oil that has already been diluted with the diluent that the US pipes to Canada. The diluent is typically natural gas liquids, which is cheap and very light. Light tight oil tends to have a lot of natural gas liquids in it, but LTO (as it is) is not what is mixed with oil from the oil sands. The diluent used is something related to LTO, but different.
This is a map of where the Canadian oil went, back in 2021.
https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/usa-refineries#imports-by-state
https://www.fool.ca/2013/11/28/oil-sands-105-what-is-diluent-and-why-is-it-important/
Illinois is clearly the largest importer of oil sands oil. The US has many “cracking facilities” that can be used to cut long molecules into shorter ones. The diluted oil is sent to these refineries. The shorter ones are often of the type diesel uses.
https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/usa-refineries
The idea of mixing two kinds of oil together to get the right mix isn’t necessarily what is done. It can be done. But cracking diluted oil sands oil is another alternative. Cost is no doubt a consideration.
Thanks Gail .
In parts of the US, we already are running into electricity shortages, in part because of new data centers. There are auctions to determine how high a price is needed to provide needed back up power to the electric grid because there isn’t enough total stable generation. The auction prices for this power is very high in PMJ grid, covering 9 states, running from Illinois to New Jersey.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-30/power-plant-payouts-on-biggest-us-grid-to-rise-to-record-in-june?sref=eWpk04kZ
Surely the answer is to install an AI supercomputer to calculate which parts of the grid to turn off first?
As long as AI has power, who cares about consumers?
Nb. The Terminator has arrived, except he’s a drone. Check out Ukraine footage.
Interesting point! Some authors believe, there is a massive digital control coming as a replacement for national states. These might bear the risk of imploding by blackouts.
Blackouts are not far away in the US, Europe, and Japan. The intermittent electricity becomes harder to control and raises the chances of outages. There is close to no extra capacity to add EVs and AI.
In the US, most transmission lines are above ground. These lines are easily knocked down by falling tree branches. If diesel fuel for the trucks that go around to fix these outages becomes in short supply, an area could be without electricity indefinitely.
Wealth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NDxmIkBcpo
At 7:49 or so, mention is made that China has 8x the number of engineers compared to the US. It would be interesting to see the demographics of the US and how many will be lost due to retirement.
We are in a resource war, it is hot in parts of the world. For peace we need energy, it needs to be non polluting, it cannot increase the exogenous energy of our planet, and it needs to be low cost. We will need raw materials and the talent to use them effectively.
Hold the applause, a cubic mile of Pt. Starship 5 launches soon, so far it seems like the only/main hope we have.
Dennis L.
Cubic mile of Pt won’t happen any time soon. Simon Michaux has a recent (long!) podcast. Towards the end, he makes a proposal for a somewhat closed-loops economic and energy system with Thorium nuclear energy and iron oxidation as the energy carrier process.
https://youtu.be/FDbPTOImipo?t=9733
Not familiar with thorium, one can hope, something to bridge us through.
It may be that the shortage of resources is closer than we think, the current wars suggest this may be the case.
Dennis L.
Humanity’s future is post-industrial.
The more engineers we have, the more technology we use, the greater the damage to the environment, the poorer are the prospects for our descendants.
What people call ‘hope’ is the refusal to accept the ephemeral nature of the carbon pulse.
What does post industrial mean? A world made by hand, feed by hand?
You’ve got it.
The bigger muscles of men are highly valued.
It means living in a way where all your needs are met with resources within a 10 mile radius of where you live.
That means no civilization for many places. There just aren’t enough local resources to support human civilization. There will be fewer globally which will make attempts at civilization in the future difficult.
Isn’t Michaux involved with a thorium reactor “project” sponsored by the EU? That might explain his particular brand of hopium. As usual, indirect austerity via promises of future tech.
He’s not a nuclear scientist so I doubt he has any significant involvement or income stream from it.
Non nuclear scientists can both be involved in and benefit from nuclear-related projects/thinktanks. You think every person involved in the green gravy train of orgs, grants etc is a climate scientist?
Wars are wasting our energy.
The DoD are not running their tanks on solar panels.
The world would have plenty of energy I am sure if most of it weren’t wasted on “defense.”
The same is true of money.
And, btw, EVs wear down rubber tires far faster than ICE vehicles and pollute the atmosphere and water with the “dust.”
>> The world would have plenty of energy I am sure if most of it weren’t wasted on “defense.”
This is a joke, right? If you take out one player, it doesn’t change the overarching nature of the system and its physical requirements.
If the West would have a footprint as an Indian farmer, there would also be much consume less. But would that mean, extraction could go on?
Population decline will in my understanding lead to financial crash as growth expectations as a basis of credit lines are extrapplated from past growths.
The same should apply to living standards. If it were possible to reduce ours to 2%, demand would decline and crash economy.
The only way would be to start a parallel world of organic food and respective products comparable to Amish tradition and exclude that economically from the industrial economy. Like to give workless people some land, bound to conditions. When business as usual declines there would be a model how to do it.
A way of capping what Artificial Intelligence can do:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-ai-act-compliance-regulations-2024
EU AI Act comes into effect — Here’s what to expect
Sounds like a way to drive up costs of AI and limit benefits.
I assume the DOD, FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, are exempt from these limits.
Ed,
One might suspect private industry is ahead of the three letter list.
Assume someone makes 3k humanoid robots, assume it is not governmental but private. How does one get volunteers to fight that group?
It looks to me that technology is trumping policy. An extreme example would be the American Indians and the colonists.
Dennis L.
We in New York say to the AIs of the world
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Come on Gail, it’s clearly the opposite – weeding out wasteful discretionary uses of AI (making politicians say silly stuff and generic cartoon pictures) while keeping the very limited benefits. All under the cover of “if we don’t regulate it this scary powerful technology will destroy us”.
” They’ve legitimised men beating the sh*t out of women.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/unjust-female-boxer-quits-olympic-match-melts-down-tears-after-biological-male-brutalizes
One might wonder what is going through a woman’s head as her face is being smashed never to be beautiful, attractive again. Men have been known to get dueling scars to prove they could use swords/sabers. Different ethos?
We, most of earth’s inhabitants, have or are going through defining up as down. Wanting something does not make it so.
Biology is neither just nor unjust, it is.
Dennis L.
so much drama for such a small thing. she got punched a couple of times, that is all. Had she stayed home, nothing would have happened. The tranny is going to beat other women as it works its way to a gold medal.
as he works his way to a gold metal
there fixed it
Maybe “it” is more accurate?
depends does it still have a [p]enis and [t]esticles?
right. whenever surgical scalpels are involved pronouns become iffy.
It was clearly a demonstrative act made by Angela Carini.
Angela can surely receive heavier punches, I have seen her in other matches, she is very strong.
You need to know that the Italian sport anchorman on Rai2 today, during the match, said that Angela and Imane trained in a same club in Italy for a certain period.
(Imane doesn’t train in Algeria for clear reasons).
And I think that Angela must surely have seen something strange in the dressing room…
By the way, I have also read that Imane is sponsored by Unicef, so there must be much that we don’t know behind this unclear story of intersex-transex female/male boxer
Bet she didn’t cry after her chain store Jab.
I don’t really understand the purpose of female sports. Masculine traits in women aren’t really valued. Otherwise, more women would be fans of WBNA and the like.
Some say it’s a bizarre attempt at social engineering. But it isn’t working . Most women do not want to behave like men. They just want managerial positions that high status men tend to have. (“careers”, “being girlbosses”) that involve sitting in an office and attending lots of meetings. They want to compete for that sort of thing, not to show they are the toughest person on the block.
I watched a super heavyweight fighter from Germany, black as night. He was easy 300lb/135kg easy.
Big black German superheavy weight = yikes!
If you don’t understand the purpose of female sports, you don’t understand the meaning of sport.
At a commercial level all spectacular sports are objectively wastes of time and resources better spent reducing the “body positive” epidemic. The cheap indoor ones are fine though.
Most men want to sit in offices as well. How many hours of physical labour have you performed this week btw? I mean compared to the vast majority of women on this planet?
You missed my point with your autistic focus on the office. Athleticism is not a trait that is selected for in women and it’s not something people judge women by. You don’t see women bulking up so they are considered “real women”. There is no social or evolutionary purpose of a woman being big and strong. No one looks at a female athlete or frontline soldier and say “she would be a good leader”. A college degree is the only filter we use for female leaders. of other woman.
“. How many hours of physical labour have you performed this week btw? I mean compared to the vast majority of women on this planet” Low status women avoid physical labor jobs. Men are expected to do dangerous or physical jobs if that is all that is available but women are expected to get office jobs. Last time I checked, it is women who are asking for society to make accommodations for their obesity. That attitude doesn’t come from doing lots of physical labor.
Your worldview allows the possibility of mining asteroids but what is absolutely out of the question is…. trans. Around 1% of US population btw, while total LGBT population is 5% I think. A non-issue in every relevant sense, propped up by capital/the state as a ridiculous substitute for its general slide towards administrative impotence as a consequence of terminal contradictions far beyond its control.
But I do understand why someone who believes their blissed-out herrenvolk utopia is curtailed by human nature/stupidity would glom on to trans acceptance as one of the key factors underpinning the latter.
Finally, “biology is not just or unjust”. Who says otherwise and why is that relevant? The point of martial sports is precisely to beat the crap out of someone. Who cares about their gender? Yes, the lifting of restrictions re biological men who transition post-puberty is a heavily politicized media spectacle, but that doesn’t support gender essentialism. Just because someone else is wrong doesn’t make you right.
“Return to Office” requirements are a thinly veiled way to get employees to quit:
https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/guides/return-to-office#executives-and-hr-admit-rto-is-meant-to-make-people-quit
“Quits” likely don’t get severance pay or state unemployment insurance, saving companies money.
So were the Coughing nineteen mandates.
Soon after there were “hiring shortages”, higher inflation which many policymakers had wanted for YEARS, and the solution: MORE IMMIGRATION to replace domestic workers with cheaper workers from abroad .
Wage deflation is probably the solution to inflation.
If AI was truly going to replace large swaths of the labor force, the last thing they’d be doing is increasing immigration. Industrial civilization is probably becoming more inefficient, so in actuality, it will need more humans to produce the same work now , in the future. The future is the inverse of automation.
Remember, some times, an AI tool is just a person in India or some other Us/nato/***** vassal state pretending to be a robot. Pseudo AI is alive and well.
What looked like a good idea didn’t really work:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-york-decouples-student-standardized-test-scores-teacher-evaluations
It is very clear that inner city schools and very mixed race classes elsewhere, will have problems getting test scores up very much. Teachers can tell in advance that their evaluations will come out badly. Why teach in such a scenario?
“I dinnin’ lern nuffin’.”
If we had more people like that, we wouldn’t be facing ecological overshoot.
We have too many smart people for our own good.
Prefect use of AI it does not get paid.
We have known about “learning differences” since schools were integrated in America in the 1970s.
People who did not come from highly civilized societies did poorly then and they do now. A hunter-gatherer’s son raised in San Francisco among civilized people is not going to Stanford to become a mechanical engineer.
I think it was ZeroHedge that had an article about >90% of US inner city, high school graduates being illiterate. Not all inner cities BTW, just the deprived ones.
A high proportion of them were from a certain . . . ahem . . . ethnic grouping.
The way to put an end to women’s sports:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/unjust-female-boxer-quits-olympic-match-melts-down-tears-after-biological-male-brutalizes
Just another reason not to watch the Olympics.
Ultimately will lead to the demise of the Olympics. Unfair contests don’t really work.
Plus who wants to watch women beating each other silly?
I am not a big sports fan. Sailing and skiing yes, men beating each other silly, no women beating each other silly no.
I’d like to see the brave and stunning trans people from the Opening Ceremony in a jelly wrestling match.
All genders welcome.