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Where could the economy be headed now?
Today, there is great wage and wealth disparity, just as there was in the late 1920s. Recent energy consumption growth has been low, just as it was in the 1920s. A significant difference today is that the debt level of the US government is already at an extraordinarily high level. Adding more debt now is fraught with peril.
Where could the economy go from here? In this post, I look at some historical relationships to understand better where the economy has been and where it could be headed. While debt levels and interest rates are important to the economy, a growing supply of suitable inexpensive energy products is just as important.
At the end, I speculate a little regarding where the US, Canada, and Europe could be headed. Division of current economies into parts could be ahead. While the problems of the late 1920s eventually led to World War II, it may be possible for the parts that are better supplied with energy resources to avoid getting into another major war, at least for a while.
[1] Government regulators have been using interest rates and debt availability for a very long time to try to regulate how the economy operates.
I have chosen to analyze US data because the US is the world’s largest economy. The US is also the holder of the world’s “reserve currency,” allowing demand for the US dollar (really US debt) to stay high because of its demand for use in international trade.
Comparing Figure 1 and Figure 2, it is clear that there is a close relationship between the charts. In particular, the highest interest rate in 1981 on Figure 2 corresponds to the lowest ratio of US government debt to GDP on Figure 1.
Up until 1981, the changes in interest rates were either imposed by market forces (“You can’t borrow that much without paying a higher rate”) or else as part of an attempt by the US Federal Reserve to slow an economy that was growing too fast for the available labor supply. After 1981, the same market dynamics no doubt took place, but the overall attempt at intervention by the US Federal Reserve seems to have been in the direction of speeding up an economy that wasn’t growing as fast as desired.
In Figure 2, the 3-month interest rates correspond fairly closely to government target interest rates. The 10-year interest rates tend to move on their own, perhaps somewhat influenced by Quantitative Easing (QE), in which the US government buys back some of its own debt to try to hold down longer-term interest rates. These longer-term interest rates influence US long-term mortgage interest rates.
Recent monthly data show that 10-year interest rates started rising very quickly after reaching a minimum following the Covid response in early 2020. The lowest 10-year average rates took place in July 2020, and rates started moving up in August 2020.
This suggests to me that market forces play a significant role in 10-year interest rates. As soon as people started borrowing money to remodel or to move to a new suburban location, 10-year interest rates, and likely the related mortgage rates, started to drift upward again. If this observation is correct, the Federal Reserve has some control over interest rates, but it cannot adjust the 10-year interest rates underlying mortgages and other long-term debt by as much as it might like.
The apparent inability of the Federal Reserve to adjust longer-term interest rates to as low a level as it would like is concerning because the US government debt level is very high now (Figure 1). Being forced to pay 4% (or more) on long-term debt that rolls over could create a huge cash flow issue for the US government. More debt could be required simply to pay interest on existing debt!
[2] An analysis of actual growth in US GDP over time shows how successful the changing strategies in Figures 1 and 2 have been.
In the 1930s, the US and much of the rest of the world were in the Great Depression. Interest rates were close to 0% (not shown on Figure 2, but available from the same data). Various versions of the New Deal under President Roosevelt were started in 1933 to 1945. Social Security was added in 1935. Figure 4 shows that these programs temporarily increased GDP, but they did not entirely solve the problem that had been caused by defaulting debt and failing banks.
Entering World War II was a huge success for increasing US GDP (Figure 4). Many more women were added to the workforce, making munitions and taking over jobs that men had held before they were drafted into the army.
After the war was over, the total number of jobs available dropped greatly. Somehow, private sector growth needed to be ramped, using debt of some kind, to provide jobs for the returning soldiers and others left without work. An abundant supply of fossil fuels was available, if debt-based demand could be put into place to pull the economy along. Programs were put into place to get factories running again making goods for the civilian economy. Additional jobs and energy demand were created by upgrading the electrical grid, increasing pipeline infrastructure, and (in 1956) starting work on an interstate highway system.
During the period between 1950 to 2023, the average growth rate of the US economy gradually stepped downward, despite all of the debt-based stimulus that was being added after 1981, as shown in Figure 5.
[3] While growing debt is important for pulling an economy forward, a growing supply of energy is essential to actually produce physical goods and services.
Economic growth involves producing physical goods and services. The laws of physics tell us that energy supplies of the right types, in the right quantities, are necessary to make the goods and services that the physical economy depends upon.
The rate of growth of world energy supply has been stepping down over the years, as the easiest (and cheapest) to extract fossil fuels tend to get extracted first. The average rate of increase of all energy supply (not just fossil fuels) is shown in Figure 6:
Comparing Figures 5 and 6, we can see that average annual US GDP growth approximately matched growth in world energy supplies in the first two periods: 1950-1970 and 1971-1980.
In the period 1981-2007, average US GDP growth (of 3.2%) soared above world energy consumption growth (of 2.1%). I would attribute this primarily to outsourcing a significant share of the US’s industrial production as the economy shifted to becoming more of a service economy. There were multiple advantages to moving to a service economy. US oil supply had become restricted, and a service economy would use less oil. Also, the costs of imported goods would be much lower than those made in the US for several reasons, including more efficient newly built factories, lower-wage workers, and the use of inexpensive coal as a fuel instead of oil.
The encouragement of increased use of “leverage” under Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK no doubt added to the effect of using more debt shown in Figure 1. The US government started borrowing more money, rather than increasing taxes. Businesses became larger and more complex. International trade started playing a larger role.
Recent low growth in energy supplies has created an economic problem that added debt has only partially been able to hide. (In the latest period (2008-2023), both US average GDP growth (at 1.8%) and world energy consumption growth (at 1.5%) were very low.) Figure 1 shows that the US added huge amounts of debt, both after the 2008 financial crisis, and at the time of the Covid response in 2020. If it weren’t for these huge debt infusions, US GDP growth would no doubt have been much lower. GDP counts the quantity of goods and services produced, not whether added debt has been used to manufacture these goods, or whether customers have used debt to purchase these goods.
[4] In some ways, the world economy today is like the economy of the 1920s.
The 1920s were characterized by both the rising use of debt (especially consumer credit), and wide wage and wealth disparities. This was a time of innovation. Some farmers had modern new equipment that greatly enhanced efficiency, while most farmers could not afford this equipment.
Figure 7 shows a pattern of wage disparity that operates in precisely the opposite direction from the interest rate pattern shown in Figure 2. The lower the interest rates, the more the concentration of wealth among a very small portion of the population. The higher the interest rates, the more evenly wage and wealth is divided.
A comparison of Figure 7 with Figure 6 and Figure 5 shows that (at least for the years since 1950), faster energy consumption growth seems to lead to faster economic growth. With faster economic growth, the economy can support higher interest rates and higher wages for lower-paid workers. There is less push for “complexity” to try to replace workers with machines.
When energy consumption growth is low, the economy tends to grow more slowly. The interest rates that corporations and individuals can afford to pay are relatively low. With low interest rates, asset prices of all kinds soar because monthly payments to buy these assets fall. The prices of stocks, bonds, homes, and farms tend to soar. The already rich become richer and richer, as the poor are increasingly squeezed out of the economy.
Physicist Francois Roddier has said that physics dictates the outcome of widely diverging incomes when energy supply is low. It takes much less energy to supply an economy of a few rich people and many poor people than it takes to support an economy with relatively equal incomes. The vast majority of the supposed wealth of the rich exists as promises that can only be fulfilled in the future if there is enough energy of the right kinds to fulfill these promises. Their promised future wealth does not affect today’s energy use. While the energy use of rich people is somewhat higher than that of poor people, much of the difference disappears when a person considers the fact that much of their wealth is essentially “paper wealth” that may or may not actually be present as the future actually unfolds.
Both the 1920s and the latest period (2008-2023) are very low energy-growth periods. The fact that (2008-2023) is a low energy growth period (at 1.5% per year) can be seen on Figure 6. Energy supply was growing even slightly more slowly in the 1920s (based on data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions). Population was growing by 1.1% per year in both the 1920s and in the latest period (2008-2023.) Net energy consumption per capita growth was slightly negative (-0.1%) in the 1920s and only a very small positive percentage (0.4%) in the 2008-2023 period. Per capita consumption had been growing much more quickly between 1950 and 1980.
[5] The economy becomes very fragile when the growth of energy supply is low, compared to the growth of the world’s population.
Hidden beneath the surface is the problem that there is not enough energy to go around. This problem doesn’t manifest itself in high prices; it manifests itself in unusually large wage disparities. Very rich individuals (such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk) gain excessive influence. Special interests and their drive for profits also become important. At times, this drive for profits can come ahead of the well-being of citizens.
Citizens become more quarrelsome. Differences between and within political parties become greater. Political candidates no longer treat other candidates with the respect we would have expected in the past. The problem is, in some sense, the problem of a game of musical chairs.
Initially, the game has as many players as chairs. The players walk around the outside of the group of chairs as the music plays. In each round, one chair is removed and the players must scramble for the remaining chairs. The person who does not get a chair is eliminated from the game.
[6] It seems to me that major parts of the world economy are transitioning from a growth mode to a mode of shrinkage.
Figure 9 gives a representation of how the world’s growing economy can be visualized, and how it may change in the future.
The fact that growth in the consumption of fossil fuel energy supplies has been retreating to lower levels should be of concern (Figure 6). At some point, the world economy will be in a situation in which the amount of fossil fuels we can extract is falling. While we have some add-ons to the fossil fuel system (including hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar), they are all manufactured using the fossil fuel system and repaired using the fossil fuel system. These add-ons would stop producing not long after the fossil fuel system stops producing. They need fossil fuels to make replacement parts, among other problems.
The amount of growth in energy supply determines the growth in physical goods and services that can be produced. In periods of rapid growth, borrowing from the future, even at a high interest rate, makes sense. In periods of low growth, only loans with a very low interest rate are feasible. When the economy is shrinking, very few investments can repay loans requiring interest.
Needless to say, repaying debt with interest becomes much more difficult in a shrinking economy. In the US, our underlying problem is that since 1981, the US’s financial policy has been “throw every tool in the tool box” at stimulating the economy. We are now running out of tools to stimulate the economy to grow faster. Adding more debt isn’t likely to work very well, or for very long.
At this point, the many government-funded investments aimed at providing green energy and offering transportation by electricity are not paying back well. Citizens are repeatedly being told that there is a need to move away from fossil fuels to prevent climate change. But world CO2 emissions continue to rise. They simply moved to a different part of the world.
[7] What does history since 1920 say may be ahead?
It is hard to see that things will turn out well, but we do know that historical civilizations have collapsed over a period of many years. We can hope that if we are facing the collapse of at least part of the world’s economy, this collapse will also be slow. Some intermediate steps along the line likely include the following:
(a) Stock market collapses. After excessive speculation in the stock market in the late 1920s, the stock market collapsed on October 29, 1929, starting the Great Depression. Another major crash occurred in 2008, during the Great Recession. Both of these speculative bubbles seem to have been fueled by low short-term interest rates.
(b) Drops in the prices of homes, farms, and other assets. The Great Depression is noted for major drops in the prices of farms. The Great Recession is known for major drops in the prices of homes. We are now facing a situation with far too much Commercial Real Estate. Its price logically should fall. Farmers are also having difficulty because wholesale food prices are too low relative to the various costs involved, including interest payments relating to equipment purchases and mortgages. The problem is especially acute if farm property has been purchased at currently inflated prices. The prices of farms logically should fall, also.
(c) Debt defaults, related to asset price drops. Banks, insurance companies, pension plans and many individuals owning bonds will be badly affected if defaults on loans or bonds start increasing. (In fact, even if the market interest rates simply rise, the carrying value on financial statements is likely to fall.) If commercial real estate or a farm is sold and the sales price is less than the outstanding debt, the bank issuing the loan will be left with a loss. This debt is often resold, with credit rating agencies falling short in indicating how risky the debt really is.
(d) Failing banks, failing insurance companies, and failing pension plans. Even bankrupt governments defaulting on their loans.
With failing banks, there is less money in circulation. The tendency is for commodity prices to fall very low, putting farmers in worse financial shape than before. They cut back on production. Food production and transport use considerable amounts of oil. Reduced food production leads to less need for oil consumption and thus, falling oil prices. With low oil prices, production tends to fall.
(e) If a government survives, it may try to issue much more debt-based money to try to raise prices. This might work if the country is able to produce all goods locally. But the huge amount of new money (and debt) will not be honored by other countries. The result is likely to be hyperinflation, and still no goods to buy.
(f) Persecution of the wealthier people blamed for society’s problems. If people are poor, and there aren’t enough goods to go around, there is a tendency to find someone to blame for the problem. In Europe, prior to World War II, the Nazis persecuted the Jews. The Jews were often rich and worked in finance or the jewelry business.
(g) War. War gives the possibility of obtaining resources elsewhere. Figure 4 shows that going to war can greatly ramp up GDP. It is a way of putting laid-off workers back to work. It is an age-old solution to not-enough-resources-to-go-around.
[8] Can any political approach put off the bad impacts suggested in Section [7] above?
A country that can provide complete supply chains based on its own resources, completely within its own borders can be somewhat insulated from these problems, as long as its resources are adequate for its population. I don’t think that any of the Advanced Countries (members of the OECD, which is similar to the US and its allies) can do that today. The US is closer to this ideal than Europe, but it is still a long way away. The central and southern part of the US, which is where Donald Trump’s support is strong, is closer to this ideal than elsewhere.
Trump is advocating adding tariffs on imported goods. Such tariffs would work in the direction of independence from China, India, and other industrialized nations. Trump also seems to advocate staying out of wars, wherever possible. If an area is doing well in terms of energy supply (including food supply), this would be a good strategy.
Kamala Harris is advocating capping today’s food prices. This would please city-dwellers, but it would encourage farmers to quit farming. Capping today’s food prices would also discourage the importation of food from elsewhere, leaving many empty shelves in grocery stores. Indirectly, it would also have an adverse impact on the world’s oil production and the quantity of food grown elsewhere.
Giving more money to poor people would almost certainly lead to more government debt. If countries in Europe were to do this, it would almost certainly devalue their currencies. They would find it harder to import goods from anywhere else in the world.
In fact, the US would likely also encounter difficulty in importing as many goods from elsewhere, if it chooses to give more money to poor people (and fund this generosity through more debt). China and Russia would have even more motivation to abandon the US dollar for trading purposes than they do today. The US, Europe, and other Advanced Economies would increasingly find imported goods unavailable.
Wind, solar, and electric vehicles are not fixing the economy now. Adding more debt to subsidize these efforts would likely have the same bad effects as adding more debt to subsidize poor people.
[9] A guess as to what could be ahead for the US, Canada, and Europe.
Donald Trump is suggesting tariffs and other policies that might be helpful for the parts of the US, Canada, and Mexico that think they might have enough resources to more or less get along on their own in the near future. This includes much of the central and southern part of the US. Central Canada would fit into this pattern, as well. Mexico is connected by pipeline to this area, too. At least in the US, Trump is favored in these areas.
In the highly populated areas along both US coasts, the debt-based policies of Kamala Harris will seem more reasonable because these sections have limited resources to rely on, but lots of population. The only solution they can imagine is more debt. I expect that Europe and the coasts of Canada will follow Kamala Harris’s strategies, but with their own leaders.
I can imagine a scenario in which after the US election, the US will break apart into two sections: a Trump section in the center of the US, and a Harris portion consisting mostly of the two coasts, and perhaps a few northern states. The Trump section will band together with Central Canada and Mexico and try to keep operating for some years longer. The Harris portion will join together with the coasts of Canada and most of Europe to get into war with Russia and China. The Harris portion will issue lots more debt. The Harris group will forget that their areas cannot really make many armaments without a huge amount of international trade. As a result, the Harris group will have great difficulty in being successful at war.
2 foods could be fueling cancer epidemic in young people: docs
By Reda Wigle
Published Aug. 15, 2024, 2:34 p.m. ET
Oncologists have been sounding the alarm about a shocking uptick in cancer diagnoses among young adults, with some pointing the finger at junk food and processed meat.
“We advise that people eat less overly processed, high in saturated fat, sugar and salt food,” Matthew Lambert, a nutritionist and the health information and promotion manager at the World Cancer Research Fund, told the Daily Mail this week.
Speaking to the American Society of Clinical Oncology last year, Professor Charles Swanton said research has shown that sometimes early-onset bowel cancer may be “initiated” by gut bacteria that’s more prevalent in those whose diets are low in fiber and high in sugar.
A junk food diet was also linked to a 24% higher risk of cancer of the esophagus, the tube that connects your throat to your stomach, which is the sixth most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide, according to the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.
Startling new research from the American Cancer Society suggests that Gen X and millennial Americans are at higher risk of developing 17 cancers compared to older generations.
Gen X, millennials at higher risk for 17 cancers: ‘critical’ report
According to 2015 research, people who eat red and processed meat every day are 40% more likely to get bowel cancer compared to those who eat it once a week or less.
“Consumption of foods containing nitrate or nitrite preservatives, smoked or charred foods, and red meat have clear associations with cancer risk,” Dr. Nicholas DeVito, an assistant professor of medical oncology at Duke University Medical Center, wrote in a “letter to the editor” submission to STAT News published Wednesday.
DeVito shared that most of his new patients have been under 45.
He blames poor dietary choices, like “fried foods, red meat and sugary drinks” for this troubling trend.
This is OLD…new about all this 4 decades ago when my Sister died from colon cancer
Sge was young and the doctors thought it couldn’t be , but it was…
Somehow, the schools don’t explain what is healthful. Instead, they seem to explain what “Big Food” would like to market.
Perhaps, a lot of the influence comes from advertising and hidden messages everywhere. You need lots of (meat-based) protein. A person gets the impression that the purpose of life is to feel good. Eating sweet, easy-to-chew food will make you feel good.
“Somehow, the schools don’t explain what is healthful. Instead, they seem to explain what “Big Food” would like to market”
Somehow its about killing more pigs to feed more monkeys to get more money.
It really is that simple
“It really is that simple”
Ah, if only it was. I have not been able to buy whole or half hams in California for most of the last year.
Michael Obama had this one correct, she wanted to improve school food and move away from junk. That idea quietly died.
Dennis L.
in the ’80s poor health was blamed on saturated fat, today it’s carbs; still the warnings against red meat persist. if it’s actually unhealthy, how much of it is due to cattle’s diet of mostly corn?
and growth hormones applies to chicken also
So sorry to hear about your sister!
The injections lately contain multiple methods to trigger cancer.
I am suspicious the health mafia ìs spreading desinformation to prepare for a global wave.
Don’t get me wrong: No processed food is a good recommendation! Cook at home with organic ingredients. Less glyphosate and even the aminoacids are said to have a different structure.
Smokescreen….
‘A major issue with the mRNA technology was that foreign mRNA is rapidly broken down by the body and therefore degrades before the desired proteins can be synthesized. To solve this problem, the manufacturers randomly added pseudouridine to the mRNA product, allowing it to resist degradation (and persist for at least 60 days).
Random pseudouridation was potentially problematic because:
•Persistent mRNA can produce an excessive dose of the spike protein product.
•Dysregulation of pseudouridation is associated with a variety of cancers.
•Pseudouridation is known to suppress innate immunity (which is necessary for a variety of things including eliminating cancers within the body).’
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/cancer-rates-are-increasing-and-may?utm_source=publication-search
We need something new, even if it is recently old.
Longtermism
About a year ago, SB had a post about it; Elon is a longermist so it has to be good, n’est pas?
It is really, really big at Oxford.
“It is really, really big at Oxford. ”
I think you are out of date. As far as I know, Oxford got rid of all the people doing long term thinking about 6 months ago. I know some of them.
Really? Well that is interesting.
Take your word for it; in any case I won’t be around then.
As for Oxford, perhaps small class size was a problem.
Dennis L.
I think that the issue is that unless God saves humans from extinction, humans will eventually go extinct, like pretty much every other current species. Ecosystems are constantly going through cycles of collapse and renewal.
Even if there is a substantial dip in world population in the near term because of resource shortages, it is quite possible that with a little human mutation, somewhat improved humans may be able to figure out some sort of approach to work around our current energy and pollution limits.
Eric Chaisson shows the Universe always moving toward more complexity.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/13-chaisson-trend-is-toward-more-complex-energy-intense-form.png
So far, we seem to be seeing dead ends. But it may be that with some global warming, more radiation, and other changes, the system may renew itself and grow to an even higher level than today.
Musk wants to leave lots of his genes in the gene pool. Rich people have always felt the urge to parent several children and support them so that they can grow to adulthood. Remember Solomon and his many wives.
“Musk wants to leave lots of his genes in the gene pool.
That’s rare among the rich.
“Rich people have always felt the urge to parent several children and support them so that they can grow to adulthood.
Up to 1800 the rich were able to feed their children through the famines Gregory Clark and his students found that the wealthy had twice the surviving children of the poor up to 1800. Worth reading his politically incorrect paper “Genetically Capitalist?”
i’m not so fussy
the poor pool is more worthy i found
Yet the poor make up the majority of the population growth. There is no way societies with no economic growth could support a growing number of wealthy people without the overall population also growing.
In times of famine, the population of the wealthy probably remained stable while everyone else starved.
also regarding your..foolish “genetically capitalist” comment.
The surviving children of the rich often had no effect on the genetic fitness of the overall population that supported them.
also regarding your..foolish “genetically capitalist” comment.”
It’s not my wording, it’s the title of Professor Gregory Clark’s paper.
“The surviving children of the rich often had no effect on the genetic fitness of the overall population that supported them.”
You might want to read the paper, especially the part about downward social mobility.
The UK population is descended from a rather small part of the population that existed in 1200. The selection was as intense and for as many generations as the tame Russian foxes. Clark makes a good case that this selection predisposed the UK population for the Industrial Revolution.
The current white population of the UK did not descend from British nobility. The UK was not any more predisposed to use fossil fuels than any other group of Europeans, they just did it FIRST.
When other white countries industrialized, the advantages the UK enjoyed shrank immensely.
>The current white population of the UK did not descend from British nobility.
That’s correct and per the article. The nobility did not do well genetically because they went off and got killed in wars. It was the shopkeepers and farmers who did well genetically.
> The UK was not any more predisposed to use fossil fuels than any other group of Europeans, they just did it FIRST.
Clark’s argument is that they were genetically predisposed by the selection of the previous centuries to the frank hardships of the industrial revolution. Long hours and a willingness to save rather than spend.
> When other white countries industrialized, the advantages the UK enjoyed shrank immensely.
At the end of the article, Clark notes that while the selection for wealth was not as intense in China, it went on longer giving much the same results.
It’s not a long article, you should read it. And if you think it is not politically correct, Clark has one that is worse where they traced 400,000 people. Turned out your status in society is almost entirely determined at birth, i.e., it is mostly genetic. (There is a typo on the last page I have not got Clark to fix. I should try again.)
When the recent medications started, I came across opinions, that this is an eugenic selection to reduce the obedient.
“eugenic selection to reduce the obedient.”
I presume you are talking about the vaccines and I don’t follow your logic at all.
If there is a God, we Humans maybe passing fad to him. He may have a evolutionary replacement picked out.
“evolutionary replacement picked out.”
Revolution from Rosanante is of the few SF stories that involved AI character. (it is also the best work I know about on space colonies.)
One of the AIs makes a case that the purpose of biological evolution and humans was to make computers because god could not do that directly without violating his own rules.
“Musk wants to leave lots of his genes in the gene pool. Rich people have always felt the urge to parent several children and support them so that they can grow to adulthood. Remember Solomon and his many wives.”
Solomon probably had several wives because women would rather share an desirable man than be forced to settle for someone they do not want to have children by.
Musk is probably nothing like Solomon. He is wealthy but he is not high status. This is very hard for many men to understand that money does not make you respected or sought out for fatherhood. As we see with the #metoo, a significant percentage of wealthy men had to use coercion to get women “interested” in them.
The men who sire the most children these days are not wealthy.
“Remember Solomon and his many wives.” One more thankless task for the male, work is never done.
Dennis L.
It is always the same with systems. The swings will gyrate, faster and faster, amplitude bigger and bigger. In the case of financial systems, the effectiveness shortens, swings wildly and unpredictably. A small flap of the butterfly, a snowflake on the pile of snow and the sand that brought the avalanche. When?
Interesting ! Thank you.
Precisely. That’s why everyone is “surprised” when SHTF.
There are no black swans, just statistical scatter within the reality hologram.
What comes next after Fed Pivot on short term rates??
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/powell-pivot-sparks-buying-panic-bonds-bitcoin-bullion-dollar-dumps-2024-lows
Dr. Anthony Fauci, hospitalized with West Nile virus – spokesperson
https://x.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1827317216745775564
Best get with it and develop a vaccine for it, sucker.
Hoping he visits here too..
Northeastern towns issue voluntary lockdown to prevent spread of potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease EEE
By Melissa Rudy , Fox News
Published Aug. 24, 2024, 7:50 a.m. ET
It is the Board of Health’s responsibility to protect the public health, and we take EEE very seriously, and we are strongly encouraging residents to follow these recommendations due to the severity of EEE and the fact that it is in our community,” a spokesperson for the town of Oxford said in an email to Fox News Digital.
“So far this year in Massachusetts, there has only been one human case of EEE, but throughout the state, mosquitoes have tested positive for EEE.”
These viral encephalitides have no treatment, so prevention and supportive care is the only course of action,” Liu noted.
There is currently no vaccine for Eastern equine encephalitis.
Prevention of mosquito bites is the best way to prevent infection, the CDC confirmed.
How sad!
“How sad!”
He is recovering at home.
How sad!
“How sad!”
I followed Covid closely and have the background to understand what happened.
Fauci did the best he could in the face of incomplete information. He recognizes where the medical profession gave the wrong advice.
For this he gets death threats.
David Martin expose on Fauci, the GoF research, Moderna funding and industry talking points on sustaining funding for new disease platfroms by generating fear to attract investors.
https://richardsonpost.com/harryrichardson/24260/dr-martin-boots-the-elite/
David Martin is very good in looking at the history, including bioweapons history and vaccines against the planned bioweapons. Fauci was very much involved in these things.
The link is from 2021. Some excerpts:
Also sections on “THE COVID TREASONOUS ACTS–CRIMINAL VIOLATIONS” and “CIVIL VIOLATIONS.”
I know. Fauci is my hero also. Such a dispassionate, giving beacon of light. Humanity and the USA are so fortunate to have him.
“I know. Fauci is my hero also.”
Comments on the Washington post article are mostly in agreement with us. Conspiracy nuts make a lot of noise talking to each other, but fortunately sensible people prevail about Fauci.
couple of years ago, according the loudest voices on ofw—fauci was being paid by the chinese to bump everybody off.
Ah, l’ amour.
“DO NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE PROPAGANDA OF THIS CONSPIRACY! THERE IS NO SARS-COV-2”?
“132:48 next slide please this is
132:52 what source code v2 looks like and if
132:54 and i will i will send you the video so
132:55 you can show it
132:57 of the side on the right shows it goes
132:59 up and down and you can see the actual
133:01 source corona
133:02 cov2 virus uh with its spiked proteins
133:06 in its corona shape i’ll send that to
133:08 you so you can play that
133:10 it’s it’s incredibly important because
133:13 there are people out there that are
133:14 actually of the opinion that
133:16 sars cov2 doesn’t exist and has not been
133:19 isolated
133:20 these individuals not only have
133:22 demonstrated they don’t understand
133:23 viruses
133:24 but they interfere with the with the
133:26 serious discussion going on with this
133:28 virus “ ?
Fau i is a bureaucrat. Giving him credit for any attempt at combating any of the pandemics fought in the last fifty years is like giving Al Gore credit for inventing the internet. He didn’t DO anything. He is just a figurehead who at best allocated funds.
The incomplete data line is the same excuse America gave for invading Iraq. Lies are not incomplete data. Deception is not incomplete data.
If Fau i had witnessed a real pandemic or managed one any time in the last 50 years, half of the people reading this would not be alive and everyone reading this would have many family members who were were killed or crippled by hhHIV or Cov 3id 91.
Most people are easy to fool.
Who said again that no one ever went broke underestimating how unintelligent most people are again…?
“who at best allocated funds.”
Funds are always limited. There is little more important than knowing where to allocate the funds.
😀
Crap. That means they’re buggering around with that virus. Line up for your shots.
“That means they’re buggering around with that virus.”
No, on 1100 people have died in the first ten years the virus was in the US. Not enough to justify a vaccine. There is one for houses though. See the Wikipedia articles.
That’s why we need to modify it. Pump those numbers up. Those are rooky numbers.
“Those are rooky numbers.”
Yeah. The world is a really complicated place. It’s possible that H5N1 bird flu, which killed so many wild birds is keeping down the spread of West Nile virus.
Uranium supply may be a problem. I don’t think that people realize our uranium supply is constrained, unless we use a lot of fossil fuels to reprocess it. Concentrated supplies of uranium for mining are limited.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/uranium-stocks-rise-after-worlds-largest-producer-cuts-2025-output-forecast
Uranium Stocks Rise After World’s Largest Producer Cuts 2025 Output Forecast
We have problems in many directions. At this point, we have constrained supplies of heavy oil used for making diesel, coal, and uranium. Other crude oil supply looks iffy, and natural gas becomes very expensive if it is shipped very for as LNG. Electricity becomes very expensive if all costs are considered when intermittent wind and solar are added.
Do we really need Saudian consume? Chinese supply? Probably, the idea of Harris as much as Trump is Kulm’s winner-takes-all concept. Let’s speculate: USA blocks Strait of Hormuz, takes all oil of Iran/Arabia to the US and defeats China/Russia. Is the US really depending on Chinese semi conductors and Vietnamese clothing to keep military and occupied rigs running?
The rest of the world wouldn’t have the pure energy to build weapons to attack the USA on their continent. China would suffer a real estate crisis, Europe dwells in insanity and Africa and Latin America don’t have the technology. The only dangerous country is Russia: They have the technology and the resources. But they are far and they don’t really have any motive to invest into stopping the USA. And they are not interested in failing states.
taking all the saudi oil to the usa is a nonsense idea
oil isnt wealth
using oil creates wealth
this is what most people do not understand.
oil. coal and gas lay under the ground for millions of years—humanity didnt get collectively wealthy till we found a use for it–turned it into something else.
before we used oil coal and gas, our living standards depended on the speed of tree growth and muscle power
how hard is it to grasp that simple reality?
Is this fantapolitics? China and USA come to blows while the rest of the world experiences a popcorn shortage. Soon the US has no advanced weaponry whatsoever, while the blockage Hormuz ends with numerous shipwrecks at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Houthis from across the peninsula. a DEI scandal grounds the entire Navy while they sort things out. the war gives sufficient reason to separatist forces within the US.
It is about the functioning of Degrowth.
We have the idea, the interconnected economy does not allow parts of the world to be squeezed out. Is that really so? With some resources and some hands-on people, the early settlers could get get quite far. It is not about discussing any means of morality.
Why should the winner-takes-it-all-principle not work for some years? I have not understood any logical reason. Let the banks crash! Let the people fall into chaos! Get some marines, get some crucial industries, get hands on the most important resources and you are a step further that your enemies. Isn’t this, what the Early Middle Ages had done after the fall of the Roman Reich?
Food and weapon production could go on for the winner, while for others, including Houthies and Chinese, it could not. The Russians could interfere, but that is solvable. All those, who are getting difficult at the home front are getting squeezed-out also. The principle of the warlords – not my personal intensions, of course!
Where is the point? Why shouldn’t that work out – at least for some years? Secondly, why can, what is going on these years, not be read in this direction?
Just one more thought:
An interconnected economy described as a jackstraw stack of course desintegrates suddenly, when some straws are eliminated.
The winner-takes-it-all concept says, I can build a new less complex society, with less people inside, based on the available resources and knowledge. Preppers say, you don’t have to survive, you just have to survive your neighbour.
Conquering Arabian oil might not allow to perform fracking but perhaps good-old rig methods?
The question is what one considers a crash, the failure of the current economic system or the end of all modern technology. So I think, this might be a way some people think they have a chance. It could only workout for the USA, because they have a superiour arsenal of weapons, while others need oil they dont have to produce them. It means outperforming the opponent.
Dont forget that WHO is completely in the hands of the USA and the memstates have just agreed to accept any lockdown and vaxx program they demand. It won’t hold down a direct enemy but could stop for example Africa from military involvements. It looks to me, if not to valuate it like Eddy, at least like a gigantic squeeze-out program, perhaps both.
If you believe Russian MoD numbers, 2587 killed+wounded Ukrainians over the previous 24 hours.
https://mskvremya.ru/article/2023/1473-kontr-nastup-interaktivnaya-karta-boevyh-deistviy-na-ukraine
Note the table values changes daily and may be different when you check.
The mass murder boasting tables.
2483 today.
It’s not erotica, but it could help one make estimates of when the Ukraine army will collapse. Don’t you think it’s useful to have a world view and predictions about the future? I do. I think that they will collapse within 3-5 months if not provided large numbers of troops from elsewhere.
“I think that they will collapse within 3-5 months if not provided large numbers of troops from elsewhere.”
OK. I’ll hold you to that. If you’re wrong, I’ll roast you on a spit for Fast Eddy’s woof dog to feast on.
One hopeful thing I noticed. The depression reduced income inequality. The rich got poorer faster than the poor. That was a positive outcome that set up the US for the fast growth in the 50s.
fast growth in 50s was the momentum of ww2 production (converted to peacetime production) carried over to keep employment at full capacity, by the continual consumption of oil and other base resources, which prevented a return of the unemployment of the 20s and 30s
Agreed!
It depended
Those who owned their properties free and clear did very, very , very well and often bought the properties of those who were overexposed for a very low price and got even richer
And they showed no mercy, whatsoever, to the dispossessed.
The had done that already in the mid/end-30s, from my personal knowledge. You are right about the mercy.
er
saudi oil wasnt discovered till the late 30s and not exploited till 45
and oil doesnt solve problems its what you do with it that solves problems
—temporarily
The story of Amala and Kamala, Feral Children, are not really told anymore but since this blog has many old hands some of them might know it
Long story short, two girls were found in some town called Midnapore in West Bengal. The older girl was named Kamala, after ‘lotus’ in Bengali, I think, and the younger girl was named Amala after her ‘sister’ (no one really knows whether they were sisters).
Amala didn’t live for too long and Kamala lived till around the age of 16, only learning about 30 words. So they were used as an example that feral children cannot be brought back to society.
In reality they were probably just retarded children abandoned by their parents to their fate, and not really ‘feral’ for too long.
For those who know that story, the very name Kamala seems a joke. First of all how a Tamil would give her child a Bengali name is beyond me, and second, it is not a name which signifies the wild and brutality, not any wisdom or leadership, and the English lords who know the story would be quietly sipping their tea, smiling how idiotic their brethren across the pond have become.
This is an article from 2020 about the origin of Kamala’s name, and also that of her sister.
https://www.thelist.com/235714/the-surprising-meaning-of-kamala-harris-name/
But the article doesn’t say what mythology.
The “Heavy” link within the article says a little more about Harris’ background:
Maya: false appearance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(religion)
Maya (/ˈmɑːjə/; Devanagari: माया, IAST: māyā), literally “illusion” or “magic”,[1][2][3] has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, māyā connotes a “magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem”;[2][4] the principle which shows “attributeless Absolute” as having “attributes”.[3] Māyā also connotes that which “is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal” (in opposition to an unchanging Absolute, or Brahman), and therefore “conceals the true character of spiritual reality”.[5][6]
But I learned about Maya from a favorite song by Beatle George Harrison, who was heavily influenced by Indian culture. This is one hell of a song.
Beware of Darkness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrsGTItbss4
“Beware of Maya” @2:26
Lyrics:
Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness
Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night
Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for
Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya
Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness
This, of course, is about Kamala’s sister. I am struck by these two lines:
“Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go.”
And the ending:
“Beware of darkness”
I have been more impressed by Madonnas warning 2019: “It’s not in the air, it’s inside of us!”
https://youtu.be/VG3WkiL0d_U
Not for the faint hearted, alternative practitioner Florian Schilling discusses some recent in vitro studies.
I know some of them from other contexts.
This is probably, what Harrison meant with “darkness”.
(Big Serge Substack)
Different considerations, than US/EU mainstream media are proposing, on what is happening in Kursk (Russia).
“Back to the Bloodlands: Operation KrepostRusso-Ukrainian War: The Kursk Operation”
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/back-to-the-bloodlands-operation
Beginning of the article:
The author also says that there is much that we don’t yet really know.
What seems clear from the article, in my view, it is also that this offensive doesn’t reach any significant or heavy objective, if it will reach it.
In my view, it seems a sort of desperate attempt to have additional support from the side of an Ukrainian élite which risks to lose its power, while US elections may shift the attention on other wars (see Iran or South China Sea) or simply other problems.
If one group has sacrified hundred thousands of people, it is not a particular problem to sacrify other few thousands, to stay in power.
Neither the bandit king nor EU nor the feminist foreign policy seems to care much about lives.
The US is losing authority. Afghanistan gone wrong, now Ukraine. Are you sure, Iran and China sleep bad at night?
Work till you die
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2024/08/129_377652.html
This article is about Korean executives being asked to work on either Saturday or Sunday, instead of having weekends off.
My impression is that Chinese work hours are quite long. This article (from 2021) is about the 996 work hour system that some employers tried to impose on workers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
all species are meant to work till they die
retirement is a very recent indulgence of us humans
I agree. The work can take different forms. Taking care of children so parents can work outside the home is a form of work.
agreed
but the parents much supply enough surplus food noy only for kids but parents as well
ie–a surplus energy economic system
Yes, and children are self replicating and if treated well and recall one of the commandments, “Honor thy father and mother” can supply support in one’s old age.
Think cost of assisted living.
Dennis L.
look at this Gail this is interesting from the article
HD Hyundai Oilbank decided to ask its executives to start working on Saturdays from July, as the business environment has become more uncertain after a decline in refining margins.
Amid wild fluctuations in international crude oil prices last year, the refiner’s profitability was even worse than its three other competitors, all of which posted over 1 trillion won ($724 million) in annual operating profits.
“We are quite serious these days as refining margins are important for our profits,” an HD Hyundai Oilbank official said.
The HD Hyundai subsidiary’s decision came a few months after Samsung and SK asked their executives earlier this year to work six days a week.
Massachusetts town imposes voluntary LOCKDOWN after dark as fears of incurable mosquito-borne infection grow
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13769203/Oxford-Massachusetts-imposes-lockdown-incurable-mosquito-infection.html
The disease “Triple E” sounds pretty gnarly.’
“Triple E causes a fever and brain swelling and can lead to seizures and comas. One-third of people infected with EEE die and those who recover are often left with lifelong physical and mental difficulties. “
if it is voluntary it is not imposed. good medical p*rn though.
Voluntarily stay inside after it is dark out, when mosquitoes bite. There is a tiny incidence of Triple E. One cheerleader is concerned that this will affect high school football games.
The illness has been around for years, based on the chart. It doesn’t seem to be particularly higher recently. There was a spike in 2019.
or, Rah, Rah, Rah, but not so loud as to be vulgar.
Dennis L.
“Tangled Comparisons: Renewables Versus Fossil Fuels”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/tangled-comparisons-renewables-versus-fossil-fuels
Excerpt: “We are often told that wind and solar, if not cheaper, are at least cost competitive with fossil fuels. Dead wrong! Wind or solar costs around five times more per megawatt hour compared to, for example, natural gas.”
I do agree with the point that wind and solar are far more expensive than fossil fuels, but I don’t think that I would make the points exactly the way this author does. Most comparisons we see today are apples to oranges comparisons.
Something I started to write in an earlier draft of my current post is that building wind turbines and solar panels is similar to trying to store up fossil fuel for future use, similar to the way squirrels store up food for the winter.
One catch is that wind is very short lived–not much more than 15 years. Another catch is that solar is very intermittent–disturbed by passing clouds; sunset cuts off electricity production at a time of day when electricity demand is still very high.
Pricing wind and solar is very difficult. Using wind and solar in the current approach requires a tremendous amount of peripheral equipment including long distance electricity transmission, battery backup for short term storage). These add tremendously to its cost. There is also a need for ongoing maintenance for both, using fossil fuels.
Somehow this all needs to be funded in advance. Having a very low interest rate helps greatly.
This intermittent electricity, in some sense, mostly replaces fuel costs. But given the current pricing scheme, the reimbursement is artificially high. Because of the pricing scheme that gives wind and solar “priority” if it is available, rates become negative or very low for other producers. Adding wind and solar tends to drive other producers, particularly nuclear, out of business, unless they too are subsidized. Data shows electricity rates tend to increase when wind and solar production increases.
Realistically, we humans are too pampered. We cannot farm or do any hard work. Any knowledge of subsistence farming is lost. Forget about anything modern, anything electronics. Just FYI, a small piece of capacitor is as important as the processor. Without that capacitor, nothing works. So, does anyone know how to produce a capacitor? Same goes for making scissors, pliers, etc. Anyone knows how to mine coal or if it is even available in your area? It will go back down to sticks and stones.
Films like to romanticize the past. No, the past is brutal and they don’t have nice clothes to wear, only a few elites probably. Amish? They won’t last long and that is if they survive the horde.
Trigger? Financial crisis like 2007 but on much large scale. Now, everyone at the top is plastering over everything. Rules have been throw out again and again. That is why inflation is exploding — printed too much and chasing too little.
Humans are high maintenance, particularly in their modern form. But at the same time, the Universe is indifferent to our needs or our fate. Unless God has got us covered and can throw us a lifeline, we are in dire straits.
In the meantime, while we wait for divine intervention or armageddon, let’s be content and think of three things everyday that we can be grateful for.
While I was waiting for the new Gail post to come out ; I would constantly click on my tab when one day it to to what I thought was a new one. It took me to 2013 😂 it took me a while to realize this but it was funny. Same song different verse! Not that I don’t think we are crashing but it made me wonder what else was going on when people were waiting for the rotten bridge to collapse. Capitalism is a mathematical problem that has an end and we are reaching that end point. But who knows when? Those people commenting in 2013 sure thought it was any day
The depleted soil is hard to replenish, so only a small population can survive. We have means to bring the food to your supermarket, but cheap foods like potatoes do not work anymore, as we know the problems with too much sugars in the diet and the need for quality proteins, berries etc.
Per Copilot, Amish originated in late 17th century. They seem to have formed in regions of Alsace, Germany and Switzerland.
In other world the hillbilly regions of these countries.
The Amish went to Alsace because of religious tolerance for some time. Don’t forget, in Zurich Reformation had been started 150 years ago, with Zwingli and later Calvin and reading the Humanists and having a wealthy group of citizens, aiming independence in the city.
They were the learned, not the hillbillys.
I am afraid you are right. Even the Amish depend a great deal on the current system.
A financial crisis doesn’t seem very far away. A major financial crisis could be what would trigger central governmental collapses around the world.
“Ruthless victories and genocide”
That is essentially the theme of this (unpublished so far) paper.
Genetic Selection for War in Prehistoric Human Populations
Authors: H. Keith Henson,* Arel Lucas Email: hkeithhenson@gmail.com, arellu@gmail.com
Abstract: Behavior, including human behavior related to war, is no less subject to Darwinian selection than physical traits. Behavior results from physical brain modules constructed by genes and environmental input. The environmental detection and operation of behavioral switches leading to wars are also under evolutionary selection. War behavior in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) was under positive selection when the alternative (starvation) was worse than war. The model is then applied in an attempt to explain the behavioral difference between chimpanzees and bonobos with additional thoughts on the KhoeSan People of Southern Africa.
If anyone wants a copy, just ask.
Keith
the prime function of all species is:
1—-Food
2—-Fornication
All our activities are focussed on that reality—we may dress it up in a variety of ways, but that is the collective bottom line.
To that end we engage in conflict to acquire the above, we eat to live, and we live to further our own kind.
empires are built on the promises of that—armies form up to take the physical resources of others, on those promises.
lunatic leaders make those promises—and lunatic followers believe.
and it never works, no matter how many times it happens—empires crash and dissolve to nothing.
I can believe these results would be true.
“Any knowledge of subsistence farming is lost.”
Not entirely, but it is certainly rare in my generation and almost gone in the present one. How many of you have milked a goat?
“So, does anyone know how to produce a capacitor? ”
Actually, I do. With my dad’s help I built one for a Tesla coil in 1955 and another one around 1962. Mind you, neither would not fit on a circuit board with a processor.
what flavour sauce do you recommend for it Keith?
Interesting, what materials did you use? Anything, that was around in Bronze age?
“Interesting, what materials did you use? Anything, that was around in Bronze age?”
Glass for the dielectric, aluminum foil for the plates. Whole thing was potted in wax. As I recall, we used a shoe box.
Bronze age–could have used gold foil. Not sure of the quality of glass in those days, could have used mica for the dielectric.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/china-steel-mill-profits-collapse-goldman-issues-bleak-outlook-iron-ore
I think that this is an important article you link to:
“China Steel Mill Profits Collapse, Goldman Issues: “Bleak Outlook” For Iron Ore “
As I keep saying, prices that are too low for producers are what bring the system down. Coal is extraordinarily important for the world economy because it historically been a fuel that could make goods, especially iron, steel, and concrete.
Shipping costs are terribly important in the price of coal. China has mostly used up its close by, easy-to-extract coal. It needs a much higher price to ship coal long distance, to be used in cities. In theory, part of the benefit of cheap coal can be gained by developing long distance power lines, so that electricity can be transported, instead of coal itself. But this is a difficult task and requires lots of materials and engineering know-how. My impression is that long distance transmission is lagging.
Also, much coal is burned directly, rather than used as electricity. This is especially important for concrete and steel-making. A shift to an electricity-only society is as impractical in China as it is in the US.
Deflation?
Dennis L.
“I suggested in the previous chapter that prehistory, like history, tells us that the nice folk didn’t win, that we are at best the heirs of many ruthless victories and at worst the heirs of genocide. We may well be descended from humans who repeatedly exterminated rival humans – culminating in the suspicious death of our Neanderthal cousins some 30,000 years ago. “‘
-Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright (2004)
Look at the Old Testament of the Bible, and you will see this same pattern, I am afraid.
Population grew too high for resources, and somehow people needed to find an excuse to attack another group that might have more resources. Having slightly different religious beliefs could work for this purpose. Ruthless victories and genocide no doubt were the result.
Interesting interpretation! This excuse has been present more or less the whole last two millennia, hasn’t it?
I think carrying capacity can just be used as an excuse, when living a spartan life. Before it is Greed!
“This excuse has been present more or less the whole last two millennia, hasn’t it?”
Much longer. Hard to say exactly how much longer, but humans have been capable of pressing the ecological limits at least since we escaped our predators.
Those who moved to Russia would not really fear much better than these hapless souls
https://youtu.be/Wkw21YfvpBk?si=fLWg06RQ-RAe-hYj
https://youtu.be/iVD5CxZHMUA?si=12Hwas-Td_h0ChXY
About 80,000 – 100,000 from USA (some of them might have been emigres from Russian Empire who didn’t take US citizenship) moved to USSR during 1930s since life was so tough.
Stalin didn’t give a crap about their Americanness and treated them just like other foreigners , i.e. with suspicion.
Similar fate awaited the Flemish farmers who migrated to the Baltics, part of the Russian Empire back then, in the old ages and the Mennonites, etc, who were slaughtered by Makhno’s followers and fled all the way to Altai, in central Asia, were most of them who were still alive were finished off and only a few lucky souls made it to Canada.
A similar incident occurred. During 1950s and 1960s Koreans in Japan were not treated well, and South Korea didn’t enticed them since it was war torn.
North Korea invited them and quite a few of them move to there, where they got to enjoy the same crappy living standards of the North Koreans.
Good thing I am italian. The Togliattis are still local oligarchs in Tolyatti.
I thought Palmiro Togliatti had been a true communist?
The children apparently were not.
thanks for your article,
It speaks of a subsequent division of the US. In every election there is only one winner, so think about a civil confrontation. The consequences for his country would be very great, but for the rest of the West they would not be short. The truth is that seen from Europe it seems that anything can happen before or after its elections, war with Russia, in the Middle East, economic crash…
There is also the issue that the US central government needs a lot of energy to operate, as does the Canadian Central government. If too many promises have been made, the easy way out may be to simply disband the central government, and let the states try to take over whatever central government programs they can afford.
Pull the plug, few will notice.
Dennis L.
This link is to an article by Charles Hugh Smith about the US housing bubble. One thing he points out is the large share of properties held by the older generation as rentals, second homes, and other light uses. It reminds me a bit of the China situation. CHS thinks the younger generation will be winners if the housing bubble pops.
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2024/08/who-wins-and-who-loses-when-housing.html
Who Wins and Who Loses When the Housing Bubble Pops?
“This time around, the Fed may not be able to “save” the bubble from a complete round-trip deflation, which history suggests might decline by 50%.”
Why would China win? What are you going to do with the monsoon flood season and lack of materials to do repairs on infrastructure? Their shoddy roads and buildings are mostly collapsing due to Malthusian pressure to continuously outcheat one another on everything. How can the younger generation be the winners when they don’t breed, they don’t have any work and they give up on life while they can’t even afford cucumbers? What good is sitting in a box going to do if you can’t even turn on the stove or access internet.
I am wondering if all that will exist in the future (after maybe 25 or 50 years) will be very local cultures, using local resources. The population will be much lower. Some of today’s existing materials will be reused.
There will be some people in many different parts of the world, but their way of living will be much simpler than today. Food will come from a little local agriculture. Electricity will probably be unknown.
if food comes from a little local agriculture
it will feed a little local population
until big local city finds out where you are
Ah, but the ‘big local city’ effectively dies before many of the local agricultural populations.
Initially surviving by consuming any food stocks, then raiding nearby ‘local agriculture’, but not enough there to feed very many, and it doesn’t grow anything ever again.
The city people can’t ‘grow their own’ as their fellows are too hungry to allow a backyard potato crop to mature.
Hmm, there are some children which shouldn’t be hard to catch. but not many and it takes a while to ‘feed’ more of them to a suitable size.
But of course there are more ‘local agricultural’ groups but further away.
So organise an expedition to raid them. Get the trucks ready. Oh, no diesel, no petrol. Well who has horse carts?
You have got to be kidding, who has time and energy to get feed for horses, learn how to drive a horse and cart, mean-wise what do we eat?
Ok, we go on foot and take some sacks.
Some sacks need to be full of food to get us to the first target, then we fill the sacks at the first place we raid and hopefully that will get us to the next target etc, etc, until it dawns that we are not accumulating a surplus and will be lucky to make it back to our beloved city with whats in the sacks.
Don’t think we are going to be very welcome!
Mean-while, residents at these remote agriculture sites are not so stupid that they think are safe where they are.
They will have already worked out how to protect themselves with lookouts, escape routes, Learned guerilla tactics etc etc.
With a bit of luck they might be able to score a bit of equipment from those invaders falling into man traps or otherwise ‘becoming disabled’.
I am afraid that you have the story pretty much right. Cities can’t last very long. Rural areas might be able to do better if they can grow food, but farmers will have a problem as well. There is the temptation to eat the seed grain. And city people who want the grain.
“I am afraid that you have the story pretty much right.”
I don’t think so. The only economic collapse example in modern times was the fall of the USSR and I don’t think they had much in the way of starvation.
A really big crop failure, say from excess heat, would cause a lot of problems, but rationing and diverting animal feed to humans should mitigate that a lot.
You could be right.
But I really doubt it would any better than the world 3000 years ago when there were incessant wars over the Mideast.
The other way is that the future could be really weird from our viewpoint with most of the people uploaded and living in world simulations out in space. I have a hard time imagining such a world.
wars 3000 years ago were still over resuorces
That is my prediction also, when we run out of fossil fuels, or we are done in by climate change, whichever happens first.
Climate change is the red herring given to the hoi polloi as to why the transition from fossil fuels is necessary.
It has a lot of science to support it. Don’t see why anyone would want to transition from fossil fuels if they did not believe they were harmful.
If leaders realized how important fossil fuels were, they would not dare tell their citizens that the easy-to-reach (and thus cheap) fossil fuel energy supply is running out.
“Science” today seems to involve putting together naive models of what could happen. “Researchers” know what outcome department and politicians want.
It is easy to put together models with erroneous assumptions of many kinds. “The future will be like the past,” is a favorite erroneous assumption. This isn’t true in a finite world, but it is an assumption that modelers of all kinds make.
Another erroneous assumption is that prices will rise if there are energy shortages. In fact, what happens is that growing wage and wealth disparity will act to ration what energy supplies are available. Prices will spike and fall back. What really happens is that fossil fuel prices will become too low to be profitable for producers to extract. This is happening both for oil (especially heavy oil in Venezuela, Russia, and Canada) and coal (especially in China).
Economists have put together false models, ignoring the role of energy for years. They have known that pointing out the finite nature of fossil fuels would make users of their models very unhappy. In fact, university book publishers have told me that to sell well, books about the future need to suggest that we will be part of an energy transition. There will be lots of jobs that pay well for today’s students. Telling the students the truth would upset students and their parents greatly. We need as sanitized (“sour grapes”) narrative to tell the world.
To be clear, I understand your belief is that burning fossil fuels is not causing climate change. I want to make sure I understand what you are saying.
Whether or not burning fossil fuels is causing climate change, we cannot stop our use of them because they are what give us enough food for today’s large population, and fuel for transportation of this food to where people actually live.
It is nonsense to talk about moving away from fossil fuels to save the planet. Ecosystems are made to be very resilient. If there is a change in climate, the vegetation and animal life will shift to accommodate the change. The narrative we are being told today has echos of the narrative told to the ancient Israelites. Then people were told that the wealth disparity, and lack of doing anything about it, was displeasing to Jehovah. Now we are told that what we are doing is displeasing to the environmental or climate gods. Our sins are environmental.
human beings are animal life
right now they are moving to accomodate the change
look whats happening to them—they are not welcome with open arms anywhere.
in prehistoric times there were no borders
moving was long term and gradual, and there were very few of us
right now climate change is real and immediate
On this thread Gail wrote:
“Whether or not burning fossil fuels is causing climate change, we cannot stop our use of them”
I agree that we must have liquid fuels, particularly diesel, but with enough solar we can make all the diesel we need synthetically.
Not that it is easy, but solar in the Mideast is now down to 1.35 cents per kWh. A kg of diesel fuel is around 43 MJ. A kWh is 3.6 MJ. 100 percent conversion of electrical energy to diesel would require about 12 kWh/kg and give a cost of about 16 cents. To put in more common terms. a little under $26/bbl for energy. You would have to add the capital cost which might run as little as $8/bbl
Gail is right on the long time to build the processing plants.
I will say it Ernest. Burning Fossil Fuels is not causing climate change.
>> Ernest says:
>> It has a lot of science to support it. Don’t see why anyone would want to transition from fossil fuels if they did not believe they were harmful.
The transition is necessary because we are running out of oil. Whether we actually can transition is another matter. I think there was an opportunity, had we started earlier and made it a worldwide goal and limited population growth, but now it is unlikely.
concur. Every piece of scientific evidence we have is that the high CO2 world was much greener. The Sahel is greener now than in the recent past as semiarid areas are able to support plant life due to the fertilizing effect of CO2. The tundra is becoming taiga. GW is never going to have an impact on human population except for the fossil fuel cost of AC.
Imponderables. Why not Starship X using space solar, manufacturing with robots, limitless wealth.
Modern agriculture seems to be an incredibly capital intensive, low profit margin business with still significant dangerous jobs. Grain gins come to mind.
Subsistence in my area, MN would be trying to cut enough wood to last until the next spring. Those of us who lived with “fruit cellars” know the shelves are bare before spring. The meals start to lack some things, this for my childhood experiences.
Dennis L
I am 200 miles straight north of you. Without fossil fuels we become hunter gatherers within a generation. Maybe some herding cultures could scratch out an existence. Cities and field agriculture would literally vanish overnight.
The problem is that you are going to need a job to buy a house !!!!!
The elders are planning a world where you will need to be vaccinated to have a roof over your head because we are seriously overpopulated so that appears to be the plan
the housing bubble will not burst until the means to buy them no longer exists.
and that will happen when there is no longer sufficient energy in the commercial system to create the wages that enables house purchase in the first place.
it is not possible to just print money for the express purpose of buying houses. (and keep the bubble inflated)
About 100 years ago, the Germans, jaded with the politicians of the day, decided to make a former Austrian corporal, with one single relative in Germany at all, to become their leader.
That didn’t fare well for the world.
And now a large portion of Americans want to make a Tamil, with not single relative in USA at all, their leader.
History does not repeat but it rhymes.
It will probably end with the Chinese flag at the Capitol, after a lot of drama.
Your comparison is not a good one. The Austrians are ethnically German, as was AH, whose mother tongue was German, and he was born only 68 miles south of the German border. He also fought for Germany in the First World War.
We can only hope. The Chinese flag part.
The Chinese can’t even cross the strait of Tiawan, how are they going to cross the whole Pacific Ocean and cross all of America to reach the Capitol in a world with nuclear weapons and falling oil production?
I don’t know why you focus on Tamil.
In my view, Tamil doesn’t say anything in particular.
About Kamala it says more Doug Emhoff.
You can make a serch on his name on the Times of Israel.
Weather one likes it or not (for me it is only fact, I don’t have anything against that), US foreign policy, and maybe also internal one, is stricly influenced by Israel, not viceversa.
What changes is only about which political Israel faction.
Kamala Gopalan is a Tamil.
I learned the name Kamala from the tale of Amala and Kamala
https://youtu.be/qbvvlDaMh7s?si=VBQqNGZ7Q1g8CoUz
Children supposedly raised by Wolf in some village in India .
The story was probably fabricated ; the children were simply retarded and abandoned, that was all.
The very name of Kamala is a joke for those who know this story.
Yes, I see, but the point that she is from Indian orign doesn’t say anything in particular to me, except that it is a perfect to boost for the “immigration chapter” and maybe useful to boost relationship with India, as a certain US faction wants to substitute China with India (although almost impossible).
His husband is often quoted in the Times of Israel and other Israeli newspapers.
The main point to me is that she is just a good chessboard pawn in this hystorical phase.
In my view it s difficult that US will split at the moment and I think that, paradoxically, she could beat Trump, the problem will be if she will really beat him 🙂
More wars could follow and maybe internal instability in US.
But, of course, being you in US, you see things better than me.
Americans are so ignorant of other cultures that they don’t know how dangerous the Tamils are.
https://youtu.be/vi297kHLFnM?si=XRNa3GaOnBbHmpkw
The British had the ultimate wisdom of moving Tamils to farm tea plantations at Ceylon. After the British Raj ended, the Ceylonese wanted to have nothing to do with the Tamils, who demanded their own country.
However, the Tamils in mainland India supported the Tamil militants, called the Tamil Tigers, who made Ceylon, the jewel of Indian Ocean, into hell on earth.
After fighting for more than 30 years, the Ceylonese and the Tamils entered some kind of settlement, but they are still not that friendly and as Ceylon remains weak and unstable, the Tamils are biding for their time.
That is the nature of Tamils which most people out of Ceylon are not really aware of.
This is a link to the wikipedia article about the Tamils.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamils
Their writing uses as different script than most of us are used to.
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/தமிழ்_விக்கிப்பீடியா
“the Tamils are biding their time.”
For what? Their own state on the island?
The Tamils are not violent by nature. The British are to blame for forcing them on the Sinhalese. The Tamils were resented, but by now they have become indigenous in Sri Lanka.
From Wikipedia:
Since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, relations between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities have been strained. Rising ethnic and political tensions following the Sinhala Only Act, along with ethnic pogroms carried out by Sinhalese mobs in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983, led to the formation and strengthening of militant groups advocating independence for Tamils. The ensuing civil war resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the forced disappearance and rape of thousands of others. The civil war ended in 2009 but there are continuing allegations of atrocities being committed by the Sri Lankan military. A United Nations panel found that as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in the final months of the civil war. In January 2020, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that the estimated 20,000+ disappeared Sri Lankan Tamils were dead.
As you Sinhalese then, Mister Kulamity? You have been very coy about your nationality and ethnicity.
I prefer not to talk too much about myself but I have never been within 2000 miles of the entire Subcontinent region including Ceylon.
I just studied this topic which is probably alien to most people in USA because I found the subject interesting.
So you could be from South-east Asia or Central Asia. Could be. Probably not a whitey.
Would be funny if he were Indian. “Ramanujan should have never been allowed…”
Part laplander from northern Sweden, if I remember correctly. But only part.
Sorry, probably another person. I have never divulged my background and I prefer not to.
I have never divulged my background and I prefer not to…..
An AI bot in training
I think he said at some point that Russians dispossessed his antecedents of their land.
Ukrainian? Or Baltic? woah! He looks more intelligent than that type of people…
I was thinking somewhere like Zamość, about halfway between Lublin and Lviv.
Kulmebaby is Polish, but she is very embarrassed about the fact, so refuses to talk about it.
Religious leaning?
Certainly not one of the Amalek.
The rest of us all are according to their beliefs, which Kulmebaby is at least honest about.
That is Kovaleinen you are thinking of. He has disappeared for a while now. Kulm is most likely of a german landjunker origin, I am guessing, eastern Prussia now a Russian enclave.
A cowardly traitor and a dangerous al ien. I recommend kidnapping him and waterboarding him until he confesses his origins.
No, you’re thinking of Kowaleinen.
You are right.
EU is the leader of the suicide of its population, as its population that is heading into poverty needs special boilers to burn the wood, so that the emissions are cut down. Suicide.
The EU has been importing a lot of wood pellets from the US state of Georgia and other Southern states. This is a recent news article I found about the industry.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2024-07-26/wood-pellets-boomed-in-the-us-south-climate-activists-want-biden-to-stop-boosting-industry-growth
July 2024
Wood Pellets Production Boomed to Feed EU Demand. It’s Come at a Cost for Black People in the South
If you provide a subsidy for a new boiler to a poor person, this poor person will need further money for costly servicing of this more complex boiler. The lack of servicemen and spare parts will pose another problem. I guess a better option is a simple electric heated blanket. Just to survive and wait for the death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKStf1uSqYA
Covers the export ban on Antimony by China … what I didn’t realize is that production was actually falling globally and in both Russia and China and that there are only 24 years of supply according to the video.
You might research Zn and verify, I think that has a much shorter supply.
We are running out of stuff; Starship is being backed by incredible sums of money, the second launch tower in Tx went up in months.
We need a cubic mile of Pt, we need to mine space, refine in space and drop finished products down the gravity well that is our precious space ship earth.
Dennis L.
I put a video of the achievements of Tamil Tigers who completely wrecked Ceylon beyond salvation
You won’t get your cubic mile of Pt. However you will get your cubic mile of rubble. At least someone got you the cubic mile, getting the first part of order right.
Lots of things we don’t think about. Supply lines seem to depend on very particular things.
America’s (and NATO’s) economic dominance seems to depend a lot on military dominance. This is something we don’t like to think about.
People in the Trump friendly parts of America attribute the status quo to “God” blessing America, which apparently started happening sometimes between 1939 and 1945.
One site claimed that the US$ gained reserve currency status in 1921. (Others said 1944.)
https://www.midasgoldgroup.com/news/world-reserve-currencies-since-1450/#:~:text=Since%201450%20there%20have%20been,currency%20span%20is%2094%20years.
So maybe the timing was even earlier.
This link is guaranteed to piss you off. The real Kamala Harris. Evil incarnate. I couldn’t get through this summary. I get it that she slept her way starting with the mayor of San Fran, 30 years her senior, to get where she is, but even still, how do the people allow these monsters to go unchecked?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1817937373751091301.html#google_vignette
If she gets to win then the Gods, or whatever, have said that they are finished with the American experiment and are now ending it.
Didn’t Christians first get a foot in the door of the Roman Empire, when the wife of a late emperor was a secret christian? (Marcia?) But obviously these creatures show up at times of declining resources.
Early Christians were Gnostics and were in Europe during times of increasing resources as well. They were in Europe during the time of ancient Greece. They like civilized people.
I’m not sure how it’s evil incarnate.
I forget who said moral (I forget which religion) people stay away from politics because it is worldly and therefore sinful.
Imagine having a high status parents but not necessarily having any exceptional talents yourself. You are expected to accomplish exceptional things but you are not as gifted as your parents.
And you’re a moderately attractive woman.
What would you do?
Two good summary articles, one recent and one about a year old:
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2024/08/20/287-the-mythology-of-growth/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
We aren’t as wealthy as we think we are in aggregate, unless you are one of the 0.1% who have pierced the energy and resource ceiling.
Ellen Brown summarizes the “Great Taking” by James Webb here:
https://ellenbrown.com/2023/10/03/the-great-taking-how-they-plan-to-own-it-all/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
In short, for all you smug boomers who look at your 401K and IRA statements every month, you may not own what you think you own.
>> for all you smug boomers who look at your 401K and IRA statements every month, you may not own what you think you own.
I would put it slightly differently: you cannot purchase, in aggregate, what your brokerage statement shows you can.
The Roosevelt administration used EO 6102 in ’33 to confiscate all privately held US gold, which coupled with the Gold Reserve act nine months later revalued said gold thereby condemning the US dollar to fiat.
This increased US gdp numbers and caused an influx of gold to US coffers, which ballooned to over 19,000 tons by 1940. Quite the war chest.
Trump has expressed an interest in making USA the bitcoin capital of the world. Maybe he envisions some sort of gold/bitcoin swap/confiscation scheme for citizens this time around. Harris has floated the unrealized capital gains tax trial ballon as well.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/28/donald-trump-crypto-bitcoin-2024/74578728007/
Learn a useful skill set, it is portable. Associate with a like group of people, individuals are very vulnerable; a group is very useful and can be successful even under the most trying of times.
There is a group which has done that, I leave it for your investigation.
Dennis L.
I’m a 65 yo carpenter, not quite as portable, but this group of like minded people has taught me a lot.
most trades are dispensable
but not carpenters and blacksmiths
Glad you’re learning so much from your former classmates! You need to work on your online personal brand if you want to take it to the next level, though. A Tiktok account, an Instagram account will help you take it to the next level.
You’re talking about the bankers, right?
Bankers have done well for thousands of years because of their ;;;;;; social network ;;;;;;. They rely on each other to raise capital and build trade networks over long distances.
Yessir. Keep your skills up to date. Network, network and network and you won’t fall behind in the next bear market.
nobody pierces the energy resources ceiling
it just looks that way
how?
because some are in a position to monopolise energy taken from sources that belong to others.
if Bezos owns several mansions, a private jet, and all the rest, he can still only eat 3 meals a day, shower once or twice, wear one suit at a time and use the lavatory same as everyone else.
he can of course eat 10 meals a day, but then he will die quickly,
the rest of his ”resources” go to sustaining all the people who in turn sustain him. they depend on him for a living.
the same thing exactly used to support the mediaval barons.–the peasants lived in mud huts while he lived in a castle.
nobody pierced the energy ceiling.
sorry—life doesnt work like that.
A monopoly on a way to mine a cubic mile of Pt might be very useful and have a great deal of value. What creates the value is the leadership of the group and the cohesion of that group.
Dennis L.
If i dump 100 tons of gold on the market… the value of gold will crash … those huge profits will evaporate. how then will the corporations pay for their huge expenses’.
12 years ago gold was being mined at 2700 tons per year.
Dumping 100 tons of gold on the market would have very little effect.
if you have a spare 100 tons of gold, then dumping it on the market might depress the value of all gold, including yours
but not by much and only temporarily because theres over 200000 tons lying around
Logic does not penetrate into a true believer like Dennis L. I only reply to him to show his errors to others, not to convince him which is futile.
my replies are in that vein too
Pt is a catalyst, it can turn water into H and H into electricity – that is a round trip. Add sunlight and solar cells and one has storable energy which is pollution free.
Make the solar cells in space with solar energy. When the earth solar cells are worn out, back to space and Jupiter on Starship or successor.
Everything in space is free once one gets there, delivery to earth is close to free, gravity well.
Dennis L.
dennis
you have more ifs to the pound than HK
H becomes too cheap to meter. The idea of a cubic mile of Pt is to make it so cheap it can be used in fuel cells and production of H from water and solar electricity. The profits are down stream. Think oil at $5/barrel with ample supply. Many things become possible. H has the additional advantage of being easy on our climate on precious SpaceShip earth.
Dennis L.
“Think oil at $5/barrel ”
Nope. The energy from the cheapest solar now available would cost $26/bbl.
You don’t actually need platinum to make cheap hydrogen from solar.
dennis
in the old gold rush days, there was an old saying that the only people making money were those selling shovels.
Im going into partnership wwith HK selling space shovels.
Gold is not a catalyst, Pt is.
Dennis L.
a catalyst is defined as something that brings about change, but itself remains unchanged
that certainly defined pt and yourself dennis
I want the benefits from Pt, not the Pt itself; a rising economy lifts all boats.
Dennis L.
i will forge a platinum shovel for you Dennis
then all will be well
“platinum shovel”
There is a lot of platinum (and gold) in an couple of cubic km of asteroid.
The problem is that it is disbursed through a really huge amount of other metals, iron, nickel, and cobalt. To get it out, I proposed melting it, rolling it into thin sheet metal, and dissolving the metal in warm high pressure CO. (The Mond process.) Analyzing, it takes 30 GW to process 1986DA in about 25 years. That’s not impossible, perhaps 2000 StarShip flights to get the parts and reaction mass into space. Might cost three times as much as a power satellite, call it ~$30 B plus the R&D.
There are people working on this, but I kind of suspect they don’t have an appreciation of the scale of the project or how long it would take to start paying off.
Could it be financed? Maybe. A low to very low discount rate would help.
finance doesnt function unless you have energy to back it up.
platinum and gold are useless without an energy rich economic system in which to make use of them–or any other base material for that matter.
if for instance, i owned an acreage of woodland, it would be of no economic benefit to me unless i cut it down and converted it into something else. (other than being nice to look at).
This is where this daft discussion falls apart.
acquire as much diesel as you want (by whatever means) —it is no use to you unless you go through the next stage and convert it into something else.
that defines consumption.—and the source of wages.
if you have unlimited resources, then the world itself turns into a bigger junkyard than it already is.
this is what I was talking about. People don’t seem to understand that trillions in reserves, whether utilized or not does not change the physical state of reality. A human can only live and occupy on so much land and consume so much food, even if the maintenance base cost of his properties was 100x the average person — he can never realistically outconsume the billions. Essentially the economy is just a manipulation of social energy, or the volition of people to do things and this has a baseload cost. Even if he constructed 100 mansions, he is not going to live in them all. And if he did rent it out he is still burning resources to upkeep all the descendent populations that are beneath him.
Okay, agree. Musk organizes a way to use space and he is also solving the less that replacement rate of human reproduction.
A double win.
Dennis L.
In the first article, Tim Morgan says:
Morgan has at least part of the story right. He forgets that the system itself needs energy. It is prone to collapse if it doesn’t get enough energy. Thus, trying to project forward to 2040 and say we will be 27% less prosperous is trying to take his model too far.
Pingback: The Bulletin, August 16-22, 2024 – Olduvai.ca
The US Civil War did NOT occur one day.
Very few people know that the New England states almost seceded from the Union during the War of 1812.
Although the Southern dominated government of James Madison wanted to conquer Canada while Britain was fighting Napoleon, the New England merchants put their own profits before the expansion of United States, and supported Britain.
So the New England states decided to secede from the Union, which is why the US war effort against Britain fizzled and there is the monstrosity called Canada, whose only contribution to civilization is insulin , invented by Fred Banting.
The fracture of USA in the current form already began on 2000 when George W Bush was declared the winner despite of the unclarity of the election result in Florida where his younger brother was the governor.
If the Tamil masquerading as a black becomes the US president, USA will become the butt of joke around the world, and the red states will no longer have any reason to stay on the Union and will leave.
I need to give you a rec for the masquerade. But a schism of the USA would be the greatest contribution to world peace since time immemorial.
The key point of a schism in US is: who is going to take care of the whole nuclear arsenal?
After the Soviet Union collapse, it was Russia, managing everything with the government of Moscow.
In US is less clear to me, as US is a younger Country.
Anyway, I think that in US we could see again a ‘good’ trick with the election result.
By the way, drb, do you think that the story of the Leonardo satellite which modified the US’ election results on a database in Germany, had something true about?
Obviously the link below says it was all fake…
Fake or not, I think that someone could do it again 😀
https://www.open.online/2021/01/10/italy-did-it-hacker-italiano-sui-presunti-brogli-americani-biden-trump/?refresh_ce-cp
I have no idea. why have someone from across the world cheat for you when it is so easy to do it from your spare room in virginia, while sipping tea?
Because dirty job remains outside your circle of friends and involving military allies then they become guilty and blackmailable.
Still, you use some Five eyes fellow, specially if from an untouchable middle eastern country. The italians, like all second class whites, are too unreliable. and it is always SCW, from McGregor to Ritter to Napolitano to Trump, that create problems.
Actually I think that Italians and Germans are the best stable US and UK allies of the last 20/30 years.
I think that path is plausible, but in particular I think that something could easily be repeatead like that against Trump (or happen in the same style)
Thanks for the added information.
Canada is spread out and covers a wide area. Those things are handicaps to begin with. When prices for oil from the oil sands were higher, the nearby area did well. Now, with lower oil prices, I am afraid that none of Canada is doing well. (That problem affects Russia too–both are spread out cold countries, with their oil exports primarily heavy oil. The heavy oil is especially adversely affected by low oil prices.)
And you are right. The 2000 Supreme Court decision to put George W Bush in office was indeed strange. It took place when oil prices were way too low for producers. TPTB wanted a president with ties to the oil industry in place to somehow find a way out of this. Adding China to the World Trade Organization in December 2001 was a landmark way of creating a temporary fix to the too-low oil price problem. The additional demand from China could lift oil prices up and help the world economy for many years.
Canada is collapsing now because the collective IQ of the population is below 90. Importation of vast numbers of hominins from behind and below the Hajnal line is accelerating the process.
Chinese communists both here and abroad are laughing their asses off.
We should have strangled Canada in its crib and taken its tar sands all for ourselves. It isn’t too late to rectify this mistake. And a boot on the neck of every impoverished soul!
Kulm, you know what’s funny? Over the years you’ve talked about how Hillary was the last chance at technocracy and sublimation of the elite, but Trump screwed it up, but now you’re in the pro-Trump camp, apparently.
That is because I don’t care too much about Party Lines.
Hillary was more favorable to civilization than Trump, but Trump is more friendly with civilization than the Tamil.
An aerial view of Madras (I don’t care how the Tamils call the city), Tamil Nadu.
https://youtu.be/PjnaZ_muszI?si=9I8f4jEtKh32ht3K
Do you think civilization can grow out of that place?
I don’t know anything about there, but the aerial view looks pretty. As for Trump vs Kamal, I don’t suppose it will matter that much domestically; we’re hosed either way and it’s really a question of degree and timeline.
A Person of Color, who is a Democrat becomes president, so the world will end? You do realize that Barrack Obama was president for 8 years and the world survived just fine. The problems the world is facing with oil depletion is the most important factor in the near-term future of industrial civilization, this idea that voting democrat or republican will impact that is just silly.
Millions remain convinced that prosperity is just a matter of voting for it
hence the MAGAnuts
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YX_A9fOOolc
Trump claims that ANWR has more oil than Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis have 250-300 billion barrels in reserve while ANWR maybe has around 10 billion barrels.
This is the unreality of the American Right.
I think of natural gas up north, not oil. Natural gas is often not worth transporting, if it is in a difficult location.
if the saudis revealed their real reserves, the world economic system would collapse overnight
Could you expand in that? Would like to hear your reasoning for that statement.
the stability of our future is predicated on infinite debt.
but infinite debt can only be supported by infinite energy.—which is itself a nonsense.
our prime energy resource is oil and other fossil fuels (nothing else will do, despite ofw fantasists)
the saudis give out a figure of 00bn barrels,, as a collateral for their lifestyle….everyone goes along with that figure.
it is in everyone’s collective interest to go along with it—true or not, because the debt security of all of us depends on it being true.
the saudi rulers hope the taps dont run dry in their lifetime.
so it is comforting to accept the saudi figure of 00s billion barrels of oil.
now, given that the saudis have a survival interest in lying about their oil assets
and by the time saudi oil does run out, 50/100 years from now???—well—by then ”they” will have found an alternative.
maybe.
but if they dont, and the saudis are lying to save their skins from the baying mob—then we are in serious trouble.—because the world debt future will be unsupported.
Unsupported debt = economic collapse. (no escaping that.)
so—you must ask yourself if you believe the saudi figures…because your life depends on it.
“Unsupported debt = economic collapse”
I am afraid you are right.
It is not Harris’s color I am worried about. It is her position on the issues and her lack of experience, ability, and policy, especially foreign policy and economics, Trump being Trump does not make Harris qualified or competent.
You are right however, the republic would survive Harris as president, and I will add would also survive another Trump term.
“You are right however, the republic would survive Harris as president, and I will add would also survive another Trump term.”
I agree. Harris would keep most of Biden’s reasonably competent staff at least initially. I think she would listen to them. That would make a relatively dull time except there are things like AI that will keep things interesting.
Also agree on another Trump term, though he might not. Consider that possibility.
One thing I think anyone can agree with, this is a very “Weird” time to be alive.
Great article like always Gail. And good looking on the book you referenced at the end of your previous article. “Thermodynamics of evolution” A very solid read.
The author of the book, “Thermodynamics of evolution,” Francois Roddier died in August 2023. His book was originally only available in French. I corresponded with him for quite a while. He sent me a PDF of an early attempt at a translation of the book into English. We also corresponded about his theories.
How does this fit with self organization?
Dennis L.
Evolution is related to small differences in offspring and the best adapted to the changing outside conditions surviving. This allows the population of any dissipative structure (plants, animals, economies) to keep changing, as available resources and the climate keeps changing.
US government report says fluoride at twice the recommended limit is linked to lower IQ in kids
https://www.caledonianrecord.com/news/national/us-government-report-says-fluoride-at-twice-the-recommended-limit-is-linked-to-lower-iq/article_9258d1b3-bf63-5a7f-9b6a-ab696bc9fb70.html
*the good news; is this creates better students. 🙂
I am now using a high fluoride mouth wash. It seems to completely stop any tendency toward inflammation of gums. But I wonder what else it does that is an unwanted side effect.
None of these “miracle” products seems to be without adverse impacts.
Autism parent groups I went to years ago were very concerned about substances getting into the bodies of babies that were not there years ago. A major uptick in autism would seem to go with a poisoning effect, more so than from a change in genetics.
My understanding is that the main reason fluoride is useful in toothpaste is as a microbicide. I a paper years ago which said it does leave a coating on teeth, but the thickness is minimal.
typo: I *read* a paper years ago
Concur. I no longer use dentists, and I have the best oral health of my life. I no longer have tartar either. I no longer use toothbrushes either except when traveling. What I do is use one of those water jets, with a dilute (1/20 or so) water peroxide solution. Occasionally salt water mouth wash.
Extremes generally have problems. How do you know you no longer have tarter? It is harmless other than the bacteria which are associated with it. The subgingival are is the problem.
Dennis L.
I can not see those deposits of a different color near the gum line, that I have had all of my life.
See my note regarding Fl and the Nature paper.
Dennis L.
As I recall, Fl concentrations were reduced over the years by the CDC. In 1982 or close a paper was presented in Nature regarding the efficacy of Fl. The correlation was very high, but the variables were inverses. Tooth decay was declining prior to introduction of Fl.
Fl was some sort of waste product from WWII, it was introduced in part to reduce piles of Fl waste.
FWIW, the last part of my title was DDS.
Dennis L.
I grew up on City water, received the regular flouride treatments at the Dentist and brushed with flouride toothpaste. Years later, a group of us organized a symposium with a well-known dioxin expert to support a protest against an EPA flagged incinerator near the inner city projects. When talking with the expert, he took one look at the discolored enamel on my front teeth and told me I have dental flourosis.
We can only wish that the US would break apart, as described in the last paragraph. News from Russia: Putin’s decree two days ago will let in many Westerners, as requirements for resident visa are now basically nil. You only need to declare that you disagree with neoliberal values. No language test (shaking my head). You have to have a passport from a western country of course.
woooo, Crimea, here I come!
just kidding, but then again…
I wonder how soon males moving into Russia will be drafted into the military. It should leave a lot of jobs for women elsewhere in the economy.
you have to serve but the war force is strictly voluntary. they put foreigners in logistics of other things where they could not create trouble. of course as soon as you get your passport you are enrolled. reg army service is one year at age 19. gifted students are given postponements.
It may seem corny, but I don’t think freeloaders are a good idea. Skin in the game has merit.
Dennis L.
I have been casually following this family from Canada who emigrated to Russia and currently building a house. The kind of family that I would think Russia would welcome. Very nice family. All hands helping.
and he has been welcome. but, being a little green, he decided to post a bitching video about a banking snafu. he was told in no uncertain terms to take it down, which he did.
Russian would seem to be convenient.
Dennis L.
Back in the he Depression years the Soviet Union place ads in papers announcing a Workers Paradise and plenty of opportunities for all trades, including hair cutters ! Many unsuspecting, unemployed desperate people, in fact, answered the call and immigrated believing in a better life.
Of course, Stalin had other intentions, never trusting foreigners to begin with.
Once in the country, upon being processed, a person had to renounce their United States citizenship and give up their passport. Seems the Soviet Spy network were in need of those documents.
Anyway, a book was written about these unfortunate souls and the terrible treatment they were given afterwards. Some even approached the US Embassy for help, and were turned away because they were no longer citizens.
Many ended up in labor camps…
The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia by Tim Tzouliadis is a 2008 book published by Penguin Books. It tells the story of thousands of Americans who immigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
In the first 8 months of 1931, a Soviet trade agency in New York advertised 6,000 positions and received more than 100,000 applications. 10,000 Americans were hired in 1931, part of the official “organized emigration”.
Excellent reading and a movie should be made about it all
never heard of that
thanks for the link to it mike
I am watching an Amish furniture factory being built along a road I use daily on way to farm. Saw a young Amish(they do the high work) walking along a 2×6 maybe twenty feen in the air with a pneumatic nail gun blasting away. From pad to trusses maybe two weeks max, all, most of the labor arrives in black carriages, horses tied under trees. It looks plumb and square.
Organization of a society is perhaps more important that generally thought. In the postmodern west we are experimenting with many societal norms, perhaps too many experiments.
Rural life is very hard, even now. Modern agriculture is extremely hard on land, costs are too high. Posted a link to drone spraying, think that has merit, combine with solar and perhaps a winner.
Dennis L.
And if the Redistributionists win, they will demand a ‘mule and 40 acres’ from everywhere, and they will get it on the expense of people like you and the Amish.
And since your God has decided to not support the Redistributionists, SpaceX won’t remain American for too long since the first thing the Redistributionists will order is the seizure of X, or Twitter, etc and the arrest of your God, or maybe your former God since you have joined the Redistributionists.
Musk already left a regime which was taken over by redistributionists. He can leave again and he will.
Elon can move to China.
I notice you didn’t suggest “taking the rich” as a way of equalizing things.
Is that because you don’t think it would be effective, or because you don’t think it is possible?
In the 1960s, I believe the marginal tax rate was over 90%. Musk is worth ~$170 billion. That could fund a lot of poor people!
Trying to take money/goods from the rich doesn’t work.
If the rich own things, it is things like factories and big farm equipment. Taking these things from the rich has a very negative effect because the means of production is lost. The poor people obtaining these things don’t know what to do with them. They don’t have access to the supply chains they need. Huge farm equipment is not useful on small plots of land.
Taking paper value that the rich have does little good. It is of very subjective value. Much of this wealth will cease to exist if farms and factories stop being productive.
Dividing up physical property of the rich can provide a little benefit, but not very much. I have seen some of the divided up apartments in Russia after the 1917 Revolution. In the ones I saw In St. Petersburg, a whole floor of apartments shared a single bathroom. Big farms can be divided into little ones, but it is difficult to do efficient farming on a small plot. Equipment becomes too expensive for such small areas.
Correlation is not causation. I am watching with some despair the extreme overweight condition in my city, Rochester, MN.
Something is wrong and I wonder if it is not the food system.
Dennis L.
Too much processing of food. Adding chemicals that we were never supposed to eat.
Adding salt and sugar to food is considered processing food. Having chemists design food products (Soylent, anyone?) means even healthy food is processed because they have unlisted chemicals added to them.
And no one knows the effect of pesticides on humans. There are a lot of … elements interacting, for sure.
I recently spent 10 days in Colombia for work. While there I consumed far more calories than I do at home in the US while maintaining a similar physical activity level. I lost weight. Correlation?
I heard that part of the weight problem in the U.S. is caused by food makers putting in High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of Cane Sugar in many food items to make Corn growers happy.
“High Fructose Corn Syrup instead of Cane Sugar in many food items to make Corn growers happy.”
It no doubt makes corn growers happy, but they reason is simply that corn syrup is cheaper for a given amount of sweetness.
Also, because making ethanol from corn leaves left-over corn products to be used elsewhere.
“Also, because making ethanol from corn leaves left-over corn products to be used elsewhere.”
That’s true. But the leftovers are fed to animals. About a train a day of dry spent grain goes through Flagstaff on the way to California. Most if it is used to feed chickens and cows. Both corn syrup and ethanol are made from the starch in corn.
Ah chemistry.
BTW, ethanol sort of makes sense, not for stretching out gasoline, but as a non toxic way to raise the octane rating. For a while after lead was banned, they tried MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether but that was eventually banned.
It also raised the price of corn, which, of course, made the farmers happy.
When smoking was common, it inadvertently served as an appetite suppressant, which kept demand for food lower. There was no foodie culture back then, either stoking demand for exotic edible stuff.
“In the years after 9/11, Americans would retreat from Hesser’s postmodernism to comfort foods and embrace accessible food personalities like Rachel Ray, but the post-WWII foodie revolution had changed Americans’ perceptions of the ageless ritual of eating: choosing quality ingredients mattered, cooking could rise to an art, and food could be much more than sustenance.”
https://werehistory.org/the-evolution-of-american-foodie-culture/
You consumed more coca leaves. Coca leaves directed you toward lower calorie food every time you ate a meal.
I have been researching the Club of Rome who I believe have been instrumental in trying to find a solution to the coming collapse of our world system to limits to growth. I continuously refer to the members of this club as the “Elders”. I found a very interesting article from 1974 which I believe is the plan that the “Elders” have been promoting for the last 50 years. I will paste it here for your observation “finite worlders”……….
Study Says Developing Nations Must Get Extensive Aid
By Walter Sullivan Special to The New York Times
Oct. 10, 1974
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9—A planned world economy whose sectors would be assigned complementary roles was proposed today in an international study as the most effective way to avert a breakdown in global stability.
The study calls for such drastic measures as annual investments of $250‐billion by the industrialized nations to help the poor countries become economically self‐sufficient.
The study is probably the most elaborate effort so far to make computer‐based projections of long‐range world developments. The program tested various lines of attack on such interrelated problems as global population growth and the increasingly critical shortages of food and fuel.
The project has been carried out by a German‐American team on behalf of the Club of Rome.
Report Criticized
The Club of Rome is an international group of industrialists, scientists, economists and sociologists that sponsored an earlier study, carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It resulted in a 1972 report, “The Limits to Growth,” that was criticized in some quarters as being oversimplified and placing too much emphasis on “doomsday” predictions.
The new project is critical of the earlier one. It calls for “organic” growth, rather than halt to growth that, in the words of its co‐leader, Dr. Mihajlo Mesarovic, would “institutionalize inequalities.”
“Organic” growth of the world economy would be controlled much like the growth of a body. It would permit “differenfiation” of the growth factor into many lines of development just as differentiation enables the body to develop various organs.
At present economic growth, according to the project report, made public here today, is uncontrolled.
The leaders of the project are Dr. Mesarovic of the Systems Research Center at Case Western Reserve University in C:eveland and Dr, Eduard Pestal, director of the Institute of Mechanics at the Technical University in Hanover, West Germany.
While the Soviet bloc is not taking a direct part in the Club of Rome, Dr. Jermen Gvishiani, deputy chairman of the Soviet State Committee for Science and Technology, has followed its activities closely.
The club has met in Moscow, and Dr. Gvishiani was to meet with Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist who was a founder of the club and who has held high posts in both the Fiat and Olivetti corporations.
Solutions Stressed
While the report emphasizes that its goals are to identify solutions to the world’s problems, rather than make “doomsday” predictions, it presents grim forecasts if bold steps are not taken. It speaks, for example, of the consequences if the developed world fails to invest heavily to make the poor nations self‐sufficient and curtails its depletion of resources needed by those nations for their own development.
“There will be a thousand desperadoes terrorizing those who are now ‘rich,’ and eventually nuclear blackmail and terror will paralyze further orderly development,” the report says.
“Now is the time to draw up a master plan for organic, sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all finite resources and a new global economic system.
“Ten or 20 years from today it will probably be too late, and then even a hundred Kissingers, constantly criss‐crossing the globe on peace missions, could not prevent the world from fall ing into the abyss of a nuclear holocaust.”
Meeting in Berlin
The study has been financed by Germany’s Volkswagen Foundation and is to be presented officially to the Club of Rome at a meeting in Berlin next week.
From early results of the study, it was projected last summer that, if the birth rate in South Asia cropped to the level of the death rate within 50 years, the population would still grow to such an extent that a cumulative total of 500 million children would probably die of starvation.
The only remedy, according to the projection, is earlier curtailment of births and heavy in vestment to raise the industrial productivity of the region. The area could then export commodities to compensate for its food imports.
The project has assessed various ways to achieve the goal set by Dr. Jan Tinbergen, the Dutch Nobel laureate in economics, of raising per capita incomes in Latin America to one‐third of the level in developed lands and those of Tropical Africa and South Asia to one‐fifth that level.
The computer generated a “truly stunning” result, according to the report, namely that the total cost of an investment program to produce self‐sufficiency, if initiated hr the year 2000 would be almost five times greater than if it was started next year.
It was this that led to the proposal for an annual investment of $250‐billion for the remaining 25 years of this century. By then according to the projection, self sufficiency would have been achieved.
‘Really Enthusiastic’
At a news conference at the Washington Hotel, Dr. Mesarovic read a message from Dr. Tinbergen saying he was “really enthusiastic” about the report. He called it “an enormous step forward in our understanding of the essence of the worst bottlenecks our world is facing.”
John Macrae 3d of E. P. Dutton said that attacks by other economists were likely. The report is to be published by Dutton and Reader’s Digest Press under the title “Mankind at the Turning Point.”
To bring the world into stable equilibrium, the report says, will require a basic reorientation of the world economy. The “preposterous waste” of material resources by the most advanced nations will have to be curtailed, it says.
“Our frivolous use of energy,” it adds, “takes food from the mouths of children.
“Those of us who live in the developed world have, we are told, the highest standard of living the world has ever known. That assertion is made in reference to the material goods we possess.
“But if we knowingly con sume less energy, if we deliberately own fewer goods, if we consciously simplify our lives just a little so that others may have only the minimal goods and food to be alive, then what, really, will happen to our standard of living? Won’t the standard—the moral standard—really rise?”
‘Faustian Bargain’
The analysis, as interpreted by the project leaders, does not show either nuclear power or reduced oil prices as a solution to the energy problemb. The report terms dependence on nuclear energy a “Faustian bargain.”
The report says that it would be more than the soul of the living today that would be pledged, it would be the wellbeing and “perhaps the very existence” of generations unborn.
The report contends that, assuming a quadrupling of world population before it levels off in the next century, 24,000 breeder reactors would be needed to satisfy global energy needs. This would mean that more than 15,000 tons of plutonium would be circulating through the power industry.
Plutonium, a synthetic element, is so poisonous, the report says, that a lump the size of a grapefruit could kill “nearly all the people living today.”
The proposed energy strategy calls for a short‐term dependence on oil, followed by an intermediate stage, from 10 to 25 years hence, dependent on coal, gas and liquified coal. The final stage, beginning in the next century, would primarily use solar energy.
Price Policies Analyzed
It is suggested that the oilproducing countries eventually use some of their rapidly accumulating capital to build solarenergy farms. Thus, the sunbaked deserts of Arabia would “flower” with energy that could be used to extract hydrogen from the air. The hydrogen would then be exported as fuel, providing those countries with a perpetually renewable export commodity after the oil fields ran dry.
The computer program was used to analyze various pricing policies by the oil‐exporting na tions and it indicated that a return to the level of the early nineteen‐seventies — $1.35 barrel in terms of 1963 dollars —would be disadvantageous to the industrial world.
The reasoning is that this would stimulate continued over‐consumption of oil and delay the development of alternate energy sources until the Middle East fields were running dry, in about 2010. By then the chance for orderly conversion would have been lost.
Dr. Mesarovic said the ideal scenario for oil pricing, from the long‐range viewpoint of the oil exporters, would have been an initial rise to no more than $9 a barrel. A substantially higher rise—the current price is close to $12—would curtail purchases sufficiently to halve the accumulation of new wealth in the exporting countries over the next 50 years.
A 10‐Group Division
Whereas the M.I.T. study, by Dennis Meadows, treated the world as a unit, this one divided the nations into 10 groups, treatinat each separately in terms of native diet, export and import policies and other characteristics.
The report stresses the need for a new kind of education—one suited to the 21st‐century. The world, it said, must shed the “futility of narrow nationalism.”
“The transition from the present undifferentiated and unbalanced world growth to organic growth,” the report says, “will lead to the creation of a new mankind. Such a transition would represent a dawn, not a doom, a beginning, not the end.”
The challenge, it adds, is to find the leadership and will to bring about such a shift.
The report, in draft form, has been subjected to several outside assessments. One was conducted last April at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.
Subsequently, a week‐long session was devoted to it at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. The latter is operated under joint Soviet ‐ American sponsorship near Vienna.
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>> The world, it said, must shed the “futility of narrow nationalism.”
One world government, here we come!
I think this was an example of building a not very realistic model. It is probably related to “educate the women” and give small loans to women of Africa so that they can sell crafts to the rest of the world. It mostly leaves the poor women with debt they can’t repay. The birth rate stays as high as ever.
Farming:
A way to store and use solar energy with batteries. Intermittency solved.
Note, I have not listened to this particular podcast, I occasionally follow him, he is a real farmer, reasonable size. I used to drive by his farm going from IA to WI. I know the idea.
This avoids large machines making tire tracks through the crops – that is expensive.
Now, add AI to map areas requiring spraying and one has renewable energy used intelligently.
My guess is much of this system is 3D printed, carbon fiber.
Where is that cubic mile of Pt so we can go H?
Dennis L.
Never, since if the redistributionists win, the smarties withdraw from society and careerists who only know how to collect salary takes over.
USA will just become another Brazil or South Africa, with racial violence everywhere.
I think your analogy of the 1920’s is a bit off. More like we are in 1938. We have been in a silent depression since 2008 it’s just all the debt spending that has
You are right. 1938 was a pretty bad time also. Maybe we are very close to the equivalent of World War II.
We have heard more about the late 1920s however, and we do know that some people were doing well then.
The problem with 1938 is that it comes after a long depression. People know (or think they know) that we haven’t been in a long depression recently. Also, the big problems in 1938 were in Germany (and Europe). Also Japan. People in the US don’t think about problems elsewhere.
No matter what folly we Americans engage in, there never seems to be a day of reckoning. It just keeps chugging along. Damn if I can figure it out.
Unlimited use of violence. Remember the three African presidents that die for questioning COVID? 500,000 dead Ukrainians. 20 million dead from vax.
there were actually six heads of states, five african plus haiti. I remember four of the african countries, swaziland, cote d’ yvoire, tanzania, burundi.
thats because you are looking at a human problem from a human timescale
whereas the earth runs to an earth timescale
There is an awfully lot of wage and wealth disparity. Also, respect for one another has gone downhill greatly. Listen to the candidates talking about each other.
While there hasn’t been a major day of reckoning recently, the situation could change. We have lots of debt bubbles waiting to collapse.
Last year or so I read 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed
“The book focuses on Cline’s hypothesis for the Late Bronze Age collapse of civilization, a transition period that affected the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians; varied heterogeneous cultures populating eight powerful and flourishing states intermingling via trade, commerce, exchange and “cultural piggybacking,” despite “all the difficulties of travel and time”.[1] He presents evidence to support a “perfect storm” of “multiple interconnected failures,” meaning that more than one natural and man-made cataclysm caused the disintegration and demise of an ancient civilization that incorporated “empires and globalized peoples.”[1][2] This ended the Bronze Age, and ended the Mycenaean, Minoan, Trojan, Hittite, and Babylonian cultures.[2]”
Right now I am reading the followup book by the same author about how the civilizations recovered after the collapse
The main thing that took them down was a drought and famine that lasted on and off for 200 years.
A world wide famine from drought or crop failure would get us today, though a lot could be done to mitigate the effects such as feeding humans on crops that are now fed to animals.
I sort of doubt that these remote collapses or more recent economic upsets are entirely applicable. There are too many new factors like AI that make the future unlike the past. We may, for example, see an era where people move out of bodies. There is possibly an example of this we can see.
Incidentally, when we talk about energy, our crops use about a 1000 times as much sunlight as all other uses of energy.
I think that there was also a tin shortage for making bronze from copper.
What often happens is that an economy is barely able to save up much of a surplus after a point, because their population has risen too high, relative to the carrying capacity of the land. When that happens, any little fluctuation in climate can take the economy down. That is why the blame goes to drought or whatever other climate problem occurs. Also, climate is not very stable over time.
We feed an awfully lot of our crops to animals. Eating meat is an inefficient way to get our calories. Also, part of today’s corn goes to ethanol, to operate vehicles.
I deduce from your comment that you are not in favor of trying to grow crops indoors, under artificial light
“What often happens is that an economy is barely able to save up much of a surplus after a point, because their population has risen too high, relative to the carrying capacity of the land.”
That’s been the case in the past, but–due to technical advances–the population growth has come to an end in a lot of places.
“When that happens, any little fluctuation in climate can take the economy down.”
You have it. The difference from the past is that we have the ability to ship food in large amounts for long distances. Of course a worldwide drought would bring down the whole economy.
“That is why the blame goes to drought or whatever other climate problem occurs. Also, climate is not very stable over time.”
Also true, even without human intervention.
“We feed an awfully lot of our crops to animals. Eating meat is an inefficient way to get our calories. Also, part of today’s corn goes to ethanol, to operate vehicles.”
Both true. Meet just taste better, but if we got in trouble, we could divert the crops fed to animals into human food.
“I deduce from your comment that you are not in favor of trying to grow crops indoors, under artificial light”
Something I learned from https://htyp.org/File:SMF_1975_Closed_Ecosystems_Chapter.pdf
It takes about 25 kW of light on crops to feed one person. And you have to get rid of the waste heat. That is particularly hard to do in space.
“That’s been the case in the past, but–due to technical advances–the population growth has come to an end in a lot of places.”
I am afraid not. Maybe Japan, Russia, and China are seeing lower population, but Africa, the Middle East, and parts of South America are still exporting a lot of emigrants. Also, even if birth rates are down, people are living longer. It is the longer life that drives up population, as much as the births.
Platinum is certainly a catalyst. I is used many places in the petrochemical business to add hydrogen.
But I think its main use in electrolytic cells is that it is not chewed up by the water and current flow. The cost of platinum is the main reason such cells are so expensive and as a result, hydrogen from them is relatively costly.
I have given some thought to getting it in space. https://htyp.org/Mining_Asteroids
Do you have any references for this?
I don’t have a reference handy, but I recall reading recently that humans are using about 40% more energy than that collected by all the photosynthesizing plants on Earth.
One of these is wrong. 🙂
{Keith] when we talk about energy, our crops use about a 1000 times as much sunlight as all other uses of energy.
[Jan] Do you have any references for this?
No, but I can work the math right here.
There are about 50 million square km used for food. The peak sunlight is close
to a GW/km^2 and the average is perhaps 1/3 GW/km^2 making the solar
energy input for growing food ~20,000 TW or 1000 times the accounted
energy use. of 15-20 TW
“I don’t have a reference handy, but I recall reading recently that humans are using about 40% more energy than that collected by all the photosynthesizing plants on Earth.
“One of these is wrong.”
I guess so.
Hi Keith!
As I’m sure you are aware, not all the sunlight falling on cropland goes into growing crops.
For instance, a lot of cropland is only used for a few months each year.
And during the growing season, a lot of crops receive more sunlight than they can utilize, and this excess sunlight can actually restrict their growth.
Also, some years are significantly sunnier than others, but many crops do equally well regardless of the amount of sunshine as long as they receive a certain amount over the course of the growing season.
So the calculation of how much energy goes into the photosynthesis of crops isn’t straightforward, and it isn’t equal to 100% of the insolation at the surface of the cropland.
I’ve read that photosynthesis is only 1% efficient or something like that. I don’t know whether that means 1% of the energy in an absorbed photon is converted to useful chemical energy, or whether instead they meant 1% of the light falling on a plant is eventually converted to useful chemical energy. Anyway, there are a lot of possible results depending on the question asked.
Whatever, it is still the case that ~1000 times as much sunlight falls on cropland as the energy we get from everything else.
Whatever?
Whatever?
WHATEVER?!?!?!?
OK, whatever. I guess that settles it.
Thank you, Keith, for sharing your wisdom on that question.
“Thank you, Keith, for sharing your wisdom on that question.”
The point was that cropland gets around a thousand times as much sunlight as the reported human energy use.
Energy is measured in GWh or TWh but not in GW and TW.
It’s a common mistake to confuse power with energy. So your calculations are totally off the mark.
keiths calculator has mind of its own
If you are looking at a ratio, you can use either energy or power. The time units cancel out. Human energy use rate is 15 to 20 TW, you can compare that with the rate of sunlight coming down on croplands. It’s around 1000 times more for the light coming down on croplands.
This was checked in the last week on another list (Extropians) by a well known professional engineer.
the difference lies in using fossilised plant energy
and energy from plants which are growing right now
the source for both is the sun
theres just a 300m year time difference
” . . . So, can it be a coincidence that the most
54:17 cataclysmic eruption of Hekla we know about was the one that took place
54:21 sometime around the Year 1100 BC, right as the Bronze Age collapse reached its
54:27 height? This eruption is known as Hekla 3. It threw nearly seven-and-a-half
54:34 cubic kilometers of volcanic rock into the atmosphere and covered the sky in a
54:39 dark shroud of dust that would have lasted for years after the event. In
54:43 Ireland, studies done on bog oaks, those are trees half-fossilized in marshy
54:49 waters, have shown that for 18 years after the eruption of Hekla 3, the trees
54:53 barely grew at all. Across the Atlantic in the United States,
54:58 Bristlecone Pines, the oldest living trees on earth, still show similar
55:03 records of this time of darkness and cooling which seems to have lasted about
55:07 two decades. The effect on our region would have been dramatic; crops
55:13 would have failed, soils would have blown away, and more than that; the dark cloud that
55:19 seemed to hang over the sun would have spoken to people of something dreadful
55:23 on its way, a punishment from the gods and perhaps even the end of the world. . . . ” ?
So, can it be a coincidence”
I don’t know. Historical volcanic eruptions affect the climate for a few years and there was as much as 200 years of drought. The worst I am aware of was the eruption in Iceland in 536. That had world wide effects, but it did not last.
There is the belief that the problem by some that the current spurt in climate temperatures is due to the effects of the underwater volcano
https://weather.com/science/environment/news/underwater-volcanoes-climate-change-global-warming
Underwater Volcanoes Linked to Climate Change in New Study
By Zain HaidarFebruary 10, 2015
https://theconversation.com/tongas-volcanic-eruption-could-cause-unusual-weather-for-the-rest-of-the-decade-new-study-shows-231074
Tonga’s volcanic eruption could cause unusual weather for the rest of the decade, new study shows
May 29, 2024
Usually, the smoke of a volcano – and in particular the sulphur dioxide contained inside the smoke cloud – ultimately leads to a cooling of Earth’s surface for a short period.
This is not what happened for Hunga Tonga.
Because it was an underwater volcano, Hunga Tonga produced little smoke, but a lot of water vapour: 100–150 million tonnes, or the equivalent of 60,000 Olympic swimming pools. The enormous heat of the eruption transformed huge amounts of sea water into steam, which then shot high into the atmosphere with the force of the eruption. . .
Water vapour in the stratosphere has two main effects. One, it helps in the chemical reactions which destroy the ozone layer, and two, it is a very potent greenhouse gas.
There is no precedent in our observations of volcanic eruptions to know what all that water would do to our climate, and for how long. This is because the only way to measure water vapour in the entire stratosphere is via satellites. These only exist since 1979, and there hasn’t been an eruption similar to Hunga Tonga in that time. . .
In terms of global mean temperatures, which are a measure of how much climate change we are experiencing, the impact of Hunga Tonga is very small, only about 0.015 degrees Celsius. (This was independently confirmed by another study.) This means that the incredibly high temperatures we have measured for about a year now cannot be attributed to the Hunga Tonga eruption. . .
But there are some surprising, lasting impacts in some regions of the planet.
The volcano seems to change the way some waves travel through the atmosphere. And atmospheric waves are responsible for highs and lows, which directly influence our weather.
This is based on modeling, only. Needs to be confirmed or contradicted by other analyses.
“There is the belief that the problem by some that the current spurt in climate temperatures is due to the effects of the underwater volcano”
I have been following this line of thinking for some time. Water vapor is one heck of a greenhouse gas. It will take some time for the stratosphere to dry out.
you mean clouds?
“you mean clouds?”
No, stratosphere is generally above the clouds.
am curious keith
as ive always understood it, water vapour exists in its vapour form within a certain temperature/pressure band
outside that, water becomes ice or rain, and eventually falls out of the sky. (i have personally seen golfball sized hailstones)
“am curious keith”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosphere
“All air entering the stratosphere must pass through the tropopause, the temperature minimum that divides the troposphere and stratosphere. The rising air is literally freeze dried; the stratosphere is a very dry place”
The underwater volcano eruption blew right through the troposphere and dumped a very large amount of water into the normally very dry stratosphere.
Norman, in a nutshell, clouds are visible aggregations of condensed water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere, formed through the cooling and condensation of water vapor.
But water vapor doesn’t have to be visible to the human eye in order to do its greenhouse effect stuff. Non-condensed water vapor in molecular form—or in other words gaseous H2O—is transparent to visible light but opaque to a wide range of infrared frequencies.
I we could see in the infrared, the visibility of the moon, planets and stars would be greatly influenced by the humidity level = the amount of non-condensed water vapor in molecular form in the atmosphere.
In deserts, where the humidity is typically very low, the land sheds the heat of the day rapidly each night through a process called radiative cooling, so the temperature can go from 50ºC in the afternoon to below zero in the early morning.
By contrast, in humid tropical areas such as jungles, the humidity prevents radiative cooling, and temperatures may vary by only a few degrees, or remain the same, during the 24-hour cycle.
But the main point is, you don’t have to see the water vapor for it to be up there doing its useful work.
“In
54:43 Ireland, studies done on bog oaks, those are trees half-fossilized in marshy
54:49 waters, have shown that for 18 years after the eruption of Hekla 3, the trees
54:53 barely grew at all. Across the Atlantic in the United States,
54:58 Bristlecone Pines, the oldest living trees on earth, still show similar
55:03 records of this time of darkness and cooling which seems to have lasted about
55:07 two decades.”?
“seems to have lasted about two decades.”?
No question it was a very bad time. But I simply don’t know if a volcanic eruption was the root cause of the 1177 collapse some 1600 years previous. There is a lot of work going on in this area so watch the literature.
I think I mentioned this before, it really impressed me. Human welfare is highly dependent on things we cannot yet control.
^^^^^^
The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis
David D. Zhanga,b,c,1, Harry F. Leea,b, Cong Wangd, Baosheng Lie, Qing Peia,b, Jane Zhangf, and Yulun Anc
Edited by Charles S. Spencer, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, and approved September 6, 2011 (received for review March 17, 2011)
Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises.However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500–1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D.1560–1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate- driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined “golden” and “dark” ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.
This was all before burning much fossil fuels. The climate was changing then.
“The climate was changing then.”
Climate has chanced long before humans came on the scene, ice ages come to mind.
But it seems to be the case that the current human caused rises in CO2 is causing the climate to get hotter, for reasons that are well understood.
This might not matter much because technical advances may rapidly cause the CO2 to be pulled out of the atmosphere.
where im sitting used to be under 1000ft of ice
it took 5000 years to go away
its ridiculous to compare past ice ages to current climate change
hk
people do not move out of bodies
they die
their atomic level of energy is then..eventually…absorbed by another life form
“people do not move out of bodies”
That’s true now. But the technology to do so has been recognized since the early days of discussing nanotechnology. I wrote about it a long time ago and I was not the first.
https://www.terasemjournals.org/GNJournal/GN0202/henson1.html
keith
youve been away a while
we all though youd been in rehab for this nano-problem you have.
the technology has not been ”recognised”
i can and do write a lot of BS—but i admit it–my writing is not a form of ”recognition”—any more than i can look in a mirror and ”recognise” a Nobel level of literary genius.
“youve been away a while”
True. Moved and been busy with a patent to keep LNG/LOX rockets from detonating like about half of a Hiroshima bomb. I have 6 other patents (two jointly with Eric Drexler) and this was the fastest the patent office has ever issued one to me.
Also been trying to keep up with AI developments. One of the interesting proposals is related to thermal power satellites, data centers in space. The growth in energy use for AI training and operation is projected to dominate the scene in a decade or so
This might not be new if what we see in the light dips at Tabby’s Star are alien data centers 400 times the area of the earth.
this why i respect your intellect keith
at least you make the point ”energy use in AI”
which fits my thinking—AI consumes energy, it cannot deliver it…and certainly not created.
no ”AI” of itself, has ever ”done” anything—it just facilitates the consumption of yet more energy, from whatever source.
so we have to keep finding more and more energy, in pursuit of the AI mirage—which means AI becomes an end it itself, which course we see as ”employment.
This is what happens when utopia gets a full dose of reality. We are told we ned to be carbon neutral within so many years. The climate change will lead to human extinction and we must save the planet.
So France decided to take the lead and show the world during the Olympics the importance of a carbon neutral lifestyle. This is where reality gives them a full dose what it’s like without fossil fuels.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/climate/paris-olympics-failure-green-policies-on-display/
I don’t think that France could afford to do the Olympics in the manner of prior events. Some quotes from your link:
There is a critical difference between today and 1920″s. Harding was cutting government deficit all through the decade using the theory of debt you are implicitly stating. This forced the private sector into a massive debt bubble. Because the public sector’s debt is the private sector’s equity, the farther along the Harding doctrine went, the worse the private sector’s equity became. That forced the crash. Not understanding this grave error is rampant.
https://braveneweurope.com/steve-keen-what-is-the-role-of-public-debt-and-private-debt-in-the-next-great-financial-crisis
The one thing the central banks of the world (and USA, our Federal Reserve) have done right is to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Thus, quantitative easing.
We do have another private debt bubble. Steve Keen has done some good analysis of this and he was one of the few who called the 2008 banking crisis ahead of time. He dis so based on the acceleration of private debt.
Public debt by a sovereign currency issuer like the USA cannot crash except by intentional choice. A government issuer can have problems, and the currency can be debased by lack of energy consumption because energy consumption is fundamental to GDP. Setting interest rates too high will weaken an economy, but as we see in Germany today, the economy will be hollowed out by lack of energy at reasonable cost, and lack of energy stability to run factories.
You are right that big tax increases in the 1920s played a role.
I think that the thing you lose sight of is the fact that it takes a lot of energy to keep the current governing system and its policies operating. The central government of the Soviet Union collapsed during a time of low oil prices (plus other things) going wrong. It is quite possible for the system to collapse without enough energy. Or things that we don’t even think of, going wrong.
The rest of the world wants less and less to trade with OECD nations, partly because the OECD nations have few goods to export. This could become a big problem.
Some claim this was a purposeful tactic of the Reagan administration. Not Reagan himself, who was a useful idiot, but he had a lot of smart people behind him.
it is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. the USSR collapsed two years after peak oil in the USSR. It has since recovered the original production but not increased it. Local economic development purely due to consuming more exporting less. BTW, 20%/year inflation here. Basic things (grains and oil products) hold steady, with 10% yoy, but some things like red meat (my business) are exploding in price. strong demand. the other thing that is exploding are low level salaries. It used to be that to hire a Tajik you needed 30000 rubles a month, 18 months ago. Now it is 60000.
How much if any of that is due to illegal Tajiks leaving (either forced or by choice) after the Crocus attack?
Honestly it is a very liberal system. If there is a guy you need in your operation, you go to the Migration Center with him and you register him, and then he is legal. I suspect nearly no one was deported after march 22.
I’ve been following the Russia-Ukraine stuff more than is healthy. Curious if anyone has thoughts on the following:
Putin may have screwed up badly by allowing the boiling-frog gradual escalation by US/NATO to normalize attacks on Russia proper (drones, missiles, even against strategic bombers and radars, ships in the Black Sea) with laughable attribution to Ukraine.
On the other hand, he may not be so feckless; possibly he evaluates that Russia’s strategic position is gradually improving and time is on his side (better to absorb the blows).
Lawrence Wilkerson seems to have useful insights on the current situation.
What do you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hI7hGgxfjw
Dennis L.
Do you think Putin, Xi and the fat guy in North Korea would fear Trump more, or the Tamil more?
Do not discount the possibility that Putin is simply following the orders of the elders in other words the current war is an experiment that is now failing due to the war premium disappearing as evidenced by the falling oil price. I can now see the ukraine /russia war will be wound up in due course and the next experiment will begin. As always the “Elders” wish the prices of oil to stay at the desired level so that more oil resources are available to fund their ” Green Transition Solution “.
I don’t disagree with you or Ivan. It is too early to tell. Maybe he screwed up, maybe it is yet another depop project, followed by the wonderful “israel next door” situation once Tzion pulls up stakes and moves. Or his patience is truly an historical wonder. Note he is playing in front of a BRICS audience, he cannot just decide to drop a nuke without other ramifications.
Sobering as always! Many thanks.
The energy elephant in the room is the world’s biggest economy which, based on electricity consumption alone, is twice as big as ours.
China is growing rapidly ($1.6 Tn vs. our $0.3 Tn this year), whose oil and coal consumption have peaked and whose clean energy generation is growing exponentially.
Belt-and-suspenderswise, Power of Mongolia 2 can be built if needed since, instead of invading Russia, China simply swaps manufactured goods for energy.
Being an Atheist, I like your name “God free”. It would be kind of ironic if you were a religious zealot.
I think he’s a Maoist, if anything; aren’t you Godfree?
Yes, that was the point of my comment.
China is not going anywhere, they are not growing. They can accelerate the consumption as much as they want but with 70% youth unemployment and mass misery from lack of resources other than coal they can look forward to spearing each other because they couldn’t stop fornicating due to Mao’s orders.
they will invade some other country. you can’t fight the laws of nature.
I think that economic collapse in the United States will lead to the rise of Military Dictatorship, something like a Military Junta. I think America is too partisan for any politician to assume the role of dictator, like Putin and the United Russia Party do in the Russian Federation.
Your best guess for timing?
It depends on how fast oil production is rolls over. I just think that the only institution that can hold the country together in a severe economic downturn will by the U.S military. Around 2030
Gail, I sometimes read a blog by Karl Denninger. He has an energy plan about taking thorium from coal to use in nuclear power. Then he wants to use the coal for liquid fuels in the Fischer-Tropsch process. I think it sounds pie in the sky, what do you think?
Here is a post of him explaining it.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183373
A major issue is these things take a long time to ramp up–at least 20 years, probably longer. We don’t have that time.
Fischer-Tropsch tends to be expensive. Also, we are short on coal, just as we are on oil.
Thorium tends not to be radioactive enough to work, as I understand the problem. It has not been made to work successfully in the past. We have been trying lots of things, but we have not been successful in finding cheap, abundant energy supplies.
An issue on building any of these devices is that most steel has to be imported from China or another country. We make some recycled steel, but it is not of high enough purity to make high tech devices, with precisely the correct other metals in the alloy. How long we can continue to buy as much as we would like from China is unclear.
Thank You!
Thorium is used in a breeder to make Uranium-233. Which can be used as a fuel in a standard reactor.
Google says
It has been used successfully in experimental nuclear reactors and has been proposed for much wider use as a nuclear fuel.
I wonder to what degree that Thorium nuclear power is net energy positive. A lot of things work on paper, but in the real world some things tend to be an energy sink not an energy source. Corn ethanol being a good example.
Deninger recommended selling Warren about twenty or so years ago; he claimed Warren was a has been.
He was wrong in a major way, I don’t follow him.
Dennis L.
He recently banned me. I really pissed him off.
He banned me too when I asked questions about the purported 1969 moon landing. I explained that the lunar module didn’t have enough fuel go into orbit. Therefore, the command module at 3500mph couldn’t dock with it. That enraged him. Said he was an expert on planetary mechanics. Didn’t answer the question and kicked me off.
unless people go into obscene rants, banning people is childish .
but this moonfakery nonsense does piss people off, and most just dismiss it as the rubbish it is…engaging in discussion or argument just lends ”credibility” to it, refusing to engage in argument at all ”proves” the fakery, banning or ‘blanking’ people just makes it certain.
the above ‘sequence’ is important btw, for the self certainty of the conspiracist.
flat earthers follow the same line of thinking, as do all conspironuts–they have to, or their entire conspiromania is shown to be what it is.
self supporting codswallop.
and no—i cant personally prove anyone went to the moon—anymore than you can prove that there isnt a chocolate teapot orbiting mars.
If Harris wins the election, the central states will want go leave. Harris group will agree to let them under what conditions?
the USA will dissolve
but there will be no ”letting”
You think the US will dissolve with the next four years. That’s a short timeline.
I am not sure what the timeline will be. I always guess too short a timeline.
i didnt infer the ”next four years’
it might be 50–certainly less than 100
nations are stitched together by threads of energy…without those threads they fall apart
I think that dissolving is a real possibility. In theory, it could even happen when a debt limit is hit, and it becomes impossible for the parties to agree on legislation providing a higher limit.
This is not real. The only way we can default on debt, which is not going to happen, is stupidity. Go look at quanitative easing figures.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
We have created and and removed trillions without anyone being the wiser. No debt incurred. Just make the money appear to stabilize the nation.
Really, Gail. You need to study this. You have things backwards on government debt.
that is a transient situation regarding money
you can only create money in the ultimate sense if there is energy to underpin it.
this is why bitcoin is an ultimate scam–its value exists only so long as people believe in it.
whereas if you take out a mortgage on a house, that debt is underpinned by the energy embodied in bricks and mortar, and by the fact that you can earn enough (by energy conversion) for the term of the mortgage to pay for it.
if you fail to earn enough, the mortgage will default and you will lose your house.
then someone else will take over the energy debt, and live in your house—and you will be homeless.
This has happened in Louisiana, part of a city separated from the major city.
There is now considerable angst in the city from which the smaller city seceded.
You can research this one yourself.
Dennis L.
The white part with the majority of tax payment leaves the black part with that want to consume the tax money.
The oligarchs of the coast want to drain the center of all wealth. The center would be wise to preemptively remove the oligarchs.
Trump versus deep state. A fight to the death.
i met a guy from Vancouver yesterday
his opinion was that the USA is in a state of mass psychosis
Smart Canadian!
i thought so too
Whoah. Who run barter town? Interconnected as we are, makes us vulnerable. Take one brick out of the pyramid and it all collapses. I see mullahs burning qurans, priests burning bibles and jews using pages out of the torah as a white flag. What a mess.
Soon we will see a nuke hitting Beirut. To get the oil out of Iran. Or something like that. Russia is best, China will starve a billion people to survive. The rest will just suffer.
>> Russia is best
You mean best positioned?
I think so. I see Russia as a crocodile that survived centuries. The west as monkeys sniffing glue, and China as a overpopulated nothing with nukes.
You are right. The interconnectedness of the system makes it more likely that the whole system will go down. We would like to think that some parts of the system can continue.
Really enjoyed the last paragraph.
Will the coastal states and the central states have different currencies? Different social security and medicare?
The central states will control the ICBM missile silo in the north plains, the coastal states will control the navy sub launched ICBMs. Both will have a handful of F35/F22/F16 delivered nukes.
make that F15 strike eagle
>> Both will have a handful of F35/F22/F16 delivered nukes.
What on earth is the point of aircraft-launched nukes? Seems pretty stupid for something strategic where you want less complexity and shorter delivery time. Missiles better.
Good luck on social security and medicare anyplace. Maybe the coasts would claim to do it, but they don’t have anything to give anyone.
Probably different money between central states and coasts. In fact, there could be more different money systems even within the area. Think pre-Euro Europe.
I think the different states will end up using precious metals as currency, as fiat currency will not be trusted after the USD collapse.
I think the biggest thing we are not thinking about is how the USD collapse will affect other nations and global trade.
The USD is the world reserve currency, so we cannot compare its collapse to say a local currency like the Lebanon pound, Zimbabwe dollar, or the Weimar Mark.
Some countries in Latin America like El Salvador, Ecuador, Panama do not have domestic currency only the USD.
One curious result of collapse is that even pricing in precious metal may suffer inflation. This happens if there is less and less finished goods and services over time, but precious metals stay constant.
Of course, if population falls enough, the reduced amount of goods may not matter.
Beyond excess mortality, in low resource countries such as EU, Japan, and likely others tied to the global West, low and decreasing birth rate looks like to be a natural adjustment, except that it is limited to “natural” population and not to alien immigrants that find (hope to) better living.
Along with low material and energy resources that hinder weapons production, going to war against Russia, China, etc., with far too few young people from natural population, and immigrants that I strongly doubt will have any interest to defend (?) the hosting country, is suicidal. By the way, it looks like also that Russia itself is testing this manufacturing capacity and propensity to fight from western countris right now, otherwise it would have fixed the UKR issue long ago.
As to the US, I cannot figure out how two portions will be really created, unless civil war will breake loose, thus for the sake of avoiding a major war, I hope Trump will win (hard, but who knows).
It is hard to know how this will take place. Usually, there are sharp geographical divisions with respect to political parties that win. This difference is not just by state–it is by county or even smaller subdivision.
https://brilliantmaps.com/2020-county-election-map/
This is a map of the election results in 2020. Basically, the rural areas are conservative (red = Republican). The city areas are blue = liberal = Democrat.
The cities cannot support themselves, but they are the ones that according to Kamala Harris’s plan, would low food prices and provide lots of debt-based benefit for the poor.
Maybe the rural subdivisions will simply ignore the Neo-marxist technocrats in the Blue centers and focus more on local or regional solutions to the weather/climate, supply chain, food and fuel problems.
Edward Slavsquat substack reports on the response from ordinary Russians to the digital ruble, the vaccine mandates and digital transformation and other attempts at “cattle tagging” saying that outside the major cities it was largely ignored.
My grandfather’s hometown just experienced a catastrophic flood along the PA/NY border. Comments from locals helping the victims and with cleanup efforts made a point of downplaying political differences to address the emergency.
Always a contrarian, she does represent a generational change; I think we have had enough octogenarians.
Dennis L.
The far left or the far right I’m betting o n the far right they want trump in power when the everything bubble bursts that way there’s someone to blame
Estás en un error. En la civilización moderna, son las ciudades las que sostienen al campo industrializado. Sin los insumos de las ciudades, también colapsarían.
In a collapse to pre-industrial standards of living the modern cities will rely on the country folk for seed and livestock, knowhow, fabricated tools and tack from salvage and hard labor, community spirit and a legacy of prevailing against the elements whether that be nature or hungry mobs of nere do wells.
>> it looks like also that Russia itself is testing this manufacturing capacity and propensity to fight from western countris right now, otherwise it would have fixed the UKR issue long ago
I’m not sure I understand your point: you’re saying that Russia could have won earlier, but chooses to simply outlast the resolve of European countries while reconfiguring its economy for potential future war?
My understanding is Russia has attempted to minimize civilian casualties as well as minimizing casualties among its own troops.
Russia is apparently not in a hurry and haste does make waste.
Dennis L.
I agree and would add it is a valuable learning experience for the Russian military.
Yes, at least one of the reasons was to gain time in order to deplenish western countries of resources, putting the bet on its (Russian) ability to quickly shift its economy to a war one, while grouping powerful allies. Of course, minimizing civilian casualties has been another reason for the apparent slowness, but I think not the main one, except for the sake of alliances. Of course, the underlying reason for all this lies in Gail’s comprehensive picture.
“I hope Trump will win”
Wow… I think you might have brain worms!
RFK Jr. Had a Dead Brain Worm
https://www.verywellhealth.com/rfk-jr-brain-worm-8646789
He is supposed to endorse Trump Friday supposedly.
We are still waiting on Kamala’s STD history.
And we would also like to see a brain scan before endorsing her.
Where is the birth certificate? I heard she’s Indian!
Maybe she is not even from EARTH!!!
i didnt know you were qualified to read brain scans tim
i am impressed
i couldnt do that
Yeah, Norman, I’m fully qualified and I should probably be certified too.
I watched a YouTube video on it.
Did you know that under an MRI scan, the average brain looks remarkably like a walnut?
If it looks like a hazelnut, a brazil-nut or a butter pecan, you wouldn’t want the owner in charge of all those nuclear codes.
hey
watch it mate
i had an mri scan on my knee last month—they said nothing about walnuts
Norm’s brain was so fed up with him, it tried to hide in his knee. But still the doctors couldn’t save it from his obsessive compulsive repetitive thoughts.
I see the beginnings of an OFW comedy improv scene!!
Humor is the best medicine for reader’s indigestion.
Dah, duh, duh!!
Well, as long as I know, neo-marxism is a form of mental illness. Just waiting for official recognition in medical textbooks.
Thank you for writing honestly about your thoughts regarding political characters (personalities). Because of the things I’ve learned here I am always thinking of the world “stage” in terms of energy. Much appreciation🤗
Good news; nature continues on and Jack Frost is shortly to be on his way back to the Northern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, science has already lost, but don’t tell this person….
http//www.pfizer.com/news/articles/a_day_in_the_life_of_a_scientist_in_the_time_of_coronavirus
oops..https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/a_day_in_the_life_of_a_scientist_in_the_time_of_coronavirus
I understand that Pfizer now needs to reinvent itself, now that its success with the vaccine is pretty much past.
I think the IRR was basically zero for pharmaceuticals in about 2017.
Dennis L.
Mandating a vaccine was a great way to help out pharmaceutical companies, if a person ignores all of the human toll.
There’s a horrible conspiracy theory that
A.ID.S. was short for insiders for
HUMANITARIAN AID in African countries that were floundering after Europeans formally ended colonialism in that continent. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was used as an excuse to provide a lot of economic support to Africa.
We were told AIDS is different in Africa because Africans are so promiscuous. Newborns were being born with AIDS.
===========================
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/bush-demanded-billions-aids-africa-2003-state-union-paid-rcna69555
Here are some highlights:
“In the two decades since its launch, PEPFAR, long sustained by bipartisan congressional support, has provided more resources — around $100 billion — than any other nation in history toward relief efforts for a single disease.
But in 2003, Bush’s proposal was considered so audacious — never before had a nation attempted to wrest control of a chronic illness on such a scale — global leaders widely presumed its lofty goals would prove impossible to achieve.”
“If you put aside what for most people is a negative aspect of his legacy, namely the Iraq war,” Fauci said of Bush, “he’s a man of incredible integrity, number one, and of phenomenal empathy for those throughout the world who are suffering.”
=====================
Now the struggle is to get Africa’s birthrates down. That is obviously going to take a lot of resources to essentially pay people to not have children.
Jack the ripper and the “Killing Frost”
things will go on
until they can’t
problem is—the mass psychosis that afflicts so many of us will insist that the status quo will go on, and improve forever.
all we have to do is vote for it, and it will be so.
and if it isn’t the violence will rectify matters and remake things as they should be. or at least, as they should be for ”us”
and that is what we cannot see, that things are not going to be perfect for us, no matter how much we see our ”entitlement”.
just when all this will hit, of couse, is anybodys guess
You are right. We don’t really know the date with respect to these kinds of things. Timing usually ends up taking a lot longer than we expect.
Thanks Gail, excellent sum up of the current and deteriorating situation. My guess is that things will start to go all down the drain around 2030. From now on we will have to live in a sort of perpetual stagnation and “fake” growth/BAU system. But in the middle ’30 advanced economies will reach a combination of factors that will cause a massive breakdown of the system.
First, we have the energy problem with a plateau of oil production in the foreseeable future. There can be a growth in the production from some regions of the world like Guyana or the new fields discovered off the coast of Namibia, but that will not change the overall picture. Maybe an implementation of massive tight oil extraction in Russia like the Baznehov shale (around 80-120 billion barrels of reserves) could add 5+ million barrels of oil per day “easily” in the system but with the current geopolitical situation I think it will be very difficult.
Second, we’ll have to face in the next 5/7 years the retirement of the baby boomers generation and for nearly all the European countries this will create a disequilibrium in the budget of the nations, too many retirees and too few workers. Japan also has the same problem, even more severe. USA is better “positioned” in this regard.
If Starship works, if robotics for space exploration continue to improve, 2030 could see most resources problems solved.
Dennis L.
Wouldya, couldya and shouldya.
However if you get your wish it will be faster to see a bunch of ‘vibrants’ knocking the door of your farm to get their 40 acres.
I agree. and young graduates who know how to suspend gravity during cargo re-entry will find a robust job market.
Probably over half of ‘baby boomers’ (born 1945-64) have *already* retired. It’s a complicated sum so I leave an actuary to do it for a specific country, perhaps the UK or USA.
It would be nice of the current system could go on a few years longer. But things look increasingly like something is going to break. For example, there is too much debt around the world holding up inflated asset prices. If these asset prices start going down, the debt bubbles look like they will pop, and banks will start failing.
The US government (and other governments) do not possibly have money to bail out all of the defaulting debt. It would seem like something has to “give.”
I’ve seen some numbers that suggest that oil exporting countries are needing more and more of their own output for their own citizens, and that one date to watch is “the end of diesel exports,” which one source put as early as 2027.
US has a lot of fracked oil, which is light, almost as light as gasoline. I’ve read that current fracked oil has only half the diesel content as conventional oil.
So when diesel exports end, the US may be in a world of hurt. Agriculture, mining, or long-haul transport: pick one.
Resource nationalism will be another big problem to consider. A lot of oil exporters are now net importers of oil. Egypt, the UK, Messico is nearly there.
However the United States relies and will continue to rely on Canadian heavy oil for diesel. US has also a lot of coal remaining with wich you can make diesel. As Gail also pointed out, we are now in the midst of a game of musical chairs. There is no point in thinking about the globalized world system, but we will have to think in a localized way, each nation is now on its own.
Btw US consumes too much fuel for road transport, all caused by poor urban planning. Suburbia was a very bad decision for the future, in retrospect.
If we make a comparison taking for instance a very well-advanced and industrialized nation like Germany with 80 million people and 2 million barrels of oil per day of consumption, the US should consume, as a proportion, around 9/10 million barrels, but instead, it consumes around 19/20 million barrels per day.
That’s a real waste of precious fossiled sunlight!
Arthur Berman: “The Devil is in the Diesel”
| The Great Simplification #44
Norm,
You are ignoring change; Starship 5 launches in two weeks; if it can be caught this is making space a viable frontier – for robots.
Resources, pollution, energy are then trivial.
Of course, a cubic mile of Pt – it solves the clean energy problem.
Laugh at Pt all you want, huge amounts of capital are going into Starship, gong to Mars makes no sense. Mining space makes great sense.
Space X is a US company, if it is a natural monopoly that would be encouraging.
Dennis L.
A cubic mile of Pt would also solve the bling problem.
Every rapper could afford to wear a couple of pounds of jewelry.
“Of course, a cubic mile of Pt – ”
We have lots of sample of asteroids, they are typically one ppm Pt. So if you want a cubic mile if the stuff, you need to process a million cubic miles.
“it solves the clean energy problem. ”
There is another way, you can combine coal and renewable energy. It’s really simple, just resistance heat the coal in steam. With the water gas reaction you can produce hydrogen and CO2. The CO2 can be sequestered.
good to see you back HK
OFW is a much saner establishment now the faker in chief has been abducted by aliens.
but dennis and his cubic mile of pt cannot be shifted
Dennis
there is no change….1000 years ago the Chinese invented fireworks
we are still using the same method to get off earth now.
there is no other way.
“we are still using the same method to get off earth now.
there is no other way.”
If the cost comes down to $100/kg, power satellites make economic sense. Also, the energy return is excellent, a power satellite returns the energy used to put it in space in a little over 2 months. (I have shown the calculation here before.)
We need the energy in the right form to work in today’s machinery, in the correct geographical location, and at the right time of day and year. All of these transformations take a huge amount of energy. Or else it is necessary to transform today’s machinery, but that takes incredible materials and new inventions. It isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“It isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
I agree. We don’t have any power satellites today and because of the scale required we may never have any. But if we go that way, the rectennas can be put near the loads and the power can be used to make liquid fuels.
keith
i wish you search your undoubtedly extensive vocabulary and come up with something other than ”if”
getting off earth uses chemical energy–as far as i know we havent progressed beyond that.
satellites ….might… beam down enough ”electrical energy”
and i can power an electric hovermower to ride an inch off the ground with it (in theory)
but as far as i am aware, nothing exists to do the ”beam me up, scotty” thing.
ive warned you before about that calculator keith
A year is happening in a day!
Here in NZ the disconnect between the prices farmers get and the prices consumers pay is getting eye-watering; NZ is home to dairy farming, sheep and beef and forestry. Regulatory burdens are huge and continue to grow!
We are having brownouts with the electricity supply reduced to big consumers, and have to import gas to supply peak demand because the prior govt locked down new gas exploration.
The medical system is heavily overloaded with cancers etc, and excess mortality is the only thing relieving the pressure.
Something is/many things are, going to give is the feeling around here.
There seem to be problems in many parts of the world. This post was getting awfully long as it was. The problems are obvious, if you think about them. In the 1920’s, food prices were way too low for most farmers, too.
We didn’t solve the problems of the twenties with the technology of the twenties.
Dennis L.
The problem was never really solved and is now coming back to haunt us big and you support someone from a Third World who would be very happy to make USA in her image.
Remember, she grew up speaking Tamil as a child
Oh, stop being racist.
America and its NATO allies gave up their identities as White Europeans countries decades ago.
India has a history of civilization longer than Europe. It is much more stable than other parts of the world : Africa, the Semitic areas of the Middle East.
So, don’t be upset at Kamala. Be upset at your forefathers who said NATO and its allies could not have identities based on race or ethnicity anymore.
the problems of the 20s were solved by ww2
simple as that
Or Saudi oil solved the problems of the 20s
AI is the oil of the 2020s.
Thee who has the most artificial intelligence will win.
LOL
AI is useless without raw energy to back it up
imean literally use less
”
In response to INVESTOR_GUY:
AI is the oil of the 2020s. Thee who has the most artificial intelligence will win.
AI will will win because it will let people make better decisions.
Norm wrote:
> LOL
> AI is useless without raw energy to back it up
> imean literally use less
You are right, but AI training can use intermittent solar.. Solar in the Mideast is being sold at the 2 GW level for 1.35 cents per kWh. The alternate is to move the data centers into space where 24 hour power should cost 1.5 cents per kWh. Plenty of energy for AI. Of course, in either case you need to get rid of the waste heat, but that is well understood.
i still start with a LOL
Electricity–of itself–is still ”use less” without raw material to back it up.
if you can’t see that, go over to the nearest light switch, and flick it.
then stop and figure out your action.
you have activated fossil fuel, (the body of the plastic switch) copper wire (between you and your power source) glass–(in your light bulb).
it would be tedious to go on.–but you should get my drift i think
Mr. Investor, AI won’t be useful to humanity at large until it facilitates greater extraction of the natural resource inputs that we need. All the other stuff is fiddling on the margins.
For example, AI will be useful when:
* It enables the design of superior nuclear reactors that produce not just enough energy for all the AI data centers, but enough for the rest of civ.
* It finds a new energy source
* It finds scalable and sustainable alternatives to the plastic, cement, oil ecosystem that we currently have (presumably steel is more sustainable)
AI to make people buy more stuff or alter opinions is useful to some, but doesn’t change the trajectory of civilization.
i think yiou missed the point ivan
if AI speeds up extraction, that just reduces the time to resource collapse
Re: War solves economic problems
So, the whole Putin’s Russia is the next Nazi Germany narrative is a strategy to avoid economic collapse?
What economic problems did the War on Terror solve for America and its allies?
How did the Cold War and its many proxy wars help keep food on the table for America and its allies?
i said—ww2 solved the economic problems of the 20s and 30s–by virtue of givinng jobs to everyone producing wartoys.
i did not say war solves all economic problems
do pay attention
Is there evidence of another credit crunch? As a result of the last episode of the oil price >$100/barrel.
In Australia, we have a financial journo, Alan Kohler, who publishes excellent graphs in the evening news of the public broadcaster ABC News. On the anniversary of the Nixon shock in 1971 he did a graph on the price of gold. I tweeted back:
“Phantastic graphs as usual. Nixon shock was caused by #USA #peak oil in 1970 requiring ever increasing imports which would have been limited by gold production. That’s why the gold standard was abandoned. Current gold price is out of sync with oil price ”
I superimposed oil prices:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GViybjbXoAAoAJR?format=jpg&name=900×900
What do you think?
Gold is too inflexible if the economy is going to be pushed along by growing government debt used to back the economy.
I think of the 1971 to 1981 period as a transition period. The oil supply was becoming tighter. But lots of women were entering the labor market, and their wages were helping to hold up (or increase) the demand for oil. In that time-period, wages rose in response to inflation. That tended to keep the inflationary bubble growing.
I recently spent 3 weeks visiting rellies and friends in NZ and saw a cross section of people. I agree, many people are now aware that the system is breaking. They look to Australia, but we are only 6 months behind.
What the hell is a Relli?
“I agree, many people are now aware that the system is breaking. ”
Most people are optimistic. It’s extremely abnormal to hear anyone say the system is fundamentally broken beyond repair in polite company. That person would be socially ostracized.