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Summary: We live in a conflict-filled world today. I believe that this is ultimately a “not-enough-to-go-around” problem. Hidden oil shortages are the problem. Strangely, at this stage in the economic cycle, oil shortages seem to appear as high interest rates rather than high prices. The “climate is our biggest problem” narrative gets told repeatedly because it makes cutting back on fossil fuels sound like a virtuous thing, rather than something we are being forced to do.
Introduction: When a major change occurs, such as moving to a new home, there are always a variety of explanations as to why the change took place. When explaining the change to someone else, we will almost always give a positive reason for the move, such as moving to be closer to relatives, access to better job opportunities, or to enjoy a better climate. We don’t talk more than necessary about negative issues such as being fired from a job, undergoing bankruptcy, or considering a divorce from one’s spouse.
With oil shortages and other energy problems (including the possibility of too much fossil fuels leading to climate change), the situation is in some ways similar. There is no simple answer as to why these problems are occurring. What we end up with is different groups seeing the current situation and its long-term resolution from different perspectives. Each group emphasizes the aspects of the problem that they see as most amenable to being solved. The different perspectives lead to conflicts among the groups.
We are living in a finite world. It is not clear that any perfect solutions are at hand. What is clear is that a finite world behaves very differently from what our intuition or the models created by economists suggests. In this post, I will try provide a partial explanation of what our energy dilemma entails, and how this leads to conflict, even war.
[1] World crude oil supply suddenly “turned a corner” about 1973. There was a huge change both in the price and growth rate of the oil supply.
Prices were amazingly low prior to about 1973. The prices shown have been adjusted for inflation to the 2023 price level.
Once oil prices rose, the growth rate of oil consumption collapsed because goods and services made with oil were no longer as affordable. There was also an effort to cut back on oil consumption because it was clear that low-cost oil supply was limited.
Increases in the supply of very cheap oil allowed many improvements to infrastructure. Electricity transmission lines, interstate highways, long distance oil and gas pipelines, and infrastructure supporting transport by air were all added. The economy became more productive. Figure 3 shows that the wages of even low-paid workers were able to rise.
Up until 1968, US wages for both the bottom 90% of workers and the top 10% of workers rose much faster than inflation. With this change, all kinds of goods and services became more affordable, including food, new homes, and new cars. In the period 1968 to 1981, the wages of both groups rose as fast as inflation. After 1981, growth of the wages of the top 10% far exceeded the inflation rate. Figure 3 shows data for the US, but the “Marshall Plan” helped spread economic growth to Europe, as well.
The rising oil prices in 1973 and 1974 brought the growth of oil consumption down to a much lower level. Without low-priced oil, inflation and recession became much more of a problem.
[2] Interest rate changes are being used to offset problems caused by too much or too little oil supply growth.
Figure 4 shows that rising interest rates acted as brakes on the economy up until 1981. Figure 3 shows that this was a period when the purchasing-power of workers was rapidly expanding, indirectly because of the rising supply of cheap oil. The reason why these higher rates slowed the economy is because higher interest rates make it more expensive to finance high-cost purchases. These higher interest rates also tended to hold down price appreciation of assets such as homes and shares of stock because fewer buyers could afford them.
Lowering interest rates over the four decades beginning in 1981 acted in the opposite direction. These lower interest rates made major purchases more affordable, allowing more people to afford a given home or farm. This tended to raise home and farm prices. In the US, refinancing mortgages at lower interest rates and taking out some or all of the price appreciation on the property became popular, further adding to purchasing power. These changes acted to boost the economy, hiding the growing problems with high-cost oil supply.
[3] The world now seems to be hitting two limits at once: (a) Crude oil supply is not keeping up, and (b) Interest rates are stubbornly high.
Figure 5 shows that world crude oil production (relative to population) was lower in June 2024 than for any month since June 2022. The June 2024 production level was much lower than in 2019, before the drop-off in oil production related to Covid-19 restrictions. A longer view strongly suggests that the peak in world oil production took place in 2019.
Based on the high prices experienced in the 1970s, many people today assume that inadequate oil supply will be signaled by high prices. Instead, what is happening now is more of an affordability problem. There are more young people with student loans who cannot afford cars or families. There are many people with college degrees working at jobs that do not require advanced education, and thus do not pay well. There are more immigrants earning low wages. Because of these factors, overall demand tends to stay too low to encourage the development of new, more marginally profitable, oil wells.
Interest rates shown in Figure 4 have risen sharply since 2020. Governments in many countries have raised debt levels, but this added debt has not resulted in a corresponding amount of goods and services being added. The problem is that the oil supply needed to produce these goods and services isn’t rising sufficiently. Instead, the added debt has tended to produce inflation.
Currently, politicians around the world want to add new programs (financed by debt) to help their economies out. If this new debt actually gets more oil out of the ground (through higher oil prices), it may be helpful. But, so far, the additional spending isn’t producing a corresponding amount of goods and services; instead, inflation is tending to stay rather high. This is a sign that limits on inexpensive-to-extract crude oil are being reached. With more inflation, interest rates on mortgages will remain stubbornly high, and economies will deteriorate.
Governments may want to reduce long-term interest rates, but they cannot do so without having the market for these loans disappear. In this part of the economic cycle, it appears that high interest rates, indirectly due to inadequate inexpensive-to-extract crude oil supplies, act as a brake on the economy instead of high oil prices. This confuses those who are expecting high oil prices to signal inadequate supply!
[4] Citizens are not being told about the shortage of low-cost crude oil. Instead, a climate change narrative is being emphasized.
In the 1970s, huge spikes in oil prices led to an immediate understanding that the world had an oil problem. But the fact that the economy has gone on since then, and oil prices are no longer up in the stratosphere, has led people to believe that the shortage problem has gone away. Adding to this belief is the fact that there seem to be substantial oil resources that can be extracted with current technology if the price is high enough.
With a different model, based on the amount of fossil fuels that might be available (if prices could rise high enough, for long enough), it is possible to conclude that if the world continues to extract fossil fuels as it has in the past, this will contribute to rising CO2 levels. This, in turn, could have an impact on the climate.
In my opinion, we are currently facing a serious shortage problem today, not only with crude oil, but also with coal. World coal consumption, relative to population, has turned down in the period since 2012.
The problem with coal seems to be similar to oil; there seems to be plenty of coal in the ground, but prices won’t rise high enough, for long enough, to allow extraction of the higher-cost coal.
Anyone looking at the situation, regardless of their perspective, would say, “We truly need something other than oil and coal to supplement our current energy supply.” The question becomes, “How can this issue be framed to be moderately acceptable to the public?” President Jimmy Carter, back in 1977, talked about the energy crisis and the need to use less oil, but he was not re-elected. Citizens didn’t like the idea of changing their lifestyles.
Somehow, the plan was developed to frame the problem as a climate change problem. This approach had multiple advantages:
(a) This approach would perhaps lead to finding some alternatives to oil and coal.
(b) Citizens would be able to feel virtuous, as they voluntarily endured higher prices and lower energy supplies, during the hoped-for transition.
(c) This approach would allow huge investment opportunities for businesses, including oil and gas companies. Higher profits would perhaps follow. Universities would also benefit.
(d) The economy would show higher GDP because of the growing debt used to finance the so-called renewables. Job opportunities would develop.
(e) Framing the conversation in terms of a climate change narrative instead of the crude oil shortage narrative conveniently leaves out the importance of very low energy prices for the affordability of finished goods. This narrative also leaves out the importance of an adequate total quantity of energy products to maintain GDP growth. Economists didn’t understand either of these issues.
(f) When the carbon emissions goals were announced in the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the goals had the indirect effect of shifting industry from the US and Europe to China and other Asian countries. Because of the use of very inexpensive coal and low-cost labor, the shift would allow for the world production of manufactured goods to grow at very low cost. Businesses in the US and Europe could hopefully take advantage of this shift because US and European oil and coal supplies were becoming depleted, making it impossible to make this change without the assistance of coal supplies from China and elsewhere.
[5] The world economy is already facing a not-enough-to-go-around problem that plays out in many ways. These not-enough-to-go-around issues contribute to conflict.
(a) Exporters are not getting high enough prices for their exported oil. Revenue from oil is used both to support the development of new fields and to provide tax revenue for governments to provide services for their citizens. If oil prices were $100 to $150 per barrel, exporters would have the additional revenue needed to support their economies. This is a major reason why Russia and Middle Eastern countries are in turmoil.
We don’t think of low oil prices as a not-enough-to-go-around issue, but it is. Shortages of fossil fuels of any kind tend to slow the growth in the supply of finished goods and services that use those products. The part of the world economy left behind can be the producers of fossil fuels, even more than the consumers.
(b) Natural gas export prices have tended to be too low. Low pipeline natural gas prices to Europe were a major reason why Russia wanted to shift its natural gas exports toward China and other Asian countries, where prices might be higher. US natural gas producers are also unhappy about the low prices they get. The US would be happy to push Russia out as a natural gas exporter to Europe.
(c) The Advanced Economies have reduced industrialization because of depleting oil and coal supplies. They have substituted the sale of services.
The US first shifted away from industrialization in 1974, immediately after it discovered that its non-shale oil supply was declining, and the price of additional oil would need to be much higher. A further shift occurred after the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
At the same time, the industrial production of the “Other than Advanced Economies” (including China, Russia, and Iran) has soared. The industrial production of these economies now exceeds that of the Advanced Economies (including the US, most of Europe, Japan, Australia among others–defined as OECD members).
What oil is available is increasingly consumed by the “Other than Advanced Economies.”
(d) Consumption of the main products of crude oil is being squeezed down by strange temporary economic downturns, especially in the Advanced Economies.
Advanced Economies seem to be adversely affected far more than less advanced economies, partly because industrialization is essential; services can more easily be eliminated.
(e) Poor people of the world are especially affected by the not-enough-to-go-around phenomenon, while wealthy individuals and corporations amass more wealth and power.
This is a physics issue that plays out in many ways. Young people, in particular, find it difficult to make adequate wages to afford a home and family. Even young people who obtain higher education find it difficult to succeed.
Major foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, gain power over what would appear to be independent organizations, such as the World Health Organization, by making huge donations. Regulators of many kinds become tied to the groups they regulate, making decisions that favor the companies that they are supposed to be regulating over the welfare of the individual citizens that they are supposed to be protecting.
In the current situation, the general public feels increasingly powerless, and many feel the urge to take matters into their own hands. All these things add to the conflict situation.
[6] The United States has been the leading world power, but its ability to defend other countries militarily is rapidly eroding.
While Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and members of the EU would like to think that the US can adequately defend their interests militarily, this ability is rapidly eroding. Today, nearly every type of manufacturing in the US requires supply lines from around the world. It is difficult to supply needed military aid to countries overseas, without placing an order for supplies from a country that the US is increasingly in conflict with.
Even the supply of electrical transformers to replace damaged ones in war zones raises a question of whether a sufficient supply can be assured to meet the demand for replacements for storm-damaged transformers in the US. Long lead times are often required to obtain transformers in the US, even in the absence of any additional demand for them.
The US tends to use sanctions to try to get other countries to do as it prefers. This approach doesn’t work well because sanctioned countries learn to work around the sanctions. Increasingly, in the BRICS countries, steps are being taken to move away from the US dollar as the standard for trade.
As long as the US is the accepted world leader, other countries that are involved in conflicts (which are indirectly about energy supply) will try to draw the US in to support them. Ukraine has been having energy problems for a very long time.
The EU, the UK, and Israel all seem to want war, and they would like the US to help them.
In 2023, US per-capita oil consumption is more than double that of the EU, UK, and Israel at the same date. The US’s total energy consumption per-capita is more than four times that of Ukraine. These countries assume that the US can provide the weapons and other assistance they need. But the countries they are fighting against know that the US is dependent upon supply lines that extend around the world. Actually, the US’s ability to provide help is quite limited. This adds other areas of conflict.
[7] The shift to wind and solar electricity is not working out as planned.
While the US has added wind and solar capacity, it has not added to the per-capita electricity supply. It is too expensive when all the costs are considered, and it is often not available when needed.
Communities are figuring out that if they really want a larger electricity supply (to support electric vehicle use or growing artificial intelligence demands), they need to add something other than wind and solar. In the US, this usually means added natural gas electricity generation. There are also at least two plans to reactivate closed nuclear plants in the US.
The EU has not had any better success at ramping up per-capita electricity generation using wind and solar (Figure 14).
A glance at Figure 7 (above) suggests that industrialization doesn’t really come from an expanded electricity supply. Inexpensive fossil fuels seem to be the base of industrialization, and the world is increasingly short of these.
While approaches for moving away from fossil fuels, other than wind and solar, are being tried, success at an adequate scale seems to be far away.
[8] It is hard to tell the rest of the story in detail.
We live in a finite world. All parts of the economy operate in cycles. In fact, individual people, individual businesses, and individual governments all have finite lifespans. We now seem to be coming to the end of an economic cycle. We don’t know precisely how this will end. We do know, based on history, that the downward part of the cycle will likely take years to resolve.
We as individuals are hard-wired to prefer “happily ever after” endings to our narratives. This is why people who believe that we are running short of fossil fuels tend to believe that if we just try a little harder, we can extract more oil, natural gas, and coal. There must be enough resources in the ground if we focus our efforts in that direction.
On the other hand, people who believe that climate change is our biggest problem seem to think that we can transition to using a modest amount of renewable energy instead. Unfortunately, the physics of the situation doesn’t allow things to play out that way. Also, our so-called renewables are built on a base of oil and coal. If we can’t get enough oil and coal out, already built renewables will stop functioning within a few years, and new ones will be impossible to build.
Nearly everyone who does modeling assumes that the future will be very similar to the past. Analysts assume that the economy can continue to grow forever. They assume that it is possible to pull larger and larger amounts of resources from the ground. It is easy to assume that leaders will look out for the best interests of all their constituents, and that businesses will act ethically. But we have already begun to see evidence that these assumptions don’t necessarily hold. The fact that some people can see that changes are coming, while others cannot, is part of the reason for the current conflict.
A major problem that the world faces is the fact that while governments can print more money, they can’t print more resources. Thus, broken supply lines are likely to become more common. Wars may need to be fought in new ways–for example, taking down other another country’s internet or electrical grid. Pensions will likely need to be cut back greatly, or they may ultimately disappear completely.
We don’t know how this all will end, but a great deal of conflict of one kind or another seems very likely in the next few years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0eKzU_fV00
In a few years there will be really good augmented reality glasses. Here is what there is now already – heavy glasses, but still much improved from the giant goggles of other demos. As they keep iterating, it will eventually happen.
As there is a lack of the personnel and the people try to save, the business of the restaurants is in danger
https://youtu.be/CmgCWsoWGVs?si=_6Lf1RUdVgX4II2p
yes most restaurants will have trouble surviving into the 2040s, maybe even into the 2030s.
OMG!
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2024-11-01/warning-future
This video is the most twisted piece of psyop I have ever seen!
It is part of the 4th gen warfare in the US.
wow in only 2 months the 2020s will be half in the history books.
the forecasted degrowth of IC has begun, but it is so slooooooow.
Funny synchronicities of our times
5th November US presidential election
5th November guy-forks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night
Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Fireworks Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain, involving bonfires and fireworks displays. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605 O.S., when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. The Catholic plotters had intended to assassinate Protestant king James I and his parliament. Celebrating that the king had survived, people lit bonfires around London. Months later, the Observance of 5th November Act mandated an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure.
Within a few decades Gunpowder Treason Day, as it was known, became the predominant English state commemoration. As it carried strong Protestant religious overtones it also became a focus for anti-Catholic sentiment. Puritans delivered sermons regarding the perceived dangers of popery, while during increasingly raucous celebrations common folk burnt effigies of popular hate-figures, such as the Pope.
I know people are tired of me blathering about AI, but I am literally 10-20x faster programming with it for tasks that are laborious/tedious but not conceptually difficult. These sorts of things are the crummy part of programming and often the bulk of a project. It took me 10 hours today to do what would previously have taken probably 2 weeks or more. Its impact on this industry is going to be huge.
Blather away with my blessings. Posts from people in the trenches are always interesting.
About 6 months into the early AI releases there was a long discussion on a list I follow that AI had improved some people’s productivity by about 3 times. Not surprised if it has gotten better since then.
This is one of the reasons I feel we are in uncharted territory rather than on a path to doom.
Google CEO Says Over 25% of New Google Code Is Generated by AI (Benj Edwards | Ars Technica) “We’ve always used tools to build new tools, and developers are using AI to continue that tradition. On Tuesday, Google’s CEO revealed that AI systems now generate more than a quarter of new code…
I expect the productivity of AI is part of what is leading to a lack of programming jobs in the US. Also, a lot of programming jobs have gone to low wage countries overseas. Experienced programmers, who are not good managers as well, have a hard time finding jobs.
“I expect the productivity of AI is part of what is leading to a lack of programming jobs in the US. ”
Possible, but I think it will take at least a year or two adjusting to the higher productivity.
” Also, a lot of programming jobs have gone to low wage countries overseas.
Possible AI will bring them back.
“Experienced programmers, who are not good managers as well, have a hard time finding jobs.”
Again, possible, but I think it will take a while to shake out.
if something has increased output x 3
then it will almost certanly have increased their energy consumption by twice that
Good point. So far AI has moved or is moving a bunch of people from the “programmer” bucket to the “unemployed” bucket. they are still eating.
just like shale ai will give us more time to solve our big problems maybe the cornucopians were correct afterall technology will solve all our problems.
I am not so optimist that I think technology will solve all of our problems, but I do think that our current problems we be considered quaint in ten or 20 years.
yup
next time i fill up
i will press the relevant button on the pump
and put in 20 gallons of artificial intelligence—far cheaper than diesel
how can i go wrong?
I know someone who works at a place that installed new computer security so no one could work from home. This person used AI to re-connect in under three hours. She said it would have taken weeks to figure it out without the AI.
AI helps you to consume finite energy resources.
it can never create resources for you
A wise choice Norman, as all the FFs were burnt to power the ai, which unfortunately will offer you no power in return, but thanks for your money and compliance.
No matter how you try to point out the problems ahead, the children are set on their crusade. Nothing will change that and just like those children, the ones that are most enthralled with parlour tricks, will be the ones it destroys first.
The real problem is we do not have 10 or 20 years . At most we will be lucky if we have 5 years.
I sometimes wonder if AI is the new Jevon’s Paradox. In the past, a lot of tedious bookkeeping and tabulating would only get done if it were essential. Now, we like to compile data because we can. The new “make work” for AI.
“It took me 10 hours today to do what would previously have taken probably 2 weeks or more. Its impact on this industry is going to be huge.”
yes the layoffs are going to be huge.
“yes the layoffs are going to be huge.”
Perhaps not. Management may be out there hiring people who can now accomplish much more. Depends on how much work there is.
quite possibly. the recent past has been increasingly about who has the most capital (to buy giant server farms and gpus) than it used to be, less about who has the most ingenuity. you have to already have resources just to be in the game.
(Il Giornale d’Italia + Comedonchisciotte)
“The Netherlands. Health Minister admits: ‘We have to follow NATO, US and NCTV orders (National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, abbreviated as NCTV), COVID was a military operation’.
The new Health Minister has openly declared that she cannot keep her election promises because Health Ministry’s activity is subordinate to NATO, NCTV and the US.
Doctor Van Veen: ‘That’s why all the censure of critics and doctors opposed to that pandemic management’.”
Link + video of the speech in Dutch:
https://comedonchisciotte.org/olanda-ministro-della-sanita-confessa-dobbiamo-seguire-ordini-nato-usa-e-nctv-covid-e-operazione-militare-video/
Speech subtitled in English:
https://x.com/i/status/1850525670905888792
Reading TM now, agree, near future will be bumpy. Agree with this site, terrestrial resources are becoming too expensive to be practical. Personal opinion is pollution is a problem and climate change is too dangerous to risk.
But, there is Musk. Kuhl makes note of a prior effort to exploit Russia which seems to have been recently repeated. The nice thing about space is there is no one there to fight; that means less overhead, no one needs to drive a tank in space. Or, I have my rock, there are plenty here, just get your own.
The universe is self organizing or there is someone with their finger on the scale, take your pick.
H seems to be an engineering possibility and at first approximation it is non polluting. Use terrestrial solar energy and no appreciable heat gain for spaceship earth.
Yes, we will make it, but first one needs to handle the near future. TM is looking at that except he sees it as terminal. I see it as a speed bump, well, a hell of a bump. But, we have made it before, the game isn’t over until the fat lady sings – a metaphor.
Dennis L.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has rained on the Musk Parade
https://youtu.be/3Jgev_YGl44?si=hxrCTS_ctkyN3or9
tl, dr, Musk has not done anything NASA had done before.
A lot of people now do not like Tyson, and Musk himself tried to debunk this clip just recently, but at least Tyson knows more about this that the average layman.
The whole reason to extract resources from Russia and other places is to gain enough time to properly advance to space. Today there are not enough resources to last until the day comes.
If we have another 50 years , we will make it and to invade Russia and take its resources is to gain such time.
But with the prospects of taking Russia’s resources getting dimmer every day, the chance of gaining 50 years is getting dimmer .
I think the big issue is whether Musk and company can reduce costs associated with space travel and exploration. NASA has done these things before. If space solar is going to be feasible, and a lot of other space-related applications, transporting goods to desired locations needs to be cheap and dependable. In theory, Musk’s company could provide this service.
Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a small town. One day, the town was hit by a severe flood. As the waters began to rise, the man prayed to God for help.
First, a sheriff came by in a car and warned the man to evacuate. The man replied, “No, thank you. God will save me.” The sheriff drove away, and the waters continued to rise.
Next, a boat came by with rescuers who urged the man to get in. Again, the man said, “No, thank you. God will save me.” The boat left, and the waters rose even higher.
Finally, a helicopter came and dropped a ladder for the man. He still refused, saying, “No, thank you. God will save me.” The helicopter flew away, and the waters eventually engulfed the man’s house, and he drowned.
When the man arrived in heaven, he asked God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God replied, “I sent you a sheriff, a boat, and a helicopter. What more did you expect?
God has sent Musk, we are making the starships, the rocket engines get better with every printing, Toyota is pioneering cartridge H cars. We need a cubic mile of Pt, have a bit of “faith” in Him. Meanwhile, at least take the boat.
There are real boats out there, the choice is ours. Leaving behind what seemingly works is the hard part; that is the political narrative we are now experiencing. Again, TM covers this and it was linked above.
Dennis L.
Some people during the middle ages had an idea similar to yours
https://youtu.be/9RfHz2gVcUo?si=S_hSLLeWw5TTJtTF
Life was hard, there were no escape routes and the lower class boys, without any prospects, were stuck.
A couple boys, one in France and one in what is now Germany, claimed they had vision from God and assembled other boys (and sometimes girls) who were bored or otherwise deprived and they began to march to the Holy Land to launch the Children’s Crusade.
When someone asked how they would fight the Saracens they said their faith would be enough to convert the infidels.
When another person asked how they would go all the way to the Holy Land, which was like going to the space since few people , and none of these teens, ever traveled farther than 10 miles from their birthplaces. They said a miracle will occur and the sea would split so they could go to the Holy Land.
Seeing any effort to dissuade them was futile, the local bishop blessed them, leaving them to their fate, and 2 captains offered to take them to the Holy Land.
The captains, being worldly men, had no illusions about Holy Land but did not miss a good chance to earn a quick buck, and they sold the teens to slavery in North Africa, and none of them were ever heard again.
That sorry tale partly inspired the Pied Piper of Hameln story.
The cold truth is
1 We don’t have a starship which actually works now
2 We won’t have it for quite a while, longer than what you want to believe
3 Even if we have it there won’t be enough time to advance the tech so it would be worthwhile.
I have used the Children’s Crusade as an example of evolution weeding out the most gullible. The ones left behind were a little less gullible to whatever extent genes contribute to this trait. You have it right at least for the myth version. For more:. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children's_Crusade
That was one of your best kulm very interesting story about those teens being sold into slavery
It would be my opinion that Russia has greater ability/prospects to achieve results vis a viv space than the nancy’s at NASA.
USSR blitzed the west in all measures re early space exploration, and now has hypersonics well ahead of the west. Only Russia (pre-Musk) was delivering regularly and safely to the space station, not nASA.
NASA loads too much frippery into its designs; Russia just gets the job done.
WWII was prime example of getting on with business, and this seems to be being repeated in the Ukraine.
They also seem to have an industry focussed on outcomes not captured by money.
My reservation is that the world of hi-technology we are barrelling into is distinctly anti-human; we should stick to the Schuman resonance, and not the telco wifi wavelengths.
(‘When humans tune into the 7.83Hz frequency, they experience numerous benefits such as enhanced memory and learning, improved stress tolerance, emotional balance, and grounding.’).
Finally, space is not the final frontier, but the mysteries of the para-normal that Russians have been exploring for far longer than the dumbed down west.
Russia plays Chess.
The West plays tiddly jinks..
Hard to say, it would be good to have both Musk and Russia and NASA for that matter.
The situation is serious, it will be bumpy and if you read my little story, the sheriff has come and gone, a boat will be by and something is better than nothing. Missing the helicopter would suck.
So we learn how to row for a while. Rather than a bumpy ride, we will have choppy seas.
There is too much work in us and given our state it would seem even God has a hard time making things as He might like. Humans have never perished, yet.
There are some who say the pyramids and the Sphinx are more like 12K years old. That is old history, between that time and say 3K years ago it could have been very bumpy. Hopefully we don’t have to wait as long this time.
As for climate change, serious people think the Sahara Desert was once lush. Well, one can be fairly certain that was not secondary to ICE, etc. So, earth sometimes get bored with the climate, plates and moves things around a bit. Winter for mother earth is an occasional ice age. We are along for the ride.
In the mean time, catching the large booster again would be encouraging.
Dennis L.
The sheriff being human trafficker, the boat a pirate boat, the chopper carrying narcotics and making the person being rescued a drug mule.
The ride is bumpy and the shock absorber has failed and now it is shaking the pelvis. Soon the fluids will leak and the journey will stop in the middle of night at the heart of bandit country.
Ah, you are referring to the democrats. We will see.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
‘As for climate change, serious people think the Sahara Desert was once lush….’
FYI; we are heading for a record low for Nov (spring) where I live. Models are so GIGO.
We are certainly along for the ride, until we crap in our our nest with anti-life technologies.
We can explore as far as we want with the grey matter evolution has gifted us, but will crash into physical barriers when trying on the material plane.
History is full of yogi’s etc.
Time travel in your own mind in your own living room is the future.
Musk has better CGI and PR than NASA surely?
Yes and he is a better self promoter, while actually delivering very little.
“terrestrial solar energy and no appreciable heat gain”
Not quite true. A solar farm is much blacker than the desert it replaces.
Okay, got me, not that knowledgeable. I assume with black the radiation is not being reflected back into space. I am rusty in my black body calculations,
The real problem is the Pt issue.
Dennis L.
EVs are doomed….they are uninsurable.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/26/24228982/rivian-factory-ev-fire-damage-battery
Turns out there were 50 cars on fire. All a complete loss.
WHy don’t you rush out and buy one right now!
Insurance in general cannot last. Gail knows this more than everyone else at here.
You are right. Insurance can’t last. Banks can’t last either. Pension plans cannot last.
We have a lot of faith in the future being like the past, when it can’t be.
Perhaps, my guess is they are non repairable and depreciate to zero which all cars do only failing one piece at a time. Make them last 500K miles and scrap them.
ICE carry gasoline which we learned to extinguish, a guess is batteries “discharge” too quickly when they burn.
Toyota to the rescue, hold your applause, H; non polluting and excess H floats into space where there is a huge amount of the stuff so it won’t pollute space.
Of course, Starship needs to find a cubic mile of Pt and get it back to earth. Musk is now landing 100 to 200 metric tons and catching it with chopsticks. Find the Pt, move it to low earth orbit and land it in Texas or wherever. Before Pt becomes too cheap to be a problem, pay taxes with it. Irony of irony, paying in non fiat money which depreciates to zero with the landing of the second cubic mile. That should give a person a quiet laugh. This is the King Midas story I should think.
Wealth is people, invention; there is no shortage of stuff. Musk is building rocket ships at an incredible pace. Does anyone really think they are for Mars? Sales pitch? ESA is apoplectic, can’t figure out how to throw away rockets after a single use and be competitive; that is depreciation, depreciation of a skill set, depreciation of a capital good and the information contained within it. Musk seems to even 3D print the rocket motors. Again laughing, at end of shift technicians leave the printer to work over night, go out, get a beer and next morning a new rocket motor. This is a blast – couldn’t resist on that one.
Dennis L.
Keeping the infrastructure needed for EVs will be a challenge. Maintaining “regular” electricity will be a challenge; adding enough capacity for extra charging stations, where people need them will be difficult. Perhaps rich people with garages to charge their vehicles can make the purchase of an EVs work for short distance travel. But traveling cross country is not going to work for anyone. And the market for used EVs will be small, since lower-income buyers will not have charging ability for them.
Argentina collapses into poverty
https://youtu.be/fRLKeOtzZQo?si=jtqm-8j0kmlBzWvF
Argentina was an agricultural giant. Its collapse is besides the high energy prices caused by the rising domestic and foreign populations which need low food prices.
Don’t know, it is a country which apparently should do well. Guess is it is some sort of social structure which simply does not work.
Dennis L.
I have some of the data to prove this, but perhaps not all of it:
I think of Argentina as a former oil exporter. Back when oil extraction was cheap, Argentina could make money selling the oil it exported.
During the years 2013 to 2018, Argentina was a net oil importer. This is what caused the balance of payment problems.
More recently, it is my understanding that Argentina has gotten into extracting oil using fracking. This approach is expensive. The product that comes out tends to be awfully light–too much of it is natural gas liquids, which is not worth much.
While Argentina appears to be a net oil exporter now, it is my impression that what has happened is that the country cannot survive on the fracked oil exports. The oil is too light to make much diesel. Argentina needs cheap diesel to power its economy, but it doesn’t get it from the current system.
There is the old saying that “An Argentinian is an Italian who speaks Spanish, acts French and wishes he was English”.
Nobody except the brainwashed wishes to be English nowadays.
Argentine, as well as all of Latin America and Philippines, use the Spanish style of land ownership (Portugal is no better) , large estadios for the large landowners, nothing for the rest.
The landowners in argentine opposed any industrial buildups since that interfered with their land rights. They would produce the agricultural products cheaply, processed by foreigners and preferred to spend their incomes in Buenos Aires and Europe.
The two most famous Argentinians now, Lionel Messi and Jorge Bergoglio, both prefer to reside in Europe.
As a result engineers and other smarter people did not emigrate to Argentine, only the dregs of society did. And we know what it did to there, producing a people who only know handouts.
The Grand Plan was to seize Russian resources next for nothing in late 2010s, make China submit, put heavy restriction on people;s lives and advance to Type I civilization.
With that the top echelon of humanity would have been quite close to Singularity by now, although the lot of about 98% of the world’s pop would have been a lot more worse than what is now.
But it is for the Greater Good that the people suffer and the country of Russia get the short end of the stick since they are much less likely to advance civilization to the next stage.
Alas the plan did not succeed because of Trump in 2016 and we are now at a precipice, with the present system will probably not last until end of 2025.
“the plan did not succeed because of Trump in 2016”
The plan didn’t succeed because the Elites, Deep State, whatever are delusional idiots. “Correct use of pronouns increases force lethality”.
The US military might have been slightly less useless in 2016, but not enough to make a difference.
F35 most expensive. least reliable military aircraft ever.
Kulm’s point is valid about USA having missed its best chance.
I don’t remember the development dates offhand, but Russia didn’t have hypersonics in serial production in 2016. Russia was still reeling from western sanctions in 2016 because their banking sector was heavily dependent and intertwined with the western system. They made use of the intervening 8 years (2014 to 2022) to decouple and insulate themselves.
On the other hand, since there was no powerful Ukrainian army in 2014, perhaps there was no way to win short of direct NATO participation, which might set off a strategic exchange.
If Gopalan wins, Trump, Musk, etc will go to jail probably for life.
Trump, Musk, etc are in a host of legal problems, and while Musk might flee the country, since he is not an American to begin with , Trump and his friends won’t escape.
That will at least make some Musk worshippers quiet.
Karl Denninger analyses the balance sheet of USA .
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=252218
Does not matter. USA can issue as much dollars as it feels like because of signorage, aand the rest of the world has to pay for that
When the balance sheet is good, you are largely safe. When the balance sheet is bad, it becomes a confidence game and there’s no telling how long it can last – things could fall apart tomorrow, or the can might be kicked another 10 years.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-harris-administration-wasted-nearly-one-billion-dollars-misinformation
How money is spent….
By the way, the glue that binds us all is the “financial system” just like the trade/barter as outlined in Cline’s book 1177BC
The only difference is that every known modern civilization need to have this “glue”. Coupled with JIT and the need for instant information for the financial system, we are basically held hostage by “financial system”. This is identical to “trade” in 1177BC.
When the financial system is unglued, then we have a serious problem at hand… very serious problem at hand
This is a direct link to the 113 page report by the US House of Representatives on the response to Covid-19:
https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/We_Can_Do_This_NIH_PR_Campaign_Report_PUBLIC_82616d81eb.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Somehow, the self-organizing system provided this very strange response. The response temporarily fixed the financial system by providing very low oil prices (and other energy prices) as well as an excuse for more debt. Without this response, there would have been more riots in the streets. I see the Covid-19 response as a financial fix that was billed as a health fix.
Another issue is that the economy cannot provide for so many elderly and disabled individuals. The disease and the vaccine together managed to kill off quite a few elderly people and people in poor health. The way people in nursing homes and assisted living centers were treated discouraged others from going there, if they possibly could. So, the Covid-19 response helped fix the economy is several ways, even if quite a few individual citizens were harmed.
We live in a self-organizing system that is very strange. Today’s economy is starting to pull itself apart. The fact that some people see the Covid-19 response one way and others see it another way is part of the way the economy pulls itself apart. Without enough cheap energy, the US government and other central governments cannot continue to operate.
“cannot continue to operate.”
Cuba.
I agree. Cuba is a good example of a place that cannot continue to operate without a huge amount of cheap energy available. The form of government did not help, either.
Haven’t been there in many years, Hong Kong seemed to work well.
Dennis L.
See my 2015 post about Cuba if you haven’t read it.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/05/26/cuba-figuring-out-pieces-of-the-puzzle-full-text/
“The disease and the vaccine together managed to kill off quite a few elderly people and people in poor health.”
Actually, mostly the vax and murderous hospitals acting to get Govt COVID payouts.
Latest estimate from CHD is 15.3M killed by the vax.
Does that sound reasonable? It is twice the official count for the virus.
yes very reasonable, there were many tens of billions of dollars to be made on the jabs, and the excess death data jumped with the jab rollouts, a year or so after the c19 epidemic began.
Where did these excess deaths happen? For the US it would be as bad as the worst months of Covid-9. If it was in hospitals, it took refrigerator trucks to cope with the bodies. That certainly should have been obvious. Any ideas on how something like that could be hidden?
deaths were spread out over all the highly jabbed countries for the year or two when jab rates were high.
“Cline’s book 1177BC”
In his more recent book, which I just read, Cline now thinks a long drought leading to famine and mass death caused the collapse. Not the only case known. The `1260 drought destroyed the Southwest corn farmers.
Your point that it could happen to us is certainly valid. Two ways I think, possible, global warming kills the crops, or we get a volcanic eruption like the one in 536. (Worst year to be alive.)
if there is no way someone would get the money from ATM or if the JIT system collapse, would gerbil warming be even an issue?
“if there is no way someone would get the money from ATM or if the JIT system collapse, would gerbil warming be even an issue?”
I can’t say. It will be interesting to poke through the reports on western North Carolina and see how the recovery progresses. It is possible that the largest effect might be storms and not people dropping from the heat.
He’s like all other historians then. Wrong. The reasons were the same as always.
“Wrong. The reasons were the same as always.”
Which one? Or do you think they were both wrong.
Can you list the same as always reasons?
Ingersoll Lockwood, a New York lawyer, briefly gained some fame after his little-read children’s book titled Baron Trump was rediscovered on 2017.
He also wrote a book called 1900, Or the Last President.
People who never bothered to read that short book claimed Trump would end the US democracy and would become the Last President.
However, that book is a complete opposite to that claim. This is not an endorsement about Trump, about whom I don’t have any feelings.
This book assumes William Jennings Bryan, a populist candidate, was elected President in 1896. Strangely he is not referred by name after the first chapter.
Long story short, the Populists launch a huge campaign against the robber barons and the kind of people some would call the Deep State.
Not surprisingly, the fabrics of US finance collapse. That book is sometimes short of details , but the capitalists withhold all investment, and the entire country enters a material shortage as the rich begin to park their wealth in Europe.
In the end, as the president relegated to be a non-entity, the three parts of the country, the North, the South and the West, decide to go separate ways, with the Capitol being abandoned and a single eye, probably that of the devil, watching the whole thing with joy and then disappearing.
Actually I think that will be the better of all possible developments USA would be awaiting.
Dustin Nemos postulates Trump is an endtimes, Jewish-stooge Anti-Christ, whose job is to exterminate as many goyim as possible.
See his interview with Mike Adams: https://www.brighteon.com/eb00f1d4-1ba0-4028-a082-39017232313d
Make your own assessment. He does make a good point about Trump needlessly rushing through the vax – Operation Warpspeed.
Also https://www.dustinnemos.com/
I was wondering if Fauci was the Anti-Christ.
Washington State Governor Jay Inslee activates the National Guard in case of election-related violence
https://x.com/BNONews/status/1852510269986988507
Strange that a blue state governor is doing that
Interesting observations on turbo cancers and others. John Campbell.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AHJc8D-7Vg
Thanks to the group here, I sat this one out. Old man, so far so good, haven’t had Covid, skipped the jabs.
More luck than smarts I guess.
Dennis L.
Wait till the army comes knockin.
From a publication aimed at physicians and other health care workers:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19vaccine/112712
Public Health Department Barred From Giving COVID Vaccine
Experts say it’s a first
Could be true!
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tv-exec-tells-cnns-brian-stelter-inconvenient-truth-trump-victory-means-msm-dead-current
TV Exec Tells CNN’s Brian Stelter The Inconvenient Truth: “Trump Victory Means MSM Is Dead In Current Form”
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/GbLhHGlXAAAAaOG.jpg
Not much of a loss, the hemlines and heals of the presenters can’t get much higher.
Dennis L.
The MSM died a while back for anyone who isn’t brainwashed.
Slava Ukraine, get your booster and all that.
Team Trump Panics as “Hell” Breaks Loose in Elon Musk’s Voting Plan
Elon Musk’s America PAC has Republican operatives more than a little concerned about Donald Trump’s ground game.
Nine Republican operatives and canvassers seemed alarmed about issues with the super PAC, which has reportedly collected a plethora of faked canvassing data, NBC News reported Friday.
America PAC has also reportedly engaged in dubious treatment of its canvassers. Two canvassers anonymously told NBC News they were made to knock on doors outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, as Hurricane Helene rolled in on September 27. One of them said that their direct manager told them to go door to door, despite leadership instructing them to make calls instead.
“If I go into the troubles that we went through just getting into the field, working, I’m talking about soggy literature, right?” the canvasser told NBC News. “Ponchos on ponchos.”
“It was very bad,” they added.
The second canvasser said that many canvassers quit after that experience.
In Michigan, some canvassers funded by America PAC were reportedly given unrealistically high expectations, under extremely poor working conditions. They claimed that they were threatened financially if they performed poorly. Canvassers said that they’d been misled by the PAC and a video showed that they’d been carted around in the back of a U-Haul, instead of the rental cars they were promised. One canvasser even said they were surprised to learn that they were canvassing on behalf of Trump.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/team-trump-panics-as-hell-breaks-loose-in-elon-musk-s-voting-plan/ar-AA1tlBH8?
> High Stakes, US Elections 2024 w/ Robert Barnes (Live)
Betting markets seem to favor Trump.
Its all good, Kamel Harass will be safe and effective!
This is why the duran is second class. Apart from never going to places which would make contrived explanations of reality simple, they spend an entire program on trifling matters like who will win the beauty context Tuesday.
drb , agree with you . Shallow talk occasionally they bring on some good interviews . Quality has deteriorated over time .
Is it all slipping away?
Donald Trump Suffers Triple Polling Blow in Battleground States He Must Win
“Donald Trump has suffered a blow to his campaign, with three new polls indicating he trails opponent Kamala Harris in key battleground states crucial for his path to victory.
According to the latest set of Marist polls, conducted between October 27 and 30, Harris is leading Trump in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
For Donald Trump to win the election, he needs to flip one of these three Blue Wall states from Harris. That is because if Harris manages to hold on to these three states that Biden won in 2020, plus get the highly likely single electoral college vote from Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, then she will have got exactly 270 electoral college votes needed to win the election, as the map below shows.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-kamala-harris-polls-swing-states-1978425
With only five days to go until Election Day, more than 60 million Americans have already cast their ballot, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab.
Women make up 54% of that number while men make up 44%.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14025429/women-early-voting-trump-harris.html
That’s a 10 percentage points which = 23.76% more woman voting.
“An analysis of Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted in October shows that, among women, Harris led Trump by 12 points.”
When we are looking out over the ashes (dung heap?) of our civilization, we will know who to blame 🙂
A lot of older people are not working during the day. They find it easy to vote early because these places are open on weekdays. Women outnumber men in this demographic.
A question is, “What happens when more men vote, later in the election?”
Men tend to vote less then women. They have things to do
The first time women were given the vote Warren Harding became the candidate solsly because of his looks which would make him more appealing to women voters
“Women make up 54% of that number while men make up 44%.”
I can’t help wondering what the remaining 2% is.
don’t go there.
The polls are ridiculously close and they could be significantly off anyway.
Everyone is in the dark right now.
Wall St. and the betting firms suggest that Trump will win.
But time will tell.
https://eu.goerie.com/story/news/2024/11/01/whos-winning-presidential-election-what-polls-say-now-swing-states-pennsylvania/75985912007/
ABC News project 538 shows Harris leading in the national polls by +1.2%, Harris 47.9% to Trump’s 46.8%; Pennsylvania has Trump leading by +0.7%; Arizona has Trump leading by +2.4%; Georgia has Trump leading by +1.8%; Michigan has Harris leading by +0.8%; Nevada has Trump leading by +0.3%; North Carolina has Trump leading by +1.4%; and Wisconsin has Harris leading by +0.2. Trump is now leading in 5 of the 7 swing states compared to last week’s polls results.
https://abcnews.go.com/538/trump-harris-normal-polling-error-blowout/story?id=115283593
Based on how much polls have been off in the past, our election model estimates that the average polling error in competitive states this year will be 3.8 points on the margin.* This error is not uniform across states — for example, states with different demographics tend to have different levels of polling error — but, generally speaking, when polls overestimate a candidate, they tend to overestimate them across the board. In other words, the model is expecting a roughly 2020-sized polling error — although not necessarily in the same direction as 2020. (In 50 percent of the model’s simulations, Trump beats his polls, and 50 percent of the time, Harris does.)
They said Hillary will wipe Trump off the map. Ignore polls.
Will they end up skipping the election games and just have a hot civil war? If it is true there is too much to loose and not enough to go around
Maybe AI bubble is failing.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/south-koreas-chip-output-drops-first-time-14-months-amid-slowdown-samsungs-chip-division
I am not surprised. One guesses that AI is a 10^10 dollars business, most certainly not 10^12.
AI is overrated .
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/10/31/super-micro-computer-becomes-the-frist-ai-mania-highflyer-in-our-imploded-stocks/
Check back in in a few years.
In a few years no ome will remember AI
In the early days of the internet, there were people who said it was a flash in the pan.
You could be right, but I can’t think of another project that has had as much money spent on it that has been forgotten. The amount of money spent on AI is in the class of the moon landing.
Great comparison!!!!!!
” The amount of money spent on AI is in the class of the moon landing. ”
How did that improve the life of 8 billion( was it 6 billion then) humans on the planet earth ? Throwing money at a project does not guarantee effectiveness .
“( was it 6 billion then) ”
You can look it up. Most sources for 1969 say around 3.6 B
“effectiveness”
100% effective in getting to the moon.
Motivation was competition with the USSR, below that was religious competition considering communism as a religion.
Ok so 3.6 billion but what difference did it make to their quality of life ?Answer –Nil .
By your own admission it was about nothing , but as George Carlin would say a ” dick waving contest” between the USSR and USA . Period .😁
RU: “Throwing money at a project does not guarantee effectiveness.”
excellent thought there, the massive amounts of money thrown at so-called AI will be a sure way to judge how massively overrated it all was.
When Rogan interviewed Trump last week, they chatted for three hours without mentioning vaccines. Now Rogan has interviewed Vance, and Vance has dropped his own personal “Vaccine Bombshell” story:
=========
J.D. Vance revealed on the Joe Rogan podcast that “the sickest [he’s] been in the last 15 years” is when he took the COVID vaccine.
Vance felt so badly that he said his heart was “racing,” and he was left bedbound for two days straight.
Despite having COVID “five times,” Vance said that COVID was at worst a “sinus infection” compared to being the “sickest [he’s] been” with the vaccine.
Rogan jumped in, adding that he knows several liberal public figures who believe they’ve suffered vaccine injuries, but they don’t want to admit it publicly out of fear of being labeled “anti-vaccine.”
“Yeah,” Vance agreed, sharing that he has encountered several individuals in the same situation, saying “I know people who are public figures who have had serious vaccine side effects who do not want anyone to talk about it. Absolutely. They’re scared of being labeled an anti-vaxxer.”
One of those people injured, Vance revealed, is “a Senate colleague who doesn’t want to talk about it but worries that it’s permanently affected his sense of balance, dizziness, and vertigo.”
“I’ve talked to a number of people who think that they got vaccine injured. Some of them are public about it, and some of them are not,” Vance said.
The Covid vaccine problem is very bad, but politicians don’t want to talk about it.
“Covid vaccine problem”
It can’t that bad. I know around 1000 people who had the vaccine and none of them have had problems with it.
Perhaps you are an outlier, Keith?
Or perhaps some of the people who told you they had the vaccine lied in order to go to your Christmas party? I hear the social pressure was pretty intense in some parts of the US.
Or perhaps some of them have omitted to tell you about their post-injection medical problems, or have put such problems down to other causes? Like roundup, Gluten, G5, or global warming?
Or perhaps the demographic you are a member of is relatively unaffected by the injections because your senescent immune systems are incapable of responding to the toxins in those jabs? Younger people below 45 years old seem to sustain more serious damage, since their immune responses are a lot stronger than the over 70s. And a lot of the initial damage these shots do is done by precipitating auto immune attack that destroys cells—particularly epithelial cells (the lining of the blood vessels—making the foreign “spike” protein by killer T lymphocytes.
That’s how Eric Clapton came to loose his ability to play Lola, and why British Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay had both his hands and feet amputated last year due to sepsis, and my younger brother—God rest his soul—died within two months of being diagnosed with throat and stomach cancer.
But you and your circle have so far avoided any of those consequences. So, lucky you, not to worry then, jab on. It’s safe and effective, permanent ACE2 downregulation via autoantibodies, sv40 enhancement, IgG4 class switching, plasmids, and the risk of anaphylaxis with your next shot notwithstanding.
“Perhaps you are an outlier, Keith?”
In several different ways, see the Wikipedia page about me. A lot of my friends are outliers too, some more than I am. I must know a couple of dozen people who also have Wikipedia pages.
One group I am associated with, Hacker’s, insisted on proof of vaccination if you wanted to attend in Nov. 2020. Hacker’s has a fair number of younger people, but a substantial fraction of them are old folks who were most likely to die if they were infected with the early versions of Covid. I could dig the details out of my email, but I think they tested everyone on entry for the Nov. 2021 meeting.
While the vaccine didn’t cause any problems i know about, Covid killed a friend of mine (a former president of Alcor).
“omitted to tell you about”
Possible, but most of my friends are vocal about such things. But it’s a small sample. Given the rates of problems that even the most extreme antivacers claim you would not expect to see even one in such a small sample.
Just from a statistical point of view it is impossible that during the last three years the 1.000 people you know didn’t have any health problems or died.
If you or they or both don’t connect these health problems with Covid vaccination is another matter.
There is also the point expressed by Vance in his interview, that is that people don’t want to publicy talk about those problems in order to avoid to be labelled badly (in that point mass media was really sucessful).
Anyway, it is so full of scientific researches by now in well known publications explaining what are Covid vaccines problems, even clarifying in relation to which vaccine and how many doses one had, therefore, living in ‘Alice in the wonderland’ is by now only your personal choice.
“Just from a statistical point of view it is impossible that during the last three years the 1.000 people you know didn’t have any health problems or died.”
I mentioned that one friend died–Covid got him.
Pancreatic cancer got another more recently.
“If you or they or both don’t connect these health problems with Covid vaccination is another matter.”
If people did, they are not likely to take the boosters.
There is also the point expressed by Vance in his interview, that is that people don’t want to publicy talk about those problems in order to avoid to be labelled badly (in that point mass media was really sucessful).
Anyway, it is so full of scientific researches by now in well known publications explaining what are Covid vaccines problems, even clarifying in relation to which vaccine and how many doses one had, therefore, living in ‘Alice in the wonderland’ is by now only your personal choice.
I am well aware of vaccine injury. It is the function of vaccines to prime the immune system. Sometimes this is fatal or causes long term injury. Testing and followup gives you the numbers. If the damage from a vaccine is more than what the disease causes, then don’t use it. That is why smallpox inoculations were discontinued as the disease was eliminated.
Given that Covid (especially the early versions) caused long covid, it is not surprising that the vaccine sometimes caused long lasting problems. Not very many fortunately.
The question is, are you better off with the vaccine or without?
That question has already received an answer, and it concerns the first variant of Covid (the pure lab one), which was dangerous, because when other variants came out with natural development, those variants were progressively less dangerous.
Anyway the answer is:
if people had been correctly treated with Anti-inflammatories (and other well known treatments) at the early stage of the disease, it would have been surely better without Covid vaccine.
For the more recent variants, the answer is even more sure.
And surely, at this current stage, talking about having the new Covid shot or not for next winter, is non-sense.
It is abominable that people are currently still receiving Covid vaccines.
It was already non-sense from 2021 on.
“if people had been correctly treated with Anti-inflammatories (and other well known treatments) at the early stage of the disease, it would have been surely better without Covid vaccine.”
You are correct about anti-inflammatory but you left out antibiotics. In the post analysis of what worked dexamethasone stood out. It effectiveness was not understood at the time or it would have been used widely. But it was also critical to watch for bacterial infections for those on ventilators and treat as needed with antibiotics. I think this was reported in The New England Journal of Medicine in the last year. The author used an AI to sort though tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of medical records on those who lived or died.
It was still a lot better to be vaccinated than take your chances in the ICU even with what we now think of as better treatments. The vaccine was not a total success mostly because the virus mutated so fast, but it did considerably reduce your chances of getting so sick you needed to be hospitalized.
Harris appears to be leading by a ton among those voters who have voted early.
Michigan – Harris +26
Wisconsin – Harris +23
Pennsylvania- Harris +17
https://x.com/EdKrassen/status/1851952922747097214
ballot harvesting in the big blue cities is for real, doesn’t seem to matter if it’s legal or not.
millions of these “voters” would be unlikely to vote at all, but the harvesting attaches their name to a D vote on their ballot.
these “voters” are very unlikely to be accounted for in any polling.
so while H is probably quite behind for voters who intend to vote and are accounted for in polls, this harvesting which pushed B over T in 2020 might just do this again for H over T.
the days of counting after polls close Tuesday evening will be quite interesting.
I do not think votimg matters anyways. It is whom ‘they’ prefer.
Trump got fewer republican votes in 2016 than Mitt Romney in 2012.
He lost the house and senate in 2018.
And lost all three in 2020.
Republicans are in denial the country is moving beyond them.
On the contrary, Republicans have existential angst because they know the country is heading for destruction.
Democrats are in denial that the party they are supporting is going to turn the entire country into a 21st century facsimile of Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, and Jim Jones’s Venezuela Compound round free drinks all round.
You guys have gotta try the cold Chai. It’s delicious!
“Jim Jones’s Venezuela Compound”
Getting the country wrong marks your whole post as misinformation. Take an extra ten seconds and get it right next time.
Tim?????
misinformation????
surely not??????
Misinformation? Is that so?
The site of Jonestown is near the town of Port Kaituma in Guyana very close to the current border with Venezuela.
Here, you can visit it on Google Maps.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Port+Kaituma/@7.7260759,-65.1471783,1714119m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x8db6b4862bd364f9:0xc57631092a73a10f!8m2!3d7.726076!4d-59.884041!16zL20vMDR0bGxu?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTAyOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Venezuela has a long-running claim on Guyana that primarily revolves around the Essequibo region, a large area of land that constitutes about two-thirds of Guyana’s territory.
The substance of the claim can be summarized as follows:
Historical Context: The dispute dates back to the colonial era. In the early 19th century, the area was part of the Spanish Empire, and after independence, both Venezuela and Britain (which controlled British Guiana, now Guyana) laid claim to the territory.
1899 Arbitration Agreement: In 1899, an arbitration tribunal ruled in favor of British Guiana, establishing the current borders. However, Venezuela has long contested this ruling, arguing that it was unfair and that the arbitration process was influenced by external factors.
Venezuelan Position: Venezuela claims that the Essequibo region is part of its historical territory, asserting that the boundary established by the 1899 ruling is not valid. The Venezuelan government considers the Essequibo to be an integral part of its national territory.
As an opponent of Western colonialism and a supporter of the rights of less developed nations to their historical territories, I would have to insist that Essequibo is an integral part of Venezuela, just as the Malvinas Islands are an integral part of Argentina, and the Scilly Islands are just darn Scilly. We won’t get into the example ofPalestine because people might get offended.
And I’m sure anti-colonialists such as Mirror on the Wall and Morrissey would agree with this very sound and reasonable position.
So on that basis, I suggest that Keith’s claim that my post is misinformation is in itself disinformation and that both Keith and Norman are dyed in the wool imperialists as well as being the Statler and Waldorf of OFW.
The comments are less cheerful
In 2020 dems led by 1.6mil in early votimg
In 2024 only by 360k
I early voted at my local library. Only took five minutes.
Ballots don’t start to be counted in those states until election day. What you show is a poll, not a fact.
* Fourteen states and Washington, D.C., do not allow counting to begin until the polls close:
Alabama, Alaska, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.
* Twenty-three states allow counting to begin on Election Day, but before the polls close:
Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
* Twelve states allow both processing and counting to begin before Election Day:
Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Virginia and Utah.
Hegel took the position that states have no ‘right’ to an independent existence if they cannot fight in wars against all-comers to secure that right. ‘My army is my right.’
We all knew that but Hegel explains the matter as the ‘cunning of reason’ by which the state with the historical destiny to take humans to the next level has all the ‘right’.
“No people ever suffered wrong; what it suffered, it had merited.”
Ballsy stuff.
I actually think that Nietzsche had the simpler explanation.
> Humans have no better or worse place in the cosmos as worms do. We are no more or less deserving than them. Hence we have no real right to exist or to work, not to mention the fact we have no right to “happiness.” TWTP 759
This is Hegel in the final part, ‘World History’, of his ‘Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science’. The Anglophone societies largely went off him in the 1960s and Nietzsche became the popular thing.
> Such-and-such a people is dominant in world history during such-and-such an epoch; and in contrast with its absolute right of being the vehicle of this present highest stage in the development of world spirit the principles of other peoples are without rights.
…. And the highest moment is world history, the absolute process into which the independence of the peoples is transposed; in relation to this process the independence of the peoples is of no account.
…. World history is this divine tragedy, where spirit rises up above pity, ethical life, and everything that in other spheres is sacred to it; it is where spirit brings itself forth.
…. World spirit is unsparing and pitiless.
…. Nothing profounder can be said than Schiller’s words, “World history is a court of world judgment.” No people ever suffered wrong; what it suffered, it had merited.
…. To be sure, one must harden one’s heart when contemplating the destinies of peoples….
…. Since one people is dominant in [a given epoch of] history, its principle is also introduced into the other peoples. A people whose principle coincides with the stage attained by the spirit of the age is the dominant people, and its deeds are the most excellent.
…. In contrast with such a people in whose deeds world spirit manifests itself, the rights of other peoples are of no account; grievous though it may be to watch how it tramples them under foot, it fulfills its role.
In the Roman people the injustice of continually interfering in everything was justified because it was the right of world spirit.
Individuals who take the lead in such a people and at such a time, even if they act in an immoral fashion by despising the rights of others, are nonetheless responsible for its being executed [i.e., the right of world spirit]. Here the absolute idea of spirit has absolute right against everything else.
…. There are peoples who lie on the periphery of this development and who are not world-historical.
* * *
It turns out that the ‘end’ destination of history is a constitutional monarchy with a strong civil service in which the middle class intellectuals mediate the passions of the lower classes (lol).
We might find it funny now to take the position that the emergent bourgeois state is the ‘purpose’ of history but liberals are still given to speak in that sort of way with their doctrine of ‘natural rights’
> …. Self-consciousness had also achieved its own volition and was no longer merely looking at something it did not understand. Freedom of self-consciousness in religion, constitutional monarchy, and cognition of the truth are the principles of our time. Rationality is to be found in the middle class, which is the intellectual estate. The people are a material extreme; to say that the people will what is good means that they do not want to be oppressed, and that they want to give as little as possible and get as much enjoyment as possible. It is through the middle class that the wishes of the people are laid before the sovereign. [The end.]
Roger Kimball wrote:
Hegel, Bertrand Russell observed, is “the hardest to understand of the great philosophers.” Hegel would not have liked very much what Russell had to say about his philosophy in A History of Western Philosophy (1945). Russell’s exposition is a classic in the library of philosophical demolition, much despised by Hegel’s admirers for its vulgar insistence on common sense. (Best line: that Hegel’s philosophy “illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.”) But I am not at all sure that Hegel would have disagreed with Russell’s comment about the difficulty of understanding him. He knew he was difficult. He was always going on about the “labor of the negative,” the superficiality of mere common sense, and the long, “strenuous effort” that genuinely “scientific” (i.e., Hegelian) philosophy required. It is even said that on his deathbed Hegel declared that there was only one man who had understood him—and he had misunderstood him.
I first came across that mot in Søren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), another anti-Hegelian salvo, quite different from Russell’s. Neither Kierkegaard nor his editors supply a source for the observation, and Terry Pinkard, in his new biography of Hegel, sniffily describes it as an “apocryphal story,” “emblematic of the anti-Hegelian reaction that quickly set in” after the philosopher’s death in 1831.
I was sorry to learn that. Like many people who have soldiered through a fair number of Hegel’s books, I was both awed and depressed by their glittering opacity. With the possible exception of Heidegger, Hegel is far and away the most difficult “great philosopher” I have ever studied. There was much that I did not understand. I secretly suspected that no one—not even my teachers—really understood him, and it was nice to have that prejudice supported from the master’s own lips.
Is it worth the effort? I mean, you spend a hundred hours poring over The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)—widely considered to be Hegel’s masterpiece—and what do you have to show for it? The book is supposed to take you from the naïve, “immediate” (unmittelbar, a favorite Hegelian term of contempt) position of “sense certainty” to Absolute Knowledge, “or Spirit that knows itself as Spirit.” That sounds pretty good, especially when you are, say, eighteen and are busy soaking up ideas guaranteed to mystify and alarm your parents. But what do you suppose it means? Mr. Pinkard notes that at Jena in the early 1800s, “Hegel seemed to inspire two kinds of reaction: he was either highly admired and even idolized, or he was disparaged.” In fact, Hegel’s work has always inspired these opposite reactions, throughout his lifetime and afterwards. Mr. Pinkard, who teaches philosophy at Georgetown University and who has written several other books about Hegel, is firmly in the admirers’ camp. I am not.
What Mr. Pinkard has given us with his new book on Hegel is partly an intellectual biography, partly an outline of Hegel’s work. Recognizing that some of his readers will be more interested in Hegel’s life than in detailed discussions of his ideas (and vice versa), he has done his best to segregate the story of Hegel’s life and intellectual formation from the book reports. He corrects some misconceptions. For example, I had always thought that Hegel died of cholera when an epidemic of that disease swept through Berlin in 1831. Not so, says Mr. Pinkard. What Hegel really died of was “most likely . . . some kind of upper gastrointestinal disease.” Good to know that. And like almost every sympathetic commentator on Hegel I have read, Mr. Pinkard sternly points out that the one thing everyone remembers about Hegel’s philosophy—that it says reality develops according to a process of “thesis/antithesis/synthesis”—is actually nowhere to be found in Hegel’s writings. It was in fact a shorthand devised by a “deservedly obscure” professor called Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus. The popularity—could it be the clarity?—of that formula seems to incense Hegelians. Mr. Pinkard argues that it “misrepresents the structure of Hegel’s thought,” though I have to say that readers who encounter Hegel’s description of “the movement” in which thought “becomes estranged and then returns to itself from estrangement, and is only then presented in its actuality and truth” might be forgiven for making the same mistake.
https://newcriterion.com/article/the-difficulty-with-hegel/
Engels was probably influenced by Hegel to adopt a similar view of the dominant, progressive peoples and the fate of the others.
‘as Hegel says’
Engels seems to have openly taken the idea to the extreme.
https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/The_Magyar_Struggle
> The Magyar [Hungarian] Struggle
Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 227;
Written: by Engels about January 8, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 194, January 13, 1849.
…. How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis?
The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death of all these nations, large and small.
All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and 1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their vitality — the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary.
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now counter-revolutionary.
…. There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
…. But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
And yet Russia massively industrialised, became the leading Communist power, a Superpower with USA, and still remains one of the three great powers along with China and USA. Germany today really is not all that nor UK. What would Engels say now? lol
Rosdolsky discusses in ch. 8 Engels’ views on ‘historic peoples’ and their root in Hegel’s writings.
>Engels and the “Non-Historic” Peoples
http://www.nonel.pu.ru/erdferkel/rosdolsk.pdf
Engels does seem to follow the specific arguments of Hegel as well as his general method that locates national ‘vitality’ in past development rather than in present conditions as his own method would have suggested.
Engels stuck with those rigid views for decades afterwards with regard to Austria-Hungary and its peoples.
However those peoples have since achieved and sustained independence so Engels’ argument does not seem to be borne out by subsequent history.
Amish Buffet in Dutch Country, PA
https://youtu.be/qhia8sf2MLU?si=NEzWN-iUwcxprx46
However it appears the buffet is not run like the Amish way, since it seems computerized and has tools not likely to be found in a typical Amish house.
Looks pretty fancy to me!
We have talked about UK while the EU is a bug looking for a windshield . Aleks Krainer .
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/eu-living-in-the-bankstas-paradise?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
This article is about the EU’s bailout system for banks.
This reminds me of the $250,000 per account limit insurance that the FDIC gives to US bank accounts. Also, before “Savings & Loans” collapsed, the insurance given by the FSLIC to these institutions in the US.
I don’t think people realize what a huge subsidy this is to banks, as long as the overall system holds together. These organizations can invest as imprudently as they choose, and they will (pretty much) be bailed out by these organizations. In recent years, the FDIC has been moving in the direction of making the shareholders of the banks contribute as well, if there is a major shortfall of funds.
Of course, if the whole system starts to fail, there is no way assessing the solvent members can work. The US banking system guarantee is more to issue more government debt (since the US has the reserve currency, and can get away with this, for a while). But neither system will work for the long term.
Banks and other financial institutions have grown greatly in size and influence since World War II. One reasons for its success has been all of the guarantees that have been given to it. There is also an (mostly unfunded) pension guarantee fund in the US.
I don’t know what side will win on Tuesday (or a bit later), but contrary to some people who say it will make no difference, it will make an enormous difference.
If Gopalan wins, she will continue the current policy , frittering the dwindling resources into the hands who are less likely to advance civilization, creating an Atlast Shrugged situation which will probably ruin Western Civ probably for ever and lead to an eternal decline.
If Trump wins, he or his coterie (he will probably hold little power like Biden) will drastically adjust the distribution of resources, so they would be concentrated in groups who are more likely to side with him, and away from those who are less likely to side with him and his coterie, significantly marginalizing such groups who tend to be less likely to contribute to civilization.
Elon Musk will be given a superlegal power, basically being allowed to do whatever he pleases, which will make some people here quite happy.
In other words, Gopalan will continue the present road to ruin approach, while Trump and/or his coterie will attempt a hard break, dumping a lot of passengers from the train. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen.
I expect Elon will learn that the unions have a contract. No way he will be allowed to fire anyone.
” Musk has been very vocal against government spending. So a fellow business owner called him out on all of the government subsidies his companies have received.
Musk responded that oil & gas companies get way more subsidies than EV companies. He was the one who brought up oil & gas.
Look for Trump to repeal percentage depletion, at Elon’s suggestion, if Trump wins and makes Elon his “government efficiency tzar.”
It is really strange to see oil producers supporting Musk, thinking he is some ally.
Musk wants to cut $ 2 trillion from spending but SS , Medicare and DoD are untouchable . What can he do ? ”
Elon Musk’s primary concern is Elon Musk.😁
Copy/paste from POB .
The probable future treasury secretary .
” Billionaire John Paulson said he would work with Elon Musk to cut federal spending, particularly by reducing green energy subsidies, if appointed Treasury Secretary under Trump’s administration.
Paulson shared these comments during a Tuesday interview with The Wall Street Journal. “All of these tax subsidies for solar, for wind, inefficient, uneconomic energy sources. Eliminate that. That brings down spending,” he told the media outlet.
He specifically mentioned targeting green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, which he referred to as the “Green New Deal.”
https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/trumps-potential-treasury-pick-vows-spending-cuts-in-partnership-with-musk-5751239?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge&src_src=partner&src_cmp=ZeroHedge
Of course, the universities and their professors would be opposed to reducing green energy subsidies. Universities, and their programs, depend on research grants to support studies related to green energy, and students in classes related to “new technology” and “sustainability.” Newspapers would have the same view. All the goods advertised would need to be operable forever. We need a “happily ever after” transition to a nonsense type of energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_N4Gesf-hE
Funny speech by South African president at BRICS summit. After the introduction, his speech focuses mostly on female empowerment and female-owned businesses, decarbonization and climate change, when many important BRICS members are oil producers and/or middle-eastern monarchies. SA might as well be a WEF speaker.
South Africa is short on coal, while coal has historically been its big export and its source of fuel for the economy. In some ways, the country is in as bad shape as Europe. Perhaps that underlies his speech.
Farmers in Switzerland are barely surviving on low wages
https://youtu.be/pM_giWjtR1o?si=ynSeRbOkQoJDB5Vk
Remember back in the day when family, not corporate, farming was more of the norm here in the United States, the same occurred. Lots of individual farmers needed to take other jobs to make ends meet and avoid foreclosure.
Farm Aid is still around today because of it.
Most young don’t wish to take over the family farms that are left here in the United States. If they get an offer by a housing developer it usually is accepted.
Farming it seems is a non profitable enterprise worldwide . Europe’s farms would fold if it was not for subsidies . Farmers are renting/selling land for putting up windmills or solar panels to support their income . Of course the problem of the the kids opting for the city life is a major worry . No heirs . In India the same situation . Highest suicide rate in the farming community in the world as they are unable to repay debt . In India the problem is too many rely on farming for sustenance . The result is that the land holdings are divided as families grow and small farms of 2-5 acres are unsuitable for mechanization . In my opinion it is done deliberately to subsidize the urban voter factory with cheap food .
https://www.statista.com/chart/32258/reported-suicides-of-farmers-farm-laborers-in-india/
Agree, see this close up, there are workarounds, but they are hard to find.
We are running out of minerals, energy, etc. on planet earth. Extraction of minerals has been supported by cheap oil as minerals are hard to extract.
We are mining our soil and in some areas there is very little left; soil can regenerate under the right conditions at the rate of a dime’s thickness’ per year.
Nothing is easy.
Dennis L.
Here in Slovakia, there were already big collectivized farms before 1989. Since that time, the fields are changing the subjects that do agricultural business on them, as these go bankrupt. Not enough subsidies = new and new bankruptcies.
MG, remember long ago reading much of the household food were grown in kitchen gardens during the Soviet era. Were there many of those years ago compared to today? When I was growing in our neighborhood many old country grandparents had some incredible gardens, like in the old country Italy
Of course, when they died the gardens went with them
Yes Mike,
I grew up with a garden in the backyard which was a 50 foot wide lot. Toilet was not flushed after peeing to save water; it is not mellow until it is yellow. Garbage was spaded into the garden for fertilizer – now that is recycling.
Only one generation removed from that life, there was a photo from the early twenties, maybe early 20th century of an outdoor toilet in that yard. We were modern, heated with coal. Coal is just after WWII, no natural gas until early sixties.
What one might expect if the US economy reverses course.
Dennis L.
Low wages for farmers seems to be something we hear many places.
If wages for farmers are too low, they will quit. Less food will be produced. Perhaps efficiencies will emerge (less meat per capita, for example), but the system will tend to produce less food per person.
Farming is solar energy and non renewables, the P and K of NPK. It has never been easy and families seem to work. I see the Amish but they too have side jobs, carpentry comes to mind. They do have nice homes, mostly look alike, they do get Sunday’s off and they travel at horse pace.
They also are a group and per recollection, limit the size of the group to 200–250 people.
Need to join and support a small, Lutheran church about a mile from my farm. It seems to be growing, 200-250 members would be about right.
Dennis L.
Too little to go around countries go against countries. One group within the country goes against the other group. I would say that is what is happening in the US. There will be no resolution until one side exterminates the other. Just like chimps.
You seem to be saying that fighting will emerge, and in fact, already has begun to emerge, in the US. I am doubtful that one side exterminates the other. Instead, poorer nutrition and lack of antibiotics are what lead to higher death rates. There may be fighting, but it is not the primary cause of death.
Birthrates are way below replacement in the West (and in most places except Central Africa) and the population is already collapsing. It seems likely the rate will accelerate.
The trend started in the 70s.
Natural antibiotics are garlic and basil. You can grow them everwhere, basil in your window, garlic needs some limestone, you might use egg shells. Vitamins can be grown as sprouts, like alfalfa, mung beans or radish. You can grow natto yourself as a cheap remedy against post-vaxx. The problem is healthy fats, like in nuts and almonds. You might try pumpkin seeds, pumpkins grow nearly everywhere, if you water them. Try to grow some rabbits, chicken or a goat, if you can.
“Try to grow some rabbits, chicken or a goat, if you can.”
With ex-wife I did all three plus ducks, turkeys, geese. Don’t think I would try to raise birds if I were doing it now. Too much spillover of bird flu from wild birds.
It’s official…like we needed an announcement…very obvious to us all
World War III Has Already Begun, JP Morgan Boss Says
Published Oct 29, 2024 at 4:31 Newsweek
The banking institution’s CEO Jamie Dimon said in a recent speech at the Institute of International Finance that the current conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East has already begun a third world war.
Dimon previously called Russia, North Korea and Iran an “evil axis” that, alongside China, will hurt institutions like NATO.
“And they’re talking about doing it now,” Dimon said at the event. “They’re not talking about waiting 20 years. And so the risk of this is extraordinary if you read history.”
World War III has already begun. You already have battles on the ground being coordinated in multiple countries,” Dimon said.
Dimon went on to say that the United States needed to avoid being naive and allowing larger global events to play out without any intervention.
What we should be thinking about is we can’t take the chance this will resolve itself. We have to make sure that we are involved in doing the right things to get it resolved properly,” he added.
Still, the banking leader said there was a chance the threat of WWIII could diminish over time, but the implications could be dire if things continue as they are.
“I talk about the risk to us if those things go south,” Dimon said. “We run scenarios that would shock you. I don’t even want to mention them.”
So glad one of the Elders spoke to us peons
“We run scenarios” yeah that is simple one side shoots off all its nukes and the other side does the same. OK for Juan and his family in the Andes mountains. They will be fine and will not miss us.
Wasn’t it some General that shouted…*We got the nuke now and gonna damn use it, since we paid good money for it!”
That was during an oval office discussion with President Truman on if it was wise to let the Genie out of the bottle or follow up on feelers by those Japanese offerings a surrender if allowed to keep the Emperor. Turns out Truman was guided about post World War Ii with the upstart Russians and by using it would put them in their place. So, the Japanese were refused their one condition…and bombs away.
Turns out McArthur needed the Emperor to keep order and the rest is History.
They dont need any nukes as people beg for gene destruction therapies.
My take, Jan, partly true, but not entirely. The Military always is looking for another reason for its existence and growth, wether it makes reasonable sense or not.
Hence the boogie man scenarios we have repeatedly witnessed over time.
As for gene therapy, majority of the world’s population, like in Africa, will be excluded from the project because those that are promoting the idea can’t profit off these destitute populations. These places are those that are and will experience huge population growth, hence the migration to BAU zones. I’ve seen the transformation myself here in South Florida. It is no longer the country I grew up in during the 70s, but a foreign land and as Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Columbia collapse will continue evolve. I was on interstate 1-95 yesterday and saw a. Billboard with the words HAITIANS FOR HARRIS.
World War II, turns out, had negligible long term impact on the world’s population. More likely, some other black swan in the making will be in the cards.
I have a few in mind that have been tossed around here.
P.S. Poor Fast Eddy is still anxiously waiting for his UEP to kick in…I’m waiting, come on now..
How about the scenario where the US stands down and stops fucking the world.
I have no reason to fight to keep Dimon filthy rich. Maybe we can reach a consensus that we can afford to sacrifice all the filthy rich for the good of the worlds people.
Nope, that ain’t gonna fly, Ed. We don’t reach one by voting in person, but each dollar carries one vote. Guess who has the more votes for consensus?
Ed,
Our services are not fulfilling recruitment goals; some have said should a draft be required half the young males would leave for Canada, Mexico. Well, that would allow for more female upward mobility in the armed forces.
It is a problem. McGovern made some interesting observations in the video I referenced. He was a CIA briefer for I believe two Presidents, 85 years old and a serious man.
Dennis L.
No need for recruitment when there’s no ammunition.
Innocent little ‘speculating’ Bankkaufmann, a higher density of vermin and damnation is hard to imagine. It naturally, spiritually invokes an appropriate reward. Spiting on the memory, lessons and efforts of all those gone before who knew the true suffering of war, just so this; self serving ‘thing’ can make a percentage.
He should reflect on himself as the axis of evil. As if the US wasn‘t heavily involved in engineering ‘events’ from the get go. He might get what he wishes for, why not; after all his efforts, but will be reminded; even diamonds evaporate under extreme thermal heat. There is a price for walking over corpse’s
Really you should trust this heartless ‘him’, he knows what he’s talking about and he’ll be singing it for eternity, very soon!
I suspect this is a banker talking rather than a General. Does the USA even have the capacity for peer-to-peer warfare anymore? It also wouldn’t be taking on one major adversary, it would be taking on two – China and Russia.
Europe cannot help. We don’t have a functioning military to speak of. Ukraine has shown the state of our “modern” equipment. A recent government study on the state of the Armed Forces here in the UK shows we are basically defenceless.
We don’t have the industrial capability right now. If we are to win in the foreseeable future, it will be with mass-manufactured AI-controlled robotic soldiers or uavs (which requires less overall material than general ordnance) whenever they’re ready, or biological warfare, or psychological operations / non-kinetic means.
Somehow one can imagine a robot being ordered into battle, doing an AI algo about chances of survival flipping a switch and going into sleep mode.
Dennis L.
Keith Laumer wrote a series of books about the Bolo, a series of AI tank.
In one of the early stories the Bolo is massively out numbered and the only rational choice is retreat but instead the Bolo pours on its attach, advances on the enemy and breaks the will of the enemy which retreats. When asked after the fact why it made that choice it said “for the honor of the regiment”. It knew it was a suicide action on its parts. Yet it gave its all.
Dennis you underestimate the honor, integrity, and courage of our robot warriors.
Keith Laumer wrote a series of books about the Bolo, a series of AI tank.
In one of the early stories the Bolo is massively out numbered and the only rational choice is retreat but instead the Bolo pours on its attach, advances on the enemy and breaks the will of the enemy which retreats. When asked after the fact why it made that choice it said “for the honor of the regiment”.
“Keith Laumer ”
Excellent stories. Glad someone else remembers them
The only detail is that the West can’t really fight, to any significant extent.
The relevant time period of the Mc Govern interview is at 58:41 – Copilot found this almost immediately. The temple is at 59:15. Christ drove out the money changers, a livelihood was lost, a narrative started and in the end a prophet met a painful end and became a god.
Mc Govern also talks about the reason for loving your neighbor. It is a form of deterrence. This is at about 1:01 give or take. I agree, enough is enough and more than enough denies others and creates needless conflict.
We are in a time of conflict, difficult times. Bumpy times and we have hope, Starship, into the heavens no less. Crazy.
Dennis L.
Ray McGovern is talking about the Golden Rule, and looking after the widow and orphan. He believes these concepts should be followed in war as well as peace.
I am not sure. When there is not enough to go around, the self-organizing system has to somehow push out the less well adapted parts of society. This may very well be the widows and orphans.
Shortly before the section you refer to, Ray McGovern says that Putin would prefer Harris over Trump because he is more predictable. Trump is too unpredictable, based on his early term of office, in his view.
Second paragraph:
I hope not, it means a total loss of trust, or no good deed goes unpunished. We exist as a group and when the group quarrels within it fails.
I understand the problems you mention, keep hoping we can avoid being at each others’ throats.
Perhaps this sort of life changes a person internally. Having someone betray you is terribly painful.
Dennis L.
Ray Mc Govern and a reason for Jesus’s crucifixion.
““Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers’”
A simple explanation for one of history’s enduring stories. It was a narrative set in motion by the “den of robbers” being thrown out of the house of prayer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj9dVrM1Fxc
It is simple and the narrative of time had Pilate as the bad guy who perhaps was on the take, you think? Pilate’s life did not end well, probably had something to do with the Roman Emperor making less money somehow or other.
Things don’t seem to change much over time.
It is the first time I have ever heard this. It is simple. Now to advance a cause, skip the money part and weave a very good narrative and even throw in the Shroud of Turin.
Please note, I am a believer, I do not think the universe is random, there is a guiding hand who occasionally metaphorically says, “Enough of this nonsense.” So He tweaks the narrative, elevates one of us to a god level and the narrative goes for over two thousand years.
Question: Did the money changers return? I don’t know.
I know, many here believe they can have their own destiny; that is tough thing to accomplish, doable, but very difficult.
It is looking bumpy, Starship six approaches, a second catch would be nice and of course, ” A cubic mile of Pt.”
Anyone notice Toyota is pushing H cartridges?
Your thoughts?
Dennis L.
Jesus was mouthing off big time at people with power and the ability to hurt him.
He was increasingly aware of that and he was basically on a suicide mission beyond a certain point. He thought that the end was nigh anyway and that he would get his reward for speaking out.
He was clearly a danger to himself and he probably would be forcibly confined to a mental institution these days for his own safety.
This is only a snippet and he was able to rant on endlessly like this at the very people who were most liable to have him killed.
> 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
He was publicly denouncing the very people with the power to hurt him. He was a threat to their status and they had ways of dealing with that.
I see no need for metaphysical narratives to explain what happened with him and personally I feel no need for them.
If you repeatedly go out of your way to wind up everyone with the power to hurt you then it is probably not going to work out well for you.
That seems to be the drift of that story and no theological embellishments really seem necessary to make sense of it.
It is a tragi-comedy in a way.
Mirror,
Honestly don’t know, the money angle is simple. One man giving speeches about loving your neighbor seems harmless. One man throwing out the money changers who are making a good living off what is essentially a float and use of capital(the temple) is more believable.
I don’t have a clue, I wasn’t there. I made up a narrative based on Mc Govern. I found Mc Govern’s ideas on mutual deterrence even in money matters compelling and relevant to current wealth disparities.
Many, most, of the wealthy are very good at one thing. Piling up piles of useless money as a way of keeping score and buying young women who are incredibly attractive to show off in cars which are too low to be remotely comfortable. I think it is a reflection of boredom.
Spaceship earth has some problems, I am at the end of two years work on my farm to both maintain its profitability and also save its soil. Some of that was hopeless, fsa has programs. The land does heal and change.
Spaceship can move pollution off earth, endless fusion energy can “mine” space in ways we don’t yet understand.
This site is mostly correct in my opinion on near term human trajectory. Starship moves the non biological off earth and leaves us with biology and ultimately geology. We don’t have a solution to that one; when a tectonic plate wants to change the neighborhood, that will happen.
It is going to be bumpy, God has literally opened a window to the heavens and the heavens are wealthy with minerals and energy. Starship in November? Will there be a second successful catch? Musk is a wealthy man, he has many children and he found the window. He is a rare one, mankind needed him.
Dennis L.
If Musk was truly as brilliant as you think he would understand the limitations we are at with regards to energy and not be selling his cyber crap
We need to keep people employed doing something. Even employing university professors doing research leads to more demand for fossil fuels. Building “renewables” and cyber crap leads to more fossil fuel demand.
“leads to more”
That’s not necessarily true. Data centers for LLM training can be operated on intermittent renewable power, the computation can be suspended and restarted. Takes longer to complete the training unless you build about 3 times the data centers.
Turn them off for winter, because not sufficient solar electricity, but still pay the staff?
What if wind stops during the day, or cloud cover comes along? Do elevators stop working? Are the staff sent home, or are they paid for the rest of the day?
There are a lot of practical issues involved in working with intermittent energy supplies.
“Turn them off for winter, because not sufficient solar electricity, but still pay the staff?
I don’t think staff is a significant expense for a data center.
“What if wind stops during the day, or cloud cover comes along? Do elevators stop working? Are the staff sent home, or are they paid for the rest of the day?
“There are a lot of practical issues involved in working with intermittent energy supplies.
I am sure there are. But it is not as difficult as trying to run an aluminum smelter on intermittent power.
It’s not without precedence, the bitcoin operations in Texas go offline when power is in short supply.
Ray McGovern, a retired CIA military analyst, gives a very good interview. I haven’t gotten through all of it. He gives a similar story that we have heard elsewhere. The US military has finally told Israel, “No, we don’t have weapons to back you up, the way you would like to be backed up.” Thus, its attack on Iran was very weak and easily defeated, after being announced in advanced. (US newspapers are not pointing this out, however).
It is pretty clear where this interview is going, without watching the rest of the interview. The title of the video is, “Ray McGovern: Israel’s Unstoppable Downfall? Total Collapse Looming on All Fronts!”
Pilate honored at Mt Pilatus in Switzerland. Not bad for a mediocre bureaucrat.
The money changers never left, but they financed the mission to USA and they do fimance the project you want. Without them, no financing amd no projects.
Don’t know much about Switzerland, mountain is interesting.
If they finance the mission to space, then they too will have served a purpose. The universe has taken tens of billions of years to get us, biology, to this point. That s a great deal of effort and one has reason for optimism.
Dennis L.
‘Late yesterday evening, I finally pestered my pollster source again. I’m quoting him near as damnit verbatim:
“John, our numbers show what they always have….for every two popular votes going Kamala’s way, five are going to Donald Trump. The ‘close-run-thing’ being put out by the [New York] Times and the WaPo die-hards is a myth. The Democrats are facing one of the biggest wipe-outs in their history”.’?
https://therealslog.com/2024/10/30/the-superhighway-to-hell-is-kept-open-by-those-who-swim-in-the-sapiens-sewers/
This starts,
We will see what really happens. The media and college professors (who are overwhelmingly liberal) will be very unhappy.
I doubt ptb will let that happen but then again maybe they want a fall guy. The economic slowdown etc can be laid on them . But wait there is drill baby drill!!! That will make gasoline under $2 again and we will be saved!!!!! USA! USA!!🇺🇸
https://www.oilystuff.com/single-post/cartoon-of-the-month-20
This is the only real conversation. The Amuricun politicians are shi$t !!
“gasoline under $2”
Before profit and taxes, the trick of making diesel out of coal, steam, and excess intermittent solar electricity looks like it will cost right at $18/bbl. At 42 gal/bbl, that’s under $2/gal. That’s for diesel, not sure about the cost difference (if any) for making gasoline.
Where is your data from? Can you please site accurate sources.
“Where is your data from? ”
First principles, chemistry, existing plants.
“Can you please site accurate sources.”
I can generate them right here.
From the dawn of the industrial revolution,
H2O + C → H2 + CO (ΔH = +131 kJ/mol)
The reaction is endothermic, so the coal (biomass, whatever) must be continually re-heated to maintain the reaction. (Wikipedia)
Carbon is 12 gm/mol. 83 mol/kg and a kg would soak up 10900 kJ. A
metric ton of carbon evaporated in steam would need 10900000 kJ or
3.03 MW hours.
This would produce 1/6th of a ton of hydrogen with a combustion energy
content of 50 MWh/ton, about 8.3 MWh. CO combustion is 10.1 MJ/kg. We
have 2800 kg or about 7.85 MWh. So we make about 16 MWh of gas from a
ton of coal and 3 MWh of renewable electric power. Most of the energy
in the gas is from the coal.
Last year a 2 GW solar PV project in the Mideast signed a
power purchase for 1.35 cents per kWh so I think $20/MWh works for a
rough economic analysis.
Following a ton of coal, the syngas from a ton would cost ~$20 for the
coal (plus shipping) and $60 or less for the intermittent power. Call
it ~$80/ton.
Half a ton of carbon would be pulled out in the water gas shift
reaction to get the hydrogen ratio up to where you need it for F/T
input. 500 kg of carbon and 1/6 of that in hydrogen should show up in
the product. The F/T energy loss is about 25%, .583 ton x 7.3 bbl/ton is 4.26
bbl. or ~$18.80 /bbl.
That’s down near or below the production cost for oil. Of course, the F/T capital cost has to be added to this plus the uncertain (but probably low) cost of the arc gasifiers. The Orxy plant capital cost is ~$8/bbl (ten-year write-off). What comes out of an Oryx plant is a refined product rather than crude oil making it more valuable than crude
The economics is not something you can reject out of hand, not silly
like most proposals.
If you see something I missed in this analysis, please mention it. If anyone wants to run with this, be my guest.
Keith, I would not presume to argue with your figures. They look fine to me, and if they didn’t I would suspect my own understanding was in error.
However, the Orxy plan you are referring to is for the production of hydrogen gas, not diesel or gasoline. How much more cost and effort would be involved in converting hydrogen to conventional liquid fuel?
Or, if it is intended to be burned as hydrogen fuel, how much extra effort and bother would be required to build and operate an infrastructure capable of utilizing it?
Do you see a practical “hydrogen economy” emerging? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the coal, which is a finite resource, for something coal does best, like fueling blast furnaces?
Prion disease is a hella drug!
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1gg50tl/violent_maga_enthusiast_gets_into_physical/
“resource depletion lead to conflict.”
A more inclusive version would add
resource augmentation leads away from conflict
Another way to say this is to consider falling or rising per capita income or the possibility of it rising or falling to be causal to conflict or no conflict.
When you think about it, it is a self adjusting control on reproduction and death.
With regards to professors. In the sciences there is a disturbingly high amount of fraud in publications.
All want to be noticed, all want to be involved; liberal causes want to be noticed.
When I ran a huge public health dental practice in meetings there was a politician who said more or less, ” I don’t know anything about dentistry, but I want to be involved.” We did good and being attached one could sell some of that good.
She never wrote a check, but I was pleasant and smiled, no reason to make enemies.
Dennis L.
“.for every two popular votes going Kamala’s way, five are going to Donald Trump. ”
should read
“.for every two popular votes going Kamala’s way, five are going to Donald Trump, and four late found mail in ballots for Kamala.”
fixed it.
Our software says five vote for Harris and two votes for Trump. Trust us it is honest software.
Hi Gail, Have you ever explored/written an article/s focused on the use of Nuclear Power as the main transition energy? heading towards Thorium based nuclear and possibly Fusion some day?
I have written some about nuclear in the past, but not much recently. This is a link to a post from 2012.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/14/a-few-insights-regarding-todays-nuclear-situation/
In it, I point out that uranium supply seems to be inadequate for any significant expansion, among other things.
The thing that I don’t point out is that today’s ridiculous pricing scheme for wind and solar makes nuclear unprofitable. This tends to drive nuclear out of business, unless nuclear is subsidized to the extent that wind and solar are subsidized (or more). I expect that any new kind of electricity production (including thorium based) would be driven out of business by the same pricing scheme, with all of its subsidies.
China seems to be experimenting with a new uranium/thorium nuclear reactor, but it is still somewhat in the development stage.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium-nuclear-power-station-gobi/104304468
China to build first-ever thorium molten salt nuclear power station in Gobi Desert
The IEAE says that thorium has its challenges:
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/thoriums-long-term-potential-in-nuclear-energy-new-iaea-analysis
My impression (but I don’t have a link right now) is that the new experimental system that will start construction in China in 2025, and hopefully be completed by 2030, will use uranium to maintain a thorium chain reaction.
My background in physics is weak, so I have been hesitant to write much in detail about electricity from uranium/thorium.
For every aspect of nuclear to work you need diesel there is no replacement for the mining, building, maintenance, disposal and everything in between. Collapse is not an avoidable outcome.
MICHIGAN SEC. OF STATE: “Dominion machines affected nationwide” Jocelyn Benson says.
⚠️ “This is a nationwide issue with Dominion” machines hit by a voting ‘BUG’
⚠️Votes WILL NOT BE PROPERLY RECORDED
https://x.com/HustleBitch_/status/1851618753860993201
I wonder whether this is just a rumor, or whether it really is true. If it is true, there are still a few days to fix the problem.
USA is massively over-extended. It does not have the military-industrial base to support a global military presence as hegemon.
USA, like Europe, has massive state spending to support the ‘social democratic’ consensus and it has massively neglected the military-industrial base for decades.
Moreover, the USA lacks the talent in government to make good decisions about its wars.
The failed Ukraine proxy war against Russia massively depleted the USA armoury and the ridiculous ‘Zionism’ wars are straining it further.
Meanwhile the militaries of China and Russia are only getting stronger.
USA clearly cannot fight on multiple fronts and its days as hegemon are numbered. That is probably not going to work out well for USA or for Europe.
Heraclitus: “War is the father of all and the king of all; some he has marked out to be gods and some to be men, some he has made slaves and some free.”
Israel-Iran Conflict Depletes U.S Arms Stockpile? Bombshell Report Exposes Russia, China Threats
History may not repeat but it certainly rhymes. USA = Ancient Rome
The Hindustan Times says what we have heard elsewhere. The US is very short of ammunition. It cannot fight on all of these fronts.
It is hard to keep military production upright. Usually military production is a sideeffect of industrial production. Instead of cookware produce helmets. In the moment industrial production was shifted to the Far East, military production facilities went with them. As we know from Gails analysis, this decision was very likely based on energy considerations.
Social welfare does not cost much in a properly set up state. Our status quo is not the exuberant luxury welfare provides, but a necessity following industrial decline. And this is energy related, see above.
When US fracking ends around 2030 30% of today’s demand cannot be served. Who will not be delivered in that moment: The US? India? Africa? Europe? Replacing 30% by wind and solar means to ramp up from 4% to 30%.
Easier to say, these fields are mine, now. Directly or via proxy. That’s why I think we are heading into a world war. And the war must start before diesel is over!
>> When US fracking ends around 2030 30% of today’s demand cannot be served
Last time I checked a few months ago, fracking was 9.5MM barrels or 2/3 of US conventional crude production, so you can double that 30% figure.
“Our survival depends on recognizing that we are part of, not separate from—the web of life and the systems that sustain it. If we don’t, we’re only accelerating our own decline.”
https://www.artberman.com/blog/dark-matter-unseen-forces-shaping-our-climate-and-future/
sorry
but our gods have reassured us that we are not subject to the laws of physics (we wrote books to prove it)
ie–reincarnations–virgin births, water walking…you name it.
and the don waves his $65 bible, and millions of gullible fools bark on cue–and do what he tells them to do because he is the chosen one.
I seem to recall another ‘chosen one’ waving a book around a while back.
Everyone seems to have their cause…
Norman, you old poop. You got better things to worry about.
when 70 million idiots think another idiot is their saviour
we all better start worrying
So by your definition everyone that votes is an idiot, because everyone that votes does so looking for salvation in one form or another, when all they are doing is affirming the status quo they mostly say that they are against, the moment they join the circus and cast a vote. Do you vote norman and if yes, why?
70m people cast aside as idiots, because they play the exact same game show you appear so heavily invested in. The game of division and fear, which leads to crisis fatigue(you didn’t read the Meurer article I guess).
Everyone that has gone along with the tall tales might want to read the below.
https://www.verywellmind.com/coping-with-crisis-fatigue-5409500
The games up Norman, so little point worrying about who gets to dress up in the referee costume, as the result is already in, no matter who or what the soothing lies come from(that’s both imaginary sides). Corporations and government are indistinguishable, which isn’t going to change, no matter the vote and there’s a name for that. A führer, whether in trousers or a skirt, is still a führer and will do as a führer does(the bidding of the Corporation, just like the last one). Two abysmal choices for an abysmal nation, much like ours and the rest of the wests choices and nations, which is surely a big clue concerning the choice on offer or the worth of a heavily manipulated vote(nothing, apart from affirmation of their right to take it all in any manner they choose and thanks for the acquiesce).
Looking on the bright side (of life?) there is one thing a Trump win will do. Having experienced it, we might understand what happened to the Germans in 1933.
You have already experienced it Keith. He won in 2016 and became president and all the media both yourself and norman seem to put so much faith in, cried that it was the resurrection of the miniscule moustachioed maniac. That of course never happened and they shuffled you through various scare stories to keep you distracted as they continued on as normal, then brought you right back to the beginning and will again fill your heads with the same made up rubbish as before, whilst you all clap along without realising it’s just another repeat.
You are living the experience right now, but like the Germans in the mid 30s(40s really considering the genocide you all try so hard to either ignore or justify) you just can’t admit how far down that path you have already travelled under both parties. In fact, if we consider the death and resource theft of just the barely few decades this infant millenia has experienced, you’ve surpassed them in every metric and you haven’t even noticed, let alone guess the path you are on yet.
Can you see any similarities(apologies to those with a memory for the below repetition)?
“What no one seemed to notice,” said a colleague of mine, a philologist, “was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.”
In the next paragraph, change the words “trust in” for “hate of”(or whichever term you find more palatable) and the people in charge get the same result. That’s you doing their bidding(trust or hate).
“What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.”
Don’t be fooled and believe that the process has or will occur in a single term without years or even decades of prep and social engineering.
“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.”
That’s just the first three paragraphs. Every other one rhymes with today and has nothing to do with a single, rather stupid man, although like then, they’ll happily use him as a catalyst, but only you can empower that(trust or hate will achieve the same goal for your owners. The figurehead is irrelevant, as long as you believe the game, which you both clearly do).
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Can neither of you see any that?
Is your faith so immutable, that no matter how times the scare stories go nowhere, you will line up for each and every repeat without question?
I’d suggest you both bookmark the link in my last post. You’re going to need it.
all politicians are flawed
that is a given
and it was socrates who said—putting yourself forward for public office should be grounds for immediate disqualification–(or something similar)
i n my point of view about the don, i use mainly material he himself has uttered.
Remember him leading the chants of ”lock her up”?—i think his documented lies have reached 30000 to date—and rising.
He is now openly talking about retribution and jailing those ”responsible” for him losing the election.–i trust you are ok with that.?–tittle tattle i think you said?
a weak man posturing to fake strength—but there is only weakness—se xual predators are the weakest of all. men who are scared of women lash out in all directions—remember the fakemeister who used to haunt OFW?—continual sexranting was a giveaway there.
however, to get back to now…..discussion of whether the don is fit for any public office at all, is the same as arguing with a flat earther.
indulging in argument, of itself, lends credibility to the opinion of the flat earther himself, when in fact there is none.
but i can do no more than leave you to wallow in your certainties.
best of luck
Trump himself is not the problem. And I have come to think that Hitler was not the problem either, but the population of people who supported him. Then you need to ask why?
For Germany in 1933, the economics were awful. I find there to be a connection dating back to the stone age as to why xenophobic or just crazy memes would build up in resource stressed population, but the chain of reasoning goes through evolutionary psychology which most people reject.
It is worth correlating the places which are economically depressed (or where people think they have a bleak future) with the MAGA/QAnon hot spots.
Norman wheels out the old Flat Earther comparison ad hominem. It’s a sure sign he’s run out of logical arguments.
We he should be worried who sits in the Oval Office is beyond me. That’s America’s problem, not Norman’s. Having Comrade Starmer in Number 10 checking on everyone’s SNS posts to see if they’ve been using any naughty words and threatening to cull the elderly population through enforced hypothermia this winter should be more than enough for him to worry about.
“Heil Trump!” just doesn’t have that ring of Pavlovian “orders must be obeyed without question, mein Anführer” obedience, does it.
Also, “lock her up”, was just trolling. I seriously doubt any top Democrats would be prosecuted under a future Trump administration despite ample evidence of gross wrongdoing. The optics wouldn’t look good.
Norman, have you noticed how bad the optics went for Biden when he went after so many of the people supporting Trump with prosecutions, trials, convictions, and even prison sentences?
Most Americans have an innate sense of fairness and know very well who the real Nasties are. The Dems have proven themselves very willing to go full totalitarian over the past four years. Trump is not the only conman out there and is nowhere near the being most evil person who wants to govern the US, and you are naive if you think he is.
It’s a shame we can’t have four more years of this guy—a leader who brought dignity and grace back to the White House.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1851466304945017152
This was quite an endorsement.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbIqVw2XkAAyYUl?format=jpg&name=small
tim
when you used to trot along , behind the BS artist extraordinaire and fakemeister general when he used to grace these corridors, nodding in agreement with everything he uttered about moonlandings, crisis actors and all the tiresome rest of it, it gave me the measure of you.
an unthinker, a follower….no originality of thought.
so now, when i write the obvious, (quoting verbatim usually) and it incites violent disagreement, i can just eyeroll and yawn
yet again
which is why you warrant nothing more than an eyeroll now
I’m confused Tim. How the hell did Trump manage to enter the Biden household on a regular basis and then make Ashley so afraid by entering the shower, without anyone knowing?
Where the hell was her father, who’s job it is to protect his young children?
I’ve just tried a search for “Trump Hitler 2016” and it’s so familiar you’d think we were going through the same unimaginative gameshow again, with exactly the same script.
In 2016 the most important thing to know was that Trump was probably an actual fascist(scary) and worse still, the reincarnation of Hitler(scarier still).
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/is-donald-trump-an-actual-fascist?srsltid=AfmBOooi6YgtuD4F6KVI9P_9rXvhUlBDqPx8VymKZ2miAo7rWQgSsJR2
We all know how they answered that idiotic question then, which as we all now know, fell flat on its face, but the small inconvenience of being 100% wrong is no impediment when your salary depends on it, so how are they getting on with such a complex task 8 years later(amazing, 8 whole years and like kids at pantomime, they scream “he’s behind you” on demand and never ask themselves why they are doing it again after the unmitigating failure of 8 straight years(9 really as it started in 2015. We might get commemorative coins on its 10 year anniversary)).
Let’s have a look.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/28/we-are-witnessing-the-making-of-a-fascist-president-in-real-time
They appear to have come to a conclusion at least(in real time(super scary), so that makes a nice change from the opposite of real time). Oh, hold up, they did that in 2016 also.
I’m going to take your advice from the other day and not prod any of the faithful, they get somewhat agitated. Sod it, one last visit to 2016.
“As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I’m sorry that this needs to be said, but: Although the candidate has said a number of disgusting things, the comparison to Hitler is far too facile — so facile that it is dangerous”.
That’s from the ADL which I was surprised to see.
https://www.adl.org/resources/news/no-donald-trump-not-adolf-hitler
I have to admire, at least a little, that a Fascistic system can get both place people to distract so easily, just by pointing at each other and shouting FASCIST.
So wonderfully simple. Both the game and it’s participants, which as we all know is 100% Putin’s fault 🤣
most wars are always started with one man’s obsession with self
war takes many forms.
the little people get killed, while big people make money
trump is too old to be a serious fascist leader—but those egging him on are not.
they are the ones to look to for your ultmate fascist coup
remember–democracy is the child of plenty, deprivation causes it to starve to death.
we will not escape that rule.
Norman has a valid point in that the US is ripe for a fascist takeover. Not by politicians, but by the puppet masters behind them.
But Norman, in his confused, cranky, idling, and barely sentient mind, doesn’t understand that (1)the fascist takeover can come via Democratic governance as easily as through Republican, and (2) it has already happened.
By any meaningful metric, the US has been militantly authoritarian since 2001: A PNAC Odyssey, and through every small incremental step in the steady expansion of executive emergency powers that has been going on since 9/11, it is bound to reach either full fascism or full communism (take your pick) in a few more years, with Trump 2016-2020, representing a small gap in the clouds because the Establishment didn’t want to give him any more power than he already possessed.
Under Biden, the Government is jailing or harassing dissidents, censoring freedom of expression, allowing the mutilation of children, loosing track of hundreds of thousands of child migrants in its care, and telling people who don’t agree with that to shut the f**k up with abandon.
I have no quarrel with Norman and I never supported FE in making crude and crass sexual innuendos about him. IT ISN’T MY JOB TO COMMENT ON EVERY OTHER COMMENT I DON’T AGREE WITH< FOR CRISSAKES!!! If Norman was triggered by Eddy and is still traumatized after all this time, perhaps he should try a bit of cognitive therapy, aroma therapy, yoga, aspirations or visualization exercises. My main point here is that I don't care what his psychological problem is; just don't take it out on me.
Trump vs. Kamala is the closest US elections have come yet to pure theater and pro-wrestling. But there will be serious repercussions whichever way the vote counting goes. Norman and I have no vote and no standing to interfere in this American exercise of democracy. So don't listen to us.
My God! ……. you weren't going to in any case!?
And so my advice to Americans is, vote smart, vote wisely, vote your conscience, vote early and often, and if you can't find anyone to vote for, find someone to vote against. Your vote is precious. Please don't waste it.
tim
with you or your recent fakemeister, my highest level of emotion was eyerolling amusement.
none of it was worth more
“most wars are always started with one man’s obsession with self”
Piffle!
And sinister piffle at that.
The world revolves around the control of commodities.
All wars are started with the aim of controlling commodities.
Bankers control more commodities than anyone else.
Therefore, all wars are bankers’ wars.
Change my mind!
I don’t know if this has been linked to here recently, or if you have seen it and had it in mind, Tim:
All wars are bankers wars
Although, according to the video, bankers create wars in order to obtain power/wealth via control of a nations money supply rather than control over resources.
More debt and more people employed as soldiers are “good” for the economy, according to GDP measures. No wonder bankers like wars.
the wealth of any nation is its store/acquisition of viable resources—simple as that
bankers turn those resources into cash
one of the easiest ways to do it start a war–because wars consume resources..via money–
Thanks for that link, Yorchichan. I hadn’t seen it.
It’s good to hear from you, and I hope you are managing to survive and thrive.
I can’t see Norman clicking that link or viewing Mike Rivero’s documentary.
But if he did so, I can’t see him agreeing with the main thrust of it.
For Norman, US War of Independence was started by George Washington’s obsession with himself, the Napoleonic Wars were started with Napoleon’s obsession with himself, the Crimean War was started by Florence Nightingale’s obsession with herself, the Franco-Prussian War was started by Bismarck’s obsession with himself, WW1 was started by Kaiser Wilhelm’s obsession with himself, WW2 was started by Hitler’s obsession with himself, the Korean War was started by Kim Il Son’s obsession with himself, the Vietnam War was started by Ho Chi Minh’s obsession with himself, the 1991 Persian Gulf War was started by Saddam Hussein’s obsession with himself, the 2003 War on Iraq was started by Saddam Hussein’s continuing obsession with himself, and the current Ukraine War was started by Putin, looking at his mirror and saying, in Russian, “Mirror mirror on the wall; who is the fairest of them all.”
For Norman, history really is as simple as that. And anyone who says different is a crackpot conspiracy theorist wingnut.
That is the level of top quality political punditry we’ve come to accept from Norman. His views are unprecedented, unparalleled and unparodiable.
agreed tim
all wars are about resources
but they start with one man’s obsession with ‘self’
ie—”only i know whats wrong with this country—and only i can put it right”
i dont need to ”prove you wrong”—the masses believe the idiot, without taking the trouble to find out what the real problems are—so they blindly follow his banner into the abyss.
it’s still one man’s obsession with self at the head of the mob—as jan 6th—or krystallnacht—the rhetoric is exactly the same—the mass hysteria is exactly the same…it may look and sound different but it isn’t.
—-others are to blame for your predicament—kill the others.
America is on the verge of war with itself
why?
because resources are in depletion—no MAGA anymore, idiots remain convinced that they can vote for prosperity.
so there has to be someone else to blame.
Thank you Tim. I’m surviving, but not thriving. I may have gone quiet, but as long as OFW has commenters such as yourself, I will carry on reading the comments.
You can recognize it, and then what? Commit suicide? There are 5-6 billion third-worlders itching to take your place and then some.
Everything on Earth has conspired to put us exactly where we are. We are not separate from these processes, acting upon them from some outside realm.
“We are not separate from these processes”
And people worry about AIs.
I don’t think that Art Berman realizes that there is no way that we can do what he is asking. There are 8 billion of us. Our only way is to overuse the resources, or collapse. Art says:
The self-organizing world ecosystem will handle the current situation. We don’t understand exactly how. 99.999999% of species that have ever lived are now gone. The system will take care of itself, perhaps without humans, or with very few humans. Wind and solar will only make the situation worse, as Art explains.
Is it the Elizbeth Truss moment ?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/uk-gilt-yields-soar-after-reeves-reveals-budget-market-braces-inflationary-debt-surge
I know it is RT but then the MSM is silent at least in my part of the world .
https://swentr.site/news/606697-starmer-approval-rating-poll/
Yields jump mean that banks will find that many of their bond values will have fallen. This can lead to failing banks! At this point, the losses are only “unrealized,” but it is easy for this to switch to realized losses.
This is going to be fun .
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/it-looks-var-shock-me-gilts-pound-crash-amid-panic-over-unsustainable-uk-deficit
The author makes an interesting observation with respect to size of deficits:
The market is getting upset about UK’s budget shortfall of 2.5%, while the US gets away with a hugely higher deficit. At a minimum, the US should expect a lot of inflation. It should also expect higher interest rates, and more banking problems as well.
It’s nice to know these people really care about the environment or something that people really need to exist, water. A total lack of priorities by humans but hey at least we know our electric grid can handle all those 10’s of millions of EV’s TPTB want us to buy. /s
“AI Boom Puts Pressure On America’s Water Supply, JPMorgan Warns”
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/ai-boom-puts-pressure-americas-water-supply-jpmorgan-warns
Between too little electricity and too little water, we have a major problem. Industry tends to depend upon these, just as humans do.
The real story of Sound of Music is not like what is told in the movies
It starts with Robert Whitehead, whose father is listed as a ‘cotton bleacher’. He was born in England but mostly worked in the Continent.
He invented the first modern torpedo for the Empire of Austria-Hungary, and became very wealthy. Figures of his wealth are hard to find, but he was one of the wealthiest man in Austria-Hungary at that time.
He left most of his fortune to his granddaughter Agathe, who married Georg von Trapp, a rising star in the Austrian Navy.
During the Great War von Trapp became famous for conducting submarine warfare in the Mediterranean sea, sinking the French cruiser Gambetta and capturing the French submarine Curie (named after Pierre Curie and his Polish wife), which he claimed as his own.
If history had flowed to a different direction he would have become more famous like another sub captain, Karl Donitz who did reach the position of head of state, albeit in an unenviable time.
But history was not kind to von Trapp, and Austria lost all of the ports thanks to Woodrow Wilson.
Anyways, since von Trapp’s wife Agathe retained her British citizenship her property was not seized after the end of the Empire, and the von Trapps, with 7 children, now lived the typical life of a highly placed Austrian aristocrats.
Agathe died in 1922, and it seemed the family line would remain secure.
von Trapp, realizing the family fortune has to be reinforced since it has to be split 7 ways, tried to marry a cousin of Agathe(i.e. another granddaughter of Whitehead) but that did not pan out.
Meanwhile, a Czech nun novice named Maria Kucera became a governess for the younger von Trapp children, and that became the beginning of the end of the family.
Contrary to the movie Kucera could not sing; a nun from the nunnery she was at went to the family to teach singing.
The von Trapps had to flee Austria post Anschuluss, where the movie ends, but their story does not end there.
There were still Whitehead relatives living in Britain, with whom the 7 children would have fared much better, but Kucera, now calling the shots, led the family to USA where Georg died in 1947, They still had enough money to buy a 660 acre ranch in Vermont.
After Georg died, Kucera claimed all remaining assets, kicked out the 7 older children from Agathe Whitehead, and declared her own son , born after they arrived in USA, as the head of the von Trapps. the von Trapp ranch, the last remnant of the Whitehead fortune, is still owned by descendants of Kucera, although she did nothing to earn it.
The movie was based upon Kucera’s memoir, which she sold for a lower price to prevent the older children from claiming a share of it, and the descendants of the older children, descendants of Whitehead, are not speaking to Kucera’s descendants. They mostly drifted away into a bunch of directions while Kucera’s descendants still use the Sound of Music fame.
Robert Whitehead’s fortune, on the 4th gen, fell to the hand of a Czech opportunists and his real descendants ended up with the short side of stick. Sometimes the top out of sight family does fall, in a major cataclysm.
After the fall of BAU a lot of great fortunes will fall into opportunists like Kucera, which is why in the older days people only married cousins or at least people they knew in the village.
I can see the point in marrying only cousins, if a person wants to keep money/inherited wealth in the family.
“which is why in the older days ”
Gregory Clark has a paper on the subject.
https://milkyeggs.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ClarkGlasgow2021.pdf
For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of
400,000 English Individuals 1750-2020 shows
Genetics Determines most Social Outcomes
For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of 400,000 English Individuals 1750-2020 shows Most English Genetics are not Worth Stressing about and High-Skilled Immigration is the Way to Go?
“Immigration is the Way to Go?”
I don’t think the word is mentioned.
Clark’s interest is mostly in what led up to the industrial revolution. He thinks it was partly genetic selection.
How funny that a nun turned out to be a thief and have children … a fantastic disguise! Anyway, it sounds like she fit right in with the rest of the elite.
Underclass 1, upper class 0. Ball to the center.
It is worth remembering Clark’s results showing downward social mobility.
For a long time the wealthy had far more kids then there were places for the wealthy. Eventually, most of the population was descended from the well off of the middle ages. So you could get people from the lower strata who by luck had the genes to go far.
btw—thank you for the info on tar making keith
really useful
Glad to help.
For whatever reason Clark refuses to consider the enormous dysgenic effects of the Great War, since he himself did not come from a distinguished family and like the late Dr. Robert Firth, descended from forest rangers in the Midlands, think it was somehow a good thing.
Thanks to the Great War there was suddenly a huge empty spots in the higher classes of society thru which people who did not belong to such classes sneaked in.
However, after a century , we all know their inferior stock eventually revealed themselves.
” refuses to consider”
You can ask him, his email is not hard to find.
Wars can certainly affect genetics. The French drafted the tall ones first, and the next generation after WW I was two inches shorter. IRRC
But I am not so sure about the effect you mention. For one thing, women carry half the genes and almost none of them were casualties.
@Keith
Women carry half of the genes but as DH Lawrence wrote in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover, directed by Aldous Huxley whose wife typed the book (Yes, MKUltra and all that), such women now mate with people they would never even have wasted a look before or die without issue.
In that book the baronet husband returns paralyzed, and he has to watch his wife having sex with an Irish laborer.
“has to watch his wife”
Kinky!
I thought I read LCL decades ago but I don’t remember this bit so maybe I didn’t.
Which would have been impossible without the screwups caused by the Great War.
resource depletion lead to conflict. Deal with it. It’s not a bug it is, not even a feature, a law of physics.
Her father dumped her to the convent after her mother died and he felt like remarrying, and although a Moravian, he dumped her to Austria so he would never have to deal with her ever again. That was a common practice before the 20th century – she did not become a nun by choice which is why it was easier for her to leave when opportunity presented itself.
If Woodrow Wilson didn’t act like a redneck and allowed the German and Austrian Empires to end the war with some dignity, a Czech like Kucera would never even be dealing with von Trapp himself, well into the way to becoming the Chief of Staff of Navy in this timeline.
She did not fit with the rest of the elite – her family prefers to stay in USA and do not go to Austria where they would be seen as thieves.
“do not go to Austria”
According to Wikipedia, one of them moved there.
I don’t think the person is hanging around with the kind of people Georg von Trapp was hanging around with though
They seem to be doing well these days running (at least nominally) a brewery selling to supermarkets here, and doing boutique cheeses sold in more rarefied settings. They sell a lot out to NY, SF, etc.
A good hustle, selling alcohol under tax exempt status.
“under tax exempt status.”
How did they get that?
Religious orgs are tax-exempt. I don’t mean that the alcohol tax doesn’t apply, just that they don’t pay on profits.
Why? Because Uncle Sam has no choice to, that’s why, fighting to stay as King of the Hill and maintaining it’s status as a world power with reserve 🤑.
Why The Recent U.S. Aid Package To Ukraine Included 2,000 Humvees
Vikram Mittal is a contributor who covers aerospace and defense.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikrammittal/2024/10/29/why-the-recent-us-aid-package-to-ukraine-included-2000-humvees/
On October 16, 2024, the U.S. State Department announced a military aid package valued at $425M to Ukraine, which includes the standard stock of ammunition and missiles. This package also provides approximately 2,000 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV), commonly referred to as Humvees, durable light military trucks that have been a mainstay of U.S. ground forces since the 1980s. On social media, some critics questioned why the U.S. chose to send these aging vehicles. However, the inclusion of Humvees in the aid package makes logical sense given the current and future needs of Ukraine.
Ukraine requires a significant amount of equipment to sustain its defense that spreads across a 600-mile front, with Russia attacking along three primary axes. These defensive positions are under daily bombardment from Russian artillery, which seeks to create holes in the Ukrainian lines. Ukraine has lost a substantial number of vehicles, with Oryxspioenkop reporting over 220 vehicle losses in October alone and almost 2,000 since the start of the year. These numbers only include those vehicles that have been visually confirmed, so the actual losses are considerably higher. To avoid creating gaps in their lines, Ukraine needs military vehicles to replace their losses.
Just another money pit, along a long line of them, one after the other, such as Afghanistan, too many to list… hopefully, the big red button won’t let the nukes fly.
This is an excuse to make more High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles. It indirectly helps keep the price of oil up. It provides jobs (mostly not in the US, however). It is an excuse for more US debt.