|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
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.
Dear Gail. In December 2021 you predicted a global economic ‘discontinuity’ within three years. Those three years are almost up. From your closing remarks in this piece, you seem to have dropped that idea. Is that the case?
We are not yet at December 2024. The US election right now looks pretty disruptive to me, but we don’t know how it will go.
Closing multiple Volkswagen manufacturing plants in Germany looks disruptive, too. China is doing pretty poorly, too. Cuba is having major problems.
The disturbances we see almost seem normal, but taken together, they are breaking the system up. The whole process goes slowly, with bigger discontinuities. I worry about the post-election outcome in the US.
Though turning the Permian into a pin cushion did lengthen the expected time scale, while making the discontinuity steeper.
” dropped that idea”
Morning after in a Millenarianism belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenarianism#Theology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment
Been there. The early L5 Society members were expecting a space colony/ power satellite project to begin by about 1985. We had badge stickers for SF conventions “L5 in ’95” with the ideas of holding major events in space.
Didn’t happen of course and the fire went out of the meme as the divergence between the idea and reality bit. Pieces that are left may grow into something, but the whole landscape has changed with AI coming on line and nanotech in the wings.
Predicting the future is hard, even with the best models.
Did you see the link Mike Jones posted earlier. It contains a list of bad economic problems around the world. Very few of them are ever mentioned in our newspapers here. Things can be bad, but we rarely hear about the issues.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/10/30/30th-october-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
Keith says: A lot of cement today uses burning tires for heat. Half the steel in the US comes from scrap heated in arc furnaces. And almost all the energy used for aluminum is electric.
The US imports most of its steel. And according to a quick google, making pure aluminum (sic) from bauxite costs 17 kwh per kg.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/aluminum-production
Add on to that that energy for smelting operations cannot be intermittent.
Indonesia’s new aluminium smelters run off coal. Fancy that! Renewables aren’t even close to the job. About as close as Keith’s space solar.
If high quality steel is needed, melting scrap steel using arc furnaces is not good enough. It has miscellaneous other metals mixed in. It is necessary to start with iron ore, and add the correct other metals to the mix.
“not good enough”
I think that the market for steel that can’t be made from scrip is small. Not sure what it would be used for.
I was surprised that the Congressional Research Service said in a 2022 report that over the past 10 years, the US produced 70% to 90% of the steel used in the US. The catch is that the US has sent a huge share of manufactured goods, using steel, abroad. This makes comparisons difficult.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47107
We import huge quantities of steel right now.
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/steel/steelf_2408.pdf
This report shows US steel production.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2024/mcs2024-iron-steel.pdf
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre was a revolutionary book in her own days, since it is a governess, who was NOT expected to marry by the standards of the time, getting to marry the master of her house, although to justify that there are a lot of strings attached.
That was very disturbing to the upper class since someone without a family or inheritance entering a gentry family was unprecedented. (The unlikely plots in the second half are just devices to justify the premise)
Jean Rhys , from a Creole landowner family in Jamaica (which made her slightly black), did NOT like that.
She wrote the book Wild Sargasso Sea, about the history of Bertha Mason, the Creole first wife of Eyre’s beau (whom he married for money), giving her the name Antoinette and wrote about how she failed to adjust in England after leaving a freer Caribbean and how evil Eyre and her beau were.
That book completely changed opinion on Jane Eyre, and modern adaptations pay more attention to Bertha, and usually end up Jane not marrying her gentry beau.
That makes sure the beau’s line to die out, but since Eyre was not marriageable by the standards of the day (she was going to be sent a one way ticket to India if she didn’t find her beau again) , her line would die out too.
Rhys, a landowner’s scion, thought Eyre was lower than Bertha/Antoinette, even though the latter was slightly black, because a landowner , whether black or not, is a landowner and a commoner like Eyre should not be bothering with the world of the privileged.
We are going back to the old class system, whether you like or not.
The class system did seem to work for distributing a limited amount of goods and services. India had its caste system.
class system or caste system–same thing pretty much.
meant to maintain the status quo
but then we dug up fossil fuels and gave ourselves democracy
Norm,
I think it is more biology than we want to admit.
Dennis L.
No it isn’t. If class and caste were biologically determined there wouldn’t be class struggle. Human sociality is qualitatively unique.
It is
Lineage is everything.
i agree
we are, after all, just another species of life, our prime purpose is food and fornication.–which applies to every living species.
the rest is window dressing
humanist school.
no reason to argue.
Dennis L.
“the rest is window dressing”
The difference is that humans are about to or have already given rise to non biological life which is not subject to evolution that shaped all biological life. If I wanted, I could make a case that this is the purpose of humans. Religious like, humans longed for a god and are in the process of building one.
In the older days, pastors/priests would NOT issue marriage licenses to those who they did not deem to be worthy of reproduction, so most poor men and women were not allowed to marry or reproduce.
Often servants or other lower classed people would marry girls carrying the child of someone of a much higher status, since that would be the only chance of marriage such people had. Often the master’s child was an only child, meaning there would be no progeny of the poor guy who was deemed worthy enough to be allowed to marry, and even if there are other children, since the firstborn, the Master’s child, is more likely to be more intelligent and more capable that he (sometimes she) would kick out the younger siblings, whom he/she does NOT consider to be their blood, to the street where they would probably not reproduce and perish.
Which is why there are talents from lower classes, since they do carry upper class genes.
Mikhail Lomonosov, a Russian polymath who was the first Russian to accomplish anything academically, had an unclear background. Officially he was a son of a trader in Archangel, at the Arctic, but people , behind closed doors, said that Lomonosov was actually a natural son of Czar Peter the Great or at least some famous nobleman, since they knew well enough that no talents would come from in an arctic outpost like Archangel and Lomonosov put his hometown there knowing nobody in St Petersburg would venture that far to the Arctic to actually check his background.
Abraham Lincoln claimed he was born in a log cabin in Kentucky, but his mother worked for a landowner named Enloe in North Carolina, whose only surviving legitimate child, Wesley Enloe, had an uncanny resemblance to the 16th President. When asked whether the rumor that Lincoln was actually Wesley Enloe’s half brother, he neither admitted or denied the rumor.
Talents do NOT come from the bottom. If there are talents in the bottom, that is because some ancestor from a higher class spilled his seed to there long ago, not because it inherently existed in the rock bottom.
In Carl Sagan’s Contact, the main character, Ellie, grows up as a daughter of a working class man, and detests her stepfather , who was a famous professor , because she loved her father.
However, after it became too later for her to reproduce (in the book she is about 60 years old – in the movie her age was lowered to cast Jodie Foster), it is revealed that her professor stepfather was her actual father, who decided not to break her bubble of her fake father loving a child who was not his (and naturally her mother did NOT reproduce with the laborer).
Carl Sagan knew talents like Ellie did not come from the blue collar.
Naturally in the movie that part was cut. (The director Robert Zemekis also bowlderized Winston Groom Jr’s book Forrest Gump such that the latter, after writing the sequel Gump & Co invalidating everything in that movie (that book of course, did not become a movie), changed to historical fiction and never returned to the Gump story)
How many Carl Sagans does it take to change a light bulb?
he didn’t have to since he could afford staff to do that for him.
Billions and billions! Civ. type I produces such charlatans.
To some extent this is true. Talents do not come from the bottom because the upper classes monopolize scarce animal foods. Talent comes from the fraction of population that has plentiful access to animal foods. In Western Europe that has meant also the middle class, and because of the much larger population base plus drive to succeed, that has meant that in the last two centuries most of the talents have come indeed from the middle class. That was true in italy (Fermi and Marconi for example) as in England (Maxwell or Watt).
Middle class in England were often descended from lesser branches of more famous families, something unique to there since in most continental countries such unneeded offspring were put into monasteries and out of the gene pool.
And that is stuck in the genes.
Even if other peoples begin to eat meat in quantities, something which will be unsustainable, talents won’t come
I researched this problem a bit, and IMHO in two generations the meat eating poor will be beating the vegan rich. Genes are way overrated. Epigenetics is where it’s at. Make sure that in your recipes for oppression you do not forget meat restriction. They are already doing it.
Maasai are reported to live almost exclusively on animal products but don’t seem to be gaining intellectual ground over any of the smart-ish African tribes like the Igbo.
I do agree low meat/protein negatively affects cognition. Was sent to investigate the Moonie cult and the adepts were made to subsist mainly on watery potato soup.
There is also the omega 3 intake. do you have a link on where cognition in Maasai is compared with nearby tribes?
If Trump wins, a mass redefinition of people who can participate in civilization will take place.
Those without property, those without credentials, those without a stake in civilization need not apply.
JD Vance is just a crony of Donald Trump Jr, who will call the shots. People without credentials, good parentage, etc won’t be allowed to participate at all.
Meanwhile the alternative, Gopalan, is going to make USA a third world country.
So it is back to the 19th century or the slums of Madras (which the Tamils call Chennai).
Survival of the best adapted works strangely. The world cannot serve the current number of people, all consuming the current quantity of goods and services today. I don’t know exactly how things work out, but the future often “rhymes” with history.
There are lots of third world countries that are also civilizations. Apparently, India was a civilization back when Europeans were running around in loincloths and painting themselves with wode. Indian civilization is generally acknowledged to go back at least 5,000 years, and the Indian government has claimed it goes back 10,000 years to 8,000 BC.
I think it was Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (V.S. to his mates) who coined that memorable term, “a wounded civilization” to describe India. He certainly popularized the phrase and the idea in a book of that name.
Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus and Ganges civilizations, and the Hwang Ho and Yangtze civilizations (I’m not sure whether to call that one or two civilizations) all go back over 5,000 years, and all were centered on great rivers and were characterized by state control or administration of land, water and food and the use of writing to record what was going on. By Naipaul’s standard, all are wounded civilizations today, and it goes without saying, all are Third World, at least for the moment.
And what about “modern” Western civilization, or civilizations? They’ve received or inflicted upon themselves plenty of wounds in recent decades. Are they fated to suffer the death of a thousand cuts or to limp along from the maladies brought on by a thousand poison jabs?
Moreover, how can a people get up build a new civilization while burdened with the crushing weight of all that past civilization on their backs?
They outgrow the older civ
However the people India were doing the same thing they did 2,000 years ago when the British arrived
“However the people India were doing the same thing they did 2,000 years ago when the British arrived”
When the British arrived, they came with gifts from their royal court. The local officials took one look at these gifts and told them to take them away, as presenting them would be seen as an affront, given their shoddy materials, design and workmanship. How embarrassing is that, when if what you say is correct, they had been used to far superior quality and craftsmanship for over 2 millenia and the best the British could do was inferior to the quality the Indian court would have accepted some time before the Roman empire even existed(even that was built on knowledge from the East).
There’s a theme appearing in your writing(beyond the obvious one) and it’s quite damning. We see all these nations/empires of East & West Asia go on for millennia upon millennia, giving humanity important tools like written language and advanced mathematics, whilst in Europe and it’s various satellites of slaughter, we claim a couple of hundred years as the pinnacle(we’re still struggling with maths it would appear) of longevity in a society desperately trying, but failing to be civilised. The sad and desperate attempts to prove we are special, do work, just not as the sad and desperate had hoped.
depends how civilisation is defined tim
you really wouldnt want to live in a indian civilisation of 4000 yrs ago, or chinese or whatever.—where the energy of 000s served an elite few
(much like our medieval society)
the fundamental difference being that old civilisations moved at a walking pace
we have got used to something different
and you cant build a new civilisation without surplus energy–outside the tropics, that isnt available.
Perhaps global warming will extend the part of the world in which a civilization is possible.
I dont think its feasible, to expect, croplands to be pushed 300m further north because, even if it was possible—
a the infrastructure to support people cannot be built there
b, the migration of people moving north would overwhelm any attampt at it
Total population will likely be a whole lot lower. Most people will not need to move very far.
In a warmer climate, the coal in Alaska would be a lot more accessible.
So it looks like Putin really was stupid enough to put development of their new non-US-controlled financial messaging system in the hands of the BIS, which is based in Switzerland if I’m not mistaken, and aligned with US/London power centers. Now BIS decided to cancel the project and Russia is sitting on its hands again. “With friends like this, who needs enemies.”
In my view, this was a way to put things clear, ‘this is our object, if you all right with it, we go on, otherwise we change platform’.
I think that there may be legal constraints to exit a project of such importance.
If one of the counterpart withdraws, there is no penalty.
It is different if one part says I don’t want to work with you anymore…
I don’t think it can be a problem to find another platform…
There may be things that we don’t like, but in my view it is either clear that Iran will have or already has nuclear weapons or that Brics will have their own platform for payment, alternative to Swift system, in one way or another.
This is an article about
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/vladimir-putin-s-mbridge-under-fire-bis-weighs-shutting-down-brics-threat-to-dollar/ar-AA1t8ZaQ
It sounds like it was the BRICS were really the ones behind the system supposedly being developed by the BIS. It is not clear to me that the BIS can stop the development, unless it is providing essential funding or specialized knowledge for this effort. It would seem like what has been done so far is mostly by members of the BRICS.
This is from the article you link:
The only thing that the BIS can stop is a pilot of MBridge on their own system. It doesnt sound like this would stop MBridge payments between BRICS members who largely don’t need the BIS now anyway.
Agreed!
I am having trouble getting the video to play.
Somehow my reply disappeared and so here it is again. Isn’t this typical Putin? How does it dovetail with what I wrote about it? and can BIS really stop this technology, once the source code is in the wild? Or are they looking to send a Khinzal into a prominent western building, without escalating much?
On the surface it does seem like typical Putin, but to be fair, the verdict will depend on how much specialized knowledge or technical infrastructure the BIS provided versus BRICS countries. And how long the delay will be if they are able to simply move the project management.
>> Or are they looking to send a Khinzal into a prominent western building, without escalating much?
I don’t think he would ever dare. Based on their actions, I sometimes wonder whether the entire Russian ruling class is blackmailed with threats of various kinds.
Maybe not him, but the next guy. The military have a lot of power now. Switzerland is not in NATO.
An excellent explanation of our dependence on fossil fuels and the difficulty of potentially replacing them.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/06/shedding-our-fossil-fuel-suit/#more-2248
The biggest problem is that processing industrial materials (cement, steel, aluminum, etc.) requires a lot of heat , which is currently made by burning fossil fuels. Almost all fossil fuel alternatives (with the exception of burning biomass) generate electricity , which is not particularly well suited to creating the kind of heat that industry requires.
To understand this, think about the usual method of creating electric heat. Toasters, space heaters, dryers, and stoves all use metal coils that get hot and even glow orange. But to get hot enough to melt steel, the coils would have to be melted, too. So that’s not the solution. Electric arcs can heat very small volumes (think arc welding), but only tungsten electrodes resist melting under the heat of the arc. Simply put, creating enough heat (in large volumes) to “destroy” (melt, reform) materials will tend to destroy the heating agent as well. In the case of fossil fuels, we don’t care if the heating agent (fuel) is “destroyed” (burned) in the process of creating heat: that’s what we do with them in any application. But we don’t want to destroy electric heaters in the process of creating enough heat for an industrial application.
This view may be overly simplistic, but I think it helps us understand the nature of the challenge and why heating by burning is something completely different—and much easier—than heating by electricity.
Copy/paste from Quark .
>> Electric arcs can heat very small volumes (think arc welding), but only tungsten electrodes resist melting under the heat of the arc.
So tungsten is a solution? I’m reading that graphite electrodes are most common and I’m not sure whether the melting temperature differential is sufficient for them to last long.
Anyways, here is Cleveland Cliffs with their 230-ton electric arc furnace
https://www.clevelandcliffs.com/operations/steelmaking/butler-works
There are also solutions for cement making (conductive bricks) which reach appropriate temperatures.
https://electrifiedthermal.com/
I used to work with a film projection group, and the projectors used carbon/graphite arcs similar in diameter to a pencil. Although the booth could get quite warm, we were far from mass-liquidation-of-metal temps. Gap would be something like 1/4″-1/2″? They would have to be trimmed and adjusted during the show as they were consumed (dual projectors allowed for this).
Tom Murphy makes the point that fossil fuels tend to be burned to make heat, and that electricity is not as good for this purpose. I would agree with him. Heat in winter is one big use. Cooking is another. Melting metals is another. Providing explosives for war is another. This need for heat is very important. Tom uses this as the only issue, but I think there are other issues which are just as important.
Tom Murphy doesn’t mention that fact that oil and coal have another very worthwhile characteristic: They can be cheaply stored. In fact, oil can be cheaply transported as well as cheaply stored, giving it two very worthwhile characteristics. A third extra characteristic of fossil fuels is chemical properties, which are used to make many useful products, such as asphalt roads, modern fabrics, medicines, insecticides, and herbicides.
The combination of these characteristics make fossil fuels far superior to electricity for most uses. It is not just that electric arc furnaces can’t melt tungsten that is the problem. It is that electricity needs battery backup to attempt to match the characteristics of fossil fuels, and even with this, electricity doesn’t work nearly as well as fossil fuels in many applications.
Electricity requires a high level of complexity to maintain; it is easily lost when there are storms. Having the system needed to bring electricity back into service after storms requires heavy equipment operated by diesel. Sometimes helicopters are needed. Paved roads are required to keep the system going. We have no way of keeping roads paved using only electricity.
Electricity was “added last,” after fossil fuels to our current system. I expect it to decline first in availability. We are already seeing this happen in poor countries, such as Cuba.
kind of similar to neutrons destroying the containment structure of a fusion reactor.
“An excellent explanation of our dependence on fossil fuels and the difficulty of potentially replacing them.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/06/shedding-our-fossil-fuel-suit/#more-2248
The biggest problem is that processing industrial materials (cement, steel, aluminum, etc.) requires a lot of heat , which is currently made by burning fossil fuels. Almost all fossil fuel alternatives (with the exception of burning biomass) generate electricity , which is not particularly well suited to creating the kind of heat that industry requires.:”
This is just wrong. A lot of cement today uses burning tires for heat. Half the steel in the US comes from scrap heated in arc furnaces. And almost all the energy used for aluminum is electric.
I suspect whoever wrote the article has never been in an aluminum smelter.
“To understand this, think about the usual method of creating electric heat. Toasters, space heaters, dryers, and stoves all use metal coils that get hot and even glow orange. But to get hot enough to melt steel, the coils would have to be melted, too. So that’s not the solution. Electric arcs can heat very small volumes (think arc welding), but only tungsten electrodes”
Carbon is used for the electrodes that melt steel. If you ever get a chance, go through a mini mill. Typical furnace uses 50 MW.
“Copy/paste from Quark .”
If you ever needed an example of how reliable information is on the web . . .
Cherry picking.
Aluminum vs Iron Melting Points
Based on the provided search results, here is a summary of the melting points for aluminum and iron:
Aluminum: The melting point of aluminum is around 660°C (1220°F). This value can vary slightly depending on the specific alloy used, with some aluminum alloys having melting points ranging from 848°F to 1230°F (453°C to 666°C).
Iron: The melting point of iron is not explicitly stated in the search results, but it is generally known to be around 1538°C (2800°F) for pure iron. However, the melting point of iron can vary depending on its specific composition and impurities.
In summary, aluminum has a significantly lower melting point than iron, with a difference of approximately 878°C (1600°F). This difference in melting points is due to the unique properties of each metal, including their atomic structures and bonding arrangements.
“Aluminum vs Iron Melting Points”
Certainly they have different melting points. But the problem of getting aluminum out of its oxide is *much* harder than it is for iron. Humans have been reducing iron oxides for 3000 years and aluminum for only 188 years.
IF you want to know more, any search engine will get you to Wikipedia and the articles on aluminum reference each other.
The president of Brazil was absent at the brics conference. Guess he fell and hit his head causing “brain bleed”
Brazil’s Lula cancels BRICS trip to Russia after brain hemorrhage
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-lula-cancels-trip-brics-summit-kazan-medical-advice-2024-10-20/
Brazil’s Lula cancels trip to COP16, COP29 after head injury
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/lula-able-carry-out-duties-brasilia-after-head-injury-doctors-say-2024-10-25/
Sooner or later, Bolsonaro or one of his cronies will return to power and will take Brazil out of Brics.
If a person has a head injury, it is good sense to stay home.
Brazil is rather far away from a group centered in Asia. I would think that a new economic group would work best if it is quite compact, so as to minimize long distance shipping.
It a parallel system develops in the West, I would expect it to be limited to the Americas. It would make use of the resources of Venezuela and Brazil, besides those of the US and Canada. Trade would be localized to the Americas, to save fuel.
Lula gets jabbed.
Notice, as he gets his COVID shot in the right arm, there are two bandaids on the left one. What else has he been injecting there? Blood is usually taken out from “inside” the elbow.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/13/lula-receives-covid-jab-as-brazils-coronavirus-crisis-continues
you’re only chance to go ‘back to normal’
We missed it!
His mask evokes the Chinese flag. That was interesting.
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/heres-why-cpi-doesnt-fully-reflect-economic-pain
In my opinion, CPI indications tend to leave out the effect of interest payments. Between 1981 and 2020, interest rates were generally headed downward. This downward trend had a favorable effect on the economy, partly because they led to capital gains on the economy and partly because they made purchases more affordable.
Since 2020, interest rates have been higher. When these higher interest rates are piled on top of higher amounts of debt, the poorer citizens are especially squeezed. Governments are also squeezed. This can’t be measured in the CPI.
An interesting bit from Wired.
https://www.wired.com/story/donald-trump-robert-f-kennedy-jr-rfk-rally-go-wild-on-health-antivax/
At his rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that if elected he would allow wellness conspiracist and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild on health.” Kennedy, a former Democrat and scion of the famous political family, initially ran as an independent third-party and potential spoiler candidate, and has spent the better part of two decades spreading conspiracy theories that would likely inform the policies of a Trump administration.
Wow.
Most readers here would say that Kennedy is doing the right thing. “Health” has turned into a money-making organization for pharmaceutical companies and others, with little concern about the actual health of citizens.
“with little concern”
Corporations are required by law and court decisions to consider the stockholders first and not the customers best interest. If you don’t like this, (I don’t) then we need to rewrite the rules. Alternately, have the government buy out the stockholders and make them non-profits.
All this will change beyond belief with advanced technology.
Bill Gates obviously, had a stroke. Look how he doesn’t use both hands like usual. And his coat seems very large for some reason.
https://x.com/BGatesIsaPyscho/status/1851216204460953798
1 John 5:21
1 John 5:21 = Little children, keep yourselves from idols.
Bill Gates is indeed using only one arm to gesture. It does look rather strange. Perhaps he has had a stroke.
obviously another person in there working his arms and legs
That would be George Soros, no doubt.
All the world’s a Punch & Judy show.
My impression is that he is keeping his fingers on the paper in order not to lose the point on his speech.
Loss of use of his right arm from a neurological cause would indicate a local focal left sided stroke in the distribution of the middle meningeal artery or a branch and would have had to occur in the left temporal area, which is also adjacent to Broca’s and Wernicke’s speech processing areas. Thus, I would think that his word processing might have been affected, but this is clearly not the case. Nor does he have any dysarthria, I.e. the inability to produce vocal sounds. There is no slurring of speech. Considering my orthopedic bias, he may have simply had rotator cuff surgery and has to keep his right arm down by his side, usually postoperatively in a sling for the period of up to six weeks to allow ingrowth of the suprspinatus tendon tear into bone. All of this pure conjecture, of course.
” All of this pure conjecture, of course.”
But quite reasonable.
It looks to me like he’s holding his manuscript with his right hand while doing his trademark gesticulating with the left. But I agree, it looks strange.
He could be suffering from Vaxxer’s Cramp.
Speaking of Tina, I just came across this recently. So quaint!
If you can make it to 5 min, you get the Kaopectate verse.
‘Why is the US military not able to maintain its own stuff? Because “program officials said manufacturers are unwilling to pass proprietary information through the prime contractor to DOD as they may expose information that may reduce their competitiveness as a private sector entity.” So because of this, they can’t fix their own planes or debug their own software. They don’t have the manuals or the source code. The US government has paid for a military program it does not own. The F-35 is just another enshittified subscription service, like Netflix for fighter jets. ‘?
https://indi.ca/the-us-military-is-in-a-death-spiral/
That’s a plus for the planet…the sooner the US military industrial complex crumbles under its bloated, complex and scamming destructive directives, the sooner we can all breath a sign of relief….the waste of life and resources is truly astonishing…it is so vast, it is largely unnoticed and deemed normal.
Noticed one Presidential candidate is promoting an enhanced military..
Comical …
WWI and WWII were a bitch. Not all good intentions are bad.
Dennis L.
Looks like WWIII will be the final act D.L
Uncle Sam won’t go down without a all out fight, as we are pretty much witnessing now.
The whiz kid genius that set up the sanction program against Russia was on National News TV the other night, trying to explain why it had not worked as intended.. it had good intentions, but by in large ineffective…Of course, the Ivy League Grad in the smart suit tried to put the best face on it.
So, this one theatre of war drags on.
Worldwide, the economy is a basket case as reported on “Harry’s” own site. This will lead to more and more violence as pointed out by many, such as, our Gail.
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/10/30/30th-october-2024-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
The list of bad things going on around the world is amazing. Most of these things never are reported on in the US press. Because of the lack of report, we think things are going better than they really are.
Military has opted for a small number of complex aircraft and other devices. These tend to be very expensive, requiring supply lines around the world. We can’t really build these in any quantity or maintain them ourselves.
What the military needs for fighting battles is quite varied and constantly changing. The devices that have been chosen are far too expensive to be used in most warfare. The system cannot work.
Hegel seems to have a brave and manly doctrine – or ‘ballsy’ as we would say these days.
States obtain a ‘right’ to be recognized as independent by other states only if they can actually fight in wars such as to secure their independent existence against all-comers – it is a contingent ‘natural’ relationship in the ‘state of nature’ and that is how nature works.
There is no ‘you have to respect my right’ but ‘my army is my right’. In other words, ‘if you want it, then come and get it, come and do it.’ It is the perspective of the strong and confident who is willing to be realistic about how the world really works instead of trying to pretend otherwise.
Lectures on Natural Right and Political Science, S 161
> Since the right of states vis-a-vis one another is based on their relationship as [that] of self-sufficient individuals, [which is] the relationship [that pertains to] a state of nature, it extends only to reciprocal recognition as independent entities-entities, that is, that attest themselves to be free by waging war and exercising power, with whom it is at the same time possible to live in a condition of peace.
What states have to demand of one another is recognition-to be recognized [as] free, independent individual entities. What is free as something naturally free only evinces itself by demonstrating that its life is a matter of indifference to it; and this existence of what is free can be shown only in war. As a natural mode of recognition, this recognition comprises an element of contingency; and as natural attributes, strength, size, level of resources, talent all affect the outcome.
* * *
How they have lied about you, Hegel! The usual interpretation is that Hegel sees war as a ‘necessary’ fact of history but that he nevertheless says that states really have to leave other states as independent in their existence. That is not what I am seeing in the texts.
The issue is “Survival of the best-adapted nation states,” just as evolution is survival of the best-adapted humans or animals or economies.
What about the Boeing workers you ask? Some gallows humor
BOEING Strikers Want BANKRUPTCY (Rejected Final Offer)
28,324 views · 3 days agoHousing Market Insanity
…more
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YmvLDOuw–8&t=604s
As an IAM 751 member I was confused why we turned it down. I crunched the numbers and with a large wage increase the 12% from the company and 8% from myself 401k would have been better than a pension with access to use it throughout my career. Seems like emotional damage and lack of math skills
Betcha those IAM members will settle for LESS, for those that survive the layoff
China has just produced and test flown a commercial jet to compete…
How them app,es for ya?
“No return of pensions” is the big issue.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that promised pensions are a problem, worldwide, whether offered by governments, employers, insurers or others. What pensioners need is goods and services in their retirement years. There increasingly won’t be enough goods and services to go around.
If we want the system to produce anything, the active workers have to be paid adequately. Retirees and those who are disabled will end up with whatever is left, if anything. This will dwindle to nothing, quickly.
Pensions are no longer sustainable.
But we all wish to go back to the good old days that are long gone in our generational collective memory
We are transitioning to a different consciousness as explained by the Philosophy Chad A Haag in his many writings…
From hunter gatherers, to agricultural cyclical, to
Linear progress mindset and eventually memory reflection or wishful longing
Financial engineering at it’s best .
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/10/28/boeing-launches-22-billion-share-offering-to-get-some-breathing-room-dodge-junk-credit-rating-after-having-wasted-64-billion-on-share-buybacks/
According to this article:
Boeing’s debt is currently one notch above junk at Moody’s (Baa3), S&P (BBB-), and Fitch (BBB-). The attempt now is to keep the debt above “junk” level a while longer. The company has $12 billion in debt coming due in 2025-2026. It needs to repay this, besides covering its ongoing funding shortfall.
Pensions work if:
1. People chose children, they are a normal distribution.
2. People don’t outlive their usefulness, lying in a bed waiting for the end is a waste of resources, especially our children and grandchildren.
Dennis L.
BIS Debates Ending Project Eyed by Putin to Undermine Dollar
. mBridge would allow transactions without relying on dollar
. Russia, China seek alternatives as US extends sanctions’ scope
October 28, 2024 at 7:34 PM GMT+1
The Bank for International Settlements is debating whether to shut down a pilot cross-border payments platform after Russia‘s President Vladimir Putin identified the underlying technology as a tool to circumvent sanctions and potentially undermine the dollar’s dominance in the global financial system.
The mBridge project — which promises to allow sending money around the world without relying on US banks — was among topics discussed by central banks and finance chiefs at last week’s annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, according to people informed about the talks. Shutting it down was among the options, the people added, asking not to be named discussing confidential deliberations.
Agustin Carstens, the BIS general manager whose term ends in June, said on Saturday at an event of the Group of 30 in the US capital that “we cannot directly support any project for the BRICS because we cannot operate with countries that are subject to sanctions — I want to be very clear about that.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-28/bis-debates-ending-project-eyed-by-putin-to-undermine-dollar
Unclear to me whether this is just BIS involvement vs ownership of the entire project to begin with. I’m assuming the former … Putin and Nabulina would have to be idiots if BIS was managing the whole thing, but I wouldn’t put it past them.
Many little side-wars in trying to fight each other. Military not necessarily involved.
https://x.com/BRICSinfo/status/1850905971763089709
>> JUST IN: 🇰🇵🇷🇺 North Korea officially deploys troops to fight alongside Russia in its war against Ukraine, NATO confirms.
Real or fake, guys?
almost certainly fake and aimed at making some euro poodle commit troops to ukraine.
Fake as usual . Just like Iraq has a nuclear bomb ,
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-102824-russia-unleashes-lightning?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=150857705&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Actually looking on various sources (also on Arab newspapers) it is possible that Russia will have sone support from North Korean army, but in Kursk, which is Russia, my friends.
Then we have to remember that everybody knows that it is full of English, French and Us soldiers in Ukraine, although without official uniform.
In addition, I think that it is more an help from Russia to North Korea, because North Korean soldiers need to learn how to fight.
The main point for me is actually that North Korea is preparing for some fight…
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2024/10/29/north-korean-generals-may-go-to-russia-frontline-seoul-intelligence-says
Thank you Student, this is my guess too.
Interesting view!
South Korea says ” it is not going to sit back and watch North Korean actions in Ukraine ” . What will they do– attack North Korea or Russia ? FUBAR in both scenarios . 😁
Good point!
Practice practice, practice.
Hard to find willing opponents when the end of the contest is death or dismemberment.
Russia probably has the world’s best army, the incompetents are now buried, and if equipment does not work, it is not used by the users.
High cost for excellence.
Dennis L.
AI will overuse water as well as electricity!
JPMorgan Says AI Power Demand Is Straining US Water Supplies
(Bloomberg, copied over on Yahoo Finance)
I’m noticing my search engines have decided to offer an automatic “AI” elaboration with each search phrase. I haven’t noticed a way to turn this off. I’ve only found it useful 1 time out of 100. Imagine this waste of energy multiplied a dozen times a day times billions of users!
“B” makes some political observations related to fossil fuels and the ability to win industrial warfare.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/geopolitical-unrealities
I see that Consortium News has disappeared from the web. Not clear that content will be recovered. Numerous alt sites have disappeared one way or another in the last ten years. Fort Russ, thesaker, anti-empire, Russia Insider is still up but dormant. Ugo Bardi.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wikileaks-news-site-known-being-fiercely-critical-us-foreign-policy-hacked-removed-web
According to the link:
I suppose that if the main author is dead, there is less change the contents will be put up elsewhere.
Germany can be great again if it can resist the urge to invade Russia. So far not looking good.
Germany de-industrializing: Volkswagen closes 3 plants, lays off thousands and cuts pay for remaining employees
Maybe someone can keep Germany GREAT…oops ..how did that work out last time for them?🙄
Historic moment for Volkswagen: Automaker plans to close ‘at least’ 3 German plants and cut thousands of jobs
By Hanna Ziady, CNN
Published 10:31 AM EDT, Mon October 28, 2024
Volkswagen, one of the world’s biggest carmakers, has warned that it needs a radical overhaul as the group faces growing competition in China and slowing sales elsewhere. According to executives, the automaker is selling 500,000 fewer cars in Europe a year compared with pre-pandemic levels, the equivalent of around two car plants.
Volkswagen reiterated these sentiments in a statement Monday. “The fact is: the situation is serious,” human resources board member Gunnar Kilian said. “Without comprehensive measures to regain competitiveness, we will not be able to afford essential future investments.”
Thomas Schaefer, the CEO of Volkswagen passenger cars, added that its German factories were not productive enough and that plant costs were as much as 50% above what the company had budgeted for, making individual plants twice as expensive as the competition.
“In addition, we at Volkswagen still handle many tasks internally that the competition has already outsourced more cost-effectively,” he said.
Labor costs were also “significantly too high,” Volkswagen said, adding that it would make “concrete proposals” for reducing these when it resumes talks with labor unions on Wednesday.
Addie Hitter did produce the first Peoples Car and freeways…and those uniforms were very stylish…maybe if he just focused on those he would have done better
The talks with the union are ;
1 . 80 ,000 to be fired . Worldwide VW employs 300,000 .
2 . 10% cut in wages across the board .
3 . Wage freeze for the next two years .
Best of luck V/W .
A V/W employee earns Euro 62.50 per hour . So what are the unemployed going to do ? Work at Burger king ? Mercedese and Opel are not hiring and neither is MAN .
i run a vw—excellent car—does what i want, when i want
but it is over complicated with stuff i never use and dont know how to use—had it 4 years and used the satnav 3 times, even then its a pain in the watsit
Yes, a simple nob is hard to beat. So much junk.
Dennis L.
Yes I wonder about the Boeing people
If Fast Eddy reads this…the challenge
Man survives monthlong ordeal in US park on a mushroom, berries and water
Robert Schock recounts how he ‘really felt … close to death’ after being lost in North Cascades national park for 30 days
Ramon Antonio Vargas Mon 28 Oct 2024 05.00 EDT
A man ingested a mushroom, berries and water to survive getting lost for more than a month in a Washington state national park, he has said in an interview about his nearly fatal experience.
In a compelling conversation with people.com published over the weekend, Robert Schock recounted how he “really felt … close to death” – and he had just lost control of his bowels – when what he believed would be his final desperate scream for help caught the attention of the person who ultimately saved his life.
Schock told the outlet his ordeal aged him “several years”, and he has sworn off ever returning to the North Cascades national park “anytime soon”. Nonetheless, he said he is physically “recovering pretty well” after having regained about 40lbs (18kg) following his dramatic rescue from a kind of hardship others have not survived.
….He said he occasionally lost track of time and even thought to himself: “Please, let this be over, I want this to end.’” On 30 August, people.com wrote, Schock was by a riverbank when his bowels emptied without his meaning for them to do so – and, while nude, he thought to himself that he “wasn’t going to make it through the night”.
Schock reportedly said he decided to scream for help one last time. Members of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association who were returning to their camp after performing maintenance on the trail heard Schock and found him, including one who gave him his shirt, according to the group’s website and people.com.
Well, this lucky man has been revived by BAU….
The mushrooms and the berries were fine. And he must have enjoyed a thorough detox.
But he couldn’t stand the boredom when the smartphone battery ran out.
Boredom was a major cause of death in the past.
Really mucks about with your bowels, yes, it does.
A recent investigation by Dr Ricardo Delgado Martin and the technical report by Dr Pablo Campra ‘Detection of graphene in COVID vaccines by micro-Raman spectroscopy’ claim that the COVID-19 vaccines contain graphene.
As reported by CORDIS in 2018, a team of researchers has proven that graphene is able to convert electronic signals into signals in the terahertz range, with trillions of cycles per second.
The silicon-based electronic components we use today generate clock speeds in the GHz range, where 1 GHz is equal to 1 000 million cycles per second. The scientists showed that graphene can convert signals with these frequencies into signals with frequencies that are thousands of times higher than those created by silicon.
Graphene is therefore able to absorb radiation, meaning that, if contained in a vaccine, it would be highly toxic and harmful to human health.
In the light of this recent investigation, does the Commission intend to have an independent laboratory perform a careful analysis to check for the presence of graphene in the COVID-19 vaccines?
Your wife radiates at around 30 THz (and so do you), so when you snuggle up to her it could be highly toxic. Just saying.
‘… that graphene is able to convert electronic signals into signals …’
Bio-digital prison; you have the jab? You have your number.
Welcome to the future.
From 1957..on vaxxines….’ Through the lethal power of this poisoned needle, the simple zymotic (contagious) diseases of the past have been devolved into the horrors of the present—our terrifying and expanding crop of “killer diseases”. Many of these strange “mystery diseases” that baffle the entire medical world, are the sordid products of vaccine poisons that disturb the chemical balance of the body and interfere with normal functioning.
All these medically-made atrocities are far worse than smallpox or any of the
other eruptive diseases that nature provides as a means of expelling the
accumulated poison waste from the abused body. This interference with the
balanced economy of nature has multiplied the problems beyond the power of science to control.’
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – JFK June 11, 1962
Brent now down to ~$71 and WTI $67. Cheaper than bottled water.
https://oilprice.com/
Ruble continues its gradual decline
https://www.investing.com/currencies/usd-rub-chart
Russia, like other oil exporters, needs a high price for its exported oil. Low oil prices tend to push production down, and system toward collapse. People find it awfully difficult to see this problem.
Gail, two more refineries in CA due to shut down, ostensibly due to” Gov. Newsom rules mandating LOW CARBON FUEL”
In reality this seems to be your classic argument “oil prices too low for producers(thus, not enough supply to refineries) and prices too high for consumers (refineries that process the oil can’t sell refined product for high enough price to make a profit). Correct?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/two-refineries-produce-14-californias-gasoline-set-close-due-regulatory-pressure
I think so. The refineries will leave. Imported gasoline from elsewhere will cost more. Gasoline may not even be available.
Post-covid peak oil may have occurred last December — there’s no return to the past — https://davecoop.net/seneca , https://oil-price.net/ , https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1717200000000
June 2024 data is now out, and it is down even further than May data.
December 2023 is 83,043,000 barrels per day of crude oil. In June, 2024, production is down to 81,105,000.
Low oil prices will make production fall further.
https://www.rt.com/russia/606584-moscow-migrants-sobyanin-identifications/
Moscow: Smart ID for migrants first … locals next
I have no doubt that this is where it is going everywhere in the world. Granted Moscow has a better rationale, since it has suffered 25 major terrorist attacks in 25 years (mind you, attribution may not be clear in 100% of cases). But oligarchs are oligarchs everywhere.
Yes.
Given that rules, regulations and technology increasingly channel, control, structure and restrict our lives… and ..
Given that we know large mammals breed badly in captivity,..
Should we be surprised at falling birth rates?
“Given that we know large mammals breed badly in captivity,..
Should we be surprised at falling birth rates?”
Looking a bit closer, I’d say absolutely.
In 2020, when people stopped using any logic and were so highly stressed by bs from on high, that they willingly barricaded themselves away, TFR went up. Don’t you remember the pretend pandemic baby boom?
Births started plummeting some time later and it certainly does have a correlation to an event(which was apparently 100% safe & effective) that if people had bothered to look, would have realised that they announced that fertility would be affected(yes, before a single person was poisoned that information was on the HCP advice notice for pretend vaccins), but unfortunately people can’t be bothered to read(including HCPs it would appear), or are just really dense, so very few knew, because it wasn’t handed to them on a screen.
Of course the owners will easily manoeuvre the dense to blame anything but the obvious and we can watch this in action throughout what’s about to follow(remember the heavy bleeding and periods all over the place during its introduction, well wait until it reveals it’s full scope of horrors). There’s going to be a hell of a lot of very angry and depressed young adults soon.
Johan puts it together nicely(looking at Swedish numbers).
“ONLINE MISINFORMATION.
This is so fucking beautiful. If you fail to obey the high priest you piss of the rain god, and so it’s your fault that the harvest fails. This is exactly the kind of mindset you see in destructive and authoritarian cults.
In other words, if you have the audacity to argue that there could be another (non-MSM-approved) factor behind the historically unprecedented drop in the live birth rate, then YOU’RE actually the problem here. Then YOU’RE the one who caused this immense fertility decline, because you’ve taken part in wrongthink, in heresy and in the spreading of “misinformation” which has undermined the people’s sacred trust in their moronic midwit priesthood. And so the harvest fails.”
https://shadowrunners.substack.com/p/birthrates-dropping-due-to-online
Interesting point!
Not sure this counts Fitz. I see birth rates have been dropping for decades before the 2020 scam. they are continuing to drop now.
No arguments about the gentle decline, but 20% is huge.
Don’t know if you have read the article but the timing and amount seems shocking. Also the Jessica Rose link gives more worrying details and one of the Swedish links points out
“We have monthly statistics on births per woman that stretch back to 1990. The number of births per woman in January has never been lower than this year, says Guadalupe Andersson”
I have been expecting this, so possibly reading too much into it because of that.
Yes, I hurrily checked (don’t have a lot of time today) the drop in Italy and sweden, it was quite gentle. increased mortality after 2021 is a thing, but I want to see more of them to believe fertility was significantly affected.
Thanks, I’ll leave it in the highly likely category, but with a question mark.
i enjoy the fruits of ”civilisation” as much as anybody
but that doesnt prevent me realising its ultimately contrary to the laws of nature
I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s contrary to the laws of nature, only that it’s ultimately not sustainable to live the way we live these days.
The dinosaurs had a very good run for over a hundred million years, ruling the world with gigantic 12-foot rulers by some accounts, but ultimately their lifestyle also proved to be not sustainable.
The newts and lizards and salamanders had a smarter strategy for surviving. “Be ‘umble,” their mothers told them, “and you’ll get on.”
” lifestyle also proved to be not sustainable.”
While that is true, there wasn’t anything they could do about it.
The smart ID end result will be the ability of governments to ration limited essential resources like food. When, where, and how you travel, your purchase of “discretionary” items, from EVs to guns and ammo, gas stoves etc will be controlled by digital money permission. But those will be only the intermediate steps. Food rationing will be the final control.
When it comes down to rationing your food, in theory, black markets will try to develop. Barter or payment with silver or gold or cash. But will black markets be able to exist once “control” by the government becomes absolute with digital IDs and currencies? Both producers and buyers will be cut off. A circular argument, I know, but destruction of the independent farmer which enables black markets will lead to the ultimate control of food when merged with digital IDs, and digital currencies.
Decades or centuries ago, when you had gold or silver AND small farmers produced food and could sell it in black markets there was at least some recourse.
But today, the small farmer is vanishing and people don’t have the skills to be self sufficient. Those skills were lost generations ago. Instead we have big corporate farms, big machinery, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, complex parts supply chains food processing plants and distribution. Hell, the corporate farmers themselves don’t know how to subsistence farm or even drive their tractors without GPS. These grand corporate owned farms and farmers level–are all vulnerable to digital ID and currency control.
Rationing it will be eventually- for ultimate control.
No ‘CBDC’s’?
“ . . . . That is, instead of the 144TWh per year used by Bitcoin, CBDCs would consume some 7,056TWh – more than three times the UK’s total 2019 energy consumption of 2,185TWh… In an increasingly energy-constrained global economy, it should – but likely won’t – be clear that programmable CBDCs are a non-starter… a solution looking for a problem to solve indeed! “?
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023/02/08/cbdc-bait-and-switch/?fbclid=IwAR0SiB_yriPZCOiFTmwAn8rv2Fz9IuvxOYTTRF6i2JCun21ow5JQqJQTGig
That can only work if they can keep the electric grids operating.
No electricity=no digital ID.
India tried to go cashless and it failed badly. India has electricity just not enough to maintain a cashless (computers everywhere) society.
When ever I try to talk about nuclear weapons in the comment section of RT it is IMMEDIATELY deleted. RT wants to down play nukes.
Interesting!
There has always been lots of censorship on the internet.
A lot of it is done by the people who moderate the discussions.
Moderators, like most people, want to have controlled discussions
with some topics remaining taboo.
Sometimes there’s a rational reason for taboos but often
there isn’t.
When people say their entire life is an open book, or that they’re “easy” that’s often not true. Everyone has things they’d prefer not to discuss.
Xi is on the way out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd-xkoUGOE0&t=2065s
Wow lots of global action.
see also
China’s internal politics are even more inscrutable than Russia’s. We’ll have to wait and see about absolutely everything.
The blurb says,
Baloney . The website is a front for the Taiwanese govt and Falun Gong just like The Epoch Times . Now the facts .
1. China has had a smooth transition of power since Mao died .
Li Xiannian. (18 June 1983 – 8 April 1988)
Yang Shangkun. (8 April 1988 – 27 March 1993)
Jiang Zemin. (27 March 1993 – 15 March 2003)
Hu Jintao. (15 March 2003 – 14 March 2013)
Xi Jinping. (14 March 2013 – present)
2. Xi is in bad health ? He descended the airline stairs holding on the rails on a windy and cold evening . ? I am not privy to his blood reports but he was not incoherent in Kazan unlike Biden . Watch the video how he handles Modi . Heck Putin has anal cancer and a brain tumor and should be dead now . The Empire of Lies has nothing to show for the billions spent except propaganda and rumors . The oligarchs will overthrow Putin and yes remember Pirghozin’s mutiny to drive into Moscow . Crap .
3 . Putin was cold to him ? Putin was to attend to 40 head of states who were there in Kazan . There are only 24 hrs in a day . What was he supposed to do ? Go and cuddle up with Xi all the time? Check out the videos of their one to one meetings and we can see the chemistry .
4 . Delegation/ division of power with in the CCP . What is new? It is SOP . Putin delegates to Lavrov foreign policy, Shoigu the military , Nabulova the finance . The same is with Xi . He has his loyalist and he delegates the assignments to them . Wen Bi runs foreign policy . His subordinates are in way a threat to his control .
This is my assessment .
Ivan is correct . ” China’s internal politics are even more inscrutable than Russia’s. We’ll have to wait and see about absolutely everything.”
You may be right. Too many wrong rumors around.
I’m waiting for some definitive information on China’s internal politics from Godfree—our latter-day hermit of Peking.
“If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
Bryan’s speech 1986. It was about banks then and it is about banks now.
Bryan’s dreams were dashed by Marcus Hanna, an Ohio businessman , who put a nobody named William McKinley to the Presidency.
After McKinley overstayed his welcome at the White House and was removed Hanna also disappeared from a public view.
The Irish will never lose a chance to screw the English.
“Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? That is the question that the party must answer first; and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic Party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party.”
https://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/
The most famous speech in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
It is striking how the two parties are now flipped. The democrats the party of money and global control and endless war. The republicans the party of the people and morality and peace.
Tucker Carlson gives the best politic speech of my lifetime. At Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLrKAJ4LV8o
And we remember the historic rally for peace in MSG 90 years ago.
We are free of fear. They have 3/4 of the wealth, they say they are more moral and deserve to rule over us. They lie. We no longer have to repeat their lie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIdfulZ1c5c
I remember read about Kent State on the floor of my parents house the day after the murders.
Trump has promised to rule by fear and violence,
just like his hero did in 1933
he will take down the American nation with him—the supreme court has ruled that he can do what he likes with impunity
he will do that.
if idiots vote him into office, as is looking increasingly likely.
MAGA requires cheap surplus energy, not votes
references please
the supreme court ruled that anything the potus does while in office has legal immunity.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-gives-president-power-king
if that isnt ‘reference’ enough for you, i dont know what is.
that ruling in the hands of someone who has stated he intends to become a dictator and jail his opponents scares me, and i dont live in america.
anyone who does should be terrified.
i suggest you read your history books
Is the ruling only applicable to Trump, or is Biden just as dangerous because of it?
You were asked for evidence about words you attributed to the orange wonder.
“Trump has promised to rule by fear and violence”
Doesn’t sound like a vote winner, so can you provide a link?
“just like his hero did in 1933”
Any evidence of him ever claiming hero status for the little Austrian, or are you harping back(and on) to the time he said that the little Austrian got things done and all the deceitful media made it out to be something it wasn’t, as they have a long history of doing. Have been at the guardian again Norman?
Strangely, given some of his pronouncements, I’m open to the idea that it’s true and not just the media working the gullible into a frenzy over nothing, but they’ve done that so much about him, your going to have to provide some evidence.
when the head of the joint chiefs is screaming the same warning as me
you might want to take notice
i you think Milley is wrong–and a convicted felon, proven con artist (or was Trump university etc etc a sound investment?) and narcissitic, self obsessed sex ual predator is right– thats your problem
i cant do anything about that.
but do bear in mind that he had to settle a 25m lawsuit before taking up office in 2016
as to the guardian, i feel a little more comfortable with that than the Washington Post, now owned by Bezos,
or maybe you have thoughts about that too.
You have failed to provide any evidence. That’s all you were asked for. Don’t get angry at me, because I live in a world were just saying something doesn’t make it real.
All western media lie constantly, so I don’t waste my time with any of them. You should try it. You get to form your own opinion.
Does this evidence exist Norman?
I really don’t think that’s too much to ask for, is it?
fitz
the head of the joint chiefs calls him the most dangerous man in America.
which is sufficient for me
as to getting angry—i dont get angry about anything—ever
its why ive lived so long
What is the word of a political appointment, condemning the opposition with what appears to be no more than tittle tattle, really worth?
The trains going off the rails and your main concern is which show we watch.
If you think an “omnipresent celebration of a choice already made” makes any difference, you are going to be bitterly disappointed.
https://www.news.reimaginingpolitics.org/
We will see how this turns out in the future. I don’t think Trump is that mad at his opponents. Why would he worry, he’s rich as was never going to jail. Kind of like trying to bulshit a bulshitter if you ask me. All part of the game to him. If he has a second term, it’s probably a replay of his first term. Take it easy guys, the world will end someday for everyone, but these talking heads are not really deciding everything! Best of luck, Clay
” Kind of like trying to bulshit a bulshitter if you ask me”
Sounds reasonable, but don’t forget the option of getting the bullshitter to go along with your game of bullshit for a worthwhile recompense. You gotta be part of the system to benefit from the system. So BAU for their introduction if their New Normal, whilst everyone shouted at clouds.
The article says
“for actions within his ‘conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.’” They added, “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.””
If the president kills a foreign enemy he is immune. If he kills a US citizen, a thing not within his constitutional authority, no immunity.
Ed, isn’t that the same as all presidents before Trump and so all the Supreme Court has done is confirm a long held legal precedent. If that’s correct, it’s Mueller all over again. No there, there.
What’s the next headline, “Trump strangles unicorns in his sleep. The whole world weeps”.
What fun that would be, watching all the media followers desperately searching for unicorns to protect.
I’m going to agree with Norman, Trump winning would be dangerous, as the poor citizens of the US(and satellites) would have to endure another 4 years of headlines more ridiculous than mine and as our decline seems far more cognitive than expected, that would be a bad idea.
I’ve just remembered the other choice 😂
the fundamental problem is that millions believe that the current crisis can be voted away, and MAGA can be voted into reality,
it can’t
and that is why things are going to turn nasty, with the don encouraging it.
The system has given American voters a choice. Sort of.
It’s not as wide as the selection of donuts or ice cream cone flavors, but it’s as good as it’s going to get.
It’s never gonna get any better because the owners don’t want that.
So just be happy with what you’ve got, folks.
And if you live in a swing state, your vote might even count for something.
If it gets counted at all.
It’s no wonder Norman dislikes Trump so much. He’s been lapping up pissinformation from the MSM on this subject for years.
I wouldn’t bother to argue with him about it.
https://patrick.net/uploads/9/0/6/9064c9f2d86dce89d6ad23d648f72f39.gif
The BBC did an article this week about how USA is preparing to basically dump Europe and NATO in Europe. The fact is that Europe is no longer the emergent major industrial power that it was after WWII, Asia is emergent now and USA is strategically pivoting to the Asia-Pacific.
“Those days of American largesse are expected to be over as soon as Biden leaves the White House. Even if Democratic candidate Kamala Harris becomes the next US president, Congress is thought likely to pivot to other foreign policy priorities, such as China and Taiwan.”
It is entirely what we would expect basically because states are essentially geopolitical powers and they form and change alliances based on what suits them at the time. That is how it has always been. A real problem, according to the BBC, is that Europe is totally unprepared for what is coming.
(See also the UK Defence Minister below who says that the UK military is basically a write-off after decades of neglect and that the UK is basically a sitting duck like the rest of Europe without USA.)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9p8455l4xo
> Vulnerable time for Europe as clock ticks down for Biden
…. Europe has relied on US military aid to help Ukraine. Berlin is the second largest donor after Washington, though the volume pales in significance compared with its ally’s across the Atlantic.
Those days of American largesse are expected to be over as soon as Biden leaves the White House.
Even if Democratic candidate Kamala Harris becomes the next US president, Congress is thought likely to pivot to other foreign policy priorities, such as China and Taiwan.
As for Trump, during his 2016-2020 administration, relations with Nato – the transatlantic military alliance in place since WW2 – were famously turbulent.
He is known for having admired “strongman” Russian President Vladimir Putin and he has not yet said in public if he wants Kyiv to emerge victorious from the conflict.
Despite lots of corridor talk in Nato circles about “Trump-proofing” European defence before the forthcoming US election, there is little sign that has actually taken place or that Europe would be able to successfully “go it alone” if it had to.
* * *
The new UK Defence Secretary said this week that the UK military is basically a write-off, ‘far worse than anyone knew.’ It can participate in little operations but it is completely incapable of fighting in a real war. The UK has no military deterrence and the UK is basically a sitting duck.
The thing is that everyone already knew that and the Labour Party is just repeating what is already well known. There is zero chance of UK turning the situation around as it would require decades of massive investment in the military and they are not even going to start on that.
The Times:
https://archive.ph/PHDXH
> Armed forces could not stop an invasion, admits defence secretary
John Healey says the British military is in a far worse state than expected when Labour took office and not ready to fight
Britain is not ready to fight a war because the military is in such a depleted state, according to the defence secretary in his starkest assessment yet of the the armed forces’ abilities.
John Healey said the military was ready to conduct “operations” but suggested that when it came to engaging in combat it was not sufficiently prepared to deter an enemy from waging war.
Speaking after more than 100 days in post, Healey told the Politico podcast Power Play: “The UK, in keeping with many other nations, has essentially become very skilled and ready to conduct military operations. What we’ve not been ready to do is to fight. Unless we are ready to fight we are not in shape to deter.”
He said at the heart of current Nato thinking was how the alliance could be “more effective” in providing deterrence against future aggression. Healey also conceded that it was “taking [the government] a while to get going”, and that when he was given the role as defence secretary he found the state of the armed forces was “far worse with far deeper problems than we thought”.
It is understood that senior military chiefs inside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) share Healey’s view that if the armed forces were forced into combat any time soon they could lose in a fight.
In February MPs on the defence committee said the UK’s armed forces would not be ready for a “high-intensity” war unless shortages in personnel and equipment were rapidly addressed.
…. The military was hollowed out and under-funded for decades, according to Ben Wallace, a previous defence secretary. But in light of Healey’s remarks, he said that an ongoing defence review, set to conclude by June next year, merely provided a distraction.
He said: “We need to continue a steady and annual growth in the budget to ensure the reviews of the last few years are actually delivered. The new government are using their review to avoid funding and will return us to the dark old days of hollowing out that happened under both Labour and the Conservatives.”
The UK has little natural resource, little industry, little human resources. The UK like the rest of us will have to live within our means.
Has the UK done any studies to find the carrying capacity of the UK? My quick guess 7 million.
Trump proofing. This show Europe knows nothing about US government. Yes, congress can OK spending, but the president does not have to carry it out.
At some point the UK and USA stripped away the money laundering rights from the Bahamas, Cayman, Switzerland, Cyprus and Luxembourg(and possibly other places). Granted they could not reach Dubai and Hong Kong, and had to respect Singapore or else they would switch. It now seems that the days of London as a money laundering center are numbered. What goes around…
It is easy to believe that the US is about to dump Europe and NATO in Europe. Of what benefit is Europe to the US now?
” New research by the [Nighttime Industries Association] shows that in the past four years the UK has lost 37% of its clubs, which works out at about 10 clubs closing each month.
“Not only has the cost of living meant more of us are going out less, the nighttime industries have had to grapple with rising operational costs, with one recent NTIA flash poll of 500 businesses finding that seven out of 10 are either barely breaking even or operating at a loss.”
The end of the good times .
https://news.sky.com/story/uk-could-see-end-of-clubbing-with-10-venues-closing-a-month-13239577
New England has been poor for 100 years since the mills closed. We are doing fine. Our clubs are still open. They are the clubs the snobs from Manhattan/Boston would never go in. We have fun. We never had a piece of the boom and are not missing its demise.
Two Refineries That Produce 14% Of California’s Gasoline Set To Close Due To “Regulatory Pressure”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/two-refineries-produce-14-californias-gasoline-set-close-due-regulatory-pressure
A former tennis player detained by the Slovak police because of the fraud with selling tickets for sport and cultural events
https://sportweb.pravda.sk/tenis/clanok/728630-rebecca-sramkova-podvod-peniaze-hodinky-obvinenie-slovan-listky-liga-majstrov/?utm_source=pravda&utm_medium=hp-box&utm_campaign=shp_9clanok_box
Hard times for tennis players?????
Not scaremongering , just food for thought . Kurt Cobb is rational .
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2024/10/bird-flu-infected-cows-and-playwright.html#more
“No one knows for certain what a bird flu pandemic in humans will look like. But the failure to do much to contain it in American cattle could be the match that lights the fuse to the next human pandemic.”
I am afraid people are too sick of the last attempt to contain an epidemic. It didn’t work, despite many claims of people that they knew how to do it. If there is an epidemic, we probably cannot do much about it.
“cannot do much about it”
There is already a vaccine, made the same way flu vaccines have been made for the last 4 years.
But the big problem is the dairy industry not being willing to vaccinate the cows and stop it from spreading. Why is not clear.
Is the vax using the mRNA platform perhaps?
“Is the vax using the mRNA platform perhaps?”
No, it’s the standard “grow in fertile eggs” that has been used for 40 years. Anyway if they used it to stop bird flu in dairy herds, it would not be used on people.
The big problem is that none of the vaccines that 24 companies are currently developing will work to prevent infection or transmission.
We’ve been through this one before. First off, you can’t prevent respiratory diseases from spreading by means of intramuscular injections, as any honest virologist, epidemiologist or immunologist will confirm.
And secondly, bird flu in cows doesn’t appear to be causing the cows any more trouble than colds and flu cause humans.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association:
• Common clinical signs in affected cows include low appetite, reduced milk production, and abnormal appearance of milk (thickened, discolored). Lactating cows have been most highly affected, and signs of illness have been reported in less than 10% of cows within a herd.
• While avian influenza virus type A (H5N1) is associated with high morbidity and mortality in birds (“highly pathogenic”), this hasn’t been the case for dairy cattle. Most affected animals reportedly recover with supportive treatment, and the mortality/culling rate has been low at 2% or less.
https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/animal-health-and-welfare/animal-health/avian-influenza/avian-influenza-virus-type-h5n1-us-dairy-cattle#:~:text=Common%20clinical%20signs%20in%20affected,of%20cows%20within%20a%20herd.
It’s all a humbug, I tell you. I’ll retire to Bedlam.
“you can’t prevent respiratory diseases from spreading by means of intramuscular injections, ”
Oh come on. Measles is a respiratory virus and you should know people who have been vaccinated by injection don’t get it.
Actually, you may be right there, Keith. I overgeneralized. I was thinking specifically of colds and flus.
That said, I’m sure people vaccinated against measles do get infected. The measles virus still replicates in the respiratory tracts of the vaccinated and they can be spread it to others. I’m not sure how common this is, but I don’t trust the official/establishment research on this. They say it’s rare, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Also, in the case of measles, mass vaccination has taken a virus that was a normal childhood disease harmless to 99% of the population half a century ago and made the entire vaccinated population more vulnerable to it.
I’ve been arguing with my AI pal—who sounds like it was programmed by Bill Gates— and it told me:
Population Dynamics: As vaccination rates increase, there are fewer natural infections, which means that individuals who might have developed natural immunity through exposure to the virus are less likely to do so. This can create a population that is more susceptible if vaccination rates decline or if there are outbreaks in under-vaccinated communities.
Also, is vax-induced immunity as good as the natural kind for measles?
And on top of that, is exposing yourself to dozens of injections of foreign proteins and toxins (albeit in small doses) in order to protect yourself from dozens of diseases that are not likely to be very serious for you—potentially risking anaphylaxis, autoimmunity-related diseases of all kinds from asthma and peanut allergy to type 1 diabetes, lupus, Crohn’s, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and psoriasis, Lizzo-level obesity, and even cancer—really worth the risk.
If Big Health & Wellness really wanted to keep their vaccine Ponzi going, they shouldn’t have pushed the COVID shots, as this has startled the chickens so much and woken up so many normies who were previously sleeping peacefully that the entire future of the vaccination program is in jeopardy.
snip
>That said, I’m sure people vaccinated against measles do get infected. The measles virus still replicates in the respiratory tracts of the vaccinated and they can be spread it to others. I’m not sure how common this is, but I don’t trust the official/establishment research on this. They say it’s rare, but they would say that, wouldn’t they?”
If you are paranoid, yes. Measles vaccine is just about as good as getting an infection, I.e., very few vaccinated kids catch it even when you have a big outbreak like they did in NYC not long ago.
“Also, in the case of measles, mass vaccination has taken a virus that was a normal childhood disease harmless to 99% of the population half a century ago and made the entire vaccinated population more vulnerable to it.”
Something that was not suspected until measles had been largely wiped out was that measles damages the immune system. After a child has measles there is a substantial increase in death from other infections that continues for several years. Shares this trait with HIV. So harmless it is not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles#Prognosis
Prognosis
Most people survive measles, though in some cases, complications may occur. About 1 in 4 individuals will be hospitalized and 1–2 in 1,000 will die. Complications are more likely in children under age 5 and adults over age 20.[88] P
snip
” the entire future of the vaccination program is in jeopardy.”
I doubt that.
You simply have faith in vaccines. Faith in vaccines among the vaccinated is very shaky. There’s no explanation for why small outbreaks freak out the vaccinated.
The vaccinated don’t freak out over the health of the infected they freak out over their own health. They worry about getting sick. Why do they do that, if they believe the vaccines make them immune from infection?
[ ” the entire future of the vaccination
program is in jeopardy.”
I doubt that.]
RIGHT. As long a can authorities can use coercion the vaccination programs are not in jeopardy. Vaccination programs, thus, are a reflection of government strength, not scientific accomplishment.
The invention of the wheel could have its origin in copper mining and the mountains of Small Carpathians in Slovakia:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240373
“The Copper Age began in the Balkan Mountains, south of the Carpathians, before the formation of the Boleráz culture. The Boleráz people had less of the metal than their southern precursors, indicating perhaps, poorer ores [14]. However, if poorer ores meant that a greater weight had to be transported from the mine to the smelter, then the invention of a wheeled basket could have been a technological breakthrough well worth celebrating with a round of drinks, at least until the wheel idea found copycats outside the mine. Notably, the earliest known transport wheels come from slightly later sites bordering the Carpathians (see figure 3c) where larger, more steerable carts equipped with a single wheelset were pulled by draft animals [14].”
“These results indicate that our proposed sequence for the progression of the wheel and axle offers a plausible descent path along which the wheel could have evolved as its users sought more energy-efficient designs. “
Not if Larry David has anything to say about it MG, he he’s never wrong about this stuff..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wUlE02RU1AE
Yes, the wheel without the axle is a miss.
So, where was the axle invented then?
5000 km away from the northern carpathians.
Too bad they didn’t have a lifetime patent back then for residual royalties..
They would be set until BAU collapse..
Which they helped to begin..tuff
As resources get scarcer, ultra-reactionarism is unavoidable.
Those who have anything will hold on to what they got, without sharing anything.
And individual freedom for those without a stake in society will be significantly restricted.
The autumn here on the Slovak and Czech border is still quite pleasant, although dry. I was on my last mushroom hunting and have found the memorial in the forests, dedicated to the crash of the German militar plane in 1941, I had read about before. 4 young Germans died there.
https://g.co/kgs/HZUWewA
https://puchovodedicstvo.sk/historia/4350/k-pamatniku-padu-lietadla-nad-lednicou/
My photos, with the bag of mushrooms (I did not take a basket for mushrooms, as I was not hoping to find much boletus mushrooms this late in October, but I carry a bag in my backpack).
https://ibb.co/6H7dmSm
https://ibb.co/WHGKjDp
https://ibb.co/bJJbhtV
The boletus (“dubáky”) season here in Slovakia has ended. 2 weeks ago, there were cars parked on the edge of the forests like in the parking lots of the supermarkets.
I wonder why nobody destroyed the memorial for the German soldiers
in virtually every colonized countries the memorials for the rulers were destroyed
There were about 100 shinto shrines in Korea on 1945. all but one were destroyed by the Koreans, except the one which was in an island where they had put all the lepers into so were out of public hands.
Central Europe is a mix of the nations. There is no such thing as Slovaks being the descendants of the Slavs. The Slovaks are a mixture of these nations. The second Slovak president after 1993 was a man from the German minority with the surname Schuster.
Very pleasant photographs, thanks.
Dennis L.
Watching mushroom hunting videos is a good relax. Here are some of the Slovak channels:
https://youtube.com/@andrejmacek?si=kVPubFM_9tKo4Ji9
https://youtube.com/@lenon.a.madvade?si=6Rhk6pTeEznrZYHZ
https://youtu.be/JAGRWCzzYdE?si=x70KH_YfLYTRFRM7
There is a special site dedicated to mushroom hunting with the map of the actual mushroom situation based on the reports from the mushroom hunters.
https://www.nahuby.sk/
For a real time account of collapse
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/26/cuba-power-grid-failure-financial-crisis
‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis
Repeated blackouts leave residents concerned about food, water supply and Cuba’s future
An excerpt:
If there is a shortage of oil, island nations are in particularly bad shape, partly because many things have to be imported (using oil) and electricity is often mostly by burning oil because other forms of electricity usually require building much bigger plants.
Communism doesn’t seem to work as well as capitalism in making the system work well, putting Cuba particularly at risk.
None of the island nations have figured out a way to operate their economy only on wind and solar (even if hydroelectric is added).
Cuba already collapsed on 1959 when its smarter pop had to flee
It has only continued because the enemies of USA kept it alive.
It collapsed so hard, the population nearly doubled over the next 60 years. But, let us face it, the population was increasing before 1959. Just another data point that ideology matters very little.
And its GDP collapsed
Few people now know the name Jose Capablanca, who was the Chess Champion of the world hailing from Cuba
Cuba is unable to produce such kind of people after 1959
Very unlikely. GDP collapses and increases in population are anti-correlated. Perhaps the GDP prior to 1959 was gambling and prostitution, and after 1959, agriculture and industry. Not sure Capablanca is very significant. Not only would he be soundly beaten by today’s top ten at least (which as you know are mostly Asian). Sotomayor was raised fully under communist rule and his is the oldest record in track and field.
Solar and Wind. The “gifts” that keep on taking.
Behind paywall, but headlines are all you need to see.
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/solar-costs-jump-more-offshore-and?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=630873&post_id=150715363&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=16win7&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
“The Future of Energy
Why wind and solar are the energy past, not future”?
https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/the-future-of-energy
Except, I don’t think we have the uranium for the nuclear. Also, electricity comprises only a small percentage of our total energy usage (at 20%). We don’t have a good way of transitioning most of the rest of our current system to electricity. Furthermore, using electricity is often much less efficient than burning fossil fuels directly for heat. We have a major predicament.
“On August 14 and 15, 2020, these policies came back to bite them in a big way.”
That was 4 years ago. No blackouts since then and there is lots of solar on line in CA
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-10-23-openai-data-centers-consume-more-power-uk.html
Meeting at White house proposes 7 data center at 5 GW each. Says normal nuclear vetting is too slow for NATIONAL SECURITY needs.
This is becoming a frenzy. Would you like to buy some tulips?
Electrical needs are the achilles heel of the beast.
Long distance transmission the deal breaker.
Look to see data centres etc co-habiting with generation hubs with attendant security; gates, fences, drones ,etc
Cell phone towers around here are already beefing up physical barriers. Hence the importance of starlink.
This says,
OpenAI wants to build data centers that consume MORE POWER than the entire United Kingdom
Wow! And we never get there with wind turbines and solar panels because they are too intermittent.
Saw this the other day.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/aburningissuebiomassisthebiggestsourceofrenewableenergyconsumedintheuk/2019-08-30
> A burning issue: biomass is the biggest source of renewable energy consumed in the UK
Renewable energy consumption has been increasing steadily over the last decade and for the first time reached more than 10% of the UK’s total energy consumption in 2017.
The largest source of renewable energy we consume in the UK is not from the sun or wind – it’s from Biomass, that is, organic material from plants or animals.
– – –
About 30% of the 10% is from wind, wave or solar, so about 3% of the UK total energy consumption.
Moreover that is not of ‘primary’ energy sources that are used in the first place.
Most of the ‘renewable’ energy in UK is from wood pellets from USA/ Canada – forests cut down – and from animal manure.
Put the centers in space, 24/7 fusion energy.
Dennis L.
“Put the centers in space”
That’s being seriously considered. You need a big heat sink, but that’s possible. I had to solve that problem for thermal type power satellites. There is an example of such a radiator in the Beamed Energy Bootstrapping video
Interesting video, I see the concept was yours. Using water for cooling, boiling and condensing, always thermodynamics.
I am not comfortable beaming such power to earth, but I am comfortable moving such manufacturing to space which SpaceX may well enable.
There are many interesting and exciting projects before us which could solve many energy/material problems without attendant pollution issues.
Dennis L.
“Interesting video, I see the concept was yours.”
Besides the engineering, I added script writer and video producer to the list of things I have done. Won a $10 k prize, so broke even on the project. If you need to make an animation, Anna Nesterova comes with my recommendation. Voice over is by my son in law who is a professional voice actor.
The reflector design between the tubes dates back to work Eric Drexler and I did in 1979 for the Princeton Space Manufacturing Conference.
We patented the radiator design and one about using metal vapor to make large structures, but the problem of being so far ahead of the time is that the patents have run out twice over.
“solve many energy/material problems without attendant pollution issues. ”
That was one of the attractive features of O’Neill’s space colony proposal.
If it were that easy it would have been done long ago
I don’t need your TIna sermon. It is just denial.
“done long ago”
It is not economically sensible to do this yet, but it looks like SpaceX will get the cost to orbit down far enough that it will make sense in a few years.
There are two hard parts that interact. Getting rid of the waste heat from computation is one of them and that takes large area radiators. The other is the space junk. The large area radiators make it more likely they will be hit.
I have worked out an Excel spreadsheet for power satellites in transit to GEO. A 5 GW thermal power satellite in a spiral orbit took 40 space junk hits on the way up (took about a month). They; are so big that it is hard to avoid hits by maneuver.
A somewhat smaller AI data centers might best be placed in a sun sync orbit. The analysis really needs to be worked out. It might turn out that data centers don’t make sense without considerable expensive cleanup of the space junk.
AI to restart nuclear generation all part of the club of romes plan to replace oil production drops in other words AI is just a plan to help man continue bau people have trouble connecting dots to really perceive truly what is going on. I guess it all depends on your humility as a person,
Right or wrong, a lot of people see AI as a way to make a lot of money. Currently this takes a lot of hardware and a lot of power to run the hardware. Thus restarting nuclear plants.
Even if data centers and nuclear power plants get built, where does all of the processed uranium come from? Supply seems to be short and most processing is done in Russia.
‘Someone’ is ‘optimistic’?
“There won’t be much need to mine more uranium when the advanced reactor designs are implemented, because they can re-use the spent nuclear fuel we’ve been stockpiling since the 60s.
The uranium used in power reactors is not as refined as that used for bombs.”?
“they can re-use the spent nuclear fuel we’ve been stockpiling since the 60s.”
That’s true. It would take building reprocessing plants, but it would solve the waste problem to a large extent and get the storage casks off the power plants.
I think France and Japan reprocess fuel.
Good advice from someone who always knew how to get his point across.
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
— Winston Churchill
I have heard that the way to write a sermon is
1. Tell the what you are going to say.
2. Make your point.
3. Go back and summarize your point.
Attack on Iran. The video starting around 1:40 is pretty damning and explains a lot in terms of balance of forces.
Israels missiles are all being shot down by Iran before they can fall and do any damage.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iranian-media-pundits-mock-nothingburger-israeli-attack-involving-100-warplanes
Iranian Media & Pundits Mock ‘Nothingburger’ Israeli Attack Involving 100 Warplanes
Ending:
The Israelis have only 170 ,000 actual soldiers — 475 ,000 reservists . They are fighting a war on seven fronts — Gaza , Lebanon , Syria , Yemen , Iran , Egypt and Jordan . Yes , I know the last two are not hot yet but the natives are getting restless against their rulers . Anyway forces have to assigned to the borders or arms and people will spill into Israel . Overreach .
https://www.voronoiapp.com/geopolitics/The-Biggest-Armies-in-the-Middle-East-2240
You know your being lied to when all the western media and even military analysts all sing from the same hymn sheet, before the dust has settled and any real evidence of effects are known.
I’ve heard variations that all lead to the same conclusion, that the illegal encampment didn’t try that hard. BS, the US the day before, sent at least 10 refuelers and some F16s to help out(a pilot revealed this on social media, but quickly deleted it), there were 2 waves roughly 2 hours apart, comprising of over 100 planes and who knows how many drones. That’s as much ordnance as Iran sent them, so it was a whole lot more than an attempt at saving face without doing any damage and boy did it fail, even if we believed that lie. Even the genociders media are admitting their embarrassment at the massive flop.
The whole world is laughing at them and that’s not going to help with the Schizophrenia. To make it worse, they killed 2(sorry, it’s up to 4 now) servicemen and so this isn’t over. After showing almost complete dominance in both attack & defence, does anyone seriously think Iran will just accept this illegal attack from a genocidal weakling. Iran are not defenceless women and children.
As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have stated clearly to all.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers itself entitled and obliged to defend itself against foreign acts of aggression, based on its inherent right of legitimate defense, which is also reflected in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.”
Advanced civilisation is in the ascendancy again and all the manure spouted in the west does no more than fertilises the growth of that ascendancy. No amount of hysterics will change the accumulation of time(sorry kulm).
https://youtu.be/UNxzD0jhtas?feature=shared
It’s ridiculous that the level of conversation here is just as bad as on the CIA owned websites (YT, Twitter etc), or maybe not.
Why doesn’t anybody ask these questions:
– Why did Israel tell Iran when and where it will attack? And why is this the standard procedure? See the recent admission from Kremlin that they ASKED the US for permission before starting the war in Ukraine and the US said OK. And yes the information was confirmed by the Dept of State.
– Why do all the recent wars use so much fake videos, fake dead lists, theatrical props etc. Remember the bombed Ukrainian cathedral where people are “cleaning” foam rubble? What about the fake bomb explosion where all the cars are missing the license plate (because they are from the junkyard). If this reminds you of the Maui fire or all the psyops in US where all the tragedies happen in the same place and time as a conveniently similar “exercise” – well, even the best actors need rehearsals.
– Why do all the “enemies” continue to trade and do business with each other. All throughout history, wars have been fought for resources and power, EXCEPT today. Nobody seems to care about winning. That’s why Russia is increasing the exports to EU and US, Turkey and all middle-eastern countries are besties with Israel and let’s not even talk about China and US.
Gail, ask your CIA supervisor if it’s ok to let this through – it might make some people wake up and who wants that?
How much nonsense can you fit into a single post?
>> See the recent admission from Kremlin that they ASKED the US for permission before starting the war in Ukraine and the US said OK. And yes the information was confirmed by the Dept of State.
What are you basing this off of. Don’t just make claims, please show the source.
>> Why do all the “enemies” continue to trade and do business with each other
Trade has been largely restricted. NK was cut off from trade entirely until Russia lifted the embargo. How is trade with Cuba? Russian trade is much reduced with the west, apart from oil, but that’s fungible and it’s a world market.
>> Gail, ask your CIA supervisor
As if the CIA is bothering with a WordPress site for collapseniks.
Financially, Israel is cratering. 65 percent of capital has fled the country. Many, many of their professionals in health care, tech, academia et. al. have relocated to more stable venues.
Netanyahu is held in power by those who are most peripheral to the financial stability and economic growth of Israel. Smotrich as financial minister says it all. Finally, many large companies, particularly tech, have moved their core operations abroad; these companies profits are tied to world markets – with the result that affiliation with and support for a government (as distinct from country) which engages in high levels of war crime and jubilantly celebrates the incineration of women and children, is a step too far. Such companies accurately project future trajectories, and in the inevitable day after, such association can only taint their services and products. War crimes trials can be expected. US/UK are both bankrupt so the trillions which will be required to rebuild Israel probably will not be forthcoming. The “brand”, if you will, is irrevocably tainted for several lifetimes. Israel has never existed independently without high levels of financial, military and corporate support from emigrees – that support can be expected to be attenuated as western governments face financial ruin and BRICS and partners become the stronger financial game in the ROW.
The key to the end of this horrific chapter of world history, with the most publicized genocide brought to living rooms across the world (except EU/US/UK) is the legal removal of Netanyahu, with he and his war cabinet standing trials for their egregious war crimes. Extensive reparations will be in order, but will never be paid because the Axis of Genocide is financially insolvent – but can be expected to be levied against all who are complicit. Wise corporate heads will recognize that Druze, Israeli, Palestinian peoples are bright, talented, hard working – if they joined together, the resultant country could easily become a powerhouse among nations in tech, health care, science and many other areas. All of this will be contingent on how these genocides are wound down, with rebuilding privileged over retribution.
Copy/paste MoA .
>> the legal removal of Netanyahu, with he and his war cabinet standing trials for their egregious war crimes
I’ve read that 90%+ of the Israeli population support the general aims of the military operation, so as long as Netenyahu and the clique stay in Israel, they would never face a hostile court.
Some people might have been moved by this clip
https://youtube.com/shorts/Cx4mx8kKmXM?si=b2nRp0PG9RNE4jTl
of a wounded girl from Gaza carrying her sibling
Obviously it would have been staged, since no sane Israeli soldier would have spared the girl and her sibling.
She seems innocent and helpless now, but when she grows up, she and her sibling will produce more soldiers to kill the Israelis, so the proper duty for an Israeli soldier is to eliminate such potential threats.
I am one of the people who are not moved at all by sentiments. People might say I have sociopathy, but I am pretty generous to the people around me.
I just hope the world does not fall into a complete anarchy , that’s all.
The world does not bend to sentimental tales. – The Kageyu (inspector) from the movie Hara-Kiri
We all know you are big softie at heart, Kulm.
Are there any sane Israeli soldiers?
If there are, they must be having a hard time these days.
Can you believe that the other day he was telling a converted vaxx promoter of having a black heart? I think his oxytocin levels are up.
There are no conversion
The promoter just changing jobs does not absolve anything.
After being bombed for 40 years and having to live in a constant fear of violence few people can stay sane
That’s true.
And it goes for those on the Palestinian side as well.
Living in the Holy land leads to MAD (Mutually Assured Dementia).
This is why when people ask my opinion of the conflict, I tell them that if I was an Israeli I would emigrate, and if I was a Palestinian I would emigrate.
Reasonable people who want to live a peaceful and reasonably stress-free existence should do their best to move well away from conflict zones such as the Holy Land, Ukraine, NYC, LA, Afghanistan, Congo, you name it.
Ideologues who want to defend their turf by eliminating the other, by my guest. But I will not be putting any pennies into your hat, and if the World Court comes after you for genocide, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I think that both low natural gas prices and depletion play roles in keeping US natural gas production down. Planning to export huge amounts of natural gas to other countries won’t work, if US natural gas production stays low.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63506
U.S. shale natural gas production has declined so far in 2024
The risks of the mega farms: the biggest farma in Slovakia contaminated with bird flu. 400.000 hens must be killed. Egg supply will be affected.
https://ekonomika.pravda.sk/krajina/clanok/728564-najvacsiu-farmu-na-slovensku-zasiahol-virus-musia-zabit-skoro-400-tisic-sliepok-manazer-hovori-co-sa-stalo/?utm_source=pravda&utm_medium=hp-box&utm_campaign=shp_3clanok_box
If our owners wanted everyone to continue having access to eggs, the smart logical rational reasonable thing would be to let the bird flu run its course, and then breed from the surviving hens, who would naturally be immune to the bird flu virus—unless the poor things are so messed up by all the immune system-destroying things they are exposed such as vaccines, antibiotics, crappy food, and overcrowding to that they are incapable of handling any pathogens at all.
But that wouldn’t suit the EU, UN, and WEF agenda, which is to make animal protein too expensive for the lower orders. Instead, you vill eat za bugs, yah!
Good point!
The EU, UN and WEF agenda is the proper way
https://theconversation.com/the-victorians-caused-the-meat-eating-crisis-the-world-faces-today-but-they-might-help-us-solve-it-109310
Cutting off the obligatory hopeful passages, people who had no business eating meat began to eat them. Even the poorer people did eat meat, albeit mostly unusual parts
https://caasbrey.com/strange-victorian-foods-for-the-poor/
Washington Post (which I think of as very liberal) is not endorsing any US candidate for President this year.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/wapo-bails-kamala-wont-make-presidential-endorsement
WaPo Editor Quits, Staff Has Total Meltdown After Non-Endorsement Of Kamala Harris
Similarly:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dangerous-times-latimes-editor-quits-after-owner-strikes-down-kamala-endorsement
“Dangerous Times” – LATimes Editor Quits After Owner Strikes Down Kamala Endorsement
Are we watching these liberal papers implode?
. A lot of the conglomerates who own these newspapers may be very socially liberal but do not want to pay higher taxes or may not be happy with the liberal position on Israel’s fight against Hamas. I remember hearing about corporations threatening to leave New York over tax hikes during the lockdown years.
I did a quick internet search and found mostly negative views of tax increase proposal.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter who wins if they will get their way. It’s hard to know why the newspaper owners are blocking political endorsements this year.
Freedom of the press is only guaranteed to those who own a press.
SpaceX brought cost/kg to $100 with Falcon and it will be much less than that with Starship. SpaceX has 6k satellites up and they did it in just a couple of years. Maybe Keith is right, we can just put up big space mirrors or something and have 24/7 solar. Certain groups in the US are pulling ahead of the rest of humanity, even while the rest decays and flails. Kulm may get his wish.
https://youtu.be/Thb4VCJ6sMo?t=374
Well, test flights and reality tend to be quite different
Can you have solar from geostationary satellites when it is cloudy? and I presume these mirrors are hectare size or more (which would be 14MW thermal, probably 4MW electrical).
I think the idea is actually to send microwaves down (yikes) but that’s Keith’s specialty
Cone of death baby!
“Cone of death baby”
Long ago at Dartmouth they ran a program to determine how much microwaves would affect birds. They used starlings because nobody cares about that species. That is where the 230 W/m^2 limit came from and from that the size of the power satellite transmitting antenna and power level.
But one of the stories that came out of the study was about one cold night when the researchers went out to the cage and could not see any birds. Panic! They found the birds had jammed themselves into the microwave horn to keep warm.
Which is why I have identified a problem with power satellites, namely millions of birds roosting on the rectennas and sopping up gigawatts of power to keep warm.
Sounds like something Darel Preble and others should be made aware of.
“Sounds like something Darel Preble and others should be made aware of.”
Ask him, I think he knows about it. Google says it was mentioned in the comments of the 2009 Oil Drum article. First time birds roosting and rectennas are mentioned is in an article from the L5 News, January 1976 by TA Heppenheimer
It is somewhat of a joke, who knows what freezing birds will do. In comparison with all the other economic and transport problems power satellites have, birds roosting on the rectennas is not a big problem–yet.
We need a cartoon.
I haven’t studied microwave energy from space-based solar power stations at all, so please forgive my ignorance, but common sense (which is often deceptive) suggests that if it is going to deliver lots of useful power, surely the beams are going to have to roast a few birds.
Consider our nearest star, the Sun, from which we obtain solar energy directly during the daytime; half of the insolation we received is in the infrared, and it warms our bodies nicely on a cold day but overheats us in no time on a warm one.
I’m wondering whether a microwave energy beam on a warm day is going to make the collection area uninhabitable in summer due to the additional heat caused by the beams?
“surely the beams are going to have to roast a few birds. ”
No. The 230 W/m^2 limit was set as a power level that would not harm birds. It is about 1/4th of the peak sunlight.
“collection area uninhabitable in summer ”
The expected power loss is around 10%. That would be 500 MW for 5 GW output. Nuclear power plants are around 33% efficient so 5 GW output would release 10 GW of waste heat or 20 times more.
230 W/m^2 is about that you get from a PV solar farm. But the difference is that you get it 24 hours a day instead of when the sun is up and no clouds.
Thanks Keith. I trust you on physics, especially the calculations. And with your figures, it looks like the rectenna area will be a tad hot in summer but toasty warm in winter.
Adding 1/4th of the power of peak sunlight 24-hours-a-day (which is equivalent to about 1/2 of the peak sunlight 12 hours a day) to an already tropical Florida in summer might be problematic, don’t you think?
What would be the area of the “irradiated 24-7-365” zone for a 5GW space solar farm?
If you are concerned, worry about nuclear reactors. 5 GW of power satellite will release about half a GW of waste heat. 5 GW of nuclear will release 10 GW of waste heat or 20 times as much.
But a nuke plant will dump that waste heat into a river or the ocean, or it can be piped to the local community for district heating or hot water.
Your solar power system will warm up the ground 24/7/365. It could drastically change the local climate. Where is Greta when we need her?
“will warm up the ground”
A long time ago I wrote a story about a post collapse world where power satellites were still working.
^^^^^
On the way down to the train, the power sats looked like a chain of beads across the southern sky. Amanda turned to Jenny:
“Jenny, if you stay up a while, you can see power sats blink out as they enter the earth’s shadow.”
“Remember what I said about humans not being very good at anticipating the future?
“Yes.”
“Well, there you can see it.” The chain of power sats had gaps in them.
“By the time most of them were built, the population and the demand for power were falling fast.”
“There are a few up there that were never finished.”
“You won’t see it this time of the year, but in the spring, the power beams are used to warm up fields and control weeds.”
“How does that work?” Jenny asked as they approached the station with its Russian looking cupola on the top of the clock tower looming in the near dark.
“The farmers put up pilot beams in the middle of a big circle of farmland and several power sats focus their microwaves on the pilot beams. It’s just like warming up food in a microwave oven.”
Jenny had figured out microwave ovens before she was 3 three so the concept was easy to grasp.
“And the heat kills the weeds?” Jenny said.
“Weeds, insects, nematodes, they mildly cook the top few inches of soil.”
“Keith’s specialty”
Sort of. The idea of reflecting sunlight from orbit mentioned on Wikipedia
Space reflectors for night illumination
Another advanced space concept proposal is the notion of space reflectors which reflect sunlight on to small spots on the night side of the Earth to provide night time illumination. An early proponent of this concept was Dr. Krafft Arnold Ehricke, who wrote about systems called “Lunetta”, “Soletta”, “Biosoletta” and “Powersoletta”.[16][17]
The problem is that the sun is an extended object almost half a degree wide in the sky. Optics make reflecting sunlight to earth awful.
SpaceX might get the cost down to $100/kg, but the current Falcon cost of $70 million gets 17,500 kg to LEO. That’s $4000/kg by my slide rule and 40 times too much for power satellites to make economic sense.
“when it is cloudy?”
Clouds block lasers and reflected sunlight. They don’t block microwaves.
Space is the future but put manufacturing in space and use fusion energy which is 24/7.
Earth cannot stand much more pollution of any kind; it is self regulating and concentrating solar energy from space seems an idea which will have unintended consequences.
We can manufacture satellites and put them in space with current technology. Manufacture drones to explore the solar system in space and turn them loose; it is a big neighborhood.
A metaphorical cubic mile of Pt would allow a H economy to become an economic reality with no pollution issues. Make the H on earth with earth solar, use the H on earth with water as a pollutant.
It is going to be bumpy, growth is stalling and with that stall comes an inability to pay debt which leads to a bubble which simply exposes existing excesses; think “flushing.”
Dennis L.
Fusion is in the realm of technologically possible, but sustained fusion will require Tritium. We do not have Tritium on this planet… at least not easy to get or be made Tritium.
There is ample Tritium on the Moon. The only problem is, it is not easy to get, Tritium. But, it does make a compelling case to try.
This is why we should strive to get to the Moon, not with people (which might not even be possible due to radiation and solar storms), but with robots.
Better, this could be humanity’s mission statement. It could bring us together with a contribution from every country to every child…. and we really need that right now.
“use fusion energy which is 24/7.”
Out of the earth’s shadow, so is sunlight.
Yes, fusion is sunlight or sunlight is fusion, or photons secondary to fusion converted to electricity to run manufacturing in space. Need a heat source, launch toward sun at appropriate distance,
I am willing to listen to anyone with good ideas; Sabine now seems to be a convert to global warming. I don’t know, but if it is real, that is not something man can reverse.
We have the technology coming nicely, we need a second successful catch of the super booster. Then some adroit robots and leave mankind on spaceship earth.
Farming is harder and more frustrating that it looks. If it is not the uncooperative weather it is a recalcitrant farm machine.
Dennis L.
“that is not something man can reverse. ”
Ask engineers. I know of several ways. None are cheap, but if the death rate from heat in the US went up to a million a year, I suspect one or more might be done.
“Farming is harder and more frustrating that it looks. If it is not the uncooperative weather it is a recalcitrant farm machine. ”
You won’t get any arguments from me. It’s hard enough to grow a substantial garden, chickens, and rabbits.
The thing which surprised mere recently is that the sunlight coming down on crop land is about 1000 times the energy we use from all other sources. Farmers are really in the energy conversion/storage business.
I got an email saying Anthropic upgraded their AI version available to customers. I won’t bore you with the details – I asked it more questions than this – but the new version understands chemistry as well as someone trained in it. The people in control of this stuff are going to have a WILD level of power in the near future by automating/accelerating all intellectual pursuits. I give it less than 5 years, maybe just 1 or 2, before things start getting whacky.
Me (this is the same question I began with yesterday, where it did poorly):
When NADH and NADPH donate electrons, the hydrogen remains or is lost?
AI (correct answer):
When NADH and NADPH donate electrons, the hydrogen ion (H+) and two electrons (2e-) are lost, while the NAD+ and NADP+ molecules remain. This is why these molecules are called electron carriers – they temporarily carry both electrons and hydrogen atoms, but during oxidation, they release both the electrons and the hydrogen ion, returning to their oxidized form (NAD+ or NADP+).
Sounds impressive, even though my level of chemistry knowledge is limited.
Ivan, I continue to be interested. So this AI you are using you have to pay for. Can it itself write a neural network program? and which AI do you recommend? are there any free versions?
>> Can it itself write a neural network program?
I’m not sure precisely what you mean here, but it is able to write out a functional example program of AI training and inference in python using “flow matching”, one of the newer methods that is similar to “diffusion models” which perhaps you’ve heard of. I haven’t put it to use yet (working on a couple other things), but generally how I’ve been using it is to quickly give me a starting point which I then tailor or integrate with existing code.
The other thing that I find important is it helps me learn more quickly, because instead of a google search which just brings up subject matter or documentation that I need to sift through, it will give me the information that I asked for and then I can ask clarifying questions. It’s not perfect, but it just accelerates everything. For example I asked about Methylene Blue dosing and interactions within the electron transport chain. It has pretty comprehensive knowledge and is usually correct for knowledge based subjects, where a long chain of reasoning is unnecessary.
>> and which AI do you recommend? are there any free versions?
This is Anthropic Sonnet 3.5 with some update. $20/month.
Github copilot (for coding) is $10/month with a 1-month free trial and can install as an extension to Visual Studio Code. I will try it soon and am unsure whether it can make multi-file edits in one go (as opposed to implementing a single function where the user indicates). What is really important (and a current limitation of my Claude subscription) is that you want it integrated with your filesystem so you’re not copying/pasting files from a web service. That slows everything down.
I think there are fewer and fewer free services, but I also run LLMs and other models locally for the cost of electricity plus computer + GPUs. There are open models here:
https://huggingface.co/spaces/open-llm-leaderboard/open_llm_leaderboard?query=Orenguteng%2FLlama-3.1-8B-Lexi-Uncensored-V2
Thank you, and as you know from the Mac I can not give likes. But I am back with one more question. Suppose I have a fluido-dynamics problem. I have access to the best packages for simulating flows. Can it sort of read the documentation and write the software skeleton for me? This is highly specialized.
It seems possible, but I don’t know how good the results will be.
If those packages have online documentation, it may have been trained on it and thus know the APIs, in which case I think it might do quite well.
In case it doesn’t already know those packages, web-based AIs allow you to drag-drop files which will give it context. So you could provide text or pdf of APIs, examples, etc. That would be tedious, but doable. I don’t know about the file size limits. Some other services might allow you to tell it to load certain web page links, but I haven’t tried that.
If you give me a few questions to ask it, I’ll copy paste the outputs to give you an idea.
Thanks. I expect that at the 3 year mark (5 months from now) the farm will start to run itself. I have to decide what to do when I grow up. I already have a first answer, in that there are several free LLM that I can play with, since I have a mild interest in linguistics.
The two questions I have for an AI are: can you write a fluido-dynamics simulation, as stated above, and can you write a Kalman filter?
fluid dynamics text response (1) and code (2)
https://anotepad.com/notes/qgtkpcih
https://anotepad.com/notes/jemhyg55
kalman filter prompt (1) and code (2)
https://anotepad.com/notes/fm5xxsar
https://anotepad.com/notes/7acddhjp
Not sure that link will work for you. Here is another try with a different site.
https://file.io/h0zVWq2gsbwP
Unfortunately the site will delete the files if someone else downloads them first … we’ll see what happens.
Here is another attempt to share. Hah, 2024 and I’m having trouble with this. Harder than generating the files to begin with.
https://filebin.net/5o2f5sc4e4tr79xr
I see all links. Sorry for delay but I was driving back (9 hours, 8 in the car). I am extremely impressed. I don’t have time now but I saved everything for later. I had no idea… software programmers should be worried.
Thanks, very helpful.
Dennis L.
This AI does not understand chemistry. It is simple collating thousands or tens of thousands of texts on this chemical reaction. It has been “prepped” with certain rules to interpret them.
All of the brilliant AI is simple a big program collating all of human documented material.
I am still waiting on AI to discover something original. Where is the elusive cosmological theory of everything? Won’t happen because there is no real thinking going on.
It seems to work exceptionally well for testing knowledge against known outcomes. Protein Folding is a great example for that.
But, I very much think you are correct. It does not possess an imagination… it just mimics it. I wonder if Quantum computing mixed with AI might produce something which could lead to discoveries.
Of course, that is also a weapon, and according to people like Eric Schmidt former CEO Google… that is precisely how big data sees it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUeryhp8HSQ
(( Explains why nuclear power plants are being restarted or outright purchased for AI ))
Summary
Alex and Alexander talk about the BRICS summit. BRICS is an organization to go against the US$. More and more countries being added –36 or 38 countries represented. Russian organized conference, ignored by the West.
Kazan Declaration is very long document. Never mentions the US or NATO. Very moderate language in the documents.
Article 65 – financial co-operation within the BRICS countries. Voluntary and non-biding. BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI)
Article 66 – Develop a complement to existing payment system, called BRICS Clear. “Further strengthen International Monetary Fund.”
They don’t want to tell you exactly what they plan to do, but they plan to set up their own financial plan, duplicating and going beyond what the Western powers are doing. Have to read between the lines. Have already created drills on doing this. These countries now have the resources, including energy resources, to move forward.
West has been the only game in town, but this is going away. West started to weaponize these things. Systems based on coercion don’t have very long lives. Biden tried to destroy Russia, but Biden himself has lost power.
Millions of jobs in the collective West are at risk, as this change takes place. Universities. NGOs. Human rights groups. A lot organizations and institutions will change. World trade will shift. Trade has been across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, it will be shifting elsewhere. West risks becoming economically marginalized. West will atrophy.
West needs to wake up and understand what is going on. US is theoretically in a better situation than Europe is. But can it take advantage of this? Otherwise, decline to nothingness.
EU has nothing to offer. Perhaps a few of the countries in the EU have something to offer. Big losers are Germany, France. US has the size and resources to somewhat respond to this change.
Still just a pipe dream but go ahead and convert all your money to Russian roubles… I dare you..
You can’t use Russian or Chinese currency in NATO territory. Boy, are you thick.
You can’t even use anything other the official legal tender in many cases.
Currencies don’t matter. Resources and labor output is what counts. Declines in those things will reduce what any currency can be exchanged for.