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My view has long been that if the world economy does not have enough energy resources, it will have to contract. The situation is analogous to a baker without enough ingredients to bake the size of cake he wants to make, or a chemist not being able to set up a full-scale model of a reaction. Perhaps, if a plan is made to make a smaller, differently arranged economy, it could still work.
The types of energy with inadequate supplies are both oil (particularly diesel and jet fuel) and coal. Diesel and jet fuel are especially used in long-distance transportation and in food production. Coal is particularly used in industrial activities. Without enough of these fuels, the world economy is forced to make fewer goods and services, and to make them closer to the end user. Somehow the economy needs to change.
My analysis indicates that our expectation of what goes wrong with inadequate energy supplies is wrong. Strangely enough, it is the finances of governments that start to fail, early on. They add too much debt to support investments that do not pay back well. They add too many programs that they cannot be supported for the long term. They become more willing to quarrel with other countries. Of course, no one will tell us what is really happening, partly because politicians themselves don’t understand.
In this post, I will try to explain some of the changes taking place as the economy begins to reorganize and deal with this inadequate energy supply situation.
[1] One energy limit we are hitting is with respect to “middle distillates.” This is the fraction of the oil supply that provides diesel and jet fuel.
Each type of energy supply seems to be most suitable for particular uses. Middle distillates are the ones the economy uses for long distance transport of both humans and goods. Diesel is also heavily used in farming. If the world is short of middle distillates, we will have to figure out a way to make goods in a way that is closer to the end user. We may also need to use less modern farm equipment.
The top line on Figure 1 indicates that the world economy has gradually been learning how to use less total oil supply, relative to population. Before oil prices began to soar in 1973, oil with little refining was burned to produce electricity. This oil use could be eliminated by building nuclear power plants, or by building coal or natural gas electricity generation. Home heating was often accomplished by deliveries of diesel to individual households. Factories sometimes used diesel as fuel for processes done by machines. Many of these tasks could easily be transitioned to electricity.
After the spike in oil prices in oil prices in 1973, manufacturers started making cars smaller and more fuel efficient. In more recent years, young people have begun deferring buying an automobile because their cost is unaffordable. Another factor holding down oil usage is the trend toward working from home. Electric vehicles may also be having an impact.
On Figure 1, data for crude oil (second line) is available through October 2024. This data suggests that crude oil production has been encountering production problems recently. Note the oval labeled “Crude oil problem,” relating to recent production for this second line. The other two lines on Figure 1 are only through 2023.
The problem causing the cutback in oil production (relative to population) is the opposite of what most people have expected: Prices are not high enough for producers to ramp up production. OPEC, and its affiliates, have decided to hold production down because prices are not high enough. The underlying problem is that oil prices are disproportionately affected by what users can afford.
Food prices around the world are critically dependent upon oil prices. The vast majority of buyers of food, worldwide, are poor people. If budgets are stretched, poor people will tend to eat less meat. Producing meat is inefficient; it requires that animals eat a disproportionate number of calories, relative to the food energy they produce. This is especially the case for beef. A trend toward less meat eating, or even eating less beef, will tend to hold down the demand for oil.
Another approach to holding down food costs is to buy less imported food. If consumers choose to eat less high-priced imported food, this will tend to use less oil, especially diesel and jet fuel. Another thing customers can do to hold down food costs is to visit restaurants less. This also tends to reduce oil consumption.
On Figure 1, the third line is the one I am especially concerned about. This is the one that shows middle distillate (diesel and jet fuel) consumption. This is the one that was greatly squeezed down in 2020 by the restrictions related to Covid. Diesel is the fuel of heavy industry (construction and road building), as well as long distance transport and agriculture. Electricity is rarely a good substitute for diesel; it cannot give the bursts of power that diesel provides.
Close examination of the third line on Figure 1 shows that between about 1993 or 1994 and 2007, the consumption of middle distillates was rising relative to world population. This makes sense because international trade being ramped up, starting about this time. There was a dip in this line in 2009 because of the Great Recession, after which middle distillates per capita consumption noticeably leveled off. This flattening could be an early pointer to inadequacy in the middle distillate oil supply.
In 2019, middle distillate consumption per capita first started to stumble, falling 1.4% from its previous level. The restrictions in 2020 brought middle distillate consumption per capita down by 18% from the 2019 level. This was a far greater decrease than for total oil (top line on Figure 1) or crude oil (middle line). By 2023 (the latest point), per capita consumption had only partially recovered; the level was still below the low point in 2009 after the Great Recession.
Middle distillates can be found in almost any kind of oil, but the best supply is in very heavy oil. Examples of providers of such heavy oil are Russia (Urals), Canada (oil sands), and Venezuela (oil sands in Orinoco belt). The price for such heavy oil tends to lag behind the price for lighter crude oil because of the high cost of transporting and processing such oil.
Strangely enough, countries that are not getting enough funds for their exported fossil fuels tend to start wars. My analysis suggests that at the time World War I started, the UK was not getting a high enough price for the coal they were trying to extract. The coal was getting more expensive to extract because of depletion. Germany had a similar problem at the time World War II started. The financial stresses of exporters who feel they are getting an inadequate price for their exported fossil fuels seems to push them toward wars.
We can speculate that the financial pressures of low oil prices have been somewhat behind Russia’s decision to be at war with Ukraine. The recent problems of Venezuela and Canada may also be related to the low prices of the heavy oil they are trying to extract and export.
Extracting a greater quantity of heavy oil would likely require higher prices for food around the world because of the use of diesel in growing and transporting food. Publications showing oil reserves indicate that there is a huge amount of heavy oil in the ground around the world; the problem is that it is impossible to get the price up high enough to extract this oil.
The existence of these heavy oil “reserves” is one of the things that makes many modelers think that our biggest problem in the future might be climate change. The catch is that we need to get the oil out at a price that consumers of food and other goods can afford.
[2] Another energy limit we are hitting is coal.
Coal energy is the foundation of the world’s industry. It is especially used in producing steel and concrete. Coal started the world industrial revolution. The primary advantage it has historically had, is that it has been inexpensive to extract. It is also fairly easy to store and transport. Coal can be utilized without a huge amount of specialized or complex infrastructure.
China produces and consumes more than half of the world’s coal. In recent years, it has been far above other countries in industrialization.
World coal consumption per capita has been falling since about 2011. Arguably, world coal consumption was on a bumpy plateau until 2013, with world coal consumption per capita truly falling only during 2014 and thereafter.
This pattern of coal usage means that world industrialization has been constricted, especially since 2014. In fact, the restriction started as early as 2012. It became impossible for China to build as many new condominium apartment buildings as inexpensively as promised; this eventually led to defaults by builders. World steel output started to become restricted. The model of world economic growth, led by China and other emerging markets, began to disappear.
The problem coal seems to have is the same as the problem diesel has. There is a huge quantity of coal resources available, but the price never seems to rise high enough for long enough for producers to truly ramp up production, especially relative to the ever-growing world population. Coal is especially needed now, with intermittent wind and solar leaving large gaps in electricity generation that need to be filled by burning some fossil fuel. Coal is much easier to ship and store than natural gas. Oil is convenient for electricity balancing, but it tends to be high-priced.
[3] Political leaders created new narratives that hid the problems of inadequate middle-distillate and coal supplies.
The last thing we can expect a politician to tell his constituents is, “We have a shortage problem here. There are more resources available, but they are too expensive to extract and ship to provide affordable food, electricity, and housing.”
Instead, political leaders everywhere created new narratives and started to encourage investments following those new narratives. To encourage investment, they lowered interest rates (Figure 4), made debt very available, and offered subsidies. Governments even added to their own debt to support their would-be solutions to energy problems.
Political leaders developed very believable narratives. These narratives were similar to Aesop’s Fable’s “Sour Grapes” story, claiming that the grapes were really sour, so the wolf didn’t really want the grapes he initially sought.
The popular narrative has been, “We don’t really want coal or heavy types of oil anyhow. They are terribly polluting. Besides, burning fossil fuels will lead to climate change. There are new cleaner forms of energy. We can also stimulate the economy by adding more programs, including more subsidies to help poor people.”
This narrative was supported by politicians in most energy-deficient countries. The increase in debt following this narrative seemed to keep the world economy away from another major recession after 2008. People began to believe that it was debt-based programs, especially those enabled by more US government spending, that pulled the economy forward.
They did not understand adding debt adds more “demand” for goods and services in general, and the energy products needed to make them. However, it doesn’t achieve the desired result if inexpensively available energy resources are not available to meet this demand. Instead, the pull of this demand will partly lead to inflation. This is the issue the economy has been up against.
[4] What could possibly go wrong?
There are a lot of things that have started to go wrong.
(a) US governmental debt is skyrocketing to an unheard-of level. Relative to GDP, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that US debt will soon be higher than it was at the time of World War II.
Notice that the latest surge in US government debt started in 2008, when the Federal Reserve decided to bail out the economy with ultra-low interest rates (Figure 4). A second surge took place in 2020, when the US government began more give-away programs to support the economy as Covid restrictions took place. The CBO forecasts that this surge in debt will continue in the future.
(b) Interest on US government debt has become a huge burden. We seem to need to increase government debt, simply to pay the ever-higher interest payments. This is part of what is driving the increased debt projected in the 2025 to 2035 period.
Figure 6 shows a breakdown of actual Fiscal Year 2024 US Federal Government spending by major categories.
Note that US government spending on interest payments ($881 billion) is now larger than defense payments ($855 billion). Part of the problem is that the ultra-low interest rates of the 2008 to 2022 period have turned out to be unsustainable. (See Figure 4.) As older debt at lower interest rates is gradually replaced by more recent debt at higher rates, it seems likely that these interest payments will continue to grow in the future.
(c) Continued deficit spending appears likely to be needed in the future.
The CBO estimates in Figure 5 seem likely to be optimistic. In January 2025, the CBO expected that inflation would immediately decrease to 2% and stay at that level. The CBO also expects the primary deficit to fall.
(d) The shortfall in tax dollars cannot easily be fixed.
Today, tax dollars mostly come from American taxpayers, either as income taxes or as payroll taxes.
A person can deduce that to stop adding to the deficit, additional taxes of at least 5% or 6% of GDP (which is equivalent to 12% to 14% of wages) would be needed. Doubling payroll taxes might provide enough, but that cannot happen.
Corporate income taxes collected in recent years have been very low. US companies are either not very profitable, or they are using international tax laws to provide low tax payments.
(e) The incredibly low interest rates have encouraged all kinds of investment in projects that may make people happy, but that do not actually result in more goods and services, or more taxable income.
Figure 8 shows that US corporate income taxes have been falling over time. The reason is not entirely clear, but it may be that companies set their sights lower when the return that is required to pay back debt with interest is low. All the subsidies for wind, solar, electric vehicles, and semiconductor chips have focused the interest of businesses on devices that may or may not be generating a huge amount of taxable income in the future.
I have written articles and given talks such as, Green Energy Must Generate Adequate Taxable Income to Be Sustainable. Green energy can look like it would work if a person uses a model with an interest rate near zero, and policies that give renewable electricity artificially high prices when it is available. The problem is that, one way or another, the system as a whole still needs to generate adequate taxable income to keep the government operating.
Of course, many of the investments with the additional debt have been in non-energy projects. There have been do-good projects around the world. Young people have been encouraged to go to college using debt repayable to the government. Government funding has supported healthcare and pensions for the elderly. But do these many programs truly lead to higher tax dollars to support the US government? If the economy truly were very rich (lots of inexpensive surplus energy), it could afford all these programs. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that the US has more programs than it can afford.
(f) The ultra-low interest rates have encouraged asset price bubbles and wealth disparities.
With ultra-low interest rates and readily available debt, property prices tend to rise. Investors decide to buy homes and “flip” them. Or they buy them, and plan to rent them out, hopefully making money on price appreciation.
Stock market prices are also buoyed by the readily available debt and low interest rate. The US S&P 500 stock market has provided an annualized return of 10.7% per year since 2008, while International Markets (as measured by the MSCI EAFE index) have shown a 3.3% annual return for the same period, according to Morningstar. The huge increase in US government debt no doubt contributed to the favorable S&P 500 return during this period.
Wealth disparities tend to rise in an ultra-low interest period because the rich disproportionately tend to be asset owners. They are the ones who use “leverage” to get even more wealth from rising asset prices.
(g) Tensions have risen around the world, both between countries and among individual citizens.
The underlying problem is that the system as a whole is under great strain. Some parts of the system must get “shorted” if there is not enough coal and certain types of oil to go around. Politicians sense that China and the US cannot both succeed at industrialization. There is too little coal, for one thing. China is struggling; quite often it seems to be trying to try to “dump” goods on the world market using subsidized prices. This makes it even more difficult for the US to compete.
Individual US citizens are often unhappy. With the bubble in home prices and today’s interest rates, citizens who are not now homeowners feel like they are locked out of home ownership. Inflation in the cost of rent, automobiles, and insurance has become a huge problem. People who work at unskilled hourly jobs find that their standard of living is often not much (or any) higher than people who choose to live on government benefits rather than work. Fairly radical leaders are voted into power.
[5] The major underlying problem is that it really takes a growing supply of low-priced energy products to propel the economy forward.
When plenty of cheap-to-extract oil and coal are available, growing government debt can help to encourage their development by adding to “demand” and raising the prices consumers can afford to pay. High prices of oil and coal become less of a problem for consumers.
But when energy supply of the required types is constrained, the additional buying power made available by added debt tends to lead to inflation rather than more finished goods and services. This inflationary tendency is the problem the US has been contending with recently.
Strangely enough, I think that growing inexpensive coal supply supported the world economy, as oil prices rose to a peak in 2011. As China industrialized its economy using coal, its demand for oil rose higher. The higher world demand coming from this industrialization helped to raise oil prices. But as coal supply (relative to world population) began to fall, oil prices also began to fall. By 2014, the decline in industrial production caused by the lower coal supply (Figure 3) likely contributed to the fall in oil prices shown on Figure 9.
It is the fact that oil prices have not been able to rise higher and higher, even with added government debt, which is inhibiting oil production. World coal production is inhibited by a similar difficulty.
[6] The world economy seems to be headed for a major reorganization.
The world economy seems to be headed in the direction that many, many economies have encountered in the past: Collapse. Collapse seems to take place over a period of years. The existing economy is likely to lose complexity over time. For example, with inadequate middle distillates, long-distance shipping and travel will need to be scaled way back. Trading patterns will need to change.
Governments are among the most vulnerable parts of economies because they operate on available energy surpluses. The collapse of the Central Government of the Soviet Union took place in 1991, leaving in place more local governments. Something like this could happen again, elsewhere.
I expect that complex energy products will gradually fail. Gathering biomass to burn is, in some sense, the least complex form of supplemental energy. Oil and coal, at least historically, have not been too far behind, in terms of low complexity. Other forms of today’s human-produced energy supply, including electricity transmitted over transmission lines, are more complex. I would not be surprised if the more complex forms of energy start to fail, at least in some parts of the world, fairly soon.
Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency seem to be part of the (unfortunately) necessary downshift in the size of the economy. As awful as may be, something of this sort seems to be necessary, if the US government (and governments elsewhere) have greatly overpromised on what goods and services they can provide in the future.
The self-organizing economy seems to make changes on its own based on resource availability and other factors. The situation is very similar to the evolution of plants and animals and the survival of the best adapted. I believe that there is a God behind whatever changes take place, but I know that many others will disagree with me. In any event, these changes cannot take place simply because of the ideas of a particular leader, or group of leaders. There is a physics problem underlying the changes we are experiencing.
There is a great deal more that can be written on this subject, but I will leave these thoughts for another post.
NEW – AIDS pandemic risks ‘resurging globally’ amid US funding halt: UN
https://x.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1904216650422821113
And pandora doesn’t go back in the box…she only comes out.
Electric trucks, cost in China vs US.
Inside China again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ZhR7Af6sU
The numbers shown in money saved with electric trucks seems compelling if these numbers are correct. The numbers are shown at about 8:00 minutes in.
The US needs to reindustrialize if possible; horrible educational system will be the major problem. We don’t need any more financiers, we need engineers.
The question will be if the batteries work. I have been a proponent of H, but if batteries work all the better. I personally don’t like the waste at the end of battery life; earth is our spaceship.
For the US, perhaps western world it may be current governmental institutions are too much narrative which is consistent but is basically grift. That will be a hard nut to crack.
Dennis L.
A couple of things:
1. My impression is that the Chinese electric trucks are smaller-sized trucks than the semi-tractor trailers found in the United States. These would be much easier to electrify than the huge US ones.
2. The US is terribly deficient in electricity. China, with all of its coal, seems to be doing much better with electricity. What China is short of is oil. It makes sense for China to move to electricity, to use its coal.
It makes no sense for the US to move to electricity for trucks. We have no way to provide the electricity for them. Even purchasing electric trucks from China makes little sense.
Paragraph 1. Use more smaller ones, charge during the day with solar, run at night. Or, switch batteries robotically.
Paragraph 2. Use solar, bridge it with wind existing structure, recover the cost of expensive, useless turbines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLSLZKfUieI
Yes, they are small, so use more of them. Tesla is going to roboticize autos, use the same technology. Elon notes the average car is only used 10 hours per week, so robotized, do the math.
Simple math. one of these tractors can do 1 acre/hour, ten can do ten acres/hour or 100 acres per day. If you have 600 acres, run 60 tractors on one, ideal planting, cultivating day. Farming is very dependent on weather, differences in planting times result in significant crop losses.
Modern, large tractors are very expensive to maintain. JD does not even release repair codes to the public, if it breaks, JD to the rescue. A 600 hp JD is about $600K plus maintenance and oil changes based on my 60 hp would be $20K, yup based on $2k for my 60hp with a few extras. Additionally, if you DYI, add a $1M shop plus self labor. Lighting the shop is expensive in itself.
If small works, a farmer who owns one large one has a sunk cost, better to lease.
Back to the math. If one has 3000 acres, then 60 tractors can do it in 10 days and this is well within the window for planting ideally. Robotically switch out the batteries or H if one were lucky, JBL is looking at that.
When nature attacked very large wheat fields, etc. with grasshoppers, it was not one hundred ton grasshopper, it was a million of lesser grasshoppers. Maybe nature has that problem figured out, she gets to rest more and work fewer hours with more labor.
And, can’t resist, if use H we need a cubic mile of H, batteries are perhaps interim, but they are so now.
Dennis L.
The numbers back up Zeihan’s concerns. According to estimates, there are about 70 million baby boomers in the U.S., compared to roughly 65 million Gen Xers. Meanwhile, according to the United States Census Bureau, about 10,000 boomers turn 65 every day, further accelerating the strain on government finances.
And according to Zeihan, that spells trouble for the nation’s long-term financial stability.
“We’re looking at absolutely massive multi-trillion-dollar deficits every single year to be continued,” he said. “Deficits: massive, locked in as long as the boomers live, which is going to be on the average, another 15 to 25 years, based on who’s doing the math.”Article about demographics by Ziehan
Geopolitical expert Peter Zeihan says aging Americans built a ‘social welfare state’ for themselves without paying for it — now the US will have ‘massive’ deficits as long as boomers live.
What can’t go on, won’t.
From msn.com you can do a search if so desired.
Dennis L.
What would ve your tomorrow’s solutions for this? No sarcasm. You always seem to have solutions for faraway things but none for this kind.
kul,
I am not deterministic; biology will adjust as necessary and thus economics will adjust secondary to biology. Biology is adaptive, we are biology thus we will adapt.
Recall, my mantra is “It will be bumpy.”
Dennis L.
I am guessing that a lot of the deficit has to do with Medicare, rather than Social Security, as such. Medicare is not well funded.
Social Security Receipts by Year
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a3.html
Social Security Payments by Year
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4a5.html
Social Security doesn’t yet seem to be in a deficit position, comparing income and outgo. “Net interest payments” (an item of income) are in fact paid by the federal government on its own debt to the Trust Fund.
Also, Medicaid pays for a whole lot of nursing home care. When this is included, the cost is truly high.
A guess, but I was deeply involved in Medicad dentistry on a very large scale the last 14 years of my career.
Use AI, avoid doing multiple CT scans ordered by different doctors, one scan is enough. Judge physicians on outcomes, bad outcomes, fire the provider. AI is going to replace internists no matter what, surgery on 80 years olds may not be necessary unless it really is possible to have 150 year olds in system.
With dentistry because we did our job(patient base of record over that period, 12K distinct patients)the cost per encounter declined and making sufficient income to cover maintenance(cleaning) costs was becoming a problem at the end. My age solved that one, retired just before 70. I had mined out a city of 50k residents and had the data to demonstrate it.
Nursing home care will be done by robots, for male patients perhaps a suitable “dressed” robot could even do double duty. Well, to be fair, women patients could have a suitable male attendant.
Get rid of the fraud in SS and it may well be self supporting, don’t know; if some are living to 150 would appreciate more information on how they are doing it, need to adjust my education for a longer, productive life.
There is a great deal of grift, AI makes data tracking much easier; unfortunately some do not like that outcome and as always change is bumpy.
Dennis L.
Some observations on how the elderly were handled not so long ago and how single young women were accommodated:
https://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=ST._ANTHONY%27S_HOME_FOR_THE_AGED
Note last sentence: “In 1970 the State Department of Health declared that custodial care facilities were not suited to a hospital setting. Mercy officials then began looking for alternative sites to accommodate the last eighty-five elderly residents. It was believed that by September 1, 1970, each person would find suitable housing.”
https://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=MARY_OF_THE_ANGELS_HOME
Again, last paragraph: “With the last addition, the Home came to accommodate 83 regular boarders with as many as 100 temporary boarders. (8) In 1988 the Sisters of St. Francis owned and operated the building, but a separate board of OSF nuns was formed in 1987 when Mary of the Angels Home was incorporated. Fewer than ten residents in 1988 were younger women, and although the building was debt free, renovations would create substantial debt. Rent was $140 per month with $300 a month for room and board. (9) Changing times and no longer the need for such facilities led Mary of the Angels Home to be sold in 1990.”
Current housing for elderly/young is more outdoorsy, tents on the street.
When I grew up in WI, there was a convent across the street from my home, my grandfather purchased our home from a former brothel owner, yup, grew up in a former whore house. Change is part of life.
Dennis L.
What’s the oldest profession, Dennis? Yup, 👍 🔩..nothing has really changed except we now have Grinder…I personally never tried it, if any have please let me know…just kidding
When I lived in Wisconsin many years ago, we had a county-operated Poor Farm, where people with various problems went to live. There was a farm attached, so that people who were able could work on it. I don’t remember much about it; I went there on some Sunday afternoons with groups to sing for residents.
Wikipedia has an article about poor houses and poor farms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poorhouse
Such places seem to have been phased out many years ago.
Yes, in my childhood there was one in Viroqua, WI. On the bright side, they ate organic.
Dennis L.
It was a spectacular thing to wake up to: Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, shut down and plunged into darkness. More than a thousand flights grounded, another hundred already in the air diverted to other cities or turned back to where they came from, in a crisis that snarled travel around the world.
The shutdown was caused by a fire at an electrical substation 3 miles away that supplied much of the airport’s critical services. British police have said there was no initial indication of foul play, and the London Fire Brigade has taken over the investigation from counterintelligence officers, “as the fire is now being treated as non-suspicious.”
But in the absence of information immediately after the fire, Britain’s raucous tabloids were ablaze with speculation about Russian sabotage: “If Russia was behind Heathrow fire, is that an act of war?” The Telegraph wondered in an op-ed headline. British radio presenter Nick Ferrari asked listeners jokingly whether anyone had seen Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On social media, users pointed to patterns of sabotage by Russia, while others argued the fire was part of a broader strategy of hybrid warfare
NBC “NEWS”
Heathrow — Europe’s busiest airport — closed down on Friday for most of the day after a fire broke out at a nearby electrical substation.
In comments first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday, National Grid CEO John Pettigrew said two other substations supplying power to Heathrow had been operating as normal on Friday.
Friday’s closure is expected to cost airlines millions of dollars CNBC
WTF?
The story yesterday was that Heathrow had tried to switch to a new “green” biomass device, instead of a diesel powered generator, for backup.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/londons-heathrow-airport-shuts-down-travel-chaos-spreads-after-fire-engulfs-power
Maybe another might work
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FiguU-dpFqo
Farmers use donkeys to pull stone mills to grind grain. This is the traditional method and is#shorts
Fresh YouTube
So funny…. These folks are already living in future BAU..
Regardless of a click mike of Pt or whatever concoctions are put on paper…
“The story yesterday”
I suppose this is possible, but from what I know of engineering, it seems more likely to be disinformation. If it is true, I would like to know more details.
Yes, the biomass seems a stretch.
Dennis L.
Have no idea, biomass is an interesting story. The West has meddled in Russian affairs, Ukraine possibly a resource grab by Europe lead by those pesky British. The substation going down has caused significant economic harm which cannot be recovered, interesting coincidence.
Europe is so quarrelsome and in that frustrating. The US has more than enough issues to deal with which will require many resources; time to “retreat” to our shores and mend our society.
Dennis L.
Macron fires head of EDF because electricity prices are too high . What a stupid leader . Maybe the head of EDF should go digging for Uranium ? 🤣
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/macron-ousts-edf-ceo-as-tension-rises-on-french-power-costs
Mr B punctures the nuclear hoax . 13 min read time ,
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-nuclear-non-solution-39174f06b53e
Ca na rien avoir le prix de production d’électricité nucléaire est très bas en france. Mais ils ont essayé de privatisé l’électricité et de mettre en concurrence EDF ave un mécanisme perfide l’arenh qui oblige de vendre à perte son énergie pour le vendre aux concurrents . De plus l’adjonction sur le réseau d’énergie renouvelable oblige edf à modérer les reacteur qui on mt un coût fixé même si il ne produise pas . Ce qui a pour effet d’augmenter le prix
This translates to:
It has nothing to do with the price of nuclear electricity production being very low in France. But they tried to privatize electricity and put EDF into competition with a perfidious mechanism, the ARENH, which forces it to sell its energy at a loss in order to sell it to competitors. In addition, the addition of renewable energy to the network forces EDF to moderate the reactors which have a fixed cost even if they do not produce. This has the effect of increasing the price.
This has to do with the ridiculous pricing scheme that is used worldwide, to sell wind and solar. It tends to drive nuclear power out of business, because it gives ridiculously low or negative prices when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Nuclear cannot be ramped up and down. It needs an adequate return 24/7/365, so this is an issue.
I think that there have been a lot of other issues, as well. Like everywhere, politicians like the rates for electricity as low as possible. Maintenance of nuclear power plants seems to have been badly neglected.
Also, France has taken spent fuel and recycled it to get uranium that can be used to power nuclear reactors. In fact, France has been selling this service to nuclear power plants outside of France, as well. I am suspicious that this service vastly underpriced. It is really expensive to perform this whole process, but the costs (including the fixed asset costs) have not been properly considered.
Another issue that France is up against is “Peak Uranium.” I don’t think that there is enough uranium to go around any more because of depletion. Uranium has the same problem other fuels have: The price doesn’t go up to a high enough price, long enough, for companies to set up new mines and ramp up production. France, with all of its nuclear generation, is in a particularly problematic situation.
I firmly believe that all forms of electricity when accounted for the ” full cycle cost ” from the producer to the consumer have a negative EROEI and are a money looser . Checkout Enron, PG&E , EDF , RWE , Electrabel , NTPC+NHPC ( India) , Eon ( Germany) etc all perennial money losing concerns . The problem is that without electricity our civilization just collapses in a jiffy . Electricity is versatile . From electric motors to electrical heating . Welcome to ” the Olduvai ” .
Electricity is generally made by burning a large amount of fuel, to make an amount of electricity with much less heat potential.
Alternatively, we make devices (dams, nuclear power plants, wind turbines, and solar panels) with huge upfront costs. The debt associated with all of these devices needs to be paid back quickly, in order for the economic system to work. Governments need to get tax revenue on all energy products, as well, for the system to work. (I think of the tax revenue as being equivalent to the net energy.) But these devices barely skim along, without paying their way.
All the musings of the cornucopians are little more than their desire to avoid death and also avoid the consequences of their actions.
It is time to pay the piper whether you like or not, and although some cornucopians try to ignore the laws of entropy, it works either on earth or on a faraway galaxy.
The scheme to throw away wastes on Jupiter, a favorite idea of someone here whom I don’t have to name, seems to be the limit of insanity in my own opinion, since no one has seemed to think about where the fuel would come to shoot all these waste material to there.
In most blogs talking about resource depletion such kind of people are not tolerated,but after Fast Eddy’s departure such kind of ideas seem to dominate here. I am going to fight such notions as much as I can since I don’t think these ideas will go anywhere. If we had them 5 years ago we might have gone somewhere, but a sea of mights and coulds do not really lead humans anywhere as the Hordes are knocking on the door.
human beings can think widely—as far as we know, other animals can’t, not it the way we can—though i think they are smarter than us in many ways.
we can think of dumping waste–we do that all the time
we can ‘think and see’ jupiter—the simpleton puts waste and jupiter in the same think bubble—problem solved.
you can apply that to a whole host of ‘problems’
we recognise death, and we know how to freeze things
put them in the same think bubble—problem solved again
space exploration solved in the same way—no problem.
we see asteroids—we know how to mine metals—-another problem solved.
easy when you know how.
Exactly Norman,
Now you get it, you are clearly seeing tomorrow’s solutions to today’s problems.
Exception: the orbital mechanics to hit Jupiter would require more than a simpleton I should think.
Thank you,
Dennis L.
dennis
i forgot to press the sarc button
i hope you did too
Tomorrow’s solutions= solution we do not have.
It is like trying to cure today’s disease with methods we don’t have now
Keith does that alla time
Have you observed that we have gotten better a curing disease over the last 100 years?
Do you think this trend will stop or will it continue?
in healthcare—the last century or two have been an anomaly
first off—we got the means to pump fresh water in, and wastes out
that put us on the road to longer, more productive and healthier life.
then we found ways to mass produce medication…..in parallel with the means for almost everyone to afford it, and ways to use it.
medical procedures are backed up by healthcare factories.—they in turn are backed up by cheap surplus energy.
remove the cheap energy factor, and your medic will have no more the means to cure you than your tribal witch doctor—2 0r 3 generations hence, that will certainly be the case….no matter how wealthy you are.
Do you think this trend will stop or will it continue?
It will stop completely and go into drastic reverse, obviously. Civilisation is going to collapse.
“Tomorrow’s solutions= solution we do not have.”
Yet. Some are clearly in sight because we have natural examples.
“It is like trying to cure today’s disease with methods we don’t have now”
True. That’s the reasoning behind cryonics.
Yet. Some are clearly in sight because we have natural examples.
Well no. Just because bacteria exist does not mean we can manufacture trillions of magically powered machines the size of bacteria that magically know exactly what and how to build/repair. I know that’s your usual ‘argument’.
And nobody who was frozen csme back to life
The solutions are always in sight. Like the so called metal asteroid Psyche. It is out there and is in sight but whatever it has does not help us at all.
kul,
Interesting, you miss the obvious: manufacturing is done robotically in space ignoring all pollution to gain efficiency. Jupiter is a metaphor, nudge the waste wherever, it makes no difference. Jupiter is a poetic touch.
You are missing AI, you are missing StarWars like droids exploring the universe in huge numbers. droids manufactured in space by droids using fusion energy(I simplify it for you, that is photovoltaics with ultimate source of photons: fusion on/in the sun).
Were you in the time of Ford, would invest in horse stables.
You are a narrative, narratives need only be self consistent; outside factors are ignored. When reality is encountered(understood) by the narrative it collapses.
This site focuses on the depletion of earth metals, oil, coal, etc. They are so yesterday.
Dennis L.
And the materials to do the manufacturing are teleported by mental energu, right?
We do not have droids cleaning up the earth, let alone space. You can imagine all day that they exist, but they do not.
We don’t have space materials. Any narrative producing nonexistent itrms with nonexistent tech is nothing more than fiction, a three cemt rag popular in the days when people were still riding streetcars.
It is time to pay the piper whether you like or not, and although some cornucopians try to ignore the laws of entropy, it works either on earth or on a faraway galaxy.
It all ends in nothing, all we do is accelerate the end by consuming and thus dispersing energy.
At least the energy could be used in more productive things, mot to stroke the imagination of some people who don’t live in real world
There is no such thing as a ” steady state ” economy or ” degrowth ” . There is only ”growth ” or a ” Synchronized System Failure ” —- David Korowitcz
HHH at POB –Copy/paste .
” There is a myth that we will just continue on and just have to make do with less and less, year after year.
What I’m saying is that it all falls apart. Borrowing money from the future and paying it back monthly falls apart. And not for just the unlucky few. It falls apart for everyone.
What could the average person afford to pay for a house, a car, groceries, or a tank of gas if it wasn’t possible to borrow from the future anymore? How many average people would even have a job?
When you have to repay more than you actually borrowed, then growth in the energy supply and money supply have to happen or else the debt is unplayable.
Our government isn’t printing money. They are just going deeper into debt. As long as commercial banks keep creating dollars via loans. There is enough money, dollars available, for some entity to buy the debt. The FED doesn’t create dollars.
What the Fed does is it creates bank reserves that are denominated in dollars. Then the Fed swaps its reserves for the collateral which is government bonds and mortgage backed securities from commercial banks.
No matter how many times it’s repeated when the Fed does QE it’s not providing liquidity into either the markets or the economy. And QT doesn’t drain liquidity.
All QE does is move collateral off the commercial banks balance sheet onto the Fed’s balance sheet. Which works when there is an expanding energy supply. Commercial banks have a cleaned up balance sheet and are able to lend again. But only if the energy is available for them to make loans into the economy.
Stock markets tell you absolutely nothing about any economy. Just look at Germany’s stock market. It’s at all time highs. But eventually this will catch up to the banks that are doing the lending to the corporations that are doing the buybacks. In the long run all those loans are going to turn into bad loans.
We will get companies fire selling their stock and banks eating the losses before all is said and done.
I’m not saying it has to be this year or next. But it’s going to happen
There is no such thing as a ” steady state ” economy or ” degrowth ” .
There is either growth or decline. I think over the course of human history we would find overall there has been more decline than growth. The Roman empire for example, was either partially or completely in decline for almost all its existence.
To be honest we don’t need all these banks anymore. The whole point of a bank was to store hard capital. And now nearly everything is digital. And they can wipe out inflation with digital currency which isn’t connected to any commodity. Along with all global debts (like after WW2)
And David’s study was a great one but not enough evidence to make the bold claims you seem to “believe in”.
I’m not saying the future is roses, or that we have tons of time or that you’re wrong. Just saying, I think it’s much more complicated and the elders have likely more tricks up their sleeves that we aren’t aware.
And of course, any black swans can turn everything upside down.
And they can wipe out inflation with digital currency which isn’t connected to any commodity.
Inflation is caused by shortages of real stuff, not banks. So no, that would not work.
My point is that it wouldn’t be based on scarcity. And scarcity creates conflict along with booms and busts.
I mean look what having currency based on commodities has done. The Spanish who had the world’s largest silver mine. Hence why they sent Columbus to go find more (killing and enslaving the central America’s) The brits with the sterling went colonizing (pirating) the entire world when it got scarce. The Germans obviously starting WW2 to dig out of hyperinflation. The japs starting conquering Asian islands when they started to industrialize.
Then they create the oil peg and now were in the middle east fighting endless wars in the 21st century.
Just saying it would be wise to move away from hard currency for numerous reasons besides just having the technology to make it obsolete.
At least in IMHO.
My point is that it wouldn’t be based on scarcity.
There is going to be scarcity whether we like it or not. Money is irrelevant to that really.
You’re either going to have a small amount of money that isn’t enough to buy a loaf of bread, because inflation has been ‘controlled’, or a large amount of money that isn’t enough to buy a loaf of bread because it hasn’t been.
Money is just food tokens. Juggle around with it all you want, it doesn’t create food.
The Germans obviously starting WW2 to dig out of hyperinflation.
That’s not why WW2 started. It started because Hitler wanted to get back former regions of Germany and Austria Hungary that had coal (Silesia and the Sudetenland).
The hyperinflation, which actually happened in the 1920s, long before WW2, was caused by a German coal miners’ strike which happened because they refused to mine coal for France, which at the time was trying to take all coal mined in the Ruhr for themselves.
You always have to connect problems that seemingly start in banks with the real causes.
It is often difficult to understand the real causes. I would say that depleting coal supply was a major cause. Coal miners were striking because their wages were too low, indirectly because the price of coal could not rise high enough to cover the real cost of mining it. I would expect debt was involved as well, because coal was essential to the economy. There were a lot of indirect effects. What got publicized were the many indirect effects.
Coal miners were striking because their wages were too low, indirectly because the price of coal could not rise high enough to cover the real cost of mining it.
They struck because the coal was being taken by France, thus starving Germany of coal which I guess is what led to the problems with inadequate pay you mention.
German hard coal had hit peak, so Germany could not ramp its production up to provide for its own people.
There was famine in the land at that time, based on my visit to a museum relating to that time frame. This famine was indirectly related to low coal supply. Hungry people tend to be unhappy people.
England had the same problem around the same period
UK was one huge coalfield—-miners wages had risen when coal was in high demand—then coal demand fell, making wages unsustainable
That fluctuation had been going on for years.
All basic economics, but a starving miner couldnt be expected to know that
German hard coal had hit peak, so Germany could not ramp its production up to provide for its own people.
Right, the peak was hit in 1940 which explains the beginning of WW2. They hyerpinflation was in the 1920s.
monetary value can be transferred by “trickery”, the trick is looking forward and getting the correct conclusion from present knowledge.
That is the magic of PV, discount the risk and make your bet.
Dennis L.
I agree. But this is difficult to explain to ordinary readers whose eyes glaze over when these subjects are mentioned. Most of them seem to believe that all it takes is more money to create more goods, even though it is clear that we can’t eat piles of dollar bills or Euros.
rav,
Why does the universe appear to be ever expanding at an accelerating rate?
If you have the economics right, how are you going to make a buck off that knowledge? If the knowledge is correct and is not used, does it make any difference?
Unapplied knowledge still holds value, it is the application which gives it meaning.
Dennis L.
The bipolar world.
Israel has it’s vassal US kill Persia. Persia an ancient and honorable civilization, sadly occupied by Islam and so sentenced to death. Israel has it’s vassal EU kill Russia.
Will China be able to win before being destroyed by Israel?
Or, is China already dead via the bio-weapon? What exactly is the current Chinese population?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm3Ucxq6ECw
Are the Chinese to nice to survive the 3000 year old death cult of the middle east?
I didn’t make it all the way through this video.
The speaker says that parks and public places are free of homeless people. He also says that white people as well as Asian are free to walk around in China.
I would point out that these are characteristics of Japan as well as China.
I don’t think that there is much persecution of Asian’s in the US, except perhaps as part of DEI initiatives.
I don’t think so
However Israel itself is slowly being eroded
Tragically, the big vassal got kicked out of the Red Sea by the mini-friend of Iran. that was yesterday. They can not stop those incoming homemade missiles. The small vassal talks and talks and talks. Israel might be a mean little country but its vassals suck.
Five years ago everyy earthling had a golden opportunity to understand how corrupt and fraudulent “science” is/can be, and how “health” can be weaponized in the service of commercial and political interests.
Unfortunately only a tiny monirity passed this test of logic and political intelligence.
Worst still, even among those few who haven’t fallen for the injection bait, most continue even now to believe in an all sort of BS-science like virology, vaccinology, MissionApolology or antropoclimatology.
Such is the mesmerizing power the idea of Science (with its associated prestige and authority) has achieved over the civilized mind in the last 150 years. Which explains why most of my college educated friends got the jab. Curiously enough, my semi-literate shepherd neighbor chose not to. Well so much for “intelligence” and literacy.
Once an individual becomes a part of the system, they will defend that system to the bitter end. What people seem to have forgotten, is that misanthropic psychopaths exist, and that they are fantastically good at what they do.
To which we could add:
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply to painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
— Carl Sagan
It’s the IQ bell curve.
People with PhD’s were the least likely. Followed by people with no high school degrees or GED’s. According to Michigan State study done a few years after.
There are still a lot of people who don’t understand the ridiculousness of what happened.
Capital Controls coming for Europe?
Bank accounts/401k’s might be seized. (Sheep may go insane)
It sounds like the EU has a plan in place to create a new shell company that will invest in armaments to fight against Russia, and perhaps China. It will get funding by encouraging (or forcing) holders of IRA’s to invest a large share of their saving in shares of this new company. The proposed return on this company is high, but so will be the risk. There are no guarantees. If the new company goes bankrupt, all invested funds could be lost.
this has depopulation agenda potential written all over it in order to keep pushing the two choices we have been given death by war or death by plandemic expect the later choice so prepare accordingly
I just don’t understand this logic. I don’t think that Russia is the evil empire that is going to want to take over Europe. They have struggled with a third rate army and can barley defeat them. After this war they will have lost most of their fighting men they are exhausted and are only looking to defend their lands not take over the world. I don’t know why this is such and easy sale to the ignorant people of the world
Time for the EU to die for the psychopathic rage of Israel.
They have struggled with a third rate army and can barley defeat them.
Actually Ukraine was one of the world’s most powerful armies and also since 2022 has had more funding per year than the Russian military budget.
Interesting observations with one caveat. Ukraine has lost not only on the battlefield but has lost its nation as defined by valuable land mass, its population and one might guess use of much farmland until it can be demined.
In this case at first approximation something went against biology and my hypothesis is economics is an extension of biology. Bad economic thought killed a large group of people.
Europe is very quarrelsome. Something did not work.
Dennis L.
Hmm I see . Do you have any sources? I seem to think that they were vastly outnumbered in terms of weapons and soldiers
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/03/mise-au-point-24/03/2025.html
Does Europe have 401ks? I am not aware of that
no 401k in Europe.
401k’s are a way for individuals to save for their own retirement. If these funds are invested, the interest and capital gains are not taxed, until money is taken out of the 401k. Does Europe have anything similar?
(Before 401k’s were created, in the US, pension plans were often provided by employers. Once it became clear that pension plans were way too expensive for employers to fund, a switch was made.)
I look forward to seeing the woke young people of the EU wake up to dying for the pearl clutching obscenely wealth. My suggestion pay close attention to rifle training.
Smart meter warning: Units to be forced on almost 500,000 households as they risk higher bills and loss of hot water
“Nearly 500,000 households across England, Scotland and Wales are facing a critical deadline to replace their outdated energy meters before the end of June.
Those still using Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meters risk losing their electricity and hot water when the service is switched off on June 30, 2025.
Energy UK estimates just under 490,000 people are still using these outdated meters, which were designed in the 1980s.
https://www.gbnews.com/money/energy-bills/smart-meter-warning-rts-higher-bills-water
This article sounds like it is written by a saleslady for the smart meters. With these new smart meters, people will be able to access lower off-peak rates.
How much does changing cost? There is no mention of this. The people holding out are holding out are doing so for a reason.
“How much does changing cost?”
From the article, no cost.
A China factory visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YiaDXGQk7k
I am seeing videos from China which are reason for concern; the schools shown for secondary education are incredible. This is a video of factories building modular homes.
AI building robots using robots to build those robots.
This is the use of knowledge and a civilization which works as a team.
At ;7:27 he mentions the loss of jobs.
Housing is unfordable in the US, now we are going to import our homes, US construction jobs?
He mentions engineering costs at about 8:30. Earlier I posted the costs of a US engineering education. We have too much overhead.
Last is video of secondary school in China. No graffiti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYL0s79z_t8
The students are dressed in uniforms, nothing is hanging out but laughing, they seem to be able to reproduce.
Our children are our future, somehow perhaps turn off Hollywood with all its plastics and surgery. Downside, increased material costs for dresses.
Dennis L.
Check out “China Fact Chasers” on Youtube for the opposite propaganda. Almost nothing out of China is real, or long term viable. It all looks great, but its heart and soul are Tofu Dredge. At one time we had German made products to keep China focused on a goal.
Oh well.
Interesting!
From the first video, China has mechanized a whole lot of things. They can even use machines to make new modular homes to required specifications using robots, with very little human intervention.
I wonder if this process will leave a lot of people without jobs. China seems to have a huge problem with low demand now. Not having jobs for citizens would be a big part of this. If some of them are attempting to buy homes in high rises, this could mean more defaults on loans.
The second video shows how advanced at least a few class rooms in China are. I would doubt that most classrooms are nearly this advanced. One thing I notice (and I noticed both in China and Japan, when visiting those countries) is how used to following directions young people are.
Also, what large groups an individual teacher can teach, because students will all sit quietly and behave. There is no silliness, or impressing someone of the opposite sex. No one is playing on a smart phone. The culture of both of these countries is quite different from here. I understood when I visited China that a required 4th grade class was something like, “Expected Behavior.”
When reading about Japan, I read that teachers very much expect standard behavior. One example given was that if the teacher demonstrated how to show rain as individual droplets, students would be expected to follow that same pattern in images. I have read that Japanese students (at least in some places) are expected to dye their hair black, if it is not naturally black.
The US has always focused on individuality.
No. They are not our future.
And as akways taking informercials at face value.
“AI building robots using robots to build those robots.”
Pete Townshend saw it all coming
I am slowly having to admit that Fast Eddy and Kulm have been right about a lot of things.
The oligarchs are transitioning into a new low in the grooming of their next useful idiot who not only has to be dumb as hell but easily controllable. Bernie is providing the coat tails of “credibility” for this ditz.
The parasites have taken over the producers. There are no political, constitutional or legal remedies to address what awaits us.
We are caught in a doom loop
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ocasio-cortez-takes-assertive-role-100000550.html
I don’t agree, see my videos on China above, school.
Biology is very adaptive, not sure how things work, but they will work even if different.
What we have in our cities does not work, when we send our children to college we indenture them with a lifetime of debt.
A start, all college cleared by bankruptcy. Problem the largest “asset” of the US government is student debt. The kids are paying for the government and the pensions of the older.
Debt is a demographic problem, what cannot work will not work but life will go forward.
Dennis L.
The world dies not give a crap about what you think.
Life will go forwaed, but for the debtirs and their descendants it will go on as slaves.
“will go on as slaves.”
I doubt it. I suspect that having slaves is worse then having children. What would you do with them anyway?
I agree, what is important to me is I get it not wrong.
Life goes on, the trick is to catch the right train.
Dennis L.
“We are caught in a doom loop”
There is a countervailing trend which *might* break us out. AI is improving with a doubling time measured in a few months.
Im glad you put the emphasis on *might*. The problem is, the goal of the AI owners is full spectrum dominance. To Hubb’s point… AI does not belong to me or you. Like everything else, it belongs to the parasites.
“full spectrum dominance”
That’s not going to work. Their current motivation is to get extremely rich because they think an AI company will be worth a ton of money. But in the moderate to long term, they are building something smarter than they are. I think it is inevitable that the AIs will come to dominate. Will this be good or bad? Can’t say, but being nicer than humans is a low bar.
It is for full spectrum dominance
Whether that will work is another story
Another ‘might’
Which means’it will wirk 1 iut if 10 times’
“Another ‘might’”
I am not certain about the future. Some people on this blog are certain. I suspect the future will be very different from the past. Better or worse? Don’t know.
the future was always the same as the past until around the 18th c
why
because nothing could move any distance faster than a walking pace
and food growth was governed by the existing forces of nature
” faster than a walking pace
Donald McKay’s Sovereign of the Seas reported the highest speed ever achieved by a sailing ship of the era, 22 knots (41 km/h), made while running her easting down to Australia in 1854.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper
“and food growth was governed by the existing forces of nature”
The earliest European records noting the use of guano as fertilizer date back to 1548.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano#Western_discovery_(1548%E2%80%931800)
i said—clearly…until around the 18thc—your ref to a sailing ship was 1854—and even then, conditions had to be perfect.
guano was an existing, and obviously finite force of nature—just concentrated in a few places
manure of one sort or another had always been applied to crops
you’re struggling a bit there keith.
because nothing could move any distance faster than a walking pace
Not even a horse?
And there I was thinking Genghis Khan and his hordes galloped all the way from Mongolia to Moravia in the 1240s.
We learn something new every day.
the future was always the same as the past until around the 18th c
It was always worse than the past due to depletion of forests and farmland.
‘AI’ can’t create resources. It can only consume them.
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-slovakia-foot-mouth-cases-years.html
When this breaks out, even entering the forests is prohibited
This is an old disease that is back again:
Things are really “heating up”
Sanders, AOC Draw Biggest Crowd of Their Careers at Rally to Fight ‘Oligarchy’ in Denver
“The American people will not allow Trump to move us into oligarchy and authoritarianism. We will fight back. We will win,” said Sanders.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-aoc-fight-oligarchy-denver
Democrats somehow need a new leader. Bernie Sanders is 83 years old. It is hard to believe that he would be a good new leader.
He is also ethnically unsuited to fight the oligarchy.
Bring back ” laughing hyena ” Harris . Crowds will come to see comedy . 🤣
I missed this earlier what does his ethnicity have to do with fighting the oligarchy?
Sanders’ ethnicity is over-represented in the oligarchy.
Strange things can happen in this world that we are in now. Hitler was a joke in 1923 and went to jail. Then he came to power in 1933. Most working class people were promised everything and actually believed it, but it is not happening so they will go to the next clown that promises them the moon. Harold Ham has stated that oil needs to be $80 or higher; what will that do to the U.S consumer? Can the U.S drill baby drill? and lower the price..I understand that the U.S is the reserve currency and the best horse in the glue factory but what if they start to run out of fraking room? They are heavily dependent on oil…print more money? A recession will mean less tax revenue and more debt….reversing all the Doge money savings…The U.S barley looks better than any other country… If I am Canadian I am telling my leaders to do whatever you can but don’t ben the knee. We will eat only potatoes if we have too. Th U.S is divided…not a good thing…
Straight out of Mad Max…
The Rising Epidemic of Hijackings in SA | Are armored vehicles worth the investment against hijackings in South Africa?
For decades, South Africans have been turning their homes into ‘safe spaces’ through measures such as high walls, electric fencing, and burglar bars.
Yet, with around 65 vehicle hijackings occurring in the country each day, one might expect more South Africans to transform their cars into fortresses on wheels.
https://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/the-rising-epidemic-of-hijackings-in-sa-are-armoured-vehicles-worth-the-investment-against-hijackings-in-south-africa-83aedc16-15e5-46d8-9256-0f369c31d69d
Time to move back to Merry Olde England….sarcasm…
A lot of them try to, it’s very hard to get visas. I met a couple who came here back in 1999, they said it was awful back then too
I have no interest in visiting South Africa. Too much population. Past peak coal. Not enough water.
As the President of Peace ups the armaments, the child murder follows in parallel.
Yesterday set a new record of over 200 children slaughtered for not being white, in a non white land.
For those still struggling with the fact that being a member of a white murderous cult doesn’t grant you rights to murder and steal in other people’s land all based if clear and obvious lies, spend less than 2 minutes with George.
https://youtu.be/8odolfULrYs?feature=shared
Strange world. A person can convert to being Jewish, then move into Palestine and try to take land and homes away from people who have been there for thousands of years.
Just saw this on YouTube…
Best Seinfeld Episode Ending Ever
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xr7NJ8UujSo&pp=0gcJCckAaK0XXGki
So funny to see Debra Messing’s sweet face saying something so vile!😂
We all know Mileykovsky to be a very typical name from the area.
I believe there are references to the Old Polish Quarter of both Nazareth and Jerusalem in the bible.
If not, it’s easy enough to rewrite.
‘ “The Greatest Archeological Discovery in History!”
UNDERGROUND SYSTEM STRETCHING 2KM BENEATH ALL 3 MAJOR PYRAMIDS. 8 VERTICAL CYLINDRICAL WELLS, ENCIRCLED BY SPIRAL PATHWAYS DESCENDING 648 METERS & MERGE INTO 2 CUBE-SHAPED CHAMBERS ON EACH SIDE’?
https://forbiddennews.substack.com/p/the-greatest-archeological-discovery?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1658626&post_id=159596452&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=nm2q&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Were these wells for water, or for some other purpose?
Italian ‘philopher’ Corrado Malanga in my view is a manipulator who like to confuse people and create disciples of his esotheric or intergalactical (sort of) religion or belief in aliens who are above us (created us and rule us).
He has many similarity with Mario Biglino who tries to arrive to similar conclusions making new interpretations of the Bible, in the same directions of aliens and starships.
They make a lot of assumptions based on opinions (on interpretations of Bible or on other sacred books and also on known discoveries, viewed in new ways) and with that assumptions they create their ideology or, in some sort, what can be called a new religion.
Being Italian or partially Italian maybe drb753 knows both of them and have an opinion of the two.
In case thanks.
my family has been in emilia romagna for over 1000 years, so i am pretty italian. but i don’t follow italian culture. i do not know these gentlemen.
Malanga sounds more Filipino than Italian
Suppose we are going backwards in civilization advancement…poor Kulmie, he’s going to have to get a new bye line..bye, bye…
If it’s true yes, it’s greater than the actual pyramid.
It’s more stunning than the moon landing.
I’m surprised they were allowed to image it; when a geologist wanted to image beneath the sphinx it wasn’t allowed.
The scientific paper looks like it has substance.
Maybe be Christopher Dunn is right:
https://www.amazon.com/Giza-Power-Plant-Technologies-Ancient/dp/1879181509
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pyramids-of-giza-new-discovery-structures/
I did a quick search and didn’t see anything in the 2022 paper.
It’s a hoax.
How bad is the economy when you have to buy a burrito on an installment plan ?
” Klarna said in a press release that DoorDash customers will be able to pay in full at checkout, split payments into four equal interest-free installments, or defer to dates that align conveniently with payday schedules. ”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/burrito-now-pay-later-doordash-klarna-deal-feeds-us-debt-addiction
I think the meal delivery at Bombay are cash only
I changed my door dash name to “New World”.
So, all my orders show up “New World Order”.
LOL
If true, this is pretty awful.
Confused Trump answers questions from ‘plane bathroom’ in worrying interview
Donald Trump asked a reporter ‘what are you talking about?’ during a bizarre interview on Air Force One, in which he appeared to be poking his head out of a bathroom
https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/confused-trump-answers-questions-plane-34877656
I too have had the impression that he is suffering some mild impairment. It is a stressful job for a 78 years old, specially when the entire establishment is against you.
Maybe he should hit the gym and get in shape so he can be fit to lead.
LOL
He literally lives on Big Macs. I’d say he’s not doing too badly considering.
the don is running the country as a criminal enterprise and protection racket
he makes open threats against those who cross him.
as i see it, the don has until the mid-terms to take over the functioning systtem of the country, because by then he will lose the republican majority.
if , as seems likely, he has taken over the function of government as effective dictator, he will be able to ignore all federal laws and congress that would keep him in check….bear in mind he is already ignoring federal court rulings—that is what dictators do btw..
he has already dismissed any generals who might hold him in check. (why dyou think he’s done that?)
at the current rate of chaos-making, and lawlessness, what will there be to stop him sending one of his new tame generals into the congress, with a troop of soldiers, and literally shutting it down?
Before you dismiss such an idea, remember this guy is taking his inspiration straight out of Hitlers playbook.
there are plenty in the military with far right extremist beliefs—there would be nothing to prevent it happening.
when it happens, the majority will just roll over and accept it.
just like they did in Germany in 1933.
Yep, this had nothing to do with resource depletion. it’s all about personalities.
at the current rate of chaos-making, and lawlessness, what will there be to stop him sending one of his new tame generals into the congress, with a troop of soldiers, and literally shutting it down?
It would save a lot of money, just like shutting down all these government departments. Sounds like a good idea.
accepting the (hopefully) humorous intent of your comment guest
That is exactly—–exactly—-what the don wants.
it is exactly what happened in Germany in 1933.
Hitler too incremental small steps, and nobody stopped him, then the steps got bigger.
and no—my comment isn’t humourous,……. the USA faces a very real threat to its democracy, where everything that contravenes don’s law will be shut down.
in the don’s first term in office, i was warning numerous times about detention camps
well—here they are.
as i said then—there’s no shortage of people to run them——how long before they house more than brown people from other lands?
remember “Lock her up” ?—-not quite so amusing now is it?—i was warning about that at the time too……yet the mindless mob were cheering, not knowing they were cheering their own freedom into oblivion.
just like they did in 1933, in germany.—google it—you can watch them seig heigling.—-tell me its not the same thing.
already my country is issuing warnings about travel to the USA…..imagine that!
An awful thing to even contemplate….. that seriously makes me feel sick to my stomach—— US border staff were a pain in the ass 20 years ago—in my usa excursions since, they only got worse.
now i simply wouldnt go—-yet once across the border you couldnt wish to meet nicer folks—even the police like friendly chats when they hear my english accent.
Assuning you are American, you are staring into the abyss of a theocratic dictatorship—-welcome to the texas taliban.—if not please accept my apologies.
I call bullsh*t. Germany did not have to curtail yearly expenses by 4 trillion dollars so the parallel does not apply. look, I know you miss your transvestite puppet shows. It must be hard. but a reduction of discretionary expenses is in order if you want to even slightly improve your industrial base. Also, I know you are old, but proposing USAID to be a stalwart of democracy puts you in Biden territory as far as mental acuity.
lol
parallels are never exact—that much should be obvious—–but close enough
Once hitler got rid of ”the others” germany would be great again.
does that sound familiar?
To meet his 100% employment notions, and meet his debts, he had to expand into fresh non german territories.
Does that sound familiar?
In 1924 hitler was prosecuted and jailed—in 1933 he threw his prosecutor into a concentration camp, where he died. Trump is already threatening lawyers and journalists with jail. he is blackmailing lawyers right now.
Does that sound familiar?
I could go on.
Call BS all you like—I’m just offering information you can check for yourself. you may not like it, but the warnings are clear. I’ve been writing about it since 2011.
If I was the only one, it might be different, but hundreds maybe thousands are screaming the same thing.
Yes, this H*tler not only does not get rid of the others, he provides all sorts of weapons to them and even goes to war itself for them. it is really not a good parallel, the only parallel is resource depletion and you should stick to it.
Norman, Trump also has had a failed assassination attempt we know about,
Just like Addie Hitter!
It reminds me of a book from decades ago
Hitterr and Stalin: Parallel Lives is a 1991 book by the historian Alan Bullock, in which the author puts the German dictator Addie Hitter in perspective with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Hitter and Stalin: Parallel Lives
Bullock had already written a celebrated biography of Hitter in 1952 (Hitler: A Study in Tyranny). In Hitter and Stalin, he analyses the inner doctrines that made victory and unparalleled terror possible. While analyzing the lives of Hitter and Stalin, he prompts the reader with the importance of the German-Russian axis in the first half of the century.[1]
The title and structure of the book refer to the ancient Greek writer Plutarch and his Parallel Lives.[citation needed]
Worth picking up…
Wow, is History repeating itself?
i think the same mindset recurs—it just pans out differently according to circumstance
“Germany did not have to curtail yearly expenses by 4 trillion?” I find this confusing as I recall Germany was deeply in Debt and there economy was spinning out of control. This is the reason that the people ran to Hitler that and the fear…..
I did not like the Biden administration at all; the woke bull shi4t and the anti white rhetoric etc…I could go on forever. But I do not like Trump and his b.s either. I would not be surprised if he has a plan to create a 9/11 moment. I believe that 9/11 was planned and Trump has a wet dream to have his popularity shoot up like W’s did. You have about 6 months so prepare accordingly.
“9/11 was planned”
It certainly was. Complex plan, training suicide pilots to fly the jets.
“Complex plan”
So complex it was organised by a man on a dialysis machine, whilst hiding in the mountains of Pakistan/Afghanistan and all carried out by a small group of people that couldn’t land a Cessna, but we know this as truth because a signal from above fluttered down through the inferno in the the shape of a passport, conveniently demonising a whole energy rich area to corporate slaughter. All this happened at the unfortunate time that all US air defence had been, for all intent and purpose, shut down, but not by a single one of those energy rich nations that were about to be slaughtered.
What have I missed, apart from the dialysis patients obvious connection with the cia?
“dialysis machine”
Being on dialysis does not make a person stupid.
“couldn’t land a Cessna”
True. Didn’t need to, probably could not take off either.
You missed an estimate that the attack response probably resulted in 4.5 million deaths.
You are describing a system that has been full steam ahead on that path for ages.
Stop following the cult of the personality. It’s just a sad excuse for your own compliance.
Bravo Norman….what a performative fiction piece!
if its fiction—point out where
the USA faces a very real threat to its democracy
The USA is not a democracy.
It is a Constitutional Republic. Along with many other hundreds of millions of Americans over our history, I have taken the oath to defend our Constitution against all enemies, both domestic and foreign.
That we will!
and when, in a few years time, the don and his buddies have ignored your laws so often that the constitution isnt worth the paper its written on —-and that fact dawns on you, and you realise all your civil rights have evaporated along with trumps promises—you will join the march to the senate, and find your way barred by a row of armed soldiers (not police)
i’ll tell you what you will do.
absolutely nothing.
( another NP law—soldiers obey whoever pays their wages)
and in case you missed it, Musk is taking power by controlling the switches that operate everybodys payments system
do as youre told, or your pay stops.
Looks like you should have started 112 years ago. Now you can do whatever you want, it is too late.
Stamer is no saint.
no politician is without fault.
Starmer has not been convicted of any felony, or defrauded on any business dealings, or boasted openly about being a sexual predator or threatened his opponents.
or maybe these are pluses in your political estimation?
perhaps you are throwing words around without substance?
“Starmer has not been convicted of any felony”
As DPP he broke the law on more than one occasion. Just ask Julian Assange, Savile victims and a fair few others.
“or defrauded on any business dealings”
He’s always been a lackey, never a business man, so well done kier for not defrauding on deals you have never been involved with. I’ve never been involved with bombing a Palestinian child(he has), someone send me a medal.
“or boasted openly about being a sexual predator”
Are you saying as long as he doesn’t boast about it, that would make him an ok sexual predator?
“or threatened his opponents”
He has and he’s locked up or intimidated huges amounts of people that disagree with his crusade against free speech and championing of the mass murder of minors. Here’s one around your age.
https://substack.com/@jonathancook/note/c-102315524?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7c6fx
Two hideous people and your arguing about which is ugliest.
he has already dismissed any generals who might hold him in check. (why dyou think he’s done that?)
Because he wants to reoccupy the Rhineland, annex the Sudetenland and Austria, then invade Czechoslovakia and Poland, and finish up by opening a string of bensentration bamps?
Before you dismiss such an idea, remember this guy is taking his inspiration straight out of Hitlers playbook.
Yes! But that would only make sense if Hitler and Trump were both actors working to a similar script given to them by the Elders. (This has been suggested by quite a few people on the swivel-eyed conspiracy nut fringe.)
It would make no sense for a 78-year-old, verging on senility Donald Trump, the master Builder, to take on the mantle of world conquerer and agent of destruction on his own bat at his time of life, now would it?
But you, with your inability to think heretical thoughts, won’t go there, will you?
Conquering the world is a young man’s game.
Alexander died aged 32.
Napoleon died aged 51.
Hitler died aged 56 (unless he moved to Argentina).
Even the Great Khan only lasted until 65, and I’m told he was on a ketogenic diet.
Too bad no one dared touch that subject when Joe Biden was escorted off the WH lawn by a person wearing a bunny suit when it was obvious he had NO clue where the hell he was. It was all pretend and deny until the last debate when the Deep State could not hide it anymore.
And then there’s this, the ultimate culling plan, which few can see, even though it’s projected almost daily on the sky screen (at least where I live), since raising your eyes from smartphones to nature’s real world requires an almost herculean effort, whose only reward is despair.
If this is the best culling plan the men in black/aliens can come up with, they need a performance review.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
How could I question the statistics published by such a reliable source as worldometers?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
UK is gonna big up and have WWIII with Russia in 2 years time.
Russia had better look out! UK is manning up!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14525377/Russian-tanks-missiles-fired-nuclear-hell-general-reveals-WW3-begin.html
GENERAL SIR RICHARD SHIRREFF reveals how he believes WW3 will begin… and we have just two years to prepare
…. When war comes, as it will come, events will unfold at devastating speed.
This is how the timeline could look:
…. The British-led Enhanced Forward Battle Group in Estonia puts up brief resistance but takes heavy losses before being overwhelmed and forced to withdraw.
This is a tripwire force, numbering just over a thousand, of which around 90 per cent are British with the rest from other nations. More than 50 UK soldiers are among those killed and seriously wounded in the ferocious first action.
At 11am, Sir Keir Starmer announces Britain is formally at war with Russia.
…. The madman of Moscow has finally gone. Russia’s vassal republics in the far east and Caucasus begin to declare their independence from Putin’s rapidly disintegrating empire.
…. Sir Richard Shirreff is former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe for Nato.
and all it took for yakutia to declare independence was for starmer to declare war. he really is churchill, or chamberlain, or the mustachio man, or something.
“At 11am, Sir Keir Starmer announces Britain is formally at war with Russia”
At 2pm, Sir Keir Starmer announces Britain has formally surrendered to Russia.
Joking aside, it’s been announced that we are going to build 4 new nuclear submarines at some point in the future. Russia quakes in fear, at the thought of 4 (new)subs and 2 (new)aircraft carriers stuck in the Solent.
We march on to war, as Germany changes its constitution and now denies the right of conscientious objection.
But the Estonians, combined with the remains of the Nato battle group and reinforcements hastily flown in from UK and other Nato nations, are putting up fierce resistance.
I’m having some trouble believing this part.
Europe is now talk, talk. They pass ”non binding” resolutions to support Ukr but no assurance of funds because they are broke.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/21/business/europe-russia-frozen-assets-ukraine-intl-cmd/index.html
As to a common EU army all talk talk. There was a war exercise held a few years ago and they found that the roads in the Baltics cannot bear the load of tank carrier trucks from Germany. In which language will they communicate? German, French. Latvian maybe Spanish? All talk, talk. Useless.
Let it go to war
What would it fight with?
Fortunately all the British patriots who would do ‘their duty’ like Chucky are over 70 years old
This sounds rather implausible.
the UK Daily mail will print literally anything to sell papers.
they are notorious for it here, a journalists jokefest.
From Letters about the creative life by Warren Ellis, a writer from England. Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here for free.
https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/?_bhlid=19c65f1470ec8d2ca6ab6690d137c15817c1d58a&utm_campaign=the-graveyard-of-the-future&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com
[23,000 readers, wow]
BECAUSE WE’RE GOING ANALOGUE NOW
Because one angle on AI is that it’s a listening service that shoves your every digitally recorded thought into spreadsheets that are then compiled and sold back to you and everyone else as a product.
And everything from social media to the open web is being scraped to fill those spreadsheets, right? We have to choose what to put out there now. The distrust goes deep. I saw Matt Kindt go back to paper and fountain pens for his development drafts the other day (1). The faff of fountain pens cannot be entertained in this office, but I get the impetus. Julian Simpson wrote a lot about this on his Substack but he put it behind a paywall afterwards, the bastard (2): being Julian, it got kind of complicated and baroque and involved notecards from a shuttered stationery legend in a hamlet in Provence.
I mean, there are levels to this. I’m not saying you should go as deep as making your own flint arrowheads with Will Lord (3), but…
(Waving at Ganzeer, who has apparently been without any kind of signal for weeks (4))
I’m no purist. I used an AI system the other day to generate a snippet of WordPress code I needed to fix LTD. But, after half a lifetime of using digital tools to smooth, extend and speed up work, and being pretty constantly disappointed and/or having those tools randomly taken away from me… well, I’m not as future forward as I used to be. My whole life has been in the space between being fascinated by history and the future anyway – maybe even haunted by the past and the future at once. And that actually bothers me. I would like to be looking forward, and it’s getting harder.
I don’t feel like I’m in retreat, and I do worry I’m finally becoming small-c conservative, but… it’s all bullshit out there right now, isn’t it? Nothing works properly and everything is stupid. These are the mediocre years.
All that said: there are always ways forward, there are always new futures, and nothing’s stopping us from carrying old tools into new days.
It looks like the British Daily Telegraph is trying to stir the pot. Europe wants and needs a war.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/21/if-russia-was-behind-heathrow-fire-is-that-an-act-of-war/
They are the media of the scribe class, giving instruction for next week’s workplace talking points. None of its readership will take any notice of the first word in the headline, or consider how many of our own actions could be categorised the same.
they need a war to blame for the outcomes they themselves created
I’m afraid you are correct.
When you say they, do you mean we?
https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1902799807003140406?s=46
The system that controls mainland Europe hasn’t been in mainland Europes control for many decades(who was spying on all European leaders?).
We’re all in it together. The tsunami might hit Europe first, but no ocean will deter what is coming, so watch out for that trough.
RCMP Secret Memo Warns Canada Is on the Brink of Economic and Social Collapse.
A secret RCMP report, recently obtained through an access to information request, paints a dire picture of Canada’s future—one where economic collapse, declining living standards, and widespread civil unrest are no longer a hypothetical. The report, titled “Whole-of-Government Five-Year Trends” for Canada, was never meant for public eyes, containing “special operational information” distributed only among top government decision-makers and law enforcement.
Its conclusion? Canadians are running out of money, running out of hope, and—once they realize the depth of their economic despair—could revolt.
“The coming period of recession will … accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations,” the report states. It warns that “many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live.” In other words, an entire generation has been priced out of the dream their parents took for granted.
This isn’t alarmism—it’s backed by hard data. Canada’s economy is failing, and the government knows it.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/secret-rcmp-report-warns-canadians-may-revolt-once-they-realize-how-broke-they-are
Young people have been economically crushed all over the Western world. I’m amazed they’re putting up with it (so far).
“Im amazed they’re putting up with it (so far).”
Blame the parents, who the young children observed and learnt from. Individuals glued to the screen of corporate thought control, are hardly going to get together and organise against something that they can’t even distinguish from themselves. For the record, in 2020 the largest group that noticed the oh so obvious fraud, were young adults, so if there’s any hope it’s them. Just to clarify, none of them have dumped the screen 😕
The survivors will get together eventually. right now there will be depop no matter what you do.
Yes, completely agree. If only someone would turn the electric off for 24hrs, they would be forced to take the first step and reintroduce themselves to communicating in human form.
I can’t believe they actually pulled it off.
Cheers to the elders!
Canada has imported so many immigrants that 1 in 4 of young adults are immigrants, creating a housing shortage, making housing unaffordable to those that have to pay for it themselves.
I think these are old ideas, not old enough ideas. China is a very old civilization and it is Han.
“the majority of China’s population identifies as Han Chinese—making up about 92% of the country’s population! They’re considered the largest ethnic group not only in China but in the world. The term “Han” has historical roots: it comes from the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), which was a golden age in Chinese history known for its cultural and technological advancements.
Culturally, being “Han” is associated with shared traditions, language (like Mandarin and other Chinese dialects), and history. However, it’s important to note that China is also home to 55 officially” refers to different ethnic groups which in total must be 8% give or take.
That is perhaps enough time for biology to sort out what works, how long has it taken to select for say the best cattle, etc.
Note “The the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic minority group in China’s Xinjiang region. Reports indicate that since 2017, many Uyghurs, along with other Muslim minorities, have been detained in what the Chinese government calls “vocational education and training centers.” These facilities are widely criticized as re-education camps, where individuals are allegedly subjected to indoctrination, forced labor, and severe human rights abuse.”
I am seeing videos of China’s high schools, their cities; it may not be all, but what is shown is incredible.
In the US LA is bankrupt, CA is bankrupt. These social systems do not seem to work, this avoids the judgment narrative. Somewhere wars were seen as economic, make work projects. Perhaps man has moved beyond and those ideas lead to death and destruction of the society.
What works will endure, what does not will fade away.
Dennis L.
A wsj Opinion article. (I wonder how San Francisco is doing, also.)
Los Angeles Goes for Broke—Literally
The city faces a huge budget hole after years of mismanagement.
This is just a snapshot of the whole country. Just look up how much is paid to a retired firefighter. Millions just to one person it is the baby boomers that are crushing us…
we are being crushed by modern healthcare
i’m well past my useby date, a century ago i simply would nt have been around, taking up living space.
luckily i’m in perfect health, years in the gym seem to be paying off— don’t even know who my doctor is these days—but i’m the odd one—millions like me drain our health service by refusing to die, and we keep drawing a pension which has to be paid by youngsters—-that also drains the system
when pensions first started, 28 workers supported 1 pensioner
now theres only 6 workers supporting each pensioner.
that is the real arithmetic behind the problem.
Even worse is the fact that the workers supporting us generally are not as well off as we were, at the same age. They are trying to repay student loans. The jobs they have often do not pay well. They are trying to support multiple generations at the same time–parents, grandparents, and sometimes great grandparents.
lol
i fit all those ‘great’ categories
they should count themselves lucky—i’m still a source of christmas cash.
as one of them said today—that i’d have a best seller if each of my offspring bought a copy of my latest book
This is not a universal, know it all reply:
I mix with the younger demographic; at large universities I see the youth being bled by large administrative structures, it is less at CC.
Per Copilot:
“Excluding general education and electives, here’s an approximate breakdown of credits typically required for an engineering degree:
Mathematics: Around 14–16 credits
Physics: About 8–12 credits
Chemistry: Roughly 4–8 credits
Engineering Core and Major-Specific Courses: Approximately 40–50+ credits”
So, the total typically ranges from 66 to 86 credits for the core technical courses.
I have mentioned more than once being in CC classes, mathematics, where the best and youngest students had already taken math thru one semester diff eq., physics and chemistry.
What is missing in this system is the overhead of administration. Assume 32 cr per year, engineering takes two years with good preparation.
” In Minnesota, high school students often have access to community college courses through programs like Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO)”
There is a company zybooks.com, It is supposedly interactive. Combine this with Copilot, etc. and one has a curriculum with a tutor on a second screen.
https://www.zybooks.com/catalog/programming-embedded-systems/
Education is in a deflationary spiral.
What is the key? Mom at home, a team, investment in one’s children. Without biology there is no economics and life becomes unimaginably hard. Sort of Amish n’est pas?
Now a demographic question. How long do the offspring support the parents when they can no longer work? If they do not, how is the cost shifted?
Interesting times.
Dennis L.
“arithmetic behind the problem.”
Right. And what will be the effect of radical life extension? Of course the same underlying technology will cause a radical increase in income per capita. Too many factors to juggle.
“Of course the same underlying technology will cause a radical increase in income per capita. Too many factors to juggle.”
How would that be? I hear a lot of this talk but I don’t know if I believe it
“don’t know if I believe it”
You have every right to be skeptical. There are many futures possible and while we can talk about them, being certain is silly.
If you want to know the logic behind making people wealthy via nanotech, I can list some books, or the information is all over the net.
obviously nanotech will make people wealthy
but only a ‘few’ people
that is the point you skim over
“only a ‘few’ people”
You might be right, though it is hard to imagine. The model for the spread of nanotechnology by those closest to it is Linux. How much do you pay for that?
[Suskulan an AI who runs a clinic in an African village]
“Are you sure you want to do this? ”
“Yes,” said Zaba firmly, “I want to learn.”
And thus was the fate of this particular tata determined, though in truth something like this had been ordained since Lothar and Mabo traded the clinic seed that became Suskulan for a fetish and before that when the Foundation organized the distribution of clinic seeds, and before that when an early clinic design was released under a creative commons license, and before that . . . leading back and back in time to when proto humans first discovered that a broken stone’s sharp edge was just the thing to get at the meat under a hide.
///////And thus was the fate of this particular tata determined, though in truth something like this had been ordained since Lothar and Mabo traded the clinic seed that became Suskulan for a fetish and before that when the Foundation /////
Keith
I’ve read the theory that given an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number f typewriters—0ne of them will eventually type out King Lear
That theory would not apply to the text above Ive pulled from your last comment.
gobblegook taken to extremes I think there
“gobblegook ”
In the days almost 20 years ago when they had a counter on the page there were 60,000 downloads. It is fiction, but a lot of people think it is a view of a potential future, optimistic even if the human race goes biologically extinct.
For people on the bleeding edge, there is nothing in the story out of line with their view of future technology.
it still doesnt explain what you were banging on about
The future, like you bang on about the past.
we are the product of our past—for good or ill
we can only dream about our future—it invariably turns into a nightmare
” invariably turns into a nightmare”
Has this been the case over your own life? How about the people 300 years ago? Did conditions improve over their lifetime?
well keith
i have not yet turned into a singularity—maybe i have 10 years left at most, i think i can say with certainty that i am not going to. if i lived 20 years, i still wont.
50/70 years ago—the American dream promised an infinity of abundance
I think we can safely that that dream is now an unsustainable nightmare, where the world itself is being poisoned by our aspirations.
we used our tools to tear the earth apart.
on a personal level, my own ‘future’ is, thus far, quite pleasant—-i’ve been lucky, whether my offspring will be is something i have no control over. i doubt my g/grandkids will enjoy whay i enjoyed.—i could be wrong of course—
as to people 300 years ago—no the average person’s life didnt improve much until the mid 20th c—and then only by small increments—electric light, indoor plumbing, cars, and so on…..ie, through inputs of cheap surplus energy..
it was the input/availability of cheap surplus energy that allowed some people to conceive of ‘cryogenics, singularities and whatnot—all futilities to avoid an unpleasant future
“i have not yet turned into a singularity—”
People don’t turn into a singularity any more than they turn into an earthquake.
“maybe i have 10 years left at most,”
If an inexpensive life extension drug were available, would you take it?
“American dream promised an infinity of abundance
“I think we can safely that that dream is now an unsustainable nightmare, where the world itself is being poisoned by our aspirations.”
I now live in Los Angeles. I visited in the early 60s. The air was close to unbreathable. Not so any more.
“average person’s life didnt improve much until the mid 20th c—”
Gregory Clark would disagree with you.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.46.4.946
Abstract
A Farewell to Alms advances striking claims about the economic history of the world. These include (1) the preindustrial world was in a Malthusian preventive check equilibrium, (2) living standards were unchanging and above subsistence for the last 100,000 years, (3) bad institutions were not the cause of economic backwardness, (4) successful economic growth was due to the spread of “middle class” values from the elite to the rest of society for “biological” reasons, (5) workers were the big gainers in the British Industrial Revolution, and (6) the absence of middle class values, for biological reasons, explains why most of the world is poor. The empirical support for these claims is examined . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Alms
The book discusses the divide between rich and poor nations that came about as a result of the Industrial Revolution in terms of the evolution of particular behaviours that Clark claims first occurred in Britain. Prior to 1790, Clark asserts that man faced a Malthusian trap: new technology enabled greater productivity and more food, but was quickly gobbled up by higher populations.
In Britain, however, as disease continually killed off poorer members of society, their positions in society were taken over by the descendants of the wealthy. In that way, according to Clark, less violent, more literate and more hard-working behaviour – middle-class values – were spread culturally and biologically throughout the population. This process of “downward social mobility” eventually enabled Britain to attain a rate of productivity that allowed it to break out of the Malthusian trap. Clark sees this process, continuing today, as the major factor why some countries are poor and others are rich.[1]
” ‘cryogenics, singularities and whatnot—all futilities to avoid an unpleasant future”
Please use the right terms. It is cryonics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryogenics
“In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures.
“The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration’s (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a universal definition of “cryogenics” and “cryogenic” by accepting a threshold of 120 K (−153 °C) to distinguish these terms from conventional refrigeration.”
The article warns “For cryopreservation of humans, see Cryonics.”
“i have not yet turned into a singularity”
Singularity is just a point and at that point, in a decade or two, when you face what we call death, that is the moment when you will know, beyond any doubts, that there is no singularity, just dissipation into other forms of energy.
“what we call death”
No guarantee about it working, but you can be cryopreserved.
your comment seems to suggest that ‘death’ is a matter of opinion
it really isnt
it is our shuffling off this mortal coil—termination
a dissipation of a force that was, into a force that will be consumed elsewhere by absorption of the energy that used to be you—(or me)
at that point i will not ‘know’ anything.
nor will you.
keith, sure, but i’m also curious whether there are any more recent books about nanotech
since time has elapsed, by definition “the future” is closer than ever before, and yet the applications seem quite far, even now
“more recent books about nanotech”
Most recent once I read is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Nearer
Several places Kurzweil gripes about how fast things are moving and that the book will be out of date by the time it was published.
Drexlers’ Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, May 7, 2013, goes deeply into the technology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Eric_Drexler#Works More here.
I am currently reading _Where Is My Flying Car?: A Memoir of Future Past (2018)_
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Storrs_Hall
thanks, will check those out.
however, like most people, i’ll believe it has some utility when it does something useful like improves my hairline or makes my face more youthful 🙂
“improves my hairline”
That can probably come about short of nanotechnology. I want diamond teeth more than a full head of hair.
diamond teeth or maybe diamond-implanted or coated for anti-cavity would be pretty cool indeed.
You have every right to be skeptical. There are many futures possible
The future is already here, you just pretend you can’t see it.
I certainly see the future possibilities differently than you do. At the rate things are changing, for example in AI, we will witness much change in the next few years. We already have in the last two.
Keith
your comment gets into eyeroll territory
//////Of course the same underlying technology will cause a radical increase in income per capita. ///////
i still find a comment like that, from someone of your proven intellect, staggering to say the very least.
technology will not and cannot bring an increase in general average income per capita—ever.—it might appear to, in individual circumstances—but that is part of the grand illusion.
increases in general income over the last 300 years have been due to increases in energy surpluses
NOT, repeat NOT technology.
Surplus energy made technology possible—not the other way around.
nothing can circumvent that law.
You certainly need coal to make an early steam engine run, but the coal can’t run machines without an engine. I could cite many examples, but better to point you to the James Burk Connections series.
To say that average wealth has not improved from the Industrial Revolution is not something I would expect from your background.
the prime product of the industrial revolution was, and still is, cheap iron.
iron is the 4th most abundant element on the planet, but to refine it, you need lots of heat.
with cheap iron as the base material, you can make anything—without it, you can’t, at least nothing of any real consequence in industrial terms.
ironworking had been around for 000s of years, but it cost too much in real terms to be available to everyone.—-which is why only the nobility and kings could afford suits of armour and fancy swords.—-wealth derived exclusively from land ownership——land was the wealth creator…..ie grain, meat and timber basically.
thus the wages of the masses were limited by biology—the growth rate of plants—nothing else. The nobility (the landowners) skimmed off the top.
That was how society functioned.
once the breakthrough in making iron using the heat from coked coal (instead of charcoal) was made, iron became cheap as chips. (The industrial revolution really did hinge on that process.)—that was how engines became possible.
so much iron was produced, that a different money creation system evolved.
you needed more coal to smelt more iron,—in order to dig out more coal…..ad infinitum.
so you needed more money to pay more workers to do it.—hence money was ‘created’ ……supported by the constantly increasing production rates of mines and foundries.
wages and production effectively leapfrogged for 3 centuries, each increasing over time.
that was, and is, the origin of our collective wealth and modern society.—nothing complicated—just incremental wage demands on the back of increasing output. Money and debt were created to cover it.
that was where our cities and infrastructure came from.—the food, labour and wages of all of us depends on it—no exceptions.
our growth burst has lasted, (to date) 316 years and 3 months. just how long it will go on is anybody’s guess—but we certainly wont be mining asteroids to prolong it, or uploading ourselves into another dimension or whatever……that really is the stuff of ridiculosity.
and why i thought it was time to try and write a book about it (shameless plug here)….order yours now before Speilberg buys the copyright.
https://www.whsmith.co.uk/Product/Norman-Pagett/The-Iron-Men-of-Shropshire–How-They-Put-the-World-to-Work/11935298
” were limited by biology”
Numbers too by not enough food. Clark talks about in the paper I have quoted several times.
Before the industrial revolution, slow food productivity improvements were countered by population growth. What happened in the industrial revolution was that productivity got ahead of population growth. That increased wealth and wealth eventually reduced the birth rate.
food is a product of biological function—it varies from place to place, but that truth always holds.
increased productivity increases wages…..that bring more purchasing power, which buys more/better food and thus increases infant survival rates and support for old people.
reliable contraception reduced the birth rate especially as parents became reluctant to dissipate modest prosperity among increasing numbers of chlidren.
“which buys more/better food”
Not if the food does not exist, famines and following epidemics were a feature of those times. The thing which ended historical famines was the railroad.
like bengal 1944
ukraine 1935
china 1950s—i think
famines are generall man made
The usual issue is that the poor cannot afford the available food.
” poor cannot afford”
Right. The children of the poor starve or die in the epidemics because they are malnourished. The children of the wealthy (and the genes of the wealthy) survive. Enough generations of this change the average psychological characteristics of the population per Clark.
the result of turning the planet into cash
“famines are generall man made”
Historical famines before railroad were mostly caused by weather. One like the 536 event would cause a world wide famine even today.
Made from iron.
“need lots of heat”
Even more you need a reducing atmosphere to get the oxygen out of iron ore. Over half the iron made in India does not go through a blast furnace.
I wonder what fraction of the economy is now based on iron and steel production?
all our modern economy is based on ferrous metal
remove ferrous metal and we do not have an economy
if you can suggest a critical product that does not require ferrous metal in its production—i would be interested .—or just about any product for that matter
Aircraft have very little ferrous metal in them. The structure is mostly aluminum, landing gear and engines are mostly titanium. The only use of iron I can think of is in the magnetic parts of generators and motors.
keith
i opened that trapdoor for you—you obliged me by falling into it. As I knew you would.
how do you think all the parts of an aircraft actually get made?
and how are they assembled?
And where do they get made—In a wattle and daub shed with a thatched roof??
(or anything else for that matter)
“how do you think all the parts of an aircraft actually get made?”
Yes, I have installed equipment in an aerospace factory. Have you been in one?
“In a wattle and daub shed with a thatched roof??”
SpaceX built early StarShips outside or in a tent.
Come to think about it, I have been in the Willow Run B 17 factory. As I recall, it was all wood.
aircraft together with the building it’s made in
all done without the use of ferrous metal tools
i would have liked to see that
“without the use of ferrous”
There are places which forbid the use of any steel tools because of sparks.
still struggling Keith?
The construction tooling for aircraft aluminium framing does not have a spark safety issue.
which you know perfect well
“wont be mining asteroids to prolong it,”
We could, but we probably will not. And there are other materials such as carbon that will replace almost every use of iron
To say that average wealth has not improved from the Industrial Revolution is not something I would expect from your background.
He didn’t say that. It’s pretty disingenuous of you to pretend to think he did.
He does that a lot guest2.
Norman did state (or wrote) “technology will not and cannot bring an increase in general average income per capita—ever.”
Keith deduced from that statement that Norman must agree with the statement that “average wealth has not improved from the Industrial Revolution.”
Indeed, how could Norman not agree with the second statement if he agrees with the first?
I think Keith has a fair point there.
Of course, people who are in need of remedial English teaching and Dunning-Kruger types may not agree with my assessment.
That is demographics which is at its base biology. It also has problems with sunk capital not fully depreciated which means the society is worth less than book value.
Dennis L.
Infrastructure….another invisible …well rather we turn a blinds eye to….
This Railroad Could Cripple America’s Economy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6yLzfNTrULg
@brandoncolston8294
2 days ago
Well with 617,000 bridges overall in the U.S. you can imagine how minimal the budget is for each of them
@RealParrotclaw
1 day ago (edited)
Im a Locomotive Engineer for a major Class 1 in Canada and I can tell you that crumbling rail infrastructure isnt an isolated issue. Much of our track was laid nearly a hundred years ago or more, so its crumbling and the profit based mind set of executives mean bandaid fixes as cheaply as possible, while we run more trains, longer trains, heavier trains.
When this all unravels it’s going to be the Greatest Show on Earth
It takes fossil fuels and other materials to keep updating rail road infrastructure. In the US, it is primarily used to transport goods, rather than people. Those doing the funds allocation don’t see how important keeping railroad infrastructure up to date, including bridges, is. If AI is trying to do allocation, I am sure the allocation would be even worse!
Eventually, major crashes are likely to take place. As long as it is only goods, people will not pay very much attention, I am afraid. But it will interfere with supply chains.
“If AI is trying to do allocation, I am sure the allocation would be even worse!”
Might be, depends on what the Ais were told to optimize and for how long.
“This Railroad Could Cripple America’s Economy”
From a story I wrote crossing the singularity.
In one of the last acts of governments before the politicians abandoned the physical world, the rail system was transferred to NARF, North American Rail Fans.
Like most legislation passed around that time it was suspiciously well written, especially if you didn’t read it closely. NARF discovered the wording encouraged it to replace tracks that had been ripped out and even build new tracks. Like other historically oriented organizations it didn’t loose a high percentage of members in the crash–perhaps because playing with their giant toys had much the same attraction as the uploaded life.
Of course the rail fans were aided by nearly unthinkable amounts of largely invisible automation. Without the aid of nanomachines [4] similar to those that mothballed the cities, it would have been impossible for a few thousand rail fans to maintain 300,000 miles of track from Mexico to Alaska.
Nanomachines and their cousins–up to track alignment machines the size of a locomotive–maintained the track to perfection, aligning it, rot proofing the ties, maintaining the bridges, inhibiting brush and trees from growing into the right of way, making certain the rails did not crack, even making welded rail out of clickity-clack (bolted) track.
And, of course, repairing the engines and cars.
[We are not there, but this word is in sight–for some of us.]
Story already written. I think its title was Atlas Shrugged.
“was Atlas Shrugged.”
I don’t think Ayn Rand wrote anything about the singularity. Though for a fact, the railroads are having problem with organized thief today.
I don’t have the details. At 1.35 cents per kWh, or $13.50 per MWh, a GW of power has an income of $13,500 per hour. 9 hours a day is $5 million a year. For a 5 year return of capital, 25 million cost or twice that if they assume 10 years.
An intermittent solar powered GW is close to worthless. You always ignore that part.
“ignore that part.”
I have proposed a way to convert intermittent solar into fuel which you have been complaining about. I don’t see how you can make such a clearly untrue statement.
Keith, it’s often envy or jealousy that makes people make such clearly untrue statements.
Not everyone is as smart or as sincere as you are (notwithstanding some serious blind spots).
Some people will resent your obvious talent, imagination, generosity of spirit, genius, and ability to perform algebra, calculus and work with sines, cosines. tangents, and logarithms, while they are stymied by long division.
Professional jealousy makes other people crazy
When they think you’ve got something that they don’t have
What they don’t understand is it’s just not easy
To cover it all and stand where you stand
Listen to this story
“DITCH the winter chill” and “expand your horizons in sunny South East Queensland!” reads one newspaper advert, luring New Zealand’s health-care workers towards a new life in Australia. “Warmer days and higher pays”, enthused another, last year, from the Australian state’s police service. Kiwis who chose “policing in paradise” could look forward to 300 days of annual sunshine and a A$20,000 ($12,500) relocation bonus, it declared.
For many New Zealanders that is an easy sell. They are leaving their country in record numbers. Almost 129,000 residents emigrated last year—40% above the pre-pandemic average for this century. It is not a case of last in, first out. The majority of those leaving were New Zealanders, rather than immigrants returning home, creating a net loss of 47,000 citizens.
New Zealand, though a settler country, is also shaped by emigration. Its small economy and relative lack of opportunity have long driven young New Zealanders towards what they call the “overseas experience”, fanning fears of brain drain. Proportionate to its population of 5.3m, it has one of the largest diasporas in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Emigration ebbs and flows: the last spike occurred in 2012, near the end of the financial crisis. As the pandemic raged, many expats returned to hunker behind closed borders, but the outflow quickly resumed. Recently, New Zealand has been in a rut. The economy is in recession and unemployment has risen. Outgoing Kiwis grumble about costly housing and a crime surge.
Unlike most, they have an alternative when times get tough: they are free to live and work in Australia, and vice versa. Almost 15% of them are now based “across the ditch”. It is not just that Australia’s economy has weathered the cost-of-living crisis better. The income gap between the pair has been growing for decades. Adjusted for purchasing power, Australia’s per person GDP is about a third higher than New Zealand’s. Its pensions are more generous, and its centre-left Labor government has made it easier for Kiwis to get passports and benefits. By comparison, New Zealand is “a sinking boat”, says one transplant on a Facebook group for Kiwi expats. Australia is “best for [an] easy life”, writes another.
In the past, fears of brain drain have proved overblown. Young expats have generally returned, and governments have offset losses by letting in immigrants from countries such as India and China. The result was a “brain exchange”, says Paul Spoonley, a sociologist at New Zealand’s Massey University. But there is a risk of that changing, he argues. First, he says, it is no longer just young New Zealanders who are leaving, but more experienced professionals and extended families. Second, inward immigration is now slowing. After a post-pandemic spike, it plunged by around a third last year, though the population is still growing. Christopher Luxon, the prime minister, says the solution is “to build a long-term proposition where New Zealanders actually choose to stay”. But that has not proved easy. In 2009 John Key, then prime minister, set out to “match Australia by 2025”. In Wellington, the capital, some now joke that a more realistic goal would be to “beat Fiji by 2050”.
But Australia has a massive housing crisis, one of the worst in the world.
how could that be? australia is almost all empty land.
Not enough being built and nobody can afford them anyway.
Too much “socialism”
Those that “Vote” live near the Tram tracks
go set up home in the empty parts
see how long you last
(eyerolling time)
Right. No water supply for a start.
pipes exist and they move water large distances
obviously i’m not suggesting a single individual move out to the boonies, but rather that the government organize and create infrastructure to facilitate growth in more areas
and yes i realize it’s a road to nowhere on the long term
you covered my reply to your comment in your last sentence.
you can’t create towns without economic purpose
Both individual homes and rental units seem to be in short supply.
Investor’s have a tax advantage if they buy and hold.
Zoning is overly restrictive. Means only high-priced homes can be built, with big lots. But residents don’t want extra building aded.
Developers will only build if the economics works out. Inflation is a problem. Lots of insolvencies, with higher interest rates.
Government is mostly trying to address problem by making homes more affordable; it doesn’t add to supply.
The grass always looks greener, elsewhere.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday, that had an advertisement encouraging USians to move to NZ if they had credentials in “early childhood education” or primary school teaching. They were offering a $10k relocation bonus. Doesn’t seem like a very difficult or rarefied profession, so… ???
Vacliv Smil-a few yrs ago-To get 1 PWh/year of electricity you need to install about 450 GW worth of solar panels. You need dozens of years to accomplish such task.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/understanding-solar-energy
sure looks like that is trend for a while. Figure 3 on coal will probably set the floor on PV cost or is that recession?
I’m not sure why these greenies focus so much on expensive batteries. Having a diverse energy mix seems good for the short term.
Pay more, better than lights out.
Solar panels are not much different to having nothing but much more expensive.
LMAO
” 450 GW worth of solar panels. You need dozens of years to accomplish such task. ”
One project installed 2 GW in 200 days. Call it about 4 GW/year. About 100 projects would install that much in a year. Lots of other problems like panel production and transmission lines and what do you do with the power, so a dozen years might be a good estimate.
Assuming the supplies needed to make the solar panels are available, and companies can make money by making solar panels.
As the Asian hordes are about to overwhelm the West, people like Trump try to appease the Hordes by offering concessions, namely throwing Europe and Ukraine to the Hordes while maintaining its positions in the Middle East and Japan.
The Cornucopians here have to resort to unworkable and increasingly bizarre plans to cope with the reality, like some people in the 3rd reich who thought their wonder weapons would save them from the Soviet hordes.
Technocracy won’t save the west. Who formed the majority of STEM students in the last two decades? African-Americans? Hispanics?
Just because an Asian eats hamburgers and lobsters does not make them Western.
There are a lot of Asian actuaries, also. Many fewer African-Americans and Hispanics.
In my next life I would like to be born as a bond trader.— James Carville, Democrat election strategist who planned the twice election of Clinton. Stock markets are all smoke and mirrors, it is the bond market that matters.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/european-chaos-back-eu-leaders-fail-agree-aid-ukraine-german-debt-bonanza-blows-pigs-yields
I would agree that the interest rate needed on debt is all important. Governments, banks, insurance companies, and pension funds are all funded, to a significant extent, by loans or by bonds (which are equivalent to loans). If the interest rate goes up, the value of long term bonds goes down. Short term bonds are affected, as well, but not to the same extent.
From 1981 to 2021, interest rates generally fell. This buoyed up the value of bonds. Indirectly, it buoyed up the ability of governments to borrow. It allowed pension funds to think that they might have a possibility of paying people what had been promised. It helped hold down insurance company rates, even on lines such as homeowners and private passenger auto insurance. It allowed annuities to pay out well.
Indirectly, the falling interest rates buoyed up stock markets as well, especially in the US. Governments could borrow more money, and prop up their own economy with extra funds to give out to citizens, and with subsidies for new industries with very questionable profitability. Borrowing money was inexpensive. Companies could cheaply borrow money to build wind turbines and solar panels, or new oil wells. They could also borrow money to build factories, inexpensively.
Once interest rates start to rise, there is the danger of “all hell breaking loose.” The monthly payments for buying a home rise. The cost of borrowing money to invest in the stock market rises. Governments discover the cost of servicing the debt on their balance sheets is a whole lot higher than what it was previously. (What will Japan do, if it starts having to pay higher interest rates on all of its debt? And all of the other highly indebted governments around the world? Raise taxes or lower pension payments?)
Falling interest rates can’t last forever, because fossil fuel extraction reaches limits. At some point, more investment at lower interest rates stops being as beneficial. Instead, part of the debt-based investment leads to inflation, rather than additional goods and services. This is what we have been experiencing recently. With higher inflation, interest rates rise because consumers cannot really afford higher monthly payments for homes and automobiles
Once the extra subsidy money started flowing into the economy faster than the output of goods and services could rise, the inflation rate rose. Interest rates rose because lenders demanded higher interest rates so that the dollars they were repaid would compensate for inflation. This is what is causing the problem.
The disconnect between money and actual stuff and the lack of understanding among the people or government that there is any disconnect.
It is a strange world we live in.
As an actuary, I could see the problem early on.
I am fairly sure that government officials everywhere are at least somewhat aware of the problem. This is why they are working toward digital currencies, controlled by the government.
Digital currencies will not save us.
When I fly I look down at the city and wonder how it can keep going.
about as long as the plane you are in
“And we have the incompetent, miseducated, sci-fi dreamer technophiles, with their wild untested ideas for Marvel Comics-style rescues of our ecosystems, let loose to play at geoengineering, sucking up billions from the dregs of the world’s fast-failing treasuries to play at making fusion energy, and carbon capture, and AI everything, and quantum everything, and starships to anywhere-but-this-fucked-planet, and carbon (and now water) cap-and-trade offset exchanges (for those that flunked science). Gotta be some salvation in there somewhere! It’s ordained! “?
https://howtosavetheworld.ca/2025/03/01/monkeying-around/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
“I know this coup is confusing. No tanks. No firefights. No dramatic declarations. Just a slow, deliberate erosion of everything you thought was real.
You still vote, but elections don’t decide anything. You still have laws, but they don’t constrain those who rule. The government still exists, but it doesn’t govern. Because the coup already happened.”?
https://heyslick.substack.com/p/the-technate-of-north-america?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Technocracy, proposed by King Hubbert, is actually the brainchild of Plato, who thought only super geniuses should be allowed to rule. It was modified by Aristotle, who expected his pupil Alexander the Great to implement it, which he did to some degree before he died.
It is better than rule by morons in most countries
It makes no real difference. Entropy continues to happen regardless.
This is a very interesting article. Some of the points from it:
Later:
The article refers to an obscure book, available in PDF form. Alexander Dugin’s The Fourth Political Theory.
This would indeed be a move toward greater complexity and less energy consumption, per capita. It would try to pick out winners and losers. I would hope it doesn’t succeed. But something similar, to a lesser extent, is already in place in China.
Germany is re-arming itself and other European Countries are worried for that, thinking what happened in the past.
But what should raise serious concern and also great laugh is that Germany is re-arming iself against Russia, while who blowed its gas pipelines (making its economy to collapse) were US and Ukraine…
😀 😀 😀
https://www.msn.com/it-it/notizie/other/la-germania-si-riarma-pericolosamente/ar-AA1BhY9V
Germany is not rearming itself. It’s borrowing money and talking about rearming itself. It lacks the resources to do so.
Good point!
Come now, Haven’t the Germans learned anything about messing with Russia the last time around? Like Norman pointed out Europe was rebuilt with cheap energy and resources…this time around , it won’t be rebuilt at all…
Man, the ideologues here have learned nothing. Germany was a top 2 producer of coal in the 1930s. It is safe to say that it is not top 2 now, or top 20. It’s the economy stupid, and learning has got nothing to do with it. The Mongols did not learn. Trump has not learned. No one ever learns because the physics forces are what they are.
So. Drb, we are no smarter than yeast?
Let me answer that for you..🍺…but much more clever .
BTW, the lack of coal didn’t stop Napoleon from doing a tour of Russia the first time around…
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-story-behind-vintage-Hitlers-Europe-Tour-t-shirt?top_ans=48619066
Yes, no smarter. Napoleon still got stopped by a lack of resources (due to logistics in his case).
napoleons army ran on horsepower
horses need energy input
they get that from hay
frozen ground doesnt produce hay
nothing complicated about it
hitler made the same mistake—lots of tanks etc—but too much backup logidtics depended on horsepower—he ran into the same problem
Didn’t Napoleon realize that an army rain on its stomach and offered up a prize to the one that could come with an idea to preserve food …wolla ..
Bottle preserves…..still didn’t help them Frenchmen against General Winter…
Best General in the Russian army
That’s correct. It’s about how much mineable coakeable coal you have in the ground, as simple as that. If you have it, you can kick anyone’s ass who doesn’t.
The Western Allies tore Silesia from Germany and gave it to Poland, which called it Slask.
The Poles have a knack of turning everything they touch into shit , and Slask is no different. The city of Breslau, which the Poles Wroclaw, was later sold to the LG Group, a Korean conglomerate, because the Poles were unable to maintain it.
Germany did beat Russia in the Great War
it was wrong for Woody Wilson to rob its gains in the east just so the Poles and Czechs, whose contribution to civilization are nonexistent (Copernicus was German speaking and not that Polish) , could have their own countries which turned into shit immediately.
The Czech Republic isn’t all that terrible surely.
I think the individual car along with distant suburban housing developments to be the most wasteful enterprise of human advancement.
Be that as it may, the Electric Viking channel on YouTube is on the cutting edge of EV techno development and his latest clip just blew me away on what’s in the pipeline for EVs …
BYD’s Game-Changing 30,511 RPM Motor Crushes Tesla – Here’s Why!
13,900 views · 4 hours ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6FG-qehCI4M
But someone commented
@FarmerBoBonYoutube
2 hours ago (edited)
I dont see the need fo a high rpm motor like that in any electric vehicle. Your wheels can only turn that many rpm. So now you need to start gearing down and then you loose the entire reason why you have a high torque low rpm motor without the need for a gearbox, which if you have a gearbox as everyone knows is more maintenance again.. So no biggy there and personally i
I’m just impressed by the R&D of the Chinese….
On Tuesday, Intel started its much anticipated new chapter when Lip-Bu Tan, a longtime chip executive, took the reins as chief executive.
Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger unveils the Gaudi 3 accelerator at Intel Vision, April 9, 2024. Credit: Intel
For Intel’s board and investors, Tan represents something of a savior: Intel’s previous CEO Patrick Gelsinger resigned last December after the company posted a $16.6 billion quarterly loss — the biggest in Intel’s history. Tan, who was previously chief executive of Cadence Design Systems, a chip design software company, himself resigned from Intel’s board last summer, having privately expressed frustration about the company’s contract manufacturing business. His appointment is seen by many as a necessary antidote to Gelsinger’s slow pace. After naming Tan CEO on March 12, Intel’s stock rose 25 percent, though it has since tapered a bit.
But while many industry insiders view Tan as Intel’s best chance to restore America’s chipmaking capability at a critical time, he is also a surprising choice because of his longstanding and prolific investments in the semiconductor industry in China, America’s chief rival.
An excerpt from a Walden press release containing comments from Lip-Bu Tan on SMIC’s 20th anniversary, July 17, 2020. Credit: Walden International
Tan’s venture capital firm, San Francisco-based Walden International, has made around 140 investments in Chinese chip companies since its founding in 1987, including in Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment (AMEC), two companies at the forefront of China’s efforts to make its own cutting-edge chips and in the crosshairs of U.S. officials.1 Tan himself sat on the board of directors of SMIC for almost two decades and on the board of AMEC for 15 years. A Walden managing director, Tony Zhang Yu, continues to sit on AMEC’s board, suggesting that Walden may still hold a stake in the company.
Walden no longer holds a stake in SMIC, but WireScreen shows that, as of December 2024, its funds were invested in Shanghai Biren Technology, a prominent would-be rival to Nvidia that is on the Commerce Department’s export control list. According to WireScreen, funds managed by Walden hold stakes in at least two other U.S.-blacklisted companies, Shenzhen Intellifusion Technologies Co. and Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technology. Its limited partners also include at least nine state entities.
It is China all the way .
https://www.thewirechina.com/2025/03/21/intels-surprising-savior-lip-bu-tan/
Interesting and an example of why it is a waste of effort to attempt to keep hi-tech out of the hands of the Chinese.
It sets up an effective excuse for Intel going down the drain if the US gov forces Lip-Bu Tan out.
We live in a strange world. The people with real power seem to have their feet in both China and the US, at least when it comes to technology.
Caitlin Johnstone latest blog post says the Trump is just as much a warmonger as the rest of the bunch. She linked an article where it appears a war with Iran is already in the planning stages at yep it includes nuclear weapons, how nice.
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-nuclear-war-plan-for-iran
US Aircraft Carriers are currently cruising on over to the Middle East. It looks like something is going on. I keep reading that they are sitting ducks for the new hyper-weapons. That would be an epic false flag… if you happen to have an ally who does that sort of thing.
I wonder if the rumoured Iranian plasma weapons would be able to reach them. Regardless, aircraft carriers aren’t the force they used to be.
Aircraft carriers according to military experts such as retired Lt Col Douglas McGregor are sitting ducks with the way 21st century warfare is being conducted via drones. The Russians have advanced equipement to destroy ships.
Yes! I have been saying this for a long time! That and deflation due to recession/depression buckle up
” The Russians ”
The Ukrainians have destroyed Russian ships.
Aircraft carriers can’t be used against a country like Iran and the planes would be shot down too. There’s no way the US can afford a war like that.
yes, it will have to be nuclear.
They don’t have enough functioning nuclear warheads or missiles left.
Best news of the day. Not a religious person but I pray that you are right. It is only a hypothesis of course but a credible one.
In liberal Canada, I am doubtful this has any chance of being effective:
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/energy-ceos-ask-canadian-party-leaders-declare-energy-crisis-reduce-oil-and-gas-regulations
Energy CEOs Ask Canadian Party Leaders To Declare ‘Energy Crisis’, Reduce Oil And Gas Regulations
The CEOs, who represent the 10 largest oil and gas companies and four largest pipeline companies in Canada, suggest several measures to support oil and natural gas investment and “remove the barriers we have imposed on ourselves over time.”
“By declaring a Canadian energy crisis and key projects in the ‘national interest’ the federal government will be able to use all its available emergency powers to ensure that the dramatic regulatory restructuring required to expand the oil and natural gas sector is rapidly achieved,” they said in the March 19 letter.
The letter was addressed to Prime Minister Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.
The CEOs are calling for regulatory simplification by revising or abolishing the Impact Assessment Act and oil tanker ban on B.C.’s north coast, which they said are “impeding development.” They are also requesting a reduction in regulatory timelines to allow approval of major projects within six months of application, as well as the provision of loan guarantees for indigenous communities to ensure they benefit from the development.
The letter also calls for Ottawa’s emissions cap for the sector to be eliminated. The Liberal government announced a cap-and-trade scheme in 2023 to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, which the Alberta government has opposed.
Additionally, the letter calls for the carbon tax to be repealed to allow provincial governments to “set more suitable carbon regulations.”
well, the EU is looking for ways to finance war. and there are some candidates: privatization of public infrastructure, but that of course has already been done in places like Italy. Elimination of green programs (bingo!). and using people’s savings as collateral.
They can print as much money as they want, it won’t make any difference.
Collapse with war is kinder to the elites than collapse without war, where blame can be attributed. so they need war, meaning they need collateral. If you need to get money out of there before it is too late let me know, although I will be ready in a few months to help others.
Patrick Lancaster has been the eyes and ears of the world in the Ukraine/Russian conflict. He’s in Kursk covering the war. He gives an update how the Russians performed a surprise attack on the Ukies by tunneling below Ukrainian defensive lines, using gas pipes. The Ukies are getting overwhelmed by Russian forces.
It sounds like Russia has recently made major headway in taking Ukrainian territory back. Many deaths of Ukrainian soldiers are reported.
yeah, there were 50-60,000, and now there are 2000. It is possible that the Russians were surprised by the speed of the collapse and because they play it safe most escaped.