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I have said in recent posts that the world economy is hitting resource limits of many kinds. These limits include oil, coal, and other sources of energy, including uranium, used as a fuel for nuclear power generation. Because of these limits, the world economy is being forced to shrink back. In my opinion, the direction it is headed in is toward smaller, mostly less-advanced, more independent, economies. This change is also likely to lead to various types of financial collapse for many of today’s Advanced Economies.
Per-capita consumption of these early used energy sources has shrunk since peaking in 2007.
Most of us remember the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. With a declining supply of what used to be inexpensive energy resources, many economies have done poorly. Many of the wealthier countries have papered over their problems with an increasing amount of debt, but the limits to this added-debt approach are now being hit. It is the debt problem that leads to financial collapse.
In this post, I will elaborate on these ideas.
[1] Countries that are today’s Advanced Economies (members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)) are likely to fare poorly in this coming contraction.
The Advanced Economies include the US, most of Europe, Japan, Australia, and a few other countries. Their per-capita consumption of oil, coal and nuclear electricity resources has been shrinking significantly since about 2005. The year 2005 was approximately the peak of “conventional” oil supplies. More oil has become available since this date, but this oil is generally more expensive to extract.
[2] Energy consumption for the Other than Advanced Economies is hitting limits, too.
The Other than Advanced Economies were able to grow in their per-capita use of these three types of fuels between 2001 and about 2013, but since then, their per-capita quantity of these fuels has leveled off. The big impetus for growth was China joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. World demand for inexpensive finished goods empowered China to start extracting coal and other minerals in quantity. But coal mines deplete, just as oil fields deplete, leading to the flat per-capita availability of energy supply for the Other than Advanced Economies since about 2013.
[3] With these changing patterns for the two groups, one potential problem is conflict.
The Other than Advanced Economies have figured out that they are creating a huge share of the world’s goods, but their per-capita use of energy is much lower than that of the Advanced Economies. Why should the Advanced Economies get so much of the finished products available from the world’s resources, when most of the work (and the pollution) has taken place in the Other than Advanced Economies? I would expect this type of thinking to take place in China, Russia, India, Iran and other countries in this group. These countries believe that they could get along perfectly well without the Advanced Economies and their high usage of energy.
[4] With these changing patterns, a second potential problem is financial collapse, especially for the Advanced Economies.
Each economy can be encouraged to grow in two different ways: (1) Through more debt, indirectly adding to more “demand” for finished goods, or (2) Through added supply of inexpensive energy products. Adding debt to pull the economy forward seems to work well if there is not a problem with hitting resource extraction limits. Once an economy starts hitting resource extraction limits, however, the added debt partly adds inflation, rather than finished goods and services, to the output mix. Thus, the debt approach no longer works well.
The world as a whole is now hitting resource extraction limits. Not only do individual citizens become unhappy with the higher inflation level, but investors demand higher interest rates for lending. This higher interest cost becomes a huge problem for the Advanced Economies that already have very high debt levels.
A recently issued report by the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows what is happening in the US.
In a sense, the reports that the CBO publishes are “Best Case” scenarios. The reports are optimistic in two different ways: (1) They assume that no more added-debt bail-out programs will be needed, as were used several times in recent years, and (2) They assume that inflation will quickly fall to 2%, so that interest rates can fall quickly and stay lower from now on.
Even with these assumptions, the results are disturbing. Note that on Figure 3 (in both charts shown), the especially significant increase in debt starts around 2008. This is when the US, and likely most of the other Advanced Economies, started to hide their energy problems by using more debt stimulus.
Even when the most optimistic possible estimate of the future “primary deficit” is made, and when the most optimistic possible forecast of future “net interest” outlays is made, there is still a huge build-up of debt. The implication is that very large tax increases will be needed to maintain current programs. Even with these huge tax increases, the problem will get worse and worse, year after year. There is a need to cut back on existing government programs to avoid adding the need to pay even more interest on debt in the future.
[5] If an economy is forced to shrink back, debts of all kinds become more difficult to repay with interest.
Any economy needs to grow, in order to repay debt with interest. A growing economy has a surplus with which to pay interest.
On the other hand, a shrinking economy tends to lead to major debt defaults. Leveraged debt is especially likely to cause problems.
The CBO is now forecasting that the US government could run into debt limit problems as soon as July 2025. Perhaps the US government will find ways around the current apparent shortfall, but the issue of the government not being able to meet its debt obligations without major tax increases or reductions in programs still looms in the background.
I expect that within the next three months, we will start to see loan defaults of some type, such as defaults by hedge funds. Governments will want to step in, but they will be limited by their own financial problems. Defaults on many other kinds of debts are likely to start taking place, as well. If inflation rates rise, and interest rates rise with them, defaults on many kinds of debt could start taking place.
[6] It seems likely that nearly all the Advanced Economies will have similar problems.
The Advanced Economies have tended to offer their citizens many benefits, including pensions for the elderly and some type of healthcare coverage. Many of them have financially supported what they are hoping will be energy types that will take the place of the energy types they seem to be losing.
If an economic system is not growing as fast as it has in the past (because of low energy consumption growth, and lack of debt stimulus), or is actually shrinking, these economies are likely to face a choice between either cutting back on promised programs or raising taxes. Governments will find themselves needing to cut back on programs that they have promised to their citizens, or, alternatively, they will need to default on their debt.
[7] Adding to the problems of the Advanced Economies will be the issue of goods and services needing to be made closer to home.
Without enough oil for all purposes, a logical way to cut back is to use less oil for international shipping. This would tend to reverse the trend toward globalization that started many years ago.
Figure 4 shows that the US started shifting heavy industry to other countries with better supplies of oil as early as 1974. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 gave another reason (or excuse?) for shifting heavy industry to countries with less expensive, more abundant, energy supplies.
I expect that in the next few years, the Advanced Economies are likely to need to move industrial production back closer to home, to save on limited world oil supplies. This will be difficult to do, especially in a timeframe of less than 20 to 30 years. New mines will be needed for minerals, but the lead times on these are very long, typically 13 years or more. New processing plants for these minerals will likely be needed as well, potentially adding to the lead time. Whole new, short supply chains will be required. Finally, goods and services manufactured closer to home will need to be transported to citizens, sometimes in new ways.
Many of today’s manufactured goods require imports of minerals from China or Russia. To the extent that specific minerals from these countries can no longer be imported, additional closer sources will be needed. This will further add to manufacturing difficulties.
[8] It will not be surprising if governments, or parts of governments, collapse.
History indicates that when civilizations reach resource limits, governments tend to fail. A recent example of this was the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991, after an extended period of low oil prices. The Soviet Union was a major exporter of oil, and the low oil prices (plus other internal problems) led to the inability to repay promised debt. The separate republics within the Soviet Union remained, so the people were not left completely without a government. I expect something similar may happen elsewhere in the future.
[9] History suggests that even in a financial collapse, the entire economy will not fall apart, all at once.
Incremental changes are likely to take place. Governments are likely to try to make cutbacks. Financial investments are likely to do especially poorly in the next several years, and high-paying jobs seem likely to disproportionately disappear. The economy will no longer be able support as many specialists as are working today, in many industries.
The electricity supply likely won’t fall off all at once; instead, electricity will become increasingly intermittent, with some areas having more outages than others. Diesel and gasoline will perhaps be available, at least part of the time.
New car sales in the Advanced Economies are likely to fall very soon, leaving citizens mostly dealing with used cars, and the difficulty of finding appropriate replacement parts for used cars. The problem of “empty shelves” in stores is likely to return and get worse.
There will likely be an increasing divide between the relative handful of citizens who are doing well, and the many others. In fact, we are already seeing a trend in this direction in the US. But many of today’s big spenders are likely to be knocked down in any coming economic contraction.
[10] Perhaps the good news in this contraction is that major international wars may not be a problem.
Instead, civil wars and local skirmishes may be the order of the day. There may not be resources available to fight long-distance wars, even if many citizens might favor this approach. Wars give an excuse for more debt and more income for soldiers, so they are always popular in troubled economic times. But a lack of materials for making military supplies (including insufficient sources of antimony) and the inability to raise debt financing may impede efforts.
[11] What should we expect in the future?
The US and many other Advanced Economies are likely heading into a worse and longer lasting financial crisis than the 2008 crisis, starting as soon as this summer. The problem will likely not start out as a full financial collapse. Instead, various leveraged borrowers will encounter difficulties. Gradually, the finances and very structures of many government organizations are likely to be threatened. Some government structures that we currently depend upon may disappear.
How the long term will unfold is unclear. We know that ecosystems often operate in wide cycles, and that economic systems are a kind of ecosystem. This relationship suggests the possibility of a later renewal.
Furthermore, Eric Chaisson, in Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature, points out that there is a very long term trend in the universe toward more complex and more energy-dense structures. His analysis seems to suggest the possibility of evolution toward a different kind of more complex, energy-dense economy ahead.
In this ever-changing world, there may very well be opportunities for personal success. It will likely be a time of major readjustment, however. Perhaps quite a few people will be able to do well if they can keep their eyes open for opportunities to prosper, making the best possible use (or reuse) of resources that are available.
Appendix: Background on Oil, Coal and Electricity from Uranium
Oil Background
Oil was at one time a very inexpensive fuel, even when adjusted for inflation to 2023’s price level.
With the low prices that were available before 1970, oil could be used widely. It could be used to create electricity, and roads could be paved. Many people could afford cars who could not afford them previously.
In 1973, oil prices soared (Appendix: Exhibit 2). Appendix: Figure 3 shows that between 1981 and 2021, falling interest rates helped to make higher oil prices more tolerable. More debt could be added, and with lower interest rates, monthly payments could stay low.
Appendix: Exhibit 2 also shows that a big part of the problem since 2021 is that while debt levels are now high, interest rates will not stay down. This means that the cost of drilling new wells is now higher, and the general cost of investment in the economy is higher.
Appendix: Exhibit 1, indicates that, since 1991, the greatest per-capita quantity of oil that customers were able to afford occurred in the 2004 to 2007 period. This was a time in which home mortgage debt stimulus was used to keep the US economy growing; it was the time of Alan Greenspan and the NINJA (No Income, No Jobs, No Assets) home loans. The resulting sub-prime US housing bubble is reported to have lasted from 2003 to 2007. This sub-prime debt bubble is at least part of what led to the 2008 financial crisis.
The high US demand for oil as a result of the home mortgage debt bubble of 2003 to 2007 helped world oil prices to rise and consumption to rise. More recently, per-capita world oil consumption has been down, especially in 2020. Oil supply has not regained the 2004 to 2007 level, or even the 2018 level, in the most recent estimates.
Oil extraction has traditionally been a huge source of tax dollars, especially for oil exporters, even when oil was sold at relatively low prices. Anything that replaces oil needs to fill this role as well, because the economy needs energy (and taxes from energy) to operate. This tax revenue is a way to share what is sometimes called the “surplus energy” of the oil with the government of a country. At currently high extraction costs, this surplus energy benefit is largely disappearing.
Coal Background
Appendix: Figure 1 shows that the fuel in second largest supply has been coal. Its supply grew greatly after 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization. This growth in coal supply did not last long because coal that was cheapest-to-extract and closest-to-markets quickly depleted. Appendix: Figure 1 shows the peak in per capita coal supply was hit in 2011.
Coal helped start the industrial revolution. By 1700, it grew to be the dominant fuel in England. Coal gradually replaced firewood and was used in many new ways.
Appendix: Figure 5 shows the ways coal has recently been used. It is used directly in industry, besides being burned for electricity.
Nuclear Background
Appendix: Figure 1 shows that the peak in per-capita nuclear energy production occurred in 2001. But at one time there had been great hope for nuclear power.
It was known as early as the 1950s that fossil fuel supplies were likely to face depletion issues as soon as 2050. Physicist M. King Hubbert was of the belief that electricity from uranium would be too cheap to meter. He also believed that the quantity of electricity produced could be very high. Neither of these things has come to pass.
Early nuclear reactors were built to avoid problems that engineers could see needed to be avoided. This approach led to accidents: Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011). It became clear that design upgrades were needed, raising costs and lengthening timelines for building reactors.
In theory, there is quite a bit of uranium to be extracted, but getting the price up high enough, for long enough, has been a problem. The World Nuclear Association shows this chart of production through 2022. Production in recent years has been lower than consumption.
Fortunately, there has been a supply of nuclear warheads which could be down blended to provide uranium for nuclear reactors. This supply of nuclear warheads is now close to being exhausted. If nuclear power is to be expanded, more uranium will be needed.
Other details have proven problematic as well. In theory, the spent fuel can be reprocessed and used as fuel for reactors, but in practice, this process seems to be costly and time-consuming to set up.
Another issue is the high cost of building new nuclear reactors, and the need for debt to fund this cost. Clearly, the higher the interest rate, the higher the cost. Not many organizations can fund these high costs, in advance of actually getting electricity out and delivered to customers.
In general, to keep costs low for customers, the sale of electricity is priced at the margin. In many places, electricity from wind turbines and solar panels is given “priority.” As a result, wholesale electricity prices tend to be too low for electricity from nuclear power plants, driving them out of business. The price level is certainly not high enough to pay high taxes to governments. Such a margin would be needed if nuclear were to have a chance of truly replacing the benefits we have had in the past from inexpensive-to-produce oil.
Shale Boss “It’s a bloodbath. Slash rigs NOW”
https://x.com/chigrl/status/1909995715947884685
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_j7UkuzJTU
From the OilyStuff front page.
A 2 minute time lapse of all the stuff needed to make a fracking well happen. It’s down about 80% after about three years, and not worth operating at less than $70 a barrel…. which is where we are at right now.
A total of about 17,000 wells like this was drilled in Eagle Ford alone. Long gone are the days of just digging a hole and having oil splurge out.
There isn’t a single country that turns a profit at $60 (IIRC)…. which is what we are looking at… dead ahead… like an iceberg…. about to make the night a bit more interesting.
Market back up… Russia and other oil producers are taking a beating that I don’t think will be over for some time to come
It is not just US production that has a problem. Russia clearly has a problem, too. It cannot get enough tax revenue at this price. The government tends to fail. We are in danger of losing a lot of production, worldwide.
But poor people everywhere rejoice because growing food seems to be cheaper, as is transporting food, at least for a little while.
has anyone seen Keith in this session?
I hope he hasn’t accidentally locked himself into his own freezer or we’ll have to wait 500 years for his next comment.
I am on an email distribution list that Keith contributes to regularly. He hasn’t contributed there since mid-March. He is over 80 years old. He may have a health issue.
hope he’s ok
he’s a likeable guy despite our differences
I see Keith just said something to the email group, so he seems to be OK.
That’s basically how I feel about you, Norman.
It worries me sick to imagine you collapsing and lying there crushed under the weight that barbell while attempting an Arnold Schwarzenegger impression.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/09/trump-tariffs-trade-war-china-bonds-ftse-100-markets-latest/
China imposes tariffs of 84% on US goods imports.
That puts them level.
> The measure would take total Chinese duties on US imports introduced during the current Trump administration to 104 per cent, matching the level applied to Beijing by the US president since his inauguration. (FT)
The imposition of restrictive import quotas on certain categories of Chinese goods might be an interesting next step.
The whole propaganda Wurlitzer of those who have benefitted from the hollowing out of American industry is now in action ,trying to keep their gains of the last 30 years.
What is up with that picture of Trump? The top of his head is missing. Looks like the White House press is using AI to touch up photos and it did a bad job. The caption includes:
>> Credit: Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok
Makes me go hmmm .
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/557629/diesel-importers-required-to-increase-reserves-to-28-days
It seems like we heard something similar in California.
Holding more reserves for diesel makes the cost of acquiring and holding diesel higher. It means that there is less diesel for the buyer (net of what is being held in reserve). It is the kind of thing that makes diesel importers quit the marketplace.
Hoarding.
Hmmm. Makes me look up diesel capacity of big semis, the large ones that carry 300 gallons (1363 L). At 6 mpg, that gets maybe 1400 miles (2253 kilometers) depending on the load. Cost here in US @ $3.50 / gallon. For a 1400 mile trip means 1400/6 gallons =233 gallons or @ $817.00 at the pump. I don’t carry that kind of cash. But wait! there’s credit!
It’s just difficult to reconcile the fact that one of those magnificent rigs is useless without fuel.
I wonder for storage and future relocation for my 200 gallon capacity (if it should ever come to pass or even be remotely possible), should I “plan” on switching from bombs to torpedoes (gasoline to diesel)?
https://www.quora.com/How-many-gallons-of-diesel-do-18-wheelers-hold
Another of my senior “duh” moments. At the pump, to fill up a $300 gallon tank at $3.50/gallon= $1,050.
But this is not all usable and your mileage depends on the load, road conditions etc.
My intro to peak oil was by Matt Simmons (RIP) . In one of his talks he gives an example , I will try best as it was 20 years ago .
” During the OPEC embargo of 1973 suddenly the demand of oil went up by 3 mbpd in USA . Why ? A post mortem suggested a change in consumer behavior . There are two type of consumers ;
1. Salaried folks who fill their tank on value of gas . They fill the tank in round figures , say $ 40 or whatsoever . This changed in the embargo . All went to ” FULL ” .
2. The others . They filled their tank when it was 25% full or when the oil gauge light started flashing . They then filled their tank to FULL . This changed in the embargo — they started refueling at first opportunity available .
With the embargo everyone started started to go for all ” FULL ” all the time . Suddenly millions of people driving with a 25% or less decided to go to 100% full . The 3mbpd shifted from the inventory of the oil companies to the gas tanks of the car drivers .”
drb , hoarding — correct but by other means .😁
The fact remains that the Great Reset demanded by the powerful has begun. But not the one they wanted. The external deficits of the USA, France, Great Britain, to name a few, are ultimately unsustainable, and the export positions of the industrial powers are just as unsustainable. No doubt there will be a little more domestic production among the major importers, but the mass of imports will undoubtedly be reduced simply by non-consumption.
In any case, the majority of the populations of these countries are now poor. That is to say, they no longer have a choice over their spending, which is now essentially survival spending, without being able to save.
https://lachute.over-blog.com/French
Patrick Raymond on France and USA . Use translator .
As an atheist, this almost seems like biblical Armageddon. War, famine, pestilence, death. Poor Jesus would probably end up in prison in El Salvador if he decided to show up.
yup
when an economic system has been built up for 2 centuries on a credit of cheap energy
……it cannot be sustained when there is an energy deficit.
sorry to keep banging the same drum—but that the only one there is.
I think that the post you are referring to is this one, which is not Patrick Raymond’s latest post (he writes very often):
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/04/quand-lfi-rejoint-trump.html
So Raymond believes that the rich are disproportionately being affected by the current Great Reset. Certainly the government job cuts disproportionately affect the wealthy. The wealthy are disproportionately the owners of shares of stock, whose value is sinking. And banks will have a terrible time, if interest rates stay high or rise higher.
The reset is indeed different than expected.
I don’t think Trump wants to wreck the financial markets, but instead to destabilize them. The Fed will not listen to Trump, but they will listen to a frantic and destabilized financial market. Trump wants lower interest rates and one certain way to get the Fed to lower interest rates for US citizens is by creating havoc in the markets.
With (Trump forced) lower interest rates :
Who loses? The rich, the hedge funds, the pensions
Who wins ? People with mortgages, car debt, etc.
If Trump can engineer-through-chaos lower interest rates for Americans is that not the same as putting money in their pockets.?
Maybe Trumps tariffs are a “Robin Hood” method of picking up rich folk by the ankles and shaking the coins out of their pockets and into the pockets of the MAGA supporters.
David , he can’t . It is a mirage .
https://indi.ca/trumps-tariff-theory-the-miran-mirage/
Just as Dimitry Orlov has pointed out several times . Copy/paste POB .
Verwimp
Ignored
04/08/2025 at 7:06 pm
Some things, going on in the USA today, remind me of the period preceeding the collapse of the USSR.
– The elderly in power: Are there no younger people? Sure there are, but they await the inevitable crash.
– The “Thruth”, Your Presidents social medium full of lies, resembles the Pravda (Russian for Truth), the state run newspaper in Russia those days.
– The bluff: “Look how great we are!”
– The messages to the own people: “Everything will be fine, just wait for it.” Declaration of a “Transition Period.”
– Reform of government administration, feels like “Perestroika”
– Issues with natural resources
– …
– Short: an empire at the end of its tether.
Good luck. Stay safe.
Many fine insights. No one dares tell people how bad things are.
Orange man is nuts . Cut trade deficits and increase fiscal deficits . $1 Trillion Pentagon budget . How will you make explosives without antimony and nitrates from China and Russia ? Maybe import cow dung from India and mix it with your BS . 🤣
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/record-breaking-1-trillion-defense-budget-trump-hegseth-say-its-happening
On April 20, 2025, the United States may initiate its final steps into authoritarian rule.
That’s the day Donald Trump’s advisory committee is expected to release its findings on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act — a move that would allow him to deploy the military domestically and allow Trump to impose martial law. (San Francisco Chronicle). Given Hegseth and Noem are the main “advisors”, the conclusion is foregone.
https://medium.com/@aletheisthenes/on-april-20th-2025-the-united-states-will-cross-the-point-of-no-return-0aecac04cfc3
Jobs coming back to USA .🤣
https://x.com/i/status/1909674480383017223
It’s the factories that are hiring all the illegal immigrants. Whoops.
It is difficult for me to understand why you are so worked up over these things. It’s not like your constitution or democracy ever worked during our lifetimes.
“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
― Frederic Bastiat
goods were crossing borders when Obama started wars in Syria, Lybia, northern Iraq and Yemen. I keep not getting your logic.
Would you say that the ‘San Francisco Chronicle’ has been a good and objective guide in politics over the last several years?
That’s just the reference for this supposed event. Assuming that’s accurate. I guess we’ll find out.
in 2011 i warned about a fascist potus in 2016
i was screaming warnings about that during the don’s first term…..to me the intent is clear
now we seem to be arriving at the reality of it.
but what do i know?
The word ‘fascism’ has been so overused it is meaningless, so that it say more about the biases of the one using it than about anything else.
nothing really, unless you can relate it to resources. You could have said that there will be peak diesel, peak babies, peak cars, peak cell phones in 2017, and therefore a fascist event a few years after. That would have been more defendable. and indeed in March 2020 one such event happened.
The central banking system is a network of private corporations managing the banking systems of almost all nations. Fascism is the merger of interests of private corporations and the State. Therefore we live under Global Fascism, and have done for the last 30 years. Yet in 2011 you predicted a fascist POTUS in 2016.
What’s wrong with that picture Norm?
2 different definition of what a fascist state is
Yes 1 correct definition and one colloquial definition for which “authoritarian” is a better choice so as to not cause confusion.
“Trump’s advisory committee is expected to release its findings on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act”
Invoke it on what grounds?
It’s important to be clear about that and despite saying this
“have realized there is too much evidence suggesting this may be what’s happening now to remain silent.”
They provide no evidence, probably to busy fussing over narrative.
“Telling other people what may be happening, so they can recognize it and maybe together we can stop it, is my entire purpose here”
So it may(again), but equally may not(never mentioned) be happening.
Still waiting for that evidence, so moving on
“This isn’t speculation.
The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 lays out a detailed strategy for permanent right-wing control.
It openly advocates using the Insurrection Act to crush opposition and dismantle the administrative state”
Isn’t speculation?
Speculation: the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence.
Then it shows it’s true purpose
“We need to spread this narrative far and wide”
Lots of narrative, but starved of factual evidence(very bbc). They could be correct, the times are certainly ripe for it, but writing fear fantasy, with the finger of blame directed at a single man, rather than the system that puts him there, is just running the herd around in circles, whilst boosting the fear and why not I suppose, it works so well.
BREAKING: Oil prices fall below $57 for the first time since February 2021 as markets price in a global recession.
https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1909772159733367294
wow!
This ship is going down . Mike Shellman , sharp as ever .
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/oil-goin-down
Given a year of this, all new shale drilling will stop and the 9.5mbpd of shale from existing wells will decline by perhaps half.
true. not sure the USA is going to be healthier economically than the rest of the world, by the time this administration ends.
Maybe they want all new drilling to stop so they can hold off the peak.
A nice post by Art Berman: “Maximum Power, Minimum Awareness”
https://www.artberman.com/blog/maximum-power-minimum-awareness/
Excerpt: Many popular solutions—renewable energy, degrowth—clash with the way natural systems actually operate. Nature selects for power, not restraint.
Energy is potential, an abstraction. We can’t touch it, only measure its effects. It becomes real—useful—only when it flows. That flow is power. And power is what drives everything from machines to ecosystems.
That’s why renewable energy isn’t a one-to-one substitute for fossil fuels (Figure 2). Fossil fuels deliver high-density, high-speed power—concentrated solar energy, stored in coal, oil and and natural gas, and released in bursts. This is what built industrial civilization.
Renewables are slower, more diffuse. Matching fossil fuel flow rates requires massive infrastructure and storage—systems that themselves demand energy.
Viewed through the Maximum Power Principle, this is a downgrade. It’s not just changing fuel—it’s stepping down to a system that delivers less usable power. A high-energy civilization can’t run on slower sources without major simplification.
1. Amount of energy into earth equals amount of energy radiated out, exactly
2. Energy is diurnal, earth does fine with intermittent energy.
3. Storge for inorganic processes is a problem.
4. Move inorganic processes off earth, diurnal is no longer a problem.
Conclusion: Starship, optimus3, inorganic is in space, biology on spaceship earth.
Dennis L.
YES! YES! YES!
Step 1 the Chinese build solar power satellite prototypes.
Step 2 the Chinese install Lunar mining and mass driver to throw material to orbit
Step 3 in orbit industry build SPS
The folks who calculated “Energy Return on Energy Investment” missed a lot of important things. One of them is that renewable energy is in no way equivalent to easily dispatchable energy. Their calculations helped mislead a lot of people.
Also, the payback must be quick, and the payback must take into account both needed interest and the taxes that the government needs to have to maintain its operations. Things that looked like a good deal were not!
billion$ have been spent on AI, and there’s not much to show for it, in my opinion.
until now!
it’s not just the $10 a month spent on making AI music, the billion$ that were spent to get to this point in time also count.
but here we are, AI “creating” songs.
pardon my self indulgence, here is one of mine.
if you care.
BAU Tonight, Baby!
I hear a bit of Devo, a splash of Talking Heads, Numan, some other New Wave stuff. Hell, maybe even Doug and the Slugs
Sure! Why not.
Very good! What kind of instructions did you need to give AI?
To celebrate BAU, let’s all run over to Costco and Home Depot to get the things we need, while they are available.
a song titled Our Finite World might be next.
I wrote the lyrics, haha, and gave instructions for a pop style song, to lighten the message.
Udio is the site for anyone who wants a free trial.
oh, I’m stocked up on toilet paper etc, but that might be another pop song.
Good idea. I ran out of room to stash essential supplies so Mom and I removed the folding chairs, travel luggage, picnic gear and other useless BAU items for hosting bunco parties and trips to Cape May that ended with fear during the Covid Reset. Thankfully, she stopped at the 2nd dose based on my suggestion. She suffers from constant allergies and vertigo while some of her friends have cancer relapse. It sure looks like the party is over with this latest degrowth measures. Mom is worried about paying the mortgage if she loses her investments. I took over taxes on the family cabin when Dads PP&L dividends cut in half and now tax rates increased by 40%. I told them I will work overtime and do what it takes to keep the wolf from the door.
huge market rally today, baby!
maybe the end of BAU has been predicted too soon once again.
I listened to this again. It’s actually in Stereo. That is interesting. The AI, took the time to make sure that the most basic of expectations for recorded music was taken care of.
It is a very peculiar experience, as it sounds both incredibly artificial, and yet a sound from the 70s or 80s somehow. Vocals definitely. The rest of the oddness of the music could be simply attributed to a new kind of vacuum tube with a transistor combo. It almost feels like a New Bohemians with that funky bass sound. Im not sure if I liked it at first, but 35 years later… it keeps popping up on Youtube.
By my question is… How did you ask it to yell “Baby”?
And if you don’t like it, well… I’ve got others:
Did you give it the lyrics?
If not, was it a content suggestion?
If you were given the lyrics, how long would it take you to do another?
I could see getting AI to find Gail’s most notable quotes, and then… add in singing by lifting the voice print from one of Gails interviews.
Im not sure what the genre should be, but Im kind of leaning to beatnik jazz with the occasional measure or two of drum solos here and there. Somehow, I think that would really work with the AI voice, and the kind of sounds that come across as more authentic. Drums and Bass.
D’n’B! Break Beats?
Speaking of Drum n Bass, and Break Beats… here is a quick history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFKMtv8tU0U
The History Of The Amen break | Mixmag Originals
I wrote all the lyrics, the content was all me.
AI does generate lyrics, very much loaded with cliches, but sometimes creative which can be used or edited.
the AI is far from perfect but it’s impressive how it can “learn” music and “create” a new variation from all that it “learned”.
the yell Baby trick seems to be to follow Baby with an exclamation point!
Totally worth it. Seems like is was fun putting it together.
I can believe this commentator from Russia. He is saying that today’s low oil prices very badly affect the economy of Russia. He says that Russia needs a $70 price, presumably for its Ural oil, from a budget point of view. He says it is currently at $52. Oil exporters in general need oil revenue to get tax revenue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L2AQkKgiNM
He also says that the trucking industry is doing very poorly. There are not many goods being transported around Russia. He says that 20% of trucking companies have recently closed.
I can believe that the non-military part of Russia’s economy is not doing well.
It may be that Trump’s tariffs are pushing the price of oil down enough to push Russia’s economy over the edge (but perhaps not immediately). Of course, other economies are headed that direction, too.
If this commentator is terribly biased, let me know what you see is wrong in his thinking.
I’ve watched some of this guy’s videos. He’s basically an anti-Putinist 5th column type, who is able to monetize youtube views only to the extent that he puts forward anti-Russian claptrap.
I’ve watched many of his videos, I think he’s only biased in the way of someone watching a slow motion train wreck and acknowledging it.
That’s the impression I get.
I listened to the first half hour. The commentator has a lot of worthwhile things to say, including a lot of detail supporting his findings.
He personally lived through the early 1990s, and compared what is happening to that period. He also remembers the oil price crash in 1997. With low oil prices, Russia defaulted on its debt, but the IMF bailed the country out.
He says that the whole world is headed in the direction of coming apart, in a way like the Soviet Union did in 1991.
He think we are headed for a period where every country will try to sell things very cheaply. China will want to sell its goods anywhere it can, as cheaply as possible. We are seeing that oil prices are already down. Exporters that are not making enough money are trying to make money on volume, now. He expects a lot of deflation.
No, I think there are kernels of truth. But keep in mind that oil is now, what, 30% of the economy? I doubt that Trump’s impact has been so swift as he claims. I have a truck and my driver works through a dispatcher when he does not move my stuff, and as far as I can tell he is full schedule (I don’t follow day to day). We will probably see something in a few months.
after listening to the whole thing, he is probably full of shit. Russia is going to be hit the hardest in the world? I think Gail needs to close this forum if true. Russia makes everything a household needs at home, and of course it is an agricultural superpower, and still sells minerals.
A lot of trash youtube videos being posted by people who don’t seem able to differentiate propaganda from objective analysis.
I’ve watched some of his videos in the past and he is full of shit like Zeihan. It’s always the same story: Russia is going to fail for one reason or another.
after I watched it another video of his popped up in my youtube feed. your hypothesis confirmed.
I’m with ivan as well. If not sure, I click on the name, then videos and have a quick scroll. Mr infomercial is a good comparison and I’m willing to believe what he says about Russia, as much as I believe this tale.
https://youtu.be/iVQq4DUk4GQ?feature=shared
He invented Uber? He, like Norman, who predicted a fascist event in 2016, is a genius. I am going to try and get into this rarefied elite and predict a fascist event every year for the next 20 years. Much more than one per year in fact.
c’mon now
i dated mine 5 years ahead.
i could be wrong on mid 2020s—but i put that date out before anyone had heard of project 2025……but it fits very neatly wouldn’t you say?
and the don has got to get his act together before the ’26 mid terms, or its game over—and he knows that.
so 2025 is his crunch year.
the article quoted in the SF Chronicle in a previous post merely confirms what I’m saying, and have been saying for years now—as have others better qualified than i will ever be—ridicule it all you want, ……. nobody wants to be wrong more than i do—believe me.
The don is politically incompetent—–but those around him are not.
He’s got rid of the competent generals, installed the SCOTUS he wants, and released the thugs from prison who will now do exactly what he tells them to do, and has much of congress running scared.
when nations fail—democracy becomes an orphan and it starves to death.—-ignore me….check your history books on that one.
maga cannot work—but he will lash out at others as being resposible for it.
How many warning signals do you need?
People fail to consider the impact of robots and AI on the re-industrialization of America. America can be the factory of the world but there will be approximately zero workers.
I hope that there will be lots of mines and transport operating, operated by someone/something. Otherwise, the re-industrialization cannot work.
mines need miners
miners expect high—very high—wages.
unfortunately that makes coal too expensive to use in general terms
miners need to eat they will work for alot less if the world enters the Great depression part 2 especially with the invisible hand running the show imagine a wipeout in virtually every market jobs disappear enmasse people will be desperate for any work this is probably all they can do now to avoid mad max world so get your popcorn ready the shows about to start.
on the other hand this could be mad max world no big deal get your popcorn ready the shows about to start.
Not if the miners are indentured to the mine and are stuck
and with today’s tech it is possible for a mine owner in Australia to prevent a departed minor to get a job in Africa since the database would be accessible everywhere on earth
I read AJ Cronin’s The Stars look down and Richard Llewellyn’s How Green was my valley. While both of them were not miners they either saw other miners or heard stories from them.
Before WW2 the mine owner simply set the wages and if a worker didn’t like the mine he could kiss goodbye getting another job in the entire region.
Making the miner indentured significantly reduces costs.
I have read more about how people lived before 1945 than probably anyone else on this blog. About that, no one beats me at here.
I have read more about how people lived before 1945 than probably anyone else on this blog. About that, no one beats me at here.
except me??—-i have a book coming out in June on broadly the same subject.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-iron-men-of-shropshire/norman-pagett//9781398122390
(also on Amazon)
first publisher i submitted it to snapped it up immediately.
i know how people lived before 1945, because i saw it.—but on their terms they were happy with their lot—because it was their ‘normality’…and my normality too….by our modern standards though it was terrible.
times have just moved on.
be honest and dont google it—-what was a rookery in 1850?
and indentured miners shows just how little you know kulm.
miners were never indentured—ridiculous.
true, he found it hard to change jobs because of the distance from his home to other places of work—a new factory 30 m away was impossible to travel to on a daily basis, and he didnt have to means to uproot his family and resettle.
i have ”the stars look down” here on my bookshelves, mine owners were, by and large, bad employers—they wanted profit out of coal as fast as possible, that cost miners lives.
The mine owners are like the manor owners of the old, and they can blackball someone quite easily.
So if push comes to shove it is not too hard for all the mine owners to make the miners tied to the mine for life, with no chance of escape, making them indentured for all practical purposes.
They may not have been indentured, but they all had dentures.
Lack of sunshine and poor nutrition insured that most coal miners lost their teeth by the age of 30.
Oldsters advised youngsters to have the lot pulled out as trying to hang onto them caused no end of pain and trouble.
And nowadays, we call those times “the good old days.”
People fail to consider the impact of robots and AI on the re-industrialization of America.
What robots would those be? The humanoid ones that aren’t really robots because all of them are remote controlled? The ones that are in fact just scams?
http://oil-price.net/ — Why have petrodollar prices done this?
Recession seems to be at hand. Recession leads to lower prices. Lower prices are what voters want.
people in a recessive economy cannot afford to buy the goods that keep the economic system out of recession
A lot of the calculus going on over tariffs is sorely misplaced.
Tariffs are a MUCH smaller deal than COVID… then supply chains simply disappeared and there was no ability to shift sourcing or costs. That is NOT the situation now. Furthermore, companies have pivoted their operations to be more cost/supply resilient. There is a reason that credit spreads are not budging… markets know this is a non-issue for the time being.
The USA is Walmart, every supplier’s #1 customer and there is no alternative market as large. Suppliers are left with two choices, play on Walmart’s terms or shrink operations. Shrinking is untenable in a financed corporation, so guess what… there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth, followed by capitulation. In the words of Thucydides, the strong take what they will, the weak suffer what they must. (Seems to be the motto of the Trump administration.)
What is happening is a shift in economic incentives. Trying to move physical production back to the USA is a deeply strategic move. Resources are becoming limited and self-sufficiency is a strong geopolitical risk reducer. AI is going to eliminate any job that occurs behind a computer screen within the next five years – physical manufacturing will provide at least some jobs as the service economy is massacred. Quantum computing is going to wreck secure financial transactions within the next five years, so the supply chains simply disappeared needs to simplify now to avoid collapse. (If you think the AI/computing angle is overblown, talk to industry insiders… the singularity is already underway, it’s a process.)
So, you think the US will come out ahead with the tariffs, at least in the short term.
You say,
“AI is going to eliminate any job that occurs behind a computer screen within the next five years – physical manufacturing will provide at least some jobs as the service economy is massacred.” This is pretty worrying.
When you say that quantum computing will wreck secure financial transactions within the next five years, I presume you mean quantum computing will break any password. This seems to mean the end of all online financial transactions of banks and individuals. In fact, the governments will have a problem as well.
Wouldn’t that mean that computers would suddenly be much less useful? It seems like transactions might be local, using local money or goods.
Trying to move physical production back to the USA is a deeply strategic move.
It’s not worth talking about because it can’t and won’t happen.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-futures-surge-following-tsysec-bessent-comments-president-has-maximum-negotiating
From Midnight the US tariff on imports from China is 104%.
I can not immagine the conseguences
We don’t have the oil for all of the long distance shipping. Something has to change.
Now the updated link says:
Stocks Erase Early Gains As White House Pulls Trigger On 104% China Tariffs
Now, the WSJ is reporting final results for Tuesday.
WTI $58.61 (Not good for oil industry)
10-Yr Treasuries 4.287% (Not good for mortgages)
Dow -0.84%
S&P 500 -1.57%
NASDAQ -2.15%
How far do you think oil has to fall near term before we hit bottom?
Crude oil adds to four-year lows; Goldman warns oil below $40 possible in ‘extreme’ scenario
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/crude-oil-adds-to-four-year-lows-goldman-warns-oil-below-40-possible-in-extreme-scenario/ar-AA1CynB1?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=f207c2b736a9421390895f68e69cb318&ei=7
This chart by the EIA seems to indicate that in 2020 oil prices dropped as low as $12.40 for one day.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/RWTCD.htm
We are likely headed for very low prices, before production falls off.
Gail oil went to MINUS \$ 37.63 in 2020 .
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52350082
Chinese actions . Copy/paste POB .
HHH
Ignored
04/08/2025 at 10:44 pm
China seems to be intervening in the currency market. They do this by having their huge state run banks sell treasuries. They say it’s selling dollars.
What they are actually doing when they do this is providing dollar liquidity. They are selling treasuries and using the dollars to plug holes. Which means they can source less from the Eurodollar market. Takes some of the pressure off their currency.
It’s the equivalent of using your rainy day fund though.
China seems to be intervening in the currency market. They do this by having their huge state run banks sell treasuries. They say it’s selling dollars.
We sure talk a lot about currencies and banks and exchange rates in the West don’t we.
We don’t talk about things like how much steel we produced last year or our new high capacity batteries or our super compact gallium nitride laptop chargers.
Desperately seeking liquidity, they are selling US bonds.
https://archive.md/hTNmp
What’s going on? Well, the simple explanation is that the most popular trade among the hedge fund community, the aforementioned basis pair trade of long-dated Treasuries and short-dated swaps, is in the process of a catastrophic unwinding (some blame Trump for unleashing the stagflation genie with his trade war, others accuse China of dumping Treasuries in response, and still others say it’s simply about time the basis trade finally imploded). As a result of the unwinding panic, swaps are now vastly outperforming the yields on the Treasuries being unwinded and are pushing swap rates well below Treasury yields, resulting in record-high negative swap spread rates.
The end result is that funds and banks are panic-selling Treasuries to raise cash, while simultaneously adding swaps to maintain interest rate exposure, leading to the all-time low spread between swap rates and Treasury yields across the curve: Yes, we’ve shown the chart of the 3-year SOFR swap spread above, but one can look at every tenor along the curve and get the same message.
Translation: The implosion of basis trading translates into stop-out devastation in the swap spread!
The Financial Times, which picked up the topic of the basis trading collapse about 10 days after us, quoted one hedge fund manager as saying that “hedge funds have been liquidating US Treasury basis trades furiously.”
The “raging” panic to unwind the basis trade means that the “paper” part of the trade has pushed yields higher, something that can be seen by looking at the unprecedented 50 basis point move higher in 10-year yields in just the last 2 days (a move that could easily have been further boosted by Chinese selling of US paper as well) .”
Thanks to Quark .
What if ?
After the bond sale, perhaps the momentum for backing the yuan with gold, even partially (at 30% for example), will come. We’ll see…
On April 17th, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office is expected to impose tariffs of up to $1.5 million per call per port for ships made in China, and $500,000 to $1 million if the ocean carrier owns a single ship made in China or even has one on order from a Chinese shipyard. 1/
Ocean carriers have announced that in order to reduce tariffs they will skip smaller ports like Seattle, Oakland, Boston, Mobile, Baltimore, New Orleans, etc.
Some shippers have said they will simply shift capacity that serves the United States to other trade routes altogether. /2
This would be horrible for jobs in and around those ports, and really bad for the businesses, both importers and exporters, that use those ports. Huge additional costs will be incurred as trucks and trains travel hundreds of additional miles to major ports at each cost. 3/
Likewise, major ports (LA, Long Beach, Houston, and NYC) will not be able to keep up with the onslaught of additional volumes and will likely become congested, similar to what we saw during Covid. 4/
The craziest part of the original proposal is the requirement that within 7 years, 15% of US exports must travel on an American-made, American-crewed ship. 5/
There are only 23 American-made and American-crewed container ships in the world today, and all of them service domestic ocean cargo (Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc.). They are all tiny compared to today’s megaships, and they aren’t even sailing to foreign ports. 6/
The US didn’t produce any container ships in 2024. And the number we produce in any year rounds down to zero. The reason is that American-made 3,000 TEU container ships cost the same price as modern 24,000 TEU container ships from China. 7/
One shipyard in China built more commercial ships last year than the total number the United States has produced since World War II. 8/
During the successful industrialization of East Asia, its government required manufacturing sectors to produce goods for export; it wasn’t enough to just produce for their domestic markets. 9/
This was how they could show they were truly building globally competitive companies and products. If no one wanted to import their products, they knew they weren’t really building successful companies. 10/
As the Trump Administration pursues the noble goal of reindustrializing the United States, passing a simultaneous rule limiting U.S. exports based on American-made ships—ships that today hamper exporters—would be a real self-dealing. 11/
Given what just happened with new tariffs tanking global stock markets, it would be folly for the USTR to move forward with this rule. If we want the United States to be competitive in global manufacturing, we need world-class port infrastructure and logistics connectivity. /12
Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturers who just had massive new tariffs imposed on components and machinery from abroad should brace for impact because all indications are this rule is coming on April 17. /
Talk about bull in a China shop .
All fundamental change causes pain for somebody.
Crazy . IF he implements this no carriers will be available to export US farm goods , coal , LNG etc .
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/LNG-and-Coal-Face-Dismal-Times-With-Trumps-Port-Levies.html
Guess: If the trade deficit is reduced that might cover all agricultural exports, net zero cost.
Dennis L.
But there might be a whole lot of things that we can no longer buy. Shoes made overseas. Replacement parts for cars. Computers. Replacement parts for network computer systems.
Our systems could degrade quickly. Electricity could become intermittent quickly, it would seem like. Water supply would likely require boiling, quite soon.
Maybe, don’t know. Lived in a neighborhood where employment was the rails, AutoLite and Rubber Mills.
Families could life here, make a life here. Rubber mills made footware, perhaps pay a bit more for a tennis shoe and keep families together.
Don’t know much about fixing cars, recent estimate for exhaust system on Camry Hybrid was $2.5K, parts made in US?
Someone purchased Autolite and closed it, now a self store building, two blocks long, one block maybe two wide.
Have made my own computers since the 280 days, I don’t have things breaking, networks seem to hold up well. Not much of a sample.
Allis Chalmers used to make transformers in Milwuakee, big stuff. Perhaps return.
Will split this and write a next section.
Dennis L.
like i keep banging on…..
mid 2020s
with the clarity of hindsight—that is the date we will point to.
the don has had business after business go bust through incompetence
why expect the usa to be any different
Norm that’s a specious and politicized thing to say given that you know as well as anybody that this is a structural problem. If the adaptation to the structural problem is simplification then his policies are structurally adaptive relative to the status quo regardless of the trashy nature of his marketing pitch. Don’t forget that you agree with him that nationalisms are the directions in which this civilization quickly needs to move in order for it to persist for longer than it otherwise would.
a nation’s support base is entirely dependent on the energy resources contained within its borders.
it can outreach those—but only for a limited period of time—then it must collapse in on itself—or steal from someone else.
the law of nations I’m afraid
Thanks Norm, sure, I’d just refine a little bit what you said by noting that the outreaching is neocolonialism and the stealing is colonialism and, therefore, when that formerly colonizer is collapsing in on itself it can no longer do either, by definition. It can pretend like it still can, in order to superficially make it look like it’s not in the process of collapsing — as it appears is the case with Canada and Greenland — but it can’t actually do it.
no reante—it can’t actually do anything
only pretend—it is that pretension that lets the voters ”believe” for a little while longer—but they are suckered into ‘MAGA’
just like any other ponzi scheme, those at the top hold on for as long as they can, before they bail—or lose their heads in a literal sense.
Right on Norm
I worked the Trump Shuttle in Boston.
Frank Lorenzo sold him the oldest Eastern 727 Boeing planes on their fleet. Remember aircraft number 106, it was the sixth 727 ever made and had its own “book” so to speak.
Also, in order to actually make a profit,
Ever flight flown needed to be 100 % filled
Bruce Nobles , who ran it, started to book charter flights to keep the planes in the air and making cash flow. Trump was really an absentee owner, and eventually turned it over back to the banks on turn let USAirways operate it with option to buy.
Remember hearing it was only 5,% of Easterns but 20% of it’s profits…a true diamond
thanks Mike
i like to get inside info on things
It’s not fundamental change. Fundamental change implies that the change is based on sound fundamentals. The fundamentals are not sound.
Right. Nothing is going to happen to mitigate this, it’s just bad.
If we don’t have oil to ship nearly as many goods overseas as in the past, some kinds of change need to be made. But the narrative has to be different from, “We are running out.” Instead, it needs to sound like our decision, no matter how strange and awful.
What a terrible “beauty” we’ve made …
the don wants world domination
he cant do it with military force
so he’s trying to use economic force.
That’s just not true. It’s clear that America is retreating from such goals.
i didnt say ”america”
i said the don himself wants world domination—purely as a profitable enterprise.
he is totally corrupt, and will sell access to american markets in return for bribes… in $billions…….foriegn leaders must approach him personally, for favours…..ie reduction of tariffs.
the ultimate kiss-ass economic system.—the working philiosophy of the mafia don.
he has no interest in the american people whatsoever.—hence removal of safety net social systems.
america is now the don’s personal piggy bank—-what the end result will be i can’t imagine, but if this goes on, economic catastrophe is certain…… people who actually understand economics are realising that a complete buffoon is now running the show, and they are reacting accordingly.
a criminal has been voted into office, we are now seeing the results of that.
i am an economic ignoramus—–but even i can figure out that if someone is paid $2 an hour to make something—-and you transfer the manufacture of that object to where the wage rate is $15 an hour, then that object instantly becomes unaffordable………and the market for it evaporates.
either that, or you automate the manufacture—in which case there are no jobs anyway.—bear in mind that robots dont buy what they produce.—-unlike actual workers.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
Norman,
You say “economic catastrophe is certain……”. Yes it is certain, and everyone who visits this site knows it. Even if Trump had not been elected, it would still be certain that economic financial collapse is inevitable. So can we agree that the Trump-factor is neither here nor there, when talking about the dire state of global finance.
If I may, let me put something to you that might not be obvious at this moment. As a British citizen you will know of a northern chap called Fred Dibnah. If a mill owner had a tall brick chimney on his site, and knew that the fabric of the brickwork was deteriorating and dangerous, he would call in Fred Dibnah, who’s skill was to demolish the chimney in a controlled way creating no damage to the locality.
Key point : Chimney WILL collapse, so better to collapse it safely.
I think in the US, a chap called Scott Bessent is the “Fred Dibnah” of Global Finance. So, If we all know that Global Finance WILL collapse anyway, it makes sense to force and create a controlled collapse of the financial system, but in a way that suits the US (not in the short term!), but in a world where shrinking surplus oil will kill global container shipping.
shrinking supply of cheap oil will kill the global economic infrastructure—not just shipping.
i agree with you.
the trouble is, global leaders of a certain stripe will/are selling the idea that MAGA (etc) is just a matter of voting for it.
And idiots believe it. this is the real danger.
And when it doesnt happen, there will be violent civil disorder (desperation) which will require violent harsh suppression…. not just in the USA…..it is happening everywhere. the UK will not be immune to it. We have our loonytoon politicos too.
you cannot ”control’ a collapsing financial system, anymore than you can control falling off a bike if you stop pedalling forward
guest2, you are correct, those that can read the signs, understand that globalization is coming to an end. As surplus oil energy shrinks, global shipping of finished goods,(which is oil intensive), will shrink also.
All countries including the US, need to follow the strategy of a “World made by (local) hand”
Trumps tariffs are not an attempt to dominate the world. It is a call to “come home, and make your stuff here in our US backyard”
we can all mend each others shoes, dig each others gardens and pay each other wages
what could possibly be wrong with that?
a perfect economic system
This statement shows that Wall Street doesn’t have a clue:
“Donald Trump risks pushing global investors away from US assets, undermining the country’s status at the heart of the financial system, and its ability to raise funds worldwide, Citi’s chief economist has warned.
Such a switch away from the dollar would represent a major shift in the world economy, and the privileged status which America has enjoyed since the Second World War.
“I can tell you what I am the most worried about – and it is really a dog that has not barked for decades and decades and decades – but it is, is there a threat, is there a risk, where foreign investors become less willing to continue to purchase US assets?” said Nathan Sheets.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/08/trump-tariffs-china-trade-war-ftse-100-markets-latest-news/
That ‘privileged status’ has been the status enjoyed by the financial class. The US needs to ‘raise funds worldwide’ because it doesn’t manufacture like it used to do. Main Street doesn’t want foreigners to buy US assets, it wants them to buy US goods.
All of the right people are whining.
Unlike the ruling class of the old, today’s ‘financial class’ are mostly Aspies who are only good on one thing, namely playing the markets, with zero contribution to civilization.
If all of them are lobotomized, human civilization will lose nothing.
Unfortunately a lot of them tend to come from Asia.
Zerohedge says that for now, it is US buyers who are in retreat, at least on 3-year debt being marketed. (They want higher interest rates.)
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/dismal-3y-auction-has-3rd-biggest-tail-record-only-covid-svb-worse
More debt .
https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-unveils-e14-billion-aid-plan-counteract-donald-trump-tariffs-pedro-sanchez/?utm_medium=email&utm_term=N%2FA&utm_source=dynamics-rr&utm_campaign=1#msdynmkt_trackingcontext=50ecca3c-4395-464c-ab88-6b40f0ef0200
Help companies in Europe; here, Spain.
China is by far the largest global buyer of commodities like oil and copper, the prices of which are down by 15% since the tariffs were announced.
The market is saying that China will be significantly impacted.
Offshore Yuan now at record low against the dollar.
At record low commodity prices, and record low Yuan to Dollar, even with the tariffs, some of prices of Chinese exported finished goods may not be unreasonably high.
I’m hearing more people losing homeowners insurance. I think they are using AI to analyze their risk and dropping risky homes. Another gut punch for the working class in Amurica. How many punches can they take
Some states have caps on premiums increases, so it may make sense to simply drop the client in some cases.
Yes, seems we are trending to be uninsurable…
In my own case, our insurance company demanded a roof replacement, which we did. They also later a statement from a contractor our cement block with concrete roof tool shed to be sound. Which we did.
Now, we learned that they are no renewing policies here in Florida.
We must my now have an inspection … requirements, roof and water heater less than 10 years old, central air conditioning (we have wall units), electrical and plumbing inspection and wind mitigation report…
Anyway a friend of mine went through all that and was given an offer for home insurance that was acceptable. It was rescinded immediately after it was revealed he had a claim for his roof…..so no insurance.
Actually, we are relocating out of South Florida…not only because of this, but seeing the collapse of neighboring nations states like Haiti and Cuba…expecting another mariel boatlift episodes in the near future.
It’s already overcrowded and an ill-advised development hig rise projects being built and approved with grid lock traffic
This is not a surprise:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/billions-dollars-ev-and-ev-battery-factories-are-being-cancelled
“Billions Of Dollars” In EV And EV Battery Factories Are Being Cancelled
No surprise either as the cars are expensive, they have added maintenance and insurance costs. If they come in contact with roughly a foot of water or more they are considered a fire and combustion risk so they are totalled.
I understand that there are situations where the cars are totaled after a fairly minor accident because it is unclear whether the battery is internally damaged.
https://www.hotcars.com/electric-cars-totaled-after-minor-accident/
Another issue is how EVs (especially Teslas) are built.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/lots-of-crashed-evs-with-minor-battery-damage-are-being-totaled
“One reverse engineering firm says the Tesla Model Y’s structural battery pack has “zero repairability.””
“One reverse engineering firm says the Tesla Model Y’s structural battery pack has “zero repairability.”
There is no structural battery pack. It was just another lie.
Electric cars cannot be manufactured economically in the US.
It’s starting to look like combustion vehicles can’t be either judging by the car lots filled to overflowing with unsold very expensive American built trucks.
In a previous post by Gail on her trips to the Southeast Asia, I posted a video clip of Siem Reap (the town where Angkor Wat is at) in the 1930s, where no locals wore shirts and nobody wore proper shoes.
Such should have been the conditions where the majority of the world’s population should have been kept.
Not giving the lower class (working class is an euphemism) a chance , no possibility for them to improve and have a say over how things are run, wasa very, very important.
After a century of mismanagement and improving the lots of peoples who had no business of having decent lives, all the discussion about future technology so these unnecessariats can continue to live a semblance of a comfortable life is funny. Nothing is more futile than that.
If the world had been kept like the old order, with few resources wasted for the lot of the poor and the colonials, now called Third Worlders, and the poor kept like the denizens of the tenements of New York
https://youtu.be/mm6ZFHmpO2Q?si=txZLcNY245Ct1s29 (the premise has been beautified a bit and the filth cleaned up – notice the Chinese doing their thing at the beginning of the clip)
all these future technologies would have had a chance, but sorry, too much resources have been wasted to better the lives of the lower class and the Third Worlders and there is no turning back, AI just being a funny toy which consumes even more resources for bored youths at Calcutta, Saigon, Kuala Lumpur and Guangzhou without any important improvement to human achievements.
I have always found it interesting how people of the past lived. I have visited museums, and I have also visited former tenements. I have also gone on some fairly wild tours, including a couple of tours in India, billed as, “See the real India.” It is amazing how families have been able to get along with very little space. Clothing had to be pretty limited to fit in the tiny closets (if closets even existed at all)–none in India.
”should have been kept”
any suggestions on who would do the ”keeping” kulm?
any suggestions on who would do the ”keeping” kulm?
The British Empire of course. Before it was ruined by common people.
our empire was one of many
none of them were any good at it
Keeping the poor, which consisted of more than 60% of the pop, destitute and hopeless was justifiable in a utilitarian way since that significantly saved resources for the worthy.
The poor in the so-called advanced world is treated too well. They have to be deprived of about 90% of what they have now, in order to advance civilization and return the world back to sanity.
to carry on this comedic thread kulm
in which percentile do you place yourself?
your thinking is hitlerian—look how that ended.
I would say, the top 90% percentile?
No rights for the ‘common people’ to get a college degree, proper position in society, etc.
No mobility allowed them to do any damage to the social structure.
kulm
if you care to check the Indian caste system, what you describe is precisely that.
it was practiced long before the British arrived, they tried to change it, they failed. to a certain extent, it is still inplace.
they barely stopped the practice of suttee, which was the ultimate in mysogyny
And the Brahmins now tend to penetrate into the higher echelons of British and American societies
Both Kamala Gopalan Harris and the wife of JD Vance come from Brahmin families, albeit of a lower rank of Brahmins since they are Dravidans.
Well. Let me just say this, Kulm was born probably a century too late and probably will die a century too early.
It was obvious this thought was put in practice before the gift of fossil fuels slaves…
We all know Addie Hitter and the 🌭Nannies attempted such a world view, but ran into a 🧱 brick wall trying to acquire their oil resource…boo hoo…so no “Master Race” for you this time around.
As Norman aptly pointed, if it was not for the ample supply of oil 🛢️ and resources, Europe and Japan would have stayed in ruins. Afraid it may be this time around in the Ukraine, Middle East and elsewhere the distruction and fighting spreads to as we grasp for Leben whatever..
Yes, Kul is just pointing out the harsh reality of what is to come.
Gail, mentions in a nicer manner that when there isn’t enough to go around…
Dolphie, who was actually at Gheluvelt where Chucky committed the greatest fkup of human history, would never have had his chances with the elites all consumed at the trenches.
The Western World spent 4 centuries to breed the most superior stock humankind ever produced and the replacements, the country bumpkins of England, the rednecks of USA, the bushrangers of Australia and the backwoodsmen of Canada probed to be well short of making up the deficit, as the world is increasingly dominated by Asians of all flavors.
Japan did have another foolish policy, namely asking its college educated people to smash themselves into US warships manned by people who could barely spell, and therefor Japan also stagnated when people who grew up after 1945 came to power.
Korea, China and India, insignificant backwater before 1945, prospered because they didn’t do that (Korea had the Korean war, but unlike the British the Koreans didn’t have the concept of ‘doing their duty’ so all the rich and smarter found some way to stay out of the fighting)
That would never have occurred if the West did not kill off their best for nothing, and Korea would still be part of Japan, China would still be divided into spheres of influence and India would still be ruled by the British Raj today.
There is a good guideline for that
Those who were qualified to be real officers of the British Army would have kept the commoners down
Certainly not people like James Ramsey (he took the surname MacDonald to fake a connection to that clan) who was a bastard to begin with.
Kulm, could you please …
I was first annoyed by the late Dr. Robert Firth, who defended every screwup United Kingdom committed against Western Civilization.
Unfortunately I didn’t find out until after he died, but I learned Firth was a surname used by forest rangers in the Midlands which produced exactly one notable person worthy enough to be included in wikipedia prior to 1914. If he were still here I would counter him that his ancestor would have been called the scum of the earth by the Duke of Wellington, just like all the nonelites who now claim they saved the Kingdom now as the no longer Great Britain is consumed by the Hindus.
I came to the conclusion that the current crisis occurred because people with zero stake on society took power, those people who descended from peasants, laborers and those not exactly having a stake on society and therefore only caring about their own generation and not giving a crap about the future are wielding too much power, and too much resources were wasted to better peoples who had no stake on advancing civilization.
Foolish Fitz said
“namely the elimination of the best of the West”
They clearly were not the best.
They were losers, who unsurprisingly lost.
No amount of entitlement wins against even the average man, when the rules of the game aren’t rigged.
Survival of the fittest, in the true western sense prevailed.
I answer
The rules of Game was the name of a movie by Jean Renoir, son of the painter who was a potter to begin with ( a potter was the lowest class artisan of all).
Jean Renoir made the movie after his masterpiece the Grand Illusion, where he kills off the nobleman Beaulieu (and by doing so he also dooms the noble German pow camp commander, played by Erich Stroheim (who added the ‘von’ himself)who would be sent back to the front to die) while saving the common soldier Marechal and the banker Rosenthal, showing the future belongs to people like Marechal.
The upper class of Paris were furious and Renoir made the Rules of the Game, which shows the upper class still rules (and Renoir himself playing a good servant of them), to appease them before packing up and moving to USA just at the eve of WW2.
The Rules of the Game are what made the modern world and what holds society.
Chucky killed off the best of the West, which will take 4 centuries to re-create, genetic engineering or not, and the genes destroyed back then cannot be revived. Adding redneck genes, backwoodsmen genes and Asian zombie genes won’t improve the western gene pool.
We are either moving to a future where technology escape velocity is reached and humans exist at the bottom of the pecking order, if they exist at all, or the oil runs out and then we will have all the time in the world to regenerate the “elite” genepool.
I think you are right.
There seem to be three paths to continued growth:
(1) More debt and more promises–we have gone too far, already, it appears.
(2) Increased efficiency in using the energy that is available, so that more people can be supported with the same energy supply and so that relative prices can rise. This is related to the technology escape velocity, if it can exist.
(3) More energy supply. Better technology could perhaps help with this also, as could climate change (making Alaskan supplies more available, for example).
“the genes destroyed back then cannot be revived”
Are you saying that whole genetic family lines were deliberately eradicated by Chucky, much like the demented Europeans are doing today in Palestine?
If not, then no genetic lines were eradicated and you will just have to accept that those inbreds were, as time has proven, less than worthy.
As ivan has said, you will soon have all the time in the world to repeat the same flawed experiment, just don’t expect different results unless you enjoy disappointment.
The demented Europe is ruled by those who were not exactly part of the leadership, or at least through females who had to mate lesser men like Vera Britten whose book Testaments of Youth described such process (and she treated her husband, son of a poor vicar who never got his degree from Oxford, and their offspring like pieces of shit since they belonged to an inferior class from her), since the leadership were mostly killed off or even if they survived and reproduced their positive ideas were gone and they had grown more cynical and they had become more tolerant to peoples who did not exactly belong to decision making of the world.
As a result people who had no business running the world, like Donnie Trump, a grandson of a barber from Bavaria, came to rule the world and we are seeing the results of that.
Those who were descended from what the Duke of Wellington would have described as the ‘scum of the earth’ lineage tend to think that they are the ‘salt of the earth’, but if they are salt, they are like epsom salt.
Careful kulm
we are all descendants of saints or sinners—usually both
condemnation by ancestry is both shallow and childish.—your grandad might have been a cereal killer—it means nothing in your terms.
i am here because my ancestors lived long enough to procreate
so are you.
our ancestry means little more than that.
Thank you Norman for writing that, but oin society social order it had meaning .
Some Asian student posted a YouTube video on how to get into Harvard University.
At least improved your chances.
Betcha having the right ancestry helps too
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J9BLPc96h9U&pp=ygUYSG93IHRvIGdldCBpbnRvIEhhcnZhcmQg
I used to frequent Harvard A square in Cambridge MA.
The. Closet Ill ever come in getting in
Liked Tufts University in Medforduch better myself…very nice Library
my inner meaning was that ancestry doesnt create the full person that is really you.
i recognise traits in me that were part of uncles aunts, parents etc—some good, some bad.
had i been left millions, or an aristocrat…. it still wouldnt have altered that.
“since the leadership were mostly killed off or even if they survived and reproduced their positive ideas were gone and they had grown more cynical”
So we can agree that those that were killed off were genetic retards, as they had a way out and if they had even average intelligence they would have known without a doubt that only an idiot went willingly to die for a lie.
Also, if you believe the above quoted, you are saying categorically that because their views changed, they and their offsprings ability to act as before disappeared, so social conditioning rather than genetics, would be the answer to both before and after attitudes. Yes?
They were more ‘brave’ and more responsible than others and got killed while the scoundrel with less impunity survived.
We now know how a century of rule by peoples who had no business ruling led the world to the abyss, so there is an empirical evidence to prove that it was wrong to let those who had no history of ruling others to wield power over people better than them.
The people ruling hasn’t changed, just the stage puppet presented to the masses.
You used to remind us of that.
Those that died, were by your own beliefs, just thinning the herd of the stupid(duty doers), so the more able(your definition) could get on with their search for the nonexistent and drag us all along with their delusion.
At least you now know, that it’s nothing at all to do with genetics.
IT takes years to drill leadership to peoples who were order takers for generations, and even now the peoples who had more brawn, the country bumpkins, can’t lead the world since they lack the genes for that.
Important prize just given in Italy for Covid vaccination and relative mandates to TV virologist.
Very strangely Italy has decided to go in the opposite direction than the rest of the world.
As the rest of the world is trying NOT talking anymore of the argument or, alternatively, it is taking the opposite direction, Italian President (age 84), after giving in 2021 the prize to Anthony Fauci for the same reason, has decided today (in 2025) to give similar prize to Roberto Burioni, a TV virologist first sponsor of mRNA vaccination and vaccine mandates in Italy.
And that it happens after all what is known about this argument by now…
https://www.msn.com/it-it/notizie/italia/burioni-premiato-da-mattarella-ma-temo-un-nuovo-oscurantismo/ar-AA1CuNkb
For background please see: https://mediasetinfinity.mediaset.it/video/tgcom24/anthony-fauci-cavaliere-di-gran-croce-al-merito-della-repubblica_FD00000000295843
Did I tell you that Mattarella is a piece of trash? There are different levels of being a puppet, and he is the lowest.
“The key to Trump’s success will be the dollar. He’s been lucky so far, since the dollar has devalued since he took office. Against the euro, the dollar fell by 8%, which was not supposed to happen. Economic theory suggests that if you impose tariffs, the dollar would go up, and partially cancel their effects. But economic theory was proved wrong. If Trump manages to defy the economists and get the dollar devalued by, say, 20% against the major trading partners, he can lean back, declare victory and gradually reduce the tariffs. “?
https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-trump-win-his-tariff-stand-off/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&utm_source=UnHerd+Today&utm_campaign=b5cd3ee1d8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_04_07_08_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_79fd0df946-b5cd3ee1d8-35209101
Around the world a very large share of international loans are denominated in dollars, and therefore dollars are need to service the debt. How does one come by dollars?
One sells into the American market.
The US, as the world’s largest customer with a huge deficit, and the world’s reserve currency, has most of the advantages in this situation.
Those who talk about the tariffs causing an uptick in US inflation are wide of the mark – see oil prices.
heard of eurodollars? you can sell to europeans or anyone with offshore dollar accounts, too.
I wonder if this will spur the beginning of the end for the U.S as it may unite other countries against the US dollar. Trump might have a short won victory but after that it will be sad
I think you may have identified some important points. Other countries have wanted to keep their currencies relatively low compared to the US dollar, in order to try to sell to Americans.
Also, there is an awfully lot of international debt denominated in dollars that will be payable in the next few years. No one wants their currency to be too low to be able to repay these loans.
So there is a whole lot of “inertia” when it comes to changing relativities to the US dollar. We can’t expect a 20% devaluation of the dollar relative to major trading partners.
Also, interest rates in the US seem to be staying up, offering incentives to invest in the US, rather than other countries. The US 10-year Treasury is being quoted at 4.2%, which is a whole lot better than is being offered in a number of other countries.
Yes, and I am increasingly doubtful about this ‘de-dollarisation we have been hearing about for years, but which always seems to be just about to happen, without ever actually occuring.
It is occurring though, you only need look outside the western narrative, or in a lot of cases, just outside of your window.
China now conducts over 50% of its trade in RMB, that’s expanding and there’s also BRICS clear.
Similar has been happening at different speeds all over the world.
It’s a difficult process and so to mitigate the pain as much as possible, they’ve been as slow as needed to get it right.
The main instigator has been the US with it’s childish tantrums and as with all petulant children, the adults know the coming reaction and so are ready, even too the point of occasionally pushing the child into the blunder.
https://warwickpowell.substack.com/p/never-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
We will have to wait and see how the tariffs work out in practice.
Yes, this is true. I would imagine it will change a lot and how each change then affects future choices is anyone’s guess.
Following non western views, opinions and respective official actions over the last decade, makes it hard for me to see any way the US can make China bend the knee.
As an observer sport, it’s fascinating. Unfortunately, it looks suspiciously like we are being ushered into the arena rather than the stands , blissfully unaware of the difference.
You will definitely want to keep eating your meat, and your peas, and your Cheddar cheese once you read this excellent article on the nature and functions of polyamines, which include putrescine, spermidine and spermine.
Grundvilk (the pseudonym of the writer of this piece) explains that Kiechl et al. found that average human healthspan/longevity increased by almost 6 years in America for people eating a diet with only a marginally higher than average dietary content of spermidine—which is found in particularly high levels in mature Cheddar, and is also present in generous quantities in ground beef, green peas, soybeans, red kidney beans, mushrooms.
He also speculates that diets higher in polyamines are a big part of why Hispanic people in the US live over three years longer than non-Hispanic whites, despite being poorer economically.
Some nice graphs here, too.
A Systems Hypothesis Nicely Explaining Both the American Hispanic Paradox and the Relatively Low (and Decreasing) Average American Lifespan
A peas, corn, and beans, meat and potatoes, and fossil fuels depletion story
https://grundvilk.substack.com/p/a-systems-hypothesis-nicely-explaining
The problem is people who should have had no business eating meat, namely the entire population of Asia and Africa, are doing so in droves.
It is not the Western people eating meat which is the problem. It is the Asians and Africans, who ate very little meat before 1914, doing so.
If you want amines any fermented protein food will have them. sure cheddar cheese, but parmesan is my favorite and is a two year ferment based on raw milk microbes. Also my favorite kefir, clabbered milk (also based on raw milk) and natto, but even sauerkraut will have some.
One spend a lot of effort to eat healthy and then your genes knock on the door …
wrong! epigenetics is a thing.
Quite healthy eating didn’t stop autoimmune inheritance from my mother …
stop eating foods that give autoimmune. are you a carnivore? if not try that. healthy food depends on the person, is not an absolute category.
My thyroid disease is not curable by eating different …
Hi Jarle,
I am a practitioner using a mainly Functional/Biological approach these days.
Restoration of health in many cases is possible by improving the ‘milieu interior’. It is always worth trying if you have no other option and if you get it early enough you may even prevent the destruction of thyroid tissue..
In essence deacidify and detoxify. This allows your endogenous endobionts to revert back to non pathogenic, non harmful states (theory of pleomorphism).
” In essence deacidify and detoxify. ” . Please amplify .
HI Ravi (no reply under your question)
The ‘milieu interior’ (the extracellular matrix/mesenchyme) degenerates due to acidity and toxicity. The acidic ph allows the upward evolution of the endobiont into pathogenic forms (essentially recyclers). These are detectable via darkfield microscopy.
Toxins are are one of many factors that ‘lock in’ a particular ph and prevent the downward retrogression. The aim is to remove the blocks to regulation.
One way to lower the acid burden is to avoid dairy, eggs, animal protein, sugar for a therapeutic period. Consume no more than 50-70gr protein per day (chicken, fish ok).
Also sodium bicarbonate could be taken for awhile (jn warm water, empty stomach) to quicken the process.
The toxic load can be reduced in many ways (depending on the constitution and the condition)
The intestinal milieu also has to be regenerated. There are therapeutic means using specific organic acids and low valencies of the endobiont (which i won’t go into here) that can greatly assist the downward retrogression.
The improvements in the milieu will be visible in the darkfield and diseases heal as the body regains its capacity for regulation.
Diarm, enjoyed these comments as biology/ecology is my favorite subject.
Are you aware that contemporary Terrain Theory has an atavistic orthodoxy not based in reason? Pleomorphic theory is one example within that orthodoxy. In truth it is not possible for microbes to change into other microbes any more than it is possible for dogs to change into cats. Tens and hundreds of millions of years of evolution separated bacteria from fungi. They can’t just leap back and forth. What you are missing is the biological phenomenon of microbial dormancy, which is a well-known phenomenon in soil biology but not in human biology.
99% of so-called ‘pathogens’ (in truth there is no such thing as a pathogen) are anaerobic microbes that must lie dormant in healthy, aerated human tissues because the oxygen levels are too high for them to survive. They go dormant by sealing themselves of in protein capsids. They wake up when oxygen levels drop in diseased or dying tissues which, conversely, is when the aerobic microbes present do the opposite, and go dormant so that the anaerobic conditions don’t kill them. That is the basic microbial dynamic as it relates to disease.
Cheers.
It hasn’t received a lot of mainstream attention, but as a theory, microbial dormancy inside healthy human bodies makes a lot of sense.
Fail to maintain an adequate oxygen or pH level and all sorts of things could come out of the woodwork.
Recently I’ve been hearing a lot of reports of neighbors and friends of friends experiencing attacks of shingles. Some of these people I know personally (or have heard about indirectly from personal acquaintances) who are getting shingles are as young as their mid-40s, and while that isn’t unprecedented in medical history, I had never heard of such cases until recently.
Naturally, all of these anecdotal shingles cases have been in people who received three or more COVID-19 jabs, so I tend to jump on that as a cause, although correlation needn’t imply causation.
Supposedly, shingles is caused by the herpes zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox, when said virus becomes active after decades of dormancy due to the immune system no longer being able to keep it in check—which is a sort of microbial dormancy if you think about it—but those who say that viruses don’t exist will have other possible explanations.
If shingles is caused by a microbe, whether virus or something else, that is present in most people but dormant most of the time, it is conceivable that repeated jabbing creates conditions that are more favorable for said microbe to become active.
In any case, the growing number of shingles cases here in Japan has created a golden opportunity for Big Pharma to market a “very expensive” shingles vaccine, which is being advertised in full-page newspaper ads and is apparently quite popular among older people.
Jarle I cured my supposedly permanent thyroid disease over four years of properly nourishing myself. My family members, they still have it.
Tks Diarm . I want your answer on booze . I love my evening single malts . Life would be boring for someone like me already ” past expiry ” date .
well as the kerryman says about alcohol ‘ i can take it or leave it.. but generally i take it ‘ 😁
I certainly would enjoy if it’s not causing problems. You can mitigate some of the effects by supporting glutathione production (NAC etc..) or take glutathione as a liposome..(Quicksilver Scientific or Readisorb make proper liposomes)
GGT on the liver panel is a good proxy for glutathione. It’s not 100% for tissue levels but if it’s high you know you’ve a bit of work to do. Ideally down at the low of the reference range..
Diarm , tks . I get a liver function test every six months ( no gallbladder ) , so far all tests are well within range . So I guess I will stick to my routine . Info is appreciated ,
Hi Reante
This is in response to the above.
I am aware of the contradictions. I am mostly aware of Gunter Enderlein research but other researchers (Bechamp Bernard) arrived at similiar findings independently. Enderlein spent over 5 decades looking at samples in darkfield.
What was he seeing? It may be that we have to leave the realms of biology and chemistry and enter into physics. The fascinating part is his creation of medicaments – low valenced forms of mucor racemosus and aspergillus niger that when given appropriately can turn around disease states associated with their more pathogenic states – as viewed in darkfield and documented by Enderlein.
This paper by Stuart Grace (physicist) may go someway toward a bridge between the two worlds..
http://www.pnf.org/compendium/Comparing_Computer_Simulations_of_Fungal_Growth1.pdf
I typed out a long response but it disappeared..
This paper may go someway..
http://www.pnf.org/compendium/Comparing_Computer_Simulations_of_Fungal_Growth1.pdf
also…
https://www.scribd.com/document/579346154/The-Theory-of-Pleomorphic-Provolution-Revisiting-the-Heresy-of-Spontaneous-Generation-2001-Stuart-Grace-Natural-Philosophy-Research-Group
Diarm thanks, and for the links. I’ll admit I haven’t perused that kind of material. I’ll check them out. I also have some thoughts on the acidity topic you brought. But that will have to wait for another day.
np.
here is a link to (English translation) of a paper by French engineer Louis Claude Vincent. He discusses water, terrain, ph, oxido-reductive potential and resistivity (due to dissolved mineral solids)
https://soilandhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/Presentation-BEV-anglais.pdf
Thank you for posting that Diarm, a very interesting read, that provides a possible answer to so much .
Thanks for posting this. This is the chart showing two different groups of countries, with different approaches to nutrition.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F37f9e478-8574-42de-a1b3-16a2e1f18f77_1388x1231.png
The big difference in the diets is that the group with lower meat intake, and more legumes, and aged cheese, sauerkraut, and perhaps a little aged dry sausage (like chorizo) tend to live longer. Mexicans coming from Mexico, with a Mexican diet, tend to live longer than US citizens because their diet provides more putrescine, spermidine and spermine.
I would disagree with Tim on his opening remark. “You will definitely want to keep eating your meat, and your peas, and your Cheddar cheese. . .”
It is not the meat you want to eat. It is the things other than meat, particularly fermented foods of many kinds that you want to eat, together with beans, corn, and many kinds of fruits and vegetables.
I think the US food system has shifted people’s food preferences toward sweet and bland, especially since 1960 or 1970. There is a whole lot of emphasis on “getting enough protein.” This is something that people tend to equate with meat. People also really like deep fat fried food, with lots of concentrated calories. Portion sizes are way too high.
Cultural anthropology makes clear that human societies have always based their movements on animal proteins and fats because they are by far the most metabolically efficient forms of both macronutrients and micronutrients. Micronutrients bioaccumulate up the food chain, thus mammals and fish are dynamic accumulators of nutrients. Because we need a lot of nutrients, we store a lot of nutrients. The men in their physical prime need the highest ratios of protein in their diet and everyone needs high ratios of fats.
By need I mean what’s necessary for optimizing one’s potential.
A fellow named Paul Warburg has some insights regarding why the Rome collapsed, and he makes some parallels with Russia. (A person could also make some parallels with the US.)
I question whether what everything Warburg says is right. He claims that Russia has saved up a huge war chest of funds that it is spending on building military armaments and paying soldiers, which can temporarily make the economy of Russia look better than it really is. He thinks that this war chest will soon be running out. Warburg says that now, Russia is encountering significant inflation because much of the funding is coming from printing money, rather than past savings. He believes the plan is to keep the economy going for a while longer, with Putin still in power–to kick the problem down the road as long as possible.
I know that if things are not going well, wars are a popular way of hiding the problem.
Russia is in much better shape than the US and all of Europe, financially and economically. Russia falling are a Neocons wet-dream. You don’t want to see Russia fall because their hardliners will just step in and start launching their Nukes. Then it’s Game Over for humans.
Yes, the end of this round of civilization, but no end to humans. Juan and his family in the Andes in the far south in a village that is a days hike from anywhere will do fine. They grow their own food, milk, wool, eggs, a little meat. They grow the three sisters corn, beans, squash. In a thousand years they will have resettled South America. In four thousand years they will have resettled the whole world.
Four thousand year hence people will still tell the stories of how the Orange Man saved humanity from the great satan. Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Manhattan, and Washington DC are still dead land to be avoided. The stories say they were the lairs of the great satan’s minions.
https://imgur.com/qka0Mjq
https://imgur.com/a/9IB10fq
https://imgur.com/WUhOgdG
Right! If Orange Man eradicates the manifold nuclear waste in hundreds of cooling ponds.
Kids will ask if Orange Man himself was one of the demons. Wise men and women will look inscrutable and answer: That is a very good question!
The Bad had stumbled over his own feet, probably.
https://www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/pfbid02LHk7C55cbtZy5naDu4prn3TbBTzQbEQyacjYjSmGSawQaLUyBMDSDHr6NktCyZzQl
??
They are also afected by the loss of market and end of modern medicine
It’s possible that humans survive a nuclear war because anything is possible, including a blind squirrel finding a nut.
However the general consensus is the opposite. I’m going with Annie Jacobson who researched nuclear war and she wrote a best selling book: “Nuclear War: A Scenario”.
She compiled her information from defense contractors along with nuclear scientists and they told her, that if a nuclear war began that we all have 82 minutes before it’s lights out for everyone. Keep in mind that today’s nuclear warheads, make the two that were dropped on Japan, look like weak firecrackers.
If you were lucky to have survived you would regret that as nuclear winter would set in. So starvation would be an eventual outcome.
https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Nuclear-War-A-Scenario/dp/B0CF6K1NZ9?crid=2Y8ZP1THJY8AF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.btPtnXTnYHlwft9pjcT5zBs-MAo9LfLCyRLIuA3_3nU6PPBiniyMEtICMlDoyqnV7BLZ9vz0_3Kw0Yfhg7j969on8ZJDMKYYFW37HmlKdBW8jxtZkVOSAD3CfcJWQr3PKKCwO1-KelnFhbfODe6JqabIny3EticveSuxczHNraAgGDGDqlIl3c4XQ92ELMn5RW9_7GN0YD8jumkJ9a_OdNI9t0xtYCjjYn0229jFfBk.K71UAV6ZtfiHA8pdod04kIO9Nn_5q63ru8FFYbZKbUw&dib_tag=se&keywords=annie+jacobsen+books+nuclear+war&qid=1744126343&sprefix=annie+jaco%2Caps%2C833&sr=8-1
Except Russia already collapsed in 1991.
The central government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia was one of the states (the largest) that remained after that collapse. There is no reason that Russia could not collapse, in the future.
He seems to disagree with the main tenet of this forum, that resources are everything. so you have the largest amount of resources in the world, belonging to 2% of the population, but this 2% is going to collapse while others, presumably with a resource to population ratio one order of magnitude higher, will not. okdok.
The world is interconnected and end of 2% means end if society
”resources” are only of any use to you if you can convert them into cash, and there are other resources available to buy with that cash…..
your economic system can only function if your ‘resources’ can be converted into something usable and saleable.
I question whether what everything Warburg says is right. He claims that Russia has saved up a huge war chest of funds that it is spending on building military armaments and paying soldiers, which can temporarily make the economy of Russia look better than it really is.
When your own economy (the USA) is all about printing money I suppose you tend to see other economies the same way.
Paul, you should be more concerned about the US …
There was a time when the illustrious Warburg family produced central bankers, yes, but also the great Otto. Now is just Paul and central bankers. No prizes for ethnicity correct guesses.
Of course, he could be onto something. But in the West, we have galloping decadence, corruption, child sacrifice, hubris and incompetence at the top, seven colors of insanity in the streets, and barbarians literally inside the gates! As I see it, we have no margin worry or care about Russia’s problems.
How many Chinese industrialists will buy a US gold card and set up a factory in the US? How robotized will they be?!
Gonna say zero. Instead, the robotic Chinese commercial landowners are going to get the boot. Not sure that was actually a campaign promise but it seems pretty certain to me what with all the sinophobia.
Instead, the robotic Chinese commercial landowners are going to get the boot.
Can the US afford to do that? If the landowners aren’t fully compensated China will seize US assets in China.
I figure that they may be compensated or may not, depending on how the geopolitics plays out. If China takes Taiwan first then I assume no compensation. The US government doesn’t own any assets in China, and vice versa. The tariff war could be a shaking out of the bilateral private marketplace ahead of confiscation, who knows? It’s not exactly patriotic to be an American entrepreneur making a living on Chinese wage arbitrage. Nothing is really affordable for anybody when civilization is on the verge of collapse, least of all the status quo. Hence the also unaffordable tariffs. It becomes about manifesting the less unaffordable adjustments.
None. The USA should probably stop overestimating its own importance.
They can’t invest in the US because their assets could be seized. It’s also one reason why they continue divesting of US Treasurys.
I remember that the downturn in July 2008 was marked by a downturn in mortgages. Now it looks like consumer credit, especially auto loans, is leading the way.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/6-sigma-miss-consumer-credit-confirms-us-consumer-finally-down-and-out
Only Gail says that the end of the oil age will be because of low oil prices . I agree and so does Gerry Maddoux at POB .
gerry maddoux
Ignored
04/07/2025 at 12:49 pm
Contrary to corporate opinion, this abrupt fall of WTI to $60 is very good for U.S. energy independence. These CEO’s aren’t thinking past their next earnings report. No matter alternative forms of energy, the U.S. (and the world) is going to need oil and gas for decades to come. Look no farther than the Permian Basin. They have run through an amazing collection of source rocks like maize through a goose, with absolutely no regard for anything but money. For the uninformed, man has traditionally drilled into oil that had migrated a good distance from the source rocks, gathering in an oil trap of some sort. Drilling deep into the earth to blast oil and gas out of the SOURCE ROCKS represents some degree of desperation–this is the last gasp in American oil and gas production.
I make my living from oil and gas, primarily from shale. However, I would very much rather sell less product at higher prices than to give away large quantities as though it’s no big deal to replace it. When the source rocks are all blasted to smithereens, there’s no more production.
The world has not known fossil fuel starvation for over a century. It will not be a good look. Those who are demonstrating against FF’s have no concept just how bleak an oil-starved world would be. This correction–if it persists for months, not just weeks–will idle a lot of rigs, bankrupt a lot of people drilling the next well from the flush of the last one, and will reset the priorities. At least that would be the ideal. No pain, no gain.
When you think it thru it all begins to click. Wages have not kept up with inflation so as citizens get poorer at the expense of the wealthy they won’t be able to afford the product. I remember watching a program and IIRC it had to do with an African country (perhaps Zimbabwe) where they had plenty of oil but the people there could not afford it.
That’s the eventual end-game for fossil fuels. Why go thru the expense and intensive labor to extract it, if no one can afford to buy it? That’s what energy producers will be asking in the decades to come.
its the output of cheap surplus energy that hasn’t kept up with inflation
Our friends the economists have put together incredibly poor models of how the economy really works. We have been led to believe that the only dynamic of interest is that low supply will lead to high price. High prices will lead to either more supply, or another way around the problem (substitution or greater efficiency.
In fact, energy availability affects wages and economic growth. It even affects inflation rates and interest rates. Energy availability affects the ability of the economy to repay debt with interest. We are dealing with an economic system is a physics-based system that keeps everything in balance. It seems to have an Invisible Hand guiding it.
Data centric as compared to narrative. Human need narratives, the problem is letting go when knowledge changes and one has lifetime invested in the old narrative.
It doesn’t make people bad, it makes them human.
Dennis L.
You make a good point:
“Human need narratives, the problem is letting go when knowledge changes and one has lifetime invested in the old narrative.”
C’mon! You needed a lifetime to understand how your credit card works?
The old will be the most prepared! The young are too occupied with mating and dating and to look like Meghan.
Get the boy next door to work your garden for some bucks, grow some rabbits and hens, some Merinos and make a garden that can adapt to the local climate producing its own seeds.
You’re. Right 👍, the TV show with Billy Bob Thornton says it all in plain English
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmbZwxEnAFc&pp=ygUWbGFuZG1hbiB3aW5kbWlsbCBzY2VuZQ%3D%3D
That’s my favorite show
We definitely need oil to keep the system with wind turbines going. We also need electricity to pump gasoline from the pumps, when we go to get our vehicles refueled. People don’t understand how interconnected the whole system is.
“14:14 that you can bring that price down as much as you want Saudi Arabia is still going to be able to produce oil but here’s the problem the United
14:22 States since 2020 all of America’s oil growth comes from the per Basin of West
14:30 Texas all of our new wells are there um the break even point for an existing
14:37 peran Basin well is around 33 bucks so if oil’s at 45 they can still make some
14:43 money um but for new wells all of our new production new
14:49 wells the average break in even Point 66 bucks you drop the price of oil below 50
14:58 bucks I’m a marine and math isn’t my thing but 45 is lower than 50 uh and you
15:03 collapse the um the new oil production Market in the United States and within
15:08 two years we’ll lose 30% of our oil production um Donald Trump is just stupid does he
15:16 really think that West Texas oilman especially the Wildcats who poured in their entire future they’ve gambled
15:23 everything on the promise of Market stability made by the US government that
15:28 oil will be kept between $76 and 80 bucks a barrel so now they can say okay
15:33 we can go ahead and put in these Wells and start production you know to get to
15:39 get our our money recouped he thinks what you’re going to go in and drop oil Russia can produce oil forever Saudi
15:45 Arabia can produce oil forever the United States can’t produce oil forever we keep oil at 45 bucks a barrel for two
15:52 years our oil economy collapses and we have people who will lose everything and
15:57 when the west Texas economy collapses the American economy collapses “?
quantity of oil available isnt the problem
the price of it isnt the problem
it’s humankind’s ability to use it and convert it into usable and or saleable goods is the problem
in the 20th c oil was $2 a barrel—but the usa was literally awash with the stuff—same with coal and iron, the other key ingredients of modern civilisation.
those ingredients produced cheap goods, and started the leapfrog of production vs wages.
Henry Ford increased his workers wages so that they could afford to buy the cars they were making….and he stilll made millions…… and became the biggest car maker in the world.
his increased production fed increasing wages which in turn bought that increased production—-which then fed increasing wages—-and so on.
this worked for decades….until it slowed down because oil didn’t deliver enough ‘surplus energy’ into the system to buy all the ‘stuff’ we thought we needed.—this is what the maganuts dont understand….those times can’t return because the means has evaporated.
workers can’t be paid enough to buy the ‘stuff’ that actually makes a modern economic system function….this why a house costs 10x average wage, instead of 4x like it used to when i bought mine.—-my g/grandkids wont be able to do that.
sure—better off people still can, but their numbers are dwindling.
Nice analysis by CHS on the global, financial chaos currently taking place: “The Financial Kessler Effect”
https://charleshughsmith.substack.com/p/the-financial-kessler-effect?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1692393&post_id=160798992&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=4cyn7j&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I agree that the linked post is a very worthwhile post by CHS.
At the beginning, CHS makes the point that the economy is going through something like a phase shift, similar to the change that takes place when water turns to ice. I think this is a good analogy.
The Kessler effect is an effect that acts like too much space debris. CHS says:
The trick is liquidity, Warren seems to have thought that one through. The value really hasn’t changed, but the current valuation has. Those who purchased overpriced homes in 2008 lost secondary to liquidity problems, today most/all of those issues are so yesterday.
Dennis L.
“Donald Trump has threatened to raise his tariffs on China by an additional 50% from 9 April if China doesn’t withdraw its (retaliatory) tariffs of 34% by Tuesday.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/apr/07/donald-trump-tariffs-foreign-governments-markets-fall-netanyahu-white-house-us-politics-latest-updates-news
One of the comments on this brief article is
So, perhaps the tariffs are a system to help the billionaires.
did you mean are NOT a system…
Right! That is what I should have said.
Some people claim the tariffs are intended to make more money for billionaires, but it doesn’t work out that way in practice.
Oh pathetic…. When you have 300 billion and lose 100 billion it’s no big deal. You can always make it up somewhere else… Cry me a river…on a more serious note I have been hearing more b.s about people having there online viewing checked in America when the come back through. Strange how all these Trumpers are keeping their mouth shut about it.
The tariffs are to raise revenue and severely depress the consumer economy that depends on imports.
the don isnt interest in money per se……
the don wants absolute power.—all dictators do.—he can see it’s within his grasp.
he creates an emergency, and chaos, then assumes powers to deal with that chaos. Which is what he has done so far. And is continuing to do.
Having forecast his arrival on the political scene, now watch that play out over the next year or two.—he has to take dictatorial powers by 26, because the mid terms will wipe out his power.
Once he has total control, he can disregard congress. The jesus freaks will do his dirty work.
We can only hope something stops him, otherwise America itself is toast.
Almost everyone with an interest in politics who I meet in the offline world seems to agree with you, Norman.
For instance, I met an old American friend (Male, Jewish, Californian, 70-ish, lived in Japan for the past 40 years) at the railway station last week. Him and his wife (Japanese) were buying advance tickets to travel to Tokyo, from where they were planning to fly to NY to visit their son and also take a tour of the museums there, which they haven’t seen up to now.
But during our 10-minute chat on the concourse, he couldn’t help mention that Trump was ruining the country and that he couldn’t understand how anyone could have voted for such a guy once, let alone twice or three times. Although a permanent resident of Japan, he still votes in US elections and has consistently voted for Democratic candidates all his life. Kamala was not a problematic candidate for him and Biden was not a disaster as a president.
I told him it was better not to get involved in political disagreements while in NY as tempers are simmering and you never know who might explode into anger or violence, and if he makes it back home alive, I will let him tell me why he thinks Trump is so much worse for the country and the world than the other main candidate for POTUS would have been.
he creates an emergency, and chaos, then assumes powers to deal with that chaos.
Trump has not assumed any special powers. Did the BBC tell you this?
He disentangles global economy in preparation for a large war. Dividing the resources in the Middle East.
wars consume and destroy resources
mid east oil is in terminal decline, there isnt enough there to sustain any major nation.
even the act of shipping it out 5000miles would be counter productive
Patrick Raymond makes sense . Mentions Gail’s work . French , Use translator .
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/04/c-est-fini-encore-un-choc-energetique.html
Patrick Raymond talks about the end of globalization.
By the way, the company I used to work for, “Towers Perrin,” merged with a company in Ireland to become “Willis Towers Watson,” after I left. A major purpose of this merger seemed to be to get the tax benefits from Ireland. Also, Towers Perrin had been employee owned, and it had been difficult to get capital in and out.
If the only way trade works is running surpluses with the US, then the ending of these trade deficits implies a sharp decline in trade which might imply oil has been mispriced, it is too expensive for demand without US trade deficits.
Dennis L.
If the US could use oil more efficiently, then perhaps it could raise the price of oil it could support without running a deficit. In 2020, the US squeezed out some commuting. It needs to squeeze out quite a bit more oil use, and substitute producing goods and services that US citizens want and need.
Wow! What a whiplash on the stock market today! Down 1600 then up 800 and down 900….
The Plunge Protection Team is busy today, boys.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmxox3oqRZo
The Big Short: Ending scene “Sell it ALL”
Traders Arcade
Yes Sir, they have no choice…really…
What does one do with the “money?”
Dennis L.
Easy, corner the Tuna can market
Laughing quietly.
Dennis L.
Tks , Mike . I had absolutely forgotten about the PPT . There is another agency that does the manipulation on the currency and the bond markets . I forget their name . Tks anyway as this was of my radar from a long time .
FASB56 off-balance sheet slush fund. Kind of like the “Magic Money Machines” Musk was talking about.
Meanwhile, on Wall Street, all these parasitic financial guru money changers continue the skim. They have no productive skills or services to offer.
Only when it comes down to the real nitty gritty of what the dollar, the Treasuries, “collateral” and “cryptos” are really “worth” will one begin to take inventory of his true wealth. For now I take inventory of food stores, water, bullets, and batteries.
Tks Hubbs .
VIX = 51.98 according to WSJ
Do we really need to ship hop stained water in aluminium cans and bottles thousands of miles ?
https://swentr.site/business/615288-trump-beer-tariffs-jobs-eu/
yep. posted similar comment yesterday. heineken is fucked.
I would think that long distance shipping of bottled water should go away too. In fact, bottled water in general is pretty irrelevant, if tap water is OK. But that is not necessarily an international shipping issue. Most of it is more local.
I wonder about all the extra waste in the system; seems like we could survive longer eliminating the waste
maybe eliminating the waste will cause the bubble to burst
I’m afraid our entire human-oriented economic system is ultimately centred on the production of waste.
it’s the numerous ways of doing that , that pays everybody’s wages.
so we look for more and better ways of producing waste.
I am afraid eliminating waste could do just that–cause the bubble to burst. We need a lot of demand caused by unnecessary stuff.
No comment on this, except to say that it’s an interesting observation:
How is that reciprocal? Reciprocal would mean a 3.9 per cent tariff on Korea, not 25 per cent. It would mean a 3.9 per cent tariff on Japan, not 24 per cent. India got slapped with a 26 per cent tariff even though its tariff rate on the U.S. is 5.5 per cent. What is with Vietnam being hit with a 46 per cent “tariff” when its comparable on U.S. products is … wait for it … 2.9 per cent (in a $30 trillion U.S. economy, Vietnam runs the grand total of a $123-billion trade surplus with the U.S.)? Thailand charges a 6.2 per cent tariff rate, and the U.S. just slammed it with a 36 per cent punitive “tariff.”
So, I must make this very clear.
These are not really “tariffs” that are being imposed.
These are actions aimed at completely eliminating the U.S. bilateral trade deficit with every country.
That is why the “tariff” is really not that at all but rather a “ratio” of every country’s trade surplus with the U.S. divided by the exports of that country — it is that number that the White House expects to rid the United States of its trade deficits; not just at an aggregate level, but for every country that runs a trade surplus with America.
This is why these numbers, 10%, 17%, 20%, or 25%, are so huge. They are ratios.
via The Globe & Mail
– David Rosenberg
Behind a paywall at
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/inside-the-market/article-david-rosenberg-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-are-a-con-and-investors-are/
Unfortunately, I think that eliminating the trade deficit is part of what needs to be done. We need to greatly scale back long distance international trade. We need to start thinking in terms of making our own goods, to the extent possible.
If you look at the size of the tariffs, and the distance that goods must travel, it is the trans-pacific trade that is especially being hit.
Yes and in so doing make it possible for men to support families, children. Not everyone is going to be a rocket scientist and the old phrase, “they can learn to code.” rings hollow.
Divorce per Copilot results in transference of $33B to divorce attorneys. That is an after tax cost in most instances, a great deal of personal equity.
It is cheaper for two to live together, to be really cheap put in a grannie’s apt. Been there, lived that; babysitter close at hand.
Does this mean the young can afford a home? Worked for my father and mother in the depression.
Dennis L.
That kind if methid is very yesterday.
The methodology seems to have come from a 2014 book by economics professors
https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/balanced-trade?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
It’s really simple. They picked the number that would provide income to the US government equal to the trade deficit, in effect balancing it out.
I read that for some reason they only look at goods, not goods and service, though.
Ivan, in my view they did so because US is strong on exporting services and not goods.
But also services are something that is exported.
So, following the reasoning of one that needs to defend one’s own productivity, one should also consider in a separate account the service supply offered by US, in other words one should also consider trade of service
Things like Facebook, Google, American Express, Moody, Black Rock, Visa etc. should receive tariffs by Countries that have their presence, until a service presence of the relative Country which receive them is equally available in US.
I can understand that US may want to scale back long distance trade and build back its own industry, but at the same time, it is too easy going on willing to make money with servides in the same Country from which US wants to be defended about goods.
Nice observation, never thought of that one.
Dennis L.
Nevermind the petrodollar surpluses huh?
The article explains the theoretical basis of the tariff selection. It concludes,
.
Finally some action for the collapsitarians, happy now?
Estasy to the point of being delirious.
Been waiting for this since FE proclaimed we all were going to die soon,
Hope TRUMP mandates vaccinations.
The US dollar is toilet paper ready to be flushed
Zerohedge is reporting this morning:
https://www.zerohedge.com/market-recaps/futres-global-markets-tumble-indescriminate-selloff-global-markets-panic-vix-hits-60
Futures, Global Markets Tumble In Panic Selloff As VIX Hits 60
A few excerpts:
“S&P 500 Index targets are getting slashed on Wall Street while Fed rate cut bets are rising. UBS strategists say “stagflation on steroids” is possible.”
“While the US is in pain, nothing compares to what Asia went through, and especially China which was closed on Friday and which saw record drops across several of its indexes this morning.”
“MSCI’s emerging-market stock index dropped 7.9%, erasing its gain for the year and notching its biggest intraday drop since 2008.”
“Cryptocurrencies, an asset class that Trump has been promoting, wiped out almost all their gains since his election win in November. Bitcoin tumbled below $75,000 for the first time since Nov. 7 before paring the drop.”
“The magnitude of moves across equities, rates, and many commodities is resulting in hedge funds being hit with some of their largest margin calls since the Covid pandemic.”
– – – – – – –
Markets don’t go straight down, so we should expect at least some bounce back. But this looks like a scenario where some hedge funds and other buyers of equities could get into financial difficulties.
Understand there a quadrillion or so of derivatives, problem?
Dennis L.
I suspect TPTB have managed to quarantine this exposure for now. If they can censor COVID and Government waste, then derivatives will go along for the coverup ride. Easier to blend in with the herd so to speak.
Same way I think debt problems could also be concealed by freezing up electronic money grid. But to do that, they would have to conceal it by having an internet shutdown…by those Russian cyber attackers of course. EMP? Nah. Too obvious. But once the internet is down, then down comes the power grid.
You don;t think all these power hogging Data centers are going to rely on the grid do you? They will rely on their own autonomous sources of power and for that reason I can see solar, as problematic as it is, finding a niche for these Data centers—to secure control in the midst of a power grid outage.
So when the trucks stop running, not only will you be thirsty, hungry, cold/sweltering, you will be lkiterally in the dark.
Gonzalo Lira said that being in a power and communications blackout area (Kharkov) was VERY unnerving. You don’t know what the hell is going on. Working furiously now to get my HAM gear operations onto Linux and off Windows. Installing JS8Call, Winlink, CW for peer to peer messaging and bypassing the grid and internet as much as possible. I realize it won’t do me much good because I am 70, but maybe it will for my daughter who has her technician license (its a start) in the future.
They are run by the ‘smart money’ you cherish. So they must be doing somethings right? (Sarc)
“Do current account deficits matter?
We continually read that nations with current account deficits (CAD) are living beyond their means and are being bailed out by foreign savings. This claim is particularly potent in the current US-China context.
In MMT, this sort of claim would never make any sense. A CAD can only occur if the foreign sector desires to accumulate financial (or other) assets denominated in the currency of issue of the country with the CAD. This desire leads the foreign country (whichever it is) to deprive their own citizens of the use of their own resources (goods and services) and net ship them to the country that has the CAD, which, in turn, enjoys a net benefit (imports greater than exports). A CAD means that real benefits (imports) exceed real costs (exports) for the nation in question.”?
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=10389
“Deadly Innocent Fraud #5: The trade deficit is an unsustainable imbalance that takes away jobs and output. Facts: Imports are real benefits and exports are real costs. Trade deficits directly improve our standard of living. Jobs are lost because taxes are too high for a given level of government spending, not because of imports. By now you might suspect that, once again, the mainstream has it all backwards, including the trade issue. To get on track with the trade issue, always remember this: In economics, it’s better to receive than to give. Therefore, as taught in 1st year economics classes: Imports are real benefits. Exports are real costs. In other words, going to work to produce real goods and services to export for someone else to consume does you no economic good at all, unless you get to import and consume the real goods and services others produce in return. Put more succinctly: The real wealth of a nation is all it produces and keeps for itself, plus all it imports, minus what it must export. A trade deficit, in fact, increases our real standard of living. How can it be any other way? So, the higher the trade deficit the better. The mainstream economists, politicians, and media all have the trade issue completely backwards. Sad but true. “?
https://www.moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
Nope, deficits in engineering lead to loss of engineering talent and a narrative approach. The real wealth of a nation is its people and their skill set.
” A trade deficit, in fact, increases our real standard of living. How can it be any other way?” Answer: look at our major cities, they are horrible messes surrounded by wrecked manufacturing. The quote is from an economics group who have no idea of information theory and thermodynamics which are linked very closely.
That is essentially economics as a religion.
” The current price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is approximately $69.67 per barrel as of March 27, 2025. Adjusted for inflation, this would be equivalent to about $10.50 in 1970 dollars.
Copilot if you must.
Some of you are tired of me, that is okay, why is oil cheaper today than fifty-five years ago? Why is oil being produced by 35Mbpd more than in 1970(don’t have that research in front of me, I posted it, approximate dates)?
Something is wrong with the thesis.
Optimus 3 along with Starship makes mining space real, for our lifetime, the solar system is infinite.
Markets up or down today? Markets open in about 40 minutes, Tsla near futures down say 13%. Optimus 3 it will change the world. Oh my, futures are now only 5.22% doubt in the trenches?
The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was signed into law on June 17, 1930. That is after the stock market crash, the crash was a paper event, lack of liquidity. Who engineered it?
Dennis L.
It will only change your delusuonal theories
This document is has its copyright in 2010. It partly represents the “we can make our economy grow by just adding more debt” view. Perhaps that was somewhat true at that time, but we are way past that time now. It is a hopelessly out of date view now.
Patients from the female psychiatric ward planned to kill other patients and staff, and escape the ward
https://spravy.pravda.sk/svet/clanok/747455-bud-ides-s-nami-alebo-ta-zabijeme-sestica-tinedzeriek-pripravovala-masaker-v-nemocnici-z-ich-sadistickeho-planu-mrazi/?utm_source=pravda&utm_medium=hp-box&utm_campaign=shp_3clanok_box
“‘Either you come with us or we will kill you’ Six teenage girls were planning a massacre in a Czech hospital. Their sadistic plan sends chills down the spine
The chilling plan prepared by a group of six girls hospitalised in the children’s psychiatric ward at the Regional Hospital in Liberec took not only the medical staff by surprise, but also the experienced investigators. According to the indictment, the girls, aged between 12 and 17, planned the murder of the night nurses and the subsequent murder of all the patients. In the end, the plan did not come to fruition thanks to one of the girls who decided to speak out.”
“Forensic experts confirmed that both accused girls were able to recognize the wrongfulness of their actions and to control themselves. According to the prosecution, their testimony that the plan was a prank is in stark contrast to the way in which they prepared the plan and their cool demeanour after its discovery. The investigation confirmed that the plan was serious.
The other girls who were drawn into the plan defended themselves by saying they had no choice – they were intimidated and feared for their lives. Some had similar psychiatric diagnoses, educational problems and suicidal tendencies. One even boasted that she had once stood with a knife over her parents’ bed.”
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Western values coming to Slovakia. Nothing unexpected.
It happened in the Czech Republic.
even better.
Liz Bathory mostly killed Slovak girls
nothing new
As a result protestantism died in Slovakia.
Some psy patiens think like that, no?
What is a psychiatric diagnosis and what as an urge to kill the people in the confined space, or certain people?
Long, long, ago did they not send political activists deviant in the Soviet Union to insane asylums? They must be crazy to think there is something better!
Many here ask the diesel question . Here are some answers . Spanish . Use translator .
https://crashoil.blogspot.com/2025/04/cronicas-de-la-caida-abril-de-2025.html
Yes, this post shows why the deck chairs are being rearranged. It will create some losses and some gains over a short period, it will probably accelerate de-dollarization and make it more expensive for the US to wage war (in more than one way), while treating the US lower classes a bit better. The blanket is too short, Biden covered the head and Trump the feet. The USA is still going to catch a cold.
Not sure there is an alternative to the dollar. If China does not sell to the US, who do they sell to? India? Japan? Europe?
Have no idea, no opinion.
Dennis L.
Good point. China does need buyers for all of the stuff it makes.
China(and others) have been working on that for quite some time and it hasn’t taken long to go from them needing our products, to us really being no more than a customer with a noticeably diminishing wallet. Almost all the things they buy from us(goodwill token), can quickly be taken away, as they themselves or a more favourable partner can easily produce at a lower price.
Look at the below and follow the trend. Interesting to observe who does well with China. We’re agreement incapable and so have chosen our own fate. Trump with his latest antics will only bring this forward and is surely being (quietly)applauded in Beijing.
http://english.customs.gov.cn/Statics/33c8365f-2900-47ef-b09e-340fded9f156.html
This is the diesel chart that is shown. Production is far below the high of 2015 – 2017 level.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5lhmwXKG7PFfc1ajJIbaCAZe6QVoq5L6xH480F2hsdXvsM5tbjJyy_eUnLf4tESgUlAtBqgxwWYLETpL38w2Oc9lGg3XB1tG3Upc4gN-5ETsW4_Z0ctjjN8nsNR5ynRufOhfX2RkQNMF0uxo9Woipmc1mc2UXRpC6ZtiLllqHQRILryMXmsF-JDXH2k/w640-h384/diesel%20-%20refinery-ouput.png
Regarding distribution of diesel, the post says:
Oil is far too valuable fuel to be burned for electricity. It is not surprising to me that this usage for diesel is being squeezed out.
I wasn’t overly impressed by the non-diesel part of the post.
Thank you Ravi for the article!
Actually, it was long time since I’ve gone on his website and its worth to do it now.
I agree that we will have devastating consequences, although there are some good reasons behind this move.
But considering the devastating effect of that move, I still think that either they will have to make some big corrections or they will be obliged to open a new dramatic distraction… because there will be great opposition to that.
Trump’s tariffs
A good point of Trump’s tariffs is that we Europeans are not thinking anymore to give money and weapons to Zelensky, but what we need to do to avoid the complete destruction of our economies.
As correctly a commentator outlined, considering that Biden made us to close trade with Russia and also delete The Silk Road agreement with China, what we can only do now with our goods is buy ourselves all our export, that is specifically drink all the wine, eat all the parmigiano cheese and pasta, use all the machinery we manufacture here, because we cannot trade them anymore as before.
If one sees in retrospection Biden’s administration and Trump’s administration as a continuum of US actions, one can understand that Europe has been incredibly screwed.
Good job US, we need to admit it.
But European politicians now begging to Trump and talking about keeping alive ‘western civilization’ with US are really pathetic!!!
Trade with Russia and China before is too late!!!
Merde che non siete altro…
Yes yes. I feel terrible when I see these zombies (I was in Italy 3 days ago) say nothing about the destruction of NS2, but getting all worked up over tariffs towards third countries. Survival of the fittest is coming…
Somehow, globalization must be greatly reduced. Europe may indeed need to eat all its cheese and pasta, and use the machinery manufactured.
$ 220 billion wiped out today in the Indian stock market .
https://www.financialexpress.com/market/sensex-nifty-50-stock-market-today-live-updates-trump-tariff-china-us-market-gold-rate-07april2025-3801119/
In other news . Credit card default .
” This growing reliance on credit cards has also led to a surge in defaults, with non-performing assets (NPAs) in the segment rising by 28.42% year-on-year, reaching Rs 6,742 crore as of December 2024, according to the latest RBI data. ”
” Credit card NPAs are debts on credit cards that have not been repaid for a certain period – typically 90 days or more – and are now classified as defaults by banks or financial institutions. When a credit card user fails to pay their dues (minimum or full) for three consecutive months, the outstanding amount becomes an NPA for the bank. The bank charges 42-46% interest per annum on the outstanding dues, and his credit score also plummets.”
It sounds like the credit card default problem is in India, just as the stock market fall is in India. I remember you are originally from India.
This is another article you linked to earlier:
https://archive.md/JSIcY
India’s Subprime Bubble Grew 2,100%. Now a Bust Looms
Multiple lenders are chasing the same borrowers amid stagnant incomes at the bottom of the pyramid.
India seems to be like other countries, running into difficulties now. It depends upon international trade. If it lessens, India will have difficulty.
If there is a devil in history, it is the power principle.”
– Mikhail Bakunin
https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-was-doomed-from-the-beginning
I think this is really interesting. If you have had doubts about Starship, and what it is actually capable of… but couldn’t quite put your finger on just why…. well, this is the article for you.
It pretty much concludes that it is not going to be possible to get people into deep space anytime soon. I have written reasons why in the past, but where this article ends, show stoppers such as cold welding, off gassing, radiation, and heat build up would be the next installation of “we do not yet possess the required technology.”
This article is a bit of a gateway into what’s next. Things are not going well for Musk… who I have always believed was primarily a grifter… but with just enough actual working things… that we were left with only one person to push the whole space agenda. For better or for worse… this is the guy, and there really is no one else.
But, like everything else, Telsa (in trouble), Starlink (not actually profitable) and SpaceX (a money vacuum)…. is all fake information. I read somewhere recently; “Musk leaving DOGE to concentrate on Telsa”
That sounds like a divorce to me. If this stock market root is happening, with the A.I.s now all working away at what is actually profitable … and what is not… well, you can bet that someone has spent a few months setting up epic shorts on all tech in similar situations.
It is obvious that nothing related to Starship or Tesla makes any sense. Those conclusions have probably been well known to people like Michael Burry who can find other weaknesses, calculate what a market drop will have on them, and then get ready for the day.
With USAID and other factors pulling out the rug from the stock market, the die is cast. Perhaps Musk did his best to get to a position in order to control the situation, but was not quite able to pull it off.
I suspect whats going on in the markets at this moment, has far greater implications than most would believe.
TSLA: It is more than a car company, it is also Optimus and AI.
Per Copilot:
“Yes, Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, has become profitable. It achieved positive cash flow within just five years of its launch, with estimated revenues of $8.2 billion in 20242. The service has grown rapidly, doubling its customer base to 4.6 million users in 20243. Analysts project even higher revenues in 2025, potentially exceeding $12 billion. This success has made Starlink a significant contributor to SpaceX’s overall financial performance.”
Yes Space X is hugely expensive and as I have pointed out, serious money is invested in it.
Starship with Optimus could be very interesting, opens space to exploration without human risk and death secondary to radiation.
We don’t have many options per this site.
Dennis L.
It will be like swimming in the mud. No fun
I don’t believe Starship is for getting to Mars. Or maybe it’s a secondary goal. I suppose the real goal is for simply getting mass to orbit efficiently – in other words, what they’re already doing for satellites and will be doing for weapons if they’re not already.
Forget about Starship, it’s a garbage can that will never reach orbit. Space weapons? How are you going to build those without Chinese rare earths and other metals the US can’t produce?
Meanwhile China carries out hundreds of successful launches every year while the gulf between American delusion and Chinese reality gets wider every day.
>> China carries out hundreds of successful launches every year while the gulf between American delusion and Chinese reality gets wider
https://planet4589.org/space/stats/pay.html
Don’t let your biases get in the way of facts and reason. USA (SpaceX) puts up more mass and trips per year than the rest of the world (and yes, including China) combined.
I agree, however, that China is either catching up or pulling ahead in many areas.
>> Space weapons? How are you going to build those without Chinese rare earths
The “rare earths” bogeyman will not stop us from getting enough for the most critical military applications like nukes in constant orbit. The real question is whether we can hold together as a nation in the face of political and resource-scarcity-induced instability.
>> I agree, however, that China is either catching up or pulling ahead in many areas.
I want to clarify that they are far ahead in certain areas (eg. refining) and industrialization in general.
“I want to clarify that they are far ahead in certain areas”
Almost all areas would appear closer to the truth.
“These new results reveal the stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains. The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007, but in the most recent five years (2019–2023) is leading in seven. China led in just three of 64 technologies in 2003–20074 but is now the lead country in 57 of 64 technologies in 2019–2023, increasing its lead from our rankings last year (2018–2022), where it was leading in 52 technologies.”
https://www.aspi.org.au/index.php/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker
USA (SpaceX) puts up more mass and trips per year than the rest of the world (and yes, including China) combined.
Because they are are launching garbage Starlink satellites which is basically just money laundering (Starlink funneling money to Space X).
Neither Starlink nor Space X are viable businesses. Starship will never ever work.
And China’s space industry is a viable business? Of course not – it’s government supported because it has national security significance. I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith.
The “rare earths” bogeyman will not stop us from getting enough for the most critical military applications like nukes in constant orbit.
Nukes in orbit? You can’t even build nukes. You will do nothing because you can’t do anything.
Guest2, most nuclear warheads are boosted fission weapons with a deuterium-tritium core. They are stripped down and rebuilt every few years. I have been involved in the process. We absolutely can build nuclear weapons. We can build big nuclear reactors. Nuclear regulation and poor scale economies have made it slow and expensive. But it is still being done.
The economy is slowly deteriorating due to the twin problems of resource depletion and demographic decline. But we are not yet at the point where we cannot build complex tech. My wife just got a new smartphone.
What is happening is the unravelling of the globalised business model. This is driven by demographic ageing, rising shipping costs and geopolitical rivalry. That could be a problem for some product categories. But we aren’t going back to the stoneage any time soon.
We absolutely can build nuclear weapons.
Not possible because the US can no longer produce weapons grade plutonium or uranium. Nor can it produce enough tritium to top up existing weapons.
Depends what you mean by a space weapon. If you want to take out a satellite, it isn’t that difficult to put another satellite or just a lump of metal onto a collision course. There isn’t anything Star Trek about it. If you want to bombard targets on the ground, then deorbit a big lump of titanium dioxide coated cast iron. You need a guidance system and a limited propulsion system with a few hundred m/s propulsive dV. It isn’t really high tech.
Agree with Mars, I am hopeful we use space to mine metals and move pollution off earth. Optimus 3 could make that possible. Have seen reports Musk intends to make 10,000 units this year at a cost point around $20K or less.
Dennis L.
U.S. crude oil falls below $60 a barrel to lowest since 2021 on tariff-fueled recession fear
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/06/us-crude-oil-falls-below-60-a-barrel-to-lowest-since-2021-on-tariff-fueled-recession-fears.html
The WSJ listing of prices is now showing something similar. In fact, stock market futures are way down for tomorrow, as well.
Dow -3.76%
S&P 500 -4.22%
Nasdaq -5.14%
WTI crude 59.74
Brent crude 63.31
Gold $2999.60
Ten year treasury rate 4.002%
And a global sovereign debt crisis looms in the background.
I’m not really sure why bonds are considered a safe investment if governments can default without having to sell assets off to creditors. Are bonds considered safe because q government is involved?
Bessent doing excellent work providing political cover for the controlled demolition. ‘Evil’ is the (dis)placement of truth in service of a greater falsehood – the falsehood that American economic greatness can be restored.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bessent-rejects-recession-talk-calls-market-turmoil-mag7-problem-not-maga-problem
I notice that Bessent said,
“Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days, which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does. Interest rates hit their low for the year, so I’m expecting mortgage applications to pick up.”
The Zerohedge article also says:
The Zerohedge article includes material (and a 1 hour, 4 minute video) from an earlier interview with Tucker Carlson. I watched some of the interview. He talks about other countries moving their factories here, with the jobs coming here, among other things.
Thx Gail. Excellent plausible deniability methinks. He’s good. Lotta fascist quid pro quo-ing going…on, no doubt, and ultimately/eventually in service of nationalizations of remaining industry and the personal protection and status that comes with that even if not near as many more tens and hundreds of millions, and billions. Money boys out on dawn patrol while everyone else is still in bed, surfing the glassy, unborn markets of state capitalism. The sun also rises.
If the world is in a depression and America is making the products at home who is going to buy them? I don’t under stand this logic. The U.S is stalling before this.
America will not be making the products at home because that is not possible. Americans will simply become much poorer.
if someone is being paid 2$ an hour in Asia, paying Americans $15 an hour to make the same things is just crazy Trumpanomics.
It can’t work, and will not improve USA employment and jobs.
Anyway, Norman, I think we should trust Tump on this one. After all, he has a lot more experience in running and bankrupting companies than you do. 🙂
Sam, guest2, and Norman:
You three seem to be in agreement that Trump’s tariffs are a bad idea, or even an illogical one.
Let me see if I can help supply a rationale for them.
People assume that goods imported into the US from low-wage countries with low or zero tariffs are sold cheaper than goods made in the US because the low cost of labor makes them much cheaper to produce.
However, a lot of the time, this is not true. By the time they reach the consumer in the US, these imported goods are only a little cheaper than they would be if they were made in the USA.
What happens is the companies that produce and distribute these imported goods do so at a much higher profit margin than they would if they produced them in the US, but don’t necessarily sell them cheaply.
Instead, they screw the workers in the third world and screw the consumers in the first word. Nice work if you can get it. Tariffs are basically a tax on these companies which are mostly multinationals.
That’s why Wall Street is having a hissy fit. If goods consumed in the US are made in the US, the rich who own the producing and trading companies will have to do without a lot of their Third World slave labor, US labor will be more in demand, and wages will rise. Wall Street will wince, but Main Street will rejoice.
Di you know the top 1% in the US own 54% of the stock market and the top 10% own 93%. Bernie Sanders should be cheering on the tariffs as a major victory in the fight against the One Percent.
I know, I am irrationally exuberant on this issue, despite knowing full well that Trump is a flimflam man of the first water. I can’t help myself.
Just think, if this works out, Levi Jeans will be Levi Jeans again!!
Yup.
Dennis L.
Tariffs would have to come with Momalanomic price controls in order to be characterized as a tax on producers. That’d be a tough sell for Bessent now lol and even more catastrophic. Might as well just tax the multinationals more heavily…with taxes, and sequester those proceeds as collateral for subsidizing worker owned small and medium size US manufacturing. That would be the national socialist route if we had a couple decades to spare. As it is they have to calamitously reverse engineer with the multinationals they’ve got because you can’t skip steps when scaling down.
Pension funds own the single biggest share of the stock markets so Bernie cheering would be untenable for him. Not to mention burger flippers with 401k’s etc, all the indirect shareholders.
You make a good point. It is the multinationals that are especially hurt. This is a new world order.
Pension funds own the single biggest share of the stock markets
This could be true and seems a reasonable estimate. I have no way of knowing or being able to calculate it.
They are definitely among the biggest holders of US stocks. And to that extent, a fall in the stock market potentially impacts everyone with a pension.
An AI search told me that mutual funds typically account for around 20-30% of the total market capitalization of the NYSE, while Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) have increased massively in recent years and account for approximately 15-20%.
The AI calculated that pension funds hold 15-20% and individual “retail” investors hold another 15-20%, much of it in retirement accounts such as 401(k)s. So if we add these together, about 40% of the market may be connected to people’s pensions.
Currently, hedge funds typically own around 5-10% of the total market capitalization of the NYSE, so it’s nice to know George Soros and Warren Buffet will not escape unscratched from a market contraction.
“Pension funds own the single biggest share of the stock markets” sounds right to me also.
Annuities sold by life insurers also tend to be heavily funded by stock market purchases. These should perhaps be added to Pension funds holdings, since they are very similar. Some people with 401(k)s have purchased this kind of annuity.
Thx for that breakdown Tim.
we already have guys in this forum who buy official narratives and re-paste them here. we don’t need more.
Not sure where you’re at these days, drb, I guess I haven’t been back long enough and can’t remember well enough beyond you being happily ensconced in state capitalist Russia with cattle if I’m not mistaken but in case you hadn’t noticed the official narrative now is the Trump administration’s former controlled opposition narrative and the current controlled opposition narrative is the former official narrative. And Zionism remains untouched despite Gabbard’s thwarted attempt to hire an anti-zionist (a true america-first Conservative) as her second in charge (it was Elite foreshadowing imo). Maybe you like the American national fascism (state capitalism) that’s selling people a bill of goods better than the global fascism that was also selling people a bill of goods. Myself I like neither. If my dislike for the former is shared by liberals whose dislike is little more than psychological projection then you’re smart enough to not think that I’m holding a liberal view. You’re smart enough to know that I’m holding a conservative view with a little c unless, perhaps, you’re a big C Conservative of the political persuasion buying big C narratives. Then you might not be. But I think you are.
Oh I know. But before, all the way back to Clinton and before, it was the exact same. Nothing has changed really, and I apologize if I misunderstood you, but really, nothing has changed. Even militarily, one could argue that tariffs are going to limit militarily the US in many ways, but the truth is that the Houthis are having more of an impact.
“US in direct nuclear talks with Iran, Trump says”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx25e5rd2v9o
GM De-Tools 7th Generation V-8 Plant, Pulls Unexpected 180 on ICE Engines
By Evan Perkins Muscle Cars
In a controversial and nostalgic move, Chevrolet has committed to reinstate the 283-cu.in. small block, first introduced in 1957, as the brand’s pinnacle V-8 platform. With its rigid, cast-iron construction, infallible pushrod architecture, and groundbreaking one-horsepower-per-cubic-inch performance, the 283 is widely considered the peak of engine-eering excellence.
….The general consumer doesn’t want or need direct injection, variable valve timing, or exotic aluminum alloys. We peaked in high school with the 283 and it’s time for an encore of our opus.”
The 283 will be offered in multiple configurations including two- and four-barrel carburetion, as well as a premium mechanical fuel injection option
…In addition to its World-War-Three preparedness, the revived 283 will leverage its minuscule (4.6L) displacement to boost fuel economy and its factory-issue, leak-resistant-ish gaskets are made from sustainable cork material
…Without question, it’s a controversial move, especially on the heels of the 2025 LT7 engine, which boasted GM’s highest horsepower rating of all time (1,064) and featured cumbersome technological innovations such as coil-on-plug ignition, combination electronic port/direct fuel injection, and turbochargers–which are unlikely to ever become a mainstream powertrain addition.
…&Out with the old, in with the new…old. The first production run of new-age 283s will begin assembly at GM’s Tonawanda plant on April 1st 2026, with engines intended to trickle into production cars shortly thereafter. However, they will not because none of this is real, and your car-loving friends at Hemmings.com hope you have a wonderfully silly April Fools. Long live the pushrod V-8!—
Ah, if it were to happen…
I’m afraid it isn’t April 1. Setting this up would take time. It would take energy of the right kinds. It would take a trained workforce.
The US can’t make high quality steel–we just recycle steel. Making aluminum is a challenge, too. We need lot of cheap electricity, and we are short on electricity. Wind and solar definitely don’t work for this purpose.
Presumably this is because electricity needs to be constant, or else the smelter will freeze up. Green grids are unable to support heavy industry.
I was thinking that we could still have an aluminium future if we could melt recycled metals into frames and small engines.
I had been imagining a future where we could have just enough to keep some kind of light industrial civilisation trudging along. The idea that nations with plenty of basalt ore and sunshine could create aluminium empires, seemed like it could be the basis of something. That now seems fanciful, by I suppose it could be the basis for a science fiction story.
Its challenging to imagine a future, because everything needs to be efficient today in order to not go bankrupt. But, once that goes away, could there be less efficient, but viable methods to produce metals? Is it possible for something to still produce aluminium, that also does not require coal or diesel to operate?
With respect to ” Is it possible for something to still produce aluminium, that also does not require coal or diesel to operate?”
I think the answer is possibly “natural gas.”
In the US, at this point, we have plenty of natural gas, if we don’t try to export huge amounts around the world as LNG. Making LNG and shipping it around the world is a very wasteful use of natural gas. Natural gas, burned close to where it is extracted, is usually quite inexpensive. Burning natural gas to make electricity, and using it to make aluminum would work.
In theory, natural gas can be used to power heavy duty transportation. But there are challenges.
https://www.breakthroughfuel.com/blog/the-future-of-heavy-duty-transportation-how-cng-and-rng-are-driving-sustainability-and-cost-stability/
https://www.truckinginfo.com/155628/24-crucial-things-to-know-about-running-natural-gas-trucks
I had been imagining a future where we could have just enough to keep some kind of light industrial civilisation trudging along
You have to forget these ideas, the collapse will be total. You know that, really.
Yeah, but it had me believing initially..I was fooled and as an old boomer I liked the joke..
Gail, this next one is real and it’s about *”fake buildings” in Paris
Paris is Full of Fake Buildings, Here is Why
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dbRUK2o60M4&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
How many of Paris buildings are fakes? I’m French, I’ve lived in Paris for 10 years and I’m investigating Paris’ fake buildings! Let’s uncover their secrets together! 🙂
Hint…Data centers, exhaust vents
Well, agree with wind, not so sure about solar. Charge EV’s during the time they are not being driven, per Musk cars driven average of 10 hours/week, give or take.
I mentioned earlier cars of this era used leaded gasoline, it lubricated the valves. Hmm, nothing like a deep breath of lead fumes in the AM while you warm up the car so it will run smooth. IQ dropping, no problem. Tune up due in 1500 miles, friendly service station with a service bay. Way you remember it?
Dennis L.
Mike, I also engage in mild fishing here, but doing it so close (but not on) April 1 is bad. You get a yellow card this time. Doing lightly and year round is I think more acceptable.
and who put you in charge? Take that yellow card and place it somewhere…….I really don’t 😘 care,,,,actually I thought it very appropriate by showing how we have not improved but digressed in engineering practicality.
It was done in a very tasteful entertaining manner.
Just like my post on Snow White, overdone, over engineered and over thought and distasteful to many
Ah, the good old days, you kids, drb, know nothing
My most overall dependable set of wheels was a Ford Falcon 1964 straight 6 cylinder 200 cubic inch , C4 auto transmission.
oh i see you were not fishing. well…
Mike:
The 283 in 1957, how many miles between tune-ups? How many miles until the babbitted bearings had to be replaced?
Camry Hybrids can do 100 mph, get >20 mpg at those speeds and the engines are going strong at 200K+ miles.
Guess the 283 would puke at 50K miles at those speeds if it made it even close.
Not critical, observant, any engine of the late fifties, sixties needed a tune up at 1500 miles, points shot. Not sure when solid state came in. Of course that included leaded gasoline, breath deeply and feel the fall in IQ. Lead helped with lubrication of valves as I recall, got to lubricate those valves.
Dennis L.
Sure, drb, they can get 200,O00 miles plus…blah blah blah
The difference was I paid cash money for it used and during my ownership, replaced the tires, brakes, rebuilt carburetor,
Rebuilt starter, alternator, and water pump and points condenser and spark plugs , belts and hoses.
Since I’m a person that is inclined to , managed an auto parts store in the 1980s ✅ and know a thing or two about it all.
Fast forward today and go on YouTube and view the horror stories of the poor new owners of today’s cars and how the are screwed over by dealerships. Seems the automotive industry is going the same way as John Deere has…to work on it you got to have a dealer computer software program
But🐴go ahead and buy a new car now before the tariffs set in
I’m going to sell mine and buy ride a nice EV Cargo Bike
No license no insurance no license and no repairs or car payments
Correction to my understanding of Copilot and precious metals in orbit of earth.
There are not enough to boot strap either collection nor transport to near solar orbit for refining.
It is back to drones and finding “stuff” in asteroids.
We really could use a cubic mile of Pt, I am game for any alternatives, don’t see much other than H for earth.
Musk’s latest robot has 22 degrees of hand freedom compared to 27 for human. Current estimated cost is $15-18K/unit. That could be a nice addition to traditional tractors making them autonomous.
Factoid: pre emission tractors can sell for more than original purchase price; they are maintainable, simple has merit, droid puts complexity in the seat.
Sometimes I get things wrong, sometimes things don’t work, an 80/20 guy.
Dennis L.
Musk’s latest robot has 22 degrees of hand freedom compared to 27 for human.
Musk does not have any robots.
????
Musk does not have any robots. A remote controlled humanoid puppet is not a robot.
Austria goes on Lockdown over foot and mouth disease.
Austria closes off 24 border crossings with Hungary, Slovakia after foot-and-mouth disease outbreak
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/06/austria-closes-off-24-border-crossings-with-hungary-slovakia-after-foot-and-mouth-disease-
It sounds like as good a reason as any.
Of course, if an animal gets away and crosses the border somewhere other than the 24 border crossing, there could still be a problem.
All these talk about AI 2027 or so are interesting but cannot take place without accelerationism.
It means leaving behind more than 90% of the world’s pop.
Will humanity be strong enough to do so? I doubt it
kul,
AI will be a challenge, it is data centric and humankind is mostly narrative. Narratives take time to change and those with older narratives have a great deal invested in them.
Don’t have a clue, it is bumpy and it will continue to be so I think.
Dennis L.
You 2 are the most tedious double act on the internet. It’s insane cornucopist where impossible things are just a wish away versus insane wannabe elitist who suffers the greatest superiority complex I’ve ever seen. There is no cubic mile of platinum, and Chucky is long dead, do us all a favor and be quiet, ikke sant?
Well thank you, I consider it a compliment coming from Goethe’s character who was typically seen as a demon or devil.
Time will tell who is right, Starship may launch next week and make orbit. One step closer to ……
Uff da,
Dennis L.
Chucky is long dead but the shit he left behind , namely the elimination of thevbest of the West and its replacement by the country bimpkins and Asian zombies, still linger on.
“namely the elimination of thevbest of the West”
They clearly were not the best.
They were losers, who unsurprisingly lost.
No amount of entitlement wins against even the average man, when the rules of the game aren’t rigged.
Survival of the fittest, in the true western sense prevailed.
At the moment I’m looking after my 85 year old mum who is suffering from panic attacks that I believe have been caused by continuously worrying about everything has anyone got any suggestions for stopping these panic attacks she has had them for 1 and a half weeks thanks for any suggestions finite worlders.
Ask her questions. Just random ones.
Gets their minds to lose track of whatever they’re worrying about.
Thanks I am the mob I will do this
Good for you Adonis. Could be related to diet, prescription medications side effects, lifestyle, or any combination of those, plus perhaps mental unpreparedness. A big, daily mug or two of high quality bone broth with some gaba powder in it wouldn’t go amiss along with a hot water bottle in the lap.. Cutting sugars and starches. Feeding the brain the grass fed fats and proteins it needs. Eating bone-in stews. Homemade liver pate is good cause it has lots of butter in it too.
Please ignore if this offends:
Prayer? There are many things in our lives which we cannot control and as we get older the time to correct problems within our personal time span grows short. Many things in life we have to accept even if in earlier periods we could control/adjust such issues.
Prayer is simple, it lets one off the hook for what is beyond personal control.
Dennis L.
Why do you feel the need to apologize in advance if someone is offended by suggesting prayer? If they are so small minded to be offended, then can they not look elsewhere for their wisdom? I do not understand this fear of proposing an age old practice of prayer.
Mushroom therapy. I hear this is the way to go. They are still illegal in most places, so finding them might be a challenge.
Any types you recommend? Have you tried microdosing?
I usually just buy kits online. Even though shrooms are illegal here in Poland, for some reason it is ok to buy kits. Golden Teacher is quite acceptable. One shroom is lowest dose I do. After 30 minutes colors are much more vivid and music is extra tasty. Sometimes after an hour I will add a second. Light starts to get interesting (tracing, turning solid and you can hear every single note played).
Of course, I do this in my own large yard enjoying nature. No driving allowed. I haven’t done ego-loss level in may years, but I might try it one more time.
No side effects. On a single shroom, nobody will even be aware you are shrooming. Overall, a very calming experience.
I would not recommend giving it to someone who wasn’t aware they were taking it. For a for a first time willing participant it would be good to keep them company.
Thanks for info. Do you notice any psychological or emotional effects that persist outside of the session? Do lower amounts impair your reasoning abilities like alcohol?
Effects that persist: yes, contentment. Lower/min doses (1 shroom for me) only makes you sharper, more perceptive and contemplative. There will be no fights on shrooms. I generally like to take them at dusk to enjoy light changes as the sun sets. Clear starry night is a bonus. I regret how much stupid stuff I have done because of alcohol. No regrets with shrooms. You should do at least one loss of ego sessions. It might be all you will ever need.
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The best outdoor basketball I ever played was on a cap and couple stems on a Saturday in summertime at the best park in the city for pickup ball. Animalian performance enhancer.
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There are some GABA agonist supplements that can have a calming effect: L-theanine and ashwaganda, for example. Lowers cortisol, lowers fight-or-flight response. Effectiveness varies from person to person I assume, but something to consider.
Is there a way that your mother can be more physically active? Sitting around is not good for anyone. Adding worry to the mix makes it worse.
Thank you everybody for your suggestions, Adonis
A agree with a lot of the dietary advice that others have suggested above. Good quality animal fats can help the brain enormously.
Avocados and coconuts are also great foods.
And get her out in the sunshine and, if possible, around nature, especially on warm days.
But panic attacks, anxiety and worry have a strong psychological aspect too. And they may be rooted in real issues, so it isn’t alway possible to reason them away.
One practical suggestion is to et her to read (or to read to her yourself; or read yourself and then explain to her) some helpful books.
Off the top of my head:
–Peace from nervous Suffering, Essential Help for Your Nerves, or Hope and Help for Your Nerves all by Dr. Claire Weekes
Dr. Weekes, writing half a century ago, taught people how to come to terms with their anxiety by controlling their response to panic. At the heart of her technique was recognizing and dealing with “first fear” and “second fear”.
Understanding Anxiety: Weekes taught that anxiety is a natural response but can become problematic when it leads to a cycle of fear.
First Fear vs. Second Fear: The “first fear” is the initial anxiety or panic one feels in response to a triggering situation. The “second fear” is the fear of experiencing that initial anxiety again.
Acceptance: Weekes encouraged individuals to accept the initial feelings of anxiety without adding the second layer of fear. This means acknowledging the anxiety without fighting it or being afraid of experiencing it.
Practice: She suggested that allowing oneself to feel the anxiety without resistance helps diminish its power over time. This approach involves sitting with feelings of anxiety, observing them, and recognizing that they will pass.
Facing Fears Gradually: Weekes advocated for gradually facing fears rather than avoiding them, which can help reduce the overall intensity of anxiety and panic over time.
There is a lot of advice in her books that can help people with all kinds of anxiety issues, including agoraphobia, which keeps people stuck at home and afraid to go out, and depression, which keeps them in bed.
Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat Zinn
Here the focus is on mindfulness, acceptance (or surrender) and meditation, but the message complements that of Weekes, and you don’t have to become a Buddhist to benefit from it. And there are dozens of other books that offer advice for calming your anxious mind from a Buddhist perspective that contain common-sense techniques and attitudes. Anything by Joko Beck, for instance, is very accessible. Joko was the Gail Tverberg of American Buddhism.
Paul David, a man who suffered crippling anxiety and panic attacks for over ten years, eventually wrote a book At Last A Life about how he overcame it. His recovery began when he walked into the office of perhaps the 20th psychologist he had visited it, with no hope of it making any difference to his condition, and the therapist began their conversation with the statement. “Paul, you will never get better until you stop trying to get better.”
An absolute classic in this genre is How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, who introduces us to the wise words of William Osler, who himself borrowed from other thinkers going back as far as Aristotle.
Osler credited the following words of Thomas Carlyle that helped him lead a life free from worry:
“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”
As Carnegie tells it, Ostler said the following in a speech to the students at Yale:
“He stated that it was owing to what he called living in “day-tight compartments.” What did he mean by that? A few months before he spoke at Yale, Sir William Osier had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where the captain standing on the bridge, could press a button and presto! there was a clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one another shut off into watertight compartments.
Now each one of you,” Dr. Osier said to those Yale students, “is a much more marvelous organization than the great liner, and bound on a longer voyage.”
What I urge is that you so learn to control the machinery as to live with ‘day-tight compartments’ as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage.
Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe, safe for today! Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead. Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
The load of tomorrow, added to that of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter. Shut off the future as tightly as the past. The future is today. There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now. Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future. Shut close, then the great fore and aft bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of life of ‘day-tight compartments.’
By living in day-tight compartments, ask yourself the following questions when you start getting worried or anxious about an issue or a problem. Dale Carnegie advocates in his book,
Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?
Prepare to accept the worst.
Try to improve on the worst.
Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health.”
Of course, Jesus said much the same thing about living in the present and not worrying about the past or the future. Obviously none of us has enough power or energy or time available TODAY to deal with all the problems and troubles that we are going to have to face IN THE FUTURE, but we should have sufficient means to deal with those that we must face TODAY.
But perhaps these kinds of worries that Carnegie, Ostler and Christ talked about are the sort of things faces by young or middle-aged people. An 85-year-old might have very different worries occupying their mind, and they may be quite valid worries and not something to be denied or minimized by other people. If you could discover what the worries were and offer solutions and reassurance that you will do what you can to see that her wishes are followed and her fears do not come to pass, that may go a long way towards calming her fears.
Great advice Tim