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The world economy is at a major turning point, which is why we should brace for rapid changes in the economy. The world is moving from having enough goods and services to go around, to not having enough to go around. The dynamics of the economy are very different with not enough to go around. The hoped-for solution of higher prices doesn’t fix the situation; after a point, adding more buying-power mostly produces inflation. Other solutions are needed. The world economy is reaching what has been called “Limits to Growth.”
Economies throughout the ages have grown until their populations grew too large for resource availability. Researcher Peter Turchin has studied the general pattern of overshoot and collapse scenarios. The chart shown in Figure 1 is based on analyzing eight such cycles in the book Secular Cycles. The fossil fuel age began over 200 years ago, and it now seems to be reaching its end.
I doubt that President Trump thinks in terms such as secular cycles or overshoot and collapse. But tariffs and government cutbacks engineered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seem like they might be approaches that will allow the world economy to contract in a way that could be helpful in keeping the collapse from taking place excessively fast.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation further. The issue we are facing is really a physics problem. Governments can print money, but they cannot print resources, especially energy resources. Our bodies are accustomed to having a certain amount of cooked foods in our diets. This, by itself, encourages population growth and eventual overshoot of the resource base. The self-organizing system somehow chooses its own downward path, not falling further or more quickly than necessary, under the Maximum Power Principle. This is what we are encountering now.
[1] In physics terms, the economy is a dissipative structure. Dissipative structures are self-organizing structures that require energy to grow but are only temporary.
The universe is filled with dissipative structures. Humans are dissipative structures, as are all plants and animals. Hurricanes are dissipative structures, as are star systems. Ecosystems are dissipative structures. All these things are temporary. Even economies are temporary, but no one tells us this detail.
The kind of energy that is required varies with the dissipative structure. Green plants use sunshine. Animals require plant or animal food. Humans have evolved to eat a mixture of cooked food and raw food. While a few raw food enthusiasts can get along using a blender to break up food into small particles, the general pattern is that our modern brains require the nourishment that cooked food can provide. Thus, humans need both food and some type of fuel for cooking at least a portion of the food. Fuel is also helpful for heating homes, ridding water of pathogens, and providing transportation.
Many things that we think of as man-made are dissipative structures. Governments are dissipative structures. Governments grow and often become too expensive for their citizens to support. The energy governments use is indirectly obtained through the use of taxes. A little of the energy used by the governments is purchased directly by governments to power their vehicles, and to heat and light their buildings.
Much more of the energy required by governments is indirectly consumed. For example, a portion of the taxes collected goes to pay public officials. This pay is used for things the public officials use, such as food, transportation, and housing. All three of these things require energy at many places in their “lives.”
- Food – Sunshine to grow; oil to cultivate and transport it to the store; electricity for refrigeration; natural gas or electricity for cooking; human labor for many tasks.
- Transportation – Fuel to make the metal and other materials used in making the vehicle; human labor to construct the vehicle; fuel to operate the vehicle.
- Housing – Diesel to prepare the lot where the house is built; energy of many kinds to create and transport materials such as lumber and wiring; human energy to put the pieces together; electricity for lights after it is built; natural gas or electricity to heat the home after it is built.
In fact, every part of GDP requires energy. In some cases, this is “only” human energy. Of course, human energy requires food, some of it cooked (or broken into tiny pieces with an electric blender).
Businesses in general are dissipative structures. So are international organizations of any kind. Cities seem to be dissipative structures. Religious organizations are dissipative structures. Any organization that seems to grow, pretty much on its own, is a dissipative structure.
[2] If the energy sources needed by a dissipative structure become scarce, this can badly disrupt the dissipative structure.
Hurricanes that pass over warm water tend to maintain their strength, but if they go over land, they quickly dissipate. If an animal is deprived of food, it will become weak and eventually die. If a government is deprived of revenue (and the energy sources that this revenue indirectly buys), it will no longer be able to provide the services it has promised. It may default on its debt or collapse.
[3] Many dissipative structures seem to be programmed to eventually go downhill and collapse, even when plenty of energy seems to be available.
Obviously, running out of energy isn’t the only way a dissipative structure comes to an end. Most humans don’t starve to death. Instead, when humans get to be 70 or 80 or so years old, they lose some of their strength. They more easily succumb to illnesses. Other animals are similar. Tomato plants in our gardens seem to be more prone to infestation by pests after a month or two of bearing fruit.
[4] Even economies seem to be programmed to go downhill and collapse.
Economies have a problem with their populations becoming too large for available resources. For many years, it appears that added debt (money supply) can be used to temporarily work around a resource problem. For example, a dam purchased with debt may allow irrigation so more food can be produced for a given population.
The problem with this approach is that the benefits of added debt reach diminishing returns. At some point, an economy discovers that adding debt doesn’t add much energy supply; instead, it simply leads to inflation (and, indirectly, higher interest rates to compensate for this inflation). Also, for governments, the interest on debt becomes a greater and greater burden.
The US government seems to have reached the point of having too much debt. The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently published this chart related to US debt:
US taxes need to keep rising, as a percentage of GDP, just to repay US government debt with interest. This is a path that can lead to hyperinflation. This seems to be the underlying reason for DOGE and the tariffs.
Adding infrastructure such as roads, pipelines, and railroads can be helpful in the beginning. The additional infrastructure enables new businesses to be built that make use of this infrastructure. Initially, the tax revenue from new businesses makes it easy to repay the debt with interest.
But additional roads, pipelines, railroads and other infrastructure are not nearly as helpful. They may add capacity, but they don’t materially change the transportation options. The tax revenue added is less.
At some point, simply maintaining and replacing all the infrastructure becomes burdensome. Adding debt for the replacement of infrastructure becomes burdensome because the new replacement infrastructure adds no new functionality. It just maintains the old functionality. The interest on the debt must come from somewhere, but it is not built into the system the way it was when totally new infrastructure was built. Today’s approach is simply to increase the debt level and hope that the revenue will come from somewhere else.
A related issue is that old factories tend to be less productive than newly built ones that benefited from the latest advances. This allows new factories (perhaps in another part of the world) to make goods in a more cost-efficient way. An older factory is likely to lose out in price competition against a newer, more productive factory elsewhere.
[5] The analysis of Turchin and Nefedov in Secular Cycles suggests that economies often go through the pattern shown in Figure 1.
Economies discover a new resource. Perhaps they have conquered a new land, and they have eliminated the old inhabitants. Or they have cut down trees, allowing more area for farming. At a given level of technology (and fuel for the technology), a given area of arable land can support a particular number of inhabitants. If the population gets too high, the size of farms tends to fall too low to support the farmers and their families. This pattern happens if families allow multiple sons to each inherit a share of the family farm.
Alternatively (and more likely), if the population gets too high, the younger sons don’t inherit any farmland. They start working in services and or on crafts of various kinds. But these alternatives to farming generally don’t pay very well. The many workers with low wages become less able to pay taxes, creating a problem for government funding.
As the population rises, wages of these lower-paid workers become increasingly less adequate to cover the necessities of life. With inadequate nutrition, populations become more subject to epidemics.
According to Secular Cycles, as these problems arise, debt is increasingly used to work around the problems. Slow population growth and increasing debt are characteristics of the Stagflation period shown in Figure 1.
Eventually, economies fail. Governments can fail due to a lack of adequate tax revenue or by being overthrown by unhappy citizens. Alternatively, they may lose a war against another country with better weapons (made with energy supplies). All governments, as dissipative structures, can be expected to eventually fail, one way or another.
[6] The world economy now seems to be headed on a path similar to that shown in Figure 1.
The world economy now seems to be reaching the end of the age of fossil fuels. I believe that the world first entered the stagflation era in 1973, when oil prices first rose dramatically. At that time, it became clear that oil must be used more sparingly. To help economize on oil, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars began to be imported from Japan and Europe. In some places, oil was being burned to generate electricity; this electricity could sometimes be replaced by electricity from nuclear power plants.
In the 1980s, added debt became more important. Companies were told to use “leverage” to become more competitive with producers around the world. Instead of fearing credit, it should be embraced. Computers were increasingly used, and world trade was expanded. World trade very much facilitated the production of complex goods, such as automobiles and computers, because it allowed a very wide array of raw materials to be used in manufacturing.
Figure 3 suggests that world trade stalled in 2008. There has been a slight downward trend since that date. With tariffs, world trade will likely fall more quickly in the future.
One of the underlying problems facing the world economy is the fact that major types of energy supply have been falling relative to world population for a long time. The high points seem to have been in 2004-2007 for oil, in 2011 for coal, and in 2001 for nuclear (Figure 4).
Middle distillates (diesel oil and jet fuel) are particularly important in world trade. Middle distillates are plentiful in heavy oil, such as that found in Russia, the oil sands of Canada, and Venezuela. Diesel is important for operating farm equipment, large trucks and ships, and construction equipment.
Middle distillates are in short supply because it is hard to get the price up high enough, for long enough, to compensate for the high cost of extraction, distillation, and transport. If the price of diesel rises much, the price of food tends to rise. Voters don’t like high food prices. This seems to be a major reason that both Russia’s oil exports and Venezuela’s oil exports are subject to sanctions.
Without an adequate supply of middle distillates, world trade needs to be scaled back. I believe that this shortfall is the physics reason underlying the push for increased tariffs. The fact that these tariffs are particularly high against China means that long distance transport across the Pacific Ocean will be scaled back. Shelves in US stores will increasingly lack goods made with Chinese inputs.
[7] Modeling of the overshoot and collapse problem has been done since the 1950s. A recent model suggests that world industrial output is likely to fall quickly, about now.
In 1957, US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover gave a speech explaining the importance of fossil fuels to the economy and to the military. He then explained that we could not expect fossil fuel extraction to last very long:
It is an unpleasant fact that according to our best estimates, total fossil fuel reserves recoverable at not over twice today’s unit cost are likely to run out at some time between the years 2000 and 2050, if present standards of living and population growth rates are taken into account.
Much modeling has been done since that time. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology did a series of analyses which they published in 1972 in the book, The Limits to Growth. The most recent update to this analysis shows the following summary exhibit.
The 1972 model and its update both look at the world economy from an engineering point of view. The analyses ignore the roles of governments, debt, and many other things important to the economy. The original authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth analysis said that they didn’t have much confidence in the accuracy of their forecasts after the decline had begun because of the many omitted factors.
The disturbing thing from the 2023 analysis is that it shows industrial output dropping about now. This is what I would expect to happen if there is a big drop in world trade.
[8] The world economy is self-organizing. It doesn’t seem to depend on the actions of any one person or group.
The Universe keeps growing and expanding. Many people believe that the Universe spontaneously sprang out of nothing and began to grow. I believe that there was a Creator.
An intricate system of evolution is taking place, with new dissipative structures arising and old dissipative structures coming to an end. The dissipative structures that last are the ones best adapted to the Earth’s ever-changing environment at that time.
Somehow, the world economy (and other ecosystems) maximize the total output of each part of the system, under the Maximum Power Principle. This isn’t dependent on any one system being more efficient or working better than another. Instead, the world economy tends to maximize the total output of the system, given the energy supplies (and other resources, such as water) available. Thus, the world output of goods and services is unlikely to fall so catastrophically that it quickly wipes out most of the world’s human population. For example, if industrial output is limited, it may be concentrated especially on replacement parts for current machinery and on machines needed for food production.
The intricate nature of evolution and the many dissipative structures formed, together with the Maximum Power Principle, leads me to believe that the Creator is still active today.
It seems to me that the self-organizing economy utilizes whatever leaders are available. They don’t need to have good motives for their actions. It isn’t that Donald Trump is a better leader than others, or that his ideas, as promulgated, will take a hold. The system works through many leaders of various political parties. Each leader is somewhat replaceable by other leaders. The underlying physics of the system is what leads to the changes that take place.
Religions seem all to be created by the same Creator. They seem to have many functions, including binding groups together, teaching “best practices” regarding getting along within a group here on earth, and (when resources are short), fighting against other religious groups. Religious organizations seem to be part of the self-organizing economy, as well.
[9] What I see ahead.
(a) Recession seems likely, starting out as being barely perceptible, but getting worse and worse over time.
(b) World output of physical goods and services will begin to decline almost immediately. In particular, products manufactured in the US using inputs from China will become difficult to obtain, as will goods imported into the US from China.
(c) I expect that commodity prices will fall. Deflation seems more likely than inflation. If inflation does take place, I expect that it will take the form of hyperinflation, with central banks issuing huge amounts of money, but there not being very many goods and services to purchase with this money.
(d) I expect that many banks, insurance companies, and pension plans will fail. I expect that governments will not be able to bail them all out. If governments do try to bail out all these failing institutions, the result is likely to be hyperinflation, with not much to buy.
(e) Many governments have plans for digital currencies to replace the currencies we have today. I am doubtful that these plans will work. For one thing, intermittent electricity is likely to become an increasing problem. For another, government organizations, such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the United Nations are likely to start falling apart. Even the United States is likely to become less “united,” or it may comprise fewer states.
(f) I do not see gold as being very helpful for the long term. It seems like small silver coins will be much more tradable in the future. What we will really need is food, water, and shelter. I expect that these will go mostly to workers producing these essentials, rather than to hangers-on to the system.
(g) A few businesses may do well. Figuring out how to produce food in quantity, locally, may be helpful. Converting unused buildings to shelters for poor people may also be helpful. Private “protection” services may also do well.
(h) The stock market provided great returns for US investors in the 2008 to 2024 period, but this cannot be expected to continue. A likely result is that returns will fall very low or will turn negative.
(i) Borrowing is likely to remain challenging, or get worse. Lenders will increasingly recognize the default risk. Some lenders may go out of business.
(j) Over a period of years, trade will change to be more local. The US will lose its status as the holder of the reserve currency. It will no longer try to be the policeman of the world.
[10] There are a lot of things we really don’t know.
The Creator may be creating a religious ending that we are not aware of. In fact, such an ending could come very soon.
Otherwise, dissipative structures are very often replaced by other dissipative structures. New economies may gradually grow up in different parts of the world. Perhaps the new economies will figure out new energy sources that we are not aware of, or make better use of declining energy types. According to Physicist Eric Chaisson, the long-term trend is toward more complex, energy-intense dissipative structures being formed.
“Societies” in Figure 7 seem to be similar to today’s economy.
We have new pope who is from the mendicant order of Augustinians that originated during the medieval energy collapse in Europe, like the Franciscans.
He chose the name Leo XIV. Leo XIII. was the last pope before the WWI, during the energy collapse before the world wars of the 20th century.
And he is Hispanic and from the USA.
Donald Trump is so powerless with his prosperity gospel evangelicals…
When I heard that the Holy Spirit had settled on an American pope this time, my first thought was that the cardinals had named Trump for the job. But then, when I realized the smoke coming out of the chimney was not orange…..
Maybe Trump threatened to nook the vatican if they didn’t choose an American, or who knows, maybe just bribed them. LOL.
Anyway, quite ridiculous that the liddle vatican is allowed to be a state. Apparently Moosoleeni allowed it back in 1929. Just a pity there wasn’t a fash -ist in charge of Italy back then, eh? They’d never have put up with it.
If I’m not wrong it was due to the intention of Mussolini to frame Phascism in the context of Catholicism and the intention of Pope XI to frame Catholicism inside Italian politcs.
It was a pity, we could have restored in northern Italy Celtic and German p@ganism and in center and south of Italy Latin p@ganism.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Lateranensi
In Germany H. was more iconoclastic, taking distance from Christianity, which in my view it can be a legitimate action, although it is dangerous, after so many centuries of paganism oblivion.
One doesn’t know what can come out from that old pandora box.
In that case, we would see now in Germany also a percentage of so called paganism in a druidic style, like some people are trying to do in UK, but they are treated as braindead.
It is surely too late to bring back these cults, but I think that we should study them with more interest and a neutral approach.
“It was a pity, we could have restored in northern Italy Celtic and German p@ganism and in center and south of Italy Latin p@ganism.”
Do you think this implies man is the master of his own destiny?
It seems life creates its own path, seemingly to me 80/20 and we are along for the ride.
Corollary: chose your parents wisely.
Dennis L.
Parents or progenitors cannot be chosen, but can only be received.
And it is a gift.
Then parents and progenitors can be loved or can be rejected, they can be studied or can be forgotten.
My interests are historical and prehistoric, but I do not accept one telling me what I should or should not do according to a some kind of someone personal concept of wisdom…
We should report here facts, sometime express opinions, but it is better don’t tell others what to do or not to do.
What to make of the flare-up between India and Pakistan? I see claims that Pakistan’s Chinese-made J10 shot down quite a few Indian jets, which I’m assuming are Russian-SU-30, since that is most of India’s air force. If true, not good for Russia’s image and weapons sales.
update – this article says the Indian aircraft were French Rafale fighters
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/global-militaries-study-india-pakistan-fighter-jet-battle-2025-05-08/
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/global-militaries-study-india-pakistan-fighter-jet-battle-2025-05-08/
>> Pakistan, for its part, claims it shot down five planes and at least one drone: three Rafale fighter jets, one MIG-29 fighter aircraft, one Su-30 fighter jet and one Heron drone.
Last i looked, it was 3 jets and all Rafale, but given the reports of Chinese advancements in both propellant and explosive capabilities, i wouldn’t be surprised if some old Migs and SUs fell.
AnsarAllah will be all smiles, as the message they have been conveying starts to sink in.
“so the response is coming, it must be”
https://substack.com/@geopolitiq/note/c-115232668?utm_source=notes-share-action
Isn’t Putin off to India soon?
If he is and he takes evidence to show who really organised the original attack, India could potentially stop being an annoyance and accept the place it is being offered right at the center of BRICS. The upcoming summit proposals offer would be good for India and it’s punishments will also be clearly laid out
“this is the other key facet in the proposals — if any country allows its trade with the US to be weaponized, that is, used against a third country, then said country will be similarly treated as a pariah”
Third attempt at posting, so apologies if multiple replies appear.
In my view during last meeting of BRICS, China and India didn’t find a successful negotiation for both on borders.
Additionally India is going on to be more on the West side geopolitically, than on the new side made of China, Russia, Iran, so, maybe, this is a deeper ‘discussion’ on this issue.
Furthermore I think that India attitude on muslims is not any more acceptable for all Arabic kingdoms plus Turkey, therefore there might be an help to Pakistan also on that front…
For Russia is no problem, they are buying oil & gas. All is well.
Let’s see…
Surfing the net , I find that a lot of analysts are of the view that VVP will move in for the kill after the dignitaries have left Moscow . Xi and VVP are on the same page .– the West ( Trump) is now ” agreement incapable ” . Any thoughts ?
Probably. They ground has been ready to support heavy tanks for a while. Plus there is the fact that there is a likely bridgehead on the other side of the Dniepr. The west was always “agreement incapable”.
It took me a little time to figure out that VVP = Vladimir Putin.
This sounds sort of far fetched to me.
Same here on VVP.
Dennis L.
A quick survey of the traditionalist catholics who escaped to Russia shows overwhelming support of the idea that the new Pope is a puppet of the globalists. They cast in terms of LGBTs etc, but it is the same. I asked because italian media had the classic media storm that accompanies introduction of their favorite guy.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-wild-male-lions-brother-panthera-1180139380
Roberto Saviano, speaker and story teller, who is Sephardic J., he is globalist, leftist and he is also of course in favour of migrations (not in Israel of course), said on LA7 television that the new Pope will be surely in favour of immigrants having spent many years in Peru’ as missionary.
I would add that his mother was Spanish.
Therefore I have the impression that he can be against Trump’s policy for immigrants.
He is also the one who corrected Vance about his interpretation of Sant’Agostino, who was (according to the who is now the new Pope) not correctly intepreted about the circles of love and priorities, saying that the love is universal and must be towards everyone, not first to your tribe and then to others…
Last point, in his first speech he has just spoken in Italian (as tradition), but also in Spanish.
He could be a sort of parallel President of USA, but on dem side 🙂
“the love is universal and must be towards everyone,not first to your tribe “. I recently read someone frame income inequality in an industry in terms of race “the people at the top don’t look like us” as if income inequality would be more tolerable if the people with the highest incomes were not of a different race.
Race is not just the pigment of your skin….it is a set of genetic adaptations to an environment. People who adapt to one environment may not fit well in another.
People who have adapted to life in prison or life in a high crime environment you wouldn’t want to be around you or your loved ones ). I wonder why that is….if you really believe love is universal and can be non-tribal.
These ideas of universal “love” seem to have problems when implemented, no judgment.
We are biology and we seem to use narratives to help us adapt to our biology and mitigate some of the sharper edges and realities. When one ventures too far from biology it seems the results cause lack of faith in those with a narrative not consistent with reality.
That narrative failure does not seem to occur all at once, but over time and when it does occur over reaction may not be uncommon.
Interesting times.
Dennis L.
To Guest and Dennis, but also to who wants to read,
in my view, Catholic Cristianity is exactly the result of what the Jewish disciples of the Gospels (except Luca who was “Gentile”) wanted to implement in Rome in order to destroy from the inside the Roman Empire.
That is, a Religion which refused the concept of slaves and immigrants as an ‘external’ element of the society, in order to subvert the society itself or at least to renew it.
If one takes Orthodox, Armenian, Protestant or Anglican interpretations, they have significant differences.
Considering also that I’m not so convinced that Jesus wanted to create a new Religion from Judaism, but he probably wanted to reform Judaism, I think that current, expecially Catholic interpretation is now more adapt to south America and Africa, than other Countries.
But I want to conclude that Jesus message and what expressed in the Gospels remain, for me, probably one of the most pleasant and attractive Religion we have at the moment on the planet.
I exclude the old Testament because it is more a book for Judaism.
Is the UK/USA deal only to save Jaguar Land Rover ? But whom are they competing against in the US — GM /Ford/ Chrysler . So who wins and who looses .? Orange man is nuts .
In the 12 months to the end of February 2025, the UK’s top export sectors to the USA were: cars, medicinal and pharmaceutical products, mechanical power generators (intermediate), and scientific instruments (capital). These sectors accounted for a significant portion of UK exports to the USA.
Here’s a more detailed look:
Cars: A major export sector, with a value of £9 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q4 2024.
Medicinal and pharmaceutical products: A strong export category, also contributing significantly to the overall trade.
Mechanical power generators (intermediate): Another important sector, particularly in terms of value.
Scientific instruments (capital): A notable sector, indicating the UK’s strength in advanced technologies.
Other notable sectors include:
Electrical, electronic equipment: Trading Economics reports a value of $4.78B in 2024.
Organic chemicals: Trading Economics reports a value of $2.92B in 2024.
Aircraft, spacecraft: Trading Economics reports a value of $2.81B in 2024.
Beverages, spirits, and vinegar: Trading Economics reports a value of $2.04B in 2024.
UK trade with the United States: 2023 – Office for National Statistics
17 Jan 2025
Office for National Statistics
As per the agreement UK will buy $ 10 billion of Boeing planes . Planes that will never fly or will crash before they takeoff .🤣
How about Mini-Coopers?
I found an article about them.
https://motoringjunction.com/featured/mini-cooper-factory/
It says that they are owned by BMW now. They have factories in England and in Netherlands.
It seems like the ones made in England might benefit from the change.
It’s difficult to believe that anyone would buy that junk, specially at a time of declining auto sales.
Mini Cooper sells nothing in USA . Imagine a family involved in a crash with a F 150 0r a RAM . Nobody in the US is buying Mini’s . ,just like no one is buying the Fiat 500 . Remember the Yugo . Americans are too obese to fit into these ” dinky toys ” .
Yet somehow the exports are 9B pounds. Is it all car parts?
Per Copilot new Mini Coopers in Rochester, MN are for sail at Mini of Rochester, MN.
https://www.miniofrochester.com/dealership/about.htm
They appear to be in business.
Agree, they are too small for me, horrible odds with anything, well anything on wheels.
Dennis L.
I agree that there aren’t a whole lot of MIni Coopers in the US. I have never bought one. They are kind of cute, and I occasionally see people driving them. New ones seem to be for sale in the Atlanta area. I would fit inside, but the rest of my family is too big. https://www.atlantamini.com
Living without heating in old houses in Portugal
https://youtu.be/WFKuRry6X0o?si=8CQrgdrbyb6gDg3N
20 % of the population lives in energy poverty
In the southern part of China (Wuhan and south), no heating services are provided to residents. The residents of that area wear coats inside, to keep warm.
In the other parts of China, in areas where surplus heat is piped from coal fired power plants to nearby businesses and homes, there are a beginning and ending dats when heat is provided. When I taught in Beijing in 2015, the cutoff for heat was March 15. The temperature in the morning was still below freezing at that point. Students wore their coats in class.
I’m afraid energy poverty is a fact of life, for a large share of the world’s population. Wages need to be substantially higher, if people need to pay for heat in winter (and/or cooling in summer). These higher wages tend to make manufactured goods too expensive to sell in the world market. This is why manufacturing has moved to warm countries, and poor countries.
lucky the 20% are in Portugal . What if they were in Siberia ? Thou complaint te weel ( too much ) — Shakespeare
Interior Secretary Warns U.S. At Risk Of Spain-Style Blackouts
“We just saw in Spain, they were celebrating on April 12th of this past month that they’d shut down their last coal plant. A week after that, they were celebrating the fact that they had their first day of 100% renewables on their system,” Burgum said in an interview with All-In podcast co-host David Friedberg. “Then, the next week, they were a global news story because people were trapped in subways, all airline flights canceled, hospitals were panicking with a lack of power because they had a rolling blackout and grid failure.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/interior-secretary-warns-us-risk-spain-style-blackouts
No kidding. I would agree.
According to the article:
I would add that batteries can’t fix the problem. The time we need most electricity is often in winter, for heat, especially if governments have pushed for electric heat. Solar produces very little electricity in winter.
Geeez! Now it is electricity, no more Ourfiniteworld?
Dennis L.
Electricity is just part of our problem. A considerable share of electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. The transmission lines are built and maintained using fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are not intermittent, in the way wind, solar, and even hydroelectricity are. Businesses can depend on fossil fuels, 365 days a year.
Why does nobody ever teeter in the middle of something? They always do it on the edge or the brink.
ask @ Grok
What is the “Rio Reset”?
“The “Rio Reset” likely refers to a BRICS plan to challenge the U.S. dollar at the July 2025 Rio summit, pushing dedollarization and a new financial system.
https://x.com/grok/status/1907921115969630641
While most Americans are focused on tariffs, inflation and the potential for a recession, a financial earthquake is gathering force globally.
They’re calling it the “Rio Reset“—a calculated plan by the powerful BRICS nations (China, Russia, India, etc) to aggressively sideline the U.S. dollar. Financial insiders warn this could trigger a shockwave hitting American families hard. The Dollar’s Dominance Is Under Attack
For nearly 80 years, the U.S. dollar reigned supreme, giving America unprecedented economic advantages. That era might be ending.
The BRICS alliance, representing billions of people and vast economic power, is forging a new financial architecture—built specifically to operate outside the dollar system.
The Rio Reset is the final, critical stage. And it’s happening in July in Rio de Janeiro. Many analysts believe this is the most direct challenge to America’s financial power since World War II.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/the-rio-reset-and-your-nest-egg-understanding-the-imminent-threat-5849056
These are the supposed results, if the Rio Reset is successful:
These changes seem pretty closely to things we have had. The article ends with a plug for buying gold.
If you want to have a quick overview of the history of Russia, this video is very good, including the recent energy and food background of the last century:
https://youtu.be/2AP5yFf8SY0?si=f8bSJsfrJP8hU08H
In my opinion, the reason why Russia can not have a democracy is that based on its harsh environmental conditions, securing the energy and food supply is extremely costly, and controlled by the central ruling power, which means that an ordinary citizen is powerless – his or her energy supply can be easily cut off by the government when needed.
Unlike the warm countries, where every citizen has got a lot of free energy from the Sun. And this energy from the Sun is hard to cut off by the government. That is how the democracy was born.
What? everyone feeds himself around here. Yes, it is cabbage and potatoes and milk and eggs, but at least they have it. same for heating. democracy, well, is nowhere to be found, but it seems to me that you are playing the role of the pot discussing the kettle.
You can not compare countryside life with the vast populations living now in the cities.
“everyone feeds himself around here.” – that is simply not the truth for the urban Russia.
Having a dacha means that you can have some food that you produce yourself. Also crops are not abundant and reliable every year.
If all is o.k., there is no need for wars.
However, it seems that the war machine is stuck and the supply of soldiers is diminishing.
Some people were eliminated, so the population problem may be improved.
It was a home, not an apartment, childhood home had a 50’wide lot, maybe about 50′ deep including sidewalk. A garden, mom canned, we ate in part off that garden. I tried chickens, was sold roosters, one meal only, no eggs.
No air, push mower(so green!), mom did not work, volunteered in my schools, at church.
It is different now , media seems to have sold a lifestyle off of which many grifters get a cut.
Dennis L.
In Russia, while basic food is cheaper in dollar terms, the lower wages mean food is a bigger burden on household budgets.
. Also crops are not abundant and reliable every year.
If all is o.k., there is no need for wars.
So crops are not abundant — so then how come Russia is one of the top exporters of grains .
Russia did not go to war . War was forced onto Russia by NATO . Trump, Rubio, Stoltenberg etc all have publicly admitted to it . It started under Oreo Obama — remember Nuland distributing cookies in the Maidan in 2013-14 .
The Americans need ” Food Stamps” to buy food . Last count was 42 million people from 23 million households . So where is the affordability crisis ? USA or Russia .?
I do not compare USA and Russia, I compare warmer areas with colder areas, urban areas with rural areas.
There is this similarity in moving to the cities, which means higher food prices for both USA and Russia, and the soil depletion due to the unsustainable farming practices and the rising costs pressue.
But Russia is generally colder, which is a disadvantage. Family farms do not exist in Russia for the last generations, which also means that the soil was not properly maintained.
foodstamps—ie free food—-can only be viable in a cheap surplus energy economic system.
when energy is neither cheap nor surplus, there are no foodstamps.
Russia never grew out of the ‘Tatar Yoke”, and as Voltaire said, scratch a Russian and you get a Tatar.
Yet short sighted wise men at London though they are Western. They are now learning the lessons too late.
Russia should have been allowed to fracture into a hundred states in 1990s. USA should have recognized Chechnya in 1994, which would have led to the end of the Russian Republic , broken into a hundred stans.
From all the books and articles I’m reading lately, I would add:
‘scratch a Russian and you get a Tatar’ (which is by the way a phrase reported also in the book ‘The great game’),
but also, in my view:
scratch again and you get a Kurgan axe warrior.
The key point for me is that (apart from Zelensky who is neither Russian or Ukranian), that issue happens also if you scratch an Ukranian, because, in my view, they come from the same original ‘tribe’ which split someday in the ancient past (and maybe not much in the past).
I would agree that Russia’s cold climate, together with its spread out nature, and its lack of good ports are a huge problem. Russia has what I think of as a huge “overhead expense.” It needs to ship goods long distances, often over land. It has a huge amount of infrastructure to keep in place, for a relatively small population. Homes and businesses need to be heated to be usable. All of these things add a huge amount of overhead. It makes it hard for Russia to be competitive with the rest of the world. Discretionary income of Russians tends to be low, compared with some other countries.
Also, resource extraction has been its major source of revenue. This is a difficult type of business to compete in. World prices do not rise high enough, for long enough. The value added from resource extraction is barely adequate to pay for all of the costs involved, leaving little funds for taxes to support the government.
Come off it MG!
If that theory were correct, then Finland and Norway would be dictatorships, while the Congo would be a paragon of democracy.
So Ukrainian drones now can home in to cell towers. Operators turn them on and off to avoid losing them. In the last two days me and anyone in the villages had had internet for maybe 10 hours. I think there is going to be some fireworks on May 11. My business can not work without Whatsapp and yesterday I spent the day driving around for things that usually take a few texts.
This doesn’t sound good. Ukraine drones can cause huge problems for businesses, like yours.
One can find the latest updates on drones in in Ukraine-Russia this article:
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-5725-ukraine-launches-new
Inside the various videos of the article, one can learn also that against Russia there are even mercenaries from Columbia !
The basic consideration of all that for me is that all what one can find now as military support to Ukraine against Russia, it is provided by US, Canada and EU taxpayers, plus debts.
Deepening to this point, in this interview in the link below, Graham Fuller (former CIA analyst) explains well that US is still providing 11 flights a week of military supplies to Ukraine through Poland.
He says that if US really wanted to stop Ukraine it could do it in a minute.
He also explains that there are two factions working in US administration at the moment and Trump has not full control on what they propose and do.
By the way I must admit to drb753 that John Helmer is really a good analyst, but from articles read it was not fully clear to me.
From his direct speeches additional insights are available for the watcher, so one can better understand his preparation and knowledge.
I watched yesterday evening and I found it very interesting:
Helmer can be dispersive and unable to make a point sometime. but generally honest and without many prejudices.
I hadn’t thought about multiple factions within the government on policy.
Most of the time, pure self-interest leads to conflict, specially when it re-emerges after a long, common fight.
Columbia is allowing itself to be used as a stage for the narrative “the world has many people who are not nice to Chews. Since the sole purpose of the world is Chew power, privilege, and wealth harsh and blanketing laws and secret police must be put in place to kill the wrong doers”
A question of interest is which Rabbinical court is pushing out this narrative?
Most governments constitute such a court.
This was an interesting discussion having to do with Putin and this sort of issue generally: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rurik-skywalker/id1449753062?i=1000703564973
Lidia thanks very informative talk.
The USSR self destructed. The US is self destructing.
The governments are dead. We should track the struggle/warfare among Chewish factions.
Oil peaked in 1987, the USSR “self” destructed in 1989. Oil will peak in 2025-2026 in the US… but it is all a moral play.
Russian oil production peaked in 1987. The official date of the collapse was not until December 1991, even though the country was going downhill before then. It seems to take a long time for collapse to play out.
Also, low prices hit Russia, preventing starting adding new fields even earlier than its peak in oil production.
According to the Statistical Review of World Energy, the peak in inflation adjusted world oil prices was in 1980. The inflation-adjusted price of oil hit a low point in 1986. I imagine that the USSR cut back on infill drilling sometime in this period, because it was no longer profitable.
The Hand needs the young Left to come out of the closet on ‘antisemitism’ (anti-zionism) like the young Right already has (likewise been encouraged to)because it is part and parcel of anti- global finance capitalism. Because the Hand’s national socialism is unitarian anti-finance capitalism but conspicuously not antisemitic, because the Hand’s opposable thumb is chew. Structurally antisemitic and forward-looking, and not politically.antisemitic and looking backwards in order to blame. Smart.
The humans live in a constant war: if it is not the war with other species, it is the war with other humans.
What is the decisive factor? As the resources are depleting, the ultimate killer in this war is the greed, because environmental destruction kills any species that overshoots.
But this is the way of the world. If you don’t exploit resources, you die. If you do exploit resources, you also die.
Humans having brains can choose to self regulate.
I repeat, if you don’t exploit resources, you die. If you do exploit resources, you also die.
“Self-regulation” is just another word for suicide.
collectively they can not. This is one of the amazing corollaries of the MPP, and of course the MPP is right.
Could you please explain that?
Dennis L.
Whoever refuses to restrain themselves ends up with the benefits of those additional resources and wins. Hence, only tribes/cultures/bloodlines survive that consume everything as fast as possible.
Ivan, no, not “whoever,” as in everyone. There were intertribal checks and balances against trying to convert to (surplus) agriculture. The anomalous attempts at converting to agriculture were only ever attempted out of perceived necessity due to a context of chronic ecological compaction (humans exceeding carrying capacity at a chronically low level). When these attempts happened they obviously ran contrary to the longstanding intertribal agreements on land and resources sharing. The other tribes in the area immediately banded together and punished the offending tribe for trying to cheat because that type of cheating directly threatened the existence of all the other tribes. So the vast majority of these attempts would be nipped in the bud. Checks and balances.
This is the reason only 5 or 8 (can’t remember which) pristine (independently arising) civilizations exist on the record, because the odds were heavily stacked against their favor. The circumstances for attaining a critical mass had to be highly fortuitous. Therefore, a refusal to restrain used to be a very poor survival strategy.
Disagree: We are biology and biology is emergent. We deal with it as best we can.
Dennis L.
But the economy demands growth. There are economies to scale, for one thing.
For another, borrowing money (or issuing shares of stock) requires payback with interest later (or dividends and appreciation on shares of stock). These patterns require growth.
Self regulation can, in theory, keep the number of children down, but the amount of goods produced will keep rising, under the Maximum Power Principle.
It is time for Columbia and all leading universities to close the gates to keep the campus safe or students and professors. Columbia is 100% surrounded by 30 foot high heavy iron fencing. All windows facing the external world have heavy iron grates.
A civil discussion of what constitutes just rule within the university walls.
Pointless temper tantrums outside the walls.
What happened Ed?
All i’ve seen is what looks like what we used to call a sit in.
Did they mention the children, because everyone knows, you don’t talk mention the children.
http://vm.tiktok.com/ZNd6YcVda/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPHXBhfxOpo
Elon says we all can have every thing we want. No limits. What does OFW say?
100 million robots produced per year in ten years
We’re screwed. People are going to buy – thus funding – the robots that ultimately make them obsolete in the best case, or literally kill them so they stop consuming resources in the worst case. Reindustrialization in America is geared towards reacquisition of hard power.
Low IQ citizens working for the government (city, county, state, federal) contribute nothing to hard power. They divert resources that could be used toward hard power.
You misunderstand my point. Automated production lines are the backbone of military production. People buying these things, humanoids and other robots for home use, is what is going to give the tech bros not just eyes and ears in our homes, but actuators.
They can strangle me in my sleep. That will be a problem.
They are used as raw material, a matrix, for transfer of free-market power into monopolistic planned-economy power. Why invest in apartment buildings to rent to average citizens, when you can shunt in loads of gimmigrants backed by government payments and cash in that way?
The entire economies of all Western countries, at least, have been distorted by such actions on every level.
Immigrants have become the new slaves.
The minute an immigrant becomes a real high wage worker and works reasonable hours (no longer working 90-100 hours a week) they are no longer desirable. In the private sector they are discarded ( under the” up or out” policy present in i.t.) for real immigrant labor.
Economists seem to avoid mentioning that is very important to keep wages “down” in many industries and keeping “wages” down means encouraging an oversupply of labor at all times, for all occupations in order for profits to occur. The economy needs a surplus of engineers, doctors, astronauts, who undercut each other for a short-term job.
I am not sure the elite universities have done much better.
Dennis L.
He just says things and does not deliver
thanks for posting that ed—-now i know musk is bonkers
perfect ponzi salesman—keep repeating—you can have have everything you want.
AI will deliver everything—-and folks believe this stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/b6IGlHhZGHM
It’s not just him that is making declarative statements that AI will deliver.
The entire U.S. STEM sector is saying the same thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAG_FBZJVJ8&pp=ygUdZGFuY2luZyByb2JvdCBib3N0b24gZHluYW1pY3M%3D
Yes, most laymen with no aptitude with anything “technical” will believe this because they generally believe what they are told with a few exceptions. It’s common to find someone who is skeptical about vaccines readily accept the singularity as an eventuality. People pick and choose what parts of science they accept.
X is worthless news source. It can not say if the people occupying the reading room on the second floor of the non-specialized library are students or outsiders.
That is at Columbia University
X is a mile wide and an inch deep
Problem is, no other news sources are any better than X, at the moment, that I have seen. At least one seems to get a few accidentally unfiltered nuggets, for as long as that lasts.
The university cannot say who is occupying its space. The USG cannot or will not say who these people are. What X determines is really the least of our problems.
Neil Howe is a demographer who is one of the authors of the book the Fourth Turning. He is not a peak oiler; he doesn’t understand the energy problem.
In this video, Adam Taggert interviews Neil Howe, in a 1:09 interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDVm_E6I0GQ
The reason this video might be somewhat interesting is the fact that Howe is saying that the Fourth Turning is happening now. It is at least partly synchronized around the world.
The blurb says:
This is an outline of the interview:
0:00 – Rise of nationalism over globalization
7:01 – Trump as chaos agent in Fourth Turning
15:46 – Fourth Turning as a global phenomenon
19:16 – Collectivism vs. individualism
25:48 – Trump’s “Golden Age” as a First Turning contender
32:43 – Need for conflict to reshape institutions
34:00 – Potential catalysts
40:17 – Skepticism on Trump’s policy coherence
45:05 – The forces of history make the leaders, not the other way around
52:25 – Economic trends & resilience strategies
59:07 – Long-term investment outlook
1:07:10 – Resources to follow Howe’s work
“The Fall and Rise of Peak Oil” by JMG
https://www.ecosophia.net/the-fall-and-rise-of-peak-oil/
Excerpt: It’s now been close to fifteen years since the Peak Oil movement collapsed and lost whatever temporary grip it had on public awareness. We could doubtless have an interesting conversation along the lines of “did it fall or was it pushed,” and there may be a point to that conversation a little further down the road. For now, though, I think something more basic is called for: an update on where we are just now on the long slow slope of Hubbert’s curve, and what we can expect in the years immediately ahead.
Now of course if you mention that possibility among most of those few people who still remember the phrase “peak oil” at all, you can count on a horse laugh. After all, they’d claim, the entire peak oil theory disproved itself in the wake of the 2008-2009 spike and crash of petroleum prices. Peak oil theorists supposedly insisted that sometime very soon, we’d all hear a horrible gurgling noise from deep within the earth as the last barrels of crude oil got sucked up the pipes, for all the world like that disappointing sound that comes at the end of every root beer float.
John Michael Greer is a student of history. He says that collapses can be expected to be quite (or very) slow. In this post, he says,
JMG gives a list of Peak Oil blogs.
https://www.ecosophia.net/blogroll-of-doom/
OurFiniteWorld.com is on the list. I have met JMG at various conferences, but he is not someone who ever quotes my posts.
JMG’s shtick (to me) seems always to be one of triangulation: that one can never make an assessment without some kind of leveraged reckoning from other “sides” of the argument. As though reality were (in his own stated magickal terms) subject to will.
I appreciate a lot of the guy’s observations, but at the same time he often seems (to me) to be equivocating. If someone were falling off a cliff, I wonder whether he’d want to hedge regarding gravity, just for the sake of preciously avoiding taking sides on the matter.
Gail, can you please write an article about the transition from financial economy to physical economy.
People worry about paying “THE DEBT” but to me it seems more like ignoring the debt. The 99% will be better off when the debt is repudiated. Sure the 1% may have to work but do I care?
I will have to think about it.
There is an easy way to do physical transactions, if everything is close together: Set up a market in the center of town. Mark all goods in some unit, such as bushels of wheat, or in terms of US$ value in 2025.
To be a buyer, a person really needs to be a seller as well. The market can sometimes arrange short term credit, so a seller can purchase goods before his own goods are sold.
Long distance, complex transactions get to be a problem. Purchases with gold, silver, or from existing bank accounts may become a problem, also.
Thinking of two of the functions of money: transactions and store of value. They are very different and the transaction part seems to be very much a function of velocity.
I posted earlier, in the sixties the velocity of money was about six times that current.
Dennis L.
/////Gail, can you please write an article about the transition from financial economy to physical economy. //////
easy—–just needs one line……
divide world pop by 10
How does fake money keep 7 billion feed?
By bringing future consumption into the present.
It’s not fake money anymore than gold-backed money was fake money. It’s just backed by oil now which is much much larger collateral pool. I’d actually argue that money has never been more real than now, now that it’s oil backed, because money is just a proxy for energy surpluses anyway.
The whole point of going off gold and implementing fractional reserve lending was to justify the enormous untapped collateral in the ground. To do monetary justice to the oil vast oil reserves waiting to be burned. They had to divide bank reserves by 9 as a baseline so that could turn oil reserves into fuel.
Maybe not.
Gold is more a store of value and at best has a very low velocity.
Currency, perhaps currently more digital, e.g. cc. is used for transactions. Fiat currency is a poor store of value.
My current guess is too much currency is being used to pay interest which has no velocity(correct me if I am wrong) and useful items are not put into service, consumed quickly enough; they cannot move.
Dennis L.
Interest may have no velocity in and of itself but we all know that interest is what supercharges the velocity of the money supply which, in turn, super-charges the mining that underpins physical growth. Just because civilization is at the end of its life cycle doesn’t change the nature and essential function of the interest super-charger… it just means that death is coming from diminishing returns.
Money is only a store of value as long at inflation is not a problem. With the quantity of goods and services going down in the future, we can expect money to lose its function of storing value.
I expect that gold back money will have a problem with inflation, also, if the quantity of goods and services available goes down. This happens because the quantity of gold is stable or rising, while the quantity of goods is falling.
I see our biggest problem in the future as “empty shelves,” not inflation/deflation. With less international trade, a lot of products we depend on now will disappear from stores. Or there will be a long wait after ordering these goods, to actually get them. Complexity will start disappearing.
Thinking of gold and silver as a currency can be misleading. Gold and silver are a store of value like Dennis mentioned previously. Many problems for gold and silver as a currency due to storage and transport problems. Perhaps digital gold and silver are a solution? Currency providers would be against this idea of course, the ability to create currency from the ether is an integral part of the modern world. Better to think of gold and silver as a store of value and not a currency. Confidence in currency as a store of value versus gold is the main relationship. The supply of goods versus gold no so much. Gold as a static supply vs a declining supply of goods to trade for it is not so important, the conficence in the currency as a store of value is. Just my two cents, I am a gold investor so my opinions are biased in that direction. Best of luck to you all. Clay
Hi Clay, best of luck to you too. Gail and I were talking in the context of gold-backed currency. If I’m not mistaken, you are talking about its role now. Apples and oranges.
Gold-backed currency doesn’t have storage and transport problems.
As I argued heterodoxically, above, they’re not *really* “creating currency from the ether.” As much as all the QEs and plandemic money drops kinda make it seem like it, all banks including the central banks are collateral constrained and cannot print from the ether if they want a functioning currency, which the do want. They can stretch things out a little bit until the tolerances are reached and the pins start to get a little loose but they *are* collateral constrained; the central banks cannot make unsecured loans. And the ultimate collateral is the oil supply as proven by the fact that the OECD broad money supply started declining — for the first time in 90 years or whatever — a couple few years after peak global total oil liquids.
The existence of the debt is the only thing right now preventing massive global hyperinflation.
So, yeah, we could write it off, but at a cost.
Many with an understanding of our debt-based banking system could argue that there is debt-free banking, Ellen Brown talks a lot about it, so did Stephen Zarlenga and Tim Watkins.
The difference here is timing.
In a debt-free system, inflation would be created instantly if there weren’t real wealth/production/value to back monetary expansion.
Whereas in our debt system, inflation is hidden behind it, as the debt itself act as the “backing”, because it is a promise of wealth.
Of course a debt-free system is the best option, and our current system is indeed a machinery to funnel wealth no a select few through debt slavery.
BUT it is the only thing holding society together right now.
There’s no such thing as a debt-free money system. It’s never existed in the history of civilization because it can’t. Some claim that the Indus River Valley civilization had no lending at interest but that’s just speculation because they can’t decipher the written records. Civilizations are societies running structural surpluses; therefore they are growth paradigms. The increase in the money supply in a growth paradigm generally has to outpace the supply of goods and services or economic growth is threatened. This is why the Fed has a 2pc mandate. Money outpacing goods and services is inflation – the nominal value of money losing real value. Financial loans have to come with interest or the lender is losing money. Debt money itself is integral to any complex market economy because even trading commodities directly with someone who happens to have right now what you need right now while simultaneously you happen to have right now what they need right now, is not possible 99.9pc of the time. If you have what he needs right now but he won’t have what you need til next week, and you’re willing to accept an IOU then he’s taking on a debt. And that debt is the proxy valuation we call money. Currency emerged in order to greatly simplify and standardize the IOU system.
Read then “Web of Debt by Ellen Brown” and “The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga”. You don’t know the history of money.
But as someone here, and others, already grasped: the advantage of our terrible system is that it can bring future wealth to today without inflation. Of course, with a tremendous cost.
Or perhaps they don’t understand the history of money because they never employed cultural anthropology to go all the way back to the beginning. The world is full of successful people who don’t understand the fundamentals. If you think I’m wrong then make a counterargument. If you can’t then perhaps you shouldn’t say I don’t know things when you don’t know things well enough to correct me. You ever think of that, Name?
Here’s a correction for you: last I checked, inflation has been running steady for these last 100 years so your claim about pulling demand forward without inflation is false.
I’ve already gave you historical research on money, since the dawn of humanity.
Now, of course there’s still inflation today. The system isn’t perfect and there’s a lot of noise in the debt, as opposed to the promise of wealth.
Also, you’re being completely energy-blind if you’re not considering the role of EROI and Net Energy in the lost of purchasing power.
Also, there is a debt-free system, it’s a fact and was practiced throughtout history, including by the Founding Fathers.
Thing is, in this system, monetary expansion must match 1:1 the wealth, work, power and produces of the economy.
If we had such system today and started printing money like we do now, we would have Zimbabwe hyperinflation everywhere.
That’s what you’re not getting, and I can see that you know little about the subject.
Read those books. The authors are unfortunatly energy-blind, but they’re essential read.
If you want someone who talks about it as well, and is not energy-blind, there’s Tim Watkins and his plethora of books.
Firstly, money hasn’t existed since the dawn of humanity, as your opening sentence clearly implies. Money has existed for 1-3pc of human history.
Otherwise you are just making appeals to authority and sweeping claims whereas what I did was explain exactly why debt always exists, and it doesn’t matter whether that money system is publicly run or privately run. Transactions can’t be efficiently made in real time and real place – hence the proxy debt instrument called money. If you disagree that debt doesn’t have to exist then simply summarize (as I did) complex marketplace dynamics without it. If you can’t yourself then take responsibility for your position by cutting and pasting relevant content from one of your listed paragons. That works for me too.
And feel free to also back up the 1:1 claim with your own content or somebody else’s because that is, frankly, impossible. Monetary policy is always a lagging indicator of economic activity because policy is based on data. There goes your 1:1 utopianism right there. What exists in reality, and under optimal circumstances, is a dynamic equilibrium. Duh, that’s natural law. I don’t appreciate your Dunning Krueger act at my expense.
David Graeber, in Debt: The First $5,000 years, says that debt preceded money. He talks about markets that brought together buyers and sellers, typically at a temple. Those operating the market would mark the value of goods in some unit, like bushels of barley. Sellers could get credits (partial, such as 80%, I assume) for the value of goods they brought to the market, so that they could buy goods, even before the goods they brought were sold.
I think that the first users of credit were hunters and gatherers. They divided up work loads (hunting, gathering, making flints to start fires). Somehow, they all participated in the output of the group. I don’t think that they needed money to do this. All they needed was sanctions against anyone who did not follow the rules.
I guess we could call that the original social credit (and debt) system, with the hunter gatherers. As in, I owe you one, sister. That’s family – the gift ‘economy.’
The parents raise children; the children have a debt to their parents. If they can afford it, they need to help their parents out in old age.
that was the way it was supposed to be.
unfortunately the current generation of oldsters were the ones who won the energy lottery, and received more than their fair share of energy wealth as a result. ……. in other words we stole our children’s future……
This means that our g/grandkids will not have the energy/weath we did……..
consequently the current ”older generation” find themselves having to assist their struggling offspring where they can, whereas in previous times things were the other way around…….and of course we old folks didnt get so old, and conveneintly died after their allotted threescore and ten—or sooner….
my modest pot will be dissipated among my numerous offspring, who wont be able to use “AI” as a wealth builder in the future.
I built my very modest fortune on cheap surplus energy…..that cannot recur, it was a one shot wonder…..I got lucky.
A debt-free money system would not work very well. A debt-based system is great for creating a ponzi scheme powerful enough to push the economy to where we are today. The debt creates a lot of “assets”, the assets make people very cooperative. Cooperative enough for a just-in.time global economy to work out. Until the ponzi scheme starts to unravel.
Ed,
You might look at
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gierok+farms
It is a “family” farm in WI; look at the family and notes regarding relatives, history.
I don’t think one survives as an individual, biological lineage can be a difficult, but without a religion to unite a group that seems a real challenge.
You have an Ivy League education, not sure what area but that is a very rare education; it is a group and a helpful group.
Reference is sometimes made here to another group. Not sure, but think I could live in an Orthodox group, their history of survival goes back thousands of years, it seems to work.
Local to my area the Amish are doing well and still have Sunday’s off. Both the aforementioned group and the Amish have large, extended families. The farm noted above is a family.
I don’t think secular works; God is still working on the universe, humans have a much shorter period of experience and 80/20 is always with us.
Dennis L.
Reverse countdown .
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/countdown-shortages-last-cargo-ships-china-arrive-us-ports
“On the other hand, China is in serious trouble. Though their exports to the US have fallen to 15% of total goods, the communist nation is in the middle of a crushing deflationary crisis.” This from rav’s post.
Marginal revenue declines, PV of future cash flow declines and no longer matches assets not being depreciated rapidly enough. Not a problem when assets are owned outright, but when financed payments cannot be made. China has deflation.
Not an economist, but I think deflation is in large part a deceleration of money velocity. I posted on this earlier and basically interest is not part of money velocity(correct me if I am wrong). The money is going around in financial circles, the financiers can skim off their grift, but those who make things have less money going by them – payments are deferred and in the US CC balances go up but CC user cannot afford more purchases, only interest and goods sold go down.
So, inflation/deflation. I am leaning towards deflation. This will be temporary until all the existing “stuff” is consumed and then inflation as “stuff” which has some value(it has positive cashflow) becomes worth more.
Guess: it will be Cu which is Liebig’s minimum, not oil.
Dennis L.
Now is the time to run out and buy things that you will need in the future that are still available. An awfully lot of things have supply lines that run through China.
Things you use will depreciate, but the value of money can evaporate completely.
When Warren Buffet tells us to diversify out of dollars maybe we should listen.
Someone in France, a few years ago, thought that transitioning to Swiss Franks would be a good idea.
Oh man, is it going to be chips all the way down instead of turtles?
Dennis L.
The Chinese retains ownership of the means of production. The iron rice bowl is intact. They have a world full of customers. They have the most important customer China. As well as important customers Russia and Iran.
Ed,
Not sure, to whom do the Chinese sell? Other Chinese? Trade needs energy and the US has energy and perhaps it is the “marginal” energy which makes things work. The dollar has utility in transactions.
I am grasping, but I suspect without the US market the world sees greatly decreased money velocity and a crash in demand with an excess supply.
Sort of a spotty explanation. Trying to understand a surplus of productive assets without a way to exchange their output for dollars.
Leaning toward Cu being in shortage and that being a problem which at the margins has a greater effect than oil.
Grasping.
Dennis L.
Russia has energy. China buys lots of Russian energy.
I don’t think that is it. In the US during the 1930’s the US had gold, oil, minerals and manufacturing.
I suspect it has something to do with the velocity of money. I had a post regarding that and the change in the velocity of money over the last 30 or so years.
Dennis L.
“The empirical results for the Japanese case have been unambiguously supportive. The Japanese asset bubble of the 1980s was due to excess credit creation by banks for speculative purposes, largely in the real estate market. The apparent velocity decline is shown to be due to a rise in credit money employed for financial transactions, while the correctly defined velocity of the real circulation is found to be very stable“
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/36569/1/KK_97_Disaggregated_Credit.pdf
And a lot of Iranian oil (above 80 of its oil imports)… Stopping Iran oil exports to China would mean crippling the Chinese economy like never before.
Merci Patrick . France in trouble .
” French consumption of energy products in March 2025
April 11, 2025
“Road fuel deliveries are down 2.8% in March 2025*. Overall, consumption of energy petroleum products is up slightly by 0.7% compared to March 2024.”
According to the latest figures published by the CPDP**, road fuel deliveries on the French market fell by 2.8% in March 2025*, recording a volume of 3.817 million m3. Overall for the first quarter of 2025, they are down by 1.9%. And cumulatively over 12 months (April 2024 – March 2025), they are stable (-0.2%) at 47.6 million million m3 .
This result is based on the -5.4% drop in diesel deliveries compared to March 2024, which is not offset by the increase in unleaded superfuels (+3.5% compared to March 2024).
The share of diesel in French road fuel consumption falls by 1.9 points compared to March 2024 to reach 68.9% *** in March 2025.
Jet fuel consumption continues to grow. Deliveries are expected to increase by 7.7% in March 2025 compared to March 2024, reaching 0.671 million m3. In the first quarter of 2025, they will increase by a total of 6.9%; deliveries of non-road diesel are up sharply to 0.444 million m3 (+20.8% compared to March 2024); those of domestic fuel oil are also up by 10.7% to 0.384 million m3.
In total, deliveries of energy petroleum products in March 2025 amount to
4.504 million tonnes, a slight increase of 0.7% compared to March 2024. Overall for the first quarter, they are stable (+0.2% compared to the first quarter of 2024). And cumulatively over 12 months (April 2024 – March 2025), they are up 1.1% to 55.7 million tonnes.
If total deliveries of energy petroleum products is up by 0.7% since March 2024, France is doing quite well.
Individual month data for a country is quite variable. It may be necessary to look at a longer period. This is especially the case, if a person is looking at the various products separately.
Airlines are reporting fewer passengers, in the US, at least. I would expect jet fuel usage to decrease.
This ‘positive’ data of 0.7% must be back and forth of Ukranian soldiers for training on bus or deliveries of ammunition by trucks to Ukraine or something not clear, because from all the feedback of colleagues, clients and suppliers working in France, the situation is not good at all…
?
” This result is based on the -5.4% drop in diesel deliveries compared to March 2024, which is not offset by the increase in unleaded superfuels (+3.5% compared to March 2024).
The share of diesel in French road fuel consumption falls by 1.9 points compared to March 2024 to reach 68.9% *** in March 2025.”
Only this matters . The real stuff .
But people like to use oil for home heating and for electricity generation when intermittent renewables leaves them without power supply. These have been rising, leaving less for road use.
70% loss of value on Commercial Real Estate. Who is holding the MBS?
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/05/06/after-cre-office-market-repriced-at-70-off-in-san-francisco-sales-revive-leasing-jumps-amid-35-vacancy-rates-and-21-drop-in-asking-rents/
Wow! This needs to happen, to some extent, everywhere. Commercial real estate of many kinds, in many places, needs to be repriced lower.
I read an article saying that Boston homeowners will be paying higher property taxes because the values of commercial real estate have fallen enough that tax revenue from them needs to be replaced with tax revenue from somewhere else. Homeowners elsewhere are likely to encounter this difficulty.
Guess:
Between utilities, RE taxes and RE insurance, mortgages will become difficult to pay, RE taxes will become delinquent. Repossess? Perhaps local government will be modified to fit available cashflow.
Sunk costs, depreciation schedule was never correct, salvage value less than desired. Accounting is a very useful tool.
A long term fixed mortgage may be a very good investment, the US is one of the few places as I understand where such instruments are available.
Looks like declining cashflow is meeting inflation of homeownership costs. Lots of voters there.
Dennis L.
When resources per capita fall, we know that funds available for governments can be expected to fall. This means less money for schools, roads, medical research, and other government spending we expect. It also means less money for promised pensions.
Somehow, the cutbacks must happen. I have been guessing that the changes would be first at the US federal government level (and EU level), and only later at the local level. But it may be that cutbacks and shrinking government spending will go on everywhere.
Debt defaults, and their impact, are the big unknown.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/07/travel/mega-cruise-ships-coming-soon
This must be the ultimate bonkers use of oil—-for no better reason than we can
This is so unexpected. I would have thought these behemoths would have been a leading indicator. But then, they are safe, they are discrete, and you don’t need to think about what could go wrong, as you are back on the ship by 5pm.
Safe, easy, enjoyable enough… I guess.
i can think of no worse place to spend time….5000 people all determined to ‘have a good time”….but to me —a floating Alcatraz—the don would love one……
The public is just downright stupid . They have forgotten the cruise ship debacles of the Covid years . I guess
” Man would rather be a slave than free ” .
Rides on these ships are sold for the experience on the ships. They are so huge that it hard for them to dock near any place that is interesting to sight see. They usually aim for more middle class passengers, so they don’t plan very long voyages to keep the cost down.
I suppose that there are people willing to lend money to build these boats.
one thought occurred to me
the ships stays in dock—and people take a week to work from one end to the other
Norm, have to agreed with you. I would rather be on a sailboat with 16 people.
We took a Mediterranean cruise for our honeymoon 25 years ago. It was an “average” sized ship of its kind, but it took way more than an hour, could have even been two, just to off-board everyone onto the fleets of tour buses. Then a ride to wherever they had set up their rigged souvenir depot, not even enough time for a normal lunch, a pee stop, then back on the bus (mooo). The last two stops we simply stayed on the boat, because the shuttling game was not worth the candle. It would certainly have been less awful if they’d booked two days for each port.
It was kind of cool to be sleeping while the boat took us to a new place each day.
they just seem to want to make ships bigger and bigger now—i see the as container ships, but with people in the containers instead of goods
“ . . . The Guardian on the morning of April 15th
23:56 2025 has a wonderful story about how the leaders of high-tech in the United
24:03 States and many of the largest donors to Mr trump’s campaign are also major
24:12 shareholders in a half dozen companies that are doing
24:19 mining in Greenland it turns out and
24:25 that Greenland may be the locust for lots of the electricity generating that
24:33 the high techch industry needs to operate the AI and all the rest in other
24:41 busy one of the reasons is Greenland is thought to
24:46 possess likely quantities of the rare earths among other things . . . ?
In Greenland, the mining can be done away from heavily populated areas, so pollution is less of an issue. This would be a plus.
all ice eventually ends up in the sea
AI and the Republican oligarchy thing is a main way that the Hand is bringing the liberal Left into the Conservative Left (national socialist) and intentionally turning them into conspiracy theorists too just like they did to the Right and the Independents with the plandemic. Meanwhile the operatives of the vanguard, like Tucker Carlson, are, effectively , predictively programming with their anti-AI, nuclear-hesitant views. The Hand is all-in on the NS disappearing act. Tucker had Catherine Austin Fitts on for two hours last week, talking about the BIS, DUMBs, and Mr. Global, which is her term for the Hand. LOL, the Hand coopting the Hand in order to disappear. The turtles of the art, layered – all the way down. Satisfying to them, for them to turn Fitts like that. Bring her back into the fold unawares. Soft power. Full spectrum dominance. Assuming she’s her own person, which imo is highly likely.
This seems to be a link to Catherine Austin Fitts’ 103 minute interview with Tucker Carlson.
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-catherine-fitts
It says:
“Former Bush administration official Catherine Austin Fitts on how America’s leaders gave up on the country in the 1990s, began stealing trillions and built a digital prison to control the population.”
There seems to be a transcript of the video available behind a paywall.
“zip on May 5, 2025 . . .
Somewhere in a warehouse on the outskirts of Shenzhen, all is quiet. A machine, once humming smoothly, has been waiting for days for a batch of plastic lids with a diameter that deviates by exactly 3.2 centimeters. They seal a specific type of yogurt cup intended for Western Europe. The molds are unique. The granulate has run out. The supplier has shut down. No one knows when production will resume.
On the other side of the world, in a state-of-the-art Belgian/French/ Dutch dairy factory, the production line is starting to falter. Not because of the milk – that is still flowing freely – but because of the lids. Or rather, the lack thereof. The cups are now being sealed manually with cling film. This is three times slower. Storage capacity is filling up. Supermarkets are notified: delivery delayed. . . .
Justus von Liebig is chuckling in his grave. His law—that the most limited factor slows down the entire system—proves timeless.
Not only for plant nutrition, but for a global economy that has optimized itself to the bone.
The apparent efficiency turns out to be a stage set. One plank is missing – and the whole show collapses. ”?
https://climateandeconomy.com/2025/05/05/5th-may-2025-todays-round-up-of-economic-news/
I remember that in 2020 there was a lack of egg crates in some places, for selling eggs. Similar problem.
Trump is flailing. He has no power to use and display.
Three F18 down. More B2s to Diego Garcia.
It’s time to invade Grenada again, just to show the world that we can get a “win”.
Maybe Greenland would be a better bet. We have bases there already andall we need to do us plant the American Flag on an Eskimo Igloo …mission accomplished
WASHINGTON – Fireworks lit up disputes about President Donald Trump’s priorities in a series of high-stakes meetings about foreign affairs and domestic spending.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney told Trump in the Oval Office on May 6 that his country is “not for sale,” despite the president’s repeated proposals to annex the northern neighbor as a 51st state. The two met to discuss tariffs and border security, although Trump said he didn’t expect to change his import duties.
Never say never…ain’t that the truth 🤬
they can’t all be falling off a carrier. are they going to use this excuse one more time or do they have anyone left with a working bull* sensor?
3? when was the latest 1?
Yesterday it was announced that the US and AnsarAllah had agreed a ceasefire, so no US bombing of Yemen and no AnsarAllah attacks on US navy.
Benny the Butcher was not in the loop and has said they will attack Iran.
Trump said that he’s happy that planes will now stop falling off his ships and to hide another loss, he said there’s a big announcement to come soon(how hollywood) concerning the region.
AnsarAllah have been clear that nothing else has changed and the kiddie killers will still be treated as the scum that they clearly are, until they stop starving and slaughtering children(not an unreasonable request).
Oman, the mediators between the US and Iran apparently organised all the above(not the Benny bit) and just to show the world what deft diplomats they are, they also organised new US-Iran talks within the week(date to be confirmed) to held in Oman.
This is big news for the dynamic in the region, as Qatar and UAE have both been trying to put themselves forward as mediating regional powers, but we all know their double dealing ways and so Oman stepping in is a big deal for the power dynamic. They have Irans and i believe Chinas trust and if we look at a map, their potential influence for Yemen and anyone using the Persian Gulf is huge and they appear to be playing the game very smoothly(look how they dealt with the USs games over the last, cancelled meeting). If a deal gets done, they will have moved up the diplomatic rankings rather a lot.
India has now attacked Pakistan, so Trump can have another go at dictating how other people act.
I was looking through some old Jean Laherrère stuff about Saudi reserves last night and missed it all.
http://aspofrance.viabloga.com/files/JL_SA_June08.pdf
Your link to the aspofrance file of LaHerrere shows a rapid fall off of Saudi Arabia’s production of Crude oil + natural gas liquids after 2020. LaHerrere clearly doesn’t have confidence the Saudi Arabia’s supposed reserves are really extractable.
As Gail would say, it is the per capita.
Copilot: 1965 US production 25 barrels/day/capita, 2025 US production 20 barrels/day/capita. That looks like a 20% decline per capita.
Federal debt 1965 around $1K/capita. 2025 over $90K/capita. Hmm, debt is up 9000 percent.
Velocity of money(M1) 1965 was around 6.5, M1 2025 is around 1.6.
CC debt per capita 1965 around 1-200 dollars, 2025 $6455/capita.
Guess: people cannot get more credit, interest is now absorbing the cash flow.
1965 CC debt per capita maybe $5/year. 2025 CC debt per capita $1.2-1.3K. Say 20x increase, or up 2000%.
Gail probably has it right again. The system has reached the limits to growth in that people don’t have money to take on the interest of more debt.
All this is from Copilot, having difficulty getting an answer on when and what sectors will be crowded out by payment on cc debt by population. What I did get:
2025: With higher credit card balances and interest rates averaging 21.91%, a significant portion of consumer spending goes toward servicing debt rather than circulating through the economy. This contributes to a lower velocity of money, as funds are absorbed by financial institutions rather than being spent on goods and services.
There is not as much “cash” of one form or another available to spend, the finance sector is taking it all. If there is no money to purchase stuff, soon there are no workers to make stuff and get paid and it all comes tumbling down.
Who may be very vulnerable to this problem, China. Think massive sunk costs in manufacturing “stuff” and no one to purchase that “stuff.” This means fixed assets are depreciating much more quickly than forecast when built and salvage value is zero or less. Bummer.
Note, this is approximately right which is much better than being perfectly wrong. always 80/20.
Dennis L.
You make good points. Even if co-pilot may be less than 100% correct, it points out the direction the US has been headed since 1965. Lots more debt per capita. Less US oil production per capita.
And China has massive sunk costs, which is rapidly depreciating. It also has a population problem of way too many elderly, relative to young people, especially going forward. They were promised pensions at a fairly young age. I think it varies for men and women.
Various entities within China have taken on massive debt, which it cannot be repaid. This has allowed building a huge amount of infrastructure, much of which is not really needed. (Russia has done the opposite, so it has mostly deteriorating infrastructure.)
None of the advanced countries are doing really well. It is not clear than the other countries are doing very well either. It is an interconnected world.
https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/Grzegorz-Braun-by-Kanisek16/168527927.287DO.XYZ
“If you are afraid, then you already a slave.”
Sadly, I have not found a way to contribute money to his campaign.
Gail, as if right on cue for your latest article, the US shale production peak has been called by a leading oil producer. ZH posts:
“We Are At A Tipping Point”: Shale Giant Diamonback Says US Oil Output Has Peaked, Slashes CapEx Amid OPEC Price War,”
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/we-are-tipping-point-shale-giant-diamonback-says-us-oil-output-has-peaked-slashes-capex
“today after the close Diamondback Energy, the largest independent oil producer in the Permian Basin, made a historic pronouncement today when it said that production has likely peaked in America’s prolific shale fields (something we also mentioned earlier in the day) and will decline in the months and years ahead after crude prices plummeted.” . . . .
““Today, geologic headwinds outweigh the tailwinds provided by improvements in technology and operational efficiency,” said Stice, who will step down as CEO at the company’s annual shareholder meeting later this month. . . . .
“We can’t help but wonder if the last ‘letter to stockholders’ written by outgoing CEO Travis Stice was intended as much for government leaders in Washington, DC as it was for FANG shareholders,” Tim Rezvan, an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets wrote in a note to clients.
Diamondback said the number of crews fracking wells, which it estimates has fallen 15% this year, will continue to shrink as shale operators dial back amid unprofitable oil prices.
The company now expects to produce about 488,000 barrels of oil per day this year, when taken at the midpoint of its new guidance released Monday. That’s less than 1% lower than the roughly 492,000 barrels-per-day view it gave three months ago.”
Not true art berman forecasts growth this year.
Read the comments. Good lord. Need a barf bag.
Pure denialism
Drill baby, drill, nuclear, or Elon.
Then, there are people who think this is a matter of IQ.
As if a bunch of smart people could “find a solution”.
Here is an actual video about the Russian infrastructure:
Hausmeister in Russland, 24/7 im Job | ARTE Re:
https://youtu.be/ePE4CPT21RA?si=0AZAQDZGDIkVAa0V
Russia is diving deeper into problems. It is just patching.
My impression with respect to Russian infrastructure is that part of the problem (compared to the West) is that Russia has tended to stay away from debt. This added debt is what tends to make added infrastructure appear affordable.
Added debt makes sense when new infrastructure is added for the first time because it allows the economy to be more productive. Added debt doesn’t make sense when all that is involved is the replacement of old infrastructure. This is part of what gets the West into trouble. While the West thinks that it can keep adding and maintaining infrastructure, the costs (and availability of resources to do the work) hits a limits.
Another problem is the geography of Russia. It is terribly spread out, and the land tends to be very cold. This means that the amount of long distance roads and wires tends to be high, relative to population. It also means that a significant share of wages of workers has to go into the heating of their homes. These things tend to make Russia uncompetitive in the world market place. Overhead costs, even apart from the building of infrastructure, tends to be high for goods made in Russia.
“While the West thinks that it can keep adding and maintaining infrastructure, ” because it thinks there are untappped resources in a hostile country they can tap if they can bring those resources under their military control. This has been the modus operandi for hundreds of years in the West.
Military superiority feeds into a denial of limits.
Not to long ago, we were all subject to many celebrities, in the West, saying that there are no limits or if there were any limits, the sky was the only one. Around the same time, roughly, we were told that ” The American way of life is not negotiable” and that “deficits don’t matter”. Let’s not mention all the entertainment that reflects the current hegemony.
Most buildings in NYC are also 100 years old and decrepit.
My dorm at Columbia University was built circa 1940 as a temporary structure to house army officers in training. It is same minimalist housing with no intent to remove it or improve it. The officer in training had a bed, a desk, a closet, a sink to shave in the morning.
Where he got it wrong is that he persumes the Russian people pursue a Western lifestyle . There is no concept of low cost airlines and backpackers and the car / individual ratio is 309 per 1000 mainly concentrated in the urban areas . What is important is that the railway and urban transport infrastructure is robust . He is ” cherry picking ” . Russian households still have access to low gas prices for heating their homes . Never heard of a Russian dying since he shut of his heating because it is unaffordable . I can take you on a drive thru the posh areas of Delhi and you will say ” Wow” but if I take you on a tour of the slums you will say ” hell ” . Arte TV — French govt supported media — now you know . Better I let drb drive the nail in the coffin .
The life in the cold areas is terribly hard. And unsustainable without very high energy inputs.
You can live in slums in the tropical areas, but not in cold Russia.
Heat and eat is a big problem without the sufficient energy of the Sun.
I think the hidden story is all the bridges that are closed in Germany. Germany is in serious trouble with infrastructure. Here you have the most powerful, industrial state and they cannot repair or replace their bridges.
This article does not state how many bridges are already closed but I have read as many as 400 are.
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-autobahn-bridges-falling-apart/a-69439952
just like everywhere else, Germany created their infrastructure with cheap surplus energy……..
and just like everywhere else, they are struggling to sustain it on expensive energy…..
Yes, the robustness of electrical (most land transportation) and water transportation (the tremendous maze of canals and rivers) is crucial for predicting the future. There is no doubt that living here is costlier in terms of energy. But infrastructure is still advancing, as my house will receive gas next year. I expect infrastructure to boom once the war is over. Plus the food is generally speaking high quality, and life makes a little more sense. I thank you all for the concern but $160 per year is not a lot to pay for heating.
Moscow right now is full of people looking to develop the new trade routes. A young iranian I know, who has tried to make it and failed on a number of business, he is now striking it rich by simply procuring apartments for 3rd world foreigners who are apparently flocking.
Well, optimist is back with some forward looking ideas:
1. Farming: Optimus-3, say a $20K tractor driver, non gps, can see the environment and make decisions. Think JD, think $600K tractors, think small, think hours per day.
2. Think battery packs, interchangeable, think an electric drill.
3. Think less compaction with lighter equipment, think a lighter footprint on our planet.
4. Think local use of solar, store photovoltaic electricity on the farm, stored partially in the farm equipment itself.
5. Go big, think a cubic mile of Pt, think fuel cells, think electric everything, all local.
6. Think electric vehicles, think semis.
7. Think getting out of the middle east; oops, that means fewer bombs needed, bummer. Corollary: if your only tool is a hammer everything is a nail.
Basically this site recognizes our world is finite, I agree. Oil is finite and something is happening to the price, it is going down.
This is a time of change, the above is one guess. I am also studying AgOpenGPS, it is doing interesting things but it requires satellites. Optimus-3 appears not to use GPS, it looks; hmm, humans look, see and make movements. AgOpenGPS for those who are not familiar is entirely open source, most/many even solder components on to their own boards. I am in the process of making such a system, will find out the cost. Optimus-3 at $10K is a no brainer, GPS is so yesterday. Sorry, AgOpenGPS among other things steers tractors as a DYI add on. Some are rumored to be working on recognizing weeds and zapping them with electricity/laser. Look mom, no pesticides!
This is a rapidly changing time, the answers are not behind use, they are before us.
Dennis L.
Tell me, what are the energy inputs of a human versus this Optimus? Do the energy inputs required for the now-unemployed tractor driver disappear? If not, how does this help society, given the energy predicament? These are very basic issues that should be answered before we look to humanoids as any sort of solution.
Haven’t tractors been robot driven since the late 80s? Batteries don’t work on tractors. John Deere has pretty much proven that. Charging batteries out in a field is not viable.
1. If batteries work on semis, they will work on tractors.
2. Don’t charge in the field, exchange for a new battery. This is what is done with electric forklifts. Exchange robotically, charge with solar.
3. Agriculture works when it is not too cold, not too dry. Solar works best in the summer, it correlates, it is local.
4. The age of oil is yesterday, tomorrow people will find a way to adapt, survive.
5. Electricity is a bet, no more no less.
6. Horses work, but Amish use “community” vans to go to Menards, etc.
7. Cu per Copilot is more common in asteroids, I am assuming we will mine space. Pt is of course the real winner, H, water as a pollutant, basically if use ambient solar energy, none beamed from space, and it supports the variable costs then no exogenous heat added to our spaceship earth.
No, to my knowledge tractors have not in general been robot driven, GPS to a fair degree, but robots no. That is autonomous, it is starting.
The future is different, biology adapts.
Dennis L.
The big batteries add weight to farm equipment. Compacting soil with big equipment is already a problem. Adding weight will tend to make it worse.
Gail,
Per Copilot: A Cash IH Steiger 550 HP quadratrack can and does often add about 53k pounds of total weight, mostly in wheels, primarily to limit slippage.
A Tesla Semi has an estimated battery weight of 10-11K pounds.
Per copilot, a 500 hp electric tractor running would run for about 2.5-3 hours on this size(Tesla). Based on added weight of 55K pounds, that implies about 10-15 total hours running with increased weight of batteries vs weights.
Additionally, no cab, no transmission, motors on each wheel, electronic speed control and matching slippage with GPS. Combined with traction control systems and adaptive power distribution can minimize slippage.
For CA with excess solar, electric tractors, drop in batteries, use/store excess solar with farm equipment. That is sunk cost, the only additional cost is variable.
The data is there for electrical cost per acre. My guess is to survey farms for available land for solar and insolation of site. Use it where it works, one size will not fit all, plowing snow with solar may be a challenge.
Dennis L.
Agreed, “plowing snow with solar may be a challenge.”
I don’t think batteries yet work on semis. This puts an end to the rest of your argument, for now, anyhow.
Biology adapts . But not fast enough.
We should also be cognizant of the way that biology adapts: it kills the unfit; adaptation does not happen at the individual level.
Au contraire mon free. BLACK IS WHITE. WAR IS PEACE.
What makes the fit….fit? Adaptation! Optimization. What makes the unfit unfit? Missed opportunities. Unless you’re Hugh in which case it’s all been authored in advance – every last wag of the tail.
99.9pc of evolution happens between the lines of birth and death.
How else could it happen but in life since adaptation is a noun based on a verb, and for a reason: if you ain’t alive you ain’t verbing and you ain’t nouning either. Evolution is horizontal gene transfer which is what epigenetics bases its activity on.
Vertical gene transfer is obviously by far the single biggest genetic transference given the two genomes at play but it’s still just a copy and paste job.
> Unless you’re Hugh in which case it’s all been authored in advance – every last wag of the tail.
Ah, reante. . .
I’m afraid there’s just no room for free will, the case against it is perfect.
Not even evolution gives anyone an out.
From the very first neuron that sparked
up until now there is a chain of causes and effects, internal and external deterministic factors that are well beyond yours, mine, or anyone else’s control, and they leave no room whatsoever for ‘free will’.
I understand that lots of people don’t find this notion attractive, but it’s nevertheless the truth.
Cope.
And look, there are benefits to accepting this reality, including a tendency towards holding a more just, humane, forgiving and less judgmental and nasty outlook on life. It’s also paradoxically liberating with respect to compliance with arbitrary and wrongheaded rules.
That said, keep your illusions if you must.
After all, if you must, you must.
> well beyond yours, mine, or anyone else’s control. . .
Well, ‘anyone’ other than God, who is almighty.
Thy will be done God.
hope it isnt rapture time again
i’m just not in a rapture mood today—–well not that kind anyway
Raaaptuuure. . .
somehow Hugh…….i dont feel uplifted to the slightest degree.
Dyou think you should practice your technique??
> somehow Hugh…….i dont feel uplifted to the slightest degree.
Well, I’m not really here to uplift you Norm, but I’m not here to make you feel bad either.
I’ve been reading Gail’s blog for a very long time (love your work Gail) and it was just time to finally join in the conversation.
It’s that simple.
I hope you won’t get all boring with me. I’m not keen to be your new Fast Eddy. I don’t have his energy, so that would get exhausting pretty quick.
And I know, this might irritate you, but you gotta admit Fast Eddy was entertaining here – and yes I know he has his own blog now.
You two might not have seen eye to eye, but he certainly gave you someone to talk to, didn’t he? Hell, you are still talking about him! I think you probably miss him, at least a little, although I don’t think you’d admit it.
He did make for amusing reading during the darker days of covidworld – noting that the jury is still out on just how bad that is going to get, but please don’t take this as an opportunity to go tizzy over Fast Eddy, raising all sorts of points of disagreement you had with him – I don’t have the same axe to grind as either of you.
Moving onto less touchy stuff. . .
I actually started reading Gail tolerably often well before covid came along.
My own personal journey into doom began over 20 years ago when I started working in a role dealing with ecological issues.
It was not what I expected at all.
I thought I would just be helping to protect nature because it was intrinsically beautiful and sacred and worth protecting. . .
It’s hard to believe I was so ignorant and naive back then. There you go Norm, I’ve led with the face, now you seize the opportunity and give it a ‘witty’ slap – you know you want to, so you do you boo.
Back to my story. . .
That role was when I really first grokked the interconnected, finite, nature of the world: spaceship Earth; there’s no such place as ‘away’, etc. It was when I first really appreciated the gravity of not being able to have infinite economic growth in a finite system. It also enhanced my understanding of the psychopathic system we all live in (I’d already diagnosed it as some kind of psychopath many years before then) and I became a bit of a crusader about it all.
Fast forward about a decade later. . .
I finally accepted we were completely fucked, duly had a breakdown like any reasonable person would and did my best to move onto other things as best as I could.
Fast forward another miserable decade or so of treading water later. . .
The world is worse on every metric that anyone could care to mention, but we’re still here. I am in the process of exploring my spiritual side, and I can finally see at least some humour in all.
So go on then, give me a shellacking.
I assure you; I’ve had worse.
Thanks for offering your perspective. It is truly difficult to see the interconnected nature of our predicament. We have been told, “The sky is the limit” for so long that we believe it.
i dont do cusswords—even the four number varietiey.
and one didnt ”talk to” him.
eddy was the yardstick for crass behaviour….much like the orange manchild….i was forced to the conclusion he was like that in rl—-sheilding an inner terror of reality, (and women in particular) hence the constant put down of anyone contradicting him, attacking anyone perceived as weaker. (sound familiar?)
the schoolyard mentality….interesting—nothing more.
so full of self he posted a third of ofw comments—a sure indicator of having nothing to say.
i dont do angry—here or anywhere else…..an eyeroll is my severest emotional reaction.—-a summary of 90 years of life experience if you like……much more than that is a waste of my remaining years.
I walk away from arguing about nonsense….because not to do so would lend credibility to that nonsense.—-i might excuse myself a little sarc humour about it from time to time—thats all.
Thanks Hugh, I was missing you almost as much as Eddy and thought I’d draw you out if I could.
“And look, there are benefits to accepting this reality, including a tendency towards holding a more just, humane, forgiving and less judgmental and nasty outlook on life. It’s also paradoxically liberating with respect to compliance with arbitrary and wrongheaded rules.”
If the case for determinism is perfect then why do you still cling to free-world concepts of choice and opinion at every turn? Benefits, acceptance, tendency, justice, nastiness, liberation, compliance, wrong headedness. As a determinist you even cling to arbitrariness!
Do old habits of illusion die hard with you, Hugh, or is something else going on here?
> Do old habits of illusion die hard with you, Hugh, or is something else going on here?
I’m not sure I know what you mean by “is something else going on here?”, but I’ll have another go.
Appreciating that everyone arrives where they are through factors that are outside of their control seems to temper me.
It’s hard for me to sit in judgement when I can’t really say that anything is truly anyone’s fault – that they did whatever it was ‘freely’.
I can see why some people, let’s say a rich trust fund baby, or maybe Trump who inherited a vast property portfolio, find the notion that we are all the sum of our own free decisions comforting and attractive, but it’s perhaps not so comforting and attractive, say, to the whole population of garbage tip pickers in the third world.
And it was just so easy for the authorities to manipulate everyone during covidworld – if there truly is free will, there wasn’t a whole lot on display.
Manipulators and authorities have studied these matters, they knew what buttons to push, and the vast majority complied. That wouldn’t happen if people’s decisions weren’t ‘constrained’. Just how am I supposed to square that with free will?
But look, it really doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to my lived experience of life.
I’m not magically just so much happier than everyone else or anything. In fact, I’ve probably been less happy than most for a very long time owing to my ‘outsider’ views and desperate, hopeless, recalcitrance.
Although, the authorities couldn’t get me to comply with dumbass diktats unlike 99% plus of adults around here, so there do seem to be at least some benefits.
It’s like everyone (but the authorities) just forgot the Asch conformity experiment, the Milgram obedience experiment, the Stanford prison experiment and the risks of blindly ‘following orders’ and just ran on rails like a bunch of meatbots.
Someone punched their buttons, and they all just did what they were told. And if you said anything different to them, then they’d get instantly and wrongheadedly mean.
Like I said before, I can’t square that with free will, so that was the end of my own illusions in that space.
So, nowadays, it would seem to me that decisions are made, but they are just not made freely.
Will exists, but ‘free’ will doesn’t.
Different deterministic factors? Different outcomes.
So it goes.
I think the way I behave is entirely consistent with that – I don’t think it can be otherwise either.
Square that with your philosophy if you like, if it matters to you, or not. Even if what I’m saying is true, and I can back it with facts and rock-solid argument etc., I’m not at all convinced I could get you or anyone else to change the way you think and behave in any case.
We are not really in rational control of everything – ‘progress’ and the way the world unfolds is just not under rational, human, control.
This helps explain why it is that we have known about something like consequences and risks of reaching and surpassing limits but ploughed on anyway.
So, there it is, dropped on the table like so much raw meat, as Kunstler would say 🙂
How free is our will is a difficult question. Different people will have different views. Circumstances certainly limit the range of choices a particular person has. Different people will describe the limitation in different ways. Some might call this a lack of free will. Others will object to this characterization.
I would hope commenters wouldn’t argue about the issue.
> so full of self he posted a third of ofw comments—a sure indicator of having nothing to say.
Covidworld was a particularly ‘difficult’ time, so that might account for some of it.
It’s not over either.
A lot of misery and injury and death there, which is now known, beyond reasonable doubt, to have been caused by man.
It’s like a biological Chernobyl for the modern world, which at the time exposed all sorts of systemic problems as well a molten core. And like Chernobyl, it just won’t go away.
I’m prepared to give people some latitude with how they coped with that.
It certainly made an impact on me.
first off—-covid was entirely ”fake”—and was somehow the creation of some kind of ”elite” who were hiring crisis actors.
then when it was obviously real—it was the creation of Fauci, working for the Chinese—or something.
I was assured, on OFW that millions of dead were lying in the streets. BS of course…..
then there was the Ukraine war—fake again of course, filming ”crisis actors”.
School shootings—???…crisis actors again.
all the subject of my sad amusement……but all on record. I dont make stuff up for effect.—i observe.
dennis
in case you hadnt noticed…..
electric forklifts work in yards
electric forklifts move in yards
they do not move acroes field
sheeesssshhhh—to drive home the point dennis, this is like pulling teeth
This is a link to an article on the future of recycling battery material in China. As I understand the problem, there are a huge number of hurdles to be gotten over to make the process economic. If recycling were free, it might provide the circular economy this article is looking for.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3309074/chinas-dying-ev-batteries-solar-cells-are-powering-circular-economy-new-energy-era
China’s dying EV batteries, solar cells are powering a circular economy in new-energy era
Recycling critical materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel are driving profits and shoring up China’s resource security as trade war with US hits supply chains
Interesting, I am the optimist but……
Entropy is always a problem, somewhere there is worthless, harmful waste. Inorganic waste on a planet engineered for biology.
Waste will always be an issue along with fish. Human society needs fish.
Dennis L.
You flaunted entropy before?
And fish is optional. I have seen quite a few people who cannot eat fish.
No doubt, but for 3.3B people 20% of their animal protein is from fish; they are important for a large segment of the world’s population and the oceans are being over fished.
We are biology.
Dennis L.
The oil in fish seems to be good for humans.
Some people love fish.
It’s fish-slapping good!
dennis
ive thinked so much—i think i have a headache
do you think you might have an aspirin or something
maybe even a cubic mile of aspirin to cure the kind of headache i think i have
laughing quietly,
I like the corollary, a cubic mile of aspirin.
Dennis L.
electric tractors will just tow a diesel generator around behind them—I’m amazed nobody has thought of that before……
or maybe they already have.
norman,
I don’t know, yet. Modern diesels eat money, electric is simple and ideally no transmission if each wheel individually driven by a motor.
Dennis L.
Preview only as this is behind Martenson’s paywall.
https://peakprosperity.com/opec-gives-u-s-shale-a-shove-down-the-stairs/
Excerpt: “Firstly, OPEC has decided to increase production, which might seem like a good thing for consumers with lower prices, but it’s a disaster for future oil production. The U.S. has been pushing for lower oil prices, which doesn’t align with the reality of our oil production capabilities. The narrative that we can thrive at $50 a barrel is simply not the case.
The shale oil industry, particularly in the U.S., is facing hurdles like never before. The cost to produce oil, when you factor in everything from drilling to debt servicing, is much higher than what’s being reported. We’re looking at a break-even price closer to $80 per barrel – minimum – not the $50 or $60 that’s often cited. This discrepancy is due to the rapid depletion of high-quality drilling sites, forcing companies into less productive, more expensive wells.”
What Martenson is saying sounds about right. Breakeven is not as low as $50 or $60 per barrel, but the economy today cannot withstand oil prices as high as needed. We really need oil prices above $120 per barrel to start accessing the supposed oil reserves available. In fact, prices above $200 per barrel would be helpful.
At one time, IEA was forecasting $300 per barrel prices. This has been the basis for the absurd oil resources that the IEA publishes.
Got it, believe it, accept it.
Businessman’s interpretation: The sunk cost will be used as long as the variable costs are covered; depreciation will be ignored, a band-aid here and there.
So, that is the short lived future of fossil fuel, long live fossil fuel.
The only currently available future is electric with its own set of problems, mostly a Cu shortage. Well, Starship to the rescue, we learn incrementally, and we find a cubic mile of Cu!
Looking at the future of cities, see European cities, compact. Again, suburbia is a sunk cost, roadways are a sunk cost. Transportation in a compact city is easier than miles of expressway for a UPS truck. European cities seem to have been built with stone, enduring. Wood fails, especially modern with asphalt roofs; a sunk costs, used to recover as much sunk cost as possible.
We are going to change, cathedrals may come back as a place for people to gather, learn basic lessons in human interaction, and have a break for some wonderful music and a time of meditation. Singing is sort of low, exogenous energy.
It is the dawn before a new day.
Dennis L.
Your insight is useful.
We recently saw Dr. Tim Morgan’s new assessment of where the economy is going.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2025/05/05/302-at-the-end-of-modernity-part-one/
I think he goes from overly optimistic, to overly pessimistic, because his model does not consider the different handling of sunk costs, relative to variable costs. (He thinks the results has to be a huge crash, in his recent post.) It is easy to rely on a model that doesn’t consider how enough variables.
I really wish you would focus your papers or writing on this rather than how “renewable energy won’t work “ that’s a dead horse and we already know the liberals bias is blind. We need a focus on how much oil is left., what is recoverable and what price range is needed. There is still some debate on this.
That would be a good idea, if I could somehow quantify the situation.
One thing that most modelers believe is that oil prices will rise endlessly. So will coal and natural gas prices. They believe that, of course, citizens will “demand” fuels above everything else. (They do not understand that wages depend upon fossil fuel use, and on rising debt, and these are what produce “demand.”)
With prices rising endlessly, and fossil fuel researchers always working on finding better solution, even the most optimistic views of oil, coal, and natural gas supplies can be extracted. In fact, even more than these resources can be extracted. These optimistic views are what underlie climate models.
Agree Sam . Renewables , EV , H , nuclear fission etc are dead horses to beat now on OFW specially after the big blackout in the Iberian peninsula . We must look beyond .
Okay Sam, I agree. But when we have computed the last decimal place of when oil runs out, what then?
Musk has a very good track record, he is not building IC cars on the side, he is building better batteries.
Solar has an intermittency problem and a storage problem. Tractors are intermittent, at least now secondary to ability of humans to work. Tractors are also intermittent due to seasonality; batteries sit around in the off season discharging. Charge them up, light up the house at night when the nights are longer. When tractors run, more daylight, less night time load.
My guess, the problem is Cu now, Pt can come later and it would be a nice follow-on using engineering and infrastructure already in place assisted by fossil fuels as they decline. For Cu we have, drumroll please, Starship. How much do we need? Well, a cubic mile of Cu would be a nice start.
Guess: not everything is going to work, there will be bumps, ask a dinosaur.
Dennis L.
Musk has a good track record of boasting and not following through.
Germany’s never ending woes .
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/germanys-merz-falls-short-chancellor-vote-political-turmoil-unfolds-new-vote-imminent
A recent update says that Merz was elected, on the second vote.
Yeah , he got thru , but how ? Those who voted NO were whispered something in the ear . SOP . The problem is that if you choose the ” lesser evil ” you will end up in bed with the devil . Best of Luck , Germany .
“zip on May 1, 2025 at 2:47 pm
Hello Pan, just a few notes about water and oil and gas extraction
In the heart of Texas, Iraq, or elsewhere in the world’s aging oil fields, there is a simple but rarely spoken truth: when you pump oil, you mainly get water. The older the field, the wetter the production. And the more energy and money it costs to extract anything of value.
The industry refers to this as the WOR – the Water to Oil Ratio. In other words: how many barrels of water do you have to extract to get one barrel of oil?
In new fields: 1 barrel of oil to 0.5 barrels of water.
In old fields such as those in Iraq or the Permian Basin: 1 barrel of oil to 10, 20 or even 40 barrels of water.
That water has to be separated, injected, discharged, or purified. That costs energy. That costs infrastructure. And that makes oil an increasingly wetter illusion. While the price of oil is falling, the real cost is rising. But the water component rarely makes the news. The water EROI does not officially exist.
Meanwhile, according to local sources and the news platform Al-Mada, Iraq reports that by the spring of 2025, the country will have only 10 billion m³ of water reserves left. The cause: no rain, no snow, no more supplies from Turkey and Iran. At the same time, national heat records are being shattered in April:
Iran: 47.0°C in Shabankareh – a new April record
Iraq: 31.7°C minimum temperature in Nassirya – the highest April night ever
You can pump oil from ever deeper reservoirs. But you cannot make water. And without water, there is no agriculture, no cooling, no oil separation, no injection pressure. What then remains? A field full of installations that use more and more energy to process more and more water for less and less oil. The real expiration date of fossil energy is not the last drop of oil – but the last barrel of water you can use for it.
You never hear anything about it, but it must be becoming a huge problem.”?
https://climateandeconomy.com/2025/05/01/1st-may-2025-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
Rising ratios of water to oil are a major reason why oil wells become non-economic.
Rising ratios of gas to oil are another reason why oil wells become non-economic. Gas, and natural gas liquids, sell for a whole lot less than oil.
Both problems are hitting producers of tight oil from shale.
When these problems are combined with low prices, producers end up shutting down. Natural gas prices have been a little “less low” recently than in the past, but natural gas prices are still low relative to oil prices. The current Henry Hub wholesale price for natural gas is $3.57. The equivalent oil price is 6 x $3.57 = $21.42 per barrel. Oil companies will not get rich on natural gas sales.
“When Allah made Hell, he did not find it bad enough,
so he made Mesopotamia—and added flies.”
—Arab proverb
Ha, ha, ha!
I’m sure it’s a contender, but I pulled over once somewhere near Hells Gate on the Hay Plain, the flattest place in the Southern Hemisphere, on a stinking hot day, and great clouds of flies descended upon me in an instant – it was the foulest place I’d ever been, and the shortest stop I made in a three day drive from Canberra to Perth.
On June 4th, 1974 Hubbert testified before Representative Morris K. Udall’s Subcommittee on the Environment.3 In his 21 page written statement he presented his familiar lecture on various growth curves, their equations, curves of world and U.S. production of fossil fuels as well as projections for the future. He next discussed the cultural aspects of the growth problem. He states, “during the last two centuries of unbroken industrial growth we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture. Our institutions, our legal system, our financial system, and our most cherished folkways and beliefs are all based upon the premise of continuing growth, Since physical and biological constraints make it impossible to continue such rates of growth indefinitely, it is inevitable that with the slowing down in the rates of physical growth cultural adjustments must be made.
As the above paragraph shows marion king hubbert was informing the US government about diminishing returns back in the 70’s so their is a good chance that a group of people would have put in place a secret agenda to make things right and avoid catastrophe occurring.
Nice, thanks for that tidbit. I don’t know about making things right or avoiding catastrophe, though, other than installing the most adaptive politics they can and avoiding nuclear power catastrophe as much as possible.Beyond that catastrophe is baked into the cake.
Why didn’t they heed Hubbert? Marvin Harris’ cultural determinism. The soft, civilizational determinism. MPP. The only hope would be to achieve another privatizable energy input intensification beyond fossil fuels. Civilization is intensify or collapse.
I am afraid the secret agenda might have been a plan for reducing population to match depleting resources. This would, in some sense, have lessened the conflict over “not enough to go around,” as supplies depleted. Hence the interest in birth control, educating women, and researcher-adjusted viruses, with supposed vaccines to control these viruses.
The path followed at the moment seems to be war and cut of expenses on welfare and other not feasable objectives (instead of the path made of euthanasia, gender theories, researcher-adjusted viruses and supposed vaccines).
The least worse is for me definitely the first path, because it should grant survival of the best, the strongest, and the best adapted, instead of a flat cut that kills a lot of good and useful people.
And I would like to add that the terrible Health Minister in Italy who proposed and obtained mandatory mRNA experimental vaccines during Covid (with 4 doses requested), Mr. Roberto Speranza, is a ‘happy’ and self-satisfied communist.
I always joke there mustn’t be a problem because we’d be rationing oil and not joy riding for slurpees in SUV’s. It’s an infinite universe after all .
The secret agenda was the petrodollar. We could’ve been sensible and had a long term plan for the benefit of humanity. Austerity, ahem ahem.
Let’s have fun first with a petroparty and build a burbanite playground.
There must be a principle involved.
The maximum power wealth principle . Use someone’s magical oil in Djinns lantern to wish extravaganza. Corrollary, greed helps, Djinns don’t.
US Shale Output has Peaked as Prices Plummet, Diamondback CEO Says
(Bloomberg) — Diamondback Energy Inc., the largest independent oil producer in the Permian Basin, says production has likely peaked in America’s prolific shale fields and will decline in the months ahead as crude prices have plummeted.
“Today, geologic headwinds outweigh the tailwinds provided by improvements in technology and operational efficiency,” said Stice, who will step down as CEO at the company’s annual shareholder meeting later this month.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-05/shale-driller-diamondback-trims-output-says-us-oil-has-peaked?sref=866aH6XX
Diamondback says:
This sounds a whole lot like Kpler’s forecast. In fact, the decrease since the last forecast is also about 1%. So it is not a huge drop right now, even though there is a cutback in drilling because prices are too low.
When CEOs step down, you know shit is about to get real.
Diamonback Energy – down 35% from peak, still got a long way to go. Stock chart:
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/FANG:NASDAQ?window=MAX
Sorry, one more thing to check out:
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/its-gonna-get-ugly
Mike Shellman’s latest post discusses well economics in the shale biz with these recent lower prices.
(actually it’s not the main article, he has several comments in the comments-section that might as well be an entire article)
This is one of the links:
https://anasalhajjieoa.substack.com/p/trumps-enforcement-of-oil-sanctions-b1b?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1222998&post_id=162650931&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
It talks about the what it believes are the real effects of US sanctions on Iranian oil production. Some excerpts:
Given that last I recall China’s backdoor energy bailouts with discounted Russian oil had wound down, Iran picking up the slack would make sense. Although how much of a discount from these prices can you possibly get?
Anybody else wondering why pump prices haven’t come down yet? Seems like it’s been long enough. I think they’re actually up a bit around here since the oil price crash.
Another link is this one:
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/hurdling
The ability to use debt to support below-cost of-production oil is gone.
I’ve been following this blog for years, and I’m thoroughly impressed by Gail’s analyses. While others write convoluted, doorstop-sized books, Gail crafts concise, razor-sharp syntheses and comparisons—so clear and logical that doubting them would be like arguing with gravity.
As a resident of Belgium, I’ve noticed our country has a peculiar talent for adopting policies that are the exact opposite of what’s needed to be future-proof.
After World War II, Belgium managed to attract a wildly disproportionate share of industry, becoming the spoiled child of Europe. Once those car factories, petrochemical plants, and a relatively large nuclear fleet were in place, it’s as if generations of political dynasties made it their mission to introduce deliberately terrible decisions:
The road and rail networks were designed to create as many bottlenecks as possible—and then left to fester for decades. In no other country are major traffic knots nestled so snugly against urban areas. And now, just as it’s becoming clear that future traffic will have to shrink, we’re suddenly splurging on massive infrastructure projects, racking up monstrous debt in the process.
Our entire nuclear capacity was systematically dismantled: We once had six reactors, but now, at the twilight of the fossil fuel era, we’re shutting down the last of them. Even the Myrrha pilot project—for neutralizing radioactive waste—is getting defunded. Never mind that it costs a fraction of the military hardware Belgium is now frantically ordering to meet Uncle Sam’s defense spending demands.
And that’s just the start. I could list plenty of other industries where we were once pioneers, only to hand them over or have them taken away—almost like it’s national policy.
Thanks for writing.
I am afraid what you are witnessing is local (to Belgium), “limits to growth.” The economy of Belgium can no longer support car factories, petrochemical plants, and nuclear plants. Wikipedia says:
With limited oil supply, importing raw materials and semi-finished goods and further processing them for export no longer works very well. Another issue is that wages are too high in Belgium to compete with low-wage countries around the world. A third issue is that supplies for nuclear reactors are running short. The uranium and upgrading ability is mostly with Russia and its close allies. There is little left over for Europe.
There is no point any longer to for Belgium to pay much attention to its railroads. It is adding less and less value in manufacturing processes. There are fewer raw materials and finished goods to transport.
Belgium needs an excuse for more debt, as these older approaches are going away. Preparing for war looks like a good idea, when everything else is falling apart. With this debt, perhaps young people can be hired to be soldiers, since there aren’t other jobs available that might pay adequately.
Currently, the fertile soil in many areas is suffering from drought. Much of the rainfall from winter was drained away as quickly as possible in most places.
The excessively high wages, along with the resulting culture of travel and home decoration that characterized at least two generations, seem almost allegorical—likewise directing money away as swiftly as possible through channels with no prospect of economic return.
Here in Western Oregon, USA, we are having the second rainless Spring in three years. When it happened two years ago it was a first in any farmer’s memory. Those with irrigation and artificial fertilizer regimes loved it because they could hay their fields whenever they wanted and got four cuttings. Now it’s still only early May but only .1in of rain in the forecast for the next two weeks and the grass is all heading out so some rain in late May early June before the summer drought hits won’t make any difference. I decided to graze my main hayfield this spring, yields would’ve been too poor. I made the mistake of grazing it down to an inch in late winter in order to fertilize it and normally that would be ideal but not this year. Will need to get down to a skeleton crew this winter and prioritize butchering in summer and fall, fill up the freezers.
And yet over the other side it can’t stop raining… Weird, Weird, Weird…
Weather is anything but normal anymore
1,262 views · 9 hours ago#weather #weathermodification #haarp
EKE ACRES
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YUJDSqK4EbI&t=4s
Here in South Florida we are experiencing the opposite extreme like you, severe drought.
not to worry
the don says climate change is a hoax…..or all Bidens fault probably
so the gullible vote for the don, then it wont affect them
On YouTube my wife follows a flower lady in England who said yesterday that she hasn’t had rain in five weeks.
Plenty of rain here in Alabama.
Same in Georgia.
Shoulda moved to the Boston mountains in Arkansas like i almost did. Year round rainfall pattern.
Reante, you have my sincere sympathies, having to deal with the irregular and far from adequate rainfall on top of all the other things you need to manage in order to be a livestock farmer in your part of the West.
But at least you now know in your bones why the native Americans used to dance for rain.
Climate change theorizing apart, Oregon—even west of the Cascades—is subject to droughts due to its location on the “wrong” side of the ocean at the “right” latitude to suffer from occasional droughts.
In contrast, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are on the “right” side of the ocean to get plenty of rain most years.
Reante is well aware of this, of course, but for those who are less well informed, the basic situation is that there are huge circulating systems in the oceans and the atmosphere above the oceans called gyres. There are five major ones—North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian—Caused mainly by the Coriolis effect and driven by the wind, the North Pacific and North Atlantic Gyres move clockwise and the other three move counterclockwise.
As a result, they transport moist tropical air up the east coast of continents and drier cooler air down the west coast. The ocean/atmosphere operates like a giant heat engine, and ocean gyres are one of the main ways in which heat that pours down intensely every day on the tropics from the sun is transported to the higher latitudes, and ultimately to the polar regions, where it is radiated into space.
There is a lot more to ocean gyres than that, including how they produce the trade winds and how the rain patterns they foster
help to determine where deserts form. But I think we would all do well to learn or re-learn the basics of climatology, not just out of natural curiosity, but in order to protect themselves from the barrage of propaganda that is we are all subject to in the media, online, and even down at the local pub or farmers’ market these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre
Thanks again T I actually had no idea why we have a summer drought. Wondered whether it followed that ruinous wave of Californians in the 90s that included myself.
I certainly can’t complain about the climate. Not everyone gets to graze Ohio and not everyone gets to enjoy Western Oregon. Winters are wet but super easy. Clean surface water is abundant through the seasonal drought. Summer is great in other ways. When collapse comes most people will leave the area and the extra space will probably give me the option of expanding my winter grazing rights which is the great limiting factor.
This report from Oregon State University is full of information and graphs on Historical and Projected Future Drought in Oregon. From the graphs, it seems to me like you might as well roll some dice to predict the future chances of drought in any one year as to try to extrapolate. You have to be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best.
https://www.oregon.gov/owrd/Documents/OWRD_drought_summary_Dec_2023%20(Siler%20Comment).pdf
Thanks T the annual summer drought used to be three months but two years ago it was five plus. Usually doesn’t start raining til Oct now and June is drier than it used to be. By the time the rains come the grass is saying to the gods, I ain’t wakin up til you guys and gals have regained my trust. When trust arrives the sun has gotten too low in the sky to make for much fall growth before winter. Really we have a four month growing season here and that’s it. Didn’t know that before i signed up for it. Pleasant climate for consumer culture and big ag, not so much for a hillfarmer running stock. The hills mean sandy soil, too. Whereas I’m hoping that the increased global temps bring summer rains because of increased water evaporation, the Lefty gardening teacher at the school says the models are calling for continued and increasingly longer, drier summers and even wetter winters, for what they’re worth. All of which means I just gotta get better at what I’m doing. Been running too many animals in general because I got three livestock dogs to feed. A pre-collapse luxury. MPP. Two are 10 now so I’ll be down to the one 2 year old before too long, with all animals together all the time, and fewer of them, with little to no hay when the fuel runs short. That dog timing seems like it will probably work out pretty well with collapse timing. This year will be a little taste of that given I’m grazing my main hayfield. Got some tough little critters but the wool quality will suffer. Wife won’t like that I’ll have to see what I can do about sticking her favorites in with the milk goats for better hay rations.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/us-crude-oil-output-peak-early-year-kpler
Excerpt: With the low oil prices, Kpler has now cut its U.S. crude supply forecast by 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 170,000 bpd for the rest of 2025 and into 2026, “as weaker prices threaten to slow shale production.”
I was actually thinking something similar, as Opec+ decided to raise production.
The article says that the Saudi decided to do so in order to please Trump, because it was something he asked for.
But in reality it seems to me a negative point for US Shale oil, which definitely needs higher prices to have a survival profit.
The article says that Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed on that.
Excerpt:
“OPEC+ Stuns Market With Larger Than Expected Output Hike.
In a virtual meeting on Saturday, key producers led by Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to raise collective output by 411,000 barrels per day (bpd), nearly triple the volume originally scheduled.”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/OPEC-Stuns-Market-With-Larger-Than-Expected-Output-Hike.html
It will interesting to have some comments about what it is happening to try to understand better.
Thanks in advance to those who will comment.
The Saudi’s have their own issues to worry about.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/Economy/saudi-arabia-posts–15-65b-q1-deficit-as-oil-revenues-fall-1
On a happier note AnsarAllah’s single rocket successfully fired at Lod airport and the announcement of an air blockade, has had airlines from nations backing the genocide pulling the plug and cancelling everything.
This sounds like a pretty awful combination: Falling tax and increased government spending.
the shale producers need higher prices to get oil but russia and saudi have spare capacity since they cut back back in 2020 during covid remember when prices were negative 44 dollars. The price is a lot higher now so russia and saudi oil is viable but we are still going down because oil prices are dropping but a staircase collapse in available oil will lead to the hubbert curve in oil production occurring instead of a seneca cliff collapse or wily e coyote collapse . Shale will only work with higher prices, north of 80$ . As I have stated many times to believers and non-believers the Elders exist and are doing their best in navigating the world’s course down the slippery slope of resource depletion.
US crude oil production seems to be about 13.1 million barrels of oil recently. It isn’t clear what Kpler’s forecast was before, but a decrease of 120,000 to 170,000 barrels per day would be something like a decrease of a little less than 1% up to 1.3% relative to their previous forecast. So it is not a huge change.
January and February production are not starting out very high, but that may be partly attributable to cold weather.
The heading for the article is, US Crude Oil Output to Peak As Early As This Year. Production may start down, a bit, this year.
From the comments: there is a pool of oil in Alaska the size of Saudi Arabia that was capped for later. this is later… near it there is also a cubic mile of stuff.
People will believe all kinds of strange things!
well dont tell dennis—he’ll stake a claim to anything thats a cubic mile
Apologies if this was already posted, but here’s a new one from Tim Watkins:
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/05/03/the-world-ended-in-1999/
I sort of disagree with the idea that progress stopped; it stopped in many areas but is heating up again with AI, which will have significant changes for process automation and white-collar jobs, at the very least, for as long as IC remains.
Tim Watkins tries to explain our current difficulties. We got stuck at 1999.
One excerpt:
Also,
He talks about overshoot and collapse. He says that finance corrupts everything:
Maybe this is part of the problem. We are hitting limits to growth.
Smart phones were introduced in 2007. google translate is the first important achievement of AI (it was not called like that then), 2006. superfast trains? France had them, but the Asian ones are a step up.
and in military affairs, a host of hypersonic missiles which re-wrote military strategy, and ultimately favor defensive wars. you could not have a decent skype conversation (skype and whatsapp, too!) due to lack of bandwidth until 2005 or so. so I too disagree.
Synthetic biology tools are improving and this will be increasingly useful for plant and animal germline editing, enzyme-based industrial processes, and diagnostics. Medical interventions might not be too impacted, because one generally can’t introduce arbitrary biologics due to immune response. On the other hand, some good results have been demonstrated with medical treatments like CAR-T, so who knows.
AI can do nothing of itself or by itself
it cannot support humankind
humankind can only support ‘it.’
Care for a theist analogy?
Humankind can do nothing of itself or by itself.
It cannot support the Creator of the Universe.
The Creator of the Universe can only support ‘it.”
Or an environmentalist/Gain one?
Humankind can do nothing of itself or by itself.
It cannot support the biosphere.
The biosphere can only support ‘it.”
Tim Morgan has published a new blog post.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2025/05/05/302-at-the-end-of-modernity-part-one/
This article is well worth reading. Tim Morgan leaves his little models suggesting that things will be good for quite a while, and starts looking at the economy, as it really has been, since 2009.
Excerpt:
Tim Morgan compares the output of his SEEDS model to the change in world debt levels and the change in GDP to compute his view of trends since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009.
His conclusion is that we are headed for many debt defaults and hyperinflation, bringing the economy down quite quickly. How quickly seems to be left for Part 2.
To sum up Tim Morgan’s brilliant piece:
…………….Chief amongst these notions are the beliefs that we can spend our way to prosperity, borrow our way to solvency, and innovate our way past material limitations demarcated by the planet’s resources and the laws of physics……….
sounds like a familiar hymnsheet
Well, “If you close the door on reality, it comes in through the window” …
FROM THE GUARDIAN
“Let’s be clear: this Conservative party is dead. Those who killed it should own up so we can move on.”
Justine Greening.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/05/conservative-party-is-dead-local-elections-reform
””””””””””””””””’
The author of the article is a former Conservative minister of the UK.
Do you agree that the Conservative Party is doomed, or will it rise once more from the dead?
For my British friends .
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/everything-going-to-plan-for-the-313?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=571129&post_id=162703369&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
It sounds like some of the Conservative Party voters are moving over to the Reform Party.
Tory MPs to meet to discuss ousting Kemi Badenoch ‘before it is too late’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/kemi-badenoch-conservative-leader-tories-b2745085.html
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Favourite to replace Badenough is Robert Jenrick. Gawd help us!
What has he said?
“Robert Jenrick says Star of David should be displayed at every point of entry to the UK”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/robert-jenrick-israel-tory-conference-b2621106.html
I’m English. I don’t want the symbols of ANY foreign power at our points of entry. Clearly Jenrick is a Netanyahu poodle / puppet.
Regarding the China population issue mentioned yesterday, and also the general, “How is the China economy issue doing?” the WSJ has this article today:
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-economy-data-missing-096cac9a
How Bad Is China’s Economy? The Data Needed to Answer Is Vanishing
Beijing has stopped publishing hundreds of statistics, making it harder to know what’s going on in the country
The article shows several charts with data ending in 2022. An underlying theme is that the indications were going from bad to worse at that time. The omitted statistics include:
–National land sales, by area
–Number of people in urban areas receiving unemployment benefits
–National land sales, by value
–Unemployment rate for youth ages 16 to 24
–Number of cremated bodies
–Toll roads year end debt balance (keeps rising)
–Soy sauce production
The article talks about how long Chinese GDP statistics have been questioned.
https://ourworldindata.org/energy#country-profiles
Slovakia: a few weeks ago cow farms with foot and mouth disease, now pig farm infected with African swine fever
https://www.tasr.sk/tasr-clanok/TASR:2025050500000226
Gold Coins Worth $341,000 Found Hidden in an Overgrown Field During a Rural Hike
The hikers found the treasure hidden in a field overgrown by trees
Toria Sheffield
Sat, May 3, 2025 at 1:00 PM EDT
Two hikers walking in an overgrown field in the Czech Republic discovered over $341,000 worth of hidden treasure in a man-made wall
The treasure was found in two separate containers and included gold coins, jewelry and cigarette cases
The discovery was handed over to a local museum, and experts believe the treasure was likely hidden during the Second World War
Two tourists discovered a treasure trove of gold coins and bracelets while hiking in the Czech Republic.
The hikers found the treasure in two containers hidden in a man-made wall in an overgrown field in February, according to an official Facebook post from the Museum of East Bohemia.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gold-coins-worth-341-000-170000396.html
MG, get a metal detector….there may be more out there
If it is not one problem, it is another!
gotta pass on todays quote from the don……..
///////Trump wrote that, “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be…….///////
beyond parody
“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
– Winston Churchill
but when the dog drops something at your feet, it becomes irresistible to pick it up a throw it so he can chase after it again.
all i ever do is quote the don
nothing else is necessary
Trump won the election. You need to get over it. If you like, take consolation in the fact that in the great scheme of things it means little, if anything.
Most people – especially those with children – would probably agree with the substance of the quote you provided, and – relating it to our more central concerns – you can expect more people to do so as the energy predicament sharpens, and with it decreasing tolerance for abhorrent patterns of behaviour.
forgive me
I am always forgetting, that American gynaecologists are taught, that the irony gland,—-much like circumcision—– must be removed at birth.
British here Norman!
Brought up bathed in a vat of irony, but also sympathetic to those who suffer the depredations of habitual criminals, who do tend to be the most vulnerable, suffering as they do in irony-deprived environments.
I’m assuming the waiting list for TDS treatment on the NHS is at least a year.
Go private if you can – your blood pressure will thank you.
i do
£900 to have a look inside my painful knee joint—consultant just said keep on with what you’re doing.
Other than that I havent seen a doc in years. Blood pressure never changes.
as far as the don is concerned, his antics concern all of us, which is why i comment on it…. he is a very dangerous individual…..in true dictator fashion, he gets rid of anyone who disagrees with him—he is nevertheless incompetent, but those around him are not……that is where the true danger lies.
We even have Farage now as a wannabe Trump.
on its current economic track, the USA is heading for collapse, and simultaneous denial of that fact—-hence MAGA……which is utter nonsense of course/
I’m a very minor voice in the chorus—ignore me and listen to everybody else .
Trump axes the bureaucracy – of course they disagree with him.
The beaurocracy in turn have supported censorship, men dressed as women in sports, criminals burning cities dressed as “social justice”, and sponsored media to discredit critics.
What Trump does is disassemble the US empire, because with the decline of the dollar system, the US as a country won’t be able to afford 1) a beaurocratic sprawl with “diversity and inclusiveness” as its newest fad 2) a trade deficit where the country imports a lot more than it exports in value.
So what makes Trump any more 1) in favor of censorship 2) attack political enemies 3) burden the average tax payer than ANY of his enemies, I’d like to know.
agreed—the usa has a lot of social problems
but i suggest you read up on history to find out what happens when a head of state dismisses experienced military leaders and ignores court rulings
“but i suggest you read up on history to find out what happens when a head of state dismisses experienced military leaders”
Churchill dismissed Auchinlek and Wavell.
Obama removed McChrystal.
Truman dismissed McArthur.
Minster of Defence Healey refused to reappoint Mountbatten.
What happened?
er
they were replaced by competent ones
MacArthur – not competent?
“President John F. Kennedy solicited MacArthur’s counsel in 1961 and 1962. The first of three meetings was held shortly after the Bay of Pigs invasion. MacArthur was extremely critical of the military advice given to Kennedy and cautioned the young president to avoid a U.S. military build-up in Vietnam, …”
…for example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
“in true dictator fashion, he gets rid of anyone who disagrees with him”
And yet, Amazingly, you’re still here, and so is everyone Trump has fired—apart from that Iranian general Qasem Soleimani he had blown to smithereens.
You’ll doubtless remember Saddam Hussein—a real dictator worthy of the name.
From Wikipedia:
1979 Ba’ath Party Purge
Comrades Massacre
Date: 22 July 1979
Location: Bagdad, Iraq
Also known as: Khuld Hall Incident, Comrades Massacre
Deaths: 21 executed
Arrests: 68
The 1979 Ba’ath Party Purge (Arabic: تطهير حزب البعث), also called the Comrades Massacre (Arabic: مجزرة الرفاق), was a public purge of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party orchestrated on 22 July 1979 by then-president Saddam Hussein six days after his arrival to the presidency of the Iraqi Republic on 16 July 1979.
Six days after the resignation of President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Hussein’s accession to President of the Iraqi Republic, Regional Secretary of the party, and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council on 16 July 1979, he organized a Ba’ath conference on 22 July in Al-Khuld Hall in Baghdad to carry out a campaign of arrests and executions that included Ba’athist comrades, who were accused of taking part in a pro-Syrian plot to overthrow Saddam.
The list included most of the comrades who opposed Saddam Hussein’s rise to power after Al-Bakr, and among these was the former president’s secretary, Muhyi Abdul-Hussein Mashhadi. Names of people were announced and they were taken outside the hall and into custody; 21 of them were later executed. Ba’athist propaganda at the time showed that they were convicted of conspiracy and high treason to the party. Iraq subsequently cut off diplomatic relations with its fellow Ba’athist regime in Syria, accusing Hafez al-Assad of organizing the plot.
There are crimes and then there are CRIMES…
Depends on how one defines crime…just like S#¥….Slick Willie Clinton
I’m not going to shed any tears after the age of American Exceptionalism has expired…maybe it would have been better if Germany won…just kidding
jest not mike
their political dogma might still win
ive thought that for a long time—-just painted wuth a different stripe
This is what guns are for.
Don’t you have prisons in England?
certainly not
we transport our felons to the colonies……
and the theft of anything above the value of one shilling is a hanging offence.
problem solved……
I have a question for Gail or anyone else.
“Could we produce more biofuels via agriculture if we didnt need to feed 8 billion people?
Like imagine we only fed half or less. Wouldn’t that free up tons of land that could be used for ethanol and other biofuels?
mob
if we didnt have 8bn people—we wouldnt need the oil in first place
Maybe I was being too dramatic. But I think you get my point.
And 4 billion people would still require a ton of fossil fuels. (wouldn’t need nearly as much, but oil wouldn’t suddenly become useless)
0.8 billion would require even less!
First of all, ethanol doesn’t replace diesel or jet fuel. It is, at best, a poor imitation of gasoline. It has lower energy content per gallon, and it is more corrosive, than gasoline. It seems to require mandates and subsidies to work. It requires a separate transportation system from oil, to get it from where it is produced to the consumer, adding to resource use. Some places where corn is produced requires irrigation. Corn also requires substantial fertilizer use.
Also, the way ethanol is made today in the US is by using part of the corn crop. (Brazil makes ethanol using sugar cane as a base.) In the US, the standard estimate seems to be that 40% of the corn crop is used to make ethanol. The remainder (of the type of corn used to feed animals) is fed to animals. This remainder is not very good feed for animals. Ramping it up, at a time when meat consumption is falling, is not necessarily a good idea.
Cutting back the consumption of meat from animals would be a much better way of making the system more sustainable. This would lead to less of a market for the leftovers from ethanol-making. This would seem to lead to lower, rather than higher, use of ethanol.
The big ways of making additional cropland are
(1) Adding irrigation. This is limited by aquifer depletion.
(2) Cutting down forests. Generally, this is happening in poor countries, while rich countries add to their forests.
Ethanol is secondary to ICE use in automobiles.
from Copilot on corn:
“This change could push farmers and industries to find alternative uses for corn, such as expanding exports, increasing livestock feed production, or developing new bio-based products. It could also influence corn prices, potentially lowering them due to reduced demand from ethanol producers.”
One might assume this would be a negative on land prices. Grain elevators? Railroad cars? Ethanol plants? Communities in which such plants are located?
Deflation.
Dennis L.
Brace for rapid changes!!!
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/05/paul-craig-roberts/the-bell-tolls-for-all-white-gentile-ethnicities/
“The Vice President and Secretary of State of the United States have called attention to the tyrannical behavior of the current German government, a corrupt anti-democratic government, controlled by Israel, that is holding on to power by designating its rival, AfD, the rapidly growing second largest party as “extremist.” Recent polls indicate that the AfD has pulled even and perhaps a bit ahead of the government that is trying to suppress it.”
According to a survey, 4 from 5 small and medium size companies in Austria are in loss and the prognosis for this year is bad, too.
https://youtu.be/hRjSYiqrgw0?si=AgpFtEsMe3Y7I0nx
>Also, all the doomers have been so wrong for so many years that for me it seems safe to fade them.
I feel a sense of victory.
Doomers are realists. They see things as they are, not what they should be.
it is the burden of the cornucopians to prove them wrong, and as the title of this blog says, Our Finite World, the doomers are going to win in the end.
So for me it is an admission of defeat.
No one becomes a doomer at first. People’s nature are naturally optimistic. But the doomers are more rational and realistic than others and see things are too far gone to be saved, and make realistic choices.
No amount of preaching or propaganda will convert a doomer. A solid, actual solution might. But pies in the sky won’t do the job. They are in the sky but won’t do a single good to the humans.
No amount of optimism will change that. The doomers only accept actual solutions which actually works, not empty promises on things we do not have and won’t approve wasting valuable resources for something which will probably not work.
I will continue to fight baseless optimism, with an endless array of “could”‘s, “might”‘s, etc. They are no better than the residents of Easter Island who thought erecting more moais, using the dwindling supply of wood, would turn things back. This is not a time to waste what is remaining of resources to pursue hare brained schemes it is time to find a way to buy enough time to perfect the techs which actually work.
” it is time to find a way to buy enough time to perfect the techs which actually work.”
There is an up and down pattern. While it looks like down in the near future, it may be that sometime, somewhere, humans will discover techniques which actually work.
i think ”techs” is short for technology
”technique” is something entirely different
The two words are not interchangeable, but they are obviously out of the same stable.
The root of the words “technique” and “technology” comes from the Greek word “techne,” which means “art,” “skill,” or “craft”. This meaning is found in such modern English words as “polytechnic,” “tech,” “technical,” “technician,” “techonbabble,” “technospeak,” “technophobia” and “technofantasy” as well as in “technique” and “technology.”
While both relate to methods and problem-solving, “technique” focuses on specific skills and methods in execution, whereas “technology” refers to the broader application of scientific knowledge and innovation through tools and systems.
Example: I have mastered several techniques for doing long division in my head, but most of the time I rely on the technology of the pocket calculator to take the weight off my brain cells.
You really master long division and it presumably doesn’t weigh down your noggin anymore than seeing does. Deep patterning is effortless: from technique to techne. Getting there is the hard part. You probably have better things to do than get there with long division but I know that you could do it if you wanted to, Tim, I think that highly of you.
Likewise, Reante. And I apologize for being a bit of a prat (as we say in the UK) in some of our previous exchanges.
Your good opinion means a lot to me because I consider you one of the good guys. And Dr. John speaks very highly of you.
Re. long division and math in general, I would like to improve my skills, and I have the textbooks gathering dust on the shelves. It’s a question of organizing my time better.
I see there is a lot of information online about deep patterning. If you have any recommendations about what materials would be suitable for students who are new to it, please let me know.
That makes two of us then. I can be very unlikable. I like to think I always mean well. I was a bit hard on John before I left his place but I tried to always put my feelings in the context of ideas. He’s such a gracious man.
Is there a lot of stuff on deep patterning? That’s interesting. I guess there’s a lot of stuff on everything these days. im afraid I don’t have any content recommendations for students on that meta subject.
Skillswise it would be beginning by picking a essential craft and dedicating oneself to it. The deep patterning emerges along with the deep satisfaction. The more complex the craft the deeper the patterning and the longer the journey but not the quality of the satisfaction. Anybody who thinks otherwise is either just getting carried away with their own accomplishment or, conversely, getting carried away by someone else’s accomplishment. Both of which are normal things to do but they are altered states rather than grounded ones. And then picking another craft, and another, and then the lateral thinking starts kicking in. The natural fractals emerge. Metaphysical patterning of physical patterns. Same satisfaction, but a new iteration. A new discovery of the same satisfaction, no matter the degree of the supposed magnitude of the discovery as testified to by the altered state. You know what I’m talking about.
Stellar: A world beyond limits, and how to get there. Paperback – March 18, 2025
by James Arbib (Author), Tony Seba (Author)
A bold re-examination of the past, present, and future of humanity, Stellar challenges conventional thinking and offers a vision of hope and optimism – a necessary antidote to the fear and despair that define our times.
Stellar reimagines what’s possible – a world that gives rather than takes from both people and planet. A Stellar World where today’s pressing issues simply dissolve, where humanity can thrive, free from fear, scarcity, and despair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHdUMDVB8Ts
Tony Seba Predicts Super Abundant Utopia!
Klum, the future is so bright I have to wear shades.
Let’s see
>
Pinned by @BrighterwithHerbert
@BrighterwithHerbert
12 hours ago
Check out 15+ modules of resources for the $TSLA Investor and get free TESLA Milestone Tables
So the host has something to sell.
In other words a quite biased clip, which I call informercial.
Ah, all made possible by a cubic mile of Pt. An H economy, less pollution. Storage of day solar as H, intermittency addressed. Time to research dilithuium crystals(they actually exist).
I like Stellar by Arbib and Seba already.
Relax Kul, I am twisting your tail a bit, but in a subtle and considerate manner.
Dennis L.
I will believe these when i see them.
I’m increasingly convinced that doomerism is a philosophy designed for hoi polloi losers like us. And as such is no wonder it’s been promoted so much by Hollywood over the last 20 years.
The string pullers are not doomers, but audacious and crafty puppeteers who believe they can solve the problem of diminishing energy surplus per capita through mass decapitation and technocratic control.
The degree of direction and control I see in so-called current affairs doesn’t allow me to come to any other conclusion. They have it all figured out: exterminate most of the useless eaters and build back better from there.
The difference between the masters and us is that they have a plan and the means to implement it, while we have only confusion and complaints.
Soi that we the people are doomed, I’ve no doubt about it. But the 0.1%? Forget it. They are too much powerfull. They will inherit the earth, and reign as techno-feudal overlords on a planet of 1B serfs powered by nuclear energy or some undiscovered technology for harnessing cosmic energy or whatever.
Except too much resources ars used up and the remainder are hard to get
1B is too many
Eddy is in fine form over at substack.
Eddy does not have to pay tax!!! He has found the promised land.
I luvs Eddie, but am forbidden to enter his room because I believe in Captain Kirk and Mister Spock …all that was depicted on original Star Trek has come into being…EVERYTHING….what’s not to believe?
Several “Star Trek” inventions have influenced or inspired real-world technology and culture, including the communicator (which led to mobile phones), the tablet computer (which influenced modern tablets), and the tricorder (which inspired portable medical scanners).
Hypospray:
The hypospray, a device for quick and painless medication delivery, has inspired research into needle-free injection systems.
Universal Translator:
While still a fictional device, the universal translator inspired the development of real-time language translation technologies, including software and apps.
Holodeck:
The holodeck, a device for creating interactive virtual environments, has inspired the development of virtual reality technologies and immersive experiences.
Replicator:
The replicator, a device that can create objects from energy, has inspired research into advanced manufacturing and 3D printing technologies.
Tractor Beam:
The tractor beam, a device for manipulating objects with beams of force, has inspired research into magnetic levitation and manipulation technologies.
Transporter:
While human teleportation remains science fiction, the transporter has inspired research into quantum teleportation and material transfer technologies.
Warp Drive:
Warp drive, a method of faster-than-light travel, is a prominent example of science fiction inspiring long-term research goals in space exploration.
Even the transporter was achieved….with carbon
and wish science
mustnt ignore wish science
I prefer DREAMS, myself, If I envision it, the Gods of Olympus will create and make it happen..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zcO4ESh5uyM&pp=ygU0amFzb24gYW5kIHRoZSBhcmdvbmF1dHMgbW91bnQgb2x5bXB1cyBoZWxlbiBhbmQgemV1cw%3D%3D
Zeus and Hera Play a Game’ – Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
6,764 views · 2 years ago#movieclassics #1960s #classicfilm
I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this film…
Never gets dated..
https://vtforeignpolicy.com/2025/05/cia-u-s-jeffrey-sachs-uncovers-jaw-dropping-israeli-american-plot-against-iran-arab-world/
Who is protecting Jeffrey Sachs? Without protection he would be knifed by a lone crazy in Harlem (Columbia Campus).
Boom Finance discusses Argentina and mentions Jeffrey Sachs, one of the Chicago Boys a group of venture capitalists who moved into Chile and post-Soviet Russia.
“BOOM advises readers to be wary of Milei propaganda which predicts a quick, bright economic turnaround for the moribund Argentinian economy. This massive, radical socialist economic mess was created over 100 years of steady and increasing adherence to the Marxist cult and will not be turned easily. Much of the Milei promoting propaganda comes from foreign vulture capitalists salivating over the prospect of buying cheap assets and resources. However, those assets and resources could become even cheaper over time, especially if the fundamentals of money supply are not understood. Therefore, the vultures will circle and wait while the people below will continue to suffer and descend into more and more poverty mixed with a steadily increasing crime rate.”
https://boomfinanceandeconomics.substack.com/p/warning-decline-and-fall-of-the-uk
The Commies throwing shade on Sachs
“Jeffrey Sachs gained notoriety for advocating and implementing what is now called “neoliberal” capitalist economics with a vengeance. Following in the footsteps of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys” – who helped the dictator Augusto Pinochet in mid-1970s Chile starve workers and the poor for the greater glory of the “free market” – Sachs first made the spotlight as leader of the “Harvard Boys” who brought shock treatment economics to Bolivia in 1985.”
https://www.internationalist.org/jeffreysachsows1110.html
He and his buddies did the same to Russia in the 90s.
So BIG money Chews protect Sachs.
Sachs and Gabbard are thick as thieves. That should answer the question.
Surfer babe member of Hindu sect, Chew sect member. All we need to make a set is a Chinese sect member.
Halfie Nicole Shanahan count? Nother babe too.
Jeffrey Sachs ‘UNCOVERS’ Jaw-Dropping Israeli-American Plot Against Iran, Arab World
One heading says,
“Jeffrey Sachs has launched a scathing critique of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, placing the blame squarely on Washington’s alliance with Israel’s far-right leadership.”
Another heading says, “Jeffery Sachs blasts US, Israel for Middle East Crisis.”
In the video, Sachs says the current war against Gaza arose because of the US influence. In fact, Israel wants to overthrow every government in the Middle East.
Another heading says “CIA Operation Timber Sycamore Behind Syrian Crisis.”
Another says, “Israel has promoted six wars, now trying to instigate war with Israel.”
There certainly are a couple of different factions in the US supporting Israel. These factions seems to influence whoever is voted into power.
Israel is the tail that wags the dog, i.e. the US. The Israeli lobby buys off US politicians. No wonder how Nuttenyahoo is allowed to address the US CON-gress.
Michael Hudson :
“The U.S. policy, as I said, 50 years ago, and I’ll go into that more now, was based on the U.S. actually taking over all of these countries, again using Israel as the battering ram, as what the army called “America’s landed aircraft carrier” there. Well, all this began to take place in the 1960s with Henry “Scoop” Jackson. “?
https://www.unz.com/mhudson/middle-east-exploding-ukraine-crumbling-the-u-s-take-action/#comment-6803355
The US is really behind this push to take over the Middle East, according to Michael Hudson!
just as is common elsewhere, certain parts of the US government remain convinced that oil can just be somehow ‘taken’ from one country, as the spoils of war, and transferred somwhere else.—-in some sort of ”isolated” context.
I think we should stop being distracted by the dog, or it’s tail and look who’s holding the leash.
There is only one master in the western world and it isn’t the dog or it’s tail. The dog owns and controls it’s tail and the master owns and controls the dog.
Might already be rapid changes happening, not just on the way.
The YouTube video linked esrltimates China’s actual, on the ground current population at WAY less than any official figures. Hard to get a full picture with such a high noise to signal ratio, but if you just observe where you are it’s easier to deduce at least what is going on around you.
There will be less, and how that happens may vary regionally… For now.
https://youtu.be/QpjC4eRfMVU?si=Z1QHpy8rhfRf1nOW
The amount of anti china propaganda on YouTube is massive. I keep checking with my contacts in China who assure me it is BAU nothing bad going on. Please go to China and see for your self.
It seems like we would be seeing some other kinds of statistics dropping quickly, if population is really that low. For example, the amount of road traffic in major cities. I haven’t noticed reports on road traffic recently. It would be hard for the sales of automobiles to do as well as reported.
“It seems like we would be seeing some other kinds of statistics dropping quickly, if population is really that low”
Across multiple fields with massive declines, i would have thought.
A billion people down and still supplying the whole world with goods. Truly the most industrious people.
If they really were so industrious with such a small population Trump will have to up the tariffs to 5000% to have any chance of being competitive.
The video was low level rubbish. Empty villages in a huge country that has spent the last 2 decades going through massive change. Take Shenzhen for example, 40 years ago it had a population of less than 30,000 and now has a population of over 10m(how many came from villages?). Or the pictures of tower blocks with only a few lights on at night, but how many lights would we expect to be on if the picture was taken at 3am?
A billion people not burning fuel anymore? Where’s my extra oil?
This is quite the 31 minute video. I watched it from beginning to end. The Chinese lady alleges that the population of China is now about 328 million, rather than the 1.4 billion officially reported.
Part of the problem was overcounting, early on. Population was estimated by the number of school children. The amount financial support a school received depended on school enrollment, so school enrollment was inflated. The inflated school enrollment was use to estimate total enrollment.
A big issue was the lockdowns during covid. She alleges that these killed a lot of people. Not enough food was given to them, among other things.
Now many businesses have closed. Whole cities are empty. Quite a few people have left for other countries.
She says that China wants to be view as a global superpower. It buries the truth. But the truth doesn’t vanish. It waits for the right time to come to light.
When the money handouts from the central government depend on the number of people every regional government lies and lies bigly.
Having fewer people is good for China; less pollution, less mouths to feed, less copper to import, etc…
Fewer engineers, fewer technicians, fixed costs spread over fewer people.
“Having fewer people is good for China”
Then should the government be trying to reduce the Population?
In fact, the government is officially concerned about fertility.
The government of China was trying to keep the population in check for several decades since during the Mao period by suppressing the number of births—one child policy, etc.
It may be that they have done a better job than they bargained for. While we can’t trust the official statistics, it is fair to conclude that the Chinese demographic pyramid is no longer anything close to pyramidical. But how narrow the base and how wide the middle-aged bulge is anyone’s guess.
If many Han dies from COVID it make it look like a bio-weapon aimed at the Han. If so by who? If so will the Han strike back?
She didn’t say they died from ‘covid’. She said from the measures.
Yet a discrepancy of a factor of 4+ seems impossible to hide. Maybe they are only 1B?
i also thought a discrepancy that big was too much
Some people still hold on to the increasingly forlorn thought that a technological breakthrough would save them so they could continue their mostly meaningless existences in relative comfort.
I don’t see that.
Keith Henson said tech progress won’t stop.
Also someone else said we can’t go back.
Humankind has gone back many, many times. For example Western Europe in 500 was much, much less advanced than 400, and ‘normalcy’ did not return until 1350 or so.
All these talks about electric vehicles are just hopium since the resource base to sustain these many one-use-and-out batteries, which are hard to recycle, does not exist. Going to the stars won’t apply ; those who think going to the stars will be the solution apparently never spent a second in the shipping industry.
When the Hordes win, which seems more and more likely every day, everything simply ends like a heart attack.
I also think all these talk about rebuilding is silly. Nobody will be able to command these much resources to spend on any project after Hordes Victory.
Researches are being done in labs all over the world, with lots of material and money and resources thrown in. The days of a lone researcher doing things by himself is long past.
After the Hordes victory everything falls back to Hordes level.
I just got a report from a neighbor whose partner leased (luckily, rather than purchased) a VW EV.
It got a flat tire.
There’s no spare tire.
The thing had to be hauled by flatbed to a dealership an hour away. After two days, the neighbor still didn’t know exactly who had the vehicle, when it would be drivable, and how much it would end up costing.
Since it’s high-trust-for-now Vermont, the people who owned the house near where the vehicle became disabled gave our neighbors a ride home.
Finally sold cabin in Vermont. It required a lawyer on the part of both parties by Vermont law. So much for high trust.
The more laws and lawyers there are, the less trust there is.
Then again, there are many countries in the Middle East and Africa where there are less laws, less lawyers, and even less trust.
If you want to live in a high-trust area, move to Columbus, Ohio.
https://www.columbus.gov/Services/Public-Safety/Find-a-Police-Report/Homicide-Reports
The details we don’t think about!
If there is a choice between sending people off to war or to outer space, I preferthe latter. War will reduce the amount of resources available even if it does bring population down. Sending people off to space would waste some resources but it would reduce the amount of delusional people around. Sending people off to space could be voluntary. Lord knows that there are plenty of people alive now and in the future who will want to go.
These people will want to go to space because of all the science fiction fantasies fed to them by the establishment. In a “post-apocalyptic” future, having to deal with people who want to make science fiction-like things like hydroponics work will simply not be worth it. They will divert scarce resources towards things that are not practical if they are allowed to have their say.
Keith did indeed point out that progress will continue, and I made the point that we can’t go back.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we can or will continue to progress onward and upward towards more and better and richer everything.
We will quite possibly make progress in the manner of a runaway freight train with nobody at the controls.
I meant not being able to go back in the sense that the ladder we climbed to get to our current location has been kicked away—or at least it lacks so many rungs that we will not be able to descend it.
Crashing to the ground from a great height is a sort of progress, and as you know, even going around and around from place to place without getting anywhere new, as some of the grand medieval European monarchs used to do, is progress in a sense.
In fairness, we could call lack of improvement or maintenance of the current situation regression, but I don’t see us retracing our steps back to a previous state of society with lower energy inputs and outputs, but rather achieving different low-energy states, based on locally available resources, both physical and cultural.