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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.
Albert, Canada could forma new nation, the white states.
Will not happen . The era of new countries and states is over . The last one in the West was Kosovo ( forced and not recognized but by the EU) . Kosovo exists because 100% funding from EU . Talk is cheap .
I expect that the number of separate countries and states will rise, as the geographic reach of current top level governments becomes limited by inadequate energy supplies. For example, California (or the California coastal region) may secede (or be kicked out of) the United States. In fact, this secession may extend up the whole West Coast.
How the new arrangement would be organized would be determined by the situation of the day. Having a local dictator would be the cheapest arrangement.
“The era of new countries and states is over.”
Timor-Leste, independent since 2002.
Serbia-Montenegro split in two in 2006.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
South Sudan achieved independence from Sudan in 2011.
Bougainville is scheduled to achieve independence from Papua New Guinea in 2027.
Bougainville is interesting. In the 1990s it rebelled against the government and tried to secede from Papua New Guinea.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_conflict
As a result, the Bougainvillean rebels eventually ended up without petrol for their vehicles. Not a problem – they found a substitute: coconut oil! And it worked!
So there you have it. All backyards in the USA to be turned over to coconut plantations. The common people must work to keep their overlords in coconut oil. All Americans to be slaves again. Peak oil solved!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THpkPLfx_Bs
Thompson Twins – You Take Me Up
Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Yukon. Western and Northern BC can join later.
Cascadia!! (( Its just a matter of time ))
I wish it was so simple . New countries means new currencies , new military , new educational books . Understand the difference between ” transition ” and ” new ” . New means bloodshed and genocide . Examples the formation of Pakistan , Kosovo , Eritrea , South Sudan , NK –SK etc . Are the ” smartphone ” generation ready to pay the price in blood ?
I agree with your structuralist argument that countries breaking up will not result in a higher number of countries
Breaking up will lead to a huge number of currencies. There likely will be tariffs on goods from another area. New wars will be very local wars. There will be a need for local military.
After the Hand’s non-public Degrowth Agenda has run its course, Collapse is hard and fast for me. Once the industrialized nation states start breaking apart starting five to ten years from now I don’t see much centralization at all surviving that conclusion. We’re gonna be in freefall. DUMBs, strongholds, and federations of strongholds, and california stripper well warlords, but not much else other than smallholders and pastoralists and nomadic hunters, rewilders, all well armed. Georgia Guidestones numbers or fewer. Perhaps in subsequent centuries some regional centralization can be attempted again in places but I sure hope not and that’s not really my concern besides.
“Trump plans to accept luxury 747 from Qatar to use as Air Force One”
Is US so financially broken that its President needs to accept a new plane from a Country that people normally think to be a vassal one?
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/trump-set-accept-luxury-747-qatar-use-air-force-one-abc-news-says-2025-05-11/
The below link involves just one of the latest mechanical problem to one of the US official plane..
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/military-aviation/secretary-of-states-usaf-c-40-grounded-by-mechanical-issue/
”Net negative kcal values indicate a calorie deficit. Take into account that people normally eat about 2500-3000 kcal per day (more than that in the US). So, if Japan has a trade deficit of nearly 1300 kcal per person, it means that in the case of an interruption of the food trade, every Japanese citizen would lose about half of their calorie supply. Brutally said, it means that half of the Japanese population would starve to death. Things look bad, although not so bad, for most of the Western European countries. Overall, the people in EU countries would survive if they shared equally the European food supply. Maybe they would.”
Excerpt from the latest post by Dr Ugo Bardi . What if Malthus was right ? Who will starve first ? Japan ?
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/what-if-malthus-was-right?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=26quge&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Maybe we all should eat veggies and fruits?
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/ZfGc0Z9MybA
We literally are not evolutionarilly adapted to do that. But good luck!
W’ll eat Goats cheese as usual GCAU
Interesting article.
Table of calorie production by country is only possible thanks to today’s fossil fuel imports.
Countries are doubly hurt, if they cannot maintain fossil fuel imports. This is the table of fossil fuel independence that Ugo Bardi provides.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Countries-by-Fossil-Fuel-Independence-Ugo-Bardi.png
Japan is even worse off because it has virtually no fossil fuels of its own.
I wonder if the high debt level of the government of Japan is related to these deficiencies?
Yes, Bardi makes a good point.
I don’t understand why France is good in the first chart of Bardi’s article as it doesn’t produce inside any Oil and it has recently lost its African oversea possessions too.
The second point I would make is that if things really get near to what Bardi says, in my view the scenario is that those who can fight will indeed fight to grap anything to others (from State level to single tribes).
In fact, for instance, if one had made the same calculation (without fossil fuels) to the situation around year 211 CE (considering land available for food and animals), one would have seen in advantage the decadent Roman Empire.
But what happened a year later, in year 212 CE, it turned upside down the situation and the decadent Roman Empire lost everything in favour of those who fought in brutal, organized and aggressive way.
So, maybe, barbarian invasions or barbarian fights are again just around the corner.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasioni_barbariche_del_III_secolo
Another wikipedia link talks about an earlier year of collapse, that is in year 164 CE and till year 476 CE, with the official division with the Byzantine Empire.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasioni_barbariche
France sells a lot of high priced wine. This supposedly fixes its calorie deficit situation. This doesn’t produce a good diet. It also doesn’t directly have anything to do with the amount of oil France produces. You need to look at the two charts together.
Bardi has yet to provide any useful information that I could use, but I did stop reading him some years back.
This doom can be self reinforcing.
So, for some real doom, and a question. Who will get all the electricity in the next two years?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMYQmGfTltY&t=423s
No opinion, but Copilot can write poems, see an earlier post. It is agency now.
If someone has 100,000 Optimus-3 robots, who will serve the summons? Without force where does that leave narratives?
If AI/autonomous machines can evolve and self replicate; hmmmmm.
There is no economics without biology but biology at our level is sentience and self replication. Many humans/societies have ceased to self replace. For the nitpickers, in economics something is exchanged for goods/services and a means of storing value exists. Will self replicating agents have economics? Competition for electrons?
Thought some new thoughts would be helpful, I believe Meadows is approximately correct, Gail has many of the outcomes up to and including peak. What then? I have said before, Dennis if I understood correctly reported after peak the model was not relevant. We are there now, what next? A cubic mile of Pt would be helpful. Starship?
Dennis L.
Video is 2 hours and 32 minutes: “These Jobs Won’t Exist In 24 Months! We Must Prepare For What’s Coming!”
I don’t know if things are this bad. We likely would run out of electricity before we would reach this effect, unless we have the Chinese version of AI.
My understanding is that Dennis Meadows says that after peak, we can’t rely on the model to be correct. Donella doesn’t say this in the book, “The Limits to Growth,” but Dennis says it in person.
New economies will already be building up, at the same time this one is subject to collapse. How these new economies will function is unknown. Clearly, there need to be buyers and well as sellers of goods. AI doesn’t seem to producer buyers.
The poems read like instruction manuals and are generic.
And we don’t have 100j optimuses. At most a few hubdred wjll be built.
At least Bardi has his own blog. You reside hete rent free to spread your fantasies.
You tend to express your points a huge amount also. I suggest stopping your criticism of Dennis.
Denise , ” the Seneca Cliff ” was first enunciated by Dr Bardi . Why are you here ? Gail says ” Exploring how oil limits affect the economy ” . That is her blog’s motto .
I accept the limits, I accept traditional resources and probably population will/have peaked.
What we don’t know is what happens after the peaks in these resources.
“If we take a scientific shot in the dark, some estimates suggest the Earth’s core might contain several trillion tons of platinum. A rough calculation based on Earth’s mass and core composition hints that platinum concentrations could be in the range of millions of cubic miles—though spread throughout the core rather than concentrated in one place.” Copilot.
A guess: easier to mine asteroids than venture to the core of the earth. It is the density, Pt sunk to the core. If Copilot’s guess is correct, millions of cubic miles it may as well be on the nearest star.
Dennis L.
now we’re into trillions of tons of platinum—–sheeeesh—–
1 cubic yard at a time dennis
1 cubic yard at a time
A few years ago somebody calculated the extra fuel burn – planes cars etc – caused by the obesity of many US citizens.
I think it came out at a billion dollars or so a year. Can’t remember what oil prices were at that time.
Not sure about that one. My guess is the composition of food. Compared to photos of people in the sixties and seventies people today look pretty tough.
Food can be grown more efficiently and at a lower cost for inputs with a resulting increase in net revenue to the farmer.
The problem the gross yields decline so cost to consumer increases.
Dennis L.
WWF ?
https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/us-china-agree-to-slash-tariffs-by-115-for-90-days/
trump not only has no spine, he is a mollusk?
The dollar surged on the news….yeah right…
Taken right out of Dimitri Orlov’s book “Reinventing Collapse”.
News and Rumors can be played to make 🤑 money..
These guys are pros
This article claims that the US tariff on China is now 30%, but the WSJ says the effective tariff on China is now 40%. A quote from the WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-tariffs-trade-war-05-12-2025/card/the-tariff-climbdown-six-takeaways-from-economists-and-analysts-P51wmOatEo8B33IMBlIO
Dumb move . How are the importers/exporters to plan ?
” Shipping time from China to the USA varies greatly depending on the mode of transport. Air express can take 1-5 days, air freight 2-15 days, and sea freight 15-35+ days. Factors like the type of goods, destination within the US, season, and Chinese holidays can also impact transit times. ”
“ here’s Mr uber Zionist himself saying “Oh the United
21:14 States is going to bring food supplies to Gaza . . .
28:01 in larry why uh did we stop bombing and killing uh civilians in Yemen why did we
28:09 stop why did the US stop apart from the fact that we were going bankrupt in the process you know having
28:16 lost uh let’s see a grand total of 22 drones uh three FA18 aircraft over the
28:23 course of uh uh you know 20 months uh it worked out to about
28:30 a billion dollars uh just that alone then when you add in the cost of all the sorties now you know this was um I I
28:39 think we can believe that the Omanis brokered this agreement between the
28:44 United States and the Houthis and it was it was this is all tied up as well with
28:50 Trump’s trip to the Middle East so the you know I think there was some back and
28:57 forth where Trump was informed you’re not going to be welcome in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf unless you bring an end to
29:02 this and the first start is stop bombing the Houthies . . . “?
The tape starts out by talking about a different issue. Trump seems to take more credit for the US role helping the Allies win in WWII than the US deserves. While the US participated a little in the war toward the end, the US lost practically no soldiers in WWII. Russia remembers its patriots, partly because so many Russians died in WWII–perhaps 20% of the males in Russia at that time. Many soldiers from China also died. But the US doesn’t seem to recognize the important role Russia played. This is one source of friction.
Later, the tape talks about the need to stop the war against the Houthis, because it is costing too much in terms of equipment lost and arms costs.
I could have posted the link but I will put up the post .Kurt Cobb .
””Better” AI has more “hallucinations”
Imagine you are a doctor with a patient whose hallucinations keep increasing. Of course, you might try to figure out how to stabilize the patient if possible so the hallucinations stop increasing in number. And you might be furiously trying to figure out the cause of these hallucinations so that you might reduce or eliminate them. One thing you almost certainly would NOT do is suggest that other people rely on your patient as a source of information.
And yet, that is precisely what developers of a “better” version of artificial intelligence (AI) are telling us to do. According to the linked article, “On one test, the hallucination rates of newer A.I. systems were as high as 79 percent.” Contemplate that for a minute when you ask AI for help in answering a question.
Executives in the industry now admit that AI hallucinations—that is, information provided by AI tools that is just made up—will always be part of AI. The reason: AI tools use mathematical probabilities to construct responses. They cannot and will not ever have access to lived human experience and the judgement that results from that experience.
As the linked piece explains:
Another issue is that reasoning models are designed to spend time “thinking” through complex problems before settling on an answer. As they try to tackle a problem step by step, they run the risk of hallucinating at each step. The errors can compound as they spend more time thinking.
As AI struggles with its mental health, the owners of AI technology continue to require more and more data centers that require more and more electricity. States are now competing to subsidize the building of data centers. According to this piece:
What the “winners” of this competition receive is the opportunity to spend hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars subsidizing large corporations, while receiving few jobs or other public goods in exchange. Dressing up subsidies in the language of “competition” does not make them any less costly or any more effective.
The article adds that “at least 10 states already lose more than $100 million per year on data center subsidies, with Texas’ costs climbing to $1 billion.”
The writer also describes how previous efforts to attract film and television production to various states finally became such a costly competition that many states abolished their film and television commissions. The states were no longer getting their money’s worth because too many states had entered the competition and kept upping the ante.
I leave you with another AI development that would strain credulity if rational minds were actually contemplating it. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been meeting with one of the largest players in the AI field, OpenAI, to discuss how AI could be used “to speed up the drug approval process.” What could possibly go wrong?
That’s a question worth asking again and again whenever you rely on AI for information. It turns out that on most topics you’ll need to have some expertise in order to sort through the mishmash that AI answers provide. Far from replacing experts, AI will actually require experts to sort through the mountains of unreliable information. Hey, maybe we should just skip AI and go back to consulting experts in the first place.
After companies have invested so much money in AI, they don’t want to believe that the benefit they provide might be less than the sunk costs involved plus the ongoing operational costs. I think this is why research continues.
AI may be useful, despite hallucinations, in some applications. For example, hallucinations may not be too serious an issue in applications such as providing rough translations from one language to another, or in providing artwork based on a library of artwork.
Hallucinations could be a bigger problem when AI is used to do research on a topic. The answers it gives could provide wrong information. If AI is used to drive a vehicle, hallucinations could lead to traffic accidents and deaths.
I am sure that this will all eventually sort out. AI will last in some applications, but not others.
Fast keeps me informed. People continue to die in Aussie land from the vax.
Thanks, need not remind but Fast is ALWAYS correct, that proves it.
The CEP is being played out….people are dying, …
I went to his subtract blog and read War is Necessary…of course it is,
If it wasn’t necessary than God would tell us so…see that proves it.
Fast told it IS necessary..
word according to FE as seen on OFW in 2022—”millions of bodies lying in the streets”
just an attention seeker, no different to a 5 year old with the same problem—-i used to tell him that, which resulted in a stream of 4 number obscenities.
couldnt even use the English language in its correct context
This week, Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, said that rich countries “owe it to the world” to achieve net-zero emissions, during the opening dinner of the Ecosperity sustainability event in Singapore. Gates is the chairman of the non-profit Gates Foundation, which provides funding for a wide range of causes, including climate-related projects.
Speaking with Singapore’s Ambassador for Climate Action Ravi Menon, Gates stressed that high-income countries must achieve net zero even if the entire world cannot. “The notion that the entire world is going to get [to net zero] by 2050 is at this point not realistic,” said Gates. “There are levels of emissions that are small enough that the temperature worsening actually is not a problem,” he added. However, if rich nations can reach net zero, it demonstrates to other countries the potential to tackle the effects of the climate crisis.
The United Nations defines net zero as “cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.” According to the UN, “The science shows clearly that in order to avert the worst impacts of climate change and preserve a liveable planet, global temperature increase needs to be limited to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Currently, the Earth is already about 1.2°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s, and emissions continue to rise. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Agreement – emissions need to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.”
Several countries around the globe have established net-zero carbon emissions pledges with various deadlines. As of June 2024, 107 countries, responsible for approximately 82 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, had adopted net-zero pledges either in law, in a policy document or a long-term strategy, or in a government announcement. Thousands of companies around the globe have made similar pledges, many aiming for around mid-century.
However, recent analyses suggest that many countries are far from achieving their climate goals. Just 13 of the 195 Paris Agreement signatories had published their new emissions-cutting plans, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), by the 10 February deadline. The missing countries represent 83 percent of global emissions and almost 80 percent of the world’s economy. Meanwhile, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said the existing NDCs were enough to reduce global emissions by 2.6 percent from 2019 to 2030, but were nowhere near the 43 percent cut required to stay on track for the heating target of 1.5 degrees.
Gates said this week that the world must be bolder with innovation investments that seek to combat climate change. “The sooner we get there, the better. [But] we need the examples,” stated Gates. He explained that one of the main barriers to innovation is securing risk capital for projects.
U.S. Electricity From Fossils Fuels Dips Below 50% for the First Time Ever
Saudi Arabia’s New Oil Play – Embracing the Glut to Win the Long Game
“The sooner we get there, the better. [But] we need the examples,” stated Gates. He explained that one of the main barriers to innovation is securing risk capital for projects.”
___
“Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford have played central roles in the creation of the social impact human capital bond markets that will roll out post-Covid lock step with Klaus Schwab’s planned Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
https://wrenchinthegears.com/2020/10/13/technocrats-great-barrington-and-bermuda-grass-why-settle-for-reform-when-a-radical-solution-is-needed/?
The Earth already has blown past 1.5…
Matters not…burn, baby, burn
The higher temperatures are to a significant extent self-induced. We have reduced the sulfur compounds in the air by requirements of shippers to cut pollution. This allows more heating of the atmosphere. It is the opposite of what people who would like to control high temperatures by adding substances that would create global dimming.
Using a 15-year trend, we have now officially passed 1.5°C of global warming.
“All recent La Niña months are above the trendline. Extrapolating this linear trend, we’ll hit +1.75°C by 2031 and +2.0°C by 2037.” [Leon Simons]
Why Trump’s Plan to Stop Tallying Weather Losses Matters to the Insurance Industry…
“NOAA staff will no longer update the site or crunch the numbers for any weather-related catastrophes that have occurred since this past December… That includes the Los Angeles wildfires, recent flooding in the Midwest and Southeast and a March tornado outbreak that killed at least 39 people across the central and eastern US — all multibillion-dollar events…”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-09/how-trump-s-plan-to-stop-tallying-weather-losses-impacts-insurance
Patricia Janečková dead at 25 from cancer. Vax?
A young woman with a beautiful singing voice.
An exceptionally beautiful young woman, who had joy and playfulness in her singing. So very sad.
Sad news. I was saddened to hear of her passing at such a young age. I’m a fan of hers but never got to see her in person.
Don’t know who she is. MG should know more about her than anyone else here.
Yes, her death as a very talented voice was broadly reported in the media here.
First, the tonal quality of her voice was truly a gift, and then she developed it to perfection. Now the more “inappropriate” questions. What was her hormone receptor status? Was she a “triple negative,” meaning if she had no receptors, the cancer could not be controlled by estrogen, progesterone, or HER-2 and was inherently very aggressive.
I long ago concluded that COVID was a derivation of HIV in that the immune system was compromised by treatments advocated by Fauci et al. In 2020, my light bulb moment came when I read a scientific paper by 4 Indian researchers who identified 4 gene sequences in the SARS-COV-19 spike protein that were copies of those found in HIV. I can not find that study and assume it was censored. Even FE can’t locate it. FE, are you there? Give us this source if you have it.
It begs the question, although I have not been inclined to ask any of the “gurus” what is the correlation with turbo breast cancers and their hormone receptor status (established at birth) and the number of COVID injections?
Triple negative breast cancer is very aggressive and might be considered a kind of “turbo cancer,” but if Patricia’s tests showed positive estrogen and progesterone receptors and HER-2 , then indeed I would be very suspicious of her breast cancer being the result of COVID vaxxes. But I don’t know her vaxx status.
But with the corrupt reporting system, disinformation. misinformation, and cover-up, it’s impossible to get ANY reliable information nowadays so I don’t even try. Even people like JFK Jr. and Dr Peter A McCullough ( hawking his Wellcom traveling medicine kit promo ) are now suspect. They don’t want the carnage to end because they make so much money keeping it going, just like the swelling number of social media con artists and doom porners, It’s sickening. I’m afraid only when the bullets start flying house to house and street to street will things ever change, and even then, the reign of terror that followed the French Revolution is a grim reminder to be careful what you wish for.
Is it this one?
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1
Withdrawn
“This paper has been withdrawn by its authors. They intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author”
They were attacked with the full force of the corporation at the time, so not unexpected.
Two months later (end of March 2020) there was a German paper that showed that given a high enough vitamin D serum level (and not that high really, 40 ng/ml), people were immune to covid. That too was withdrawn. I remember when I saw this paper I stopped being bluepilled for good (sure, in foreign policy I had been redpilled since 2003) I stared at the screen for a long time asking myself with whom my loyalty was. Later in 2020 I fully understood the energy angle, and that simplified my thought process a lot.
Question:
drb and drb753 are the same person?
Thanks for feedback
yes, sorry. my computer remembers both handles, occasionally I click on the wrong one.
Thanks. I know I wasn’t imagining things when I read the original. I remember seeing the original publication with a lot more 3D models showing the sections of similarity. This paper is not exactly the one, but is very close and is probably a more abridged version, and probably by the same group. I will copy this and the link this time. So assuming that this is the paper, the question becomes why was it withdrawn? A lot of studies have been, or I assume the authors threatened with their livelihoods
Safe and Effective. No way the CV19 vax did it.
“Safety is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do
the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run as outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
– Hellen Keller
The cancer rate for young people is going up. I do not think that vaccines are the main reason. It is a complex problem of the poor diet, the stress, the accumulation of genetic mutations and pollution.
Perhaps….
But then again, perhaps vaccines are the main reason?
Particularly in young people?
I’m just listening and reading to lots of voices and trying to keep an open mind while not getting taken in by BS, pseudoscience, gaslighting, sealioning (yes, that’s a word now too), and propaganda.
Dr. Mikolaj Raszek investigates:
Proto-Celtic seems to have spread from Hallstatt (Austria) with the spread of Knoviz (Czechia) ancestry that is linked further back to the Hungarian/ Serbian Bronze Age and to the Italian Neolithic.
Knoviz is the only migration throughout the historical Celtic-speaking area that fits between the unanimously agreed origin of Proto-Celtic at about 3200 BP and the time of the historical distribution of Celtic about 2500-1500 BP. The spread of Knoviz ancestry from Hallstatt is detectible throughout the area between 3200 and 2800 BP.
The spread of Celtic language/ culture is associated with the spread of the R-U152 male haplogroup which is still present as a minor haplogroup in Britain and Ireland. There is also archaeological evidence of the spread of the Hallstatt culture from the Rhine area to Britain and Ireland around that time.
There is evidence from history and burial sites that Celtic groups were elitist and organised as chiefdoms and warrior/ priest elites. We are probably talking about an elite domination that reached Britain by 2800 BP and thence to Ireland. So the islands got the language/ culture from an earlier wave before the Germanic language arrived.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.28.640770v2.full
Tracing the spread of Celtic languages using ancient genomics
Summary
Celtic languages, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Breton, are today restricted to the Northern European Atlantic seaboard. However, between three and two thousand years before present (BP), Celtic was widely spoken across most of Europe before being largely replaced by Germanic, Latin or Slavic1–4. Despite this rich history, how Celtic spread across the European continent remains contentious5. The debate is currently focused around three main models based on historical linguistics and archaeology: (1) a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age spread from Central Europe associated with the Hallstatt and La Tène Cultures6–9; (2) a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age spread along the Atlantic seaboard linked to the Bell Beaker Culture10–13; and (3) a Bronze Age spread from France, Iberia or Northern Italy14–16. Previous genomic investigations are centred around the arrival of Celtic to specific regions: Britain17, Iberia18 and Southwestern Germany19. Here, we utilise new genomic data from Bronze and Iron Age Europe to test how the population histories align with the three models of prehistoric spread of the Celtic languages. In line with the theory that Celtic spread from Central Europe during the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age, we find Urnfield-related ancestry – specifically linked to the Knovíz subgroup to have formed between 4 and 3.2 kyr BP, and subsequently expanded across much of Western Europe between 3.2 and 2.8 kyr BP. This ancestry further persisted into the Hallstatt Culture of France, Germany and Austria, impacting Britain by 2.8 kyr BP and Iberia by 2.5 kyr BP. Our findings thus agree with the model of Central European spread of the Celtic languages through consecutive expansions of the Urnfield, Hallstatt and La Tène Cultures rather than the competing models. These results demonstrate, yet again, the power of ancient population genomics in addressing long-standing debates in historical linguistics and archaeology.
.. However, recent archaeological evidence documents the westward expansion of Hallstatt C from the Rhine into England and Ireland59,60. This Hallstatt expansion to Britain can potentially be associated with dialects ancestral to Insular Celtic. However, at present, Iron Age genomes from Ireland do not exist, preventing us from identifying the exact processes behind the emergence of Irish.
* * *
This is the distribution today of R-U152, centred around northern Italy and central Europe.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c7/3e/c9/c73ec94f1560c6049b8767ac0278d477.jpg
There is a village today at the eponymous site at Knoviz in Central Bohemia (Czechia). The climate looks pretty temperate and the land fertile.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Knoviz_CZ_from_S116.jpg
Could you explain the significance of these findings?
Well, if we are looking for some ‘meaning’, then Hallstatt highlights that elites may look local – and Kulm here talks about ‘land owners’ – but elites are so because they are able to leverage networks across broad geographic areas. Elites tend to be trans-regional. Locals are unable to compete with the wealth and the resource access that elites are able to marshal and so they fall prey to elite domination. Nationalism as an ideology can sometimes be perceived to have overlaps with aristocracy, with ideas of group supremacy, particularly in the imperial period, but they are actually distinct societal phenomena. There has been talk on here about a return to slavery and its analogues after the Collapse but trans-regional elites are also likely in such a scenario.
Empire has been the dominant form of largescale societal organisation for the past 5000 years since the Bronze Age in the Near East because of the benefits of scale, resource access and security. ‘Nation states’ are pretty recent even if they are often seen as a liberal ‘telos’ towards which history has somehow ‘tended’ rather than as transient phenomena. It is very likely that a Collapse scenario would hasten a return to empires and trans-regional, networked elites as that is the normal historical pattern. Smaller polities exist in the spaces between empires and they tend to get subserved to the empires and they hope to eventually become an empire themselves and to replace the others – and that does happen, empires rise and empires fall.
The recently published “The Oxford World History of Empire” (2021, Oxford University Press) discusses some of that stuff in volume 1.
Hallstatt seems to be a late Bronze Age, Iron Age example of a trans-regional elite whose language and culture spread through conquest and elite domination. They networked trade regionally and as far away as the Mediterranean and such artifacts are found among their archaeology. Humans are surprising good at trade networks over large distances, in much more primitive conditions than today, so long as societal organsation exists to network in the first place. Relatively rudimentary human organisation can be a lot more complex than people might imagine without an awareness of the long-term history. So it is entirely possible that a post-Collapse civilisation will see empires, trans-regional elites and wide trade networks as well as the slavery and its analogues that do actually tend to happen in history.
* * *
This is Hallstatt. There is loads of archaeology associated with Hallstatt culture.
The Celts are pretty cool to read about, but I am not sure that many of us would opt to live back in those days. Technology and society have moved on a long way. I suppose that it is all a matter of perspective and what we are used to.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Kultwagen_Strettweg.jpg
The Strettweg Cult Wagon, Austria, c. 600 BC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstatt_culture
Haplogroup U152 is present in high percentage also in North Itally thanks to Canegrate and Golasecca culture and also then subsequent influx of La Thene (D.Faux ‘A genetic signal of central European Celtic Ancestry’ and also S.Spagocci ‘Celti Cisalpini, uno sguardo antropologico).
Celtic culture is also cleary visible in North Italy in toponyms, anthroponyms and folklore, but people have been taught to think and to be only inspired by Ancient Romans and Dante.
I only discovered Golasecca culture after University and you have to know that I attended my studies when I was young at around 50 km from the archeological site.
On the contrary, if one goes to Tuscany starts to learn about Etrurians at kindergarten.
The same happens in Liguria where they are not even aware of their long ancestry about Liguri, quoted also in many ancient writing like the ones of Esiodo.
Very funny current Liguri rage ‘Belin’ instead of other bad words and they are not even aware that it is a rage like saying ‘Dio mio’ as Belen/Belenos was main Celtic and Ligure God.
In Friuli Venezia Giulia there is even a place dedicated to ‘San Belin’ who is a actually a Saint that doesn’t exist in Christianity and it was instead a place dedicated to Belenos God.
https://www.turismofvg.it/fvglivexperience/el-sas-de-san-belin-in-cammino-fra-realta-e-leggenda
That is a very ironic and sad consequence that those who win write history and these rewritings are so strong that last and current Italian governements are perpetuating this and people still ignore their history.
It has been creeping, now it is openly admitted
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/economic-tumult-serious-concern-has-emerged-stagflation
With the economic tumult, a serious concern has emerged: stagflation
Stagflation is when the economy grows slowly or contracts as consumers face inflation, price hikes
I think that there is also a problem of too much money chasing too few goods. But cutting that money back would cause problems, too.
Diminishing returns on resource extraction underlies the upward trend in prices.
En france les commerces ferment les uns après les autres , même les grosse distribution comme carrefour , auchan , intermarché
https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/fermeture-de-27-intermarches-decouvrez-les-magasins-concernes-1513149
Mais aussi des magasin de bricolage comme castorama.
Dans ma ville ils envisage de réduire la surface commerciale de notre magasin auchan ..
Il ferme également des marques connu de vêtements comme jennyfer…
I guess we should await a reduction of the processed food availability, as this processing consumes energy.
Oh yeah, Buffett is long food grade burlap. Make America healthy.
Translation:
In France, stores are closing one after the other, even large retailers like Carrefour, Auchan, and Intermarché.
https://www.capital.fr/entreprises-marches/fermeture-de-27-intermarches-decouvrez-les-magasins-concernes-1513149
But also DIY stores like Castorama.
In my town, they’re considering reducing the retail space of our Auchan store.
They’re also closing well-known clothing brands like Jenniferfer.
Comment by Gail–It is a sad situation everywhere. In the US, there are many shopping malls that are only partially occupied. One near me was in the news recently because the electricity had been turned off because the owners had not paid their bill. They were also behind on their taxes. The doors were locked for a short time, but not things are temporarily back to normal, but not enough stores.
Stores not in malls are closing, too. Joann’s Fabrics and Craft stores are liquidating, for example.
Take it or leave it .
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/absurd-conspiracy-french-media-rushes-quash-claims-macron-merz-starmer-caught-hiding
“Absurd Conspiracy”: French Media Rushes To Quash Claims Macron, Merz & Starmer Caught Hiding Cocaine On Kiev-Bound Train
I doubt it.
>> Absurd conspiracy
As was apparently said in the Soviet era, “don’t believe anything until it is officially denied.”
Since seeing is believing I will take it. That is indeed a cocaine spoon and that bag looks like it used to have quite a bit more in it. Maria Zakharova lol:
https://t.me/MariaVladimirovnaZakharova/10479
It should be noted though that Starmer appears to be arriving with the cameras so maybe he’s off the hook.
filed in the same box as……”’fauci is plotting with the chinese to kill off most of humankind”
You never hung out with the cool kids did ya Norm?
Replenish, you qualified to adjudicate this one?
I’m just going to say Happy Mother’s Day to Gail and let our Norm off the hook as I revel in the wholesome family atmosphere, lol.
I’m just going to wish Norman a Very Happy Great Grandfather’s Day on September 7th, and I dedicate this next golden oldie to all of us.
there were no cool kids……
they were sent down coalmines or up chimneys back then….
Point taken. Black powder back then for the cool kids, not white. White powder was talcum powder, for hemorrhoidal botties on long train rides, which is also rather embarrassing to be caught with on camera, thus the guiltybody language. The snorting spoon is a general purpose one – nothing to see there.
Oh please. If you were also married to an 80 years old transvestite you would sniff too. Nothing to see here.
Earlier we had talked about the food situation Russia vs USA .
” And then there’s government dependency. Nearly 57% of black Chicagoans are enrolled in the food stamp program SNAP – the 3rd-highest percentage among America’s 15 big cities.”
https://wirepoints.org/theyve-destroyed-jobs-and-opportunity-for-black-chicagoans-wirepoints/
Sounds sort of like Europe.
Los Angeles is next to the bottom on Growth. With all of the immigrants, that isn’t good.
I can see that there is less bees, but more bumblebees as pollinators. Asked ChatGPT about the resilience of the bumblebees:
Resilience of Bumblebees Compared to Honeybees
Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators and have shown greater resilience to environmental changes than honeybees. Here’s why:
🧊 1. Cold Tolerance
Bumblebees can fly in lower temperatures (as low as 5–10°C), while honeybees usually become active around 12–15°C.
Their bodies are covered in dense hair, and they can warm up their flight muscles before takeoff, allowing them to forage earlier in spring or during colder days.
🌸 2. Efficient Pollinators of Diverse Plants
Thanks to their longer tongues, bumblebees can access nectar from deeper flowers.
They can perform buzz pollination (vibrating flowers to release pollen), which honeybees are incapable of.
🛠️ 3. Less Dependent on Humans
Bumblebees are not intensively managed like honeybees, which means they are less affected by human-related issues such as overbreeding, transportation stress, or chemical treatments.
They exist more freely in the wild and adapt better to changing local conditions.
🦠 4. Smaller Colonies = Lower Disease Risk
Bumblebee nests contain only 50–300 individuals, unlike honeybee hives which can house up to 50,000.
Their short seasonal life cycle (spring to autumn) reduces the risk of large-scale disease outbreaks or colony collapse.
🏠 5. Diverse Nesting Habits
Bumblebees nest in abandoned rodent burrows, under grass or compost, or sometimes in birdhouses or cavities above ground.
These varied nesting preferences offer better survival chances in fragmented or urbanized environments.
Bees are overrated
Bees have nothing to do with staples
And if bees run out artificial pollination is feasible
yup
AI will fix it
It would be nice to have a wide variety of pollinators, including bees and bumble bees.
Bumblebee Economics: With a New Preface Paperback – Illustrated, November 30, 2004
by Bernd Heinrich (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
See all formats and editions
Here is a brilliant introduction to insect and plant ecology focusing on one of nature’s most adaptive creatures, the bumblebee. Survival for the bumblebee depends on its ability to regulate body temperature through a complex energy exchange, and it is this management of energy resources around which Bernd Heinrich enters his discussion of physiology, behavior, and ecological interaction. Along the way, he makes some amusing parallels with the theories of Adam Smith―which, Heinrich observes, work rather well for the bees, however inadequate they may be for human needs.
Bumblebee Economics uniquely offers both the professional and amateur scientist a coherent biological model that goes beyond any particular species or level of biological organization. Rich in specific detail and including an extensive appendix on the rearing of bumblebees, as well as a full-color guide to field identification, this book organizes practical knowledge according to a new criterion.
In a new preface, Heinrich ranges from Maine to Alaska and north to the Arctic as he summarizes findings from continuing investigations over the past twenty-five years―by himself and others―into the wondrous “energy economy” of bumblebee
I read this decades ago and you may find of interest
I knew Bernd Heinrich, I am still good friends with his ex wife, another biologist. I used to use his honey extractor, after he gave up, as I have as well. He is also an incredible marathon and ultra marathon runner.
Number of UK business owners voluntarily closing hits highest since pandemic .
https://www.ft.com/content/500c623a-2710-491d-984f-8796bc9926b8
Doesn’t sound good!
Irish-founded Tullow Oil faces $1.4bn refinancing headache amid falling crude prices .
https://archive.vn/GUJO9#selection-1327.0-1327.84
Tullow has lots and lots of problems:
“ . . . Marco Rubio is a tool of the
16:23 Zionists a tool of Netanyahu and Trump is a prisoner of these people and we’re in an impossible situation right now . . .
18:29 to be honest about this iran right now holds all the cards u conventionally and
18:34 the only card we have is a nuclear card and thank goodness Donald Trump doesn’t yet want to play that card um it would
18:41 be a disaster it would be a humanitarian disaster diplomatic disaster “?
In this The Duran video, Alexander Mercouris explains why Mike Waltz got the boot. He apparently was pushing for war and colluding with Bengy Nutten-yahoo on attacking Iran.
Another video talking about the employees of the Administration being deeply divided on the war/no war issue.
It turns out hat Mike Waltz was very much on the pro-war side of the issue–in fact, colluding with Netanyahu against Yemen and Iran. For this, Mike Waltz was “exiled” to the UN.
The full title of this video is “Yemen Bombshell Exposes Why War with Iran would be Hell.”
Scott Ritter says that Yemen/Iran missiles are far more advanced than we had thought.
The video below popped up in my YT feed. It is significant. Telegraphic summary: Huawei will own the entire supply chain for its own EUV chip production. Rollout in 2026. Compare to the Western controlled chain that does not work without contributions from companies in Taiwan, Holland, Germany, and the US. Also more energy efficient and uses lower energy lasers. Also energy angle since China energy costs are low.
Given the supply chains crumbling, the West is going to be completely fucked on this one. China already owns the 10nm market. Whereas since 2022 Europe (Ursula and her followers) have absorbed most of the Ls, this one will be 100% absorbed by the US. hell, China may even do a headfake, pretend to invade Taiwan, have the US bomb TSMC, then retreat (Even in war a little humor helps). That would have the immediate effect of Korea and japan switching sides within a year. Also think of the loss of information and blackmail power as BRICS starts building its own internet infrastructure and google etc. start getting sidelined.
This video popped up on my feed = THIS IS SIGNIFIGANT
LOL
This video seems to be about processes Huawei hopes to put in place. Thus , it may be “counting chickens before they are hatched.”
Australia ,diesel and war . Matt Mushalik .
https://crudeoilpeak.info/australian-diesel-imports-update-january-2025-data-preparing-for-surprises-in-the-strait-of-taiwan
Interesting!
It looks like Australia is increasingly importing diesel from a variety of countries, as Australia’s own oil production (and diesel production) declines. The majority of these imports are from Southeast Asian countries, such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia. A concern is that these supplies will be disrupted, if China attacks Taiwan.
At this point, there is considerable concern China will try to bring Taiwan back into its own realm of influence before 2027. President Xi wants to be re-elected to his 4th 5-year term in 2027, and bringing back Taiwan would help Xi win. But the Communist party seems to be replacing Xi’s choices with its own choices, in quite a few key positions. This may indicate that Xi is losing power, unless there is a way he can shore it up. https://jamestown.org/program/personnel-problems-are-becoming-personal-problems-for-xi-jinping/
Since about 2016, there has been a sharp drop off in oil production in Southeast Asia. At the same time oil consumption has been rising. This means that ever more needs to be imported from outside the area. So there are worrisome times ahead.
SABIC closes UK chemical plant .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/09/one-britains-biggest-chemicals-plants-faces-closure/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1kj21hb/one_of_britains_biggest_chemicals_plants_faces/?rdt=34965
One of the concerns is that the plant is being converted to run on natural gas, rather than oil. But even natural gas is expensive in the UK. Part of the problem is carbon tax, and companies being forbidden to drill. (But, as we know, the area has been well-explored. There really isn’t much gas to produce.) So closing the plant is what makes sense.
A false golden age! Thank you Donald.
The Jews have become the equivalent of urban populations, after the environmental degradation of their homeland and the need to emmigrate to other places, often cities, during the last 2000 years.
The rise of Israel after the WWII was largely dependent on renewing the agriculutural production with new technologies, fertilizers etc.
That’s wholly false.
You are confusing fraudulent claims by Europeans with history. The Europeans masquerading as Semites destroyed all the farms to build apartments and plant forests of non native trees to hide their crimes(that’s why they all just burnt).
https://noi.org/vaccine/
“Don’t let them vaccinate you, with their history of treachery through vaccines, through medication. Are you listening? I say to the African presidents, do not take their medications! I say to those of us in America, we need to call a meeting of our skilled virologists, epidemiologists, students of biology and chemistry, and we need to look at not only what they give us. We need to give ourselves something better.”
July 4th, 2020
“We will not accept your vaccine so you can slow down, because whenever you bring it out, it’s for your people. You give it to them because we are not accepting death. You are the very representative of death itself: the pale horse. Everywhere you have gone in the world, hell went right behind you. We are sick of hell and we are sick of death. So all of you that have made a covenant with death, your covenant is going to be annulled … your agreement with hell will be broken.”
Brother Farrakhan not make America great again, make America great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKjRngj_FY0
After the lies of the dems and repubs it is a pleasure to hear truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbTkVPaSeio
the global south
“Black people should fly in planes made in black factories”.
Trump offers Americans flying in planes that profit the Oligarchs. The Oligarchs are not Americans. Norm do the rulers of the UK offer to raise up the people of the UK?
Skymind 1.0 sounds cool.
Skymind is protected by China’s strong cyber security! I can’t wait to see if it can speak the truth about Israel. No western AI can, not even Grok.
I wonder if this is fake news. I can not find this using google.
Skymind does sound amazing, if it works as well as we are told. Faster, cheaper, and does more than ChatGBT 4.5.
Too good to be true. But in eight years it can be true.
Malcome X says American blacks are God’s chosen. That Chews are Europeans.
Malcome Little put his bets on the Nation of Islam. He did not bet wisely.
It came to me that our predicament is analogous to playing a Jenga game. I explained to my Mom and a centrist at a recovery meeting in the context of removing unsustainable character defects one at a time from the top down after taking the personal inventory step. The two political factions add more burden on top of the teetering pile and/or pull out load bearing pieces and add them to the top. The only way to adapt to post-collapse or avoid low bottom conditions is for the activist to take responsibility and stop playing the game and start dismantlng his or her teetering pile. The Elite want to pick the winners and losers through involuntary degrowth ie. Playing the game = comtrolled demolition regardless of the human or ecological toll ie. Extend and pretend. Chatgpt spit out an explanation of Jenga = Human overshoot that most ideology adled people can understand until denial quickly takes hold again with ego rebuilding as they say in recovery circles. The old adage of the addict, the tornado and the storm cellar is also a profound teaching.. emerging from the cellar to view the carnage the sober drunk says to his wife.. look Ma the storm is over aint life grand. Sobriety and Self knowledge aren’t enough, personal action must be taken for attracting other and adapting to the new reality.
If not vaccines, what could be done with COVID-19???
https://youtu.be/BJh_yMpLaeY?si=PCVrl6jOsuCDuj0X
ChstGPT summary:
The video you’ve referenced captures a covert recording of former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico during an informal gathering, where he candidly discusses his personal experience with COVID-19. In the footage, Fico describes the illness as a “terrible disease,” expressing that it left him feeling extremely unwell and fearful for his life. He recounts severe symptoms, including high fever and intense fatigue, and mentions that he required medical attention during his illness. This private conversation provides insight into Fico’s personal battle with COVID-19, contrasting with his public stance on pandemic measures.
Fico has been a vocal critic of the Slovak government’s COVID-19 policies, particularly regarding vaccination campaigns and lockdown measures. In April 2025, he announced a temporary halt to the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines in Slovakia, citing concerns over vaccine safety and pending a review by the Slovak Academy of Sciences . This decision was met with criticism from health experts and opposition parties, who accused him of promoting unscientific views and undermining public health efforts.
The juxtaposition of Fico’s personal health experience with his public skepticism highlights the complexities and contradictions in his approach to the pandemic.
Back pain is the second most common reason for sick leave in Slovakia, largely caused by poor sitting posture at work in Slovakia
https://primar.sme.sk/c/23481937/bolesti-chrbta-su-druhou-najcastejsou-pricinou-pn-zle-sedenie-vedia-firmy-ovplyvnit.html
I would argue about the cause, as it is the stress from the job that causes back pain. Changing to standing position at the desk helps: you realize that your job actually does not provide you enough in return for your invested energy. The stress from AI and competition, as the jobs are disappearing.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40333243/
This recent study out of Turkey asserts that female rats lose 60% of their primordial egg follicles (the lifetime supply of eggs) upon mRNA-vaccine administration. Interesting.
I wonder whether the folks pushing these vaccines realized that reduce fertility might be a result. If so, it might be an intentional outcome.
Gail, I remember very well that at the beginning of the mRNA Italian campaign for Covid vaccination the famous Italian Jewish journalist Paolo Mieli at La7, during the famous programme ‘Otto e mezzo’, said that it was better to wait to take that vaccine if one wanted to have children.
Later on he was a promoter of the vaccine and he didn’t come back on this issue.
He is one of the most important Italian journalist and he has worldwide contacts.
Do the Russian and Chinese vax do the same?
If you look at the paper, there was a control group, an mRNA group, and a more traditional inactivated-virus group. The latter had fewer effects than the mRNA group.
Normaly mainstream researches don’t add also a control group made of people who didn’t have any vaccine, which is non sense.
Another indication that electric trucks aren’t a great idea:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/tesla-scraps-cybertruck-range-extender
In a few words, we are not going to build the range extender battery, so we are refunding your money.
Not an expert:
That was a battery for the “pickup truck.”
Tesla has a new battery, the 4680 which has a higher energy density, better thermal management, faster charging and tabless design which simplifies production and reduces costs. Guess is the new production models will have this battery, extender battery will be so yesterday.
Tesla’s new Semi factory at Gigafactory Nevada spans approximately 4 million square feet. This facility is designed to support high-volume production, with a planned annual capacity of 50,000 Tesla Semi trucks.
Bit of trivia. The electric semi can be driven in a platoon formation. The following semis are autonomous, reduce air resistance, decrease fuel consumption by up to 10%, electricity. One driver, three trucks. In stockcar racing this was known as drafting, very old technology.
Dennis L.
I learned a new term today: “pre-rich”. I like it … I’m not poor, I’m just “pre-rich”.
America’s Largest Grid Operator Warns Of Summer Power Shortages
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/americas-largest-grid-operator-warns-summer-power-shortages
Excerpt: “When America’s largest power grid operator warns of “growing risks” of summer power shortages, people pay attention—especially now, after witnessing Spain’s brief brush with net-zero collapse, when its failing green energy grid triggered the worst blackout in a generation.
The grid operator warned that a perfect storm of retiring fossil fuel plants, sluggish renewable energy growth, and soaring demand could trigger shortages for the first time:
PJM continues to voice concerns about the supply and demand imbalance driven by generator retirements and the slow build of new resources in the face of accelerating demand growth.”
PJM covers a ragged area, in the Eastern and Central US. This is a link to a map.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2025-02-12_07-47-29.png
The worst areas for likely supply shortfalls are the areas that already have high rates, thanks to high demand from data center load growth. The article says:
The new pope explains his name as the reaction to the actual job destruction by the new industrial revolution and AI
https://youtu.be/dz2n_ci3oyc?si=uiVDrMuu1810Ke-j
But we know that energy and food prices are the main culprit.
I am afraid that Pope Leo XIV can’t fix the world’s problems. In fact, I am doubtful that he can fix the Vatican’s financial problems. They are similar to problems of governments around the world.
But maybe Pope Leo XIV can fix the automatic endorsement of woke policies that make no sense. Pope Francis was pushing covid vaccines, also.
Having posted at the time of the announcement the pic of two lions nuzzling each other, I doubt it. Nor will he deviate from the official line, should a new vaccine deemed necessary.
In Italy, some journalists have already found an original speach of Pope Leo XIV who, at the time of Covid, asked faithful to take the vaccine to avoid spead of the disease, which, as we have learnt, it caused exactly the opposite, without mentioning all the other consequences.
But I think it was, and it is, the official position of the Catholic Church, so nothing new.
It was Pope Francis and the Vatican who broke the ice with worlds first vaxx mandate for entry to Christmas eve service 2021. Remember? After that everywhere started to make it mandatory, airlines, concerts, etc.
Also, I would suggest that wage disparity (that is low wages, for the vast majority of people) is as much of a problem as energy and food prices. If wages were higher, the price of food and energy would not matter.
Having higher interest rates and higher home prices contributes to the problem as well.
lets do a thought experiment lets give everybody a 50 % payrise and a 50% drop in interest rates , will this actually help in eliminating the wage disparity. Would their be any consequences as a result of these rises? Thoughts anyone?
A 50% pay raise for everyone would likely cause inflation. It wouldn’t get rid of the wage disparity, if everyone is getting the same raise..
A 50% drop in interest rates would make it difficult for governments (and perhaps others) to sell bonds. But to the extent that debt-based funding could be raised, it would encourage investment in energy supples and other goods. But the goods produced would likely be too expensive for the majority of citizens because of the diminishing returns problem. Lowering interest rates by 50% might be somewhat helpful, because it would funnel less money up to the already rich.
very similar to what my wife said but lowering interest rates and dropping house prices could be the way to go to help younger people afford their own house and lessen the pain somewhat.
Dropping housing prices is a different issue that you didn’t bring up. Lowering interest rates seems to raise housing prices, just as it raises asset prices of all kinds. At this point, housing prices are so high, it would be hard to see them rise further. Asset prices, at least in some cases, are already falling.
After asking my wife for her thoughts if workers are given a payrise what would happen she replied ; firstly prices will go up and you will lose workers to cover the costs of the payrise.
I am not sure you would lose workers. Fixed costs would stay the same, at least at first. The cost of goods produced would rise by less than wages, so paying for goods would not be a huge problem. Workers would seem to be able to keep their jobs.
money is only a token of energy exchange.
if you give everyone a 50% payrise—or even 500% payrise—it means nothing unless the same percentage of energy is fed into the economic system. (so you can buy stuff with it)
money is only useful if there is ‘stuff” to buy………
if rising money supply doesnt have corresponding ‘energy-stuff’ to use it on, then that money will end up chasing ever decreasing energy supplies…..
and that will bring on hyper-inflation.
cheap energy is finite….
money printing is effectively infinite.
This seems to be the end of the ‘ceasefire’ nonsense. The only question now is whether NATO has much kit left to send to UKR.
Presumably USA will not waste what is left of its own stock.
The ground is hardening as the sun comes out. Russia has been shaping the front and a spring-summer offensive is expected with two reserve Russian armies into the fray.
So, this is your last chance, Russia! Surrender now or NATO will dig out some more kit to send to UKR! Promised!
USA has already said that it is sending some broken F-16s for parts. Tick, tock, Russia, surrender now while you still have the chance!
So, USA failed to break Russia, Russia and China and totally tight now, more than ever, and USA got a ‘trade deal’ with UK, the ‘most amazing deal ever’, according to Trump.
That should reindustrialise USA, so China had better look out! USA is coming for you! Soon!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/10/leaders-britain-france-germany-poland-arrive-kyiv-ukraine
European leaders demand unconditional Ukraine ceasefire by Russia
European leaders on a joint visit to Kyiv have issued an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign up to an unconditional ceasefire by Monday, or face increased sanctions and weapons transfers to Ukraine.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, together with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a joint phone call to Donald Trump prior to making the announcement.
“All of us here, together with the US, are calling Putin out. If he’s serious about peace, then he has a chance to show it now,” said UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at a joint press conference of the five leaders in Kyiv.
Starmer said the leaders were demanding “an unconditional ceasefire, rejecting Putin’s conditions, and [are] clear that if he turns his back on peace, we will respond, working with President Trump, with all our partners, we will ramp up sanctions, and increase our military aid for Ukraine’s defence to pressure Russia back to the table.”
.. There was no immediate readout from the White House on the call, or on whether Trump had made specific commitments if Putin rejects the ceasefire.
There always seem to be some people who want to keep the conflict going. In fact, someone has claimed that some of them are inside the Pentagon. Otherwise, Trump/DOGE could simply cut off funding. The US seems to still be providing supplies to keep the war going. Without those supplies, there would be no war, at least according to one view.
VVP to the EU and Trump — Come on punk , make my day . Courtesy Dirty Harry a la Clint Eastwood .
In my view this is only some show to have an excuse to say that Putin doesn’t want peace.
In fact, from every serious analyst, even the ones in favour of Ukraine, it is reported that Ukraine is losing and Russia is winning.
Having said that, how can a person think that the one who is winning is available to accept a ceasefire without obtaining anything of what has requested since the beginning ?
(that is neutral Ukraine, no Nato troops in Ukraine, Russian speaking territories included inside Russia, in order to avoid mistreatment of Russians by Ukrainians).
What is the advantage for who is winning?
Mad as it sounds, sometime I think that the only solution for EU leader (according to their crazy minds) is to have the current Ukranian administration killed by someone or overthrown by another internal group.
In fact, with all the mistakes EU leaders did, it is probably the only way to get out of this without going back on their words.
P.s. just to analize some details, I noticed that Italian Premier was not present at the meeting and we have to admit that normally Meloni, flaws and all, knows how to avoid a shi77y look.
well yes, they are just trying to get narrative brownie points. Nothing else. It is probably time for Russia to hunt foreigners more intensely, even if they sleep in day care centers (which they do).
Short one, education:
Suggested by Copilot.
https://www.skyfilabs.com/electronics-online-courses
I like the automatic solar tracker.
Education is a whole new game and is changing rapidly. Note, ten years ago much of this was impossible except at advanced engineering levels and with very expensive technology, e.g. programmable logic controllers.
There seems to be a much better understanding of how we learn secondary to AI, education departments at universities are due for a reset it would appear. Change, very rapid change, very stressful to the changees.
Note, much less oil needed, no need to maintain a huge campus and administrative staffs with a ratio greater than one, the denominator being the teachers. Well, in the past they could learn to code, future?
Yes, we will need oil for the transition period until, drumroll please:
A cubic mile of Pt I tell you.
Dennis L.
Unfortunately, the solar tracker just does a little bit. It reorients solar panels a bit. It is another part of the system, adding complexity and reducing the life of the system. It also increases costs (but hopefully less than the value of the added electricity). The solar tracker does nothing for the lack of sun in winter and on cloudy days.
Agreed, but it is a teaching case and perhaps(I do not know) is an introduction to recognition of weeds.
This is the project I am currently on(solar voltaics) so I focus on it but look for generalities. What I am seeing is learning changing. These courses appear to replace piles of books the goal of which is to solve one small problem.
I think Meadow’s is approximately correct, but we do not see what is coming afterwards. As I mentioned elsewhere, civilizations do indeed die, but they are born as well. Such is the emergent process which I have learned from you, currently that is a proved theorem for me.
As for solar positioning, a podcast I referenced mentioned positioning, my cooperative is now using positioning, the question is the cost of positioning vs the gain. I don’t know, yet.
Earth has a history of billions of years with life, we are to date the end product. The universe is quantum mechanical, there is evolving the idea sentience may be quantum mechanical; well, we are part of the universe.
Meadows is right up to the peak – as far as I know that peak is on earth. If we mine space, the earth peak will go to zero, who will notice, will it matter?
I recall a little boy looking out and saying in effect, ” God is not done with me yet.”
Per Copilot:
“This idea is rooted in scriptures like Philippians 1:6, which speaks of God continuing His work in individuals until completion. It’s a phrase of hope, reminding people that setbacks and struggles do not define their final outcome.”
God is not done with us yet, He is 80/20 and the trick is to get with the 20, not the 80.
Dennis L.
New economies definitely do spring up, using whatever resources are available. At this point, we don’t know what these will be. Clearly, the earth has resources to support some level of population. Population won’t go to zero in any near term (barring a religious event that causes this to happen).
Regarding solar positioning, you say, ” the question is the cost of positioning vs the gain. I agree with you. Fortunately, even if the solar positioning equipment fails early on, the rest of the system is still usable. So the whole system isn’t lost. This is better than the situation with, for example, a fancy washing machine.
Whatever is upstairs is done with humans. Maybe the dolphins will have their turn in 100 mil years.
This is worth a listen, it is over an hour long, AI overview and it mentions with numbers the need for electricity. It also states solar is cheaper than coal, oil, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2A4arPRp94
Solar: the biggest expense is the mounting not the cells. Solar from China, yes China is about .07/watt, buy a container, go big, about $30K.
I read the Meadow’s book in maybe 1979 or so; I was fortunate enough to sit next to Dennis and chat with him. The book makes no predictions after peak, the peaks mentioned are probably correct even the demise of civilization but, civilizations have been demising before recorded history and new ones take their place. For some it is an end, for others a beginning. I did ask Dennis what came after peak, he shrugged his shoulders.
This is happening in the US, we have Starship and we have destitution in the major cities. Those cities could be seen as narratives which have run their course. A collapse of a narrative is very painful to those whose life is built around it and their pain is not to be dismissed. But, the universe is an emergent system, one might imagine God looking down and saying, “That was yesterday’s narrative, next, get with it.”
We are going to move much of the inorganic to space, I think in the podcast mentioned discussion is made of AI in space, laser communication between earth, moon, mars.
Yes, it is scary. Now, think of yourself on a ship, with a door in the front which opens down, offers an easy walk onto a beautiful beach. It is the middle 1940’s and the present owners are angry; the purpose of the island is to become a large runway which will launch Enola Gay. Yup, things are going to change. For both the changer and changee on that landing day it was not easy, but here we are. We had two WW about twenty years apart, after the drop of that door, world peace for more than eighty years, the future is often messy.
Had Copilot write a small poem about electronics, well I have a sense of humor.
Circuits hum, a steady glow,
Electric pulses start to flow.
Binary whispers, bright and tight,
Turning darkness into light.
Switches dance in silent grace,
Logic gates a fast embrace.
From bits to waves, the spark is spun—
A world of code, forever run.
Dennis L.
Solar is cheap, if you can use very intermittent electricity supply that is frequently not available. This especially tends to be a problem in winter, when electricity is in great demand.
If you need electricity, delivered to the consumer, on a continuous basis, solar is at best a supplement to fossil fuel supply. The whole system is made with fossil fuels. At this point, electricity simply extends the system a bit. The system would have to be transformed greatly to make solar primary.
I used to follow Diamandis. He is like a cult leader who sats Jesus will return tomorrow all the time.
Here’s a book I thought you may like Gail or anybody else
“Entropy Economics: The Living Basis of Value and Production”
“Economists dream of equilibrium. It’s time to wake up.
In mainstream economics, markets are ideal if competition is perfect. When supply balances demand, economic maturity is orderly and disturbed only by shocks. These ideas are rooted in doctrines going back thousands of years yet, as James K. Galbraith and Jing Chen show, they contradict the foundations of our scientific understanding of the physical and biological worlds.
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo239242610.html
‘This “equilibrium” graph (Figure 3) and the ideas behind it have been re-iterated so many times in the past half-century that many observes assume they represent one of the few firmly proven facts in economics. Not at all. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that demand equals supply in any market and that, indeed, markets work in the way this story narrates.
We know this by simply paying attention to the details of the narrative presented. The innocuous assumptions briefly mentioned at the outset are in fact necessary joint conditions in order for the result of equilibrium to be obtained. There are at least eight of these result-critical necessary assumptions:
Firstly, all market participants have to have “perfect information”, aware of all existing information (thus not needing lecture rooms, books, television or the internet to gather information in a time-consuming manner; there are no lawyers, consultants or estate agents in the economy).
Secondly, there are markets trading everything (and their grandmother).
Thirdly, all markets are characterized by millions of small firms that compete fiercely so that there are no profits at all in the corporate sector (and certainly there are no oligopolies or monopolies; computer software is produced by so many firms, one hardly knows what operating system to choose…).
Fourthly, prices change all the time, even during the course of each day, to reflect changed circumstances (no labels are to be found on the wares offered in supermarkets as a result, except in LCD-form).
Fifthly, there are no transaction costs (it costs no petrol to drive to the supermarket, stock brokers charge no commission, estate agents work for free – actually, don’t exist, due to perfect information!).
Sixthly, everyone has an infinite amount of time and lives infinitely long lives.
Seventhly, market participants are solely interested in increasing their own material benefit and do not care for others (so there are no babies, human reproduction has stopped – since babies have all died of neglect; this is where the eternal life of the grown-ups helps).
Eighthly, nobody can be influenced by others in any way (so trillion-dollar advertising industry does not exist, just like the legal services and estate agent industries).
It is only in this theoretical dreamworld defined by this conflagration of wholly unrealistic assumptions that markets can be expected to clear, delivering equilibrium and rendering prices the important variable in the economy – including the price of money as the key variable in the macroeconomy. This is the origin of the idea that interest rates are the key variable driving the economy: it is the price of money that determines economic outcomes, since quantities fall into place.
But how likely are these assumptions that are needed for equilibrium to pertain? We know that none of them hold. Yet, if we generously assumed, for sake of argument (in good economists’ style), that the probability of each assumption holding true is 55% – i.e. the assumptions are more likely to be true than not – even then we find the mainstream result is elusive:
Because all assumptions need to hold at the same time, the probability of obtaining equilibrium in that case is 0.55 to the power of 8 – i.e. less than 1%! In other words, neoclassical economics has demonstrated to us that the circumstances required for equilibrium to occur in any market are so unlikely that we can be sure there is no equilibrium anywhere. Thus we know that markets are rationed, and rationed markets are determined by quantities, not prices.
On our planet earth – as opposed to the very different planet that economists seem to be on – all markets are rationed. In rationed markets a simple rule applies: the short side principle. It says that whichever quantity of demand or supply is smaller (the ‘short side’) will be transacted (it is the only quantity that can be transacted). Meanwhile, the rest will remain unserved, and thus the short side wields power: the power to pick and choose with whom to do business.
Examples abound. For instance, when applying for a job, there tend to be more applicants than jobs, resulting in a selection procedure that may involve a number of activities and demands that can only be described as being of a non-market nature (think about how Hollywood actresses are selected), but does not usually include the question: what is the lowest wage you are prepared to work for?
Thus the theoretical dream world of “market equilibrium” allows economists to avoid talking about the reality of pervasive rationing, and with it, power being exerted by the short side in every market. Thus the entire power hiring starlets for Hollywood films, can exploit his power of being able to pick and choose with whom to do business, by extracting ‘non-market benefits’ of all kinds. The pretence of ‘equilibrium’ not only keeps this real power dimension hidden. It also helps to deflect the public discourse onto the politically more convenient alleged role of ‘prices’, such as the price of money, the interest rate. The emphasis on prices then also helps to justify the charging of usury (interest), which until about 300 years ago was illegal in most countries, including throughout Europe.
However, this narrative has suffered an abductio ad absurdum by the long period of near zero interest rates, so that it became obvious that the true monetary policy action takes place in terms of quantities, not the interest rate.
Thus it can be plainly seen today that the most important macroeconomic variable cannot be the price of money. Instead, it is its quantity. Is the quantity of money rationed by the demand or supply `side? Asked differently, what is larger – the demand for money or its supply?
Since money – and this includes bank money – is so useful, there is always some demand for it by someone. As a result, the short side is always the supply of money and credit. Banks ration credit even at the best of times in order to ensure that borrowers with sensible investment projects stay among the loan applicants – if rates are raised to equilibrate demand and supply, the resulting interest rate would be so high that only speculative projects would remain and banks’ loan portfolios would be too risky.
The banks thus occupy a pivotal role in the economy as they undertake the task of creating and allocating the new purchasing power that is added to the money supply and they decide what projects will get this newly created funding, and what projects will have to be abandoned due to a ‘lack of money’.
It is for this reason that we need the right type of banks that take the right decisions concerning the important question of how much money should be created, for what purpose and given into whose hands. These decisions will reshape the economic landscape within a short time period.
Moreover, it is for this reason that central banks have always monitored bank credit creation and allocation closely and most have intervened directly – if often secretly or ‘informally’ – in order to manage or control bank credit creation.
Guidance of bank credit is in fact the only monetary policy tool with a strong track record of preventing asset bubbles and thus avoiding the subsequent banking crises. But credit guidance has always been undertaken in secrecy by central banks, since awareness of its existence and effectiveness gives away the truth that the official central banking narrative is smokescreen.’
https://professorwerner.org/shifting-from-central-planning-to-a-decentralised-economy-do-we-need-central-banks/
The real situation is even worse than Professor Woerner describes. We live in a world that increasingly has a problem of empty shelves. There simply are not enough energy products to produce all of the goods and services that we have produced in the recent past, relative to population.
Low prices are what consumers need, but low prices put energy producers out of business.
Entropy adds to the problem because of growing pollution and the need to try to control that pollution. The cost of pollution control devices adds to the cost of producing many things, but especially burning fossil fuels to produce heat or electricity.
For a while, lowering interest rates and extending terms can hide the problem of higher energy costs of production, but eventually this fails. Indirectly, energy becomes unaffordable. Even food (an energy product) becomes unaffordable to some share of the world’s population.
Thanks, interesting, but this is absurdly false:
“The emphasis on prices then also helps to justify the charging of usury (interest), which until about 300 years ago was illegal in most countries, including throughout Europe.”
Lending money at interest has always been the rule rather than the exception. If lending at interest was illegal throughout Europe until 300 years ago then Shakespeare, and Englishman, wouldn’t have written”Merchant in Venice.” The Fugger family wouldn’t have existed as the dominant banking family it was.
There have always been other ways to make money by lending money. Annuities have always been a way for good Christians to ‘not charge interest’ by building profits into their fixed-income returns. Secured loans is another. Islamic banking is another ‘not charge interest’ scheme that makes secured loans and also takes a share of the profits made off of the loan by the borrower.
Got to check it out..
My initial book on the topic was Jeremy Rifkins classic “Entropy A New Worldview”,
https://www.amazon.com/Entropy-World-View-Jeremy-Rifkin/dp/0670297178/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
One comment wrote
The basic argument of this book is that the ironically named ‘Second’ Law of Thermodynamics is the most important force/law in the universe. Like many brilliant ideas, the law itself is quite succinct – you can search wikipedia for ‘second law of thermodynamics’ for all the various interpretations.
Entropy as the term is used in Rifkin’s book, refers to irreversibility at primarily a macroscopic level in the universe, or more tersely, ‘time’s arrow’. In a nutshell, over time, all systems in the universe (other than a few weird quantum behaviors) move generally from a state of order to one of disorder. Order in a local system can only be maintained thru temporarily increased use of energy, which of course eventually moves the system even further down the road to disorder – the ultimate end of which is the heat death of the universe.
Lots of others at Amazon and can be bought used for a couple of dollars. Hard to believe it was first published in 1980.
Of course, now we have Starships and a cubic Pt changes all that
And Jeremy Rifkin’s daddy is Joshua, who is still alive. I remember him reviving Scott Joplin’s ragtime tunes in the 1970s.
I recommend playing this one at 1½ times normal speed. It sounds much better.
https://youtu.be/3Hp1Y8R_dCw
The Entertainer – piano’d by Joshua Rifkin.
I see that this is a very recent book. The blurb says:
An editorial review says:
“Entropy Economics is an eloquent call for the abandonment of the equilibrium fetish that characterizes mainstream economics and an exposition of a nonequilibrium economics, grounded in the laws of thermodynamics, with an objective measure of value based on entropy and scarcity. Galbraith and Chen will be part of the foundation for the new economics that we desperately need.” — Steve Keen | author of “The New Economics: A Manifesto”
So the book may have something to offer. But the book seems not to be a best seller. The book has only three ratings and no reviews by readers, and it was published in January.
Both sides are complaining on the US-UK deal
https://www.gbnews.com/politics/us-uk-trade-deal-torn-apart-funeral-predicted-british-car-manufacturers
While the US manufacturers
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/kenya/us-automakers-blast-trump-s-uk-trade-deal/ar-AA1EqyYU
Perhaps complaints on both sides indicates that it is an even-handed compromise.
Even handed compromise ?? Both parties go bankrupt faster because the automotive industry is anyway in extinction mode . Oh yes , they can blame Trump instead of ‘ peak oil’ .
Club of Rome, Vatican, we will shoot you to Heaven from this Hell of overshoot on Earth.
My distant relative, a mathematician and a Slovak politician, mentioned in this discussion about the new pope:
https://youtu.be/-KkwN3Q2GPk?si=NaXoNqoyUu14CgDq
this papal vote that initiated the tradition of the conclave:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1268%E2%80%931271_papal_election
“As a result of the length of the election, during which three of the twenty cardinal-electors died and one resigned, Gregory X promulgated the papal bull Ubi periculum on 7 July 1274, during the Second Council of Lyon, establishing the papal conclave, whose rules were based on the tactics employed against the cardinals in Viterbo. The first election held under those rules is sometimes viewed as the first conclave.[4]”
Sistine Chapel – the Michelangelo’s muscles as the symbol of energy, God from the brain shape pointing at the hand of Adam…
What a difference in comparison with the emaciated figures of the Gothic style and the balanced figures of the Renaissance.
Robert Francis Prevost with a glass of Slovak “slivovica”:
https://kosice.korzar.sme.sk/c/23488396/papez-sa-v-kosiciach-tesil-z-rozvoja-rehole-spominaju-augustiniani-slivovicu-vypil-poznal-ju.html
Dang we might not have to worry about going back to those lovely peaceful slow moving periods. But we can always rocket to nice secluded asteroid.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3306933/no-quick-wins-china-has-worlds-first-operational-thorium-nuclear-reactor?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article
China has a lot of incentive to make this work. The biggest obstacle is probably the corrosive radioactive molten salt. If this isn’t fake then it’s been in operation for a year so they must be dealing with that.
10mw by 2030 won’t help much but i know we can’t get starships or a cubic mile of platinum by 2100 without it.
I think I have seen some notices about China’s thorium nuclear reactor.
It is my understanding that China actually has some mined thorium that it can put into nuclear reactors. Today, if it is mined, it is mined as a byproduct when other minerals are mined. The US doesn’t have any (or much) mined thorium), so we would have to work on that as well.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium-nuclear-power-station-gobi/104304468
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14447257/China-discovers-limitless-energy-source-power-country.html
US warns that if Sunday Iran talks aren’t productive, ‘they won’t continue’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/us-warns-that-if-sunday-iran-talks-aren-t-productive-they-won-t-continue/ar-AA1EuqzE?ocid=BingNewsSerp
So, will they go to war?
Using what kind of weapons? Nuclear is out of the question. We soon run out of conventional weapons, without buying materials from China (which they don’t want to sell to us).
Evidently nuclear is not out of the question. In fact they are going to use the first sunk carrier as motivation to push it through.
I like to think that enough people within the Pentagon understand that anything short of nukes vs Iran will be disastrous militarily for us, and that using nukes will make us a pariah state overnight, to the extent we’re not already, and so it’s all just a bluff.
No country will use nukes until it is an existential threat . Hey Indo -Pak ceasefire just after 3 days and this was not even a war only skirmishes . The only reason gor the whole mess was that both govts were facing a lot of domestic unpopularity so best a war . Yawn — nothing new .
I thought that the whole purpose of the B61-13 was Iran* and they talked about being ahead of schedule(in production now), so keep an eye out, just incase they move loads of heavy bombers within range and then go into talks stating that Iran must dismantle all nuclear facilities, knowing this to be unacceptable.
I don’t see Iran folding, as Araghchi says
“Iran’s nuclear program is built upon strong legal and lawful foundations. All of its aspects are peaceful, and it has always been and will remain under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This is a right of the Iranian people that is neither up for negotiation nor compromise.”
Then we listen to Witkoff
“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line. No enrichment. That means dismantlement, it means no weaponization, and it means that Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan – those are their three enrichment facilities – have to be dismantled,”
I can’t see a deal coming from that.
* “provide the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets”
https://media.defense.gov/2023/Oct/27/2003329624/-1/-1/1/B61-13-FACT-SHEET.PDF
Nuclear gravity bombs, how 20th century. No wonder they originally pulled out of the deal over missile technology and tried to reintroduce that stipulation before the start of this round.
Fitz, USA moved the bombers back to USA. Seems it was a bluff. Iran has agreed to nothing as far as I’m aware.
Thanks, do you know when this happened?
The day after AnsarAllah won a surrender would be priceless.
Both Pezeshkian and Araghchi have made positive, but careful statements(no weapon ever, but no stopping power generation and medical/scientific development).
If Trump wants to claim a win, all he has to do is lift sanctions.
Iran will then be happy to revert to lower level enrichment and he can tell the world the he and only he could get a deal like this done.
The rest of the world will smile politely, whilst wondering if Trump is the only person alive that doesn’t understand, he’s just reinstated the deal he himself shat all over last time he was winging it.
Isn’t Trump off for his tour of the region as we speak and we need to somehow get that really really slow, massive floating coffin through Suez and the Red Sea, assuming of course that it makes it that far, as we’re off to sabre rattle at china(sad I know).
>> Thanks, do you know when this happened?
In the last 24 hours or so.
Interesting timing. Three strong possibilities that are interlinked(Yemen, Iran, tour) and Trump said he would be making a big announcement today. Would shock some people if it was more than just selling stuff to Saudi. I’m not overly optimistic though.
“go back to the JCP one
8:29 year Window Guys breakout window one
8:32 year Iran today is literally one
8:36 week one
8:39 week that is
8:43 unacceptable . . .
the
11:00 Iranian program as it currently exists
11:03 is a weapons preparation program there’s
11:05 no other way to describe
11:07 it . . .
15:54 you know who did that Donald
15:56 Trump Donald Trump actually built a
15:59 employment plan to launch preemptive
16:01 nuclear strike against
16:03 Iran we built weapons especially for
16:06 this purpose . . .
16:31 big bombs didn’t work which is exactly
16:34 why Donald Trump has made low yield
16:37 ground penetrating nuclear weapons that
16:39 do
16:40 work . . .
if we’re going to say we’re going
16:53 to take out the Iranian nuclear
16:55 capability then we will take it out
16:56 using the weapons that are designed for
16:58 that
17:00 purpose . . .
17:50 if Iran thinks that the initial attack
17:53 against it is going to be a very limited
17:55 strike they’re wrong if the decision’s
17:58 made to take out Iran’s nuclear
17:59 infrastructure then we will also take
18:01 out the political component of that
18:03 nuclear program the weaponization aspect
18:06 of it which is a regime we believe is
18:08 prepared to either issue the order or
18:10 has already issued the order to create
18:11 nuclear weapons this will be a regime
18:13 change
18:15 operation . . .
because if it gets to
18:55 the point where Iran does this or
18:57 attempts to do this Iran will no longer
19:01 exist . . .
these are
20:50 confessions made by very Senior People
20:53 by policy makers by decision makers by
20:56 members of the Iranian government um
20:59 and it is condemned Iran because now the
21:02 United States has every justification
21:04 under international law to take a
21:06 Hardline stance
21:09 against the Iranian nuclear
21:11 program um and that’s that’s where I
21:14 stand on
21:15 this“?
Our stupid politicians think that talking about of both sides of your mouth is a useful strategy. Instead, it destroys trust.
Chews threatening war with Iran are so cute. Lots of “alternative” press describing Witkoff as a good guy, constantly fighting the neocons infesting the Trump admin. Da…
edit: meant to say “talking *out* of both sides of your mouth”
Disclaimer: Kulm had graduated from a university listed in the top 20 of the US News and Report.
===
Universities are scams.
I graduated from the Uni in 3 years, a while ago. Had lots of AP credits, and took summer schools to graduate earlier.
And I spent more time in the library, reading books having nothing to do with my major and the kind of books nobody reads, which is why I am a bit conversant on old literature.
However, personally if you did not graduate from the top 20 university , or at least some institution regarded high in your state, it is not worth attending.
In some sense a college degree is kind of a social passport, a certification that one is willing to be indoctrinated, and also the proof that one is from a background which allowed to spend 4 plus years paying exorbitant fees to an institution not teaching too much . It is also kind of an IQ test as well.
I worked in some field which had nothing to do with my major or degree, and think most universities in USA should close. A state university for each state, a few in larger states, plus the usual suspects. No more than 100 universities in the entire USA, and foreign students can study in their own countries and not crowd out university buildings built by state funds.
That will reduce waste on people who have no business attending universities.
Year’s back, a college degree wasn’t terribly expensive. All of the changes over the years (such as adding layers of deans, professors doing much more research, fancy residence halls with each student getting his or her own bathroom, and cafeterias with a wide array of foods) have added greatly to costs. All of these changes don’t make people particularly more productive.
We also don’t need nearly as many college graduates as are graduating now, especially in non-STEM majors.
Professors used to love their subject rather seeking wealth. I had a professor of astrophysics who let us know the official book was X at the university bookstore for big bucks or we could buy Y at the used book store one block down five times cheaper.
I too read many interesting things beyond my major.
This seems to be related to the same Catherine Austin Fitts interview that we saw recently.
https://www.zerohedge.com/food/americas-food-system-failing-time-plant-new-seeds
As Predicted, America’s Food System Is Failing – Time To Plant New Seeds
In the article, there is a link to a Goldsmith interview.
I am happy I found Eddy’s substack. He has some good stuff. But I am happy it is divided out in its own home.
i hope you realise….you’ll have to be quarantined every time you come back into OFW
Eddy has plenty of ability.
FROM THE UK GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER
‘Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/09/leaving-new-zealand-record-departure-numbers
===============
N.Z. always seemed a fine country. Now it’s full of fear and despondency for the future. But why ? Have those Kiwis been reading too many of Gail’s blog posts? Could they sue her for compensation, do you think ?
When there is not enough energy supply to go around, it is the outlying areas that seem to get cut off. People talk about the “core” lasting better than the economy as a whole.
Island nations are likely to have real difficulty. In today’s world, islands are never self-sufficient. A huge amount of goods, including energy products, need to be shipped in (and out). This is a huge overhead cost to the economy. It makes it difficult for the exports of the economy to be affordable elsewhere. Being sort of self-sufficient in electricity is not enough; this is not a transportation fuel, especially transporting goods and services to the economy.
Tourism is likely to dwindle in future years. This will hurt New Zealand, also.
That all makes perfect sense. Poor New Zealanders.
Solar panels and mutton what more does one need. Hey Kiwi’s can you send good house offer?
Yep still a premium location location location for carpetbagging preppers and hardy kiwis alike.
This news is hilarious.
US and Russia are discussing business of gas together, on the shoulder of the Europeans..
Sorry if I repeat, it is reallt a fantastic and hilarious news for woke EU.
This is an excerpt from one of the two articles and then one can find the two relative links to the articles:
“The negotiations included discussions on potential US investor participation in acquiring Ukraine’s gas transmission system or even stakes in Russian pipelines such as Nord Stream.”
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/52336
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2025/05/09/russia-and-us-are-in-talks-on-russian-gas-flows-to-europe-kremlin-says
Seems like nonsense. How can Russia reward USA for blowing up its pipelines? Either Russian leadership is very stupid, or they like to keep the USA confused and split by dangling carrots.
Ivanislav, in my view this demonstrates that Russians are clever, subtile and rational.
They are winning and US is retreating, but in order to close completely the chapter with US, they are ready to make concessions to US, avoiding humiliation and giving also some reward.
For them it doesn’t make much difference if US gains some money in the transportation phase.
This gives the advantage to include the gas competitor in the business and avoid that it gets anger and greed again.
Additionally this action keeps still open only the chapter wit EU, which is an easier chapter to be solved.
I find this a win for US and Russia and a ironic defeat for EU.
I think the big problem with the Nord Stream 2 was that the contract natural gas price was too low. It would also compete with US LNG exports.
Right now, it looks to me as if US LNG exports will not be as plentiful as planned.
Also, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline needs a fix in the area where it was blown up, but not otherwise. At a higher natural gas price, perhaps the situation can be made to work.
So maybe there is something that can be done.
Follow the money, works most of the time.
Dennis L.
Works out well for the Chinese.
It is all about the Chews and the Chews do love money.
Perhaps I am naive, they love their children. Children are the real wealth.
Dennis L.
The world is more complex than that. Anti-Semitism and Racism are the refuge of the intellectual lazy.
Malcolm X before his assassination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBn1pNnBPZ4
Went to High School with a mix of Jewish and Black students. I’ve experienced more racism and homophobia from Black males and none from Jewish people. Nation of Islam ran security at a Mayoral campaign where I did freelance work for the local public access channel. I think the violence depends more on culture and class warfare in each situation as the majority of my Jewish contacts were middle class and the Blacks were inner city folks. Black people who have nothing to lose see with a sense of powerlessness are taught to see White people as objects of rage and resentment while those who have privilege tend to commit white collar crimes or run mafia-like organizations (Italians, Jews).
Most of the people marching for BLM were White liberals and I know that many Blacks resented them for giving them a bad rep. However the leaders of BLM operation successfully opened a new Overton Window and a new business model as the MSM detailed how millions of corporate $$ allowed them to buy mansions… reparations!! Wealthy people off all races use White guilt and Black resentment to push all kinds of social engineering and strategic philanthropy projects. Some of us “white devils” survive to tell the story but most people would rather believe in rainbows and unicorns.
A significant supporter of the BLM movement
https://www.jns.org/600-plus-jewish-groups-sign-full-page-ad-supporting-black-lives-matter/
Brawny people, in genera, l rely on violence to get what they want and to settle disputes.
Others come to have a diverse array of tools to get what they want and don’t rely on just violence.
The same people who say that are perfectly fine with blaming everything bad in the world on white Christian men.
One thing we can agree about whoever is in charge, whether they are Chinese, Muslim, or whatever, is they do not support anything that is “against their economic interests”.
The book What’s the Matter With Kanas was not “intellectually lazy”, it was a pack of lies.
*What’s the Matter with Kansas
” Scott Bessent is like a paper tiger, he carefully creates the external imagery of a knowledgeable and highly qualified man but in reality his life has been one of little real intellectual inquiry and much luck and personal failure. If he had been appointed under a Democratic president he may very well have been targeted as an ill-qualified DEI hire by the right due to his homosexuality (as well as for his deep links to George Soros) .”
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/scott-bessent-a-soros-sidekick-who
Also,
Regarding his Chinese equivalent:
The thing I would point out is that if financial models are completely wrong because they leave out the need for a growing supply of cheap energy products to allow the overall system to grow, perhaps having someone who is not committed to following orthodox patterns is the way to go. The models have been set up for a growing economy. If the economy is shrinking, not being so tied to these models is an advantage.
Perhaps financial models are b.s. to begin with, made to impress less intelligent people. Perhaps, financial models are used to make less intelligent people make believe they are making low risk investments that are actually high risk.
I can imagine that most people who work at hedge funds are smarter than the average person who has their 401k invested in the stock market. I can imagine that most people who work at hedge funds are enough to grasp the need for a growing resource base but care about the very short-term. They think wealth accumulation a.k.a. “asset accumulation” will allow them to weather any storm. Diversification for them means having a homes in several parts of the world they can relocate to if s.h.t.f. They believe whatever problems they encounter will be political.
Trump has previously called Bessent “a nice-looking guy”. Trump also chose the gay anthem “YMCA” as his theme tune for his inauguration. Are we missing something here? 😉
Donald loves to be loved. He is the most vain person I have ever seen. Which Chews court does he represent?
He represents the people who bailed him out in the 1990s.
Yes missing eyeliner Vance and his alleged gay dating history back in Ohio before he changed his name lol and also lived in a DC gayborhood while in office. Not to mention his own limited hangout in Hillbilly Elegy.
Vancey the nancy, you’re saying? Man, you’ll be in trouble!
Back to Planet Earth, sorry AI and Space Mining with cbic Pt
Moller-Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc said the number of containers travelling between the US and China is down as much as 40 per cent as the world’s two largest economies hit each other with tariffs of over 100 per cent.
He told Bloomberg TV: ‘This uncertainty is paralysing for a lot of customers, who have a really hard time understanding what the right decision is going to be.
‘The dream of being able to produce locally, with all you’ll need for your supply chain, is not possible.
Unemployment is at a historic low in the US, and they are deporting hundreds of thousands. If we have to pay US labour, no T-shirt will be sold for less than $150.’
Maersk runs about 14 per cent of the world’s container fleet,
So, instead of a hundred T Shirts we’ll own one or two, like they did under Chairman Meow of China…
This was gleamed today from “Harry’s” Blog…
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-14692553/Trumps-trade-war-creating-paralysing-uncertainty-warns-shipping-boss.html
“As of May 2025, nearly 5,700 people have been deported from the U.S. in the first two weeks of President Trump’s second term. If deportations continue at this rate, the administration could remove half the number of migrants deported in 2024.” Copilot, backreferenced to a Newsweek article.
“Unemployment is at a historic low in the US, and they are deporting hundreds of thousands. If we have to pay US labour, no T-shirt will be sold for less than $150.” The first sentence perhaps hyperbole?
“The dream of being able to produce locally, with all you’ll need for your supply chain, is not possible.” Perhaps in the past, but the future seems different. Think Musk and Optimus-3. Time will tell but his manufacturing technology is game changing from cars to Starship. Paragraph 1 of this post and paragraph 2 are inconsistent.
“As Moller-Maersk chief executive Vincent Clerc said the number of containers travelling between the US and China is down as much as 40 per cent as the world’s two largest economies hit each other with tariffs of over 100 per cent. ”
The US is essentially broke, much of what we need, basic infrastructure can be produced with local labor. No matter what, the CC is maxed out, we are paying interest on interest and that leads to a deceleration of money which seems to mean it takes longer for a dollar to leave my pocket and get into yours, this implies a slowing of economies.
Gail points this out repeatedly regarding financial collapse. As long as one can pay one’s bills, no collapse. When interest exceeds income, things begin to stop. We may well be at a stopping point.
What does that mean? Well, The Villages may be seeing a decline in value. Retirees live off interest income of one form or another and that income is not used for capital investment; the old depreciate faster than their ability to produce income.
The last paragraph means if one raises their children poorly, if there is no bond between the generations, going back to multi generational housing will be difficult. Economics is biology and biology with a narrative becomes economics. Our children are indentured through student loans on educations which are worthless. If they cannot earn a net income off their efforts, they quit.
From Sowell whom I am starting to appreciate more and more.
” Without the cultural prerequisites for developing natural resources into real wealth, the raw physical resources themselves are of little or no value.”
Earth is tapped out, Starship is here, Musk has a culture which seems to work, the material wealth is all around us, our culture needs some attention.
Physically, my guess is Cu is the problem before oil and time frame is 2026.
Dennis L.
Lost in Space and PT will save us…too funny
College Degree is Worthless People With Multiple Degree Can’t Find JOB
9,075 views · 9 days ago…more
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=unpVP4_OVWc
College Degree is Worthless People With Multiple Degree Can’t Find JOB
Had Copilot clean up my above post. Thoughts?
“As of May 2025, nearly 5,700 people have been deported from the U.S. in the first two weeks of President Trump’s second term. If deportations continue at this pace, the administration could remove half the number of migrants deported in 2024. While some argue that unemployment is at a historic low, others point out that mass deportations could disrupt industries reliant on immigrant labor. If U.S.-based production must replace cheaper foreign labor, we may see a sharp increase in costs—perhaps even hyperbolic claims like $150 T-shirts.
The idea of self-sufficient local production remains complex. Historically, relying entirely on domestic supply chains has been difficult, but Elon Musk’s Optimus-3 and Starship manufacturing suggest a shift toward automation and vertical integration. If these advancements mature, local production may not be impossible. However, global trade remains strained—Moller-Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc reports that container traffic between the U.S. and China has fallen up to 40% due to tariffs exceeding 100%, reflecting broader economic tensions.
Financial stability is another pressing concern. With the U.S. economy burdened by debt, we’re essentially paying interest on interest, leading to a deceleration of money movement—meaning it takes longer for a dollar to circulate through the economy. This slowdown could signal a broader economic downturn. As long as individuals and businesses can pay their bills, collapse is delayed, but once debt payments exceed income, things begin to stall.
This decline could also affect places like The Villages, a well-known retirement community. Retirees depend on interest income, which isn’t reinvested into production, and as their financial resources diminish, property values may decline. At the same time, younger generations face their own struggles—burdened by student loans, many are unable to generate real wealth, making multigenerational housing difficult if familial bonds are weak.
Economics and culture are deeply intertwined. As Thomas Sowell wisely noted:
“Without the cultural prerequisites for developing natural resources into real wealth, the raw physical resources themselves are of little or no value.”
In other words, raw materials alone won’t drive prosperity—culture and innovation play crucial roles. Musk’s manufacturing advancements demonstrate how technology can unlock wealth, yet broader societal shifts are needed to harness the full potential of available resources. If predictions hold true, copper shortages may emerge before oil, impacting supply chains by 2026.
The question remains: Are we entering a turning point—economically, technologically, and culturally?”
Now, think about being an English teacher in this time. AI as a tutor in English?
Yes, I use Copilot as a tutor; have a pile of digital electronics parts on the way, I am “dreaming” of a weeder utilizing electricity/lasers to zap weeds on the farm. I really don’t care for pesticides. Someone is going to do it and it seems to be already being done. So much talent on the net now, AI and real human help is so close.
Dennis L.
Today, students learn to rely on a calculator for simple math. It isn’t a huge step to have students use AI to provide written paragraphs from some few sentences and words. In fact, these thoughts could be dictated.
But this leaves people unable to handle to do the simplest tasks, without help from a complex system that we lose without electricity.
I agree totally; when studying I use engineering notebooks and make notes, have recently moved to making mind maps, not sure but give an old guy credit for change.
I see my spelling declining as I make many notes via computer.
I suspect our brains work best when connected to a moving pencil or chisel if one goes back far enough.
For essays one can chose to simply copy, or see how Copilot, whatever, forms paragraphs. If you have questions, ask Copilot why it wrote something one way.
Modern educational materials in math and science are incredible and the layout of text books and methods to learn for this old guy are very helpful.
Dennis L.
spell check and correct have moved me from awful speller to fairly good speller
long live the machines
Cu before oil by 2026? Interesting is that based on extraction cost
I expect our big problem will be empty shelves. Toy stores will have few toys at Christmas time. Insurers will have trouble finding replacement parts for damaged cars and homes.
Robots, robots, robots the cost of a US tee shirt will be $2. Cotton from America, cloth from America, design from America, sewing from America, distribution by robot truck from America, stocking on shelf by robot or direct from Amazon.
The only question is how to distribute wealth.
Ed, that is an issue; if this all unfolds in somewhat the manner Musk is describing, it will be a new economics and that economics will be created by AI not biology.
Dennis L.
no matter how hard i punch this keyboard—-i never pays me any wages or delivers a bacon sandwich
That’s because you’re doing it wrong.
doing it wrong is the story of my life
mostly anyway
So Putin uses this May 9 to state that Russia will always fight nazism (questionable. The Chinese economic model is not so different. Just a generalized scarecrow that polls well after they killed 27M here), Russophobia (of course), and anti-semitism (bzzzt). I think these guys are about to rule over large swaths of the planet for the next 1000 years. It irks me particularly as I watch these sincere russians celebrate a great victory (I am in town, no internet, connecting off a friend who has fiber).
I have the impression that they are creating a necessary new narrative that needs to have elements that destroy since the beginning any stupid attack from the so called western side, the competitor.
I can tell you that on Italian Tv news today it was immediately expressed and clarified that on this parade were present many international leaders, yes, but – pay attention – not of the western world, as if a western world really existed..
Who are exactly the Countries of the western world? Nato?
In my view, ironically and at least about Europe, the best canditate to carry on the old European values is Russia, rather than current EU woke coven.
Education in the technical fields, at least electronics is possible at a very high level through essentially modern texts and a good tutor, Copilot for example. Multisim serves as a very reasonable, cheap, free, electronics lab.
What it requires is a well raised child, that takes time and personal sacrifice. Not sure how Optimus-3 will do in that situation. Nursing and bonding comes to mind; I don’t want to go there.
What is the biggest problem?
“federal student loans in the U.S. are generally available only to students enrolled at accredited institutions that participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs. This includes colleges, universities, trade schools, and vocational institutions that meet accreditation requirements set by the U.S. Department of Education.” Copilot again.
Think of all the millions and millions of barrels of oil which can be saved by not having to maintain large campuses. It is a green dream, well, some may not like it so much. The displaced university staff can always learn to code. Currently established education is the gatekeeper through the loan system.
This is an educational revolution.
Dennis L.
.
The US Department of Education has greatly increased the cost of the educational system.
I found this image in a Zerohedge article:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/CollegeCost1.jpg
Okay, I am seeing it this way. Student loans at reasonable rates are only available if one is at an accredited school. Student loans cannot be discharged thru bankruptcy. Current post secondary schools have a gotcha. Unless….
The costs are so high for traditional education and the availability of materials so good at a relatively low price it may well be reasonable to pay 20% interest on much less money. Thought only.
I loved my time at a CC in electronics, but in lab if one had a question waited perhaps ten or so minutes for an instructor to answer a question. Copilot, answer immediately. It takes time to learn, the mind is better if engaged continuously compared to interruptions.
You have the idea of collapse; perhaps education is one that no one sees coming.
Looked at plumbing apprenticeship, union. Five years, pay goes from 35% of journeyman rate to 80% in fifth year, OJT with classroom by the union in the union hall.
One may or may not like it, but a union will have an idea of how many plumbers will be needed and perhaps adjust class size to fit. Benefits existing as well for apprentices. Unions ideally look after their own, it is a group.
Dennis L.
The education of actuaries (at least casualty actuaries) have always been outside of universities; it is closer to an apprenticeship program.
Would-be actuaries are expected to pass a series of approximately 10 exams (varies over time). The first two exams are purely math; they can be passed without experience working for an insurance company or consulting firm. Later exams are taken while working in an insurance company. Volunteer actuaries grade these exams. This is a big undertaking; exams include many long answer questions. They are not machine gradable. The pass ratio of the exams is quite low–about 33%, the last I heard. It generally takes would-be casualty actuaries about 10 years to pass all of the exams. There are a large number of drop outs along the way.
Increasing access to education was about increasing barriers to well-paying jobs in some cases but it also served to drive wages down in sectors that needed wages to go down .
Plumbers do well because of barriers to entry. If there were plumbing schools with apprenticeships left and right it would be another low wage occupation.
Perhaps we are moving away from having any country be the leader of the planet. The US tried for this role over recent years, but is increasingly unable to maintain this role. The system needs realignment.
It will change. Sowell has a post on colonized vs non colonized countries, the colonized countries per him were better places in which to live.
Do you think war and making war machines are perhaps a way to vary money velocity? If it slows too much, make more bombs; the design at basics hasn’t changed much and they don’t become obsolete as long as they go boom!
We can do economics much differently today, computers appear to make an accounting model much more achievable.
For all its faults, I suspect the world was a better place because of the US than without it. The hundred years war was not a pleasant experience and the US was not involved.
Dennis L.
Sowell is not a reliable source on that issue
Very interesting interview of geopolitical analyst Giacomo Gabellini to former general Francesco Cosimato, previously parachutist, head of foreign military missions such as the one in Bosnia and Kosovo, the one in Somalia and also others.
It is possible to follow the interview with subtitles automatic translated in English.
Among various points, it comes out that European leaders are unwilling to accept the military defeat on the field and they seem to pursue a path of war without end, but according to the former general, this will inevitably bring to the implosion of Ukraine.
This strategy, according to Francesco Cosimato, is unproductive, because it will lead to worse consequences for Ukraine and also for Europe.
But apparently EU leaders are unable or unwilling to face reality on the field.
The negative consequnces will be all there waiting for us (Europeans citizens).
Strange things happen when energy supply is too low for the population. Wars seem to start. Quite a few of the actions seem suicidal.
The first book Stephen King ever wrote…