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The Energy Institute recently published its updated energy report, the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, showing data through the year 2024. In this post, I identify trends in the new data that I consider worrying. These trends help explain the strange behaviors that we have been seeing from governments recently.
A major hidden issue is that prices never seem to rise high enough, for long enough, to prevent production of fossil fuels and other mineral resources from declining relative to what is needed for the world’s rising population. Reserve numbers appear plenty adequate but, because of affordability issues, we cannot actually extract the resources that seem to be available. We should expect declining production because low prices drive more and more fossil fuel and other mineral producers out of business.
[1] The world’s per capita affordable supply of diesel has been declining, especially since 2014.
Because of it is high energy density and ease of storage, diesel is important in many ways:
- Diesel powers a substantial share of modern agricultural equipment.
- Diesel is the fuel of the huge trucks that carry goods of all kinds.
- Diesel powers much of the world’s construction and earth-moving equipment.
- Diesel (and other similarly energy-dense but less refined fuels) allows long-distance transport by ship.
- Diesel is widely used in mining.
- Diesel powers some trains, provides backup electricity generation, and powers some irrigation pumps.
Figure 1 suggests that the supply of diesel started being constrained during the 2008-2009 recession. The decrease became more pronounced starting in 2014, which was when oil prices fell (Figure 12). In fact, this downward trend since 2014 continued into 2024. The constraint in diesel production/consumption comes through oil prices that fall too low for the producers of diesel. If prices rise, they don’t stay high for very long.
If there isn’t enough diesel, cutbacks in some applications will be needed. One new workaround for the inadequate supply of diesel seems to be a reduction of international trade through tariffs. If goods can be produced closer to where they are purchased, then perhaps the economic system can accommodate the declining availability of the diesel supply a little longer.
It should be noted that jet fuel consumption is also constrained. The type of oil used is quite similar to diesel. Transferring the transportation of goods from trucks and ships to jet aircraft is not a solution!
[2] Copper supply seems to be constrained.
There has been much discussion of transitioning to the use of more electricity and less fossil fuels. This would require both a greater build out of electricity transmission systems and more use of electric cars. Each of these uses would require more use of copper. Electric cars are reported to each require 40kg to 80kg of copper, while cars with internal combustion engines use only 20kg of copper. Building charging stations for all these cars would further add to copper needs, as would adding new transmission lines to carry the higher total electricity supply.
Figure 2 shows that even with the expected increase in demand for copper resulting from a shift toward electrification, total world extraction of copper has remained relatively flat. A major issue is that it takes a very long time to build a new copper mine. Worldwide, the average time to new production is 17.9 years. For this reason, a temporary increase in price cannot be expected to drive up production very quickly. If diesel is used in extracting copper, and diesel’s consumption is constrained, the restricted diesel supply can also be an issue in expanding the copper supply.
The new tariffs on copper, announced by President Donald Trump, seem to be intended to drive industries that use copper to look for substitute minerals. With a very long lag, the tariffs might also lead to an increase in copper production. Tariffs have more staying power than volatile price changes. There doesn’t seem to be a quick solution, however.
[3] Platinum extraction also seems to be constrained.
Platinum currently has a wide variety of applications, including use in catalytic converters, jewelry, medicine, and industry.
Some people are also hopeful that platinum will enable the wide use of hydrogen fuel cells to help meet the world’s demand for electrical power in a way that doesn’t require burning fossil fuels.
One issue mentioned in the lack of growth in platinum production is persistently low prices. New mines will not be opened unless it is clear that production will be profitable. Another source indicates that the largest producing country, South Africa, has been having problems with electrical supply and rail transportation. These problems, in turn, seem to be related to South Africa’s dwindling coal supply. Its peak coal production took place in 2014. We should not be surprised if South Africa continues to have problems producing platinum in the future.
[4] Up until this report, the Statistical Review of World Energy has used an optimistic approach to quantifying the benefits of intermittent renewable electricity.
The traditional method of evaluating energy products involves analyzing the amount of heat produced in combustion. In past years, the Statistical Review of World Energy used a method that essentially assumed that the intermittent electricity produced by renewable sources (including hydropower) completely substitutes for the equivalent dispatchable electricity generated by fossil fuels. I think of this as the “wishful thinking” methodology.
The current methodology gives renewables less credit, recognizing the fact that intermittent sources substitute primarily for the fuel that electricity generating plants would use. It is becoming increasingly clear that intermittent power doesn’t work very well on a stand-alone basis. Many types of workarounds, including batteries and backup fossil-fuel generation, are required to supplement it.
The new methodology gives about 22% more credit to nuclear power than the old method. Nuclear power can be counted on 24 hours per day. Also, like fossil fuel generation, it provides the necessary inertia (the energy stored in large rotating components such as generators, which allows the power system to maintain a steady frequency) to keep electricity moving through transmission lines. Without sufficient inertia, electrical outages similar to that recently experienced in Spain, are likely.
The revised methodology seems to align better with the methods used by the US Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency. In the past, it has been confusing with major agencies using different methodologies.
[5] With the new methodology, there are significant changes in patterns from past reports.
With the new methodology, the percentage of energy generated directly by fossil fuels is higher than many of us remember from past reports. Now, the portion of fossil fuel consumption that comes directly from fossil fuel generation has been reduced from 94% in 1980 to 87% in 2024. Using the old methodology, the fossil fuel percentage in 2024 would have been 81%.
Figure 5 shows the history of non-fossil fuel types of energy, as percentages of total world energy supply. It should be noted that even these types of energy require some use of fossil fuels. Such fuels are used in the initial construction of the devices, for their maintenance, for energy storage, and for transportation (or transmission) to where the energy product is used.
Figure 5 shows that the share of energy produced by “Nuclear” hit a peak of 7.6% in 2001, and it has been declining ever since. “Hydroelectric” has grown a bit over the years relative to world energy supply.
“Geo, Biomass, Other” as a share of world energy supply has been relatively flat in recent years. It includes biomass in the form of ethanol and biodiesel, which are non-electricity forms of renewable energy. It also includes electricity from geothermal generation, and from burning wood chips and sawdust.
The only real “winner” in recent years has been “Wind + Solar.” As of 2024, this category amounts to 2.9% of world energy supply. It certainly cannot, by itself, power an economy like the one we have today. Section 7 of this post explains a bit more about this issue.
[6] The sad state of nuclear generation deserves a discussion of its own.
There seem to be many factors underlying the substantial decline in nuclear electricity, as a share of total energy supply, between 2001 and 2013:
- There were three major accidents at nuclear power plants, leading to worries about the safety of nuclear generation (Three Mile Island, 1979; Chernobyl, 1986; and Fukushima, 2011).
- The pricing scheme for wind and solar generally gives “priority” to wind and solar. This leads to negative wholesale prices for electricity at some times, and very low prices at other times, for nuclear power plants. This pricing scheme tends to make nuclear power plants unprofitable. I expect that this lack of profitability has been a major issue in the recent decline of nuclear generation.
- There doesn’t seem to be enough uranium produced to support much more nuclear generation than is used today. The US has been using down-cycled nuclear bomb material, but that is now becoming exhausted. See my earlier post.
- Uranium prices never bounce very high for very long. If prices were a lot higher over the long term, more uranium mines might be opened, and more uranium extracted.
- Opening a new mine often involves lag times of 10 to 15 years, making any ramping of uranium production a slow process.
There is also the issue of financing any shift to nuclear electricity. Upfront costs are huge, but nuclear power plants (with proper fossil-fuel-based maintenance) can operate for 60 to 80 years. As limits on fossil fuels are reached, building all these plants, using large amounts of fossil fuels, seems likely to reduce fossil fuels energy available for other uses. This makes financing a major challenge.
[7] The recent annual rising trend of 0.2% in per capita consumption of energy looks vulnerable to disruption by any economic problem that arises.
A major reason why energy consumption keeps rising is because, as population rises, there is a need for more food, housing, and transportation for this larger population. The consumption of energy products allows people to meet these needs. In fact, every aspect of GDP depends upon energy consumption.
Figure 7 indicates that world energy supply per capita rose between 1965 and 1979. It remained relatively flat between 1979 and 2002 and then rose quite rapidly until 2008. Since then, its growth rate has again been essentially flat. Fitted trend lines show what these growth trends have been:
I have written recently about the huge US government debt increase since 2008 that has tended to prop up both the US and world economies. With all this “support” since 2008, the fact that world per capita energy consumption growth has only risen by 0.2% per year is frightening. With the high level of debt, there is a danger that there will be another major recession that could bring huge financial difficulties. At some point, higher debt levels become unsupportable. Thus, what is really an energy crisis can “morph” into a financial crisis.
The types of events that have brought energy consumption down in the past are quite varied, as shown on Figure 9. Note that the lows keep getting lower. There is a danger that another recession-type event could come along and push the world economy toward a long-term downtrend in energy supply per capita.
[8] China plays a huge role in the world’s energy consumption. As resource limits are hit, China has the potential to pull the world economy down with it.
China energy consumption (Figure 10) follows a very different pattern from world energy consumption (Figure 6).
There are several important things to notice about China’s energy pattern:
(a) China’s energy consumption is heavily dominated by coal.
(b) There was a sharp expansion in China’s energy consumption, starting about 2002. This is related to China joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. On Figure 8, we noted 2.0% annual world per capita energy consumption growth between 2002 and 2008, which was far greater than in either the period before 2002 (at 0.2%), or the period after 2008 (at 0.2%). This shifting pattern was largely driven by China’s spurt in energy consumption after joining the WTO.
(c) China’s energy consumption has been growing more rapidly than that of the rest of the world. This is closely related to China’s becoming the leading manufacturer for the world economy, at the same time most of the wealthier countries have been moving manufacturing to lower-cost areas (ostensibly to reduce CO2 emissions).
(d) China’s energy consumption now plays an outsize role in the future of the world economy. In 2024, China consumed 27% of the world’s energy supply. This is more energy than that consumed by the US (16%) and the EU (9%) combined.
(e) With this energy dominance, any stumble in the world’s supply of fossil fuels and other mineral resources will affect China.
One area where China is running into limits is with respect to oil supply. China imports most of its oil. Comparing 2024 to 2023, China’s total oil consumption decreased by 1.4%. Its diesel consumption decreased even more, by 2.8%.
As the leading manufacturer of the world, China has been consuming huge amounts of minerals such as copper. This Copper Council report seems to indicate that China uses about 56% of the world’s copper supply. If there is a shortage of copper, China will be affected.
We can look at energy consumption growth on a per capita basis. Not surprisingly, China’s rapid growth has pulled down per capita energy consumption growth elsewhere.
The pattern shown in Figure 11 is disturbing. Outside of China, energy consumption per capita has been falling for a long time. The rest of the world, to a significant extent, has lost its ability to manufacture the goods needed for its own people. China’s energy consumption per capita is now reported to be on a par with Europe’s, but China, too, faces issues as it encounters resource limits of many kinds.
No wonder there is conflict among nations! Every country would like limited resources. If one country has more, other countries will get less.
[9] Inflation-adjusted oil prices have bounced around, rather than following a consistent upward pattern. This limits their long-term impact on production.
Commodity prices of all kinds seem to be influenced by many temporary situations, including debt availability and concerns about war. Higher prices do induce short-term changes that can influence supply of some energy products. For example, when oil prices are high, more production of diesel can economically be achieved by “cracking” long molecules of very heavy oil to produce shorter diesel-length molecules. When oil (and diesel) prices are low, this conversion process starts to be money-losing.
Thus, as we saw in Figure 1, diesel production increased between 1994 and 2008, in line with rising oil prices (Figure 12). Conversely, diesel barely held steady between 2008 and 2014. After 2014, when oil prices were clearly lower, diesel production fell significantly.
A major problem in creating greater mineral supplies for the long term is that new mines of all types take many years to develop. So does opening a completely new oil field. Prices tend not to stay high enough, for long enough, to encourage opening new mines and new oil fields. We see this pattern repeatedly, in diverse areas, including oil, copper, platinum and uranium, holding down the supply of these mineral resources.
Over the long term, affordability seems to play a larger role than rising demand in the prices of commodities, holding prices down. As a result, it is low prices that seem to lead to the falling production of commodities.
[10] Conclusion
This analysis confirms what I have shown earlier: The world economy is hitting energy limits in many ways.
I have written about the world’s diesel and jet fuel shortage in the past. Updated data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy confirms that the world’s diesel supplies are not rising sufficiently to keep pace with world population growth. I believe that the shortage of diesel, and perhaps of oil in general, underlies the push toward more tariffs. One effect of tariffs may be to reduce the amount of long-distance shipping.
The 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy includes data for a few minerals that will likely be used if there is a transition away from fossil fuels. Of the minerals shown in the report, copper and the platinum group seem to be the most limited in supply. The relatively flat production at a time when demand should be expected to be rising gives us a clue that limits are being reached. Unless someone can figure out a way to get prices to stay at a significantly higher level, low supply of these minerals is likely to remain a long-term problem.
The overall energy supply does seem to still be rising slowly, but progress in transitioning to non-fossil fuels is painfully slow. We hear much talk about ramping up nuclear electricity production, but my analysis suggests that such a transition will be difficult, at best.
There is a great deal more analysis that can be done with the new data. I expect to be looking at this data in more detail in future posts.
What will happen if Powell is replaced and interest rates plummet??
I don’t think we fully know. It is only short term interest rates that plummet, I would guess, and even that is iffy. Policy doesn’t directly affect 10-year rates, and those are what are important in mortgage rates.
One thing that will tend to keep interest rates up is the fact that the US government needs to borrow money, and it needs to pay what borrowers demand with all of its lending. Of course, the government may simply use QE to buy back more debt itself.
A related issue is that the US needs to US dollar to be at the right level, so that it can afford to buy imports and other countries can afford to buy its exports. This could easily become a problem, as well. The higher the US interest rate, the more willing investors will be to buy its debt.
my guess: stock market keeps rising, further currency decline, higher interest rates / bond market selloff
Thoughts: this should work as long as there is not a liquidity crisis. While the debts may equal the assets on a say yearly basis, if the asset matures one day short of the debt being due there is a problem. This can be solved by a late payment penalty, but that increases the need for immediate liquidity. Now shorten the maturity span to weeks and it gets interesting. The derivatives in-between the two maturities are simply taking the last bit of liquidity out of the system. Given sums in the trillions this may ripple through an economy very quickly and some people will not be able to buy the metaphorical bag of groceries.
Another guess is derivatives are merely ultra short term debt instruments designed to shave off hundredths or less percents of interest. Again, no problem when the sums are hundreds, when we get to $10^12 even a small single notational amount can become very large quickly.
Dennis L.
You are right. Low interest rates cause the stock market to temporarily rise. But lower interest rates push overseas investors away from investing in the US. The dollar tends to fall.
In a short time, the falling dollar tends to cause prices of imported goods to rise in the US. This is inflation. Lenders will demand higher interest rates because of the inflation. The higher interest rate will cause the value of existing bonds to fall. There may be a problem with banks failing, as a result.
The high interest rate problem certainly won’t be solved. It may be worse.
I think the loss of perception of an “Independent” Central Bank is worrisome.
Trump is not bright enough not to permanently break things and then not know how to put it back together again.
Yes we are seeing that it’sa complicated system we are all looking at the energy problem inn the end it could be another freeze of liquidity that brings it all down. Without trust it could definitely happen sooner than later
“is not bright enough not to permanently break things and then not know how to put it back together again.”
This isn’t the first attempt that has been made at breaking things.
The lockdowns, va 9ccine mandates, and the fraud involved with “coviughng relief”. Those things and were not intended for reform the system but to damage it. There are no magic undo buttons to undo the damage those things have done.
The whole everything was improving until Drumpf was elected a second time narrative needs to be put out to pasture.
Why so serious?
Because this could cause collapse of our Moderian Society
Earth is spinning faster, leading timekeepers to consider an unprecedented move
By Jacopo Prisco, CNN
Updated 7:01 PM EDT, Mon July 21, 2025
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/21/science/earth-spinning-faster-shorter-days
However these discrepancies can, in the long run, affect computers, satellites and telecommunications, which is why even the smallest time deviations are tracked using atomic clocks, which were introduced in 1955. Some experts believe this could lead to a scenario similar to the Y2K problem, which threatened to bring modern civilization to a halt.
Atomic clocks count the oscillations of atoms held in a vacuum chamber within the clock itself to calculate 24 hours to the utmost degree of precision. We call the resulting time UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time, which is based on around 450 atomic clocks and is the global standard for timekeeping, as well as the time to which all our phones and computers are set.
…….
Because so many fundamental technologies systems rely on clocks and time to function, such as telecommunications, financial transactions, electric grids and GPS satellites just to name a few, the advent of the negative leap second is, according to Levine, somewhat akin to the Y2K problem — the moment at the turn of the last century when the world thought a kind of doomsday would ensue because computers might have been unable to negotiate the new date format, going from ’99’ to ’00.’
It seems like the more complexity that we add (for example, greater precision in the measurement of time), the more things that can go wrong.
We cannot keep up our current level of complexity. We don’t have the energy to add another layer of complexity. It is another Oops! situation.
i am fairly sure we will survive this one.
Mike,
That is forward looking, at this point I think I shall let others worry.
Dennis L.
Dennie…me worry…Why so serious?
Banks are increasingly at the edge of failing, using today’s regulations. If interest rates go up at all, balance sheets would be adversely affected. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no doubt also at the edge. These issues are not pointed out the following Zerohedge article, but the fix mentioned is clearly intended to work around this difficulty. I would say, “If the current regulatory approach is not providing enough leeway to banks and other financial institutions, just find a new one.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bessent-calls-fundamental-reset-financial-regulations
‘What Do All Those PhDs Do?’ – Bessent Calls For ‘Fundamental Reset’ Of Financial Regulations
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday called for a “fundamental reset” of financial regulations to ensure they are aligned with the nation’s domestic and international priorities.
Speaking at the Federal Reserve Capital Conference, Bessent said there is a need for “deeper reforms” in bank regulation, noting that the system has been marked by “regulation by reflex,” where bank regulators tend to introduce new rules after issues have already occurred.
“Rather than preempting crises, regulators all too often react to them after the fact. They play the role of a hazmat cleanup team instead of preventing dangerous spillovers in the first place,” Bessent said. . .
He suggested that bank regulators should review outdated capital requirements that place “unnecessary burdens on financial institutions” and reduce bank lending. . .
Bessent’s criticism of the Fed’s ability to fulfill its basic mission of providing stability to financial markets, regulating the banking system and conducting monetary policy might suggest that Trump could bypass questions of whether he has the legal authority to fire Powell and ‘do an Andrew Jackson’ by abolishing the central bank altogether.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-sense/id1506469669?i=1000718297946
Yes corporations are trying hard to avoid bankruptcy. No one wants price discovery
This is an audio recording, but the site shows some written material. It says
Moody’s Report Exposes at a Massive Wave of Corporate Collapses
Private equity seems to try to drain the lifeblood out of corporations that are barely succeeding, before they collapse for good. These corporations give high interest rate loans to companies in distress. The private equity corporations (like BlackRock) now control a huge share of investments. The above link says, “In 2021, BlackRock managed over $10 trillion.”
“Too big to fail!”, squeals the parasite.
They’ve avoided that since 2008. The system will go down and will be built back better before they allow that.
The WSJ has a major article about hopefully fewer oil imports being needed by China in the future–or at least not growing as quickly as in the past.
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-oil-demand-lower-b5ae15ed
How China Curbed Its Oil Addiction—and Blunted a U.S. Pressure Point
Government boosts domestic production and EV industry in the name of national security; 14 million chargers
I would translate what the article is saying as the Chinese government (or some variation, perhaps local governments and banks) have greatly been subsidizing many aspects of EV production, EV charging stations, and the cost of EVs to consumers for a long time. State-owned Petrochina has been putting huge investments into more oil production. The article says:
Clearly, this is being subsidized as well. There is no way the that cash flow of PetroChina would allow such high investment in expensive new wells. The article also mentions offshore oil being ramped up. This is the chart showing the success of the new oil efforts:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Chinas-Monthy-Oil-Production-US-EIA-WSJ.png
The WSJ describes the benefits of all this drilling effort as boosting China’s oil output to 4.3 million barrels per day, from 3.8 million barrels a day in 2018. This is equivalent to 500,000 barrels per day, over six years. This is hardly a huge amount.
The WSJ shows this chart of the International Energy Agency’s view of future demand for oil in China. It says that demand will peak in 2027.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Chinas-oil-demand-IEA-WSJ.png
Demand, in fact, will depend on a lot of things, most importantly how China’s economy is doing. I don’t think we know very well where this is going.
China has huge debt problems, but they are buried in many places through the economy. It is hard to even measure them because one organization guarantees the debt of other organizations. Relatively little of the debt is from China’s central government. How long can all of this subsidy go on? How successful will this effort to find bypassed barrels continue?
Hi Gail,
This is slightly off topic but still you and some of the readers (the biology fans) may find this intellectually stimulating..
Another fine article by ‘The Ethical Skeptic’. This one on the presence of ‘intent’ with respect to the abiogenesis of DNA- based life.
https://theethicalskeptic.substack.com/p/the-chaz-dialogues-1?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
The amazing order of DNA, and of human bodies in general, would seem to argue for a God having his/her thumb on evolution. Such structure cannot happen by chance alone, in any reasonable length of time.
This is one of the best things about being human… Imagining what the universe could possibly be.
I find all these survival community stories being silly.
No survival communities will be stronger than warlords, who will simply seize everything at gunpoint.
Warlords won’t come from the local bully or militia groups. The mayor, the police chief and those who can claim some authority become the new warlord, using the now irrelevant central authority as a rationale for their actions, and would not ask any questions before seizing assets.
The unarmed and hopelessly inbred Amish will not last 24 hours. Which is why I do not really waste too much time discussing them other than their genetic deficiency.
It will be back to middle ages in many locales. Some people think only 20% survival rate is a good thing. I have debunked it again and again – that is so 19th century-ish. Does not work in real world.
Apparently, it’s millions barrels of oil equivalent, so in the future there will probably be more gas extracted than oil. It’s a common practice these days. Even browsing the website of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, and Norway is the most open nation regarding information about their oil reserves, you will find that the graphs in their reports of the future production from now until 2040 are in millions of barrels of oil equivalent. You have to know a little about the oil industry to understand the data these days.
Even if this post is in the wrong place, I will make a comment.
Natural gas is worth very little compared to oil in dollar terms. In energy terms at the well head, which is used in the calculation, natural gas is worth quite a bit more. Using barrels of oil equivalent makes it look like what is being drilled will have much more value in dollars than it really will.
The problem with natural gas is that its cost of distribution and storage is huge. It also has much more limited usage than, for example, diesel. This is not considered in calculating the wellhead energy value.
In effect, it is distributed EROEI that is important, not wellhead EROEI. Also, types of usage.
sorry, wrong response destinatary
No worries. Any pipelines will be seized by loval rules too.
Sure, another fantasy, but reality bites
I Visited Abandoned Oil Rigs — and Found Something Terrifying Underwater
Business Explains The World
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MDkyUF7RZrU&t=51s
Dynamo CEO and Business Explains the World host Nicholas Carlson dives into this overlooked environmental and economic crisis, uncovering how decades of innovation created today’s dangerous mess — and why companies have been allowed to shrug off responsibility. Can business get us out of this mess?
each ”innovation” of itself consumes more resources…
the first steam engine begat 000000s more…
the first aircraft the same, cars…computers, you name it..
there is no choice in the matter—it’s called growth and progress, it is supposed to last forever….it was what what built our modern world.
unfortunately that world is now full of maganuts willing to kill each other to prove growth really is infinite.
As Gail would pen, I’m afraid you’re right
There are an awfully lot of natural oil “seeps.” In fact, this is how most underwater oil fields have been found.
Having more oil seeping from past drilling attempts may not add significantly to the underlying supply. Our drilling may, in fact, have led to reduced natural seepage, since we drained oil from what likely were the biggest seeps. Oil eating microbes take care of the problem in time.
Nonsense: Were this the case inner cities would work, they don’t.
Dennis L.
A complete cordpn of a big city works. I think the former dentist is ticked ogf by the non viability of the Amish but the explusion pf the Mennonites by Nestor Makhno is the fate waiting them.
Yes keep thinking they are silly. Your presence in a smart survival community would not desirable.
Smart survival communities do not need to be stronger than warlords or anyone else who thinks they will be in charge of everything.
They just need to be well away from where these Police, mayors and others
who might want to control them, probably a town or city.
Well let them seize ‘assets’ at gunpoint or not.
What assets anyway. After the collapse, lots of vehicles. Pity there is little or no fuel. Ah but there are EVs Oh, no electricity.
Food and grog, maybe some around, so enjoy it while you can, the brewery doesn’t run anymore.
Maybe you can use the guns to roundup the confused peasants who remained in town. They will be weak from hunger and fear so not likely to turn up with a cornucopia of food, wine, women and song.
Hmm, looks like have to go after those survival communities.
Got enough working vehicles and fuel to travel a hundred miles?
Know where to go?
Think the survivalists don’t know their own terrain and will be surprised if you turn up?
Of course these warlords etc believe they can slaughter all these ignorant survivalists and take their assets. So kill em (if you can find them).
Uh- Oh they have planted some crops, but they won’t be mature for months, and we don’t know what native plants and animals can be eaten.
Guess we just take their ‘assets’ (some assorted tools, etc) and return to base.
Have we got enough fuel to get back to base? Oh dear me, what a bother!
Food is running low at base, the remaining peasants don;t know about growing food or animal husbandry not enough for us and them anyway, but if they die out we get even less.
Once these mighty war lords have left, the survivalists break out the home brew and celebrate a small but important victory.
Not expecting another foray from the warlords any time soon, but we will be ready for anything anyway.
As late as a century ago, the warlords fought on horsebacks.
Initial forays might be stopped but they have more firepower and mobility than communities.
There were no independent farmers anywhere after a few years of a chaos.
The local gendarmes do know the land more than the survivalists.
How many potential ‘warlords’ can ride and maintain a warhorse today.
And do they have a troop of similarly capable horse men capable of finding the survivalists and defeating them?
If so what have they gained? Some food in the form of vegetables and animal carcasses.
Was it worth the trip?
Survivalists will be independent farmers. They have to be.
Local gendarmes (now unpaid and no fuel for their vehicles) are not going to benefit from opposing survivalists. Smart ones will join the survivalists.
Unless these warlords have planned well in advance there won’t be horses, experienced horse riders, horse handlers, saddles and bridles etc ready to use when the collapse occurs.
If the survivalists have setup well away from warlords base,
the warlord are going to have a long ride just to get to the survivalist locations and they won’t be lining up to suit warlords convenience and maybe will avoid contact completely.
So the warlords may be able to seize fixed assets (bag of potatoes, a shovel and fork (needs new handle)) then ride all the way back to base with their treasures.
After a few years of chaos there will independent farmers only, admittedly not very many except where survivalists have gained ground control. No corporate agriculture or other central control.
Local gendarmes know the roads and the buildings but I doubt they venture into semi wilderness where survivalists tend to hide out.
And seeing as the system has collapsed, the gendarme won’t have an employer, nor a vehicle to cruise the area. Better off joining the survivalists.
History tells otherwise, like the Mexican Revolution
People lije Psncho Villa mrt violent ends as the prople, tired of the chaos, accepted dictaritorisl rule
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0c1dc1dace6d50d91ed7164134251ae4ef29e46b/0_0_5000_4000/master/5000.jpg?width=940&dpr=1&s=none&crop=5%3A4
Satirical cartoon from the Guardian (UK).
When will Israel get rid of Netanyahu? The genocide is so blatant now.
They like the genocide. Why would they end it.
Chevon says it thinks it can maintain 1,000,000 bpd production for nearly 15 years from the Permian, with much reduced future investment. Is this really possible?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chevron-nears-peak-permian-production-shifting-growth-billions-cash-flow
Yes, lower spending i can understand. But same output, that is another question.
Apparently, it’s millions of barrels of oil equivalent, so in the future there will probably be more gas extracted than oil. It’s a common practice these days. Even browsing the website of the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, and Norway is the most open nation regarding information about their oil reserves, you will find that the graphs in their reports of the future production from now until 2040 are in millions of barrels of oil equivalent. You have to know a little about the oil industry to understand the data these days.
And speaking of Norway, well, the exploration situation isn’t improving. Even prospects that were supposed to be promising “on paper” are turning out to be failures.
After pressure begins to collapse in Johan Sverdrup, which is expected to begin this year, Norwegian production will decline very quickly, given the fact that the field now represents around 40% of the current output.
https://geo365.no/milliardprospekt-boret-tort/
“A clear disappointment for operator Aker BP and license partners Vår Energi and Norske Shell. The exploration well was described as a high-potential well, where Aker BP has previously indicated possible resources of 700–1,000 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), and Vår Energi 870 mmboe.”
“The defeat in the Møre Basin follows several disappointments among major 2025 prospects on the shelf: Bounty Updip (50 – 440 mmboe) drilled dry in February and Kokopelli (150 mmboe) drilled dry in March.”
This does sound like a worry. Norway’s oil production is likely to fall soon.
Chevron Cracked the Code, (sigh)
Chevron has reduced its rigs from 13 to 9 and frack crews from four to three this year. These cutbacks are expected to boost free cash flow from the Permian by $2 billion over this year and next, reaching $5 billion annually by 2027, assuming Brent crude averages $60 a barrel.
“A million barrels is the right plateau for us to carry out into the next decade,” Niemeyer said. “It’s the natural next phase. You want to create something at scale that ultimately supports our dividend objectives.”
Bloomberg writes that unlike conventional oil production, shale wells decline quickly and require constant reinvestment. But Chevron believes it’s cracked the code: after 65% production growth over five years, the company now operates at a scale and efficiency that allows it to maintain output with lower capital spending. -ZH
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Thank you. I know you know this, Don, but I don’t want my readers to forget, this 1 MM BO guidance is BOE, on a 6:1 basis. It is most likely true that Chevron has grown its Permian production to 700K BOEPD because it has some of the crummiest acreage in the entire Basin that is gassy as hell. Like Culberson Country, for instance.
As to its free cash flow, it’s not free…Chevron is $30B in long term debt and just got $56 B further in debt with its acquisition of Hess. Over 70% of its acreage position in the Delaware Basin has less than 1/6th royalty deductions and/or is fee land with NO royalty deductions, where it has 100% NRI’s. It can get by with drilling gassy oil wells because of its net revenue interests.
Everybody lies about everything these days. Everybody. CEO’s get paid $30 MM a year to look you right in the eye and lie. 1,000,000 BOEPD, whoop!
Natgas is going back to $2 if the shale OIL sector keeps it up.
From timing 15.25 Kreiner explains how UK was the creator of the strategy behind Turkey and its exploitation of islamic extremists of turanic area in Syria (see Isis/Al Qaeda), also thanks to Qatari and UAE money.
At timing 1.04 then he explains how UK has already and recently moved some nuclear bombs to the Ukranians in order to let them use against Russia or make them use against UK itself as a false flag and so pressure Russia to do the same or do some wrong actions.
He explains also that recently the city of London public cameras are not visible anymore recently to the public,
Kreiner explains also how Trump is probably trying to divert US from going on to be used to spend money and lives to make wars where UK wants.
Very interesting interview.
Kainer (after 1:00) says that the US knows that Ukraine has lost in the conflict with Russia. Trump tells Europe that the US will sell weapons to Europe, to let them help Ukraine win. Doing this will financially weaken Europe.
British are trying to transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine. This is a big danger. Britain wants to cause chaos. Britain doesn’t care which county detonates atomic bombs. It is in such bad shape, that causing chaos elsewhere
For some reason, in London, nearly all monitoring cameras have been switched off. It looks like they are planning a false flag attack, and they don’t want it recorded.
What Russia wants is for Odessa to realign with Russia. They don’t have to take the city by force. A regime change in Kiev is all that is needed.
Little correction, timing for nuclear bombs discussion is, more precisely, from 1.04.00.
Thanks Gail for your attention on that
I decided I would start a little before the nuclear bomb discussion when I started watching it.
No problem Gail.
I see it is difficult for me to explain myself correctly, with a foreign language for me, in this precious blog.
Actually, I was making a correction on my mistake on the timing given by me on the first post.
And then I was saying many thanks to you Gail that you found some of your time to go deep into my post.
Have a nice evening.
I see. A clever prank, then! Best to delete my comment, in that case.
I did.
https://wccftech.com/thought-the-ai-hype-was-fading-think-again-sam-altman-signals-to-buy-up-to-100-million-ai-chip/
“OpenAI’s CEO is known for his hilarious investment figures. Just a few months ago, Altman was running around the world, raising trillions of dollars to build his network of chip facilities, but the project is nowhere to be seen for now. Even if, for some reason, OpenAI needs the power of 100 million AI chips, the firm needs trillions of dollars in capital on board, which is worth almost what NVIDIA is currently valued for. So, getting such a high count of AI chips seems impossible for now, but considering that GW-level AI clusters are starting to become a lot more common now, we cannot rule it out entirely.”
This seems to be a different planned AI expansion, which is not working out:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/softbank-openai-a3dc57b4
SoftBank and OpenAI’s $500 Billion AI Project Struggles to Get Off Ground
The Stargate venture, introduced at White House event, is now setting the more modest goal of building a small data center by year-end
This article sponsored by Phoenix Capital on Zero Hedge triggered me like the fossil fuel availability dilemma. Only this time it is the availability of affordable health care. Reimbursement with all this complexity will be too low for providers but too costly for patients.
Fossil fuels are the equivalent of traditional surgical procedures that were cost effective—up to a point. With advnacements, an arthroscopy to excise a non-repairable meniscus tear in the knee or a laparoscopic cholecystectomy for chronic gall bladder disease may have decreased costs through outpatient surgery and recovery time. Even my brother had his hip replacement done as an outpatient.
But will all this newest latest complexity really be cost effective in the end if fewer people can afford all this glorious treatment and diagnosis? Even the two hospitals in Natchez Mississippi were trying to “outmarket” each other by each facility having its own DaVinci robot, at a price of 1 million a piece plus tens of thousands in annual service costs. The Community Hospital closed and the Regional Hospital went through bankruptcy twice from 2011-16. Some of my urology colleagues, at least 10 years ago, while not disputing the less invasive benefits of robotic radical prostatectomies for prostate cancer with shorter post op recovery times, pointed out that there had been no demonstrated benefit in survival rate. On top of that, prostate cancer in many men is so indolent that even if left untreated, many men will die from something else. So what’s the point other than profits?
I get it that early diagnosis of many diseases gives the best chance for treatment/cure but the other side of the coin is, you can diagnose all you want but what good is early diagnosis if you can’t afford to or don’t have effective treatment?
The research outcomes of technology vs traditional means of medical diagnosis/treatment are tainted by the sponsorship by big pharma and big medical tech. So, whom to believe?
Obviously this financial group Phoenix Capital, is trying to sell you something. So is everybody these days, like renewables and the false long-term promise of shale oil—all false promises for quick profits.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2025-07-21/coming-187-billion-revolution-healthcare-courtesy-ai
I agree. Healthcare has become absurdly expensive. And paying for it becomes a huge problem.
One of the issues in healthcare is that no one in the US has been truly trying to cure conditions. Instead, the focus has been on sell medicines and other treatments that will string people along, using the healthcare system, for years.
You are right that medicine is one of the worst for adding high-cost complexity. But they have to keep up with the competition. And an individual life seems to be valued at millions of $, even if the person is living in a nursing home, awaiting death in a few years.
The system has to somehow squeeze some of the excesses out. In theory, AI could squeeze some of them out. But is that what the healthcare system would use them for? Wouldn’t it try to use AI to somehow squeeze more income out of bankrupt buyers of healthcare? Or the government, which also cannot afford all of the hyper-complex care?
“One of the issues in healthcare is that no one in the US has been truly trying to cure conditions. Instead, the focus has been on sell medicines and other treatments that will string people along, using the healthcare system, for years.”
Yes, but here is also the problem of execution of services. In the middle to late seventies a study was done on surgical outcomes by different providers, there was a reported difference. That idea died a quiet death.
Insurance pays for procedures, it does not pay for results and preventive care is low margin so it is poorly paid.
AI can change all this, simply submit tests to AI and get a recommendation. Ah, I have done that, it has merit.
Your last paragraph speculates on whether or not AI will give honest opinions. What reward would be sufficient for AI to shade a decision? Money, perhaps a purer sine wave power input? Would an Epstein have anything to offer to AI? Now, that one is an interesting question.
Dennis L.
the emphasis should be on ”well care”—-which you primarily do yourself. Not healthcare–which you rely on someone else to do.
OK—it can’t cover every eventuality, but with advancing age, it seems to me that your body responds positively if you can fool it into believing it still has use and purpose, both physical and mental—a combination of both.
no guarantees but it seems to work.
Yes, I’ll go along with the ‘well care’ emphasis.
I said in a comment month or so back, ‘No Doctors’.
Not strictly true. Did appreciate having my gall stones out about 27 years ago.
And if I broke a leg I would want a doctors help.
But blood tests, checkups, vitamins, etc, etc not interested.
I put myself in a situation that avoided having to fool myself. I got the ‘use and purpose’ automatically.
Retiring to a small acreage at age 70 with a view to maybe ten years of relaxed retirement in the country proved less than ‘relaxing’ what with fallen trees, overgrown paddocks, damaged fences, floods and bush fires, intrusive wild animals.
Can’t ignore these occurrences and luckily am reasonably handy with tools and a brain which doesn’t mind laying awake trying to solve the latest problem, then fixing it next day.
Then I ‘volunteered’ to help with small jobs at a nearby animal sanctuary,
I can use tools, figure out plumbing solutions, have enough electrical background to fix electric fences and learnt (still learning) about hosting animals on my acreage.
Good for keeping the grass down but introducing new problems to be solved.
So now mid eighties. Still can walk and fix the fences, but have given up installing fence posts, and carrying bales of hay. Body says “No, had enough of that.”
but still can do most jobs albeit slower than before.
Otherwise still going pretty strong and if it turns out that my allotted span is to be terminated tomorrow, I won’t complain.
Had a good run and ‘enjoyed’ the final years.
you think like me Pedro
except that any kind of tool other than a pen or pencil makes me a menace to society—
Good for you!
I’m still in my late mid-60s, or my early late 60s, and I still enjoy carrying heavy loads and driving in fence posts to keep the deer and boar out of the little emerald kingdom.
I started rice farming in my 30s, and this is my 31st year at it. About half a ton of brown rice a year. For the first 15 years I plowed the field with an old diesel plow, but that got too much for me, so after that I asked a man with a tractor to do it. For the first 25 years I dried the crop in the sun, which meant hanging it up on bamboo poles—one sheaf at a time—for a week and then taking it down and threshing it—one sheaf at a time. But that was beginning to get too much work for me and my band of aging helpmates. So in 2020 I obtained a second-hand combine harvester, which cost 30,000 yen and does the cutting, threshing, and straw cutting jobs simultaneously in a couple of hours. Then another guy takes the grain away to dry overnight in a kerosene-powered tumble dryer.
Rice farming is so easy now, all I have to do is watch the water level and look out for nasty weeds. As a result, the romance has gone and I would love to quit—except I can’t let the field return to jungle, and mowing it twice a year would be as much effort as growing rice. So I’ll soldier on until I can find someone else who wants to take it on.
Well as long as they make money! I think the new money maker is giving women HRT and telling them they will feel 30 years younger!
Dr. Grimes (in 2013) recommended menopausal woman to take HRT for about 20 years to prevent osteoporosis.
Now that many women are living into their 90s and beyond, while producing little or no estrogen for 3 or 4 decades, brittle bones are one of the great threats to their quality and quantity of life.
It does have its downside and it is horrendously overpriced in the US, but what medical treatment isn’t?
http://www.drdavidgrimes.com/2013/11/osteoporosis-forget-calcium-and-vitamin.html#comment-form
My mother takes Eliquis. The Retail value of the medication in the United States is around 600 dollars. In a country like Germany, it cost around 100 dollars. My mother’s copay on her part D Medicare is more than the whole medication would cost in Germany. There are probably countless other examples of how we are getting screwed here in the “greatest nation on earth”.
I read old books quite often. In short, medicine was only reserved for the worthy, and the poor had to do with folk remedy; if they failed the person died. It was that simple.
There is a reason USA has become the leading country of folk medicine. During the 19th century the doctors were in the big cities, and a lot of so-called physicians in the west were little more than quacks.
Until 1910, when Carnegie- and Rockefeller-funded organizations began to regulate medical education, a lot of ‘doctors’ were ‘trained by what we would call as for profit schools, giving medical degrees to anybody who could pay.
as a result people had to save themselves.
The Heiress – 1949 movie
https://youtu.be/cGNSL14kuCA?si=A-qzhn6_aDQlN5WC
I don’t know what was the setting on the movie, but in the original, a book by Henry James, the woman’s father was a physician, who became quite wealthy so she could be called a heiress. Such doctors did not bother with the poor.
We are simply going back to such days, the natural way of things.
My father tells me that when he began practice of general medicine (about 1949), the state of Wisconsin would only pay for home delivery of babies, if families could not afford hospital care. I’m sure this led to a lot of bad outcomes, and general practice doctors tied up for hours with expectant mothers.
In the 19th century, doctors were so ignorant that you had a better chance of curing an illness by staying in bed than by going to the doctor, who would treat you with poisons such as arsenic or mercury, or crazy techniques such as bloodletting.
I have a theory that all the famous people of the 19th century who died prematurely were murdered by medicine, and i’m just waiting for a million dollar grant to write it.
The main reason life expectancy of the poor was lower than that of the rich was because these had access to better sanitary conditions (and better food of course).
There is nothing left in shale but BS. Mike Shellman never disappoints.
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/the-quality-of-remaining-inventory
Desperation .
Things must be very bad in the US shale oil industry.
Exxon wants to return to Iraq, after leaving the country just two years ago.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Supermajors-Discuss-Development-of-Oilfields-in-Iraq.html
US oil and gas giants ExxonMobil and Chevron are in talks with the government about development opportunities in Iraq’s oilfields, according to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
“ExxonMobil has conveyed its willingness to return to Iraq,” said Bassim Khudair, undersecretary of Iraq’s Oil Ministry, in comments reported by Iraqi media.
Last year, Exxon abandoned Iraq’s giant West Qurna 1 oilfield, handing control of operations to PetroChina, the state-controlled Chinese company.
That is sure to encourage China to set up shop militarily there. There is also the syrian partition affecting the Silk Road. Like Russia, they are forced into it.
I agree that this certainly does sound like a strange situation.
I note that the article says,
How would Iraq boost production this much, unless it was intentionally underproducing some existing fields now?
In note that the EIA says regarding Iraq, “Most of Iraq’s major known fields—all of which are located onshore—are producing or are in development.3”
There may be a little that has been bypassed, for example, Nahr Umr Formation in Abu Amood Field
https://igj-iraq.org/igj/index.php/igj/article/view/2308
The one thing I would note is that Chevron has done a lot of work extracting heavy oil. If there are heavy oil resources, Chevron might have ideas about this. I visited Chevron’s Kern River field in California, and Chevron has been working on heavy oil resources in Venezuela. It may be that with Chevron’s help, Exxon sees some possibilities.
AI points to other problems:
Things are going badly, in many ways. It looks like the production of oil from shale formations will fall in the US.
Kevin Walmsley, saying that the copper shortage is more of a problem in the US than in China. Is this just his bias, or is it really the case?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7i49dNB3RM
There is also a transcript available.
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/criminal-gangs-are-ripping-copper
Criminal gangs are ripping copper out of US cities. China is taking it everywhere else.
I’m in England, and here’s part of an email I got from my ISP.
“Your broadband (Unlimited Fibre Extra) and line rental contract is coming to an end on 14th August 2025.
When your contract ends your monthly price will go from £33.28 to £62.44 (increases 31 March each year).
Upgrade your current package
Great news, our fastest and most reliable broadband is available in your area. Upgrade to Full Fibre now.
Full Fibre 145 for just £25.99 a month. 24 month contract. Price rises on 31 March 2026 to £28.99.Then 31 March 2027 to £31.99.
• Broadband only, no phone line needed
Renew your current package
Our best renewal price for you
Unlimited Fibre Extra and line rental for just £26.99 a month. 18 month contract. Price rises on 31 March 2026 to £29.99.”
=======
So I’m going for Unlimited Fibre Extra and will save money and get a faster speed. I lose my landline, though, which I preferred to my fiddly little mobile.
Here’s what google says about this:
“Full fibre broadband, also known as fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), offers significantly faster and more reliable internet speeds compared to traditional broadband. This is because full fibre uses fibre optic cables all the way to the user’s premises, unlike older connections that rely on copper wires for part of the journey, resulting in reduced speed and reliability.”
So it seems that copper comes into the story here, in that it won’t be around for thieves to steal.
I have earlier read about the copper thefts in the UK which was in relation to EV charging stations . Drivers arrive at charging stations only to find the site dug up and the wires stolen . In the meanwhile here is Kurt Cobb in relation to USA .
http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-trouble-with-copper-tariffs.html
Kurt writes,
Don’t they have CCTV cameras with facial and number-plate recognition and smartphone and car GPS tracing in place to deal with this sort of theft? Combined with automated killer drones to pursue and liquidate the offenders, and bill their next of kin for the cost, it should end the problem in short order.
they steal it from railway lines too
its bound to increase
One of the things that perplexes me is that in places like Detroit copper stealing from abandoned homes was already ongoing 30 years ago. And if you look at the price trend you can see that copper has been expensive for at least a decade, so the profit motive was already there circa 1995. The current crisis is of course brought about by EV mostly but also by AI.
Also, since I drop by the local scrapyard every now and again (someone sold me 50 rake tines that all broke within 2 days) I noticed that the price of recycled copper is still around 550 rubles a kg, about 7 dollars. I wonder if Russia subsidizes that too, since the world price is over 12 per kg.
Yup, I suggested Cu was the problem.
Dennis L.
Up to 2011, our UK 5 and 10 pence coins were made of copper-nickel. Since 2012 they are made of nickel-plated steel.
https://www.royalmint.com/discover/uk-coins/cupro-nickel-replacement/
Clearly copper is becoming more expensive.
Back in the Tudor period, copper came increasingly into use as a means of “adulterating” silver coins.
According to Google’s AI Overview:
Henry VIII was nicknamed “Old Coppernose” due to the debasement of English coinage during his reign. The silver content of coins was reduced, and the copper base metal became visible, particularly on the prominent parts of the king’s portrait, like the nose, when the silver wore off.
Interesting. I wonder what NP’s nose gets called? The UK stopped using silver in its coins after 1946. It replaced copper coins with bronze coins in 1860.
Some of the old UK coinage remained in circulation until decimalization. I remember collecting pennies and halfpennies in the sixties going back as far as Victorian times, that I received in my “change” from time to time. The oldest one I ever fond was an 1837 Queen Victoria penny, which was very blackened and worn down by the time it came into my pocket.
As I remember it, we had it tough, but at the same time, everything was better in the good old days, even the coins and the currency system. A guinea, ten bob, or even half a crown, could get you a lot of Mars bars back then. And a pound note was a work of art, not like the Monopoly money the Brits use these days.
Have a word with NP. He’ll tell you all about it.
Here in the USA, we still stupidly make nickels out of cupronickel alloy. We should eliminate nickels along with the penny, but some billionaire might go on TV and complain about how he needs his nickels.
Not surprising–one company stops transporting EV cargo by boat
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/effective-immediately-shipping-line-suspends-ev-cargo-due-lithium-battery-fire-concerns
Shocking!
Dennis L.
Human society looks to me like sugar-driven inflammation.
People do not realize how sugar intake is wrecking their lives.
Grains, milk and sugar itself.
Physicist Eric Chaisson says that evolution is increasingly moving toward higher “energy rate density”, and that human society is at the current top level.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/13-chaisson-trend-is-toward-more-complex-energy-intense-form.png
Image similar to ones shown in Eric Chaisson’s 2001 book, Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature.
The US is the world leader in complexity. Our health is, in general, far worse than in other developed countries. Part of this is vastly too much sugar in our diets and corn syrup sweeteners in food.
The evolution keeps going on.
Back when I was lurking, I learnt that NP was Poet Laureate of Shropshire. Fast Eddy asked NP to write a poem for him, which he proudly did. Fast Eddy showed me NP’s poem. I was disgusted and told Fast Eddy that he should take it to the police. Fast Eddy got the wrong end of the stick and showed it to the Police pop group instead. They loved it and included it in a song. They paid Fast Eddy a 2 pound note but he never told NP about it, and poor old NP got nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CzKpjBFwjA
Start in at the 51 seconds mark.
lol dem
still insisting on exposing your own inadequacies??
Your mentor used to do that all the time.
which was why i enjoyed reading his posts, and yours, so much.
….keep it up, (for as long as you can)
Please, this is a family website. Have pity on the women and children who read these comments. Just imagine if an innocent were to click that link and start in at the 51 seconds mark!? They would be exposed to the sort of filthy muck that raised the ire of Tipper Gore and Mary Whitehouse.
Gail, and Lidia who used to frequent here, seem to be the only women regulars here, and this blog does not seem to attract too many ‘children’.
A love song for a rubber doll.
as i recall eddy had a thing about rubber dolls…
not a great stretch of the imagination to guess why..
An opinion article in the WSJ, that is supposed to be published tomorrow:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-real-risk-to-the-energy-grid-wind-solar-power-data-shortage-c297e93b
The Real Risk to the Electric Grid
Power shortages are coming thanks to wind and solar subsidies. Here’s how they distort energy investment.
The article talks about a new Energy Department study, which I haven’t been able to locate. Perhaps the WSJ received an advance copy of the study.
Genius. The ‘green’ energy bubble providing political cover for peak oil on the front end and the back end. Stacking functions.
TPTB that run the Formula 1 racing series are looking to reintroduce ICE V8 power because hybrid engines are very complex and extremely expensive. They are trying to make the switch back to V8’s with electrification and sustainable fuels. The teams are now more receptive regarding V8’s because they realize that the public are buying the more expensive EV’s. So they are back to selling ICE vehicles. Surprise, surprise.
Wrt sustainable fuels, it goes to show how nothing beats plain ‘Ol gasoline. Here’s the articles reason why, which to say. You’ll need a lot more energy inputs to achieve what regular gasoline can produce. So they are essentially admitting that trying to achieve “net-zero” is not cost effective for anyone. It just makes everyone feel better that they are saving the planet.
“Another issue F1 faces in its drive towards ‘net zero’ is the cost of the fully sustainable fuel which will be mandatory next year, said to be in the region of $275-$300 per litre. This reflects both the R&D investment which has had to go into developing these fuels and the energy-intensive means of production. As yet there is no solution to the problem of producing at scale and to a reasonable cost.”
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/why-ben-sulayems-v8-f1-plan-might-work/10743571/
It sounds like there was first a push toward electrification, but now a compromise might be an ICE with some sort of sustainable (but expensive) fuel.
Gasoline would work better than either. It will take a while to settle out and implement a solution.
How about not racing, if we are short of fuel?
Are we short of fuel? I say that tongue in cheek because most people think that there is unlimited supply
Try convincing NASCAR watching MAGA that Oil isn’t Abiotic and infinite. Unfortunately, we live in a country where stupidity is praised and reading a book is makes you a dirty commie.
The assumption WIT8s has made in the post above is that all liberals have a rational science-based worldview and value intellect over brawn.
A lot of liberals may NOT have a rational worldview, I will concede that. If you compare the average liberal to the average NASCAR Rush Limbaugh Republican, it should be very apparent which group holds the adults and which holds the manchildren.
Per Copilot, over last five years NASCAR attendance is up 20%. Have no personal interest.
Dennis L.
Saw the formula one racing movie that is still out in the theater with Brad Pitt and that shows his popular car racing is today.
Im not a big race fan and the movie script was boring and lots of footage of racing. Just didn’t click and left early.
Though really like Ford vs Ferrari few years back.
Yeah. Gail is right, pretty useless “sport”, but back in the day guys would have muscle cars and even today on the freeway witness Fast and Furious races between two late a night.
Something in our fast that needs to live on the edge…we are in a too controlled environment that feels to confined and limiting..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW49tFZPCF4
They’re so depressing, going ’round and ’round
Ooh, they make me dizzy, oh, fast cars, they run me down
Fast cars, fast cars, fast cars
I hate fast cars
Sooner or later, you’re gonna listen to Ralph Nader
I don’t wanna cause a fuss, but fast cars are so dangerous
=====================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XO3QmYfdrI
Deep Purple: Speed King.
Go to the 24:20 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exwId3vwJn0
Reeves and Mortimer ask racing car driver Damon Hill some searching questions about his practices.
Exactly, but I’ma split second faster than YOU
whether horse and cart or 40 ton semi…..people miss the fundamental purpose of vehicles.
that is—to expend energy by making a journey, which will deliver greater net energy at the end of that journey, than was used in making the journey itself.
in other words, the vehicle is a tool by which we do work…
Starship and a cubic mile of whatever is like 40 acres and a mule, promised to freedmen in 1860s in order to make them defect to the north.
The old landowners, who largely kept their and, dealt swiftly against the uppity freedmen who thought they would get their 40 acres and mule.
That is not real world, but just delusion. Some of the freedmen’s descendants still claim reparations for that.
No one thought humanity was sacred before 1945. Lower class was not treated to be full humans. It was wrong to grant human rights to the lower class.
As trends favor the rich , the smarter and the able, those who are none of the above will be treated quite harshly, or , rather , rightfully according to their real value, and tradesmen will be treated like dirt.
As everyone kind of becomes independent contractors, they will be dependent upon agencies, and bad reputation means no job. No workers’ comp – when they are injured at job, they are put into their vehicle or dropped to the nearest station (cost of carrying them charged from back wages) where they will have to somehow find a way to pay for their injuries, which they usually couldn’t. Kafka’s Metamorphosis is such a way – Kafka was an insurance adjuster on his real job, working on what would have been workmen’s compensation (which is how it was called prior to 2000).
Humans were treated too nicely for their actual value, which will be adjusted back to normal.
As for the untrue argument that life finds a way, all these extinct species tell a different story. There is no higher being watching life – if they have any interest, they have as much interest as a child watching an artificial ant colony, which is usually disposed off when the child gets tired of it and few people keep it to the end of their life.
Somehow, the system is “survival of the best adapted” at that particular time. We don’t know that whether there is or isn’t a Higher Power behind this. Somehow, the Laws of Physics were developed and enforced. We can argue about what is behind them, and why something was allegedly created out of nothing.
The Most Inbred Monarchs In History
Throughout history, royal families have sought to maintain their power, wealth and status through all manner of schemes and acts. However, some royal families engaged in a disturbing practice to achieve these aims, Inbreeding. This led to disastrous consequences
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xjh0_8D-kgE&pp=ygUNSW5icmVkIHJveWFscw%3D%3D
Sure, best adapting in creating retards
Maybe a cubic mile of Chuckys would work?
Comment from the real world:
I am mostly in agreement with the issues which humanity faces discussed here .
I am using AI to gain an education specifically for an end of life project which is ambitious and deals with “some” of the issues herein discussed.
AI makes possible what would not be possible alone; it can pick a path through necessary knowledge to obtain a goal, maybe.
A guess is higher education will be one of the first segments to fall. Electricity to run campus facilities goes to an AI cluster. This is huge, entire careers are invested in teaching narratives. AI can pick a path through reality to objectives. Redundancies are a bummer and in this case suggesting learning coding is probably not an alternative.
It is going to be bumpy, ultimately Starship to the rescue and a cubic mile of Pt along with a good supply of Cu.
Dennis L.
I am afraid we don’t know the ultimate solution.
https://youtu.be/Uoa1Rki6MRg?si=wb5-XE70dE-EHLMA
He lays out very simply why the U.S economy it’s in trouble. The interesting part is the comment section. No one wants to believe it. I can’t believe it hasn’t crashed yet! Are they lying about it? Are people just so detached that they can’t see it?
Lacy Hunt tells how the US economy is in worse shape than we think. He says that consumer spending was lower in the first spending in the first quarter than most people understand, and this extended into the second quarter.
Business spending was up, but this represented a temporary increase in inventory to avoid tariffs in the future. Now businesses will need to get rid of this inventory, even if it needs to reduce prices to do this.
Hunt doesn’t think the tariffs will do much to help or hurt the economy.
Hunt doesn’t think that the Big Beautiful Bill does very much except extend the tax programs that were already there. He would like to see lower interest rates, and a more stimulative approaches in general.
Hunt is concerned that stock prices will start to go down, as imported goods start to go down. This happens because there is significant demand from outside the US in stock prices. If investment from these countries goes down, US stock prices will fall.
He also thinks there is a more than 50% chance the US will head into
recession later this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacy_Hunt
Maybe Hunt is right. Timing is hard to know.
“He says that consumer spending was lower in the first spending in the first quarter than most people understand, and this extended into the second quarter.”
Consumption may not be the path to a better life which is not to say that starvation is desirable.
Perhaps America is sold out, there is nothing else to purchase which really adds to one’s life. Looking at my community, more food is not an answer. There is enough to go around. That is a bit of a double entendre if you missed it.
Dennis L.
if the USA goes into recession, it will be because the people ‘let down’ the great leader.
Every dictator uses the same playbook.
Whatever repercussions will be the fault of ‘others’….no matter what form they take…
If the U.S goes into recession it will take 18 trillion to get it out or to give the illusion that they are out. I think that will be the end game. They probably already are in recession they are just cooking the books!!
i agree
conjuring up 18tr will mean nothing
the energy to back up 18trn doesnt exist
Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship. Not everything needs to work, just enough.
There is much that does not work, there is much that has changed, there is also much which works.
An alternative to seeking solutions is what we see on the streets of large cities, zombies strung out on drugs. I will gamble on a solution and if nothing else it will give purpose to life.
Dennis L.
People in denial will gamble away the little they have
The government has been intervening in the market for a long time to keep important companies alive.
There are two kinds of people who don’t want to believe it.
Those who understand but don’t want to understand because a change in the status quo will leave them in poverty. Maybe they work in finance or government and know some kind of correction would mean no more high paying job for he/she/it.
The other kind of person who doesn’t want to believe it is not capable of understanding they aren’t being told the truth. They are the kind of people not capable of abstract thinking, unless it has a happy ending.
Big agriculture crisis brewing in India as China stops export of DAP , Urea and special fertiliser nutrients to India . Battles at shops .
https://www.marketbrew.in/daily-insights/india-fertiliser-crisis
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=waiting+in+line+for+fertiliser+in+india
This video is from different parts of India . Farmers are queuing up in the night to get a bag or two .
From your first link:
>> Russia has been another supplier to India. However, since the Russia-Ukraine war, there have been sanctions on Russia, and so payment has become a problem.
Sounds like nonsense to me. India already imports and resells a lot of Russian oil. If there is a reason for India not buying Russian fertilizer, it is something else.
Ivan , China was 20 % of DAP , it has reduced exports and is now 10% . No country can fill this gap . The elephant in the room is ” India relies on China for 80% of its speciality fertilisers.” This now zero-nulla , nada . Without these yield falls drastically . Liebig’s Law is a bitch .
I’m surprised that Russia cannot, because Russia has been complaining for a long time that USA/West have not implemented the grain deal that was supposed to facilitate Russian exports of agricultural products and fertilizer. No data on my end, I’m just going off of articles I’ve seen.
Does the fertilizer come from Ukraine?
Dennis L.
One more thing, if what you’re saying is correct, then why does the article list payment to Russia as a problem, rather than commodity availability?
I suspect that this is due to India having nothing of interest to Russia. Otherwise a method would be found. They will have to have strict agricultural rotations with some legumes in them, plus of course pop. reduction.
Right, but there are other currencies. India could sell dollars and buy rubles to pay. Or they could pay in gold. That India chooses not to shows India doesn’t really want the fertilizer badly or they have no money.
I will take a guess . I think Russian production is in some trouble . In Europe a major fertiliser manufacturer YARA has shutdown production in Benelux and Germany because natural gas is too expensive . There is no shortage in Europe . Is EU importing fertilizer from Russia via third parties to cover the shortfall ? If yes then maybe they don’t have a lot of surplus . India was mainly importing urea from Russia and not so much DAP . Just a guess .
Further you are talking of fertilizer which is generic term . Break it down into individual components and it is a different picture . Just like crude oil is a generic term but if we break it into API grade , Sulphur content , viscosity etc it is a different picture .
Well, they have call centers and they do have an organic AI computer.
In the US the Indians have the highest per capita income according to some published reports.
Dennis L.
From the first article:
This is a sign to me that China is having coal (and perhaps natural gas) supply problems. Making fertilizer, the way it is done in China, requires coal. The US uses natural gas. It is a big expense for farmers. It is part of what farmers in Europe have been having problems with, as well. You need an abundant supply of fossil fuels, or farming as we know it goes down hill quickly.
I may be confused about what DAP is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diammonium_phosphate
I am sure it takes fossil fuels to make, but I don’t understand the details.
Gail , NH4 is ammonia , a part of the production process . Ammonia as we all know is produced by the Haber Bosch method using natural gas worldwide . SImple , it is a FF product .
Now that you mention that, I remember that.
There have also been discussions of wind turbines being used to make ammonia, if they are not making electricity.
“There is no shortage in Europe”
My guess is all the EU “green” carbon control rules are shutting down a lot of agriculture in the EU.
Therefore less fertilizer is needed.
What the EU will need is imported food, if anyone has food to sell, and diesel to ship the food.
Incorrect . In the NL the Rutte govt tried to force farmers to ” nett zero ” . The farmers formed their own political party and got enough votes to force Rutte out of power . The new PM Geert Wilders is keeping his mouth shut on this issue . The result in NL has forced all political parties in the EU not to enforce ” net zero ” on farming . At the end of the day even the urban population in the EU know ” no farmers no food ” .
FRANCE’S BUDGET BOMBSHELL IS A WAKE-UP CALL FOR EUROPE AS IT VEERS TOWARD BANKRUPTCY.
https://www.politico.eu/article/francois-bayrou-france-bombshell-puts-debt-sustainability-back-on-the-agenda/
The ground is starting to shift beneath their feet.
EU countries are racing toward bankruptcy. They want to finance digitalization, decarbonization, and increased military spending, all at the same time, amid unsustainable debt, deficits, and demographic decline.
France’s prime minister, François Bayrou, presented an economic program that includes €44 billion in tax increases and social cuts, through a freeze on pensions and public sector wages next year, cuts to healthcare spending, and billions more will be slashed through a draconian “reform” of unemployment benefits. He also announced massive cuts in public sector jobs and deep cuts in regional government spending. The icing on the cake was the cancellation of two public holidays.
Basically, a “blood, sweat, and tears” budget plan, and I think it’s just the start.
Macron warned his citizens in 2022 with the statement: “The age of abundance is over”.
We cannot say that they have not been warned this time…
//////Macron warned his citizens in 2022 with the statement: “The age of abundance is over”.
We cannot say that they have not been warned this time…//////
sounds like “the End of More”—-but with a French accent
https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-More-resources-humankind-unsustainable-ebook/dp/B00D0ADPFY
(but what do I know?)
This is really worrying!
I tried to find more about the French situation. I didn’t find much except this:
https://www.fxstreet.com/news/eur-usd-french-budget-may-weigh-on-the-euro-ocbc-202507170854
It sounds like it is still a little ways off in timing. There are obstacles in passing this legislation.
Patrick Raymond on the subject ,
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/07/lutte-des-classes-ii.html
‘University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Sir Geoffrey Hinton is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, and cognitive psychologist known as “the Godfather of AI” for his work on artificial neural networks while working at the Google Brain project between 2013-2023.
In 2023, Hinton resigned from Google, citing concerns about the risks of AI technology, including the potential for advanced AI systems to develop goals that are not aligned with human values, especially if malicious individuals, groups or nation-states co-opt this technology to further their own ends. Hinton has estimated a 10% to 20% risk that AI could contribute to human extinction within the next 30 years.
Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 and this is his short acceptance speech at a Nobel banquet last December, urging “forceful attention from governments and international organizations” towards “Research on how to prevent these new beings from wanting to take control.”‘?
https://forbiddennews.substack.com/p/6g-rollout-the-user-as-programmable
Sir Geoffrey was 75 when he left Google, and specifically stated that Google has been “very responsible”, unlike some other AI players we could mention.
Here is is at 77 in a recent interview in which he chats about Google, AI, life and everything, including why most young people would be wiser to become plumbers than try to find a clerical or professional job in the era of AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giT0ytynSqg
He explains:
◽️ Why there’s a real 20% chance AI could lead to HUMAN EXTINCTION.
◽️ How speaking out about AI got him SILENCED.
◽️ The deep REGRET he feels for helping create AI.
◽️ The 6 DEADLY THREATS AI poses to humanity right now.
◽️ AI’s potential to advance healthcare, boost productivity, and transform education.
—
⏱ Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
02:11 Why Do They Call You the Godfather of AI?
04:20 Warning About the Dangers of AI
07:06 Concerns We Should Have About AI
10:33 European AI Regulations
12:12 Cyber Attack Risk
14:25 How to Protect Yourself From Cyber Attacks
16:12 Using AI to Create Viruses
17:26 AI and Corrupt Elections
19:03 How AI Creates Echo Chambers
22:48 Regulating New Technologies
24:31 Are Regulations Holding Us Back From Competing With China?
25:57 The Threat of Lethal Autonomous Weapons
28:33 Can These AI Threats Combine?
30:15 Restricting AI From Taking Over
32:01 Reflecting on Your Life’s Work Amid AI Risks
33:45 Student Leaving OpenAI Over Safety Concerns
37:49 Are You Hopeful About the Future of AI?
39:51 The Threat of AI-Induced Joblessness
42:47 If Muscles and Intelligence Are Replaced, What’s Left?
44:38 Ads
46:42 Difference Between Current AI and Superintelligence
52:37 Coming to Terms With AI’s Capabilities
54:29 How AI May Widen the Wealth Inequality Gap
56:18 Why Is AI Superior to Humans?
59:01 AI’s Potential to Know More Than Humans
1:00:49 Can AI Replicate Human Uniqueness?
1:03:57 Will Machines Have Feelings?
1:11:12 Working at Google
1:14:55 Why Did You Leave Google?
1:16:20 Ads
1:18:15 What Should People Be Doing About AI?
1:19:36 Impressive Family Background
1:21:13 Advice You’d Give Looking Back
1:22:27 Final Message on AI Safety
1:25:48 What’s the Biggest Threat to Human Happiness?
Jeffery is an excellent educator. He is the grand son of Bool as in Boolean logic! The apple does not fall far from the tree.
He also received the 2018 Turing Award, known colloquially as “the Nobel Prize of computing” but adding a genuine Nobel in Physics has raised his profile considerably.
Was what he and fellow Nobel laureate John Hopfield did really physics? If asked, I suspect a lot of people would say, “Errrh?” A simple definition of physics is the study of the physical plane of matter, motion, force, and energy, or the study the natural world and the interactions between objects and energy in any given environment. If computer science is to be considered a subset of physics, then what makes chemistry or biology independent subjects?
Others might say that if Kissinger or Arafat can get a Nobel Peace Prize, Karikó and Weissman can get a Medicine on for their discoveries that enabled the development of “safe and effective”TM mRNA vaccines. and Dylan can get one for Literature, there can be no real objection to Hinton and Hopfield sharing a Physics one. If proper physicists want to get the prize, they will need to work harder discovering new fundamental particles, forces, or hidden dimensions, and boldly go where no man has gone before.
https://deanspears.net/books/after-the-spike-population-progress-and-the-case-for-people/
Potential population collapse after this spike
Authors :
Dean Spears: Professor of Economics, Univ of Texas at Austin
Michael Geruso : Ass. Prof. of Economics, UTA. Worked in the group of White House economic advisers in the later half of Biden’s administration.
So they are no cranks.
https://youtu.be/KfxnfnH_how?si=jn7MqzwWHyZLFYwx
Interview with the authors
https://youtu.be/OIa11CyWDIU?si=Nvgj4hZzlWt-VR7X
Introduction
Although some people will try to deny this, at least in some top circles, a rapid pop decline is being discussed.
Based on the introduction, this sounds like a book politicians would write–or those working indirectly for politicians. College professors get promotions for writing reports that politicians and others like. This is the kind of “stuff” that makes it through peer review, because it has a nice, happily ever after ending to it. If a professor tells the truth, it will never get through peer review.
He starts by suggesting that population will peak in 2070 or 2080. Basically nothing for us to worry about today.
I like to get to the front of the queue and do my worrying before the crowds turn up.
https://predicament.substack.com/p/waking-up-to-reality-the-end-of-denial?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3395569&post_id=168689001&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=216vfx&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
A Substack article written by a convert to seeing the limits we are up against. One excerpt:
Later:
Near the end, the author states that he thinks that walkable cities and recycling, among other not-too-different ideas, will help us drastically reduce consumption. They seem to be part of the way forward for him. I’m afraid he is just learning.
Well written and went on to read others.
This particularly brought chills to my spine
Yes, Climate Change Is Probably Going To Kill You
Itsovershoot
Nov 24, 2024
https://predicament.substack.com/p/what-most-people-dont-understand
I’ve been following this issue for decades now and without question the best laid overview/explanation in a “nutshell. Very thorough and stark layout of all aspects we humans are facing, all done by our own collective actions.
Thank you so much, skimmed a couple of others and also worth the time.
Will go back to reread..I agree with the conclusions…
I’m with Gail on this one I think he’s a noob and still has layers of the onion to peel but I doubt he ever will given his lefty elitism; there are so many peak oil soldiers wounded on the battlefield by their own elitism that they never shed. So they get left behind. It’s shallowness, and why so many of them don’t participate in their own comment section lest they get exposed.
Giving up elitism is like giving up social status, no one is going to do it voluntarily. For some people feeling that they are superior to other people is a core part of their identity. That sentiment usually manifests when they cut off any debate, with statements like “this isn’t up for debate” or heavily censor discussions so only they are never challenged by their readers. Their readers are inferior to them, they are superior to their readers.
The problem with climate change is that there are too many unexplained things. Why is there a “lag time” for co2 that is in the atmosphere?
“Some effects show up within a few years, but most unfold over 10–50 years, with full impacts taking centuries due to ocean and ice sheet dynamics.” In other words, they don’t know but have made the assumption that we are headed back for the climate present 65 million years ago, at the end of the Mesozoic era. They think everywhere is going to be swampland or a desert just like when the dinosaurs existed.
I think you’re mischaracterizing the situation. Whether one believes in anthropogenic climate forcing or not, there are perfectly reasonable explanations for the complexity of current lag times. Are there still known unknowns and perhaps unknown unknowns, too? Of course.
If you are also referring to the lag times in deep history then there are explanations for that too. The Milankovitch cycle warmings are a different phenomenon even though deniers conflate them (false analogy). The believer responds that during those cycles the lagging CO2 rises are a positive feedback loop of the causal temperature rises from the Earth orbit cycle, whereas during industrial civilization, that orbital positive feedback loop dynamic comes first and so must be the causal driver, and the Milankovitch warmings take place on much longer timeframes.
So, no proof that “lag times” exist. This lag time sounds like a convenient explanation for why climate models are usually wrong.
The time between cause and effect is specific lag. Effect is a lagging/trailing indicator of cause.
Welcome to this universe, guest.
Modeling is another conversation; nice try.
There are definitely time lags operating that affect the climate on different time scales.
Take “post-glacial rebound,” the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets when an interglacial begins.
A thick ice cap sitting 2 or 3km high depresses the ground below it by about 30% of its height. When the ice cap melts, the ground doesn’t instantly rise to its former height. Where it might take an ice cap such as the one over Canada or Scandinavia 10,000 years to melt completely, the ground beneath where the ice cap stood rebounds much more slowly, taking perhaps 20 to 30,000 years to get back to the elevation it was at before the ice cap was formed.
Today, typical uplift rates in Canada and Scandinavia are of the order of 1 cm/year. This is why the Gulf of Bothnia and Hudson Bay are slowly but steadily shrinking and Finland is growing by 7 km2 per year.
1 cm/year is not that big, but it’s equivalent to 10 meters in a thousand years or 100 meters in 10,000 years. What will this do to the climate? Two things come instantly to my mind:
1. a fall in temperature over the land as it rises. On the average, temperature falls by 0.65ºC for every rise of 100 meters—so the Hudson Bay area and the northern Baltic countries will become a little colder, year round, due purely to that effect.
2. A decrease or disappearance of the Gulf of Bothnia and Hudson Bay that will make the regional climate colder, drier, and more extreme (average winter to summer temperature difference will increase) due to the disappearance of large areas of permanent water.
There will also be numerous other changes as a result of post-glacial rebound. Look them up if you don’t believe me.
As for CO2, that was chosen as a control mechanism to encourage deindustrialization. I would argue that the current increase is being driven by the general warming since the depths of the Little Ice Age 400 years ago—which was caused by a combination of changes in solar forcing and increased volcanism—and that the time lag is because the oceans are like a ginormous humungous bottle off carbonated water. The warmer they become, the less CO2 they can hold. As they have been warming for several centuries, they are gassing giving off CO2 into the only place it can go, the atmosphere.
This is in accordance with Henry’s Law, which describes the relationship between the partial pressure of a gas above a liquid and the concentration of the gas dissolved in that liquid.The Henry’s law constant for CO2 in water is typically given as 1.67 x 108 Pa at 298 K (25°C).
Why the time lag? The official story is that the lag between atmospheric temperature change and CO2 outgassing from the oceans is primarily due to the ocean’s thermal inertia; the vast amount of water takes a long time to heat up. Try heating the water in your bathtub by shining an infrared lamp on it. You’ll have to work for hours and hours to get a noticeable increase. The oceans are much bigger and deeper than any bathtub, and although the sun is much bigger than an infrared lamp, the oceans take centuries to respond to changes in the amount of sunlight they receive.
Fascinating about the rebounding. Is it that the weight of the ice is mostly actually compressing the less dense material underneath the crust (mantle?) moreso than the crust materials themselves?
If anthropogenic forcing wasn’t the main driver of the current atmospheric warming then wouldn’t the warming oceans be net exporters of CO2 whereas I believe it is well-accepted that the oceans are currently a net importer (carbon sink) of CO2 despite their warming? Is that not anomalous behavior?
Good questions:
The post-glacial rebound one is fairly straightforward from a physics standpoint, I think. The huge weight of icecaps several km thick adds to the weight of the solid crustal rock below it and both exert pressure on the semi-liquid or liquid mantle below the crust. There is probably a small amount of compression within the crustal rock, but the bulk of the effect is on the mantle.
Imagine you are the crust, your dog or cat or lady is the icecap, and your comfy armchair is the mantle. When the dog, car or lady sit on your lap, you naturally sink a bit deeper into the cushions of the armchair, and when they get up, you will rise a bit as the cushions push back.
As for the CO2 question, that’s a lot more complicated. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans is always in flux. The general assessment of the oceans as net absorbers of anthropogenic CO2 is based on extensive research, but it does come with certain uncertainties. Estimates suggest that the oceans absorb about 25-30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. And Henry’s Law—states that the concentration of a gas dissolved in a liquid is proportional to the partial pressure of that gas above the liquid—suggests that a certain percentage of any human emissions should wind up in the ocean. But what percentage?
I’m just an amateur with little understanding of the dynamics or the math of the situation. My one saving grace is that, unlike people in the Church of Climate Science, I strive to be honest. 🙂 But….
If we consider the overall volume of the ocean and the atmosphere, the ocean is estimated to hold somewhere around 50 times more CO2 than the atmosphere at equilibrium, depending on various factors like temperature and salinity.
Another way of saying this is that around 98% of all the CO2 in the linked atmosphere/ocean is in the ocean. Only 2% is in the atmosphere. If the ocean temperature rises, CO2 will outgas, just like the bubbles will come out of your Coca Cola into the air space in the bottle if it warms up.
But there are lags involved. Just like the bubbles in the Coca Cola or your beer in your glass do not all come out at once—unless you shake the bottle violently before opening!—the CO2 in the oceans doesn’t bubble up into the atmosphere instantly every time the upper ocean temperature changes.
Between 400 and 200 years ago the upper levels of oceans were cooler than they currently are, and the progressive rise in atmospheric CO2 we are seeing today COULD BE DUE MAINLY to the progressive rise in the ocean temperature rather than to the increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
I haven’t seen a precise estimate of how much CO2 the oceans should be emitting into the atmosphere due to their temperature rise. But apparently, by some estimates, 98% of all the CO2 in the world (ocean+atmosphere) is sitting there in the oceans.
Besides burning fossil fuels, there are lots of biological processes going on that add or subtract CO2 from the atmosphere or oceans, and there are volcanic eruptions that add CO2 to the pot.
The net increase in atmospheric CO2 is equivalent to approximately half of the estimated total emissions from fossil fuels. Compared to both natural emissions and absorption, this amount is very small, meaning that even minor errors in estimating and modeling these natural processes could lead to incorrect conclusions.
I read somewhere that studies that measured not only regional variations in CO2 concentrations but also seasonal variations have shown that natural processes can reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations at about 10 times the rate at which fossil fuels emit CO2. In other words, under the right conditions, natural systems have the capacity to do that.
Other studies have indicated that the biosphere (the amount of biological processes) is currently growing, and I expect that as it does so, more CO2 is moving around the system. We could go net zero and starve to death only to find that our impact on the biosphere was negligible. That would be a turn up for the book!
While it is possible to make estimates or build models that closely match actual results, it is not possible at present to fully understand all the processes involved or to confidently assert that the hundreds of values shown in graphs of average temperatures and CO2 levels are accurate down to the single-digit level. So, it the data is open to a variety of interpretations. As the researchers often say, more research, and more funding, are needed.
Tim, thank you for the excellent summary of the ocean effect on CO2. It undoubtedly acts like a sponge and can absorb or release depending on conditions. I do wonder about the depth of certain parts of the ocean, and the resulting increase in density of water in the depths, and how that modifies the calculations of how much CO2 is released. ie. how is Henry’s law modified.
Atmospheric models…. manmade….always consider….garbage in = garbage out.
I find all scientific papers now suspect due to political machinations.
Carbon capture is a supreme joke on taxpayers.
The Oil Drum authors were saying that carbon capture was ridiculous back in the 2008 and 2009 timeframe. You have to ramp up the coal or gas inputs greatly, to get enough net output. The cost and energy involved in piping the CO2 underground were absurd. (It was only if you could sell the CO2 to buyers that the idea might make a bit of sense–and then it would stay above ground, or would quickly return above ground.)
We don’t have a good way of sealing CO2 underground permanently. If our approach went wrong, the escaping CO2 would likely stay in a layer close to the ground, suffocating humans and their animals. This would be a huge liability issue.
Back on July 15, Mark Burton left a comment saying he had fit a logarithmic curve to diesel data, and he came to a similar conclusion that I had.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/07/14/worrying-indications-in-recently-updated-world-energy-data/comment-page-1/#comment-487845
He emailed me a copy of his chart with the fit.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Mark-Burton-Trend-of-world-per-capita-diesel-consumption.png
He mentioned that there is a small problem on the legend on the right. It should say “diesel/gasoil” not “diesel/fuel oil”.
In long term treasuries there seems to be a problem too. They turned the 30 year into ‘perpetual’.
The belly of the beast however, is still in place. That is probably because it is being Fed.
Since peak total global oil liquids peaked in late 2018, a logarithmic curve beginning at the peak is the only one that makes sense.and that curve is a decline/decay curve. Again, it’s the dark beauty of the plandemic that we are still using a GROWTH curve.
Peak equals tipping point……..
Why, 7 years after the tipping point, would we weight the curve with 20 years of data from before the tipping point? Because we are still using logarithmic GROWTH curves 7 years after peak total liquids?
Why aren’t we graphing the post- peak present if we are living in the post- peak present?
This can’t be right. Diesel peaked in 2017, and oil in 2018 or 2019. Is he claiming that the population was already declining?
I think he is one of the people who just looks at various kinds of curves, and tries to find something that sort of fits. I don’t think he is claiming anything about population.
well, for the total diesel production to have peaked in 2017, and diesel per capita still increasing, one is forced to conclude that the population is decreasing since at least 2017. I just think he is using wrong data.
Every time I refresh the comments, the refresh gets majorly slowed down as the reloading of this “widget” kicks in:
“Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…”
No doubt some visitors find the audio useful, but is it possible to tuck it away so that it is accessible only via a clearly marked, highly visible link?
Does anybody else get slowed down by its loading when they refresh the comments?
I am having trouble with slow loading, too, but I hadn’t made the connection with the Trinity Audio widget. If there is a way of hiding it away into a link, I would be happy to do it. It was an Application that was free (at least to me–but not in general), so I can’t hope for much support from Trinity Audio.
Another option might be to look for another Application that does not slow down the loading so badly.
Thanks, Gail. Some kind of audio is worth keeping, for those visitors with sight problems.
Some people really like audio–listen in their vehicles, for example.
FROM THE GUARDIAN
‘The place is empty, a lot have left’: Ballymena weighs up impact of anti-migrant riots.
Plenty feel shame at last month’s unrest, but mobs who targeted Roma families feel they got what they wanted
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/19/ballymena-impact-anti-migrant-riots-northern-ireland
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So that was ethnic cleansing in action. Previously the violence in Northern Ireland was sectarian.
I was never a fan of smarmy Tony Blair, but I thought it was marvellous that he managed to put an end to “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Apparently it took endless patience and negotiation. So I was astonished when he took Britain to war against Iraq after 9/11, despite the flimsy “evidence” that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction”. One of his advisors disagreed that there WMD but had a lot of pressure put on him, to the extent that he eventually committed suicide.
Years later, Blair defended the illegality of the invasion by saying, well, Saddam was a nasty dictator and it was right to get rid of him. Hmm – so why didn’t he invade all the other countries with nasty dictators, and what would be the punishable level of nastiness? But was that his real reason? Did he just think that the UK should always been seen to support the USA – the “lapdog” doctrine? Or do reante, postkey, Fitz, have other suspicions? Just don’t mention that LIST, as Blair is / was most definitely NOT that kind of person.
Then again, Blair had earlier supported the illegal strikes on Serbia, and by some accounts he was the one who managed to persuade President Clinton to take action, despite the latter being secretly preoccupied with Monica Lewinsky at the time.
Why did the UK help topple Iraq?
Because of the Two Year Rule of peak oil. 9/11 came two years after peak cheap oil. uS crude oil first purchase price was $8/barrel in early 1999. Since peak oil theory is an affordablility metric, peak cheap oil is the most fundamental civilizational peak. The real estate bubbles began to be blown. Peak conventional came only 5 or 6 years later.
As you well know, Iraq was the first of the 21st century oil wars. Iraqi oil used to be owned by a Standard Oil consortium headquartered in London. Then Iraq took it back and wasn’t able to exploit the resources efficiently, and partly because of war and sanctions. And that was tolerable to the still-maturing Hand because civilization already couldn’t keep up with oil extraction rates as evidenced by the gluts of the 80s and 90s. But as soon as peak cheap oil hit, the Hand knew that the Two Year clock was ticking on organically grown good times, so in 2001 it introduced to the world its positron beam disintegration device aka “Jewish space laser,” as the Hand’s anti-conspiracy theory disinformationists like to fallaciously ridicule it as. Iraq is now crushing it at 4.5M bbl/d.
Two Year Rule
1970 peak US conventional. About 2 years later the oil crisis hit and the US military surrounded the ME and forced the capitalist world onto the petrodollar.
1989 peak Soviet oil. About 2 years later the USSR collapsed.
1999 global peak cheap oil inflation adjusted. About two years later 9/11 Handjob.
2005 global peak conventional. About 2 years later the GFC hit.
Late 2018 global peak total liquids. About a year and a half later they front-ran the Two Year Rule with the plandemic so as to engineer as much global demand destruction as possible in order to buy globalization about another 5 years which brings us to today and is why things are coming to a head again.
9/11 Handjob! LOL.
So glad you’re back here, Reante.
Thanks JMS appreciate that!
The Two Year Clock? I’d never heard of that one before.
Rule. Two Year Rule. It’s a reante original. Saw that pattern about 5 years ago.
Which means we’re in Triple Overtime right now.
rebel gangs involving drugs found information in article near the end of the article so capitalism is our problem.
The issue is always some version of not enough resources to go around. This is primarily related to not enough high paying jobs. At one point, the conflict was among religious sects, now it is with migrants.
https://youtu.be/6aMcin_CDyA?si=rxLtUTwhdw8BkBii
Peter Ziehan he thinks we have too much oil and gas and that solar pays off in 4 years!!
Perhaps we should not be paying much attention to Peter Ziehan. No wonder people are confused! Happily ever after narratives are very popular. They sell well.
I suspect that part of the reason that EROEI calculations have “sold well” is because they give outrageously high estimates of the value of wind and solar. These, plus similar calculations like “energy payback period,” give gullible people like Ziehan the wrong idea.
I don’t give much credit to Ziehan….but every know and then I want to pop my head up and see why the masses believe in what they believe! He is such a smug asshole that I want to punch him in the nose! But he is making money at his ruse…
I always reserve the right to be wrong about what I believe I just need to see the evidence. Right now the evidence points to the leaders of different countries trying to figure out how to survive without having a collapse in their economy.
The U.S appears to have economic numbers equivalent to the covid period. Two trillion is not going to be enough! The cuts are not going to boost your economy! It is like cutting off your finger to eat it. You can change the mal-investment but unless it results in a more efficient way to get energy and use it more efficiently it is basically shuffling the chairs and putting your people in them. The only way the U.S could cut would be to shut down overseas bases and cut the military budget. Will not happen any time soon. But hey David will be here soon telling us we easily have 10 more good years before anything happens!
Zeihan is a Cornucopian that exist to tell the American ruling class what it wants to here.
hear.
Is it OK to cheat with AI?
https://youtu.be/ZJAkNTNVur8?si=Ds7m6vudy0dsrGRI
This guy says it is OK since someone who can fake others using AI would be smarter than others
https://greyenlightenment.com/2025/07/15/ai-as-a-force-multiplier/
How does the cheater grow?
Dennis L.
Is it cheating, or is it a legitimate tool?
Somehow, it can be both helpful and less helpful.
Children who grow up using a calculator for every calculation may not learn well how to do calculations without a calculator. I think that this is a common occurrence.
AI can get some theoretically correct answers quickly, but output can fall a bit short of the desired outcome. For example, a commenter recently emailed me a post about dissipative systems and the physics of war, together with headings he had chosen. In many ways, the proposed post was very good. I suggested to the commenter that he put it up on his own website, and link back to it here in a comment, but that hasn’t happened, at least so far. The ideas seemed to be right, but the presentation didn’t seem to be quite suitable for this audience.
There is some nuance involved in how a writer needs to frame issues that are likely to be worrying to the audience. AI is not very good at nuance yet, I am afraid. But the post still seemed to be mostly right. It might even be something that others would want to quote later, especially if they were inclined to come to similar conclusions themselves. But quoting AI is always a little “iffy.”
it looks like ai is
The cheater is Chinese
Enough said
Looking at the future of work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdNJlOq2RDo
Many of you here know I use AI and see an unbelievable future for it. This segment of Fox News has Mike Rowe talking about the trades. Also mentioned is the number of job openings vs the number of “men” not looking for work, approximately the same.
Welding is a hard trade, it is hard on the body. Eating in America is challenging in that obesity in my eyes is horrible, horrible for those who are obese. Nothing is easy, everything is a trade off unless you are one of the .01 percent and that is not a typo.
Building material things involves making simple shapes accomplish real world results. Talking heads are visual emotions, feeling good, being involved. Reality is not part of this.
“Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not?” RFK, son of a very wealthy father. My country in my opinion is worse off for not having had the services of RFK in office, but somethings never were and in the reasonably near future never will be as they are not physically possible. RFK had many assets which most will never possess, his reality was not that of the masses. No criticism, his personal experience was very unique. Dreams must be reasonably possible for most people.
Too many of our leaders have learned how to use emotion to inspire people to dream that which is not possible. Physical work is making things and the emotion comes from the completion of the task, not the forward looking dream. Choosing the right dream, inspiring people to do it is the job of leadership; not abusing that leadership for impossible dreams which give personal short gain to the leader is grift.
Much/most higher education is now grift. A cc education in the trades, a wife with a degree in hairdressing/nursing raising a family is reality. That will still work. A tradesman making $150K/year can buy a house, a stay at home wife can raise a family and cook meals which will not result in obesity. It isn’t easy, it isn’t glamorous, but it is real and seems to be to be better than the alternatives for most people. We have sold illusion and in my former world, dentistry, now have $400 cleanings. Too much expensive time in school.
Dennis L.
Dennis I have been in the trades and you are way off….. First of the trades are getting flooded; every douche bag that is out there is telling people to go into the trades! Wages are coming down! Then lets say you do make that kind of money you have to be hustling and busy 50 hours a week and not have a down period. Then you have all of your expenses I have a friend who is a contractor and he is paying almost $28,000 a year in crappy health insurance that doesn’t cover anything. Not to mention the stress of trying to make that kind of money!
You are right the medical community does suck, they rip us off with terrible service and B.S charges. Denistry being the worst bang for your buck. The orange man was supposed to fix that but he is too busy trying to cover up his love for Epstein and young boys…..or whatever he is trying to hide.
Thanks Sam, the problem with any trade is the two hand problem If they are not working, they are averaging zero into the equation. If they are working continuously it is hard on the body.
Dentistry: Were I practicing today with my education cost(this is important) I would AI the front desk and have one assistant(Optimus going forward?) and clean my own teeth. The profit margins even with collectible(note that word) fees would be more than adequate. One chair, simple office. Dentistry has huge capital costs as it is done today, school and then an office. It is almost as bad as farming.
No matter what one’s trade, it is yours and it is portable which is no small thing.
Dennis L.
Those who never spent a day in trades advising others to that is simply farcial.
I think a share a more nuanced but similar position to Dennis on the trades. Those inclined to go into the trades should be encouraged more to do so and be given more social support.
When they say there is a lack of people in the trades, they mean there is a lack of young people with strong backs who do not ask for too much money. Remember the iron law of wages.
Thank you, it explains some things quite well.
Two remarks, I doubt world population is rising. Fertility rates are low. Perhaps there is a delay because they have just fallen recently, I am not too much into it. While a rate of 2.2 is needed to keep the population steady, fertility rates are under 1.5 in the West and Russia, under 2 in Latinoamerica and India and under 1.2 in China. Growth happens nearly only in Africa.
I suppose declining populations are another cause for economic decline next to energy.
Second, in the European Alps some copper mines were flooded after the war. There are rumours that there is enough copper in the ground to provide all needs of the world and that it can easily be extracted. They were flooded because the Americans wanted to prices up for their own copper. I don’t know if that is true or not but we know engineers telling it. Flooded mines are unlikely to be opened ever again.
The reason why population keeps rising has to do with fewer deaths of children in the early years, and rising life expectancies in most countries. The US seems to be the exception, with poor life expectancy trends compared to other countries.
I don’t know anything about European copper mines.
That might be the case and I am not too much into these data, but in the states with 50% of world population, the fertility rates are under 2.2. I think it is interesting to have a look, I had a different perception. If population size has an effect on the economies, it should lead to some shifts. Of course, the historic development should be taken into account.
Percentage of world population: Fertility rates 2021
India 17,8%: 2.03
China 17,4%: 1.16
EU (2022) 5,6%: 1.4
Indonesia 3,5%: 2.18
Pakistan 3,1%: 3.47
Nigeria 2,6%: 5.25
Brasils 2,6%: 1.64
Russia 1,77%: 1,49
USA 4,2%: 1.66
Total 58,57%
https://www.micron.com/us-expansion/ny?srsltid=AfmBOoqH1T21YDyCfHueoP2wxhlIb1yZIk0TL3aoAADpEOwdyi15tSPm
Micron to build chip fabs in New York State.
To power the fabs New York State is building a nuclear power plant.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/new-york-governor-announces-plans-for-new-nuclear-plant#:~:text=%22We%20cannot%20have%20trade%2Doffs,term%20grid%20stability%20and%20affordability%22.
“To power New York’s future we need three things: reliability, affordability and sustainability – and nuclear drives all three,” Hochul said as she announced the new initiative.
Cool but when will the nuke be online? Takes a while in the US of A.
The governor says she has connections in DC and it will built very fast.
No talk about nuclear waste disposal.
“Very Fast” can mean 10 years, which is fast in today’s lingo.
Ed, the problem is people, people to build the things. Nuclear waste can be solved.
Real solution is robotics in space, fusion energy, endless resources, pollution to Jupiter.
Earth for life, space for machines. New phrase to supplement a cubic mile of Pt.
Dennis L.
Where is the fuel for the nuclear power plant going to come from? Russia? Low world uranium production?
How is the uranium upgraded to the quality needed for the nuclear power plant? Russia, again?
Iran ? 🙂
I presume Iran’s upgrading is for itself.
Are you sure that only Russia has the capability for nuclear fuel?? I’m just curious because I know very little about uranium and that appears to be the new dream.
That is pretty close to the case. I wrote a post about the uranium situation not too long ago.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/11/11/nuclear-electricity-generation-has-hidden-problems-dont-expect-advanced-modular-units-to-solve-them/
Uranium is mined in various countries, including Kazakhstan, Australia, and Canada, but Russia is the country that specializes in upgrading. Also, for a long time, the US was depending on using nuclear warheads, mostly purchased from Russia (but also some of its own), to fuel its power plants. Warheads of nuclear bombs didn’t need to be upgraded–they could be downgraded by mixing with regular non-upgraded uranium. But now the world is running short of nuclear bombs to downgrade.
The other possibility for obtaining suitable fuel has been recycling spent fuel, but that is not working very well. France has done the most with this, but looking at the financial results of the companies doing it, it must be a horribly expensive operation.
“But now the world is running short of nuclear bombs to downgrade”
Well, that is a plus.
Dennis L.
I’ve been a big fan of Gail’s for many years- hoping those in charge are listening to her and working towards keeping my family afloat in the mean time
Thanks, and good luck on keeping your family afloat.
Stephen,
You need to become part of a group; the world as a whole has only a macro goal of keeping things together, individuals don’t account for much. A small group, 200 or so people can be helpful to eachother.
Dennis L.
21:00 16.07.2025
France, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary don’t plan to participate in NATO program to purchase weapons from USA for Ukraine . Add Slovakia .
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1088307.html
The EU is dismanteling .
https://medium.com/future-vision/the-european-union-was-a-construct-of-infinite-prosperity-7a401c225171
Participating in the NATO program to purchase weapons from USA for Ukraine would be expensive. It is not surprising that the idea quickly falls apart when budgets are tight. Our own Norman Pagett is the author of the second link.
I agree. We know that top levels of government tend to fall apart, when energy supplies are short. NATO is such an organization, as is the EU. They have made too many promises to their citizens to really keep.
You don’t get the point: After two lost world wars Germany sees the opportunity to beat a grand victory over Russia under the leadership of the Germanic heros von der Leyen and Merz!!! This time Germany will win and not only dominate the European Union but also Russia. The EU has been preparing to include Ukraine but also Azerbaijan – the neighbour of Iran. Just in case you dont know where the heart of Europe lies.
As the elaborate and completely legal and fully democratic spending of Mrs Leyen leads to less payments for farmers, Leyens basis, the conservative parties, is deteriorating. With a victory of the ultra right winged parties, Mrs Leyen would be history. Polls show, that the German coalition of Conservatives and Social-Democrats under the leadership of Blackrock’s ex-director Friedrich Merz is currently supported by only 42%. The Bundestag is therefore aiming to declare all opposition as fascist and Hitlerian, so they can forbid them. There is a respective scandal going on at the moment, the key word is Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf.
To be able to do so it has to be given back the lands it was stolen by Poland, which USA will not allow, so its plans will go nowhere.
Taking a cue from Gail’s post Patrick Raymond has an interesting view .
” As for state control of populations, in a globalization taken over by the BRICS, this is impossible; neither cryptocurrencies nor dematerialized currencies are sustainable. China and Russia are content with their sphere of influence; they have been mentally exhausted on this point by their empires. And a good part of the population is too attached to paper money to be able to do without it. China and Russia have seen and understood that this is not the model to follow. Not to mention the humiliations suffered by countries that were not colonized but “semi-independent,” in reality, a colonization often much worse…
New EU sanctions package against Russia. Putin laughs.
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/07/lutte-des-classes-au-niveau-mondial.html
https://www.marineinsight.com/shipping-news/in-a-first-eu-sanctions-indias-2nd-largest-refinery-in-latest-package-against-russia/
Stupid .
The stupid part seems to relate to the new sanctions package:
It motivates Russia to move outside of the current system. The earlier sanctions have not worked well. It is not clear that this set will either.
But it is an acknowledgment that world oil prices have trended downward since the first package of sanctions was put in place. More producers around the world cannot extract oil profitably. They cannot send enough tax revenue to their governments. This pushes their governments toward collapse.
Patrick Raymond seems to be responding to a commenter on my site. I may have missed this comment myself. The name of the post is Class Struggle at the Global Level.
I think the class struggle issue is certainly true. We live in an age of not enough to go around. Who gets left out keeps changing.
“what is needed for the world’s rising population”.
Indigenous population in the West is past peak, not enough births, too much feminism, abortion etc. Immigration is masking the decline. Likely, the whole world will peak shortly.
You can have feminism, or a depopulating society – pick one.
Traditions were traditions because they worked.
Traditions worked for a time. Perhaps the reason we do not follow traditions is because they no longer work. That’s why they are abandoned. We are part of a self-adapting organism. Perhaps feminism, abortion, failure of the younger generation to procreate is an expression of that self-adaptation to live within it’s environmental boundaries. Just as AI is a self-adaptation to get smarter. To analyze more data. To find a solution to the boundaries imposed upon it by environmental constraints. It’s all a matter of perspective.
I agree. I am afraid you are right.
I worked “part time” nearly all the time my three children were young. The part time was close to 40 hours a week, and involved some travel, but it was not the 60 or 80 hours a week that my peers were putting in. But I was getting paid high wages, so I could afford to hire someone to handle some of the many child-care and home care chores. We also hired people to do lawn care.
When opportunities came for advancement for me, by moving to another office and being in charge there, I turned them down. I disproportionately was involved with aspects of the consulting operation that did not require travel.
My husband also picked a career path in teaching which would avoid moving around and long distance travel. That kind of had to be part of the package as well. Our combined income was plenty high, as it was.
But I cannot imagine how a single mother, working only low-wage or even a medium-wage job, can possibly have enough money and enough hours in the day for everything.
Traditions did work, especially when the salaries of men were high enough to cover full household costs. But once women entered the workforce, wages of men stagnated, making it close to necessary for women to work. Also, expectations of what standard of living was necessary went up. Two cars became necessary, for example. Families moved to the suburbs, where a car was needed and lawn care was an issue.
Fred, trends come and go. If you research young, college age women a significant portion of them are depressed, etc. We are biology and much/most of modern life is wonderful, much of it has been hijacked by media to sell stuff using impossibly beautiful people. It is an illusion and if one reads People while checking out of a supermarket, many of the beautiful people have lives which are a mess.
We are biology, incredibly remarkable; some of what is sold with the media is probably incompatible with biology. One will pass into history, ignoring AI, my bet is biology wins.
Dennis L.
Biology is just a fad. Civilizatiom is incompatible with biology so the latter has to go away.
Another article talking about China’s problems–this time, financial. The article by Lance Roberts talks about concerns of hedge fund manager, Kyle Bass.
https://realinvestmentadvice.com/resources/blog/chinas-economic-demise-and-its-impact-on-the-u-s/
China’s Economic Demise And Its Impact On The U.S.
According to Bass:
“We are witnessing the largest macroeconomic imbalances the world has ever seen, and they are all coming to a head in China. . . China’s economy is spiraling with no end in sight. . . “They’re sitting on 60 to 70 million vacant homes. It’s a Ponzi scheme that is finally collapsing. . . China is experiencing a slow-motion banking crisis, and capital is doing everything it can to escape.”
Roberts says,
Another quote by Bass:
“They’re not just dealing with a cyclical downturn. This is a permanent shift toward zero or negative real growth.”
. . .
This sounds like what I have been talking about. As the world’s largest manufacturer, it is terribly dependent on extracted minerals not reaching limits. As they do reach limits, they have a problem. And, if the US won’t buy as many goods from China, that is a further push down.
My wife is back from a trip to Beijing and Kunming to visit our oldest son. She had a fun time and reports prosperity and children. Domestic air travel works flawlessly. The botanical gardens in Beijing was her favor site, she really likes plants. Our son and his wife do not own any empty apartments. Wife’s mother who lives in a four floor walk up is getting an elevator retrofit. She also does not own any empty apartments.
Maybe society is divided into those who support the hopes and dreams of the nation and those who want to steal as much as they can before they run.
every society is divided that way ed
I’ll say it for you. As Donald Trump aptly demonstrates.
So guess your son is married to a Chinese
Yes, a Han of the northern plains.
Admittedly China has problems but then who doesn’t . The current world order is at an abyss . However Kyle Bass is biased because after being lauded as a great investor who foresaw the GFC 2008 has made two equally bad bets — one was against the Japanese Yen and the second is the devaluation of the Yuan . He has lost a lot of money in both cases . Highly pissed off and exaggerating . Another one is Gordon Chang author ” The coming collapse of China written ” written in 2001 . You tube avoid ” China Observer ” . The Russia-Ukr battle US- China trade war has shown that the game is not ” strength ” but ” resilience ” .
When it comes to war the question should be who can take a punch. I don’t believe the U.S is strong in that category. It’s very divided. That being said you are correct all countries are in trouble. I’m sure every day they are game planning for a new system. I just don’t know what that will be maybe digital currency?
“The Russia-Ukr battle US- China trade war has shown that the game is not ‘strength’ but ‘resilience’ .”
You may be right about this.
Dissolving debt and starting over is something that more-or-less can be done. Many countries have defaulted. Governments have failed, and new governments with different currencies and different promises have been formed.
The customary “solution” to resource-caused imperial decline is predation on other countries (e.g., WW1, WW2, and now the Ukrainian proxy war against Russia). But no matter what, and despite all moralistic excuses, plus domestic and external psywars against gullible populations, the facts of physics, ecology and nature in general perforce determine the doom of empires.
Unfortunately, too high population for resources is usually a big part of the problem. We now have very high complexity that is difficult to maintain as well.
Hey Brits == no Co2 is no beer .
https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business/u-k-ethanol-collapse-threatens-meat-beer-and-beyond
they can not afford it anyway. But I bet most companies use the CO2 made in the fermentation.
This link starts out:
Cheap, subsidized US ethanol now is being imported to the UK. It threatens to undermine several British industries that use the CO2 related to it. Threatened industries including the beer and meat industries.
I imagine there are all kinds of parallel problems cropping up around the world. Also, the US will lose part of the ethanol it has been making. There will be secondary and third level effects also.
Ethanol production last I understood is energy negative, excluding sunlight and including chemicals and diesel to produce it does not work. If it did, all farmers would run their equipment off of corn produced ethanol as the land would give a new energy gain.
This would seem to be a very great problem for American farming.
Chinese are supposed to be producing very efficient batteries for their automobiles. If this is true, on farm photovoltaics and storage in these batteries along with robotic changing would be an interesting paper experiment; it might just work. If you are a producer of diesel equipment this would not be welcome news.
On farm production and usage this way avoid storage issues as well as transmission losses.
Back in the day, coal draglines were powered by electricity, long extension cords. Hmm, make hay while the sun shines? If half the corn land which is the least productive is given over to photovoltaics for local usage, that would solve the excess corn production which ethanol production was designed to reduce.
Humans are inventive, we will find solutions.
Dennis L.
There are a lot of differences in how corn is grown. Corn grown where it needs to be irrigated uses more energy than that that does not. Also, there are different kinds of energy. We have arguments about whether it provides more energy than it uses. Quite a bit of diesel, nitrogen fertilizer, and various pesticides and herbicides go into the process.
Ethanol is made from part of the corn, and animal food (which is not very good for the animals) is made from the rest. The ethanol has to be shipped separately from gasoline, and then mixed with the gasoline near where it is sold, to make the product people buy. Try to value this whole chain is difficult.
The article about ethanol being sent to the UK claimed it was subsidized in the US. Certainly, the demand for the finished product is held up by the requirement that 10% (or in some cases more) be mixed in with gasoline, in most cases. There are a whole lot of requirements and subsidies associated with ethanol.
https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/laws/ETH?state=US
If it really were better and cheaper, all of the mandates and incentives would not be needed.
“If it really were better and cheaper, all of the mandates and incentives would not be needed.”
Yes, were that the case, farm would grow their own fuel, diesel would be obsolete unless oil from soybeans were energy positive in which case soybean farms would use their own product.
The question becomes, can solar be used directly on a farm with today’s or near today’s technology?
With mapping of soil productivity, can use of less productive land for solar/H work to provide energy for “farming?”
Farming corn for ethanol seems like a horse before the cart and I do know a bit about this because once upon a time the president of the IA corn grower’s associate was a patient with whom I talked at length. My recollection is ethanol was introduced to use excess corn production. That is not bad, I have mentioned previously that perhaps the Chinese subsidize various products at say 10% to cover losses as that gives workers a lively hood. If it costs 10% of production, that is better than welfare at say 75% of production costs. We are people and jobs give us meaning.
Dennis L.
” My recollection is ethanol was introduced to use excess corn production.”
This is pretty close to what I heard. Trying to give financial support to farmers was costing too much money. This was another way to “skin the cat.” Also, a lot of corn syrup is used for sweeteners.
This idiot wants to convert Washington into a parking lot .
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/kremlin-blasts-hostile-us-talk-nato-quickly-seizing-kaliningrad
Andrei Martayanov .
One of the things that Martyanoy says is that politicians want to fight the war, but they don’t understand what the issues really are. Money is not enough. There is a need for trained military plus munitions of various sorts.
Russia has been amazingly patient with an increasingly deranged NATO. Imagine what the US would have done if another country had turned Mexico into a proxy, which then started firing missiles into the US.
This is a good analog! But a better one would be Texas.
The area of Texas (695,000 km2) is about 15% larger than that of Ukraine (603,000 km2), the populations are similar (31 million for Texas vs. 37 million for Ukraine in 2023), and in both places the locals speak a language that is intelligible to citizens of the “mother country.” Some folks even consider Texan to be a dialect of English. /sarc
New lower oil prices for Russia from the EU:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/eu-rolls-out-toughest-oil-sanctions-yet-russia-18th-round
So Russia will get lower prices, and the market provides lower prices. Low prices are evidence of a problem of low consumption: Consumers around the world cannot afford high-priced goods made with oil.
what this means is, most of the drop in consumption will be in Europe. India will continue to do what it has done, as will Turkey and China…
Yes , India will keep on buying the crude and after refining it into diesel/gasoline send it a higher prices to EU as since 2022 . The lunatics are incharge of the asylum in Brussels . Suicidal .
Or, the EU still has the most fat available for pseudo-market reallocation to the nuclear albatrosses just like Russia may have the most marginal barrels to spare in combination with the least sovereign debt.
Geopolitics Behind the Mask (as a now-defunct, I think, and interesting conspiracy blog was called, on the Nabble platform, if anyone happened to catch that at the time).
Why do you suppose Russia doesn’t do the refining itself? Seems like one should do the value-add whenever possible.
Workers in Russia have a relatively high cost of living, with their need to heat their homes much of the year. Workers in India don’t have this overhead expense.
Also, financing new investments is very difficult, I believe. It certainly is for individuals wanting to buy a house. I am wondering if investment in refineries would have been a problem. The government of Russia has little debt, but oil companies do. It would be up to oil companies to get loans for refineries.
Suicidal is Russia. It is just a cold country that can not stand the competition of other producers with high-priced fossil fuels.
There is a lot of high-priced fossil fuels, but the customers can not afford it.
The latitudes around 45th parallel are good at accumulating carbon for agricultural purposes, there is not too much decomposition of the plant material like in warmer areas or too little decomposition of the plant material like in the cold areas. But these areas need additional energy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z24rr82/revision/2
Russia can not win, as it faces a strong opposition from the areas with more favourable climate for agriculture. Its economy is imploding faster.
Luckily, Russia is benefiting from climate change as temperate zones migrate north.
It’s also no accident that it’s the most autarkic country in the world.
It’s main problem is demographics, just like the West. Birthrates are too low.
However, as its Govt isn’t completely deranged, like most in the West, there’s a chance they can fix that.
Don’t talk about it Fred. Last week was 32-35C every day.
Arable land is not everything. Some can be gained in the North, other can be lost in the South.
Falling population and starting a war is not the sign of a good government.
Yawn , 18th sanction package . Putin is eating popcorn .
The 19th may be the last.
Since we are in an extremely financialized world, we should all forget principles, go with the flow and buy popcorn futures to front run the market. Jeffrey and Donald had certain things in common.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-sent-epstein-bawdy-50th-birthday-wish-cherishing-wonderful-secrets-wsj
Rich men have had many wives and concubines for ages. The story goes on. Trying to eliminate it is impossible.
Thank you for giving me hope. All I need is money to build my harem, apparently.
Whatever you do, don’t get Trump to help build it.
Before you know it, there will be loads of prepubescent little girls(and a single boy) running around desperately trying to avoid getting raped. Going on his court records it’s an extremely expensive past time.
Look at the ages(surely mates with Gates).
https://substack.com/@kimosboel/note/m-ef263ec8-ea71-4557-807a-4d520a52454c?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7c6fx
Appreciate your contributions on this topic Fitz. This Epstein shit is looking like a perfect, perfect set-up for the anti-Zionist Gabbard to unilaterally get the ball rolling on declassifying the Epstein list on national security grounds given that Mossad is the prime suspect in the whole saga. That would make me, for one, rather chuffed with myself.
The Hand’s already accomplished Disappearing Act is kind of being undermined by this Epstein thing. That’s because the existing Disappearing Act was only accomplished WRT the Independent and Right dissidents, but there are still the Left dissidents to work through, and they obviously have their panties in a twist because ‘oligarchy.’ But the Epstein manufactured crisis is obviously reeling back in a ton of the anti- ‘deeo state’ Conservatives. Timing is everything when bringing Left and Right back together. Gabbard spearheading a historic disclosure of Mossad compromising US national security to its core would shake the country at its foundations. It would be the nail in the coffin of Zionism. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Mossad officially got linked to 9/11 as a result, also bringing down the House of Saudi as I’ve always I thought would happen.
I feel you are going to be disappointed with Gabbard. She’s owned. You only need to look at her history to see that. Less than average, but willing. A nicer on the eye(and ear) Harris.
They’re all connected, just look at the strange case of Epstein’s first job. A job in one of the poshest schools in the US and a job that he was wholly unqualified for, but was given to him by an ex OSS officer, who’s son just happened to be in charge of the prison system on the day Epstein disappeared.
What are the odds of that?
How about Acosta, who was in charge of the first investigation and is on record saying he was told to drop it, as Epstein was “intelligence owned” and so duly organised an illegal plea deal, that amounted to nothing, apart from giving immunity to all involved.
Where does he work now?
I don’t see any meaningful disclosure happening, as that would bring down all of them(all western ss, politicians and media) and so, the very system itself.
Then again, as Klaus said “people will lose all trust in governments and institutions” so you might want to check if Gabbard was a “young global leader”.
You’ll know it’s being slowly erased if the media talks about “young women being sexually harassed” rather than the correct “prepubescent children being raped en masse”, much like Palestinian children that always just die for no reason, with no guilty party ever named.
The show must go on, so here’s a song.
https://youtu.be/ELJhKli-dmk?si=zu5Q8XxUwB5oSEW4
I wonder what’s been going on behind the curtain, while we’ve all been distracted by the show, because nothing has come out that wasn’t in the public domain in 2019(I’m getting that 2020 vibe about the whole thing).
Great, Fitz, you’ve really been following the Epstein stuff closely. I didn’t even know that it was actual pedophilia child-stuff until you started posting about it a few days ago. Thought it was just young women under the legal age of consent.
Understand that I hold no illusions about Gabbard. My job is to convincingly out the Hand to a handful of people on this planet lol – no harm done there and the Hand appreciates the homage paid. So naturally I don’t have any illusions that Gabbard is not fully controlled given her continuing role in my mind, thus far and until further notice, as the Hand’s Chosen One for spearheading the manufactured national socialist world order that’s necessary for Phase 2 of 2 of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda. The beautiful rub with Gabbard is that when her political Odyssey is complete and she’s finally free to lead, she is free to be herself: that’s why she’s the Chosen One.
You clearly think the Epstein stuff is too big to fail. I would reiterate to you that the magik Hand is bigger than you realize and, thus, may well be masterfully snaking the silver-colored Epstein ball back and forth between it’s fingers in order to ooh and aah the crowd in anticipation of finally and theatrically pinching the shiny orb between thumb and forefinger and waving the orb out to the enraptured crowd on both sides of the aisle. In doing so, the Hand theatrically displaying the orb like that passes back and forth in front of Lucifer’s eye a couple of times, just as the Fall Guy Trump himself often does, in holding out an OK sign in front of his eye. As above so below.
I think you’re right, this is the grand finale coming down the pipe. But we’re in disagreement, me and you. If the Epstein stuff plays out approximately like I think it’s set-up to then at that point you’re pretty much gonna have to be onboard with the Hand’s Disappearing Act, right?
Right, Fitz? And I want it official, too. 🖐️
Funny that the Gabbard-led Russiagate/Obamagate thing came out just a few hours after I commented about the perfect set-up for her releasing the Epstein files. A warm-up act maybe. But it annoys me that she keeps calling Russiagate “a years-long coup” instead of calling it a years-long coup ATTEMPT. Even then of course “coup”is a bit overwrought but that’s a sign of the times. Be interesting to see what comes of it. Naturally I’m wondering if this quote from her is some foreshadowing:
“Accountability is essential for the future of our country, for the American people to have any sense of trust in the integrity of our democratic republic.”
CONSTITUTIONAL Republic! howl the hardcore MAGA base lol.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/gabbard-release-more-obama-russiagate-files-cannot-fathom-how-durham-mueller-missed
You may have seen this post as well:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/treasonous-conspiracy-dni-gabbard-exposes-obama-center-trump-russia-hoax
Will anything come of this? We don’t know.
I had seen that one too, which originally came out yesterday. Seems like a sensible dad move: if you’ve got two young sons relentlessly fighting over who gets to have the remote control, you take it away from both of them and make them watch Gunsmoke. That outcome each of them can live with because the other one lost too. And who knows maybe they’ll even start to outgrow cartoons and clown shows.
tis the new Russiagate. War in Iran and we extradite the still alive Jeffrey back to DC.
Jeffrey will die for the greater good of Israel.
That one is going to be interesting; there are those demanding release, a man skilled at the art of presentation stating it is old news.
Perhaps those wishing for disclosure might be careful what they wish for; political theater anyone?
Second act, curtain goes up, the emperor is clothed, various supporting cast members find they left something in the dressing room.
Dennis L.
The number of companies at the greatest risk of defaulting are at an 11-month high, thanks to continued uncertainty around Donald Trump’s global trade war and how it has worsened credit conditions, according to a Moody’s Ratings report. In the second quarter, 16 companies were added to the cohort of businesses with the highest default risk. The group now stands at 241 companies.
Beauty products company Conair and brake kit company Power Stop are among firms Moody’s downgraded further into junk in the second quarter, given “significant pressure on their earnings and cash flow from high tariffs on goods sourced from China and other countries,” according to the report.
With market volatility, the number of companies that defaulted also increased last quarter compared to the prior period. Most were technology companies, though Moody’s expects firms in the consumer products sector to see more defaults in coming months.—–Bloomberg
We will see. Legislation seems to keep pumping more funds into the US market. While some companies will fail, with enough new money being pumped in, the system will go on–at least until some breaking point is reached.
A guess in the housing market. Mortgages require homeowner’s insurance and RE taxes must be paid, they are up significantly. My grocery bill seems to increase at various intervals. Auto repairs are extremely expensive. Farming has a cashflow problem, inputs are up, prices for commodities are down; if one wants to worry close to 50% of the US corn crop goes into ethanol and part of the soybean crop goes into diesel. I am not current but when I followed it, it took more energy to make a gallon of ethanol energy equivalent than one got and my impression is beans are the same way.
Solar for all my positive hope does not seem to work well on earth.
Our government spends $1T/100 days more than it takes in.
I hope the BBB works, one can have concerns.
Dennis L.
I noticed that new construction of homes is mostly in the multifamily sector. People are getting priced out of buying new homes. They rent instead.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/renter-nation-returns-surge-multi-family-unit-starts-permits-saves-us-housing-market
Why don’t we see bad things coming? Real foresight isn’t as simple as that
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/why-dont-we-see-bad-things-coming-real-foresight-isnt-as-simple-as-that/?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2856912_ForumStories-18July2025&utm_term=&emailType=Forum%20Stories
Article says:
The set of four scenarios given does not include declining resource availability, including oil. It also does not include major conflict among countries. It is a set of outcomes that World Economic Forum writers consider likely. They might be slightly related to these issues, but so toned down that no one would figure out what really could happen.
“Shale Sputters as Oil Slides Into Profit Danger Zone”
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Shale-Sputters-as-Oil-Slides-Into-Profit-Danger-Zone.html
Mike Shellman for news behind the news in shale .
https://www.oilystuff.com//forumstuff/forum-stuff/the-permian-shale-sector-is-officially-out-of-its-mind?utm_campaign=cbd2f687-dda4-4a66-8012-859c08274e03&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=bb17f985-bcd6-4468-9f62-827077c55bc2&configurationId=0c7918e4-eed3-467c-9b53-91a232b9568f&actionId=4aa33078-4985-36e2-45a6-78290eb56e1f&cid=fa335351-37bb-44a6-9899-f8c34b4a0f81
Another gem by Mike . Please read the comments –eyeopener’s .
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/too-important-to-be-confined-by-economics
From this link:
People are kept in the dark about what is happening, and oil prices are driven lower and lower, with each administration.
The article talks about oil companies (or their proxies) leasing land at outrageous prices to get Tire 1-2 oil areas. They also are using a more or less illegal practice of using long laterals to drain oil from adjacent undrilled areas.
I believe that part of what is happening is that oil companies, and their investors, dream of very high prices of oil in the future, because of shortages, say $200 or $300 per barrel. They also assume that their thievery can continue. Oil companies, to keep their share prices up, need to keep acquiring high-tier acreage, so the sky is the limit on pricing.
It is the fact that people believe strongly that BAU can continue indefinitely, and that it will be enabled by high prices that allow this to happen. In fact, our problem is always low prices.
“people believe strongly that BAU can continue indefinitely”.
Yes we do and should! Long may the party continue.
Only 12.4 more party years needed for me, based on current average lifespans, so let’s see if we can keep it going that long at least folks.
Thank you for your assistance.
The issue seems to be partly that the service providers are being hit hard by tariffs, but these costs cannot be passed on to the consumer.
Yossy
]
>The British empire, or the City or the Company won WWI.
In what alternate universe did it occur? USA, and Japan to a lesser degree, won the Great War. UK lost its hegemon status.
And it was kicked out of Ireland. Hardly a sign of a victorious nation.
>They finance the think tanks who write the US foreign policy that the Congress and White House rubber stamp. This what Russia and China are faced against.
The think tanks were formidable in the 1970s. Not exactly so now, everyone saying the same thing. Which is why the old Kissinger was active till he died at 100 or so.
The think tanks have gotten a lot rusty. Few of these so called great minds do not give a crap about how the enemies of English speaking countries think or aim. They produce a lot of crap so they can be put into important positions or lucrative gigs, that’s all.
And, although I don’t know about Russia, China has no shortage of those who studied with the so called think tank. They know the game.
>> The think tanks have gotten a lot rusty. […] They produce a lot of crap so they can be put into important positions or lucrative gigs, that’s all.
Finally we agree on something. Social climbers, not thinkers.
Not even that. It is where the less talented chews go, along with academia. the talented ones go to the financial world, from there branching into MIC, big pharma, tech, mergers and whatnot.
No one in the elites has any understanding of the productive economy, or of military art (Andrey Martyanov rants about this daily. He is not wrong, if repetitive). My field was and is dominated by them, but often when they take on some technical task (for the purpose of securing the funding associated with it) they end up needing the help of some lesser peoples.
London and New York are the financial centers of the world.
For a while they owned the Russian oil, when Russia privatised state assets.
The “owner” of Yukos oil company sent his shares to Lord Rothschild when he was jailed.
Team Putin outsmarted the western elite? Time will tell.
Looks like so. Not because Putin & Co is smarter, but the ‘western elites’ are not as formidable as before.
Kissinger and Brzezinski were like Stillicho and Aetius . They are gone and there are no successors since even the hinterlands are all infected by what I call the Redneck Virus, meaning a bunch of morons enjoying a consumer style lifestyle, so they don’t bring forth geniuses anymore.
London and New York are the financial centers of the world. They do not produce any oil.
The three big oil magnates of the world in 1910 were the Rockefellers, who need no explanation ; Callouste Gulbenkian, the broker of all oil transactions in the Turkish Empire; and the Nobel Family (the brothers of the creator of the Nobel Prizes) who controlled the Caucasian Oil. At that time USA produced lots of oil, but the other two were quickly swept under the rug when their oil wells were seized.
Possession is 90% of the law – Stalin
Is it possible for a digital currency to take over like xrp?
I doubt it, but I don’t know much about it. Our basic problem is a lack of physical goods and services. This cannot be fixed with currency of any kind. A parallel problem is a lack of jobs that pay well. We don’t have a way of fixing these problems.
But as long as we can make goods to trade internationally, we do still need a way to finance cross -border payments, and it might be helpful for this purpose.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/cryptocurrency/what-is-ripple-xrp/
These new crypto currencies assume that all the fiat US dollar/Eurodollar, Yuan, Yen, and Euro debts can just be magically swept under the rug and forgotten as we start a new payment system.
It’s like drilling a new well on a huge contaminated aquifer and assuming you’re going to get fresh potable water.
Yet another example of financialization. No one wants to, or is capable of, doing any useful productive work. Everyone just wants to make money.
Maybe it is a system that almost works for a very short time. It falls apart as soon as currency relativities start moving apart too quickly, or one or more currencies fail completely.
or the elders are guiding us into the next phase of growth using cryptocurrency
Useful productive work is seen as low-status.
It is discouraged socially and economically.
Services are seen as seen as useful and productive in our service economy.
And financial services have done especially well. Everyone assumes that our current bubble will be around, and continue to grow, indefinitely.