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The supply and demand model of economists suggests that oil prices might rise to consistently high levels, but this has not happened yet:
In my view, the economists’ model of supply and demand is overly simple; its usefulness is limited to understanding short-term shifts in oil prices. The supply and demand model of economists does not consider the interconnected nature of the world economy. Every part of GDP requires energy consumption of some type. The price issue is basically a physics issue because the world economy operates under the laws of physics.
In this post, I will try to explain what really happens when oil supply is constrained.
[1] Overview: Why Oil Prices Don’t Permanently Rise; What Happens Instead
My analysis indicates that there are three ways that long-term crude oil prices are held down:
(a) Growing wage and wealth disparities act to reduce the “demand” for oil. As wage and wealth disparities widen, the economy heads in the direction of a shrinking middle class. With the shrinking of the middle class, it becomes impossible to bid up oil prices because there are too few people who can afford their own private cars, long distance travel, and other luxury uses of oil. Strangely enough, this dynamic is a major source of sluggish growth in oil demand.
(b) Politicians work to prevent inflation. Oil is extensively used in food production and transport. If crude oil prices rise, food prices also tend to rise, making citizens unhappy. In fact, inflation in general is likely to rise, as it did in the 1970s. Politicians will use any method available to keep crude oil prices down because they don’t want to be voted out of office.
(c) In very oil deficient locations, such as California and Western Europe, politicians use high taxes to raise the prices of oil products, such as gasoline and diesel. These high prices don’t get back to the producers of crude oil because they are used directly where they are collected, or they act to subsidize renewables. My analysis suggests that indirectly this approach will tend to reduce world crude oil demand and prices. Thus, these high taxes will help prevent inflation, especially outside the areas with the high taxes on oil products.
Instead of oil prices rising to a high level, I expect that the methods used to try to work around oil limits will lead to fragility in many parts of the economic system. The financial system and international trade are particularly at risk. Ultimately, collapse over a period of years seems likely.
Underlying this analysis is the fact that, in physics terms, the world economy is a dissipative structure. For more information on this subject, see my post, The Physics of Energy and the Economy.
[2] Demand for oil is something that tends not to be well understood. To achieve growing demand, an expanding middle class of workers is very helpful.
Growing demand for oil doesn’t just come from more babies being born each year. Somehow, the population needs to buy this oil. People cannot simply drive up to a gasoline station and honk their horns and “demand” more oil. They need to be able to afford to drive a car and purchase the fuel it uses.
As another example, switching from a diet which reserves meat products for special holidays to one that uses meat products more extensively tends to require more oil consumption. For this type of demand to rise, there needs to be a growing middle class of workers who can afford a diet with more meat in it.
These are just two examples of how a growing middle class will tend to increase the demand for oil products. Giving $1 billion more to a billionaire does not have the same impact on oil demand. For one thing, a billionaire cannot eat much more than three meals a day. Also, the number of vehicles they can drive are limited. They will spend their extra $1 billion on purchases such as shares of stock or consultations with advisors on tax avoidance strategies.
[3] In the US, there was a growing middle class between World War II and 1970, but more recently, increasing wage and wealth disparities have become problems.
There are several ways of seeing how the distribution of income has changed.
Figure 2 shows an analysis of how income (including capital gains) has been split between the very rich and everyone else. What we don’t see in Figure 2 is the fact that total income (calculated in this way) has tended to rise in all these periods.
Back in the 1920s (known as “the roaring 20s”), income was split very unevenly. There was a substantial share of very wealthy individuals. This gradually changed, with ordinary workers getting more of the total growing output of the economy. The share of the economy that the top earners obtained hit a low in the early 1970s. Thus, there were more funds available to the middle class than in more recent years.
Another way of seeing the problem of fewer funds going to ordinary wage earners is by analyzing wages and salary payments as a share of US GDP.
Figure 3 shows that wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP held up well between 1944 and 1970, but they have been falling since that time.
Furthermore, we all can see increasing evidence that young people are not doing as well financially as their parents did at the same age. They are not as likely to be able to afford to buy a home at a young age. They often have more college debt to repay. They are less able to buy a vehicle than their parents. They are struggling to find jobs that pay well enough to cover all their expenses. All these issues tend to hold down oil demand.
Since 1981, falling interest rates (shown in Figure 6, below) have allowed growing wage disparities to be transformed into growing wealth disparities. This has happened because long-term interest rates have fallen over most of this period. With lower interest rates, the monthly cost of asset ownership has fallen, making these assets more affordable. High-income individuals have disproportionately been able to benefit from the rising prices of assets (such as homes and shares of stock), because with higher disposable incomes, they are more able to afford such purchases. As a result, since 1981, wealth disparity has tended to increase as wage disparity has increased.
[4] Governments talk about the growing productivity of workers. In theory, this growing productivity should act to raise the wages of workers. This would maintain the buying power of the middle class.
Figure 4 shows that productivity growth was significantly higher in the period between 1948 and 1970 than in subsequent years. Figure 2 shows that before 1970, at least part of the productivity growth acted to raise the incomes of workers. More recently, productivity growth has been lower. With this lower productivity growth, Figure 2 shows that wage-earners are especially being squeezed out of productivity gains. It appears that most of the growth attributable to productivity gains is now going to other parts of the economy, such as the very rich, the financial sector, and the governmental services sector.
The changes the world has seen since 1970 are in the direction of greater complexity. Adding complexity tends to lead to growing wage and wealth disparities. Figure 4 seems to indicate that with added complexity, productivity per worker still seems to rise, but not as much as when the economic system grew primarily due to growing fossil fuel usage leveraging the productivity of workers.
Figure 4 shows data through June 30, 2025. Note that productivity in the latest period is lower than in earlier periods, even with the early usage of Artificial Intelligence. This is a worrying situation.
[5] The second major issue holding oil prices down is the fact that if crude oil prices rise, food prices also tend to rise. In fact, overall inflation tends to escalate.
Oil is extensively used in food production. Diesel is used to operate nearly all large farm machinery. Vehicles used to transport food from fields to stores use some form of oil, often diesel. Transport vehicles for food often provide refrigeration, as well. International transport, by jet or by boat also uses oil. Companies making hybrid seeds use oil products in their processes and distribution.
Furthermore, even apart from burning oil products, the chemical qualities of petroleum are used at many points in food production. The production of nitrogen fertilizer often uses natural gas. Herbicides and insecticides are made with petroleum products.
Because of these considerations, if oil prices rise, the cost of producing food and transporting it to its destination will rise. In fact, the cost of transporting all goods will rise. These dynamics will tend to lead to inflation throughout the system. When oil prices first spiked in the 1970s, inflation was very much of an issue, both for food and for goods in general. No one wants a repetition of a highly inflationary scenario.
Politicians will be voted out of office if a repetition of the oil price spikes of the 1970s takes place. As a result, politicians have an incentive to hold oil prices down.
[6] Oil prices that are either too high for the consumer or too low for the producer will bring the economy down.
We just noted in Section [6] that oil consumers do not want the price of oil to be too high. There are multiple reasons why oil producers don’t want oil prices to be too low, either.
A basic issue is that the cost of oil production tends to rise over time because the easiest to extract oil is produced first. This dynamic leads to a need for higher prices over time, whether or not such higher prices actually occur. If prices are chronically too low, oil producers will quit.
A second issue is the fact that many oil exporting countries depend heavily on the tax revenue that can be collected from exported oil. OPEC countries often have large populations with very low incomes. Oil prices need to be high enough to provide food subsidies for an ever-growing population of poor citizens in these countries, or the leaders will be overthrown.
Figure 5 shows required breakeven prices for oil producers in the year 2014, considering their need for tax revenue to support their populations, in addition to the direct costs of production. The current Brent Oil price is only about $66 per barrel. If the breakeven price remains at the level shown in 2014, this price is too low for every country listed except Qatar and Kuwait.
No oil exporting country will point out these price problems directly, but they will tend to cut off oil production to try to get oil prices up. In the recent past, this has been the strategy.
OPEC can also try a very different strategy, trying to get rid of competition by temporarily dumping stored-up oil onto the market, to lower oil prices to try to harm the financial results of its export competition. This seems to be OPEC’s current strategy. OPEC knows that US shale producers are now near the edge of cutting back greatly because depletion is raising their costs and reducing output. OPEC hopes that by obtaining lower prices (such as the $66 per barrel current price), it can push US shale producers out more quickly. As a result, OPEC hopes that oil prices will rebound and help them out with their price needs.
I have had telephone discussions with a former Saudi Aramco insider. He claimed that OPEC’s spare capacity is largely a myth, made possible by huge storage capacity for already pumped oil. It is also well known that OPEC’s (unaudited) oil reserves appear to be vastly overstated. These myths make the OPEC nations appear more powerful than they really are. OECD nations, with a desire for a happily ever after ending to our current oil problems, have eagerly accepted both myths.
To extract substantially more oil, the types of oil that are currently too expensive to extract (such as very heavy oil and tight oil located under metropolitan areas) would likely need to be developed. To do this, crude oil prices would likely need to rise to a much higher level, such as $200 or $300 per barrel, and stay there. Such a high price would lead to stratospherically higher food prices. It is hard to imagine such a steep rise in oil prices happening.
[7] The third major issue is that politicians in very oil deficient areas have been raising oil prices for consumers through carbon taxes, other taxes, and regulations.
Strangely enough, in places where the lack of oil supply is extreme, politicians follow an approach that seems to be aimed at reducing what little oil supply still exists. In this approach, politicians charge high taxes (“carbon” and other types) on oil products purchased by consumers, such as gasoline and diesel. They also implement stringent regulations that raise the cost of producing end products from crude oil. California and many countries in Western Europe seem to be following this approach.
With this approach, taxes and regulations of many kinds raise oil prices paid by customers, forcing the customer to economize. Some of the money raised by these taxes may go to help subsidize renewables, but virtually none of the additional revenue from consumers can be expected to go back to the companies producing the oil.
I would expect these high local oil prices will slightly reduce the world price of crude oil because of the reduced demand from areas using this approach (such as California and Western Europe). Demand will be reduced because oil prices will become unaffordably high for consumers in these areas. These areas are deficient in oil supply, so there will be much less impact on world oil supply.
Refineries in China and India will be happy to take advantage of the lower crude oil prices this approach would seem to provide, so much of the immediately reduced oil consumption in California and Western Europe will go to benefit other parts of the world. But the lower oil world oil prices will also act to inhibit future world oil extraction because the development of new oil fields will tend to be restricted by the lower world oil prices.
The lower crude oil prices will be beneficial in keeping world food price inflation and general inflation down worldwide. Some oil may be left in place, in case better extraction techniques are available later, especially in the areas with these high taxes. With less oil supply available, the economies of California and Western Europe will tend to fail more quickly than otherwise.
Unfortunately, so far, these intentionally higher oil prices for consumers seem to be mostly dead ends; they encourage substitutes, but today’s substitutes don’t work well enough to support modern agriculture and long-distance transportation.
[8] Politicians at times have reduced oil demand, and thus oil prices, by raising interest rates.
One way to reduce oil prices has been to push the economy into recession by raising interest rates. When interest rates rise, purchasing power for new cars, and for goods using oil in general, tends to fall. Recession seems to happen, with a lag, as shown on Figure 6. Recessions on this figure are noted with gray bars.
Increasing interest rates has led to several recessions, including the Great Recession of 2007-2009. A comparison with Figure 1 shows that oil prices have generally fallen during recessions.
[9] The climate change narrative is another way of attempting to reduce oil demand, and thus crude oil prices.
The wealthy nations of the world have been spreading the narrative that our most serious problem is climate change. In this narrative, we can help prevent climate change by reducing our fossil fuel usage. This narrative makes trying to work around a fossil fuel shortage a virtue, rather than something that needs to be done to prevent calamity from happening. However, when we examine CO2 emissions (Figure 7), they show that world CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have not fallen because of the climate change narrative.
Instead, what has happened is that manufacturing has increasingly moved to the less advanced economies of the world. There is a noticeable bump in CO2 emissions starting in 2002, as more coal-based manufacturing spread to China after it joined the World Trade Organization in very late 2001.
The climate change narrative has made it possible to “sell” the need to move away from fossil fuels in a less frightening way than by telling the public that oil and other fossil fuels are running out. However, it hasn’t fixed either the CO2 issue or the declining supply of fossil fuels issue, particularly oil.
[10] The danger is that the world economy is growing increasingly fragile because of long-term changes related to added complexity.
Shifting manufacturing overseas only works as long as there is plenty of inexpensive oil to allow long-distance supply lines around the world. Diesel oil and jet fuel are particularly needed. The US extracts a considerable amount of oil, but it tends to be very “light” oil. It is deficient in the long-chain hydrocarbons that are needed for diesel and jet fuel. In fact, the world’s supply of diesel fuel seems to be constrained.
Without enough diesel, there is a need to move manufacturing closer to the end users. But what I have called the Advanced Nations (members of the OECD, including the US, most countries in Europe, and Australia) have, to a significant extent, moved their manufacturing to lower-wage countries. Fossil fuel supplies in countries that have moved their manufacturing offshore tend to be depleted. Trying to move manufacturing back home seems likely to be problematic.
The world economy is now built on a huge amount of debt. All this debt needs to be repaid with interest. But if manufacturing is significantly constrained, there is likely to be a problem repaying this debt, except perhaps in currencies that buy little in the way of physical goods.
When oil supply is stretched, we don’t recognize the symptoms. One symptom is refinery closures in some oil importing areas, such as in California and Britain. This will make future oil supply less available. Other symptoms seem to be higher tariffs (to motivate increased manufacturing near home) and increasing hostility among countries.
[11] Both history and physics suggest that “overshoot and collapse over a period of years” is the outcome we should expect.
Pretty much every historical economy has eventually run into difficulties because its population grew too high for available resources. Often, available resources have been depleted, as well. Now, the world economy seems to be headed in this same direction.
The outcome is usually some form of collapse. Sometimes individual economies lose wars with other stronger economies. Sometimes, wage disparities become such huge problems that the poorer citizens become vulnerable to epidemics. At other times, unhappy citizens overthrow their governments. Or, if the option is available, citizens might vote the current political elite out of power.
Such collapses do not happen overnight; they are years in the making. Poorer people start dying off more quickly, even before the economy as a whole collapses. Conflict levels become greater. Debt levels grow. Researchers Turchin and Nefedov tell us that food prices bounce up and down. There is no evidence that they rise to a permanently high level to enable more food to be grown.
Anthropologist Joseph Tainter, in the Collapse of Complex Societies, tells us that there are diminishing returns to added complexity. While economies can temporarily work around overshoot problems with greater complexity, added complexity cannot permanently prevent collapse.
[12] We need to beware of “overly simple” models.
The models of economists and of scientists tend to be very simple. They do not consider the complex, interconnected nature of the world economy. In fact, the laws of physics are important in understanding how the world economy operates. Energy in some form (fossil fuel energy, human energy, or energy from the sun) is needed for every component of GDP. If the energy supply somehow becomes restricted, or is very costly to produce, this becomes a huge problem.
As I see it, the supply and demand model of economists is primarily useful in predicting what will happen in the very short term. It doesn’t have enough parts to it to tell us much more.
For any commodity, including oil, storage capacity tends to be very low relative to the amount used each year. Because of this, commodity prices tend to react strongly to any fluctuation in presently available supply, or projected supply in the future. The supply and demand model of economists primarily predicts these short-term outcomes.
For the longer term, we need to look to history and to models that consider the laws of physics. These models seem to suggest that collapse will take place over a period of years, as the more vulnerable parts of the system break off and disappear. Unfortunately, we cannot expect long-term high prices to solve our oil problem.
The military parade at Peking, where the People’s Republic of China, which didn’t do too much to fight the Japanese (the KMT did most of the fighting), and other anti-Western leaders now declared their defiance which will not be easy to break, would not have taken place if USA was willing to take just half million more casualties.
A certain ex-dentist, along with many others from USA, claims Eisenhower’s decision to award Berlin to the Soviets saved many ‘American lives’, most of them barely able to spell let alone read or do other useful things for civilization, was a good decision.
Apparently Eisenhower realized he screwed up because in this Sep 7 parade at Berlin, 1945,
https://youtu.be/MqDTT7_-Hcc?si=d5IKZNBowvYh7Wts
which is called “The Forgotten Parade” even by the Soviets/Russians themselves,
Eisenhower and his British and French counterparts did not bother to show up , making it Zhukov’s show.
Those who say Soviet/Russia has ‘blood rights’ for winning world war 2 should go to the Donbass to die for Putin.
Russia is Asia, at least after 1918.
Was the lives of 5,000/10,000 rednecks worth giving USSR/Russia an eternal moral right to claim themselves the winner of world war 2? No. It took 80 years to learn that, after every single one of the 5,000/10,000 lives of English speaking two legged apes died, to realize that Eisenhower kissed Stalin’s ass for nothing.
But USA doubled down in Japan. Japan offered to surrender if it were able to maintain its 1912 borders, with Korea, Taiwan and some sections of Manchuria.
But the US leaders failed to think for the future and allowed USSR to attack Manchuria, and with less than one month’s work, USSR was eventually able to make half of Asia communist, some of the communified leaders showing up in the Sep 3 parade this year.
The world does not miss Korea or Taiwan. Keeping them Japanese would have spared USA the trouble of the Korean War, where 40,000 American lives were lost. I think China should have received the first dose of the Hydrogen bomb but that is another story.
All these talks of nonexistent technologies to save the fat asses of the Western countries are fantasies, tall tales to deny the grim reality, as the Hordes are about to end everything within 3 years.
The old guy called one.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/spacex-buys-17-billion-echostar-spectrum-supercharge-starlink-direct-cell
I mentioned this a few months back, when SpaceX went direct to cell it would change everything. An example of using solar energy directly and without interruption. Information is energy, renewables moving information.
It seems to make money, my understanding is the communication empire supports Starship, SpaceX, a work in progress.
Sometimes one will see a lattice tower with large horns alongside the road, ATT microwave. My understanding is those towers are dark, sunk capital.
China apparently returned some lunar samples, included was He3, someone here knows better than I, but supposedly useful in fusion.
I posit a constellation of satellites communicating directly with cell phones is more complex than a network of large, steel towers communicating to ultimate destinations over twisted pair. A downside: I suspect twisted pair is now more secure.
The universe is seemingly heading towards increased complexity, not the other way around. In my personal world, went from tubes to integrated circuits, IC are much more reliable but lack a warm glow and sixty cycle hum.
Dennis L.
In debt we trust . Mr B ” The debt surge ahead ” . No where to hide . Bond markets are flashing red .
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-debt-surge-ahead-3cbaaf4527ba
This is a very interesting post. Mr. B shows a correlation of between US average electricity prices and US ratios of total non-financial debt to GDP. He concludes from this that the US non-financial debt ratio needs to go up now, to keep the system in balance. The interest rate on this debt will transfer even a larger share of output to the financier class. This tends to create a Ponzi Scheme. (I would add the point, the Ponzi exists if GDP growth made possible by growing cheap oil supply is not possible).
This is a copy I made of the chart.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Honest-Sorcerer-electricity-prices-and-US-debt-to-GDP-ratios.png
I will need to think about precisely what was going on at each of the turning points shown on the chart. Growth in oil supply was slowing, for one thing. The use of debt was exploding in the early 1980s.
Putin’s advisor warns of US conspiracy to wipe out $35 trillion debt using crypto and gold market
Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/putins-advisor-warns-of-us-conspiracy-to-wipe-out-35-trillion-debt-using-crypto-and-gold-market/articleshow/123759656.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
I don’t see how this can work. USDT is 110B all told. Gold is sucked in by central banks the moment it is produced. Presumably if they want to wipe out debt they will have to control a large fraction.
This writer is putting out very high content with very detailed analysis. He claims 30 months of research before beginning,
Interestingly he talks about the system being adaptive with recursive governance as the algorithms rewrite their code in real time. We may even be approaching a governance singularity.
https://escapekey.substack.com/p/a-marshall-plan-for-ukraine?utm_source=%2Finbox&utm_medium=reader2&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
I skimmed thru the report . Nowhere does he mention energy and in the case of Ukraine I would add demographics , From 1945 to 2005 ( peak of conventional black goo) was a period of lot of surplus energy plus positive demographics in Europe . Let us not forget that Germany had to import guest workers from Turkey . My contention is that what worked then will not work now . An absolutely changed environment .
And what will be left of Ukraine will not have the leftover Ukrainian resources as most of them are in the South and East.
Why there won’t be any more continental style (WWI, WWII, Gulf War, or even UKR wars in the future due to enormous fuel requirements/logistics. The amount of wasted gasoline during WWII was obscene. It is a distant reality that will never be repeated. Future conflicts will be localized border disputes.
A fascinating documentary.
BAU tonight, baby!
Indeed, I’m chompin down on a steak like it’s 1950. No depletion here!
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UclrVWafRAI
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy: These Are The Only 5 Jobs That Will Remain In 2030!
A fascinating interview. From the 56:10 point, Dr. Roman Yampolskiy explains his belief that we are living in a simulation! But as I have asked before, who simulates the simulator? Or is it just simulations all the way down?
He sees no limits to AI. Here on OFW, though, we do see limits. We know that AI uses masses of electricity. If we ARE in a simulation, that doesn’t matter. But if we are not…
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy is a leading voice in AI safety and a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. He coined the term “AI safety” in 2010 and has published over 100 papers on the dangers of AI. He is also the author of books such as, ‘Considerations on the AI Endgame: Ethics, Risks and Computational Frameworks’.
Complexity.
Don’t natural systems tend toward complexity and not simplicity? Humans are very complex, if evolution is true, then life from bacteria or some such went from simple to complex. Earth is most likely the most complex of the planets and it works rather well.
Biology is very complex, it evolves without a blueprint except the one it writes as it goes. Last phrase is complements of Copilot. I am using AI more and more, very helpful in programming. I like the idea of writing a blueprint as it goes, that is deep and insightful; rather complex.
Dennis L.
The Americas have a lot of heavy oil that is too expensive to extract. It we could use AI to figure out a better method, it would be very helpful. We would have another source of diesel and jet fuel, among other things. We could more easily pave our roads.
We also have a great deal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. M. King Hubbert thought we would get a great deal more use out of the uranium than we have. Instead, a large share of its potential benefit has become a problem for society–we use spent fuel pools to keep it cool. Later, we hope to put it in permanent storage. But it would be a lot better if we could figure out how to reprocess it cheaply. Also, to upgrade it to the necessary level. If we could use AI to figure out what we need to do next in this area, it would be very helpful.
Even if we knew the solution tomorrow, it would take us quite a few years to implement it. At one time, the oil and gas industry was claiming that it took 17 years to widely implement any advance in extraction.
Complexity eventually reaches uncontrollable levels. No amount of imagination can save it.
The Spanish literature exploded as the Empire was entering its decline. Not only Cervantes, but also Gongira, Quevedo and others not well known outside of the Spanish speaking world.
As things got worse people relied more on imaginations. Which did not do anything to turn Spain around.
>>Hubbert thought we would get a great deal more use out of the uranium than we have
Russia claims to have closed the fuel cycle with MOX fuel? I don’t remember details. Let’s see if anything comes of that.
Canada will keep producing 4+mbpd of tar sands for quite a while, shale production can be extended into Mexico, maybe offshore and deep water production will continue its ramp, which is already large and growing.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Offshore-Oil-Is-Booming-With-Vessel-Markets-Near-All-Time-High.html
>> Offshore crude production in 2023 clocked in at 25.5 MMbpd (27% of global oil output), up 3.0% y-o-y, while offshore gas production came in at 129 Bcfgd (32% of global gas supply), up 1.9% y-o-y.
the more complex the means of extraction…..
the more expensive the oil-derived products are at the point of purchase and use…
that is the fundamental problem we face right now…..
going on about finding more oil–different oil—AI and such nonsense does not solve the problem i’ve outlined above.
When the Americans had their ‘dream’—(50/100 years ago) oil was effectively free, so it could be used in every profligate way imaginable….
now oil, whichever way its pumped….is very very expensive and getting more so each year.
This is why it has become a nightmare, with Trump at the forefront of it…(promiing MAGA and such)
If it wasn’t him it would be another nutcase. (we have one in UK too)…..
But we insist on maintaining an oil-using lifestyle, in denial of reality.—-mainly because no other option is open to us.— i can drive 300 miles fot £35—so i’m as unrealistic as everyone else.
https://www.multipolarpress.com/p/immigration-as-the-spearpoint-of-globalism
Dugin is right it is not about cheap farm labor. It is about breaking the society down into lonely, isolated, powerless animals.
Ed,
Guess: Farm labor becomes robotic, batteries charged with solar for the most part. The world is overproducing food, hunger is a very small problem not from a production standpoint.
Our diet has issues, we will solve that problem.
Dennis L.
Our diet might have issues. But humans are nit evolved to eat cardboard. Problem won’t be solved.
Ed you’re playing into the hands of those you despise most. What’s done in America is done so now you’re making a habit of it by jumping on the lagging indicator international nationalist pity party.
Collapse was always going to result in mass migration. So the Hand forced the issue by facilitating the issue in order to nip it in the bud, which is now underway. Smart. Yet we people who see the structural predicament of the civilization still want to play politics. Old habits die hard.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a famous poet in USA during the 19th century, although largely forgotten now.
He wrote a poem called Evangeline, called by Clifton Fadiman “A bad poem”. However, Fadiman was a cousin of the famous failed genius William Sidis, whose family came to USA in 1887, so it is probable that Fadiman’s family landed in USA around that time as well. Wikipedia says Fadiman’s mother landed in USA in 1892 ; no mention about his father. So Fadiman did not know jack s__t about America’s traditions and probably did not care.
Evangeline is about the expulsion of the French from Acadia, now consisting the regions of New Brunswick , Nova Scotia and parts of the US state of Maine. Long story short, the British took over that region and expelled all French from there; only some French in the island of Nova Scotia remained there. Out of the 14,000 French, 11,000 were kicked out and most of them ended up in what later became Louisiana. The expulsion was conducted both by the British and the New Englanders, but since Longfellow was a friend of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of the Scarlet Letter which is about the Northeast, Longfellow omitted the role of the New Englanders in his work.
Evangeline was a noble girl from there, separated from her fiance Gabriel. After a lifetime of trying to find Gabriel, she ends up, famililess and destitute, in a charity house in Philadelphia (after USA had become independent, obvious for the readers at that time so not specified but alien to today’s readers), where she meets the dying Gabriel. That poem was written years before Peer Gynt, mind you.
So virtually everyone who could read around the Civil War era was aware of the British (and the New England) expulsion of the French from a rather sizeable piece of land. It gradually fell into the memory hole as the American nouveau riche began to look for Britain as a model and this being one of the less honorable incidents of British (and New England) history.
So Lincoln planning to expel all blacks from USA after the Civil War is not ‘over the top’ as people nowdays might think but was actually a reasonable idea back then.
Think of Israel working to expel Palestinians, today.
With the additional difference that black people have been brought to US, while Palestinians have always lived there.
The majority of Jews living in Israel now have actually arrived from Eastern Europe after WWII.
The Band sang a very likable and very educational song about the expulsion of the Acadians and where they went. It’s called Acadian Driftwood.
‘Domestically, the asset forfeiture system, which allows police to keep up to 80% of the value of assets seized during a drug bust, incentivises local police departments to allow the drug trade to continue in their towns. The police’s share of “bags of cash” from the sale of drugs is worth more than the share from confiscated drugs. . . .
Explaining why he believes the US is targeting the drug supply rather than the drug demand, Krapivnik said, “The US government, on different levels, makes money off the drug trade.”
“All major US banks would collapse if they were denied drug money, big drug money. That’s where it gets laundered. It all goes right back to the US and gets laundered, and they’re making money off of it,” he said. “So, there’s already an incentive system in the US financial system … to support a drug trade.”
Related: Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor, The Guardian, 13 December 2009
As well as big finance, Krapivnik believes the deep state is also behind the drug trade. He mentioned two Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) cover-ups: Vietnam and the Iran-Contra affair.
To get drugs out of Vietnam, “The CIA was narco trafficking inside the corpses of dead American soldiers, heroin,” he said.
The Iran-Contra affair, Krapivnik said, “possibly helped spark the crack epidemic in the US. That’s where the CIA was importing cocaine; it was selling the cocaine in the US. Getting money from that, buying weapons from Iran, of all places, with that money and then delivering those weapons to the Contras to fight the El Salvadoran government.” ‘?
https://expose-news.com/2025/09/06/who-is-behind-the-drug-trade/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=es
Yes, fact…Michael Ruppert first exposure of this trade
On November 15, 1996, then Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch visited Los Angeles’ Locke High School for a town hall meeting. At the meeting, Ruppert publicly confronted Deutch, saying that in his experience as an LAPD narcotics officer he had seen evidence of CIA complicity in drug dealing.
Beginning in 1976, he made discoveries that led him to believe that he had stumbled onto a large network of narcotics traffickers and that the US military and the LAPD might be involved. He resigned from the force in November 1978.[1]
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pd6nZx5_Ei8
Wow!
For sure. Cartel cash kept the banks liquid during GFC. And then there’s Afghanistan.
Not that the drug demand can be targeted. It can’t. Who doesn’t want to escape the consumer gulag at least for a little while every evening or every weekend, or every chance you get, and with more consumerism?
We know that natural ecosystems encourage weeds to grow, wherever we attempt to plant chosen agricultural plants. The Maximum Power Principle says that wherever energy is available, the system will work to bring as efficient use of that energy as possible. It will encourage, what we would think of as unwanted plants to grow.
I expect that something similar happens in the real economy. As long as money can be made (that can be used to buy goods and services produced using energy), someone (or some group of people) will come up with a way to make this money. Doing so may be illegal, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the ones trying to make money in this way. Since they are part of the law enforcement system, they can stay away from being caught better than others.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens. It doesn’t get reported in Main Street Media, because that would be embarrassing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhqoTku-HAA
“How AI Datacenters Eat the World” (30:14)
640,554 views Aug 30, 2025
“HighYield x SemiAnalysis deep-dive into AI Datacenters, Gigawatt Megaclusters and the Hyperscaler race to AGI. How AI Datacenters Eat the World.”
Is “AI”, or “AGI”, generating this power, or (prospectively) consuming it?
I watched a fair amount of this video. It explains why AI Datacenters are being built next to power plants.
I end up with lots of questions.
The video talks about Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant being reopened so it can support Microsoft’s AI for the next 20 years. My question is: Where does the uranium, and the upgrading of uranium, come from?
In fact, it talks about other AI installations being built near power plants–some nuclear, some natural gas. We still end up with a problem of getting enough fuel for these facilities.
And the AI systems still need to prove their worth in doing more than helping students with their homework. Perhaps they can figure a way to get the extra heavy oil out of the ground, without consuming a lot of energy in extracting, refining it, and transporting it. This might make diesel and jet fuel much cheaper.
Hmmm, AI data centers in space, energy problem solved.
Dennis L.
Ai data centers in space. Energy coming from Helios’ behind. No problem solved.
Continuing the theme of the new age of gaslighting, see the last X video embedded within this linked article:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sacks-chamath-describe-surreal-white-house-dinner-trump-and-tech-elite
Anti- establishmentarian people eople on both the left and right don’t want to be gaslighted anymore, and that’s what the national socialisms are for. The NSs will not gaslight on anything except for peak oil. Will the NSs demagogue as necessary? Sure, but that’s just politics.
The six month old age of full-spectrum gaslighting cannot last long by nature because it is not remotely reflective of reality and investment does rely on conservatism, and this staged hot mic moment in that video represents peak — and nested — gaslighting, in which the gas lighters, Zuck and Drumpf, are nested within the Hand’s gaslighting staging of it such that even more of the MAGA base peels off and even more of everyone else becomes even more anti- establishmentarian. In reality, there is zero chance that that hot mic would ever exist to see the light of day. Same goes for the XI and Putin hot mic exchange from last week regarding organ harvesting and immortality. That was also a (double) nested gaslighting by the Hand. Which can otherwise be seen as a false flag in favor of NS.
All of which means that the sea change of false flags from being in favor of neoliberalism to being in favor of MAGAMAHA has now changed again, to hereafter being in favor of MAHA-style NSs, at least in the US, with other countries generally seeming to be following in its wake.
The hour draws closer.
We never know what is purposely staged.
I disagree. I can know that 9/11 was purposely staged. Other more subtle stagings like this one are more understandably up for debate although in my mind there is no debate because the pattern fits.
Well you can know but not with absolute certainty 😉.
If I was going to fix the US I would ban immigration, kick out of who do not have preeminent residency, create tier two cities where welfare is paid and tier one cities where welfare is not paid. Offer free relocation to anywhere in the world from tier two cities.
hmmmm
someone then, has to direct who is ”first tier”, who is ”second tier”
no doubt there would be no shortage of volunteers for this onerous task…
I dont doubt your sense of self importance relative to your comminity…but suppose someone else decided otherwise. And you found yourself in tier two?
What is the criteria?—Wealth? Beauty? Social connections? Do you have any of those?
suppose you found yourself in the second tier
It also seems predicated on the fact that ”somewhere” would be willing to take the unwanted masses from your lower tier cities.
You also ignore the fact that society is a cohesive whole—-right now, farm production is stagnating because your ”lower tier” people are afraid to go to workk.
Now
When all these people have been deported, who will harvest the farm produce?—Or take care of the sick, children and elderly?
You?—your upper tier buddies?
Somehow—I think not.
Fantasising BS—as usual. Sounds all too familiar……
The surviving pop will sort out that issue themselves
Starting with Barack Hussein Obama and Kamala Harris Gopalan would be the first steps
It is self selection. If you want welfare select tier two. If you are willing to live without welfare you may select tier one.
your thinking gets more bizarre with every telling
All those unemployed working Americans ( working class white people) will take the jobs harvesting produce, Norm.
I’m sure that is what is happening, right now.
lolololol guest
i can offer no other answer than laughter.
Lincoln had decided to return all Africans back to their homes
People who thought they would make cheaper laborers got rid of him
FDR wanted to return all the Japanese in the camps back to Japan to rebuild the country
Legal or not, those who do not belong to USA should be dumped back to where they came from. If they are mixed and hard to tell, they are dumped in the region of their choice as long as it is not north America.
You keep giving very strong opinions. Many/most people will not agree with you.
who does the dumping?
I’d never heard that about FDR—do you have further info on that?
or is it from your BS combine harvester?
There is the example of 1942
All Japanese in the West Coast vacated themselves after the locals posted threats , overt or covert, that if they did not leave within the time appointed by FDR they should expect whatever treatment the locals would inflict over them
Some of them claimed US citizenship, for the virtue of them born in USA, but if Japan won at Midway none of such excuses would have been honored
ah
from the BS combine harvester then
(too many ifs)
I knew two Germans (one was an Austrian, but it was the same thing back then) who were living in Japan with their parents during WW2.
Although they were citizens of an allied nation, they had to be evacuated from Tokyo to the countryside, where they lived in comparative comfort, for their own safety.
They were old men by the time I met them. And the message they gave me was that in times of war, it’s very easy for people to get carried away.
White “Christians”.
Could be people who could prove their family has been here since for a couple hundred years, i.e. the founding stock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stock_Americans
Although I am sure exception can be made for i realis
guest
with your replies i always hope you are using irony—-
never quite sure….
The Japanese assimilated and are generally productive. Model citizens.
And willing to die for tge Emperor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHyG9iQS2Ys
China/US friendship
Russia/Germany friendship
Says a Jiang Xueqin
If Truman decided to use a H Bomb at Mukden in 1951, Chiang Hsueh-chin would not be talking about US-China friendship since US and China would never have been used in the same sentence to begin with
Dennis L
Why are you here, this forum of Collapse Awareness.
You don’t seem to think our industrial civilization will collapse and have a very positive attitude towards our future.
I have only two impressions of you:
1. Starship, and one cubic meter of platinum.
2. Have more kids, breed like the Amish.
You may have left a thousand messages, but they are essentially saying these two things.
Sorry, we’re all going to die soon, But for some reason you have a strange obsession with letting more children die. As for one cubic meter of platinum, no one understands this nonsense.
Maybe you’re saddened by the declining fertility rates of white people in the Western world, so you’re here to persuade people to reproduce more. But is this the right place? It’s full of oldass. LOL
Did I miss something? I’m confused.
Yang.
Everything in the Universe happens in cycles. Dennis sees the need for increased complexity, either to rise higher on our current cycle, or to help with the next cycle.
We cannot only talk about collapse. We need a balance on this site.
You’re obviously not wrong about Dennis’ identitarian bargaining with Collapse but your need to say it comes from the fact that you have become polarized just like Dennis, as is obvious from your hysterical claim that we’re all going to die soon and that dying is worse than never having been born lol. If you restore some semblance of balance in your own perspective, then you can just scroll down and let Dennis do Dennis, and then return to commenting constructively and, better yet, facing the future constructively IRL.
A cubic mile of Pt is a metaphor in part. Not sure where your idea I have an obsession with letting children die comes from, without children civilization does not have a future and biology has a uniqueness in that it is self replicating.
Cheap Pt would allow cheap energy storage. Self replication is a mystery, everything is possible until one gets to the point of a self establishing genome, throw in two sexes and having them be present during the part of life where breeding is possible and it is a long shot.
Why here? Why not? Many rooms are echo chambers, I learn much from those here. I accept this is the end of the oil age, I accept photovoltaics are intermittent. Solar insolation is intermittent but life seems to have adapted.
This site eliminates doing what does not work, so try something else. I am lazy, you guys are great researchers. Thanks for the comments.
Dennis L.
I admire your generous nature with other posters.
You live in Minnesota, will you be going to hear Gail speak if she comes is there in October?
I got home from the cafe here just around 3pm and was just about to switch my desktop PC on at the wall socket when this loud high-pitched buzzing kicked off. I looked at the socket, then at my PC, where it seemed to be coming from, but, because nothing was switched on, I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. After 5 or so seconds or this I started to become alarmed, then I heard this official-type voice, and I saw that my mobile had switched itself on, just behind my PC (I never take my mobile out with me !), and the voice began to explain that it was a national alert. I realised then what it was and vaguely remembered a similar one some time ago. I went online and saw that we’d been forewarned yesterday about getting an alert, but I’d never seen that.
While online I saw that Russia had attacked a Ukrainian govt building for the first time and wondered if that was related – but the attack had come AFTER yesterday’s forewarning of today’s alert. However, I mentioned last week that Russia’s attack on our British Council in Kyiv was not an accident and that it represented escalation of the Ukraine war on Russia’s part. I regarded this as very serious and so remembered the date, August 28th, for future reference, if things get nasty for us in England or Europe. So as for the alert, I’m thinking, “why now?”, and I think that expected escalation provides the answer. After all, Medvedev has been making nasty threats, on and off, about what might happen to the UK and Europe if we do not stop our aid to Ukraine.
I discovered the American analyst Martin Armstrong online in July. He was saying then that his Socrates computer model (perhaps using AI), which monitors different factors, was predicting increased tension in August and especially so in September, which he thinks could be a prelude to World War III kicking off properly in 2026. His predictions are often good, so I expect that Putin out of exasperation might missile somewhere in Western Europe – some symbolic place, but with not too much damage. Our European leaders show no sign of backing down from aiding Ukraine with weapons and money and enraging Putin even more. This is highly serious stuff.
Back in 2014, the Americans interfered in Ukraine, as you know, encouraging the extremist nationalists to take over. Then there were the terrible clashes in Odessa against the ethnic Russians, leaving some dead – I’m sure you all know about that – which riled Putin. Back in 2022 I was astonished when the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. Never did I see those events as leading me to worry, here in the UK, about escalation and my own safety. I have never wanted to live in interesting times – just to read about them taking place elsewhere!
I was fascinated with Martin Armstrong when I saw the video ” The Forecaster ” in 2015 on my flight to India . I have been watching and following his forecasts very closely for the last 10 years . Regret , very disappointed . I would not place a bet based on his model .
https://theforecaster-movie.com/
I’ve been following Armstrong for many years. His Socrates forecast are eerily insane and he has a cycles model as well. He is forecasting the breakup of the US in 2032, China to become the financial capitol of the world and a global war in 2026 lasting into 2028.
He also predicted the collapse of the EU prior to its inception. They called him in a told them that if they did not consolidate the debt then the EU would not last. They said no to debt consolidation.
I meant to write that this was a test of the national alert system.
There’s a similar system in Japan. It’s called “J-Alert.”
The messages start with a loud buzzing noise that’s a cross between a siren and a foghorn, and then the words J-Alert! J-Alert,” followed by an explanation in Japanese of what we are being alerted about.
It is almost always a test. The system is tested two or three times a year. The only time I heard a genuine alert was when North Korea tested a ballistic missile by lighting the blue touch paper and firing it across Japanese waters.
The system reminds me of the one that the Morlocks used to corral the Eloy in The Time Machine.
The only direction humanity can take from this point is technofeudalism, with today’s tech giants becoming feudal lords encompassing the entire world, and everyone else becoming their tenants with eternally precarious state of existence.
That was how humanity lived until 1913, and the 110 plus year of binge by the unnecessariat is ending with a whimper.
By 2030 the world will be very different, with most of the posters here being reduced to their bare existences, their savings and property becoming meaningless because of rapid upheavals which will concentrate all the remaining power into the tech giants.
” will concentrate all the remaining power into the tech giants.”
These fookers depend on electricity and the grid . 🤣
Yes, and the grid, like pipelines, are not defensible. If you have lots of starving people in the hinterlands, it simplistic to assume that the shining cities and bubble zones where the technolords live will have uninterrupted and abundant electricity and fuel.
Mexicans are already tapping pipelines to steal fuel, and we are nowhere near desperation yet.
Pulling off The Hunger Games scenario is not going to be an easy task.
Whoever owns the army owns the power. The stock market value owned by the tech giants is just a number.
Thiel owns the current US-gov while Musk got thrown out on his ass. There are different ways to play the game, but now we see that being the biggest faux engineer doesn’t seem to be the winning move in the power game.
like i said years ago—in trumps first term—–
soldiers obey whoever pays their wages
EIA has posted a figure for world crude oil production for last May (83.305 mb/d) — this 1.5% below their current figure for world peak oil production (84.593 mb/ d, in November, 2018).
I sent that from my phone, & didn’t get the link in it —
That figure for last May is also 1.5% HIGHER than their figure for 2024 (82.031 mb/d) — so, 2025 might have higher world crude oil production than 2024, if that continues.
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1746057600000
” You can huff and you can puff but you can’t bring this house down ” —- The three little pigs and the wolf .
Peak oil C+C will be 2018 . All growth in oil production in the last 10 years has come from shale . Shale is exhausted — rig count is down , frac count is down .
” Halliburton reduces workforce as oil activity slumps, sources say ”
https://archive.vn/9J25N#selection-1015.0-1035.11
It seems you haven’t heard of the massive discoveries in Guyana and Antarctica, hah. I wonder what our ships are doing off the coast of Venezuela.
When I look at January – May average crude oil production for the world in thousand barrels per day, I find these amounts:
2017 80792
2018 82140
2019 82130
2020 80090
2021 75443
2022 80104
2023 82183
2024 82289
2025 82982
The year 2025 is the highest one on the list. It all depends on the last part of the year.
When I look at US oil production thought June, the month of June is the single highest month. As I mentioned in a comment earlier, the US EIA has changed its earlier forecast that US oil production would be falling this year. Now it expects US oil production will start falling in 2026.
I think we need to have some humility in what we say. Oil drillers who are running into problems will scream loudly, but we won’t necessarily hear from the ones for whom things are looking up. The world has lots and lots of heavy oil we could extract and ship, if we could ever figure out how to do it more efficiently. It doesn’t even take new oil discoveries.
Gail, do links show up in the “Recent comments” sidebar even if they are in moderation / not posted? I’m wondering, because often the links don’t work and then at some point later, they do.
OK, so the above comment is #490843, the link under “Recent comments” (added below) is also to #490843, but it doesn’t work for me now, despite the comment being on the page and not moderated. Just wondering if other people sometimes have issues with the “Recent comments” links.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/08/19/why-oil-prices-dont-rise-to-consistently-high-levels/comment-page-5/#comment-490843
And now all “Recent comments” links work. Something on the WordPress side or a plugin maybe…?
For me, what often happens is that I post a comment, press F5 for refresh, and a link to my comment appears. I click that link but my comment is not there. Then I refresh the page again, which can take several seconds, and hey presto, my comment appears. Or maybe I have to refresh the page twice before it appears. I blame this on the slow loading of the Trinity Audio version of Gail’s blog post, which appears at the top of the page.
I just realized something like that may work for me. I clicked the link, it didn’t work (brought me to the top of the page), I hit F5/reload, which again doesn’t work, then I go back to the original page, click the link again, now it works. It worked once, so I’ll have to try that again next time this happens to see if it’s a reliable workaround.
WP is like god, it moves in mysterious ways.
Your comment appears(tried sidebar and your link), but Hammurabi’s video that Gail replied to(Sykes-Picot) shows as the Wesley Clark video(both comments videos).
When you click on your recent comment, does it take to the top of the OFW page, rather than your comment?
I’ve encountered this multiple times.
Maybe WP(god) is attempting to teach us patience.
>> does it take to the top of the OFW page, rather than your comment?
Yes. And then usually some time later (at least a few minutes) those same links will work.
I think demi is probably correct for what you describe.
I also get the top of the page when I click on a comment from email. The email can be hours old, so I assume it’s a WP glitch.
I have not been paying much attention to this feature.
WP keeps making small changes. Some of them work well; some, not so well. We are never informed that there is a change taking place. The system just changes.
British humor at his BEST
https://i.postimg.cc/T1GzfLVk/IMG-20241210-103135-753.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sgS496dh/IMG-20241210-103046-124.jpg
And the oscar goes to ……
https://i.postimg.cc/NFSRRTdD/ce637e91-f1a6-4e4e-9d30-82d753333e38.jpg
The distortions of Real World Assets started with the abuse of money; ‘debt’. Leveraged debt, and leveraged assets, got us to a point of having to chew on a piece of leveraged fat disguised as a hamburger. With all teeth pulled trough msm we kept on chewing. There’s a new kid in town; tokenized assets, the value of it shoved down your throat through tokenized ‘ownership’, fighting over the crumbs. Say hello to your new masters. Turning real world assets into tokens, add a few quadrillions of derivatives into the mix, and before you know it, you are the bagholder of a failed system. De-growth in a nutshell.
As soon as we start building huge factories, trucks, homes, and devices such as nuclear power plants, wind turbines, and solar panels, we need a way of paying for them. This leads to a huge need for debt.
This debt is what gets us into a problem. For a long time (from 1981 to about 2021) interest rates were brought down. This allowed asset prices to rise and mostly hid the problem we were getting into.
But more recently, we have discovered that diminishing returns on resource extraction is causing a problem. We are getting into inflation and investors are demanding higher returns for their money. This is causing interest rates to go up. Higher interest rates start puncturing the big debt bubble that has resulted. Many people demand lower interest rates, but I am doubtful that the Federal Reserve can actually get longer-term interest rates down. They are likely to try, and the long-term interest rates will go up.
We will see.
Watch out below Gail. The system is turning risk, through a smart tokenized (KYC, Know Your Customer) into reality. And turning risk into reality means, with trillions in derivatives, a problem. Tokenized real world assets means de-growth, controlled. Poverty for many. But no other option in a overleveraged society.
How the system goes down is a big question. It seems like a lot of speculators could lose their shirts, and a lot of pension plans could go broke, but most of the system could go on.
Even if the US government dissolves, or the EU dissolves, the more local governments will presumably still have some power. There will still be some goods sold, one way or another.
The total amount of goods sold will be much lower, and this will mean poverty for many. You are right: Know your customer will become more important.
Easy fix.
Get the West to commit economic-cultural suicide, then move the action to the East.
The EU, that great bastion of Western Democracy (hah!) is showing how it’s done.
Immiserate your citizens, destroy their culture with mass immigration, ruin their health with toxic jabs. Birthrate plummets, wait a few decades – job done.
The high IQ Han use the low IQ Africans as a weapon to destroy the middling IQ Whites.
I tip my hat to the worthy race. Looking forward to Moonbase Glorious Dragon in the 2030s.
British humor at his BEST
https://i.postimg.cc/T1GzfLVk/IMG-20241210-103135-753.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/sgS496dh/IMG-20241210-103046-124.jpg
And the oscar goes to ……
https://i.postimg.cc/NFSRRTdD/ce637e91-f1a6-4e4e-9d30-82d753333e38.jpg
Welcome to the Elders Truman show stupid goyim
With a bit of delay but everything is going acording to plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x17KVOiiGfI&t=102
A zionist rabbi in Damascus after his wahhabi stooges have done their dirty job against assad , hezbollah and Iran .
https://i.postimg.cc/cJdZdzd7/IMG-20250906-234206-626.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/g2VmFpbk/IMG-20250906-234214-016.jpg
Every goyim with a brain cell knows that all the wahhabi armed groups in the mideast were created by the anglozionists and their bedouin milking cows in the persian gulf to fight iran and shias , … In the last 25 years panturkish rat and razzie actor erdogan has joined the party along with his cousin big nose aliyev.
The linked video is called,
“Sykes-Picot: How and why Britain carved up the Arab world | Roy Casagrande”
It is about how the British figured out in the early 1900s that they needed a share of oil that might be available. To this end, they decided to carve up the Middle East/Ottoman Empire so that they could get some of this oil.
The two photos are harder to interpret.
since the 1900s, oil has always been the prime contentious issue between nations
weve had a reasonable level of peace because there was enough for everyone
now there isnt, which is why conflict is breaking out all over—internally and externally
Better than world war 3 occurring all these little conflicts mean nothing
unless its you getting shot in one
https://youtu.be/x17KVOiiGfI?si=u8fVQDu6F8oQ5amv
General wesley clark : war in 7 countries in 5 years
The photos are Moshe Klein a rabbi with his ISIS/Al Qaeda , Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) pals in Damascus congratulating them for their 15 year work in destroying Syria and encouraging them to murder more shia infidels . You get a bonus in shekels and saudi riyals if you cut their heads.
Here are more :
https://i.postimg.cc/qM1rLwrj/IMG-20250907-003808-551.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/2S3DXW8m/IMG-20250907-003911-197.jpg
Douglas McGregor is doing his listening tour of America. To find out what Americans want from a new political party.
I tell you Doug we want the same generous pension and retirement medical that you and your wife have.
Without having to become a commissioned officer and then spend 20+ years going to the ends of the earth to fight the Empire’s wars?
Sounds like a good deal to me. I’ll take it!
USA Throws in the Towel?
The Trump administration is reviewing a new National Defense Strategy that would retrench the United States back to its core sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere, largely withdrawing from Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific.
This neo-Monroe Doctrine would mark a historic, isolationist pivot away from global engagement. The U.S. is already winding down security assistance in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, and appears poised to abandon efforts to militarily compete with China in the Pacific.
The result would be a world divided into three major spheres of influence: the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere, China in the Asia-Pacific, and Russia in its traditional Eurasian sphere. On the upside, the U.S. may be declining to enter a ‘Thucydidean Trap,’ enabling a largely peaceful shift to a multipolar global order.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-defense-strategy-china-homeland-western-hemisphere-00546310
Pentagon plan prioritizes homeland over China threat
This marks a major departure from the first Trump administration, which emphasized deterring Beijing.
Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s yearslong mandate to focus on the threat from China.
A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.
The move would mark a major shift from recent Democrat and Republican administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when he referred to Beijing as America’s greatest rival. And it would likely inflame China hawks in both parties who view the country’s leadership as a danger to U.S. security.
“This is going to be a major shift for the U.S. and its allies on multiple continents,” said one of the people briefed on the draft document. “The old, trusted U.S. promises are being questioned.”
The report usually comes out at the start of each administration, and Hegseth could still make changes to the plan. But in many ways, the shift is already occurring.
…. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, is leading the strategy. He played a key role in writing the 2018 version during Trump’s first term and has been a staunch supporter of a more isolationist American policy. Despite his long track record as a China hawk, Colby aligns with Vice President JD Vance on the desire to disentangle the U.S. from foreign commitments.
Colby’s policy team is also responsible for a forthcoming global posture review, which outlines where U.S. forces are stationed around the globe, and a theater air and missile defense review, which takes stock of U.S. and allies’ air defenses and makes recommendations for where to locate American systems. The Pentagon is expected to release both reviews as soon as next month.
…. Allies are especially worried about the fallout of the global posture review, given that it could pull U.S. troops away from Europe and the Middle East and cut critical security assistance programs.
A Pentagon official and European diplomat confirmed a Financial Times report that the Pentagon’s Baltic Security Initiative — which grants hundreds of millions of dollars a year to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to help build up their defenses and military infrastructure — will lose funding this year…
when the usa was awash with (effectively free) oil, they could fight a war simultaneously against three adversaries, and win.
primarily because none of those adversaries had any indigenous oil.
dim donnie doesnt recognise this basic fact of conflict when he changes the defence dept name to war dept…that will ”change everything”—-and start winning wars again.
It wont of course.
but now he’s hired people dimmer than himself, who tell him it will. (no dictator can have people around him who are more intelligent than he is)….
I’m not sure which wars he intends to fight, but the fact remains that cheap oil is no more, the USA can’t extend its reach beyond its borders, and pretty soon will not be able to extend its reach within its borders.
Hence the imminent isolationism..
Just offering basic information as it stands—easily checkable.
Eventually it will be civil war- fought over food, energy, shelter, and the right or ability to transit without getting ambushed. It will be tribalism 2.0 , only 21st century style.
You think The Walking Dead was about flesh-eating zombies? No, they were just a convenient vehicle to analyze the behavior of groups in conflict in survival situations, sometimes individuals. But I only saw the first two seasons. If there had been no zombies or space invaders to make it science fiction, the story would have been too unnerving for the masses, especially in a highly industrialized society like ours, where people have no useful skills.
Nobby Piles treats this like a Tuesday coffee morning at Meole Brace Costa , as if if he’s lecturing boomers with early stage Parkinson’s.
Look , the faction in the US represented by the current stooge mouthpiece, knows that the US can no longer project power. Cheapo missiles and drones and expensive energy and unobtanium see to that.
The reserve currency can no longer be guaranteed at all. Happening fast. BRICS is unstoppable. The semi independent Zionist mid east control project see this and is going all in for land and survival, since the US can’t back them up for much longer. They are like the Algerian pied noires , who killed 1 million Arabs before having to go when France departed.
The US is like one of those insects with their backsides looking all scary. So they can buy a bit of time when they leg it, that’s trump. They are not stupid and Nobby Piles obession with personalities undermines his obvious intelligence , and he should get his security job back at the NCP if he wants to carry on getting triggered by what the guardian et al says about the current US front man. What is it about Donald Trump that triggers boomers so much?
youve missed the point
Trump isnt the problem—he’s the symptom….as i’ve said on numerous occasions.
MAGA is economically impossible, but 80m people voted to say it was and is possible, and will be made real.—probably by divine intervention…hence the israel fixation.
Trump is now mouthing war threats against an American (Dem) city—just as I said he would, several years ago. As the USA disintegrates, civil war is inevitable.
You obviously missed the SCOTUS gift that puts him above the law.
but don’t let me hinder your particular level of delusion. (whatever it is you are banging on about).
In the UK Farage is peddling the same hysteria…Trump-lite—and people are believing him too.
It’s like an AI version if the BBC view of world geo politics. Unbearable. Nobby Piles has taken too many trump fixation laxatives.
lol
as you wish
Peaceful relation with all. Entangling alliances with none.
lol ed
i have nominated you for the nobel prize for optimism
The US doesn’t have oil to continue all of these foreign entanglements.
It needs to focus internally more. This would be a good move.
No one really has the materially to fight a World War now. We are headed toward more local wars.
when the internal focus is by an individual intent on looting the country for his own profit—-and imposing authitarian regime to do it…
the outcome will not be good…..
Fake news Bullshit like the Al Saud milking cows abandoning the petrodollar , the entire oily middle east except Iran is a CENTCOM military colony and with the fall of Syria nobody is gonna Kick them out of Iraq.
See whats happening in Lebanon with the bribed with petroriyals goverment taking orders from the USA embassy .
“A 20-year study on the effects of reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone National Park found that removing the apex predators has caused far more damage than expected to the park’s ecosystem.”
What happened?
Colorado State University researchers launched the study in 2001 to determine if bringing gray wolves, grizzly bears, and cougars back to Yellowstone’s northern range would help its food web and ecosystem recover, according to the university’s summary of the study.
The nonprofit Yellowstone Forever explained that these large carnivores had been eradicated from the park by the 1920s in an attempt by the U.S. government to control the predators’ populations.
However, without predators to keep the ecosystem balanced, elk numbers skyrocketed to unsustainable levels, which led to the decimation of willow and aspen trees along small streams. In turn, beavers that used willows as a food and shelter source left the area, which meant the trees’ root systems no longer benefited from the flooding caused by beaver dams.
Scientists thought the reintroduction of wolves to the park in 1995 would allow the animals and plants to recover from the cascading effects of losing apex predators, but they found it wasn’t that simple, as the summary stated.
While cougars and grizzlies have made a comeback, bison herds have replaced many elk. Since they share the elks’ food sources, willow and aspen trees remain threatened.
“When you disturb ecosystems by changing the makeup of a food web, it can lead to lasting changes that are not quickly fixed,” Tom Hobbs, lead author and professor emeritus with the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, said in the report.
Why is this concerning?
Unfortunately, what’s happening in Yellowstone is just a glimpse into what happens when ecosystems get disrupted globally.
Eliminating crucial Yellowstone species harms water and food sources for animals and impacts the entire food web. While the ecosystems can recover, as the researchers noted, it can take decades for them to be fully restored.
“The conservation message is don’t lose them in the first place,” Hobbs said. “Keep the food web intact, because there’s not a quick fix for losing top predators from ecosystems.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/researchers-adverse-effects-apex-predator-101000730.html
yup
if it aint broke—-dont fix it
Thoughts on plate tectonics? God rearranging the furniture?
Dennis L.
dennis
you must be trying to make a point—I’m not sure what it is
are you?
I loved that comment, Dennis.
Don’t mind Norman.
He just doesn’t get it.
Respect Predation.
The wolf doesn’t preform in the circus..
wolves built the circus and hired cubs to run the show. consider the barkers and vendors and game operators to be predating on the happily gullible patrons.
Ecosystems are constantly changing. Even if humans hadn’t been bringing back gray wolves, grizzly bears, and cougars back to Yellowstone’s northern range, the ecosystem would still be changing.
Our do-good efforts aren’t all that helpful. We like to tell ourselves that we know what is best, but we really don’t know. Ecosystems are self-adjusting by design. It may be decades, but that is the way nature works.
Wolf tourism pumps $35 million dollars a year into the local economy. That , by itself, distorts both the local economy and the ecosystem.
New Zealand: Strain of winter illnesses leaves Christchurch Hospital like a ‘mass casualty situation’
“Christchurch Hospital’s emergency department is seeing record numbers of patients as the grip of winter illnesses tightens, with senior doctors likening it to a “mass casualty situation” and at one point considering putting up a tent to help with triage.
“A newsletter sent to members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) revealed that senior doctors said ED “was feeling like a mass casualty situation”, with difficulties getting patients discharged or transferred due to a lack of allied health, rehabilitation or community-based support services.
Sarah Dalton, executive director of the ASMS, said there had even been consideration to erect a tent at the hospital that would be used to triage patients coming into ED, but it was ultimately decided against.
Within the last week, The Press was supplied with photos taken in ED showing patients being treated on beds lined up in corridors.”
https://archive.md/X2JqR#selection-879.0-921.99
Western nations have very few excess hospital beds, because “efficiency”, so they are always at risk of being overloaded. I looking up bed count per capita some years ago. So always be skeptical of “overflowing hospitals” as evidence of a new illness being truly severe.
In New York state if you are homeless and show up at the ER they must give you a bed for the night. I was told a story of a lady who had to spend three nights in the ER before they had a free bed in the hospital (80 miles north of NYC on the Hudson).
Everything is free for the chosen diversities.
Lotta small-minded big C Conservatism up in OFW the last 24hrs. People must be getting uncomfortable with Collapse and going into Shadow.
It ain’t gonna be the homeless clotting up the system. (no pun intended)
I don’t know about that, but think about it this way: CEO doesn’t see a problem with poor patient experience or overflow as long as it doesn’t show up on the balance sheet.
USD 340 Million to drill 10 wells is USD 34 million a well . FUBAR .
Despair, the decline is merciless…
” The data in the article seems to be read only by four “geeks”.
https://jpt.spe.org/egypt-inks-340-million-in-contracts-to-drill-10-wells
The Joint Organizations Data Initiative reported a drop in Egypt’s monthly gas production in May to 3.5 Bcm, about half of the 6 Bcm per month that flowed in 2021. The decline is largely attributed to water infiltration and depletion at key fields like Zohr and aging infrastructure at mature fields. ”
Merci ,Quark .
Mostly offshore. The 4 onshore wells are supposed to be drilled for $14 million total, or 3.5 million each, very reasonable. And $109 million of the total is not for drilling, it seems, but ongoing operations? I’m not really clear on that part.
Ivan , these are pure gas wells . Consider the oil/price ratio . Uneconomical . ”
” he oil to natural gas price ratio indicates how expensive oil is relative to natural gas, with the ratio currently at approximately 24.74, up from 23.75 the prior day but down significantly from 40.83 a year ago, according to YCharts. Calculated by dividing the price of a barrel of oil by the price of a standard unit of natural gas (like $1 MMBtu), this ratio influences investment and production decisions, as a high ratio suggests oil is more valuable, prompting shifts in drilling activity. ”
Oil is a whole lot easier to ship and store. It is much more energy dense. It can be used in many more applications. It makes sense that it costs a lot more. Doing expensive drilling for high cost natural gas is hard to justify.
This ‘oil to natural gas price ratio’ is misleading. One MMBTU of natural gas contains roughly 290 kWh. But one barrel of oil contains around 1,600-1,700 kWh. This is 5.5-6.0 times as much energy as a MMBTU.
1 kWh of oil is therefore worth 4-5 times as much as 1 kWh of natural gas. Significant, but not quite 25.
https://x.com/GabeZZOZZ/status/1963925229014851813
> I’m pretty sure they’ll have a much more prosperous future than America’s allies.
>> Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump · 11h
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! — President Donald J. Trump” <
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G0I2IQBWEAAtBUR?format=jpg
Russia and China yes. India, I am not sure it will be a troyan horse or anchor. In the BRICS there is Russia, China, and various smaller resource rich countries. Then there is India. Not sure what it contributes and ehat its role will be. To answer also your other post, if I were China I would mind not losing Venezuela and Brazil as much as I would mind India. and if it is true that they are retrenching (no other choice really), They will focus 100% on Latin America and get it all back.
India will be neither , but a disaster . Modi at SCO was pure optics . China does not take India seriously . Modi was not invited for the big parade , he was there only for the summit meeting .
Modi desires to be in the good books of DJT . After 6 months of humiliations by DJT ,yesterday DJT said ” Modi will always be my friend ” and within 1 MINUTE Modi tweets his appreciation and reciprocates his feelings .
India is now in a rock and a hard place . Trump’s tariff will lead to 2 million unemployed in Gem-jewellery , textiles and leather industry and there are no replacement markets waiting to fill the gap . In the meanwhile Indian industry is entirely dependent on China for material input . China has a USD 99 billion trade surplus with India . Entire electrical/electronic, pharma , auto industry will be wiped out if China clamps down on the exports .
In the meanwhile we have a major CC crisis . The recent floods in the bread basket of India have destroyed 60% of the rice crop that was planted . The farmers in India are small farms ( holding between 1 acre to 5 acres ) . How will they recover ? 800 million surviving on free rice and wheat ? From where will the PDS get the rice ?
Modi has allowed the duty free import of cotton from USA which is a nail in the coffin for the cotton farmers , who have the highest suicide rate in India .
https://theprint.in/india/punjabs-paddy-farmers-are-staring-at-big-losses-why-flood-impact-may-spill-out-of-indias-rice-bowl/2737366/
https://www.mitrade.com/au/insights/news/live-news/article-3-1077278-20250829
PDS = Public Distribution System used for distribution of free food .
Ravi, is the linked publication worth reading for insight on Indian politics/society?
I do have a particular interest in PB, so no problem if it’s slanted that way(as long as I’m aware).
Updates and links always welcome.
A deaf mother drowned her two daughters and set their apartment on fire. She had been in conflict with her deaf husband. She told the police that she had planned the act, and it was revealed that she had attacked her husband before.
https://www.noviny.sk/krimi/1097119-v-bratislave-hori-byt-dve-deti-su-vo-vaznom-stave
https://domov.sme.sk/c/23540335/zena-ktora-utopila-dcery-a-podpalila-byt-uz-predtym-napadla-manzela-lekari-hovoria-o-psychickej-poruche.html
Just watched video on declining births in Greece. In the video it seemed about half the kids in kindergarten were African-Greeks. I wonder how many nations have significant shift to African from former race?
“I wonder how many nations have significant shift to African from former race?”
Pretty much the whole of Western Europe. France and the UK are on the verge of needing a bailout from the IMF, partly from immigration and an unproductive workforce. That comes from London based Alexander Mercouris. Germany is in the same boat and pretty much the entirety of the EU who encouraged open borders.
As they say, collapse is not an event but a process.
Economist Martin Armstrong blames Angela Merkel for putting the EU in a bind.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/sovereign-debt-crisis/is-the-deep-state-killing-afd-candidates-why/
Perhaps it is fortunate that everything seems to move at a snail’s pace. While it seems obvious that Starmer is shirking his duty and spending too much time on defending Ukraine from Russia, it still seems to be a narrative that “sells well” to quite a few people who have had faith in this narrative for a long time.
We can expect to see a change in France after the election on Monday, but we don’t know how big it will be. Germany is having difficulty too, but it is difficult to step back too far from where they have been.
Trump’s Racialized Rhetoric and Geopolitical Failures
> Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump · 11h
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together! — President Donald J. Trump” <
Trump has once again lapsed into racialized language—this time invoking the phrase “deepest, darkest”, a term deeply rooted in the colonial and racist ideologies of the Age of Empire (1880–1914) and the Scramble for Africa. Originally used by European imperialists to describe Africa as mysterious, uncivilized, and in need of Western control, the phrase carried clear racial and cultural contempt. Its use today, especially in reference to a modern Asian state like China, is not only historically illiterate but blatantly offensive.
More broadly, this tweet reflects the consequences of a deeply flawed U.S. foreign policy: one that has alienated major global players like India, Russia, and China, pushing them closer together in response to Washington's attempts to isolate, manipulate, or confront them simultaneously. This was a predictable outcome, long warned about by diplomats and analysts.
Instead of reflection or recalibration, we get tantrums—or perhaps, a Tantrump—from a leader unable to accept the geopolitical reality he helped create. The casual racism only underscores the level of desperation and immaturity.
Trump is not simply a foreign policy failure—he is a humiliation on the world stage. A man fundamentally unfit for diplomacy, reduced to hurling colonial slurs at sovereign nations, all while blaming others for his own missteps. And yes, Indians will have understood exactly what that phrase meant.
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” seems to have its opposite. Once the system tries to swing too far in one direction, candidates that offer a swing in the other direction seem appropriate.
The Maximum Power Principle seems to suggest that evolution is in the direction of the best adapted to the current situation. The best adapted for digging ditches are not the same as the best adapted for writing computer programs. The system will sort itself out, even if it is not to our liking.
What many people miss is that decades of affirmative action, quotas, DEI etc mean that all those people who should have been hired on merit weren’t and their place were filled by the incompetent.
Hence the delusion and incompetence now entrenched in Western organisations, especially government. The inability to achieve anything useful at a viable cost is evident everywhere.
I was just telling someone about this, having been in academia during the height of the nonsense. I know many examples of people who got professorships based on immutable minority or gender characteristics who had no business whatsoever being there. They were far below par and will weigh the system down for decades with their own substandard work and the loss of good work by those who merited the positions.
In Minnesota, DEI hires, “librarians” who could barely read.
Given the state of Minnesota dentusts, better atvkilling lions or spreading delsions, i am not surprised.
Just linked to the “Empire of Dust” movie at Gail’s substack. At the YT site of this particular instance of the film, I found the following comment:
“My workplace sent me to Africa to shut down our factory there and move it to another country. We were sending most of the parts to the factory from different countries since there is no supply chain locally and then assembling them to a finished product there for resale, which employed about three hundred people across shifts and adminstration and doing so negated any import duties and provided the product to market at a good price. HOWEVER, more parts went in than product was produced and eventually the loss rate was over FIFTY PERCENT and we found that the workers ran second ghost shifts and resold finished product themselves from the stolen parts….. Had to take in a big security team and a convoy of heavy equipment and trucks to strip the whole place over a holiday weekend and drive everything straight out over the border non-stop including our own fuel staging along the route. THATS how bad it got…. ten years ago.”
Things are what they are, “colonial slurs” or no.
China will stay in Africa and, in time, they will learn to work with what is there, if they haven’t already. That could mean exclusively Chinese workers, but whatever the case, China needs the resource inputs and will move heaven and earth to get them while fossil fuels are available to drive extraction.
I saw some other comments on the documentary, which was apparently released a decade ago. They said things have improved a lot in Africa in terms of the business and project dealings.
China will stay, because they are invited and willing to do deals that allow knowledge transfer to African nations, as witnessed in Burkina Faso, where Ibrahim Traore’s government have been busy rewriting legal codes to stop the plunder.
https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2024-08-21/burkina-faso-new-mining-code-adopted-2/#:~:text=The%20updated%20code%20provides%20for,structure%20for%20site%20security%20(art.
Real trust comes from action, rather than meaningless words and the world is fully aware of the worth of white man’s words(and our subsequent actios).
They are also doing a nuclear deal with Russia and we will see more of these types of deal springing up all over Africa(already well underway).
Things are changing and our free lunch is coming to an end. No more, will a nation like Germany, a nation that grows not a single coffee bean, make more profit from coffee than the whole continent of Africa, a continent that produces masses of the finest coffee known. Africans were after all roasting and drinking coffee long before we ‘discovered’ them and it, so what value do we add.
Mirror, I am surprised Norman hasn’t given you a “Like” yet on the strength of your anti-Trump rhetoric alone. Although you shouldn’t expect one from Kulm, who sees darkness and despotism everywhere east of the Elbe.
Africa and China were pretty “dark” until Western inventions such as the lightbulb helped light their mud huts and shacks, so it was an apt description back in the colonial days. Arguably, Westerners should have left such places well alone and left the natives to their own devices. Whether China or Africa can be reasonably described as “dark” today is another matter. Most of China and some of Africa are now brightened by LED lighting.
But are they perhaps “dark” in other ways?
The classification of societies into “high trust” and “low trust” categories is a useful framework for understanding social dynamics, economic behaviors, and governance.
High trust societies are typically characterized by strong social networks, mutual cooperation, and a robust rule of law. Trust in institutions (government, legal systems) and fellow citizens is generally high. Examples include the Scandinavian countries, where social welfare systems and low corruption foster trust, and this category can be considered to broadly encompass Europe north of the Alps and West of the Elbe. I would even venture to stick Ireland in there, although Kulm might rebuke me on that account.
Low trust societies, by contrast, are characterized by weak institutions, high corruption, and significant social fragmentation. Individuals may rely more on personal connections and informal networks rather than formal systems. Examples might include countries with ongoing political instability or high levels of crime. I would put most of African and much of south and east Asia—including China—in the low trust category. The rule of law in China doesn’t equate to justice for ordinary individuals there.
Moreover, many societies can be classified as “medium trust,” where levels of trust are neither particularly high nor low. These societies may exhibit a mix of strong and weak institutional trust, leading to varied behaviors in different contexts (e.g., high trust in local communities but lower trust in national institutions).
A lot of formerly high trust societies have recently descended into medium trust territory. Checking your own negative attitude to the UK Government or the appalling level of crime in some cities there should inform you that the UK is at best a medium trust society today and well on the way to low trust status—a dark future, if I may put it that way.
Your cries of racism are what? What are you trying to point out by them and what are you trying to explain?
Are we to be prohibited from examining, investigating, researching, analyzing or commenting on different societies or countries because people of your ilk find such things offensive?
Are the fields of cultural and social anthropology inherently racist, because they point out that there are cultural and social differences between people of different cultures and societies?
And, lastly but not “leastly”, don’t you think Trump was simply trolling in order to stoke the ire of his liberal, leftist, progressive, woke opposition so that Breitbart and right wing influencers could publicize their reactions to appeal to Trump’s base—the Trumpenproletariat?
“Oh, look at those leftists. They do nothing but gripe. And they’re not very bright…..”
By the way, have you ever heard of Ways That Are Dark, an exposé of the Chinese mindset by a US diplomat in the 1930s? All I can say is, don’t head to Peking without it!”
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/WAYS-THAT-ARE-DARK-TRUTH/dp/B0006QY4WS
From the reviews:
“This is one of the best books I’ve read on China and especially on Chinese characteristics. It was written in 1933 but is still valid; more so, now that the Communist China has become one of the major powers of the world. The political system has changed but I don’t think the nature or the character of the Chinese has changed with it which manifest itself in their views on, and actions in South and East China Seas, in Tibet, Xinjiang and elsewhere . All politicians and businessmen dealing with Chinese should read this book and take heed, so they don’t make mistakes at the risk of securities both political and economic of their countries involved. The book was republished in 1997 for good reasons. It is highly recommendable.”
Ways that are dark is another classic which gell ibto the memoru hole.
I believe that Mirror is correct, as reading Trump’s script writers words, my first thought was Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which was surely the intent.
I assume you are joking about ‘high trust’ as western Europe(and various colonies) for at least the last 500 years has broken every word they’ve ever uttered. Just ask the Russian, Iranian, indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi, Venezuelan and well, everyone else.
As Mike Pompeo said, we lie, we cheat, we steal(he could have added rape and murder on a truly industrial scale, but that would have shone too much light on our dark hearts).
“High trust” in this context means trusting your neighbor/community, not international relations. I think most here understand the geopolitics better than your average Joe and would agree with you.
On a related point, several years ago, Mirror fought I was being incredibly naive when I suggested that a good strategy to get on in business and in life was to be fair with other people, kind, generous, supportive, even forgiving. I can’t remember word for word, but that was the gist of my philosophy. Mirror sees the social world in much darker tones than I do. For him, being kind, generous and forgiving is apt to get you in trouble as other people will think you are a soft touch and take advantage of you.
But that strategy has worked very well for me.
Over the years, using kindness, generosity, forgiveness, and other virtues such as keeping my promises, doing a good job, delivering on time, and never over-charging, I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.*
But Mirror did have a point. Being kind, generous and forgiving in certain situations is apt to get you in trouble. It can even be an own goal. It works for me most of the time because I was born and raised and have always lived in a high trust society, where I can trust my neighbors and my community.
There are people I can’t trust, but the community generally keeps me aware of who such individuals are through gossip, rumor, and the like. In a high trust society, maintaining a good reputation is essential.
In a low trust society, things don’t work in the same way. Being kind, generous, and forgiving can lead to several disadvantages:
Obviously, others may take advantage of your kindness, manipulating you for personal gain without fear of reprisal. And in environments where reputation is less valued, being generous is more likely to be perceived as weakness, making you a target for further exploitation.
In low trust societies or low trust communities, kindness may be seen as naivety, leading others to doubt your strength or resolve, which can undermine your standing within the community. Likewise, acts of generosity may not be reciprocated, and may be taken as an invitation to demand more.
In the formerly high trust societies of Europe and North America, there were always plenty of low trust communities whose members trusted each other but didn’t trust outsiders, but as a whole, there was a high level of trust that almost all the members of the society would abide by certain social rules and mores. In low trust societies, it is dangerous to make such assumptions.
After thinking about Mirror’s comment about my naivety, I concluded that he/she was born and raised and lives in a lower trust society than the one I was born and raised in (postwar UK) and the one I currently live in (Japan). So it is natural and reasonable for him/her to think that way.
In today’s UK, according to acquaintances, if you leave your smartphone on the table in a cafe in a major city, it is likely to be stolen the moment your attention is elsewhere—particularly if you look harmless, naive and vulnerable.
In Japan, by contrast, even in a major city, if you leave your smartphone on the table and walk out of the cafe without it, there is a very good chance that it will be returned to you. Some ordinary person will point it out to the cafe staff, who will call the police or hand it into them, and they will contact the owner.
This isn’t considered to be particularly kind or considerate, although obviously it is. It is just the result of the basic ingrained social conditioning that the Japanese still receive—the sort of training that most Westerners used to receive up until I was growing up, but which seems to be much less ingrained these days.
I would hope that most people in the West would still hand into the police a lost smartphone or handbag or wallet or brown paper envelope stuffed with fiat currency if they found it, but I know that a significant portion of them would steal the item and try to profit from the theft—and that is one reason why the West today consists at best of no more than medium-trust societies.
*This is a quip of Groucho’s, by the way. I am currently solvent and free from want.
Fitz, you and Mirror may well be correct regarding Trump’s rhetoric.
Perhaps this Trumpian “racialized” language, which sounds so out of place in 21st century statespersonship, is a conscious step back into the Age of Imperialism that most people think has been over since the Portuguese left Angola and Mozambique, or the Boers (once one of Imperialism’s biggest victims) gave up South Africa to darker-skinned tribes, or at the very latest since China took over Hong Kong and Macao.
“Deepest, darkest China.” It’s positively orientalist in its tone. What could the Don (or his speechwriters) be talking about. Was he perhaps speaking in code, or even in tongues?
What do the words mean to the rest of the Trumpian regime? (Surely he doesn’t run an administration, unlike normal Western country leaders, but a regime, like any self-over-respecting oriental despot.) What do they mean to the leaders of other Western nations—the so-called vassals? What do they mean to the leaders of China, Russia, India, the other BRICS members, and the rest of what used to be called the Second and Third World nations?
What do they mean to you, to Mirror, to Kulm, or to me? Should we even have noticed them? Are they even worthy of our attention?
But of course! They are significant words, yes? Signaling Trump’s attitude to China, which if I could sum up in one word it would be contemptuousWays That Are Dark and absorbed the lesson ascribed therein that it is impossible for people of other nations to have a relationship of equals with the Chinese and so he has opted to force the Chinese kowtow to him in order to avoid him having to kowtow to them?
Obviously, he has never read Edward Said’s Orientalism or he would have learned to have some shame and mind his language.
Or, as I said before, perhaps Trump is just trolling—not just Trolling the Chinese, but trolling everybody?
A third possibility is that he is simply an almost 80-year-old white American who is a product of his time that grew up on tales of the Fu Manchu vintage in which Chinese and other East and Southeast Asians were stereotyped as inscrutable heathens who were inscrutable, unreliable, devious, and devoid of compassion, and so for him, he was just speaking his mind without realizing what an irredeemable white supremacist pig he is?
And for all I know, almost all national and international leaders everywhere are almost equally “racialized”, making crass racially insensitive comments about people of other nations, cultures, classes, creeds and ethnicities non-stop in private company but observing the current “woke” decorum in public. Trump may simply be less hypocritical or less tight-lipped than most because he comments such things are humorous and, being a narcissist, it pleases him to make such comments and get noticed for them.
You, and Mirror, and Kulm, and Xi Jinping may well all have your own “takes” on this. But one thing I am sure of is that Trump loves it when he is the center of attention and is living inside everyone’s head. He’s having a ball.
I’m sure he is having a ball Tim and in the end he’s an actor, reading(badly) from a script.
New script now in and he’s backtracking.
If you pulled the mask off, would you find Biden underneath.
Equally incoherent and both have an ugly disposition towards unwanted acts on children.
Business of the future — demolition expert and scrapyard dealer .
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/six-flags-faces-bankruptcy-fears-after-500m-debt-and-park-closures
Another type of business failing!
There’s a theory floating around that Six Flags was deliberately mismanaged by corporate raiders.
When a lot of people participate in an activity, it is more likely that there are people whose goals and behavior deviate from the majority. For some capitalists/ investors/ entrepreneurs, capitalism is the means to an end.
Gold nearing $3600
https://goldprice.org/
WSJ showing $3652.
Front month futures at $3652.
Spot is $3593.
Lack of confidence in “paper wealth” — but, can you eat gold, or power your car with it?
I say, buy things you can use now. Eat a nutrition diet. Get plenty of exercise. Take care of your own health. Expect the money you have, and government promises, to be either “worth less” or “worthless.” If possible, learn skills you can use. Build good relationships with family.
Yes, exactly. Skills are important and also “tools.” Tools are not cheap.
Dennis L.
Good point.
I am long tools. I buy two of everything (should buy three).
Hopefully they are hand tools. I have a lot of skills and tools. Spent my whole adult life working in the trades. The things I find easy are really difficult for office people
Hyperinflation could really hurt older retirees. Pensions will be worth half of what people thought they would make.
I think that pensioners will be lucky to get the equivalent of half of what they are getting now.
Gold rises when there is a lack of confidence in government. That is according to economist Martin Armstrong who has studied gold for decades and discovered that’s when gold tends to rise.
I remember my parents living through the crazy inflation of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Our basement was full of canned coffee and aluminum foil. Unlike today, though, basic investments like CDs were somewhat keeping pace with inflation. I have a bank slip of my grandma’s noting a CD rate of 14%.
My husband recently told me my mom’d indicated to him: “if it comes to the point of having to rely on gold, that’s the end”.
‘Imagine adding a couple of zeros to your current financial position. Are you wealthy? If you’re not employed, who covers expenses like property taxes, insurance for luxury cars, healthcare, and an expensive lifestyle? If you are not covered, the government collects taxes. How long could you survive?’
The wealth effect makes me doubt that there is intelligent life on Earth.
Seen in Utah.
ICE is now marching through suburban neighborhoods, conducting home raids.
Their budget is now bigger than that of the Marines, and the entire military budgets of Israel and Russia.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you..
https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/1943737719831548265
Bet they soiled their magic Mormon underwear!
if thats a genuine picture mob—and i’m assuming it is.
i’ve been warning for months that the usa is staring into the abyss of full on dictatorship.
been laffed at by various other inmates in ofw—but there it is
Trump must kill the electoral system by 2026—certainly by 28, this is the ’emergency’ he’s creating by which he is doing it.
i said, again and again—soldiers follow whoever pays their wages….
project 25 mean theocract dictatorship—the godnuts are already putting it in place…..
Trump is just the figurehead—the symptom.
he is not the disease.
It was coming, one way or another.
If Kamala Gopalan had won USA would have a civil war by now.
silly
Source?
Gopalan would not have been able to keep USA united.
neither will anyone else.
nations are held together by the availability of indigenous energy
politics has nothing to do with it
That sounds kind of racist, Norm.
you lost me on the racist thing lidia…
every nation is underpinned by its indigenous energy structure, race is incidental to that.
a nation with a purely agricultural economy cannot impose itself on others, unless it can raise an army and sustain itself by looting—which can work for a while.
one with an industrial economy can–the british empire is a perfect case in point
Norman, what you typed is not just silly, it’s down right ignorant!
Nations are held together by cultural bonds, national symbols, shared history and experiences, and that sort of thing.
In Japan, for instance, they don’t have significant “indigenous” energy, but they have an awful lot of Wa!
It takes huge energy supplies to keep the current system operating. It is a whole lot more efficient to have on major leader, with only a little support staff.
An awfully lot of what we have had in the past and what has been promised for the future cannot really be available. Somehow, this problem must be worked around.
I agree—the promised future cannot be sustained—that much is obvious
unfortunately donny has promised MAGA
Which is the manna of the gullible.
When MAGA is seen as the future only for the privileged, all hell is going to break loose.
This is where military suppression will kick in, the dictatorship will start as a reaction to that ’emergency’.
Your ‘major leader’ will be an absolute dictator, with absolute authourity.
He’s already talking of extending the death penalty, prison for burning the flag.
I hope you are ready for that. I would find it scary.
My vote goes to civil war in the UK before the US.
Despite his deranged machismo, Trump has access to resources. Starmer is just a wet, hopelessly incompetent, globalist puppet obsessed with Ukraine, taking UK right over the cliff.
Starmer just appointed a Pakistani muslim female as Home Secretary (overseeing migration among other things).
Maybe someone smarter than me can explain this: why, on the one hand, do we have Israel and DJT bombastically attacking Iran for purported immanence of nuclear WMDs (30-40 years of the same breathless scare from Bibi)…
YET, the entire nuclear-armed country of Britain is being handed over to an Islamist rabble on a silver platter, with added concierge and valet service?
The Corporation are not and have never been of a mind to hand anything over. That won’t happen.
What you are witnessing is the age old art of passing the buck.
Nothing new.
https://ifunny.co/picture/oh-you-don-t-need-to-7-fight-them-you-Dvgo4bKk7
If the plebs have no “other” to blame, there’s a high risk that they will put the blame squarely were it belongs. The decades of conditioning make “othering” an easy game. A wise investment.
Victims blaming other victims, rather than the true aggressors is the aggressors dream. Iran refuses to be a victim, or to pretend the blame lies with anyone but the aggressor and so the nuclear weapons fraud(since 1992) was just another way of “othering”.
The below might be the most lucid piece on the issue I’ve ever seen from a western source(wouldn’t get to print now).
https://web.archive.org/web/20170921001025/https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/16/when-the-ayatollah-said-no-to-nukes/
sorry, meant to write “imminence”.
Civil war for the UK
It’s coming some time
Probably
I’ve seen this coming down the pike
For half a century
When Heath entered the common market
And decimalized the currency.
Then Thatcher snatched away the school milk
Major effectively gave billions to Soros
And Blair raided the premium bonds and introduced the national lottery
And they all drank up North Sea oil like there was no tomorrow.
Kamala Harris, like Starmer, is just a wet, hopelessly incompetent, globalist puppet obsessed with Ukraine, who would be taking the US right over the cliff, resources or not.
The US is very lucky to have someone who is not a wet, hopelessly incompetent, globalist puppet obsessed with Ukraine, even though he may have narcissistic tendencies that get up many people’s nose.
intrigued by the concept of civil war in the uk.
what are we going to use—sharpened broomsticks, battery powered hedgetrimmers and supermarket trolleys??
oops—i forgot, after 30 minutes combat, the batteries on the hedgetrimmers will be flat—dayum!!!
but just askin???
Wikipedia, Star Date 2031
The Second English Civil War
Tommy Robinson had opposed King Charles III due to deep-seated political and religious disagreements that culminated in the Second English Civil War. Robinson was a devout nationalist who sought to “purify” England of all remaining Islamic influences.
He opposed King Charles III’s belief in the preferential treatment of Muslims, and also the perceived corruption, treachery and lavish lifestyles of English politicians, whose political parties Robinson wished to reform or abolish.
These ethno-nationalist and political grievances ultimately drove Robinson to join the rebel Parliamentarian forces of New Reform and its New Model Army, who rampaged through England and fought against the King, leading to Charles III’s execution and Robinson’s rise to power as Lord Protector. In 2029 Robinson was officially recognised as the Righteous Reincarnation of Oliver Cromwell by his Minister for Propaganda, Ziggy Icke-Clarkson.
I wonder if Lord Protector Robinson will change the date of Christmas?
Let’s be content and the times lament to see the world turned upside down.
Tim Groves wrote, “I wonder if Lord Protector Robinson will change the date of Christmas?”
Elon Musk has graciously allowed me to look into the future via his new invention of Chronovision. In 2029, Christmas will be banned in England. This will occur after Christ is retrospectively put on trial in absentia and found guilty of inventing Jesus sandals. The items are to be placed on the “National List of Totally Disgusting Foreignisms”, as reported by the Lord Protector’s news organ, The Daily Pubfighter.
Guy Fawkes Night will replace Xmas as England’s primary national celebration. The Daily Pubfighter will suggest Jacob Rees-Mogg as the first Catholic to be placed on the Lord Protector’s bonfire. I eagerly watch Chronovision as Rees-Mogg is put on trial.. He is asked, “Why did you reject the Treaty of Rome but not the Church of Rome? Why do you have six children? Are you planning to convert to THAT religion?”
After being found guilty of treason, Rees-Mogg is later marched to his sacrificial bonfire. But pandemonium erupts among the watching crowds as a flying saucer is seen to hover overhead, beaming Rees-Mogg up to safety. The Lord Protector angrily blames Rees-Mogg’s escape on Catholic extraterrestrials, who he claims are working with woke terrorists to undermine the English republic.
That’s all I know. 😉
Meanwhile, the UK is arresting thousands for mean tweets, while rapists are caught-and-released.
It is almost like there is a coordinated plan to get rid of whites.
Perhaps the people in power are soft on violent crime.
Its not because their white.
Its cause they consume so much more than average.
and yea we shall import othercolors and subsidize their consumption until we must pull the rug and indenture them with properly managed rationing and teach them the ways of patient queueing.
Perhaps if they would sunbathe more and become tans……
https://www.oilystuff.com/single-post/gajak-2025
An interesting read about cost-cutting and mismanagement by Russian and Uzbek oligarchs of an oil field development project in Uzbekistan, leading to well blowouts and fires. Basically a disaster of a project.
Apparently, these wells can burn forever. The article ends:
Despite ongoing improvements, incompetence and corruption is alive and well in Russia.
Their Federal Transport Minister recently offed himself in his car, after they started an investigation into his corruption.
Well he did blow his brains out, so it’s yet another step in the right direction. But, not being there, I don’t have a sense for how widespread corruption is and thus can’t assess Russia’s prospects for future development.
I do see important things being done: fully domestic passenger jets (100% of components – no one else does this worldwide, including USA), world leader in hypersonics and air defense, nuclear icebreakers, and offshore nuclear reactors. How this will hold up against western information technology development that could cross-pollinate all other fields, I don’t know.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Slips-2-as-Saudi-Arabia-Presses-OPEC-to-Fast-Track-Output-Hike.html
I think something is going on with Saudi.. this seems a little bit out of character. What happened to the city they were trying to build? Oil prices are probably going down to the $50’s soon 😬
They seem to need cash. More barrels at a low price is not good for oil producers. It will temporarily help the world economy, however.
I should have posted this earlier but forgot .
Interesting video from where it starts to the end. The person being interested seems to know what is going on inside Russia.