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Summary:
- Today’s financial system allows many promises of future goods and services. These include debts, pensions, and even prices of shares of stock.
- However, the quantity of actual physical goods and services that can be produced appears likely to be shrinking in future years because of resource depletion.
- This mismatch means that many/most of these promises likely cannot be paid as promised. The economy will somehow change to match what is actually available. We should not be surprised if, one way or another, we receive much less than has supposedly been promised. Even if a high currency amount is provided, it likely will not buy very much. Or a new government may be in power, with virtually no promises of benefits.
- Today’s economic system requires both increasing energy supplies and increasing debt to function properly. We are now encountering limits with respect to both world energy supplies and US government debt. The parts of the world economy that are most affected by limits will likely begin to contract soon.
- We don’t know precisely how this contraction will take place, but we can examine a list of countries whose GDP has already been contracting to see how they are faring.
- Perhaps we need to be relying more on our families and/or on “villages” made up of extended relatives or friends for our long-term support, rather than on government programs.
Introduction
The world is filled with financial promises, including loans, pensions, and even the market value of stocks. So far, the system seems to be working, but in a finite world, it is hard to believe that the system will work indefinitely. Governments can create money simply by adding more promises, but they cannot create goods and services in a similar fashion.
We know that actual physical materials are needed to make the goods and services that people depend upon. Energy supplies are particularly important in making goods and services because, according to the laws of physics, energy is required to produce physical goods and services. Forecasts that support current financial promises ignore the fact that we live in a finite world. Eventually, we will run short of easy-to-extract essential materials, including fossil fuels, uranium, lithium, and copper. Economic growth will need to be replaced by economic contraction.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation in more detail, together with some charts showing what is going wrong now, such as Figure 1. In some ways, we already seem to be reaching limits to growth.
[1] At first, added debt is helpful to an economy.
In some sense, added debt pulls an economy forward.
As long as there are plenty of inexpensively available resources and not too much interest to pay, added debt seems to make sense. It pulls the economy forward, in the direction that those resources are to be used. It “feels good” to the recipients of the goods and services made possible by the debt. People like the homes and cars that added debt makes possible.
Ordinary citizens have clear limits on their credit card debt. The limits on government promises seem to be hidden until they are actually reached.
As long as an economy is growing, that growth seems to hide many problems. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff are two well-known US economists. In a 2008 working paper (p.15) examining 800 years of government debt defaults, they remarked, “It is notable that the non-defaulters, by and large, are all hugely successful growth stories.” Without “hugely successful economic growth,” it is impossible to keep adding debt and repaying it with interest. The growth allows debt to be paid back with interest. It allows the fiction that an economy will continue to grow, and this growth will provide the margin needed to repay the debt with interest.
While the world economy has been an amazingly successful growth story since the industrial revolution, we now seem to be running short of the inexpensively available fossil fuels that have made economic growth so far possible. With this change, the economy is likely to start a major shift from economic growth to economic contraction.
We don’t know exactly how this shift from economic growth to economic contraction will take place, but we can hypothesize that the economies that have recently been growing fastest might be farthest from contraction, and the economies that are already struggling with low growth might be the ones most likely to slip into contraction. The countries slipping into contraction can be expected to have special difficulty repaying debt with interest and meeting other financial promises. Some governments may even collapse, perhaps in the way the government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
[2] Not too surprisingly, given the physics connection stated in the introduction, total world GDP and world energy consumption are highly correlated.
In fact, the growth rate of energy consumption and the growth rate of GDP are also correlated, as can be seen from the similar patterns on Figure 4.
A scatter diagram of the X-Y data used in Figure 4 gives the result shown in Figure 5:
Figure 5. Three-year average growth rates are used for stability. Energy growth rates are based on energy data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute; GDP growth rates are based on GDP in constant 2015 US$ as published by the World Bank.
[3] A major issue is the fact that the growth rate of world energy consumption is trending downward.
Figure 6 shows a big upward bump starting not long after the year 2000, driven by the addition of China’s inexpensive coal resources to the global energy supply. The low-cost portion of China’s coal resources is now mostly depleted. In addition, we don’t seem to have any other energy sources that will be available in large quantity in the near future. We have been adding wind and solar, but their impact has been small. Their impact is reflected in the total energy increases shown in Figure 6, and in the other charts above.
[4] Even worse, the rate of growth of world energy consumption per capita is trending downward. In fact, if the trend line were extended to 2025, it would seem to indicate contraction in per capita energy supplies.
We know that it takes energy to make physical goods. Even services require some level of physical goods and energy, such as a building to perform these services, electricity to operate tools, and the materials needed to make any tools, such as computers or scissors.
On Figure 7, note that the trend line is dropping below 0% in 2024, and even farther below 0% in 2025. This means that a smaller energy supply is available, relative to the population. If less energy supply is available, fewer physical goods relative to the population are likely to be available, as well. No one announces this, but we see the impact in many ways. For example, we discover that our daily newspaper is no longer being delivered. Or we discover that the products we see in stores are becoming increasingly flimsy. Meanwhile, young people are becoming less able to afford cars, homes, and almost everything else.
Furthermore, with limited total energy supply, international fighting about physical goods becomes more of a problem. The place we see this first is with respect to minerals. With limited energy supply and ores that are increasingly less concentrated, it is becoming difficult to extract enough materials such as uranium, rare earths, and platinum to meet the needs of all countries. Prices may temporarily spike, but they do not rise high enough, for long enough, to allow production to rise to the overall needed level.
[5] Falling interest rates push the economy along; rising interest rates act like putting brakes on the economy.
Interest rates play a far greater role in the economy, and in economic growth, than many people would expect. Falling interest rates between 1981 and 2022 greatly supported the economy (Figure 8). Since 2022, higher interest rates have acted like a headwind to the economy. This is a concern when it comes to the possibility that the economy is heading into economic contraction because of an inadequate supply of low-cost energy.
Another piece of the picture is the effect of the “yen carry trade.” It allows international investors to borrow money at low rates in Japan, and invest this money in the United States and other countries at higher rates. The yen carry trade has been supporting international borrowing, but it now seems to be at the edge of unwinding because Japanese interest rates are now higher. With this change, it is more difficult to borrow yen at a low rate and invest the proceeds elsewhere at a higher rate. The unwinding of the yen carry trade could push US interest rates up, regardless of what the Federal Reserve tries to do.
[6] Interest payments on US government debt are already getting to be a problem.
US government debt is now close to $38 trillion, and total interest payments have recently risen because interest rates are no longer near zero. Total payments now exceed $1 trillion per year.
The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is now concerned about the high level of interest payments. When interest rates were very low in the 2008 to 2020 period (Figure 8), it was possible to add debt without substantially raising the amount of interest to be paid. But now, with higher interest rates and the debt balance increasing, interest payments have become very high, to the point where they even exceed defense spending. It becomes difficult to raise taxes enough to cover both interest outlays and other funding shortfalls.
I talk more about some of these issues in post called “Energy limits are forcing the economy to contract.” Clearly, if the US economy is being forced to contract, it is very difficult for it to be a hugely successful growth story.
[7] Which countries of the world seem likely to be most resilient against energy limits?
If we believe Reinhart and Rogoff, the countries that would be most resistant to collapse would be the countries that have been growing most rapidly, in recent years. Figure 11 shows a listing of the most rapidly growing countries during the 2019 – 2024 period, based on World Bank GDP data.
The only country on Figure 11 that is an “Advanced Economy” (member of the OECD) is Ireland. Ireland is known for its pharmaceutical exports and for its unusually low taxes on corporations. Many companies choose to domicile in Ireland to take advantage of the country’s low tax rates.
All the other countries are, in some sense, “less advanced economies.” Wages are likely lower, giving them an edge in extracting resources and in manufacturing, and then selling the goods to more advanced countries. Some of these countries may have been given loans by the IMF or China to help them develop their resources.
China and India are both known for their coal use; historically, coal has been an inexpensive energy product, allowing countries to make goods inexpensively, for export. The only country listed whose growing GDP is based on oil extraction seems to be Guyana in South America. Its oil extraction started very recently.
On Figure 12, the list of shrinking economies reads like a list of sad situations that we have read about in the news, way too many times. Many of the countries have recently been in wars or similar situations. None of the countries are Advanced Economies. A few of the countries (Iraq, Libya, Trinidad and Tobago, South Sudan, Venezuela) are oil producing countries.
With respect to the list of slowly growing countries, shown on the right side of Figure 12:
- Austria, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, and Japan are all Advanced Economies with inadequate energy supplies of their own.
- Puerto Rico is an island territory that has recently had debt problems.
- Thailand is, in some sense, a dropout from the rapidly growing nations of Southeast Asia. My impression when I visited Thailand earlier this year was that a great deal of overbuilding had taken place. Excuses for more debt had mostly stopped.
- Argentina is an oil-producing country with difficulties.
- China tightened its grip on Hong Kong in 2019, leading to much slower economic growth. Presumably, there were underlying issues that caused this tightened grip.
- South Africa has both coal supply problems and inadequate water supplies.
[8] What lies ahead?
I think that we are already in a world of “not enough to go around,” because resource limits are leading to an inadequate supply of finished goods and services for the world economy as a whole. Some countries are already being squeezed out, particularly the countries listed as having “shrinking GDP” in Figure 12. I expect that, over time, an increasing number of countries will be added to the shrinking GDP list. The outcomes may be as bad as seem to be happening to the economies that are shrinking today.
History shows that governments of shrinking countries tend to be overturned by their citizens, or they may collapse on their own. If collapse happens in either of these ways, governmental promises of pensions, and of guarantees on bank accounts, are likely to disappear. Even if the current governments can be maintained, countries will be forced to cut back greatly on the programs they are providing. Pensions may be cut, or they may be inflated away by hyperinflation.
Some governments today talk about possibly introducing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). If these currencies are implemented, I would expect that they will be used to ration the increasingly limited supplies of goods and services that are available among their populations.
I do not expect that there will be a formal World War III. Instead, I think the United States is already in a cold war against practically every other country because there cannot be enough goods and services to go around. The US can’t go into a formal war against China because it provides parts of the supply chains for many essential goods the US uses today. Even Europe is a competitor for essential goods. For example, the less oil Europe uses, the more oil will be available for other countries.
While new technologies such as artificial intelligence and energy recovery may eventually alleviate our energy problems, it is unlikely that such approaches will solve our problem in the near term. As a result, governments are likely to be less able to keep their promises. Historically, families or “villages” of extended kin have provided safety nets, rather than government programs. Perhaps now is a good time to be thinking about how we can move in this direction, as well.
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
A reminder that people realized the population problem, long ago.
REPORT: NETANYAHU TO RE-START IRAN WAR | The Kyle Kulinski Show
Wars seem to be necessary when things aren’t going well. They give an excuse for more debt and more employment. It makes it look like the government is “doing something” about problems.
Whem most of us navy is at Venezuela
Tomorrow is the last day so Merry Christmas to Gail and all her family.
Whenever Christmas comes, I think about the Christmas Truce, the last chance for Western Civilization in my opinion.
Modris Eksteins, born 1943 in Riga, Reichskommissariat Ostland and mostly lived in Canada, wrote Rites of Spring, where the Christmas Truce is the central theme.
A British officer, whose name I forgot, saw the war boiling down to nothing and ordered the 10th INDIAN division (it might have been some other formation, but it was from India for sure) to fire, ending the Christmas truce.
Aravind will say he is innocent since he is from Southern India and few from that region fought in the Great War. I will take that since most of the “Indian” divisions came from what is now Pakistan and Punjab, all part of the British Raj.
Which is why I won’t shed a tear if there is a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, which will destroy everything from Karachi to Delhi but leave the rest of India mostly untouched..
Now, there are about 4,000 Gurkhas in the British Army.
Few people know or care about the origin of the Gurkhas. They are originally from Nepal, and were used as hounds for the corrupt royal and ruling clans of there.
And they will be unleashed if the British public gets too unruly. They will get to use their machetes against the kind of people who still think Nelson, Wellington and Arthur Harris are national heroes.
It was wrong to teach Asians Western Civilization. Now Asia is about to triumph, the Westerners will gain plenty of explanation about how good living under Asian philosophy will be like.
Merry Christmas! I will get a post up in the next few days. I don’t think many people are online, reading this kind of thing, at Christmas time.
oh i dont know—-
we of the scrooge and humbug persuasion need our dose of mutual doom
Yes bring it on! It cheers me up to know this crooked system is coming to an end
Since I have defeated most points some people had raised now they are trying to dig a new hole, namely biology.
There is an empirical evidence that a lot of pop is NOT necessary to advance civilization.
I cited the example of Jakarta, now the largest city of the world. It has 42 million, forty two million, human heads. I am not aware of anything memorable coming out that city, called Batavia until USA fked up and gave Sukarno a country in 1949. Most of its people still drink the Bintang beer, original name Heineken Batavia, and still partly owned by Heineken after the state, who took it over in 1949, mismanaged it and sold shares of it back to Heineken. It is kind of the poor man’s Heineken in Asia.
Before Chucky and his 200/400 Worcestershires, cursed be their names, did ‘their duty’, there were about 16 million (4% of the advanced world’s 400 million pop) upper class who could consume well, and about three times as many ‘middle classes’ , totaling about 64 million. For ease of calculation let’s make it 70m.
Around 1914 there were about 1.6 billion people, 400m living in Europe North America and Japan, the rest in colonies and South America (virtual colonies of USA and UK). There were some nominally independent countries like China but all of them were under varying degrees of Western control.
If all of the people who lived outside of Europe, NA and Japan, plus maybe Australia and NZ (total pop was less than 5m back then), perished the world would have missed nothing at all. Nada.
https://www.hslc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/123-8-Schofield.pdf
Diet of ‘working class'(called ‘low class’ back then – thanks to Chucky, after the war they could not be called ‘low class’ because so many of them could now use weapons)
For farmhands
The diet of the farm labourer was poor in quality,
quantity and variety. Bread and lard (home made and flavoured
with rosemary), cheese, porridge, potatoes, bacon, and whatever
vegetables could be grown in the cottage garden or allotment,
were the staple foodstuffs
A city laborer, who had a wife and two children, ate these
Friday: Bread, butter, toast, tea.
Saturday: Bacon, potatoes, pudding, tea.
Sunday: Pork, onions, potatoes, Yorkshire pudding.
Monday: Pork, potatoes, pudding, tea.
Tuesday: Pork, bread, tea.
Wednesday: Bacon, eggs, potatoes, bread, tea.
Thursday: Bread, bacon, tea.
The family had no suppers on Wednesday, Thursday and
Friday. On Saturday, after payday, supper consisted of bread,
kippers and tea, on Sunday bread and meat, on Monday just
tea, and on Tuesday bread, bacon, butter and tea. The pathetic
one cup of tea on Monday may have been compensated for by
the relatively good dinner that day.
That was the norm before Chucky and his 200/400 Worcesersihres, at least 10% of them malnourished (it is known that 10% of the draftees were ‘starving’ at that time in UK) , did ‘their duty’.
If the world could have been kept that way, Singularity and Type I civ would have been achieved by 2000.
Instead all these resources were wasted to better the lifestyles of the poor in Engladn and USA , which spread to Europe after WW2, Asia around the time of Vietnam War and the rest of the world incl China after 1992, and all wasted away so we could have megaslums in Jakarta, Dacca and other hellholes of the world.
My mother used to talk about some of her classmates coming to school with mashed potato sandwiches for lunch.
Involuntary noticed as bystander the content of shopping basket throughout recent dayz frenzy.. Obviously, it’s not entirely valid-correct as people shop around more, some use add. delivery services, some have relatives or small holdings in the countryside etc.
BUT most of the purchased items were re-processed JUNK food. Very few people (nobody) bought quality yet dirt cheap apples (as I’m telling this like 4th time already we had a bumper crop this fall across Europe).
Chemical “factory-sweet” garbage doodads, bottles of additives filled mayonnaise, fast grown meat, .. disgusting – and NO don’t tell me that – in fact it’s not (entirely) about purchasing power ! Often times they spent more on that..
Lol, on positive note ending – in fact I recall had to resort to cat fight with a ~teenage Asian girl for the best onions off the rack (allium fistulosum), hah. So at least certain segments of the pop are not fully under the overall trend.. That’s ~two persons vs. hundreds..
There has been a big bumper crop of all kinds of fruit here in Kyoto this year. It’s a bounty not seen in decades, with even old trees that don’t normally bear much fruit being laden down and decorated like Christmas trees.
The main crops around here are loquats, persimmons, mikan oranges, and yuzu. Further north where the apples and pears grow, the story is similar. Although my friend further south in Osaka says their lemon trees didn’t produce much.
I’m going for the solar maximum as the main cause. Other people may city global arming, as it was very hot last summer, but the solar radio flux was also very high. Another possible contributory factor is that humidity and rainfall were lower than usual.
I don’t often disagree with you Kulm, but this bit is totally incorrect..
“There is an empirical evidence that a lot of pop is NOT necessary to advance civilization.”
When Europeans came across multitudes of all sized civilizations and smaller groups, none had advanced technology, no-one with small populations had developed nuclear reactors nor solar panels, it was mostly primitive with the smallest groups the most primitive hunter gatherers.
Complexity goes with size of population and markets for the full range of products that are necessary for civilization to run as efficiently as possible. The huge million part machines cannot exist unless all the parts come from businesses that have lots of other products to also sell, which takes huge growing market size, growing mineral extraction and growing energy use to keep going.
The Fermi paradox is clearly answered by the fact that every civilization throughout the universe runs into the same problem of overshoot of the resources on their planet then collapses, only leaving radio or such signals for a couple of hundred years at best, so the odds of us detecting any others in our short timeframe of searching is not likely to find others at all.
The Kardashev scale of civilizations is just human imagination going crazy. If it ever was possible for galaxy spanning civilizations to exist the turn to universe encompassing ones, our little planet would have been raided for all useful resources millions or billions of years ago..
I am afraid you are right, Hideaway.
It never ceases to amaze me how often intelligent people fall prey to chronic usage of logical fallacies.
Just because it stands to reason (the ‘fact’ that you claim as “fact”) that resource overshoot is going to be a universal dynamic, doesn’t mean that interstellar travel can’t be accomplished before an industrial civilizational collapse. And just because the government won’t admit to detection doesn’t mean the government or many of us individuals haven’t detected alien life here on Earth.
Lastly, interstellar travel and resource mining aren’t mutually inclusive. On the contrary, they’re in all likelihood mutually exclusive due to the absurdly low returns on investment.
Nobody I know is saying that interstellar travel is happening for the purpose of imperialism. That’s a ridiculous premise and a strawman.
What about Charles Fort, who concluded: “We are PROPERTY”, and suspected that planet Earth was being farmed?
And try reading The Sphere Network by Patrick Jackson:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sphere-Network-Mr-Patrick-Jackson/dp/B0DXF1RGL6
For centuries, mysterious silver spheres have been sighted in our skies, darting through the atmosphere with impossible speed and precision. Dismissed as UFOs, misunderstood as mere anomalies—what if these spheres are something far more profound?
In The Sphere Network, IT specialist-turned-researcher Patrick Jackson uncovers the astonishing truth: a hidden, intelligent defense system operating in Earth’s skies. These enigmatic orbs aren’t visitors from another world; they are part of a vast, interconnected network, designed to monitor, communicate, and—when necessary—protect our planet.
Jackson presents compelling evidence that these spheres form a structured, dynamic system—a system we are only beginning to understand. Could they be shielding us from unseen threats? Have they been operating above us for longer than recorded history?
This book is a deep dive into the heart of the unknown, offering a paradigm-shifting perspective on the reality of Earth’s hidden guardians.
Longer than recorded history? Hidden guardians? Are we not in charge?
Not all shale is the same .
“Not all shale deposits are created equal.
Vaca Muerta, the 4th largest shale oil reserve, is peaking due to low oil prices and rising costs.
While only 8% of it is under development, production costs are 40% higher than those in the Permian Basin.
Oil prices will need to rise to incentivize new production. ”
https://x.com/ekwufinance/status/2002445957661626465/photo/1
Good luck on oil prices rising, other than in very temporary, short-term spikes.
High production costs make the oil unobtainable.
Related to the discussion below. This article makes the point that an earlier collapse (rather than later) would give humans and the rest of the biosphere a chance for survival versus later when extinction is most likely baked into the cake.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theuaob/p/the-agency-trap-why-we-must-fail?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=38wkf8
“Collapse Now And Avoid The Rush” by John Michael Greer
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-06-06/collapse-now-and-avoid-rush/
John Michael Greer doesn’t really tell us how we can collapse now, to avoid the rush. Do we build a fire pit in our backyard and begin cooking our food over gathered firewood? Do we learn to live in our homes without heating or cooling them? In cold climates, we likely would need to drain the water pipes to prevent them from freezing in winter. We therefore would likely need an outdoor toilet facility as well. Getting along without electricity might be on our list as well.
I don’t see a great rush to do these things.
The measures the world adopted are a hodgepodge. Renewables in the North probably accelerated collapse, but in the South they might help postpone it. Unpayable debt is probably neutral. Mass killings through vaccines will probably delay collapse as will other methods of population reduction like veganism, feminism, homosexuality and mass hormonal disruption (the latter adopted long before it was evident there was an energy crisis).
My grandparents had a two holer on their farm when I was a kid, even had adapted toilet seats for comfort and of course toilet paper. Very cozy in the winter.
As for water, well, that was in the house, hand pump, water stored in a concrete tank, when low went outside to turn on the pump, the well had been upgraded from wind which was released with a cable/wire from the base.
All children(uncles/aunts) save one escaped from the farm as soon as they could, one uncle rode the rails to CA, he was one or the youngest, invited by the US government to spend a few years in the tropics. Now, that was a true collapse, existing residents kept shooting at him and his friends.
My grandmother was a very smart women, all four girls got a two year education at a normal school, they could be teachers and of course they were bilingual, Norwegian. Hard to tell when one of them was swearing at you. My mother used it when she taught in a one room school house, many of the kids learned English as a second language. Parents chopped the wood, mom brought it in to the school house in the winter and started the fire. No reason to worry about pipes freezing, two holer again. Sex education in the early days?
You are going to love it.
Dennis L.
Important part of that setup was heating providing to few areas of the entire dwelling, typically only kitchen and or the larger room for gatherings. Sleeping in the cold(er) rooms under well insulated multi-layered contraption is actually way healthier anyway.
The most missing feature-factor will be actually short-hot water massages during the colder season – if there was (always is) some neck-braking addhoc work to do.. to rehabilitate from. Well, some old-timers used [ loop towel ] massages instead.. works to certain extent too. Some locations on earth even allow for natural hot / thermal spring during the winter time, go figure..
Green doesn’t tell but Gail outlines the basics.
Yes, start cooking food over gathered firewood.
Yes, learn to live in homes without heating or cooling them.
That may well require an alternating construction from any of the ‘normal’ structures and would be easier if the cooking fire were incorporated to let the fire heat help to heat the home.
Location would be critical of course. City or suburban housing is unlikely to be suitable unless the majority of the current occupants have ‘left’ one way or another so that forestry can grow to provide firewood without too much competition and the water flow has time to return to a natural status with no human inputs.
Other locations would need to be found if current locations make delivered heating substances essential (even firewood).
If you stay in a location where water pipes freeze, they will have to stay frozen and water collection and transport would probably require the use of human energy unless natural collection and storage can be configured.
A move to a warmer climate might be easier.
Yes, an outdoor toilet (and a general ablutions area) would be needed.
Makes the house simpler. No bathroom and maybe no kitchen) needed in the house.
Electricity? No you don’t need it.
Just as well, as it won’t be delivered and generating it yourself will require tools and materials which the well prepared might have, but it won’t last forever, so why not get used to the simplicity of not having it?
You won’t need it for cooking now, There won,t be any TV, phones, internet, ( and your humanised robot companion is now just a fixed ornament with no means of recharging).
Lights? Go to bed at dusk and rise with the sun.
If you must have light, use one of the natural sources e.g rushes, animal fat etc.
A rush to do all these things? Well to set yourself up as I describe is a lot of work and time left to do it may be short.
So the options are:
1) Get stuck in to figuring out all the necessary details,
and that includes all the unmentioned details like how are we going to eat, get or make clothes, shoes et,etc.
And implement NOW.
2) Do nothing? This will be the most popular option and you can all tell each other that the government will work out a way to continue the way of life you consider yourself entitled to, even if it means ‘acquiring’ some energy sources, food and other materials from other occupants of this planet.
Maybe you will get an extension to your existence and the hard times can be left to your children.
Those who truly implement option 1 will have cause to thank adopters of option 2 for making many locations available and allowing firewood generation to occur, water sources to gradually clean themselves.
And most importantly, for removing themselves and thus allowing the ‘more fit to survive’ to take over.
While this post makes some very good points, I think it misses the point that the world economy is made up of many smaller economies. In fact, each of these smaller economies is made up of yet smaller economies, such as states and cities. The governments of these organizations all depend upon energy for survival.
As resource availability goes down, the governments of these countries will tend to shrink or collapse entirely. The countries that will tend to collapse first are island nations that are nowhere near self-sufficiency.
Governments of other countries will also tend to fail, as they increasingly become unable to pay the promises that they have made. We should also expect to see the governments of other nations and groups and nations fail. Likely to fail early on are NATO, the EU, the WTO, and the UN.
Also, governments with far more promises than they can keep (pensions and debts) will somehow scale the back. Some of them will fail in the manner of the Soviet Union in 1991. The next level down of government will still be available. In theory, pensions and other obligations could be taken on by the local governments.
So, the world economic system will still manage to maximize throughput, given resources available and the efficiency of the system. But it won’t tend to use up all of the resources. There will always be sunlight, soil and water. These resources sustained the economy for eons. Some people will survive, in practically every area, even without fossil fuels.
Prehumans lived through ice ages. Humans will make it through the upcoming contraction. Moving it sooner is not necessarily helpful. We may very well learn to use some of the remote energy sources that seem to be unobtainable now.
I don;t disagree with the statements about the world economy and small economies ,but I would suggest that they would decline just as survival would decline except for the very few individuals or small groups that are able to survive with such ‘economies’.
Where Economy is:
“An economy is a system of production, consumption, and exchange activities that determines how resources are allocated. ”
I suggest that a system which employs all the aspects of this ‘Economy’ would be extremely difficult to operate given the expected total breakdown in production control, transport of fertilisers (if any), distribution of produce, and means of communication allowing aspects of this ‘economy’ to operate.
“Some people will survive, in practically every area, even without fossil fuels.”
Certainly, but designate any group as an economy reduces this description to a very simple idea.
E.G. Is a setup in a rural area where farmers can buy and sell their goods at a weekly gathering an ‘economy’?
I wouldn’t think so, although I can see that such simple ‘economies’ would likely soon be degraded into a real economy where governments (or war lords) take a fee, Guilds take control of certain products, towns charge fees for market sites,
etc.
I can see that it could be claimed that even the simplest arrangement is an economy.
In which case ,I would hope that participants in these simple arrangements learn from history and try to avoid the long climb into the degenerate economic system we now see falling apart.
Yes, I consider even the simplest arrangement an economy.
Some small economies have been “gift economies.” In these economies, status is gained by the amount a person is able to give away. People who do not do their part end up getting excluded from these groups.
The debt problems of China’s local governments, according to Joe Blogs. At one point, local governments made their money by selling off land to developers. Now, no more land is available to sell off, and the developers are going bankrupt. Local governments (or technically, their LGFVs) have found a way to continue to issue bonds, even they have little way to repay their debts with interest. They are selling the to investors at a lower than par price, to boost the interest rate they get. Without other sources of funds, they will have to keep issuing an increasing amount of bonds to have enough to repay the bonds with interest.
As the saying goes: “things will continue until they can’t”. When this debt binge finally burst, it will explode spectacularly because every Nation on earth is living on a credit card because of promises they made to its citizens that they can’t and won’t be able to keep.
We are already seeing this play out in parts of Europe. France, Germany and the UK are in deep trouble financially. Two on that list may need an IMF bailout, while Germany, the industrial center of the EU is de-industrializing.
Joe Blogs is propaganda. He’s been claiming Russia will fall apart this year for the last 4 years. I think he takes a similar stance on China, but I’m not certain. Anyway, he can be safely dismissed like Zeihan.
Wait what are you basing your argument on? Are you saying that there is not an overwhelming world debt? The system is just fine everything is just fine! I don’t know you seem to base your argument on “feelings “ rather than statistics.
He gets a dozen facts wrong per minute. Nothing to do with feelings.
Agree . Joe Blogs is propaganda anti Russia . Here is German municipalities going bankrupt .
https://rmx.news/article/almost-every-german-city-is-now-on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy/
The whole world seems to be heading for bankruptcy. This doesn’t have to be propaganda. It is the way the system works.
It is all a matter of timing Gail. No one disagrees with you but few (at least in this forum) think China will collapse before the US. I clicked on the video. Fortunately the menu on the right offered a funny dog video so it was not a total waste of time.
No one can own land in China. It is owned by the state so there’s one important fact Joe gets wrong.
People lease the land for up to 70 years and they own the structures they build on that land. Perhaps Joe should have said lease instead of sold.
Here in the US the people own the land, or so it is written. In reality, it’s not much different than China. If you don’t pay your property taxes (lease pmt) you will lose your land.
Perhaps the right term is that the local governments lease the land. I do know that that is how they received the bulk the bulk of their revenue for many years, and that method has pretty much disappeared (unless payment was structured differently than I originally presumed).
Some organizations (banks plus others) must have lent money to all of the builders that are going bankrupt, and to the individual homeowners who cannot sell their units for what they paid for them. Somehow, there is a huge financial system that would seem to collapse, if traditional accounting were done. But it is always possible to change the rules and hide the problems.
Russia for example has no debt. I doubt that Arabia has debt either.
Saudi Arabian national debt in 24 was 324B up 16% from 23. I think it was Gail that said once they need over $100 oil to meet all their obligations. Debt to GDP is pretty good as Rodster says.
What the Saudis pay for is insane. My wife had our twins in a hospital in Riyadh. I asked how much this was going to cost. “No idea, we have no accounting system”. This was years ago but you get the point.
KSA is stupid . They have a $ 740 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund which is invested in Wall Street and treasuries and in the meanwhile they go and borrow money in the bond market .
32% debt to gdp ratio is not terrible in this day and age.
Saudi not completely stupid. Private equity can get them 12-15% return which is better than the borrowing costs. And no you and I can’t get those kind of returns.
Very good interview with Rickards. What’s going on in Italy with their gold reserves is interesting.
Any reasonable government would like to pay the farm workers first, so that they continue to farm.
It is not clear to me that the holders of gold or silver will get much of the essentials, at all.
They are probably OK for diversification, especially in the short term. Silver coins may even be tradable for useful small things.
But I would not “count my chickens before they are hatched,” when it comes to actually trading gold for essentials, several years from now.
The Russia’s debt is elsewhere in the economy than the government. Oil companies, for example.
Also, the fact that Russia itself has little debt, and the fact the homeowners have difficulty accessing debt, means that Russia has not grown the way other countries have grown. (Debt is not pulling the country forward, in the same way it is in more capitalistic countries.)
I expect that low debt for Russia is related to the fact that the country is handicapped by being cold and spread out, requiring that it use huge amounts of energy to do what might be simple in, say, Southeast Asia. This means that goods made within the country have high overhead costs, making them unmarketable in the rest of the world. It is pointless to use debt to support manufacturing for export.
Also, the receipts for exported energy supplies, especially the heavy oil the Russia sells, but also natural gas and coal, are not very high, compared to the revenue the country would gain if it really were able to use these resources itself in a way that it could efficiently make devices for export, the way China does. Adding technological innovation would help as well.
Well, they were competitive in niche segments (beyond arms obviously), say offroad carz or various special transportation contraptions etc..
These imports were banned on political premise after 2022.. (dealers lost serious money). And the Chinese as city dwelling culture are not there yet (South Korean almost getting near), meaning this particular segment feature-quality wise, while the EU/JAP production is uberexpensive.. and verging into nonsense luxury detours..
There is no economics without biology and biology is basically children. No reason for two shovels if one has only one child, if two children, two shovels, if one is a girl perhaps two and a half shovels.
Dennis L.
Sam, who owns the debt? I don’t know. If I write a note to myself, is that debt or an asset?
Dennis L.
Russia has low debt to GDP so it’s actually in decent shape, much better than the US which no longer has the mfg base decades ago. It is more consumer based.
China, OTOH has insane debt levels by building out it’s economy but it has become the world’s factory. What you don’t want is to have high debt to GDP with a consumer based economy. That spells trouble because there are tons of entitlements and promises that must be kept.
Germany is finding that out the hard way with its immigration policies while de-industrializing. France and the UK are in trouble as well.
In the chemical industry, production fell by 2.5%, while sales in Germany and abroad were down 3%. Particularly striking: production facilities are only operating at 70% capacity – a historic low and a far cry from profitability. Every second company reports too few orders, which have fallen by more than 20% in Germany and abroad since 2021.
https://www.industrial-production.de/economy—business/german-chemical-industry-in-crisis–german-chemical-industry-association-takes-stock.htm
German de – industrialisation . The death of programming .
https://medium.com/@jankammerath/programming-in-germany-is-dead-a-developers-autopsy-report-ada0cfb1221e
Germany down .https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germanys-debt-fueled-illusions-merz-humiliated-economy-freefall
Again, no economics without children. Russia had a very low birth rate when Soviet. Perhaps similar idea is women who have a career and no children, when they retire they expect the labor of others’ children; too many childless and the work of raising children becomes less than a zero sum game, too much sharing.
One invests much of their life in their children, sometimes it is not a very rewarding experience. Robots could change that if self replicating, but will the offspring of robots want to give their discretionary income to biological children? Well, do robots have emotion? Not sure I want the answer to that question.
Germany’s problem is again biology, wanted others to do the work of raising children. Perhaps a different religion is a way of isolating one’s children from exploitation.
Dennis L.
What Joe Blogs says fits in with what I know about the financing of the Chinese system. Taxes of citizens have historically been low because the local governments have been able to raise money by selling land. This source of funds has gone away. These local governments cannot raise taxes of businesses and citizens enough cover their costs. The only way they can finance their operations is through these LGFVs.
If, as Joe Blogs says, these debt vehicles trade at well below par in the after market, this says that buyers are concerned about the ability of these local governments to repay their debts. I would agree with his conclusions.
Every writer about our energy and debt problems has been early with respect to the coming problems. Timing is very difficult to judge.
I do not have a good reference, but a rough interpretation of China.
Investing for financialization is discouraged, it is for productive enterprise. Public goods play an important part of this. An example is building a $6B subway in a major city, the value of the land on either side of the route increases much more than the $6B invested, it is a win win.
We have too many gamers, that happened when the capital gains tax was reduced, in retrospect the US was a better place to live in the fifties, higher tax rates. Our taxes now are transfers from the young to the old. If you have no children should you be entitled to a transfer? Sort of gives an understanding to the term “Old Maid.”
Unlike a subway, a bomber is not a good investment, one really doesn’t want to live along its flight path when it is working.
Dennis L.
How many children and grandchildren do you have?
ivanislav said
” Keep laughing, but 2035 will have come and gone and the world will keep turning (except for some idiotic regions like Europe). Your clock is stuck on Doomsday and yet it never arrives. ”
In 2035, the SMO will still be going strong, and Pladimir Vutin’s mummy will still be talking about liberating Donbass and Odessa and negotiating with Western partners while Russian territory gets droned every day and assasinations of officials in the center of moscow take place every couple of months.
Maduro will share and apartment with Assad in a remote town in Siberia and the Latin Lover will have an affair with Asma .
The Sunni Arab Middle East will remain a colony of CENTCOM with wahabbi stooges creating eternal controlled chaos , Israel will have expanded into Lebanon and the former country called Syriaslavia, and the BRICS bullshiters faced with their own contradictions will have disbanded .
And lastly, the Chinese military chickens will still not have dared to invade Taiwan.
And very lastly: Von der Leyen’s ghost will prepare the ninety-seventh package of sanctions against Russia.
Judging by how fast things have gone so far, you may be right.
The Maximum Power Principle seems to keep the system going, as long as there are physical energy supplies available to support it. Debt defaults have less impact than a person might expect. The very rich people holding the debt find their net worth impacted, but much of the rest of the system goes on as before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzq9iVnQz3o
“Governor Of California BLASTS Valero After Burning $1 BILLION To LEAVE California!” (11:12)
6,131 views Dec 22, 2025
“California’s gas prices have reached crisis levels—and drivers across the Golden State are demanding answers. This video exposes the complex web of factors keeping California’s fuel costs the highest in the nation. Discover how the state’s strict refinery requirements, low-carbon fuel standards, and environmental regulations create a perfect storm for sky-high prices at the pump. Learn why California’s unique fuel blend can only be produced by a handful of refineries, how the Cap-and-Trade program adds hidden costs to every gallon, and why even minor supply disruptions send prices skyrocketing. We’ll explore the refinery shutdowns threatening California’s fuel supply, the oligopoly of oil companies controlling the market, and whether the state’s aggressive push toward electric vehicles offers any relief for frustrated drivers still dependent on gasoline.”
Maybe we should add California to Europe on the short list of places that seem to be headed for collapse soon. This video is about Valero closing its refinery in California, effective January 1, 2026, even though the expected extra cost for closing will be about $1 billion, and 400 skilled workers will lose their jobs. Phillips is also leaving California now, leaving only 7 refineries in the state.
Whoever wrote the legislation in California seemed to think that the state could operate without fossil fuels, but that can’t happen.
The crazy part is the guy running California into the ground wants to be the next US President.
Does Newsome have Indian ties? Ashkinazi ties? Who will fund him? Not to mention kill off competitors like Charlie. It takes a village of extremely wealthy killers to raise of president.
leaving out the jesusfreaks for the moment, in broad terms, there appears to be two strands of ‘science’
1—-where our current way of life will continue forever even without oil
2—-where our current way of life will continue forever because we will bever run out of oil…
In summary, the future will be much like the past. Or, it could suddenly could get to be much better, depending on a person’s religious views.
Correct me here Gail—but I don’t see what religion has to do with it–unless praying for rapture actually works.
Our future is entirely linked to energy availability—the more there is, the better our standard of living..
That has been the case for the last century or so…
no form of religious belief can alter that—at least as i understand it, and the laws of physics seem to dictate…
The people of the middle ages were consumed by religion, and built glorious cathedrals—but that only impoved the lifestyle of bishops….
Building cathedrals provided a lot of jobs for workers at the same time. They seem to have served the same purpose as building a lot of government purchased infrastructure today, at a time when wage and wealth disparity was a problem (too many people for resources).
Telling rich people that they could avoid purgatory by purchasing indulgences gave churches (which had many of the same functions of governments today) was a way of collecting voluntary donations from the rich to provide well-paying jobs for many who would not otherwise be employed. Also, becoming priests, monks, or nuns, with voluntary poverty, became a way of employing a lot of otherwise unemployable younger surviving children.
i have to disagree—though i see your point Gail.
building a cathedral left no surplus to most of the workers involved—it could take 100 years, and they were still left dressed in rags and living in hovels when it was finished….
that was because they used only muscle to do the building…
modern building uses mechanical muscle…
this means the workers involved in building dams bridges etc etc, benefit from the surplus of the energy input.
that surplus allows workers to buy nice homes, nice cars ample food and distant vacations…..
i know i joke about it….but the maganuts expect this to go on indefinitely…—in the meantime we have Musk and Bezos etc, living in our modern versions of cathedrals.. with superyachts and private jets. They were built on the surpluses of everyone else.—just as the old cathedrals were.
this drives trump’s political machine—blaming others for the deficit of the country itself—-so now he wants to invade venezuala, greenland and build battleships.—-always the focus of vanity. (and to divert the attention of gullible fools from reality)
and as part of my ongoing (now sick) joke, that was exactly hitler’s political thinking in the 30s. He saw that was his only ongoing solution for ineptitude, and those of his immediate cohorts.
it isnt possible to separate economics and politics (and history)…
The approach I outlined allowed the spreading of some of the wealth of the rich to the poor. It allowed for “maximum throughput.” I expect that with the greatest skills (perhaps in designing the cathedral) received more pay than the common workers. But the approach allowed quite a few people to live who otherwise would have starved to death.
AGI ‘Might’ arrive in 2026
https://youtu.be/Z6q2iJZmvOM?si=DNGviTQ8CAuZKcmV
Although the cornucopians might get excited, nothing new. Just the usual snake oil salespeople selling their concoctions.
IMHO, we will get AGI around the same time the pigs gain the ability to fly.
We train the computers on the quality of material that goes into Wikipedia. We can’t really expect the output of AI to be any better than that, I am afraid.
The big steps forward in machine learning come when the machine learns to play itself. Deepmind’s Alpha Go, Alpha Fold.
Chris Rea passed away
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/dec/22/chris-rea-rock-and-blues-singer-songwriter-dies-aged-74
Driving Home for Christmas
Looking for the Summer
On the Beach
Road to Hell
Etc.
https://youtu.be/OcW-BSEB3ng?si=yo2tdn5wf_UdOK2o
https://youtu.be/CugWO1dXlto?si=GxBmLHeFE6YGZBfZ
RIP Chris Rea, I was a huge fan. Loved your album Road to Hell.
Very nice!
He had far more than his fair share of health issues. I’m surprised he made it to 74 and I expect he was surprised too.
From Wikipedia:
In 1994 Rea had developed stomach ulcers. The following year, he “got peritonitis and nearly died. Facing the prospect of never singing, touring or performing in public again, he characteristically embarked on a radical career shift and went into movies.”
Rea was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2001 and he underwent a Whipple procedure, which resulted in the removal of the head of the pancreas and part of the duodenum, bile duct, and gall bladder. After having that surgery, Rea had problems with diabetes and a weaker immune system, requiring him to take thirty‑four pills and have seven injections a day. He underwent several subsequent operations. Nevertheless, he found greater appreciation for life, his family, and the things he loved.
Rea suffered a stroke in 2016 which left him with slurred speech and reduced movement in his arms and fingers. Soon afterwards he quit smoking to reduce the risk of further strokes and recovered enough to record and tour.
This speaks both to his enduring stamina as well the modern medical wizardry keeping him alive +1/4 of century..
I’ve not followed him closely, but he put out at least three masterpieces: Looking for the summer, Josephine, The road to hell, …
Also, lets not forget – at his very forum – he was one of the few top artists slightly touching on the collapse rail, lyrics:
“.. This ain’t no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell..”
Dear Jr. the_Returnique, yes, you summed it up. He lived it all.
⚠️— The head of the operational training department of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, died from injuries sustained after a car bomb explosion.His car was blown up by an IED on Yasenevskaya Street in Moscow.The explosive device was located under the car and detonated when the engine was started.–
The war of atrition going well according to the fanboys of the chabadnick Vladimir .
I hope Assad remains safe and sound under house arrest. If he dares to go out on the streets , he will be hunted down by the Elders and their paid stooges .
Sorry , this is not a war , its a special military operation and remember , the petrodollar is dead and Brics will rule the world ……
The world is changing; we don’t necessarily recognize the changes.
The powers that be exert their wills in strange ways.
You might find this interesting although David Betz speaks a bit slowly for me. Betz has some ideas on pending civil war. One conclusion, fast and quick is better than slow and drawn out. He also relates discussing this idea in academic circles is not popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiLQfdInkMs
I find Diesen has a somewhat open viewpoint, asks maybe four questions/topics and then listens. Giesen is the site developer.
Dennis L.
I took time to listen to this. I think what David Betz has to say is worthwhile to listen to. The presentation is a little like a college lecture. The topic is
“David Betz: The West on Irreversible Path to Civil War”
Betz says that the US (and Western Europe) is headed toward what he calls a Fractionalized Society in three ways:
a. Polar fractionalization. Instead of just disagreeing on one topic or another (abortion, say) people feel that they need to have allies in their views. They start taking on a whole range of views of their preferred group.
b. Downgrading of previous status. Loss of language or culture. I would think that loss of high-paying job for a blue collar job, would qualify, too.
c. Loss of faith in politics solving problems.
It is really the uniparty behind all politicians. Why vote? We can no longer trust politicians, lawyers, journalism, police, clergy, medicine.
These areas are all flashing red, in the view of Betz. A major problem is that the Global Elite have different views than the common people. He sees three groups emerging:
a. Globalists – post Christian, not really interested in the views of common people
b. The non-native community, particularly Muslims, but others, too. Hard to assimilate, now.
c. Native declining majority of populationn
Ways he sees civil war emerging in different ways:
1. Revolt against the elite for having changed the rules. Result likely to be assassinations, kidnappings, violence against high level individuals.
2. Rural vs urban. Rural cut off supplies of needed food, water, electricity, or transportation for cities.
Discussion at the end regarding the perils of increasing diversity. Countries with little diversity tend to have a much higher level of trust. Diversity causes social capital to erode. (I would add that diversity is especially a problem if energy per capita is low. Someone has to be left out. Resentment rises if diversity causes others “more qualified” to be left out.)
“Result likely to be assassinations, kidnappings, violence against high level individuals.”
Not in developed countries. Since the end of World War II, the ruling class has invested a lot of resources into domestic and international surveillance. Given the amount of discontent, there has been relatively little political violence domestically. Meanwhile, there has been constant war since the end of World War II, despite claims of a Pax Americana that have persisted for decades.
No one in there right mind can honestly claim the world has been living an era of Pax Americana since 1945. Distrust possibly begins with outlandish claims like this.
People start having faith in “security systems.” People and businesses invest more and more in physical security systems, thinking these will save them. This adds to overhead. Of course, there is also the online security issues.
For people who supposedly know what they are talking about, they say “um” a lot. I suppose you could say they are filtering their words so they don’t appear too offensive. Maybe they really want to say multiculturalism will never work. I don’t know. What they say seems very ACADEMIC for the most part, at least at the beginning. They spend too much time describing the problem and only at the very end they start to discuss why.
If it weren’t the last bit at the end and the numerous utterances of “um” , I would say they were doing a very dry and detached description of a problem that does not affect them at all.
If it weren’t for the numerous utterances of “um”, their approach to the matter is indistinguishable from how a biologist would describe insect behavior or behavior of animals humans cannot relate to. X can be mitigated….managed…”wild ride”. All academic stuff. And all for nothing. Trying to be detached to avoid accusations of bias doesn’t work…because it’s obvious they are “holding back”.
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2025/12/la-tendencia-en-el-shale-oil-usa-el.html?m=1
Not sure if anyone posted this. What I find interesting is reading the comments. A lot of people like to attack the messenger. No different than OFW
This post is a compilation of charts. It includes charts that forecast a surplus of supply over demand for 2026. I would agree with this. The world is in a recession, which is what is hurting demand.
At the end, a chart forecasts that world demand would be above existing supply until 2035, at least. I don’t agree with this. The problem is falling demand not holding prices up high enough. Producers quit because of low prices.
One chart I thought was interesting is called the “Frac Spread.” It is sort of a partial EROEI for natural gas liquids. It is more sophisticated than EROEI, because it considers the fact that natural gas (methane) will be used to extract Natural Gas Liquids, not the Natural Gas Liquids themselves. This is a link to the chart:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2QTZDkwz6Q333EgD7aQll6_uvY4tvlNvz3ahyphenhyphenqwAscRhxuLFt02T66M5NnNBeAW7suFd_Bk8QoyaAodAox7JT7L0lJ2_0Dkz-_lVYEFdt0wINFFC7ufpWd-P0ej64GEhfGvj4jdxy76MVPYJhIXsNOvx-AAjn8wI82YMZpiWNQBtgeE7jHsJWyebf2OSv/s1216/A-Frac-2.gif
Note that the Frac Spread is falling in the chart, indicating that it is becoming increasingly less profitable to extract NGLs in the US.
This is description I found of the frac spread:
Before you understand what the frac spread is, it’s important to know who uses it and why. The petroleum and gas industry is segmented into three parts: Upstream, midstream, and downstream. Though it has elements of both upstream and downstream involved, midstream firms are responsible for the gathering, refining, and transportation of natural gas. They gather wet natural gas from wellheads at shale plays (Marcellus shale, Woodford shale, etc), separate the methane, leaving only NGLs (natural gas liquids) behind. These NGLs typically include propane, butane, isobutene, and condensates. Midstream firms then transport and market these heavier liquids (sometimes fee-based, other times POP contracts), from which they derive their profits and operating model.
The Frac Spread is simply the value gained from the sale of NGLs (C3, IC4, NC4, C5+) less the cost of the natural gas used to fractionate the liquids. It’s a profit margin for a gas processor, whereby your input price (natural gas = COGS) is subtracted from your output (NGLs = revenue). For processors, this is extremely important, because if natural gas prices increase dramatically while NGL prices remain stagnant (as happened post-Katrina), your frac spread will decrease dramatically—sometimes even becoming negative. If midstream firms don’t protect their spread, they’ll inevitably be ruined.
What I find interesting is that he sees oil remaining rather flat until 2030. By that time, further electrification and new nuclear reactors, for example in China, may be sufficient to offset oil decline on an ongoing basis. Demand from Europe, one of the largest consumers, may decline as Europe implodes, easing supply concerns for all the rest.
This makes sense to me, also.
What is oil ? For me ‘ oil ‘ means diesel . Period . Rest is just unimportant . No diesel — full stop . Liebig ‘s law of the minimum is immutable . Example — copper markets — electrification ? Nuclear — you are joking . Adios Amigo .😭
As if new trucks can’t be built with gasoline engines instead of diesel. Sure diesel is better, but so what. Make do with what you have. We’ll use natgas like in Brazil, too. Whatever works. The world isn’t going to end today or tomorrow, though it might in some regions.
No , gasoline is good for low HP . High HP you need diesel . CAT , Komatsu , Wartsila , Mitsubishi , MWM etc make engines for diesel only . No diesel — no mining , no shipping , no trucking . You are ” pinch mining ” by taking Brazil as an example just like we would take Norway as an example of EV transition . Adios Amigo .😭
There are tons of solutions. One could use gasoline to spin a jet engine that charges a battery. That’s already being done. The sodium ion batteries area big deal by all accounts and are being scaled in China. Electric motors are good for high torque low RPMs. Keep laughing, but 2035 will have come and gone and the world will keep turning (except for some idiotic regions like Europe). Your clock is stuck on Doomsday and yet it never arrives.
In 2035, the SMO will still be going strong, and Pladimir Vutin’s mummy will still be talking about liberating Donbass and Odessa and negotiating with Western partners while Russian territory gets droned every day and assasinations of officials in the center of moscow take place every couple of months.
Maduro will share and apartment with Assad in a remote town in Siberia and the Latin Lover will have an affair with Asma .
The Sunni Arab Middle East will remain a colony of CENTCOM with wahabbi stooges creating eternal controlled chaos , Israel will have expanded into Lebanon and the former country called Syriaslavia, and the BRICS bullshiters faced with their own contradictions will have disbanded .
ivan, while I understand the appeal of cherry picking that 2030 finding, in and of itself it fails to account for the systems theory in which finance is the shortest-term driver of collapse because peak oil theory is an affordability metric. (Notice that he later addresses additional complexity when noting the”economic crisis” variable.) As such, there are actually no “supply concerns” as you call them. Peak oil is a demand-side problem in real-world terms because civilization is an economy first. That has never been more evident than right now and the evidence is only going to accelerate from here on out.
Supply always falls during recessions and depressions because demand falls. Supply is only ever a lagging indicator of demand. And central bank ‘printing’ now causes currency debasements which only destroys the real value of the ‘printing’ ie pushing on a string instead of pushing on demand. Debasement only causes more marginal consumers to fail as consumers, further bringing down demand.
Feel the thrill of the near-term predicament.
Natural gas is going to have its limitations as well.
https://x.com/aeberman12/status/2002765095462433186
Diesel engines are 30-35% more fuel efficient than gas engines.
https://www.fuellogic.net/why-do-big-trucks-use-diesel-instead-of-gasoline/
”There are tons of solutions. ”
Yes , like AI .🤣
This links to an interesting article by John Maudlin about the huge plans for natural gas, including an amazing ramp up of export LNG capacity. A huge increase in natural gas to power AI is, of course, also planned.
https://www.mauldineconomics.com/frontlinethoughts/powering-the-ai
This is a chart of near term expected increases in Natural Gas Export capacity
https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c8f3c2_2868e5d4302f44e8aa14e77e7e778f36~mv2.jpg
The thing that is pointed out is that there are two kinds of natural gas. One is “associated” natural gas, which comes out with oil production. If the price of oil is high enough, it will likely be sold, no matter how low the price of natural gas is. The other is “dry natural gas,” pumped where no oil is present. It requires a high enough price, or production will stop.
Clearly exporting LNG and natural gas for AI are competing uses of natural gas. There is also a question of how much natural gas can be pumped.
Mauldin doesn’t seem to figure out that the price of exported natural gas can easily go way too high for Europe. A lot of natural gas is burned in the export process. This makes exporting $6 or $7 natural gas, far different than the profitability of exporting $2 natural gas for an $11 price in Europe. Europe likely can’t afford to purchase the LNG at a much higher price.
You do make a worthwhile point. Even if it is possible to convert a few uses to gasoline (or ethanol or electricity), conversion will be slow and expensive. Liebig’s Law of the Minimum determines the maximum change that can be made. Copper is one of the materials that is limited besides diesel.
ivanislav says:
December 22, 2025 at 1:19 pm
There are tons of solutions. One could use gasoline to spin a jet engine that charges a battery. That’s already being done. The sodium ion batteries area big deal by all accounts and are being scaled in China.
Batteries are not a solution for vehicles that move tons of weight.
Very low quality oil is a better one and is what experts are probably betting on.
Where is all the copper , platinum etc… precious metals going to come from???? We are running out…
According to the optimists, we can recycle it to meet higher demand or we can mine the solar system for them.
Yeah. I know.
Anyone ever notice if you make any factual statements about life, people who are otherwise secular, will call you a nihilist.? Nihilist as a pejorative is meaningless to someone who does not subscribe to a spiritual view of reality.
It’s like an Objectivist calling someone greedy.
US oil blockade of Venezuela pushes Cuba toward collapse – WSJ
“Nearly 90% of people live in extreme poverty, and 70% go without at least a meal a day, said the Social Rights Observatory, a think tank that conducted a month of polling this past summer. For more than 70% of Cubans, their main concerns are the lack of food and the constant blackouts, which can go for 18 hours or more a day in some regions. The observatory found that 78% intend to flee the island.
Cubans who have fled—as well as others on the island who spoke by phone—said that garbage is piling up, communicable diseases like chikungunya and dengue are spreading, and many children aren’t going to school. Water availability is intermittent, leaving Cubans sometimes unable to bathe, wash dishes or flush toilets.
“This is existential,” said Manuel Cuesta Morua, a 62-year-old activist, speaking from Havana. “We’re just surviving day to day.”
Cuba’s economy has contracted 15% since 2018, according to Ricardo Torres Pérez, a Cuban economist at the American University in Washington. Cumulative inflation from 2018 to November is nearly 450%, he said. The Cuban peso has collapsed, trading at about 450 per dollar on the black market, compared with about 30 in 2020.
“You could say it’s as bad as it can get, but we also know it can get worse,” said Torres Pérez, pointing to the blow from falling Venezuelan crude shipments. “If those shipments continue to dwindle in the next few weeks or months, well, the situation is going to be just unsustainable.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/us-oil-blockade-of-venezuela-pushes-cuba-toward-collapse/ar-AA1SLq0F
Marco Rubio appears to be behind this as he’s Cuban and has dreamt of one day toppling the Cuban government. What he doesn’t consider is that when Cuban collapses, the US will probably get an influx of Cuban refugees.
I was living in Miami during the Cuban boat flotilla during the early 80’s.
Rubio seems to be, effectively, more powerful than Trump.
Or another entity is more powerful than them both, and Rubio provides additional political cover over and above the Trumpian blankie. Tulsi was furious when he got nominated for Secretary of State.
Cuba is an island nation that depends on crude oil for a substantial share of its electricity production. It is almost by definition very vulnerable. In fact, what the country needs is diesel, which is especially in short supply. The rest of the world needs diesel.
We should expect that the world economy will need to contract toward its “core.” Island nations, like Cuba, are definitely not the core. The world economy cannot afford to have Cuba and other similar island nations burning oil for electricity. The action by Rubio is not very surprising.
Island nations are the low hanging fruit for collapse . Read Tainter . Madagascar , Haiti , Sri Lanka etc. Look for the big fish viz UK and NZ . Here is FE . Love him , hate him but you can ‘t ignore him .
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/why-does-new-zealand-not-implode?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2633070&post_id=182233733&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
My favorite part was the commenter cg calling out Eddy on his holocaust bs. Since when did Eddy believe in the gas chambers?
I love the NZ government paying for gas and oil exploration.
CALIFORNIA Governor LOSES IT After 2 MAJOR Refineries SHUT DOWN and LEAVE – Prices Set to EXPLODE”
38,055 views Dec 17, 2025
“California’s gas prices have spiraled into a full-blown crisis, and frustrated drivers across the state are demanding to know what’s really going on. In this video, we break down the complicated network of factors that consistently keeps California at the top of the nation’s fuel price rankings.
California’s gas prices have spiraled into a full-blown crisis, and frustrated drivers across the state are demanding to know what’s really going on. In this video, we break down the complicated network of factors that consistently keeps California at the top of the nation’s fuel price rankings.
“You’ll discover how the state’s strict refinery rules, low-carbon fuel standards, and extensive environmental regulations combine to create a perfect storm of skyrocketing pump prices. We’ll explain why California’s specialized fuel blend can only be produced by a small number of refineries, how the state’s Cap-and-Trade program quietly tacks extra costs onto every gallon, and why even the smallest supply hiccup leads to immediate and dramatic price spikes.
“We’ll also take a close look at the refinery shutdowns now threatening California’s already fragile fuel supply, the near-monopoly structure of major oil companies operating in the region, and whether California’s accelerating push toward electric vehicles will actually help—or simply raise the burden on those who still rely on gasoline.”
This is an example of the green confiscation that takes place, which is discussed in the next comment (with video) down. All of regulations lead to higher prices and sellers leaving the market. People who thought that they would be able to purchase gasoline for their car figure out that they cannot really do so.
the bottom line on this thread—is that nations hold together only as long as the energy input that created them holds together.—ie coal and oil.
been saying that for years now.
we are seeing the same thing in europe—it looks different, but it only appears that way.
The next US president. Say hello to Me Slick Gel Man.
There are a lot of people on here that think technology will solve all of our problems…. David where are you? They talk about Thorium as if it is already a solution and that we will just switch over to electric everything and that will all be powered by new tech….It is no different…..come on Dennis you are no different than this!
mRna technology has solved the problem.
I thought this video was good. It explains how governments can seize assets in sneaky ways, in situations like today, in which way too many governments have made way too many promises. They talk about new compliance standards, and expensive changes that must be made to keep your home. Or they just confiscate the gold you have.
Outstanding video indeed.
Good explanation of how the system has and will work. This goes through every domain(what do people think 2020 was really about).
All present events are herding us to a point that becomes too late to back out from(already past that point?).
“We are witnessing a fundamental shift in how the state is functioning, and how it is functioning vis-à-vis its citizens. This shift is, of course, accompanied by many more developments (such as infrastructural ones, financial ones, the importance of dual-use technology, monopolization, rhetoric, etc.)”
“The current tools of censorship (e.g., sanctions, deportations) are entirely administrative tools used to remove threats. These are not legal tools, and there’s no identification of a crime to be punished”
“and there’s no identification of a crime to be punished”
Everyone in the west, no matter where you where born, or live, will become very aware of this, very soon.
https://substack.com/@nelbonilla/note/c-190184086?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7c6fx
I can only recommend reading Nel, for anyone that thinks the US is backing away from nato/Ukraine(or anywhere else) or that nato is soon breaking up.
Preparation of the public chugs along so gently, no one stops and asks, what’s going on.
https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-report-2025
The table looks almost set, it will soon be time to dine.
This is an example today of the Green Confiscation at work:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/leases-five-offshore-wind-projects-suspended-over-radar-related-national-security
Leases For Five Offshore Wind Projects Suspended Over Radar-Related National Security Concerns
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria” on Fox Business that the Trump administration will suspend leases for five wind farms under construction off the U.S. East Coast, citing national security concerns related to radar interference.
“Well, today we’re sending notifications to the five large offshore wind projects that are under construction that their leases will be suspended due to national security concerns. During this time of suspension, we’ll work with the companies to try and find a mitigation. But we’ve completed the work President Trump has asked us to do. The Department of War has come back conclusively that the issues related to these large offshore wind programs have created radar interference that creates a genuine risk for the U.S., particularly related to where they are in proximity to our East Coast population centers,” Burgum told Bartiromo.
Notice that “green confiscation” is the path of the Left. The Right can change the rules as they go along, with the reason being national defense or something similar.
When I worked in the insurance industry, I was struck by how the rules changed as we went along.
I think that banking rules will be changed so that defaults won’t be recognized. Or data simply won’t be published.
I once had a debate with my late father, who swore those shiny brass Sacagawea and presidential dollar coins were real gold and that the dollar was “as good as gold.” That’s about as accurate as claiming a chocolate coin could pay your rent, and it wasn’t even true in his lifetime—gold convertibility ended back in the 1930s. The average person’s understanding of the system could make a conspiracy theorist look like a scholar.
Shocking stat: from 2010 to 2025, non-OPEC oil production has ⬆️ by 9.2MM Bbl/d while US shale, part of that growth, has ⬆️ by 10.8MM Bbl/d (117% of non-OPEC supply growth). Without shale, non-OPEC would have fallen by 1.6MM Bbl/d 2025 vs. 2010 while demand grew by 17.2MM Bbl/d.
https://x.com/ericnuttall/status/2002024631960772912/photo/1
15% (1.6/(1.6+9.2)) in 15 years is not a whole lot. Many of us are predicting a much earlier collapse than that. Th only option they have is that the decline is faster than exponential, and that also coal and gas collaborate.
A lot of ngl’s in that USA growth:
https://sl-advisors.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Blog-Image-November-26-2023-1a-1030×579.jpg
Yes, as of mid-2025, some natural gas liquids (NGLs) did sell for approximately $19 per barrel in U.S. markets, though prices can vary significantly depending on market conditions and the specific type of NGL.
For example, in July 2025, APA Corporation reported an average realized price for U.S. NGLs of approximately $19.80 per barrel for the second quarter. This was a decrease from the prior quarter’s average of $28 per barrel and reflects the volatility in natural gas markets at the time.
Natural gas liquids represent shorter chain molecules. It is my understanding that many of these shorter chain molecules are traded separately. For example, there would be different prices for propane, butane, and ethane.
If there is an oversupply of natural gas liquids, some of the shorter chain molecules can simply be burned with natural gas. In such a case, the price will be low.
I have heard it a couple of times that the larger oil companies include ngl’s along with crude which is misleading. Ai seems to agree. But its not the same according to Art at 44 minutes.
Yes, ExxonMobil (and the industry) treats Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) as valuable liquid hydrocarbons, often grouped with crude oil for reporting and processing,
Sorry here’s the link at 44 minutes
Right. Ethane is almost a waste product of the oil industry. They need to keep making plastic bags and similar things to provide a market for ethane.
All of these natural gas liquids are very close to being gases. That means that they are hard to transport and store. Transportation and storage becomes a substantial share of the cost of short chain hydrocarbons.
Right now, what the world is short of is long chain hydrocarbons, such as are used in diesel and jet fuel. They come from heavier oil, including much of the oil from Russia.
runaway are you implying that the record-breaking US crude production totals might be bs after all? As I’ve said before there was a MAGA purge in the data bureaucracy, including at the top, and on top of Exxon and other majors consolidating the industry.
I thought I computed the decline for conventional oil only.
Regardless of what announcements a company makes to its shareholders, the US Energy Information Administration will separate out what is reported into natural gas liquids and crude oil. That is how the information in your chart is produced. The NGLs are relatively low valued, compared to crude oil. DRB is telling us that he is looking at only “crude oil,” not the low-valued NGL.
Gail how can they include all the ngl’s in one chart when their heat content ranges from 74% of crude to 49% of crude and ethane at 49% is the main component of ngls. I worked in Saudi from 1979-1985 for the 2nd largest supplier to Aramco. I remember you could put saudi lite right out of the ground into a Mercedes Benz truck and it would run. I’m guessing you cannot put ethane into a diesel truck and expect it to run. They are very different
Not arguing with you. Just trying to figure this out.
At one time, only crude oil data was collected. When the US government could see that there was going to be a problem, and that the US likely had a disproportionate amount of NGLs, the EIA started reporting “total liquids,” including NGLs, ethanol, and “refinery expansion”–the extra volume that becomes available by cracking long hydrocarbon chains into shorter ones (and adding natural gas, which is cheap). This was to cover up the problem that was occurring. You can get the details from some reports, especially if you look for them.
Raviuppal, it was painful to read your litany of complaints about the way the UK is running these days. I hope you will keep coping with what the situation presents to you.
One person who shares your views is Old Grumpy—Dr. Vernon Coleman. One of his recent talks was dedicated to the sentiment that everything was better 50, 60 or even 70 years ago. I don’t have an opinion on that myself. The UK has always been a ripoff as far as I can see. It was the spirit of decency, fairness, kindness, and generosity of ordinary salt-of-the earth common people that made the place livable more than anything the governing, ruling, owning, and administrative classes did.
Anyway, here’s Vernon:
======
The older I get the more bewildered I become by the contrast between then and now. A year or two ago I decided that health care was at its best in the 1970s when GPs, often pastoral in style, visited patients in their homes and were available on call day and night for every day of the year, including Christmas Day.
But it isn’t just health care that was better back in the 1970s.
Everything was better then.
Today, we live in persistent and unremitting (and often terrifying) chaos. To the naïve and innocent the chaos is a result of incompetence, greed and indifference.
But the chaos isn’t accidental. It is, rather, a result of the malignant aspirations and lethal actions of conspirators who want to control our lives.
The 70s were better than today. But so were the 60s. And the ‘50s.
I am now convinced that life in the 1950s was safer, kinder and in every way better than life today. As we head into the second quarter of the 21st century. I can’t remember when I last heard a politician tell the truth. And I can’t think of anyone in public life whom I admire.
We live in a world of chaos and misery and fear but none of the chaos and misery is happening in isolation or by accident. The old are persuaded to hate the young. The young are persuaded to hate the old. Men and women are put at loggerheads. Racial tension is deliberately created. And so on and so on.
It’s all part of a plan. The plan. As I’ve been saying for decades, nothing is happening by accident. There are no coincidences.
Whenever a government does anything which seems strange or inexplicable all you have to do is ask yourself: `How does this fit in with the Agenda?’ or `How does this benefit the conspirators?’ You will quickly find yourself understanding exactly what is happening and why. We are in a race to Net Zero and from there into the inhumane, unimaginable horrors of the Great Reset. And we’re already half way there.
The clue is that everything bad is happening everywhere – in every country. Digitalisation, social credit schemes, euthanasia, re-wilding, food shortages – all are happening all around the world. Economies are crashing everywhere. Politicians all around the world seem incompetent or crooked or both (I find it impossible to name one leading politician in the world who doesn’t match that description).
Undemocratic organisations, led by unelected individuals, are taking more and more power. Fear is being used as a tool to create obedience and compliance. New laws are being introduced to limit our freedom though we are, of course, told that they are being introduced to protect us, in some curious way from some imagined or created threat. The EU (created by World War II’s left over Nazis don’t forget) and the UK are desperate for the third world war to start. They are doing everything they can to stop the peace process in Ukraine. They want more war. They know that a nice big war is the quickest way to kill a few hundred million. They claim that Russia wants to invade Europe and Britain. Why? Why on earth would Russia want to invade countries which have massive debts, too many immigrants and no natural resources worth stealing? What do Britain, France and Germany have that Russia could possibly covet?
The new laws are introduced so fast that the police cannot keep up with them, and victims of wrongful arrests have been paid big chunks of money. Tax legislation is now so absurdly complicated that even tax inspectors don’t understand what the rules are.
And Britain is in the vanguard of countries being pushed remorselessly into the Great Reset. It is clear to me that Britain is being run by a cabinet of sociopaths who care nothing for the people who elected them (and pay them) but put all their effort into pleasing the conspirators who now control everything.
And yet at least 95% of the population have no idea what is happening to them – or how the future is going to look.
If you live outside the UK you should get down on your knees and give thanks that you don’t live in the UK. Even Canadians and Australians are better off than the British. Even the French are better off than the British.
In the UK, where I am unfortunate enough to live and work, I feel as though I’m living in France in the 1940s – a member of the Resistance, fighting bad people who have taken over my country. The evidence that we are living in a constructed nightmare is unavoidable. The people pretending to run the country (but themselves being run by manipulative conspirators) make Joe Biden and Boris Johnson look like saints – and that takes some doing……
======
I am quite possibly breaking half a dozen UK laws just by linking to this version of the article. If even the police can’t keep up with the new laws, what chance do the rest of us have. Also, Vernon Coleman’s personal website seems to be unreachable.
https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/dr-vernon-coleman-britain-is-half
Tim , it was not my complaint — it was a copy/paste of some one on another website . I don’t live in the UK but in Belgium . The UK is of interest to me since I foresee it as head of the queue of devolped nations headed for a collapse . Vernon Coleman ‘s post another marker to UK ‘s journey . Thanks for the post .
Thank you for the clarification, Ravi!
It is just a conclusion of 5 centuries of helping to mess up Europe
They, just like the lords and landowners, contributed to harm the continent and given the behavior of some of the poster from Uk, past and present, they have not changed their attitude
So it is just no more than ‘getting one’s due’. It took 5 centuries but finally the time to pay the piper has arrived. And the price will probably be quite stiff.
Get yourself ready for another massive disappointment kulm.
The game is already in play and Germany, yet again(yawn), has agreed to be the focal point of what’s coming. Gottlieb Biedermann just couldn’t say no, even when the outcome is plain for all to see.
Thank you Gottlieb.
Thank you so very much.
P.S it’s nice that Dr Firth still lives on in your head. I’m sure that would make him chuckle.
This time UK will die with the contonent
What are your thoughts on France and the francophone nations, Kermit?
We may only have 9d in the kitty, but we do have a plan and it’s a cunning plan, where Germany plays mother(again).
https://youtu.be/AsXKS8Nyu8Q?si=vAGjCgiWnc_NZe1r
Got a match?
Still unrepentent, still thinking this is 1895.
One quote I am struck by:
” Why on earth would Russia want to invade countries which have massive debts, too many immigrants and no natural resources worth stealing? What do Britain, France and Germany have that Russia could possibly covet?”
Of course, the issue in starting a war is an excuse for more debt. This debt could indirectly lead to more jobs for young people, and more GDP (as long as damage to the country’s own infrastructure is not an issue). People seem to be easily led.
If zero logic is required, it does not matter for what reason loans are extended.
Under normal circumstances, war is an investment and demands a profit. This means that a risk is taken so that we have MORE afterwards than before. In the case of Ukraine, the goal of the war is to gain only what was there before. They make an investment and undergo a risk to have in the best case “no change”. It can not come to a profit already by definition. The loss is also not minimized, because the war is more expensive than Donbas and Crimea are worth. This means that we are not acting rationally, but religiously.
We cannot rule out the possibility that the Russians are also acting religiously and are willing to pay anything to take the Eiffel Tower. But what will most certainly happen is that Russia will receive parts of the former Warsaw Pact back for free. It does not even have to invade for this, the countries will join the EU voluntarily as a consequence of the disintegration of the EU.
This could affect: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, but also Serbia. We have seen open rebellion against the German led EU in the last weeks during the discussion of the Euroclear assets.
It should not be forgotten that the EU is currently failing in its task of providing basic state services, such as energy, the rule of law and a stable currency. The EU has just transferred 90 billion of taxmoney to a corrupt war lord without any legal basis and no control about how the money is spent.
In the critical opposition, a plan is assumed in the assessment of the EU reactions, which should lead to a new state of affairs. So also in the “Bunker” text.
In the last 25 years, in fact, the idea of “managing deficiency” through authoritarian and centrally managed administration has come up. You already read something like that at Piketty, for example. There are also esoteric groups that support or expect this.
But nowhere does it say that this will also work! Logically speaking, one should expect that a corrupt clique, with absolute control compulsion, will not be able to hold on for long. Not even if they force many into the gulags in order not to have to satisfy their claims.
This includes a sad thing that you don’t like to hear since Fast Eddy: here in the Alps, people do die like flies! Young and old.
Maybe this is an exception! But – we also have to reckon with the possibility that this is the case elsewhere.
If this is the case, a lot of claims are currently being deleted: pension and unemployment insurance.
We must also assume that this is a cause of falling demand. At the same time, economic strength is declining and many loans can no longer be serviced.
Such a contraction carries the risk of exceeding tipping points.
I expect two phases: a) a phase of open failure of all systems, which leads to a supply stop and open rebellion or acts of revenge of the population and b) an attempt to achieve self-sufficient supply with the existing possibilities. This will affect very few people now.
To put it carefully: in many places only 1% will be able to participate in b), in others up to 25%.
People expect that the worst is still ahead. I think we are alread in the middle of it!
The Hand has useful idiot Vernon Coleman right where the Hand wants him.
When dissident Brits are living in the exact same Matrix in which Americans were living 18 months ago — but in which they are very obviously no longer living — the dissident Brits should fucking maybe, just maybe, ask themselves how a Great Reset could still possibly work now that the Great Reset has lost America.
Being an attention seeking numbskul is always what turns a person into controlled opposition.
Vernon does come across, just a teensy weensy bit, as a self-obsessed nit-picking bore. He usually manages to bring his essays around to HIM—how HE predicted, HE warned, HE was ignored, HE is suffering, HE is being persecuted, and all HIS media access has been taken away. At least that’s the impression he gives to the casual reader or listener.
With all his lamenting, accusations and gripes—many of which are probably quite justified—I’m left with the thought that he doesn’t quite grasp at a deep emotional level that this is a whole lot bigger than HIM.
Yeah come on Verne nobody’s bigger than the DA.
An ageing world: the rebuilt bus station in my regional town
https://my.sme.sk/trencin/g/autobusova-stanica-trencin-2?exit=d8465ede-6064-4bd5-86d2-66ecc379a350#019b3c0a-98eb-7c89-9c87-4bbbd7d8990a
https://www.trencin2026.eu/en/home/
Trenčín is the European Capital of Culture 2026
Chicago Holiday Bus!
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Frode-the-cta-holiday-bus-tonight-v0-zxsalbfb9h8g1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1c52feadc2669825d9656d71196db3ba38371566
Todays pre-opening tunnel tour of the currently longest Carpathian tunnel. About 7,5 km tunnel needed 27 years to complete, as I have written before.
https://youtu.be/J1OlHKo-wDQ?si=TsNJ7aToL0n7av45
Looks exciting! 27 years! Like building a cathedral.
Exactly. Motorway construction is a way to create a false picture that the growth continues. Which is not the truth. Just adding numbers to GDP.
And struggling to achieve a better solution for a dangerous road with accumulating traffic, where many people died because their life was accelerating towards the death.
https://www.cas.sk/spravy/krimi/krimi-domace/cesta-smrti-pod-strecnom-vzala-zivot-aj-anjelovi-z-modreho-z-neba-za-7-rokov-tu-zomrelo-22-ludi
The bishop for army and prisons also came to bless the tunel
https://ipravda.sk/res/2025/12/21/thumbs/sr-visnove-tunel-otvorenie-hasicska-stanica-pozehnanie-zax_01-galeria.jpg
man, Trencin is a rich place. The Detroit train station has no overhangs to protect people from rain. Also it takes 6-7 hours to travel by train to Chicago, whereas a similar trip (400 km) takes less than 100 mins in Italy and about an hour in Japan or China.
The train in Japan will have very little storage space for luggage. Anything bigger than a small brief case will need to be shipped ahead by truck.
Can’t shoot buffalo from a moving train neither if it’s going too fast. We got our reasons by god.
Here is the bus station my wife’s cousin designed. https://www.dennisaoppenheim.org/bushome
interesting structure
Too much money in the budget? Town wants to be a tourist destination?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHCIz5pxiNk
Von Der Leyen is alleged to have stolen 4.2 billion euros from the EU.
Wow! This is really over the top! The allegations certainly look true from what the video shows. She stops mid-speech, doesn’t wait for applause, and leaves.
I can’t find anything online corroborating this account of the European Parliament session. So, sadly, I will have to assume it’s fake news.
Tim , the matter has already been covered up and VDL only got reprimanded for not being transparent . The issue was that she purchased 1.1 billion doses of Covid Vaccines from Pfizer value Eur 3.3 billion via her private What ‘s App chat and not thru the EU platform . No public tender was floated . She handled this one to one with Pfizer —no official involved . She then said she had deleted the chat and she refused to provide any information to the inquiry commission . She was booted out by Merkel because of corruption allegations when she was Defense Minister of Germany . Crooked to the core .
https://www.politico.eu/article/how-europes-covid-inquiry-went-dark/
Thank you, Ravi. I remember the vaccine scandal from a couple of years back. But this latest 4.2 billion euros is a different matter.
This is allegedly money intended for green investment in Eastern Europe being funneled into a US based entity with one of VDL’s relatives on the board and never being used for its intended purposes.
Before I take the story seriously, I’d like some confirmation of what’s been going on and whether the European Parliament session really went as the video alleges. A video of the actual session would be nice too.
We live in a strange world now where videos can be faked.
I searched for this Orban-von der Leyen confrontation using Duck Duck Go and found no other links in the first 20 results (there were links to earlier confrontations though). If other search engines find something, do tell us … thanks.
we do indeed Gail
there was one a few weeks ago—presented on ofw as ”real”
buzz Aldrin talking to an 8 year old—(Apparently) telling her that the moonlanding was ”faked”
the video was clumsiliy faked, that much was very obvious.—only an 8 year old would be taken in by it—or someone with the mental acuity of an 8 year old.
I think Norman means this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGoXn1vMrjE
I don’t think this video was faked. The real interview took place, and Buzz’s answer to the question is presented as it was.
But the context given to Buzz’s answer was misleading by implying he said that “we didn’t go to the moon” period.
This is nothing compared to some of the “fake” trump quotations made up by the BBC—and for which they’ve finally been made to pay in court.
But Norman has no problems with anyone who slanders or libels Trump, as Trump is fair game because Norman hates and despises and obsesses over Trump as the personification of all the vices and evils of the world. Ain’t that right, Norman?
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/images/68389a2ca062a.jpg
https://en.numista.com/470646
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/photos/liberia/683a8b2dbb9798.41758941-original.jpg
CAESAR TRUMP
FACITE AMERICAM ITERUM MAGNAM
“In Don we trust”.
Don’t insult the Roman emperors; they weren’t Shylock Nostra puppets like this Orange real estate shyster.
Don’t insult the Roman emperors;
they weren’t Shylock Nostra puppets like this real estate Orange shyster.
correct
and for those who still think trump’s police state is joke:
https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-brett-kavanaugh-ice-immigration-papers-please-crackdown
time and again ive warned that the supreme court has been bought.
I can’t either in the russian websites. I’d assume they would run with it if it were accounts. it is still probably true since we know of all shenanigans with the vaccines, and also that generally speaking the western system runs on grift.
More from Mark A Rush, a former nuke submarine captain, saying nuclear war is survivable if one does not live near military sites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtEaIl6FSAI&t=32s
He thoroughly debunks Annie Jacobsen, who said in a nuclear war 5 billion would die.
Ms. Jacobsen, or Dr. Jacobsen, or whatever, went around everywhere to sell her sensationalism and she showed up on the Joe Rogan show
https://youtu.be/5VoVIpIzj_c?si=hiaf6o7w0qbdn7JU
And the Lex Fridman Show
https://youtu.be/GXgGR8KxFao?si=Py3OSbr_mxuoLHG0
But it does not matter where she had appeared since she spread BS and did not convey useful information.
Joe Rogan will talk with whoever brings large views, but Lex Fridman, Ph.D and very smart according to some , should have been more discerning with whom he invited.
I said Fridman was just an informacial host, and I am vindicated. he does talk to anyone who pays him.
All the tech peddlers who showed up in the Fridman show to peddle their stuff, I now can dismiss them quite easily as being snake oil salespeople.
Some people, full in their delusions, embraced the bs being spewed in Fridman’s shows. I did not waste too much time listening to them, having heard what I needed from Nikola Danalyov’s shows years ago. And I am glad that I had made the right decision.
I agree. Everyone isn’t going to die in nuclear war. It isn’t clear to me that nuclear bombs will be dropped anywhere, except possibly on top of countries that are already collapsing. Ukraine and Israel have been mentioned as possibilities.
This seems to be the direction all of the K-shaped economies are headed.
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/14-hour-shifts-and-1-a-deliverybut-chinas-army-of-gig-workers-keeps-growing-81ce58e4
14-Hour Shifts and $1 a Delivery—but China’s Army of Gig Workers Keeps Growing
Two hundred million people are turning to food-delivery apps and other informal roles as job creation slows
Self-employed workers now make up about 30% of the nonagricultural workforce in China, up from 20% in 2013, data from Gavekal Dragonomics showed.
The number of ride-hailing drivers in China tripled to 7.5 million in the four years to 2024, even though the number of rides grew only by about 60% during the same period, government data shows. Many Chinese cities this year have told job seekers not to go into ride-hailing because competition is so fierce.
So many people are entering the gig economy that it is putting downward pressure on wages, as people laid off from other industries or unable to find full-time work compete for pay.
bad sign but consider the source. i believe it because my chinese friends have been telling me that the mood has cooled considerably and people look to save money. the same sources spew such falsehoods about russia i do not pay them any heed.
Very few can be self employed; one needs to be able to build teams and sometimes trim even very nice people. The trick is to see which can be team members and which have a primary skill which will benefit the group.
A useful word is “Next.” This one works coming and going.
Dennis L.
I think a more cognizant thing to say would be not everyone can be employed, period. Then, go on to say that being a productive person in the economy requires rare skills that most people don’t have. One has to be genetically gifted to make money. This is point of view that every futurist, every libertarian, every Social Darwinist could agree with. It is also a pov that I suspect most of the elites would agree with, which is why they pushed higher education so hard and why they are throwing everything at A.I. They have decided that the Limits to Growth is a situation of humans not being smart enough to come up with solutions.
Next = Kicking the can
Until the can cannot be kicked anymore
But what would I expect from someone who thinks the waste should be thrown to Jupiter, not spending a nanosecond to think about how to do that.
If China is bad here is India for you . Work 12 hours to earn Rs 10000 = Euro 100 per month . The number is now 7.7 million and will be 25 .7 million by 2030 as per govt forecast .
https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/the-future-of-the-gig-workforce-in-india
https://www.newindianexpress.com/web-only/2024/Jul/16/for-eight-million-indians-life-is-a-gig-and-a-mostly-terrible-one-at-that
Energy decline leads to cultural decline
The newest installment of Avatar, by James Cameron who is 71 now, is said to be worse than the 2nd installment, which was just a copy of the 1st.
When the 1st part came out it was revolutionary.
But, despite of tech ‘improvements’, there are not much to see in the 3rd installment after 16 years of ‘technological advancement’.
Simply laughable.
Avatar 2 did 2.3 billion
The Chinese anime movie Nezha 2, earlier this year, did 2.1 billion. Granted, 99.2% of the box office came from China, but it is a recognized figure.
Avatar 3 has to defeat that figure to become the bigest movie of 2025, and given the initial reception, it is unlikely that it will do about 85% of Avatar 2 , or just a bit shy of 2b.
Nezha wins.
For the first time since the invention of movies, a Chinese movie tops the global box office for the year. Granted China used shady methods, but records do remain forever.
Avatar 3 – I streamed it. The cinematography is no longer spectacular for its time. The plot and motifs were sort of tired repeats as well. It will be lucky to get $1.5 billion and I wouldn’t be surprised if it nets less than $1 billion and even that result would be the result of high audience interest and expectations built by the prior movies, which were better. The production budget was $400 million according to the-numbers.com.
I expect movie tickets are a lot cheaper in China than the US. The high cost of movies in the US reduces attendance, especially with a K shaped economy. (A few rich, and lots of poor people).
Kulm’s point was probably more about narrowing the gap and perhaps crossing / leapfrogging over the past hegemon’s “cultural – soft power” advantage around the globe as well..
Which is likely true by now.
The nonWestern cultural forces have become strong enough to challenge the West in a serious way.
It’s not true if we’re talking about the hardest of soft power, which is the dollar. Dollar soft power is only going to get harder as other currencies fail. And the new American-led nationalist cultural ethos will be part and parcel of that, as we’re already seeing America leading the way on that.
We are not going through a transition from financial empire to financial empire. Neither are we transitioning from empire to no empire. We’re facing civilizational collapse so naturally empire will dictate the terms of that collapse. As we are seeing. I think that people should strongly consider not bargaining with that.
By energy decline you mean (structural) surplus energy decline. That type of (agri)cultural decline always precedes energy decline. What you are misidentifying as cultural decline is actually cultural collapse – the terminal acceleration of that long-term decline.
Welcome to civilization.
This is what an industrial country does when it is desperate. It cannot let all of the jobs disappear, when finished products (like motor vehicles) become too expensive for citizens to afford. Lots more government debt supports the effort.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/in-germany-everyone-is-a-defense-manufacturer-now-139ca922
In Germany, Everyone Is a Defense Manufacturer Now
Manufacturers scramble to reinvent themselves as military vendors to tap in to the country’s accelerated rearmament
Summary:
German manufacturers are pivoting to defense, driven by a half-trillion-dollar government pledge and economic stagnation.
It is the end of the road for the globalists in Europe. Either they get Russia’s resources, or they implode.
Globalists are not Europe-centric, ivan, by definition. They are global. Those whom you are misidentifying as globalists are merely small e European elites.
Welcome to the Hand’s running Disappearing Act that killed illuminati theory.
As Norm says — to what end ? The EU is now as per AI .
”Around 14% of the EU population (over 63 million people) were foreign-born in 2024, a figure that has grown steadily from 10% in 2010, with most immigrants coming from outside the EU for work, family, and education, concentrated in major countries like Germany, Spain, France, and Italy, though Luxembourg, Malta, and Cyprus have the highest shares of foreign-born residents.”
Understand this is foreign born only . What about the second generation and the third generation born in EU ? Yeah , make the weapons but who is going to fire them ? The b °°°°h named VDL is leading the EU while her kids are enjoying the good life .
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Gj5yWzv-pf0
It’s not enough to look at the percent of total population. One must look at the younger and youngest cohorts as the real indication of what the country will become. And these numbers are of course much higher.
he final nail in the coffin of the EU — Euro-bonds.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/eu-summit-ends-failure-brussels-quietly-paves-way-eurobonds
So, we acquired some more time – deferral again: perhaps +2-3x quarters till next autumn.. in terms of UKRo govs financing. But it could all fall apart way sooner because of applied other vectors additional forcing.. who knows..
In any case, looking at it from mid 2000s perspective of laymen peak oilers – that stretched time of +two decades was wonderful – yet the delayed consequences could “retaliate” in the sense of returning in higher freq. and accumulated force as well, eventually..
According to the article:
In reality, Brussels achieved one thing above all: the politically and legally explosive issue of expropriating the Russian central bank was postponed. At the same time, the EU once again used the opportunity to cleverly circumvent its own rules—specifically the prohibition of joint debt issuance.
As far as I can see, Ukraine has been a thorn in the side of Russia for a very long time. It has built an out-of-date set of industry that doesn’t give an adequate return on investment. Because of this, Ukraine has had a terrible time paying Russia as much as it would like for natural gas. It also has a substantial amount of resources (farmland, fossil fuels, perhaps other minerals) that are not optimally used.
Ukraine’s peak electricity generation was in 1990! The economy’s peak energy consumption per capita was also in 1990, at 220.5 gigajoules per capita. By 2022, this amount had fallen to 54.67 gigajoules per capita. In 2024, with all of the funding for armaments from outside, it was up to 57.02 gigajoules per capita. In comparison, the average EU energy consumption per capita in 2024 was 115.3 gigajoules, which is about double that of Ukraine.
Ukraine is clearly a basket case. No matter how much debt is given to Ukraine, it will never be able to repay its debt with interest. It would be better that its current industry were bombed, and it started over under new management. It has been in collapse for a very long time. The current war effort is just pushing the country along in this effort.
Adding EU debt to try to support Ukraine is a crazy idea.
A significant amount of the European financing is required as Ukraine is about to default on bonds that Europe owns. This explains the funding “emergency”.
From MoonofAlabama…”most of the Ukraine’s creditors are the IMF and the EU. There is very little private investment in Ukraine sovereign bonds.
My take is that the $90B of new EU bonds will be going straight to refinance soon to mature bonds that would have defaulted without another can-kick. That likely explains the urgency. It’s a bailout of the EU and IMF. Or “extend and pretend”, writ large.”
Sort of like bailing out European banks in advance.
According to Alex Krainer . IMF is on the hook for $ 50 billion and the City of London + Frankfurt to about $ 150-200 billion . If the war ends then all these have to be written off . OK , but who will be holding the s°°t bag ? Blackrock , Vanguard etc . Grab some popcorn .
Blackrock and Vanguard are not the asset owners, they are fiduciaries. People gloss over that distinction, but it is important.
A related article. One of the things that the summit was supposed to ratify the Mercosur free trade deal, which “threatens to destroy food security in Europe. This didn’t happen.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/barbed-wire-tear-gas-water-cannons-brussels-battles-protesting-farmers-who-orban-says
Barbed-Wire, Tear-Gas, & Water-Cannons: Brussels Battles Protesting Farmers Who Orbán Says Are ‘100% Right’
“Farmers are 100 percent right,” said Orbán, who is currently in Brussels attending the EU Summit. . .
He also said that another problem for farmers is the Green Deal, which leads to expensive overregulation in agricultural work in such a way that it represents a serious cost and competitive disadvantage for European food producers.
MoA on the subject .
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/12/the-eus-russian-asset-scam-failed-but-warmongers-still-grab-public-money.html
“My prediction (bookmark this):
By July 2026, the first major US tech company will announce an AI facility in a foreign country citing “power constraints” as the primary driver. That headline will be the moment America realizes: We didn’t lose the AI race in silicon. We lost it in kilowatts. The century belongs to whoever can keep the lights on. “?
https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2002145836625768864?s=20
What foreign country will the major US tech company announce its AI facility in? Iceland? That is a country that has lots of electricity, and little way of exporting it, except as bit coins and the like. But electricity transmission from a foreign county is difficult at best. Perhaps data transmission can work better.
It seems like this might slow down future AI builds:
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/federal-regulators-issue-order-requiring-large-load-users-pay-grow-grid
“So this means that generators comprising the backbone of today’s grid cannot abandon existing customers, unless and until those generators and their large load customers—not other ratepayers— build the transmission upgrades needed to maintain reliable service for everyone else,” Rosner said.
The order requires PJM to establish an interim network service to provide “a bridge” while the infrastructure needed to serve a large load with traditional front-of-meter network integration and transmission service is being built, he said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrzLIG4qQRE
(52:40) — AI, but from Warren Buffett?
13,903 views Dec 18, 2025
“The argument is that Beijing is building a dollar buffer to protect banks as real estate losses, LGFV debt stress, and capital outflows intensify, because USD offers stability, liquidity, and global trust. If true, it strengthens the dollar’s safe-haven role and could export deflation, raise trade tensions, and tighten global dollar liquidity—meaning investors should focus on quality and risk control, not narratives.”
The blurb under the video says:
China’s state-linked “Big Four” banks are reportedly buying U.S. dollars aggressively—seen here as a crisis signal, not normal FX activity. The argument is that Beijing is building a dollar buffer to protect banks as real estate losses, LGFV debt stress, and capital outflows intensify, because USD offers stability, liquidity, and global trust. If true, it strengthens the dollar’s safe-haven role and could export deflation, raise trade tensions, and tighten global dollar liquidity—meaning investors should focus on quality and risk control, not narratives.
I can more or less believe this part, especially if it can be corroborated elsewhere. This might be a strategy Chinese banks would take, if China is having huge problems.
There is a picture of Warren Buffett, but the voice is not Warren Buffett. Do we know whether this is anything Warren Buffett would say? I take it that you are saying this is an AI video, trying to say what Warren Buffett would say. Is there corroboration elsewhere?
None, that I know of — I don’t who made it — I’m wondering whether it’s credible, or not.
It does seem like something that could happen, however.
Yeah it does. Nice find David regardless of its current accuracy.
AI has ruined YouTube, needs too much content and original providers cannot provide a constant, constructive stream of content.
Dennis L.
AI replaced humans who could not compete . I’m not sure what the problem is.
One of the movies which determined the attitude towards ex cops and ex soldiers was Rambo First Blookd
Alternate ending to Rambo First Blood
https://youtu.be/bn187skbynQ?si=7mf8n_WXmBATO4q1
This is actually the original ending, a bit modified since at there Rambo dies of his own hand.
In the original book, by David Morrell, a Canadian who saw the treatment on Vietnam Vets, Rambo’s superior disposes him with a shot at his head, with zero emotions whatsoever.
Whatever service Rambo might have done for the country, Rambo was too dangerous to be kept alive, so he was disposed like a harmful beast, like a rabid dog.
That was how ex cops and ex soldiers too violent to be let back to society was treated in the older days. Near their retirement they would suddenly get a shot from somewhere, and were considered to have died ‘in line of their duty’ so their more or less innocent family would get their pension. What retirement?
They were too dangerous to be returned to society so they were denied the chance to do so, disposed like rabid dogs.
Unfortunately a film exec who read the Rambo synopsis saw a franchise, and changed the ending, and Kirk Douglas, who said Rambo had to die in the end, walked out.
There are a lot of ex cops and ex soldiers, who never gave up their killing tendencies, and when their benefits are eroded, they will become very violent. And the movie Rambo First Blood played a large role for their continued survival.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/12/19/norways-green-transition-is-putting-sami-culture-at-risk
Norway’s green transition is putting Sami culture at risk. As a reindeer herder, I am watching renewable energy projects threaten our land, livelihoods and an Indigenous way of life the state once tried to erase.
This Sami woman writes:
I have three children and eight grandchildren. I worry deeply about the future they are being forced to inherit. Young people should not have to grow up constantly fighting for the right to exist.
Unfortunately, there is a huge problem already, apart from the wind turbines. If you are not to overpopulate the land, you should have two surviving children at this point, and four grandchildren. Overpopulation is the big issue we are facing. It is the underlying reason for wanting to use wind turbines. Having schools requires energy. Having any of the things we identify as modern requires energy. We have way too many people for energy supplies now.
YES, YES, YES!
Repatriate the Lapps(I refuse to use the name they gave to themselves) to Asia .
Problem solved
Can’t do that. The Eskimos will go ape! Better to make Northern Scandinavia Lapland again.
Gail, that’s a gross generalization.
Lots and lots of people in Europe are having zero children these days. Any one who has four of them is a hero of their family, community, tribe, nation and species. I wouldn’t say race, ’cause that’d be raciss.
it’s that time!
2025 year-end summary:
2025 began with a fairly stable IC and many minor things happened but nothing major, as I predicted.
2026 will begin with a fairly stable IC, many minor things will happen but nothing major, and 2026 will end with a fairly stable IC.
only 4 years left in the 2020s, it will go by in the blink of an eye!
What is your definition of nothing major? Something major did happen, namely the voice of USA does not really matter anymore outside of the Western Hemisphere
I disagree.
while that would have been quite major if it did happen completely and entirely within 2025, it didn’t.
that has been a gradual prolonged slow process and it is not complete but is ongoing.
Thank you David in Future. Always nice to see you. Refreshing! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
It became quite manifest in 2025 when Ukraine ignored Trump’s Peace Offers
showing even Ukraine does not take USA seriously
a minor thing, just like I said.
Yeah David! Your back!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G8i8xfvXgAEKhdZ? format=png&name=small
Here is some good news for you!
hey there!!
I can’t open your link.
oil prices are low yay!!
fast doomers are way too early as always!
good chance that 2026 starts and ends okay.
The Syrius report seems to be one of the high quality youtube channels for this forum, along with other stalwarts like Kevin Walmsley, and they go through the effort of looking at China latest policy paper on South America. It is, for all intents and purposes, a war declaration (cooperation? transport routes? Modernize agriculture? some neck veins in DC must have popped). My 0.02: probability for future wars in Lat. Am. increased significantly, which means in other parts of the world it decreased, since wars are resource constrained.
China has rewritten its policy toward South America in 2025, emphasizing win-win strategies.
We heard earlier that China is willing to lend money at lower interest rates than the US. It also has huge manufacturing capability that the US does not. These things, by themselves, would seem to put the US at a disadvantage.
I listened to part of this. I prefer having things I can read, to tapes.
All black Muslim England is on the way. Thank God, China and Japan protect their people and nation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnfqubq-U
Hope they don’t do ‘their duty’ unlike their previous residents who messed up Europe
England created slavery in the new world. First growing sugar in the Caribbean for their tea drinks. Then cotton in the southern US.
Very simplistic. Wrong maybe? the London city funders behind the slaving ships were the most efficient. Sugar was the energy to keep the (waged staff ) mills operating 24 hours on 3 shifts. More efficient than Portuguese and Spanish who were first to supply west African slaves to the new world. Amateurs. English people (not the Norman hereditary peers) were always against slavery . You couldn’t be a slave in England since magna carta, habaeus corpus and all that, restriction on the crowns ability to enslave.
with regard to slavery, most of the european nations were involved in it, one way or another—it was, as you say an exported energy resource long before coal or oil.
however, one critical point tends to be overlooked or ignored.
the actual slavers were africans themselves—they were the slave catchers….harvesters if you like. Few dare mention that.
they sold the ‘harvest’ of other tribes to the ‘carriers”. (europeans)—-who put them in the 18th c equivalvent of ‘tankers’.
without the active participation of African people, there would have been little or no slave trade.
it was we who converted the muscle energy of people, into the energy in rum and sugar, using sun-heat.
As of now, the top tribe in Nigeria sells its oil, for top price. Energy is still taken away in tankers…. But Nigeria as a nation is still a basket case, deriving little benefit from its oil wealth.
Get over it already Ed.
I saw a black guy from the West Indies in a uniform sweeping the floor on the platform of a station on the Tokyo subway the other day.
It felt very nostalgic. Reminded me of the London Underground in the 1960s.
There are a lot of churches all over Japan, since the importation, or should I say the “invasion”?, of Western cultural memes took off in the 1860s. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Armenian, Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Mormon, Rastafarian… Even Unification. There’s a pew to match almost every Christian’s or Demi-Christian’s worshipping need.
Hmm, there is always Thorium?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJyox9A5Fk
Sabina is at it again, seems the Chinese and Indians are looking at Thorium reactors.
Oil will cease to be a major provider of energy, but maybe it doesn’t have to be.
And of course, how can I resist? Has any one seen my cubic mile of Pt? It is H I tell you, not Li, that is so yesterday.
Dennis L.
Sabina points out that besides the very small demonstration size thorium in China, there are at least two other places where thorium based reactors are being investigated. One is India, in conjunction with Russia. The other is in Indonesia. She thinks that the West hasn’t gotten involved because it already has huge infrastructure using uranium.
It was the oil crisis of the 70’s which spawned the creation of the lithium battery by “Exxon.
Not saying, they’re going to pull a rabbit out of hat. But crisis times due spawn creation in unexpected ways.
Right now, it seems like there are people looking in every nook and cranny for left-behind energy. Some of it is actually oil, but a lot of exotic types of energy are being investigated as well.
Some of the electronics gadgets of the early 2000s are still working great if operated-cared for properly.. Hence the newer brake-through tech say Chinese lithium (lifepo4) since ~2010s by the better manufs out there is likely to have +30yrs lifespan easily.. And there are constantly appearing new waves of improvements and new lifecycle – longevity enhancements of this or other batt chemistries since then.
Basically, battery chemistry cobbled together from more common materials lasting few dozen thousands cycles and 30-40yrs shelf life are probably NOW at the prototype lab tables somewhere in Asia already.. And it sounded like a madman’s sci-fi vision back then in the 1980-90s..
Now, the issue is that sharing of that stuff at true industrial scale, CHN-RU won’t do it, they will firstly build up their own next gen power plants and batt storage / and mil application; meanwhile allowing for export only the lesser – formerly achieved top tech level..
Graphene Breakthrough Challenges Lithium Ion’s Dominance in Energy Storage
One of the newest breakthrough discoveries in this R&D race is a new form of graphene-based supercapacitor material that could have energy density comparable with lithium-ion batteries but would charge at a dramatically faster rate. The curved and accessible nature of the new graphene network design allowed the scientific team to break records for energy and power densities, potentially “paving the way for next-generation systems in electric transportation, grid support and everyday electronics” according to a recent report from ScienceDaily.
The study, which was recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, noted that their new model shows great promise for durability in real-world applications. “Long-term stability is noted even under aggressive testing conditions,” the study states. This, too, shows great promise for competition with lithium-ion batteries, which are durable and perform well in a wide range of conditions and temperatures, all of which is critical for grid-scale energy storage solutions.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Graphene-Breakthrough-Challenges-Lithium-Ions-Dominance-in-Energy-Storage.html
The cost of the new graphene batteries needs to be low, too. I didn’t see any mention of the cost of the new technology, but perhaps that is not yet know.
THE WHOLE WORLD IS ABOUT TO GO BANKRUPT.
The aim of the game IS the bailouts.
You will pay for the bailouts.
You will lose freedom after the bailouts.
Thank you for playing ‘bailouts’.
https://x.com/MakeGoldGreat/status/2001832260312641991
Can governments really last after the bailouts? Perhaps with a loss of freedom, and with this, a huge cutback in energy consumption.
Presumably, they will become different forms of governments, and send human progress centuries backwards.
The hyperindividualism and money worship of the capitalist west could be seen as a form of anti-progress.
I am afraid whoever wrote “THE WHOLE WORLD IS ABOUT TO GO BANKRUPT” is correct.
It seems like the world will need to forget both the governments that were in existence, and the (debt and pension) promises they made, to go forward. Start out with a clean slate, again. But such a world would be a much more local world. Total population would have to be much lower.
The situation cannot be total bankruptcy, everywhere, as long as some resources are available because of the Maximum Power Principle. The cleanest dirty shirts need to survive this round of debt defaults.
The cold makes you tough..”
Dunno about tough. It weeds out the stupid . No room for mistakes . Try getting caught out in a blizzard for 5 days at -30 , no escape and can’t see your arms . No fire .
If just one tip of one toe goes a wee bit black , your lower leg is coming off. This stuff should come with Darwin warnings.
Nightmarish strawman there Ewie. His idea at the very end to move the fire back and forth is a good one.
Haha , cheers R. Talking to a guy last week whose cousin was out in the mountains of Kosovo/Albania in March . Dry , cold . Pleasant walking I guess , aerobic. No alpinist .Whiteout came in from the Adriatic and they found him later in the week, sad. Going out without basic exposure gear in the mountains or hard cold should be discouraged. My stamping ground is the west coast of British isles , highlands / lakes / wales. Conditions go from very pleasant indeed to severe deadly in an instant. Due to Atlantic patterns. Similar but not as extreme in cascadia I believe , not as northern?
This is a good site for anybody using these hills
https://www.mwis.org.uk/forecasts/english-and-welsh/snowdonia-national-park
Thanks, good government website. You and Fitz should get together and go take a hike sometime. Just don’t take him to any of your bug out places in snowdonia or wherever unless you get-on like a house on fire in snowdonia or wherever where you can sit upwind or just out of any power plant iodine fallout until it mellows some.
I imagine that the guy in the video had an extremely predictable high pressure weather forecast he was going by with nothing coming in for several days. I’ve never been to Alaska but those forecasts never fail in Oregon, and that would including in the Cascades mountain range. I don’t recreate in those mountains but I can see them across the valley from the top of my property and the weather almost always has to pass over me before it reaches the mountains. I’ve always recalled English weather as being far more changeable than anywhere I’ve live in the US.1
That sunken !angled firepit! vs backwall (fallen tree exposed root-ball) is fantastic diy-trapper physics-engineering! As long as the wind doesn’t pickup speed / change direction.. other downed trees and branches around for encircling that camping site.
Some edeecation for the let’s-go-green mentality — but, that ain’t gunna support no 8 billion people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huB6g_HDHcM
“How is oil extracted on land?” (2:07)
Some of what’s involved in oil “fracking” —
Will this flourish, with oil prices now? — http://oil-price.net/
There certainly is a lot of complexity to this process. They also usually need to bring water from afar. Usually, they use a certain type of sand (rather than the ceramic beads). This sand needs to be shipped long distance. The fracking water comes back up along with other materials, and it needs to be disposed of. Pumping it back down can cause earthquakes.
Wow, this Jewish speaker makes a lot of claims about Putin’s relationship with Jews:
https://x.com/metnaor88/status/1829308811640791097
“Chabad bragging about owning Russia.”
A bet on fusion energy???
https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/trump-media-tae-technologies-merger-ai-fusion-power-b9ac22a5
Trump Media to Merge With Nuclear Fusion Firm in $6 Billion Deal
Tie-up between President Trump’s media company and TAE Technologies is a bid to use fusion energy to power AI boom
Michl Binderbauer, chief executive of TAE, said that breakthroughs on its most recent reactor show that “we are ready to move to utility scale fusion power.” It expects to site the first plant next year “subject to regulatory approvals.”
But fusion isn’t considered commercially viable yet. It has long been a clean-energy dream that would harness the process that powers the sun to deliver almost limitless energy. The technology faces daunting science and engineering hurdles, and some experts consider it a mirage that will remain out of reach. Scientists around the world are trying to figure out how to sustain fusion reactions and convert that energy into net power.
Having a media company on board is crucial to the ends and goals of the fusion industry (which is to make people believe that the 2026 economy will be the greatest on record, and other things). No need to discuss proton-proton repulsive forces.
i think i read somewhere that the don has promised 25% growth in gdp too.
given the imminent implementation of fusion, 250% is not out of the question.
Fusion will be free, I am sure. And it will come into use, almost immediately. [sarc]
ah—ty drb
now i have the measure of your trumpian thinking. It has often intrigued me.—rather like the don’s promise to ”decrease” the cost of .something by 250%—ie that would mean paying people to take stuff away.
he makes it clear that his grasp of energy/economics is zero, so so be careful which wagon you hitch your own grasp of reality to.
wealth increase and output requires heat energy input (there is no other way to create physical wealth)…
the holy grail of fusion energy is meaningless.
why?
because no economic system can exist without wages, and you can only create wages by changing one compound form into another….if those compounds are not available—unlimited fusion will make as much sense as you flicking a lightswitch on and off with no bulb in the socket.
(bit like replying to your comments really)…
you cannot make that change without heat input in some form.
all heat creates waste, and waste heat is cooking the planet. (I’m simpliying it there).
our current climate situation is difficult enough—imagine it jumping by 250%.
you check all this for yourself if you have a mind to—scorn my comment all you want—it wont alter reality.
To the extent that you don’t get irony, you yourself are rather American, Enn Pee.
No need to get ‘irony’. This is not word play.
I don’t think Norman would get irony if he was hit on the head with an ironic bar.
We solved the wages problem years ago, Norman…. by switching the workers over to salaries. That way we no longer need to pay ’em daily or weekly.
all heat creates waste, and waste heat is cooking the planet. (I’m simpliying it there).
=> (I’m simply lying there).
There, fixed it for you.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a hypothermia-free New Year!
If they do roll it out, it will lend credence to the idea that DoD / deep state have groundbreaking technologies withheld from the public for many years along the lines of the breakaway-civilization conspiracy theory.
Even if it works, there would be a long lag before it could be implemented widely. And even then, we need liquid fuels, even more than electricity. In theory, we could get liquid fuels using electricity, but that adds both to the timeline and cost.
Like the saying goes, “Fusion is the energy source of the future — and always will be.”
Last I checked, two protons in contact with one another still repel with a force of 20kg.
I haven’t studied this subject, but I suppose it is one of the reasons why some people think hydrogen bombs are fake.
(d,t) cross sections are much larger. effectively, they fuse while still at a distance.
They think fusion bombs are fake because they think its prerequisite, the fission bomb, is fake. And they think the fission bomb is fake because atoms are just materialistic mental models that don’t exist. Like spent fuel pools. They monkeyed-out and built a safe little space for themselves in which they can groom each other so they don’t have to self-soothe so much. Another kind of Epstein Island.
Well maybe it’s a win admitting we’re not getting our energy met with Venezuela or
Too bad the 1980s cold fusion experiment wasn’t crafted into an ipo scam.
Nor does it look good trying to leap frog next generation fission which is probably 100x easier. I remember a comment from a researcher wishing he hadn’t spent so much on unobtainium.
https://inference-review.com/article/the-quest-for-fusion-energy
Coal consumption for 2025 is forecast to rise according to the IEA. Zerohedge writes about this in an article called
Why coal is here to stay.
Bloomberg Opinion columnist and chief energy correspondent Javier Blas posted a chart on X from the International Energy Agency’s new global coal report showing that coal demand jumped to an all-time high this year, despite years of efforts by the green-industrial complex to end its very existence.
“Global coal demand rose to an all-time high in 2025, up 0.5% y-on-y to 8,845 million tons (also, @IEA revised up 2024),” Blas wrote on X, adding, “Now, IEA says 2025 will mark a peak, with consumption dropping over the next 5 years. Time will tell, but previous peak forecasts were off.”
The IEA’s report can be found here:
https://www.iea.org/news/global-coal-demand-has-reached-a-plateau-and-may-well-decline-slightly-by-2030
It says:
The report finds that global coal demand is on course to rise by 0.5% in 2025, reaching a record 8.85 billion tonnes. In several major markets, consumption patterns diverged from their recent trends. In India, an early and intense monsoon season resulted in a decline in annual coal use for only the third time in five decades. In the United States, higher natural gas prices and policy measures that slowed coal plant retirements lifted coal consumption, which had been on a downward trajectory for the previous 15 years. After two years of double-digit declines, coal demand in the European Union shrank only modestly. At the same time, in China, coal use remained broadly unchanged from its 2024 level.
I would expect that coal consumption will decline if the world economy contracts. It depends on how high “demand” can stay in a recession or depression.
If it does not work we have thorium
EU using Russia’s frozen assets has been decided against:
The incredible thing is that part of the damage has been done and can not be reversed. Shanghai is waltzing into the #1 spot as financial center without firing a shot.
Hurray! Significant objection to trying to use Russian frozen assets in EuroClear. If this were to go through, investments in euros would never be considered safe, since the EU might try to simply seize the funds.
EU wants money to finance the Ukrainian war, but this isn’t the way to get it.
A guess is the powers that be want the skim. There is no longer enough cash flow to run the bureaucracies. MN is seeing the same thing.
Societies run on trust, loss of trust appears to lead to chaos.
Dennis L.
In this section of the youtube video, John Helmer goes down a rabbit-hole discussing the influence of Israel or the Jewish lobby on Putin. He goes into the history a little bit, discusses how Israel spoofed radar that led to a Russian military plane being shot down in 2018, and various other decisions by Putin that appear to be biased or influenced by pro-Jewish sentiment. He also points out bizzare language by Lavrov and Zakharova in a similar vein.
https://youtu.be/g6XJWB1Gfjw?t=2684
Good find. Kolomoysky ought to be discussed more. But I do not have 3 hours to watch. Surely the tenor is similar to comments I posted here every now and again.
Helmer’s segment is 1/2 hour from the point I marked, but I don’t suppose you’d get much out of it as you’re already in Russia. For the rest of us, it provides partial disclosure of the various factional alignments.
Helmer is a fairly honest commentator, certainly superior to, say, The Duran or Martyanov. BTW I will be spending significant time in the Middle East over the next 4 months. Farm is going quite well with one weekly meeting. I will look at the segment later, thanks for saving some of my time.
Did you do farming in Italy or elsewhere? Where’d you get the experience to run your own show?
I worked in the fields most summers when young. But I was also thinking about retiring and starting a farm ten years ago. I did study the problem for several years. Eventually I pulled the trigger.
Of course in Russia several things are radically different. There is one season, one crop. The tractors can only be in the hands of experts. Finding parts is also a work for experts as going to Yaroslavl for a parts expedition involves visiting up to ten shops, often close to mom and pop stores.
My guys have bought into the idea that low stress animals grow well. They see it for themselves. The sheep on the loose grow better than the cows, but they all grow well. Specially they are able to defend themselves from biting insects, which can be a real torture and make them lose incredible amounts of weight. we make sure to leave dense thickets in the pasture, as the flies do not follow them in shade.
We also have the whole summer to ourselves for building projects as in summer the animals take care of themselves. I do have the longest fences in the oblast of course.
drb> I guess we had this debate-angle already. Nevertheless, I’m surprised you have chosen such relatively industrialized region over there. I get the economic argument – the proximity to central markets..
But we live only for once – why not opt for less ~spoiled by civ region?
You’re a brave man to go full-bore with only the experience from childhood. I would worry about a lot of things, about getting screwed somehow, etc etc.
It was early 2021 and I thought I had seen enough of what was coming in the West. I thought it was a forced choice.
Keir Starmer on the right in 1980, holding a flute.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27bc38618de3a39e5be68165118f12e37f8cca68/608_0_1440_1152/master/1440.jpg?width=1900&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none
But there’s a problem. The boy in the photo is smiling and has curly hair. But Prime Minister Starmer never smiles and does not have curly hair. We have been tricked. He is clearly an impostor, a Replicant. We know how this is done. I’ve seen the film, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. It all starts with spores from outer space. Here I am pointing the finger at Dennis L and Elon Musk. But do GCHQ and MI5 know that the British prime minister is a Replicant? This is an emergency! We need to know, and fast.
“The core thesis is this: Energy has become the master variable that explains finance, geopolitics, monetary systems, defense technology, and civilizational trajectory. Not as metaphor, but as measurable reality. The connections are quantifiable, the implications are profound, and the window for positioning is closing. . . .
What follows is not speculation. Every claim is grounded in verified data from December 2025. Every projection emerges from documented trends with explicit confidence intervals. Every contrarian position is steel-manned with the strongest available counterarguments. . . .
To understand why software companies need nuclear reactors, you must understand what has changed about computation itself.
NVIDIA’s Blackwell architecture—specifically the GB200 NVL72 rack—represents a phase transition in computing’s relationship with the electrical grid. A single rack containing 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs consumes up to 120 kilowatts of power, requires mandatory liquid cooling, and delivers 1.44 exaFLOPS of sparse FP4 performance with 30x faster trillion-parameter large language model inference versus the previous H100 generation. This is roughly ten times the power density of traditional servers. Data center operators report that AI-optimized servers now represent 21 percent of facility power consumption, projected to reach 44 percent by 2030.
The aggregate numbers are staggering. McKinsey projects United States data center electricity consumption will reach 606 terawatt-hours by 2030—a quadrupling from 2023 levels that would consume nearly 12 percent of national electricity generation. Goldman Sachs offers a more conservative 455 terawatt-hours estimate. The Department of Energy’s compiled projections suggest 675 terawatt-hours, with the primary Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report citing 325-580 terawatt-hours by 2028. Regardless of which forecast proves accurate, artificial intelligence is creating the first structurally new source of electricity demand since widespread air conditioning adoption in the 1960s. . . . “?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-181752863
Can the US, or any “advanced country,” really support a rapid ramp up in electricity production? I don’t think so.
If I look at the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, for the Advanced Countries (OECD), the year 2018 was the peak year, before electricity production began to slide.
This is electricity production at 2018 and at 2024, for a few countries.
US 4464.5 4634.8 +3.8%
UK 333.8 284.9 -14.6
EU 2936.7 2794.6 -4.8%
OECD 11,377.0 11,449.7 +0.6%
China 15,399.5 19,806.2 +28.6%
The US is doing better than other OECD countries, but the China is where the big ramp up of electricity production is taking place. We have sent most of our industry offshore, reducing our energy needs.
Fear not! Quantum computing has the potential to drastically cut power consumption for specific complex problems, often requiring kilowatts (kW) compared to supercomputers using megawatts, offering massive energy savings (sometimes 100x to 2,000x less energy for certain tasks like cryptography) by solving problems faster and more efficiently, though much of current QC power goes to cooling.
New circuit designs and hybrid approaches aim to further reduce waste, making quantum computing a key player in future sustainable high-performance computing (HPC).
While today’s quantum computers still need significant power for their infrastructure (like cryogenics), their computational power usage per calculation is tiny compared to classical supercomputers solving the same problem.
One company has projected computing RSA-830 cryptography using a quantum computer would use 120 kWh versus 280,000 kWh for a supercomputer, a huge reduction.
Solving complex problems faster: Quantum systems excel at optimization, simulation, and machine learning, tasks that bog down classical machines, leading to faster solutions and less cumulative energy use.
Current vs. future energy use
Today’s superconducting quantum computers might use 10-25 kW, while neutral atom systems use even less (around 7 kW), but the cooling systems are energy-intensive.
However, breakthroughs in circuit design (like reversible blocks that preserve information) and hybrid quantum-classical methods promise to cut power waste by over 90% for certain algorithms, bringing total system energy closer to conventional computers but with vastly superior performance.
Well, that’s according to the hype.
JUST IN: Elon Musk says there is “no need” to save money because universal high income is coming
https://x.com/Kalshi/status/2001366611878646256
I love the guys predictions. They are always 100% wrong, but with just enough viability to them, that they seem to pass muster.
The Data Centres in space is… in a word… laughable. Dumping any real amount heat in space is nearly impossible for more than a few minutes. But, this is what the 1.5 trillion valuation on Spacex IPO will be predicated on.
People will buy it… because they want to believe.
It is a pie in the sky idea, but sounds cool enough to fool guillible people and delusionists.
I’ll believe him when he gives his away. The man is a through-and-through liar and says whatever is to his benefit at the time. And no I’m not TDS.
For context, he’s always been behind UBI but I think now it makes more sense then ever. And as time goes on, even more.
what ive said all along
acquiring billions is no guarantee of a grasp of reality and common sense
acquiring billions is no guarantee of a commitment to the common good.
i agree
but a few of the ultra rich deicated much of their wealth to the common good, Carnegie, Ford etc..
yet their record as employers in some cases was appaling
High income, but virtually no goods to buy with that income.
Tonight Trump will announce WAR with Venezuela – Tucker Carlson
NEW: Tucker Carlson says a member of Congress told him that President Trump will be announcing tonight that “a war is coming” during his address.
Judge Napolitano: “Is Trump going to start a war in Venezuela?”
Carlson: “I don’t know the answer … here’s what I know so far, which is that members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war is coming and it’ll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9 o’clock by the president…”
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/2001367344720044390
when cornered by circumstance….dictators always start a war somewhere.
check your history books
indeed obama started wars in Libya Yemen Syria and Ukraine.
details please of Obamas starting the Ukraine war
am fascinated
I also hope your trust in trump will be justified
Ever heard of Victoria Nuland or the Maidan coup? Who was president in 2014?
This beautiful brain is unaware that 15,000 civilians died in Donbass between 2014 and 2022, due to daily bombings of Donetsk and other ctiies. And what of the battle of Debaltsevo? Just the biggest of many. The Ukrainian forces found themselves in a cauldron.
come to think of it
Roosevelt was responsible for the Germans invading Ukraine too in the 1940s
Usual weasel. Did Roosevelt provide funding and weapons to Hitler?
Ford provided the design for at least one plane (the Trimotor
Hitler indirectly provided the means by which NASA got to the moon, and fed the denial circus that insists they didnt.
“Hitler indirectly provided the means by which NASA got to the moon, and fed the denial circus that insists they didnt”
I don’t know the truth, but here’s one member of the denial circus going on about his crazy calculations
“Es wird allgemein angenommen, dass der Mensch direkt von der Erde zum Mond fliegen wird, aber dazu bräuchten wir ein Fahrzeug von so gigantischen Ausmaßen, dass es sich als wirtschaftlich unmöglich erweisen würde. Es müsste eine ausreichende Geschwindigkeit entwickeln, um die Atmosphäre zu durchdringen und die Gravitation der Erde zu überwinden, und wenn es den ganzen Weg zum Mond zurückgelegt hat, muss es immer noch genug Treibstoff haben, um sicher zu landen und zur Erde zurückzufliegen. Außerdem würden wir, um der Expedition einen Sicherheitsspielraum zu geben, nicht nur ein Schiff benutzen, sondern mindestens drei … jedes Raketenschiff wäre höher als das New Yorker Empire State Building [fast ¼ Meile hoch] und würde etwa zehnmal so viel wiegen wie die Queen Mary, also etwa 800.000 Tonnen.”
“It is commonly believed that man will fly directly from the earth to the moon, but to do this, we would require a vehicle of such gigantic proportions that it would prove an economic impossibility. It would have to develop sufficient speed to penetrate the atmosphere and overcome the earth’s gravity and, having traveled all the way to the moon, it must still have enough fuel to land safely and make the return trip to earth. Furthermore, in order to give the expedition a margin of safety, we would not use one ship alone, but a minimum of three … each rocket ship would be taller than New York’s Empire State Building [almost ¼ mile high] and weigh about ten times the tonnage of the Queen Mary, or some 800,000 tons.”
Conquest of the Moon(1953)
Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun
You don’t want to read what he said when he noticed that the Van Allen belts were in the way, but it started with scheiße.
I hear that there is a crazy car salesman still trying, but having similar difficulties.
Multiple jurisdictions will add silly amounts of complexity, so, as you have clearly already accepted, patience and the occasional prod are the safest tools.
Not sure we can add Probate Registry/Courts, as that’s by original design, rather than system collapse.
Not good enough. It is like saying, Italy is allied to Russia because I am here.
Foolish, I asked an AI about this and it said this is based on Von Braun’s original plan but the one they used was different somehow and this made it possible. I don’t remember the details, but it cranked through the numbers of each stage and how much fuel and what type and the energies involved, and ultimately reached the conclusion that it did have enough energy to make the trip.
I don’t recall now, but I’m guessing Von Braun’s original plan was just a single stage or something.
All of this said, I don’t think the moon landings actually happened. Buzz Aldrin in his old age has basically said this not-so-subtly several times.
It’s a bit of fun from before my time(yea or nay changes little). There’s certainly been advancements, but were they as huge as needed.
Looking at the numbers does raise an eyebrow.
“Gross mass: 3,964,000 kg (8,739,000 lb). Unfuelled mass: 64,500 kg (142,100 lb)”
That’s just for the Lunar Lander. 4,000 metric tonnes when fuelled and something had to get that out of the atmosphere and then have enough force to push it along for 238,000 miles. I look at the size of rockets used to send a satellite that weighs a few hundred kilos, a few hundred miles and wonder.
Does this remind you of anyone?
http://www.astronautix.com/v/vonbraunlunarlander.html
Wars are a good distraction and an excuse for more debt. They can also be a way of employing young people.
No dice on the war declaration tonight. Just more gaslighting. My prediction that there will be no VZ regime change, lives. Might there be an aborted attempt as part of the misdirection play? Maybe
we got this bs instead.
MELANIA | Official Trailer
Say whatever else you want to about Trump, he has the most beautiful first lady ever.
Also, he stopped the massive illegal immigration over the southern border. I’d have voted for the ghost of Ghengis Khan if that’s what it took to stop the illegal migration. When the economy enters terminal decline, the last thing we need is 70 million unemployed, unassimilated Aztec warriors running around. The Whites and Blacks are already going to slaughter, pillage, and eat each other, we don’t need another faction to contend with…..
If she’s gonna move here the least she could do is learn the language.
Melania is obviously closely related to Ghenghis Khan, and probabably Atilla the Hun.
beauty in a woman is not what you think it is—beauty radiates from within, melania most certainly does not possess that inner beauty.
Bidens wife, other other hand, does. She carried on with her career as a schoolteacher even as first lady, and carried her beauty into old age (the reall hallmark of a beautiful woman, not that I would expect you to know that.)
An attractive woman never loses that attraction.—it has nothing to do with age or looks.
Melania grabbed don because of his wealth, she never expected to end up as first lady. You can be certain shes the one person he can’t boss around.
no— karl, with an outlook like yours, we would most certainly not get on.
Which part of my outlook is objectionable? Recognizing beauty, or disapproving of illegal immigration? I never claimed to know what is in the heart of hearts of Mrs. Trump or Mrs. Biden. I’ve never met either. I know both married powerful men and suspect their husbands’ social status was as attractive to them as their beauty was to their husbands.
Female physical beauty, which is what I was commenting on, has nothing to do with character or pleasantness. A healthy heterosexual male intuits it. Scientists can measure it, facial symmetry, youth, hip to waist ratio. They are attractive because they are markers for fertility and good genes.
female beauty has everything to do with character—-that shows how little you understand about it.
character endures, beauty in the conventional sense does not.
Just starting at the top of your list, you thinking the fake boobed, fake faced, hair straightened glam doll Melania is the most attractive first lady is objectionable. I’ll take Rosalynn Carter.
i think you replied to the wrong commenter reante
We’re talking past each other.
“Melania is obviously closely related to Ghenghis Khan, and probably Atilla the Hun.”
Fancy posting that, and on a woman’s blog too. You deserve this year’s Nobel Prize for Misogyny.
your posts always come with a guarantee dem—-
a guarantee to lift a reply out of context….
The only context of your reply was as an insult, old fellow.
so now we are required to act in a gentlemanly way towards a woman actively involved in scamming the American people….
https://www.wired.com/story/melania-trump-used-as-window-dressing-in-elaborate-memecoin-fraud-legal-filing-claims/
the complaint does not allege any wrongdoing on the part of Trump
“The misuse of Melania Trump’s name magnified the harm”
Now let’s see you also post some potentially libellous smears against Biden and Kamala. But your allegations are nakedly partisan and one-sided.
I’ll go for Dolley Payne Madison, Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, Rachel Donelson Jackson, Priscilla Cooper Tyler, Letitia Tyler Semple, Lucy Webb Hayes, and Frances Folsom Cleveland over anyone from more modern times.
All were prime examples of 19th century American female beauty who outdid all their successors in the 20th and 21st—because the 19th century was a period when classical beauty modest and understated reigned supreme.
By all accounts, there were quite a few absolute dogs as well as shrews among the prim, proper, and almost austere First Ladies of the Georgian and Victorian ages, and more than a couple who have a masculine or transgender ambience about them.
But don’t take my word for it. See for yourselves:
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/galleries/first-lady-portraits
And if I had to pick a beauty from the modern First Ladies, I would have to go for Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis—a blend of poised elegance, sharp intellect, deep sensitivity, and a fierce desire for privacy, often appearing as a shy, artistic introvert but capable of witty public boldness, balancing her cultural refinement (arts, history, fashion) with a grounded devotion to her children and family, though marked by private struggles with depression and navigating immense public scrutiny.
Jackie’s look was defined by timeless elegance, blending American sportswear with European chic, featuring tailored silhouettes, bold colors, signature oversized sunglasses, headscarves (to tame her curly hair), pearls, white gloves, and classic accessories like the Gucci “Jackie” bag, creating an iconic, sophisticated style that evolved from youthful flair to refined, powerful simplicity.
Her beauty was defined by her timeless elegance, characterized by a natural, “outdoorsy” American look, distinctive features like bold brows and dark hair, and iconic accessories like big sunglasses, all complemented by a sophisticated yet simple style that prioritized well-groomed skin using regimens like the Erno Laszlo skincare system. She balanced trends with her own classic taste, making her beauty more than just skin deep, reflecting her intelligence, grace, and dignity.
Now, you may be asking, what on earth has all this got to do with finite world issues?
Good question!
Well, given that our world is finite, I think we were damn lucky to have had a First Lady with such style, grace, elegance, and aplomb as Jackie Kennedy. Don’t you? If we stick to the post-Victorian period, she was certainly the best First Lady evah!
Has he declared war yet?
I see he’s presented his case
“the oil, land, and other assets that they previously stole from us.”
Anything of value then.
He’s going to struggle selling that lie(even at home).
If he now doesn’t get what he claims(as he’s laid bare the true intent) and Maduro remains, it’s a loss on all counts and the end of the Monroe Doctrine in any meaningful way(could probably still slap the Haitians about a bit).
Donny has gone all in, but no one folded and Donny seems reluctant to show his cards.
I’m starting to wonder if Venezuela will do as Iran did and politely decline any outside help(except South American, for the whole Nuestra América thing).
The Columbians are well aware what’s coming their way if Venezuela falls, as can be witnessed from Trump’s “he’s going to be next” about President Gustavo Petro.
Trump could well be the catalyst that enables Simón Bolívar’s vision. The ultimate corporate faux pas, from the man made of them.
Bombing tonight, as it’s Epstein day tomorrow?
Be fun to see Russia and China escorting tankers. Donny bringing ‘the enemy’ into his backyard. Doh!
That would be a classic move by the Hand in further setting up a military coup.
It would be interesting and more than likely end up with Trumps Gulf of America renamed(again), The Nuestra América Gulf(Mexico would be happy enough) and coffee supplies would stabilise(I would be happy).
A coup?
A military coup?
In the US?
Not Gabbard surely. Weak, with no real backing from any of the A, B, C’s or even the public, but seeing the latest polls* would suggest now as the time for her to play the antiwar card and propel herself into the public perception as a leader. I’ve seen nothing that suggests she can convince the people that’s she’s anything more than “nice for a politician” and you can’t change that unless the media owners ok it. Would she even go along with treason?
What have I got wrong, or who’s the alternative, because I don’t see the US public accepting a committee rather than a commander. There has to be a face, a hero(please don’t say Vance. You’ll all be wearing brown within the year. What’s happened to him anyway, haven’t heard a peep. Controllers, saving him from himself?).
Keep your eye on Mumbai bot swarms, for forewarning of who will be accepted by your permanent leaders, as your next temporary leader.
Replied to your other comment, but it buggered off below my reply to Norman by the looks of it.
* Polls summary
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/most-americans-oppose-us-military-action-in-venezuela–poll
Be warned, no Almayadeen link in their articles goes anywhere but Almayadeen(ever). It is genuine though and can be easily verified.
Thanks. My thinking as to why I think a military coup may now be the most likely scenario is based on my expectation of a big nuclear scare that serves many purposes a for the Hand. I think that BNS has to come soon. You’re right the military coup in the US is a tall order because it’s unconstitutional, and if there is one it would have to be marketed as an honorable one done out of existential necessity. I think it will be preceded by Gabbard releasing the Epstein files such that Trump is implicated in treason for being under Mossad’s thumb, which could cause him to act out and catalyze the BNS. Seems that releasing the Kirk conspiracy that frames Mossad would have a synergistic effect and move his hardcore base, which is America First- reluctant, towards Tulsi. Seems that would also create the break that enables her to re-emerge as an anti-war candidate. Her problem right now, according to the political theatrics, is that she’s dependent on Trump for her job, and timing is everything. The military could justify the need for the coup by arguing that Vance, Hegseth, and the whole administration are complicit in causing the unnecessary existential crisis. And Gabbard would just naturally emerge as the obvious America First choice candidate when the military holds elections as soon as possible. She’s military herself, and she also the head of the Intel services, and a former presidential candidate. And she’s staked her career on being in opposition to regime change wars and nuclear warmongering. And that’s no coincidence. It’s a script. A lot of power there to harness
But maybe the Hand can draw things out until the end of 2028, for a more orderly transition wherein she just beats Vance and whoever the Dems run.
Sure, she’s ‘nice for a politician’ in a number of ways. And since I think she’s the Hand’s chosen one, the media would obviously okay it.
No, not much noise from Vance lately. Maybe he’s busy with marital problems.
Interesting, but to me the US population is so divided that the risk is too high, so high in fact that putting out the fires at home, rather than setting them elsewhere, would overwhelm anyone trying to take control. Anyone that can bind all those groups back together probably gets carved into Rushmore. Gabbard, the face of Corporate Communitarianism. It could work, if those fires can be controlled.
Writing that, I realise that I understand the thought process and goals of Iranians and Venezuelans, more than any western nation including my own.
Even the Wunderwaffe has been downgraded, to testing a reverse engineered Shahed-136. It went well and “Weaponization and automated target recognition are in the works for future development.”
Iran have moved on to jet ai drones and the US is still working on fitting weapons to a 2 stroke engine. WTF is going on.
Let’s see what today’s releases reveal and how that information(if any) is handled.
WTF is going on is what I’ve talked about before. The Hand is weakening the too strong and strengthening the less strong resource rich countries via a trial by fire in order to maintain a non-nuclear MAD as best it can so as to create redundancies WRT nobody opportunistically going off the DA’s reservation during Phase 2.
If one is so inclined, Tulsi’s comments sections have given off the appearance of being heavily populated by bots calling for her to be the first female president for years,
Looks like the Epstein release just built more tension as expected.
So Gabbard is being backed by the corporate bots.
That should inform any that think she’ll do anything other than told.
What’s a “Tulsi’s comments”?
Sounds like a place for hallucinations.
Yeah, Drumpf just confirmed to the whole world that he is, beyond doubt, a pedophile and given that Bondi illegally blocked over 90% of what was supposed to be released, then redacted over 90% of the little that was released, including one 119 page Grand Dury document, that had every single word redacted, he may as well have gotten PEDO tattooed on his forehead.
It’s all working out like an Agenda 2030 dream.
Sure of course she’ll do what she’s told to do as necessary That’s what she signed up for. I narrate the DA not because I have any say in it, but because there’s value in and of itself, in divining a true history. Tulsi knows Collapse is coming and seeks the presidency not because she thinks she has ultimate say over how she carries out the office, but because there’s immense value in it. She sees the path to the presidency getting clearer all the time and she has the conviction that her worldview is the best one for the job.
The reason that she’s the Chosen One for Phase 2, by the Hand, is because her politics and personality and physical presence and overall ability are perfectly suited to its needs. It’s seen that potential since she resigned from her DNC vice-chair position as a youngun’ because Bernie Sanders was getting u democratically railroaded in the primary, as he always does have happen to him. So the Hand has kept rewarding her. And now, partly, she’s in her long period of hazing by the Hand, wherein she has to stomach and kowtow to all the stomach-turning Zionism and warmongering and nouveau riche fascism and military humiliation, all of which has a fire raging in her belly, and by design. She tried to put Daniel Davis under her just as the Hand expected she would, but the Hand said, “no, too soon.” She went AWOL on Trump and, shortly before the Iran war, released an anti-war short video presumably put together by her videographer husband, and the Hand smiled. She’s a sure thing.
She’s going to be unleashed, and will wield far more power than Trump ever has, and people across the spectrum are going to want more. Harnessing that power is a process and, concurrent with the furious fire in her bellyshe consolidates power within the bureaucratic belly of the Hand whose microbiomic shift she is overseeing.
By Tulsi’s comments sections I meant those under her content releases on her X and Yootoob channels. She’s the TW200 of politicians.
I would say that the coming national socialism under her, during Phase 2, is the Upsidedown version — you know (you probably don’t), like the Upsidedown from the TV show Stranger Things, which is the nightmarish, apocalyptic parallel reality — of Agenda 2030. Tulsi is the Eleven character saving everyone from unherdable islamist demogorgons and from themselves alike, and, most importantly of all, keeping Mr. Whatsit aka One aka Vecna and, in this world, aka the Hand, from deciding to just bag a poorly performing DA out of another, competing self-preservation instinct, and deciding on the rapid depopulation agenda which is presumably the backup plan to the more enlightened national socialist DA to which, as devout Luciferians, so to speak, they are primarily bound to, on principle, because the nuclear power industry must be dealt with while it still can be dealt with, and it would best be dealt with systematically rather than on the fly under military emergency procedures. The backup plan which might go something like, “sorry Tulsi but we need to move to plan B. It’s not your fault, we just couldn’t keep it together well enough to feel like we could safely pull off this decommissioning. It’s gotten too messy. We’re going to move to the HEMP deployments and decommission the spent fuel pools off-grid. Godspeed.”
Straight outta Hollywood.
Real or not real?
“Real or not real?”
That’s a bit limiting. I’ll go for partially(without the gloss).
Gabbard(do your flys up and call her by her surname, like everyone else).
“The reason that she’s the Chosen One for Phase 2, by the Hand, is because her politics and personality”
I’ve cut the sentence there, because that’s why she’s ineligible, her politics and public personality seem built on the opposite of what will be required and there will be no hiding it.
“TW200 of politicians”
A vacuum cleaner?
Sucks a lot.
“I would say that the coming national socialism under her, during Phase 2, is the Upsidedown version — you know (you probably don’t), like the Upsidedown from the TV show Stranger Things”
Correct, the only thing I know about tv is that there’s no stranger thing, so best avoided(unless you prefer your thoughts shaped for you).
National Socialism? You should be so lucky(as if such a thing could happen). What you have coming(no sorry, it’s already here) is Corporate Communitarianism(the corporate algorithms direct the thinking and then everyone agrees that’s what they themselves want). Your nation, is and always has been a corporate entity. Have you ever looked into the history of your flag?
Here’s George Washington, just incase they didn’t teach this in school
“While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company”
That particular flag was chosen because of, aspirations like those of the East India Company(the first version of a modern corporation). How could a corporation ever be Socialist?
They took the Turkish cross out of the corner and replaced it with 13 stars, to depict the 13 colonies(yes, colonies).
“deciding on the rapid depopulation agenda which is presumably the backup plan”
There is no rapid depopulation scheme that’s achievable at the needed scale, or that would leave any kind of control if achievable. Preservation, self preservation, in position(the biggest driver) is the only goal of a disintegrating system. That’s what al the war at present is for and that will only expand.
“because the nuclear power industry must be dealt with while it still can be dealt”
Theatre. Those that have nothing to (favourably)trade will simply miss out. Outside of the west there are ample new builds, with plenty more planned. I don’t see China, Russia and Iran scrapping all that investment and needed supply because the west perform another deadly disney production. The west might put on a show in an attempt to hide its shame, but those with will pay no heed..
DA in one form, or another is baked in and so planned for(cunningly, which always ends in disaster).
Agenda 2030 is now 5 years in and if you look, not once has it slowed, so we can confidently say that they won’t stop(we had and lost that chance).
I’d start taking notice before you find yourself a 30 X 30 victim.
Continuity is and has been the word and I see no sign of this changing.
Excuse the repetition, but do read the below(part 1 of 3 out of an eventual 6) and then the other parts.
https://themindness.substack.com/p/weaponizing-time-elite-anxiety-and
Alternatively, if you want doom, real Yankee doom, read this
“So imagine the future as it will actually arrive, & not as the think-tanks assure”
“Dawn over the Gulf, where Iranian radars go silent for an hour, then erupt in fire”
“As CENTCOM reels, the Caribbean ignites”
“At the same Time”
https://www.thefallofthewest.ca/p/game-over?lli=1
This paragraph of your comment stands out to me:
There is no rapid depopulation scheme that’s achievable at the needed scale, or that would leave any kind of control if achievable. Preservation, self preservation, in position (the biggest driver) is the only goal of a disintegrating system. That’s what all the war at present is for and that will only expand.
Agenda 2023 is a series of 17 goals that can never be achieved.
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts*
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
What I would like this Christmas is for AI to provide me with a reante slop translator. I just haven’t got a clue what he’s on about at times, LOL!
Copy/paste . Is this correct ? Please assist .
Nothing works, societal contracts gone.
Coping
I’ve been trying to pull myself out of the doom loop, logically and emotionally, but I can’t seem to.
For me in the UK, there’s not a single aspect of society or our services that are working as they should be. Even routine tasks and routine living have become quite difficult.
Local bus service? Recruitment and retention problems, only half the buses show up.
Train services? More expensive than a foreign holiday at times and extremely over crowded.
Jobs? Waiting lists locally.
Training and opportunities? Ha.
Energy and food bills? Sky high
Quality of “fresh” food? Barely edible.
NHS? It takes years to get basic procedures done and they won’t treat my two long term conditions, including my need for spinal surgery.
NHS dentist? Inaccessible.
Corporations? Always ripping me off, I must lose a few hundred pounds a year through hidden/additional charges/ missing/broken items “tax”.
Council tax? Always going up, yet council services nowhere to be seen.
The high streets are closing, the streets are filthy.
3/5ths of all the post and parcels my family send end up “lost” or “destroyed”.
Beloved familiar products have disappeared from the market and are replaced with all things Palm oil or China made.
I was unable to get housing support from the council and I’ve seen families and communities scattered due to the “housing crisis”. I’m 200 miles away from home, in the pursuit of affordable housing.
Web pages, Apps, and phone calls? All painfully slow, maddening interfaces and security checks, web pages often simply not working anymore. 20 minutes of robot voices on every call.
It’s like every single service is designed to make us depressed.
That’s not to even touch upon politics and the judiciary etc.
Prospects for my children? Looking dire, even if they do everything by the book.
I’m lucky that we may have the opportunity to go “off grid”/”homesteading” next year, but it weighs heavily on my mind what’s potentially in store for us all in the coming years .
Ravi
You just described what collapse of our surplus energy economic system looks and feels like when you are living as part of it.
just take housing..
the arithmetic of house purchase can be broken down into a few words….
60 years ago an average house cost 4x the average wage.
now the same kind of ‘average’ house costs 8x or 10x average annual wages.
far more in cities like London..
this is why you are 200 miles away looking for affordable housing..
A house is, in effect a block of embodied energy…everyone involved in its construction is also inputting energy, for which they get paid the going rate.
As i had to carefully explain to a multi-millionaire friend, who just didn’t ‘get it’—bricklayers wont work for £10 a week anymore,
A real ‘duh’ moment!!
also—millions like me refuse to accept their expiry date, and continue to live in desirable houses.—which obviously increases the shortage.—i am using ‘surpluses’ which should be supporting my gr/grandkids.
Houses are useless maintenance /money sinks unless there’s a job next door. As investments they help mop up inflation in an overheated economy. Take the economy away and it’s coming like a ghost town , full of old people and left behinds.
The house itself doesn’t cost much in embodied energy / sunk costs of materials. Labour costs too. Its just not worth spending £75k building a 3 bed… then the planning permissions and land value add another £500k – if it’s anywhere near work.
In UK they seem to cost what a bank will lend you, which is more about banks than bricks and mortar .
“it’s coming like a ghost town”
I remember that song, Stewart – a response to Thatcher’s deflationary monetarist period of the early 1980s. Not that I liked the song or the pop group. Too dreary and simplistic for me.
i agree that loan facilities push up prices
but so do wages and demand
“Is this correct ?”
Yes, standard service here, although I don’t have the post problem, but that may be because my postman has been in the job decades, so gets it done despite the system(the system will push him out soon).
We were talking the other day and he had to be constantly aware that his tracking device was counting every second that he wasn’t moving.
Everyone knows it’s falling apart, but that’s bad news and bad news is to be ignored, unless it’s over there, so basically everyone is pretending not to notice. Think 2020, the inconsistencies are everywhere you look, so they stop looking anywhere apart from the happy screen.
We can add the Probate Registry/Courts to that list. The last chunk of my dead dad’s assets (about 5-6K to me) are in England. We are currently at 23 weeks of waiting for the grant of probate when we were originally told 10-12 weeks, and then 20 weeks. When the lawyer enquired at twenty weeks, the response was indefinite, and the reason was not enough staff trained in foreign domicile probates. I said to the lawyer, after a certain point it becomes confiscation. It also took the lawyer 1.5 years to assemble the application. Dad died in March of 2018 lol. Obviously I am not the appointed executor. I had to hire three separate lawyers in order to force my stepmom to do her job as executor. So families aren’t working well either!
(Nice problems to have, you say. Indeed )
Call me cynical, but the hold up is probably whoever holds the money(has it invested outside).
Hope I have no family issues, as planning to let my sister deal with it. She has a certain flare for that kind of thing and is ever so persistent.
That sounds ideal for you then. Mine was a worst case scenario. Evil stepmom was appointed and since she got the million dollar life insurance policy that she could share with her daughters, she decided to just sit on the estate out of spite and I couldn’t afford to do anything about it for several years and my brother buried his head in the sand.
That’s pretty cynical. 🙂 But yeah, then there’s the open question of how long it will take to get the assets released after being armed with the finalized grant of probate. I’d submit that if there is any intentional dawdling going on with our case, it is because dad was domiciled in Cyprus which is a zero inheritance tax jurisdiction so they can’t touch any of it.
This is somebody who ‘may have the opportunity to go off grid … next year’… sounds like they need mental health assistance first as such a whinger won’t last 2 days on their own means. Imagine having that depressive stuff your doorstep or ruining your community monthly meetings, moaning about missing entitlements.
The only thing I concurred with is the palm oil and absence of familiar names comment. I live in London. It’s a place for economically active people , not passive moaners. You can do that anywhere.
Maybe when he/she moves ‘off grid’ to Wales (they won’t want them ) they should start carving love spoons, for a market stall and keep a few traditions alive . Be good therapy too.
Well, at least you’re OK living the high life in the Great Wen.
London is a dainty place, a great and gallant city!
All the streets are paved with gold and all the folks are witty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16tClgCLR5E
AI adds context: “The Great Wen” is a historical, derogatory nickname for London, coined by radical writer William Cobbett in the 1820s, viewing the massive, growing city as a pathological, cancerous swelling (a wen, or cyst) on England, draining its rural life and resources. Cobbett lamented the city’s unchecked growth, contrasting it with the idealized countryside, and used the term to criticize London’s size and influence.
London: “So many people, but it’s got no soul”.
From the song “Baker Street”, by Gerry Rafferty.
This one!
https://youtu.be/Fo6aKnRnBxM
USA is now blockading VZ under laughable pretenses. Absolutely nuts. We are proving ourselves a rogue nation to any friends and allies that might have thought otherwise. Even if one ignores the morality of it, this is going to destroy our soft power.
cheer up. It is already destroyed. China and Russia will have to be creative if they want to save Venezuela. Not optimistic.
The partnership between the U.S. and China began to crumble in 2018, when tariffs during President Trump’s first term triggered a sharp drop in U.S. soybean sales to China.
Brazil quickly filled the gap and has remained China’s top soybean supplier ever since.
https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/12/15/china-is-investing-billions-in-latin-america-potentially-sidelining-us-farmers-for-decades-to-come/
China is investing billions in Latin America, potentially sidelining US farmers for decades to come
Chinese state-backed money is remaking the hemisphere’s ports —from Santos to Chancay — reshaping grain routes to Asia and squeezing U.S. farmers as tariffs deepen the split with Washington.
by Mónica Cordero, Investigate MidwestDecember 15, 2025
Since 2013, China has been investing in infrastructure projects around the world. In Latin America, the Asian giant has invested in more than 23 seaports, building a logistics network to support its growing trade with the region.
These seaport investments range from multi-billion-dollar deep-water terminals to smaller upgrades that improve rail links, storage capacity, and ship turnaround times.
Seems the plan is working….cry Uncle
I don’t disagree that China has made inroads. But the US counters with Argentina, led by Milei, ne’ Mileykovsky, which is being prepared to be Ukraine do Sul. And with Venezuela, with Brazil eventually being the main course. And anyway in practice I wonder how do you beat a blockade without sending your ships too. China has been firm in the trade war but we have not seen it act kinetically.
Yes, exactly, that’s the focal point.
China given proper set of conditions is eventually able to mount defense on its soil and nearby neighborhood, perhaps project power in the region of Asia.
But to guard it’s commercial empire in distant places like South America is completely different matter for them it’s not in their guts, history, policy, ..
Someone mentioned recently they would send there (massive supplies of) modern “serious” weapons like anti ship etc. I seriously doubt it..
Perhaps some of the Latin America countries feel now bold enough to actively repel intruders just with in-direct Chinese backing (hardware). But that’s again rehash of that old Soviet era story – not ending good for them. On the other hand the atrophy of US power has been real phenomenon over the recent decades – not a thing in the past (1960s).
For the US even now quick skirmish with both sides taking losses and then in acute need to back off would be great(-final) humiliation..
Perhaps th least bad option is to put nukes under Venezuela’s control. But that can be done only after Ukraine capitulates.
They need the oil for the global market. We’re not just stealing it and keeping for ourselves.
Is this war? So it seems …
It’s being reported/speculated/leaked that Trump will announce war or something against VZ. I don’t think he’ll go through with it, but who knows.
Don’t underestimate Trump’s stupidity.
Nice call ivan
Daniel Keys’ only major work, Flowers to Algernon, was published in 1958 and was lengthened and republished in 1966.
tl, dr, Charly, a severely retarded man, is selected as an experimental subject to enhance his intelligence. His intelligence was enhanced so he suddenly became the most intelligent person in the world , but it had a side effect – it does not last too long.
Algernon, a mouse who received a similar treatment, had his intelligence expanded but it regressed and he died before time. Knowing Charly will become like Algernon, Charly, when he still had some intelligence remaining, writes his will to leave some flower to where Algernon was buried since with Charly going no one will remember the mouse.
Increasingly, given the sorry state of the generation growing up after the pandemic, I see this fable coming to pass in the humanity, regressing back to the days before 1751, when the Encyclopedie was published by Denis Diderot et al and human intelligence began to explode.
China and India getting prominent in science and tech is no surprise since they were poorer during 1990s and their techies had less distraction while growing up.
However, now, everyone in New Guinean jungles or Namibian deserts uses smartphones , watch shorts and do SNS.
Namibian use of SNS
https://neweralive.na/letter-namibia-youth-and-social-media-a-double-edged-sword/
The New Guineans often refused to be vaccinated because some preacher said it was bad in telegram, so that means even they used their smartphones as their primary conduit for information.
AI is just some tool to aid the declining intelligence of humanity. It will be powerful for some time, until the ability to maintain the system to make AI possible falters , and then back to the dark ages.
It’s amazing, Kulm, where you can always find these lyrics! The story is not bad, but the idea does not carry over the long text and the linguistic deficits of the protagonist do not compensate for this with reading pleasure.
To increase the intelligence would be urgently necessary, I fully agree with this! But, thanks to Gates!, this is already being initiated.
It is funny that the doctor notes that with increasing intelligence, the need for subordination among authorities decreases. I cannot see this happening here in Europe.
About European Rearmament
I feel funny about Europe Rearming.
USA spent 100+ years emasculating Europe and now asking it to rearm? LOFTLMAO.
Poland has 16 provinces , which it calls voivodeship, after the feudal lords called voivodes from the middle ages showing it never really grew out from the feudal age. 8 of its 16 voidvodeships were German in 1914.
Without Poland returning these voidvodeships, Germany can’t rearm. Without the colonies USA helped to shear from them, UK and France cannot rearm.
They have to buy overpriced , outdated weapons from USA and Canada , essentially a racket system.
So the talk of Europe rearming is just a joke, a scam to get rid of old US weapon systems which are increasingly falling behind the new standards.
If USA is serious about Europe getting rearmed, it should restore the British and French colonies as a whole, and re-ratify the Brest Litovsk treaty and abolish Poland, Czechia, etc, countries which should have never existed to begin with If it does not do that all the talks about rearming Europe is nothing more than bad jokes.
I am afraid you are correct:
“USA spent 100+ years emasculating Europe and now asking it to rearm?”
and
“They have to buy overpriced , outdated weapons from USA and Canada , essentially a racket system.”
This is a strange world we live in.
I also fully agree with Kulm. Agusta in Italy made the best helicopters at the time. The USA made them close (they switched to motorcycles). French radars. And the USA, when Europeans tried to raise their head, responded with assassinations and bombs in squares and trains and stations and banks. Some current prime ministers and EU honchos are nothing more than former american puppets trying to prolong their career by becoming just banker puppets.
Yes the result of WWII push-moved Germany westward by a lot – that’s know fact. That way PL gained new territories – YET at least some of them like [ Upper Silesia ] were initially in their hands anyway..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Silesia
As usual Kulm likes to single out gross generalizations out of limited span within more bucolic history out there..
I am talking about 1914, which Germany had defeated Russia.
The language and communication aspect, as the means of information transfer, is often underestimated, overlooked.
People create a language in order to differentiate themselves from the majority, local dialects appear that create bonds etc.
In Slovakia, we had various dialects, basically, every valley had its own dialect. The transportation and roads and railways construction allowed for unification.
But other new languages originate, for example a language which young people use to distinguish themselves from the elderly, which is a new division line of the ageing societies. The language of the blue collar workers vs. the language of the white collar workforce.
Which simply shows, that “Slovakia” is an artificial nation and “Slovakian” is an artificial language (as is “Ukrainian” and a good handful of others). Speaking Ukrainian, I was shocked to discover (later in life) that I also largely understand “Slovakian” (especially, the written version). Soviet schools had beaten into our heads, that we and Russians are brothers, and our languages are very close, brotherly languages 😅
Your current “country” will soon end up exactly as “Ukraine” is going to end up – non-existing.
Cold areas are always dependent on warmer areas, as regards sustaining the civilization of the human species.
So, climatic differences are the reson why the historical Lemkovina and Boykovština are (since ~1945 and, sadly, to this very day) occupied by completely different “people”?
History rhymes, Petrovich, and there will be hell to pay in the next decade or so 😅
As humans became more and more dependent on machines, there is no way back, especially in the cold areas. You need to store vast amounts of energy in the form of food or energy crriers. The human populations became weaker thanks to a better healthcare. The soil is depleted and the climate changes.
The names like Lemkovina and Boykovština do not matter at all. There had been other populations before and they did not return.
https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemkovia
https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojkovia
E.g. Asian populations came to Central Europe during the recent decades.
The human species simply evolves.
https://foundation.wwu.edu/event/role-geothermal-features-human-evolution
Now humans simply prefer reliable machines over unreliable human companions in large numbers who reduce their food and energy supply in the overcrowded finite world
Oh there is – but not for everybody currently alive, of course. Is Slovakia “cold” or not? Also, what is your definition of a “machine”?
Absolutely. Where does Slovakia currently get its energy from – petroleum, natgas, electricity?
Agree.
Agree.
Climate _always_ changes 😅 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#/media/File:Earth's_average_surface_temperature_over_the_past_500_million_years.png
So does the faux name of faux “Slovakia”, today it’s here (heavily producing Nobel Prize winners in Rromani cultural studies…), and tomorrow this happens:
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/m6kcf8/polish_and_hungarian_soldiers_meeting_for_the/ 😅
Similarly to Romanian webpages, not a single word about genetic background chronography. Again, similarly to “Lemkovia” and “Bojkovia”, your artificial/unnatural “Slovakia” is a fake, backward, agragian, Stalin-created pseudo-nation and pseudo-country, which heavily depends on energy imports…
Where those “Asian populations” forced to immigrate or did they invade Europe freely?
Did lemky go to Western Poland on their own will? Or bojky to Western Ukraine? Yes or no?
What is that that you know about (genetic proofs) for the evolution of Homininis? I’m really curious…
PhD in Geography 😅 – I am not taking human (or any other living species) phylogenetic advice from geographers…
Are you talking about Slovakia or Rromania, Petrovich? What reliable “machines” – how do you define a “machine“?
Vietnamese in Slovakia
https://hnonline.sk/finweb/ekonomika/96251649-vietnamcov-uz-davno-nestretnete-len-na-trzniciach-nova-generacia-dava-prednost-inym-sferam-podnikania
Not much to say, okrúhly tvár?
Poor, hard-working Vietnamese immigrants are not your problem, Olejnik… 😅
Here, in the kindred spirit of cultural exchange, are some multicultural news for you in your language:
https://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/02291245SURYOVA_socialna_politika_Romovia_a_kriminalita_5_2001.pdf
https://www.noviny.sk/krimi/296385-sedemdesiat-percent-trestnej-cinnosti-pachaju-romovia-tvrdi-kalinak-a-gaspar
https://www.zgodovina.eu/sorodno/cigani.htm
https://www.azbestus.cz/co-mi-vadi/paraziti-asocialove-neprizpusobivi-nekdy-se-tyka-dokonce-i-romu/ciganska-kriminalita-a-debilita-potvrdena/ (they seem to be knowleadgeable in Human Genetics, alsmost like you and your Rromani Geographers…)
[x]> you have it almost correct with the origins of Slovakia.. Although it took place 2-3x decades earlier and the key players were not Stalin but US politicians incl. Potus – drawing on public support for their cause voiced from the diaspora residing stateside in important voting districts like Chicago, Detroit, ..
🙂
Never knew these US-related facts, Jr.
But…could never understand why did “Slovakians” and their fellow Rromani (whom the “Slovakians” unrestrictedly harbor and breed there in (former) Lemkovina&Bojkovina) where allowed to exist in the 1st place, while Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Romania etc were bled dry in the meantime… Looks like, as it usually happens in this simulation, things go/reach much deeper.
Perhaps, whe should ask MitchellC for his authoriatative opinion/explanation, right?
The language of OFW is slanted toward the language of older English-speaking people. I expect that this orientation leads to more older readers.
can i still claim the oldest top spot?
I think so. Is anyone over 90 and a frequent commenter here?
probably get a lot of fakers holding their hands up.
Insist on a dendrochronology test….
I’m only 46, but owing to teenage parents, spent a lot of time hanging out with my WWII era grandparents. My wife tells me I am very old mannish. I bet Norm and I would get on swimmingly, LOL.
Judging by your comment on Melania and Trump and immigration and collapse, Karl, I’d say you’re wrong about getting on with Norm. Or myself for that matter.
I stand corrected.
Oh, I’m sure we can all get along fine.
But it will be something we are all going to have to work on.
> re-ratify the Brest Litovsk treaty and abolish Poland, Czechia, etc, countries which should have never existed to begin with
Absolutely! I’m desperately trying to persuade MG that his “Slovakia” and “Slovakians” are just minor subspecies of “Rusyns” and/or “Ukrainians” (that are also fake, pseudo-nations in the large scale of things). What an enormous mess and what an enormous waste of valuable resources in the shrinking world (where does “Slovakia” get its petroleum, natgas and electricity from? 😅)
For one thing the cultural links have been very different.
Although in general heavily leaning on conservative Catholics side, the Slovaks also had their share of side/under current of protestant tradition linked to both CEE and Western Europe over the past several centuries.
Not possible to say that at all (or to such extent) about their eastern neighbors the Rusyns or UKR proper – you mentioned.. who always gravitated towards different power center.
Simply, there are harder and more spongy division / frontlines around the world and their capital Bratislava was maybe an outward-ish outpost towards the eastern limits, nevertheless still within CEE-W.Europe realm-dominion proper.
That obviously won’t mean much anymore in future decades/centuries as looking at the urbanized areas of W. Europe choking on %%pop of migrants from completely incompatible cultures..
Greek Orthodox/Muscovite domination/influences are not disputable.
But..
Ever heard of Latynnyky? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latynnyky (St. Anthony of Padua used to be a family Saint on Mom’s side 😅).
As for Ukrainian Protestantism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Lutheran_Church
Socinians in 17th century Wolhynia:
https://www.religion.in.ua/zmi/ukrainian_zmi/36591-kisilin-centr-volinskix-socinian-abo-sarmatski-afini.html
“Rusyns” and majority from lower castes in Galicia/Галичина indeed became Uniates/Gree-Catholics/Eastern-Catholics starting back in 1595/1596 (Brest Union – same “Brest” Kulm is mentioning, coincidence? probably not…). Uniates did not stick in Wolhynia – repeatedly massacred or forcefully converted by the opposite “real” Catholics and dominating Greek/Russian Orthodox adepts/powers.
Both modern “Slovakians” and modern “Romanians” feverishly conceal their genetic origins and prevent/prohibit genetic testings among their populations (unlike, for example Hungarians, Poles or even Russians – plenty of peer-reviewed references online). One must ask why? 😅 (Hint: both fake “nations” are overhelmingy “Ukrainian” subhumans on both paternal Y-chromosome and maternal mtDNA lineages… A shame, a shame!!! 🫣🙈)
Dang. I’ll have what he’s smoking. Remember, the collapse is always 2 years away. Here in the core, life is still good.