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Recently, many people have begun talking about the US having a k-shaped economy. In it, a handful of wealthy people are doing very well financially, while many others are falling further and further behind. I expect that the low wages of the majority of workers will soon lead to adverse impacts on businesses, governments, and international organizations. This phenomenon is likely to lead to a very uneven world economic downturn in 2026.
The world economy is subject to the laws of physics. The world economy seems to be reaching growth limits because there are too few easily extractable energy resources (as well as other resources, such as fresh water), relative to the world’s population. The Maximum Power Principle strongly suggests that even as limits are hit, the world economy cannot be expected to collapse all at once. Instead, the most efficient producers of goods and services will be able to succeed as long as resources are available, while less efficient producers will tend to fall by the wayside. Thus, the Maximum Power Principle somewhat limits the speed of the world’s economic downturn.
In this post, I will try to explain the challenges the world economy is now facing. I will also provide some thoughts on how 2026 will turn out.
[1] The k-shaped economy that the US and many other countries are experiencing is an indication that resources are, in some way, “running short.”
Humans all have similar basic needs. They need food to eat, and they need to cook at least some of this food before they eat it. They tend to need transportation services, both for themselves (to get to work) and for goods, such as the food they eat. They also need governments to keep order and to provide basic services, such as roads and schools. All these goods and services require energy of a suitable kind, such as human labor, burned biomass, or fossil fuel energy. They also require arable land, fresh water, and minerals of many kinds.
If there are not enough resources to go around, the easiest way to accomplish this is by creating a k-shaped economy. One example is with farmland. In many traditions, when a farmer dies, his oldest son inherits the farm. Younger children are then forced to find other kinds of employment, such as being a craftsman, farmer’s helper, or priest in a church. Wages for these younger children can easily fall lower than the income of their land-holding older brothers, especially if large families become common. Creating jobs that pay well for all the younger children becomes a problem.
A similar phenomenon has been happening in many Advanced Economies (US, UK, and other countries included in the OECD) in recent years. Parents are doing quite well financially, but their children often have difficulty finding jobs that pay well, even after advanced schooling. Some adult children are also left with educational debt to repay. This is a new type of k-shaped economy.
[2] The world’s current problem is an ever-rising population paired with resources that are becoming ever-more “expensive” to extract.
World population has exploded since fossil fuel consumption became abundant. This has allowed more food to be grown, inexpensive transportation of goods and people, and the development of antibiotics and other drugs.
At the same time, the most accessible resources were extracted first. For example, fresh water initially came from streams, lakes, and shallow aquifers. As the population grew and industrial needs became increased, wells had to be dug deeper and aquifers began to be drained. In some places, desalination now needs to be used. Each of these advances in producing fresh water became more resource-intensive. It became increasingly difficult to gather enough fresh water using human labor alone. Instead, increasing quantities of physical materials, energy supplies, and debt were needed to make the new systems work.
The reason debt was needed to purchase capital goods, such as those required to obtain high-cost water, was because the devices purchased were expected to provide the desired output (water, in this case) for a long time in the future. Securing this future benefit required advance funding, using an approach such as debt. The sale of shares of stock, which are expected to appreciate over time and pay dividends, provides a similar benefit to debt.
A similar issue arises with the increasing extraction of minerals of many kinds, such as copper, tin, uranium, lithium, coal, and oil. Early on, extraction using manual labor and simple tools was sufficient. However, once the easiest to extract resources were removed, capital goods became necessary to make extraction efficient.
Capital goods, such as coal fired power plants, wind turbines, solar panels, and hydroelectric power plants also allowed electricity to be produced, extending the benefits of fossil fuels. Producing these capital devices requires physical materials and energy supplies, as well as debt or the sale of shares of stock for financing.
[3] A major limit on the system seems to be debt and the interest required on the debt.
In an economy, the growth of inexpensive energy supply acts very much like leavening works in making bread; it greatly helps economic growth. With the increasing use of inexpensive energy supply, vehicles can be made ever-less expensively, compared to using much hand labor for manufacturing (literally, making goods by hand). With this growing efficiency, wages rise faster than inflation. In the 1950s and 1960s, young people found that they could marry and live in nicer homes than their parents. Now, the reverse seems to be happening: many adult children are finding it difficult to keep up with the lifestyles of their parents.
Once the inexpensive-to-extract energy supply is depleted, economies tend to add an increasing amount of debt, in an attempt to pull the economy forward. It seems to me that a major limit on the system comes when an economy slows down so much that it can no longer repay its debt with interest.
Political leaders like to believe that growing debt, by itself, will pull the economy forward. In fact, this does work, for a time, as long as interest rates are falling. But falling interest rates stopped happening in 2022.
Of course, all the added debt contributes to the k-shaped economy. The already wealthy disproportionately benefit from debt payments. They also tend to benefit from dividends on shares of stock and from share price appreciation. The poorer people find that an increasing share of their wages goes to paying interest on debt, especially as interest rates rise.
As debt levels grow, governments eventually have a problem with repayment of debt with interest. They need to raise taxes simply to cover their rising interest payments. This is the reason why Donald Trump wants to get interest rates down. Interest payments are rising rapidly, with near-zero interest rates in the rear-view mirror (Figure 3).
[4] Added technology and economies of scale have been adding to the k-shaped economy.
Technology requires specialization. People with more training and higher skill levels tend to earn more than others. Economies of scale encourage the growth of ever-larger businesses. The people at the top of huge organizations tend to earn more than those at the bottom. Also, as international trade is added, low-wage people in the hierarchy increasingly compete for wages with workers from countries with much lower wage scales. Thus, the wages of less-skilled individuals are increasingly squeezed down.
Furthermore, both added technology and economies of scale require added debt. Again, the interest on this debt (and dividends on stock) disproportionately benefits those who are already wealthy.
[5] In a sense, artificial intelligence (AI) is simply an extension of added technology, with a huge need for electricity, water, and debt.
The hope for AI is that it will make our already k-shaped economy, a great deal more k-shaped. The hope is that AI can eliminate a significant share of jobs, with such high profits that the owners of this technology can become very rich. If it works, the wealth will be even more concentrated at the top than today.
I see the need for electricity, water, and debt as stumbling blocks for AI. I expect that, starting in 2026, the AI rapid growth spurt will seize up because it is already using more resources than are available in some areas. I expect that a significant downshift in AI will adversely affect the US stock market and the rate of growth of the US economy. My hope is that the loss of growth in the AI sphere will not, by itself, bring down the US economy–just nudge it toward recession.
[6] In 2026, with an increasingly k-shaped economy, I expect that world oil prices will drift lower than today.
“Demand” for oil really means “the quantity of oil that people, businesses, and governments around the world can afford to purchase.” As the economy becomes more k-shaped, fewer people can afford to buy vehicles of any kind. Poor people, in the lower part of the k, are hardest hit. They will tend to increasingly rely on low energy approaches, such as ride-sharing, walking, or using a bicycle. They will tend to buy fewer goods that are transported internationally. Governments, as they begin collecting less in tax revenue from the many poorer people, will be inclined to cut back their spending on new buildings and road improvements. These changes work in the direction of reducing oil demand, and thus oil prices.
It is this increasingly k-shaped economy that has been holding world oil prices down in 2025. I expect that prices will drift even lower in 2026 because of the increasingly k-shaped world economy. There aren’t enough very rich people to hold up oil and other resource demand by themselves.
Oil production will not immediately drop in response to these low prices, although it may start drifting lower in 2027. The US Energy Information Administration is forecasting that world oil production will rise by 1.1 million barrels per day in 2025 and by 1.2 million barrels per day in 2026. These amounts do not seem unreasonable based on new developments that have already started producing higher amounts of crude oil.
[7] The heavier types of oil, from which diesel and jet fuel are disproportionately made, are in short supply now. They are likely to continue to be in short supply in 2026.
World oil production has risen in recent months. When I investigated, I found that the vast majority of the recent growth seems to be in light oil. Thus, the shortfall in diesel and other heavy fuels is likely to continue as in the recent past.
This shortage of the heavy types of oil has several impacts:
a. With a shortage of heavy oil, a fairly strong country, such as the US, is tempted to attack Venezuela, which has the world’s largest reserves of heavy oil.
b. Island nations without their own fossil fuel supplies tend to use a disproportionately large share of diesel and jet fuel, for several reasons: (1) Such islands often burn diesel fuel for electricity. This is an expensive way to make electricity; goods produced with this electricity become too expensive to export. (2) Imports and exports need to be shipped in by boat or by air, again using limited types of fuel supply. Physics tends to push these economies down by making their products expensive to sell elsewhere. Examples of islands with these problems include Cuba, Puerto Rico, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka. Such places tend to be adversely affected by shortages of heavy oil sooner than other locations.
c. Without enough jet fuel, long distance tourism is likely to be reduced in 2026. One issue is the lack of jet fuel for flying planes. Another issue is that an increasing share of the population will not be able to afford long-distance tourism because of the k-shaped economy.
d. Tariffs are a way of discouraging the shipping of goods long distance, to indirectly save on heavy oil. We should not be surprised by their increasing usage.
[8] In my view, deflation is a greater risk than inflation in 2026.
With a k-shaped economy, demand for apartments (especially smaller ones) tends to stay low. As an economy becomes increasingly k-shaped, low-paid workers tend to share an apartment with one or more friends or move in with family members to save money. In a December 23 report, Apartment Advisor writes that the US average asking rent for studio apartments fell by 2.81% in 2025 compared to 2024. The similar comparison for one-bedroom apartments showed a price drop of 1.72% in 2025. In an increasingly k-shaped economy, I would expect this trend toward lower rental prices of smaller apartments to continue and perhaps become more pronounced.
Real estate selling prices may also be an area for downward price pressure. Young people who have not built up equity through prior home ownership tend to find themselves shut out from buying homes. Also, commercial real estate of many kinds seems to be grossly oversupplied in many areas. Given this situation, downward price adjustments seem likely.
Underlying this downward pressure on prices may be some actual cuts in wages. One law firm reports that cuts in wages are becoming increasingly common, especially for employees of smaller companies.
There are precedents for deflation becoming a problem. The US had problems with deflation at the time of the Great Depression. Japan had problems with deflation after its crash in real estate prices in the 1990s, and China (with its real estate price crash) has recently been having problems with deflation.
[9] “Bread and circuses” become more important as the economy becomes more k-shaped.
Many readers have heard about bread and circuses. Before the Roman Empire collapsed, it used bread and circuses to keep its citizens from rioting from a lack of food. The way to prevent food riots is by making sure everyone has enough to eat through food distribution programs, described as “bread.” Providing circuses offers a distraction from the fact that there are not enough well-paying jobs to go around.
Today, with our increasingly k-shaped economies, leaders have figured out that meeting citizens’ basic needs is essential if unrest is to be avoided. Political leaders somehow need to provide food and healthcare to their poorer citizens. They also need to keep people distracted with entertainment. For many years, governments of Advanced Economies have been trying to provide the equivalent of bread and circuses. In the US, legislation providing Social Security for the elderly was enacted in 1935, during the Great Depression. Many other financial support programs have been added over the years. Today’s circuses today are provided through televised entertainment and video games.
A major problem is that the costs of these programs have become more expensive than tax revenue can support. This is especially true of the cost of “bread,” if its cost is defined as including healthcare and pensions for the elderly, in addition to food. Ultimately, these high-cost programs can bring an economy down. The high cost of bread and circuses is thus a second limiting factor, besides excessive interest payments on government debt, (discussed in Section [3]).
[10] Leaders of many countries are already making plans that can be used to deal with shrinking resources per capita.
If there aren’t enough resources to go around, what can governments do to prevent riots? Two obvious choices come to mind:
(a) Tighten controls on citizens to prevent riots. China has been a leader in this area, and the UK and US seem to be trending in a similar direction. In a sense, the Covid requirements of 2020 were practice with respect to restrictions on movement.
(b) Develop a rationing system that can be used, in case of a shortfall of essential goods. Many countries are looking at central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). These are a digital form of central bank money that is widely available to the public. In the US, I expect CBDCs will be rolled out initially as a way for those who are entitled to food stamps to easily access their benefits. If these digital currencies work, CBDCs can easily be expanded into a widespread rationing system. Government leaders will then be able to decide who can afford to buy what, rather than depending on the way the k-shaped economy currently allocates buying-power.
[11] What lies ahead in 2026?
I don’t think any of us know for certain. The general direction of the world economy seems to be toward contraction, but some parts of the world economy will fare better than others.
Europe looks increasingly like it is an “also-ran” behind the US and China in the world economy. I expect its resource use will continue to shrink back in 2026, indirectly benefiting the United States and the rest of the world. I am hoping that with cutbacks in oil usage by island nations and Europe, and the resulting lower world oil prices, the United States will be able to avoid the worst of the recessionary tendencies looming in 2026.
There are some reports that AI, as it is being applied in China, is providing major success in reducing the cost of coal mining in China. If this is true, it may allow China’s economy to grow in 2026, despite downturns in many other countries.
I am fairly certain that AI, as it is being developed in the US and Europe, cannot continue its recent exponential growth trajectory, and I expect this to become obvious in the next few months. This shift seems likely to pull down US stock market indices. Here again, I am hoping that despite this issue, the US will be able to avoid the worst of the world’s recessionary tendencies.
I don’t expect a world war in 2026. For one thing, no country has adequate ammunition capability. I think civil wars and wars against nearby countries are more likely.
It is possible that the EU will collapse in 2026, leaving the individual countries on their own.
At some point in the future, I expect that the central government of the US will also collapse, in the manner of the Soviet Union in 1991. States will likely regroup and issue new local currencies; the new combined governments will likely provide much more limited benefits than the US government provides today.
Many people think that different leadership will change the current trajectory, but I am doubtful about this. Most of the world’s problems are “baked into the cake” by resource shortages and by too high a population relative to resources. Keeping immigration down is one way of trying to keep resources and population in closer balance.
All in all, I expect a very uneven world economic downturn in 2026. Economies will continue to become more k-shaped. Governments will do their best to hide problems from the public. Stock markets will likely not do well in 2026, if they can no longer count on AI for an uplift.
I can disprove the whole ‘aliens watching us’ BS with one single word : Ramanujan.
If they were watching us, Ramanujan would have been found, before he crept into the Royal Society, with the back of his head missing and ruled a suicide, and people from the Subcontinent would have been thinking twice before trying to study in the West.
When Ramanujan crept into the Royal Society, STEM began to die, and we see how it has metastasized now.
The current form of AI is no more than an overclocked calculator. Perfectly suits the Asian style of science, rote memorization and endless repeats, i.e. trial and error. AI can reinvent a wheel a billion times and more. It cannot invent anything outside of its box.
If the aliens, or whatever , had been watching humans, they did quite a bad job. I would not hire them to watch a chicken coop.
Also it is invariably whites who talk about such beings. Asians never seem to talk about this kind of topics.
I would love to have the intellectual gifts of Ramanujan.
Dennis L.
We do not need the ‘gifts’ of Ramanujan
https://greyenlightenment.com/2022/06/04/has-science-stalled-out-sorta/
>I think also one must separate fiction or hagiography from truth when it comes to the mythology of genius. Ramanujan is celebrated as one the quintessential geniuses of math, who came from obscurity and was self-taught. Except this is partially true. But the math behind elliptic integrals and modular functions, which Ramanujan specialized in, was already known. The Ramanujan constant was known by 1860, discovered by Hermite, before Ramanujan’s birth, but Ramanujan found new results applying the earlier concepts. It would seem as though he derived his results ex nihilo , but only because he didn’t show his steps. But Ramanujan didn’t work in an intellectual vacuum, contrary to popular myth. He had access to math journals and books. India had a math journal in the early 1900s, where he published. India was a colony of Britain, arguably the intellectual center of the world at the time, along with Germany and France, so it’s not like it was cut off from the rest of the world. It’s just that his living conditions were not great.
Aravind will say something about it, but when Hindus are involved in STEM, they bring Hinduism into it.
Ramanujan is from Tamil Nadu, and here is the wonderful result its Hindus had wrought up to 1900
https://youtube.com/shorts/aMbfUbPU0y8?si=WzjdcpaJDqtR_59J
And by the standards of somebody Ramanujan is a failure since he had no children.
Nothing bad happens till it happens to you .
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/denmark-freaks-out-over-possible-venezuela-playbook-greenland-warns-end-nato
Worried about the US taking over Greenland. This would be the end of NATO.
As an American I would love for NATO to stop existing. Save us money, stop attacking a potential friend and ally Russia. Denmark has no military to keep Greenland and we should not pay to let Denmark pretend it has importance.
True. Little Denmark is such a boring country. Why does it even want an Eskimo empire anyway? I visited Denmark in 1981. It’s flat as a pancake, with dreary weather, buildings and countryside. The land of the four “L”s: Lego, lager, Lurpak, and the Little Mermaid – a pathetic little statue that is, too. And that awful song “Barbie girl”. Bleurgh.
Trump should surge in and abolish the monarchy, then share Denmark out between Germany, Norway and Sweden. Let the Danes keep Legoland as a duchy, and make ex-King Frederik into the Duke of Legoland. It’s all he deserves. Greenland is far closer to America than Denmark anyway.
I disagree. Denmark has nowhere to go. they will replace the prime minister with another WEF chick and keep going. They are a totally owned country, unlike parts of Eastern Europe.
Donald rattled the cage with Europeans..
But at the same time he is now pressing for that 15k troops expedition force deployed into ~western UKR.
Some point out it’s a legit plan for keeping lid on the incoming internal war amongst the army factions aka the ultra-nationalist vs the more sane cadre. In other words keep the UKR post war remains sized as large as possible..
Others (RU) claim it’s just a classic western tactic to pause – deny – delay their rolling victory resolution on the battle ground, and threatening to attack that intervention (peace) task force from day one.
No problem . We got Maduro .
https://offthefrontpage.com/bankruptcies-reach-a-15-year-peak-in-the-u-s/
Jiang Xueqin suggest the Trump meeting in April in Beijing will offer China “you rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and we will allow you to buy the oil from us using dollars”. China has so many dollars this is a good way to dumps its excess dollars.
In the long run being the country that operates and understands the oil industry, that supplies the spare parts will own the oil industry.
I am afraid you may be right. Chevron probably knows quite about extraction, but it doesn’t have the spare parts, I expect.
of course in the long run there is no oil. But note that they have invented a CO2 steam engine that runs on waste heat. I continue to be impressed by them.
Trump on TV extended ~such offer to China as the kidnapping was in progress – just concluded. It has been posted here like 3x times already in recent hours/dayz..
Any gains Trump wants have to be manufactured by China and paid for by China. A unique point in world history. Just keep telling the reality TV show host yes you are smart and beautiful and rich.
Humans have depleted global terrestrial carbon stocks by a quarter
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332225002180
Highlights
• Global terrestrial carbon stocks have been depleted by 24% (344 PgC)
• Our estimates of the carbon deficit are at unprecedented resolution and consistency
• Pasture expansion, cropland expansion, and forest management are major drivers
• Dynamic global vegetation models underestimate the carbon deficit by 37% on average
Does this mean we have to stop farming to put the carbon back into the ground?
It does mean at spot-places highly out of balance to re-growth – won’t be easy to retain lively-hood and or getting quite risky during (intervening) rolling waves of bad harvest cycles..
Hence death, famine, war and pestilence.. re-turn.
Forget about msm/gov/ngos “carbon”.. diversion play..
Cutting down trees doesn’t sound very good, either.
I would say that the numbers are an average and that the numbers in the areas that are easily accessible by the humans or are inhabited by the humans are much higher.
That is the problem: Easily accessible resources are depleted.
There has been much talk about civil war in the U.S. I have always felt this is silly as citizens do not have deeply held values nor the courage to fight to the death.
If the federal government looses the ability to feed money to all the power blocks it services then their can be civil war. The MIC demands its take, the little country in ME demands its take, democrat voters in the impoverished cities demand their take, republican voters demand their stocks and farm investments continue to pay them a luxury life demand their take. When we get down to one chair is removed and someone has to suffer then the U.S. will have a civil war.
Let me be clear, all U.S. cities are impoverished
so that chair removed will change nothing.
So the Somalis, Haitians, Africans will be passive no burning cities?
you are asking for a lot. the current elite has a 10 yrs plan on that no more. i am guessing they will be slower to pull the trigger. the only force for change is the mexican cartels, and it is too early for them. the rest is run of the mill rabble.
Not exactly, refer to recent discussions.
Historical modelling clearly shows top chaos building up only after govs hitting total bottom first. Not a bit mid-way slope, ~sooner, none of that..
The way Political Scientist David Betz saw civil war starting was with individual citizens getting so angry that they would kill or kidnap major political figures. Another action he saw was people in the countryside, taking actions that would cut off water and other supplies to cities. I can imagine these things before direct fighting with others.
Yes, why not..
But lets keep the terminology-concepts compatible.
Total-max chaos doesn’t necessarily equal luke-warm civil war political cycle examples and or specific outlier on/off cases.
Proper out of desperation civil war has been usually taking place after above said down cycle proper threshold only.
In practical terms, do you still see county snow plows rolling out there? Borders still somehow protected? Fire dept. on standby, shops still fully stocked with that fine gmo beans, .. etc.? If positive you are nowhere close real civil war – top chaos levels..
things like that always start at low key
No.
–
but let’s go for something completely different when
I’m still dwelling in such manic state.. otherwise would not have been daring that following action at all – just used heavy gauge fisk. garden scissors (~laser sharpened) to trim my finger nails – don’t ever attempt at home kids – [ ¡¡¡peligroso!!! ] – the potential danger to zap your fingers irreversibly is %% level.. recently used to cut with that +inch dia of freshly cut pine home decors for the holidays..
the high point being-arriving at as early pre-humans discovering super sharp flint-silex in ultra-joy for the first time, mightily enlarging ones powers over “nature”..
on top of that as “milestone achieved self-bonus” store bought ~patagonia berries with alpine quark ..
~luxury living while it goes..
/signing off
wars always start with–
”god is on our side”
check as far back in history as you like for confirmation of that bit of nonsense….
that said the god-certainties of most of the USA is still at the intellectual-belief level of 14thc Europe.—jesus–devils–rapture-physical heaven and hell and so on. (Europe itself has grown up since then)
as resources of every kind (not just oil) run short, the American people will fight over whats left—right now they are being conditioned to blame ‘others” for their ills.
its a very short step then, for Texans to ‘demand’ their rights from Californians, or vice versa.—or any other combination you care to mention.
And this WILL happen—i just can’t put a date on it.–might be 20-50 years hence—the USA itself is too big a nation to hold together without surplus energy.—simple as that.
dismiss my forecast all you like, but my record has held up pretty well so far in all this.
what if a group that starts a civil war does not believe in God?
It seems we have groups in the US that profess to make LGBTQ, anarchy, transsexualism, etc their Gods. They are working hard to start a civil war.
I think we have more to worry about Christian Fascist taking over the country than anyone. The Gays, Blacks and Jews etc. could never hold political power in the country the way the Christo-fascist can.
been banging on for years now about theofascism…..
this isnt christianity, its the inquisition resurfacing
you can be certain that the LGBQ whatever anarchists are convinvinced they are doing gods work.
those who burned heretics in the 15th c had the same certainty…
there is no difference whatsoever in the mindset
We are an anarchic species and anarchy is probably the only thing that will work.
you are probably correct
I’ve said this before elsewhere, but I don’t think there will be a civil war in America or at least it won’t last very long (a week?) when all the grocery stores get looted, burnt and/or otherwise emptied/destroyed, because not as many people know their wild edibles like their ancestors did.
The economy’s getting bigger.
More printed money!
Of course it is getting bigger, last time in the USA I paid 3.99 for a single shot espresso.
always good to know we can rely on you IG
IG , where can I buy those pink coloured eyeglasses ? Asking for a friend .😂
i bought some of those
a swindle…
when i got tem they turned out to be welding goggles
I found Simon Dixon’s argument that the Maduro extraction and the 12 day war between Israel and Iran to be kabuki theatre scripted by US, Russia and China to be plausible. Spheres of control have been agreed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=-qX3TWoCJDo
Asian Guy doesn’t contradict this view
We can never know what is real.
Lack of world heavy oil is reducing the distance of control of China and Russia.
I want to look at this video, but don’t have time now.
I stopped. Four minutes in, the bot mentions “oil reset” so many times, it loses meaning. We know the oil Venezuela has has a eroi (energy return on investment. about the same as a low financial return on investment) so I’m not sure how much it will actually reset markets. The video seems like pure hyberbole. Wouldn’t be surprised that whole account was managed by someone working for the US government/NATO.
Whatever that bot said I’m sure it will never mention that what they are doing in Venezuela is what they wish they could do in Russia, another country at odds with NATO that just happens to have significant oil reserves.
It may be that a new technique can be developed that has a whole lot higher EORI. We don’t know.
If it is choice between having nothing (in the way of heavy oil supplies) and having something that might work, the latter makes sense. We have made huge progress in extracting oil and gas. Ruling out progress in the future is very iffy, IMHO.
Chevron has been at this for a long time. Even if extraction requires a different kind of energy, as well, we are sufficiently desperate that that might work.
to repeat ad nauseam—
all wars are fought over resources
Yes, the civil war starts when the welfare checks for housing, food, cloths, electric, water, transport are ended. Be that in the Bronx or in the middle east.
Where is the food acquired for this civil war?
from the other side
I’d call the Iranian angle into question.
The street fights in recent weeks and days were comparatively quite vicious.
They endured +40% inflation in recent months.. that’s hardly staged-game planned scenario for the (near-) local front.
In one -particular- country their msm is literally drooling-salivating from vids of teenage Iranians now for the first time ever shouting in swarms how they want the former Persian prince-king back to power. Again, that’s long term psychological profiling-influencing at helm, times moved on, these teenagers care more about iphones.. du jour than their grand-dad’s dust bin stories about police dungeons under Shah. In a way naturally occurring – as well as nudged boosted – phenomenon through ages.
Don’t read bellow – blasphemy hazzard in motion.
Eventually, there are comparative scales to everything.
That includes even the perversity of the elites vs commoners relationship interaction. The scenes of imperial Kim hugging and reaching to returned wounded soldiers are perhaps [7.5 out of 10]; while young Iranians exchanging elderly home based mullahs for int jet-set Prince likely bordering on [8.9 out of 10]; and so on..
Above arbitrary scales have been brought to you by actual long life (non engaged) experience through several revolts – revolution – regime changes – yes in different time and regional circumstances.
This is consistent with some facts. But then why do they target Putin one hour after a phone call? granted that could be fake news. It is really difficult to understand what is going on. And now YT is basically gone.
Yes, unfortunately, the bygone days of gun powder where in many respects it was more clearly laid out in front of / for us..
I’ve not been digging around that angle, only overheard it in passing on the Greeks, similarly to you. The idea of attacking the head – gov.mil compound of Tim’s supposedly non n-super power – seems ubercrazy during such proxy conflict on top of that. They are hinting internal factions / dept. in US circles at play and that would – given past existing precedents – most likely mean plastering new riskier crisis over another just to cover ones own previous deeds be it $illy corruption or various internal political games.
Perhaps the end times are now very near and someone would launch soon.. out of badly skewed analysis – projection. Good luck.
Simon Dixon is very probably an operative. Redditors have been calling both him and his wife ghosts for years. No backgrounds. Kinda like Andrew Kaufman who took the helm of the no-virus controlled opposition during the plandemic.
And the Asian Guy is clearly the Hand co-opting the DA specifically in order to neutralize it with, primarily, with video content, even if the content is just an Asian AI bot reciting a script in such a way as to simulate human god mode. Because video is witchcraft. The Red Man objectively saw that the white man’s still photography stole men’s souls. Looking at photographs steals both the viewer’s and the viewed man’s soul. For obvious reasons. Now extrapolate that out to video. Now extrapolate that out to AI video content being produced by the Hand in response to both the need to copy true dissidents like us with eyes to see and also just the general need to manufacture a narrative of ‘cutting edge’ consensus in that purple pill world of alt- people.
How do you provide political cover the DA when the horse traded of the HTOE can’t be hidden anymore because the Phase 1 to Phase 2 transition — which is a misdirection play politically though a directional play structurally — is inevitably going to be a lifting of the veil in a very real way? You get ahead of it of course. We all know that.
Yesterday the boring old ways of the Moon of Alabama blog started cottoning to a paradigm change, as evidenced by that comment that was crossposted here. Today we have ‘the great oil reset’ by the Hand’s The Asian Guy, who opens the video by blatantly borrowing one of reante’s major themes which is that what’s going on in the world is not political, it’s structural. Which is also what Brent Johnson does on top of the stablecoins theft, except Brent’s is stealing; but the Asian Guy’s (the Hand’s) usage is merely borrowing in homage because the Hand can’t steal from reante seeing as how reante’s DA and all sub themes within the DA, such as the politics vs structuralism theme, only ever emerged in the first place by following the inevitable breadcrumbs the Hand leaves behind as it crafts the global Non-Public Degrowth Agenda.
Now we’re explicitly in conversation with the Hand. And that’s fun. Similar to how Varoufakis is in conversation with his AI cooptations, and Mearsheimer. Though our conversation is much more important.
When the AI age rolls around, the cutting edge meta analysis of a systems theory of Collapse inevitably leads to a meta-conversation between the Hand and the meta analytic dissidents operating in god mode (in the whole truth).
Welcome to the meta world. The Hand has directly revealed itself to us via video feed and not just indirectly through operatives. It’s doing us a favor because now the second group of people among us — that infoshark most excellently delineated for us in his long comment a couple few days ago — can more easily follow along.
Real or Not Real?
Hidden pearl in the post, thanks.
I’ve always wondered how certain “intensity” souls still kept coming out of still photo over the ages, most notably of the b&w older thing..
Especially, various ethnographic themes; but also any mundane history from peasants to that abused kid Adolf or youngish trickster uncle Joe. There is always something eternal shinning out of those personae, who shaped (were to) countless mega other lives.. at critical nodes junction of “history”..
end of “grand-sim” mini lecture..
It used to be Trump opened his mouth and the democrats screamed damnation up and down. Now Trump reverts to the fifteenth century and the democrats have not a peep to say. It really is a uni-party.
Let’s see if Newsom and Mamdani can produce favorable outcomes in California and in New York City.
in 1970, the USA lost the prime world position of swing oil producer…
we have all been lying to each other ever since, by voting for a debt funded economy…
not that we had much choice of course…
New York state public service commission just sent me an invite to a technical conference to share the vision, objectives, approach, and timeline for the filing of the second iteration of Grid of the Future Plan.
NYC can play act socialism all day long but in the end Blackrock still needs reliable electric.
“conspiracy theories” can explain most of the muted response from progressives.
A significant portion of progressives (and non-progressives) just do what they are told. If they see people screaming damnation in tv, and on social media, they will do the same. Remember the toilet paper shortages during the early stages of the coughing-19pandemic? The shortages were media-fueled.
Nicholas Maduro and his Seven Outerwear Changes
(with photos)
https://www.winterwatch.net/2026/01/nicholas-maduro-and-his-six-outwear-changes/
We’re told a Delta team walked in, faced zero resistance, and somehow pulled off a clean grab, no casualties even though Maduro was supposedly armed to the teeth and wrapped in layers of protection. No chaos. No last stand. Ask yourself: does that sound like a daring raid… or a prearranged handoff? Has the real Maduro been sent out the back door to Brazil?
From Venezuelan sources, update: BREAKING: A large part of Nicolas Maduro’s security team was killed in the US commando raid that led to his abduction, says Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino.
Money changed hands. The very military tasked with protecting Maduro sold him out. That’s why the operators knew exactly where to go, when to go, and what they’d find when they got there.
Trump casually says, “We’re in control of Venezuela.” If this had been a genuine special operation, we wouldn’t be “in control” of anything. You don’t control a country by kidnapping one man. You control it when its security apparatus is already working for you.
This does not mean that counter resistance elements doesn’t still exist within Venezuela. That is entirely different from a head of state removal operation. It isn’t over until the fat lady sings.
The local govs claim total ~40-80 death toll, including ~20x direct personal security detail (mostly Cuban) supposedly killed during storming of the compound, the rest accidental deaths counted all over the country.
Zero dead clever brave fantastic unreal US agents – very Hollywood, very believable!
https://rumble.com/v73wble-emergency-meeting-episode-119-delta-force.html?start=3929
Tate has some funny bits on the new USA modus operandi.
😃
“To understand why the intervention happened in 2026—rather than 2002 or 2019—requires understanding a factor that mainstream analysis consistently ignores. Venezuela was not merely about American oil companies wanting access to crude. It was about denying that crude to China. “?
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/venezuela-decoded
The naivete’ of all of USA opponents seems disconcerting. Putin, Assad, Raisi, Soleimani, Maduro, the chinese delegation to VZ. No third world nation should feel confident about sticking its neck out at this time. these heroic BRICS proponents can not even defend themselves.
Several embassies were evacuated weeks before hand,
the elevated risk was broadly understood.. in such circles but also western/int msm and analysts hinted regime change heightened alerts like few (~2)month prior to that; also noting elevated risk few (~5) years ago on another escalation ladder period.
As to the overall charade at display for us – who knows – it’s not settled – explained fully yet.
In terms of US vs RoW – it’s the rehashed classic western story of gun blazing desperado vs diverse bunch of “civilized” chicken littles traveling inside a coach on bumpy road. Characters, cultural-ethnic disposition to problem solving, tools available at hand are slowly being disclosed during the actual robbery act itself.
Usually, as the situation boils over many actors had to leave the scene for good, either with the help of professional undertaker (city limits) or into impromptu shoveled grave mole hill (wilderness)..
We are in the end stage now time has run out Maduro is a distraction for the masses to keep them mesmerised when the deflationary death spiral begins. Our man Trump will be the Patsy someone’s got to be blamed .
“Barbar pierre
Yes, the echoes of Stalin’s wishful thinking are strong in Putin. His persistent begging since 1999 to be considered an “equal partner” in Imperialism is nauseating. He was strung along for 22 years, while trying to earn kudos in Washington with numerous UNSC votes from Russia in support of Yanki sanctions/aggression against/occupation of other nations, e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, whereas their plan was always to fracture & disarm Russia and provide Putin a similar fate as Milosevic, Hussein or Ghadaffi.“?
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/22/ffci-d22.html
As I see it, the self-organizing system is pushing toward using less oil for transatlantic and transpacific flights. This seems to equate to using more resources within the Americas for itself, and more Euroasian resources there.
No matter how this is framed, this is a fight for survival. It is a musical chairs problem that is not easy to solve. The heavy oil is a prize for whichever group can figure out how to grab it, extract it, and refine it cheaply. The US badly needs it.
If USA splits into multiple countries like USSR did, what will happen to financial assets like 401K, IRA? What has historically happened in such scenarios? Do these fund managers disappear with the funds, or are the funds honored but only if the beneficiary and the fund managing company are resident in the same newly formed country? What are some of the cues that that such a split of the country imminent? Is it worth to take the 10% penalty and encash retirement savings?
Financial assets are all promises. Promises are often broken.
If you are really lucky, some other organization will give you something similar, but I wouldn’t count on very much.
Since the world began, people worked pretty much all of their lives. They had money for about one change of clothes, and food for a very short time (no refrigeration). Fossil fuels are what allowed this situation to change, but our problem is that we are losing fossil fuels. It will take quite a few years for fossil fuels to completely be exhausted, but, unless we can figure out something quickly, we are headed back where we were long ago–say, 1,000 years ago. Mines are depleted, making mineral extraction of many kinds very difficult. And we have too much population.
Aren’t most retirement plans tied to exponential growth? Without growth of 5 proit seems like most plans will fall short in the first downturn. It’s sad that they keep pushing people to sacrifice their present life to save for their retirement
I have known about this issue for years. I have not felt pressure to save. When offered retirement benefits, I have always opted for “pay it out as soon as possible.”
But I have had the benefit of being in very good health. And I started early enough to have lots of retirements benefits given to me. And my husband has a similar situation. So, so far, we are doing fine. This is a major reason I can have a blog without charging for it. People can share ideas here, without having to pay for a subscription.
A calling to spread the light runs deep in the Tverbergs. It is much appreciated.
extraction from mines is always dependent on the means available.
where i live, 2000 years ago the Romans extracted the easy coal and other mineral by digging sideways, not down. they were also after copper and gold.
Going ‘down’ means you have to wind up men and materials, that costs extra effort and input., more than 50ft means machinery of some kind.
in a post industrial world, that machinery will not be available, so what is left in the ground will stay there…
I am afraid you are right. One of the issues is often water intrusion at greater depths. Pumps are needed to get the water out of the way. Deep mines require capital goods of some kind.
quite correct
thats why i gave the invention of pumping engines such a prominent section in my book…
without them, we could not have extracted all the metal ores we now take for granted….
But how can you be so sure we are heading into a post industrial world?
Or is that self-evident based on the Laws of Thermodynamics or human Nature?
As per Gail’s correct response + depends on your overall outlook..
If you are ~young and vigorous enough perhaps start to economize down like (-90% today’s prevalent standard) – yes bordering on impossible/futile. Otherwise keep enjoying the present moment as far as possible.
I’m afraid, “historically” that’s not directly comparable, USSR imploded into (global late stage) near peaking cheap-affordable energy situation, regrouping – revamp – restructuring was possible to some degree successfully. While nowadays we (incl. US) are several decades after such past threshold, i.e. formerly industrialized civilization hubs of today are dissolving into way poorer outcome trajectory with very different – limited options of possible restructuring – reacting at all..
Timing – imminent?
I guess just yesterday nice post citation appeared over here – allowing – explaining for the scenario where the US literally now sucking blood out of the semi-periphery (incl. impoverished Europe) + 3rd world in order to delay further internal collapse sequencing. Who knows how long that could work in practice, plus another 3-5-10-15yrs ?
Crazier things happened in “history” – e.g. China, Russia, India, wider MiddleEast they all could fall into disarray in ~sync fashion for some reason tomorrow, thus perhaps providing the US another century or more. What are the realistic probabilities though?
Keep it stoically, what an interesting ride.
Big shifts just tend to happen at (near) thresholds, empires fall, entire populations are impoverished / erased / replaced / starved off / ..
Reante, this may pique your interest.
Norman, it’s eye-rolling time for you.
I haven’t read the book, by the way.
Death Object: Exploding The Nuclear Weapons Hoax (2017)
By Akio Nakatani – 25 Q&As – Unbekoming Book Summary
On July 16, 1945, in the pre-dawn darkness of the New Mexico desert, the world supposedly entered the atomic age with the Trinity test – mankind’s first nuclear detonation, a moment that military director General Leslie Groves called proof that “when man is willing to make the effort, he is capable of accomplishing virtually anything.” Yet what if this epochal event, seared into humanity’s collective memory as the birth of our potential self-annihilation, never actually happened as described? Akio Nakatani’s “Death Object: Exploding the Nuclear Weapons Hoax” presents a meticulously researched case that nuclear weapons represent history’s most audacious deception – not a triumph of physics but a triumph of propaganda, not a functional weapon but what he calls the “Fake Nuke Feint.” The author, a professor of applied mathematics and statistics, brings his expertise in Monte Carlo simulations and statistical analysis to bear on what may be the most consequential question of our time: have we been living under the shadow of a threat that doesn’t actually exist?
The evidence pattern Nakatani presents reads like a detective story where every piece of physical evidence contradicts the official narrative. The Trinity test crater measured only five feet deep and thirty feet wide – identical to a conventional TNT test despite supposedly being two hundred times more powerful. At Hiroshima, 170 trees within two kilometers of ground zero survived and bloomed the following spring, while photographs show utility poles standing throughout the blast zone that should have been obliterated by 500-mph winds. The damage patterns in both Japanese cities mirror exactly those created by the conventional firebombing that destroyed Dresden, Tokyo, and 67 other Japanese cities – the same twisted metal beams, the same charred bodies in streets, the same “nuclear shadows” that appeared wherever intensive incendiary bombing occurred. Aviation expert Alexander P. de Seversky, inspecting both cities shortly after the war, found them indistinguishable from other firebombed cities, with concrete buildings near ground zero structurally intact, their cornices and decorative elements undamaged. Perhaps most damning, the author reveals that Los Alamos physicists couldn’t resolve the “energy balance problem” – their bombs appeared to violate conservation of energy – until 2009, sixty-four years after weapons that supposedly worked perfectly from day one.
The mechanics of this proposed deception center on a critical moment in 1944 that Nakatani identifies as the birth of the hoax: when Manhattan Project scientists discovered during the “implosion crisis” that the gun-type bomb design wouldn’t work – not just for plutonium as officially claimed, but for any fissile material. Faced with admitting failure after spending billions in wartime dollars, the leadership allegedly chose an audacious alternative: stage a conventional bombing disguised as an atomic attack. Lookout Mountain Studios, a secret facility in Laurel Canyon that produced 19,000 classified films with Hollywood professionals including John Ford and Marilyn Monroe, possessed all the special effects capabilities needed to fabricate the documentation. The timing was perfect – Japan needed an honorable exit after the Soviet Union’s August 8th invasion of Manchuria made defeat inevitable, America wanted to claim technological supremacy without actually possessing doomsday weapons, and the military-industrial complex secured eternal funding. The “born secret” doctrine, which automatically classifies all nuclear weapons information from the moment of creation, ensures that any scientific challenge to the narrative becomes illegal to publish – including, Nakatani claims, his own mathematical proof that explosive nuclear chain reactions are impossible because neutrons simply cannot hit enough nuclei quickly enough to create the nanosecond explosion required.
If Nakatani’s thesis proves correct, we stand at the edge of a revelation that would fundamentally rewrite not just history but our understanding of human nature, power, and the stories we tell ourselves about existential threat. The implications cascade outward like the false shock waves of a phantom bomb: seventy-five years of foreign policy based on illusion, trillions of dollars spent on weapons that don’t exist, generations living under the shadow of potential annihilation that was never possible. Yet this book offers something beyond conspiracy theory – it presents a systematic examination of physical evidence, technical analysis, and historical documentation that challenges readers to confront uncomfortable questions. Whether you emerge convinced that humanity’s most feared weapon is indeed what the author calls “history’s most consequential lie,” or find yourself defending the orthodox narrative with renewed conviction, the journey through this evidence will forever change how you view the relationship between scientific authority, state power, and the stories that shape our world. In an age where we question so many accepted truths, perhaps it’s time to question the ultimate truth of our time: the reality of the weapon that has defined the modern world.
https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/death-object-exploding-the-nuclear
I suppose Chernobyl and Fukushima were also fakes?
I have no inkling of whether that the incidents were fakes. They both seem to have been genuine industrial accidents.
The first was caused by operator error and the second was caused by a tsunami and poorly located diesel-powered backup pumps.
Both involved steam explosions, but neither involved atomic or nuclear explosions, did they?
Next question!
but if they explode, why not also a device specifically designed to explode.
I asked Google AI (as I haven’t had my morning coffee yet):
Both Chernobyl and Fukushima involved steam explosions because extreme heat vaporized cooling water, but the root causes differed:
Chernobyl had a runaway nuclear reaction from flawed design and operator error, causing instant fuel-water contact and a powerful in-core steam explosion (plus a hydrogen explosion from zirconium reactions), while Fukushima’s external explosions were hydrogen-driven from melted fuel-zirconium reactions after cooling loss, releasing radioactivity from containment breaches, not core ejection.
I think the questions we should be examining here are (1) Are nuclear weapons such as atomic and hydrogen bombs feasible?, and (2) were the narratives of the atomic and hydrogen bomb tests and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki true or not? I think it’s possible that (1) may be affirmative while (2) may be negative, but I don’t know for sure.
It has always bothered me that brick and concrete buildings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki close to ground survived the blast and that trees, which should have been vaporized by some accounts, survived scorched and produced fresh leaves the following spring.
We live from cradle to grave inside a propaganda matrix—a modern version of Plato’s Cave—subject to the all-pervading music of a mighty Wurlitzer (a metaphor coined by Frank Wisner, the first chief of political warfare for the Central Intelligence Agency)—and so it’s understandable that we often find it hard to tell fact from fiction.
Many of us are quite comfortable living inside the movie theater, and get quite upset that anyone else would want to go outside. I’m one of those irritating audience members who, while everyone else is enjoying the movie, points out what look to me like continuity issues.
I realize that this is coming from the guy who posts up on his imaginary friend called the Hand every other post, but I find it incomprehensible that the nuclear powered countries of the world would engage in such an, again, incomprehensibly scaled and costly NPP kabuki theater. Theater to the degree that the former nuclear engineer who dropped in to the comments section below the link participated in what exactly for his entire career. And if he just be an online spook then what about Homer Simpson and all the others. What exactly are they doing from 9-5? What happens at all the nuclear engineering programs at major universities? Do those students not actually pay tuition and not actually go on to careers at NPPs? How are all the energy industry gigawatt figures reconciled whenever a new fake plant is built in China and supposedly adding new base load capacity to the grid. Are all the grid connections to the nearest substations just for show, too? And to what end? What real, tangible purpose does it serve industrial civilization to pretend that it has nuclear energy with an incomprehensibly high negative EROEI? That’s negative purpose isn’t it? It certainly flies in the face of MPP. How do the loans get repaid? We could go on forever.
It’s too much, Tim. Much too much. I think we can know that NPPs must exist, even if we have no direct experience with them, by knowing that faking the whole thing just doesn’t come close to patterning with reality.
Meltdowns aren’t fake…they just highlight how difficult it is to control nuclear reactions.
Articles like this from a establishment scientific community doesn’t do much to convince everyone that nuclear weapons exist and can be made on demand .
https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/why-is-it-still-so-hard-to-make-nuclear-weapons
This is a matter of faith. Those who believe in the technological superiority of America (an iffy concept imho) believe America has a working arsenal of nuclear warheads while everyone else is just trying to create a working arsenal of nuclear warheads.
in the think bubbles of certain ofw’ers, everything is faked….
(I wont expand further on that theme)..
False. I know, for example, that it was Hegseth himself (and Patel) that was flanking Maduro as he arrived in NY to be charged.
Velly intalesting, Mister Gloavs. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKX36PkaMG8
White Light/Black Rain – The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
White light, black rain. Survivors report seeing a blinding white flash, followed by black rain. Then followed the terrible radiation sickness that quickly killed many of the survivors. So how was the radiation sickness faked, Tim?
Survivor testimonies could be faked, couldn’t they, Demi?
If it was an op, fake survivor testimonies could have been part of the op, couldn’t they?
Neither you nor I was present at the events in question, so why do we think we know what happened? Why do we need to believe anything without proof?
Could it be because we crave certainty, or because we are incurably gullible, or is it because we have blind faith in the honesty of the people spinning the narratives?
And all those horrific faked injuries, which had to be kept up for life? Should we tell your theory to your Japanese neighbours, Tim? I’m sure that would make you VERY popular. 😉
not to mention the many top scientists believing in it? The crucial variable in nuclear power plants is greek k. It is the ratio of generated and absorbed neutrons. It is very very close to one at all times. There are two physical effects that keep it there. If it becomes 1.0001 the nuclear cross sections decrease. If it becomes 0.99999 they increase. In a bomb k=2.5 or so.
If humans could use nuclear weapons , they would use them. Not threaten to use them them , they would use them . Since apart from 2 ‘gamechangers’ far from new York and London where they make the news , they haven’t , then they are Sherlock Holmes ‘dog that did not bark ‘. Human nature would have pressed the button a thousand times since , fallout be damned , if they were available.
Power for steam
Turbines seems to work ok . Don’t ask me about the physics , I just don’t know. Vicious human nature I know about.
You raise an issue that has bothered me. Also, why were both Russia and the US so willing to down blend the nuclear warheads they had?
Fear/self preservation is more powerful than viciousness. And the only two things that trumps fear are love and mindless rage/insanity. Therefore mutually assured destruction is valid.
The physics for nuclear power and nuclear bombs are the same. One is controlled physics and the other is control over an uncontrolled release of the physics.
Yours are famous last words, perhaps, just ahead of the Big Nuclear Scare.
Gail, because, like you say, down blending has great value. And it’s not like they disarmed. And, of course, they started downblending right when Russia was brought into the fold of globalization, which was also right at the same time as the newly privatized Russian central bank joined the BIS.
“Human nature would have pressed the button a thousand times since , fallout be damned , if they were available.”
No, Stewart, no. It’s not as simple as that. There is a command chain. A mad dictator cannot just sit in a room or at a screen and press a button. There are processes to be gone through.
Then there is M.A.D. – mutually assured destruction – likely but not 100% certain. Anybody who wants a future would likely not dice with that. Especially not if they have children. AH had no children, though he did not have the Bomb. Still, once he knew defeat was assured, he ordered some of his underlings to carry out a scorched earth policy in Germany and leave little or nothing for the Soviets. His underlings, e.g. Albert Speer, disobeyed, refused to carry out his orders, thwarted his plans, and saved Germany (what was left of it) for the Germans.
I think most leaders would only consider using the Bomb once they were certain they had lost and either had no heirs or were old and senile enough or psychopathic enough to contemplate it. Stalin got more paranoid as he got older, but he had a chain of command that could ultimately have thwarted him.
I think Milosevic would have been cold enough and spiteful enough to do it, but he didn’t have the Bomb. Maybe Mugabe too. But not Kim Jong Un – he’s a showman into bravado, but he is still youngish, not senile, and not keen to risk death.
Ideally, I think that there is a good case for requiring all leaders to retire at age 60, to make quite sure that they are still healthy and compos mentis. Biden was not. As for Trump, I think it’s a fair bet that he will die of natural causes before the year is out. But in practice, implementing a 60-years-old rule in most countries would scarcely be possible.
If the Russian Federation is able to destroy half planet Samson option style using tsar bombs or what have you , then why in gods name are western powers pouring arms and materiel , serious amounts into an existential hot war literally 300 miles from Moscow? If the RF leadership sees the Gadaffi end to things , why not take the other guys out first.
Because they can’t.
And all those horrific faked injuries, which had to be kept up for life? Should we tell your theory to your Japanese neighbours, Tim? I’m sure that would make you VERY popular.
I’m sure it would, Demi. “Very funny guy. That crazy gaijin.” No doubt, I would get invited to a lot more cocktail parties.
There were plenty of horrible deaths and horrible injuries. This is indisputable. But this would have been the case regardless of whether the deaths and injuries were caused by atomic bombs or conventional incendiary-induced fires.
Factoid: while both thermal and ionizing radiation are released during an atomic explosion, thermal radiation constitutes the majority (about 70%) of the energy output, causing immediate and widespread heat-related effects. Ionizing radiation plays a critical role in long-term health impacts but is a smaller portion of the total energy released in the explosion.
Where you do have a point is that doctors reported keloid scars that would not heal and that became deeper and larger over the years, and they reported higher levels of cancer and chronic illness in the Hiroshima survivors.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17xR1HNE3JyY853yIls9t9DJ19xNULwy_/view
A Hiroshima victim / survivor, photographed in 1980.
What do you say, Tim? Just burns? Was the man spoofing?
“Where you do have a point…”
So really you’re admitting that you are wrong.
===========
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tekXxB6dosQ
I hope you enjoy those parties of yours, Tim. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgziDyPSUog
What Disabled Missiles at Malmstrom Air Force Base?
Don’t worry. I believe the Guardians, a.k.a. the Ultra-terrestrials, who own and watch over this Earth, know about nukes and will prevents any more harm to humans. Charles Fort notoriously believed, “We are property”. We are being farmed, here on our prison planet.
==============
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF_dvONEqXQ
Sphere Network – Patrick Jackson
Are non-human intelligences (NHI) living on Earth, and do they operate a sophisticated surveillance network monitoring human activities? Advanced intelligences may be more integrated into our daily lives than we realize, utilizing advanced technology to observe human behavior.
================
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Identified-Flying-Objects-Multidisciplinary-Scientific-ebook/dp/B07NHP3GXQ
Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon
This provocative new book cautiously examines the premise that extraterrestrials may instead be our distant human descendants, using the anthropological tool of time travel to visit and study us in their own hominin evolutionary past. Dr. Michael P. Masters, a professor of biological anthropology specializing in human evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine, explores how the persistence of long-term biological and cultural trends in human evolution may ultimately result in us becoming the ones piloting these disc-shaped craft, which are likely the very devices that allow our future progeny to venture backward across the landscape of time.
Moreover, these extratempestrials are ubiquitously described as bipedal, large-brained, hairless, human-like beings, who communicate with us in our own languages, and who possess technology advanced beyond, but clearly built upon, our own. These accounts, coupled with a thorough understanding of the past and modern human condition, point to the continuation of established biological and cultural trends here on Earth, long into the distant human future.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22408.Invisible_Residents
Ivan T. Sanderson: Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs
Could these be our “Guardians” – the so-called “Ultraterrestrials” ?
A unique contribution to the study of the UFOs, originally published over 30 years ago, this updated edition includes new photographs, illustrations and an extensive Foreword by David Hatcher Childress discussing more recent Underwater UFOs–now called USOs–Unidentified Submersible Objects.
In the last 30 years, new sightings have occurred and new information on old sightings has come forth through the Freedom of Information Acts in the USA, UK and Australia. These curious incidents during official military maneuvers raise many questions: Do the British and Americans have underwater military bases capable of launching UFOs? Could the ultimate docking stations for some of the UFOs seen constantly around the world be deep in our oceans? Could these still-operational underwater docking bases have been built in our distant past by extraterrestrials? Sanderson chronicles hundreds of curious unidentified underwater object incidents, many which emerge from the water to fly through the air, and draws some startling conclusions.
And now for something a little less nonsensical:
What zooms across the sky and makes rude trumpeting noises?
An unidentified farting object.
At least it’s not as bad as a Sikh-heating missile. 😉
When I visited the Nagasaki Peace Park in Japan, commemorating the detonation of the atomic bomb there, I was astonished at how little damage had really been done. The long-term effect on people didn’t seem to be terrible either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagasaki_Peace_Park
Something seemed very strange about the claims that were made. Japanese women are at the top of life expectancy in the world.
Also, there has been a big push to downblend the nuclear warheads, so that the materials can be used to power nuclear power plants. In fact, our current uranium issue is partly an issue of running out of nuclear warheads to down blend. The US bought nuclear warheads from Russia and used some of its own. As long as the US had this source of processed uranium, there was no pressing need to figure out a current source of uranium, and how to upgrade it.
It all happened long before you visited, Gail. Their buildings were largely made of wood in those days. And the Japanese are a very efficient and tidy people. They had plenty of time to clear up and renovate. What did you expect – to see hundreds of zombies and severely injured walking the streets? 🙁
I remember being amazed at how different my English birth city looked in the 1980s, after the slum clearances of the 1950s through to the 1970s.
I saw the place where the bomb supposedly exploded. This didn’t have anything resembling a deep hole. In fact, part of the huge building that was hit seemed to still be standing.
There have been stories around for a long time that the US fossil fuel industry did not want nuclear power to take over. Thus, fossil fuel interests pushed narratives about how dangerous nuclear was (and still is). But the number of actual lives lost in nuclear power plant accidents has been low. Even Chernobyl did not have as major an effect as many had hoped.
A major issue with nuclear power is that fact that we do not seem to have enough uranium without down blending nuclear warheads. This might be another reason for making it sound like nuclear is more dangerous that it really is. The intermittency of wind and solar makes them a whole lot less useful than promised, unless substantial support from fossil fuels is offered. Without fossil fuel support, wind and solar are close to useless.
”supposedly”?????
dont tell me hiroshima is on the hoaxlist now.
It exploded 1000ft above the ground, as I understand it.
and the Tunguska asteroid impact in Siberia in 1908 also left no ”hole in the ground’…
That’s what I was going to say too, Norm. The bombs were deployed as air bursts.
The radiation effects from nukes dissipates extremely quickly. A wave of people die and new people replace them. 1945 was 80 years ago.
Tim, thanks, I haven’t had time to go through your link here but I had read Miles’s nuke offering some years ago, will look at it again. Since this conversation is now extending beyond nukes and into NPPs, my first question would be able fallout recordings from NPP accidents. There was a movement of citizen activists armed with their own geiger counters up and down the US West Coast. The radioactive ocean plume was tracked and modeled. In the name of political cover, the US raised its official safe background levels for ionizing radiation in order to bring that level above the new level caused by fukushima. A famous meta-analysis of infant mortality statistics across 20 cities in the Pacific Northwest over the 18-month period following Fukushima found that infant mortality had jumped 50pc.
Reante, I asked AI about this, and received the following reply:
====
While I cannot provide a link to a specific study confirming a 50% rise in infant mortality on the Pacific West Coast following the Fukushima incident, here’s what I found:
Claims of increased infant deaths: Some reports and articles claimed an increase in infant deaths in the Pacific Northwest after Fukushima, with one article citing a 35% increase in eight cities [1][2].
However, these claims are based on a report by Sherman and Mangano and have been criticized for “cherry-picking” data and using bad statistics [3].
Hypothyroidism: One study by Mangano and Sherman reported a 28% increase in congenital hypothyroidism in babies born in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington between one and 16 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns [4].
Perinatal mortality in Japan: A study found that perinatal mortality increased in six severely contaminated prefectures in Japan ten months after the Fukushima accident [5].
Increased heart surgeries: A study linked the Fukushima disaster to a spike in infant heart surgeries in Japan [6].
Overall: Most reports from major health organizations suggest that outside the directly affected regions in Japan, no observable increases in cancer rates or other health issues are expected [7][8].
=======
Here is link [1]
https://sfbayview.com/2011/06/is-the-increase-in-baby-deaths-in-the-northwest-u-s-due-to-fukushima-fallout-how-can-we-find-out/
And here is a rebuttal, link [3]
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/06/fukushima-radiation-and-infant.html
If I post too many links, this post will get held up in moderation or disappeared into cyberoblivion.
Thanks Tim. Looks like I fell for misinfo at the time. Can’t find anything on the US increasing it’s safe dose level either. That was Japan.
That said and funnily enough in the comments under the blogger’s rebuttal, a certain Jan Steinman commented. Isn’t Jan Steinman the commenter over at The Honest Sorcerer? Could be another one of course. He (I think is his gender) said, in a kind of rebuttal to the blogger, that the British Columbian govt itself released a report on highly elevated infant mortality rates in 2011, and Jan wryly reflects how the government report completely ignored fukushima but did focus on parenting deficits lol. Anyway here’s that report for what it’s worth:
https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2011PSSG0085-000824#:~:text=There%20have%20been%20more%20sudden,death%20is%20found%20on%20autopsy.
It was universally acknowledged that elevated iodine 131 levels were in the Pacific Northwest milk supply, for what that’s worth to you.
What do you make of the health effects in Japan?
A good read by Simplicus .
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/major-questions-finally-answered?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=183461713&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The ship is rudderless and there is no doubt that this is pure (and desperate?) adventurism. Ivanislav posted about Escobar saying that Wagner killed a traitor, so it would seem natural that “next time” the special forces would be running into Wagner. of course Escobar is a salaried employee, so he might be right only twice a day. But we are so deep in the fog of war, and Russia so suspicious, that I will have to see more data.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Wagner killed the security detail, leaving no witnesses to what happened, and gave him up. Anything is possible.
More like tonticius , another kremlin bot.
Putin is stuck and with his hands tied in his failed military operation , so he gave Assad and Maduro the thumbs down.
The United States made the military leaders of both countries an offer they couldn’t refuse, and they stabbed them in the back.
End of story.
Cest finni the multipolar bullshit , the end of the petrodollar etc.
This starts:
The questions we raised in yesterday’s piece have finally been answered by the Trump administration itself. The main and most important was what exactly is the real situation in Venezuela vis-a-vis US control? Was the Maduro grab an isolated event, with the US not actually in control of anything on the ground and in the Venezuelan government?
The answer came directly from Marco Rubio who openly stated that the situation in Venezuela has not changed at all. Maduro’s capture was just that: the removal of the sitting president, and the new Venezuelan leadership and military are in control of the country with the US merely “hoping” that they will do Trump’s bidding:
The newly opened third ring of the clown circus came out with its second act. See photo of the Bolivarian bear being tamed by two gladiator clowns. YCMTSU. H be trolling MAGA bigly.
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/G9yMpo_asAI0ueJ.jpg?itok=KWCx_AsO
Damn this AI world. Turns out that you can make that photo up. Very disappointed in H. Though Zerohedge posting it without comment is still an oblique clowning of MAGA so I guess it’ll have to do. There was the content creator’s signature on it; note to self, old man.
I’ve not been following S. America closely, almost not at all.
Chiefly being for yrs very annoyed by the sub standard grape vine Lula is dispatching northbound vs more quality spec (at ~same price) from S. Africa..
That being said, Maduro’s capture made surprisingly positive impression – character-wise as smiling joking towards the on the ground US agents. Compare-contrast with the soul dead apparatchiks from the control rooms out of D.C.
As alluded before, eventually after “the process” with him we might get a sequel in which completely legit msm story appears how “all-american family incl. their 20x children” suddenly-allegedly disrespected local police authority during their happenstance zoo visit in Belarus. Well, as you could have guessed, they will be swapped for Maduro to be dispatched in exile there.. great diplomatic effort, happy-end and all that.
Most of the cocaine leaves through Ecuador’s ports in banana boxes and the “illegitimate” president is a US citizen who cheated the election . His father was a millionaire with large banana plantations. Here you have a true banana republic.
Rafael correa was persecuted with CIA lawfare and is exiled in belgium.
The country is dollarized, so it’s very easy for the narcos to launder money.
9000 violents deaths just in 2025
So now you know that the narco boats bombings and Maduro’s charges are just bullshit for the consumption of the Banyard Amaleks.
Hm, 92yrs old judge is on the case.. again nothing out of the ordinary..
Thanks Gail!
How self-dealing is keeping the debt bubble inflated:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ft-exposes-literal-definition-ponzi-scheming-private-equity
FT Exposes The Literal Definition Of Ponzi-Scheming In Private Equity
In what can only be described as the financial industry’s most brazen act of self-dealing since the last crisis, private equity giants are now openly selling assets to themselves at record pace, propping up their crumbling empire with a tactic that reeks of pure Ponzi desperation.
According to the Financial Times, roughly one-fifth of all private equity exits this year involved firms raising fresh cash from new suckers investors to buy portfolio companies from their own aging funds.
That’s a sharp jump from the 12-13% seen in prior years, with Raymond James’ Sunaina Sinha Haldea predicting a staggering $107 billion in these incestuous transactions for 2025, blowing past last year’s $70 billion.
So it is not just the AI firms doing this kind of thing, to prop up their share prices, it is the private equity part of the economy. These are the private companies that filled the niche, when banks were told that they needed to step back from the riskiest types of lending. It shouldn’t be surprising that they are having trouble now.
So fraud, through and through. Everything is fraud; there is nothing that isn’t fraud. Got it.
There are 19000 PE firms and 14000 Mcdonalds in the USA . What can we expect ?
I didn’t realize that.
“The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle. But are we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will—at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?
Suppose for a moment that this so-called “right” exists. I maintain that the sole result is a mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the effect changes with the cause: every force that is greater than the first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and, the strongest being always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to become the strongest. But what kind of right is that which perishes when force fails? If we must obey perforce, there is no need to obey because we ought; and if we are not forced to obey, we are under no obligation to do so. Clearly, the word “right” adds nothing to force: in this connection, it means absolutely nothing.
Obey the powers that be. If this means yield to force, it is a good precept, but superfluous: I can answer for its never being violated. All power comes from God, I admit; but so does all sickness: does that mean that we are forbidden to call in the doctor? A brigand surprises me at the edge of a wood: must I not merely surrender my purse on compulsion; but, even if I could withhold it, am I in conscience bound to give it up? For certainly the pistol he holds is also a power.
Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers. In that case, my original question recurs.”
[Chapter III: The Right of the Strongest (JJ. Rousseau)]
Interesting thoughts to keep in mind.
When there is plenty of energy per capita, we don’t stop to think what might happen when things to downhill.
Right now, we may think we own a certain property. But how certain is this ownership. The government may raise property taxes to a level that we cannot pay, and we may lose out as a result.
Or a person with ammunition may force us out, if ammunition is available.
That person could lose to a stronger group.
When there is not enough to go around, there is always a musical chairs problem of a missing chair. The strongest ones will tend to push out the weakest.
“As for what is commonly called international Right, it is certain that, for want of any sanction, its laws are illusions even weaker than the law of nature. The law of nature speaks at least to the heart of the individual; but international Right, having no other sanction than the interest of those who voluntarily submit to it, can never make its decrees respected except in so far as they are supported by self-interest.” (Fragments of an Essay on The State of War by Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Nice to see you quoting Rousseau! 😁
The time to play nice has ended.
Realpolitik is the name of the game.
Whether the older leaders of Russia and China understand it is another question.
No quarters given to the weaker countries. Time to use eminent domain of resources has arrived, whether some likes or not.
I am afraid we are seeing this too many places, right now.
Being nice to everyone works well when there is plenty to go around. When there is not enough to go around, it is a musical chairs problem.
There is a need to cut back on transatlantic and transpacific flights. Somehow, trade patterns must change.
This music deeply coincides with the freezing winter and the nature that is in a sleep mode now in Central Europe
https://youtu.be/m8y9WjYWPSo?si=l5LWWMzzSxE7BrYC
I like winter and its peace, its way of returing the life from complexity to simplicity
Somebody in Moon of Alabama commented this
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/01/whats-the-u-s-follow-up-action-after-taking-maduro-out.html/comment-page-3#comment-1252487
>May I suggest starting with the $dollar, specifically a potential debt ceiling now rising to perhaps $50-60T? And to sustain that load, new T auctions oversubscribed with interest rates going below 2%?
>Oil prices down, way down, shocking the Russian economy while adding rocket fuel to US equity prices.
>With the stock market up, and inflows of $trillions of foreign investment, the US economy is going seriously compromise China’s ability to control production and trade.
>With China-Russia wrecked, no one can stop the imperial dominance. Iran, Canada and Greenland flip, sealing the end game.
>CBDC, UBI, DigID, the whole gamut of population control and resource management systems in place monitored by global AI surveillance.
>VZ was Waterloo for the resistance.
In a utilitarian way, the invasion of Venezuela is justified.
it is no more than re-assigning resources from those who cannot manage it to those who can.
it was wrong for USA to prohibit the European power to carve China into their colonies with the idiotic Open Door Policy.
It was wrong for USA to award the lands Germany won back in the Great war back to USSR.
It was wrong for USA to tie Holland’s hands when the latter almost reconquered the Dutch East Indies.
It was wrong for Eisenhower to show the middle finger to France at Dien Bien Phu. France asked Eisenhower to send nukes to incinerate the Viet Minh, and Ike, ever the good toady of Moscow, refused. the Chinese-built Vietnam Memorial still mocks this fact now. (A Chinese is a Chinese, no matter where she might have been born at.)
With declining resources, realpolitik returns with a vengeance.
Colonialism and maximum exploitation of resources from stronger countries cannot be avoided but at least it will help to advance civilization to the next stage.
“France asked Eisenhower to send nukes to incinerate the Viet Minh, and Ike, ever the good toady of Moscow, refused.” Only some John Birch Society weirdo could think Eisenhower was a Communist. The decline of Anglo-Saxon dominance in the world seems inevitable, and no rewriting of history or extreme acts could prevent it.
YT/.. search: “protests in iran today”
There is an ongoing new wave of street protests and violence right now.
Hard to judge the intensity and overall public support.
From several clips there appears a [ modus operandi ] – where usually single one instigator suddenly rushes into already brewing scene of not much intensity, say cop just checks or pushes civilians out of a zone, when that rushing-in covered up face guy smashes the cop with rod/plank/.. from behind in the skull or knees to throw off balance etc. Evidently a dastardly tactics against “regime policing force” so to speak within jargon of the “value oriented” classes. In other instances – later stages – even (head)shots taking place etc.
Here comes the thing – the crucial dividing line, if the more regular public protesting by-standers join the effort to finish the job – that’s the sign “revolution / toppling proper” matured up. And if not and they even protect the fallen cop somewhat it’s still way immature phase to call it a final victory run..
Usually, these “vigilantes” based upon exposed demeanor – body language tend to be very young say 15-17-19yrs old, very over-agitated, probably flying high on some ~speed for the hit mission. Hence any premature effort to mitigation could be easily turned into further propaganda “hey, THEY are massacring our kids”..
If I’m recalling it correctly these same bastar#ly techniques have been used for ages but certainly over recent decades: Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, .. aka proven script.
PS in summary – this is all well known – but “successful” revolutionary acts are most often realized only through [ critical mass ] engagement, and that’s the very point where it could be artificially injected-boosted up e.g. vigilantes upping chaos, msm / underground propaganda, splinter groups / former gov factions , .. apart from openly direct foreign power mil. interventions.
So what’s the over/under on whether this actually helps us get any oil? I don’t see this as particularly useful for changing any facts on the ground. The existing regime remains in power and the VP who has now assumed power had her father killed by a US-backed faction, so I don’t see her playing ball.
The US oil industry goes back immediately, restoring/upgrading facilities and enlarging the export production. Local govs is treated in protectorate ~gloves for the moment, the revenue is shared. But in y/y progression the locals get shafted in the way of decreased revenue appropriations, .. Plus as mentioned before – overall econ “reforms” pushed back – rehabilitated on: u$ury, brothels, less health-food security, .. In short gradual return to more open colonialism proper.
The time to re-appreciate colonialism has returned
It led the West to the greatest height
I just regret that the days of do-goodism by Americans who never left North America took place, creating 7 billion people who are good for nothing.
Nice JR. The VZ locals will see that the next US administration is genuinely doing what it can for them, and will also see that the common American living standards are in rapid decline, and seeing both of those things will result in their acceptance of their own continued decline in living standards. Shared misery is acceptable. Stablecoins as their new national currency will also help a great deal with that acceptance.
My impression has been that Chevron has been the leader in heavy oil extraction, both in Venezuela and in California. Some other companies have been active in Canada’s oil sands, but that is fairly different from the situation in Venezuela.
I am wondering how many oil companies would be able to efficiently produce the difficult to extract oil from Venezuela.
Rystad is also mythbustin’ today. Now you need ports and upgraders too. Say another 50 bln.
“Rystad Energy, a consultancy, estimates that $110bn in capital expenditure on exploration and production alone would be required to bring the country’s output back to where it was 15 years ago—twice the amount America’s oil majors combined invested worldwide in 2024.”
https://x.com/BenniKim/status/2007866164194447456
A liberal estimate of needed capital and tine to restore VZ oil output to expected levels is tens of billions of dollars and 7-10 years. Qué the societal instability and guerrilla harassment and you are looking into a black hole aucking out everything and everyone without any foreseeable benefit to the system.
Americans where clearly signaling from now on under [ US control ] but int coop feasible-desirable, i.e. Chinese money in.. as in long termish deal..
As others mentioned the ball is now in CHN hand.
They could sign now the papers on previously declined further pipelines from the RU. Or even pursue both paths simultaneously incl. this joint project with US in revamping VZ..
Just more chaos. I think for the time being Trump would be happy denying the oil to China
Freedom and democracy!
https://x0.at/ZjNX.mp4
My browser is not opening this.
🙏🙏
What the Holy Bible says of this horrific decade just ahead of us.. Here’s a site expounding current global events in the light of bible prophecy.. To understand more, pls visit 👇 https://bibleprophecyinaction.blogspot.com/
The link doesn’t seem to lead to anything with very specific prophecies, or reasons for these prophecies.
ofw is full of sinners.
start with them joy
(I on the other hand, am president of the international confederation of stone-casters, so no need to bother about me)…
The membership application is of clay tablet or granite one?
Just asking for a friend..
all new applicants are strictly vetted—the heavier the stone, the better..
so far i am the only qualified stonecaster (hence president of the association), everyone else has failed.
Sounds cool!
I like to get my rocks off occasionally too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-d9fuQ2kzs
This was the old fella’s first girlfriend. 😉
The video below, from last November 20, , tells some of the reality the US may have been trying to disrupt, last week:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx4f9YBQ7ts
“US Panics As China And Venezuela Does The UNTHINKABLE, Entire Oil Industry In SHOCK” (13:10) — 198,762 views Nov 20, 2025
The descrition with that video:
“Let’s rewind to early 2025. The United States decided to deploy what economists call a “financial nuclear option” against Venezuela’s oil industry. This wasn’t just about banning their own imports. The first step was revoking Chevron’s license, halting the last major US-operated oil production in the country, which was producing over 100,000 barrels a day.
“But the real game-changer was the policy rolled out on April 2nd, 2025: unprecedented ‘secondary tariffs.’ Here’s how that worked. The US government told every nation on earth: ‘If we catch you buying even a single barrel of Venezuelan oil, we will impose a 25% tariff on all of your exports to the United States—not just your oil, but everything from electronics to furniture.’ To put that in perspective, the average US tariff is around 2%. This 25% tax would make any country’s goods uncompetitive overnight. The goal was mathematically precise: reduce Venezuela’s oil exports to zero by making the cost of buying from them catastrophic for any other nation. It was the most aggressive use of US economic power in the region in decades.”
Yet VZ exports recovered after that and the secondary tariffs resulted in China’s imports of VZ crude doubling… which I why I said the other month that the primary purpose of that VZ tariff policy was make a shell game bait and switch of China’s long-running backdoor energy bailouts from the Russian price cap sanctions. When the secondary sanctions came along, China had to give up 400,000bpd of discount Russian crude but the DA’s shell game (the VZ sanctions) allowed them to immediately pick up exactly 400,000bpd additional crude from VZ. And, lastly, Chevron’s license was reinstated in July.
So in reality the fact that China was getting tariffed no matter what, created political cover for transferring a portion of its backdoor energy/oil bailouts from Russian crude to VZ crude, making the VZ sanctions purely about that transfer by chasing off the other importers under threat of a 25pc sanction. Backdoor bailout shell game, because China must have it. Smart!
If China loses VZ exports from here on out, and we do not crash for a little while, then I guarantee that the backdoor bailout shell game will continue. The dried pea (Chinese crude import shortfall) will probably just show up under the Russian Dixie
cup again.
Yes, that’s likely how it operates, and why Donald in the first Fox interview (before more polished presser later) openly said CHN will get access to that VZ oil as well..
That was a very strange set of actions set out on Nov. 20, I agree. I remember them.
heard a podcast a week or so ago (maybe TYT) which mentioned that Trump had asked the USA IOCs if they wanted to go back to Venezuela and they basically said no (Chevron are already there in a small way of course). It may be a lesson learned from Iraq. At the time of the war I worked on an ExxonMobil job and the most MAGA types of their employees (of which there were a lot) were licking there lips at the prospect of all that oil. However, security and corruption made operating costs the highest anywhere (engineers were flown in from Dubai and needed bodyguards) and the royalty regime was not favourable, fairly quickly they all pulled out.
My guess is the infrastructure is in much poorer state than Iraq’s was in and is less easy to access – scattered about the jungle rather than concentrated in fairly accessible regions. I would imagine there is now going to be a multi-factioned and long term fight for power through the country, possibly with Russian, Chinese and Iranian involvement, with a big flow of refugees coming back in or moving around internally. That will be almost impossible to work in. There are a lot of good native Venezuelan engineers in the USA that left when the industry was nationalised but they must all be well settled in Houston and Dallas now and unlikely to want to move. Even if investments are made there’s no guarantee that another nationalisation wouldn’t happen as soon as Trump’s brain finally rots away in its own repulsive malevolence.
I’m not sure how much SAGD they use or could use. The oil is not bitumen and will flow up a well bore (just) but needs diluent for allowing flow in pipes back to the processing centres. Venezuela doesn’t have much natural gas, unlike Canada, so any steam raising would need to use the liquid product, which would take a big bite out of the EROI and profits. Also I’m not sure the reservoirs are very suitable (the steam would tend to flow away from the oil). Oil is processed in Flexicoke (?) – ExxonMobil crackers, and the waste solid streams are horrible – lots of Vanadium and other heavy metals. I should think the pollution and related health issues there are pretty awful.
George Kaplan
SAGD is “Steam assisted gravity drainage.” This is a standard technique for getting heavy oil out by melting it. When I visited Chevron’s Kern River oil facility years ago, the company talked about how they had fine-tuned the approach so as to use as little heat as they possibly could.
You make good points. Chevron has learned to sort of work around these difficulties. It is hard to see how extraction can be scaled up a whole lot.
But I understand that China has been trying to extract oil in Venezuela, also.
https://www.worldenergynews.com/news/rpt-private-chinese-firm-producing-oil-venezuela-764710
August 24, 2025
RPT-Private Chinese firm producing oil in Venezuela under rare 20-year pact, source says
China Concord Resources Corp. has started developing two Venezuelan oilfields. The company plans to invest over $1 billion in an investment project that will produce 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day by the end of 2026. An executive involved directly in the project confirmed this. This is a rare private Chinese investment in an OPEC nation that has been struggling to attract foreign capital because of international sanctions against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. This is the first time that the investment amount and production plan have been reported. Beijing is a close ally of Maduro, and of his predecessor, late President Hugo Chavez. It currently purchases more than 90% the total Venezuelan oil exports.
CNPC, the Chinese state-owned oil company, was one of the biggest investors in Venezuela’s petroleum sector before U.S. sanctions on Venezuela were imposed in 2019. China was a major lender to Venezuela.
It has been my understanding that the exports of oil to China were (at least in part) in repayment of debt to China.
An interesting fact about Donald Trump is that his first and the last wife came from the cold moutaineous regions of Europe.
Donald Trump’s Wives: What to Know About Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and Melania Trump https://share.google/UTps5y2W9WuOhrvJi
Perhaps not the key defining parameter but definitively one of the aspects why being hated (not trusted) by some factions of the liberal and fake conservative circles – having repeatedly ( western/south- )Slavic wives and kids, which is not recommended in their eyes.. Obviously while bilingual they are full US persona now.. and the oldest branching out into the ~Levant circles, so what..
On (un)related note, Tucker stirred some controversy when explaining that social conservative commies like (used to be until recently hah) in Venezuela don’t like / actually ban: pornography / brothels, %usury, .. In reaction the fake conservatives hearing that completely melted down from erupting rage..
Tucker lives for dogging on MAGA every chance he gets. That’s his assignment. Venezuelans be conservative Christian anti capitalists, the true followers of Jesus lol.
Yes, overall he is a fool. But with particular genuine talent for producing occasional truth-bombs biting the audience hard – out of the naivete or otherwise.
Besides, it was only very partially positive talk – otherwise he would not dare and it won’t be televised anyway.
Desperation..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMnLnRkcikw
The End Of The Petrodollar: The Real Reason For The Venezuela Ra
Today, the United States military launched a historic operation in Venezuela, removing the leadership and effectively taking control of the country. While the headlines focus on “Democracy” and “Regime Change,” the real motivation lies buried in the financial data of the US Department of Energy.
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is empty. The Dollar is losing its global dominance. And Venezuela—holding the largest oil reserves on the planet—was days away from signing a deal to sell its oil in Chinese Yuan.
In this video, we expose the “Economic War” behind the headlines. We analyze the collapse of the Petrodollar, the desperation of the Western energy markets, and why Washington had to launch a hostile takeover of a sovereign nation to save its own currency.
This is not about politics. It is about a margin call on the American Empire.
Not a bad video, but AI generated. A few tells: Every video he wears the same thing, even the shirt placement is identical. The picture frame behind his head sometimes shrinks or expands, depending on his head movement. The generic speech, metaphors, and summaries that are inserted too often and in the wrong places. It’s getting harder to tel, though.
A human still could have been involved in curating the content, sources, etc.
AI is going to kill the internet and faith in any form of broadcasting.
Definitely was on mark regarding the United States acted to save its world reserve currency status and now places itself in a weak position as an overlord with a big stick instead of an alliance of the willing.
As far as AI generated…maybe or maybe not….
>> As far as AI generated…maybe or maybe not….
It is, 100%. Every whisp of hair is in identical position from video to video. Ditto clothing and visual artifacts I mentioned in my first post. People need to clue into this.
Whatever you feel it is..fine with me..
But don’t kill the message
Totally agree. Commentators are freaking out over whether it’s AI generated ( including AI impersonators) without commenting on the message
No one is “freaking out”. Just pointing it out so that those people realize it who seemingly don’t and also because I’m tired of the low-information content: this auto-generated stuff contains very few facts compared to the nonstop general filler statements and conclusions drawn. Okay, sort of like Alexander Mercouris, admittedly.
So Ivan why didn’t me tiin a few words regarding the message …seems you were freaking out…
Any overpopulation is only temporary. We’ve likely already passed peak globally and it’s absolutely clear that’s the case in the Combined West. Japan and South Korea are leading the death spiral (pun intended).
Gotta love the US’ new regime change approach. No troop deployments required, just bribe/threaten key players and the opposing army stands down. Looks like they’ve honed the process in Venezuela, after its first major test in Syria.
If you really need boots on the ground, create yourself a brainwashed proxy (hello Ukraine, Taiwan) to be cannonfodder for you. Send money and weapons at first, then get another dumb proxy (hello EU) to cough up for the ongoing fight and weapons.
Otherwise, same old, same old. BAU party-time continues apace, despite the wails of imminent doom. If the zombie apocalypse comes, not sure they’ll reach this far flung spot. Chatting the other day, we agreed they could nuke Sydney and we wouldn’t even know.
To channel El Trumpo and reflect on the year just gone: “I had some beautiful pictures taken in which I had a big smile on my face. I looked happy, I looked content, I looked like a very nice person, which in theory I am.”
“When the Growlers activated their ALQ-99 jamming pods at H-Hour, they were not conducting blind suppression. They were executing precision electronic attack against radar and communications nodes whose vulnerabilities had already been catalogued.
The EC-130H Compass Call aircraft, operating from undisclosed positions, jammed Venezuelan military communications across multiple frequency bands simultaneously. Unit commanders could not contact their headquarters. Air defense batteries could not receive targeting data from acquisition radars. Fighter pilots could not receive scramble orders. The Venezuelan military was not merely suppressed. It was blinded, deafened, and paralyzed.“?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-183340848
Hm, again have you seen the proverbial ~afghan peasant?
He guards his little mountain valley pass with shoulde_r_pg / aa-pad .. and the flying choppers around are dispensing counter protective measures pre-emptively as the chopper crews are scared to death to be there in the first place and so on..
None of that happened there!
The facilities were not manned, the staff stood down and walked away home or into barracks – also not being directly targeted.. Perhaps some of the non-bribed faction was killed – at specific pre-announced spot, we don’t know yet.
Most of the damage was a msm show-off, e.g. naval-piers fuel depots going into giga balls of flame etc.
Day after the two-guards mounted on motorcycles paraded cities – no weapons issued. No arms dispersed to guerilla.
It was a controlled stand down, a sabotage, ..
The only puzzling issue is the pre-event local gov boasting about already fully deployed (Iranian) defense shield. So, it was either a lie, or switched off stand down or decimated by the strikes.
Well, as mentioned before, psychological profiling, even prior the event – the locals really did not fell much the real urge-need to fight (and die)..
As during the event – the vids clearly show (apart from token street police force) no real army in the streets, yet ~near obese city dwellers in swarms eager to join shopping centers with wheeled barrels for bulk buying in mild panic..
Norman will insist this was real and you should stop questioning your betters.
He’ll also insist he’s not authoritarian because he dislikes one political party.
“Too many promises; too few future physical goods
WIT82 says:
December 22, 2025 at 5:30 pm
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.”
Conspiracy theorists are often more informed of the official narratives than the average person . If a conspiracy theorist is telling the truth, government officials have a variety of ways to neutralize him.
One thing they can do is promote a conspiracy theory a conspiracy theorist is promoting in way to discredit the conspiracy theorist. A good example is how some people denying the moon landings on the in internet are often believers in a Flat Earth or are very obviously unhinged. The Flat Earthers are not de-platformed whereas anyone questioning the moon lands has their content taken down and are met with a lot more hostility.
The conspiracy theory about the U.S. government being in contact with aliens is not only tolerated but people respect it even if they privately disagree. It is accepted as a plausibility. This attitude is most likely shaped by a number of tv shows that promoted it in the 1980s and 1990s.
Yep, this has been since then semi-officially confirmed as needed cover for some of the defense related R&D sites in that older era. Nowadays, not needed much as everybody is primed via msm/YT that it’s absolutely normal to have a start-up in fusion research in neighbors garage..
Real [ ETs or grand-sim ] if legit are revealing in different phenomena, like ~directly nudging ones psyche via day-dreaming (forced angle-idea re-activity) experiences etc.
Youtube somehow recommended this video along with the one posted above.
https://youtu.be/Olgn9sXNdl0?list=RDOlgn9sXNdl0
Aliens contact hoaxes…money …pushing it to the limit….I fail to see the connection between those things.
Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and wife dragged from bedroom during US raid: Report
“Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores were taken into custody in a dramatic overnight operation, woken from their sleep and dragged from their bedroom as US forces stormed their residence, CNN reported quoting two sources familiar with the operation.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/venezuelas-nicolas-maduro-and-wife-cilia-flores-dragged-from-bedroom-during-us-raid-report-101767473054093.html
This would not happen to Uncle Kim.
If they tried, a few nuclear armed Hwasong missiles would be launched at the headquarters of the Anglo-Talmu dic Nostra in Washington, D.C.
you have to wonder if it was Wagner, which was supposed to protect Maduro, which stood down.
From Pepe Escobar X account:
https://x.com/RealPepeEscobar/status/2007765785922375781
Venezuela kidnapping: classic CIA playbook.
They bribed the head of Maduro’s security detail and his circle. NOT the Venezuela military.
Maduro was protected by Venezuelans only, NOT Russians.
When a Russian commando got to Maduro’s residence, they were repelled by – yes – Maduro’s corrupt security.
They were quickly neutralized. Yet when the Russians got inside the residence, the kidnapping had already taken place. The chief of security detail was apprehended – and duly executed.
Interesting!
This won’t change anything!
He’s just a wealthy puppet…
Who is the deep state here?
Tribal> Great point indeed.
Similarly, Xi could start a video conference call any day inviting the key [hearthland honchos] : Erdo, Vlad, Modi, Kim, Persians, some of the -stans and gulfies as well.
And offer a cunning plan: “.. Good to see you folks, lets erect a real embargo asap, meaning tomorrow, NO preparations at all – just duking it out as we go, I guarantee YOU in few dayz to 3weeks the other side will capitulate in full.., let’s roll ! .. ”
Obviously, virtually nobody of them has the personality-intellectual combo guts to do that, hence pathetic piece meal action in the same general vector for decades to come. Silly, yet “evolutionary” understandable approach of them..
One issue is that of trust. Subservience is a form of trust and alignment, which benefits The Hegemond. The current sovereignty among the countries you list takes the form of non-commitment and non-alignment.
Yes, very correct.
The idea presented was meant not as direct reaction for yesterday – just overall turning of tables as it were – perhaps coming at future date with more acute regional issue for them, say Hormuz etc.
So who’s next after Venezuela? US presidents always like to present Iran as a bad boy. Why, I’m not sure. A long engrained habit, I suppose. Currently Teheran, the capital of Iran, has severe drought problems, and the Iranian government apparently plans to abandon it and create a new capital elsewhere. Hmm! I saw some YT video that tried to claim that the drought was created by the USA, using we – at- her manipulation. As if!
Invading a big country like Iran would be even messier than with Iraq and doomed to failure. Iran is in turmoil now because of its faltering currency. But why is that? Has Uncle Sam been meddling again? Of itself, Iran is supposedly a rich country with a good modern infrastructure. Does it have any minorities eager for secession? Kurdistan is spread over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, so that is a factor against the unification of the Kurds. Anybody else?
Iran has been under quasi sanctions for decades, that stalls dev.
Start from there.. No direct invasion needed, creeping dissent and resentment -> toppling govs, then installing puppets.
The Chinese goods import eased that internal situation a bit, but it’s a rolling tsunami that could boil over any day the young-ish crowds (starved of “opportunities” ) going mad again.
And as always too much peoplez vs land/oil/natgas…
So who’s next after Venezuela?
My first guess would be Be-Bop-A-Lula.
On the pretext (probably a valid one) that he cheated in the last election and that Bolsonaro is the legitimate president of Brazil.
That would make South America almost completely free from the scourge of socio-commie-pinko authoritarian collectivism and the landowners would be back in charge again, just as Kulm is always predicting.
Hahaha , take the pill and go to bed boomer .
Bolsonaro is the legitimate president of his hometowm synagogue like Corina Machado .
The one who cheated is the true narco terrorist in ecuador , Daniel noboa another tribe stooge who preside over the country with most daily murders in latin America .
Most of South America’s cocaine leaves its ports hidden in banana boxes.
You want another? You’ve got it!
Little Richard singing something that sounds to me like “A Wop Bopper Lula, a Wop Bamboo!”
Perhaps I need to put a new battery in the hearing aid?
This is from the golden age of American TV when the black folks sang, played and danced the while white folks sat on their chairs and clapped.
Yep, the Greek-duo also immediately pointed out that Lula is now on top of the menu and it was also “his” debacle when aspiring to represent that region..
So, the two major l-oo-sers out of this episodes are CHN+BR.
And potentially Iran if the info about large part of defense shield installation was made by them (irrespective of likely older RU/USSR branched out origins) was correct..
Donald interviewed on Fox>
boasting – spilled some sacred beans.. : they waited days – needed pristine weather! (sensors and sat); Maduro tried to negotiate – turned down; .. Chinese will get some of that oil as well lolz, .. ; none of US crew down ; supposedly did not know / not briefed about visiting CHN delegation ; add. more armed jets were on standby in case of retaliation ; Maduro just didn’t reach his fat-steel panic room (!confirmed my post about inner circle sabotage) ; second wave of strikes ready ; ..
hm, seems it was for realz after-all, lol..
Also openly mocking RU’s long primitive dirty war -> wink wink look how we are doing it short and clean.. effective -> Thiel_boyz must be ecstatic now.. delivering finally in geo-policy realm..
Greek-duo confirming most likely (inner faction) stand down as well..
(~7hrs before us OFWs) hah..
The defense chief resurfaced no swell and is running the country with the VP lady.. their new status confirmed at POTUS presser as well.
In military barracks one Venezuelan solider bruised with broken glass, and perhaps few accidental deaths across various depots.
That’s all we have to know..
a note about our new favorite AI guy posting dozens of financial videos on youtube. It is most clearly not the chinese government, but probably a western source. Its interpretation of history is IMHO aberrant. it never cites sources. OK, the climbing in repo funding is true, but I had to dig up a bloomberg article. But who knows about the rest?
YT apparently is doing nothing to stem the flood, I can not imagine how useful it will be in a few months.
We will see if the price of silver rises in the next few months.
Eventually, word about increased temporary lending to banks in distress will start appearing on other websites.
Governments will do whatever they can to keep banks from failing. This is why a pattern of temporary deflation, followed by hyperinflation, may be a likely future scenario.
The favorite AI guy can be found on uncountable youtube channels. He first appeared two weeks ago. One channels has videos older than two weeks, these older videos have an AI voice with a british accent:
https://www.youtube.com/@FinanceHiistorian
The core of the content seems important but it is dressed in a cumbersome and repetitve language. There is a lot of references to vague claims like leaked memos etc. The monologues actually appear to be written by AI, the AI may have been provided with some real and important facts and some fabrications. It looks like some kind of propaganda or market manipulation.
Yanis Varoufakis, the most deep-faked man on youtube:
Wow! These deep fakes get a lot of views. What they say sounds compelling, but you don’t know what is right and what is made up.
In fact, these deep fakes seem to either crowd out the regular analysts, or so dilute out the real news that no one has any idea of what is going on.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5671100-trump-maduro-photo-venezuela-arrest/
Maduro on US naval ship heading to New York City. Will Mamdani welcome his socialist brother with open arms?
OMG, Maduro can be held prisoner in Trump Tower on 5th Avenue and 56th.
Maybe Maduro can teach a class at Columbia University School of International Affairs.
If he shows up at the local bookstore to speak, I will ask him the same general question I asked Bill Ayers 20 years about intelligence assets posing as dissidents or socialists to co-opt, target and/or build cases against promising grassroots leaders.. building convenient straw men in their home countries.
LOL!
Unless US forces actually occupy Venezuela then the next in line simply takes over and assuming Maduro to be a normal politician/leader he will have surrounded himself with “yes” men.
It doesn’t matter who the US states who is in charge, the Venezuelans will decide this without troops..
Why would the next leader change policies, without US troops always threatening?
You can’t invade and change policies in a country unless you occupy it, a detail Rome found harder and harder to do, until they colla.psed..
Sorry Donny, this will not have the end you are expecting…
As I’ve said numerous times before, we are in post- history now, and because of the uniquely emergent phenomenon known as the Hand. So Roman history doesn’t count, nor does any precedent in history count – because we are in post- history.
From what it sounds like, the VZ military didn’t fire a single shot as the President was removed from his bedroom. Just like Syria, as others have mentioned here. That is a change in military policy by any measure. What it is is a tacit domestic coup. A coup under cover of Trump. Welcome to a new paradigm.
As to the “changing policies” you were referring to – what changes are really needed since Maduro just publicly offered the US everything? How convenient.
All that said, I think this latest VZ episode of the DA that we’re all binge watching furthers what looks to me like the setting up of a military coup in the USA, because the manufactured Trump clown show circus just added a third ring, and the DA cannot have ANY clown shows in existence where we’re headed. But in the meantime the clown show is serving critical purposes. Hand be stacking functions always, just like jak working out on his smallholding.
Very good points, that “clown show circus” takes serious money even in the robber barons world, but obviously in our discussion more importantly even ~autocrat~ is not that effective as it could/should be.
I guess ~Thiels & co. are just waiting-counting on JD as relatively timid spender ( comparatively not demanding such imperial court fluff and sidekicks ).
Perhaps going fully direct ubertech (no visible fed govs needed anymore) only after that – say in mid late 2030s onwards..
PS advertising neon thanks -> stacking functions – smallholdings – don’t come you all over folks – it ought to be just a few ~berries, besides this winter is -10C and it’s not mulched up properly, lol.
Well can’t none of us even pin down which country you live in yet and I can’t even remember why I call you jak when your handle is as good as it gets.
Enjoyed your posts on VZ today. Money is no object imo. All that’s left, until financial collapse, is throwing bad money after bad while the prepper Hand makes its final preparations (note to self). And the more the better. And Trump’s always good for that.
TPUSA’s endorsement of Vance for ’28 was his symbolic final nail in the coffin.
There is something strange that Trump was able to get Maduro with no US casualties. Come on they knew he was coming. The military must have been told to stand down.
Someone commented that perhaps his own people were the ones who captured Maduro. It wasn’t that US forces came in.
Because of the time difference none of the good analysts were online on the VZ issue . Finally the first one is Glenn Diesen in Sweden and Prof Jeffery Sachs . He calls it ” the end of constitutional order ” in the USA .
I have come to the conclusion that this clique of analysts is not really high quality. I can not find time for them.
Latest .
I can take McGregor, Wilkerson and Ritter when they talk strictly military stuff. They are in fact good. Same for Baud. But mostly they are an echo chamber, and they all ignore the JQ.
They are all shills trying to make money
None of them really understands that the world’s population has outgrown its resource base. Somehow, the self-organizing system pushes the system in the direction of keeping as many people alive, for as long as possible.
The problem now is a lot like a game of musical chairs. A lot of fighting is expected because there is not enough easy to access resources to go around.
The thing that the world is currently short of is the heavy oil that disproportionately is the base for diesel and jet fuel (and other heavy oil sometimes used in transport). Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world for this type of oil in the world. Unfortunately, it is difficult/expensive to extract. It is hard to make the price go high enough, for long enough, to make it worthwhile to extract.
Venezuela looks like the prize in this respect. All the talk about drugs from Venezuela is a side topic, put on top so that “stealing Venezuela’s oil” doesn’t seem to be the major purpose of the attack.
Also, the system needs to minimize transatlantic and transpacific transport. If the US, rather than China or Russia, can control Venezuela, perhaps this can happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uzl8nAXPIo
Mouse utopia the pursuit of social acclaim, see Donald Trump and his children, see the leaders of Europe, Russia, China they can not be controlled.
Why the West Is Entering the Collapse Phase and What’s coming next | Prof Jiang Xueqin
But Chavistas still rule in Venezuela. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is acting as president and Defense Minister Diosdado Cabello is also in place. The government issued a fierce statement:
The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence. They will not succeed. After more than 200 years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defending their sovereignty and their inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail like all previous attempts.
It called on its people to defend the country.
One wonders what the next steps are the US is planning to take. It does not have enough forces to invade Venezuela. Nor would a blockade of the country lead to a change of its government. An internal revolution is unlikely to succeed.
The US gnomes managed to steal the underwear. Now comes step 2. Then profits. That sounds like a good plan.
But nobody seems to know so far what step 2 might entail.
It is not over until the fat lady sings.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/01/whats-the-us-follow-up-action-after-taking-maduro-out.html#comments
I think it is an excuse to withdraw the us navy. Stuck there doing nothing while China dances in Taiwan.
Get Maduro, claim Victory and by Feb nobody will remember anything about it.
hitler’s 1000 year reich depended on other nation’s resources…
the don’s maga depends on exactly the same thing
Without inexpensive resources, an economy cannot support very many people. We have evolved to need to cook some of our food, among other things.
And drive in SUVs to head to the store to buy white bread, soda and process meats with donuts as dessert.
“The Don” as you have affectionately dubbed him is doing you a favor. You are not maintaining your lifestyle because people like you so much they are giving your their resources at a discount.
As for the Hitler comparison…consider the fact you may seen as a privileged and entitled person by non-whites because of 100s of years of imperialism. What is worse…Hitler or what your forefathers have been doing around the world for the last couple of centuries?
last year i published a book, based more or less on what my forefathers did in the last 3 centuries…
and while that particular bee is buzzing round in your bonnet about ‘imperialism’, and by association no doubt, the enslavement of other peoples, do bear in mind that it was Africans who rounded up other Africans and sold them to the white slave traders.
and as far as slavery goes, my ancestor’s social position was little different to the subjects of imperialism throughout the empire.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iron-Men-Shropshire-They-World/dp/1398122394
hopefully whatever precious metals they held is still there. but why did they not shoot even one missile?
Already commented . It was caught in moderation . ourfiniteworld.com/2025/12/31/2026-expect-a-very-uneven-world-economic-downturn/comment-page-1/#comment-497901
ourfiniteworld.com/2025/12/31/2026-expect-a-very-uneven-world-economic-downturn/comment-page-1/#comment-497901
It is still caught in moderation.
here kitty.. :
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/12/31/2026-expect-a-very-uneven-world-economic-downturn/comment-page-2/#comment-497941
Moreover, if the overall narrative is legit – they were ratted out in terms of sending ahead confirmation signal about the entourage location – that’s 99.9%. Be it provided by the last janitor or admiral.. not much difference.
Now, that person surely dreams about in few weeks time sitting inside air-conditioned Florida garage observing newly acquired stable: 5x teslas, benz here, audi over there.. well Kiev-Lviv style bonanza.. lol.
What a life among humanoid desires.
lengthy post under moderation..
Basically, for now 99% incompetence – non engagement / commitment
or 1% staged-joke switcheroo..
The Defense chief is on vid addressing the nation beyond calmly like in kindergarten: the gov is still out there for ya.. >that’s not acting that’s attitude..
Given swift release in the beginning of the evening / night – this could have been easily pre-recorded message and said chief now happens to be transmuted into vaporized-atomized state down the rubble pile.
Some countries are beyond redemption . Example : Afghanistan , Syria , Somalia , Venezuela , Yemen etc . Waste and more waste .
Enjoy Walt Whitman .
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Thanks to Gail we still have a place to enjoy intelligent discourse . My oilman Mike Shellman is calling it quits . Very few left . Hold on guys .
Most US states are beyond redemption.
Instead of sending the National Guard to Minnesota just kidnap the Governor.
American political figures will will be next
Prof. David Betz commented that kidnapping/killing American political figures would be part of the civil war that he says is coming, in the future.
i see it as inevitable—i hope i’m wrong.
but as dictators weaken, they lash out in every direction to maintain thei position.—because they cannot possibly be seen to be in error.
political opponents..as well as critics in general… point out these errors, and so must be silenced.
the don can only rule by fear…
and in case anyone still doubts that—i’ve noticed on several ‘critical’ websites, that the don’s name is being spelled t.r.u.m.p……
now why should that be you might wonder???
because it blocks AI searches for trumps name being used in vain—so to speak..
and this, in the land where the consituition guarantees free speech…
i’ve been warning about trump’s intentions for 10 years now (along with others of course)…to much mirth from the unthinkers of course.
the don has now invaded a neighbour to secure oil resources (to be fair, there have been oilwars since ’73)—this is one more, but this time close by. He has already said he wants Canada. Greenland next???
even the dimmest politico can see what will happen as resources run out—being the dimmest of all, trump will grab at any option.
the 26 mid terms are coming up—he knows that that will lose his power,…..by getting away with invading venezueala, he will try. to suppress the mid terms, by any means possible—likely by the creation of civil emergency of some kind.
no doubt there will be the same acquiescence by the compliant masses…
So, Norman, you think AI—which can list all the Roman and Byzantine emperors and all the Catholic Popes in chronological or alphabetical order before you can say “Jack Robinson”, is so dumb that it can’t be programmed to recognize “TRUMP”, “trump”, “Trump”, “T.R.U.M.P.”, “t.r.u.m.p.”, “the Don”, “Cheeto Benito”, and “Farty Seven” as references to the current POTUS?
Sorry I’m going to have to be the one to tell you, but you are seriously behind the times, my friend.
The beauty of this recent op is that nobody is going to have the least sympathy for Maduro. Everybody including most Venezuelans and including his own supporters are going to be relieved that he was removed with a minimum of collateral damage.
Maduro was presiding over a miserable gulag of a country, if Human Rights Watch’s coverage is anything to go by.
Go on, take a look. Discover how real dictators deal with the opposition. Or is the truth too brutal for you?
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/04/venezuela-brutal-crackdown-protesters-voters
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/28/venezuela-political-persecution-a-year-after-elections
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/22/venezuela-political-prisoners-cut-off-from-the-world
A sovereign country is a political entity that has complete authority over its territory, population, and government. It is recognized internationally and has the capacity to engage in relations with other sovereign states.
Wealthy Humans compete for Stakeholdership control and then appoint a Head of State to execute against their national directives.
The Head of State (in reality a “bobblehead”), is tantamount to a lead actor in a film that is produced by Stakeholders for its citizens to learn how to live life to maximize wealth for the stakeholder(s).
Citizens, in each Sovereign Country sometimes are gifted with fake Democracies and fake Elections…to ease the pain from the grips of this “Wealth Milk Machine” (Political Entity).
Through their “Bobblehead of State”, stakeholders never have to appear or be seen in public – or even recognized. So, with the above statement –
Who are the Stakeholders in Venezuela? Maduro is a Bobblehead of State!
Source: Common knowledge
none of your links works for me.
The comment is on page 2; they were looking on page 1.
Contrary to the claims of some delusionists, it seems things are more tight than advertised and no variables should exist.
I repeat – if we make it to 2030 more or less in one shape we have done well.
We are living in a world of musical chairs right now. The k-shaped economy is evidence of this. Young people are disproportionately being left out.
Long distance transport across the Atlantic and Pacific needs to atrophy greatly, by one means or another. The size of government needs to atrophy, eventually. Before that, governments will become more controlling of their populations, so as to restrict fossil fuel uses.
I do not see Rus and Chi abandoning Venezuela as anything unusual.
The world is becoming like blocs and Ven is the turf of USA, whether you like or not.
It is virtually impossible for Rus and Chi to resupply Ven. So it is better to trade it with something else.
Interesting point.
I had heard that Venezuela had debt to China, and this was a reason for its strong tie. But perhaps this cannot hold, with resource shortages.
Will trump kidnap the leaders of Brazil, Cuba, Iran, North Korea? Will he start a zoo at Mar-a-Lago?
Hopefully Russia and China do not need any niobium, because Brazil is next.
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2026/01/el-nuevo-orden-mundial.html?m=1
Europe is watching all this on the sidelines not much commentary coming from them. They quietly know that they are in trouble. The only have paper to trade for hard assets. If the U.S. doesn’t uphold Europe stealing other countries assets then they are toast.
A lot of people at OFW are concerned that Europe is toast. It doesn’t have nearly enough fossil fuels of its own, unfortunately. It has way too many people, including immigrants who don’t quite fit in.
The immigrants were a plan to grow GDP it is much cheaper to import a 20 year old than to grow one.
Sub 70 IQ immigrants are more harm than benefit. We need Han immigrants. Remember back 20 years when reporters ask the president of China will he will obey the Jackson Vanik US law requiring him to free dissidents? His response was “How many would you like”. The US should take ten million Chinese per year. It will raise the IQ of the US work force.
Interesting and true.
Time for Greater-Israel/US to take control of energy exports from Iran and Qatar?
Kings do not kill kings. For the reason it could be them next time. Trump has not violated the taboo. He will not touch Xi. Sadly every leader of minor powers that can not threaten nuclear annihilation of the U.S. are just bobble heads at the arcade.
Will Trump hang Maduro? If not where will he be imprisoned? Will Mrs Maduro be hanged? Will the hangings be at Mar-A-Lago only super rich in the audience?
The most likely template would have to be Noriega of Panama.
From Wikipedia:
Noriega’s relationship with the U.S. deteriorated in the late 1980s after the murder of Hugo Spadafora and the forced resignation of President Nicolás Ardito Barletta. Eventually, his relationship with intelligence agencies in other countries came to light, and his involvement in drug trafficking was investigated further. In 1988, Noriega was indicted by federal grand juries in Miami and Tampa, Florida, on charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering. The U.S. launched an invasion of Panama following failed negotiations seeking his resignation, and Noriega’s annulment of the 1989 Panamanian general election. Noriega was captured and flown to the U.S., where he was tried on the Miami indictment, convicted on most of the charges, and sentenced to 40 years in prison, ultimately serving 17 years after a reduction in his sentence for good behavior. Noriega was extradited to France in 2010, where he was convicted and sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for money laundering. In 2011 France extradited him to Panama, where he was incarcerated for crimes committed during his rule, for which he had been tried and convicted in absentia in the 1990s. Diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2017, Noriega suffered complications during surgery, and died two months later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-global-landlord-how-the-us-just
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-kinetic-solution-why-the-solar
Russia and china will do nothing like in Syria , Russia is stuck after his pathetic failure to seize Kiev and decapitate the tribal maidan regime in 2022 and Pladimir Vutin dont want to offend his godfathers rotenberg and lazar.
you Will read plenty of tweets of medvedev making empty threats and BRICS bullshiters talking about the inminent end to the petrodollar .
The Kremlin oligarchs would sell out China if they could, just to spend its holidays in the Swiss Alps again. Just look at that Dimitriev clown .
with the details we have, this looks like syria. there was no air defense, despite all those russian air cargoes. wagner was there to protect the president.
After Syria and now Venezuela, it seems that signing a strategic military agreement with Russia is the Kiss of Death.
the weakening dictator always—always—pulls a stunt outside his borders as a display of ”strength”.
this is what trump has done re maduro.
and—illegal or not—as ive said time and again over years—soldiers follow whoever pays their wages. (remember the constitution? —lol)
if trump hangs on to office as potus, as i’ve said he will, you can be certain his snatch squads will find more work to do on his instructions…
welcome to the present and future dictatorship…
and to the remaining idiots who cheer him on—one day he will come for you.
Agree .
To my great dismay the Enlightenment is dead.
Surely he will come for you before he goes after his own fanboys, Norman?
The AI is telling him all the nasty things you say about him.
One morning, given his narcissistic personality disorder, he may get out of the wrong side of bed, look in the mirror and sigh at his cavernous wrinkles and his unkempt hair, read the NSA report of your latest insults, snap, and order a drone strike. 🙂
As of now from the ~observable the US knocked down command center bunkers at various sites, mountain top large telco installation, .. , also that BUK autonomous missile launcher (more of them) – meaning that platform could / should have easily targeted-launched without ext. data feed link.. They have larger – longer range missiles – not deployed again the swarms of air tankers etc..
Increasingly, it all smells as fantastically daring operation based mostly on psychological profiling aka few dayz after festivities the fattened up Venezuelan-opera costumed army would largely stay incompetently laying down, likely not manning many of said installations / gear to begin with. Low lying US choppers across many cities – no action. Perhaps new metrics – ratio at hand ? as one Afghan peasant = 10,500x Venezuelan officers schooled in RU/CHN?
Relatively low civ collateral..
It’s beyond ridiculous, hence I’m providing for now also 1% chance this was a charade sort of stand down / replacement (future after trial say in 3rs -> Belarusian exile) joke on the world.
The links to two substack articles are interesting.
The first one is The Global Landlord: How the US Just Abolished Sovereignty
It’s not a blockade. It’s an eviction.
This is the transition from economic warfare to resource warfare. The US has signaled that it views the Hemisphere not as a community of nations, but as a resource extraction zone under a single jurisdiction.
For the global economy, this props up the dollar system in the short term—sucking in real resources (oil) without sending out currency (payment)—but it accelerates the global dollar shortage by draining liquidity from the rest of the world. More importantly, it destroys the concept of “Political Risk.” There is no longer a risk that a foreign government might change its laws to your disadvantage; there is only the certainty that if they do, the US Navy will arrive to “correct” the record.
The message to China, India, and the rest of the Global South is clear: Your sovereignty is conditional. It exists only as long as you do not disrupt the flow of resources to the Hegemon.
The second article explains why Bill McGibbins’ thesis, that we have effectively won the climate war because solar energy is now cheaper than gas, is wrong. The author, Stephen Newbury, says:
McKibben’s thesis . . . is the ultimate triumph of the Strong Enlightenment delusion. It is a narrative of technological determinism (I_tech) that assumes the political economy is a disembodied spirit, floating free of biophysical constraints. It posits that because a technology is “efficient,” the market will adopt it, the biosphere will be saved, and we can all keep our SUVs.
He later says:
Whether it is Venezuelan heavy crude (vital for diesel/jet fuel) or the mineral wealth required for McKibben’s beloved batteries, the US has decided that it will secure its P_maint by simply taking it.
This explains the 10-20% tariffs and the aggressive capital controls I warned about in April. The US is acting as a vacuum, sucking Eurodollars and physical resources from the periphery (the UK, Europe, the Global South) to feed the core. It is cannibalising the global system to delay its own entropic collapse.
The US is using its military to export the suffering of collapse to others. Even the socialists of NYC being national socialists can get on board.
I am really surprised that we are here already. Are resources already running short? Or have plans been stepped up to help Trump’s low numbers? Wars always raise the president’s approval in Amurica. Either way I guess we have to ask are the economic and oil situation worse than we thought.
First mover advantage. It is easier to take from a small enemy. Never wait until your big enemy takes the prize and digs in.
I am concerned that resources are already running short. We have turned the corner. Things are already concerningly bad. This problem expresses itself in many ways, simultaneously.
Um, Nat – the things we talk about here every day are true. If this is a reality check for you then it’s just another day in the life for us.
The purple pill yields a purple haze. The red pill cuts like a knife
No dude… I get it …. I was just questioning the timeline. I thought we had more time. I have been following this for a long time.
Copy that brother glad to hear it
I’ve posted this before and I will probably post it again because even a finite world needs some good music.
Bert Jansch composed this humorous and delightfully toe-tapping song 20 years ago in response to George W. Bush’s oil wars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUhFywouVRc
We got Buicks, we got Chevys
And stretch limousines
They all got great big tanks
Guzzling gasoline
In Texas, yes, Texas USA
Now, no matter what you say, mister
Gonna take your oil anyway
Now, the President’s from Texas
Yes, you know that of course
But he looks like a cowboy
Who’s lost his horse
In Texas, Texas USA
Now, no matter what you say, mister
Gonna take your oil anyway
Now, if you wanna fight
You know you have the right
If you wanna back down
We’ll gun you to the ground
As we’re from Texas, Texas USA
No matter what you say, mister
Who gets your oil anyway?
Now, you righteous people who criticise
Who sell you the detergent
You can sanitise
Oh, Texas, Texas USA
Now, you can be clean and green
But we’ll stay here dirty and mean
Supposedly, based on early msm reports the US strike involved: cruise missiles, air strikes, short range missiles from choppers, .. and the commando cadre via different chopper to pick him up, ..
Perhaps, that’s an indication towards my yesterday’s note that the recently deployed anti aircraft defense shield was actually of Iranian origin. That would in turn signal great-grave lapsus and not very nice outlook for ME’s immediate future..
The pictures / vids of approaching choppers in lowish flight height means the command center was completely incapacitated or they chickened out – not seriously responding at all.
pics of burned Buk near the airbase:
“A Venezuelan Buk M2E air defense system supplied by Russia, one of several ADS destroyed by precision airstrikes during the first minutes of the …”
Trump claims to have captured Maduro and his wife and flown them out.
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115830428767897167
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
I guess this means that Venezuela is not going to be joining BRICS and going off the US$ after all.
Trump seems to be implementing a 21st century version of the Monroe doctrine—maintaining the Western Hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence—and also reorganizing the US presence further afield.
If the US needs resources, we will simply take them, or depose the leader of the country holding them.
How much does the US need Venezuela’s resources in order to supply its need for raw materials, Gail?
You’ve said before that most of the oil there is too heavy to be of much use to the current economy. Also, Maduro was quite explicit in telling Trump he would give the US whatever deal they wanted.
So, I suspect that this move was not aimed at taking resources per se, but a coup d’état to remove a leader who was (a) too close to China—the US’s principal geopolitical rival these days, and (b) too socialist for the current US administration’s liking.
Obviously, whatever resources are in Venezuela or in South America are going to be under the control of some group or other. We are living on the planet of the apes, after all. So I think that a big part of the motivation may be simple territoriality. Can’t let hostile groups get control of too much territory in Uncle Sam’s backyard.
Absolutely. If VZ is going to be an oil protectorate of the US then the political leader of VZ obviously can’t be the protege and then heir of Chavez who nationalized the industry, and who accused the US/Israel of killing Chavez. The protectorate has to have some semblance of business professional to it.
And the very real submission has to be formalized somehow.
Yes, very interesting dev!
Now the remaining key question was there some “horse trading” taking place with respect to other contested regions around the globe (off the Monroe doctrine realm proper)?
If not at all the US demonstrates more vigor than previously assumed.
Of course there is. This VZ deal is just one side of the HTOE’s main, three-way horse trade. Russia gets Ukraine, China gets Taiwan and Iraqi oil (done), and the US gets Venezuela.
Reante , on your wavelength . Trade-off VZ and Ukraine .
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/trumps-golden-hour-historically-flawless?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=183314917&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Thanks ravi I wasn’t able to read the whole post since simplicius must think he’s some kind of big shot these days but I did come across that brief bit about a VZ-Ukraine trade accompanied by a piece of congressional documentation. I was also disappointed not to be treated to his trademarked Nectarine Narcissist nickname which rivals any nickname Pepe Escobar has ever come up with.
The Iranian bombing run theater he mentioned, with which everyone has obviously been drawing another parallel in their minds along with Syria, does suggest that Iran is cooperating with the DA. I mean, from my perspective as the author of the Hand and the Hand’s DA, TINA to cooperation. The Hand has a untouchable, plausibly deniable, giant positron beam disintegration device at its disposal, that when merely set to LOW, can burn a city to the ground unless it’s painted blue lol. The Beam operates in so much plausible deniability under cover of the Hand’s interferential “Jewish Space Lasers” fringe conspiracy theory that it circles back round to implausible deniability. Yin and the yang. Hell, for all my rantings and ravings here, there may be one other person here who believes in the Beam or there might in fact be none.
SO the Hand has the Beam that was, naturally, unveiled on HIGH on 9/11 — because coming-out parties are for going big (because dads rule) and like I said previously, Dad (the proverbial Lucifer for those less versed in elite eschatology; a big thumbs up to anyone who had already picked up on who Dad is) threw the Hand the biggest bar mitzvah there ever was. Yes, 9/11 was a coming of age party for the Hand that let know every national small e elite on the planet, that the Hand was not American. That the Hand was Superimperialism in a sense that none other than Michael Hudson could conceive of economically but not holistically. The Hand that that casts no shadow while it blocks out the sun.
The Lahaina and Los Angeles positron fires were psychological reinforcements in the age of the DA. The Hand’s reminder to a parched Iran, above all, that “if I am willing to do this to American cities — and I am doing this to American cities because I know that you are still having trouble separating me from America — then imagine what I will do to Tehran, and you will have no one to shoot at because I do not exist.”
All of the industrial acts of sabotage serve the same reminder.
That said, the HTOE has always predicted that Iran would ultimately be left ‘free’ to join the DA in full cooperation wherein all sanctions would be lifted for Phase 2. So I take the 12-day war and the theatrical bombing run on Fordo as a hazing ritual in order to establish a formal Iranian allegiance to the DA.
But, it’s also obviously plausible, given what happened yesterday, that the Hand will also require the Iranian military to stand down like with these other places. But my feeling is that, as heavy-palmed as the Hand is, it’s even more little c conservative, and them radical mullahs got built-in deathwish going for them, and the Hand can slap the shit out of anyone anytime but it also just can’t afford the middle east getting kicked by the Iranian death throes because the DA has the Hand walking a tightrope and you’d never shoot a bull in the head and then try and walk a tightrope right above the body because you WILL get kicked off.
Real or Not Real?
That’s the eponymous Donroe doctrine to you, as of this morning.
Well, VZ was more like increasingly going ON the dollar, when we look at stablecoin usage. Looking like VZ will become the first nation to make USD stablecoins its national currency. That would wrap the new oil protectorate up in a nice big red bow. Goodbye hyperinflation. Hello deflation.
https://off-guardian.org/2025/12/29/russia-expands-biometric-id-system-again/
Nowhere is safe and it seems Russia is not a panacea for the march towards a digital gulag.
totally concur.
a couple of notes about it. Riley (the author of that article) is honest, much more so than the many pro-russian commentators that are sometimes cited in this forum. It should be added that Russia has a terrorist attack load orders of magnitude larger than the West, and in the past schools have been attacked. So there is that. But when you add that the Kremlin (RT) also hails vaccine progress as one of the big achievements of 2025, when they badmouth people ho refuse vaccines (Mr. Peskov himself, who used to keep his family in Paris. He probably lost his money in London), you can see that these chews are so eager to be like thir western counterparts.
It’s disheartening. I thought certain things about Russia were appealing, like a low flat tax rate of 15%, but now that has increased and there is apparently also a social tax of 30% paid by corporations on employee wages that I didn’t know about. It’s insanity:
An employee gets paid $100 and keeps around $80, varying on income.
The corporation had to pay $135 or thereabouts, also depending on a few factors. So of $135 paid, 40% was taxes.
In the USA it’s not all that different – a company pays $108 (social security + medicare), the employee pays $8 for social security + medicare and then there’s state and federal taxes. The world is a tax farm.
Tax plantation we are all tax slaves.
stop paying taxes by all means
but dont complain when you cant get medical care or schools for your kids, or a policemen to report a crime to
Substantial taxes for policing isn’t required if you live in a small town where the population is homogeneous.
The increase in investment in education was a response to a decreasing amount of jobs. The general consensus is that people are in school for longer but they aren’t smarter (that’s genetic) or more educated. America has the “best hospitals” in the world because healthcare providers can they can price gouge a.ka. “charge what the market can bear”. Colleges–same thing. What people seem to be paying for is prestige the perception they are getting the best and should therefore buy on margin.
Norm , you are a mirror image of the maga people you claim to dislike. You’re gullible but just in a different way.
quote. ….////Substantial taxes for policing isn’t required if you live in a small town where the population is homogeneous./////
reminds me of a notice board i saw on the roadside near here a little while ago:
verbatim…
”No learner drivers or joyriders beyond this point”
the irony of that may be beyond you—but at least think about it.
or even the old joke—-that the Swiss never invade other countries, because after a few yards they would be halted by a sign saying ”no trespassing”…
I pay 13%. I assume any tax increases to LLCs (OOO in russian) is temporary and will end after the war. The govt has become more strict on certain things, certainly looking for extra money, like my tractorists are clearing some land right now that is a low priority project, except that fines were threatened. I do not think the economic management is unreasonable, and it is apparent that people’s economic conditions are improving.
Also there is a vast black sector which they are attempting to regulate, also to improve tax revenues. I can not give details but if some day we have coffee together… I can only say good luck with that because no amount of AI can beat these talented tax avoiders.
“I can only say good luck with that because no amount of AI can beat these talented tax avoiders . ”
In India we have a tale ” A robbers thumbprint was analysed at a lab and a look out notice posted . The robber chopped off his thumb .😭
“Also there is a vast black sector which they are attempting to regulate, also to improve tax revenues. ”
Flop worldwide . If the TPTB could do this there would be no drug trade , arms trade etc .
My understanding is that any *employer* is legally required to pay ~30% to the government on top of any salaries paid – are you familiar with this?
Of course the employee only sees their salary amount and then pays the 13% on that, but there was already a large tax burden put on the employer.
Obviously I’m talking about “by the book” operations.
From this link: https://www.taxesforexpats.com/country-guides/russia/us-tax-preparation-in-russia.html
Employers pay separate insurance contributions on the payroll cost of employing Russian employees.:
pension contributions – 22 percent of an employee’s salary, up to a maximum of RUB 876,000, plus 10 percent of any excess salary above this;
social insurance contributions – 2.9 percent of an employee’s salary, up to a maximum or RUB 755,000, or 1.8 percent for foreigners temporarily staying in Russia;
medical insurance – 5.1–5.9 percent of salary.
Other links confirm:
https://workia.com/knowledge/social-security-insights-from-workia/russia-social-security
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/social-security-rate
I will tell you when i have a minute. I do pay pension for employees but some do prefer just cash, no enrollment.
Taxesforexpats seems to be right. I do pay 13% on profits and 30% on salaries as pension contributions. Keep in mind that in an expanding farm salaries are about 40% of expenses.
Oh and then there’s 22% VAT. What a joke. Russia basically forces one to work in the black market.
Employer paid $130
Employee gets $100
Employee keeps $85
Remaining purchasing power = $70, since 22% VAT will will accrue on top ($15)
So of $130 in employer payments for employee compensation, the government takes $60, or 46%. And this, for a resource-rich country. Diabolical.
Don’t forget higher VAT is first and foremost a system thing. It’s perceived as normal in large parts of EuroAsia.. after decades of participation.
As you pay out less (~nothing) for schools, medical, etc.. comparatively.
So, pensions could be low as well, you survive in relative good condition till 80-90yrs, but you don’t enjoy the extras like the private pension scheme (theoretically) allows for..
“Oh and then there’s 22% VAT. What a joke. Russia basically forces one to work in the black market.”
That is not difficult and everyone does it. It is crucial to have a trusted network. 50-50 is about right.
drb, I would imagine that works at smaller scales / for local businesses, but it hinders the development of large enterprises; if one tries to use the same tactics at large companies, you will be discovered and then either be extorted by authorities or have your business taken by them. Agree?
Governments seem to feel a need to be able to control, as the level of resource availability falls. Even Russia.
“Consider for a moment the device you are using to read these words. If it is a smartphone, its processor switches roughly ten billion times per second. If it is a laptop, perhaps three billion times per second. The neurons in your brain, meanwhile, the ones parsing this sentence and extracting meaning from symbols arranged on a screen, fire at most one hundred times per second. More typically, they fire once or twice per second. Some fire once every ten seconds.
By the brute logic of clockspeed, your phone should be smarter than you. By a factor of one hundred million, if we are being generous to biology. Your phone should write symphonies while you struggle with arithmetic. It should understand jokes, navigate conversations, learn new skills from single examples, and ponder the nature of its own existence. It does none of these things. You do all of them, effortlessly, continuously, without conscious effort, while consuming roughly twenty watts of power. That is the energy draw of a dim lightbulb, supplied entirely by glucose molecules drifting through your bloodstream.
The most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems on Earth, the large language models capable of writing passable essays and holding reasonable conversations, require power measured in megawatts. A single training run for a frontier AI model consumes more electricity than some small countries use in a year. The inference servers that field your queries draw enough power to run thousands of homes. Even after this staggering energy investment, these systems cannot reliably identify a chair in a cluttered room, learn a new concept from one example the way a toddler can, or understand why a joke is funny rather than merely recognizing the linguistic patterns that correlate with humor.“?
https://substack.com/home/post/p-183236639
Our phones are faster than us, not smarter. Basically, a computer is a lightning fast idiot, and an idiot cannot be intelligent.
The business world only cares about how fast something can be done, not how well done it can be done. I have heard the phrase “speed up” in an article about what the important people hope will accomplish. The important people won’t be discouraged from their path by the threat of being prosecuted for breaking laws because they think the laws will be bent for them in the name of progress. A good example of this is Telsa’s autopilot feature on their hipster cars. They are willing to sacrifice people on the altar of productivity and the law is behind them because the stakes are high. The hope is that AI will be the equivalent of cheap energy….or more likely another “tech fix”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rinBUI6ViE
Manifold constrained residual feedback that’s the ticket.
It is the number and complexity of the connections that make and store intelligence. Biology has had three billion years to work it out give the AIs twenty years.
This seems to be the way that DeepSeek is making China’s AI much more efficient.
I thought this article was interesting. One point that the article makes is this:
We have made transistors that switch incredibly fast, but we have not made memories that can keep up. Computation has become cheap while data movement has become expensive. And our architectures were designed for a world where the opposite was true.
The article looks like it has important points for those working in this area to understand.