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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.
By the time the next post comes from Gail let us see what is going to happen to the Yen trade and the bond markets .
https://robertsinn.substack.com/p/billionaire-investor-robert-friedland
This is a major issue in my view. Excerpts:
From your link:
https://robertsinn.substack.com/p/billionaire-investor-robert-friedland
Billionaire Investor Robert Friedland: Americans Are Living In A Fantasy, They Have No Idea What We’re Facing
Mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland delivers shock therapy on critical minerals, and the impossible challenges the West faces today.
The United States is totally dependent on China for almost every critical mineral.
“The price of scandium has no where to go but up.”
Friedland has been pounding the table on scandium recently, including an appearance on Bloomberg.
On the daunting scale of copper the world needs to produce over the next two decades:
“You can’t build electric cars and windmills and solar and have a modern military without these metals. So, there’s a reason why underwater power cables are so expensive. That’s what it looks like when you put up a windmill offshore Nantucket Island and you want to bring that electricity and be green. It’s all copper, copper, copper, copper, copper.
The dollar is failing against gold. The dollar is failing against water and food. We face a hyperinflationary era here.”
“All this stuff about AI, everything you’re hearing, it’s a fantasy because we don’t have the energy.”
This article links to a video:
https://youtu.be/Q5hnwooyKVk
The above video is called The Future of Critical Minerals. The speaker is Robert Friedland. He is incredibly knowledgeable about this subject and many related subjects. He talks about electric cars taking six times the critical minerals of conventional cars. Wind turbines take nine times the critical minerals of a gas powered power plant, of similar electrical output.
He also talks about the huge amount of electricity used by AI searches. Using the more advanced AI models, an AI search is equivalent to the electricity needed to operate a 100 watt light bulb for two to three minutes. The cost of AI must cover this cost. He also points out that AI today is used 30% for pornography, 30% by the Department of Defense, leaving only 40% for everything else.
The Tier 1 orange in the US has been squeezed.
We have maxed out the lateral lengths. We have maxed out the sand loading (2,500 lbs/ft). We have maxed out the fluid velocity.
Physics has no more discounts to give.
So today, enjoy your $60 per barrel steak, by 2027 you may well have switched to $80+ Hamm sandwiches.
https://x.com/morgan_downey/status/2013404401256267957
From one of the X comments:
>> [Harold Hamm, the shale oil innovator, is] reallocating the capital they need to drill his new position in the Vaca Muerta. It’s not rocket science, he doesn’t want to borrow anymore than absolutely necessary and justifying it by saying US shale isn’t competitive….but pretty sure they’ll have 82% royalties in SA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaca_Muerta
>> The US EIA estimates total recoverable hydrocarbons from this Vaca Muerta Formation to be 16.2 billion barrels (2.58×109 m3) of oil and 308 trillion cubic feet (8.7×1012 m3) of natural gas
2013 estimate:
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/pdf/fullreport.pdf
Other interesting or funny X comments:
>> Somalia has potentially 5th largest oil reserves in the world offshore and mostly unexplored
>> Fusion energy technology is evolving, people who know are getting out of oil
Table 5 from the report is interesting and has high overlap with US foreign policy focus.
Table 5. Top 10 countries with technically recoverable shale oil resources
Rank, Country, Shale oil (billion barrels)
1 Russia 75
2 U.S.1 58 (48)
3 China 32
4 Argentina 27
5 Libya 26
6 Australia 18
7 Venezuela 13
8 Mexico 13
9 Pakistan 9
10 Canada 9
World Total 345 (335)
1 EIA estimates used for ranking order. ARI estimates in parentheses.
Jeff Sneider and Steve Von Metre talk about the recent drop in the stock price of Freddie Mac. The company has no margin to get through any recessionary dip.
Statement by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)Statement to the public regarding the recent situation at Al-Shaddadi Prison
Since the early hours of this morning, Al-Shaddadi Prison, which holds thousands of prisoners from the ISIS terrorist organization, has been subjected to repeated attacks carried out by Damascus factions.Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces confronted these attacks and managed to repel them several times, suffering dozens of martyrs and wounded in order to prevent a security catastrophe.Despite the fact that Al-Shaddadi Prison is located only about two kilometers from the International Coalition base in the area, the base did not intervene despite repeated calls.We hereby inform public opinion that Al-Shaddadi Prison is currently out of the control of our forces
———————————
Non Syrian oil stealers forces more like , but but I’m a banyard animal and I though that the internacional coalition was there to fight ISIS or so they said CNNBBC
There have been comments here about Stablecoins being the way of the future. This is an article with a contrary view:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2026-01-19/brics-slam-us-stablecoins-seek-combine-money
BRICS Slam US Stablecoins, Seek To Combine Money
GFN – MUMBAI: India’s central bank has proposed that BRICS nations link their official digital currencies to enable cross-border trade and tourism payments, a move that could gradually reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar as geopolitical tensions rise.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!DC80!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fee3fd435-32d8-4a70-95f3-23cfb812769b_1536x1024.png
According to Reuters, the Reserve Bank of India has recommended that a proposal to connect BRICS central bank digital currencies be placed on the agenda of the 2026 BRICS summit, which India will host later this year. Two sources said the recommendation has been submitted to the government, marking the first time such a linkage proposal would be formally tabled within the bloc.
If approved, the initiative would connect the digital currencies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa through interoperable infrastructure and governance standards. The goal would be to improve efficiency in trade finance and tourism payments while reducing transaction costs.
The image included in the post compares “Central Bank Digital Currencies” with “Stablecoins.” CBDCs (even of BRIC nations) are viewed much more favorably.
Classic, the globalist neocolonies as lagging indicators of the nationalist public banking stablecoin revolution.The neocolonies taking up the mantle of hated globalist finance capitalism CBDCs just like Europe. As I said, lagging indicators. Now we get to lolz at the old ways anti-imperialists like Pepe and MOA etc who have their beacons of Eastern hope championing Old Testament Capitalism while the US does the heavy lifting of dismantling it. But that’s politics for ya. Always comes back to bite you in the ass one way or another.
As I’ve also said previously, the US is on the cutting edge of the Phase 2 national socialisms because — for it to hold together — civilization must always be led from the center, both on the way up and the way down.
How’s that for Inverted Perestroika? The core collapsing first into a return to public banking.
The private banking to public banking transition across all countries will be a messy process, and the Hand has to straddle both sides of that fence as well as possible. For the private banking collapse, anything it can do to restructure (such as this potential CBDC M&A) amongst the BRICS themselves beforehand, is a good thing. Or, it could just end up being a failed attempt on purpose, for putting another nail in the coffin of the central banking system.
“civilization must always be led from the center, both on the way up and the way down.”
That could be true.
It seems to me, however, that there could be two centers: China and US.
With the yuan, currently, China doesn’t have the financial center of gravity to be an independent center during Collapse. The yuan is pegged to the dollar for a reason, and there’s only so much inverted perestroika that can be accomplished before it would cause a catastrophic dislocation, meaning the deflating dollar has to remain the primary world currency because, like I’ve been talking about, there just won’t be enough financial value in the world to maximize oil extraction.When the oil price drops the dollar becomes more valuable against all other currencies except those able to maintain a peg, leaving too big a gap in oil purchasing power in other currencies.
I said recently that if China is able to maintain its peg to the dollar during dollar deflation (though I’m not sure how that would work in a dollar deflationary spiral) then that could make it a secondary center of the singular civilization. So not two separate centers but two barycentric nodes of a barycenter. Otherwise it would have to hyperinflate with stablecoin access and not be a financial center.
One thing I’m sure of is that the current war politics are just Elite theater in order to facilitate the inverted perestroika on a global scale such that trade routes can be shortened and simplified in light of energy collapse.
Unless governments actively block them, private stablecoins will continue being used in BRICS area countries (certainly in Russia and Iran, but also satellite places like Central Asia or UAE) for a long time. In fact they will provide most transactions between SWIFT and CIPS.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/we-are-watching-critical-thinking-disappear-in-real-time-due-to-ai-addiction-40-of-kids-cant-read-teachers-quitting-in-droves.html
“At some level, this is pretty simple: if a student doesn’t want to learn, unless their family is very wealthy, their future will be doing manual labor and nothing else.
I once read an interview with a MD — an occupational medicine specialist — who said the first question he has for incoming patients is whether or not they have a High School diploma. If they answer “no”, he automatically assumes they will never be able to sit down in a chair during working hours. For certain kinds of injuries, this is obviously pretty important and can mean long-term disability status.
So, that’s the future for these kids, though they may not understand it.”
Since I’m blocked from posting on that website because I’m not vetted, I’ll post my response here.
I think educated people get the correlation between education, manual labor and class wrong.
Wealthy people have more time to devote to their education. To the outsider, it looks like wealth is due to just education because wealthy people are more likely to be educated.
The relationship between wealth, education and social class is precarious. Education is not social class. In an economic downturn, people who are not “well-connected” enough, whose social circle is not comprised 100 percent of wealthy people, will be the first to join the manual laborers, because demand for their non-manual labor will fall significantly.
In a severe economic downturn, lots of people who have never done any manual labor because they are wealthy will find themselves doing it because the wealth to support their lifestyle will not be there. They will not be able to use their education credentials as money to get hold of whatever there is in terms of food, clothing, etc.
If they are lucky, they may be able to get loaf of bread because their social class but without the ability to use coercion to get that loaf of bread, their social class also won’t amount to much.
“What is disappearing is full time white-collar and blue-collar skilled work where the employee can expect defined pay with health and pension benefits, and a reasonable expectation of not being laid off.”
One of the issues with where we are at, is what do the educated tell adults who did everything possible to get ahead and are struggling? And what do they tell the children of these adults who did “everything right”?
From the link:
These kids rely on ChatGPT not just for information but also to make choices, and for many, that seems to extend to every aspect of their lives. Sam Altman makes clear in video clips below that this extreme loss of independence, of personal autonomy, is deliberate.
That means unless these kids can find a way to break free, they are cognitive serfs that can be told to do anything. How to vote. Whether to sign up to die in a hopeless war. Whether to take a job in a unsafe meatpacking plant and risk loss of limbs.
This widespread abuse is far worse than what the Sacklers and other opioid peddlers did to mainly working class pain victims, or what the British did to China in the Opium Wars. At least with opioid addiction, it is possible for the victims to recover even if the withdrawal process is painful. The evidence is mounting that even for adults, regular use of AI diminishes reasoning skills and attention spans.
The article claims that only 23% of fourth graders can read at a proficient level. The article talks about younger children being addicted to social media, already. Not paying attention in school. Not learning.
Everything in life takes a team; the biological team starts with the parents and goes from there to the social team. Historically it appears that a social team is about two hundred fifty members. This is the size of Amish communities and also Orthodox communities which I understand favor having members live within walking distance of the synagogue.
A group can help members chose suitable mates, or chose your parents carefully. A winning racehorse is not an accident.
Dennis L.
A thread on China’s industrialization and current state. It’s somewhat superficial, but there are also some interesting nuggets.
https://x.com/johnarnold/status/2013344293377740830
John Arnold, who just returned from a trip to China, writes:
The US and China have significantly decoupled since early 2020. The # of flights between the two countries is down roughly 70%. Two long-term residents I spoke with said the # of American expats is down 50-75% from the peak. The # of Americans studying in China is down ≈90%.
Another:
Tier 2-4 cities are very quiet. Few cars on the road. Don’t see many people. Factory workers live in dorms on campus. Other workers are in gated compounds that are self-contained neighborhoods. Food delivery and e-commerce have replaced dining out and shopping.
These trends would replace a lot of gasoline use.
Another:
As industries become more complex, scale matters more than ever. Large countries can fund frontier R&D, support dense talent markets, amortize infrastructure, and create robust supply chains. Few countries can be cost competitive in high value-add manufacturing.
Also:
While the supply chain on transmission and grid infrastructure is backed up in the US, there is spare capacity in China. Anecdotally, data center developers are increasingly buying Chinese equipment. Half of the electrical transformers at one factory were heading to the US. There does seem to be confusion and contradictory messages from the US government and local regulators about what Chinese equipment is allowed on our grid. Best I can tell, it’s ok if at the edge of the grid but not part of the main transmission and generation backbone.
Also:
There were fewer cranes than I expected, presumably reflecting the collapse of China’s real estate market.
German youths oppose draft laws
German soldiers were sent to Greenland, and left after 2 days.
The City of London has succeeded destroying Germany once for all . So Germany won’t be a factor when London fights Russia.
It was wrong, wrong, wrong for Wilson to invalidate the Brest-Litovsk treaty, which cheated Germany the lands it won in the East out, so the Poles and the Czechs could have their good-for-nothing countries
What did Poland and Czechia did after they got their countries? Nothing, in terms of civilization. The only Polish non peace/literature laureate was Marie Sklowdowska, who was good finding men who would work for her, and the only Czech non tribe , non peace/literature Nobel laureate was Jaroslav Heyrovsky. And all of them were born during the days when they were ruled by Russia/Austria – there are ZERO born after they got their shitty countries.
Let the lowlives of London go fight the Russians. Unless USA repudiates the so-called 14 points and abolish Poland, Czechia, etc Germany will not go to die to kill Russians.
Maybe the world would be a better one if Katalin Karikó had grown roses?
Kulm, I know you don’t give your personal information away freely—which fine, and totally understandable. But I also know that Kulm is a German word that in English means a peak, summit, rounded mountain, hill, or knoll. There is also a surname Kulm that can be found in many parts of German, Switzerland and Austria
Geographically, there is the historical region of Kreis Kulm in West Prussia (now Poland). So if I had to hazard a guess, based on the opinions you’ve expressed about the “good-for-nothing” countries such as Poland, Czechia, etc., and about perfidious Albion, I would guess your roots and the family castle are in West Prussia, or possibly East Prussia or Silesia—that part of the former Germany that lies east of the Oder-Neisse line.
There is a Wikipedia article on Kreis Kulm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreis_Kulm
The region is currently part of what is for me an unpronounceable mouthful of a name: Kuyavian–Pomeranian Voivodeship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuyavian–Pomeranian_Voivodeship
Start in Danzig (Gadansk) and go south, and you can’t miss it.
I also think I can understand your regret and probably your bitterness at the loss of the old Germany and at the miseries and injustices that the German people were subjected to during the first half of the 20th century, with the Treaty of Versailles being one of the biggest injustices. And no doubt you are morning the extinction of those intangibles, the culture and spirit of the German people.
But these days, Europe as a whole is going down the toilet, and its cultures and spirits circling the drain, and it looks like only the Hungarians and the Basques will escape being flushed into the sewer. (Please, forgive my mixed metaphor!) It’s all so awful for us old-fashioned conservatives. I’m glad I live in Japan, where at least I don’t have to witness the death-throes of the formerly Great Britain from the inside.
But they say all’s fair in love and war, and that all wars are bankers’ wars. Also, we must note that Germany—like Britain—became great through success at war, and so it is only natural it would be diminished through failure at war. The Danes and the French are still upset with the Germans over what Bismarck did to their respective countries in the 1860s and 70s. And the Poles are still angry at being partitioned between Prussia, Russia and Austria between 1772 and 1795. The bankers, meanwhile, made a lot of money out of the rise of Europe and are likely now making even more out of its decline and fall.
India’s IT Hiring Collapse: Top 5 Firms Add Just 17 Jobs as AI Reshapes Sector .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXA1Q3VdCN4
TSHTF .
Some of my greatest pleasures at OFW are ravi’s TSHTF calls. Fortune favors the bold.
The situation in India is worrying. I tried to find something similar for China. I ran across a statement in Robert Half’s writeup that sounds somewhat parallel.
https://www.roberthalf.cn/cn/en/insights/salary-guide/technology
IT workers remain concerned about job security in 2025, with only 26% unworried about redundancies.
Later:
Rather than expanding teams, many firms are prioritising replacement hires.
Arthemis II is talking humans thought the Van Allen belts – what do those who for years have been saying this will be lethal have to say?
https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-ii-press-kit/
the rocket is a hologram
the crew are holograms
the thousands of people involved in the nasa hoax about it all have to go through a memory-erasing laser device so that they remember nothing about the artemis project.
either that, or they are programmed to say nonsenses to passing children, when asked, and when (surprise surprise) there is always someone a few feet away ready to record it……..
exactly the same thing happened with the moon landings (6 of them) in the 60s/70s….
they must be because certain moonloonies on OFW can never, under any circumstances, be wrong about anything….
i know that, because i was always tripping over bodies lying in the streets during covid—-just as i was warned about here on OFW…..
or were they holograms of bodies???
i can’t recall now.
Maybe the rocket is being powered by Judy Wood’s secret energy beam??
As apparent today around us – faked AI vids of popular personalities – say politicians could be now correctly spotted – only by miniscule difference such as added too strong side smirk (sourced – copied from another personality/actor) or not fully correct face makeup tint-color etc.
Good luck when watching any future missions!
(in general sense of any human-oid activity)
speaking as a fully fledged hologram—i can only agree with you…
pesky human beings are always impersonating me….
as soon as i am programmed with sufficient legal knowledge—i intend to sue to have my holo-rights upheld….
then all those deniers will be really scared
Except the Lunar Lander I see at Marshall Space Flight center in Huntsville looks like a 5th grade science fair project. As an engineer I have serious doubts that this thing was real…that it, yea dropped to them moons surface, had enough battery power to power….lets see, heating and cooling, air circulation, CO2 scrubbing, instrumentation, vacuum pumping for ingress/egress into the vacuum of Moons environment….all of that for DAYS…yea I call BS on all that.
Presumably, the folks working on this mission will have put up enough lead barriers (or whatever it takes) to work around the Van Allen belt radiation.
I don’s see a planned launch date in this document. It sounds like it will depend on weather. I notice the document says:
The lessons learned throughout the mission will pave the way for humans to return to the lunar surface. Through Artemis, NASA will explore more of the Moon than ever before and create an enduring presence in deep space, while simultaneously preparing to land the first astronaut – an American – on Mars.
The planned flight will not actually land on the moon. It will fly around the moon and back, it is hoped. The flight crew includes one black and one female astronaut plus two white males.
They go through the edge of the belt and they go quickly.
It takes a google search to find that in 1968-1969 we were at a solar maximum. It also take a google search to find we are now at a solar minimum. It makes for orders of mag less solar wind and therefore orders of magnitude less Van Allen radiation.
I also think that the belt can be crossed by astronauts. All they need is a full body dentist suit. It is low energy radiation. Too bad NASA did not show us those dentist suits last time. maybe they were there, and their gravity was so strong that shadows of the astronauts on the moon became non parallel.
It takes 5 Sieverts to kill a human, but they go through a lot of pain to equip spacecraft with special circuitry (based on amorphous silicon transistors) that survives 1000+ sieverts. what for? and most of those spacecrafts are below the belts although those on high latitude orbits can get close to them near the poles.
dennis has some dental suits he no longer needs
ask him
I hope they are not dental suits against him by his patients.
I have always been very grateful I had something to give to, dentistry was a very nice profession. Doing it well is also an art form; if you happen to be sufficiently above average, it gives great peace of mind and a financial independence.
For me, it was a wonderful match and came at a great time of my life and the profession itself.
Seriously looking at regenerative agriculture now, owing land is a great privilege, it came from my forty years as a dentist.
Recently purchased a reasonable quantity of photovoltaic panels, but of course we all know those can’t possibly work, only a dentist would be so foolish.
Dennis L.
This mission wont happen anyway. That said, if it is possible to get through the belts with out too much damage, just one minor solar storm and its game over man. Solar storms are not predictable 48 hours ahead of time.
There has been no progress on radiation shields. There is nothing lightweight that can absorb (or deflect) cell damaging radiation.
So, why are we doing this, if we know there is no longer term viability for Astronauts 450km away from Earth? Because, we live in a Griftocracy… thats why.
as luck may have it, a coronal mass ejection will hit Earth either tomorrow or the day after. surely someone has a dosimeter on a satellite up there.
other than to extend human scientific curiousity and knowledge….
off earth activity is literally point-less….
because it offers no net return on investment
I wouldn’t be surprised if moon trips get cancelled in cost-cutting efforts.
the vacations we all take are entirely—-ENTIRELY —dependent on the surpluses that are derivatives of all our other activities.–you work, you save up the cost—etc etc–
if ”vacations” are offered on the moon, they will be revenue consuming for the obscenely wealthy.—-never the likes of us.
in other words , moon vacations will be possible ONLY through the derivations of their other activities….
ie… Bezos could afford a moon trip only through his ‘on earth’ commercial activities…which means we all contribute to his trip.
nothing else..
no ‘off earth’ trip can produce surplus revenue—so no, there can never be a profitable enterprise based on moon holidays…
but of course, there will be gullible fools who equate space vacations with caribbean cruises…it aint going to happen…
we must try to think outside the box in which we have mentally trapped ourselves…
From the world’s 1st future trillionaire!
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/techandscience/worlds-richest-man-elon-musk-drops-bombshell-on-future-finances-says-saving-for-retirement-wont-matter-in-the-next-20-years-heres-why/ar-AA1TZw7Z
“The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who is seeking a $139 billion compensation package, urged people not to worry about stashing money away for retirement, as it won’t matter in the future. Musk, who is worth over $720 billion, claimed that Artificial Intelligence in the future will create an abundance of goods and services, which will leave money worthless. Appearing on the podcast “Moonshots” with Pete Diamandis, Musk told listeners, “One side recommendation I have is: Don’t worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years. It won’t matter.”
Discussing the progress of AI and the time to reach General Intelligence for machines, Musk said that AI will become so efficient and capable that it will drop the cost of everything to the point where money won’t matter. He said, everyone will have “universal high income,” adding that “If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.” He explained that robots will supercharge productivity, which will create a “good future where anyone can have whatever stuff they want.”
Plus, space is being colonized.
Growth isn’t stopping. It’s accelerating.
.
Some people hate progress.
If money is just government debt, and debt is becoming too high to make any sense, then saving money for retirement could make little sense. This is especially the case if the world makes fewer and fewer goods, and the quantity of these goods won’t be much greater than what is needed for workers.
The hope is that AI will do all of these things, and pay infinite taxes, but I find it hard to believe.
If AI is not self replicating, it cannot grow. Biology is self replicating and it is self destroying. Economics is biology, not sure how AI can become a replacement for biology.
Dennis L.
IG, I will send you my cold wallet address so you can divest yourself of those barbaric relics. I wish you a lot of enjoyment as the tide of continuously deflating goods and services washes over you.
:@ )
Investor
You’re too late, BAU already died.
Mob, you wouldn’t think the world is ending if you didn’t listen to that music.
Investor,
I didn’t say the world is ending or going to end. (straw man).
I said BAU.
He is correct, but in another way as he says. If modernity ends even gold may become worthless – a couple of months or years after money became worthless
So saving for retirement really is useless. The only thing would be to get a small very remote island and setup your farm. Very few people will manage this however, and also note that you need defence and more people like a doctor, create medicine srashes and so on..
Besides that saving right now really doesn’t make much sense. Spend your money while there are still products to buy…
Maybe even stop working if you saved enough for the next 10 years and enjoy your time, to traveling, keep your wealth in gold and once things collapse end your life cause it won’t get better. However note if many people do this collapse will happen earlier. We have 5-10 somewhat good years left in the best case.
Gold was there since ancient times
the offer still stands IG
Put $$$ notes, Between more $$$ notes
and eat them for lunch…
let me know how you get on
LOL! Gold coins work just as well.
definely not
they crunch on my fillings
Source of space being colonized? Whete?
You apparently don’t know of Triffens dilemma….so 😔 sad as Trump would say…
Tiffin’s Dilemma is described as follows by Investopedia:
The Paradox of Reserve Currency Issuance
By “agreeing” to have its currency used as a reserve currency, a country pins its hands behind its back. To keep the global economy chugging along, it may have to inject large amounts of currency into circulation, driving up inflation at home. The more popular the reserve currency is relative to other currencies, the higher its exchange rate and the less competitive domestic exporting industries become. This causes a trade deficit for the currency-issuing country but makes the world happy. If the reserve currency country instead decides to focus on domestic monetary policy by not issuing more currency, then the world becomes unhappy.
I might point out, too, that there is a limit to the debt that can be issued (to support the currency), before the interest on the debt starts becoming a huge problem for the country.
The holder of the reserve currency keeps shifting from country to country. It was the UK, before the US.
I like this guy’s thoughts on where we’re headed
The PR from obvious Chinese success aside – this vid tends to reveal:
From the context it seems this could be +1-2yrs old vid, and that “Eric” character is foreseeing for the ~rest of the decade yet another great re-alignment milestone in the Chinese policy ahead. Basically, another that would be corroborated with the recent/current US (“last chance”) mad dash for changes as well and likely US strategy in choking Chinese veins as it were for trade/biz – i.e. mainly naval-container and energy routes
-> not sure the Chinese winning series (for ever) is realistic forecasting path although they are trying hard evidently by evaluating top risks on the go and being flexible
-> also tends to seal my very recent musings about Europe is finished and thrown under the bus (also deliberately by US) for this overall CHN-US dynamics short term advantage, i.e. US lives now on as also-run “super power” for a bit longer.. Hence 2030s will be brutal – more naked situation then..
so yesterday i was going (in Arabia) for dinner in the passenger seat when I saw a Patriot system on the road side. My host has poor english and from his explanation I gathered that american and *russian* systems had been placed along the Red Sea to protect Israel. No prizes for guessing whether I blew a gasket.
In fact I misunderstood. There are also Chinese AD systems, and they were all bought by the kingdom, and they are on alert because in Yemen Israel and the UAE are operating as allies against Saudi’s interests. Apparently the Chinese systems came last but are being bought overwhelmingly now.
Which brings me to the answer to Ivan. China, and only China, will lead the world at the end of this. China (and Iran) have the best internal system, as the video states, but China is also big and pragmatic when it comes to foreign policy. They will for example re-design the Middle East so that current abuses of power will become impossible.
🇦🇫 🇨🇳—Dead and wounded in an explosion at a restaurant in Julfa Roshi Alley, Shahr-e-Naw district, Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Afghan media sources: The explosion occurred inside a Chinese restaurant in Shahr-e-Naw, Kabul, and primarily targeted Chinese nationals.
Random spontaneous protesters with no foreign backing i guess , like the ones in Iran .
We will have to ask mike Pompeo to confirm the info ….
>> China (and Iran) have the best internal system
I’m not sure how you conclude that Iran has a good internal system. I would say: sovereign? Yes. Well-managed? No. Pepe claims the hardcore religious folks are in charge of the economy and that they don’t know how to run it, which is one of the causes of their economic problems even apart from sanctions. This seems entirely plausible to me.
Not what I saw. There is a businessman class and they produce things. But it is hard if your two metal shaping presses are respectively from 1980 and 1984. They make cars, motorcycles and appliances. and the STEM students are pretty good. I had the chance to discuss the PhD thesis of a chemistry student, and was impressed. Same for the quality of programmers. It’s hard to blame them if they spend a lot of resources on the military.
The military and space programs have make-work jobs for a lot of STEM students who would be otherwise unemployed in the private sector. The private sector doesn’t like to do r&d., they like to apply science immediately to make products that can make them money in the short term.
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/20/us/downside-to-ending-of-cold-war-opportunities-in-science-dwindle.html
Aside from sabotaging the economies of other countries by attracting the best and brightest, STEM people are employed by Western governments to non-NATO countries from developing weapons that might challenge “the world order”.
The military-industrial complex should be called the military-higher-education-industrial complex.
You seem to know Iran rather well.
The video says that the difference between China and what we think of as the Advanced Countries is that the wealthiest people have great influence over policies in the Advanced Countries, and zero influence over policies in China.
West is trying to deconstruct the institutions of globalism that it built. [I would agree, but this is related to not enough diesel and similar fuels.]
China would like to start a new kind of globalization–one that respects differences, and doesn’t impose its views on the rest of the world. Promote interconnectivity, but respect differences. Everybody competes, not fights.
In the West, too much of benefit of globalization went to the richest people.
—
China has the largest industrial capacity in the world now. Speaker thinks government can allocate capital to new industries that have promise.
[I skipped a lot in the middle.]
Blue skies most day completely untrue. At least China is not ruled by Chews.
But the Chews make great entertainers…just ask Sammy Davis Jr.
The den of thieves has been confirmed. Closet peak oiler Brent Johnson’s latest podcast features closet peak oiler Michael Every. Apparently they’ve been friends for a few years. Early on they gave a shout-out to their mutual friend Adam Taggart.
Every, who’s “Welcome To Phase 2” article of a couple months ago I gave the benefit of the doubt as an homage to myself, no longer gets the benefit of the doubt. That’s because the recurring theme of this podcast is Every’s recent epiphany that the current American political and geoeconomic restructuring should be understood as “reverse perestroika.” So given that I have been referring to the transition to national socialism as Inverted Perestroika (in homage to Sheldon Wolin’s Inverted Totalitarianism) for about 5 years now, Michael Every also is officially a thieving little bitch now. Hand be trolling my ass hard. That’s fair game. Reverse perestroika: GTFOOH. Reverse is not the technically correct word, obviously. Inverted is the correct word. But he could hardly reproduce the nomenclature exactly while he steals it. It came out weird to. After introducing the concept by way of referring to Gorbachev and such, Every introduced it as simply perestroika, and then Brent interjected, “reverse perestroika.” And Every was like, yes, reverse perestroika. It had guilty written all over it. Nigga couldn’t bring himself to say reverse perestroika the first time and Brent had to nudge him into it because the Hand put it in the contract lol
These closet peak oil sellouts make me sick. They know Collapse is coming yet they live in denial of it so that they can make six figures, or more. Every goes full retard about halfway through and strays from reante’s material (big mistake) and speculates that Trump wants Greenland because Musk says that we can power civilization with solar panels in space and apparently sending up and maintaining that infrastructure is much easier to do from a polar location because of some reason or other related to axial spin. Now I’m sure that there must be some sort of physical advantage to that if he says there is but my god, Welcome to the Age of Gaslighting.
At about the 1:06hr mark, they close with a ten minute discussion on stablecoins. Brent once again provides political cover for not discovering the revolutionary importance of stablecoins (for a couple months after he had started reading my posts on them) sooner by making excuses, and then when it’s Every’s turn he does exactly the same thing. To Every’s credit, he was discussing stablecoins at just about the same time as me but had no idea of their full import. And now both of them are creaming their pants just like me. Welcome to Civilization.
https://youtu.be/re5Ys6NYQKo?si=zvVUp0rQG4uoRTpl
“perestroika” literally means restructuring. It is the term used to refer to the approach used during the late 1980s to move away from Central Planning to improve efficiency. “reverse perestroika” would seem to be a move toward more central planning.
Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to listen to this video yet.
I have listened to Brent before and I don’t think I have ever seen the closet peak oil personality in him. I think of him as an egoist who thinks everything is financial and not controlled by the constraints of physics….ie energy.
How does Brent think he will make money with stable coins? It seems like to little too late. Trumpy has taken on the whole world and the world is divesting itself of the U.S dollar. The new currency will be the Chinese Yuan….
If those are your opinions then you should have provided counterarguments to my numerous generous responses to your previous questions regarding deflation. Show some character, Nat.
Had you been able to understand my responses to you on deflation then you would see that Brent can make money for his clients on stablecoins by buying the shit out of them now, before deflation hits – because it’s the same as holding dollars before deflation. Their real value is set to skyrocket. Gold is for suckers. The dollar is for the insiders.
Reante ….jeez thanks for the trite comments…you can be a little biT$H. You must have inherited a trust fund with that attitude.
I will get you the counter arguments but I have to work for a living so it might take some time
Stable coin does not seem all that stable as it is on the same platform as everything else…..you are basically building on sand. When the dollar fails because it is becoming the U.S against the world then stable coin will fail.. but we will see.
I would agree:
“Stable coin does not seem all that stable as it is on the same platform as everything else…..you are basically building on sand.”
We don’t really know how this will turn out.
This kind of sassy talk is normal in my family like terms of endearment.. you never forget the good zingers and payback is hell. reante is like my Uncle Jim.. one of the last things he said to me was “who the hell invited you over” and then we took a tour of his backyard projects before enjoying lunch with my cousins.
The golden dome will be waves of nuclear bombs lofted up in the flight path above Greenland and exploded. It will kill incoming devices and all humans on the land below. The Greenlanders will be part of a suicide machine. Better than the Gazans who die but die slowly and painfully. Can the great Satan ever be brought down?
Perhaps. We will see.
This video discusses five Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) that are now available in Canada due to dropped tariffs, offering advanced technology, luxury, and performance at significantly lower prices compared to the American market. The video highlights how these EVs are “destroying” the Canadian car market by providing features and power often found in hypercars or ultra-luxury vehicles for the price of a standard sedan.
https://youtu.be/CQemPJmgHgw
Just a few years ago this was a pipe dream. This can be a deflationary component as in this article.
You can get summary in the options(I’m impressed more and more by AI and to think this is now default for search (who cares the wasteful energy consumed? companies don’t))
It’s interesting how we’re (USA)becoming a 3rd world country.
We’re bankrupt, big auto is bankrupt.
Every EV will save 3-4 times amount of gas.
How many ice can Canada replace initially? 5%? It has enough hydro with its small population .
Technology is a great disrupter for good or bad.
Saving gas is noble, but electricity is not in good supply in Canada, either. That is a major issue.
Canada’s electricity generation was about the same (a bit higher, actually) in 2011 and in 2024. With rising population, this means less and less electricity per capita since 2011–in fact, electricity production per capita has been probably falling longer, when rising population is factored in. I know Canada exports some electricity to the US. Where else does it think it will get the electricity from? More nuclear, like everyone else, without the uranium for nuclear?
And Canada has long distances. Building charging stations for those long distances sounds very much impossible. Electric vehicles need to be thought of as “close to home” vehicles. And ability of these vehicles to stay warm in cold weather needs to be carefully examined, too.
Well, it depends, a lot can be achieved with the existing grid capacity and partial off-peak charge in PHEVs. Say upto ~20-30mi driven daily on batteries could be realistic in NAmerican setting and relatively ~affordable vehicle fleet change / gradual upgrade. That’s displacing a lot of gasoline, not much diesel obviously..
Similarly, in countries with high-er natgas segment of the fleet, e.g. Turkey, Iran, -stans ? Should they hop on Chinese PHEVs – that would save a lot of natgas as well.. not making much econ sense today though.
Agamemnon appears to think that oil is the only energy source that is short in supply.
We don’t have enough of anything to fully replace oil. If we try to replace it with natural gas or coal that will only make natural gas and electricity more expensive.
If we want to “save” anything we have to do rationing. Substitution won’t work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFbNwRZxEGA
How Millions Of Barrels Of Crude Oil Are Extracted And Refined – From Oil Field To Gasoline (16:05
550,481 views Sep 11, 2025
“Every day, millions of barrels of crude oil are pulled from beneath the Earth and transformed into the fuels that power our modern lives. In this documentary, The Factoran takes you deep into the oil fields and refineries where raw hydrocarbons are drilled, pumped, and converted into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and countless petrochemical products. From seismic surveys and massive drilling rigs to pipelines, distillation towers, and catalytic cracking units, witness the incredible scale of engineering and chemistry that turns dark crude into the energy behind cars, planes, cities, and industries.”
At the end, they ask how they’re going to “transition” to “renewables” …
The video does pretty well in describing what goes on in drilling for oil.
At the end, it talks about the colossal rigs that allow oil to fuel our entire system. It then says:
“And the greatest question still lies ahead. How much longer will oil hold this role as the lifeblood of civilization before renewable energy takes the stage? Will humanity continue to depend on black gold, or will we step into a new, more sustainable era?”
I think that the authors are hoping that people who know anything about intermittent electricity from wind and solar will say, “No way, do they replace oil. In fact, nothing we are working on now can directly replace oil.”
I know it’s AI but this guy might be on to something
https://youtu.be/u3pemX66kX4?si=TnHNL3n7RdVskGq8
I agree. The Asian guy may be telling what is really happening. The Greenland tariff interferes with the shipping of silver bars back and forth to the UK (and the rest of the US). It used to be that silver could be shipped back and forth, to satisfy the demand for physical silver. But now, the US won’t ship silver to London, because to bring similar silver back again, there will be a need to pay a 10% or 25% tariff. This means that the London silver market runs into problems, long before the US silver market does.