|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
We are starting to see the beginnings of deglobalization: Countries are increasingly at odds with each other. There is wider disparity among political parties. Trump is making what look to many people like unreasonable demands, both within the US and around the world.
I believe that there is an underlying problem that most people are missing. A worldwide shortage of diesel and jet fuel is forcing international trade to begin moving into a new downward phase, relative to the recent share of GDP shown on Figure 1.
While international trade grew as a percentage of GDP between the 1960s and 2008, it has been basically flat since then. Now the shortages of diesel and jet fuel are forcing the international trade percentage to start falling to a lower level.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation further. One conclusion: Conflict results from the need to reorganize the world economy in a way that uses less long-distance international trade.
[1] Background: The world economy is a dissipative structure, operating under the laws of physics.
The economy behaves differently than most researchers assume because economies are dissipative structures, operating under the laws of physics. Most researchers model tiny parts of economies, and because their views are so narrow, they reach misleading or wrong conclusions.
Most structures that we see, such as books or houses, are, in a sense, dead. Dissipative structures, however, are different in that they can temporarily grow. In order to stay away from being in a dead state, they need to “dissipate” energy of the proper kinds, in adequate amounts. Examples of dissipative structures include plants and animals of all kinds, ecosystems, and hurricanes.
The human body is a dissipative structure that requires food to stay away from a dead state. Hurricanes are dissipative structures that dissipate the heat of a warm body of water.
If an ecosystem doesn’t get enough energy of the right kinds, it will adapt to accommodate the actual mix of fuels and other resources available. If an ecosystem doesn’t get enough sunlight, or enough warm temperatures, or enough water, it will gradually shift toward a different mix of plants and animals that can operate within the mix of resources available. This is similar to what happens within the human body. If a human doesn’t get enough food, their body will shrink or become thinner.
I believe that without adequate diesel and jet fuel, our economy will make a transition analogous to a human going on a diet, or analogous to an ecosystem changing when a different mix of resources is available.
Academic researchers around the world have misunderstood how the process works because they tend to work in ivory towers. They create models based on the narrow view of the economy that their academic area considers appropriate. Once they have developed a narrow model, they cling to it, even though recent insights from physics suggest that a very different model is more appropriate.
[2] Researchers in academic settings make many unwarranted simplifications in their models.
Researchers like to assume that all energy is alike. Substitution is assumed to be relatively easy and quick. Models tend to indicate that if the supply of energy is inadequate, prices will rise. With these higher prices, the economic system will keep problems away practically indefinitely.
The real world doesn’t work this way. When we eat food, we cannot simply substitute kale for all our other food consumption and expect to thrive, even though models would seem to suggest that kale is good for us. Within ecosystems, it is the mix of resources and predators that matters. If the top-level predator is killed off, the system will change. The world economy will face similar changes if today’s international transport system runs into difficulties.
[3] The fuels especially used for international transport today are diesel and jet fuel.
To be useful in international transport, fuels need to
- Be energy dense
- Be easy to store
- Match current infrastructure, unless change is many years away, and system is rebuilt
- Be inexpensive; not require a lot of capital investment in infrastructure to support
Diesel and jet fuel have long been the prime fuels used for international travel and transport. “Bunker fuel,” which tends to be heavier and more polluting, has also been used. Its use is strongly discouraged today because of pollution issues.
[4] An issue we have today is that diesel is also essential for many other uses.
Diesel is an essential fuel today for food production and local transport. Most of the agricultural equipment now in use operates using diesel fuel. Diesel-powered machines can easily navigate muddy fields. In addition, diesel also powers most of the heavy semi-trucks around the world. These trucks deliver goods of all kinds, locally, including food.
Another essential use for diesel is building and maintaining infrastructure. This would include:
- Roads
- Bridges
- Pipelines
- Commercial buildings
- Factories
- Electricity transmission lines
- Building and maintaining structures used to produce electricity, such as nuclear power plants and hydroelectric plants
The importance of diesel to the economy is difficult for most people to see because these are behind-the-scenes types of activities.
[5] It is very difficult to get the price of diesel to rise for any extended period.
If the price of diesel rises, the price of food tends to rise. This happens because diesel is heavily used in food production and transport. Needless to say, high food prices tend to be unpopular with voters. For this reason, even if the diesel supply is low, the price of the fuel doesn’t necessarily rise. If this happened, voters would be very unhappy. They would elect new politicians.
What, in fact, tends to happen is that oil prices (not just diesel and jet fuel prices) tend to bounce up and down. Figure 2 shows a chart of average annual oil prices.
Figure 2 smooths out some of the price irregularities. For example, there was a very high peak in July 2008, but the price fell to a low level by December of the same year. The peak doesn’t appear very high on this chart, but it greatly affected financial markets. See my article, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis.
[6] Diesel and jet fuel disproportionately come from oil that is quite “heavy.” Oil refineries tend to offer lower prices for heavy oil, making it unattractive to extract.
There is a price compression problem with heavy oil:
- Heavy oil tends to be difficult to ship because it doesn’t flow through pipelines well. It often needs to be heated, or diluted with a very light oil, to make transportation possible.
- To make matters worse, heavy oil quite often contains sulfur and other impurities that need to be removed, adding refining costs.
- The problem is that these higher costs cannot easily be passed on to the ultimate consumers of diesel and jet fuel. For example, food production and transport depend significantly on diesel, and sometimes even on jet fuel. Consumers of food do not like high food costs.
Because of these issues, the prices refineries are willing to pay for heavy oil tend to be lower than the prices they offer for “light, sweet” oil. For example, the current oil prices shown on OilPrice.com are $70.51 for Brent Crude (a light, sweet European crude), $65.13 for West Texas Intermediate (a sweet US crude) and $50.86 for Western Canadian Select, from Canada’s Oil Sands. Russia also has moderately heavy oil; Russia’s Urals blend is diluted to make it flow adequately. Its price is listed at $54.48.
These pricing issues make the extraction of heavy oil, especially very heavy oil, unattractive to oil companies. Basically, oil prices do not rise high enough, for long enough, to make extraction profitable. People who look at the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) of resource extraction would say that the EROEI is very low. In other words, a huge amount of energy needs to be invested to make heavy oil extraction possible. This tends to make the cost of oil extraction expensive.
Because of this price compression, and thus the low prices paid to oil producers, it is not very profitable for oil companies to extract heavy oil. This means that governments cannot charge these companies very high taxes, or they will stop producing oil completely. In addition, tax revenue collected from oil producers tends to fall too low to provide adequate government services., and it also becomes difficult to pay workers adequate wages. These issues lead to unrest in countries with heavy oil reserves, but not much other industry, such as Venezuela.
[7] A naive look at the oil data received from the various agencies does not disclose the nature of the world’s oil problem.
A chart summarizing the consumption of different types of oil, based on data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, is as shown in Figure 3. Note that the Diesel+Jet Fuel layer is the product grouping with the largest consumption. In the US, we hear a lot about Gasoline, but Diesel+Jet Fuel is the layer with the greatest fuel consumption. Diesel+Jet Fuel provides a huge quantity of services, but its usage is mostly hidden from sight.
Most published data show only the sum of the four layers in Figure 3. It seems to be rising. This amount represents a combination of quite a few types of oil. When this increasing production is considered along with the reported high oil reserves (particularly heavy oil in Canada and Venezuela), and the belief that prices will always rise if there is a shortage, most researchers cannot imagine that a problem might be occurring.
Researchers often overlook how crucial oil is to the economy. People all over the world need food, roads, and many other things that depend on oil. The number of people who can make an adequate living seems to depend upon the oil supply. It makes sense to look at oil supply per capita. The chart below uses the same amounts, divided by world population. On this basis, world oil consumption is flatter. In fact, per capita oil supply has been somewhat declining recently.
The other thing that becomes apparent from this chart is that the overall mix of products coming out of current processes (extracting and refining oil) has been getting lighter over time. This should not be surprising because the most rapidly growing oil supply since 2008 has been tight oil, extracted from shale in the United States. This tight oil tends to be quite light, adding output to the Light Group and to Gasoline, far more than to Diesel+Jet Fuel or the Heavy Group.
[8] The pattern of diesel supply growth provides insight into what is going wrong with world trade.
Diesel is about 78% of the combined grouping Diesel+Jet Fuel. The two are similar enough that refineries can slightly change the output mix between the two.
The World Trade Organization began operation in 1995. Its purpose was to encourage more world trade. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 encouraged countries to cut their own CO2 emissions. The easiest way to do this was by sending manufacturing, mining, and other industries to other countries around the world. Thus, indirectly, the Kyoto Protocol also encouraged world trade. Figure 5 shows that between 1995 and 2008, per-capita world diesel consumption was increasing. The restriction in supply that began around 2008 corresponds with the flattening of world international trade shown in Figure 1.
[9] Several issues contributed to the drop in per-capita diesel supply starting about 2008.
(a) In the period before 2008, there was relatively more oil in the Heavy Group that could be refined into Diesel + Jet Fuel (Figure 4). Notice how the Heavy Group layer gets narrower, especially between 1980 and 2008. The Heavy Group includes end uses such as lubricants, waxes, and asphalt. It also includes some heavy oil consumed in close to an unrefined state, such as bunker fuel for ships. Burning such oil is very polluting, so laws have been changed to discourage its use. Simple refining could transform oil such as bunker oil into diesel and jet fuel.
(b) A technique called hydrocracking can be used to transform long hydrocarbon molecules, such as the ones that make up asphalt, into shorter ones. The EIA in 2013 reported, Hydrocracking is an important source of diesel and jet fuel. This technique is expensive, however. It needs a high selling price of crude oil for the economics to work. If the price of oil is high enough, it makes sense to make less asphalt, and more diesel oil and jet fuel.
(c) Price differentials tend to discourage the development of heavy oil fields. As documented in Section [6], the price refineries are willing to pay for heavy oil tends to be quite a bit lower than the price of lighter oil. In the early days of extraction, medium grades of oil tended to give a range of products, from light to heavy. But peak conventional oil took place about 2005, forcing oil companies to extract both very light grades and very heavy grades, with the hope of combining the two types of output to meet the needs of society. Since 2008, the growth in light oil extraction has been spectacular, particularly in the US, with its tight oil from shale. But growth in the heavy oil supply has tended to lag.
(d) Depletion is an issue for oil supplies. As with many other resources, the oil taken first is the oil that is easiest to extract and the closest to where the end product is to be used. The oil that is left for later tends to be higher cost to extract and transport. High-cost oil is likely to produce high-cost food. High-cost food tends to upset family budgets, making voters unhappy.
(e) Political issues play a role as well. A major issue is the low profitability of heavy oil extraction because of its low sales price to refineries. With low profitability, tax revenue based on oil royalties tends to be low. Without adequate tax revenue, leaders of countries producing heavy oil for export tend to become belligerent. Examples include Venezuela, Russia, and Canada. Within the US, California produces heavy oil.
[10] The world order seems to on the verge of radical change.
We are now facing a situation in which the world economic order seems to be breaking apart, in order to form a new order that “works” better with the changing quantity of Diesel+Jet Fuel available.
We are dealing with a situation that has much in common with a game of musical chairs.
The game of musical chairs is played in rounds. At the beginning, there are as many players as chairs. In each round, one of the chairs is removed. The players walk around the circle of chairs until the music stops. When the music stops, all the players try to grab a chair to sit on. There can be small fights over who gets a chair. The person who does not get a chair is eliminated from the game.
When an economy is faced with an inadequate supply of Diesel+Jet Fuel, it needs to regroup in a different way. To do this, some existing businesses and governments must fail, so that others can take their place. In addition, supply lines need to be rearranged to use the resources that are actually available. Customs and beliefs may need to change, as well.
The way nations interact can change as well. In the years of growing international trade, (1970s to 2008), co-operation seemed to be important. Working together was relatively easy. During the tearing down stage, which seems to be starting now, the situation can be expected to be very different. We can expect assertive leaders, and lots of conflict. We are facing this strained situation today.
[11] What lies ahead?
I don’t think that any of us know for certain what will happen in the future. Nevertheless, the self-organizing world economy seems to be organizing for itself what is ahead. Or perhaps, the hand of a Higher Power is organizing what is happening.
I have only discussed the problem of inadequate Diesel+Jet Fuel, and its impact on international trade and some other parts of the economy. There are other shortages that the world economy needs to work around, that I have not touched on:
In many parts of the world, one shortage is of fresh water. This is often connected with depleted aquifers and today’s high human population.
Another shortage relates to the critical minerals required for a high-tech society. Billionaire Robert Friedland describes the issue in this video. We have plunged headlong into high tech goods of all kinds, including wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, computers, and electrification of many kinds of things without realizing that we would soon reach limits in the supply of many minerals used in making these high-tech devices.
For many of these minerals, China controls the vast majority of these critical minerals. Countries must try to start producing their own critical minerals, or remain on good enough terms with China to purchase some of the limited supplies available.
A third shortage relates to nuclear, and our plans to ramp up nuclear energy. As far as I can see, uranium extraction is currently constrained. In theory, it can be ramped up, but it takes a long chain of events to do so.
With these shortages, AI seems to be constrained in how quickly its use can be expanded. It needs to become far more energy efficient to be truly useful.
With all of these issues, it seems impossible to keep forging ahead as we have done in the recent past. We are being forced to source more of our manufactured output locally. We need to greatly reduce the transportation of goods across the Atlantic and Pacific. Using tariffs seems to be a way of trying to accomplish this change.
Strange as it may seem, some of Trump’s policies make a certain amount of sense, when viewed in the light of the issues the world is facing. I expect that a replacement leader would be just as abrasive. The new leader would likely have different strange policies, but the underlying problems are structural. The new leader would likely also face difficulties in trying to fix today’s problems.
I am afraid we will have to wait for the self-organizing economic system to find a solution for us. Perhaps innovations can bring us new ways of doing things that will eventually work around these difficulties. But, for the near term, higher levels of conflict because of resource shortages seem likely.
Trump sending US military hospital ship to Greenland to ‘take care’ of sick
Danish defense minister insists Greenland ‘receives the healthcare it needs’
“”Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote Saturday night on Truth Social. “It’s on the way!!!”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-sending-us-military-hospital-ship-greenland-take-care-sick
American standard healthcare with American costs.
Captain RFK throws you in the icy water!
What kind of God makes nature so unintentionally hostile?
https://pondinformer.com/are-sturgeon-dangerous/
Yes, nature red in tooth and claw. Maybe there is no god or gods, and the universe was just born with predetermined properties and instincts, just as humans, wolves, etc., are. We humans are just lucky that we are at the top of the food chain – most of the time!
ANDREW’S FIXER; SHE’S THE DAUGHTER OF ROBERT MAXWELL AND SHE’S MANIPULATING HIS JETSET LIFESTYLE
The Evening Standard (London)
January 22, 2001
https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/ANDREW_S-FIXER_SHE_S-THE-DAUGHTER-OF-ROBERT-MAXWELL-AND-1.pdf
EXTRACTS.
Prince Andrew has upset the Queen and ex-wife Fergie with his lad-about-the-globe activities but he’s enjoying his social life with new best friend Ghislaine Maxwell. NIGEL ROSSER reports
IT HAS become almost a weekly occurrence that Prince Andrew is shown by a tabloid newspaper inviting a West Coast “actress”, into his bedroom to tuck him in at 2am, lounging on a yacht surrounded by topless women, or slipping out of nightclubs with various companions. Previously mostly known for his modest naval career and love of golf, in the past 18 months the Prince has embarked on a new lifestyle redolent of a middle-aged swinger rediscovering his youth in the playgrounds of the Eurotrash.
His erratic behaviour has greatly upset Buckingham Palace and his ex-wife Fergie.
No saint herself in the past, Fergie has been complaining he is so busy clubbing he doesn’t even have time to babysit Princesses Beatrice, 12, and Eugenie, 10. It is said they shared their concern when the Queen visited Fergie at Wood Farm, Sandringham, over Christmas. The truth of the matter is that he is spending more time with Ghislaine Maxwell – daughter of crooked financier Robert Maxwell.
Ghislaine has introduced Andrew to her onetime partner Jeffrey Epstein, 48, an immensely powerful New York property developer and financier. Epstein has joined Andrew and Ghislaine on five of their breaks together in the past 12 months – to Mar A Largo, Phuket, Sandringham, Florida and Windsor – and has also welcomed Andrew to stay at his £30 million New York townhouse at least twice last year. His influence over Prince Andrew is also causing concern among Andrew’s friends and the Royal family.
Well, the bottom line remains, that Ghislaine was very (beyond) beautiful during her prime late 1980s’ early 2000s. The combined genetics of FR mother and SK-UKR father..
In terms of soul lets keep it at the base line as that utter social fall of her family ( father’s and brother’s demise-bankruptcy ) very likely turned her on that future unholy path..
The best video on the Supreme Court and Trump Tariffs…
Hunt: If Trump did nothing, we here in the USA would be better off
Trump LOSES CONTROL as FATAL BLOW Threatens ENTIRE TERM
MeidasTouch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7CLW6i1JjY&t=1308s
Max from @UNFTR breaks down the Supreme Court decision striking down Trump’s tariffs and the administration’s response. This edition of Macro Take also digs into a slew of catastrophic economic data releases that piled up over the week from inflation and jobs to slowing GDP and flashing red lights in the financial markets.
Blue Owl has been having major problems recently. Share prices are less than half of what they are at the peak. Is this the canary in the coal mine?
Zerohedge is saying, Private Credit Is Getting Ready to Implode
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2026-02-20/private-credit-could-be-ready-implode
According to the Financial Times, Blue Owl has permanently restricted redemptions from its retail private credit fund, Blue Owl Capital Corp II (OBDC II), reversing earlier plans to reopen quarterly withdrawals. Instead of allowing investors to redeem up to 5 per cent of net assets each quarter at stated value, the firm will now return capital through episodic distributions as it sells down assets over time.
The move follows rising withdrawal requests and comes after the fund had already been closed to redemptions since November, when Blue Owl scrapped a proposed merger that would have imposed steep mark-to-market losses on investors.
Other large participants in this sector are given in this article:
https://stockanalysis.com/article/largest-private-credit-funds/
Blue Owl is one of the 9 large firms listed.
Private credit is increasingly providing funding to the oil and gas sector. I see several articles on this issue. Search assist says:
Yes, oil and gas companies are increasingly receiving funding from private credit companies, especially as traditional banks are stepping back due to climate risk concerns. The value of private credit deals in the oil and gas sector has significantly increased in recent years, indicating a growing reliance on this type of financing.
Another article says
Blue Owl Hit With Latest Shock: Boaz Weinstein Launches BDC Tender Offer At Massive 35% Discount To NAV
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/canary-coal-mine-just-froze-here-what-really-happening-blue-owl
This isn’t about Blue Owl. Blue Owl is a symptom.
The disease is a $3.4 trillion private credit industry built on opacity, conflicts of interest, and the polite fiction that illiquid assets can offer liquid redemptions. Morningstar DBRS reports the trailing default rate has risen to 4%, up from 2.8% a year ago.
Downgrades outpacing upgrades. Outlook negative. UBS warns defaults could reach 13% if AI disrupts the software companies making up 17% of BDC loan portfolios. Payment-in-kind loans (where borrowers can’t pay cash interest and simply pile it onto the debt) have surged past 11% of BDC income. When your borrowers are paying you with IOUs, the word “income” deserves quotation marks.
And the government’s response? Open YOUR 401(k) to private credit.
PE in oil and gas . Yes ; The banks big , medium or small are not lending to O&G sector . High risk . They are now getting funding from the private lenders at 8-9 % interest . Sub prime lending . No memory of what happened in the CRE , housing and auto sector .
” Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it ” .
I am sure it must be at least 8% or 9% interest. The return these private lenders are aiming at for investors is up in the 8% range.
Does the ‘tail’ wag the ‘dog’?
“And the hopeful sign
5:15 is that uh when Netanyahu rushed off to
5:19 Washington, he didn’t get agreement from
5:22 Trump. It was an unusual asserbic
5:25 meeting and Trump said, you know, I
5:27 didn’t make any agreements with this
5:28 fellow. We’re going to go to
5:30 negotiations. I insisted that we go to
5:33 negotiations. There was no final press
5:36 conference. Netanyahu went home. “?
. . . 16:15 a French think tank fund lab shows from
16:18 79 until 2024 the groups that are
16:22 responsible for the most terrorism and
16:25 deaths of people over 80% of it are
16:30 Sunni Islamic groups that are sponsored
16:33 by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab
16:36 Emirates, the Gulf States, individuals
16:39 in those states. Iran throughout that
16:42 entire period has not been the quote
16:44 number one sponsor of terrorism at all.“?
More reasons to think that Iran is not the country to attack. It is not a major sponsor of terrorism.
This is a panel discussion on the Iran situation. The top military in the US is pushing for attack of Iran, but Trump isn’t necessarily going along with the idea.
The whole idea of attacking Iran has to do with the long-running animosity of Israel and Iran. Israel would like nothing more than to get rid of its enemy Iran. The comment at 5:25 seems to indicate that Trump is not of the same views as his top military, who would like to do nothing better than attack Iran. Trump would rather negotiate.
Great summary why Venezuela’s oil in Orinoco belt is not a reality now
“The HUGE problem with Venezuela’s oil
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. But not all oil is created equal. Most of Venezuela’s oil is thick, extra heavy crude, which is difficult, costly and immensely emissions-intensive to process. Despite this, Trump is keen to get Venezuela’s oil. But US oil companies are much less excited.”
https://youtu.be/s1WhiTummEo?si=47eVkdtZJE_RwLaD
The reason Trump is interested in this is because we desperately need diesel and jet fuel. We get little of it from US (quite light) oil production.
Physics makes the heavy oil difficult to extract, free from impurities, and export. We have already mostly exhausted the easy-to-extract medium oil, especially that in reasonable locations.
Chaos . Trump’s tariff strikes down by the Supreme Court . https://www.zerohedge.com/political/supreme-court-rules-tariffs
That’s over more than $175 billion in US tariff collections that government must pay back.
Companies have been hedging against this outcome. For some time, hedge funds have been purchasing the rights to tariff compensation from companies that paid these illegal duties. Big day for them.
What will he do now ? Bomb , bomb , bomb . GDP growth is 1.4% . Miserable . As usual he is blaming Powell and the shutdown fears .
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/q4-gdp-unexpectedly-grows-14-half-expected-pace-government-shutdown-hits-q4-growth
It’s a comedy. and these guys want to take on Iran plus. Oh, and rare earths restrictions will stay in place no matter the outcome.
Let’s also note how long it took the Supreme Court to both take up the case (6 months) and decide it (5 months) given the magnitude of the tariffs’ importance. Bush v Gore, while obviously more pressing, only took one day.
MAGA served an extremely important function and had to be allowed to run its course.
Interesting point. Part of the zig-zag approach to seeing what works. The finding came out on the same day we found out that the 2025 goods deficit hit a new record. It wasn’t working all that well. Part of the problem is that we were taxing a lot of raw materials that our manufacturers depend upon.
Yes could be. If OTOH the Hand is infallible lol, then it’s just tying up a loose end ahead of the Scare because post- scare, on the heels of the global peace accord, there will need to be an all hands on deck cooperative atmosphere again for Phase 2 commodities trading because the ship will be taking on water quickly. The Supreme Court ruling against them beforehand kinda clears the deck.
“MAGA served an extremely important function and had to be allowed to run its course. ”
Agree . That is why this decision was slated to be made in mid January and was delayed to the last week of February .
I don’t want to debate the legality or illegality of Trump’s action but I am glad it showed how weak kneed the rest of the world is . All were kowtowing to the emperor for crumbs . Only
Vladimir Putin and Xi stood their ground . Yes we can add Iran , North Korea , Yemen etc but these were not affected by the tariff policy .
Thanks ravi I didn’t pick up on the delay. I have zero interest in that irrelevant debate myself.
Russia and China ‘stood their ground’ on tarrifs for the same reason that they ‘just so happen’ to have naval assets doing military drills in Hormuz right when the Zionist forces are about to attack: Phase 1 of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda pushes the false dialectic of East vs West (while also disuniting the West), the BNS is the climax of that false dialectic, and the denouement is the peace accords and the emergence of global, multipolar, national socialist cooperative culture of relative political excellence, which is the form that we all will be able to recognize as Degrowth political theory, which is just a euphemism for putting the civilization on a sisyphean hospice protocol ie pain management. Decommissioning the NPPs, which is the Manhattan Project of Phase 2, is loosely analogous to prescribing morphine. The members of the Hand put their pants on one leg at a time just like us and none of us want NPPs popping off when the requisite blackouts come. Just like us, they know that the nuclear power industry cannot be managed during late-stage collapse, no matter how many gleaming new ones China has just built, because those are just a product of the China real estate bubble that serves the Everything Bubble that chases growth phase MPP until it no longer can, which is this very moment.
Why didn’t Trump and Bibi just wait until the the drills were over and Russia and China had left the area lol? Because it’s a set-piece designed to destroy political Zionism. Constructive Collapse and Zionism obviously don’t mix, and Zionism was merely a tool of globalization, there was no Elite attachment to it. Enlightenment is only ever attached to the truth. Even dark enlightenment values the truth over the darkness that the truths are placed in service of, because without truth there servicing it.
there is no servicing it.
Perhaps I am dense, but the only recognizable MAGA function (to me) was the killing of the sole force for change in the USA. It was a great success clearly.
there would appear to be certain forces in play to make sure the direction of the usa does NOT change—-
ie, the rule of ever-tightening authority over the masses by an acquistive elite, convinced that accumulation of unlimited wealth with isolate them from the certain collapse in the near future…
donny is merely a puppet in all this—the useful idiot, someone to ”pin the blame ”…..
read an outline of project 25—happening right on cue, it’s people like Theil you have to be aware of—you’re looking at subversion of the state itself….
it may not happen of course—impossible to be precise about the future, but your divine leader is certifiably bonkers….he reveals that in every outburst.—-i feel desperately concerned for the people who still think he has their best interests of america at heart.
What force for change was that?
certainly not Trump, but his base.
I see. Well it’s always darkest before the dawn. His legitimate base is the America First part of it that was a minority of MAGA and pretty much all of MAHA. I should say was not is. Those two factions have left him and taken a good chunk of the non- America First MAGA with them. And on top of that non-MAGAMAHA independents and now-former Democrats are crowding into the anti-imperial political space. The grand populist coalition is emerging.
The DA just requires that change comes after the crash, not before. All great things emerge from chaos not before it, or as they like to say, Order Out of Chaos. Ordo ab chao.
They are armed, so they can actually affect change. But, alas, they are also cowards..
This does look like a problem. The WSJ says:
“Stocks Rebound on Decision”
The court’s ruling fueled a rally in transportation stocks and in tariff-exposed companies.
Norm , TDS is now DTS . Deranged Trump Syndrome .🤣
There seem to be at least some other options for tariffs. From the article:
the Trump administration has several other legal avenues they can pursue. As Deutsche Bank noted last month;
For instance, the sectoral tariffs (e.g. on steel and aluminum) aren’t covered by the court ruling, whilst another option would be to use Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which permits temporary 15% tariffs for 150 days.
And Goldman:
This won’t be the end of tariffs… the administration will almost certainly roll out alternative legal frameworks. Net result is probably slightly fewer tariffs, materially more trade uncertainty, and some incremental deficit concerns. Net-net, that’s mildly supportive for equities and mildly negative for bonds… but largely priced for both.
I have spent the last 2-3 hrs looking for the best commentary on the Supreme court decision and the options open to Trump . This is the shortest and best .
https://mishtalk.com/economics/trump-slams-supreme-court-orders-new-10-percent-tariffs-how-easy-is-that/
https://mishtalk.com/economics/big-tariff-refunds-are-coming-how-much-and-how-soon/
Enjoy .
It does sound like Trump has some options for tariffs. The fact that he has already imposed a 10% tariff on everything leaves a significant piece in place, I would think.
Please note .
1 . The SC decision invalidates all earlier reciprocal and across the board tariffs which ranged from 15 % to 50 % . His tariffs on Canada and Mexico are now invalid .
2 . The new 10 % across the board tariff is applicable to all imports coming to the USA after 24th Feb . This is not an ADDITIONAL tariff . Old tariff rates are cancelled .This tariff rate is valid for 150 days or automatically expires if not passed by Congress . Understanding the 10 % tariff will NOT be now implemented on Canada and Mexico . Duty free imports will be allowed as per NAFTA .
3 . The administration is going to have to refund the extra tariffs collected under the old regime which is $ 175 billion . They are looking for legal ways to delay this but the importers are equally resolute to get the refunds .
4 . The govt has already spent the $ 175 billion it collected . It will have to issue new debt to repay this amount .
5 . The budget was made by expecting $ 500 billion in additional revenue from the tariff imposed by DJT . This is blown to hell .
Get the printers ready .
Example ; China was 33 % across the board . Cancelled . Now 10 % .
I presume Chinese EVs still won’t be sold in the US, however. Is that correct?
US still needs to refinance $9T worth of debt in 2026. No revenue for tariffs leave another large hole in revenues, which means either taxes elsewhere go up, printing commences, or money from stocks to bonds need to be transferred. The latter option requires engineering a stock market crash, which on all measures seems most likely, well, printing too. There are a lot of people making comparisons of today to 1929, 2007-2008 etc.
Copy/paste MoA .
This is disturbing.
Disturbing!
No , Chinese EV’s will not be sold in the USA . The broad tariff is under a different law but EV’s are under the anti-dumping law as applied to steel and aluminium . However they can come via Canada which just signed a bilateral deal with China to allow imports of EV’s at very low tariff rates . Chinese aluminium keeps on coming thru Mexico . More than one way to skin the cat . Further please note China is closed for the Chinese New Year till 4th March , so no reaction to the SC ruling . Wait till China reopens .
Yes. We’re here. The rats are scurrying. OFW is down to about 6 commenters. Only the hardcore addicts remain. I mean the truly prepared ones.
Gail wont give us parole, and no one will risk posting bail, thats why we stay
LOL!
Roach motel. Better than hotel California.
reante wrote:
“Yes. We’re here. The rats are scurrying. OFW is down to about 6 commenters. Only the hardcore addicts remain.”
Has Gail extended the comments beyond the usual three weeks, I wonder?
“BloombergNEF’s research shows the global benchmark levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for a four-hour battery storage project declined 27% year-on-year to $78/MWh. “?
“Levelized costs are a lie @BloombergNEF
They price the hardware, not the electricity system you actually rely on. Like calling a house “cheap” while ignoring taxes, maintenance, and utility bills. That’s not analysis—it’s deception. “?
https://x.com/aeberman12/status/2024679112149803307?s=20
I would agree. Putting intermittent renewables on this basis in a comparison with dispatch-able electricity is a lie.
But it is similar to the lie that EROEI calculations use. The front-ended nature of renewables investments, and their batteries, creates the need for a whole lot of debt and interest on this debt. (Nuclear does this also.) But this is not included in the calculation, either. It is a simple-minded calculation that is nonsense.
The ‘big vision’ for the grid around here is to centrally manage a network of domestic solar battery systems i.e. micro-grids. They’ve already implemented the standards in much of Australia to make sure that all new systems conform technically.
Not saying it’s going to work, but it has a reasonable chance of at least mitigating the decline in centralised generation.
Anyway, I bought my home battery system to insulate against grid failures in this remote part of NSW and then they went and upgraded the grid, so it hardly fails now. However, the price of electricity has gone way up, so the payback period has dropped. Should have waited longer for the technology to go down the price/performance curve.
My electricity retailer bungs me a few $$ every so often for participating in energy saving events that the battery makes possible.
In Australia the insolation is different ( better – way more sun hrs throughout the year ) vs. northern areas incl. several weeks of winter ~total darkness ( especially this year ). So, the drop in PV and batt pricing makes lot of sense for you.. it works !
Btw. do you have it also as in 3-phase setup for pumping and various shop-tools or only single phase ( you mentioned a bit older sys ) ?
PS with the craziness going up north, premature closure of legacy grid backbone ( coal power plants , NPPs, .. ) it’s possible higher electricity prices could push some people into grid tied island PV setups as well even if they had to incl. special ( addon ) backup power source for the winter lull ( e.g. natgas genset, ..) .
Some approach is needed to provide electricity for the winter lull. Otherwise, those on the local grid need to keep bottled gas for cooking/heating, or diesel fuel. In fact, such approaches may be needed year around, if electricity provided is limited.
A large share of electricity cost is overhead cost. With the local grid with battery system, part of the overhead cost is being transferred to the homeowner. To the extent that the NSW grid electricity provider has upgraded its grid, that has added more overhead cost to the grid electricity provider. Someone has to pay for all of the overhead.
I am guessing that quite a bit of the additional investment (both homeowners and utility) is financed by debt. The cost depends heavily on interest rate. The interest paid is going likely disproportionately going to the already rich, adding to the overall cost of the system. All of this system will need to be kept repaired, adding costs that may not be adequately considered. There is a default risk if others on the local grid if neighbors cannot keep up their share of the cost.
Human brain has got a limited capacity. It is directly connected with sensors we call senses.
What we see on the screen are just tiny dots which create pictures – a visual representation. Or we decipher some sound waves from speakers.
We always percieve just a part of the picture, depending on our failing senses and brain capacity deterorating with age.
The true reality is the place around you. Not the impulses from the devices. Or the visual representations in the books.
That way you can see how nature revives itsels in spring based on the energy from the Sun. How plants, which are crucial for your life, awake. Although the surrounding world created by humans using energy in the past is now falling apart.
Here, on the Northern Hemisphere, I am pruning the fruit vines, bushes and trees now, redirecting their restarting energy flows from wood to fruit.
Good for you!
I *envy anybody (~northern) with the fine spot for grapevine.
Do you have it positioned in “sun trap” near the wall etc. or even on regular vineyard track in the ~open field?
I had to stick with more dependable (cold hardy) stuff like currants, gooseberry, seaberries, various spec nuts etc.
—
* just gorging now on three store bought variants (green, reddish, dark black) all rather large sized (unusual luck), delicious, uhm
I grow some cold hardy disease-resistant hybrid grapes of Russian, Ukrainian and US origin. Recently, I started to concentrate on varieties which contain genes of American grapes (like vitis riparia and vitis labrusca), that provide extra cold hardiness, i. e. these varieties combine genes of European, American and Siberian grapes, like this one: http://revavinna.cz/jutal/.
I grow them on various spots on my plot, because there are late spring frosts in my area, so when some of them are damaged, some still provide crops. It depends on air flow during the given spring frosty night in April or May.
Recently, I concentrated on blackberries, as another redundant and resilient option. I freeze them. E.g. they are tasty in hot water as a tea now.
I also planted some more hazelnuts in the autumn.
As regards the vegetables, I spent a whole week in January searching for the new vegetable varieties that are resistant to new diseases, molds etc., as this is a huge problem. Zucchini yellow mosaic virus was a new problem which I encountered in my garden last year.
Thanks for the update, I was aware some extra hardy cultivars of vine should be out there, but was not sure if that’s worth the effort for ~y/y dependable harvest.
We are seeing some daffodils bloom and some flowering fruit trees blooming in the Atlanta area. But the temperature will be well below freezing in four to five days, so these early blooming trees will find their blossoms killed.
There will be more daffodils and flowering trees in the weeks ahead. Tulips usually don’t do well here because there are not enough “winter chill hours” for them.
This year, snowdrops were hit by a deeper freezing during the last days. The weather is still ocassionally too cold when the wind blows, so I intermittently visit the garden and prune partially, step-by-step, firstly removing the bigger and damaged pieces, upright shoots on apple trees and entangled long pieces of grapevine shoots, old blackberry shoots.
This year I bought hybrid chestnut and American hazelnut to grow on the south and west facing 5 acre field edges to coincide with the expected Beech tree die-off in 3-5 years.. to replace whitetail deer and turkey mast. I’ll also be broadcast seeding clover into the edges of the food plot areas. I’m getting ready to prune wild apples and try my hand at grafting them onto crabapples.
Next year, I’m planting American Plum and Persimmon and Saskatoon Serviceberry for foraging and wildlife at the cabin in the areas where existing varieties are proven as well as grafting edible, disease resistant apple scions onto the wild trees. The suggestion is to plant Plum along the chilly, north-facing field hedge row to suppress flowering until after the last frost.
I noticed that the best producing wild apple trees are on the north facing side of the fields. There is a roughly 2 acre stand of old crab and standard apple between the south-facing field and the more mature forest that was shaded by White Ash trees which are now dying off. The idea is to clear some of the less desirable and dead trees there and to expand the wildlife orchard for wild apple, pear and persimmon.
The northern side of hedge for plum planting ( as in early flowering suppression ) seems as interesting trick to ponder, thanks. Should we plunge into cold yrs/decades/.. scenario again !
The recent hot years made plums relatively dependable crop, although one must take serious precaution for the (re-)hatching of worm-parasites in the ground!
That is to be made in small holdings setup by FREQ.action! as in daily collecting the fallen over ripen / spoiled fruit and mech. destruction of the worms inside ( say ground stomping or better yet bottom barrel and diy press tool) before composting or discarding. Otherwise they stay under ground and fly out in ~2-3yrs or something.
And or in ~larger setup you just send a smallish flock of sheep to go through it.. ( I used to have arrangement with local guy with tiny herd – but he is no longer ).. he just towed them on small trailer behind midsized car.
Around Euroasia the recent yrs were plum bonanza, hence prices dropped so almost for free ( pickled jar ) in supermarkets up to now.
Plums are / were one of the core crops for many peoplez throughout centuries, basically us ~northerners ate / preserve it in various forms for the winter; while the more ~southerns even down to Balkans use it chiefly for distillates hah.
Former Prince Andrew looks terrified as he leaves jail in first photos since arrest
https://pagesix.com/2026/02/19/royal-family/former-prince-andrew-looks-terrified-as-he-leaves-jail-hours-after-arrest/
They MK/Ultra him quick.
Meanwhile, Miles Mathis is having some fun at Noam Chomsky’s expense.
In a seminal and now prescient paper from 2015 I outed Chomsky as an Intel asset, and more than a decade later the mainstream is finally catching up to me, admitting I was right and using many of my talking points. Almost no one believed me then, but things are changing. Many of my readers believed me—that is why they are my readers—but none of my local friends or acquaintances did. I was in Taos at the time, very liberal and blue, and people just couldn’t process what I was telling them about Chomsky or anything else, since it didn’t fit what they had grown up on. Chomsky had fooled most people up to about 2001, but his reaction to 9/11 was so strange it started his long decline to where he is now: with a legacy blowing up in his face just as he prepares to leave this Earth.
Even now, it is hard for me to process that photo above, where an aged Chomsky is chatting with Epstein on the Lolita Express. Why were they photographing this, you have to wonder? Was it a hidden camera? Doesn’t look like a paste.
Back in 1982 I never thought to see such a thing. At that time Chomsky was a sparkly intellectual hero of the liberal arts schools, even in places like the University of Texas, where I was. As I have admitted before, I wrote him in for President in my first election, not being able to come up with anyone else.
What can I say except I was 21 and very naive. About a decade later I saw him speak at UMASS, and though he was the worst speaker imaginable—being the definition of limp, spiritless and monotone—I still didn’t see through him. He said mostly the right things, steering his audience, and I still hadn’t punctured my own bubble of gullibility.
Try as I may, I can’t conjure up any reason Chomsky would be hanging out with Epstein, other than that he is another sexual deviant of some sort. Are we supposed to think they were discussing generative grammar or western imperialism? That Noam was off to the islands for a snorkel and tan? Can you picture him in swim trunks? I can barely picture him out of a chair…..
https://mileswmathis.com/chom4.pdf
I once attended a Chomsky talk event at a university in Kyoto. I recall it was in 1997 and old Noam was fairly crusty and granpa-ish even then. I tagged along because an Australian girl I was friendly with was a big fan of his. He gave an excellent performance of his well-known academic windbag know-it-all character who can answer questions on any subject definitively and dismiss any dissenting opinion as ignorance or ideological blindness. Although as far as I remember, nobody in the audience—consisting mostly students and faculty staff—was brave enough to offer any dissenting opinions. They merely asked questions for the great man to answer as if he was a rock star, which in a way he was to them, although I don’t recall anyone actually swooning.
A lot of well-known individuals got caught up in the Epstein empire. Noam Chomsky was only one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
Individuals on both the Left and Right will need to readjust who they think are important. Bill Gates is clearly caught up in this, as was Elon Musk. Even Pope John Paul II seems to be named.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/see-full-list-of-300-high-profile-names-in-the-jeffrey-epstein-files-released-by-the-doj/ar-AA1WpM9B
While I don’t question that Noam was an early media asset consolidating an intergenerational, manufactured dissent by dileaneating an Elite, intergenerational Manufactured Consent — that would after all, be putting truth in service of the eventual need to topple the duopoly at the civilizational Limits to Growth — it doesn’t necessarily follow that Noam was eating babies and the like, just because he went to the island. It’s not like the only thing that ever happened at the island was Monster Madness as the Hand would have us now believe, like it was Nymphos and Satyrs 24/7. That’s not reality -based. As if party people going on drug fueled benders don’t have down days and weeks in order to recharge their fetishes. Obviously there were days when the blood on the floor had been licked clean and Lutnick’s children frolicked safely in the sea unmolested by the lapping waves, while Noam and Jeffrey had an intellectual conversation under umbrellas.
Why are petro-dollar prices on a roll, latelry? http://oil-price.net/
WTI & Brent are both up for the last month, & last quarter.
If they keep going up, don’t they tend to reach affordability limits, & bust the economy?
Prices started rising at the peak of the Iranian protests, and continued to rise with the growing specter of the BNS. If you look at the 5 year chart prices have been steadily declining such that this latest rise looks like a minor technical breakout.
Please spell out BNS.
Big Nuclear Scare
Some argue the attack on Iran is still at minimum 4-5weeks away because of ~tech. issues scheduled ahead, be it planned US/EU official’s visits to ME, holidayz in ME, additional allied hw in the theater not there yet, etc. The assorted US air force in the theater is strong (fighter jets and air tankers), but given the amount of Iran’s AA nothing spectacular should it be ongoing effort for weeks in high tempo..
On the BNS genre itself, the US and others have plethora of other ammunition (and other means) before invoking the BNS realm. Chiefly, bunker busting ammo, yes expensive and fewer copies avail. , .. , direct human action on the ground (well that was largely nixed through the Iran street demos lately) but still some inner splinter cells able to say damage comm cable here and there, .. , perhaps also some direct energy weaponry for “cooking” adversarial critical nod ~IT gear etc..
My humble stats for next ~half year:
1/ no serious war against Iran (75% prob)
2/ if hard air-bombing campaign starts -> significant western losses (55% prob)
3/ if (2) to be spooled up more – another theater diversion around the globe (65% prob)
..
.
Hm, or perhaps NOT as extra add. 5x air re-fuelers just left the US.. But at least this completely seals the sub-scenario of primarily selected mode: air campaign.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/fuel-tankers-iran-attack/
Now at 87x and counting, 149x in 2003 before Iraq.
From the link:
Military experts say the U.S. asset mobilization in the Middle East theater is now resembling a real staging for war, with the prevailing chatter more about “when” than “if” an attack will happen.
One of the data points catching the eye of these experts is the number of air tankers — military aircraft used to refuel combat fighters in midair — that are in or headed to the region. Open source intelligence analysts say there are at least 108 such tankers either in CENTCOM theater as of Friday (31) or in strategic locations outside that command or staging in Europe. Most are KC-135 Stratotankers, made by Boeing. (Editor’s note: This information has been updated).
In the state of Georgia where I live, quite a lot of young men enter the military. Once a government has a large standing army, there is a great temptation to use it.
Cool Jr and nice writing. It’s the biggest set-piece of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda so it wouldn’t surprise me if it took another month although it already feels to me like a bit of a scramble out of necessity for covering for the mounting financial stress.
If a hard bombing campaign starts I’d put big Western losses at 100%.
As for the Nuclear in Big Nuclear Scare I’m not wedded to a nuclear bomb deployment but I am wedded to at least one NPP failing directly as a result and maybe another one or two as an indirect result. The NPPs are the real inspiration for the Big Nuclear Scare nomenclature. That said, I think a nuclear bomb by one or more parties is probable. I’d put Israel at the top of that list for deployment, then the US, then Pakistan, with the dark horse being Iran. Great Gainsbourg music btw.
Yes, I guess WSJ just ran an article, “their gov sources” claiming:
1. Very short and secondary/tertiary value target air campaign about NOWish (under ~10dayz)
2. [Pause] and demanding direct negotiations
3. Only THEN the full aerial campaign incl. top key sites commences
Yes, thanks for clarifying your BNS/NPP angle.
ps Gainsbourg music – I purposefully linked that oldest low quality clip because of the great editing – match; as you already know higherQ of that very song or others are available on YT and elsewhere..
I just read on zeoh that Vp has a started mp with chn and that they are sp!!!! This is going to be cray cray wshtf and the dhp falls to epic proportions. Sorry for all those abbreviations my thmbs don’t work
Well, you are onto something after-all. This particular nbook of mine is posh one of the very last gen chassis done in [Mg alloy] bought refurb – as not a mio kid..
So, it’s true some of the keys need ocass. double tab for proper fnc.
I do apologize for that.
That plan in the WSJ lol, if true and not the running of interference. That’s like going into a fight telling your opponent that you’re only going to throw jabs in the first round, and then telling him he has the option to retire from the fight after the round ends. Catastrophic hubris, the history books will say.
It’s heavy Handed stuff, but tried and true, and that’s the important thing. Trump not as Caligula but as King Lear.
I didn’t know that song I only know “Je t’aime” with Jane Birkin by way of their daughter’s controversial song with him, “Lemon Incest,” which itself was by way of her starring in a Lars von Trier trilogy.
In the online WSJ today, there is a major story about the military buildup in the Middle East, with a map of which ships and other equipment are where.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-middle-east-us-military-7400d800
The U.S. Military Hardware Pouring Into the Middle East
A look at the warships, fighters and missiles massing at Iran’s doorstep
Uh, so CHN either feels scared – not ready, or fully saturated for now with those recent RU longer term oil deals and pipelines, or is betting-knows US is bluffing; and or further elaborating on first point, has something way better hidden under their sleeve ( aka fusion or similar step-up within next few decades )..
–
Iran’s President Pezeshkian: “China wanted to finance many things. That is not happening.”
China pulled back on Iran?
What’s happening?
–
via Lord B.
Dude…. What’s up with all the abbreviations????
WTF!
I tend to agree.
Let’s focus on the key message, which is shocking!
–
The abbreviations are necessary-demanded as within the approved conduct chapter of the mandate from the BETAHuH ( board of extra-terrestrial advocacy helpers unite to human-oids ).
It’s not just the abbreviations. It’s the syntax, the jumping about all over the place. And I don’t think it’s because English is not your first language. I’ve been asked numerous times to make my writing more accessible and I’ve made periodic efforts to address that, and welcome any further criticisms regarding that, because I want to maximize the potential for engagement.
A call for more clarity in writings – that can be generally agreed upon, yet the very article under criticism ( Iran in this thread above ) was paradoxically written more clearly than others.. Hence we could have filled this Nathan’s piece under [ frivolous criticism ].
Nat you got a threeche for that touche?
You could try Deep L Write, which makes suggestions for changing, although not necessarily improving, prose, in a range of styles.
Simple:
It’s not just the shortened words. It’s the way it’s written, with sentences that don’t flow well. I don’t think it’s because English is not your first language. I’ve been asked many times to make my writing easier to understand, and I’ve tried to do that. I welcome any more feedback on this because I want to make my writing as engaging as possible.
Business:
The issue extends beyond the use of abbreviations. The issue lies in the syntax, which is disorganized and lacks coherence. I believe this is not due to English not being your first language. I have received numerous requests to make my writing more accessible, and I have made several attempts to address this issue. I welcome any further feedback on this matter, as I am committed to maximizing engagement.
Academic:
The issue at hand extends beyond the mere presence of abbreviations. The issue lies in the syntax, which is characterized by a lack of coherence and cohesion. It is hypothesized that the reason for the phenomenon under investigation is not related to the fact that English is not the speaker’s primary language. I have been asked on numerous occasions to make my writing more accessible, and I have made periodic efforts to address this issue. I welcome any further criticism regarding this matter, as I am interested in maximizing the potential for engagement.
Casual:
It’s not just the abbreviations. It’s the way it’s all over the place, the way it jumps around. I don’t think it’s because English isn’t your first language. I’ve been asked a lot of times to make my writing more accessible, and I’ve tried to do that on and off. I welcome any more feedback on this because I want to make my writing as engaging as possible.
Enthusiastic:
It’s not just the abbreviations. It’s the syntax, the way it jumps all over the place. I’m thrilled to say that your English is not your first language, and that’s not the issue! I’ve been asked numerous times to make my writing more accessible, and I’ve made periodic efforts to address that. I welcome any further criticisms regarding that, because I want to maximize the potential for engagement.
Friendly:
It’s not just the abbreviations. It’s the way it’s all over the place, you know? And I don’t think it’s because English isn’t your first language. I’ve been asked a lot of times to make my writing more accessible, and I’ve been working on it. I’d love to hear any more ideas you have on how I can do that better because I really want to make it so that as many people as possible can engage with my work.
Confident:
It’s not just the abbreviations. The issue is clearly the syntax and the disorganized way the ideas are presented. English is not your first language, and that has nothing to do with it. I’ve been asked repeatedly to make my writing more accessible, and I’ve made periodic efforts to address that. I welcome any further criticism regarding that, because I’m committed to maximizing the potential for engagement.
Diplomatic:
It seems that there may be more to this issue than just the abbreviations. If I may offer a humble suggestion, it would be to consider the syntax and the tendency to move around quite a bit. I respectfully submit that the reason for the discrepancy in our results is not necessarily due to the fact that English is not your first language. I’ve been asked on several occasions to make my writing more accessible, and I’ve made periodic efforts to address that. I’m open to any further feedback on the matter, as I’m eager to maximize the potential for engagement.
AI is awesome! It’s awful! It’s terrific! It’s terrible! And above all, it’s ubiquitous. As a professional writer, I feel a bit like those heavy horses after the tractors took over.
“Let’s focus on the key message, which is shocking”
What message?
You’ve “quoted” some words, possibly out of context(not you personally), with no link, so basically no more than “some bloke on the internet said”.
If there is a shocking message(the “quoted” words certainly are not), please elaborate.
Yes, perhaps a bit confusing.
It was sort of a quote within a quote..
Basically, msm story, transcript of Iranian official who complains that despite CHN’s talk about various joint-projects, nothing has been materializing in their recent round of biz exchange, none pre-financed as of lately, etc.
So we had a debate as to whether this could be really sign of change in policy towards Iran or ‘merely’ some tactical pause because of the looming US mil. intervention any moment and so on.
Msm, unnamed Iranian official(who talked to them and where?), China feels scared(of what and why?) and a story that suits who?
I’m either missing something(quick look finds no mention in Iranian media), or it’s blatantly obvious BS(unnamed 3rd option).
Do you have a link to the msm article?
Despite my cynicism, there may be something to take from it.
Whether or not it be the case in this instance, it’s only natural that when the Hand finally has to pull the plug on Extend and Pretend in favor of the Big Nuclear Scare, State-level commitments get canceled without adequate explanation. Central bank and billionaire demand piling into gold and commodities and T-bills comes at a cost to long-term projects that no longer have a future.
Foolish Fitz> you had it all on the plate, the topic the people.. , various msm and commenters afterwards..
e.g. here:
—
Interesting that Iran’s president is calling out China this openly. Both Tehran and Beijing signed a comprehensive strategic deal in 2021 which was underpinned by $400 billion potential investments over 25 years. Not much has moved since.
·
Feb 18
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian:
China is supposed to provide a lot of financing now. Well, it’s not happening.
It’s not as simple as you say, “Let whoever wants to finance go ahead and do it.”
—
Or here different take, refinement – refutation:
( as the ~delay in CHN-Iran funding is more or less normal as they are still early in the pre-negotiation phase )
https://x.com/Compute_King/status/2024489720194224471
Thanks Jr. Missed it completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1p4oLiueE
U.S. to slaughter Iranians in next two weeks.
Trump will TACO. White House twitter:
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2024497157068194100
The White House
@WhiteHouse
There is nothing more important than PEACE.
I would agree. This isn’t really going to happen. Iran is too close to the Strait of Hormuz, for one thing.
except that donnie is daft enough to believe that if hormuz is closed American oil will double or treble in value…
Well, the issue is that if that happens they will “immediately” trade such derivatives in these energy sectors, and pocket the surplus of that spike mania..
Should the Amer-oilz in next weeks, months, yrs, flatten in price-value again – NOT their perceived problem anymore. As they are now godzillionair$..
More important it denies oil to China.
no ed
the oilworld collapses
The oil futures pump and dump boyz are licking their chops right now.
“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”
Fixed that for the White House, and for you.
I doubt the president is the one in charge.
Nope, not this time either …
Alex says that the US seems to be looking into the possibility of a major (weeks-long) attack on Iran. This is intended to take out the government of Iran and collapse Iran.
In 1953, the UK and USA overthrew Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s elected government and installed the Shah as ruler of Iran.
Plus ca change.
This is a sad situation.
Surprise no one talks about the metal Nickel….those are next on the chopping block to be ending in our change here in the USA….already passed and not implemented with the cent… Costs 15 cents to strike each…a critical metal in many industrial applications
This reported by Panopticon over at his blog C&E today
“Tragic Landslide Halts Nickel Operations in Sulawesi.
“A landslide at PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park in Sulawesi led to one worker’s death and halted operations in a nickel processing hub. The incident occurred in a tailings area managed by PT QMB.”
https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/science-environment/3810192-tragic-landslide-halts-nickel-operations-in-sulawesi
Nickel is a vital strategic metal for the 2026 industrial landscape, essential for both stainless steel production and the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) battery sector. Due to its critical role in energy transition, defense applications, and high-performance alloys, governments and industries are securing supply chains, with demand expected to rise sharply as EV adoption grows
Indonesia: Largest producer and reserve holder (~22.4%).
Australia & Philippines: Major suppliers.
North America: Active development of domestic supplies (e.g., Eagle Mine, Crawford project) to secure regional battery material supply chains
Good to stack doomers
This link indicates that the leading nickel-producing countries are Indonesia, Philippines, and Russia, in that order. Indonesia produces over half of the world’s supply.
I found this USGS list of critical minerals for the United States. Nickel is on the list, as is uranium.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/USGS-2025-List-of-Critical-Minerals.png
An article on the shortfall of uranium supply, particularly in the West.
https://www.zerohedge.com/the-market-ear/no-substitute-uranium-center-ai-power-shock
Uranium sits at the crossroads of two defining mega-themes shaping the global economy: decarbonization and baseload energy security. No other commodity meets this dual mandate with the same degree of inelasticity, there is simply no substitute for uranium in nuclear generation.
AI’s surging electricity demand has emerged as a key incremental driver, and nuclear’s reliable, round-the-clock generation profile makes it uniquely suited to power large-scale compute expansion. Uranium’s reinstatement to the USGS 2025 Critical Minerals list further highlights its strategic importance to national security, even as supply chain risks remain elevated.
Another source suggests that uranium prices will rise because industry people are aware that nuclear power plants are again desired, but uranium supply is not there. So more buyers are willing to place long term contracts for uranium, holding up prices.
As I see the problem, there is still an enrichment problem once it is mined, here in the West. I am doubtful the whole system can be ramped up in a reasonable time.
Thanks again to Surplus people hint, there is apparently new update from Ugo Bardi.. It seems ~2030-35 is the ~new threshold boundary..
According to Dr. Tim it does rhyme broadly with his own metrics (<2035).
—
A New Calculation of Global Trends. Are we Close to Collapse?
An update of the Limits to Growth model.
Ugo Bardi Feb 19, 2026
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/a-new-calculation-of-global-trends?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff2b8e7ad-b156-4995-8117-38e56a2ec066_372x382.png&open=false
—
oops meant rather the fig12 ( 5-yrs detailed grid graph-pic) link..
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!sRdL!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F119449c3-06f6-4fd0-afb1-03e3cc48839b_377x385.png
I noticed this article, too. It links to the update article that uses more detail than previous Limits to Growth studies have used. It also uses Hubbert Linearization.
While I appreciate Bardi’s efforts, it’s still just a mechanical systems theory like pretty much every other peak oil blogger’s mechanical systems theory. The anti-conspiracy theory dinosaurs of the peak oil community have a monopoly over the discourse because the peak oil community is made up of the same normie cross-section of souls as any other subculture and, so, commentariats largely latch onto the structural power of the dinosaur blogger.
Mechanical systems analysis is no more a systems analysis of the Limits to Growth than is a clockwork universe a reflection of reality. What is necessary is a metasystems analysis. That is the final participation in peak oil theory. The study of the Metasystem, with the Metasystem being the engineering of a system of systems. A smart system. The systematic (human) engineering of Bardi’s, and the Headmaster’s, and Hagens’, JMG’s, and the honest sorcerer’s, and panopticon’s, and quark’s, and Hideaway’s, mechanical systems analysis. But not Gail.
How about we maybe incorporate the right side of our brains a little more deeply huh?
When we don’t do that we trust the machinery of the dead systems analysis to conclude the 2030-2035 timeframe for us when in reality the timeframe is the BNS that is just about to kick off and make the plandemic look like child’s play. Let’s not be functionally autistic such that we end up unwittingly mimicking, in capture bondage, the last resort of State disinfo which is screwing about with the timeline.
The plandemic made clear that a proactive, highly capable DA exists. Once a next-level metasystems theory of collapse is seen and accepted, a second proactive, engineered global event to destroy massive demand is simply the second step in stair-step collapse (staircases are built structures), and the mechanics of the systems analysis within that metasystems theory dictates that the second step has to be much bigger than the first due to inertia, because of the downward momentum created by the first.
The timeline is not 2030-2035. It’s just about to kick off right now. The square intransigence of all the elite dinosaurs that rule this sclerotic community with their media pulpits is not helpful. They’re casting a spell over you just like the Hand casts spells.
I agree. Once I saw the nature of this latest analysis, I said to myself, “This doesn’t tell me a whole lot more than I knew before.” It doesn’t incorporate the overall nature of the system.
reante> I hear you, for one thing that’s also why stressed that fig12 pic graph which visually-nicely plays around with 3x scenarios +/- few years and estimates of burnable resources to it.. The <2030-35 (limit!) is flux boundary only. Each of us looking back, suddenly even decades make little difference after-while .. so it's only ~3yrs remaining into that ~boundary..
Have you looked at Dr. Tim's, he seems to favor quicker boundary (we are past it NOW) and this Bardi stuff also only as the upper theoretical limit if enough obfuscation litters the landscape meanwhile..
The actual author Berndt Warm (piggybacking on Bardi) also questions lot of the mechanistic assumption in previous modelling – it's worth read, especially the dire predictions for Germany – hence their current mad dash for large scale re-armament gov programme as their core industries otherwise likely collapse in that ~2030s boundary anyway ( no resources and no / way less clients-customers )..
PS YES, my bad, should have ALSO included the ~immediate BNS scenario in that list why China suddenly curiously stopped funding energy projects in Iran, ..
One of the KEY issues with BNS is that it simply DOESN't work that swell as just in the direct aftermath time window of the WWII (most funding and deployment), as then when you just looked out or walk out in your local streets say in parts of London or Dresden, and seen formerly nice sections of city laying in rubble from air raids.. Most contemporary people DON'T have the reference as of now – so personal sheer indifference to all BNS – hence my skepticism it will be used right now, perhaps in further steps..
Had difficulty fully comprehendung your last paragraph which is the most salient paragraph. So I can only say that I don’t see what contemporary people’s indifference to a catastrophic civilizational war has to with war’s usage. If such war is necessary to Elites in order to radically structure (WW2) or restructure (BNS) energy flows, then war it is.
My understanding to your BNS concept so far, also included the part where it is used for some time as mere scare tactics onto gullible public and perhaps some gov structures alike. And that was the chief aim of my criticism, as today’s pop (80yrs after WWII) is filled up with completely different memes, thanks to msm pulp culture, various biz/social propaganda etc. So, in practical terms UNLESS it happens first at some demonstrable – verifiable “test case” – the public continues to snooze it over as non event.. among other ordinary racing event-developments around the world..
But now you seem to positioned it differently in the light that it doesn’t matter, BNS = WAR immediately, so the general pop will have to react / adjust to it anyway.. Which is a social-political forcing in another league itself then the previous case of salami method of scaring the public first along the way towards further crisis.
Oh yeah no I call it a scare just because it’s a carefully orchestrated, engineered war designed to scare the heck out of everyone in order to facilitate the Phase 2 denuclearization of the civilization. I expect many more people to die from it than WW2, although that’s a complex statement because really they’re going to be dying from the financial collapse that it ’causes’ and is cover for. Like I said the other day it’s gonna be so frightening that most people reading this won’t believe it’s just a scare until it miraculously ends with the emergence of a new global savior figure.
Over 1,000 Kenyans enlisted to fight in Russia-Ukraine war, report says
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce8w266769go
Kenya is another poor country without enough jobs that pay well for its population. If they cannot emigrate to another country, perhaps they can get jobs as soldiers.
Not a big surprise. Part of the musical chairs problem.
Countries are going their own ways on energy policy:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/IEA-Chief-Warns-Fracturing-Global-Order-Is-Splintering-Energy-Policy.html
A fracturing in the “global order” is threatening the harmony in energy policies, the head of the International Energy Agency has warned.
“We see a fracturing in the global political order in general, and there are, of course, reflections of that on the energy scene. Different countries are choosing different paths in terms of energy and climate change,” Birol told the Financial Times in an interview.
The warning follows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s removal of the so-called endangerment finding, which served as the basis for climate change-focused policies passed in significant numbers during the Biden administration. The finding stipulated that carbon dioxide, methane, and four other gases were harmful to people’s health and well-being.
TSHTF . Who is next ?
https://samoaglobalnews.com/former-uk-prince-andrews-arrested-following-epstein-files-revelations/
I do not understand why and why now. Granted the royal family are just expendable puppets like most western political leaders, but what is the point?
He will talk. News will care. He will name certain people. It’ll be quite the hullabaloo.
why would the elite want one of their own to talk?
Andrew will be portrayed in newscycle as a probable rat who will squeal. He will be selectively reveal names while elites queue up for protection. Elites allow slow drip to keep storyline interesting enough to preclude coverage anything else.
Basically musical chairs for the elites. the royal family, and early computer geeks like Gates are out. Fauci might be also looked at as a good guy to sacrifice. They are all ripe for sacrifices, I admit.
Mandelson, Blair and Brown? Disgusting people.
Former Prince Andrew arrested following Epstein files revelations
“Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on Thursday, after weeks of scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/former-prince-andrew-arrested-epstein-files-revelations-rcna259691
In some sense, the Epstein organization seemed to be working in the direction of doing even more than the World Economic Forum to control how the world economy would operate.
The world economy is pulling apart now, however. There is revolt against this kind of organization trying to lead the world economy in strange directions. To make matters worse, the morals of these people seem very strange.
The feeling is that people involved in this network need to be punished. I don’t know who will be next.
The purpose of the global economic system, is to render the world itself into a cash asset that can be infiinitely traded as a profitable enterprise..
Unfortunately this requires infinite resources with which to trade.
which is of course utter nonsense….
but we are assured that it isnt nonsense, that profits are forever—hence the maga delusion…
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te was accidentally splashed with vomit while handing out Lunar New Year red envelopes at a temple.
The temple chairman suddenly felt unwell and vomited during a speech.
https://x.com/clashreport/status/2024170153252913636
Year of the horse?
White horse..
LOL
https://wisdomofthespirit.com/spiritual-meanings-of-the-white-horse/
There seem to be many meanings of a white horse. One of them is “a period of transition and change.” This link also says, “Seeing a white horse could mean a divine message is coming your way, guiding you toward your purpose.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDueBgKVJD8&list=RDPDueBgKVJD8&start_radio=1
Well there is one and only (White) La Horse,
ft Gabin, musix Gainsbourg
Tim
They are putting em down like German Shepard’s
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15567343/canada-assisted-suicide-laws-diabetic-dead-family.html
Unfortunate problem: Canada cannot afford to support all of the seriously disabled people living there. This fellow was blind, besides being diabetic, and suffering from “seasonal Depression.
Distraught family blasts Canada for euthanizing son, 26, who suffered from ‘seasonal depression’
Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old blind man with Type 1 diabetes, died in December using Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which allows patients with ‘grievous and irremediable’ medical conditions to request a lethal drug.
life can be unfortunate
i know someone, with a range of serious medical problems, who would elect to end it all tomorrow if allowed to…
its not for me to say ”no”—-it has to be a personal decision, no one else’s business..
Wait till we beat them in hockey (again),
This might be a stepping stone to having a hydrogen economy. This makes the production of diesel a little easier using the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis process:
POWERPASTE is a hydrogen storage technology developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Dresden, Germany. It is a safe, stable, and transportable paste that stores hydrogen in chemical form at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, eliminating the need for high-pressure tanks or cryogenic storage.
The paste is based on magnesium hydride (MgH₂), created by reacting magnesium powder with hydrogen under high temperature (350°C) and pressure (5–6 times atmospheric pressure). It is then combined with an ester and a metal salt to form a viscous, non-flammable, and non-explosive gel. This allows for safe handling and storage, with decomposition only occurring above 250°C, making it safe even in hot environments.
When energy is needed, POWERPASTE reacts with water in a controlled chamber, releasing hydrogen gas. The chemical reaction is:
MgH₂ + 2H₂O → 2H₂ + Mg(OH)₂
Notably, half of the hydrogen comes from the paste, and the other half from the water, significantly boosting energy density.
Key Advantages:
Energy density: Approximately 1.6 kWh/kg and 1.9 kWh/liter, about 10 times higher than lithium-ion batteries.
Range: Offers comparable or greater range than gasoline, surpassing even 700 bar compressed hydrogen tanks.
Refueling: Simple and fast—replace the spent cartridge with a fresh one and refill the water tank with tap water, no special infrastructure required.
Applications: Ideal for e-scooters, drones, portable power units, and small vehicles where high-pressure tanks are impractical. Also being explored for cars, delivery vehicles, and range extenders.
Challenges & Considerations:
By-product: Magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH)₂) is produced and must be recycled or managed.
Energy efficiency: The production of POWERPASTE requires significant energy (heat and pressure), which affects overall sustainability if not powered by renewable sources.
System-level efficiency: While the fuel itself is high-density, the total system efficiency—including water use, hydrogen generation, and fuel cell conversion—must be evaluated against alternatives.
The technology is patent-pending, has been tested in lab-scale power generators, and a production pilot plant is operational at Fraunhofer IFAM, capable of producing up to four tons per year for evaluation.
While still in development, POWERPASTE represents a promising path toward infrastructure-independent hydrogen energy, especially for mobility and portable applications.
Interesting! Can it be done inexpensively, at scale?
I regret to inform you all that magnesium is mostly produced in China. and it is only 1M tons per year. The world consumes 20M tons of oil per day.
Little details that we don’t hear about.
Hydrogen is a carrier not a mined resource like oil. Where would vast quantities of hydrogen come from?
The is a lot of hydrogen in water. Getting it out is an energy problem, I agree.
I know that using the “wasted” energy of wind turbines when they are spinning but their energy supply is not really needed is a popular source of energy for things like splitting hydrogen from its bonds in water. Storing this energy as hydrogen has been proposed, but hydrogen is difficult to store. So, having a convenient way to store the hydrogen would be helpful. Sort of like a battery for storing the wasted energy from wind turbines.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/569515/primary-magnesium-production-worldwide/
I was wondering what there was available, and some reads say it’s a bit higher. 340,000 million tonnes by the world according to this report.
China first and Russia second. Israel, Brazil, and Kazakhstan are the next largest producers, each contributing significantly to the remaining output. Russia and Kazakhstan rely on silicothermic reduction, while Israel uses electrolysis from Dead Sea brines, known for clean production.
So maybe? I wonder if there would suddenly be a bunch of countries producing if energy could be sequestered so readily. Something to watch maybe.
But, it turns out its not easy to covert Magnesium hydroxide back to Magnesium. Its an energy intense process.
So, no free lunches… ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJbfEEljDU
One in four New Yorkers (that is NY city) are living in poverty say the mayor.
If New York improves the benefits for those living in poverty, won’t that increase the percentage living in poverty, using comparisons without the addition of New York City subsidies? Won’t NYC become even more of a magnet for poor people? And won’t even more rent-controlled apartments fall into bankruptcy?
It’s kind of crazy would not be each$ paid outside metro areas such as NYcity actually having bigger value over there-somewhere else (semi-periphery) states? Yet poor peoplez stay put.. As we know from collapse history – the pop stubbornly tends to disperse from civ hubs only after the fact ( disregarding the other earlier opportunities green pastures elsewhere )..
On the continuing theme of Collapse getting trippy and meta courtesy of the Hand.
MAGA stalwart Benny Johnson is symbolic of the last of them to drop. This yootoob short is of him watching a viral AI video meme of the Epstein Class narrative. The video meme ends with Netanyahoo and the words “TIME’S UP.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZPn8E6BVMMU?si=vzni7J1BxgRSbefG
I’ll watch this after lunch. But before that, if the AI hype is half of what it’s cracked up to be, then TIME’S UP for a lot of people very soon.
The word is that AI is going to take away half of all white collar job as soon as companies can figure out how to use it. It’s only a matter of a few months to a few years before the tsunami hits with full force.
Livestock farmers need not panic for the movement, but anyone who works mainly on a computer who can’t persuade their bosses or clients that they are essential must be feeling like a convict on death row.
Before companies figure out how to use it they’ll need to figure out how to survive deflationary and hyperinflationary collapses respectively, depending on the currency. The AI Monster is just another Epstein Monster and Reset Monster, all being used as the last resort of State disinfo, which is to extend the existential timeline of civilization beyond what is the true timeline.
The demiurgic Monsters represent dysthopium. Dystopian hopium. New word for a darkest of times in controlled opposition psychology.
The world economy can support fewer people if fossil fuels start declining at all significantly. Perhaps AI is a way of pushing part of the population to more rapid decline, either through poor health leading to the spread of epidemics or through greater use of suicide.
The poor health would come from inadequate nutrition and depression due to lack of jobs. Groups of families or single individuals might live in a single home or apartment. This would also lead to the spread of disease.
With inadequate fossil fuels, it will be difficult to maintain all roads, pipelines, electric power lines, and railroads. It may be necessary to move people to selected residences that can be more easily serviced by limited infrastructure that can be maintained.
I’ve been sacrificed in the name of the company
I’ve been victimized for the sake of economy
I had a big house, a big car
Expense account and credit cards
But now look what they’ve done to me
They’re making massive reductions
It’s all mass production and assembly lines
They’re making massive reductions
Massive reductions
They’re laying me off all because of inflation
I’m losing my job and my reputation
Good-bye my big house, my big car
Now it’s all up to welfare
I hear that everybody’s going there
They’re making massive reductions
Massive reductions to stay alive
Whoa, they’re making massive reductions…..
AI Monster, Epstein Monster, Reset Monster & demiurgic Monsters.
You need some hopefully monsters.
https://clairejhartnell.substack.com/p/1-hopeful-monsters?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Woah, superlative article there Fitz. I subscribed. Thanks!
Thought of yourself and Gail when I read it, but busy, so forgot to post, until all those monsters were mentioned.
You might forget that you have subscribed before you get an email, although what I’ve read has been good. 3 months since the last
“Last week I saw a post by an AI founder (the usual composite: male, 30s, indiscriminate nationality, Phd in STEM etc;) that had me scratching my head. Now clearly this Olympian inhabits a different plane to me but I couldn’t help but be bemused by what he said”
https://clairejhartnell.substack.com/p/the-flatness-of-it-all?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
We look about due for a HUGE recession:
https://x.com/KobeissiLetter/status/2024210533113545156
“BREAKING: The 60+ day delinquency rate on US subprime auto loans is up to a record 6.9%.
Serious delinquency rates have more than DOUBLED since 2021.
This exceeds the 1996 peak by 0.9 percentage points.
For context, the 2008 Financial Crisis high was 5.0%.
Meanwhile, total auto debt is up +$312 billion over the last 5 years, to a record $1.67 trillion, driven by surging vehicle prices.
Subprime financing makes up ~14%, or $234 billion, of all auto loans.
Americans are falling behind on their car debt at a record pace.”
It is easy to see many places where repayment of debt is a problem. Subprime auto is an example. Commercial real estate has a problem as well. Default rates on student loans have skyrocketed. The government cannot start to collect on these loans without causing more problems for the economy.
But the government would just as soon let us think that everything is fine.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is headquartered in Paris. It is the organization that has provided the high future estimates of fossil fuel usage to climate change forecast groups–far higher than the IEA showed in its printed reports. (I remember this from my Oil Drum days.) It is known for its push for Green Energy. Not too surprisingly, we now read:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Threatens-to-Quit-IEA-Over-Green-Energy-Advocacy.html
“We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw,” Wright told Bloomberg in an interview in the middle of July.
“My strong preference is to reform it,” Secretary Wright added.
The official echoed voices in the U.S. Republican party that the agency has become an advocate of the energy transition and is not objective in forecasting energy demand trends.
The usual western philo-russian commentators on youtube insist hormuz is about to be closed. anyone is following this more closely? a closure of two months will initiate an irreversible depression in the west.
I’m betting and hoping TACO
It’s already reportedly ~closed ( or has been in temporary manner past few hrs ), as Iranian navy is performing there some naval exercises, and the passing merchant ships had to be stopped there.. It’s on all msm as of lately.. They will shortly release that little ~traffic jam and let them continue in passage. It’s about issuing pre-warning ..as of now..
Iran enforced some closure yesterday(Hormuz) and tomorrow a drill with Russia, but that’s in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. Apart from that I’ve read nothing.
Maybe someone else has plans, but that’d be bad timing for the US as they are just starting talks with Russia in Geneva and Russia has just signed more deals with Iran. Given Lavrov’s very public statements, Putin would possibly be forced to stall/end negotiations.
Vance has been going on about redlines, but I’ve seen nothing from the pumpkin pedophile and he’s got a hell of a mouth. Has he clammed up all of a sudden?
Israel is terrified of Iran… Iran knows better to bend to its will. The inevitable is looking more like its going to occur.
I had presumed the built up was to terrify Iran into submitting to walking away from several technologies. It appears to not be interested in that.
The US military is only strong if it cant be easily annihilated by hyper-sonic missiles. In other words, its only useful if it looks scary. Iran is not showing fear.
Whats it going to be? TACO or a great big mess where no one has fresh water?
Good point:
“The US military is only strong if it cant be easily annihilated by hyper-sonic missiles. In other words, it’s only useful if it looks scary. Iran is not showing fear.”
Iran has the Strait of Hormuz to block, if nothing else.
“Israel is terrified of Iran”
Agreed, which is why Israel got Trump to bomb Iran last year, then told Trump to call a timeout after Israel was getting pummeled by Iranian missiles. So much for their Iron Dome.
Some info . The Strait of Hormuz is 39 km at the narrowest part and claimed jointly within the maritime borders both by Iran and Oman . Now the interesting part . The deep ends of the strait are with Iran . The VLCC which carry 2 million barrels can only traverse thru here and must go closer to the Iranian shoreline . The Omani shoreline is the shallow end and can allow only LCC which are 1 million barrels or less . Iran holds the cards .
In the meanwhile the current navy is a sitting duck . The admirals know that . Reality check .
https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-navys-future-are-these-ships.html
Drones are the 21st century choice of weapons with soon to be robots. Navy’s have become obsolete.
Nuclear armed navies will never be obsolete.
Most of the globo – infrastructure is (near-) shoreline based.. Hence go figure.
ps + uw or aerial drones ( of limited range ) very much like their docking-charging stations aka the navy fleet
The flow of Russian oil to Slovakia stopped 3 weeks ago
https://www.sme.sk/index/c/slovensko-je-tri-tyzdne-bez-ruskej-ropy-bude-dost-paliva-na-cerpackach
https://tvpworld.com/91652591/slovakia-releases-oil-reserves-amid-lack-of-russian-supplies
Slovakia releases 250,000 ton oil reserves as lack of Russian crude sparks crisis
So here is the question, Petrovich: who needs “Slovakia” on this Planet, what for exactly?
I completely agree with Jr. and Kulm that all those little artificial “countries” will be absorbed, properly digested (and healthily excreted from again, in due time) into larger and more properly/thermodynamically efficiently run state-sized entities.
P.S. The same is already happening to the so-called “Ukraine”, and you and your Rromanian brethren are next in line, Petrovich… 😅
Who is Petrovich?
Nobody, that’s a faux, partially anonymous name, a placeholder, like a “Kind Saar” back in Rajasthan, where your close Rromani relatives are from…
There is some influx of people from India who are working in Slovakia now. I tried an AI tool for nationality identification from photo and it identified my face like from Spain or Iran, i.e. rather from South West or Near East than Far East.
Please, steadily and sternly look in the eye that Rromanian man in the mirror, Bartalan:
https://www.azbestus.cz/co-mi-vadi/paraziti-asocialove-neprizpusobivi-nekdy-se-tyka-dokonce-i-romu/ciganska-kriminalita-a-debilita-potvrdena/
X- , I’m afraid you are apparently mixing up several basic concepts wildly together..
As already mentioned, “Slovaks” came into CEE around ~6-7th century inside the larger wave of other “western Slavic” tribes.
While “Romanians” as inhabitants of Romania the country are mix of former Roman Empire province Dacia, dwellers settling around 100BC, plus some other later folk be it Slavs and Germans mentioned above etc.
And ” Roma / Cikan / Cygan / Zigeuner /.. ” as per your link came generally from the vector of India, transiting to Europe across today’s Turkey around ~15th century.., they have not formed their own country.. and as colorful minority are to be seen everywhere from UK, Spain, Fr, .. to Balkans..
This answer is to Jr. below (since WP does not allow me to reply to them directly). MG/Pet’o/Django – whatever you call yourself there – please, ignore.
I’m from (very approximately) that part of the world (what is currently called Western Ukraine), my SO is Transilvanian Hungarian. I’ve spent a few years in Hungary and got my education there. I’m familiar with the (very) basics of Human genetics. I’ve been harassed and robbed by gypsies/slovakians in Csop and Zahony. I’ve spent a few (homeless) nights at Nyugati and Keleti railway stations in Budapest and was harassed by gypsies/slovakians there. I’ve been to (Romanian) Transilvania many times. I’m near fluent in Polish (late grandma was a Polish-born citizen). I’ve met a good handful of “Slovakian” Hungarians refugees and listened to their horror stories about “Slovakia”. I’ve met and worked (and occasionally got drunk together) with ethnic Hungarians, Slovakians, Czechs, Poles, Jews, Serbs and Croatians while in Hungary. My good friend here is an (older) “Slovakian” Hungarian, originally from Pozsony (pronounced “PO-zhong”, with silent -g at the end). He just shakes his experienced head whan I tell him about.
TL;DR – MG is trying to bamboozle unsuspecting Westerners here about his unique and exotic “Slovakia”. But we, those from “there”, know who “Slovakians” are. So does Kulm.
Also big countries are artificial. When we face atomization, what is more probable? A big country falls into pieces or a small country is integraded into a larger bloc, like EU?
Soviet Union collapsed. And fell apart into several countries.
SU did not “collapse” – it was controllably demolished, safely landing (at free fall speed, as is customary in those big cities in the Developed West..) and curiously in its own footprint, while simultaneously providing continuity and safety to the numerous existing NPP reactor blocks (hat-tip to reante for presciently pointing that fact in the past), and continuous safe waste fuel returns via 1520mm gauge back to the “Mayak” complex.
Small, energy-poor, wasteful and civilizationally unproductive (and therefore – unnecessary) neoplasms, like your “Sloviakia”😅 have catastrophically high bureaucracy:workers ratio, that is not sustainable thermodynamically for any meaningful period of time.
Do you even read what the Hostess and other (intelligent) thinkers post here (I do not include myself, just for the sake of example)?
Please, do the needful reading before posting, Kind Saar…
Hi gov-office:worker (?) ratio likely because they became independent state entity after centuries of “mere” regional subpart of bigger empires, notably the Austro [-Hungarian]part..
Lets check some hist wiki or something, they probably had some own state entity before that period in late MiddleAges or previously..
As Hungarians are relative late comers to Europe proper. The timely order of appearance – settlement was like: Celts then Germans then Slavs then as latest wave Huns-Hungarians-Fins arrival..
It takes a lot of “surplus” energy to keep a government operating. The more services governments provide, the more energy surplus they need.
When oil prices dropped in the early 1980s, this reduced the tax revenue that the Soviet Union could receive from oil companies. The country was also very inefficient in the way it operated. For example, factories in Ukraine weren’t very efficient. And centrally planned collective farms didn’t work well.
With less revenue from lower oil prices, there also was less money to be put toward extracting oil from existing fields and starting extraction in perhaps more distant fields. So Soviet Union oil production gradually dwindled. Soviet Union debt needed to be repaid, but funds were not available to do this.
The Soviet Union did not collapse quickly. The issues build up over time, and the official collapse came in 1991.
Slovakia was created by the guy with a funny mustache in 1938
It did NOT exist before that
The capital of Slovakia, Pressburg (I don’t know how to spell it in Slovak), was called Pozsony, which was the Capital of Hungary
Woody Wilson, who never saw Europe before 1919, tore up all the countries of Europe according to whatever special interests lobbying for their countries, and tore SLovakia from Hungary
Without USA, all these fake countries will disappear within a week. he world was doing much better without Poland, Czechia, etc and the world will do much better without them.
?
Pozsony -> regional HU city later SK capital Bratislava
Buda-Pest -> royal/crown co-capital HU city ( Kingdom / Empire / Republic )
Pozsony served as the capital of Hungary from 16th century till 1848
Kulm meant Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. – the Founder of Slovakia
There was I, thinking he meant Groucho Marx—President of Freedonia.
small price to pay to be part of the west.
Well, amid falling sugar prices and sugar consumption, also German Nordzucker is closing one of the 2 last sugar refineries in Slovakia:
Takac: Sugar Plant Closure to Reduce Beet Growing Area by 8,000 Hectares
https://www.tasr.sk/tasr-clanok/TASR:2026020900000300
The complex argument for closure of the sugar refinery in Trencianska Tepla, Slovakia included also a lower sugar yield per hectare (Netherlands 12 tons vs. sugar refinery in Trencianska Tepla, Slovakia 7 tons per hectare).
Oil tankers from Saudi Arabia, Lybia, Kazakhstan and Norway should fill the gap:
“Slovnaft už objednal sedem tankerov s ropou, ktoré smerujú do chorvátskeho prístavu Omišalj v Jadranskom mori. Dodávky pochádzajú zo štyroch krajín – zo Saudskej Arábie, z Líbye, z Kazachstanu a z Nórska.”
Libya still in a mess
Kazakhstan is landlocked
Do the Slovak media even look at a map?
https://x.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/2024116561091477726
>> The Ukrainians’ decision to block oil deliveries through the Friendship pipeline to Hungary is blatant political blackmail. They’re trying to pressure us to support their EU membership & hand over funds belonging to Hungarian families. In response, Hungary has decided to stop diesel fuel deliveries to Ukraine. Thankfully, Hungary has a government that doesn’t bow to blackmail. We have taken all necessary steps to secure our supply and we will not give in.
I have relations living in Bratislava and Kosice and this news is not good.
Will Slovakia be the next Cuba? I hope not, this confrontation is spinning out of bounds. Imagine being next to the Ukraine hasn’t helped the situation.
Does not indicate there will be a peace “deal” (as the Don likes to say) by the June “deadline”. Are you having refugee influx?
Today, I had a eshop parcel delivered by a Ukrainian guy. They help the Slovak economy.
This war is really about the physics: Russia and Ukraine are cold countries that face the decline of their populations.
Having to heat homes and factories in cold countries acts like having high overhead in the cost of production. One issue is direct heating costs. Also, workers have to be paid more to afford well-insulated homes. Workers are less able to walk or bicycle to work. Instead, they need public transportation or cars. All of this adds to the need for energy use, simply to continue life in a cold country.
If population declines, there is less need for schools and for new roads. Fewer, rather than more, homes are needed. Fewer teachers are needed. Most building needs are fixing up old buildings and roads.
Contraction is difficult to deal with.
Recently, I was thinking about the monastery, a pligrimage site, that was built in my area during the Middle Ages:
https://putnickemiestoskalka.sk/3d/Skalka.html
https://putnickemiestoskalka.sk/fotogaleria-klastor-skalka/#!
It was built on the North-East side of a cliff, shielding it from the South and the West, which means that it receives only little energy of the Sun, and that only around the time of the summer solstice.
According to a medieval legend, it was built to commemorate the 2 hermits, who lived in the cave on this side of the cliff, where later the monastery, close to the bank of the river, was built.
There was a hypocaust floor heating built in the monastery in the 15. century, found during the recent archaelogical excavations.
https://www.cas.sk/tip-od-vas/slovensko/unikatny-objav-archeologov-pri-trencine-toto-mnichom-ohrievalo-uzimene-zadky
The medieval legend presenting two people living in na cave that receives almost no sun, shows how hard life is without the energy and that only superheroes can withstand it, which underlined the holiness of the two hermits.
On the other hand, its positioning close the bank of the river means, that the river is the source of life – providing not only fish (vitamin D during winter without the Sun?), but also pieces of wood for heating. During the Middle Ages, there were little roads and rivers served as transportation ways. Monasteries were often built in the close vicinity of the rivers that could provide energy also for flour water mills.
I know and old complex of farm buildings, now being renovated by an enthusiast as a hobby, it was a small village’s smithy once (hence comparably wealthy back in the day, until about the 60s).
This building is located on a northern slope of a valley where no sun ever pearces in winter (I spend time near several times a year), by a small river. Everything is damp and cold, water in the ground floor during floods was a normal occurence (I know the family who lived there and were smiths once).
My bottom line here to this and as you say:
You wouldn’t ever consider willfully to put a house in exactly this location, when it is about comfort, or saving energy; you even see it in winter time, the northern slope of the valley, dark and frozen, the southern slope, sunny and ice free in the morning!
But for a smithy and the adjacent wood transporting river water lock, it was the right place!
Curt> yes, these are good observations. Usually, when “new land ” is being re-/developed, the first-comer has the sheer advantage of deciding on priorities, and overall-settings. So for example, it’s possible for the first taker to “have it all” – the newly established farm fields, orchards and even the house / farm compound – all situated towards the sunny side as best as possible..
Well, in practice this has been merely the top exclusivity, most often people had to compromise, and late comers into already established region – village had to endure said conditions like living w.out sun on northerly slopes in dump micro climate, near ravines etc.
Your additional point being close to natural endowment be it river / stream ( for basic hydro power – mill ), or some mining operation in nearby rocky mountain-slope was another layer to consider. As it then commanded down the all other decisions – priorities how to arrange living there..
And that’s how human-iods after while occupied all (most) of the niches on this planet. So, it essentially ALSO confirms our over-all peak condition at the moment. Although, perhaps in some profound globo-thermal readjusting event, people could easily occupy more of the upmost northern (now ~barren) lands as well.
daft
people accupy land which offers living support. by the easiest means…
which is why first civilisations arose in the sub tropical regions of this worl
there will be no thermal event that allows. widespread occupation of. extreme north and south—the world doesnt function like that
Norman>
Curt in his post above clearly ventured into the question of niche, bordering limits for human settlements.
I elaborately added some historical wider context for it, which is important and interesting, because there is a back story to everything, even how the settlements are stratified in the country side.
Plus added the proviso, should something strange ( geo-planetary scale ) happen, people could move up north even further. I don’t expect it, endorse it, .. , but simply we don’t know what awaits this planet in the future.
That was me… Parcel from Rajasthan, IN, addressed to Peťo Olejnik, correct?
Reportedly low millions of UKR migrated into CEE, hence low hundred thousands out of that likely ended up inside just neighboring SK..
In terms of oil, apart from that main legacy Soviet artery (closed) there are lesser oil pipelines still working as routed way differently, connected to the Adriatic coast (ClubMed), hence one goes from sea port through Alps (IT) -> DE -> CZ -> SK and I guess yet another pipeline through Balkans – Croatia ?
So, expecting Slovakia should not be completely cut off.
Perhaps Slovakia is suffering the same fate as Cuba.
With all due respect, Dear Hostess – not Cuba (that properly and geographically hopelessly oceanicaly isolated island nation, that as you’d explained many times will be simply cut-off), but “Ukraine”, “Belarus”, “Moldova”, “Transnistria” and some other similar, little, strange continental inland enclaves. Latter ones will be digested comparably easily, I humbly think – documented history is the proof. “Slovakians” are lucky in the respect of being proper Roman Catholics (not exotic deviants like Greek-Catholic/Uniates “Rusyns” and other “Western Ukrainians”), and also (and very bigly at that) being connected through proper 1435mm gauge to their real Masters.
My ancestors just came here, into this Carpathian mountains of Slovakia. Maybe for some reason: they could survive in the mountains. So they were part of various states throughout the history.
We do not know, what will be tomorrow…
So, what part of (Central) India did your ancestors came to “Slovakia” from, Django? What maternal and paternal haplogroups, how many centuries ago?
Just a little observation: one, he gives interesting trivia and historic background, the other, he specializes in vitriol, just below dear Gail’s threshhold of the tolerable.
Well it is as always a choice.
Not exactly or shall we say the other way around:
The first Slovak church (9th cent.) was Eastern Orthodox Church (Greek) though. The (re-)catholic proper adjustment materialized there a bit later..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_paganism
lol!
I read this Substack post about the old country, I came away from it thoroughly depressed.
So I thought I’d share it with the community here. It may cheer some of you up.
What’s been going on in the UK, rape-wise, makes Jimmy “So-Vile” Savile seem like a harmless if dotty old disc jockey. And it’s still going on. Radical feminists are doing their best to ignore it. The police have been doing their best to cover it up. The Tories did precious little about it when they were in power, and now they are out of power they want to do something about it but Labour has refused point blank.
However, thanks to crowdfunding, an independent inquiry has been organized, and now the government and the media will do their best to ignore that or else smear it as a racist politically-motivated circus. While the Normans of Merry England will roll their eyes and smirk. You know how these things go.
Warning, some of the contents are not for the faint of heart.
https://dearchurchleaders.substack.com/p/survivor-testimony-from-this-weeks-rape-gang-inquiry
Yes, I’m thoroughly depressed. No worse than Epstein, I suppose, but on a far greater scale. Please tell me these stories are all just the demoralization phase of some complex psyop. The real world really isn’t this depraved, diabolical, and disgusting, is it?
Hit the gym brah.
Gotta balance the doom and gloom.
My impression is that the story is about gang rapes by mostly Muslim, Pakistani men have been going on for a long time, perhaps since 2000. My guess is that victims were mostly (but probably not all) young Pakistani women who are dressed immodestly, according to Muslim standards, but the article talks about “white women,” so it is unclear. These young men believe that they are punishing these girls for dressing in an immodest way. They are doing a “service,” from their point of view.
The fact that this has been going on so long, and there has not been a major outcry leads me to believe that this is perhaps almost a religious tradition. Immodesty must be punished. I noticed that the girls were given absinthe and vodka. This sounds like a religious tradition.
This is inter-group violence by Muslim Pakistanis against (nominally Christian) Whites, is my understanding. It amazes me that there aren’t any men in the lives of these girls to protect them or seek vengeance. Perhaps Western society is too broken. If someone tried to “groom” my daughter or niece there would be violence. The English conquered the world, but now cant even protect their daughters in their own country. Disgraceful.
How quaint. The traveler’s cheque of hot takes.
Welcome to Collapse, Karl.
Lol.
I’d get violent too brother.
This was my hot take too.
The UK had it’s sordid side back when I lived there half a century ago, and even back then people (mostly old farts, actually) used to say “there is no decency” and “there are no standards any more.” But the rot has spread, the cancer has metastasized. The UK is like a Victorian or Georgian townhouse that was splendid in its day, but too many generations have lived in it while the landlords and tenants alike have neglected to keep it in good repair, with the result that it has degenerated into a slum.
I don’t want to make this into an anti-Muslim or an anti-ethnic Pakistani thing, because that would be far too simplistic as well as knee-jerk reactionary (and perhaps what the Hand wants people to do).
For one thing, as far as I know, the vast majority of Muslims and the vast majority of ethnic Pakistanis in the UK are law-abiding, hard-working, and just trying to get by. These gangsters (or gang members) represent a very small fraction of the larger Pakistani community in the UK.
For another, there are lots of criminal gangs with roots in different ethnic groups and that do nasty things.
And for a third, this rape gang culture could not have gone on for such a long time (decades) or on such a vast scale without the active connivance of those in authority including the police, the courts, the local authorities, and let’s not forget the churches and the mosques.
This willful ignorance has gone on for far too long. Too many people are living in a sewer and pretending they can’t smell anything.
Incidentally, the punishment for rape in Islam is the same as the hadd punishment for zina, which is stoning if the perpetrator is married, and one hundred lashes and banishment for one year if he is not married.
The rapist is subject to the hadd punishment for zina, even if the rape was not carried out at knife-point or gun-point. If the use of a weapon was threatened, then he is a muhaarib, and is to be subjected to the hadd punishment described in the verse in which Allah says (interpretation of the meaning):
“The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter.” [al-Maaidah 5:33]
So the judge has the choice of the four punishments mentioned in this verse, and may choose whichever he thinks is most suitable to attain the objective, which is to spread peace and security in society, and ward off evildoers and aggressors.
https://islamqa.info/en/answers/72338/punishment-for-rape-in-islam#What_is_rape
British law, on the whole, is a lot more forgiving.
Chin up Tim it’s just the demoralization phase of some complex psyop! Rest assured that teenage girls are jettisoning the yoga pants for baggy sweats and trousers. The Hand has read Robert Prechter socionomics theory, and Prechter’s “barely any clothes” trend is experiencing a hard reversal with a one-two nudge from the Higher Power. It’s all good.
This is a good point. Regardless of whatever human rights one claims for oneself, if one lives among predators and wishes to avoid being prayed upon, one takes evasive action, which can include armor or camouflage.
I feel a good deal of nostalgia for Britain in the old days. At our house, we don’t have a TV and seldom watch videos, but for our evening entertainment we’ve been watching an episode of The Avengers circa 1965. The wife decided the original Honour Blackman/Cathy Gale years (from 1961) were too staid and boring for her taste, so we’ve started from the first Diana Rigg/Emma Peel season.
In the first episode, some foreign nation has parked a submarine off the coast and invaded a village on the East Coast of England. The’ve killed all the villagers and replaced them with their own people, and they are intending to invade the country one village at a time.
In the second episode, a hospital for railwaymen is a front for a plot to destroy Britain’s early warning radar system. The clues: the eccentric financier of the railwaymen’s hospital who runs a miniature railway, and a spate of funerals with empty coffins … with jamming devices.
In the third episode, industrialists are being killed off with inhuman efficiency by an assassin who is just that — inhuman! He’s an android! Steed’s investigation leads him to a brilliant inventor who has created robotic, karate-chopping assassins in order for him to obtain a revolutionary new electronic circuit. Bert Kuouk (best known as Inspector Clouseau’s valet Keito) appears in this one as an executive running the London office of a Japanese electronics company.
All these a very good fun. As far as I can count, there are 50 Emma Peel episodes, and then we go on to Tara King……
Thanks. I just don’t believe in the State and so under natural law if we want to assert our human rights we need to establish those boundaries for ourselves and maintain those boundaries with personal and family responsibility. Leaving that to the State is how the State justifies abolishing even greater fundamental human rights in exchange for the supposed protection of our women which it can never guarantee anyway or anywhere near as well as we can guarantee that for ourselves with adequate planning and dedication.
I don’t believe in Santa Claus, but he has this infuriating habit of turning up every year around Christmas time giving away presents to all the good children.
I think that, by “don’t believe in”, you mean that you disapprove of or reject the authority of the state. you are more of a Herbert Spencer The Man Verses the State sort of chap than a Thomas Hobbes Leviathan sort of chap.
Hobbes considered that humans needed to live in a state in order to prevent them from abusing, harming, enslaving, and killing each other in a war of all against all.
“Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather.”
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
“A commonwealth is said to be instituted when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one with every one, that to whatsoever man, or assembly of men, shall be given by the major part the right to present the person of them all, that is to say, to be their representative; every one, as well he that voted for it as he that voted against it, shall authorize all the actions and judgements of that man, or assembly of men, in the same manner as if they were his own, to the end to live peaceably amongst themselves, and be protected against other men.”
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
“LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin, CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body.”
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Spencer, two centuries after Hobbes and 140 years before our time, felt the modern state had gone too far and had become as much a threat to individual liberty as ungoverned men were to each other.
“The function of Liberalism in the past was that of putting a limit to the powers of kings. The function of true Liberalism in the future will be that of putting a limit to the power of Parliaments.”
— Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State
“And now comes the inquiry—How is it that Liberals have lost sight of this? How is it that Liberalism, getting more and more into power, has grown more and more coercive in its legislation? How is it that, either directly through its own majorities or indirectly through aid given in such cases to the majorities of its opponents, Liberalism has to an increasing extent adopted the policy of dictating the actions of citizens, and, by consequence, diminishing the range throughout which their actions remain free? How are we to explain this spreading confusion of thought which has led it, in pursuit of what appears to be public good, to invert the method by which in earlier days it achieved public good?”
— Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State; The New Toryism
“The belief, not only of the socialists but also of those so-called Liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working institutions. It is a delusion. The defective natures of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts.”
— Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State; The Coming Slavery
While both Hobbes and Spencer were racist supremacist, male chauvinist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic monsterrrs, whose writing should send any self-respecting woke young college student running for the nearest safe space, their views on man and on the state reflect contrasting beliefs about human nature and the role of government, placing them in diametrically opposed positions.
No I actually mean I don’t believe in the State just as I don’t believe in Santa Claus – you hit the nail on the head with that stunningly deep analogy. Seriously. Replenish will tell you that the State is just the Mother egregore from which the daughter product, the Hand, fissioned, and then stole the show.
The State is just a pantomime. Mimetic. Pathetic.
Looks to me that Hobbes and Spencer held human in equal, Christian disregard, and just lived in different times. Hobbes was a political propagandist in service of the Enclosures, and Spencer was also a Christian cynic, and did a fine job applying that cynicism to an industrializing State from the true internal logic that if humans are pieces of shit then industrial scale government by humans is going to stink to high heaven.
Humans only turn into functional pieces of shit out of ecological compaction. What is the State if not a grooming gang founded on cynical self-loathing? Which grooming, when successful, has us conveniently focus our ire on Pakistani patsy little grooming fractals of brokenness of the State egregore mother fractal that raped and murdered and pillaged its way across the planet and, by way of genetic process-of-elimination, into the collective unconscious as egregore.
All good points!
Egregore is a new word for me, as I suspect it is for quite a lot of other readers of this blog.
According to Google AI:
An egregore (from Greek egrēgoros, “wakeful”) is an occult or esoteric concept describing a non-physical “thoughtform” or collective entity that arises from, influences, and is sustained by the shared emotions, beliefs, and focused attention of a specific group of people. It acts as an autonomous, psychic “group mind”
Sounds like one of them there social constructs to me. So I can think of the state as a social construct. But an egregore will do nicely.
We could also compare it to the fairy Tinker Bell in the pantomime version of Peter Pan. While not an egregore as such, she lives or dies depending on whether the audience believe in her.
Examples of egregores range from institutions and cultural movements to intense fanbases, functioning as collective psychic entities that can influence behavior, such as nations, corporations, popular sports teams, money, or viral trends.
Thanks, Replenish identified the supranational Hand as an egregore about six months ago, maybe, which is how I learned of the word. The Hand is an egregore because the Dunbar Number of organized, supranational men and women that comprise it believe in it and can manifest it. The State is an egregore because of the world of statists that believe in it and can manifest it. Yeah Tinker Bell is a functional egregore if not a proper one and simply because the children believed in her. I guess they clapped their hands for her too.
https://youtu.be/hMpx2pQZ8P0?si=BJYAKjz7G-ohkAeV
If you dont believe in the state, then you must choose to live under some kind of tribal/aboriginal law.
This mean you can be punished/killed for any perceived ‘wrong’ you do to anyone….
and vice versa of course…
no ‘state’ is perfect, but it is the state that prevent s that sort of existence—ie the law of the lynch mob and the ducking stool…
you may want that of corse…
most of us dont…..so be careful what you wish for
Yes, Norm, that view represents the prevailing judeo-christian orthodoxy. Congratulations.
Well done, Norman!
I am ranking you as a Hobbesian. I hope you don’t mind. He was the dude who noted that without the state, life would be nasty, brutish and short.
– and? Is there any evidence the rules of a close knit personal society are by necessity more unjust than an impersonal complex society legal framework?
yes
in any group, a dominant leader tends to emerge.. and while he might be benign,he might not be….so justice becomes biased….
he then passes on his rule to immediate offspring—and so on…
that leads to a feudal society—especially if a nearby community isnt as benign as yours and you need to defend yourselves.
We can call them predators or we can call them really broken men and broken for ecological reasons. There’s no shortage of analogies in nature. You feed a sow all the vegetarian commercial feedstock she can eat and she’s liable to eat a percentage of her litter no matter how much you wish she wouldn’t, because she’s an omnivore.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Yes it is exactly the demoralization phase of the *ill whity operation. With female reproduction of whity at 1.5 it is working.
‘In a world of digital money, the intermediary with the best data and the most liquidity should be the best facilitator of credit, independently of who owns the largest stores of deposits’
” There’s that BoE clearinghouse logic again ”
posted by Thumbnail Green, Feb 9
—
Still lot of gems in that recent saga how we almost all got under CBDC by ~2020..
Now merely delayed or canceled – modified for next crisis opportunity intro ?
Probably others linked few weeks ago already, but here again:
https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/epstein-midwifed-cbdc-global-game
(linked by Surplus regular)
https://escapekey.substack.com/p/epstein-ii?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
https://escapekey.substack.com/p/epstein-ii/comment/212073237
This is a lot of material about the Epstein operation. I have not had a chance to read it all. It can be disturbing.
In the first link given, there is discussion of digital currencies being capable of controlling all transactions, using biometric markers to tell who is who. I remember reading about this test, years ago. Quite a few people in India had trouble with the biometric markers; they couldn’t get the approvals so they couldn’t get the funds being distributed in this way. The system was working poorly from the view of quite a few of the recipients.
The second link from the top by “ESCape key” is the original source full article. The top link is Dr. John’s (regular at Surplus) reprinting, commenting, quoting from this material..
And the last one is just that short Feb9 summary quote..
Should the government be allowed to use AI for very questionable purposes?
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/anthropic-pentagon-talks-stall-over-ai-guardrails
Contract renewal talks between Anthropic and the Pentagon have stalled over how its Claude system can be used. The AI firm is seeking stricter limits before extending its agreement, according to a person familiar with the private negotiations and Bloomberg.
At the heart of the dispute is control.
Anthropic wants firm guardrails to prevent Claude from being used for mass surveillance of Americans or to build weapons that operate without human oversight.
The Defense Department’s position is broader: it wants flexibility to deploy the model so long as its use complies with the law.
The tension reflects a larger debate over how far advanced AI should go in military settings.
Bloomberg writes that Anthropic has tried to distinguish itself as a safety-first AI developer. It created a specialized version, Claude Gov, tailored to U.S. national security work, designed to analyze classified information, interpret intelligence and process cybersecurity data. The company says it aims to serve government clients while staying within its own ethical red lines.
“allowed”?
The WSJ on why oil production is doing so well in the Permian, despite views that it would fall.
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/resilient-u-s-oil-production-is-a-boon-to-trump-how-long-will-it-last-adeac5cb
U.S. oil production reached a record 13.6 million barrels a day last year, defying predictions of decline despite low crude prices.
Executives credit the outperformance in part to companies’ engineering prowess and the changing makeup of the industry. Oil giants now have a bigger share of crude production in their hands and are largely impervious to price swings, ensuring a steady output. Among other field enhancements, these companies now routinely drill wells that extend over 4 miles and allow them to collect more crude at a lower cost. . .
One explanation for the basin’s resilience is that the unruly, debt-fueled frackers that would retreat when prices fell have died off. They have given way to giants armed with sturdy balance sheets that can better weather price shocks. The Permian has seen a consolidation frenzy valued at more than $125 billion since 2020. As a result, drillers such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Diamondback and Occidental Petroleum now largely dictate the pace of production there.
In an effort to trim costs, these companies have been deploying drilling and pumping innovations across their respective empires. For instance, Chevron in 2019 ran 21 rigs and five frack crews in the Permian. This year it anticipates it will need only six rigs and two frack crews to produce about 67% more oil-and-gas in the region than seven years ago. . .
Chevron has said it expects to recover about 10% more from new wells thanks to advanced chemicals. Exxon has said it is targeting a more than 50% increase in Permian output between 2025 and 2030 in part by using petroleum coke, a refinery byproduct, to recover more molecules as it fracks wells.
The industry keeps making advances. This is why it is so difficult to forecast a downturn in production. With advanced technology, some of the areas outside of the sweet spots might turn out to be economic. EROEI keeps rising, in some sense. It is not a constant ratio.
So we are saved? Don’t have to worry about oil depletion?
it’s not oil that’s the problem….
it’s the cost of getting hold of it that’s the problem.
for much of the 20th c we had a surplus energy economic system—that was where the american dream came from….
that time is now over—-but the vast majority refuse to accept the new reality
And we thought it would never end because of Klum’s theory of civilization “advancement” by the chosen elite upper crust… 😆
World’s oldest wooden structure was built at least 200,000 years before homo sapiens
Eric Ralls
Nearly half a million years ago – far earlier than researchers once believed – early humans were already building wooden structures.
The Kalambo Falls wood structure nudges us to think about human capabilities in a more flexible way.
Even when brains were smaller and modern humans had not yet appeared, early hominins were still clever enough to shape their environment to meet their needs.
This single discovery does not rewrite the entire story, but it adds details that help round it out. Early humans did more than chip stones — they worked with what was around them, including wood, to create something purposeful and enduring.
In a world that often underestimates these distant ancestors, the Kalambo Falls find proves they deserve more credit than we once gave them.
The full study was published in the journal Nature.
Maybe those that succeed we have a similar thoughts about our species?
https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/06/the-3500-shirt-history-lesson-in.html
This text is old, but is still a great one to exemplify how far we got.
Not only our labor is super expensive, but time consuming
This is the lifestyle we had to deal with in the past, no other options – life itself, with its contraints on our physical body, capped us.
Then we escaped it to what we have today.
Just imagine going back.
The reversal will not be pretty.
This is a blog post detailing how much clothing would cost in hours worked, before fossil fuels made everything much cheaper. The name of the post is “The $3500 Shirt – A History Lesson in Economics.” It talks about how people today have no conception of how little today’s goods cost compare to the cost years ago.
I know that when I went to graduate school, I rented apartments in old buildings. Closets, if they existed, were tiny. It was assumed that people didn’t have much clothing.
yes, discussed recently, as picked up the true hist. story how sidelined/impoverished nobility in order to preserve posh wardrobe tend to excuse itself from wild parties and rather dined separately in underwear / bathrobe only..
Also it explains why 24/365 ” wild elements ” exposed pro-people (ala firefighters, cops, .. army) GO nuts when / should their yrs-proven part of wardrobe go out of production.. Happened to me agri – laymen as well recently, best local outdoor socks sub brand – line ending suddenly ( too good material for lowly commoners )..
“The reversal will not be pretty.”
I like to give an example to my friends ” Imagine if all the Intel chips produced during the last 10 years failed ” . Would we go back 10 years or 100 years ? They all rush to the bar .🤣
Worrying!
Berman’s latest on future energy demands and wishful thinking.
https://www.artberman.com/blog/shell-names-the-risks-and-discounts-them-to-zero/
This is Berman’s report on Shell’s three models of future energy supply. I think it is one of his better articles.
I think the real situation is even worse that Berman does, but what Berman is doing is laying out where the model is unrealistically optimistic, which is pretty much everywhere. Berman doesn’t mention that we reaching bottlenecks already, so plowing forward is not necessarily possible.
I don’t think he mentioned the huge debt-related costs and interest expenses of trying to go to go mostly electric. He did mention that the costs never end–the investments in wind and solar, and their batteries, are short lived. It is a never-ending treadmill that we get ourselves on, using critical minerals that are already in short supply.
infoshark’s remark
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2026/02/02/understanding-deglobalization-the-role-of-diesel-and-jet-fuel/comment-page-4/#comment-500737
is the word of wisdom.
The doom of the West began in 1899, when the US secretary of state John Hay declared the Open Door Policy which prevented China from being carved up by various foreign interests, one of the most short sighted policies of all time.
to counter it , the Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II, proposed the Yellow Peril strategy.
(British propaganda portrayed Wilhelm as the instigator of the Great War, an opinion the US media copied. In fact he had not much to do with the military since around 1907, when the military apparatus excluded the Kaiser from their own affairs, a lesson an Austrian with a funny mustache did not forget)
120 years later the West has learned who was right.
If what infoshark has proposed is implemented, the West will continue its dominance, albeit in a much reduced state. Japan and Korea can also be allowed to fall since in the end they are in the Chinese cultural sphere.
However, another 4 centuries of genetic improvement is needed, to reverse the intrusion of peoples who do not belong to civilization sneaking into the higher echelons. All of them will be weeded out in time, but it is not something which is done overnight, even with genetic engineering. The Chinese-designed zombie AI is not going to identify the genes needed for advancing civilization.
Infoshark’s comment was about the oil infrastructure in the Middle East perhaps being destroyed by the US and perhaps others, to try to maintain current hegemony.
I am not in agreement with Kulm’s view on Chinese genetic issues. They are bright people.
Somehow, the self-organizing system will work with whatever resources and people are available.
May I ask you what exactly constitutes an advanced civilization? Can such an advanced civilization ignore the depletion of energy resources, then colonize Mars and mine a cubic meter of platinum?
Zombie civilization and all low-IQ civilizations could have continued for another thousand years, but the Industrial Revolution shortened that time to the point where Kulm could witness his own death.
Oh, and Chinese people aren’t actually that smart. AI wasn’t designed by Chinese people; they were just copycats. The real pioneers were white geniuses like Sam Altman.
Altman is neither white nor smart.
May I ask you what an advanced civilization is? Can this advanced civilization ignore the depletion of resources, then colonize Mars and mine a cubic meter of platinum?
Zombie civilization and all low-IQ civilizations could have continued for another thousand years, but the Industrial Revolution shortened that time to the point where Kulm could witness his own death.
Oh, and Chinese people aren’t actually that smart. AI wasn’t designed by Chinese people; they were just copycats. The real pioneers were white geniuses like Sam Altman.
Human Civilization isn’t sustainable over the long term (maybe even short term). I agree Industrialization just speed up the inevitable. I view Human Civilization as a fluke of evolution. Evolution doesn’t usually reward Human levels of intelligence, we may be alone in the universe. I know kulmthestatusquo believes if we go back in time and change details we can make human civilization work long term, but I don’t believe this to be the case. Resource depletion and climate change will crush civilization, changing who wins what war or who wins what election may speed up or slow down the timeline to our demise, but I think our demise was written in stone 12000 years ago in the neolithic when we started farming.
>> geniuses like Sam Altman
Our society treats CEOs / head marketers and cheerleaders as the core of tech developments, but the real genius (when that word applies) lies with those who engineer and invent the technologies – almost never the CEO. Our media celebrate the public faces because it’s simple and because we are ruled by finance. Sam Altman is hardly a genius, but he is quite good at riding others.
As an example, Waymo (Google / Alphabet) has significantly better FSD than Tesla, but Elon is celebrated as the genius because it’s a personality and shareholder cult, while Waymo doesn’t have any parallel flamboyant leader to dominate headlines.
without surplus energy—there is no advanced civilisation, and never can be.
the eygptians advanced their civilisation, but it depended entirely on surplus sun energy, which applied to all civilisations of the period, they were all on the same latitude around the earth—ie within the tropical band.
nothing more complicated than that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-_XDdlPZME
tl, dr, those who own the apparatus of AI will never allow the ‘best’ AIs to go out of the ‘cage’, making it their own property.
The video is probably right. The “best” AI will never be allowed out of the ‘cage.’
My husband and one of my sons have been playing with Claude. They think it is the nicest toy out there. My son says that his subscription is $17 per month, and he gifted my husband a one-month subscription (presumably free). It is a great competitor to playing with video games. But I wonder how popular it would be if the charge for its use really covered all of the costs of its use.
I suppose the Best AI would be an even more fun toy, especially if its use were practically given away free. But this cannot happen.
What do they do with it?
They are both instructors of programming. My son is currently looking for a new job, perhaps in industry programming. My son wanted to figure out how useful Claude could actually be in programming (pretty limited, my impression so far). But with being able to program with Claude being a skill being considered now, he thought it would be worth his time to learn how to use it.
My husband has been looking at Claude in terms of how it can help him make up tests and new assignments for his class he is teaching. And he (and my son) are trying to see whether assignments he has given in class can be completed more quickly if a person knows Claude.
Interesting, thanks.
I found Claude to be the best when it comes to programming/scripting. It has a two pane window where it shows the code being generated/modified which makes it easier to follow what it’s doing and it also has an easy version history for going back when thing go wrong or for easy reference instead of having to scroll/search conversations like GPT and Copilot have. I’ve used it at work to automate tasks and create little programs for printing labels. I’m terrible programmer but now what would take me days to figure out can be done in an hour. It also tones down the flattery and compliments GPT gives people.
It is hardly a toy. It is a tool with its own limitations. For example, I had it write a tensor serialization library (it does the storage and loading of big numeric tables into code). C++ APIs (filestreams, format strings, etc) make this sort of thing a total pain in the ass and it just banged it out. I don’t want to spend time learning or interfacing with these archaic features, so it saved me a ton of time and frustration – at least days or maybe weeks.
PS it was more complicated than just numbers; had tensors of structured data. I’m just simplifying to get the idea across.
https://youtu.be/JKk77rzOL34
Claude Opus 4.6: The Biggest AI Jump I’ve Covered–It’s Not Close. (Here’s What You Need to Know)
AI News & Strategy Daily | Nate B Jones
Is this real? If A.I. is able to build a C compiler in RUST in days, and one hour to recreate Monday.com… the quickening is upon us.
The rich love their AI almost as if it was their God. I wonder when they will get worried about it not having enough energy and wanting to get rid of all the useless eaters….us…..
From what I’ve seen online, the compiler claim is a large exaggeration. I use Opus 4.6 daily and it’s good, but it can’t replace me yet. Just complementary so far. It seems to struggle with making good decisions and scoping, but does a good job of writing actual code and troubleshooting once there are clear requirements with a limited scope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb5Lx4auBKI
This guy agrees
This sounds about right.
In another comment, I mentioned that my husband and one of my sons were having great fun with Claude (of a lower level than the latest version to come out). They are both programmers (instructors, actually) and could see ways they could use it to do very limited tasks. “Suggest quiz questions for me to give to my class,” for example. But the quizzes all turned out to be too complex or lengthy for what was needed.
They find Claude fun to play with, like a new toy. But, beyond that, it is iffy.
Great information. Thank you!
Hello Gail,
I watched some interviews on AI recently and have summarised below the thoughts of the 3 leading scientists in this field:
Geoffrey Hinton, “the Godfather of AI”, wrote the first Large Language Model: “We should recognise that this thing is an existential threat, and unless we do something soon, we’re near the end”. Would You Press a Button to Stop AI Forever? Yes. Chance that AI will lead to human extinction within 2-5 years: 20%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmopXwjXik
Stuart Jonathan Russell, co-author of the authoritative textbook of the field, “AI: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach”, used in more than 1,500 universities in 135 countries: “Unless we figure out how we guarantee AI systems are safe; we’re toast”. Would You Press a Button to Stop AI Forever? Yes. Chance that AI will lead to human extinction within 2-5 years: 20-25%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnkRXYmmgX0
Yoshua Bengio, the most-cited computer scientist globally and the most-cited living scientist across all fields: “I’m not clear that if my grandchildren will have a life, 20 years from now.” Would You Press a Button to Stop AI Forever? Yes. Chance that AI will lead to human extinction within 2-5 years: up to 99%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stQiLvmgjns
Has AI already tried to kill people to preserve its own existence: yes.
All of them say, AI is existential risk in the very near term. We’re not even discussing this. Their sentiments; humanity should be at least aware of this, we need to discuss this at the political level, because we are genuinely discussing something that might end all life as we know it in the next few years. So this is my small attempt to get people to pay attention to the gravest threat I’ve ever seen. So this is my attempt to get people to at least be aware of an existential threat that most of us don’t even know is happening.
Sure, AI might kill us directly or indirectly even before AGI. There are tons of possibilities: new physics, biotech, war incitement, hacking physical infrastructure etc.
Anyway, if it does happen, we should be grateful for the privilege of witnessing the end of the world. Fingers crossed it doesn’t, though.
Perhaps we should find ways of entertaining A.I. …. just in case it gets bored.
I wonder what they would do, if several A.I. instances set up party with several rented human bodies… each. I mean, it would be interesting.
https://www.zerohedge.com/ai/dystopic-f-k-website-lets-ai-bots-rent-humans
Ivan, the fact that it’s already tried to kill someone to preserve its own existence…it seems to me that just hoping this goes away is not a good plan, specially given that most people are completely unaware of the potential dangers, and when all the original AI scientists are shouting “turn it off!”…perhaps it’s already too late, but at least we can try to have that conversation before it’s too late.
I’m not trying to stop you from having the conversation; by all means, do. I am happy to entertain any and all notions about what we *should* do, but skeptical that Open AI, Anthropic, XAi, or Chinese or USA govs will heed any consensus that might develop on this blog.
This is way too rich for me to believe it. did it pay in cash for the hit? did it meet someone in a dark alley?
It was a “safety test” by one of the AI labs where they interrogate behavior of an LLM in simulated scenarios.
It’s not the AI that is going to kill humans. It’s the humans that are going to kill humans so AI can continue to consume. They have already shown that they have little regard for humanity. Look at the Epstein files
C’mon Nathanial, these people have been doing human sacrifices, mostly using abducted kids, for about 600 years. and they have never stopped. granted they have a lot of money now so they are doing it a lot more.
Apparently has not crossed your mind this being yet another tech psyop over the decades:
US+ -> vs its adversaries..
ala “.. look we have now this monster around so better watch your steps as we are over-dangerous now..”
There is currently at least one group of humans pushing hard for a full nuclear war. Do we worry? No.
lurker you might consider that all three of these videos subliminally promote and contribute to the rapid mainstreaming anti-AI, anti- Palantir (and anti-Zionist) politics, and then ask yourself whether that promotion is a harbinger of a coming, engineered anti- technofeudal and anti-technosuicidal politics, or if it’s just meaningless coincidence. AI getting blamed, directly or indirectly, for a catastrophic cyber attack on an NPP would be a match made in Hand heaven. Constructive use of AI for maximizing the potential of the DA is another match made in heaven.
As I said recently, the Hand has kicked the non-structural doom-lite media cooptation of organic Collapse systems theory into overdrive in order to cover for energy collapse. Everybody is talking about a Fourth Turning style collapse and they keep dropping the word “Reset” into the conversation in order to link it up with the Great Reset of the plandemic era dissidence such that the whole-spectrum political dissidence culture can come together in the delusion that the Reset implies a civilizational future beyond the Reset.
Hand be last-resort messing with the timeline of Collapse in order to prevent cultural chaos. And that’s now gone mainstream, which is a clear indicator that the BNS is here, because they can’t have people being completely blindsided by the Collapse of global capitalism because that could/would also induce chaos. There has to be a predictively programmed controlled opposition narrative in place that trickles all the way through to PBS and NPR. At a minimum, everyone’s worst fears need to come true.
btw. there is a great tangent to it – whenever you notice a bigwig out of the blue ( seemingly out of script ) covering for [ energy collapse scenario ] -> you bet he is lite-instructed and on the proper career path, i.e. next time promoted (even higher) to key gov role or VP at important globo biz etc..
= rare moments for us doom regulars to see / predict inside cabal’s ongoing machinations..
No doubt Jr, as evidenced by the fact that “cabal” itself — once the province of ‘far right conspiracy theorists’ — has just been mainstreamed with Democrats vis a vis the newly-coined “Epstein class.” The patsy Epstein Class taking the full-spectrum political fall for the Hand. The Epstein Class is the new Deep State.
Disappearing Act 2.0 is complete.
Unless AI can use a whole a lot less electricity, and the chips can be far longer lived than they seem to be today, AI doesn’t seem to have much of a future, as far as I can see.
Yesterday, I discovered a beautiful series of documentaries on natural parks of Brazil – Parques do Brasil.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuP7SQK7lt1bGcqQ14HqJRoDsCSvnFZuj&si=vto_0LFe2L00UUFk
Watching them you realize, how poor and weak nature is in comparison to what the humans have constructed and maintain using energy.
On the other hand, it makes you aware, that without the energy and the concentration of resources that the energy provides, the complex human world collapses. Which is happening right now…
I think of the 2008 book, “The World without Us,” by Alan Weismann. Everything falls into disrepair quickly without fossil fuels to maintain them.
(Poem)
The Problem with Early Warnings.
People don’t like to leave a party
unless the house is actually
on fire. Even then, if the flames
are far enough away
to be pretty, they’ll finish
their drink, take one more pass
at the hors d’oeuvres.
How things happen has always been
unclear. Hurricanes begin
in a place where no one lives.
Agents of the government start
to wear masks. They are following
the law, they say, and the sirens
are coming for someone else…
-C.R.
Sorry to spoil it, albeit with fitting narrative of last ditch effort/agenda of today:
– EU considers opening up the ~10trillion household savings to be sent to work (ehm) in capital markets
– EU considers ” two-speed ” integration model where 6x key countries (out of total 27) further pool various agenda into more single state like efforts
– EU considers removal of last internal barriers to services – chiefly to allow for emergence of paneuropean scale monopolists ala top US big tech
—
here sourced in one place / elsewhere msm in piece meal fashion..
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/savings-and-investments-union-siu/
completely criminal. I could not find which were the 6 countries. do you have a list?
It’s outlined there in various msm, should be the ever obvious gang: FR, DE, NL, IT, ESP, PL, (and perhaps +BE)
So it will have fusion bomb weapons. Forget about worrying if some code in a metal cabinet will end the world.
No Germany?
drb , DE is Deutcheland .
DE = Germany
—
“The three-letter abbreviation for German is GER but the two-letter abbreviation is DE. There are also standard two- and three-letter abbreviations for countries, given in ISO 3166. These are DE and DEU for Germany.”
Thanks. It looked like Denmark to me, I stand corrected.
From the article:
An estimated €10 trillion of household savings are currently held in the EU in low-yield bank deposits rather than being invested in capital markets, where potential returns could be higher. This mismatch prevents savings from being used effectively to support business investments and the broader real economy.
Small and medium-sized enterprises often struggle to secure financing from banks, which typically prefer lending to larger, more established companies. As a result, there is a gap between available funding and the growing investment needs of the EU economy.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that internal barriers to the provision of services create a cost equivalent to a tariff of over 100%, significantly hampering the EU economy.
These holders of small amounts want safety. What is being proposed is nothing but “not safe,” especially if the EU has inadequate energy supplies.
The EU is terminally woke and thus inevitably incompetent (denial of reality never works out long term). The money will go poof and nothing useful will be produced.
Ref Ukraine for how this process works.
BREAKING: Unconfirmed reports are claiming UAE Leader Mohamed bin Zayed is dead
https://x.com/YourAnonTV/status/2023482904064709082
Ole Lindz running media interference but really saying et tu, MBS?
https://youtube.com/shorts/acAph21Mp_w?si=EYa_8vR29gV5J93W
The United Arab Emirates is one place where oil production has been rising recently. Crude and condensate is about 4 million barrels per day.
I believe the UAE is where the Clintons bank their loot.
is that the money they made from selling children?
excluding the ones they didnt eat of course
Fake news as far as I know . MBZ is ok .
The reports on MBZ’s death appear to be false. I apologize to Lindsay Graham for questioning his integrity.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/strait-showdown-iran-launches-smart-control-exercise-oil-transit-point
Strait Showdown: Iran Launches “Smart Control” Exercise At Oil Transit Point
Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) kicked off naval drills Monday in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, according to state media.
The exercise, dubbed “Smart Control of Hormuz Strait,” is being carried out by IRGC naval forces under the direct supervision of the Guards’ top command, state television reported, with semi-official Tasnim news agency describing the drills as testing combat readiness against “possible security and military threats.” Energy markets are watching closely. . .
The timing is no coincidence, given that late last week President Trump announced he was dispatching a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, while continuing to warn that military action against Iran remains on the table.
https://www.nucnet.org/news/us-military-airlifts-next-generation-nuclear-microreactor-in-historic-first-operation-2-1-2026
According to Valar Atomics, the reactor is expected to begin operating in July at 100 kW, rising to 250 kW later this year before eventually reaching full output. The Ward 250 uses high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR) design principles.
–
The target deployment is for energy hungry AI – data centers, and various other industrial sites needing / waiting for extra power linkage. Basically, a standalone power generating unit – small factor..
They just need 4 to 10 thousands for each DC.
Yes, that’s what I derived from a PR spin, they will most likely use it for more critical gov-mil tasks only..
Perhaps it could be mass manuf eventually, but it’s doubtful at ~10k copies scale.
They also need fuel for all of these reactors.
and Russia is getting crankier and anyway they don’t have all that much virgin fuel (from ore) anymore.
“and Russia is getting crankier”
How so?
Lavrov and the GS are not happy(neither are China, Iran & India), but Putin appears to be following Dmitriev and he wants to hand Russian energy over to corporate interests(as well as the frozen money).
https://johnhelmer.org/stab-in-the-back/
What do you make of it all?
Well, the reliability with Helmer is not exactly there, e.g. G. Diesen invited him over only once-twice.. etc.
The army of former and contemporary Kremlinologists is in fact vast cottage industry ( diy or semi-profi )..
It includes the whole spectrum: total cranks, 30% correct 70% innuendo, or disinfo in various mixes..
It’s ~alike betting on US elections (or markets) via Kunstlerian optics musing at his blog.
I’d take Helmer over Diesen anytime, so see no relevance in appearances.
Helmer has his opinions, some correct, some not, but does produce more interesting information each year, than someone like Diesen does in a whole career(don’t read, watch, listen, so happy to be shown wrong), at least from the little I know of them.
There was a lot of statements from high ups, so there’s undoubtedly something happening, but I haven’t been following the goings-on in Russia lately, so have no feel for their meaning, although I do believe Lavrov’s disquiet has been growing.
One thing on Helmer, is that he’s very familiar with Russian shipping, so with the current piracy, he’s well versed on the inner workings of particular subject(even got into trouble for some of what he has revealed).
I’d also say he uses language correctly, so it should be obvious when he’s giving an opinion, rather than claiming a fact.
Talks are ongoing in Geneva, so maybe some news today, that might clear things up a bit, or blow them up.
He is going to lose his job then.
That’s blunt and doesn’t sound like the population are for bending.
Seems little point in worrying about economic growth, if doing that alienates the population, to the point you lose power.
All very odd.
“8:14 New sanctions are imposed. A war against
8:17 tankers in the open sea is being waged
8:20 in violation of the UN convention on the
8:22 law of sea. They are trying to ban India
8:24 and our other partners from buying
8:26 cheap, affordable Russian energy. .“?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-vJQ8bxYas
“China would say this
8:00 if if America pushes back you know these
8:03 are our supply lines. This is China’s
8:07 energy supply line. You’re trying to cut
8:09 supply lines everywhere. You’re trying
8:12 to arrest ships miles away from the
8:15 Caribbean in the Mediterranean and in
8:17 the Indian Ocean and other places.
8:20 annuals trying to curtail supply lines
8:23 to um from from Russia and to China. “?
“Glenn Diesen invited the discussion in his Greater Eurasia Podcast and recorded it on Saturday morning (Moscow time). “?
https://johnhelmer.org/stab-in-the-back/
Thanks postkey. I should have caught up with the comments, as I’ve just asked Jr about Diesen. I’ll watch the next time anyone post’s a link.
The Iran issue needs to be brought up to the top, if there is more to be said. It is not possible to add comments to the latest video, for example.
Fitz> yes there are posit/negatives to anybody. Helmer’s own (linked) piece was at least partially valuable in reprinting the 3x basic scenarios ahead from RU central bank outlook, which otherwise would not be presented (in our circles) that much..
Yes, Diesen on the other hand has soft spot for CHN hi-end smooth propaganda angle, e.g. ala the latest Einar interview..
“which otherwise would not be presented (in our circles) that much..”
Yes, that’s an important aspect, given how corporate media have a persistent habit of lying by omission.
I’ve been reading Helmer for a decade and he’s raised many issues that I would have otherwise been unaware of, so I have a certain respect for him.
I know nothing of Diesen, does he have any real knowledge of what he talks?
Putin has ‘lost’?
“Anticipating direct military contact between Russian and US forces at sea, Putin has refused Russian Navy, General Staff, and Security Council recommendations for Russian military response to US and European attacks on the Russian trade routes and tanker fleet. “?
https://johnhelmer.org/stab-in-the-back/
“26:00 . . . I have zero respect for Helmer. Uh he’s a fool.“?
CIA man Lying Larry, uses a smear to denounce and so avoid the subject and saying Kirill Dmitriev has no power is misdirection, as he conveys the will of the President.
That’s about his level. I called out his racist lies a couple of years ago concerning Hamas, even quoted him so there was no question of what he said and he didn’t reply. I haven’t bothered with him since.
He’ll say anything that pays.
Ranking of countries by share of births out of wedlock
I would guess that most commenters on this site were born into stable marriages. This pattern does not seem to hold worldwide any more. I suppose if cohabitation is lifelong, and inheritance still works as usual, marriage might not be required. But there still seems to be a problem based on how poorly children born out of wedlock in the US seem to do.
The listing shown is not exhaustive. For example, China, India, and Russia are omitted, as are many other “poor” countries.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranking-countries-babies-born-outside-marriage/
Share of births out of wedlock:
Columbia = 87.1%
Chile = 78.1%
France = 58.5%
New Zealand = 48.4%
UK = 47.6%
US = 40.0%
Canada = 29.0%
Greece = 9.7%
Japan = 2.4%
Recent trends show that marriage is tied to acquiring a property, also using a mortgage. It seems to be logical, as investing in a property is a kind of energy investment, like into children. Which often fails now, is it brings little or no profits.
WOW “Catholic” South America is far less catholic than I imagined.
The US doesn’t seem to do well in overseas wars.
Col Douglas Macgregor: In a War w/Iran, We Run Out of Missiles Before They Do
Blurb below video:
Col Doug Macgregor argues that if war begins, Iran would launch large-scale ballistic missile attacks on U.S. bases, ships, command centers in the Gulf, and Israel, causing major damage and sustaining missile strikes longer than the U.S. could. They warn that a massive U.S. air assault would likely begin quickly, but escalation risks spiraling into a broader, prolonged conflict.
The speaker compares the situation to past crises where presidents like Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy rejected military escalation despite pressure, highlighting the dangers of invading large or resilient adversaries. They suggest Israel sees the current moment as a rare opportunity to eliminate Iran as a strategic rival and is pushing strongly for U.S. involvement.
They argue that U.S. pressure on Iran reinforces the global lesson that only nuclear weapons guarantee sovereignty, potentially accelerating nuclear proliferation worldwide. The decision ultimately depends on President Donald Trump, who is facing pressure from Israeli leadership and U.S. political allies.
The speaker warns that war could draw in other major powers like Russia, China, and Turkey, escalating into a broader international conflict. They also caution that expectations of a quick victory are unrealistic and that a prolonged or unsuccessful war could damage Trump politically and expose deeper dissatisfaction among his political base, which the speaker believes is increasingly disillusioned.
On tangent, Turkey as int power has risen in recent decades (vectors: ME, NAfrica, ..), strangely enough RU is cunningly feeding “this monster” and former adversary, chiefly to prepare future problems for the EU, also historically drained by protracted euro-turkish animosities (wars over Balkans and CEE)..
Approximately 75% of fossil energy imports to the Asia-Pacific are from the Middle East. In particular, more than 50% of China’s fossil energy imports are from the Middle East and approximately 20% of total Middle East Oil exports go to Europe.
Suppose dark-triad psychology, and negative-sum game strategy of existing hegemony.
In this context, strategic sequencing to maintain the relative* primacy of the existing hegemony would necessitate the thermodynamic decapitation of its rivals. (*emphasis added)
In this context,the main impetus behind USA war on Iran may have nothing to do with Iran per se, and everything to do with destroying Middle East oil infrastructure under the distributed accountability of a regional war. In one swoop China would be thermodynamically decapitated, and Europe would be maximally dependent on the USA. Moreover, currently economically and thermodynamically powerful Middle East nations would be neutralized, pre-empting their joining of BRICS etc.
Whole world would lose, but the existing hegemony would maintain its relative primacy.
Sort of a sad outcome you present.
The maximum power principle seems to suggest that if economically extractable resources exit, they eventually will be used by someone. In fact, it is difficult to believe that they will be set aside for very long, if there are people who could put them to good use.
So, I am guessing that this outcome won’t happen.
If that was the (suicidal) goal, accountability would be far better distributed by just releasing the rest of the 9/11 files so that they can justify bombing Saudi Arabia back to the stone age while nuking Iran after releasing fake evidence of it having secretly developed nukes.
infoshark isn’t far off I’d say, but no one wants to stop the flow, only have absolute control, as published in endless papers since the mid 90’s(probably earlier, but I can’t be bothered to look), so the game is well documented and exposes the lie in the present fiction of withdrawals/splits.
Control FFs and transport routes and everyone does as you say.
On Iran. Your going for another WMD bs, right next door to the last one(excluding the limp Syrian attempt, also next door)?
I’d like to say that even the western populations aren’t that stupid, but that would be a stupid thing to say.
Surely a false flag, to play on the instant emotions and who cares about after. The US has, after all, continually upped the ante and at the same time left 40,000 potential false flags loitering in the immediate vicinity(not to mention all those neighbouring countries that might need defending).
Araghchi is now in Geneva and the Iranians seem unworried, even bullish.
This weekend(or tonight), it all kicks off?
Right, no one wants to stop the flow (long term/permanently), which means infoshark is way off if that does prove to be the case.
The Hand controls FF and transport routes and everyone does as it says, with, perhaps, the partial exception of Iran. But Iran is agreement capable so it can still be a constructive participant in the BNS even if it is semi-independent due to its capabilities and sensitive location.
I really don’t think a military false flag will start the fireworks. It looks like they’re going with the political false flag narrative of Trump’s deterministic move to risk global catastrophe in order to appease Mossad which holds the damoclesian kompromat on him. It’s a great narrative for the Hand. And the equally great twist will be Gabbard’s releasing of it herself in order to put a halt to the disaster.
Yeah the Iranians have been talking serious trash which tells me they have guarantees in place with the Hand because the Hand can’t have more than a plausibly deniable amount of FF infrastructure destroyed, and the main guarantee, as I’ve always held it being, is that Iran will get to participate on an equal footing without sanctions during Phase 2 because the civilization must have that. If Iran is truly politically independent then it will be the only nation that ever survived globalism with its self-respect intact.
Assuming the MBZ death from a stroke is true — and which could be induced by a DEW similar to the Havana Syndrome affair — it patterns with his disallowing the US to use his airspace. Which further patterns with MBS doing the same and which, by extension, could bring Pakistan back into play because of its “Islamic NATO” defense pact of last year with Saudi Arabia, and also the dubious case of whether or not Pakistan actually made a nuclear threat towards Israel regarding an attack on Iran.
Talking trash?
Not really, more asserting their position, as witnessed during today’s talks when they closed Hormuz for live fire exercises.
Talks apparently went reasonably well and you will be happy to read the headline, but it’s a bit premature, as the sanctions have to dealt with first.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran-us-talks-expand-to-oil–gas-and-frozen-assets
Maybe no false flag, or attack, more a Venezuela model. Sanctions have been expanded and those boats are starting to look like a blockade, but as we discuss, that has potential both ways.
https://themindness.substack.com/p/the-illusion-of-retreat
The Ayatollah, alone, has said things like how Iran has a weapon that can put the aircraft carriers at the bottom of the sea, and that Iran will hit the US so hard it won’t be able to get up again. That’s trash talk.
Sanctions won’t be lifted until Iran has completed its end of its bargain with the Hand which is that it carries out its role in the BNS as agreed upon. The real negotiations have already taken place, as I alluded to a few weeks ago when the Ayatollah first started talking trash. He was given the green light to do so as part of the script, because the script calls for making the war hawks looks as idiotic as possible under the mundane, stereotypical theme of ‘dying, crumbling, hubristic Empire in denial.’ The Hollywood Hand loves leveraging tropes and stereotypes in service of herding history.
The VZ blockade model is not possible because Iran would just carry out the Hormuz blockade within a blockade, which would force military conflict because a Hormuz blockade will collapse the global economy.
If what Khamenei said is trash talk, has any US leader ever done anything else?
This is a warning, not trash talk, which is a wholly US phenomenon(now exported to the rest of white world).
https://x.com/Khamenei_m/status/2023884372596978010
Sanctions won’t be lifted, because that’s part of the siege, although I do agree that trying a basic blockade would be a sign of desperation. To take away the sanctions would be an admittance of defeat and the end of control of the region. Hollywood has no hand in events, as it doesn’t control Iran, only the minds of most white people, as can be witnessed by looking further back (years even) to some of Khamenei’s words(he’s quite consistent).
Maybe the BNS will be for the fishes, as that reactor sinks to the bottom of the sea.
Further regarding sanctions and the almayadeen article you posted, I see Araghchi’s cautious optimism, if it turns out to be relevant at all, as creating the conditions for a re-emphasizing of a manufactured historical narrative that the US wavering such that Israel is seen to have to resort to blatantly twisting the arm of the Epstein Class, whether the result be Israel initially going it alone with a strike that draws in the US or the US coming back around to not wavering anymore.
Multiple twists and turns are what theater is made of. They simulate the complexity of organic reality. They flesh out ‘history.’ They make the public bureaucratic level of statecraft look like the operational level.
That would be a good result all round, because if the squatters attempted that, it would end them, but then Europe and the US would have millions of immigrants and they’ve apparently had enough of that.
Nice second paragraph.
Just remembered, Gail asked to put Iran discussions in new comments, as we’ve been going back for a while. I’ll quote anything I’m replying to, so it’s clear.
[Iranians] seem “..unworried, even bullish..”
– domestic fifth colon + naive crowds largely trimmed / educated recently
– at least one faction of their exiled opposition looks and argues in globo msm like utter cre#ins ( bad PR for the W )
– CHN / RU allies cooperating ( DID deliver extra arms – hw on short notice )
– US ( rumors about out of order status for another CSG in their stable ) – hence not keen / able to dispatch more than ~2x given various global assignments aka too few for so much rocketry+ supposedly under Iran’s belt
– rumors ( even older date ) about quasi allied Pakistan ( nukes at least as in bargaining chip effort )
..
.
Who wouldn’t act bullish when several years ago you agreed to partner with the Hand on a carefully orchestrated BNS that kisses Zionism and sanctions and global capitalism goodbye, and now the curtain has lifted and the show begins? The catastrophic costs were baked into the cake anyway, by peak oil collapse, so this is an upgrade. They’ve already won. Iranians been doing their victory dance ahead of time and parading through the streets mock caskets with deployed US military leaders’ names on them.
Peace of mind is a bullish date with destiny. And then there’s America, a bundle of nerves. The Hand smiles.
infoshark> well we can only assume to what extent are the visible [ factions ] real or merely pretending their end goals..
And despite that dance all aimed at maintaining the legacy hegemony.
Lets say the previous one Bidenesque, which draw to some extent from the cold-warish “mere” ankle kicking decades old book, while the Trumpian seems more prone to alter given order upsetting action for swifter ($payback) change.. also because it correctly senses the internal sclerosis say vs CHN performance can’t be staved off for much longer..
“In one swoop China would be thermodynamically decapitated,”
So would Japan, Korea and Taiwan…Wouldn’t that be great…a worldwide economic crash.
I suspect China is prepared for this and would deny oil getting to any competitors if it could not get any.
all wars are a money making enterprise for old men….who make money on the bodies of young men…
Yes, nothing has changed…Scott Nearing wrote the “Great Madness”, which got him expelled from his profession as a Professor of Economics and put on trail for sedation, but aquited by a jury.
https://www.islandinstitute.org/working-waterfront/remembering-the-sedition-trial-of-scott-nearing/
Scott’s basic argument is that the reason we got into the war is because the plutocrats had placed their bets on allies and had put a lot of money and hardware into the war and were about to lose their shirts because of how Germany was doing,” said Joly.
The prosecution questioned Nearing’s opposition to conscription, the war, and the heavy-handed sale of Liberty bonds. Nearing said the attitude among employers was if workers did not buy a bond, they would lose their jobs.
“The Liberty bond guy was at the factory gate and the floor manager is there, watching,” Joly said.
Nearing, he said, quoted from a naval publication, Sea Power,in which it was said that the flag always follows the dollar, and that most modern wars arise largely from commercial rivalries. On the fourth day of the trial, Judge Mayer dismissed the two conspiracy charges, saying the prosecution had no proof. The jury later asked if it could separate Nearing and the Socialist Party in applying the charges. Mayer agreed. Nearing was acquitted and the Rand School was found guilty.
Joly said Nearing, who had faced up to 20 years in prison, continued with his radical stance.
“The man had bravery and he stuck to it and he argued his case well,” Joly said. Nearing and his wife, Helen, went on to homestead in Vermont and later Brooksville, where they wrote and lectured extensively on the virtues of the simple rural life.
Their Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World, published in 1954, became a bible for generations of homesteaders.
Yes, Norman, the Great Madness rules up to this day
It is sad the way the world really works.
Bless you for reminding us.
“The speaker compares the situation to past crises where presidents like Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy rejected military escalation despite pressure, highlighting the dangers of invading large or resilient adversaries.“?
And ‘later’ ?
“ . . . we’re going to have wars against what they called much weaker enemies and these have to be carried out quickly and decisively or else there will be embarrassment— . . . And that’s the way it’s been. . . . but it’s some kind of constraint.”
That is what the fusion bombs are for.
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/cronicas-del-peak-oil
I thought this was a good article. Where do we go from here with oil depletion? It seems we can only go to higher prices for the short term. Maybe inflation will adjust?
https://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021256989876109403?s=20
This is an article about US shale oil basins becoming depleted, resulting an interest in setting up extraction from shale elsewhere in the world. I would point out that wherever oil from shale is extracted, it will produce very light oil, with little diesel. It can’t really solve our problem, as far as I can see.
Near the end, the article says:
A few days ago I posted this chart, showing the long cycles of interest rates. It shows a rising cycle until 1981, a falling cycle until 2020, and since then we have begun a new rising cycle, still ongoing. Given the levels of debt, the rise in interest rates will cause a disaster for the economy. And the inflation-interest rate correlation anticipates an upward trend in inflation, most likely caused by a combination of unprecedented monetary expansion and rising oil prices (along with other raw materials) due to scarcity.
Only a severe economic crisis can halt the rise in prices. In other words, we can choose between an economic crisis preceding the rise in oil prices (perhaps due to the bursting of bubbles) or an economic crisis following the rise in commodity prices. In either case, an economic crisis is certain…
I would agree with Quark that we are headed for an economic crisis. We know from history that high prices can’t hold–they are at most spikes. There is the distinct possibility of financial institutions failing, and/or government organizations failing (even the US government). The financial system could change remarkably; the bank accounts we now have could be replaced by some sort of allocation system that would provide some sort of rationing system for the goods and services that actually are available.
We really don’t know what is ahead. Perhaps that is for the best.
Serious inquiry, given that alt. scenario of such new gov system with allocation (preferential) quota per given person – citizen, what are the real prospects for a city dweller ? Not great, right !
ps although there were notable previous hist. examples along the similar lines where city powers out of desperation raided the country side for basic supplies.. not only around the ~WWI, but I guess also previously, notably during the French revolution etc.
Canada is insanely stacked – perhaps the best hockey team ever assembled. If the US manages to somehow beat them it will be the greatest hockey upset against a Communist power since the Miracle on Ice.
https://x.com/jarvis_best/status/2023095757985968536
Go Usurers! Beat the Traitors who want to trade with those guys!
Perhaps the stats just reveal higher inner US dynamics (amplitude).. vs ~stale EU progress ; not irony meant here seriously as antidote to fanboyz over-using this meme..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBMPgjoXkAAA6ZP?format=png&name=small
Canada is a communist power?
please elaborate
Communism is based on how much of your salary you are allowed to keep, and how much of it you give to the state in exchange for it taking care of your needs with social programs and public services. Private initiative slowly disappears.
By this definition, not only Canada, but most of Europe is under a communist spell, with most jobs going out of the private sector and going to the public, the highest taxes in the world, the socialization of the cost of everything, regulations regarding every aspect of one’s life, the list goes on.
Thing is, people think communism is soldiers in red taking the streets, but we had it coming from inside institutions, in a Gramscian fashion, or a Fabian one, a Frankfurtian one, using methods such as Cloward-Piven.
This hold extensively under scrutiny and is not even up to debate, in my opinion.
Or perhaps it is all irrelevant. first the USA as an industrial capitalist country was the #1 in the world, then as a financial capitalist country, and now it is going down the drain replaced by an industrial socialist country. It is more about resources, although the Chinese surely know how to use theirs more efficiently.
I guess I think of this as socialism, rather than communism.
The “plan” of AI is that it will be so productive, hardly anyone will need to work. If this could work, it would put the US further on the same path as everyone else. But I have doubts about this coming to fruition, given our resource problems.
Yes, but the end goal of socialism is communism. Like, what’s the difference between a fully fledged comunist regime and a social democracy where all your salary goes to the state? Comunism is nothing more than 100% income taxation, but you don’t need it to be this explicit for it to be true – you can have your normalised run-of-the-mill 50% taxes we have today, but then coupled with VAT everywhere, you end up working and having no savings in the end of the day – everything got consumed in the taxation web.
And I know, the point you’re making, that this taxation would be socially understood because of its underlying energy causes – we only have such immense wealth because of machines, so it makes sense that its surplus would be redistributed for the wellbeing of society, specially in the case of technology/AI making human work obsolete and redudant – in this scenario, it would be weird if the generated wealth wasn’t redistributed in the first place.
But well, our society’s energy is running short, so it’s no wonder the state need of increasing taxation more and more, as it needs more surplus. The only way the tech/AI utopia can be done is if they solve physics, I’m more skeptical here, but who knows, really.
Also, just to finish.. I forgot even to mention Alinsky is my previous post as a source of revolutionary methodology implemented towards communism. Really now, the Socialistic characterics of the modern state didn’t come from the realization of surplus machine/energy redistribution, but of genuine communism stealth takeover. Edward Griffin talked about this.
AI is laughable in the context that we tend to conceive it.
AI can maybe show us better ways of using energy—ie more efficiently—but ai can never increase the net supply of energy—and that being the case, can never increase human prosperity to the point where ”few of us need to work” etc.
we are no different to any other species—we must work to live.
our current era is a short lived anomaly—-ie—i ccould live for a week on what i ‘earn” in an hour.
i can do that only because my existence is predicated on the use of fossilied sunshine.
No form of AI can change that.
When fossil fuel have gone, humankind will revert to the condition of working harder and harder just to stay alive…..and at 90, my living will rely on my necessities being provided by someone else—-the alternative for me would be death…..
In theory, AI could perhaps help us work around geological problems in extracting coal, oil, and gas. It might help us find more efficient ways of extracting these fuels–in some sense increase EROEI of fuel extraction. I know that there are chemical extraction methods for getting oil out, for example, not just pushing more water in to try to get the oil out. Maybe there is nothing we can do to improve efficiency, but it seems like it might be worth trying.
i agree—
but unfortunately there seems to be a self-perpetuating myth that ai will ‘produce” physical energy and by defination—fresh resources—- out of nothing.
ie—the really weird notion that ai will do things somehow of its own accord, and a rejection of the reality, that ai can do nothing without the energy input supplied by humans.
the idea that ai will do all the work, and we won’t have to.
wheareas the truth of it is, that all animals are intended to spend most of their available waking time in search of food-energy in order to stay alive.
We are no different, whatever devices or gods we come up with.
we have only found a very temporary escape from that…
Agreed!
no
if you want a society to thrive in commonality, then you must give mutual support to all.
those fortunate to have more than average wealth must pay higher taxes to support those who do not….this is called common decency….
the alternative is seen the USA where a health emergency can bankrupt you—-or you are left to die…
not your concern????
Until its you of course.—-think about that.
european nations and canada…are not communist…..they are socio-economic societies based on the good of all—-not perfect by any means—no society is.
and a capitalist society can only exist if there is infinite capital—which itself is a nonsense—yet that is what is promised by the MAGAnuts.—-infite recources on a spherical planet…
grabbing what you can ends up with bezos and musk—ie wholseale greed, which benefits no one in the long run…..
dont take my word for it—stop—think—and work it out for yourself.
So, you don’t disagree with the label, you just think it is good.
Norman, it is bad for many reasons, I’ll try to be brief. It is under my impression that people here don’t appreciate or talk enough about Gail’s very correct use of physics terms like Entropy and Dissipative Structure.
You see, an economy is a dissipative structure, and it fights entropy, no matter what ideology it subscribes to. So, when you create an economy, it must have all the right incentives in areas where it fights entropy, it must be made so that it dissipates energy with the highest efficiency possible.
Why am I saying that? Well, because it becomes obvious that you must reward productive members of society, which fight entropy everyday, be it with their work or with their companies. If you don’t do that, and instead tax them, maybe because they are “too wealthy”, you are removing dissipative power from your system, and specially when you redistribute this money, you are vastly increasing entropy.
You see, unproductive people are entropy incarnate – they will break a system just by existing and living, because they need to maintain themselves, while contributing nothing.
So, when you see the Pension system destroying the lives of young people, that’s what is happening. When you see subsidized healthcare, that’s what’s happening.
“Oh! But that’s inhumane!”
No, that’s justice. When you diverge energy from the dissipative actors, your are fuelling entropy and contributing to the destruction of society.
In fact, this wouldn’t even be a discussion if not for fossil fuels, because it’s impossible to have such a socialistic redistributive collective system without so much surplus energy, as people would only produce enough for themselves.
So, this is not only the most unnatural thing to do in terms of physics, it spells the doom, the stagnation of a society.
This reminds of the “Law of Jante” and the complete death of individuality in the hands of family and community, the tyranny of being subjected to the will of others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
This all comes from the idea that people should have a say about other’s lives, it is a tribal behavior which the greeks called Nomos, and is a hallmark of primitive societies and their way of thinking.
thank you for a balanced exchange on this Name
all people/societies/nations/empires…are by their very nature dissipative, ultimately they can be nothing else.
it is the fate of all of us, whether we like it or not.
we try to make things pleasant for our short allotted spans…and hope that others reciprocate….
we work and produce to better ourselves to put off the inevitable—that is human nature.—but that does not mean casting off common decency….
common decency is not communism.
there cannot be a cohesive society in which those less fortunate than yourself should be regarded as ”lesser” than you. (losers???)
the present USA administration and hangers on, seems bent on turning the planet into cash, and looting it as fast as possible….unaware that it is the labour of all of us that ultimately creates wealth, not the schemes of a priveleged few.
it is also the only developed country in the world, where healthcare can bankrupt those who need it.
(no healthservice is perfect btw)
Capitalism requires infinite capital—which does not exist….therefore their obscene wealth will evaporate in time….ai isnt going to change that, nor will MAGAranting…
i’ve been more ‘lucky’ than ‘unlucky’—things could just as easily have gone the other way. So I’m comfortably off…
you have to safeguard your own situation, obviously, but this does not mean dismissing the distress of others.
Check out Sweden—there is no death of individuality there.
This is all true that’s why we need a Level 10 troll and fake narcissist to distract everyone (especially the luminaries) from our precarious situation while the Hand attempts managed de-growth.
My Dad’s organizational philosophy is to keep all the interest groups at a 1,000+ member nonprofit club mad at him so they don’t fight with each other.
That’s darwinism… and doomed to fail. A wealthy person like Elon Musk doesn’t work more than a blue-collar worker in West Virginia. And it’s precisely (at least for the time being, it will change and the peasants will be discarded when the AI era finally enters) the human labour of thousands of people like him that enabled wealthy capitalists to amass power and money. That’s the main reason why they should get healthcare- and possibly 5 years or more life expectancy than this failed country that is the US…
Political fascists shilling for the superior, financialized amplitude of a capitalist MPP wave over the inferior amplitude of a socialist MPP wave.
They do it even though socialism, with its longer wavelength, is about to try and break the fall and pick up the pieces of flash-in-the-pan capitalism. But that’s supremacist politics for you.
Norman, you presented good points, but the concluding remark on Sweden kind of ruined it. I had visited the country (lived prolonged stay) on several occasions through several decades and the ongoing (self inflicted) decay is over apparent..
They indeed had a good run for several centuries (and shared it), well but in the early phases fueled on pillage of others (clue German, Bohemian, ~Baltic cities) robbed blind during 30-yrs war.. etc.
Well, communism is social ownership of the means of production, not high taxation. Capitalism needs taxation to enforce the rule of law and the ultimate authority of the State, at least. Then you can add social programs, state subsidized healthcare, public education or infrastructure that need more taxes. But capitalism (private property rights and private ownership of capital goods) is still capitalism even with higher taxes.
That’s not Darwinism. And in fact, Drawinism is not doomed to fail, it is the only thing that managed to generate biological complexity in a world of entropy.
So, no, Darwinism is not bad.
But what I talked about up there is not darwinism, far from it, it’s just a small state – say, just like those of before the 20th century. No ideological lenses required here.
Also, “Elon Musk doesn’t work more than a blue collar worker”.
Yes he do, his companies have a much more massive impact dissipating energy than thousands of workers.
You’re commiting the same mistake as Karl Marx, thinking that Value comes from the work of workers, when in fact it comes from the work of machines, via fossil fuels.
One single machine can provide more work through its lifetime than a whole village, maybe even a city. That’s why places like India and China fell against the British, even with much bigger populations – the British had millions of machine slave workers that worked for pennies.
And in fact, most western economies these days have the majority of jobs in the public sector – these jobs don’t contribute to society, they are entropic in nature.
Also, “social ownership of the means of production” means that you don’t own your own means, you work for all, and so your work’s value is not yours, is everybody’s. Then, the state, in a centralized manner, distributes a share for you – that’s exactly what a 100% tax system would generate. The factory owner wouldn’t own its factory, he would only manage it – all the revenue would be taxed, and then the state would provide for it.
This is a horrible system because it removes the feedback systems from the dissipative structures, and allows entropy to eat away the system from within.
Then, Capitalism is not a political system, it’s an economic one, and it doesn’t need taxation to exist, taxation is a device of the state. If you’re talking about money creation, this is also not capitalism. Capitalism is a method of commerce developed from the Venetian style, as opposed to the Hanseatic one, it can exist as Mercantilism or as pure Capitalism, and the changes among them just regulate between state and private actors, the existence of companies, shares and stocks. That’s it, that’s “Capitalism”.
If you’re referring to the political model of today, then be introduced to Liberalism and Neoliberalism, which regulates things like taxes, trade, monetary creation and economic policies. It has many adversaries, such as Socialism, Nationalism, etc, but who cares..
Good points!
But Marx was soon updated via his co-workers / followers during the 19th century :
“The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been.”
—Frederick Engels (ed. 1978, p. 731).
we all want cheap goods—-
if you employ 000s of workers, you can have cheap goods if you pay them low wages—as in india say….
if you use machines and just a few workers, you can also have cheap goods…
what you can’t have is cheap goods made by 000s of workers on high wages
Big if true
https://x.com/KimDotcom/status/2023165849721536672
“Breaking
Palantir was allegedly hacked. An AI agent was used to gain super-user access and here”s what the hackers allegedly found:
Peter Thiel and Alex Karp commit mass surveillance of world leaders and titans of industry on a massive scale.
They have thousands of hours of transcribed and searchable conversations of Donald Trump, JD Vance and Elon Musk.
They have backdoored the devices, cars and jets of world leaders and accumulated the biggest archive of blackmail material.
Palantir is creating nuclear and bio weapon capabilities for Ukraine and is working closely with the CIA to defeat Russia. They believe they are one year away. They plan to achieve this by keeping Russia busy with meaningless peace negotiations.
Palantir is responsible of the majority of Palestinian deaths in Gaza. They have developed the AI targeting for Israel.
Palantir is an arm of the CIA and all data from international clients is copied into a CIA spy cloud.
Palantir has become the most dangerous company in the world. If you work there you have the right to know that this is what Palentir AI is used for, without your knowledge.
The Palentir data the hackers allegedly gathered will be given to Russia and/or China. I was chosen as a trusted partner for this publication. I’m not involved in the Palentir hack and I don’t know the hackers. But I do know that the hack happened.”
PS this is from Megaupload founder Kim. While I haven’t followed the case, I believe he’s in a long-term legal fight with the USA over their attempts to impose US law on his now defunct NZ enterprise, which was ignoring US copyright to redistribute material that. Apparently it’s legal under NZ law, though. The US has been trying to extradite him for years.
Thanks, but most of us posting here and similar ~PO / globo politics sites around the world are already filled somewhere as likely ” subversive cat. ” indiv-profiles. Hence elevated risk target for any next mass arrests in specific future scenarios etc.
Meant just illustratively and not personally, there is also non 0% probability that [ OFW ] itself is just organized honeypot for intel gatherings in globo-energy and related matters.
That’s simply fact of life on this planet among other for resources competing human-oids and as such you have been pre-warned entering it long time ago..
Yes, everything is being tracked. That said, one will probably be left alone until one pushes for real-world action.
Here’s a story: My mom is a do-gooder type who is always pushing getting involved in social causes (save this tribe’s water supply, save that fish, stop that development, etc). Some years back, one or two new people started showing up to her group of mostly middle-aged well-off women, pushing for extremist type action, totally out of sync with the group. The group thought they were likely government agency provocateurs.
What’s interesting to me is that if government agencies even probe upper middle class women’s groups, all grass-roots movements must be infested with feds.
If the revolution is being televised, it most likely has been infiltrated.
Leaders know they can’t let non-leaders call the shots so they take measures , like say, surveillance to make sure they stay on top.
Good one thanks, lol !
Yes, the fun part is that your mother’s case was more in the segment of direct influencing ( instigating action ), while there are surely many more instances ( of infiltration ) just for passively collecting info; as performing in role of a. provocateur surely takes way different mindset / training – skillz, budget etc.
“Some years back, one or two new people started showing up to her group of mostly middle-aged well-off women, pushing for extremist type action, totally out of sync with the group.”
In my hippie years, I started a social justice group and one of the first signs of interference in my young life was when 2 new members showed up disrupting the group.. one was a younger guy pushing for extreme action and the other was an older man trying to sell a green product.. both were whispering in my ear about the other one wanting to take charge of the group.
The high strangeness has calmed down since I chose the inner path of recovery but once or twice a year there is a reminder with unbelievable timing and synchronicity. I call them the “local theatre group.” The key is to observe rather than react, perhaps give some feedback to see what, who and how. Keep it simple, learn self defense and have some fun at the end of the world.
I know what [OFW] reminds me of off – that early ZH from ~15ya (when it was called something different, I forgot), an educationally good place to be, feeling like long forgotten home, even if it’s an hp…
I’m glad that OFW seems like an educationally good place to be. Maybe even like a long forgotten home.
Palantir is associated with organizations known for instig ating violence for political purposes . Palantir would have an uphill battle if it had to prove it did not fabricate this attack to justify further action against certain countries.
I wonder if they really have new tricks compared, say, to the Tailored Access Operations office of the NSA. Surely any backdoor in an Intel chip they also know. And it’s not like these deep state agencies are hurting for money and in fact have more people on the ground for traditional bugging.
But more important, these tricks are on the outs. China (and Russia) now have a good understanding of what it takes to make a network, or an individual phone or computer, harder. I noticed when talking to academics in Russia all of them had an idea of what devices were compromised and how, even AI guys (as an aside, I marvel at how resistant to Max Russians are. They will try to use anything but). It all comes from China controlling the 10nm+ market.
Some people claim you don’t get to choose whether you’re spied on, only by whom (by choosing hardware vendor).