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The war with Iran is not going well. It is difficult to supply US troops with adequate food and other necessities. With summer arriving soon, the region will soon be an even more inhospitable place for ground troops to fight. An underlying problem is that the world economy was reaching resource limits even before the Iran War began, adding to the difficulties.
The most pressing resource limit is distillate fuel oil–an industry term for what we think of as diesel and jet fuel. This fuel is heavily used in transportation. It is also used extensively in agriculture and industry. Somehow, the system needs to cut back on these fuels for international trade so that more fuel is available for agriculture and industry.
President Trump of the US and President Xi of China will be meeting in Beijing on May 14-15. This meeting would seem to be the perfect time to start reorganizing the world with shorter trade routes, so that the world economy uses less fuel for transportation. China and the US are the two great powers in the world. Keeping trade mostly within the two areas shown in Figure 1 would be a way of using fuel oil more sparingly.
An advantage of such a plan, besides saving on fuel, is that it could stop the Iran War without clearly declaring one side the winner or loser. In this post, I will attempt to explain the situation further.
[1] Based on the ideas of Dr. Mohammed Marandi, I believe that China might be able to mediate a settlement between the US and Iran.
Dr. Marandi was born in the United States of Iranian parents. He currently lives in Iran, where he is a professor at the University of Tehran. In the video, One Country Quietly Won this War, he points out that, often, when two countries battle each other, neither one emerges as the clear winner. Both of them are damaged by the war. The actual winner may be a country that does not seem to be directly involved in the war.
In the video referenced above, Dr. Marandi discusses three historical situations in which a nation not directly involved in a conflict gained stature by being the “adult in the room,” when two other nations battled each other. In this case, Dr. Marandi believes that China could very well be the country that can exert enough pressure on both sides to get them to accept a proposed solution. He says that China has acted behind the scenes to bring about the ceasefire, and that Trump has acknowledged China’s role.
Dr. Marandi suggests the idea that the upcoming meeting of the two presidents might be an opportune moment to make major steps toward a mutually agreed settlement. I believe that the underlying problem is that there isn’t enough energy (particularly oil) to support a world population of over eight billion. Dividing up markets in the way I have suggested would at least somewhat alleviate the shortage. Of course, there may be other terms of a settlement, as well. In addition, not all the terms may be determined precisely at this time.
[2] The world doesn’t have enough diesel and jet fuel to maintain the current level of trade across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Figure 2 shows that per capita diesel and jet fuel started to drop at the time of the Great Financial Crisis in 2007-2009. Their supply took a larger step down in 2020, and it hasn’t completely recovered. In 2026, the Iran War has taken out more crude oil supply, for an unknown period of time.
Diesel and jet fuel are both very important as transportation fuels. Diesel is also important in agriculture because it provides the power needed for heavy machinery to till fields, even under the most adverse conditions. Diesel provides the power needed for large commercial trucks, many trains, and ships. Earth moving equipment is also typically operated by diesel fuel.
If the amount of trade across the Atlantic and Pacific could be greatly reduced, it would help alleviate the shortage of distillates. Of course, the tourist trade would also need to be greatly reduced. With recent spikes in aviation fuel prices, many flights are being cut. Some airlines, including Spirit Airlines in the US, are going bankrupt. The problem is starting to solve itself, but more changes will be needed.
[3] Looking at population and oil supplies, the Americas seems likely to come out somewhat ahead.
[3a] Comparing the populations of the two areas, the World ex Americas is much larger, and its population is growing faster.
President Xi (leading one hemisphere) would get the very large and still rapidly growing part of the world population. President Trump would get a smaller and less rapidly growing share of the world population. Between 2021 and 2024, world population grew an average of 0.6% per year in the Americas, and an average of 0.9% per year in the World ex Americas.
[3b] The Americas seem to have an advantage with respect to crude oil production.
It makes sense to look at energy amounts on a per-capita basis because the quantity needed depends on the number of people requiring the benefits of transportation, agriculture, and industry. On this basis, crude oil production of the Americas has clearly been outshining that of the World ex Americas. It is higher on a per-capita basis. In addition, the amount available has been increasing in recent years.
Figure 5, below, shows total crude oil production (not per capita).
Figure 5 suggests that since 2005, crude oil production for the World ex Americas has hardly increased. In fact, total extraction has decreased since 2019. A person viewing this data might conclude that crude oil production in this area may already be past its peak.
On the other hand, Figure 5 shows that oil production of the Americas has increased by about 65% since 2005. Many people believe that US shale production will soon decline. At the same time, however, increases seem likely in several other countries in the Americas, including Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Guyana. Thus, while crude oil production for the Americas may decline in the near future, its decline is likely to be gradual.
[3c] Crude oil production by geographical area outside of the Americas shows declining production in all areas.
Figure 6 shows that Europe’s crude oil production started its permanent decline in 2001. Asia-Pacific’s production hit a maximum in 2010, and it has been declining since. Africa’s peak oil production took place in 2008, and it has been mostly declining since.
Russia+, which I use to refer to Russia plus nearby countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union, has an unusual production pattern. Its crude oil production started to decline in 1989, two years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. (This collapse in crude oil production likely contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.) Crude oil production for Russia+ rose from 1998 to 2019.
Russia+’s production took a big step down in 2020, and it has not been able to recover since. A person might think that Russia+’s oil production was post peak, even before the 2022 conflict with Ukraine broke out. If an oil exporter doesn’t have enough oil to export, it tends to create financial problems within an economy. Participating in a war can appear to mitigate the country’s problems.
Many people assume that the Middle East has endless inexpensive-to-produce crude oil. I don’t think that this is the case. Crude oil production of the Middle East (Figure 6 above) hit two similar peaks in 2016 and 2018, and it has been lower in years since then. I think that Middle Eastern oil production is likely past peak partly because of depletion issues and partly because most countries in the area require high taxes on oil exports to provide subsidies for their ever-growing populations. This leads OPEC to try to maintain high prices. Lower crude oil production since 2018 is consistent with the hypothesis that oil production for the Middle East is mostly post-peak.
One additional difficulty of the World ex Americas is that it is so heavily populated that it cannot access tight oil that might be available without displacing a large number of residents. Another difficulty is that very old wells, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are ones that it might not be possible to restart if they are shut in for an extended time.
[4] In terms of mining and manufacturing, the Americas seems to come out behind the World ex Americas.
The World ex Americas has rapidly ramped up mining and manufacturing. Coal has been the preferred industrial fuel, with natural gas consumption also increasing.
Figure 7 shows that the energy consumption of the World ex Americas started increasing more rapidly after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. The consumption of coal and natural gas has especially increased.
The economies of the Americas have tended to shift towards service economies. Emphasis has been placed on fuel efficiency. Homes are now better insulated, light bulbs are more efficient, and engines of vehicles are more efficient. As a result, energy consumption within the Americas has tended to stay flat (Figure 8).
I have used the same scale on Figure 8 as on Figure 7 to emphasize how low energy consumption for the Americas is now, relative to the rest of the world. After US oil prices first rose to a high level in 1973, the US started transferring manufacturing to lower-wage countries. Southeast Asian countries began to be favored after 2001. Moving manufacturing abroad helped hold down US energy consumption and helped make the cost of goods to the consumer cheaper.
The problem today is that moving so much manufacturing elsewhere has made it difficult for the Americas to go back to producing its own goods, including clothing, furniture, and transformers for electrical systems. Supply lines for a particular item, such as a refrigerator, often run through many countries around the world.
[5] The full transition to the configuration shown on Figure 1 could take well over 100 years.
Changes, such as new supply lines and the new placement of major population areas, cannot happen very quickly. But I expect that some of the same underlying principles that guided these decisions in the past will continue to guide them in the future.
For example, infrastructure (roads, bridges, pipelines, and (today) long distance electricity transmission lines) seems to be the most difficult part of an economy to maintain because of the huge amount of energy required. Before the days of fossil fuels, I understand that slave labor was often used to build and maintain infrastructure. Similarly, slave labor was sometimes used to staff the mines needed to support the building of such infrastructure. As we lose fossil fuels, we will need to think about reducing our reliance on infrastructure.
One low-infrastructure approach used in the past was to build cities near bodies of water, so that fewer roads would be needed. Boats could be used to transport goods without building roads or bridges. If fish were available, they could be caught and used for food. In Figure 1, I am imagining that we will head back in this direction, with cities especially along navigable bodies of water and the ocean.
Unless we discover ways to replace fossil fuel energy, I would expect that the system will tend to go down in the reverse order of when it was put up. In general, electricity was last to be added, after coal, oil, and gas from coal. Electrification was first built in cities; then electricity transmission lines were added to provide electricity to rural areas. Above-ground lines tend to be damaged in storms, leading to a need for frequent repairs. Because of this issue, I would expect rural electricity to disappear quite quickly, unless it is generated at the location where it is used.
Natural gas shipped as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was added very late. Its cost tends to be much higher than that of pipeline gas. I expect it to disappear quite quickly.
A full transition to the two trading zones shown on Figure 1 would require a huge number of changes in supply lines. A 2025 chart by Visual Capitalist shows how much control China has over critical minerals. It states, “China controls key materials such as graphite, rare earths, and gallium–essential for green technologies and defense industries.” While the US has started working on its own production of minerals, it will also need to develop the processing capability for these minerals. Putting all of this in place will likely take many decades. This is a significant factor in the 100-year estimate.
[6] If energy supplies are limited, I would expect population centers closest to fuel sources to be especially favored.
Writers today talk about possibly running short of diesel and jet fuel in a few weeks or months. Clearly, if a population center is at a location where there are both oil wells and refineries for the oil from those wells, the area has a better chance of having fuel than an island in the middle of the Pacific with nothing to sell other than tourism. Thus, Houston, Texas, will likely have fuel, even when models suggest there will be shortfalls in many places.
Often writers concerned about resource shortages talk about the core and the periphery. The core needs to be near whatever source of energy is available that can be used to help grow crops and transport goods. At this point, oil is the fuel that is closest to filling this need. Electricity is a nice-to-have, and it can provide services like refrigeration for food. But it is not good for paving roads or building bridges. So, it can only add to the mix, not substitute completely for oil. Slave labor is the closest substitute for oil that the world has discovered. We would rather not go back to using such an approach.
[7] I am concerned that a major downward economic step will be necessary in the upcoming months and years, but I am hopeful that the meeting between President Trump and President Xi on May 14-15 can help smooth the way.
We are at a point at which it is clear that the current organization of the global economy is not working. I hope that the meeting between Trump and Xi will help put an end to fighting in the Middle East. I also hope it will help pave the way for a new path forward.
I expect that the path ahead will be a difficult one, both for the people in the Americas and the people in the World ex Americas. While the US has considerable energy supplies, it lacks manufacturing capability for many everyday goods. The US is also lacking in many critical minerals, especially those used in making high-tech products. With its high wages, it will need extremely high prices, unless processes can be made very efficient.
The World ex Americas may have an even more difficult step down. Its oil supply was already more stretched before the Iran War. Its overpopulation problem seems to be worse than that of the Americas. The World ex Americas is more directly affected by the damage done in the Middle East and the resulting loss of oil supply. And there seem to be many groups looking for war, even if the US leaves.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the upcoming meeting will have a beneficial effect, both in the short term and in working toward a longer-term solution.
I like Ellen Brown. no hysteria or click bait. Just the correct level of probing questioning.
https://ellenbrown.com/2026/06/01/the-ai-revolution-where-capitalism-meets-socialism-the-abundance-paradigm-part-2/
” no hysteria or click bait. Just the correct level of probing questioning.”
You’re such a kidder, Hubbs.
a sample of the kind of probing conducted in the article.
” “If you wanted to power the entire U.S. with solar panels, it would take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire United States. The batteries you need to store the energy, to make sure you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1 mile. One square-mile. That’s it.” Not that all this equipment would need to be in one place, but that shows the projected scale.”
Larry Johnson: Iran may be preparing to demonstrate a nuclear weapon.
https://www.youtube.com/live/pgEeGFJHKwM?si=N0TWa32CxRwikl9z
Russia and China are ramping up nuclear and there is no scarcity of nuclear fuel, because thorium can be used. There will be transition pains as oil is phased out, but the next chapter of human civilization is beginning. This year China plans to deliver 60GW of sodium ion battery production. There is no resource shortage.
It takes a lot of time and fossil fuels to build a nuclear power plant, even one that runs on thorium. While there is one small thorium power plant, scaling this up will take many years and much fossil fuel. I would not count on it.
No naphta , no livilihood in Japan . The crisis .
This seems to be an AI summary related to naphtha. It is used in many ways.
Primary applications for naphtha include:
Petrochemical Feedstock: Heavy naphtha is cracked in steam crackers to produce essential chemical building blocks like ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. These are the foundational materials for manufacturing consumer plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubbers.
Gasoline Production: Light naphtha undergoes catalytic reforming to convert it into high-octane components used in modern motor gasoline.
Industrial & Specialty Solvents: Specific grades (such as VM&P naphtha) are used to thin oil-based paints, varnishes, and lacquers, as well as to degrease metal parts in manufacturing.
Fuel Source: Highly refined naphtha is commonly sold as a portable fuel for camping stoves, portable heaters, and cigarette lighters.
Crude Oil Diluent: Naphtha is used to dilute heavy crude oil, reducing its viscosity so it can be efficiently pumped through pipelines.
So, this is where we all eventually end up….regardless of out rank in society..
Under a heap of dirt and rubble that’s all broken up…
Always found our fixation on permanent burial markers for the corpse very odd.
Like anyone will really care down the line…
Here is a case of it…don’t even know the person(s) or anything remotely of significance….just a waste of time for ego gratification…think of Donnie
Monumental tomb discovered in Ancient Olympos
Archaeologists excavating the ancient city of Olympos in Turkey’s Antalya Province have uncovered a monumental tomb containing an ornate sarcophagus believed to have belonged to a member of the city’s aristocratic elite.
https://www.heritagedaily.com/2026/05/monumental-tomb-discovered-in-ancient-olympos/158220
Inside the tomb we discovered a sarcophagus which survived in a fragmented condition and is now undergoing restoration.”
The sarcophagus has been shaped from high-quality marble from İscehisar in Afyonkarahisar Province and is decorated with hunting scenes as well as figures of Nike, goddess of victory, and Eros. Such imagery was prevalent in the Roman period with wealth, status and power.
– Researchers suspect that the tomb belonged to one of the most aristocratic families of Olympos.
The lower part of the sarcophagus was found broken into roughly 50 fragments. Archaeologists are now reassembling the pieces before the monument is put on public display.
Oh well, keeps archaeologist busy
What do archaeologists do when most people are cremated?
Pocket the gold fillings?
🙂
I went to an interesting lecture while in Harlech in North Wales on the archaeology of the Bronze Age standing stones and cairn burials there. The area is littered with them.
One site, which I visit regularly as it is on a very beautiful long walk, had the ashes from five cremations buried under the stones, put there it would appear over several centuries, not just from the time when the stones were set up.
My own observations revealed that this tiny circle is in fact aligned as a compass, which all the professionals have missed! But that is by the by.
The archaeologists are rather puzzled, though, by having found simple wood ashes as well, without any human or animal content, in some holes. There is always a mystery to investigate, if you can get a grant….
I always pay my respects to these long buried dead, whoever they were.
Apparently the American dream is it dead per Buffet
Berkshire Hathaway acquires national home builder in $8.5B deal
The all-cash deal reflects Berkshire Hathaway’s “commitment to housing” as the company aims to “to deliver the dream of homeownership,” CEO Greg Abel said.
https://www.realestatenews.com/2026/05/31/berkshire-hathaway-acquires-national-home-builder-in-8-5b-deal
The move reflects Berkshire’s “long-standing commitment to housing,” he added, pointing to the company’s 2003 acquisition of manufactured housing company Clayton Homes as an example of a similar investment.
“Over time, we expect to unify our site-built homebuilding operations into a combined platform enabling us to deliver the dream of homeownership to more Americans,” Abel said.
No problem commuting or resource overshoot..to the moon 🌝
Boy, are we unrealistic
Let’s wish him well. Perhaps Greg Abel can keep the system going a little longer. People always need roofs over their heads, even if it is the roof of a cave. Perhaps Mr. Abel can figure our some narrow number of people who can afford new homes, and build for them.
US SPR crude inventories in million barrels – sweet vs sour (DOE) . Please note light sweet is now 125 million barrels . A fortnite ago was 150 million .
https://x.com/staunovo/status/2061332358146499048/photo/1
The issue may just as much be that the total amount of SPR oil is low.
Sour oil has sulfur in it. This sulfur can be used for fertilizer. The oil with sulfur may be relatively “heavier” than the sweet oil. If it is relatively heavier, it may be better for making diesel and jet fuel.
The smorgasbord of pill consumption where everyone an get exactly what they need is ending. The beginning was the german refinery’s totally engineered for Russian oil molecular structure refusing same. Then they ship it to India and back. They know exactly what it is because it’s that molecular structure their process and hardware was engineered for. They know exactly where it came from. It’s the same substance they set up shop for because it was next door. The same substance they developed their processes for. The same substance their infrastructure needs. Only now it goes halfway round the world and back gets markup and travel costs added instead of coming from next door.
As crazy is this is it reflects reality. What you need is what you need. If you need naptha sweet won’t do and visa versa.
Only markets free of both physical encumbrance and financial encumbrance allowed the potpourri of oil products that we have taken for granted allowing the abundance of mix and match. A mix and match that is the basis for the current version of industrial civilization. A mix and match that must somehow adapt to the end of the potpourri. Or not.
With the availability of the potpourri in the grandest international bazaar the world has ever seen pricing could smooth difficulties in the mix and match. Pricing is incapable of smoothing end of supply. It’s like trying to give a dead squirrel on the highway an aspirin.
If the grocery store is out of wheat chunchies you can eat rice crinchiies and pricing smooths difficulties. Infinite availability of products can end and there can be continuence creating resilience. It’s the opposite with oil consumption. It’s basise is fragility not resilience in regard to many things and substitution is one of those things. The Iran war is a bull in a China shop and this was no news flash. That was the deterent. Behave or we release the bull.
Well known. So why is the bull there smashing China and pooping on the floor? Intelligence agencies told Hormoozmoron that’s what you still get smashed China and poop on floor. Maybe Hormoozmoron heard smash China and and thought it was a go. 😂
It comes down to this. You believe incompetence and arrogance of a unimaginable degree along with compromised motives are responsible for the end. Thats the narrative. Oh well. Hormoozmoron went mad. It happens. Or you believe something else. And what we believe neither puts the China back together or cleans up the poop on the floor. That’s our world now. Smashed porcelain and poop.
” BREAKING: Iran officially suspends all negotiation message exchange with the US, due to the continued Israeli ceasefire violations in Lebanon, with the Iranian negotiating team halting “dialogue and the exchange of texts through intermediaries” until Iran’s position on Lebanon is met, per Tasnim.
Iran and the Resistance Front have also placed on their agenda the complete blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the activation of other fronts including the full blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to “punish the Zionists and their supporters.”
The market moved only 5% .
Strange world we live in. No one believes that whatever happens in the Middle East makes a difference anymore.
This is demand destruction playing out prices will be heading lower over the coming months
I don’t recall who but somone here did a post on barnacles and associated problems . Well he was bullseye as the issue is now cropping up with ships stuck in the Gulf . Congrats .
” Images are emerging of Persian Gulf barnacle infestations which could render ships inoperable due to propeller and fouling issues
Crews are in some cases receiving only one meal a day – some are reportedly not being paid ”
https://x.com/MarhelmData/status/2061096613632713117/photo/1
Barnacles in the Gulf are quite brutal.
If we didn’t drop our retractable thruster at least once every few weeks, the barnacles would lock it in, and we would need divers to clear it out before the (powerful) hydraulic system could push it down again.
Next drydock will require much more SA2.5 blasting than owners would’ve hoped/planned for.
With the summer coming in, many of the the non-local ships’ cooling systems (box cooler or plate coolers) will suffer.
We had to modify our cooling systems to fight the fouling (rubberizing pipes to circulate more aggressive chemicals, add dosing system into seachests).
Dubai Drydocks, Asyad, Asry, Milaha, AD Ports (they have a new large dock) are about to make a lot of money from this (they are already . FUBAR
https://x.com/ShippingManJr/status/2061114462892179757
Just I was thinking — we talk a lot about jet fuel and diesel but never about bunker fuel used by ships . What happens to all the ships , after all if little or no refining also means no bunker fuel . We cannot go back to coal steamships . makes me go — hmmm .
Ships have been able to get along with really poor quality fuel in the past. Bunker fuel is close to “bottom of the barrel” unrefined crude. There has been an attempt to outlaw burning this fuel because it is so polluting–lots of sulfur, for example. As I understand the situation, if ships can dump the sulfur released on burning bunker fuel into the sea, rather than into the air, burning this fuel is permitted in many places. Without law enforcement, if refining is limited, I expect more bunker fuel will be used.
This doesn’t sound good at all!
That was me. IIRC they can slow the speed of these tankers by 45%
👍
Going long barnacles. All in. Are there any barnacle ETFs?
Maybe AI will put SCBA on and grind barnacles off hulls?
“The driver of a Tesla in Florida recently died after his vehicle, which was using the company’s Autopilot feature, left the roadway and entered a pond, according to multiple reports.
The crash happened on May 26, around 8:10 p.m. in Tampa, reported local TV stations Fox 13 Tampa and CBS Tampa 10.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/05/29/tesla-on-autopilot-mode-crashes-into-pond-87-year-old-driver-dies/90319482007/
I just don’t understand the logic in self driving a car for someone. Driving a car is very simple and fun. We don’t need a computer to do it. Unless your blind or something.
This is going to end up like 3D television, Google Glass or Metaverse”
What they want is to eliminate jobs: taxi drivers, truck drivers, UBER drivers.
Exactly, Gail. This is how They are thinking.
A few months ago, Bill Gates opined –
with no little misanthropic glee – in an interview that:
”We already don’t need people to grow things, move stuff or to make stuff. As to how many we will need to do other things, we’ll have to talk about that……’.
what gates doesnt grasp—along with millions of others, is that all those unnecessary people buy sell an move stuff for other unecessary people, and thus make the commercial world function…..
ai and robots dont do that
Peter Thiel will find and silence the malcontents.
Add Airport Bagge Handlers to that list.
Recently on nightly national news this was shown at the Tokyo Airport,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNnSOO11KFU
Humanoid robot trials as baggage handler at Tokyo airport
Reuters
They probably will do better doing it too, very funny
It’s dark. It’s very dark. There would be no need for any police. Every taxi would also be a police car, with doors that are locked.
This cannot be allowed to happen, because when it does… that will be the scariest time of all. Robots that cart you away. Lovely.
Oh, no! All we will need is mechanics to keep these vehicles repaired.
Jet fuel issues in Scotland. I like the “for unknown reasons”
https://theaviationhub.co.uk/glasgow-edinburgh-airport-experiencing-fuel-supply-issues/
Japanese crude oil storage levels.
https://www.threads.com/@barchartofficial/post/DZBpDgWjB-D/breaking-japan-japanese-crude-oil-reserves-plunge-by-largest-amount-in-history/
The first comment on this is, “Crude oil reserves are held for crises like the Strait of Hormuz, it would be news if they hadn’t fallen.”
The second comment comments on the strange scale of the axis. The truncated scale makes it look like the quantity remaining has fallen to zero. It is really only down by perhaps 30%.
Perhaps the beginning of jet fuel triage in the UK?
Scotland is a marginal region with a small population, etc, an it would make sense to give priority to supplying Heathrow and Gatwick .
How exciting! A dose of reality – let’s see if it spreads.
Two different gas stations around the corner from me were completely out of gas on Saturday. Never seen that in my life before.
Where do you live?
Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Exactly halfway between Chicago and Detroit. (150 miles east and west)
Fuel issues which delayed air passengers now resolved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx219v9p2zeo
Passengers at two Scottish airports experienced delays over the weekend due to issues with jet fuel supply.
Those travelling through Glasgow and Edinburgh airports on Sunday faced delays on a number of flights which had to make extra stops for fuel.
It is understood the issue was due to short term staffing issues and it has now been resolved due to overnight deliveries.
If a publication doesn’t want to scare people, “unknown reasons” sounds like as good an excuse as any.
Unknown is the best excuse! No nagging details.
Why?
Dunno.
Why?
Dunno
Why?
Dunno
Then they go away. Mostly..
Don’t ever change search engine Brave AI
“The horse and buggy industry has fundamentally changed rather than simply dying, shifting from a primary mode of transportation to specialized niches. ”
According to the A.I. the horse and buggy industry is not dead.
Technically they are right. But there’s no “industry” around it anymore.
They say something similar about vhs. Niche applications and interest doesn’t mean something is “alive” but it looks like it’s programmed to discourage people from making generalizations, using exceptions to debunk any thing that sounds like a generalization.
This is interesting info from POB .
” DC
05/31/2026
US crude net exports in the most recent week were -772 kb/d, see
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_wkly_dc_NUS-Z00_mbblpd_w.htm
Product net exports are pretty high (6613 kb/d), but a significant portion of this is propane (about 39% of total product net exports is propane.)
This is a chart of exports of crude and petroleum products. It shows a big recent spike:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WTTEXUS2&f=W
There is a much smaller jump in products exports
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WRPEXUS2&f=W
“The most fascinating part of Berman’s analysis was his claim that the US is not, contrary to Trump’s claims, energy independent when it comes to oil. US shale production is overwhelmingly light sweet crude (low density, low sulfur). However, America’s refinery infrastructure — particularly the massive Gulf Coast refining complex — was built and optimized decades ago to process heavy sour crude. Because of this, the US must import heavy crude from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and others to feed existing refineries, while it exports its light shale oil to Asia and Europe. “?
https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/trumps-oil-confabulations
I agree with Art that the US is definitely not energy independent. The shale oil the US now extracts is fairly good for making gasoline and natural gas liquids, but it is terrible for making diesel and jet fuel. We have been importing heavier crude for a very long time to get the diesel and jet fuel we need. (Also, things like lubricants, and fuel for ships.) Our refineries are optimized for the mix of fuel outputs we need to operate our vehicle mix. This is similar to, but a little different from what Art says. He says we import fuels to match our refineries. Yes, but our refineries would never have been this way, except our vehicle mix needs the mix our outputs our refineries produce.
Excess natural gas liquids are shipped to India and other places that can use them.
Reante’s “Think before you speak” is always good advice.
It reminds me of some other words of proverbial wisdom voiced by The Gladiators, the Jamaican group who were popular before young Reante was a twinkle in his mother’s eye and while their lineup has changed a bit, they are still performing.
Stop before you go, right now
You’ll get hurt and that’s for sure
Look before you leap, I say
To prevent is better than have it to cure
Open your eyes and see, mmm
Observantly, you will understand
So easy will you go, ah ah ah
Can’t you see what ‘s going on
Way over younder
Where the gooses gander
Running to and fro
Thinking that everything a fit
They never stop to look
But soon they’ll fall in a bottomless pit
I’m referring to mankind, yeah
Stop before you go, right now
You’ll get hurt and that’s for sure
Look before you leap, I say
To prevent is better than have it to cure
Measure twice and cut once
By doing so you can’t go wrong
It’s better to be locked away in a cave
Than to be an oppressor’s slave
They work you down to the grave
They’ll give you a 6 for a 9
Watch your step, I say, mankind
I ask US and Chinese AI “what is killing Trump?” They both tell me in no uncertain terms it is a complete falsehood there is no factual basis to believe Trump is unwell, in fact he is completely fit to carry out the duties of president. So society is spending trillions of dollars to repeat the propaganda of the deep state.
I am not a doctor but you don’t need to be a doctor to know when an ill old man is dying.
If Trump can fly from time zone to zone and say something sort of coherent, without falling asleep, he is doing better than most people in his age group. We may disagree with what he is saying, but that is a different issue.
The plane does have a bedroom.
We are going on with sophisticated analysis on energy, geopolitics, wars and so on, but it seems that they want to solve problems another time with a pandemic.
Another suspected case of Ebola in Italy (Cagliari).
Another organized pandemic with another time Italy as the epicentre.
Italy is the center of many bad affairs lately.
Siamo il ventre molle dell’impero.
We are very luckly!
it is a better owned public sector. they will never start a plandemic i \n japan.
the plan is starvation or famine when the ships dont deliver the diesel then trucks dont deliver the food this is probably the only card the elders can play now.we shall know in a couple of months.
If you go to the third world as a exceptional one.
Does is matter if your meal is $.50 or $1.00?
If you create money at will what does oil price matter?
What matters is who is getting their hands on it what they do with it and that there is more than plenty left for you and your projects.
These damn Dothraki have gotten their hands on your dollars and are consuming all the oil.
High price mitigates.
Low price with no money in Dothraki hands mitigates.
Blockade mitigates
Which works best? Option four.Transition to new money that has controls. Gas pump talks to you. ” I’m sorry you have exceeded your gas ration”.
In mitigation multiple techniques work better.
The people are heroes.
Busy with hero things.
Slaying the evil Dementus.
Who you never liked anyway.
Lots of circuses.
Not so much bread.
All in a days work.
If you create money at will what does oil price matter?
It dos not matter indeed. also the price of oil is not what customers pay but something that is decided in NY after many options and futures are traded. It is a situation similar to silver. the price of oil is a quantity that is fairly well correlated to the real price of oil.
and also how long the price of oil stays “high” does not matter. what matters is how permanent the changes in the economy will be, how much of the economy can be resurrected after the price of oil decreases significantly.
A picture is better than a thousand words . Understand how onshore oil storage works and almost 20%is just dead storage . See link for photo .
” I used to be in charge of all the crude and product tank inventories in the refinery.
Here is a simple picture of the operating levels of the tank. You’ve got deadstocks at the bottom of the tank because the pump nozzle is positioned slightly above a certain level. We used to call this ‘the unpumpables’. Go below this level and your feed pump would cavitate. Big no-no.
Then you get a minimum working level after catering for contingency levels (e.g. enough product stocks to cater for x days of unplanned shutdown).
And although you have a huge tank that can technically fill to the brim, the actual working volume at the top is lower than the absolute max to also factor in for contingency levels (e.g. enough capacity to store off-spec rundown for an unplanned shutdown). Tank top scenario is a horror nobody wants to face due to risk of loss of primary containment (i.e. a safety incident).
In the current low stocks environment in the US, you are going to ‘scrape tank bottoms’, up to the minimum working level. So you will always have some stocks because you can’t draw to absolute zero.
https://x.com/JuneGoh_Sparta/status/2060361258130391209/photo/1
I have a 8000 liters tank for the tractors. When we bought it it had a small leak (1 liter per month) right under it, at its lowest spot opposite the pump. That leak cured itself within 18 months. There is evidently enough paraffin that it will deposit and plug the leak. this in commercial diesel.
Do you have any issues with biodiesel?
Dennis L.
there is no biodiesel here.
There was an earlier, funny comment somewhere for this post.
“If this is the end of the world.
Where’s Jesus?
…”
Quite a good one.
It reminded me of a song containing the lyrics
“Ooh, Superman, where are you now
When everything’s gone wrong somehow?”
Some more ‘serious theoretical questions’.
What could any kind of a Superman do?
Why would he do something?
Those are the easy questions.
Regarding the religious figure it gets more complicated.
What could he do?
Why would he do something?
What did others do to him when he showed up the last time?
I am confused. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBIa8z_Mts
(Genesis – Land Of Confusion (Official Music Video))
[39,701,854 views, Feb 28, 2009, Genesis]
Right. This video is from 2009. Even back then, people were thinking about the problems we have today. Unfortunately, there is no solution.
For whatever reason Jesus seems to favor the rednecks, i.e. moors who used to be muslims but quietly changed their religion and eventually names when they emigrated to ‘Florida’ (which , prior to the French Revolution, controlled most of what later became CSA)
Global oil inventories are falling by 280 million barrels every month.
Even if the market returns to the pre-February 27 situation of roughly a 1 million barrel per day surplus, every month of war creates nine months of inventory rebuilding.
We are now three months into the war. That means 27 months of rebuilding. And that assumes the old surplus is still there. After the damage to oil infrastructure in the Middle East, even that 1 million barrel per day surplus is not guaranteed.
Some countries will also hate how low their inventories have become and will want to build larger reserves. This means consensus will be surprised by how long oil prices stay high. We are not talking about weeks. We are talking about years.
Seems the good ole days are behind us all..
Donnie and BeBe just kicked the can off the road, thanks guys..
You’ll be remembered forever for what you’ve done..
That’s what BeBe told Donnie to get him to attack Iran .
It was all an ego stroking thing for Donnie..he likes that..to be remembered and having his name posted everywhere
Mike reality isn’t a junior high school history textbook.
the consensus IS that oil prices will stay high for years. They won’t stay high for years. If they could stay high they would have been staying high before the war ever started because prices are always set at what the market can bear. Prices the market can’t bear break the market which breaks the prices (in nominal terms as the real cost continues to rise). We’re not talking about the price of peanuts here. We’re talking about the master resource. A massive dislocation in (in)affordability of the master resource is a gunshot to the back of the head of global capital. It’s the only thing worse than a sovereign bond market dislocation at the latter used to be our biggest concern, but the genius Hand ran the full financial gauntlet of Extend and Pretend and saw the civilization all the way through to the absolute end of the road, bypassing even bond market collapse. Now the bond market collapse will just be a function of oil collapse. Props to the Hand. That’s how we made it all the way to 2026. The Hand won the winnable part of the war against peak oil. The plandemic was its master stroke.
I agree. And the pandemic allowed the debt level to be raised, keeping the economy afloat a while longer. There was an opportunity to postpone debt repayment by students and much other debt.
the consensus IS
I had to stop reading right there.
Because I AM THE MOB doesn’t do CAPS.
I wouldn’t bet on a bond market collapse. High priced oil or oil higher than the market can afford to pay. Which very well may be a ceiling of about $100 oil. Not saying prices can’t go high but the market can’t afford it.
Bond yields are headed back to zero and negative. As one by one countries enter recession. Central banks will be cutting interest rate soon enough when they realize higher oil prices aren’t inflationary.
You’d think they’d already know it and be cutting rates aggressively. But politically they don’t have the cover just yet to cut rates. Not that interest rates matter but you have to keep the public believing that they do. Otherwise in mass the public would realize FED policy doesn’t matter.
High oil prices in the 70’s had high inflation. This goes against your theory.
Inflation is a decrease in goods+services per unit money. Goods and services will go down, so we will have inflation unless the knock-on effects destroy money access even faster AND governments don’t fight this with massive stimulus. We will see.
I think we could very easily have high inflation, reduced real economic activity, skyrocketing stock market (this happened in Weimar before the money itself collapsed; for a while people did get wealthier in real terms and kept it if they cashed out into other currencies or goods before inflation multiplied).
ivan,
We had a rapidly expanding Eurodollar market due to globalization during the 70’s. Aka massive commercial bank credit expansion.
This isn’t the 70’s. The Eurodollar aka the global reserve currency peaked in 2008 right before the GFC.
Oil price were at all time highs. The Eurodollar market contracted and oil prices fell and we had a global recession.
Global oil production didn’t peak in the 70’s nor did it peak in the 2008-2009 era.
Well if the strait of Hormuz never fully recovers. Then global oil production has indeed peaked and will never again hit new highs.
You should expect a major contraction in the global reserve currency. Followed by a major global recession.
What do oil prices and inflation due in a major recession?
If endless dollar and endless credit creation actually occurred then indeed oil prices could go to $200 and stay there because everyone within the economy could afford $200 oil.
That is not the case.
And of coarse there is more to it.
The larger we expand debt. The greater the monthly contraction of the money supply there is.
Also low interest rates mean a larger portion of monthly payments on debt goes to the principle portion of the debt payment. Which decrease the money supply.
Low interest rates are in fact deflationary.
Money literally disappears faster in a low interest rate environment than it does in a higher interest rate environment.
Which means we need to increase the credit expansion even faster to avoid money supply contraction.
I did not say oil prices would be high, I said inflation will be high. And even that was qualified, as it depends on policy measures. We could have runaway inflation in asset prices (nominal) while oil stays muted and people become poor in real terms, as those asset prices buy less.
Now, you’ve said that low interest rates are deflationary. I disagree with that – I think history makes this obvious and that you are confusing the causal direction of policy “remedy” (low interest rates) and deflation (recession). The recession caused the low interest rates, but you think it’s the other way around, if I understand you. Anyway, we’ve encountered so many points of disagreement that I think we can just table this.
Could you explain this again:
“The larger we expand debt. The greater the monthly contraction of the money supply there is.”
Gail,
As commercial banks expand the money supply via loans. They create money that didn’t exist before the loan was created. Balance sheet expansion.
As we repay loans the banks balance actually contracts by the same amount of principle paid. The liability side of the banks balance sheet shrinks every time a payment is made on a loan.
Add on top of this that the interest expense was never created in the first place. But must be extracted from the economy.
What it means is debts are only payable with exponential loan growth. By commercial banks. If they fail to expand their balance sheets exponentially the money supply shrinks as loans are repaid.
The money to repay debts doesn’t exist
without exponential loan growth.
We need an endlessly increasing amount of goods and services so banks can continue balance sheet expansion. Making loans.
Otherwise the money supply will contract as available goods and serviced decline.
In order to repay a home loan. The average buyer must consume/provide a ton of goods and services over usually a 15 to 30 year timeline to repay the loan.
If those goods and services don’t materialize those mortgages can’t be repaid.
Thanks HHH. FTR I framed it as dislocation not collapse. The Treasury bond market dislocation to the upside was never going to lead to near-term collapse because it was always going to lead to deflation. Negative rates of course are just a negative dislocation. Eventually though deflation leads to terminal hyperinflation and total collapse of the civilization because even though reserve currency deflation now better serves Collapse MPP, there are still diminishing returns applicable to that spiraling deflationary dynamic of diminishing returns. At the bottom of the deflationary spiral they will have to print, and they will be printing stablecoins because FRNs will be gone because the banks switched over to stablecoins as the replacement for the odious FRN debt deflation extinguishment because global t-bill purchases are what made deflation the better choice than hyperinflation in the first place.
ROW bond markets, however, will absolutely collapse because dollar deflation structurally means ROW currency hyperinflation. Excepting maybe China if it retains its dollar peg which I expect it probably will.
Interest rate setting is a trailing indicator so that’s why we’re not seeing rates cuts.
You might be right. The pain has to spread to lenders as well as borrowers. Borrowers are the ones now behind on debt. They are being propped up by extend and pretend.
But it is hard to push borrowers out onto the street, even if they stop repaying loans. Lenders need to get hit, either by loans that cannot be repaid, or by very low interest rates on debt, or both. If lenders are hit in these ways, perhaps the system can sort of stay together longer.
There is too little discussion about the realities of the [un]winnable part of the war against peak oil though. And since this is not that distant future it should be discussed more vividly.
I guess we all try to disassociate ourselves with this outcome because the personal/local/regional adjustments as in direct forcing dropped upon us won’ be pretty.
The winnable part? DA theory is the only discussion that I’m aware of that addresses the winnable part. I wholeheartedly agree with you that there’s too little discussion on it. I certainly don’t have a monopoly on it just because I had a head start. But fear is obviously a big part of the problem, in one sense or another.
The unwinnable part we refer to as Collapse.
Maybe prices stay high. Maybe the economy contracts to use less.
Experience says that prices rarely stay high. They spike and then fall.
Kachit
Kachit
Kachit
What is that noise?
It’s the winch on a catapult racheting.
Trump is the mother of all problems.
Wait till you see the mother of all solutions.
Nuclear weapons meant war was obsolete as a tool.
Interconnected economies meant war was obsolete as a tool.
Energy is a much better solution.
Did you really think Dothraki were going to be allowed to consume energy forever?
With the “money” they create from nothing?
😂
Will there be pain?
Will there be suffering?
Will there be death?
Duh
That’s what allows shaping.
What a tool! What a time!
Kachit
Kachit
Kachit
Low and behold we are presented with models that present greed and power as motivators not shaping.
Powerful heros and villains.
A blockade of oasis energy source in a barren desert.
A unparalleled power struggle.
Energy traded for food and water is interrupted by a villain
The saga of blockade.
Righteous change ensues at the hands of the brave heros.
Starring Donald J Dementus
With co star and special guest “supreme leader”.
Powerful images.
Coincidence of course.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tWaj-gNeUpk&pp=ygUQZGVtZW50dXMgY2l0YWRlbA%3D%3D
China ascends.
USA diminishes
Followed by Russia
Do you think Russia wanted to keep the USA around because they like freedom frys?
This is just the final act. The beginning was
Giving China all manufacturing
Giving China all technology
And most important
Giving China full access to the disposable dollar tool.
All completely free of charge.
A kinder gentler multi polar CCP with genuine respect for all nations.
😂
Dothraki lite is ending.
oil prices will not stay high because simply demand destruction is beginning to take off people are changing their behaviour once the prices drop to $20 a barrel the elders will panic and the next thing you know interest rates will start dropping fast they will probably go to negative and that’s how the collapse will occur it happened in the past in the civil war days in America the price of land in America prior to their bubble bursting was approximately a thousand dollars an acre after the bubble burst it had dropped to $10 an acre. The interest rates back then we’re on negative 15.%. What saved the Americans back then was oil that was when oil took off around the 1850s.there is nothing to save us now because renewables just have not got the power to do what oil done.
a couple of errors in my above comment I am describing the panic of 1857 and interest rates did not go to negative 15% they went to 10 to 15%.but yes the bubble did burst by 99% and there is no mention of oilcoming to the rescue but we know that history sometimes does not mention important things like energy being responsible for the economy.
The UN possibly going bankrupt??
https://www.wsj.com/world/the-u-n-is-going-broke-as-the-u-s-and-china-withhold-billions-bd1fae5e
The U.N. Is Going Broke as the U.S. and China Withhold Billions
The Trump administration has failed to pay billions owed, while Beijing has been accused of gaming the international body’s budget
Summary: “The United Nations faces a severe liquidity crisis, with Secretary-General António Guterres warning of a “race to bankruptcy” by mid-August.”
Donnies a deadbeat at heart…
AI will come to the rescue so Antonio will be replaced by AI.
One big pantomime extravaganza.
They should have brought drums to the circle.
Now everyone understands and no one wants to pay for a stupid pretend show..
The stupidity of the premise.
Authority but if you don’t like you veto.
So only pretend authority.
Except if you don’t have veto power.
Then if it is decided you comply or face consequences
And it would never have existed if some members compliance wasn’t explicitly pretend from the beginning.
This was desirable activity why?
Because people were paid to be pantomime participants.
Now there is no money so it ends.
Is anyone upset?
Yes. The people who were paid.
Just another abundant energy pantomime.
After major expenses, it’s now time to cut back on groceries. Four out of ten Slovaks are cutting back on their regular shopping.
Financial pressure has seeped into everyday life.
https://www.sme.sk/index/c/konsolidacia-ma-dosah-na-penazenky-dvaja-z-piatich-slovakov-obmedzuju-nakupy-potravin
Sad situation, happening many places in the world, I am afraid.
Fortunately you can live solely on potatoes! Many studies attest to that. Go out and plant mg and prepare a root cellar.
Nope, only ~survive; while for health – thriving it’s in your very links you provided and we discussed, appreciated yours contrib. – this must be accompanied by milk products ( a lot ) and collagen ( sourced from veg and animal fat ) ~token yet regular amount is enough. All could be relative easily sourced with not much acreage, the issue is cow milk production ( +derived products base ) at ~scale; NO sheep and goats are not the key solution – the management must be razor sharp because they tend to overgraze-decimate ecosystems, and even if you are on top of them the site must be dialed in already, meaning lush multi level green dense paradise pumping food.. where goats/sheep are just one limited part of the toolbox. Who does that all complex juggling, ~correctly?, 1-3x people ( small farms ) per one US state ? After decades of outreach, hah.
There is enough residual spoiled top soil and funky-dreg-oilz to run the legacy agribiz for a bit longer.. then massive starvation. Again we are NOT there yet, away ~2-3x decades perhaps, depending on locale, and wars.
I agree Jr. But you can survive on them for long periods. For northerners, potatoes, gelatin, dairy, offal and citrus in winter (many fruits in summer) is the basis. For once let me state something optimistic. They are all cheap.
Do you have some ~ready-recipe for basic citrus if say grapefruit is no longer avail. I guess in hot/warmer tea must citrus loose some of the vitamins-benefits, correct ?
Citrus lemonade would be kind of iffy during winter but who knows never tried it ( as in proper context not much heated dwelling and body in harsh winter ).. ?
If it is for vitamin C, sauerkraut provides plenty. But citrus provides much more (folate, calcium, and anti-inflammation compounds, while having little fermentable fiber). kvass can certainly take care of folate, specially beet kvass, which in the US I made for years. calcium is in egg shells and it is a good idea to crunch some shells when you are not having dairy as your main protein. There are probably useful compounds in kombucha too. Here I drink regular kvass, made from rye bread. vitamin B bomb. for fermentables, I like whole paste tomatoes (they must not have any crack) fermented in high salt (50g/kg). also fermented citrus is worth having as a condiment.
Thanks have not heard about fermented citrus so far.
The great value of the family milch cow in the barn has long been forgotten in the West.
The cow, heavenly and all-providing, has been a sacred icon in some cultures for this very reason.
Instead, the cow has become a useless, spendthrift , luxury-addicted, selfie-taking woman, who milks the man…..
Dayum. There’s been quite a few bitter male comments here lately. Buck Boyz and welcome to civilization. A man makes his own bed such that he has to sleep in it. Choose more wisely next time, now that you’re older and wiser. Or don’t choose. But don’t be bitter misogynists if you also want to be seen as circumspect.
You roll the dice and you take your chances. That’s life!
The family milk cow is a good choice if you’re on flat ground and you’re willing to cut a whole lot of hay by hand. Or you’re willing to force your serfs to. Otherwise I’d stick with a couple few milk goats any day of the week, and I do.
Plenty of women venting about men in the most bitter way possible but I’m sure you don’t tell them to stop being bitter misandrists or think their bad experiences with men is due to them not taking on enough risks.
Back in the 1950s, my father-in-law used to keep three Holstein cows to produce milk here in the Kyoto hills. He created a pasture for them on a fairly steep hillside (20 to 20 degree slope) and planted it with orchard grass. They would go across the bridge and up the hill every morning after milking and come back down in the evening.
But perhaps modern cows are too big to climb. Some of them look the size of elephants.
I wish someone would breed a mini-cow that produces a liter or two of milk a day and lays a couple of eggs!
Please, repeat exactly that for Hubbs.
OTOH, may I become a non-bitter, holistic misogynist one of these days, may I?
Tim, thanks for the family-album snapshot! I guess Reante is not much familiar with milkcows in Alpine setting or just meant such ~smaller breeds for mountains ( globally ) are not the prevalent stock, which is obviously the reality out there at present.
Reante you know very well, the issue at hand was rather the angle of planned-organized status elevation ” of said witchcraft ” as in ” look females can’t be despots ( in nominal charge ) dont you know ” ..
Great plan, apparently worked swell, brought add. decades of prolonged near PO times autocratic rule in disguise.
bather why would you think I wouldn’t speak up against misandry? The Western culture encourages misandry which is part of the reason for the misogyny. Western culture encourages hustling and discourages family and that’s a recipe for misogyny vs misandry among people who live symptomatic realities.
The anger really lies with the State and the self, but it gets deflected into the misogyny or misandry because the State disallows violence which is the ancestral last resort of justice. When violence gets neutered because people don’t want to be locked up, injustice is empowered and runs rampant. The self loathes itself for being impotent, and the bitterness sets in.
I started this farm with a male partner. We were both on the title. He decided to bail out after a year and said he was going to force a sale of the land. So I threatened him. He said he would defend himself. I said it’s not going to be a situation in which you can defend yourself self. It’s gonna be a savaging and his life will never be the same again. For me it was preferable to spend the rest of my life behind bars than lose my new homeland. He stood down. Problem solved by having the cojones to be an all or nothing person and knowing when to leverage that sovereign power. He’s still welcome to park himself back on the land anytime and fit in with the program in a constructive manner with one other person of his choice so long as they are also constructive because he’s on the title and that was the original agreement.
Misogynists and misandrists blame symptoms not causes. Like was said in my conversation with Diarm the other day, evolutionary psychologists cite the evolutionary ecological mismatch between civilization and the ancestral social ecology as the fundamental reason for all manner of psychological dysfunction including disloyalty. If people need the State more than they need each other, relationships are going to be fundamentally disloyal whenever the going gets tough. End of story. But weak people prefer small-minded complaints to enlightenment because enlightenment is more work than bitterness and complaint.
Thanks Tim. You’re right it does depend on the climate, stocking rate and skill of the grazier. You graze a cow or cows year round here in the hills and you’re going to have sàcrificial pastures (sacrifice zones we call em) because of the winter destruction by their hoofs. I don’t believe in sacrifice zones myself.
Reante> Good post, bravo.
But we can make it more nuanced still.
One thing is the closer personal circle distance life impacting threat as you describe.
The other are the more distant layers of state/govs/rulers of the day, more or less a spider web or labyrinth with seemingly no exit.
On the former, perhaps not in such intensity as you described, personally yes I can confirm these are critical junction in life, most people just choose the ” easier ” path of avoiding the conflict, and thus ruining their future options ( abandoning previous invested toil ). I have had a mixed bag at some points I did chicken-out ( as younger person ), walked away and it was a grave mistake – yet learning opportunity for the next gig, later in life. Some people are able to stand the ground at 15yrs age, some have to mature into it say being 2-3x older then..
Sure Jr. There are three options because three is the magic number. Stand your ground come hell or high water, accept that you’re not on sovereign ground and concede your tenuous position and regroup which may take decades, or break (become broken by it). Only brokenness lives in a past that can’t be changed.
Cont. the cow & co. tangent..
Browsed some archive picture files, and revisited seemingly forgotten scene with grate impact on me.. not long ago actually saw in (non Alpine and only ~mid alt.) Germany on at least +60deg beyond brutal slope hill, small ~perma-setup. Besides the dwelling, they had two or three very narrow grassy terraces-treks on the entire slope only, each ~3-5ft max width, and one smallish basic ~1m3 sized chic-tractor with ~two black hens on it, also they tended bees. The slope – meadow was evidently trimmed regularly ( assuming using sickle and spikes on boots ). Very few berry/bushes and almost none compact-dwarf fruit trees. The cottage was very small, and I peeked around with binoc. / zoom, and ~elderly couple of very ascetic-thin almost starving figures of bio-legacy-germans at home there.
Moreover, it was !NorhtE oriented slope, hence subtract another -15% of energy from the sunshine. I’ve not seen it but very likely there had to be a cow in barn linked to that cottage.
Yes, I tend to be doctrinal zealot, people can live on very strange places developed ~only partially and be happy. But it did profoundly shock-me, can’t verify was it 24/365 or seasonal affair, and or other needed supplies brought irregularly there for/by them..
PS on the road to that general area there in more sane slopes cows laid down resting in the mid day shadow ( only ~22C ), while sheep gorging full power as always there is no tomorrow hah.
Sounds like a really neat place Jr. One can always trade work for winter hay for the cow, or trade something for access to a hay field that you cut yourself. But cutting, raking multiple times, piling, loading, and moving hay — all by hand — raises the specter of diminishing returns relative to just settling for goat milk. To say nothing of the fact that if you want cow milk your going to need to support a bull through winter too… unless you go the permanent lactation route and in doing so forgoing beef.
Tim, Dexters are your ideal “mini-cow” They have nutritious meat and calve very well.
Van Gogh even painted a picture of them
The Peasants: Three generations of the De Groot family sitting around a square table.The Meal: The figures are seen serving and eating steaming potatoes—often the only food they could afford—paired with black coffee.The Atmosphere: The harsh, dark shadows and harsh facial features highlight the physical toll and poverty of country life.
From what I remember from junior high school the potato diet transformed the facial features….
Reante may verify that for us al
No can do I was too busy cutting class.
We already are aware, it shows in so many ways….
OK, AFRAID YOU NEED TO REPEAT AGAIN
At least you’re taking up space
I have planted a few potatoe varieties. E. g. Dutch variety Camelia that should withstand clmt fluctuations.
The wonderful potato. They reappear every year without asking. Had to dig some up earlier this month, as they appeared where I like to put my tomatoes. Decent amount and size, for an unplanned early harvest(must have sprouted up in Feb when I was paying no attention at all to the garden). All year round grow in the northern hemisphere with just a little care from frost.
I know. If I were further south there would be other options, specially cassava. But in the frozen north it is them or nothing.
Have you tried Jerusalem Artichokes?
Can leave in the ground, if you can keep the freeze off them.
This blokes can be a bit annoying, but he’s decent enough with the relevant facts.
https://youtu.be/zavQRGSENlk?si=pI7YQMP51gdmbbfb
In general sense the Q1-Q2 of the year usually tends to be toughest in fin terms as various pre-payments for the year start coming in at the same time frame, be it various indirect gov taxation schemes, services, and or insurance plans for RE, transport, etc.
People then obviously feel robbed blind on the spot and now are looking into summer season ~impoverished and disillusioned, aka double-whammy upon them. Historically, when this is further amended say by [ bad harvest ] late summer early autumn the ~revolutionary times are often close ( not now! ) ..
There will be no revolutions in the West: people are far too soft after decades of being spoiled.
Only rising crime – theft, murder – drug-taking and despair.
I heard last week that the younger generation in the UK are only one more lockdown away from pitchforks, torches and Rwanda level violence. Amazon will sell them all the guillotines they need to decapitate whichever group is “it”. It was so smart of the UK elites to bring in so many people from all over the world to make the country truly cosmopolitan, thereby ensuring that unlike the 18th century French aristocrats, they will never be “it”.
Touché
They were hoping the brown migrants will take up pitchforks against “right-wing” white people and will leave cosmopolitan left-wing white people like themselves alone. They have put the spotlight on the few non-white elites there are to show that the elite is not white, right-wing men as it was in the past. Angry brown men with pitchforks will hesitate to manhandle Meghan Markle because she doesn’t fit the oppressor profile.
“Four out of ten Slovaks are cutting back on their regular shopping.”
How are the other six out of ten doing?
Drinking more heavily
Only 40% cutting back. The US has a massive lead, do try to keep up.
https://farsnews.ir/Mousavi_82/1780220221409807994/Nearly-TwoThirds-of-Americans-Cutting-Back-on-Groceries-as-Cost-of-Living-Soars
In Britian we’ve already moved on to the “lost generation”. Poor kids, we haven’t bothered to inform them yet.
The rush to drop SAT scores as a requirement for college admission in 2020 has had the expected effect:
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/university-of-california-sat-act-math-stem-professors-06dd0f6d
The Academy Rethinks the SAT
University of California faculty say that when tests were dropped, student learning fell.
The experiment has been a failure, as more than 750 professors in STEM disciplines across the UC system now admit in a cri de coeur to reverse course.
“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” the professors write in an open letter to the Board of Regents signed by seven of nine chairs of UC math departments.
Why not blame the teachers?
There has also been a push by universities to try to provide degrees to as many as possible. This push has also had the effect of reducing standards. DEI has done the same thing.
We end up with a system where many graduates have learned little, despite large expenditures.
Few projects describe cultural and societal collapse as well as DEI/maximize graduates (they are two aspects of the same phenomenon). As seen from the elites point of view this might be distasteful but keep in mind there are members of the elites that do much worse. Maximize graduates is done to give faithful academia people some money (which comes overwhelmingly from the pockets of the white middle class so I see the business sense of it). DEI is to solidify the black support and give plum jobs to supporters.
The upshot is that the USA will never lead in engineering and applied sciences ever again. They have a leg up in surveillance by electronic means, that is all.
Most of the new factories and new installations of other kinds (such as nuclear power plants) are in China and other countries with coal and with lower wage levels. There aren’t as many cutting edge applications for engineering in the US.
Yes, the socio-cultural collapse of the US shows everyone that everything happens at once. No money for research as you say, and also they don’t know trigonometry and are lazy.
I hear you, but it’s a slow process, the US can ( and does ) still import the few top of the top graduates from the 5eyes block, and also from key Asia UNIs, and RoW-global.
Yes, this historical gusher stream of imported talent would eventually wane ( ~nowish ), then turn to trickle and lastly evaporate almost completely..
We are not there yet, as the USGOVs+MNCs still operate on gargantuan odious debt issuance ( also = energy access ) and the whole shabang therefore continues..
“this historical gusher stream of imported talent “Most of that was only possible because World War 2 conveniently destroyed Europe’s industrial base. All of Europe’s top talent, which was largely based in Germany at the end of the war, was shipped into the U.S. Operation Paperclip was a one-time affair. Other groups, like Indians, most Asians have done a better job of retaining some of their stem skillset/ industrial base to the point that educating lots of foreign college students in America has contributed to a lot of of competition from India and Asia for jobs and industry.
The brain drain is more pronounced in countries with a smaller percentage the workforce having college degrees and stem, like Latin America and any sub-Saharan African country. Taking an engineer away from Jamaica, for example, is a big blow to their manufacturing capacity because there are so few engineers in their society, whereas the brain drain in Germany has just prevented Germany from being dominant anywhere beyond the EU.
DRB
“”The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
-Nietzsche
Another rant here.
I read somewhere recently that the best predictor of success in college was not your high school GPA, not your glowing references, not your list of extracurriculars like being elected to the student council or externships, but simply how well you did on the SAT or the ACT.
I think it parallels the claim that regardless of the criticisms of being race or socioeconomically biased, the IQ test is still the best predictor of one’s “success” in life, at least maybe in complex Western cultures.
Or maybe SAT/ACT/GRE/LSAT/MCAT testing is a narrative being sold by all these test prep outfits out there. For my daughter, who may be applying to medical school next year (OMG!) there is now a huge market of YouTube subscriptions for application reviews, MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) mock interviews, essay prep (not that AI isn’t enough already.) Applicants to Med School have entered an arms race for admission.
There are 4 sections to the MCAT, each about an hour and a half. Three of them test knowledge in the sciences from biology to chemistry to physics, to psychology, and sociology. But there is one section called CARS (critical reasoning and analysis skills). A few schools require a minimum score (125) in that CARS section, even if all the other 3 combined section scores place you higher than the combined mean for those who actually get accepted to medical school. That mean combined score is currently around 511. In other words, it is to acknowledge that some students can get by just by memorizing equations and formulas in the other three sections to offset a low CARS score.
I say the system has created the wrong type of candidates who are getting into medical school. Getting into medical school is like running for public office. Which applicant has enough financial resources (campaign contributions) to pay for all the test prep courses and mock interviews who can afford to do more of these fluff extracurricular activities, while other candidates who don’t have financial resources are having to work through college, with their grades suffering? Applying to medical school is more like a politician campaigning for office, and we know that the very people who get elected to public office are the very ones who should NEVER be allowed near a position of “public service.” It is my opinion of lawyers too. the paradox of being a lawyer- the “profession” attracts the very type who should never be allowed to become lawyers.
There are plenty of applicants who academically can make it through medical school. If I were on the admissions committee, I would at least subject the applicants to psychologic testing. Kind of like what I had to do when I divorced my ex wife, the “good doctor” who had findings of hedonism, narcissism, and histrionics on her psych profile, and an MMPI that was “flat,” meaning she had fudged the test. Of course, my tests were normal, but that didn’t matter. She got the entire marital estate, custody, and an obligation by me to pay nearly double the child support tables, etc. It’s not just the lawyers who are incompetent and unethical; there are a lot of doctors as well, and this I can say confidently based on personal experience.
These types are everywhere and climbing: judges, msm jurnos, teachers, neighbors, ~top political figures, ..
On some days it kind of feels like genuine potlach of the witches crushing your personal world suddenly. The drain on one’s life energy is extraordinary long term, I wish you a lot of stamina-endurance.
A hedonistic, histrionic narcissist wife? Well rid, at ANY cost! I congratulate you, Hubbs.
I think Hubbs understands the rules now. He didn’t. I didn’t. Understanding the rules is important of you step in the ring. Otherwise you get stomped. Then you can also decide if you want to step in the ring.
1. There are no single women. She will be with someone when she lets you know she is interested. When she wants out she will do it by letting someone else know she is interested. This is the best fidelity you will get now. Not all women have this high standard of fidelity. The monkey grabs another branch before letting go of the one it holds. This is not cheating. There is plenty of women who cheat. Monkey branching is not cheating.
2. What have you done for me lately. The past doesn’t matter. If you buy her a Ferrari it doesn’t matter in a week. If you build her a house it doesn’t matter in a week. If you rescue her from a dragon it doesn’t matter in a week. There is only the present.
Complaining about the rules doesn’t make sense. If you don’t like the rules you don’t step in the ring. If you do step in the ring you use the rules best you can.
The thing is. They mostly try to educate you and be honest about the rules. Guys don’t listen. Guys want it to be like how they think it should be. That’s mostly the exact opposite of the rules. So they end up stomped. Then they complain. All well and good but you got to learn at some point. Then at least you have a chance in the ring or decide not to enter. Being a moron every time a bowl of honey appears leaves you broke and bitter. Neither is fun. Better to know the rules. I promise you. She knows the rules.
I sure wish someone had taught me the rules when I was ten or so.
“What have you done for me lately. The past doesn’t matter.”
This isn’t even a woman thing. All modern people are like this. If you have a boss, he is more or less like this.
“What have you done for me lately. The past doesn’t matter.” IMO, I think it is very common in FORMAL relationships like there are in formal work, and with government.
On the surface people who work in formal work and government will talk about connection and building relationships, they are not sincere. * What they work towards is about making all human interactions (except their own) very transactional. In order to make it transactional, things like loyalty and remembering what people did for you in the past and appreciating is pathologized. Non sports fandoms are pathological for having any expectations, marriage is well toxic unless you are LGBT, religion same thing, anything that is not formal is bad.
*When you do networking, it’s nepotism it’s “Old Boy’s Club”
When they do it’s it’s networking.
They actually want the average person to be disconnected and they want their people to be more connected.
” Being a moron every time a bowl of honey appears leaves you broke and bitter.” Men who don’t have to pay for attention don’t have these problems.
“I think it parallels the claim that regardless of the criticisms of being race or socioeconomically biased, the IQ test is still the best predictor of one’s “success” in life, at least maybe in complex Western cultures.” People from primitive , non-civilized societies tend to do poorly in civilization and on iq tests compared to people who have lived in civilization for thousands of years. IQ is just part of it. These people have a harder time working in large groups, participating hierarchical society or even delaying gratification. Culture is everything and unless every single human is subject to the same exact culture we are going to have disparities. As the surpluses diminish, we will have a harder time tolerating differences. It will become expensive if not impossible to maintain the illusion that we are all equal.
Apparently, “future shock” is social phenomenon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpbgPmO2XUg
It sounds like a partial explanation for the rise of mass shooters, who were serial killers back in the day.
While not a formal clinical diagnosis in standard manuals like the DSM, it is widely cited in psychology and sociology to describe anxiety, confusion, and cognitive overload resulting from rapid technological and social acceleration.
“Older generations or traditionalists who feel disoriented by the erosion of long-standing social norms, institutions, and values. ”
Otherwise known as conservative man goes crazy because he’s not in control anymore
Languages and mathematics teachers appear to have the highest mental energy expenditure. There is a persistent shortage of these teachers in Slovakia. Based on my preliminary AI-assisted analysis, the estimated relative energy expenditure is as follows:
A tabuľku by som upravil takto, aby bola jazykovo hladšia:
Subject group Suggested coefficient Rationale
Slovak / other languages 1.25–1.32 Highest marking load, frequent oral assessment, and intensive corrective feedback.
Mathematics / Physics / Informatics 1.20–1.28 High cognitive load, step-by-step checking, and substantial preparation burden.
Chemistry / Biology 1.10–1.16 Lab preparation and safety responsibilities, with a moderate grading load.
Physical Education / Sport 1.07–1.12 High physical and organizational demands, but a lighter correction burden.
History / Civics / Geography 1.00–1.05 Lower correction intensity and more reusable preparation.
” Not oil related ” This figure is a reported figure . How many are not reported ? Oh , these are EXCESS deaths .
One day of extreme heat. 3,400 excess deaths across India.
https://x.com/gaurav_kochar/status/2060726509468532795/photo/1
This is big news . Deficient monsoon and deficient fertilizer = double whammy .
” A drought year ahead for India?
IMD has reportedly downgraded India’s monsoon outlook to 90% of LPA, with a 60% probability of deficient rainfall under a strengthening El Niño shadow.
Lowest updated monsoon outlook since 2015.
Key risks:
🌧️ Below-normal June–Sept rainfall
🌾 Stress on crops & reservoirs
💧 Groundwater recharge concerns
⚡ Hydro-power & water supply risks
📈 Inflation / market volatility fears
If this forecast verifies, India could be staring at one of its most challenging monsoon seasons in years.
https://x.com/gaurav_kochar/status/2060710684242203084/photo/1
Worrying! Little air conditioning.
If I compare with Italy summer 2003, there were 3000 deaths a day during the heat wave. But of course Italy is much smaller in population.
The new weapon of the political hunger games arises like a genetically modified Trex.
It’s development was intensive and of a extended duration.
It has no counter.
It has no equal.
Simple. Effective.
“I am not Trump”
No other statement or policy stance is necessary.. in fact expressing those things is counter productive eliminating some votes. Debates will consist of who is more not Trump.
Candidate a. My not Trumpness is beyond reproach
Candidate B . I submit this image of you smiling while listening to Trump
Candidate A. That’s AI.
Candidate B. Here the documentation of me stomping a picture of Trump .
Candidate A. Your no Trump picture stomper. I was born a Trump picture stomper.
How do their policies differ from Trump?
Crickets chirp.
This is actually was Trump’s legacy too.
“I am not Biden”
“I am not Clinton”
“I am not Obama”
The pool table is ran like a sewing machine.
One shot setting up the next. Only autonomic responses exist. Only the weapon exists there is nothing else. All politicians enter as a complete unknown. A Tabla Rosa. There is no choice by the people only autonomic response.
Good one darkside dog. That is how it is.
during covid toilet rolls ran out this time around there will be no food it is all part of the plan to depopulate once the global equilibrium is reached in a few years time things will go back to normal but only with a much lower population.
And maybe we’ll be tasked with the grim role of “Bring out your dead” like in Monty Python.
And there won’t be anything funny about it…
I’m sure the psychopaths amongst us will be laughing. They will have a good time. They always have good time.
” . . . population growth is a prerequisite for modernity, because the complexity of extraction technologies must grow to sustain flows of non-renewable resources as the quality of their reserves declines, and growing populations are necessary to make advanced technology feasible and economic.” ?
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/22/cactus-challenges/
Rob makes some interesting points that we’ve all heard a million times before. And nobody cares he opened his mind along the way.
If the supply chains didn’t collapse during a global lockdown I highly doubt this Iran soap opera will be do it.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Well I’m sure the people who run things just accept that. Population growth is necessary for BAU. So we have to let infinite growth continue until we hit the wall. Then it drops like a piano and everything crashes anyway including population growth. No sense trying to ease into that and preserve industrial civilization and life extension medical procedures.Yup they will just sigh and say oh well that’s that. All those silly multi generational planning foundations knowledge vectoring was silly. My job here is to accept not control. After all I am just another human on the planet not better or lessor than anyone else. Exponential population growth and hitting the wall is necessary. I have no power in this situation. Hurray Dothraki! Consume away! Propogate away! The more the merrier! There are no solutions here.
I don’t buy it anyway. Why? Finite stuff. If there is less people they CONSUME MORE. Name me a situation where our species has trouble consuming more? Name me a continent where the people don’t want to consume more? We are the Uber predator l
Less people consuming more is not a problem. Less people spending more is not a problem.
Less productivity is not a problem either if you sustain one Uber productive nation. That’s all you need. One.
Which would be the best choice? Hmmm. I know. New Guinea.
You don’t even have to do anything. Sustain New Guinea. Let everything else do what happens when species population overwhelms finite resources. But if you wanted a foot up on things would cutting off energy supplies in a strategic choke point every single person who study’s energy flows has known is critical for oh 100 years help things along? And every single human who study’s has studied military capabilities knows can be closed. Silly of course. No one study’s trade routes. No one cares if one nation.or another dominates them. No wars fought over that.Strategic choke points and what would cause their closure are not known or understood.military capabilities are not studied and understood.And if one should be closed you would of course do everything humanly possible to get it open again. You would make sure no one human would have power to keep a choke point closed. If someone did that population would decrease. And we all know industrial civilization can’t take that! That would not be in anyone’s best interest.
The oil from the SPR is not being sold, it is being loaned. 53 million has been loaned so far and needs to be replaced including up to 28% interest. Explains some of the pricing we have been experiencing.
https://www.oilandgasadvancement.com/news/u-s-doe-confirms-loan-of-53-3-million-barrels-to-oil-firms/
Energy Crisis Response Tracker:
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/2026-energy-crisis-policy-response-tracker
A compilation by country of responses to the latest energy crisis.
Good lord, Euros until they have it well up their ass are not content. I hope Italy pays using the gold in New York (which does not exist and has not existed since 2008) but the Hegemon is not in a funny mood.
Well, Drb, sodomy was always known – as I’m sure you are no doubt aware – as the ‘Italian Vice’ for a reason……..
Maybe they could take a hint from El Cid and pay the Jewish usurers with a chest full of rocks, as he famously did?
It seems like the repayment scheme with interest is going to make the shortage problem even worse than it would have been otherwise.
Lending out oil during an oil production collapse lol. Now THAT’S odious debt. Welcome to the DA.
The Iran war is going according to the globalists’ plan: to crash the energy dependent world economy. this plan also requires depletion of the SPRs, so when things crash, they will really crash hard and decisively. What other “lifelines” still need to be severed to ensure the thorough destruction of industrialized civilization?
Nordstream II, overland oil pipelines, Belt and Road initiatives, sequestration of Venezuela and Iran oil, fertilizer production, geoengineering, etc.
Until then, it’s all about perception management behind the cloak of financialization to hide physical reality.
You might be right, but I am hoping the Maximum Power Principle will keep things going somewhat better than a hugely decisive crash for everyone.
An existential threat?
“To retain its military power and reserve currency the US needs leverage to force China to provide it with rare earth minerals, and the US intends to use Iran’s oil as that leverage.“?
https://un-denial.com/2026/03/05/cactus-view-of-the-iran-war/
Perhaps this is the existential thread that un-denial discusses in the linked post.
Simply losing US hegemony would be a huge problem, by itself, and I think that this was the real existential threat. But it is related to not being able to buy rare earth minerals.
Have written this previously; the US did produce its own rare earth minerals. The problem is the refining is very toxic.
See hints China has a significant water problem with pollutants in the water. No data, could be hearsay.
Dennis L.
Hello everyone ,
Fuel consumption in France fell by 14% between May 1 and May 20 compared with the same period last year, due to rising fuel costs caused by the conflict in the Middle East. According to French Economy Minister Roland Lescure, higher fuel prices have led many people in France to drive less, carpool more, and increase remote working.
And 11% in april..
So it’s proove when the price is to hight the demand is destroyed so you don’t see the shortage …
8,70 $ par gallon it’s in avevrage the price of the unleaded in france…
Perhaps high prices really do cut back oil usage.
I hear you but FR as co-issuing EUR ( printing ) country is still having it quite good, as the fuel is there only ~20% nominally higher.. vs the vassalage yoked part of Europe.
All that SPR oil is leaving without a scramble to get dollars. It holds down the dollar. Scott Bessent is clearly running the show. He knows exactly how the monetary plumbing works.
But on the backside of this there is a price to be paid. All the oil firms will have to source dollars to buy the oil to repay in oil the barrels received during the draw.
Which equals a stronger dollar later on.
They are hoping to repay these barrels at a lower price in the future.
Down the road what these unrepayable commodity loans do is create additional political cover for nationalizations upon failed repayment.
Gold demand fell by 70% in two weeks in India . Millions become unemployed . There are 3.3 million small and medium family owned shops in India . Each employs about 6-8 persons . Crisis situation . Collapse escalates .
https://www.niftytrader.in/markets/india-gold-demand-duty-shock-70-drop/
This sounds very bad!
If this is not a bubble then what is .? 12 companies worth $ 30 Trillion .
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/05/29/the-magnitude-of-the-numbers-is-just-mindboggling-12-companies-30-trillion/
From the article:
Every little dip in market cap of these 12 companies combined represents trillions of dollars of market value vanishing from portfolios without a trace. And every little rally represents trillions of dollars in value being created in portfolios out of nowhere.
If there is even just a 20% dip, God forbid, it would wipe out $6 trillion. $6 trillion in stock market losses used to be some serious money. Now, just another dip by 12 stocks? . . .
There are only so many trillions that can vanish from portfolios before it begins to impact economic decision making by consumers and companies alike, and derail economic growth.
That was the case during the 2.5-year-long Dotcom Bust: A year into it, in March 2001, the recession started; and it lasted to November 2001. The Dotcom Bust didn’t bottom out until October 2002, by which time the Nasdaq Composite had collapsed by 78%.
We forget the huge amounts by which stock prices could collapse.
Yes, but funnily enough the sequencing could be completely different at true (future) historical junction nodes, e.g. (tech)stocks keeping their valuation till the bitter* end, while ” the systemic crash ” happens elsewhere bit sooner..
—
* as ~younger cohorts believe in tech their own lives and older systemic pros just prop up the charade till the very last moment hoping for some escape hatch..
Yes. And previous cycles are not reliable indicators IMO. The economy goes bad. The premise that stocks have value falters. Stocks are sold. Money printing ensues. Money loses value. People trade the new money for stocks to avoid inflation. The dragon smorgaborg continues. Inflation dragon on one side bubble dragon on the other the wealth being consumed in the center. Wealth that grows radically in nominal terms but is only consumed in real terms.
What we have witnessed is the money creation is immediate and violent whereas wages are not. If wages were to respond proportionally the inflation dragon would simply eat all the wealth and we would be back to square one.
The wealth is a self fulfilling proposition. The only thing that allows it is the value of storing it for the future. Storage has great value. That is why the bubble dragon gets to eat..What the situation ignores is the goods and services do not exist proportionally to the enormous wealth storage in the future only present. What is needed is more goods and services to try and maintain proportionality. All goods and services come from energy. A 15 percent reduction in energy reduces gods and services exponentially not linearly. This is occuring when increase is desperately needed. Non linear decrease is catastrophic. Both dragons calorie count goes way down and they eat way more.
The myth is that inflation and bubbles somehow keep the other in check. The truth is they both destroy wealth. Then they simply print more money. A fountain of youth
Hyperinflation is a misnomer. There are many two conditions. Inflation where bubbles mean wealth is still stored. Inflation where bubbles lack of bubbles means wealth can’t be stored. Hyperinflation is not increased inflation. Hyperinflation is where there are no bubbles availability for wealth storage. Hyperinflation is when the reality of impermance manifests. Because of this hyperinflation during severe economic downturns is not only possible but probable. As usual the dichotomy mutually exclusive model is not remotely valid. It paints a picture of a naturally balancing financial ecosystem. It is not a model of a physical finite world where depletion and now apparently political incompetence of the gravest extreme reduces energy inputs and the subsequent exponential reduction of goods and services results.
Up until now bubble creation has continued even as goods and services are disproportionate. People believe that purchasing power storage always exists that it is a natural state of affairs. If one method stops working they move to another. It’s possible it can continue even as we see radical reduction in goods and services only as long as that is regarded as temporary. The second the reality of depletion and incompetence is reflected in group understanding of impermanence the rush to abandon the idea of stored wealth happens and trying to spend it begins. Stored wealth based on future infinite energy production is the basis of industrial civilization. Normality bias is critically important to industrial civilization.
I am afraid you are right:
“Stored wealth based on future infinite energy production is the basis of industrial civilization. Normality bias is critically important to industrial civilization.”
And
” Hyperinflation is where there are no bubbles availability for wealth storage. Hyperinflation is when the reality of impermanence manifests.”
Could collapse be only a transactional problem? Notational currency/stocks are not real wealth but claims enforced by laws which in turn are enforced ty force.
The seemingly massive layoffs in AI suggest to me that it is a net thermodynamic loser and unlike the railroads of a previous era the “wealth” of AI disappears as soon as the light bill is not paid.
Dennis L.
Ravi,
This is all happening while central banks aren’t expanding balance sheets and while interest rates are well off their pandemic lows.
Turns out commercial banks don’t need bank reserves from central banks nor rock bottom interest rates in order to create new money via loans. All commercial banks need is a low risk environment and they will make loans.
But the truth is there are a lot of commercial banks that have made some really stupid loans. There are a lot of unpayable loans sitting on balance sheets right now as we speak. A whole lot of extend and pretend going on.
But extend and pretend doesn’t make these bad loans any more payable. It just conceals the fact they are unpayable for a little longer. It conceals the fact that collateral is missed priced.
Without all the gating of funds going on in private credit currently. Stock valuations would be much lower across the board.
The only reason, perhaps the biggest reason tech is allowed to borrow such obscene amounts of money is due to their stock valuations. What happens when you put a bunch of white collar workers on the unemployment line due to AI? Those white collar workers who contribute way more to their 401k than any blue collar worker can. Those passive retirement flows that make big tech stock valuations go up and to the right on chart.
Yeah, those retirement funds get tapped by the white collar works who can’t find a job with equal pay to the one they lost. That is when passive retirement outflows that aren’t gated make those stock valuations on a chart go down and to the right. This is where AI runs out of room to borrow.
The reason stock explode higher, endlessly higher. Even in the face of what is happening with oil and everything else coming out of the ME. Is the passive retirement inflows continue flowing in every month without a single care about what is happening in the strait of Hormuz.
You make good points!Thanks!
The countless number of people looking for “passive income”, may be the reason why the U.S. stock market may never crash.
Check out this comment from Reddit:
“The earth can easily accommodate 100 billion with more optimization. (Smaller apartments, breeding more Dwarfs / shorter people) electric autonomous cars) living in underground sugar caves’.
Underground sugar caves, that’s good stuff.
All of that sounds like things a hedge fund manager would say.
I took it as quality reddit culture sarcastic humor.
With the Cuban regime on its last legs, the landowners of Cuba who lost their properties in 1959 are salivating quite hard.
Unfortunately for the people now living in Cuba, computerization had arrived in there by that point of time, and the landowners did carry the tapes which recorded the data showing who owned what to USA.
When the current regime falls, the landowners, many of them still rich since they had bought real estate in USA before, will return with a huge vengeance.
I had talked about Nguyen Anh, whose family had owned land in what is now Saigon. His entire family was slaughtered by the Tay Son peasant rebels, and Anh, who regained Vietnam with French troops, killed every single one Tay Son soldier and their families, with zero mercy whatsoever.
That is how landowners behave when they regain their land.
About 5% of all the population in Cuba owned about 95% of all land in there before 1959, and they are NOT going to give up a single square inch of their claims.
Houses built for ‘the people’ will be demolished without questions, a lot of them will perish on the streets, and the landowner’s goons will give zero quarters for the millions of people who will be completely propertyless and will be put into concentration camps or something like that to prevent anything like 1959 ever happening again.
lot of stuff is going to go down soon it won’t matter if you’re prepared because if the others are not prepared then they’ll come for you so hopefully people are living somewhere safe with like-minded people.
I’m not, but I don’t care 😭😘
There really is no security
Peter Thiel’s move to Argentina reflects a growing trend among billionaires seeking a ‘plan B’ abroad
By Madeline Berg and Ben Shimkus
https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-argentina-billionaire-moving-abroad-2026-5
Peter Thiel appears to have found a new bug-out spot. He isn’t alone in looking beyond America’s shores.
The PayPal and Palantir cofounder and prominent libertarian has been spending more time in Argentina, The New York Times reported, where he has enrolled his children in school and bought a home in one of Buenos Aires’ wealthiest neighborhoods.
Among the ultrawealthy, that fits a larger pattern. The rich are treating their lives in America like part of an investment portfolio: still worth betting on, but increasingly in need of a hedge.
Still, Argentina is an unusual hedge, Garcia said. The country has a long history of inflation, currency crises, capital controls, and abrupt legal changes — exactly the sort of instability wealthy families typically hate.
Representatives for Thiel didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s our little secret
I thought he was gay.
he is. either adoption or surrogacy with his husband.
Could you expand about ” our little secret ” a bit – sorry did not get the context.
Speaking of niveau like Peter T. seems to enjoy, each of these people have their peculiar interests, preferences, propensities, skills.. :
Yet, definitively aware of elevated probabilities of ~PO / US very-disorderly default ala Soviet-moment rehashed / natural events vs civ / .. coming soonish he simply placed his bets on the chess board.
There are likely more nuances to it but Argentina here in this case evidently used as substrate or a springboard to further branching options ahead:
– mil. oppressive junta in which he find protection ( key stake holder ) – could be also meant as future planned renegade cohesive part of the former state suddenly in bigger chaos
– as suitable springboard to further end-point destination say in Patagonia for harsher scenarios aka existing bln. bunkers in this locale already or in building phase as of now
..
.
I’ve no sympathy for these people though, as published already him, Musk and others had ” in direct ” hands over the civilian deaths of kids in UKR / RU, Gaza-Lebanon and many other places.. Apart just from war profiteering #1 d/d job.
PS this has been all pre-gamed decades ago on similar forums, yet there could be also something new-specific for this S. American outpost angle, perhaps some local energy spot ( sized for private-fiefdom NOT country! ) with good dependable surroundings etc.
PS2 many h. have their own kids if they are inclined to do so – aka bent on preserving dynasty / family types etc.
Our social structures are entirely created by energy abundance. The like mindedness of commonality largely created by social media for divisive political manipulation is not resilient no matter how much people repeat that phrase.
Invariably if there are groups of alliances they will be subject to narcissistic personalities and gang psychology. Why? These alliance groupings have monarch like efficiency. The decision making authority is a function of force not via a justice system but overtly where the premise of justice is abandoned. Force is valued for force itself not premises of justice and agreement.
A justice system as we know it where force is used to create deterrence requires abundant energy. When that is absent what emerges is always arbitrary and vigilantism and narcissistic personalities always dominate once that becomes the functionality. Will they claim to be like minded? Of course. This is actually the Hallmark of narcissistic manipulation.
Does this mean that this reflects the basic human condition? I would say no. Humans work better when their is true belonging and cooperation. That is regarded as a tribal grouping. That takes two qualities that do not arise spontaneously skill and practice. Certainly narcissistic personalities exist within such groupings but the understanding of the group cultivated from birth is the groups needs are more important than any individual no matter how much force or manipulation is practiced.
Tribal groupings take awareness practice and skill whereas gang psychology groupings take only force and narcissistic angst.they have efficiency advantages. When a group member asks why the answer is simple. Because you will get a boot to the head if you don’t.
Not that tribal groupings are not a legitimate goal or undesirable. Eventually they will emerge perhaps. What will emerge immediately is gang psychology because it is expedient and narcissistic individuals are highly motivated to create it.
What do we witness over and over again when modern and humans experience energy cessation? They burn everything down. Even gang psychology groupings don’t destroy previous infrastructure they steal it and dominate it. If we are being honest most tribal groupings do the same. What prevents that is force and deterrence. Only force and deterrence prevent individual humans from creating narrative where theft
Force are used for acquisition. After all one mans for e is another mans theft. By
I very much agree with:
“A justice system as we know it where force is used to create deterrence requires abundant energy.”
We do need true belonging and cooperation. Small groups, where expulsion is the penalty for not going along with prescribed behavior is one solution. Another solution is belief in a religion where a god will punish or reward you, based on your adherence to rules is another approach.
I understand that some early societies (and perhaps some others) were gift societies. A person gained status by how much he/she could give away, not by how much he had left.
By the way, I think your last paragraph is a bit scrambled.
I don’t know what the concentration of land ownership is in the US, or in other countries. I know that US farms now are quite large. In fact, China has been said to be buying up some US land. And Bill Gates is said to have large land owning. With the advent of big machinery, the tendency seems to have been toward large holdings of land.
Without fuels in Cuba, the country will be in bad shape. I can imagine some group might try to take over. Prior landowners are probably an educated group, so they might be the ones. The system won’t be able to feed the current population. So somehow the population will fall.
Smelling real. Declaring victory and hasta.
Donald J I buried the dust Trump
Even the don wouldnt say it’s yellow ribbon time then go sike.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1HatcE7ihtE
Trump defers ‘final determination’ on draft deal with Iran . TACO .
https://www.chinadailyasia.com/hk/article/634154
While USA SPR is being sold to Europe , the fall of 5 mbpd imports of China is helping out in SE Asia . Read the full story . An excerpt .
“To micromanage this whole run-rate circus, China’s refining complex is pulling a highly responsive lever: the yield shift.
Beijing explicitly told state majors like Sinopec and PetroChina to ditch chemical feed-stocks and prioritize flooding the market with gas and diesel, and these plants immediately saluted by shifting their product yields by several percentage points on a dime.
As a result, the real bloodbath isn’t happening at the refining gate—it’s completely decimating the downstream petrochemical chain. With Hormuz blocked, their seaborne naphtha inflows were already sliced in half, but a 5% run cut is about to bleed domestic naphtha and LPG supplies by tens of millions of tons a quarter, sending a compounding, fatal shock straight through the petchem feedstock backbone.
They are keeping wheels turning by guaranteeing gas and diesel, but the squeeze on industrial chemical feedstocks is completely running on borrowed time.”
As I write Japanese plastic manufacturers have run out of steam . No naphtha .
https://x.com/CRUDEOIL231/status/2059354174861754819?s=20
so naphtha, with some butane of which there is too much, is becoming gasoline. It is not only urea that is scarce, but also pesticides. this will compound the expected food crisis. Presumably starting already in fall, since pesticides are applied to more perishable crops.
Donnie says “Let them eat Cake”🎂…
That should work, 😃, just like the last time it was said
Here is a transcript of talk on Japanese TV regarding Naphtha .
The govt as usual — there is no shortage and we are going to arrest all hoarders .
https://x.com/tweet_tokyo_web/status/2060347428017229847
Thanks, seems important development.
On tangent – not sure how globally this is valid for LPG, so China/SEA/parts of EU / ME(NA) only partially as say natgas countries like Algeria won’t be affected.. But surely the lure of ~cheaply powered carz by LPG to me always seemed iffy as too long path dependency ( hidden inside ) only for the calm-happy ” me no worry ” yrs..
This statement on X ends:
But with May and June seaborne prints already locked in at a subterranean 6.5mb/d, the expiration date on this makeshift band-aid play cannot stretch into autumn.
Short of letting their entire national refining infrastructure suffer a catastrophic meltdown, Beijing is running straight into a hard physical wall.
Before late summer wraps up, they will be forced to either open the strategic floodgates and dump their massive stockpiles or make a frantic U-turn right back into the international physical market, chasing heavy volumes aggressively at any price.
So perhaps this approach helps China for a month or two. But it still hits a wall.
Gail , all are trying to delay but ” delay” is not “prevent ” . In the meanwhile DJT tweeted this . ROFL .
“JUST IN – Trump lifts the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, says that Iran needs to open the Strait and allow for Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium to be “unearthed” by the U.S., adding, that he’s meeting in the Situation Room “to make a final determination.”
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/2060376960279183501
so looks like trump and company has done enough to wipe out the stockmarket that is why he is heading back home so very soon a massive spike which takes out the stockmarket he goes into hiding as the hordes search for him as the ‘haves suddenly turn into havenots’ and we are plunged into a permanent great depression from which there is no escape. this is far better than mad max world , at least with this world the human race may not go extinct.
Really? We will see. It seems like the ship tracker should be able to see whether this is actually happening, pretty quickly.
It’s Trump, so almost certainly not true.
Nothing about it being true in the regional media and it’s a main demand before any further negotiations. Then there is the US navy’s announcement today.
https://www.tradewindsnews.com/tankers/us-navy-warns-shipping-of-dangerous-military-activities-planned-for-strait-of-hormuz/2-1-1997114
Mine clearing advisory?! What mines?! 😁
Thy never tire of humiliating themselves, as they know there’s always lots of people willing to believe anything, no matter how implausible.
Trump kind of gives it away
“Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb. The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions. All water mines (bombs), if any, will be terminated,”
“If any” doesn’t sound very convincing and is as good as an about face from previous statements, but the above mentioned people will do as they always, easily moved from one fraud to the next.
Did you see the moron also threatening to destroy Oman?
He’s taken so seriously, that I don’t think Oman even bothered replying.
Thanks Fitz. Yeah there was a cbs article yesterday that refuted a previous nbc article, saying that no mines have been found so far. Malcolm Nance was on Nawfal again yesterday and he thinks there are mines (possibly because he was on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf in 80s that actually hit a mine) and that the US mine sweeping operation could well result in a military conflagration. He also says how right before the war most of the minesweepers were shipped to Philly I think it was, for repairs or decommissioning lol. But they’ve just brought in a couple from the Japan area.
I did see that threat of his to Oman. Oman be like, Talk to the Hand, donnie boy. ✋
The mines, at least to my thinking, have always been a well prepared bogeyman.
Look at it like your fence. Outsiders try to interfere and cause problems. You repair, hang a bullet as a message. No more damage and I guess that’s because they understood the message, that the next bullet might well be travelling and they won’t know until it’s too late. The risk now far out ways the reward.
Iran pulled the same trick, by telling everyone for decades, that if pushed they might mine it, they seeded doubt. Ever efficient the Iranians, as doubt, once seeded, is a bastard to shake off.
A threat can cause just as much paralysis as action. Worse potentially, because doubt leads to second guessing and second guessing leads to hesitation. Not laying mines could be viewed as a more efficient way, both physically and mentally. A card still held, but its damaged done, even as it can be done again, for real.
On Oman, they are regionally important, as shown with the original negotiations(how the US then behaved has no bearing on that) and every time the US has tried to sideline them, Iran smoothly eased them back into the equation. Oman will be a quiet, but important regional player and deservedly so(may well expand its borders, as at least 5 of 7 EAU tribes don’t seem happy with Abu Dhabi). The new UN might end up headquartered in Muscat(Mocha would be my choice, but it’s the Asian future, so up to them).
Awesome Fitz that’s great stuff. You’ve finally got me crying uncle on the mine thing. I’m going with no mines (or dummy mines as a backup) until proven wrong. I wouldn’t think that the Hand wouldn’t want mines unless for some reason it felt it was necessary on some level for plot narrative because it does intend to completely open up the Strait again once Iran gets what it needs which ultimately is no more Zionism. And I like that thinking about Oman regarding the geopolitics that come after. And good memory about the warning bullet!
Talking of Oman, they may be announcing their new role now(quietly of course).
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/oman–france-discuss-regional-developments–maritime-securit
Probably explaing how the new rules are just like the Montreux Convention, so stfu and pay the service fee.
Notice again how Qatar is now seen favourably. Good save from Al Thani and that has meaning for Saudi as well, but the Pakistani angle will probably sway that more, as Iran and Pakistan expand cooperation(north and south rail to China link both countries now, as they’ve joined various networks and with the North-South route linking to Russia almost complete, that’s another incentive for Pakistan to want a stable, reliable neighbour that can hold its own).
Nice. Just looked up the Montreaux Convention. That’s a great no-fee model for Phase 2.
Food inflation is already skyrocketing.
I went to Burger King yesterday and ordered double cheeseburger and large fries. Total $7.70 I didn’t even get a drink.
I was like WTF?
Its been a while since I ate Burger King but that seemed WAY higher then what I expected.
Serious inquiry, had to stop at that ffdchain there because of long day and or on short notice cruising long distance on the hw ? Otherwise WHY NOT TO prepare more quality sandwiches for les$ at home..
Plus perhaps if it helps – imagine these particular MNCs share-holders NOT getting your dime, great feeling ensues.
I worked as a janitor at a McDonald’s in my youth. It was good gig. No jassles.My boss at night was a Vietnam vet who brought back a wife. Three tours. He didn’t talk much. All food was free if I came in before closing. Gradually my body rejected all of the so called food. First burgers then finally fillet of fish. All cooked in “formula 57” grease. At six months I couldn’t eat any of it. Between paychecks I would eat sunflower seeds that went in something and lemons.
It is about time:
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/corporate-america-is-starting-to-ration-ai-as-cost-skyrockets-1eb99d7a
Corporate America Is Starting to Ration AI as Cost Skyrockets
Executives are scrambling to track returns on AI investments as the bill for massive computing needs comes due
Top technical executives at Uber Technologies, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Salesforce, DoorDash and other companies have all talked about new efforts to ensure AI use contributes to productivity or have taken steps to reduce the availability of some tools for certain employees.
AI critics have pointed to efforts to direct AI spending more carefully as evidence of a warning sign that the ultrafast pace of AI growth could slow. . .
That shift to usage-based pricing has forced enterprise customers to reckon with their consumption. An Uber executive said by March, the company had blown through its annual budget for agentic, or autonomous, AI use. Microsoft limited access to an Anthropic program for some employees who can use an internal coding assistant instead. Salesforce introduced a system for tracking how token use ultimately contributes to positive business outcomes.
If this is the end of the world.
Where’s Jesus?
I guess he…Holy Ghosted us!
🙂
KHAAANNNNNNNNNNN!!!
Tribulation first. Seven years.
That’s right post-Trib is the only legitimate Christian view.
I was born in rural Indiana where the Shawnee Indian tribe once lived under the famous Chief Tecumseh. And when he was killed, they passed his body along to other Indian tribes. (so nobody could ever claim it)
And they taught their children “one day Tecumseh would return and unite all the tribes as one”.
Nice. I take that mythology to represent the cognitive dissonance in the human condition that is created by the Dunbar Number hardwiring. The creative polarity of universalism and tribalism in symbiotic tension.
Well nice thing about these times not a whole lot of waiting to find out what’s up.
I know a number of Pre-Tribbers around here who looked foolish during the plandemic/Biden era because they were expecting to be raptured. Me and the post-tribbers would quietly talk about it. Around here their views vary from family to family within the same church body. So in a sense we’ve already found out.
Just a whimsical post since my dad is retired CIA.
Sorry, meant as a reply to Nat under the gold bars subthread
Hey I’ll take that dog bowl if you don’t need it and throw in free lifetime dog bathes. 😊 Glad you escaped Chevy Chase fate. I’ve been known to be whimsical. Glad Gail puts up with me. Mostly… 😊
You got it. It does feel ostentatious even despite my attempt to low-brow the gold bars as much as possible. But you know I’m not much into bathing. I will pull the winter dreads from your coat in the springtime though. That’s intensive daily grooming time for a guardian job well done, then I’ll excitedly rub your smooth back once the last one is pulled.
Yeah dad (stepdad actually) had finished a long double stationing in DC before Mom met him, so we did LA, Dallas, NYC, and the Bay Area before I went off to college. His last ten years were back in LA working with Iranian expats who were translating documents for the agency. Years ago, after he retired, we had an argument about it. Mom and Dad just visited last week and I was surprised to discover that he’s a full-on anti-imperialist all of a sudden and thinks that the CIA was wrong to have overthrown Mossadegh. Mom nodding her head the whole time. That’s the positive power of the Trump fall guy herding mechanism right there. The wrongness of the Mossadegh coup formed the core of my argument with him all those years ago. Hand’s triangulation of the social nationalisms is complete, and it’s no longer theory.
‘The “first democratically elected leader overthrown by the US” line about Mossadegh collapses the actual constitutional reality of Iran in the 1950s. Iran did not elect prime ministers. Under the 1906 constitution, the Shah appointed and dismissed the prime minister from among members of the elected Parliament (Majlis). Mossadegh was appointed under that system. In August 1953 the Shah issued a royal decree dismissing him, an authority explicitly granted to the monarch. Mossadegh refused to comply, barricaded himself in office, and attempted to dissolve the Majles through a referendum that bypassed the constitutional order entirely. By that point the country was already in a constitutional crisis. ‘?
https://x.com/Pouriaaa/status/2031023187207589892?s=20
“That brings us to 1979.”
Thanks.
If one is so inclined along the lines of the discussion me and Tim had about the possibility of Khomeini being a Hand asset, that narrative teases the idea that the timing of the Iranian Revolution was optimized and ultimately Kabuki theater in long-term service of creating the ultimate featherable sledgehammer — a rolling Hormuz crisis — when the Age of Oil collapses. It’s not like global MPP was damaged by the Iranian revolution. There was too much supply in the 80s, so much so that Saudi production had to be intentionally collapsed.plus Iranian production had already clearly peaked back in 1974. The Iranian production bell curve was ridiculously steep and thus a testament to how hard they were milking the extractive neocolonialism under the Shah.
We turn now to the inventory picture, which is where the situation looks most precarious.
At first glance, commercial stockpiles appear comfortably large. The International Energy Agency estimates that non-SPR inventories stood at roughly 6.5 billion barrels of crude oil and refined products at the end of February. Upon closer examination, however, the situation looks considerably less reassuring.
Much of this oil is not truly “inventory” in the ordinary sense of the word — that is, supply that can simply be withdrawn and consumed during a shortage. A substantial portion functions more like working capital within the global petroleum system itself. It exists not as surplus, but as the minimum volume required to keep a 106 million barrel-per day market operating continuously.
While roughly 2 billion barrels of oil are reportedly floating aboard the global tanker fleet at any given time, we estimate that nearly 1.7 billion barrels must remain continuouslyat sea simply to sustain an 80 million barrel-per-day seaborne export market, given average laden voyage times approaching twenty days. Most of this oil is not excess
inventory at all, but cargo in transit, permanently embedded within the functioning of thesystem itself.
The same principle applies elsewhere throughout the supply chain. We estimate that another 2.2 billion barrels are required within blending facilities, refinery systems and downstream distribution networks before normal operations begin to break down.
Pipelines present a similar constraint. Roughly 1 billion barrels are needed globally as line fill — the minimum volume necessary to keep crude and products moving continuously through the system. Below that level, pipelines begin drawing air, impairing operations and risking damage to equipment.
Storage tanks, meanwhile, can never be fully emptied. Partly this is because a certain volume is needed to maintain enough hydrostatic pressure to move oil through the system.
More importantly, tank outlets are intentionally positioned above the bottom of the tank in order to prevent sediment and contaminants from entering the stream. The residual volume left behind is known within the industry as the “heel.” Combined with minimum operating requirements, it generally means that no more than roughly 90% of a storage tank’s nominal capacity can actually be accessed. On estimated global commercial storage capacity of approximately 5 billion barrels, this implies that roughly 500 million barrels are effectively unavailable under ordinary operating conditions.
Taken together, our analysis suggests the minimum commercial inventory required to keep the global petroleum system functioning is approximately 5.4 billion barrels — against reported non-SPR inventories of roughly 6.5 billion barrels at the end of February. The implication is rather sobering. If our estimates are approximately correct, the global energy system can realistically draw only about 1.1 billion barrels from commercial inventories before beginning to seize up operationally. Yet even if the Strait Goehring & Rozencwajg Natural Resource Market Commentary 10
were reopened tomorrow, we estimate that roughly 1.5 billion barrels of production willalready have been lost.
Strategic reserve releases will eventually contribute approximately 400 million barrels, which, at least on paper, nearly bridges the gap. Of course, the International Energy Agency entered the crisis believing the market was already running a meaningful surplus, implying that not all of the curtailed production would necessarily need to come from storage. We have long questioned that assumption — and the agency’s recent upward revisions to January and February demand figures appear to support the view that much of the supposed surplus may
never have existed at all.
Similar concerns have recently begun surfacing elsewhere on Wall Street. A research report published by JPMorgan Chase arrived at broadly comparable conclusions using a similar framework. Their analysts estimated that the global oil system, including strategic reserves, could likely withstand withdrawals of roughly 900 million barrels before acute stress begins to emerge, and approximately 1.6 billion barrels before the system risks outright breakdown.
There is an additional complication. Nearly 1.5 billion barrels of global petroleum inventories are believed to reside within China. Recent decisions by Chinese authorities to restrict refined-product exports suggest they may be increasingly inclined to preserve those inventories for domestic use rather than release them into the global market. In practical terms, this means that a meaningful portion of the world’s reported stockpiles may prove far less accessible during a crisis than headline inventory figures would initially imply.
The market is moving dangerously close to a severe physical bottleneck, one that risks producing an extremely nonlinear move higher in prices. At some point, demand will have to be curtailed as the market pushes deeper into the most inelastic portion of the supply curve. Once that threshold is approached, price movements historically become abrupt and disorderly.
In April 2020, with COVID related lockdowns firmly in place, oil traders became concerned that storage tanks might overflow. As the physical bottleneck became acute, price collapsed from $30 to -$47 in a matter of days. We believe we could be on the verge of a similar bottleneck, albeit in the opposite direction. As tank volumes approach usable minimums, we believe the risk of a massive price spike in crude is quickly approaching .”
This is an excerpt from the latest G&R report . 45 pages long . This is page 10&11 .
https://info.gorozen.com/hubfs/Commentaries%20+%20Content%20Offers/2026.Q1%20Commentary/2026.Q1%20Goehring%20%26%20Rozencwajg%20Market%20Commentary.pdf
From above report .
“the global energy system can realistically draw only about 1.1 billion barrels from commercial inventories before beginning to seize up operationally. Yet even if the Strait were reopened tomorrow,we estimate that roughly 1.5 billion barrels of production will already have been lost. ”
Are we underestimating the proximity of the tanks hitting the bottom ?
Thanks for posting this. I wonder if deliveries to remote areas will be the first to stop, especially if these remote areas are not really keeping the system operating.
We talk about “core” and “periphery.” Cuba, Hawaii, and Western Alaska are likely all periphery. They would seem to take a disproportionate share of unused oil, without providing a great deal of benefit. Their supply would seem likely to fall short first.
Gas is about to hit 20 dollars a gallon in my Alaskan village
Vent/Rant (No Advice/Criticism!)
I don’t live here anymore but I’m still in highschool and for more than half my life I’ve been in the village. All year until probably the age 9 and then every summer until now (16) where my mom is moving to Anchorage the biggest city in Alaska (300k ish)
35% of Alaska lives rurally meaning you can only travel there by boat or plane which those prices are also probably going to double.
For example my village the only way you can get to a town on the road system or on the ferry system by water would be boating hundreds and hundreds of miles through the kuskokiwm river, going through the Bering sea into one of the chain island towns which has connection to the ferry which could take you back to a road system town, and I wanna be clear these are mostly native Alaskan villages spread throughout the state. I personally am I quarter Alaskan native and was raised relatively traditionally for the culture. This could destroy our culture entirely.
Now I want to be clear it’s not like we need a lot of gas to drive around the town or go fishing with our boat, it’s the fact that it will be impossible to heat our houses during the winter, and I can’t even imagine the cost during the winter to heat our schools during the winter. It probably already was tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, and these schools can’t even use firewood to keep the heating going like most families households do during the winter.
And then food prices are going to be fucking insane, they already were extremely extremely expensive because of the amount of shipping you have to do actually get them to the villages, now it’s going to be even worse.
My proof, the one gas company in town last bought there gas for about 4-5 dollars and when it arrived in our town through the giant barge it was priced around 10 dollars, this time they bought the gas for 9-10 because of the Iran war.
It’s going to be anywhere from a week to a couple months before the prices hit because the gas company has to wait until the ice on the river has basically completely thawed, oh also I’ll put a photo down of what flooding looks like because of an Alaskan winter, mind you the photo Im putting is about 75-100 feet above the river. winter is that bad in Alaska, and it’s summer right now, my school is out, and my other town where gas is only about 5-6 dollars had snow yesterday.
Before I end this, I don’t even live in the most extreme rural place of Alaska, it can regularly hit -40 degrees for a week in my village during the winter and we ain’t even in the 2nd coldest region, oh and my other town which just got snow again is in one of the warmest parts of Alaska.
These places
These communities
This subsistence culture
This culture
Will die.
Forgot to mention 24% of native Alaskan life in poverty and 29% of native Alaskan children, and that’s before what’s coming in the next month or so .
Copy/paste
Place that are very cold and a long distance from energy supplies are going to be ones that are difficult to maintain. Western Alaska is one. I am sure there are settlements in northern Canada and northern Russia that will have difficulty as well.
When I worked in Alaska there was a young native man who would show up at the plant work for a couple days then leave periodically. Management was ok with this. Locals privilege. Tough as fucking nails. 30 miles in a skiff to get there. No radio. No cell phone. 30 miles down the Alaska coast by a 18 year old in a skiff. He was of course bat shit crazy by lower 48 standards. It eminated from him all bandwidths. There was no possibility he could ever hide his essence.Talk about wild child
Alaska BAU.
No not much to burn there.
Now you know why people think I’m batshit or, in your more generous case, excitable. Got the soul of a Red Man.
Strategic Decisions Conference .
https://x.com/ericnuttall/status/2060049094236840291/photo/1
We are ~9 million bbls away from hitting a storage level that’s the equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck for gasoline and distillate.
Once we get there, even a minor disruption (any sort of outage) will result in gasoline lines at gas stations.
I guess we are really doing this.
https://x.com/HFI_Research/status/2060119433826443390/photo/1
Good chart on SPR draws .
https://x.com/UnintendedCons5/status/2060066380649796090/photo/1
After June is a problem.
those are projections. there are minimal shortages in most places for now. i still don’t see a firm new date for gasoline lines in europe or the west. we may have to be content with famine in spring 2027.
The chart explained .
“The world released 285 million barrels from strategic reserves in just 4 months.
By July, the taps are nearly dry. ⚠️
Global strategic stock draws, Mar–Jun 2026:
→ March: 36 mb
→ April: 79 mb
→ May: 74 mb
→ June: 76 mb (forecast)
→ July: 22 mb (
→ August: 20 mb
The US SPR is doing the heaviest lifting the dominant blue bar every single month.
When strategic releases drop from 76 mb/month to 22 mb/month and Hormuz is still semi-closed, the market has to find its own price.
That price is higher than the one the SPR was suppressing.
Central banks can’t fix a physical supply shock.
Strategic reserves can absorb it temporarily.
Both tools are now reaching their limits simultaneously.
Full analysis including what this means for commodity inflation and the assets positioned to benefit in my latest article.”
https://x.com/jackprandelli/status/2060448081188139514/photo/1
Again the June/July threshold looming ahead!
What’s the hand gonna do ?
– Switcheroo to new paradigm with old elites ( mild-fake reset )
– Switcheroo to new paradigm with new elites ( completely over-haul )
– Chaos / deep crash ( seemed as not guided for decades to come )
..
.
that slope hits zero after about 60 weeks. so june 2027?
Starting May 29, South Korean refiners will be required to maintain mandatory oil reserves equivalent to 20 days of average domestic sales, down from the current 40 days, Yang Ghi-wuk, deputy minister for trade, industry and resources security, said at a press briefing.
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/052826-south-korea-eases-refiners-crude-stockpiling-mandate-under-iea-plan
CHART OF THE DAY: On Apr 16, the IEA made a headline-grabbing warning: Europe had “maybe 6 weeks or so of jet fuel left.” It’s week seven; the planes are still flying. Since those headlines, European wholesale jet fuel prices have fallen ~30% to a ~3-month low.
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/2060250768683266092/photo/1
Please read the replies for an explanation .
EU available Private Inventories of Oil refined products are sitting at the LOWEST LEVEL of last Decade, with the drop even smoothed by the Release of ⅓ of Crude Oil Reserve by Governments.
This “help” via National Reserve Depletion & Fuel Tax Cuts is the WRONGEST THING that EU Governments can do now.
+all the Fake news complex of “today too, Hormuz reopens tomorrow” which gives a false sense of La-La-Land.
Why ?
Because the more they “sweet” the pill now the more it will get bitter LATER.
Governments can easily save 2026 Summer Travel Tourism Season and carry on this ”stupid help” till January 2027 but by going at that point, Oil National Reserves and Private Oil refined Products Inventories would have been FULLY DEPLETED.
Brent Spot Price is set to rise exponentially, day by day, approaching the “Tank’s Bottom” of the Storages.
Brent Spot Price in this scenario, instead of peaking at $200 this Summer could extend to $300 by EOY 2026.
By fighting Oil Price Rise & Demand Destruction now, Governments are letting Inflation to become entrenched, on a freeway towards Double Digit, leading to a FULL Economic PARALYSIS in early 2027 !
https://x.com/Scorpio_Alejand/status/2058196566528115095/photo/1
Request to all , please read .
https://www.hfir.com/p/public-we-are-going-full-speed-into
The mistake most people make is that these inventories seem sizable: 2.5 billion barrels of SPRs covers a 10mmb/d shortfall for 250 days, right?
The problem is the size of the pipe and willingness to draw in the top 2 where VAST majority of the inventories are located. The rest have already or will soon be depleted at this point.
Despite its willingness, the US can only pull 1.3mmb/d from its SPRs. This is a bandaid on the bullet wound of the 10mmb/day shut in.
And although China is opaque, it can also likely only sustain 1 – 1.5 mmb/d of releases from reserves. So the balance of the recent 3mmb/d reduction in imports would have had to come out of their commercial stocks which are far more finite.
This means that commercial inventories and rest of world SPRs still need to draw 7mmb/d even with huge stocks still sitting in US and China SPRs.
The narrative about “we still have x months of inventories” before there is a problem is totally bogus in practice. In reality both US and China pumping out of their SPRs at maximum possible rates is akin to transfusing 3 units of blood to the heart and brain when there is a 10 unit arterial bleed. It doesn’t matter how much bagged blood you have in stock, the patient still bleeds out and limbs die first. All Iran has to do is wait .
https://x.com/calvinfroedge/status/2060032263090319638/photo/1
If I can summarize Ravi’s posts, the consensus for hitting the wall seems to be July.
OPEC + Middle East crude exports are down 10.75 million b/d y-o-y.
US + Russia + Venezuela + Brazil crude exports are up 3.8 million b/d y-o-y.
Net: -6.95 million b/d
China reduced crude imports in May by 3.349 million b/d y-o-y. 1.3 million b/d was SPR build y-o-y, so net draw on crude inventory was ~2 million b/d, or 60 million bbls a month.
South Korea is importing 0.546 million b/d lower y-o-y, or a draw of ~16 million bbls a month.
Japan is importing 0.621 million b/d lower y-o-y, or a draw of ~18.6 million bbls a month.
By the end of June, excess crude exports from the US will go away. SPR release of 1.3 million b/d will go entirely into exports, so the US will still sustain 4.6-4.7 million b/d, but this will increase the net deficit to ~8 million b/d.
Once the excess onshore crude storage is drained, each marginal barrel of demand from the Asian countries post SPR will fuel buying in the physical market. Japan and Korea may have secured barrels for June and July, but June’s trading cycle for August starts next week.
Only time will tell how adequate they feel about storage.
Global net crude deficit -6.95M b/d, moving to -8M b/d end of June. Japan and Korea drawing ~35M bbls/month combined. China net -60M bbls/month. The August trading cycle opens next week.
This is the Exxon $150 scenario activating in real time. Japan/Korea secured June/July. They haven’t secured August. When they return to spot next week without SPR cover, they’re buying into an -8M b/d deficit market with US excess exports gone. The Saudi $5/B Asia price cut this week looks like a last attempt to keep Asian buyers from panicking. It won’t be enough if the deficit of math is right.
This sounds worrying!
The Duran says july tipping point. maybe thy read here.
Drb> the reset to sane govs in EUR domain ( as per leading opposition now ) brought sooner or perhaps even more strongly because of the incoming? oil shock sounds very interesting.. in theory..
But that in practice means, destroying hundreds of bln. in already planned war expenses ( %%profits) at the minimum, so I’d not bet on it.
So, historically logic follows-rhymes, they will burn the table-house first, i.e. NOT leaving their power positions so painstakingly mischief-ed over several recent decades.
According to an Exxon SVP,
We’re approaching unheard of inventory levels.
mean, really, really low levels. You can debate
whether that’s going to hit those really low
levels in two weeks or three weeks. Once you
get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.
I mean, I think dated Brent, most people, well, a
model would say dated Brent will shoot up. Once
you get to that really low inventory level, up to
$150, $160.
The models would tell you that. And then what
happens is when the price gets to a certain
level, demand destruction brings it back into
balance. Prices go so high, it becomes
unaffordable. And that’s what happens. And so
we’re at that level right now.
And I think crude being in this sort of $90 to
$110 for the last whatever it is, six weeks, has
really been mitigated by running down
inventories. It can’t last forever. So we’ll see
what happens. And predicting this and the exact
timing, it’s always a challenge. But that’s the
way we see the picture.
This information is sobering? More like start drinking heavily. Just kidding. I’m allergic.
Thank you as usual Raviji. I can count on you to sober me up every time I start sipping the BAU juice with a factual objective analysis so unique to this blog.
Zerohedge now has an article on the inventory problem:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/approaching-unheard-inventory-levels-chevron-exxon-issue-apocalyptic-warning-about-what
“Approaching Unheard Of Inventory Levels”: Exxon, Chevron Issue Apocalyptic Warning About What Happens Next To Oil
The information looks similar to what we have seen elsewhere.
drb , there are us who believe Art , Jeff Currie , JPM , GS , XOM , Chevron , Rystad , Morgan Downey , Rory Johnston etc and then there are those who believe DJT and his club of idiots . July will be the start when we start hearing the grinding/ crushing sound .
“there are us who believe Art , Jeff Currie , JPM , GS , XOM , Chevron , Rystad , Morgan Downey , Rory Johnston”
These people have triple-digit IQs.
” those who believe DJT and his club of idiots”
These people have IQs lower than room temperature.
WSJ is reporting that there is a huge time-lag before its current blockade of Iranian oil will affect Iran directly. Thus, the idea of squeezing Iran this way is very much delayed. To be truly useful, the blockade would need to be kept up forever.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranian-oil-shadow-fleet-black-market-3dc7fb6c
Energy analytics company Vortexa recently estimated there were some 90 million barrels of Iranian oil outside of the blockade, most or all of which left Iranian waters before the closure began. The oil is effectively in offshore storage, potentially providing billions of dollars in additional funds to the Iranian regime in the coming months.
It takes two to three months for Iranian oil to reach Chinese ports, and another two to three months for Iran to receive payment, so even if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t reopen, Iran will likely be receiving money for its oil on the water until October, said Iman Nasseri, managing director of Middle East Research at energy analytics company FGE NexantECA in Dubai, who once worked in the research arm of Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum.
“Economic Fury was supposed to bring them to their knees,’ he said, referring to the U.S. economic campaign against Iran. But compared with other oil exporters in the region “Iran is suffering the least,” he said.
I think this is reflected in Irans behavior. Iran is willing to have the standoff go to the mid terms and beyond. By all reports there are going to be significant consequences by August.
I have posted before I think time is on Irans side. Would they take a deal where they give up nothing and get everything. Of course.
The true shame is relinquishing the dust is off the table. It was not before this war. It was the only thing Iran had to give that was ok with them.
I think things like insisting that all hostilities end throughout the region show pretty clearly Iran is only buying time. That’s outside of USA control.
I’m not sure what Trump’s plan is or even if he has a plan. He seems to think his truth social posts define reality. I believe this to be a version of pseudologia fantasica condition. It’s a modern version where a media or online portrayal is considered reality. Trump is and was a creature deeply intertwined with media. He watches it constantly.
This raises deep questions about freedom relative to authority. Certainly pseudologia fantasica is common and people live their lives that way. Obviously if true this is a catastrophe for the nation to have a POTUS with pseudologia fantasica
Bidens condition was different but it had strong characteristics of pseudologia fantasica also. IMO it is a epidemic amongst politicians. The American people will probably vote in a Democratic majority come midterms installing their particular flavor of pseudologia fantasica.
Nor is is the condition exclusive to politics. It is common amongst CEOs also.
Language and belief are characteristics of humanity. It is how we form models of the world. The problem is the tendency to regard the model not as a map but reality itself. Korzybski refered to this as “unsanity” differentiating it from insanity by amongst other things the degree of dysfunction. I think this applies to pseudologia fantasica also. The condition only creates catastrophic dysfunction if the individual has authority.
IMO the epidemic of pseudologia fantasica we witness is a acceleration and intensification of what Korzybski termed “unsanity”. While it is often mistaken for a simple narcissistic trait I feel it it is self evident it is a condition that is much more profoundly dysfunctional than that.
Besides the condition being a belief in a fantasy as reality it also is demonstrated in exclusion. For instance Trump says he doesn’t care about the economy. He doesn’t care about humanitarian issues. . And as we witness he doesn’t care about time even as his adversary seals his fate with it. Only the fantastical reality he has created is important.
We have a great deal of freedom of belief and I love that very much. People can believe all sorts of things and we can function and get along. One thing makes it work. It could be considered humbleness. The understanding that our beliefs are just a opinion. It would be better if people understood that language is just a model but humbleness suffices. Pseudologia fantasica is not a humble condition to say the least. It only has respect for the fantasy creation. It excludes everything else. This is why we see such divisiveness. People do not understand that language is model that is fundamentally not reality. Language creates a virtual reality. That virtual reality is NEVER reality only a model
This is why what Korzybski termed “unsanity” can be integral to the human condition. Pseudologia Fantasica is a extreme manifestation of a fundamental issue of language Thus it is both familiar and bizarre at the same time. Something is off. Not right. But you can’t quite put your finger on it because to a lessor extent you share the flaws of “unsanity”.
“Iran is willing to have the standoff go to the mid terms and beyond”
Planned might be a better descriptive, as that by chance, would tie in perfectly with China’s date for reviewing US rare earth bans.
The coincidences just keep piling up.
The war on Gaza has been just enlarged in scope aka way fewer US ammunition ( and spare parts ) allocated for the US mil. trend continues, .. hence even stronger Iran’s position.
Nice try dog trying to drag everyone down into your ontological subjectivism but you wouldn’t be alive without the objectively accurate wielding of the meta-analytic language tool by your ancestors… the proof is in the pudding, dog. You can’t just separate out language from the rest of the organism and finger it as a problem when human evolution was and is expressly reliant on the objective accuracy of language.
If you want to make a valid argument then you need to argue in the context of the limits to objectivistic meta-analysis in this media scape. That’s a valid approach. Poisoning the well of human evolution is not a valid approach; it’s a logical fallacy.
And glorifying a one-size-fits-all “humbleness” false idol is another fallacy – a strawman. Not all meta-analysis is created equal. On one end you have Nat and on the other you have Marvin Harris and Robin Dunbar. You believe in the Dunbar Number yet the Dunbar Number is exactly analogous to the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda. The Dunbar number is an invisible structural ‘conspiracy’ of our hard-wiring, and the DA is the same of this civilizational hard wiring.
Let’s be sure we’re not just trying to keep a brother down by wielding ‘humbleness’ like an Evangelical Christian supplicant. No doubt I’m arrogant but if you study the etymology of that word you’ll see that it’s an earned psychology. A meritocratic psychology.
perhaps a distinction between thought/language functioning at a psychological level vs a technical one may be useful. the psychological (the ‘me’/egoic structure) being the root of conflict/divisiveness whereas at a technical level it functions well.
Obviously human evolution has only occured on this technological level (in society as a whole) and not at the psychological (still pretty much cavemen). Which isn’t to say psychological evolution is not impossible (in the sense of the locus of identity going beyond the mind)
I’d argue that the root of conflict is always ultimately over resources, without exception. I can’t think of an exception. Can you?
I see the egoic structure as functional evolutionarily. Integral. But as with any functionality in this reality based on polarity, dysfunctionality is its devolutionary state. Humans have always had a me identity. Countless other species have me identities.
Contrary to your assessment, I assess that human psychology is well evolved. I don’t see how evolution could leave any part of an organism wanting because all functions, collectively, are equally the result of 4.2B years or whatever of adaptation. That said, I believe that the human organism has been devolving since civilization took over, and there’s much scientific support for that. For example, evolutionary psychologists hold that all manner of psychological dysfunction may arise from the extreme environmental mismatch that civilization represents relative to the ancestral environment.
Has, say, arrogance always existed? Sure. It’s common knowledge in cultural anthropology that among within hunter gatherer societies, structural teasing and downplaying of the accomplishments of the highest performers was pervasive because it kept political hierarchy from emerging out of natural hierarchy. It kept power away from corruption. That’s high functioning, selfless group psychology, and group psychology is more difficult to keep high functioning than personal psychology because of reversion to the mean. What kept the mean high functioning was an abundance of high quality nutrient foods throughput at a reasonable return on energy investment.
As an animist I do see high functioning psychology as having a lot to do with, as you say, the locus of identity going beyond the min — or nonduality if you will — but I also see that the subject -object duality of healthy egoic self-improvement/personal growth is the other fundamental locus of high functioning identity.
So it’s only natural that in a long-term online group chat in a multicultural civilization, as ours is, the mean to which the group reverts is going to be relatively low and the conflict relatively high because we participants experience IRL environments of highly variable quality. And while that’s far from optimal, the high level of conflict is as it should be; it’s natural. Myself, I have zero interest in artificially, enforced polite online or IRL societies, such as what Morgan’s blog culture is like.
I’d argue that the root of conflict is always ultimately over resources, without exception. I can’t think of an exception. Can you?
Even the high function egoic state has a certain ‘stink’ 🙂
the mantra (whether conscious or unconscious) is always the same : more..due to its inherent insufficiency.
‘dukka’ or dissatisfaction is its nature – always seeking more – pleasure, power, money, fame, success, sex, resources, spirituality, knowledge, understanding etc etc…
The westetn world after the 50s experienced unprecedented wealth and abundance. Did this bring an end to conflict? (envy, hatred, strife, aggression..)
The question over whether a ‘wrong turning’ took place has been wrestled with over the ages. Every culture has its fall from grace origin story.
Did the egoic nature arise out of the use of thought/language recording information for tool making?
Evolution does weed out maladaptive traits..
But then again at another level there is probably no maladaptation – just forms coming in an out of existence to the delight of their creator?..Lila as the ancients termed it -the dance of creation.
i replied..seems to have disappeared..
Always enjoy your occasional appearances.
The stink is just life on the inside, like when you’re dressing out an animal and you’re done taking the bark off and you set to opening up the torso. The first time you do it, life on the inside hits you nose like a brick. After that it’s just a fact of life. Ain’t no use recoiling at it whether that’s emotionally or philosophically because the stink ain’t nothing personal. It’s deeper than that.
So what exactly did Buddhist religious philosophy ever accomplish making dogmatic the philosophical recoiling at life on the inside? Seems to me it just leads to another kind of dukka under political cover.
Saw this post. Think it’s true:
>> believing the modern disorganised majority will do anything is downright delusional. they won’t act unless someone from the elite leads them in a play to overthrow the system and secure themselves more power.
This has been true for at least a century.
I didn’t know this when I was younger and also don’t think most people think about this kind of thing.
Perhaps I should add “in the west”. there is no evidence that Mao, Lumumba or the current rulers of Mali are or were anything other than nationalists. same for Iranian rulers.
If Mao lived another decade he would have done much the same thing as Xiaoping regarding liberalization. MPP. The CCP would have collapsed otherwise.
I don’t disagree with that. Sovereignty is the name of the game. Stalin famously installed a mixed state-private economy system, as had many Euro countries. It does not matter which side of the aisle you start from so long as you get there.
Sovereignty was the name of the game for a few short decades but the hypertrophied cultural materialism of the oil age dictated, as per the MPP, that the transnational superimperialism of Old Testament Capitalism would soon supercede national sovereignties. No country on the planet escaped the transnational yoke, the USSR just held out the longest.
some managed to keep some sovereignty. Russia, China and Iran of course, but Malaysia, Oman, Mali and a number of Sahel countries. thins are changing.
Generally agree.
But you have to also say the following “B” paragraph..
As crucially, USSR was under various sector sanctions ( mostly suppressing tech dev. ) Putting aside their own plethora of gov stupid self-inflicted mistakes.
While, CHN made at one point that cunning ” opening up ” deal, now decades later about backfiring badly & bigly for the West as CHN tends to produce comparable or even better products on their own in many, soon most domains. Plus providing the int. umbrella for other aligned coterie of countries etc.
drb all countries kept some cultural sovereignty because that services MPP but economically All Your Bases Are Belong To Us. Russia became oil and gas exporter extraordinaire at the expense of its own population’s er capita income relative to the West and China became manufacturer extraordinaire at the same expense to its population. That’s neocolonialism to a tee.
of course but what matters is economic and geopolitical sovereignty. no one is going to war over cultural.
‘Some aspects of human cognition and behavior appear unusual or exaggerated relative to those of other intelligent, warm-blooded, long-lived social species––including certain mammals (cetaceans, elephants, and great apes) and birds (corvids and passerines). One collection of such related features is our remarkable ability for ignoring or denying reality in the face of clear facts, a high capacity for self-deception and false beliefs, overarching optimism bias, and irrational risk-taking behavior (herein collectively called “reality denial”). . . .
This “psychological evolutionary barrier” would have thus persisted until hominin ancestors broke through, via a rare and unlikely combination of cognitive changes, in which two intrinsically maladaptive traits (reality denial and extended ToM) evolved in the minds of the same individuals, allowing a “mind over reality transition” (MORT) over the proposed barrier. Once some individuals broke through in this manner, conventional natural selection could take over, with further evolution of beneficial aspects of the initial changes. This theory also provides a unifying evolutionary explanation for other unusual features of humans, including our recent emergence as the dominant species on the planet, and replacement of all other closely related evolutionary cousins, with limited interbreeding and no remaining hybrid species. While not directly falsifiable by experiment, the MORT theory fits with numerous facts about humans and human origins, and no known fact appears to strongly militate against it. It is also consistent with most other currently viable theories on related subjects, including terror management theory. Importantly, it has major implications for the human condition, as well as for many serious current issues, ranging all the way from lack of personal health responsibility to ignoring anthropogenic global climate disruption, which now threatens the very existence of our species. “?
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-25466-7_6
This quote is from something published in 2019 called, “Did Human Reality Denial Breach the Evolutionary Psychological Barrier of Mortality Salience? A Theory that Can Explain Unusual Features of the Origin and Fate of Our Species”.
I wonder if the authors were aware of the fact that from an energy point of view, pre-humans could outcompete other animals because of our ability to cook part of our food. Certainly denial of the real causes of problems could enter into how we treated other species, but it is mostly a matter of survival of the best adapted. Humans, with our better adapted brains, could out compete other animals. We also didn’t have to spend literally half the day chewing our food, leaving time for other activities, including crafts.
Fascinating. Our ability to model is in essence fantasy. Modeling allowed us to become the Uber predator. Now we have become “unsane” ( reference Korzybski) thinking the model is the juice not the reality it represents. As modeling capabilities increase so does unsanity. Modeling (language)is both our greatest asset and our greatest liability separated only by what can regarded as common sense. But evolution has not installed common sense because modeling was so successful. Pseudologia fantasica represents the evolutionary extreme where modeling is so successful it’s dysfunction is ignored. Now that dysfunction has rather extreme consequences. Consequences that are so critical and so catastrophic that evolution has zero chance of adapting our one size fits all language tool in time. A tool that we are ignorant is even a tool. Like a minnow in a lake there is only the lake. If you bring attention to the lake it is uncomfortable because there is only the lake only the tool. A tool that is completely owned by media and electronic devices introduced soon after birth. Dinosaurs had better chances than this.
Dual language capabilities introduce some understanding of the modeling lake that is our species but it is still peripheral not intuitive.
Who the hell engineered evolution without fail safes? It’s a damn funny car designed for competition when a Honda is needed for survival. I’m filing a complaint! 😊
The fail safe is extinction. Rather harsh. Yes I’m filing a complaint.
If they are led by elites then it’s not an overthrow of the system is it?
of course it is not. just a change of regime. elites are often factional.
National elites were factionalistic. Superimperial super elites all share the same goal because they are all part of a symbiotic whole from which nothing can be gained by further factionalism, only self-destruction of the whole. Factionalism also faces limits to growth, limits to scaling up. The Hand is the apex predator elite and TINA once it has emerged. Today there are only bureaucratic and business factionalisms, and bureaucrats and businessmen are not elites.
and yet iron will always beat gold. evidently the china russia iran elites are the faction, even though the russian elites tried hard to fit in.
Friend, I can lead a horse to water but I can’t make it drink.
Thanks. It’s because I can not believe there will not be a large war. It appears to me that you believe that a group of guys using solely financial instruments and modest amounts of arms can pull this grand plan off. they really do not have that much power.
The DA isn’t a grand plan that requires constant force of will. The Hand doesn’t derive its power from force. It leads. Globalization is/was a global growth phase grand plan. And it was extremely successful. Now the focus simply shifts to the grand plan for decommissioning globalization because the reality turned out to be that globalization wasn’t able to achieve a realistic means by which to further intensify the mode of production such as is always necessary for a civilization to persist once it exhausts its existing resource base. The hope was obviously that a further intensification of energy throughput could be realized but that wasn’t the case.
Ukraine has already lost half its population. Experts fear a demographic catastrophe
“The war in Ukraine, which has lasted for more than four years, has significantly accelerated the demographic crisis the country was already facing before the Russian invasion. According to some estimates, between the declaration of independence in 1991 and the beginning of this year, the country lost nearly half of its population. Ukrainian experts are sounding the alarm and warning of a demographic catastrophe.
According to my estimates, there were about 28 million people living in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at the beginning of 2026. At the end of 1991, the population stood at 51.7 million,” Ukrainian demographer Oleksandr Hladun told the EUobserver website.”
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
https://hnonline.sk/svet/96283402-ukrajina-uz-prisla-o-polovicu-populacie-experti-sa-obavaju-demografickej-katastrofy
USD and EUR at work aka University of Ottawa employs ~strange people:
https://x.com/I_Katchanovski/status/2057659232627937455
That is certainly a huge drop in population. Part of the reduction in population is clearly emigration to more peaceful parts of the world.
Apparently not only Iran likes tolls.
40 million dollars of gold found in CIA employees home.
Where will the gold end up? Dudes baksheesh got baksheeshed by bigger fish
Excessive? 40 million doesn’t go very far nowadays.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwpBmQmmyd8&pp=0gcJCQ0LAYcqIYzv
There were 311 bars but dad gave me three and told me not to tell anyone. He said loose lips sink ships. I absolutely didn’t tell anyone. I melted them down into bowls for the dogs and chickens. They sure stay nice a shiny. Afro’s bowl has a bunch of teeth marks all around the rim because she likes to carry her dinner to wherever the goats are bedded down for the night which is why I needed more bowls. Just a matter of time before I don’t see that bowl for awhile then one day I’ll come across it again.
Art Berman’s short interview (16 min) with Daniel Davis on the price shock and energy predicament. Davis asked what will happen when there’s NO diesel for the trucks to run? Berman said, that’s when prices will explode higher. We’ll see if the economy will implode by then.
Berman’s oil price action forecast fleshed out more. It’s a forecast that makes sense if you don’t understand the economics of civilizational collapse, which he doesn’t, which is why he’s allowed to make an appearance on a prominent controlled opposition platform. Peak Oil community cooptation.
But ultimately the price of oil will go up, right? if it is denominated in dollars, since a dollar today is the equivalent of 30 cents 30 years ago. and so far it has been around 140 to 150.
We need an ever increasing amount of goods and services in order to have inflation. In order to repay debt as well.
Lets say we have an economy that is entirely made up of cars. Say at any given time there are 100 million cars with auto loans within this economy. Lets also say that the average monthly car payment is $785. And the average principle portion paid each month is $300.
Because of the way money is loaned into existence. When the principle portion of a loan is repaid the money supply contract by an equal amount.
In our made up numbers in this little thought experiment. The money supply would contract by $300 million a month as loans are repaid.
What happens if we produce 15% less cars? Or make 15% less loans? But we continue repaying our loans each month.
Now replace the word cars with everything that makes up a economy.
Lets take it a step further. Say there is no such thing as commercial banks. Say there is only one bank and that bank is the FED.
FED can’t expand the money supply is there isn’t an ever increasing amount of goods and service to make loans against.
And just because loans can be rolled over with new loans doesn’t mean that the new loans are now payable.
Price increases like we are seeing now aren’t inflationary. When goods and services become more scarce so does money and the ability to repay debt is taken away.
And i should also state that when a loan is made to you. You only get the principle portion loaned to you. You got to extract the interest expense from the economy. So your trying to extract money that doesn’t exist because it was never created when the loan was made to you.
>> We need an ever increasing amount of goods and services in order to have inflation. In order to repay debt as well.
No and it’s not so complicated. There are A) goods and services and B) currency / fiat tokens. Inflation and deflation are a change in the ratio. Inflation is brought about by fewer goods with same money supply, or typically fairly stable goods and services with an increase in the money supply.
You’re in way over your head ivan. HHH is operating on Steve Ludlum god mode level in this comment.
There are platitudes which are superficially true but deeply false, like when Art Berman says “the shortage is in the [backwardation] curve,” and, inversely, there are converse truths that are so deeply true that they look li
superficially false. Welcome to the Mysterion, little ivan.
“We need an ever increasing amount of goods and services in order to have inflation.”
Now that is a playful and magnificent converse truth that to the layperson looks assbackwards. That’s elite Play right there: from chapter and verse to converse; from the elementary “inflation is money supply relative to available goods and services” to a physics-level supply-side meta-analysis which is the only game in town that’s able to offer an objective salvation to the dismal science.
Gail constantly hammers on the fact that there will be fewer goods and services. Goods and services are just converted energy, whether in the form of a gallon of gasoline, finished goods, a thai massage, or, most importantly in a financialized economy, the collapse of financial services. If money is the civilizational proxy for energy — and it is — then fewer goods and services means less money.
Monetary inflation is just the notional wealth in a society acting upon prices. Metasytemic (collateral) rehypothecation acting upon prices.
Peak Oil theory is a supply side theory and the reserve currency is a supply side currency.
HHH’s last sentence is as profound as the first as it illuminates the true nature of a fugitive civilization always running away from its past, which explains everything about its utter lack of character.
One more thing – whenever money is scarce / debt won’t be repaid, so they send out stimulus checks or make pandemic-era type loans or grants, send out free money. The money supply cannot be allowed to decrease for any length of time and they make sure it doesn’t. So your argument ignores this reality. Money creation will happen one way or the other.
Yes, good observation and prediction.
Although there are exceptions-outlier cases to above rule, chiefly: brutal quick depop be it via natural forcing or man made..
It’s a terrible observation and prediction that I have countered in the past.
yeah, in a crisis debts are not repaid. so the model does not apply. and there is all sorts of evidence of debts (student, cars) not being repaid in increasing numbers.
I think you are correct for the above analogy to be correct you have to be operating in a system with transparency; that ship has sailed a long time ago. Hence the land grabs of various countries.
ivan,
We don’t have government issued fiat currencies. I know it’s repeated over and over that we do have fiat money. But we don’t
99% of all money is commercial bank centered ledger money. Which are loans made by commercial banks and that are backed by collateral.
Then there is the little green pieces of paper that make up less than 1% of all money.
It’s the commercial banks that are creating all the money.
Of course I know that. But when things get bad, the government will issue new Treasurys, the banks will monetize it. In other words, if commercial banks won’t issue new loans, the government bypasses them. This isn’t some prediction you can argue – we’ve already seen it, it’s already happened.
ivan, by suddenly claiming that the dollar will be monetized into hyperinflation by Treasury issuance you are bargaining catastrophically with your rigid position. Suddenly the Fed is nowhere to be seen now that HHH has you on Fed impotence so you’ve done a bait and switch and now the Treasury is suddenly the monetarily omnipotent One.
Do you not realize what scale of Treasury issuance you’re talking about? What would happen to the value of Treasuries on the secondary market? Why would private commercial banks commit suicide by bailing out a bankrupt government? Where’s your long history of that happening? What would happen to the ability to produce and consume oil around the world?
ivan,
When the dollar squeeze really starts to bite. The ledgers are going to contract at a pace the Treasury can’t overcome.
I whole heartedly agree that they will try their best but think of it as a bathtub with holes in the bottom of it.
The tub will drain faster than the Treasury can fill it with new water.
This describes my concern.
drb
The spot price has been in that range.
Sure, the price will spike like Berman says. But it’s his price crash numbers that are the problem. They’re way too high. Because he’s an inflationista like just about everyone else.
Congress just passed a law to print 1 trillion dollars to buy bitcoin so the system is fubar…
Think before you speak.
do you have a reliable source for that nathaniel
https://youtu.be/74dO0cTMUZc?si=5FanSRpTNjPW3TAU
https://youtu.be/74dO0cTMUZc?si=PQ8Aui1oHTj0_ld2
Here
I found this article, but it just says legislation has been introduced to do these things.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/us-bill-codify-strategic-bitcoin-reserve
Do you have a link to say that legislation has really been passed, to this effect?
The outline of the link Nathanial provided is as follows:
TIMECODES
00:00 The Government Wants to Buy 5% of All Bitcoin
00:47 We Already Have a Bitcoin Reserve. This One Can’t Be Undone.
01:26 1 Million Bitcoin Over Five Years
02:20 The Real Price Tag Could Hit $200 Billion
03:18 Why They’re Targeting Exactly 4.7%
03:53 “Revenue Neutral” Is the Phrase That Should Scare You
04:46 The $42 Gold Price From 1973 Is Still on the Books
05:01 The Gold America Owns Is Worth Over $1 Trillion
06:37 They Could Buy Bitcoin Up to $1 Million Each
08:03 Gold Revaluation Is Just Money Printing in Disguise
08:32 How Roosevelt Confiscated Gold to Print More Dollars
09:24 The Certificate Swap That Conjures a Trillion Dollars
11:33 The Whole Scheme in 60 Seconds
13:08 So What’s the Catch? Somebody Always Pays.
13:27 Dollars Don’t Flow Into Assets. Here’s What Really Happens.
14:59 Hundreds of Billions in New Money Means Inflation
15:42 You Pay for This. Just Not in Taxes.
16:41 Why Wall Street Is Already Preparing for This
This outline implies to me that it is not a “done deal.”
Has been introduced
Energy analysis is one thing. Bets in the casino another.
Thinking you are smart money and the street is dumb money means you are about to get real poor IMO.
Maybe the shorts need some retail longs to eat. Bur who knows. I’m a moron. I remember when Bitcoin was 800 and I didn’t buy any.
Yes, as they ( whales / sharks / key players ) operate with insider awarness-knowledge who is who in power weight sense, what are the goals and strategies of each player on the court, tactics taken.. etc. Even regular daily active professional investor is aware only about fraction of the necessary info for correct decision-making.
While manias when public bystanders get also “lucky” such as ( ~recent ) tech stocks events are something a bit different, apart from fundamental tech / market brake-through, they have to rhyme with the over-all system’s desire to inflate into the future. Simply there must be over arching systemic green light issued first for the next new bonanza..
I remember when Bitcoin was under $1 and I tried to buy. I downloaded all the public SW and could not get it to run.
Bummer!
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again 😄
I would imagine a big price spike followed by a price crash. People cannot afford the high prices for long.
The street thinks demand destruction means oil can’t go as high as Art thinks. No one knows. As world economy comes apart from energy reduction all sorts of things can happen. In the GGC oil hit 17. Just too many variables here including dollar value. But art could be right. Some portion of demand is inelastic. Once the SPR is dry we see . Hi
“No one knows” is the little-minded, current, popular corollary and example of Emerson’s axiomatic observation on little-minded hobgoblins:
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Just because no one had seen it done on tevee before doesn’t mean Willie Mays’ landmark over the shoulder catch wasn’t possible. It didn’t take a crystal ball for Mays to know where that baseball was going to be, it just took requisite competency. Then decades later Jim Edmonds improved upon the catch.
One aspect of all financial instruments is high frequency trading. For the big players there are no shorts or longs when positions are held for minutes or seconds. What makes it work is retail. Retail gets eaten.
The big players make money off volatility. Price does not matter only movement. The bull bear long short paradigm does not exist for the real players. Sentiment is necessary to create volatility. Volatility is harvested.
IMO the very idea that wealth can be stored will fail. That is the premise that no one questions as they frantically try to keep wealth from going poof from inflation. Financial wealth fights two dragons inflation and bubbles. The reality is what happens is financial wealth is eaten by one or the other. This is contrary to the idea of investing. The idea of investing is there are decisions that allow wealth not to be eaten by one dragon or the other. Now a newer third dragon with a huge appetite. High frequency trading. Now add capital gains. If you eke out a win you still get eaten. After capital gains usually you are eaten by the inflation dragon.
No one tells you where you are in the food chain for good reason. You are very very very far from the apex.
And at some point, to really make the big money, you need to shear the sheep with a market crash. I had a crazy thought the other day, what if covid was to see how stupid people were currently and what they could get away? How many people will believe the BS we spout about AI and pour all their money into the market for a blow off top?
The sheep are just living on a prayer anyway. Win-win situation all around.
LtCol. Karen Kwiatkowski: Trump, NATO, Iran — And the Final Crisis of U.S. Empire
World Affairs In Context
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEkMdD4bF4Q
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski is a United States veteran, author, and former government official whose assignments prior to retirement included duties at the Pentagon and various roles at the National Security Agency. Since leaving government service, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski has become a prominent voice on issues of war, intelligence, civil liberties, and government accountability.
The end of the discussion is the meat of the discussion if you don’t have the time to listen to the whole interview
Send Kiatkoski back to the Polish Army and see whether she can jabber that in Warsaw
Kulm you would be the toast of the town in Warsaw. I think it would be a really good time for a nice holiday there for you.
It’s interesting that the all time high market hasn’t figured out the oil supply chain pickle. Or it has and it’s the inflation highway to pay down the debt.
I guess it’s better to address these problems now rather than when there’s an extra billion souls.
One misconception I had was that fracking oil was not good for producing diesel:
Fracking produces light sweet crude, which is actually ideal for diesel production because it’s low in sulfur and easy to refine.
For refineries: Fewer processing units needed — light crude flows easily and separates cleanly in a basic distillation tower.
A world-scale heavy oil refinery can cost $10–20 billion+, vs roughly half that for a simpler light oil configuration.
Several Gulf Coast refineries have been gradually shifting their crude slate toward lighter grades since the shale boom
• Some have added splitters specifically to handle ultra-light shale oil
• The trend has been accelerating since US crude export restrictions were lifted in 2015
” because it’s low in sulfur and easy to refine. ”
I think you used AI or someone who is ignorant regarding refining . It is not sulfur that matters it is the carbon molecules that are cracked in the cracker unit . Sulfur is a by-product of heavy oil refining . No more , no less . Check out my posts by Stephen Bowers who explained this issue in fine detail .
Yes. Diesel molecules have an average length of 12 carbon atoms. shale oil is 6-7 and dropping fast as length increases.
Thanks.
I used Claude AI. Now is the pay version better?well I’m not gonna pay.
Is the part about refineries true?
not really. tight oil is light but still has sufficient paraffin compounds that it will clog pipes. It needs a certain amount of heavy crude to keep the paraffin dissolved. if LTO was as you describe, the USA would not export 2/3 of it. Newer refineries can handle it better, but most probably it gets blended all over the world. I am sure it is sold at a small discount.
It is smarter than most humans and faster than all. At times it’s dumb, but that seems to some degree a function of the setting (high speed low-cost vs slowish high-cost). That is configurable, but probably not with your free version.
I used it today to (1) track down and workaround a problem with some external software library and (2) install and configure a bunch of software libraries that would take me days to do manually. I pay only $20/month. Well worth it.
Why not use salt water instead of fresh water in fracking ?
Answer ;
There are many issues with using either salt (sea water) or produced water for frac fluids. Sea water has a typical level of about 3.5% total dissolved solids TDS (by weight) and produced water 10% or more. Carbonate and sulphate anions can reach their limit of solubility quite easily . Both sea water and produced water are in a chemical equilibrium with these anions. The main cations that in sea water are sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Calcium and Magnesium will be at or very close to their solubility limits ( hence limestone rock and sulphate deposits on coastlines). pH, pressure and temperature changes can also cause precipitation.
High TDS water causes issues with the preparation of frac fluids which vary in composition by include cross linked gels, guar gums and polyelectrolytes which are all impaired by high TDS prep waters. Even more important is the concentration for cations in the formation water which will be at the limit of solubility for Calcium, Magnesium, Barium and Strontium. Barium and Strontium both have very low solubility with carbonates and sulphates. Any precipitation of salts in the formation will impede the flow rate. pH control is also critical and frac fluids are typically alkaline to help reduce corrosion.
For this reason fresh water, which is typically less than 0.08 % TDS is preferred.
I have attached a link to a paper from the ASC (American Chemistry Society) which goes into detail on this subject. It is very technical but if there are any questions I will do my best to explain.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsomega.3c05145?ref=article_openPDF
For about 6 years I was heavily involved with water treatment for 0il production, refineries and petchem plants before moving into refining and petrochemical plants technology. ”
This is not AI . This is Stephen Bowers . I am going to stick to human intelligence .
Thanks! Sounds good.
Years ago I was an engineer at the Phillips 66 (originally Union Oil Company) 139,000 barrel per day refinery in Wilmington CA (Los Angeles) shut down Dec. 2025.
Domestic shale oil is light oil, more ideal for gasoline, not diesel. Conventional crude oil has the “mid barrel fractions” required to produce diesel and jet fuel. California used to produce a lot of crude oil. Not so much anymore so supplying the refineries in the area is becoming a challenge. I’ll bet the cost of crude made it uneconomic and therefore was shut down.
LA was founded on an oil boom during the roaring 20’s. Nearly all of long beach used to be oil rigs. That’s why everyone still drives everywhere in LA. During this oil boom their population doubled in size with people mostly from the mid west. That’s how they got the nickname (the city of Angels).
Rockefeller produced most of it with his company Standard Oil of California nicknamed (SOCAL). Which turned into “Chevron” after FDR broke up his monopoly with his new deal. (by taking over the pipelines which moved across federal lands). Also why the US Navy moved their base from San Fran to San Diego years later.
“Fracking produces light sweet crude, which is actually ideal for diesel production”
… no, not really … the opposite, really.
Life would be too easy to have convenient blocking functionality here (even ZH has one, but not MoA).
I would (permanently) block MG on the spot, for example 😅
Ooh I wanna play! Unfortunately I’d have to block myself for playing. So on second thought I’d better not.
MOA blocking requires being c1ue and privately messaging b like a maniac until b becomes alarmed enough activating the moderation function and spending half an hour using the “find in page” function and entering reante in the entry field and deleting them one by one until “reante” yields no results for two straight threads. That’s a half hour b’s never gonna get back but it was also the most valuable time b ever spent. Meanwhile reante is using the same find in page function on the latest page also with his handle entered into the field and seeing the number of results returned tick down one at a time in real time, and laughing. b and reante in a macabre communion, all thanks to the interwebs. followed by reante returning to OFW and b basking in the afterglow of having memory holed a clear and present danger.
Reante I think you are losing it man. You might want to take some rest.
Appreciate the concern John. TMI maybe but what else is new, just relating my last MOA story to x- which I found funny.
Escalation of collapse .20% of India’s trucking shutdown due to high diesel prices and shortages . That is TWO MILLION trucks . Truck companies are not sure if their trucks will get diesel refills on the highway . Of course the higher price of diesel is making trucks uneconomic . In the meanwhile El Nino is in full swing . I already posted on this .
https://www.bhaskarenglish.in/business/news/freight-cost-diesel-trucks-india-transport-expensive-food-138031931.html
Although, there are various theories on El Nino, some school maintains that it chiefly affects the very next season profile ( intensity ) after-wards, and it then could go both extremes, too wet or too dry.. Others see it as you mentioned, as immediate elevated weather-precipitation risk for this very year / season..
Not enough diesel means that somewhere operations using diesel must be cut back. It would not be shocking if trucking in India were cut back. But it would be terrible for the people of India.
I wonder if diesel equipment auction rices track collapse.
Highly doubt it at this point, in America anyway.
I think we are missing the human factor here . 70% of the truckers in India are owner/ operators . They work as subcontractors to the big logistics companies . They get paid per Km . All expenses —diesel , insurance , maintenance etc are for the account of the owner/ operator . Each truck provides direct employment to 3 persons — 2 drivers + 1 helper/ cleaner . So now the math — 2 million x 3 = 6 million down the tube . In the meanwhile the bank has to be paid , insurance , vehicle tax , the helpers all have to be paid .
6 Million = Total population of the 3 Baltic states OR total population of Denmark . 😭
” The cutbacks to the national carriers’ domestic network reach 22%, a significant adjustment to a network of approximately 3,600 weekly domestic services. The Tata Group-owned carrier has already reduced its international capacity by around 27%, affecting 33 routes across four regions, and the domestic cuts now follow in the same three-month window. No routes are being suspended entirely, but the airline is opting to reduce frequency instead.
Meanwhile, Indigo will make proportionally smaller but still substantial reductions given the carrier’s market share. Domestic capacity will be trimmed by 15% and the carrier has separately cut international flying by 17%. Point-to-point city routes from Mumbai (BOM) and Delhi (DEL) are the primary focus of the affected routes. ”
Total number of flights cancelled is 450 PER DAY . In May they had already cancelled 250 flights PER DAY .
The aviation industry in India has now entered the final phase of collapse .
https://www.airwaysmag.com/new-post/air-india-indigo-further-network-cuts
Ravi, thanks for the continued albeit grim reporting.
It seems now confirmed, the ” global economy ” as per actual setting just singled out India as the major victim or storm-lightning rod for the fuel shortage on the markets. Or perhaps in other explanation as the first large nation getting under the proverbial chopping block out of many to follow.. eventually..
Sri Lanke is already in collapse. India and Bangladesh will follow. Pakistan also. Watch out for nukes when that happens,
👨🏿🍖🦴💀
Food becomes scarce; people start fighting; governments get overthrown.
They do the same thing “post-industrial” countries who import more than they export , they come up with services to sell… which eventually turns out to be p&&ping and h^^ing on a massive scale…human trafficking for the erudite audience of this blog.
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been to italy several times–loved every minute of it—you have more than your fair share of pretty girls—of all ages.
No trip to Italy this year. Sorry!
Malawi sells gold reserves for fuel. You can’t eat gold. You can’t burn it either.
“We don’t have the money to riot like Kenya. Things just fell silent”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XR6_dNWxZRY&pp=ygULRnVlbCBjcmlzaXM%3D
https://www.malawiproject.org/some-facts-about-people/
Malawi population growth: 3 million in 1950 to 22 million today, 7x. Is this above the long-term carrying capacity? What happens to countries with little to trade if oil and fertilizer become scarce?
These countries will become like this clip
https://youtu.be/f2zklucyTFU?si=obF8DkCno4dh6U0f
Malthus gets to laugh the last.
I did my part as children we were given UNICEF change donation boxes during Halloween night for the hungry starving children of Africa…
All was for good intentions and were admonished to eat everything on our plate ..there are starving children in Africa!
Overpopulation was discussed among certain circles, not to be taken in reality by as an academic exercise by eggheads and fear mongers.
It even exists today without any serious action because of our illusion of modern progress and advancement of civilization and sacredness of human life.
We all know the train has left the station is heading full spread headed off the cliff
Tri k or treat for unicef!
I have lately begun to doubt these figures regarding the world’s population, particularly in Africa and China.
There is every reason to believe they are greatly inflated for political reasons.
According to some chinese statisticians, China’s actual population is around 700 million, half the official numbers.
Besides, If governments lie about everything, why on earth would they tell the truth about demographics?
Honestly, how can one possibly know the exact population of countries like Malawi, Nigeria or Mozambique, where the state cannot even guarantee drinking water or electricity for the population, let alone hire a battalion of technicians to count everyone?
I believe world population figures are about as reliable as those for oil reserves.
What would be the political benefit of inflating population statistics? Seems like cross referencing GDP and per capita GDP along with official population claims, plus some other metrics, should yield a fair approximation. We all seem pretty to fairly happy with fossil fuels production stats so we don’t seem to think that they lie about everything though to be fair there are fundamental market reasons why they can’t lie much about production stats.
One political benefit would be to reinforce the narrative, pushed since the 1960s, that the world is overpopulated. Not that this narrative is false, but it is far more striking to say that the world’s population has nearly tripled since 1960 than to say it has merely doubled.
Regarding China, some analysts believe that the country’s population has been greatly overestimated for economic reasons, and some estimate that it is actually no more than 700 or 800 million!
As for Africa, I find it very hard to believe that countries with almost no roads and where only 20% to 40% of the population has access to electricity have the means to conduct an accurate population census.
Take Malawi for instance, as it was the original post. There are ~13 million cell connections. You think those are fabricated, invented? It jives with the population estimate of 22 million and accounting for the adult percent of population.
Cell phone connections can in fact be a good indicator of population numbers. Good point, i hadn’t thought of that. But of course, counting cell phones is not the same as counting heads.
Censuses are unnecessary. All that’s needed are a few few key metrics that would let us know population is increasing rapidly.
The demographics about whites seems to be accurate. There are still plenty of whites but they’re old. Whites as a percentage of the youth population is declining and has been declining since the 1960s. The days where many coastal cities in the U.S. were 90% white is a fading memory.
I think it is difficult for elites to lie about population levels because they can be observed easily.
India fuel price protests. MacGregor commented today that largely the world blames the USA not Iran. Many nations will despise the USA. The crisis is not really here yet.
IMO we will see behavior like this grow widespread.
Is this in the USAs interest?
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Pb5tacFV4hg
Kenya riots. Rioters upset about transportation and fuel prices.
This is typical human behavior as energy inputs cease. The paradigm is that energy exists but it is being withheld. As critical energy inputs are not available and people have no way to regain access they become angry.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NCG6Tkzpl2w&t=31s&pp=2AEfkAIBygULS2VueWEgcmlvdHPSBwkJOgKjtWo3m0M%3D
unfortunately looks like Mad Max world is arriving this is obviously the prelude to the end.the elders must be packing s*** because the pitchforks and lamp posts will be seeing on the horizon for them.
They will retreat to their bunkers to wait the uproar to die and will come out to kill the populace
Disappearing Act 2.0 is in full swing behind the scenes. Elders gon be just fine