There have recently been many warnings about near-term oil shortages stemming from the conflict in Iran. Most analysts assume that shortages mean higher prices. As I will explain, the dynamics of a self-organizing economy suggest the opposite outcome — lower prices, deepening recession, and shortages of goods and services that have little to do with price.
Rather than high prices, my major concerns are recession and the disappearing availability of goods and services that we rely on. This might be similar to the empty shelves that many stores experienced in 2020 and 2021. There may also be new government restrictions, intended to work around the reduced oil supply in a way that will allow essential services to continue to operate normally. Oil prices are likely to fall below $40 per barrel, as they did in 2020 with Covid restrictions.
In this post, I will try to explain why this counterintuitive outcome — shortages leading to lower prices rather than higher — is what the self-organizing economy tends to produce. Along the way, I will look at the current state of oil reserves, why the conflict with Iran is unlikely to be quickly resolved, and what the price behavior of oil since February 28 tells us. I will also step back to consider the broader picture: why war can seem like a solution to struggling economies, and what the 2020 Covid experience might teach us about what lies ahead.
[1] Reserves of already-pumped US oil have dropped to concerningly low levels.
On June 17, President Trump said, “We will run out of reserves in about four weeks without a deal.” According to the article, we are not certain whether Trump intended to apply this statement to US or world emergency reserves.
Also, according to this recent video, the US’s largest tank farm seems to be very close to the minimum level at which crude oil can be withdrawn from its tanks. And, on June 23, MSN said, “America may see actual gasoline shortages by July 4.”
The already-pumped oil in storage is intended to be used as a buffer if there are variations in supply or demand. The reason that these buffers are falling low is because considerable oil from them has already been used to mitigate the shortfall in crude oil supply to date.
The shortfall in the supply of crude oil supply cannot be expected to disappear quickly. There has been considerable damage to infrastructure in Iran and elsewhere. It will take years rather than months for this to be repaired. In countries where oil production has been shut in, some wells are likely to produce less after being reopened following many months of closure. Furthermore, Iran has no incentive to completely reopen the shipping lanes, since keeping them potentially closed has the potential to raise oil prices per barrel. Higher oil prices would help the finances of Iran.
[2] Perhaps because of concern about low buffer supplies, the US has negotiated a deal with Iran that seems unfavorable to the US.
Information keeps coming out that indicates that Trump’s current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is very favorable to Iran. It looks as if the MOU has been written as if Iran won the war. We are also seeing that other countries have begun acting as if Iran has indeed won the war. For example, on June 23, a joint statement was issued by Iran and Oman. The two countries seem to be co-operating in setting up the collection of funds from ships passing through the strait to cover insurance and other costs.
If we are dealing with a “done-deal,” and the US is coming out poorly, the level of conflict within the US is likely to rise. Many people will be angry with Trump for getting the US into the war to begin with. Unfortunately, there is likely close to nothing we can do about this situation.
[3] Trump or another leader cannot restart the war against Iran and expect to do any better.
A major problem is that the US has substantially depleted its ammunition supplies, and it will take years to replenish them. While the US could perhaps launch a short attack, it would not be able to carry out a sustained campaign for very long.
Another issue is that the armaments that the US has stocked to date are designed to be used in a different type of war than the one that is being fought today. The US needs drones and close-by locations from which to launch them. Iran damaged most of the US’s bases that are close to Iran in the conflict that began on February 28. Without substantial rebuilding, the US has no functioning bases close to Iran from which to launch such drones.
Restocking armaments will likely take several years, especially if new types are needed. Adding to the difficulties of the US is the fact that China has been the primary source of many critical minerals used in the production of high-tech goods and ammunition. In recent years, China has restricted access to these critical elements. The US is now developing mines for some of these minerals, but setting up entire supply chains will take years.
[4] One motivation for attacking Iran might have been to raise oil prices to a higher level.
Based on their models, economists typically reach the conclusion that inadequate oil supplies will lead to high oil prices. It is likely that President Trump and his advisors believed that inadequate oil supply would lead to high oil prices.
Some analysts, including me, would argue that the models of economists are very inadequate; they give misleading indications by leaving out the complex self-organizing nature of the economy.
Higher oil prices are sometimes desirable because they encourage more oil extraction. For example, higher prices allow marginal wells to continue to be profitable longer. They can also make a new, higher-cost source, such as tight oil from shale, attractive for drilling. Looking ahead, higher oil prices would make it easier to get oil company support for ramping up oil production in Venezuela.
Figures 2 and 3 show the connection that higher oil prices seem to have had in encouraging tight oil extraction from shale. Figure 2 shows historical oil prices, adjusted for inflation. Noted on this figure is my view of whether prices were high enough to encourage extraction from more difficult locations.
Figure 2 indicates that prices started to run up in the 2003 to 2008 era, when China started ramping up its manufacturing, and thus its demand for oil. In this same timeframe, there was also a growing demand for housing in the US, thanks to very liberal underwriting standards for home mortgage loans. Thus, the total demand growth for oil was very high.
Figure 3 shows that production of tight oil started ramping up in 2009, after oil prices had been rising for several years.
Another factor in the growth of tight oil production was the availability of cheap credit after 2008, but this has tended to disappear since 2021. Now, tight oil production seems to be leveling out, leading to rising concerns that tight oil production may soon decline, especially if credit is no longer cheap. Having higher oil prices might help postpone the decline of tight oil.
[5] Oil prices since the war started on February 28 have not bounced very high. Recently, they have tended to fall back, close to their pre-war level.
The first thing to note is the fact that the prices on Figure 4 do not reflect the actual prices to the consumer, which have often been greater. The cost of transporting oil has jumped in many markets, but this higher transport cost is not reflected in the “West Texas Intermediate” price of oil, displayed in this chart. These higher prices at the pump have led some of the more price-sensitive buyers of oil products to cut back on their purchases.
Second, there is a lag issue regarding how soon the impact of missing supply actually hits the market. The slow transit time of oil from the Middle East to markets means that the actual disruption of supplies did not hit until at least 50 days later. If crude oil first needs to be processed by local refineries and then the oil products shipped to customers, the lag would be even greater–perhaps 75 or 100 days in total. Thus, much of the price increase to date may be based on a fear of shortages, rather than on an actual shortage issue.
Third, there have been some changes that impact oil “demand.” Some consumers have been told by their governments to work from home or otherwise restrict their driving to save on oil consumption. Also, some flight schedules have been cut back. Recently, Ukraine has been targeting some of the oil infrastructure of Russia, leading to reduced gasoline and diesel availability within that country. All these issues have tended to reduce the demand for oil. The lower demand acts to hold down oil prices.
A fourth issue has to do with worldwide economic conditions before February 28. Even before the war, much of the world was in close to a recessionary situation. There were very many low wage earners who could not afford much beyond the basic necessities of life. Even a small run-up in oil prices tends to affect food prices because oil is often used in farming operations and food is usually transported to market using oil. With higher food prices, poor consumers were forced to cut back on other purchases. This recessionary dynamic can be expected to get worse if oil prices inch up even a bit.
[6] I expect that oil prices will continue to remain relatively low, or they will only briefly rise to high ($150+) levels, even if there are actual oil supply disruptions.
I expect that the dynamics we have been seeing since February 28 will continue, and may intensify. Governments will add new restrictions that will reduce oil use. Airlines will go bankrupt, or they will reduce flight schedules. Recession will become even more of a problem. These issues will tend to reduce usage without raising prices.
[7] What we may see more of is broken supply chains.
There will be more signs in grocery stores and in home product stores saying, “This product is temporarily unavailable.” Car repair shops may tell us that a required replacement part will not be available for several months. Physicians may tell us that a medicine or chemotherapy drug that they normally use is, at this time, unavailable.
[8] The operation of the economy depends on an adequate supply of many kinds of energy. If oil supply is reduced, an economy needs to shrink to a smaller size to match. This is what leads to recession.
One reason for the above observation is that we know that our own vehicles will not operate without whatever fuel they are designed for. This is clearly also true for all the delivery trucks in the world, and for farm machinery and for ships that transport goods across the ocean. With less fuel, fewer trips of many kinds will be made. Workers will be laid off. This dynamic sounds a lot like recession.
The expected lower world oil supply in the near future is not an issue that can easily be resolved. We are already seeing that even with a supposed settlement, disruption in oil supplies seems likely to continue and even to worsen, as the various limits on buffer supplies are reached. Unfortunately, we cannot expect the situation to be completely fixed for several years.
Furthermore, the economy is facing even more disruptions than I have outlined above. For instance, Ukraine has been disrupting Russia’s oil infrastructure with drone attacks. There have also been disruptions to sulfur exports from the Middle East. Sulfur is used in many ways, including as a fertilizer and in the production of sulfuric acid, which is used in the mining of uranium, among other things. In addition, there have been disruptions to liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Qatar. The lack of these important products will tend to further damage supply chains and lead the economy deeper into recession.
[9] We are ultimately dealing with multiple not-enough-to-go-around scenarios. This situation will tend to increase conflict in the world.
The dynamic we are dealing with is similar to that in the game of Musical Chairs.
The game of musical chairs is played in rounds. Players walk around the edge of a circle of chairs while music is played. When the music starts, the number of players is equal to the number of chairs. In each round, one chair is removed. The music plays and then suddenly stops. The players must then scramble to grab a chair. Since the number of chairs is now one fewer than the number of players, small fights can ensue.
The problem is basically, “Not enough to go around.” War often sounds like a reasonable solution to leaders.
[10] War can seem like a solution.
Strangely enough, war has multiple advantages to economies that are suffering from difficulties related to low commodity prices and, indirectly, low wages in related industries. One commodity is food. If food prices are too low, farmers will be unhappy that their earnings are low. They may stop farming and try to make a living from putting their land into a land bank and working elsewhere.
If oil prices are low, the oil industry can experience pockets of low wages. There have recently been reports of lockouts and strikes in the oil industry. I would expect these labor actions to be most prevalent where oil fields are depleted.
If a government announces a war, it looks like the government is “doing something” about the country’s problems. There is suddenly employment, either as a soldier, or in building armaments. GDP tends to rise because the war leads to a larger share of the population working. The war can be used to justify the additional government debt needed to hire the additional workers. What convinced me of this relationship was this chart, showing a huge increase in US GDP during World War II:
Looking closely at the chart, it is also possible to see GDP increases during the Korean War (1950-1953) and between the time the US entered the Vietnam War, deploying up to 549,000 soldiers, and the time the US greatly reduced its forces there (1964-1969).
I think much of Europe is now in a situation in which war looks like a solution. Russia may also be in such a situation. Ukraine, with its problems, is also in such a situation.
[11] There may be lessons to be learned from the 2020 Covid restrictions and the ultra-low oil prices that resulted then.
Back in 2019, many people in the financial world were concerned about the economy. In 2019, the US faced significant financial issues, including a budget deficit that increased by $205.4 billion to $984.4 billion. In addition, in September 2019, there was a spike in the interest rates financial institutions charge each other (repo rates) that concerned those who followed financial markets closely.
What took place in 2020 seemed to some of us to be close to miraculous. The strange actions related to Covid greatly brought down the price of oil. Covid also provided an excuse to give money to households. US government debt was able to increase greatly, and, somehow, the world economic system has held together until now. Financial problems were “kicked down the road” a while longer. Without the pressure of financial problems, the economy could work on ways to mitigate the energy problem a while longer.
Economies are self-organizing systems, just as the human body is a self-organizing system. Both are powered by “energy dissipation.” Human bodies tend to heal wounds, like magic. Economists talk about an “invisible hand” being helpful to economies. In situations where the healing of economies does occur, low oil prices can be part of the magic.
[12] What might be ahead?
We are again in a period when the US and world economies are on shaky ground. Debt levels are high, and conflict levels are high.
As I have discussed in this post, I expect the general trend in oil prices will be down, rather than up. The major reason why oil prices are likely to be low is because, with the damage done in the Middle East, the quantity of oil supply available to the world is starting to shrink. As a result of the low oil quantity, the world will produce fewer goods and services. This is close to the definition of recession! (Also, on Figure 1, this is why we expect Wile E. Coyote to fall down, rather than to float up, when his support disappears.)
I expect as oil product shortages hit, local leaders will figure out ways to mitigate the oil bottleneck that the world now seems to be facing. Local leaders will enact rules that make certain that whatever oil is available is used to maintain essential services. It will not be surprising if local leaders keep people at home, using one excuse or another, to keep oil demand in line with the quantity of oil that is available. This is a big part of why oil prices will tend to be low, in a manner similar to 2020.
With low oil prices, I expect that inflation will be low. Pressure to keep raising interest rates will disappear. The economy will not be doing well, but the issue will not be high interest rates preventing new investment.
In my opinion, the world economy needs to reorganize with shorter supply lines to get through the oil “tight spot” that the economy is in. If supply lines could mostly be kept within the areas marked on Figure 7, it seems like a significant amount of transport fuel could be saved.
The conflict with Iran doesn’t seem to be ending well for the US, but there might be a silver lining. The pain the US is experiencing in Iran will hopefully teach the US to stay out of issues in the Eastern Hemisphere. If a conflict with Iran is to ramp up again in the near future, I expect that it will be a European group that will be getting involved, not the US.
We don’t know quite what is ahead, but the experience in 2020 shows that a strange confluence of events leading to low oil prices can actually be helpful. Let us hope that a similar result will be possible this time.
They obviously want everyone to stay home.
Work from home.
Housewife shows being popular.
Wildfire smoke during peak outdoor vacation times.
Canceling outdoor events due to weather threats.
Amusement park rides malfunctions.
Stories and shows about shark attacks around beaches.
TSA and airport madness.
High prices bad service at restaurants/bars.
Flock camera’s spying on you for driving around.
Let me know if I missed anything?
CTG says strange isn’t it. Well not to Miles Mathis.
Is he the inspiration for FE?
He has many articles on fake events and he does impressive sleuthing.
https://mileswmathis.com/fakephoto.pdf
You do realize this is exactly like Orwell’s1984, with fake foreign wars being used to divert attention and sell various storylines, moving you on from the vaccine genocide and the current rape of worldwide treasuries, justifying rising military budgets, and explaining gas and food price gouging.
And the way the “leaders” in Iran are playing along is a delight to watch in itself. They should get award nominations from the Academy. Claiming they will continue to control the Strait of Hormuz. . .
though Iran never did control it. Claiming they have nuclear weapons when Trump has admitted they don’t even have a Navy. In a real war Iran wouldn’t last two days against Turkey, much less against the US and Europe and our fleet of aircraft carriers.
I am partially responsible, since I introduced Mathis to this blog.
“Is the Brotherhood even real?
That Winston, you will never know..”
– 1984, Orwell
https://archive.ph/KzrcF
FROM THE TELEGRAPHLying Nicola Sturgeon destroyed Salmond to save her own skin, says David Davis.
But Sturgeon accuses Tory grandee of ‘telling lies… like a coward behind the legal privilege of Westminster’
Speaking in the House of Commons, Sir David Davis said that Ms Sturgeon “knew full well” that [her then husband] Peter Murrell was stealing money from the party and using it to fund “luxury purchases”. But the senior Tory MP said that “her most evil act was stitching up Alex Salmond to hide the truth” about Murrell’s crimes.
Sir David said that Ms Sturgeon and her fellow “conspirators” moved against Salmond when he considered joining the SNP’s ruling national executive committee (NEC), fearing he would reveal Murrell’s crimes.
He said that Salmond was a “numerate man who could not be silenced” and the risk he posed to them by uncovering the embezzlement was “clear”.
“There was a malicious and concerted attempt to remove him from public life with sexual misconduct allegations,” Sir David said.
Salmond faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct in 2018 but was acquitted of all charges in 2020.
Sir David also noted that Salmond had warned Ms Sturgeon it would be “deeply unwise” to keep Murrell as party chief executive when she became leader in November 2014.
A video showed her telling a March 2021 meeting of the NEC that the party’s finances had never been stronger.
Three senior officials had just said they intended to resign from the party’s finance and audit committee after being denied sight of the accounts.
But the recording, which was leaked two years later, showed Ms Sturgeon warning of the effect on future donations to the SNP if anyone went public with their concerns.
Sir David said the three members had quit “blaming chaotic and incompetent financial management” and they had claimed to be “on the receiving end of a hostile backlash driven by Sturgeon’s toxic culture”.
He also said she had ignored the resignation of Douglas Chapman, the former MP, as party treasurer. He stepped down after complaining he had not been given enough information about SNP finances to do the job.
“Sturgeon was part of the cover-up, using her position to suppress justice. She behaved dishonourably and dishonestly,” Sir David told the Commons. “But her most evil act was stitching up Alex Salmond to hide the truth. When he was considering going on the [SNP’s ruling] national executive himself, the risk to the conspirators was clear.”
Sir David alleged that the Scottish Government had “created a procedure for dealing with sexual harassment allegations that deliberately targeted Salmond”.
Salmond won a judicial review in 2019 after a court found that the Scottish Government investigation was handled unlawfully and “tainted with apparent bias”. He was cleared of 14 sexual assault charges in a separate criminal trial in 2020. He alleged at the time that there was a conspiracy among senior SNP figures around Ms Sturgeon to imprison him.
After alleging that Salmond had been targeted to cover up Murrell’s crimes, Sir David highlighted around £60,000-worth of items that were removed from the indictment as part of the plea deal. He said these included “the hairstylers, the lingerie, the books by Sturgeon’s favourite authors”, adding: “Murrell was clearly protecting Sturgeon by removing items that incriminated her.
“In the investigation, the police had further questions to Sturgeon, but prosecutors stopped them from putting them. And those prosecutors worked for the Lord Advocate, the principal legal advisor to the Scottish Government, a clear conflict of interest.”
Ms Sturgeon gave no comment to detectives’ questions during a seven-hour interview that followed her arrest in June 2023. She later provided police with a written statement, but it is understood that it did not answer all of the questions they wanted to pose.
But Sir David concluded: “There’s a clear pattern of secrecy, obstruction, and power used to protect power – a pattern started by Sturgeon. Scotland needs a fresh start. That starts with a judicial inquiry into this entire sordid scandal, because it’s a scandal that cost Alex Salmond his life.”
The Crown Office said that it decided to accept Murrell’s guilty plea offer, as the £58,735 reduction in items on the indictment would make no difference to the prison sentence that he would serve. However, rejecting Murrell’s offer would have cost a large amount of public money, used to pay for a six-week trial, with the outcome delayed by up to a year.
Police Scotland declined to comment.
For the US to bomb the power grid of Iran would be going too far!
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-tells-houthis-close-red-sea-energy-chokepoint-if-trump-bombs-power-grid
Yemen’s Houthis have long warned of their ability to close the Red Sea oil route, but have by and large stayed on the sidelines of the expanding Gulf regional conflict which is focused on Iran since Operation Epic Fury began.
Things began changing dramatically this month, however, after Saudi warplane incursions into Yemen – which bombed Sanaa International Airport on July 13 – in an effort to prevent an Iranian commercial jet from landing there.
“We are going to likely have ground operations on the coast of Iran.
0:12 I would say this is 70% likely.”?
But the US cannot win in ground operations.
What ground operations can do is help ramp up US GDP, since we will be spending more on munitions and on soldier pay and related things. Cutting off war altogether would be a horrible loss, in terms of added US GDP. War is the “service” that the Department of War provides.
War can take people’s minds off other difficulties, such as too much wage and wealth disparity. In particular, too many people making very little money. Overseas war helps availability of jobs for young people, so tends to hold down internal conflict.
There have been many wars that the US has not won, starting with the Vietnam War. What they have done is ramped up GDP and provided jobs for young people. Wars, even if unsuccessful, help with the US’s financial hegemony. Long-term wars are even better than short term wars in this respect.
IF USA decides to destroy every single village of Iran and slaughter all of its pop, it can do that.
Not a bright idea, however.
Gammon on hyperscaler death spiral
Need mo money
(10t next 3 years)
Got no mo money
Borrow mo money
Lenders got no mo money
Create stock for mo money
Stock dilution
Asset prices fall
Wealth pocket illusion disassembly.
Adjustment to organic economy from financial economy. : 😄
https://youtu.be/paLy21TVecw?si=sX2-gqfjllkxocm3
Your link is to “It’s Official, The AI Bubble Just Popped (Here’s Why)” by George Gammon”
Gammon shows that the companies underlying the AI bubble are publishing financial results that make them wildly profitable, at the same time that the cash flow has become negative, leading to a need to either borrow more and more, or sell more shares of stock, to raise money.
If companies choose the bond route for raising funds, interest rates have to keep rising higher and higher. Or, if debt cannot be raised because of the impact on stock prices, more stock needs to be issued by these companies, potentially diluting the value of shares, and bringing stock prices down.
In Gammon’s view, the group of companies indirectly involved in the AI bubble are working to become “too big to fail.” They are hoping that the government will bail themselves out from the mess they got themselves into.
The thing I would point out is that the government already has way too much debt. As I see it, if the government takes over all of the companies underlying AI, and the results are anything similar to now, the likely outcome would be that the government would collapse.
AI and all of the companies involved in this whole process are what is now propping up the economy. Gammon offers to provide personal investment advice. I’m not looking for his advice in this situation.
——
By the way, today’s markets do not look good today, either.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-07-16-2026
Headlines:
Stock Market Today: Nasdaq Slips as Chip Stocks Come Under Pressure
SpaceX IPO Trails Largest 2026 Debuts
Mortgage Rates Climb to Highest Level in Nearly a Year
Fed’s Logan Says Rates Should Rise to Fight Inflation
I am afraid we are hitting a major downdraft on the economy, right now.
His plug at the end was in bad taste. I apologize.
He needs to earn some money somehow. I like his videos.
Some of our problems are related to society acting more a more like the mice in the John Calhoun’s Mouse Experiments on Mouse Utopia of the 1960s. This is a link to a write up of some of the results of those experiments:
https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/mouse-heaven-or-mouse-hell/
Officially, the colony was called the Mortality-Inhibiting Environment for Mice. Unofficially, it was called mouse heaven.
Biologist John Calhoun built the colony at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland in 1968. It was a large pen—a 4½-foot cube—with everything a mouse could ever desire: plenty of food and water; a perfect climate; reams of paper to make cozy nests; and 256 separate apartments, accessible via mesh tubes bolted to the walls. Calhoun also screened the mice to eliminate disease. Free from predators and other worries, a mouse could theoretically live to an extraordinarily old age there, without a single worry.
But the thing is, this wasn’t Calhoun’s first rodent utopia. This was the 25th iteration. And by this point he knew how quickly mouse heaven could deteriorate into mouse hell.
In the perfect pen:
That robust growth masked some serious problems, however. In the wild, infant mortality among mice is high, as most juveniles get eaten by predators or perish of disease or cold. In mouse utopia, juveniles rarely died. As a result, there were far more youngsters than normal, which introduced several difficulties.
Rodents have social hierarchies, with dominant alpha males controlling harems of females. Alphas establish dominance by fighting—wrestling and biting any challengers. Normally a mouse that loses a fight will scurry off to some distant nook to start over elsewhere.
But in mouse utopia, the losing mice couldn’t escape. Calhoun called them “dropouts.” And because so few juveniles died, huge hordes of dropouts would gather in the center of the pen. They were full of cuts and ugly scars, and every so often huge brawls would break out—vicious free-for-alls of biting and clawing that served no obvious purpose. It was just senseless violence. (In earlier utopias involving rats, some dropouts turned to cannibalism.)
. . .
Eventually other deviant behavior emerged. Mice who had been raised improperly or kicked out of the nest early often failed to develop healthy social bonds, and therefore struggled in adulthood with social interactions. Maladjusted females began isolating themselves like hermits in empty apartments—unusual behavior among mice. Maladjusted males, meanwhile, took to grooming all day—preening and licking themselves hour after hour. Calhoun called them “the beautiful ones.” And yet, even while obsessing over their appearance, these males had zero interest in courting females, zero interest in sex.
Intriguingly, Calhoun had noticed in earlier utopias that such maladjusted behavior could spread like a contagion from mouse to mouse. He dubbed this phenomenon “the behavioral sink.”
The article also talks about various interpretations of how this relates to society today. We also have a society where dominance is important, especially among males. Adding fossil fuels has made our society increasing like the “mouse heaven.”
I encountered the comparison of modern society to Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia somewhere about a decade ago. It still rings true if not even more try with each passing day.
In today’s world, the ease of living as manifested by the “exhorbitant priviledge” bestowed upon IC through a one-off endowment of easily accessible fossil fuels, fertile top soil, abundant fish in the oceans, unpolluted environment, etc has result in men and women growing up with no purpose and no motivation. How can we parasites live off the producers? This was the question Bastiat around 1850 posted.
Men, why work when you can sit at a computer and financialize and /or vote (for socialism) for a living? Or worse, become lying thieving lawyers, politicians, or bankers with the priviledge of loaning money into existance, with no useful or productive skills or services to offer society. Women, what’s your justification for your existance after you have reproduced, especially now that we have 8 billion on this planet?
No, I can see the 1st world we live in is a variation of a mousetopia, and if I recall this experiment has been repeated with rats and other rodents. The whole world is totally F’d up.
And here was my post on You Tube re: med students yesterday. Translation: No one wants to work. I am stressed because my daughter wants to go to med school. Yikes! I am deeply conflicted. At least she doesn’t want to go into law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zewCWqx28ik
@hzilla5550
17 hours ago (edited)
There’s a trend here. I am absolutely against 60% of medical schools’ acceptances to women, most who simply don’t want to work and never intended to work! Exhibit “A” is my ex-wife, a board-certified, double fellowship-trained anesthesiologist (open heart and OB-GYN) whose premarital medical school loans I paid off during our short 7-year marriage, 5 of those in residency in Albany NY. I had my MD degree and no debt before the marriage. Once she had lured me back near her hometown in KY by convincing me she had plenty of job offers there, she suddenly refused to work. She refused to take care of the kids who were activitied out to third party care, including her mother! I had to pay temporary support during a long, bitter divorce which my own lawyers (4) had deliberately botched to keep their meters running through a protracted divorce and appeals while she ran around on the 10K running circuit, literally and figuratively chasing men and driving from E-town KY to Nashville to get makeovers/hair appointments for her dates. She wound up with the ENTIRE marital estate, full custody, paid-for house, and my obligation to pay nearly double extrapolated child support. She even tried to get alimony! Wound up in a cushy job at U of L anesthesiology department where she eventually got tenure as a full Professor. And you can’t sue your lawyers, even when the specially appointed judge has flat-out opined legal malpractice. Your losses will be “speculative” and your case thrown out. All this and a whole lot in my memoirs, My Medical-Legal Back Pages. Archway publisher. Bryce Sterling, pen name. Based entirely on true events in KY and then in NC.
Sorry for the digression, but I am easily triggered.
Brother. Pre nup up or get punked. It should be taught in grade school. Fair is fair. Market value no more. Fair for her. Fair for you. Decided before hand or no deal. Or learn to like top ramen.
Were a competitive species. Have you noticed?
It’s unfair that no one educated you that you were stepping in the ring but certainly this world is not fair. Yes basic self defense should be universally taught. It is only sought after learning experiences.
You were a valuable target of opportunity. Of course you got hit. Soft target. Yum
https://youtu.be/6vwNcNOTVzY?si=DnuAxmcMVOQN-gnV
Life is beautiful because commitments are beautiful, and prenups are beauty killers. A prenup is never a good life choice. Any man who thinks that a prenup is a good life choice has already sold their soul and just fears someone else coming along and stealing the money that they sold their soul for. LOL. And any woman who agrees to sign a prenup gets the pathetic little man she deserves.
I disagree. Fair agreements are essential to relationships. Agreement about money is essential to relationships. Honesty is beautiful. Deception is ugly.
I know several very fit very wealthy women. If we were to get involved I would never dream of taking their considerable assets.
IMO sometimes women value men who protect themselves value themselves and them too. Yes relationships are about sharing. If somehow a woman has gotten the idea she is getting half the faster we openly discuss it the faster we can stop wasting time. What I will provide and what I will not. Honesty.The response to honest money discussions can be quite revealing whether there is compatibly. If not both can go on their path no hard feelings. If there is a bunch of drama around the discussion that’s a flag too. Best wishes.
What you bring to the table is part of the attraction. It needs to be defined. It’s not hard to figure out if someone is mostly interested in you for material things but you have to respect yourself. If you don’t respect yourself they can’t either. Nor can they truly respect themselves. Relationships based on material things are miserable.
Then just don’t marry them playa. Problem solved.
Chances are you never had to pay an alimony
You, your parents and your grandparents voted for and supported all of this since 1920.
Things might have had taken much worse turn for you, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y35ikdJS0AI
(couldn’t care less about CNN and/or TV in general, but too busy to look for better documentary now).
Group consciousness within a species is a reality. Consciousness of the sphere is not that much harder. The language model tool only designates what it defines as tangible as reality. Weighting it has allowed industrial civilization to the detriment of other things. As evolution adopts to dense energy sources other qualities are lost. Evolution begins it’s slow weighting adaptation as high density energy sources are reduced abruptly and permanently. Historically this discrepancy between evolutions ability to adapt within a finite time period and rapid changes in energy sources creates possibility even probability for extinction especially if workarounds for other critical resources are diminished. The typical solution is war and it may remain so if nations can forgo nuclear weapon deployment. Eventually the sphere will adapt to even the effects of a nuclear war but it is not permanent either.
Great points.
The flow of history seems uni-directional.
We have been ALREADY tainted by previous concentrated civilization attempts going back to wider ME / ClubMed areas. This altered ecosystems ( to much less yield ) profoundly as well. So, today that’s not our [ first doom-collapse ] rodeo by any stretch..
To change direction now after this oil+ bonanza period seems almost impossible. Yet, the ~best approach would be keeping some of the achieved ~mid complexity tech level a bit longer at the expense of non needed excess infrastructure to be abandoned. Basically, model replacing megacities ala distributed land where 3-5x nucleus families can share up some agri-gadgets is enough for posh – livelihood at minuscule resource / fuel consumption inside slightly modified-nudged natural envelope.
Obviously, this is most likely not in our cards, instead fighting for the last concentrated-energy-scraps in whip-vertically organized societies to the bitter end seems as the remaining option aka the one-way bumpy road ahead.
There was no eugenics in Calhoun’s experiment. no natural selection.
Of course the dumbest, most aggressive will overbreed and destroy everything.
Not much today. Just DEI.
In retrospect becoming a refugee never seems to work out even though it might seem preferable in the moment.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BEJg81ntjTU
The title of this video is, “Assyrian Genocide: A Fate Worse Than Death”.
This genocide took place during WWI. The killing of the Jews in Germany took place between WWI and WWII. Both times were times of not enough food to go around. We had the Witch Trials in Salem Massachusetts, earlier. I think some of the same dynamics were in place all of those times.
The feeling was that if these people were somehow eliminated, the rest of the population would be better off. It was disproportionately rich people who were killed off. (Like tax the rich now.) The idea was that if these folks were gone, the rest would be better off.
I don’t know if the Assyrians were particularly rich, but this issue tends to happen over and over again, when there is not enough to go around.
[ Tracking the progress of W. downfall ]:
(they sold it to CHN in Q1 2020 so bought then a little time extra..)
British Steel taken into public ownership to protect ‘vital’ UK supply
http://www.bbc.com › news › articles
(Previously): Chinese firm Jingye Group takes over British Steel and pledges to invest in the sites at Scunthorpe and Teesside. …
—
Britain Nationalizes Its Last Major Steel Mill – NY times
http://www.nytimes.com › 2026/07/16 › business › britain-…
The government first intervened in British Steel last year to prevent its then-owner, the Chinese company Jingye Group, from shutting it down.
—
Jingye Steel demands full compensation for British Steel takeover
http://www.reuters.com › world › jingye-steel-demands-ful…
Jingye completed its buyout of British Steel in 2020 and has since made substantial investments in “equipment upgrades, safeguarding jobs,
—
..
.
“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.”
— Marshall McLuhan
tboc posted this quote and this beautiful song on the Automatic Earth yesterday. If you are searching for something really mellow to listen to in the dark, this could be it. The sax solo really does it for me.
Interesting point!
I prefer this:
“what do you want”
“I want change”
Be careful what you wish for
Friend, i’ve known this was inevitable since 2008. The waiting is the hardest part.
Me too! Got laid off on 2008 and started looking at structure of things. Big mistake? 🙂 Went back to work in 2009 when they printed and everything launched again on steroids.
Great song. A favorite back in the day.
Tim I think it’s your duty to request tboc’s presence over here. Remind him that Raul is a wanker and that that place is TAE in name only. Tell him to follow Mr. House’s lead.
“Iran, on the other hand, has a completely different tactical and
10:50 strategic situation in front of it, one that favors it and to the detriment of the United States. It only has to attack 10 targets and those targets don’t move. . . .
All Iran has
11:18 to do is hit those day after day after day after day. cluster munitions, ballistic missiles, drones, and at some
11:28 point those bases become uninhabitable and the ability of the United States to continue attacking Iran will cease.”?
“MFS: “We Told You So” Is Something We Refrain From Saying; Yet, Here We Are.
THE LOSSES WALL STREET IS NOT READY FOR; THE UPCOMING BAILOUT WILL MAKE 2008 LOOK LIKE A CHUMP CHANGE.”?
https://contrarianunicus.substack.com/p/mfs-we-told-you-so-is-something-we