|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
History back to 1820 gives hints regarding what may follow
With the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, many expect oil prices to spike and stay high. Instead, they have barely budged. The latest spike in prices is a mini spike. If these oil prices were adjusted for inflation, the spikes in the past would appear even higher.
This is not a new problem. Looking at energy data going back to 1820, low demand (affordability) has repeatedly produced financial crashes, wars, and collapses. We appear to be entering another such period.
In this post, I examine differences in how the economy behaves, comparing two different types of periods: those with low energy affordability (“low demand”) and those with high energy affordably (“high demand”). I also offer my view on what this analysis suggests may be ahead for the world economy.
[1] How high demand differs from low demand
High demand looks like a situation in which, each year, an increasing number of people can afford cars and the fuel that they require. With high demand, the number of new cars sold each year tends to rise. Young people are eager to buy homes because they find homes affordable. They find their incomes relatively higher than their parents’ were at their age. Countries around the world find it easy to industrialize. This allows their citizens to have better lifestyles. As we will see later in this post, the periods of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s were periods of high growth in demand for oil products.
What we have now is the opposite: too many young people who cannot find jobs that pay well, even with advanced degrees. They cannot afford to go on a vacation or buy a new car. Record numbers live with their parents after they finish their schooling. They spend their spare time playing video games, rather than socializing with their friends.
The number of cars sold worldwide hit a peak in 2017, indicating indirectly that people are getting poorer. If people are not buying as many cars, demand for oil tends to fall, especially if more of the cars that are sold are electric.
Building new homes also takes oil. According to the US Census Bureau, the number of US new homes sold in the US hit a record of 1,283,000 in 2005. In 2025, the number of US new homes sold amounted to only 678,000, or about 53% of the peak amount. The huge drop in new home construction is a sign that people, quite often young people, are not as well off financially as they were years ago. They cannot afford to buy a new (or even a used) home anymore.
One study based on income tax data revealed that between 1948 and 1970, US incomes tended to rise faster than inflation. Between 1968 and 1983, the incomes of both the top 10% and the lower 90% rose as fast as inflation. However, between 1983 and 2012, the top 10% received far greater increases than the bottom 90% (Figure 2).
If workers in the bottom 90% of the distribution are not doing well, it is difficult to keep prices of commodities as high as those producing the commodities would prefer. Purchases of commodities, including food, and fuel for vehicles, do not rise proportionately with huge incomes. Elon Musk and other very high-income individuals do not spend all day eating or driving their vehicles. The bottom 90% must prosper for demand (affordability) of oil and other commodities to stay high.
[2] What experience with high and low growth in energy supplies since 1820 teaches us.
Several years ago, I prepared an analysis of how the world economy behaved over the long term, over the period from 1820 to 2017. I have recently updated this study. I found that the economy behaved quite well in times of high energy consumption growth. In times of low energy consumption growth, there seemed to be many adverse events, such as financial crashes, wars, and government collapses.
I am afraid that with today’s oil and debt problems, we are headed into a pattern of low energy consumption growth, or even energy consumption contraction. If this is the case, we should expect outcomes at least as undesirable those experienced during past periods of low energy consumption growth in the past.
(a) Methodology
I first prepared a new data set by combining two data sets, the earlier of which was available only every 10 years, with more recent data available more frequently. The energy quantities reported were rising rapidly. To analyze how fast they were rising, I first computed the average annual increase percentage for each 10-year period, as shown on Figure 3.
For example, the period from 1961 to 1970 (shown as the 1970 bar) had a very high annual rate of growth rate for energy consumption. This was the period when many of the interstate highways in the US were opened and many pipelines were added.
On Figure 4, I divided the bars shown on Figure 3 into two parts.
On Figure 5, the blue portions of the bars represent the average annual increase in population over the 10-year period. The red portion of the bar is computed by subtraction from the total. It is the amount that seems to be left over for a rising standard of living. Having a tall red portion of the bar would be very good; having little or no red bar left would represent a problem. Note that in two periods (the one ended 1860 and the one ended 2000), the amount left over for an increase in living standards was negative.
(b) Good things happened in years with very high growth in “Living Standards”
Figure 5 shows the information on Figure 4 as an area chart.
While I don’t show oil prices on Figure 5, those who are familiar with oil prices will remember that high oil prices were a feature of the 1973 to 1981 period. Also, as China began its growth period, another spike in oil prices took place. High growth in energy supplies and high oil prices seem to go together. High demand from a growing economy tends to hold prices up.
The label “China” refers to the rapid growth that took place in the decade after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. This was mostly powered by China’s huge growth in coal supply between 2002 and 2011 (Figure 6).
China and the world experienced another spurt of increased coal production starting in 2022, when coal prices temporarily spiked to a high level, perhaps indirectly related to the conflict in Ukraine. But coal prices have gradually come back down, resulting in flat world growth in coal production since 2023, and a plateau in China’s coal production growth.
(c) Troubled Periods took place when the growth in “Living Standards” was low or negative
Figure 7 labels three periods with very severe dips in “Living Standards.”
The First Troubled Period started with the Panic of 1857, which some consider to be a cause of the US Civil War. According to this view, the collapse was related to an over-expansion of the US economy, followed by the collapse of the debt bubble that had allowed this expansion to occur. Financial problems affected both the North and the South.
As I see the situation, one part of this financial problem was the declining profitability of slave labor. In the US South, the labor of slaves was the main source of energy used to operate plantations. An underlying issue was that the soil had gradually become depleted because of many years of growing of cotton and tobacco. These slaves had been purchased with debt; this debt could not be repaid with interest unless the income of the plantations was sufficiently high. However, poor harvests were not offset by sufficiently higher prices, which led to financial problems for plantation owners.
There may also have been an issue that the population, in general, was becoming poorer, essentially because of overpopulation. I say this because studies show that the height of army recruits had fallen, suggesting poorer nutrition. Sanitation had recently been improved, allowing a larger share of babies to survive to maturity. At the same time, immigration into the US continued. With overpopulation, it was difficult to keep incomes up. If farms were divided among many sons, farm sizes would tend to become smaller, leading to lower farm incomes. There would also be greater competition for factory jobs, tending to hold wages down.
Of course, when the Confederacy lost the war, the Confederate Dollar became worthless. For some, this added another financial crisis.
The Second Troubled Period was 1920 to 1940. This is a notoriously bad period, with the Great Depression and World War II included. Arguably, World War I should also be included. Commodity prices of all kinds fell very low. Tariffs were added in the 1920s. The problems seem to have arisen at the time Peak Coal hit–prices could not rise high enough to cover the cost of extracting coal from narrower and deeper seams. In my view, World War I began at the time of Peak Coal in the UK, and World War II took place at the time of Peak Hard Coal in Germany.
With depletion, the cost of extracting coal kept rising, but the sales price of coal would not rise to compensate for the higher extraction costs. Instead, wages of miners were increasingly squeezed. Strikes and lockouts became common. Taking a job as a soldier seemed like a reasonable alternative.
There were many events from this period that most people would like to forget, including the currency hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic between 1921 and 1923 and the Holocaust from 1933 and 1945. Country lines were redrawn. Some countries disappeared, and new ones were added. Those holding currencies of countries that disappeared were likely left without funds.
The Third Troubled Period was 1990 to 2000.
A major event of the Third Troubled Period was the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, leaving the 15 republics as independent states. The collapse also indirectly affected Cuba, North Korea, and some countries in Eastern Europe that were not part of the 15 independent states. With this change, the demand for fuel of all kinds fell in the countries affected. Factories were closed in many areas, including Ukraine, which was part of the Soviet Union.
The pullback in demand from the collapse of the Soviet Union helped hold oil prices down in the 1991 to 2001 period. Oil prices had previously been brought down by the spike in interest rates in the 1980-1981 period. In my opinion, these low oil prices played a major part in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, as an oil exporter, needed higher oil prices to invest in developing new fields. In my opinion, the impact of the collapse of the government of the Soviet Union kept world demand (and oil prices) low during the 1991 to 2000 period.
The collapse of the Japanese real estate bubble also took place in this period, as did the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Low growth in the world economy, indirectly related to the collapse of the Soviet Union, may have played a role in these financial events.
[3] The world’s self-organizing and self-healing economy
From a physics perspective, all economies are dissipative structures. Other examples of dissipative structures include ecosystems in general, all plants and animals, including humans, and hurricanes. One characteristic of dissipative structures is that, at some point in their lives, they tend to grow. Another is that if there is an injury, within a range, the systems tend to be self-healing. For example, a cut on a person’s arm will tend to heal; a hurricane going over land will temporarily lose much of its force, but it may increase in force again if it returns over warm water.
Another characteristic of dissipative structures is that they are dependent on having a sufficient energy supply of the right kinds to continue their existence. For humans, the energy supply is food; for an economy, it is a combination of many kinds of energy needed to match the built infrastructure of the economy.
All dissipative structures have finite lifetimes. Ecosystems often come to an end through fires. Humans generally do not live more than 80 or 100 years. Economies also tend to come to an end, either by losing a war or by the collapse of a central government, related to debt problems. The collapse of the Soviet Union involved a debt problem, among other issues. Figure 9 shows the huge drop in demand for energy of all types as its central government collapsed.
There is more stability of dissipative structures than a person might expect. Economists talk about an Invisible Hand being involved. Researchers examining dissipative structures talk about them being “self-organizing.” For example, if a fire or a change in climate causes a forest to collapse, it does not take many years for the forest to refill with suitable plants and animals for the somewhat changed situation. If a business or government fails, new, somewhat different businesses or governments are likely to take their place.
I would argue that if the Universe is constantly expanding (so it is an “open system,” rather than a “closed system”), what appear to be self-organizing systems may, in fact, be God-organized systems. In other words, instead of creation being a one-time event in the distant past, some type of literal higher power may be involved in a way that makes creation more or less an ongoing event. A person might wonder with the strange confluence of recent events, including the strange weather patterns associated with El Nino, whether today’s humans are being warned that a major change in economies will take place soon.
[4] What kinds of things may happen in the near future?
(a) Current disturbances in the Middle East and elsewhere are raising long-distance shipping costs for both food and oil. (See this video.) Normally, the price of food and oil must be high enough to satisfy producers and at the same time be low enough to satisfy customers. But now a new layer of costs has been added: the cost of shipping longer routes.
I would argue that because of the problem with low demand (affordability) by consumers, shipping costs must be paid almost entirely through a reduced net oil price available to oil producers and reduced net food prices available to farmers. The amount that consumers can afford doesn’t increase because of higher transportation costs.
(b) Furthermore, the use of extra oil for transportation of oil and food will tend to push the overall economy toward contraction because there will be less oil available for other uses, such as to power agricultural machinery and jet airplanes. If the overall economy begins to contract, we can expect dips in oil prices similar to those in 2008 and 2020 (Figure 1). But if recession persists, low oil prices will not reverse themselves as quickly as they did earlier.
(c) I expect home and farm prices will tend to fall around the world. This is related to the low level of demand (affordability problem) in the US and elsewhere. Figure 11, showing median US asking prices for homes, suggests that home prices have been barely holding their own for quite a while. A decrease would not be surprising with all the pressure the economy is now encountering.
Farm prices are likely to be under pressure as well, because of the difficulty farmers are having obtaining adequate income from their farms. If farm and home prices fall, there is a substantial chance that the debt bubble holding up these prices will collapse.
(d) There are many other debt bubbles that seem to be waiting to collapse. Some of the debt relating to AI seems to be in a bubble. There is considerable commercial real estate whose value seems to be being held up by “extend and pretend” loans. Collapsing debt bubbles tend to lead to collapsing banks. They also tend to lead to banks less willing to make new loans. Layoffs seem likely. All these things point to a major recession ahead, with less buying power for the population.
(f) Collapses of some top levels of government, similar to the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union, may be ahead. Such collapses can greatly reduce world energy consumption, including oil, with relatively little violence.
[5] How the nature of the economy may help over the long term
As noted previously, economies seem to have self-healing properties. Troubled periods can last for many years, but there seems to be a substantial chance that a way out will eventually be found.
If a government fails because of excessive debt, a new government (or governments) is likely to take its place. The new government will likely have fewer employees and offer fewer services to citizens. Pensions will likely need to be reduced or eliminated completely.
Even if governments fail, or national boundaries are redrawn, I expect that some businesses will continue operations. Such a situation will take place even if a new currency needs to be created to make this happen. Even in a troubled period, new businesses will start operations. Some of these businesses will make use of recycled materials available from failing businesses.
According to the Maximum Power Principle, if there are resources available that can easily be used, somehow, some organization will develop a way to use them. Over the long term, the economy will likely re-organize itself in a way that is more complex and more sparing in energy use. If energy use is efficient enough, it seems likely that a higher price for that energy supply could be made affordable to consumers. But, such a transition may take many years, if it is possible at all.
https://www.reuters.com/commentary/reuters-open-interest/chinas-ev-export-boom-is-starting-show-up-gasoline-market-2026-08-04/
China exporting over 10MM EVs annually and growing rapidly. Roughly 100MM vehicles produced annually and passenger cars are 3/4 of that. Of course this will impact oil consumption, provide a buffer.
Of course, the importing countries need to have the electricity to charge the EVs.
Perhaps if there is overbuilding of electricity infrastructure for AI, there will be electricity for EVs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkH_UvI6bwM
What Oil Extraction Does to Earth (No One Talks About This) (21:25)
341,380 views Jul 30, 2026
Every day the world pulls over 100 million barrels of oil from the ground — but even with the best technology on Earth, more than half of it stays trapped underground forever. Why? Because oil isn’t sitting in some hidden underground lake. It’s soaked into solid rock, like water in a wet towel, buried under crushing pressure and heat that would kill a person instantly.
In this video, we go deep into the real science of oil extraction: why oil refuses to flow out on its own, what it actually takes to force it out of solid stone, and the techniques engineers use — from water flooding to CO2 injection to superheated steam — just to recover a fraction of what’s really down there.
But the real story isn’t the oil. It’s what happens to the ground directly above it. From the Ekofisk platforms sinking into the North Sea, to Long Beach California — nicknamed “the Sinking City” — to the mysterious earthquake swarms in Oklahoma, this video uncovers the hidden consequences of emptying the earth from below, and why the industry is now going back for oil it once wrote off as gone forever.
If you’ve ever wondered what’s really happening beneath your feet every time you fill up your car, this is the video that explains it.
Sounds or visuals were altered or fully generated.
This is an interesting video. I knew quite a bit from the beginning of the video. The last part mentions something I thought might be possible, but I had not heard about actually happening.
It claims that with current technology, it becomes possible to reopen old oil fields and extract more of the oil in place. It claims the oil companies are starting to do this. Of course, this process tends to expensive, and a lot of the equipment is now made in China. The price of the oil sold needs to rise to a high enough level to make these higher costs worthwhile. If oil is used sparingly enough, in an energy mix that includes cheaper fuels in the mix, the technology might prove cost effective.
US considers new ultimatum to UK over Falklands
Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly looking for ways to incentivise the UK to increase its defence investment
The USA is using territorial reward/ chastisement to manage its client-states and enforce its hegemonic control. Empires alter the territories of their dependencies depending on their compliance.
– Empires grant territorial rewards to client-states in return for loyalty, tribute/ tax, military service, and effective local government.
USA wants European states to increase military spending, buy more American weaponry in particular, actively support its illegal wars, and adopt anti-migration policies.
– Empires inflict territorial punishments by taking away territories from client-states due to disobedience, rebellion, or failure to meet obligations like tribute or military service.
USA goes so far as to threaten to withdraw USA military support from client-states unless they spend more on the military, buy more USA kit in particular, and actively support its illegal wars.
Now USA has threatened to withdraw support from UK sovereignty over the Falklands with the implication that sovereignty will be less secure as a result.
Virtually every empire since prehistory has used arbitrary border reconfiguration to control client-states and to extract loyalty, wealth, and military service from them:
– Aztecs, Incas, Persians, Neo-Assyrians, Han and Tang dynasties, Romans, British Empire (with princely states in India), Napoleon, USSR, basically all of them.
Empires use the carrot and stick territorial approach as it is cheaper than mounting a military invasion of the client-state to enforce compliance.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/us-uk-falkland-islands-defence-budget-trump-burnham-b3041416.html
The US is said to be considering an ultimatum to Andy Burnham, threatening to withdraw its support for Britain’s sovereignty over the Falkland Islands if it does not increase defence spending.
Pentagon officials are understood to be reviewing Nato allies’ commitment to their 5 per cent defence spending promise, with the UK set to get “special attention”, a senior US official told The Telegraph.
Donald Trump’s administration believes the UK did not go far enough with its defence investment plan in June and is now looking at ways to incentivise the prime minister to invest further.
“I would expect the UK to receive special attention because it has so much potential,” the US official told the publication. “We will therefore continue efforts to incentivise and enable the UK to step up in a major way.”
They said that changing America’s stance on the UK’s claim to the Falklands, which the US president has previously considered, was a possibility.
“I can say that they [conversations] are candid and nothing is being ruled out as far as options for encouraging the sort of burden-sharing that we seek,” the source said.
… As part of the review, the US has circulated a questionnaire to Nato ambassadors, quizzing them on plans to buy American-made weapons, whether their governments had restricted US use of military bases and whether they had supported Mr Trump’s foreign policy.
According to the article:
America’s recent demand follows a threat in April, in which a leaked internal Pentagon email suggested that the US could review Britain’s claim to the Falklands as revenge for a lack of support in the Iran war.
The Falkland Islands have previously voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory (PA)
Trump will find some way to take the Falklands away from the UK.
“Trump will find some way to take the Falklands away from the UK.”
And how will he manage that, in the short time left to him as president? He makes various threats but then rarely follows through, because he finds it hard to focus on any one objective for long.
I had posted a link to a Mr B post — India the future of the West . I disagreed but Gail agreed . I present a comment by Hideway in support .
”
HideAway
Reply to
Rob Mielcarski
August 21, 2026 5:45 pm
I wonder how these Indian factories like these ones, will get on without new sulphuric acid, without gas, without constant electrical power, without new plastic separators, without people transporting all the ‘scrap’ to them, or the vehicles to do it? Then there is the oxy-acetylene, or the large milling machine, or the new parts when things wear out, or the lack of relatively new plastic casings for the batteries (the batteries plastic casing is good to use in it’s first recycling, but what about the 5th or 10th as the plastic gets brittle, cracks and gets holes in it??), or the hydraulic fluids, greases, oils for the cranes, etc, etc.
Decades, to centuries as claimed by “B”?? Sorry no way.
These types of cheaper manufacturing only exist because of modern manufacturing and availability of everything. Liebig’s law of the minimum will come into play very quickly during collapse. “
I could change my mind.
The system has to break and build up from a much lower level to work. All of the support is missing to continue as is.
Even the Amish cannot continue with their way of life. It assumes too much support by other systems.
Amish are not allowed to use buttons on their clothes because those are ‘modern’ tech and contrary to a holy and virtuous ‘simplicity’ – someone is being ‘vain’ there, anyway, allegedly everyone else – but they absolutely do keep telephones to dial 911 in an emergency.
Who you gonna call? (Probably not God as he seems to be ‘engaged’ whether they wear bottons or not.)
More importantly, the Amish depend on the infrastructure built with oil. They use US roads. I expect that the cloth in their clothes is made in factories, somewhere around the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if their shoes are factory made. I expect that they are using a lot of metal tools (and hooks) that would not be available with the technology that is currently available without fossil fuels.
Whether the fasteners are buttons or hooks is a minor detail that sets them apart from others.
The button thing serves to foster group solidarity, one supposes.
Buttons were also once regarded as somewhat immoral, as one could unbutton faster than unlace. Unlacing a buxom wench was an undertaking…….
Zippers were, of course, potentially most immoral of all!
Do they permit those I wonder?
“Unlacing a buxom wench was an undertaking”
Xabier sounds quite the gigolo and Latin lover, and he seems to speak straight from experience. How old did he say he was? I’m convinced now that he could have been Casanova in a previous incarnation. 😉
Bryan Ferry: Casanova
My initial confusion upon seeing the manufacturing process of the large gear in B’s video was the inconsistency of such a rudimentary process for a huge gear that would be one of the first items to be rendered useless in a collapse.
This would contrast to the manufacturing of simple hand tools like spades, pick axes, hoes, for simple farming – farther along during the collapse.
But I agree with Hideaway’s excellent comments, looked up Liebig’s Law, and agree that maybe B’s example was not the best, as it may represent only a brief transition point where there is a need for $200,000 mining truck tires, or huge gears for a heavy machine, until suddenly there isn’t.
Those are some great points.
Warsh no zirp comments put him at odds with Bessents 160 yen line in the sand. If treasury yield is gonna be high BOJ bonds not so popular..
The yen going lower ( which means more yen aka 165) would mean treasury can not dictate this. How about the Fed?
Here’s the thing. Treasury yen line in the sand implys rate control. But only Fed determines rates right? Treasury is just a passenger on the train supposedly. So confusing… I wish they would get the sit com plot consistent.
Regardless the line in the sand not holding would not be agood thing.
So far. 160 holds more or less. Over but not a technical breach. Nobody bucks the treasury, I mean the Fed. But maybe they need a sit down with each other?
A breach would mean no line in the sand. No control. A free for all of shorts. No prder. The Bessent decree disrespected. The unthinkable. Market forces free to short the Yen into oblivion and profiting from the carry trade all the way. A savage consumption of a nation and it’s currency.. Or another massive intervention by the treasury and BOJ? BOJ obviously can’t hold this flood back by themselves. And now there are questions whether it can be held back. Apparently the hyenas are hungry.
Such a naughty Warsh. Who does he think he is no ZIRP? Ohhhh. Club Greta.
A disorderly liquidation you say Bessent? That’s a possibility? Club Greta will be pleased with that also.
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/currencies/articles/bessent-says-disorderly-yen-could-172554727.html&ved=2ahUKEwj78ImPqsaWAxXoOTQIHVYvO-8QFnoECEkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2iSG4fTzCAsGBI6WkBk3xx
Get ready for the next yen intervention… The yen has reclaimed 160.
In under a month, over 50% of the combined ~$100B intervention has already been reversed.
If this run rate holds, the Fed would have to print ~$50B a month just to stop the BoJ from selling USTs.
To put that into perspective, the post-peak COVID QE pace for USTs was $80B a month.
We don’t own enough hard assets for what’s coming.
https://x.com/ekwufinance/status/2093441942029808113/photo/1
You are right. You have described the reason why Warsh’s remarks were so shocking. Both Bessent and Warsh cannot have their ways. Maybe it is the tension that makes the system not move far in one way or the other.
Iraq’s currency seems to have fallen greatly in value. (Removing 000s from currency) Would support the view that little oil from Iraq is making it to market.
https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq/sanad-dinar-redenomination-delete-zeros-eco-iraq-reaction-2026/
Telecom Minister claims dinar redenomination finalized, drawing criticism
Minister of Communications Mustafa Sanad stated in a televised broadcast that the government decision to redenominate the Iraqi Dinar and delete three zeros from the national currency is officially finalized.
Sanad asserted that replacing the current banknotes will force hoarded cash back into formal banking channels while eliminating an estimated 8 trillion IQD ($6.1 billion) in unexchanged currency tied to illicit gains, corruption, and lost funds.
Yeah , so what ? Turkey should be in the fifth stage of collapse if you are looking at exchange rates . Rial to USD is not important at this stage of the war . The Iranians have choices — pain , extinction or fight back . The problem is with ROW because the Iranians have chosen ” fight back ” and they control the SoH .
Interesting point.
Iraq has one of the highest birth rates in the world. It is not sustainable in any reasonable way at the current population level. Turkey seems to be doing much better.
Learn the Krar!
https://youtu.be/aJuXVEIkWNM?feature=shared
Global Diesel Breakdown
Physical supply has caught up with the market. Our call: over the next 30 days, diesel scarcity will transmit directly into freight costs, food prices, agricultural production, industrial output and inflation. Over the next 12 months, the same energy shock will move through fertilizer and into global food supply.
https://sonar21.com/global-diesel-breakdown/
I agree with the former director of Enron. That is a dark sign indeed. Who you gonna dredge up next Larry? CIA doom. I preferred when doom was less mainstream
That China/Canada professor spook dude just went totally mask off. (3.5 mins wraps up the END GAME). And people are twitter’s heads are exploding over this interview. Slandering him to the curb. (hitting a big nerve)
https://x.com/Sdumz1n/status/2093392928852910433
I think he’s pretty nailed it and made some excellent points.
Yeah… it’s not good.
So, this is a very dark substack… but, everyone should be aware of it…
https://sirescanor.substack.com/p/professor-jiang-the-making-of-a-digital?utm_source=publication-search
He does deep dives into the inevitable despair
Perhaps corollary is “Don’t believe everything Professor Jiang says.
I stopped listening to Prof Jiang months ago as I started to get the sense he was luring his listeners in a certain direction. However, de does sprinkle bits of truths here and there that are very interesting, but I don’t like to be played. He has talked about a Civil War happening right now at the higher levels between 2 groups of Elites in the USA (and globally) —-Nationalists, Billionaire Techies, etc versus the Old Establishment Elites (bankers, etc). Jiang has referenced the work of Peter Churchin who studies revolutions, civil wars, societal unrest etc. Churchin says that revolutions start by elites when there are too many elites and not enough resources and positions of power for them. These are often the children of elites and their wealth gets diluted after each generation. As we further move into wealth inequality globally, the ignition is there and historically that spark has most often come from member of the elite class.
I already labeled him a spook. I don’t even know if he’s a real professor. I could care less.
Stick to merits of what he’s saying
This is sort of a reinforcement of what we have heard earlier, also:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/irans-ghalibaf-declares-persian-gulf-oil-flows-all-or-none
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared on 28 August that either all Persian Gulf countries will be allowed to export oil freely or none will, adding that the security of West Asia depends on the withdrawal of US forces.
“The equation of this war is clear: either all or none!” Ghalibaf said, adding, “In a region where we don’t sell oil, no one else will sell oil either.” The speaker emphasized further, “If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe.”
“Security of the strait depends on the absence of US forces. We have said many times that the situation in the strait will not return to what it was before the war.”
The comments came in response to claims by US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Admiral Brad Cooper that US forces had seized full control of the Strait of Hormuz and halted Iranian oil exports.
Perhaps the end of this is that the US will eventually pull its troops back from Eurasia. It takes a lot of oil to keep them going. Maybe the world will come closer to the division of trade by hemisphere that I have suggested may happen in the past.
Ultimately the division has to follow some minimum energy expenditure principle. I am not sure that it is convenient to ship from Patagonia to New York if there is an alternative in Spain, which is much closer. So it will be a bit messy.
The WSJ is publishing a story we have heard previously:
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-oil-market-edf57588
How Xi Jinping Turned Oil From a Weakness Into a Geopolitical Weapon
The Iran crisis has shown that his solution to China’s reliance on imported oil has given Beijing a critical defense against the West
As the crisis in Iran unfolded, in China, “almost from day one there was this sense that, ‘We are able to manage this. We don’t need to panic,’ ” said Erica Downs, a scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. . .
For China, “oil is not the Achilles’ heel we thought it was,” said Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “I think a lot of people thought China was very, very vulnerable to oil supply disruptions. It’s not.”
I think another hidden issue is that China, and the world, has been heading into recession. Because of the recession, China really didn’t need as much oil as in the past. It couldn’t sell as many goods at home or abroad. Kevin Warsh’s hawkish view on interest rates will push the world further into recession. This approach will keep the very high prices assumed by many analysts away indefinitely.
TALES FROM SLOVAKIA
As an honorary member of the World Society for the Protection of Slovakia, I have never actually visited the country. However, one OFWer has. He spoke to me on condition of anonymity. “I was there in the 1980s when the communists were still in power. The sight of the Slovakian navy patrolling the polders and machine-gunning the peasants who were trying to get out made it all worthwhile.” Happily, those days are long gone now. Long live Slovakia and all who sail in her. 😉
The fujara is the national instrument of Slovakia. It is a large, traditional wind instrument classified as an aerophone and belongs to the tabor pipe class. Originating in central Slovakia, it is a sophisticated shepherd’s overtone fipple flute known for its unique contrabass range and distinctive design.
Fujara – Quick facts:
Description: A large wooden wind instrument, typically 160 to 200 cm (5’3″ – 6’6″) long.
Sound Production: It is an overtone fipple flute with three finger holes on the lower body and a fipple at the upper end.
Tuning: Commonly tuned in A, G, or F.
Status: Recognized by UNESCO as part of the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2008.
I am hoping that our musical expert Tim Groves will provide a link to an easy-listening video that some fujara highlights. 🙂
“WIth” some fujara highlights..
Dude, I know that waiting for the collapse is a drag and entertainment needs to be provided. But…
Roger Federer enters tennis Hall of Fame
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2026/08/30/roger-federer-tennis-hall-of-fame-induction/
On an emotional night in Rhode Island, Roger Federer’s wife, Mirka, ended her 24-year exile from public speaking to mark her husband’s induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Miroslava “Mirka” Federer (born Miroslava Vavrincová, later Miroslava Vavrinec) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. She was born in Bojnice, a town in western Slovakia.
In an arresting final passage, Federer saluted a sport “that’s played everywhere, from Switzerland to South Africa, Slovakia, India, and Brazil.
========
But hey, perhaps drb753 is just a Slovakophobe. He lives in Eastern Europe now (Russia) and probably doesn’t like those Central Europeans getting all the attention.
Maybe you should start your own rival eastern-oriented “Tales” posts, drb753? Here are some suggestions for you: “Tales from Transnistria”; “Tales from Chechnya”; “Tales from Uzbekistan”. Which should it be?
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The term for a cuckoo clock in Slovak is kukučkové hodiny. Unlike the highly decorated Black Forest clocks that use intricate wood carvings and pine cone weights, Slovakian cuckoo clocks often have simpler cases, sometimes with lyre-shaped backplates and plastic or celluloid hands, lacking the elaborate roof decorations typical of German designs.
So now you know!
Any country that takes pride in time keeping, can’t be all that bad.
https://search.brave.com/images?q=kuku%C4%8Dkov%C3%A9+hodiny.
They all seem kind of nice
” Peasants ” trying to get out of [ Iron Curtain ] to Austria..
A bit mouthful – colorized version of ~recent history.. ?
Well, the statistics is clear most of the attempted or successful migrants aiming for the West were urbanites! The living conditions of rural Slovaks improved markedly, it was prioritized agenda. Obviously not driving new Benz or such, but freezers packed with meet and cellars full of alc etc.
Seems your views on the topic are a bit over-propagandized even in the basics. Perhaps admissible IF you meant it in the over-all Kulmianistic jargon vector as general pop being actually ~likened to peasants in that area of the world..
oops typo: “… exploring the differences between the homophones meat, meet, …”
But on more serious note of the topic, that brought back past meme from the late 1980s as the true Austrian peasants when not getting the second (as in continued follow-up) spa treatment signed from their health insurer, say after surgery procedure, well they hopped on train and got it very cheaply in Hungarian or Slovakian thermal spa-resorts, exchange rate being ridiculous, and border more open ( one way ). True peasants thus visiting ( and enjoying health-rehab procedures ) at places their nobility/elite used to visit..
Remember, lads, you heard it here first!
I heard it from Winter Watch, here:
https://www.winterwatch.net/2026/08/european-war-about-to-go-into-overdive/
I note that in support of this projection, that major events often happen at the start of September, after the elites finish their summer holidays. WW2 and 9/11 come instantly to mind. WW1 was an exception in that it kicked off in late July, and a lot of elite people complained that they had to leave the beach or the casino or their bird-watching trip early.
Also, we really are at a point now where the world economy’s plumbing is bunged up and a major war would certainly clear the pipes.
Back to Winter Watch:
As mentioned in our, last Fearsome Three podcast the Russians have secretly mobilized 500,000 reservists and will strike towards Kiev from Belarus. Belarus will pin the flanks. Russia has brought in large numbers of North Korean mercenaries right as the Big Brain Trump regime pulls it’s carriers out of east Asia. Odessa will be taken on the Black Sea, completely choking the Ukraine off.
The weather currently offers about a six week intense combat window. The analog is the September 1, 1939 Polish invasion by Germany.
The risk for Europe will be if Poland and the Baltic States interfere with this operation. No more fighting just with the last Ukrainian. European air defenses have been depleted and the US has been denutted in it’s Israeli war on Iran misadventure.
This needs to get underway before the last remaining combat age males in Ukraine are swept up in their latest busification campaigns.
The softening up is now underway. Russia has destroyed approximately 90% of the warehouse facilities of retail chains in Ukraine,” said Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy Vysotsky. The Russian army is focusing on completely destroying huge stores, logistics hubs, warehouses, and factories. Today, the last working Epicenter shopping center was destroyed in Zaporizhia.
Targeting civilian warehouses and infrastructure.
Kyiv is reportedly facing growing shortages of food, water, gasoline, diesel and heating fuel—and residents are fleeing the capital in massive numbers. Not clear where these folks are going, to the Polish border?
=====
Visit the article link for photos, map, and links to related news.
the dumb pollocks will always be bait no matter what way it goes. lol
The school year in the Northern Hemisphere has always started about Labor Day–which falls on the first day of the year. Calendars often start with September. This is a very natural start.
Norway Warns Oil and Gas Output Could Collapse After 2030 Oil Peak
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Norway-Warns-Oil-and-Gas-Output-Could-Collapse-After-2030.html
from the report the article is citing ***(must read)
“Low resource growth makes the decline in production inevitable
The decline in production has been highlighted for many years. Historically, large discoveries, new developments and enhanced recovery have helped to curb the decline. Resource growth over the past decade has been so low that the drop in production is no longer a future challenge. It is becoming a reality. By making simultaneous investments across the entire resource base, we can delay and constrain this decline.
For Norway, this is about much more than volumes. Slow growth today means a steeper fall post-2030. This in turn translates to less value creation, fewer jobs, weaker energy security for Europe, and diminished government revenues. If these contributions are to be sustained over time, resource growth must increase.
In the High scenario, production in 2050 could equate to approximately two-thirds of current levels. In the Low scenario, production in 2050 could plummet to almost zero.
https://www.sodir.no/en/whats-new/news/general-news/2026/production-outpaces-resource-growth-on-the-ncs/
It seems like people would have foreseen this. Second link says,
Resource report 2026: Without significant discoveries, production on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) may fall steeply after 2030. Resources remain plentiful, but growth levels are too low to maintain current production levels over time.
People assume that BAU will continue indefinitely. But it really cannot.
I have heard a lot decline of estimates that are after 2030. Hopefully AI can find us some more. Unfortunately Jevon’s paradox kicks in. I think the Permian is set to decline then too. These wars are not about ideology they know too.
you know what Upton Sinclair said!
Yes, this .no report has been discussed here few weeks/months ago.
Now with that Venezuelan re-vital angle, recession vibes, demographic slump and electric transport and other mega-trends ongoing, perhaps it means the real crisis postponed till early-mid 2030s.. speaking of the West.. Obviously, some countries could go under swiftly way sooner as sacrificial ~PO dynamics lambs..
Seems like the Deep State wants to eliminate the control group in Pennsylvania re. vaccines, raw milk, and good old fashioned country living. And they’ve got their sights on the Amish as their version of the Armenians, the Jews, the Kulaks, the Landlords, or people who wear glasses. That last one was how Pol Pot could tell who was an intellectual.
Celia Farber writes:
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/josh-shapiro-is-a-brand-new-upgraded
Josh Shapiro.
Suddenly on everybody’s radar; He’s clearly the tip of the next Democrat spear, and he manages to be worse than even the worst democrats we ever heard of or dealt with.
Josh Shapiro is locked and loaded to be the next Democrat party dream boat, possibly Democratic Presidential candidate, having only become more lethal since he was removed from the short list of running mates for Kamala Harris.
He brings every horrific, anti-human, anti-decent position together in a perfectly evil chord, and his evil has a chilling smoothness to it. He’s perfectly “pod,” perfectly ghastly.
He supports: “Science” worship, vaccine worship, measles worship, abortion, lies and slanders without blinking, wants women who have lost their babies at birth to be called “individuals,” not mothers, (I have been red-flagging about this for a while)…give me a few minutes and I will try to scrape even the surface of all his horrendous-ness.
His wedge weapons will be this (second) fake measles outbreak, which they are not kidding about. No fizzle in sight. The coroner’s statements did not put a dent in the juggernaut, and now Josh Shapiro has pushed the party line to include a coroner’s statement on an infant’s cause of death as a conspiracy theory he is sick and tired of having to address. He’s a master gas-lighter and could make you pray to God to bring back Kamala Harris or even Joe Biden; He strips every pretense of Democratic concern for ordinary people of any stripe right off the bone. He was cooked up, a long time ago—created in a trans-national Democrats Of The Future lab.
Try to read this without getting vertigo:
“I don’t think it serves the interest of public health or slows the spread of this outbreak for me to get into a back and forth about conspiracy theories showing up online.”
—Gov. Josh Shapiro
Just last night I told a friend—Ann Tomoko Rosen—when we discussed the attack on the Amish, that I feel they should leave the state of Pennsylvania. Just leave, and understand they have no chance against this ambush.
It came out without me quite realizing, from my gut, by-passing my brain.
“You think they should leave their land?” Ann said.
“I just…it’s going to be like another Waco,” I said.
Now, tonight, I see this:
…. Celia posts a shot of Health Ranger Mike Adams posting on X that:
Pennsylvania wants to conduct armed SWAT-style raids on the unvaccinated, and to shoot the parents and kidnap the children in the name of “public safety.”
That’s exactly what’s coming next: Government vaccine terror raids on the Amish.
Pennsylvania is under total, abject siege, and Shapiro will eclipse the fascism of all previous Democrat fascists if you ask me. He is all in.
[Tim’s comment:
Norman, who warns people daily about Trump, won’t even notice this, because it’s not fascism when Dems do it.]
The imploded pack of measles lies is taking them where they want to go. They are trans-factual, trans-everything, post everything, and the great Covid awakening never happened, it seems.
……… At this point, Celia posts lots of background info on Shapiro that would make strong men weep, or barf! ……….
The new Democrat, then, in other words, same as the old, but worse, is a public health fascist with naked, raw hatred of all civil liberties, and reality itself. Listen to his measles rhetoric and shudder.
“This is obviously a deeply serious measles outbreak that we are dealing with all across the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Then he cites all kinds of numbers about how much worse it has gotten only in the last few hours.
They’re really going for it.
I knew they would.
MAHA, for all its original promise, for all its internal contradictions, all its infiltrations—provided, let’s face it, no cover, no protection against what is unfolding now in Pennsylvania, under this super-agent Shapiro: A full blown hysteria OP that is immune to fact, coroner’s reports, RFK Jr.’s best diplomatic efforts—all of it.
Nothing was done about the living, churning mechanisms of the media propaganda beast, and far be it for me to describe what could have been done. Maybe only anticipating what they would do next, which is what they are doing now. I’m not pretending I have any answers. Except this:
I would have advised the Amish to see the writing on the wall in 2025 and get out.
“Where should they go?” Ann asked me. “Florida?”
“I don’t know. But they don’t stand a chance, and are fenced in from every direction,” I said. My beef, I explained, is that “we” never learn their grand patterns, no matter how many times they repeat and escalate. We always think our beautiful facts will save us.
The sane, morally upright, diligent, politically astute health freedom movement, the really good organizations, always keeping their science polished, the potent Senate hearings—not sneering at it, love it all, but just observing…against my will… that this evil crunches it between its teeth for breakfast.
So, then, what? Resignation? Cynicism?
I don’t have the answer, but I have the question: Why don’t we develop night goggles for evil? Stop trying to reason with it. Anticipate it, by fully accepting the outer limits of its boundless evil. Truly boundless. This is hard to accept, and if you accept it, how do you fight?
My father’s lifelong best friend Gi-Hong Zang was a North Korean stationed in Budapest at the time of the student uprising in 1956. He helped them break into a weapons depot and taught them to manage the rifles. But when he saw the writing on the wall—the Soviets were actually going to just come in and start slaughtering—he changed course and told them all to just get out by any means possible. As he did. He got to Vienna with his then fiancé, later wife, Edith, where they met Barry in a refugee camp on Christmas Eve.
All it took was getting across the Eisner canal without getting shot.
Is there, in America, an Eisner canal? Is there a Vienna? A place to feel to where the insanity stops at the border?
The Amish have been exemplary Americans and exemplary Christians for a very long time. But come on—failing to show any cases of autism? They’ve been marked for destruction for a long time.
We have to accept and see the patterns that have never changed, and do not change for anything or anybody. Not the coroner of Lancaster, not the constitution, not the entire revealed true history of Covid, not anything.
Yes, it’s devastating.
Shapiro is their man. Measles is their weaponized hallucination.
All they had to do was throw two corpses—one of whom nobody can locate at all, or know anything about, and neither of who, of course, “have measles—” into the cauldron of weaponized media, right before the midterms, and stand back.
Harder tactics are needed. No diplomacy, no reasonable conversations with monsters.
mRNA should—yes—have been banned, years ago. Instead we are getting mRNA flu shots, somehow?
Why does this jackass Shapiro suddenly have the wheel of the bus, driving the nation over a cliff, and the Director of HHS has to plead with him to have a fact based conversation, which he refuses, show-boating to the press how “blunt” he was with Mr. Kennedy about his right to lie, gaslight, and deflect?
We know why.
They’ve been honing this guy since he was 6.
Still, nobody saw him coming.
What, then, don’t we understand?
What didn’t the Romanovs understand—poor souls?
The signature of Masonry.
In the end, at the end, they are defeated by the one who overcame all, who could “see it all without hating,” (Tranströmer) and who was a man. More relevant, maybe than the matter of divinity.
What is that? (A man.)
One who does not wish to injure, maim or kill women or children. One who does not use words in vain, does not lie, does not aspire to earthly rewards.
I conclude: We don’t fight to “win,” we fight to accept loss and do it anyway, with the hope of catching some fragments of light to borrow for a time.
Maybe, then, the Amish should stay. They know what “they” have planned for them, and they know God.
Who am I to say they should save themselves by fleeing their land, in Lancaster, and surrender it to these plunderers?
I have changed my mind.
Anybody who loves anything and fights for it is a winner.
Anybody who demoralizes people who are fighting is prioritizing intellect over helpfulness.
My ancestors are the Penn Amish or Penn “dutch” ie German.
New York is going after them too.
Amish threaten mass exodus from New York over vaccine fight —which is heading to the Supreme Court
https://nypost.com/2026/08/26/us-news/amish-threaten-mass-exodus-from-new-york-over-vaccine-fight-which-is-heading-to-the-supreme-court/
Perhaps this is related to my observation that an economy cannot go backward. Collapse takes out support at lower levels. We can’t get along without cars and trucks; we don’t have enough horses. Even if we did, we would not be able to handle all of the manure they would generate.
It happened in Rome.
It happened in Paris.
It happened in Scotland.
And it will happen again..
And how did it end for those worthless nobodies who contributed nothing to Type Alpha civilisation? They failed, and died. The landowners triumphed!
Kulm II
This looks like good movie!!!
We all need some fun, although the fantasy armour puts me off in an historical film.
Any chaps out there who’d like to watch skilled fighters perform non-choreographed and very vigorous fights in fairly accurate armour I highly recommend the ‘Dequitem’ YT channel.
They are Germans, and so they get it right!
Finally! A movie made for me. This one wont win any Academy Awards as it obviously hasn’t met a single DEI quota score.
Good! It’s about time. Gives me hope.
Also, “Coyote vs Acme” seems like the audience appreciates it.
Another mineral in short supply:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/zinc-hits-four-year-high-extremely-thin-physical-supply-fuels-squeeze
Zinc futures in London are headed for their largest monthly close since January, with prices hitting four-year highs this week amid tightening physical supplies.
London futures for the industrial metal initially gained as much as 1% before reversing course. Zinc fell .8% to $3,861 a ton as of 11:40 a.m. local time, halting a seven-day rally.
Despite the pullback, zinc’s physical market remains extremely tight.
“Supply constraints boosting zinc: Zinc price has risen 31% since March to $3,966, driven by declining mine output, operational disruptions (fires, delays, and lower grades), and limited project development outside China,” Jefferies analyst Sagar Sahu wrote in a note on Tuesday.
Kevin Warsh says that the Fed has a mandate to get the inflation rate back to 2%. He also thinks the economy is doing well now. This sounds a whole lot like raising interest rates to me. Raising interest rates will tend to bring down oil prices, but it will also push the economy toward recession, IMO.
WSJ:
https://d13np5hjz0o2l.cloudfront.net/out/v1/1caeaa62457d4faaa817f00119005d70/index.m3u8?start=1787925300&end=1787927134
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-live-fed-chair-warsh-delivers-keynote-address-jackson-hole
Another view on what oil is getting through Hormuz and what it costs:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/The-Iran-War-Has-Turned-VLCCs-Into-650000-a-Day-Assets.html
More Gulf oil is moving again. Getting it out now costs a fortune.
Earnings on the benchmark Saudi Arabia-to-China supertanker route surged to a record $647,000 per day on Thursday, according to Baltic Exchange data cited by Bloomberg. That is more than ten times the rate a year ago—and nearly 27% above the $510,000 reached just ten days earlier.
The spike comes as Persian Gulf producers increase crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz despite the continuing Iran war.
That should, in theory, ease the oil supply crunch. Instead, it has created another one: ships.
Few tanker owners are willing to send vessels through Hormuz, leaving exporters competing for the smaller pool that will take the risk. The result is an extraordinary premium for anyone willing to make the trip. . .
Even outside the strait, rates are climbing. A tanker traveling from Oman to China now commands roughly $220,000 per day, up from $131,000 a month ago. . .
There are signs that more oil is escaping the Gulf. Traders estimate Hormuz outflows at 6 million to 8 million barrels per day, while Goldman Sachs puts flows at roughly two-thirds of pre-war levels.
These Trump tariffs are just a backdoor climate tax.
Same exact thing, just changed the name. (Yes, people are this stupid)
They are a way to make prices on imports high enough to allow US producers to be moderately competitive. This is intended to encourage manufacturing more goods in the US.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this Gail. To have manufacturing you have to have facilities. To have facilities you have to have capital investment. The USA just finished outsourcing all manufacturing. It took three decades and massive capital investment in China. For a product to be competitive with USA manufacturing it first must actually be made in the USA presently. Very little is. The Tarrifs do not encourage capital investment for new manufacturing facilities in the USA if the product is already manufactured in China AKA competition. That is financial suicide .
The exception is if there is a critical product with long term demand that is not manufactured in China. Then you will occasionally see capital investment for new manufacturing facilities in the USA. Or if course for military or subsidized giveaways. Competition with the supply chains alone make it a non starter. Where do all your manufacturing materials come from. China. Who can get a better price you or the manufacturer in China.
Because guess what. All your materials have a big ass tarrif on them. And none of them are made in the USA.
Successful and profitable manufacturing does not radically increase the price of Chinese components or exclude them. Successful and profitable manufacturing leverages and exploits affordable Chinese components. It’s the primary rule.. that’s how you use Chinas exploitation against them. It’s how you fight back. You take the components they are dumping to destroy you and turn into something that competes. Sticking it to the man.
The tarrifs killed USA manufacturing deader than a rat that fell in a swimming pool. Who would commit to capital investment for manufacturing in a nation that has radically more expensive components and materials than anywhere else in the world to start. And it starts there. Actually having the facilities to manufacture. The ones we exported. And that’s just the begining. Labor. Taxes. Need I go on?
The tarrifs did exactly what Trump brags about. The brought in government income. Great if it reduced the deficit at least. It didn’t. Trump spends it fast as he can rake it in on boondoggles. And the new bunch will spend it even faster.
Yes tarrifs were appropriate for finished manufactured goods. Materials allowing competitive manufacturing not so much.
But as far as Trump says those components are bad. Evil. They are rom Chiiiiiiiinaaaaaaa. Except you need that shit if you are to do anything. Absaloutly anything. Maybe you can start a brothel in Pahrump Nevada without Chinese components but I doubt it.
Net result. Need I even write it?
Greta!
The media loved Dolly Parton cause she took the shot which made her sick and told everyone to do it too.
If I was a foreign country who wanted to eliminate my rivals and steal their shit. I would love her too.
NBC NEWS owned by Comcast or Communist cast or People magazine ie peoples of China. They can’t hide it cause they are nationalist like stupid Trumpers.
NexStar which owns “The Hill” and half of all local news. That stands for Communist Star. See, they can’t hide it cause they’re like Trumpers. Nationalist.
And they want us all dead so they can steal our shit.
Orders are falling by as much as 90 per cent, reports a timber merchant from Tisovec. Germany could save our industry
Slovak factories are reporting a sharp drop in orders and growing concerns.
For some manufacturers, demand has plummeted by as much as tens of per cent.
Companies are warning of high energy prices, rising costs and new taxes.
There is hope on the horizon from Germany, but a turnaround may not come quickly.
“Consumer goods can wait; household spending is being weighed down by high energy and food prices.” This is how Ondrej Magyar, a manager at Tiswood in Tisovec – a company that processes beech wood and manufactures home accessories – described the current situation to HN.
“If I manufacture a curtain rail in Slovakia, I have to pay the minimum wage and energy costs, so the production cost of the product is roughly double what it would be if I had it manufactured in China and shipped to Hamburg,” Magyar remarked, commenting on Slovakia’s current state of competitiveness.
The latest results of the Statistical Office’s economic sentiment survey also show that, in August, it was mainly firms manufacturing wood and paper products that reported a fall in orders.
Translated by DeepL.
https://hnonline.sk/finweb/ekonomika/96299348-objednavky-padaju-az-o-90-percent-hlasi-drevar-z-tisovca-nas-priemysel-moze-zachranit-nemecko
A warning is coming from the factories. Confidence in Slovak industry has fallen to its lowest level in the last three years
Economic sentiment has deteriorated once again, and the manufacturing sector is sending out a warning signal.
Manufacturers’ confidence has fallen to its lowest level in more than three years.
Companies are concerned about weaker demand, higher energy prices and rising costs.
Whilst the services sector is growing, households remain cautious about their spending.
Sentiment in the Slovak economy remains volatile. So far this year, periods of growth have alternated with periods of decline on a monthly basis. August is no exception. Following an improvement in July, businesses and households entered the end of the summer with noticeably lower confidence.
Industry was the main cause. Confidence in the sector plummeted to its lowest level in more than three years. Even more positive expectations in the services, construction and retail sectors were unable to offset this trend.
The Statistical Office’s economic sentiment indicator, which summarises the mood of businesses and consumers, fell by 4.4 points month-on-month in August to 95 points. It thus returned to its lowest level this year, last seen in March. Compared with the same period last year, it is 5.6 points lower.
Industry expects tougher months ahead
Translated by DeepL.
https://hnonline.sk/finweb/ekonomika/96299233-z-fabrik-prichadza-varovanie-dovera-slovenskeho-priemyslu-padla-na-najnizsiu-uroven-za-posledne-tri-roky
When people aren’t buying new homes (or having improvements added to existing homes) and getting packages with goods sent to them, demand for timber and paper products dries up.
These are all discretionary items. I understand many fewer home appliances are being sold in the US because people aren’t moving.
One thing which is emphasized here is the complexity problem.
Things get too complex for anyone to handle.
In the older days, only the chief discoverer was named. No one else was remembered.
For example, no one remembers who were the assistants of Pasteur. Only his name is remembered, and no one else.
Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 but he did little work about it after that. A lot of work was done by an Ernst Chain, whose name shows his background, and a Howard Florey from Australia.
However very few people remember these two.
Chain was very dismayed to know that he had to share the fame with Fleming who had very little to do with penicillin after the initial discovery, but no one cared about whatever he had to say. They said Chain was lucky that his name was somehow remembered, unlike the old days.
I think the practice to add anyone who had anything to do with a paper began with the Rosalind Franklin controversy.
Rosalind Franklin took good photos, but that was basically the full extent of her contribution and there is no Nobel prize for photography (and she would not have won anyways since she died before Watson and Crick won).
However, gender issues intervened, and the practice of adding the names of anyone who had anything to do with a paper began, and all the papers had two dozen authors with no one really claiming responsibility.
Yesterday I argued that it was wrong to give credits to Tenzing Norgay, a sherpa and little more than a two legged pack animal, for scaling Everest.
The practice of recognizing contribution of those who made the most marginal input has greatly increased complexity.
At least this blog only shows Gail Tverberg’s name, not the names of frequent contributors, so it still practices the less complexity principle.
Haven’t heard from Norm in a while. Hopefully he’s alright. Eddy’s blog is also inactive. Maybe eaten by an Aborigine. They would be my best guess as to “sherpas” of OFW.
Someone said that Norm is commenting on another blog.
He challenged me on Honest Sorcerer today.
Fast eddy is at zero hedge
Isn’t Rosalind Franklin a very very typical product of western culture? No one else, say in Chinese civ., did anything of the sort? and why should we love and push this crap? thank goodness for chucky and others who started the process the world so desired.
It’s the same with movies.
The closing credits used to last 10 or 20 seconds.
Starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, Produced by Alfred Hitchcock, Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, an Alfred Hitchcock Production. Made at Pinewood Studios, Copyright MCMXXXIX
Nowadays they go on and on for 10 or 20 minutes.
Who styled Ms Bullock’s hair, who did Mr Cruise’s stunts, and who was the gaffer and who was the assistant gaffer and who was the gopher and who made the coffee and baked the donuts for the film crew………
Another interesting aspect is that the size and order of these credits, and how long they appear on the screen is the subject of legal negotiations and contracts.. complex stuff!
The Great Discontinuity Has Arrived
Why everything is breaking down and why all at once
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/the-great-discontinuity-has-arrived?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1498475&post_id=212514086&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=216vfx&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I am afraid I have come to a similar conclusion.
If Kevin Warsh raises interest rates, we are likely to see this start to unfold over months, I would guess.
Naive, meaningless word salad with some gullible attempts on a Misdirection Play (greetings to Br. reante).
Clearly spewed out by a humanitarian-educated Boomer.
CO2 is not the global warming culprit – H2O is;
Modern LLMs are nothing more, than a glorified AutoCorrect from 2026 a.d.;
Plumbers, Electricians, and to a lesser extent Carpenters – will verily consume their own, when the Collapse is here; Horse riders/whisperers and manual slave labor will replace everything we used to know;
primitive 4-bit LtG 1972 model is praised, while the actual drivel starts with declaring all models being wrong…;
Free exchange between the willing participants is a must for minimally prosperous remnants of the societies; Soviets tried to do away with barter, private entrepreneurship and then imploded on themselves – the Tragedy of the Commons, “Socialism” never worked and never will, Slavery/Feudalism on the other hand…
P.S. Not a single mention of “Slovakia”(!)
“Water vapour is the most dominant greenhouse gas. Water vapour is also the dominant positive feedback in our climate system and amplifies any warming caused by changes in atmospheric CO2. This positive feedback is why climate is so sensitive to CO2 warming.”?
https://skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-intermediate.htm
I’m not as worried about the climate and ecological situation as I used be because we are reaching overshoot and resource limits. For every degree celcius warming there is 7 percent more water vapour in the atmosphere. I want to quote something interesting from James Hansen’s book “Storms of My Grandchildren” (p. 253) – “Increased warming’s greatest impact on storms will occur through its influence on atmsopheric water vapor. THe amount of water vapor that the air can hold is a strong function of temperature. The fact that atmospheric water vapor increases rapidly with only a small temperature rise is the basis for the runaway greenhouse effect”.
No ‘runaway greenhouse effect’?
“Look at the chart of the interglacials. Note that at the Peaks of heating, it goes suddenly up and then back down. I think that is methane in play with Global Heating. It suddenly goes up as high as 17 C GAST and then comes crashing back down once the methane flow decreases.
The Interglacials are run away heating events that are started by the Milankovitch Cycles, but those cycles do not run the gauntlet with them..
What causes the sudden cooling? My speculation is that it is a massive increase in cloud cover caused by water vapor condensing up near the stratosphere. We are presently up 10 % in Water Vapor in the sky if we say we are at 1.5 C GAST rise. If we go up from 15 C present (approximately) to 16 C, we will go up another 7% in water vapor and if we go up to 17 C our total increase in water vapor will be 24%.
I am convinced that it would be idiotic not to believe that a 24% increase in Water Vapor would not cause significant increased cloud cover. If so, we could have that sudden rapid cooling that the interglacials always show us. Something causes that cooling, and I believe it is cloud cover. Remember Global Heating is approximately 0.2% of the escaping heat from the Earth being returned by the Greenhouse Gases. If we were to block out 2 percent of the sunlight with increased cloud cover the Earth would cool quickly as the interglacial charts show.”?
https://www.facebook.com/JoseBarbaNueva/posts/pfbid031Jv7pHJDUte4jFJENSpCmW7GB41f1ryZ1Wy5GQzgTue723PH4VoE8D2rzoP6zNwil
Kevin Warsh says that the Fed has a mandate to get the inflation rate back to 2%. He also thinks the economy is doing well now. This sounds a whole lot like raising interest rates to me. Raising interest rates will tend to bring down oil prices, but it will also push the economy toward recession, IMO.
WSJ:
https://d13np5hjz0o2l.cloudfront.net/out/v1/1caeaa62457d4faaa817f00119005d70/index.m3u8?start=1787925300&end=1787927134
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-live-fed-chair-warsh-delivers-keynote-address-jackson-hole
That would be very interesting. In line with things not being what they seem since it is supposed that Trump wants low interest rates and a hot economy. But also folks guess what? Once again compliance with the Greta mandate if the printing press is not given digital ink
But wouldn’t low interest rates and low oil be stimulating in its own right?
You need an increasing volume of oil. This is not happening.
I’m sorry I miss read what you wrote higher interest rates and lower oil because of a slowdown in the economy
I bet the reason Trump wants to rename Lake Ontario is the same as Gulf of Mexico. He wants to create a North American Union or Alliance and eliminate the borders. So, the names of Mexico and Ontario would make no sense beyond that point.
Clever eh?
And turning into the real deal Holyfield Anti Christ to his voters. lol
+ opening the border with Canada would mean all those millions of Indian immigrants they’ve let in over the last few years would auto become Americans citizens. And that could be why he has so many Indian’s working for him now, to normalize them? Along JD Eyeliner’s wife (obvious fake)?
Trump’s no fool and his needs are small.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MRWowww2lEI&pp=ygUZTGV4IGx1dGhlciBnZXRzIEF1c3RyYWxpYQ%3D%3D
People with large Ego’s are the easiest to fool since they’ll never accept they’ve been fooled. I learned this when I was younger working at AT&T cell phone store. If I lit up (industry slang for Activated) a new customer who was wealthy and mislead them somehow or inflated the sale with things they didn’t really need. They would never come back and return anything or complain. If I did that to a truck driver (who are some of best customers since they travel so much). The trucker once he figured it out would come back (a BeBack customer = industry slang a**hole). And want to cancel the line and return everything and would be asking for you personally to do it.
One can learn so much in hard-core sales, when the needs of the customer are the least important consideration: I had some interesting experiences doing that during vacations when I was a student.
Everyone tends to get sucked into the unethical ambience. Which I saw later in corporate life.
On the other hand, when I was in advertising, I was astonished when a major client bought from me, saying they knew it wouldn’t work, but they liked me and it was the client’s money anyway, so…..
I’m feeling all nostalgic now, I really do miss the expense account lunches: and no doubt will do so all the more when the dear departed FE’s ‘rat barbecue’ time arrives.
But Ontario is simply a Province in Canada.
The technocrats of the 1930s, amongst whom Musk’s grandpa was a leader, mapped out the world into ‘technates’.
https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/technocracy-inc-technate-of-america-1940/
Today’s ZH article is apropos of our Venezuela dollarization discussion.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/trump-close-massive-deal-seizing-stake-venezuelas-vast-oil-fields
“Summary:
* Caracas Mulls OPEC Exit
* U.S. is Nears Deal For 17 Venezuelan Oil Fields under 100-year Leases Operated by U.S. oil companies
* Trump Close To ‘Massive’ Deal For Seizing Stake In Venezuela’s Vast Oil Fields
…
A Venezuelan exit would not result in an immediate surge in crude production because of years of underinvestment, which is why the U.S. is seeking to take a large stake in the nation’s oil fields.”
Also interesting
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/2088401203805766103
“The U.S. invasion has turned Venezuela’s oil industry into a revenue stream for Washington. Economist Francisco Rodríguez says the Trump administration has charged Venezuela $4.7 billion, or 32% of its oil exports this year, to cover the cost of invading the country. “
Of course, it would be helpful for oil prices to be high to develop the field in Venezuela. We can cross our fingers.
Good lord, this was and is a total L for the developing world. If I were Russia and China I would make sure to develop proxies as good as Ukraine. But no, they don’t do this.
The death of the US informal Empire has been proclaimed all too soon.
Plenty of life in the old dog yet…..
Venezuela was actually justifiable from a security perspective just as other actions we see were. Venezuela had a close relationship with Iran and was soon to have shahed production. Had it armed up with precision shaheds capable of striking the USA in particular the Texas and Louisiana oil infrastructure it would have had a significant deterent. Precision being the key word when discussing the Shahed class of munitions.Venezuela was quickly becoming a forward operating base for hostile nations. Everyone knew it and no one was really surprised when it was stopped. No different from ICBMs in Cuba
Trump was not stupid enough to watch a battalion a month get trained hostile to US and in its backyard for eight years. That seems to be the one conciliatory action he was allowed that was favorable to the USA. And he had to do it with the arrogance and nastyness of his character of course.
If only there was not a sham facade and he had stopped there he might have been a decent if controversial president. He had other obligations to the Greta mandate that he had already started fulfilling with radical Tarrifs. Some Tarrif changes were definitely needed. Every other nation in the World has a general import tax for one making USA uncompetitive. It was the arbitrary radical and mercurial nature of Trump’s Tarrif changes that worked toward the end of supply chains and the Greta mandate. Along with the character he plays which has a generally nasty disposition.
Systematic fair and above all consistent reform of import fees was needed. Personnel vendettas and arbitrary actions work strongly against supply chains. Of course China was preparing for the end game of supply chain dominance for a long time while USA gave it everything as the Greta island of manufacturing of choice. Tarrifs were merely the cou d grace.Trump’s recreated the USA as a totally unreliable trading partner making decisions off the cuff that made very good progress for the Greta mandate. Only minimal essential supply chains are desired.
Clearly a end to industrial civilization is not wished just down sizing. What we witness is only the culmination of the Greta mandate. Preparation has been quite extensive. Thev USAs contribution as world police and provider of reserve currency continues and plays key roles in the transition to the Greta era.
The USAs last decades as world police. Enforcing Greta mandate. If the oil facilities in the gulf are destroyed no enforcement is needed. That’s not desired. A reduction not cessation. If cessation was wanted it would be done. Reduction requires enforcement as we enter the Greta era. The carrier groups can do that because over water they retain capabilities with no peer. And that’s all the Greta mandate really needs. There is no spice flow to speak of without ocean transit. This allows enforcement of oil transit metering and consumption reduction. We witness enforcement. All this investment in carrier groups while things like land based portion of the nuclear triad decline.
Greta!
Yes there is a “new deal” occuring but not the one the neo libs think. The energy pie just got smaller exactly like your food portions in the same container at the same price at the store. Every nation and energy pie slices just got smaller and there is bound to be some grumbling and acting out as Greta mandate is enforced.
Oil companies often/usually pay high tax rates, if the extraction is profitable. So on this basis, the 32% charge is not out of line with what, say, Saudi Arabia or UAE might charge.
But heavy oil is iffy. Its cost of production tends to be high, and its cost of refining is high. But it tends to provide a lot of diesel and jet fuel, which the US needs.
Trump and Venezuelan Oil: 65 Billion Barrels on Paper. Almost None in the Tank.
Anas Alhajji
Apologies for veering off-topic. The following video is not about and doesn’t even mention Slovakia!
Dolly Parton spent 80 years becoming the most trusted person in America. So why are millions of people still furious about one check she wrote in 2020 – and why does almost nobody know the real story behind it?
My two tribute videos about Dolly’s life, legacy, and caregiving story have gotten more than 20 million views in the past few days. But the most heated conversation in the comments isn’t about her music, her marriage, or her death. It’s her $1 million donation to COVID-19 research and her decision to get vaccinated on camera in March 2021.
So, I broke down three surprising things about Dolly and the COVID vaccine that almost nobody talks about – whether you supported the vaccines OR you deeply questioned them.
WHAT THIS VIDEO COVERS
1. HOW IT REALLY HAPPENED. It started with a minor car accident in Nashville in October 2013, not a pharmaceutical company. At Vanderbilt University Medical Center she met Dr. Naji Abumrad, a surgeon who grew up poor in the mountains of Lebanon while she grew up poor in the mountains of Tennessee. They became friends, and his son Jad later made the podcast “Dolly Parton’s America.” When COVID hit, Dolly called him, learned academic labs were short on funding, and wrote a $1 million check in April 2020. That created the Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund, which supported Dr. Mark Denison’s lab and the blood tests used to measure immune response in early Moderna trials. She bought no stock, signed no contracts, and made no money. Federal funding to Moderna through Operation Warp Speed totaled roughly $2.5 billion, making her gift a fraction of one percent.
2. THE “NAIVE OLD LADY” MYTH. I think this badly misjudges who Dolly was. In 1974, Elvis Presley wanted to record “I Will Always Love You” – but Colonel Tom Parker demanded half the publishing rights. Dolly, in her twenties, said no and cried all night. Eighteen years later, Whitney Houston recorded it, and because Dolly kept her rights, she earned millions – which she used to buy an office complex in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood she called “the house that Whitney built.” Not a woman who gets tricked.
3. WHY SKEPTICISM WAS NOT IRRATIONAL. Anyone who says the public had no reason to question the rollout is ignoring history: the 1955 Cutter Laboratories disaster, the abandoned 1976 swine flu campaign and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, congressional testimony in which Dr. Fauci said the six-foot rule “sort of just appeared,” internal emails about evading public records law, and the FDA’s expanded myocarditis and pericarditis warnings on mRNA vaccines. That pain is real, and I don’t think it has ever been adequately addressed.
I also cover Elvis Presley’s polio vaccination at the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, why public health has recruited celebrities for 70 years, and the contrast between Jonas Salk giving his patent away and the billions in vaccine profits.
://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO2o0QcHjq4
Tim Groves wrote: “Apologies for veering off-topic. The following video is not about and doesn’t even mention Slovakia!”
As the British Cultural Attaché to Slovakia, I have just received this message from His Royal Highness, the Archduke of Slovakia:
I am speaking to you from the cabinet room of the Slovak Parliament. This morning the Slovak ambassador in Japan handed Mr. Timothy Groves a final note stating that, unless we heard from him by 11 o’clock, Central European Cuckoo Clock Time, that he was prepared at once to cease his mockery of Slovakia, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Timothy Groves.
===============
Well, I have now just received news that the 17 Slovaks who think Slovakia is located in Eastern Europe have seceded and set up the breakaway Republic of SlowVakia. In response, rump Slovakia is debating whether to rename itself the Republic of FastVakia. I just hope you are pleased with yourself, Timothy Groves!
Well, if it’s war! I will have to mobilize the Rusyns. You’ve probably never heard of them, but MG knows them well. Their country is at the eastern end of the Carpathian Mountains not far from Castle Dracula.
I believe Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee used to drive their horses and hearses around the place on moonlit nights.
The territory where the Rusyans come from was part of Czechoslovakia. It was the fag-end of the country that was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, and it was historically known as Subcarpathian Rus’ or Carpathian Ruthenia.
These days there are probably more Rusyans in Slovakia than in their original homeland. They are treated well there, while in Ukraine-occupied Carpathian Ruthenia, they are suppressed, repressed, oppressed, and most recently press ganged. It’s a sad situation. Woody Wilson didn’t think it was worthwhile giving them a country, and Joe Stalin didn’t think they deserved a national identity either. They are a bit like Eastern, or Central European Cornishmen. they are classified as Eastern Slavs, by the way, not Central Slavs or Western Slavs.
Treachery, Sir! The head of the CIA had wondered why you were ordering thousands of bottles of rhesus negative. It just happens to be the favourite tipple of those evil Rusyns. May God have mercy upon your immortal soul!
Treachery
Made a monster out of me!
Tim, believe it or not there is a connection between Dolly and Slovakia
Country music and bluegrass have a surprisingly deep and active history in Slovakia, dating back to the mid-20th century.Origins Behind the Iron CurtainAmerican Wild West Fascination: Interest in the American frontier and cowboy culture started taking root in the region as early as the 19th century.Armed Forces Radio: During the 1950s Cold War era, fans in then-Czechoslovakia secretly tuned into American Forces radio broadcasts, where country and bluegrass music provided a popular escape.The 1970s–80s Boom: A broader folk and country music fad swept through pop culture behind the Iron Curtain, creating a dedicated local community of banjo players and acoustic pickers. You can read more about how these Appalachian sounds evolved in the region via PostIndustrial.Modern SceneToday, the genre thrives openly with local festivals, clubs, and Slovak artists performing original country, bluegrass, and tramp music (a Central European style of acoustic outdoor/camp music inspired by American westerns). Platforms like Soundcharts track ongoing streaming and YouTube engagement for local Slovak country acts.Watch a lyric video for the song “Slovenská Aljaška” by prominent Slovak country and western artist Allan Mikušek:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FShMDRQ66to&list=PLkY8-UOMZQ08FTfUOnVsCYTur0PpSDH-w
Watch what you mock, for it might come back to bite you..HEE HAW
I wouldn’t dream of mocking Slovakia, Mike. Gallant little country!
Or Albania! They’d beat me up!
As for the Baltic states, most people can’t even find them on a map of the Baltic. Or name all three of them. Or remember which one’s which.
Best be careful in how you write it. Might be taken in the wrong manner and we have another conflict to deal with here…oh my, and you being a Trump lover knows how much he loves to fight…no insult intended…really
Mike, I look back on my posts and I don’t see where I’ve have insulted Slovakia. Unless considering the place as Eastern Europe constitutes an insult.
However, you might want to check out what Dothk has said about the place, joking about the breakaway region of SlowVakia, and rump Slovakia debating whether to rename itself the Republic of FastVakia. This cavalier treatment of the country is the verbal equivalent of slapping it in the face with a wet fish.
Almost anything interesting that anyone writes might be taken the wrong way and someone is almost always going to be offended.
Also, quite frankly, I am tired of hearing from other people how I have been wrong about this or that for years, or how my comments might lead to a conflict, or how I’m a Trump lover. (How on earth did you come up with that one?)
So I’m thinking maybe it’s time for me to take a nice long break from posting here. I’ll do you all a favor and keep quiet and none of you will ever have to feel insulted any more. I know I won’t be missed.
Issac Newton did this, as did Charles Darwin, and Harpo Marx!
Like Newton, Darwin and Harpo, I am deeply wounded by negative feedback and lack of applause. Newton threatened to quit science altogether after early disputes, while Darwin suffered severe physical anxiety over potential controversy. When a a theater critic wrote that the young Marx Brothers were excellent, but the illusion was ruined whenever Harpo spoke, Harpo went silent on stage and film and stuck to miming and harping.
Newton hid his calculus and alchemy work for decades. Darwin kept his evolution theory secret for 20 years out of fear of public backlash. Whatever epoch-making discoveries Harpo might have made were lost to the world because he didn’t tell anyone about them for fear of being called dumb.
And all because of back-biting attacks from lame-brained status-obsessed mid-wit critics who have never had an original thought in their lives!
And now, if you don’t mind, I am going to sit in the corner for a while with a paper bag on my head.
El Duce DJTrump just lives his Eastern European Women….
in the 90s I spent time in Amsterdam while on business trips there. I always hung out near Leidensplein square. The fun thing was seeing all the various entertainment there. There was the Peruvian flute players, many many others. On one trip there was what I called the Hillbilly band. They looked and dressed like hillbillies, played banjoes, guitars etc. Real live European bluegrass. Pretty interesting to see that music and culture over there.
“The Collapse Indicator Model is an analytical framework that suggests major currency crises are historically preceded by seven specific signals. While the topic is frequently discussed in economic and geopolitical analysis (including the context of the Jim Webb Podcast featuring Larry Johnson), the model itself identifies the following criteria as precursors to collapse:
1. State Bond Purchases: The government or central bank becomes a primary buyer of its own debt.
2. Debt-to-GDP Ratio: Total national debt exceeds 100% of GDP.
3. Interest Burden: Net interest payments exceed 15% of federal revenue/income.
4. Foreign Withdrawal: International holders begin significantly reducing their holdings of the national currency or bonds.
5. Reserve Ratios: Declining foreign exchange reserve ratios.
6. Supervision Weakness: A degradation in financial oversight and regulatory standards.
7. Political Interference: Increased government intervention in monetary or financial policy.
According to analysis utilizing this model, countries like Turkey (2018), Venezuela (2017), Argentina (2001), and Sri Lanka (2022) exhibited high numbers of these indicators prior to their respective crises. The discussion often focuses on whether the current economic trajectory of the United States is hitting these markers (such as reaching the $40 trillion debt threshold and high interest-to-revenue ratios).”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omrGEYv8edg
The US 7/7?
Having 40trillion in debt when your economy is 20T isn’t a very big problem.
Yeah, but we’re winning!
This is Larry Johnson making these statements. The US may very will be experiencing these same issues now.
Of course it’s accelerating but we have a good bit of time. They are delaying it quite a bit. We will see what the spending habits of the maoists coming in are.
The debt will of course double. That’s not important. It’s the doubling time frame that’s important. If unfunded liabilities are counted we are well above double now. When those have problems being paid if they bring those on the books as sacred cows there might be issues.
As we approach 200 percent debt to GDP things will get quite dicy. Were a ways off. Some issues will arise as we proceed.
“The next lockdowns will be enforced by the Military. There is going to be a plandemic of the vaxxed which will coincide with the extraterrestrial event that is currently unfolding.”
https://x.com/WIZDOMETRY/status/2092816749666414993
This is silliness, for entertainment only.
Speaking of collapse (a favorite topic in this forum), the Nepal flood disaster happened at about 4000 meters elevation., the valley bottom where the glacier fell from about 5200 meters. 4000 is a lot of elevation, and sure enough there were hydroelectric dams down the river to turn that elevation into energy. Six dams were destroyed, presumably all the dams in that river. This is bound to accelerate collapse…
EROEI modelers assume that the dams will be available for a very long time. This may or may not be the case.
Bit of a set back.
https://youtube.com/shorts/mqY4ZTD4yAo?si=NFiyuXdU3sNUSUZP
Catastrophic set back overwhelms dam under construction in Nepal.
Apparently a senior military officer was car-bombed in Peter about 4 hours ago. I note that no Russian website has reported it so far. This could be the start of the “real dirty” war Ratcliff may have promised the other day.
I wonder if Putin will be forced to take decisive action.
I really can’t complain much anymore. Odessa has been closed and under the current bombing it is clear that Ukraine is struggling much more. Many big errors but mostly in the past.
BTW, with school starting in 5 days the second half of august has been traditionally a big driving period. And the gasoline supply has been tighter since Aug. 15. To their credit, they have not reduced the maximum buy (now at 60 liters), but the local station has gasoline like 20% of the time. At one point it lacked gasoline for 5 days. It is the only one open, excluding a local one which sells at 100 rubles a liter, as opposed to 63.5.
I make big expeditions to M-8 returning with 180 liters of diesel and 60 of gasoline (we are also furiously haying), but this is not a way to do things. The gasoline cost of gasoline is 10% or more, plus today they caught me filling the illegal canisters but they let me finish. Clearly they have gasoline but not enough to even cover a peak in demand.
More likely the two intelligence chiefs were discussing coordinatied efforts to keep their respective populations docile as joint reduction of oil consumption is implemented. “Real dirty” pantomime would fit that billing. Talking Greta shop and what not. The important thing is there is a narrative that presents a framework of normality that is being effected in a known manner.. as that becomes increasingly hard to present events that elicit reaction are useful. You keep them reacting. Conflict and anger allows channeling into normal perspectives.
I imagine coordination of the two efforts would yield much greater efficiency.
There remains to be explained the use of a cargo plane. can carry 77 tons. given that cars are available in moscow, ratcliff could have used the chance to test a chinese muscle car, he would have been pleasantly surprised. one other explanation is frozen bodies from the war.
I think Ivans explanation fits perfectly NATO personnel and or corpse from war exchange. Appropriate duty for director and appropriate aircraft. Nor would such a exchange be made public. Of course we will probably never really know within our lifetimes. Perhaps you if you are a younger man. These things are sometimes revealed eventually.
seems to be fake news. ah, telegram.
Is this true, or simply another version of “lots of ships have gotten through by turning off their transponders.” In the fog of war, the two sides are telling different stories.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Qatar-and-Kuwait-Restore-70-of-Pre-War-Oil-Exports-Through-Hormuz.html
Qatar and Kuwait have managed to boost their crude oil exports from the Strait of Hormuz to 70% of pre-war levels as they followed the United Arab Emirates in shuttling oil through the chokepoint and using ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, anonymous traders told Bloomberg on Thursday. . .
Thanks to the shuttle services and dark activity, total oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have now risen to about 7-8 million bpd, up from about 4 million bpd in the middle of July, according to Bloomberg’s trading sources.
The under-the-radar operations and the Gulf states’ creative solutions to the threats in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea have helped keep oil flowing, even if at much reduced rates compared to February levels.
The higher oil volumes exiting the Persian Gulf have kept benchmark crude oil futures in check despite the tightening global fuel markets.
I am now suffering from just fatigue or boredom. Exposing the lies .
” TankerTrackers.com counts shipments to the global market when they pass through the US blockade line, monitoring the Automatic Identification System signals of ships because of restrictions on timely satellite imagery. On that basis, flows over the past seven days stand at just 3.7 million barrels a day, Samir Madani, the firm’s co-founder says.— Bloomberg
Supposedly Bloomberg is publishing two contradictory estimates. My comment above claims oil flows of 7 to 8 million bpd.
It seems impossible that Hormuz is open. A guy at 30 meters elevation can see across. There is no fog this time of year. And surely there are drones everywhere and at night parts of the ship shines in the infrared. Hormuz is everything for Iran. The ships that do go through give relief to Iran’s friends. For most of the West it is as if it is closed.
As you have mentioned commercial trackers such as Kpler using satellite are reporting much lower traffic flow through the strait. It’s pretty amazing anything is transiting considering the plethora of anti ship missiles Iran posseses. Travel time for anti ship missile would be under a minute in the strait. Iran has only deployed light UAV attacks against commercial ships so far. This is optimistic. Certainly sinking a ship in the strait would discourage further transit. As always enforcement is the real communication. Ships are willing to risk such light enforcement. And who knows. A little baksheesh could be passing hands. It is the middle east. It appears a matter of degree. From some accounts any big VLCC are preferring ship to ship transfer out of Fujairah rather than running the gauntlet proper.
The navy carrier groups are preparing for extended deployments from here on out. Deployment in excess of 8 months appear the norm now. My belief is the uneasy radically reduced levels of transit being established are the new normal.
The real question is how much Iranian oil is being smuggled past the blockade down the coast to Pakistan to get rebranded. As such Bessents decree serves to stop leaks in the Greta mandate as does the efforts of both militaries.
IMO the Greta mandate will be the most influential thing we will experience within our lifetimes. What we see is everyone settling in for a extended possibly permanent status quo. Who is unhappy? No one. IRGC is not sinking ships. USA is not nuking missile cities. The true transition to lowered oil consumption lies ahead.
But I am afraid that the current approach is equivalent to trying to starve the Iranians out. This is a lot like starving the people of Gaza, or of Iraq. It hasn’t changed war outcomes.
However, if we have a world overpopulation problem, perhaps this is a way of addressing it. Lower oil consumption comes through lower population.
That’s what we are told. A lessening of standard of living is being applied and the Iranian people unhappy with this will overthrow the Islamic republic. Soldiers are not getting paid. It could be true.
In the meantime nations get by with less energy and energy income. That is the transition and trend. The remedy is being applied. We simply need to wait and cross our fingers.
When is that transition and trend not considered temporary? After 6 months (6 months now)? After six years? After six decades?
Maybe The Islamic Republic will crack. What does cracking mean? We have Syria as a example. Cracking means the military is so un trained and ill equiped modern warfare sweeps it aside. A modern well equiped force manifests competent in modern warfare enters the nation and defeats its military.
So all we need for the Islamic Republic to fall is significant time with effective blockade and sanctions to degrade their military in a significant manner and a modern military to manifest with sufficient numbers and superior in equipment and modern warfare to defeat their tattered remnants and equipment that has somehow been rendered irrelevant.
The dust being implemented in hardware and existential threat doctrine applied might be a tiny issue.
One might note that existential threat doctrine has resulted in a stand off and status quo currently considered permanent as ridiculous as any concept of permanence is.
In the mean time there is some energy pie distribution issues to be resolved and the status quo reached and the time frame this status quo persists is to be determined. Of course a bright future with energy abundance and affordability awaits us soon as the evil Islamic Republic and their third rate military falls.
Take a break if you need. Smell some roses. Enjoy some food. But don’t you dare exit for good.
“I am now suffering from just fatigue or boredom”
A bit of both surely and understandably so. Every week, multiple times some weeks, Iran do as they said they would and one of the Washington clown show pretends it’s the other way around.
I posted last week about this fiction and asked why, if it’s true were two of the the top three articles on Tradewinds about seafarers refusing to attempt it because it meant being hit, but the show stumbles on, as the audience are still willing.
Bessent was an obvious embarrassment the other day, comparing losing to Iran with the Normandy landings, then instantly backtracking when a journalist(now fired?) ridiculed the obvious stupidity.
Thankfully the Iranians are sharper of mind and Ghalibaf always enjoys the ease of returning a predictable US attack.
“Him: ‘Economic D-Day.’ Also him, five seconds later: “[lol] why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”
“Sir this ain’t Normandy, this is improv[ization] night and you forgot your own script.”
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/247249/Ghalibaf-scoffs-at-US-Treasury-dep-chief-over-his-rhetoric
Someone tell Bessent that sanctions haven’t worked for 50 years and now the world has witnessed the imaciated carcass that is US power projection, who does he think he’s kidding.
https://www.tradewindsnews.com/tankers/charterers-wary-of-iranian-blacklisted-shuttle-tankers-broker-braemar-says/2-1-2035123
China and Pakistan have both said not interested to the US and the Qatari PM is in Tehran today(a silent no).
Qatar and Iraq are both following Iranian instructions and payments(gratis for Iraq at present(mutual aid)), so getting some ff to market(UAE possibly, as the royal flight has made multiple visits to Tehran).
To put it simply, everyone wants to talk to Tehran, which paints us the truer picture.
Might it not be dawning on Bessent that a degree in Political Science and years in the cocooned and rather unreal world of hedge funds have not provided the best preparation?
Hold your horses Xabier, Operation Economic Outcast* has promised Normandy levels of operational scale and efficiency, so the first action was always going to set the scene for the future scale of assault. Normandy remember, so it’s going to be something no one will ever forget(or not).
“Washington bars Banque Misr’s UAE branch”
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-cuts-banque-misr-uae-from-financial-system-over-iran-sanc
Yes, a single branch of a bank that no one has heard of. I dread to look for Ghalibaf’s reply(assuming he’s stopped laughing).
* I’m not joking, they still haven’t learnt from previous embarrasing names, such as Operation Prosperity Guardian.
Matt Mushalik
08/26/2026
In Australia, the Energy Minister also assumes that the Middle East will return to normal.
I had to write this post:
25/8/26
Why does Energy Minister Bowen no longer disclose forward orders by fuel?
https://crudeoilpeak.info/why-does-energy-minister-bowen-no-longer-disclose-forward-orders-by-fuel
In this post I included a long video from Art Berman
I notice that since February, stocks of all types of fuel have held up pretty well in Australia. I would not listen to Art Berman’s view about the coming disaster. The coming disaster is recession, not high oil prices.
Well actually you both could be right… if war breaks out further oil will get expensive…
World tungsten supply seems to be very short.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-tungsten-scrap-export-ban-begins
The Trump administration’s export halt on tungsten scrap and shredded battery material took effect Thursday as the latest effort to retain critical supplies within the US. The measure comes as the US confronts a tungsten-supply crisis marked by limited to nonexistent domestic mine production and years of alarming dependence on China-dominated supply chains, even as Beijing increasingly uses critical-mineral exports as geopolitical leverage and curtails shipments abroad.
The Commerce Department directive prohibits exports of tungsten scrap and so-called black mass, the shredded remains of lithium-ion batteries that can be processed to recover lithium, nickel, cobalt and other valuable materials. The restrictions take effect today and will remain in place for one year.
The action follows President Trump’s executive order authorizing federal agencies to restrict overseas shipments of scrap containing recoverable critical minerals. Waivers will be considered only when companies can demonstrate “undue hardship” or “irreparable harm.”
As of 2025, the US had no mined tungsten production, while China produced 67,000 tons, nearly 79% of global output. Trade data from 2024 show that the US relied on imports for roughly half of its tungsten consumption.
In February 2025, China imposed export controls on selected tungsten products. Rotterdam prices have subsequently jumped nearly 800% since China limited exports of the industrial metal. This has only driven up tungsten and scrap prices.
Black mass and tungsten scrap will not generate profit so it will pile up somewhere, or dumped in the ocean or sent to China to reprocess. The USA is toast. But in the meantime there is a lot of looting to be done.
The economy rewards inexpensive resources. Recycling is often way too expensive to work. It takes fossil fuel resources to recycle. The whole system breaks down if inexpensive fossil fuels are not available to make the system work.
As far as domestic recycling goes, few people seem to catch on to the fact that a big truck coming every week to pick up the waste is both expensive and not very Green. And none of these trucks has ‘All Electric’ painted on the side….
There are several articles out now about the possibility of the US losing its entire electric grid, for up to 18 months, starting as soon as this winter. This seems extreme, but it gets the idea across. We should not count on the electric grid for the long term.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16062409/nationwide-blackout-18-months-power-grid.html
The United States is at risk of a nationwide blackout that could last 18 months, according to the former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Jon Wellinghoff became aware of the alleged vulnerability after a shooting at a Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s San Jose substation, according to The New York Times Magazine.
He conducted a power flow analysis that modeled the large-scale effects of knocking out the most critical substation in each of America’s three power grids: the Western, Eastern and Texas interconnections. He said this led him to discover just how easy it would be to cripple America’s power supply.
‘We came up with some very astounding numbers,’ Wellinghoff said. ‘If you knock out nine total substations among these three grids, you can black out the entire United States.’
It does not matter which nine substations are taken offline either, he noted, as long as each one is among the 10 most important for its region.
Alternatively, bad actors could blackout the three interconnections individually.
‘I mean, it’s not like there are particular substations,’ he explained. ‘You just have to figure out what are the top 10 critical ones in each of those interconnects – which to do that, it’s probably something that a bunch of 12 year olds with the Internet could do pretty easily.
There would need to be bad actors to take down the US grid. Of course, if we are at war, bad actors are a possibility.
“There are several articles out now about the possibility of the US losing its entire electric grid, for up to 18 months”
But after those 18 months, hey presto, you’d just switch it straight back on again – right? Wrong! Imagine everything else that would collapse without electricity for even the shortest time.
Good point! And now that this vulnerability has been pointed out, the possibility of a bad actor acting in this direction would seem to increase.
Drills and milling steel as well as the ubiquitous military applications.
They will need to get their hands on a good amount tungsten to gold-plate and deposit in Ft. Knox before they can authorize an audit there.
Now that’s recycling!
Contabilidad producción de petróleo y balance inventarios.
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/contabilidad-produccion-de-petroleo?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=6627814&post_id=212968697&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=216vfx&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Another Quark post:
Oil production accounting and inventory balance
This is a calculation of the amount of oil available, using the production numbers shown by OPEC and IEA data. Quark seems to say that these amounts suggest that there is a lot more oil out in the market than what most analysts assume. My view is that the world economy has been heading for recession. If recession is the issue, what the bombing may have done is mostly reduced unneeded world oil supply.
Some excerpts, near the end:
Overproduction before the conflict, falling demand, the absence of purchases from China, and increased US exports have managed to limit the damage caused by the closure of Hormuz, with a return to normality expected by July 2026.
The latest information acknowledges a higher flow than previously recorded, with a transshipment system involving the use of tankers from the countries in the area, supported by the US Navy (and probably with tailor-made insurance), complemented by ship-to-ship transfers outside the strait and with official insurance already in place. . .
Iranian oil continues to be affected by the US embargo, as OPEC figures show. While Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia continued to increase their production in July, Iran remained stagnant at 2.4 million barrels per day (with domestic consumption of approximately 2 million barrels per day).
It will take some time to know the real figures, but the trend is clear. Gulf countries are accepting the bombing of their ships in order to continue exporting without collapsing. The portion of the insurance that would have rendered the ships unusable has been covered, as I mentioned before, and the rest is the risk they are willing to assume.
We’ll see…
TALES FROM SLOVAKIA
By popular demand from all over the multiverse, I present some more interesting facts about this little known country.
The Velvet Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic. Czechoslovakia was then briefly renamed from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic to the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic.
In June 1990, Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946. On 31 December 1992, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two countries: the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The dissolution of Czechoslovakia occurred mainly due to national governance issues between the Slovaks and Czechs.
Slovakia introduced its new currency of the koruna in 1993. Their first coinage was quite attractive, and its design themes included Mount Kriváň and also the ruins of Devín Castle.
https://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,40843.0.html
Slovakia joined the European Union in 2004 and adopted the euro on 1 January 2009.
Nobody cares about Slovakia and their bearded woman.
I care and hope MG keeps posting here because Eastern Europe is one of the “hot spots” political on our planet.
It borders on the Ukraine and I hope MG can provide us all here how it’s affecting Slovakia, if at all.
Thank you for attention to this matter.DJT
PS It’s a beautiful land with beautiful people…some breadless
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IPMyejS7Xbk
Slovakia prefers to be thought of as being in Central Europe. The term Visegrád refers to two distinct entities: a historic town in Hungary and a political alliance of Central European nations that were previously communist.
The Visegrád Group (or V4) is a cultural and political alliance consisting of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It was established on 15 February 1991 in the Hungarian town of Visegrád, with the initial goal of fostering cooperation in building democratic structures and free market economies. All four member states are part of the European Union, NATO, and the Three Seas Initiative, and the group focuses on regional cooperation in energy, defence, and cultural affairs.
Wikipedia
History of Ethiopia
Ethiopia is one of the oldest countries in Africa;[1] the emergence of Ethiopian civilization dates back thousands of years. Abyssinia or rather “Ze Etiyopia” was ruled by the Semitic Abyssinians (Habesha) composed mainly of the Amhara, Tigrayans and the Cushitic, Oromo and Agaw. In the Eastern escarpment of the Ethiopian highlands and more so the lowlands were the home of the various Muslim groups that formed the Ifat and Adal sultanates such as the Argobba, Afars, Harari/Harla and Somalis. In the central and south were found the ancient Sidama, Semitic Gurage and Omotic Wolaita, among others. One of the first kingdoms to rise to power in the territory was the kingdom of Damot in the 10th century BC, which established its capital at Yeha. In the first century AD, the Aksumite Kingdom rose to power in the modern Tigray Region with its capital at Aksum and grew into a major power on the Red Sea, subjugating South Arabia and Meroe and its surrounding areas. In the early fourth century, during the reign of Ezana, Christianity was declared the state religion and not long after, the Aksumite empire fell into decline with the rise of Islam in the Arabian peninsula, which slowly shifted trade away from the Christian Aksum.[citation needed] It eventually became isolated, its economy slumped and Aksum’s commercial domination of the region ended.[2] The Aksumites gave way to the Zagwe dynasty, who established a new capital at Lalibela before giving way to the Solomonic dynasty in the 13th century. During the early Solomonic period, Ethiopia underwent military reforms and imperial expansion, allowing it to dominate the Horn of Africa.
Main article: Ethiopia in the Middle Ages
Main article: Zagwe dynasty
Baptism of Iyasu Christos, Yemrehana Kresos made in the Zagwe period
About 1000 (presumably c. 960, though the date is uncertain), a Jewish princess, Yodit (Judith) nicknamed “Gudit”, conspired to murder all the members of the royal family and establish herself as monarch. According to legends, during the execution of the royals, an infant heir of the Axumite monarch was carted off by some faithful adherents and conveyed to Shewa, where his authority was acknowledged. Concurrently, Gudit reigned for forty years over the rest of the kingdom and transmitted the crown to her descendants.[30] Though parts of this story were most likely made up by the Solomonic dynasty to legitimize its rule, it is known that a female ruler did conquer the country about this time.
At one point during the next century, the last of Yodit’s successors were overthrown by an Agaw lord named Mara Takla Haymanot, who founded the Zagwe dynasty (named after the Agaw people who ruled during this time) and married a female descendant of the Aksumite monarchs (“son-in-law”) or previous ruler. Exactly when the new dynasty came to power is unknown, as is the number of kings in the dynasty. The new Zagwe dynasty established its capital at Roha (also called Adefa), where they built a series of monolithic churches. These structures are traditionally ascribed to the King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, with the city being renamed Lalibela in his honour; though in truth some of them were built before and after him. The architecture of the Zagwe shows a continuation of earlier Aksumite traditions, as can be seen at Lalibela and at Yemrehana Krestos Church. The building of rock-hewn churches, which first appeared in the late Aksumite era and continued into the Solomonic dynasty, reached its peak under the Zagwe.[citation needed]
The Zagwe dynasty controlled a smaller area than the Aksumites or the Solomonic dynasty, with its core in the Lasta region. The Zagwe seem to have ruled over a mostly peaceful state with a flourishing urban culture, in contrast to the more warlike Solomonids with their mobile capitals. David Buxton remarked that the Zagwe achieved ‘a degree of stability and technical advancement seldom equalled in Abyssinian history’. The church and state were very closely linked, and they may have had a more theocratic society than the Aksumites or Solomonids, with three Zagwe kings being canonized as saints and one possibly being an ordained priest.[35]
Foreign affairs
edit
Unlike the Aksumites, the Zagwe were very isolated from the other Christian nations, although they did maintain a degree of contact through Jerusalem and Cairo. Like many other nations and denominations, the Ethiopian Church maintained a series of small chapels and even an annex at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[36] Saladin, after retaking the Holy City in 1187, expressly invited the Ethiopian monks to return and even exempted Ethiopian pilgrims from the pilgrim tax. His two edicts provide evidence of Ethiopia’s contact with these Crusader States during this period.[37] It was during this period that the Ethiopian king Gebre Mesqel Lalibela ordered the construction of the legendary rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.
Later, as the Crusades were dying out in the early fourteenth century, the Ethiopian Emperor Wedem Arad dispatched a thirty-man mission to Europe, where they travelled to Rome to meet the Pope and then, since the Medieval Papacy was in schism, they travelled to Avignon to meet the Antipope. During this trip, the Ethiopian mission also travelled to France, Spain and Portugal in the hopes of building an alliance against the Muslim states then threatening Ethiopia’s existence. Plans were even drawn up for a two-pronged invasion of Egypt with the French King, but nothing ever came of the talks, although this brought Ethiopia back to Europe’s attention, leading to the expansion of European influence when the Portuguese explorers reached the Indian Ocean.[38]
The Church of Saint George, Lalibela and a panel painting inside depicting Saint George slaying a dragon; it is one of eleven monumental rock-hewn churches built in Lalibela, Ethiopia that were allegedly sculpted after a vision by the Zagwe-dynasty ruler Gebre Mesqel Lalibela (r. 1185–1225 AD), in which St George instructed him to do so.[39] The city of Lalibela was reestablished as a symbolic new holy site, following the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslim forces of Saladin in 1187 AD, yet archaeology reveals the religious structures to have been built between the 10th and early 12th centuries AD, with perhaps only the last phase carried out during the 13th century AD and reign of Gebre Mesqel Lalibela.[40]
Early Solomonic period (1270–16th century)
edit
Lebna Dengel, nəgusä nägäst (Emperor) of Ethiopia and a member of the Solomonic dynasty.
Around 1270, a new dynasty was established in the Abyssinian highlands under Yekuno Amlak, with aid from neighbouring Makhzumi dynasty deposed the last of the Zagwe kings and married one of his daughters.[41] According to legends, the new dynasty were male-line descendants of Aksumite monarchs, now recognized as the continuing Solomonic dynasty (the kingdom being thus restored to the biblical royal house). This legend was created to legitimize the Solomonic dynasty and was written down in the 14th century in the Kebra Negast, an account of the origins of the Solomonic dynasty. Under the Solomonic dynasty, the chief provinces became Tigray (northern), what is now Amhara (central) and Shewa (southern). The seat of government, or rather of overlordship, had usually been in Amhara or Shewa, the ruler of which, calling himself nəgusä nägäst, exacted tribute, when he could, from the other provinces. The title of nəgusä nägäst was to a considerable extent based on their alleged direct descent from Solomon and the queen of Sheba; but it is needless to say that in many, if not in most, cases their success was due more to the force of their arms than to the purity of their lineage.[42] Under the early Solomonic dynasty Ethiopia engaged in military reforms and imperial expansion which left it dominating the Horn of Africa, especially under the rule of Amda Seyon I. There was also great artistic and literary advancement at this time, but also a decline in urbanisation as the Solomonic emperors didn’t have any fixed capital, but rather moved around the empire in mobile camps. Under the early Solomonic dynasty monasticism grew strongly. The abbot Abba Ewostatewos created a new order called the Ewostathians who called for reforms in the church, including observance of the Sabbath but was persecuted for his views and eventually forced into exile, eventually dying in Armenia. His zealous followers, also persecuted, formed isolated communities in Tigray. The movement grew strong enough that the emperor Dawit I, after first trying to crush the movement, legalized their observance of the Sabbath and proselytization of their faith. Finally, under Zara Yaqob a compromise was made between the new Egyptian bishops and the Ewostathians at the Council of Mitmaq in 1450, restoring unity to the Ethiopian church.[43]
In around 1380, Dawit I campaigned against Egypt, reaching as far north as Aswan.[43] He initiated this campaign in an attempt to assist the Coptic Christians of Upper Egypt who he thought were being oppressed under Muslim rule and he felt he had the duty to protect them as he saw himself as the protector of Orthodox Christianity and the Copts in Egypt. In response, the Emir forced the Patriarch of Alexandria, Matthew I, to send a deputation to Dawit to persuade him to retire back to his kingdom. “There seems to be little or no doubt that, on the eve of the advent of the Burji dynasty of Mamluk Egypt, King Dawit had led his troops beyond the northern frontiers of his kingdom, and created much havoc among the Muslim inhabitants of the area who had been within the sphere of influence of Egypt since the thirteenth century.”[41][failed verification] The Emperor had a much friendlier relationship with the Sultan’s successor, for according to the medieval historian al-Maqrizi, Dawit sent 22 camels laden with gifts to Berkuk, the first Sultan of the Burji dynasty.[43]
During his first years on the throne, Zara Yaqob launched a strong campaign against survivors of pagan worship and “un-Christian practices” within the church. Those who admitted to worshipping pagan gods were publicly decapitated. He also took measures to greatly centralize the administration of the country, bringing regions under much tighter imperial control. The Adal Sultanate would then conduct an invasion of the province of Dawaro. However, the Emperor successfully repelled this invasion in the Battle of Gomit in 1445. In 1456,[44] Zara Yaqob founded Debre Berhan after witnessing a miraculous light in the sky, which he interpreted as divine approval for his persecution of pagans. He ordered the construction of a church on the site and established an extensive palace nearby, along with a second church dedicated to Saint Cyriacus.[45]
Relations with Europe and “Prester John”
edit
Zara Yacob’s letter sent to the Pope Nicholas V at the Council of Florence
Yeshaq I made the earliest known contact from post-Axumite Ethiopia to a European ruler. He sent a letter by two dignitaries to Alfonso V of Aragon, which reached the king in 1428, proposing an alliance against the Muslims that would be sealed by a dual marriage, requiring Infante Peter, Viceroy of Sicily to bring a group of artisans to Ethiopia, where he would marry Yeshaq’s daughter.[41] It is not clear how or if Alfonso responded to this letter, although in a letter that reached Yeshaq’s successor Zara Yaqob in 1450, Alfonso wrote that he would be happy to send artisans to Ethiopia if their safe arrival could be guaranteed, for on a previous occasion a party of thirteen of his subjects travelling to Ethiopia had all perished.[41]
Zara Yaqob sent delegates to the Council of Florence in 1441 and established ties with the Holy See and Western Christianity. They were confused when council prelates insisted on calling their monarch “Prester John”. They tried to explain that nowhere in Zara Yaqob’s list of regnal names did that title occur. However, the delegates’ admonitions did little to stop Europeans from referring to the monarch as their mythical Christian king, Prester John.[41][46][47]
He also sent a diplomatic mission to Europe (1450), asking for skilled labour. The mission was led by a Sicilian, Pietro Rombulo, who had previously been successful in a mission to India. Rombulo first visited Pope Nicholas V, but his ultimate goal was the court of Alfonso V of Aragon, who responded favourably. Two letters for Ethiopians in the Holy Land (from Amda Seyon and Zara Yaqob) survive in the Vatican Library, referring to “the kings Ethiopia.[41]
Towards the close of the 15th century, the Portuguese missions into Ethiopia began. Among others engaged in this search was Pêro da Covilhã, who arrived in Ethiopia in 1490, and, believing that he had at length reached the far-famed kingdom, presented to the nəgusä nägäst of the country (Eskender at the time) a letter from his master the king of Portugal, addressed to Prester John. Covilhã would establish positive relations between the two states and go on to remain there for many years. In 1509, Empress Dowager Eleni, the underage Emperor’s regent, sent an Armenian named Matthew to the king of Portugal to request his aid against the Muslims.[48] In 1520, the Portuguese fleet, with Matthew on board, entered the Red Sea in compliance with this request, and an embassy from the fleet visited the Emperor, Lebna Dengel, and remained in Ethiopia for about six years. One of these ambassadors was Father Francisco Álvares, who wrote one of the earliest European accounts of the country.[49][50]
The Ethiopian-Adal War (1529–1543)
edit
Main article: Ethiopian–Adal war
Anachronistic painting of the Sultan of Adal (right) and his troops battling Emperor Yagbe’u Seyon and his men
Between 1528 and 1540, the Adal Sultanate attempted, under Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi, to conquer the Ethiopian Empire. Entering, from the low arid country to the south-east on the pretext of a Jihad, encroached upon much of the Ethiopian plateau, forcing the Emperor to take refuge in the mountain fastnesses. In this remote location, the Empress turned to the Portuguese for military assistance against Ottoman guns. João Bermudes, a subordinate member of the mission of 1520, who had remained in the country after the departure of the embassy, was sent to Lisbon. Bermudes claimed to be the ordained successor to the Abuna (archbishop), but his credentials are disputed.[42]
In response to Bermudes message, a Portuguese fleet under the command of Estêvão da Gama, was sent from India and arrived at Massawa in February 1541. Here he received an ambassador from the Empress beseeching him to send help against the Muslims, and in the July following a force of 400 musketeers, under the command of Cristóvão da Gama, younger brother of the admiral, marched into the interior at first were successful against the enemy; but subsequently defeated at the Battle of Wofla (28 August 1542), and their commander captured and executed.[42] The 120 surviving Portuguese soldiers fled with Queen Mother Seble Wongel and regrouped with Ethiopian forces led by the Emperor to enact several defeats on the Adal over late 1542 and early 1543.[51] On February 21, 1543, Al-Ghazi was shot and killed in the Battle of Wayna Daga and his forces were totally routed. After this, quarrels arose between the Emperor and Bermudes, who had returned to Ethiopia with Gama and now urged the emperor to publicly profess his obedience to Rome. This the Emperor refused to do, and at length, Bermudes was obliged to make his way out of the country.[42]
Oromo Expansion
edit
Main article: Oromo Invasions
King Susenyos I receives the patriarch of the Latins.
The Oromo Invasions were a series of encroachments in the 16th and 17th centuries by the Oromo people from Southern Ethiopia to more northern regions. The migrations had a severe impact on the Solomonic dynasty of Abyssinia, as well as an impact on the recently weakened Adal Sultanate. The migrations concluded in around 1710 when the Oromo conquered the kingdom of Ennarea in the Gibe region.[citation needed]
In the 17th century, the Ethiopian emperor Susenyos I relied on Oromo support to gain power and married an Oromo woman. While initial relations between the Oromo and Amhara were cordial, conflict erupted after the emperor tried to convert the Oromo to Christianity.[52] Many Oromo entered in emperor Susenyos’ domain in response.[52]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, much of the Oromo people gradually underwent conversion to Islam, especially around Harar, modern Arsi and modern Bale. The Oromo Muslims regarded the Imam of Harar as their spiritual guide while retaining some of their original culture and socio-political organisation. Scholars believe the Oromo converted to Islam as a means of preserving their identity and a bulwark against assimilation into Ethiopia.[52]
The Oromo also formed political coalitions with previously subdued people of Ethiopia, including the Sidama people and the locals of Ennarea, Gibe and Kingdom of Damot.[52]
Screeds about Ethiopia? This is severely off-topic. I think your dog must have posted it. If so, I would never trust him again. 🙁
You Slovakians don’t like Ethiopians? I thought this was a cultural exchange blog now.
Fascinating reading, but I don’t have the time to wade through it all now. So I think I’ll wait for it to come out in paperback.
Dothk is MG? And how do you know this? Are you MG doth k too?
I am Dothk. I am not MG, nor is he impersonating me. But I am wondering just what YOU are smoking right now.
Dothk is the same dude as Demiurge, surely.
Unless an AI has cloned him.
We are a very finite world, commenter-wise, at OFW.
Me and Kulm, we both care…
“Nobody cares about Slovakia and their bearded woman.”
I’ve never heard of such a woman. Please elaborate.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L7DqtCDZnV0
Weird!
India’s maize market is undergoing a structural shift.
Around 37% of maize production is now reportedly moving into ethanol — directly competing with poultry for feedstock.
The numbers tell the story:
🌽 Maize prices: ~₹14,000/t → ₹26,500/t in 3 years
📈 Nearly +20% in just 5 months
🥚 Egg prices: +35–40% YoY
🐔 Maize accounts for 65–70% of poultry production costs
⛽ Maize-based ethanol: ~1 MMT (2022) → ~17 MMT now
🎯 Potentially 25 MMT by 2030
And India’s export surplus is shrinking.
Once a regular maize exporter to Bangladesh & Vietnam, India has increasingly turned to imports — with FY25 imports hitting a record 1 MMT.
Current imports are around 500,000 tonnes, and could rise further if domestic production fails to keep pace.
This is no longer just an ethanol story.
It is becoming a three-way competition for maize:
ETHANOL 🆚 POULTRY 🆚 EXPORTS
And that competition could keep maize prices structurally elevated.
https://x.com/gaurav_kochar/status/2092885915618205700/photo/1
This is a problem for poor people.
I might be mistaken, but I believe Kulm might have a very useful, healthy advice to all the poor people on this Planet.
And so do I.
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/europe-maize-market
(worst since 1980) https://www.luxtimes.lu/europeanunion/drought-drives-french-harvest-rout/159833343.html
(half gone) https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/french-drought-could-halve-maize-crop-deepen-eu-harvest-losses-2026-08-14/
..
.
That above first listed [report-summary-prediction] is now history.
This season weather / heat wave will also affect maize production.
And in turn exports from Europe to the global markets.
Also UKR as producer-exporter is out of the picture now, the sea ports are unobtanium, ~500x rail locomotives gone, and trucks won’t handle it alone..
__
PS rode around maize field – and it’s not a complete catastrophe but evidently some portions of the fields are heavily damaged – way smaller for this time of the year
__
PS2 neighbor’s ducks ( hobby/household not biz-scale establishment ) are now eating-gorging on various insects and slugs near the wet portion of the forest.. after the recent rain wave
I notice that the US corn crop is called “subpar” in a Seeking Alpha story. It won’t bring up the total, much.
Brace for higher food prices… US Corn Belt farmers are facing their worst crisis in 40 years thanks to the Iran war.
– Diesel is up ~100% ytd
– Fertilizer surged ~100% during planting season
= Production costs are exploding
The Corn Belt accounts for ~80% of US corn production, and ~40% of domestic corn use goes directly into livestock feed.
Higher corn costs -> higher feed costs -> higher food prices.
The Hormuz crisis is cascading through global supply chains…
https://x.com/ekwufinance/status/2093034333044953498/photo/1
Repeat .
2026 The Oil Crisis .
2027 The Food Crisis .
2008 until whenever this ends: the too much debt crisis (and perhaps too many people)
Most estimates on food production mention something like ….20% less fertilizer=20% less food. I think it will be much worse. Herbicides will either cost 2x or be unavailable. Farm crops will be overwhelmed by weeds without herbicides. This will make the net food production much lower.
U.S. DISTILLATE stocks have depleted by 17 million barrels since the war with Iran started compared with an average seasonal drawdown of less than 1 million barrels in the previous ten years. As a result, stocks had fallen to just 103 million barrels on August 21, the lowest for the time of year in records dating back to 1982:
https://x.com/JKempEnergy/status/2092924712087122360/photo/1
The graph, showing the EIA comparison of current distillate stocks to the five year average, is scary.
“But right in the right in the gun sites here uh for Iran and right in the gun sites is is the UAE
34:24
and Dubai. Uh I mean the UAE in the last week even before Bessant um uh has has spoken they’ve already said they were
34:33
cutting these ties. Well that correlates strongly with the new military leadership in Iran threatening Gulf
34:41
States. you get in bed with America and you physically materially cooperate, we’re going to slug you. And I’m saying
34:51
that target number one that’s emerging in the Persian Gulf is I don’t know what
34:57
your address is, Mario, but I’m just saying I wish I don’t want I’m not trying to, you know, but it’s it’s just
35:05
the case. It’s going to be the UAE. It’s going to be Dubai. It’s going to Abu Dhabi. It’s going to be Google. It’s
35:12
going to be meta. Uh this is not just about they’re already laying out the the Iranians the target set here and it’s
35:20
not good for people that think of themselves as the civilians in um the
35:26
UAE. Uh and it’s because we’re going after the civilian economy in Iran.
35:33
We’re not just going after the IRGC.
35:38
You still have a concern for some form of ground troops inside Iran or you think Oh, sure. Oh, this is how you get this is the road to ground uh escalation.”?
https://www.youtube.com/live/V4Afj-8x0EY
The name of this video is “TRUMP’S SANCTIONS “THE ULTIMATE ESCALATION TRAP”, WAR NOW IMMINENT – w/ Prof. Robert Pape”
Prof. Pape starts off (at 0:58) saying:
You are right to be worried, Mario.
Sanctions are just another escalation trap and they’ve been an escalation trap since World War I. This is not a new thing. This is not just about Iran.
When you look at the whole video, it is clear that sanctions have been tried over and over again. Since World War I, they have never worked. They tend to kill huge numbers of civilians–500,000 in Iraq for example. They lead to escalation. Pape’s study says that they are never an off-ramp. Each leader says, “These are the most draconian sanctions in history.”
He predicts that Iran will learn to work around the sanctions. It will work around sanctions, using the land borders. Neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan and eventually China will be brought into this. Countries everywhere will side with the US or with Iran. Pape doesn’t say this will become a world war, but he seems to suggest that this the direction it would go.
One of the things Prof. Pape points out is, “The Israelis never admitted they were doing genocide in Gaza.” Sanctions, with the indirect impact of killing millions of people (mostly civilians) goes on over and over, everywhere. If Iran wants a nearby target for bombing, UAE with its ties to the US is close for a bombing target.
I feel as though I’ve been re-learning military history thru Prof. Pape. I remember Gail you mentioning that the Brits likely ignited WWI because they reached peak coal and its my understanding the Germans were a big threat to them. In this video he talks about the Brits embargoing Germany killing around 800,000 people if I remember correctly. Also, I didn’t realize the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan was part of a plan to occupy them? (if I understood correctly) And going back to the 2 gulf wars, Pape said that the 1st war against Iraq was considered a success as the USA got the Iraquis out of Kuwait and there were very few American body bags. In another Pape video if I can recall correctly, the 1st Gulf war in the 1990’s showcased new precision weapons that had scared both USSR and China and the latter subsequently reduced their armed forces as they could be just sitting ducks. Because of this innovation, the Europeans reduced their military spending thinking that the US had their back (But today of course all of this has now changed). But then we started the embargoes and the “no fly zones” which we just bombed Iraq anywhere they could be bypassing the embargo thru other countries. He said that Iraq reached around 60% “no fly zone”. And when this didn’t work, we invaded Iraq with ground forces in the 2nd Gulf war. I’m hoping to get more details from the 2nd Gulf war from future Pape videos as there are still some things that are unclear to me. I’m under the impression that 2nd Gulf war was a failure. I haven’t heard Pape say this. I’m hoping more details come in future videos.
Nepal had a flash flood which swept a few thousand donkeys
https://youtu.be/Liyd81PRbOc?si=R5JiJaYZpRVTpnFx
No one bothered to count the population of the himalaya valleys but around 1950 it had perhaps 3 million
Now it has 30 million.
The sole contribution of Nepal to human civilization is Tenzing Norgay assisting Sir Edmond Hillary on claiming the Everest for the 2nd time.
George Mallory and Andrew Irvine scaled the Everest for the first time in 1924 but they died on the descent.
The only reason it is not recognized is because if it is recognized it eliminates the ‘contribution ‘ of Tenzing Norgay, which is the sole contribution any Nepali had ever made in the history of humankind, proving that the Nepali are completely useless for anything. (Some might say Buddha is a Nepali, but he had nothing to do with the current people living in Nepal, mostly of Tibetan origin.)
The sherpas are basically two legged donkeys used in the himalayas, and it was wrong for Sir Hillary to give any kind of credit to Tenzing. It is like Amundsen giving credits to the sled dogs who helped his sled to reach faster than Robert Scott.
Instead of giving the sled dogs the credit, Amundsen rewarded them accordingly by shooting them and using their meat on the way back.
Hillary should have done the same to Tenzing, push the two legged donkey under the crevice gently and denying that the Nepali, who saw the mountain for thousands of years but never bothering to scale them, had any credit on scaling it.
It was wrong to give any credit to peoples who had no place belonging there.
You throw out all these insults about other ethnicities but are too cowardly to reveal your own. So come on, own up!
Dothk – English male. “White”, but no lily-white. 😉
Our chum Kulm, who never ceases to entertain us with his unorthodox views and burning hatreds, is I believe an Asian of some kind.
A self-hating one apparently: and what did his landowner ancestors do except exploit their poor suffering peasantry?
Contribution to civilisation – Nil.
X – East-Saxon, Norse, Basque, Navarrese, Old Burgundian-Provencal, Poitevan and, I hope, a dash of Welsh!
Scatter my ashes on Rhinog Fawr, Snowdonia! But not just yet……
As Xabier says, s/he might be a self hating Asian. If not, the word mongrel might be a better fit.
She’s most likely of Polish origins Aravind.
No idea about the interbreeding, but mixed breeds are generally of a happy disposition.
But Kulm, you may want to consider that it’s not the fault of the Sherpas who are treated like donkeys by the idle, rich, useless “adventurers” who have no meaning or justification to their lives and so have to pursue these follies to become heroes and monuments in their minds and justify the reason for their existence. The only monument they leave is all their trash strewn at the camps along the ascent.
The quiet respect should be for those Nepalese who have quietly lived there for centuries, before the “ecoarrogance’ of the white man. While it is true that “the third world has been forever chasing the white man” (see my earlier link https://alt-market.us/the-third-world-is-forever-chasing-the-white-man/) I have to call a spade a spade on this one. It’s been the white man’s turn to shit all over the place, not the illegal immigrants. On a larger scale, polluting manufacturing and mining are done our tof sight, oit of mind in foreign countries. While the benefits of modernization have accrued, there is a balance.
It’s a hard life for Nepalese ( I have visited there) and they are easily exploited by the wealthy useless westerners and succumb to becoming mules. But if I had any say, I would say that any mountain climber who thinks he must climb Everest to satisfy his need for justification for his existence and to find the meaning of his useless life would have to carry his own shit up the mountain and back down, not the sherpa, and would have only a weight allowance for water. If he weighed less on the return, then he would be charged a heavy dumping fine for his self-indulgence.
Yes many/most of these types are beyond pathetic.
One could sort of rather admire guys traveling the world on bicycle with just few spare underwear in the backpack-racks.
Although, they admittedly use all the civ-comforts around the route when available, camping-hostels, satnav into mobile screen, .. But their garbage stream is apparently lower vs these hyper-egoing Everest-ians..
I did six Himalayan bike expeditions, starting in the mid 1980’s. Here is a video I did, many photos are from the Langtang region where the landslides happened, I broke three ribs there. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1570476569786931
Nice. Adventurous. THREE broken ribs is a bit extravagant, though. Me, I’m very risk-averse. I’d have been scared of the yetis.
Well I got 6 more broken when my ram, rammed me. But interesting that DRB said about the dams being wiped out. It was a Swiss engineer that came to my assistance, and told me that his trip was to determine if it was suitable for a hydro dam, no, he said.
Wow!
Benign monarchies get a bad rap.
At least these people are gaining experience living in other geographies and will increase their chance of survival when the thing hits the fan
The Nepali people (there are a bunch of tribes who had nothing to do with each other) are generally lazy, unenergetic and not really interested upon improving their lot.
It was wrong to give them any credits and now they act as if they own these mountains when they had no role exploring them.
Without the climbers their standard of living will go down much further since their rock soil does not really support too many people
ALERT ; Another is on the way in 72 hours .
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/china-flags-new-upstream-risk-to-nepal-flood-rescue-efforts-11965910
I asked Grok about how we know Mallory and Irvine reached the summit of Everest. Grok told me:
We don’t know that they reached the summit. That is still an unsolved mystery, and the first confirmed ascent of Everest remains the one by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953.
Mallory and Irvine were last seen alive around 12:50 p.m. on 8 June 1924 by teammate Noel Odell, high on the Northeast Ridge and appearing to climb strongly toward the top (the exact rock step Odell saw is still debated). They never returned. Mallory’s body was found in 1999 at roughly 8,155–8,160 m (about 690–800 m below the summit), with injuries consistent with a serious fall. A boot containing a foot and a sock labeled “A.C. Irvine” was discovered in 2024 on the Central Rongbuk Glacier far lower down (likely moved by ice flow). No camera or summit photograph has ever been recovered.
Circumstantial clues cut both ways and remain inconclusive:
In favor of a possible summit: Odell’s sighting, the absence on Mallory’s body of the photograph of his wife that he intended to leave on the top, and the theoretical possibility that they carried extra oxygen and pushed late.
Against: their late start/timing, the technical difficulty of the Second Step with 1920s gear and oxygen systems, deteriorating weather (including a documented pressure drop), the locations of Irvine’s ice axe (found in 1933) and Mallory’s body, and the lack of any physical evidence left higher up that later climbers would have noticed.
Without the missing Vest Pocket Kodak camera (and recoverable film of the summit), or some other definitive artifact, there is no proof they stood on top. Most modern analyses treat a successful summit as possible but unproven and, on balance, less likely. The question of whether they made it remains open.
They did scake Everest
Thr only reason it is suppressed is because it eliminates the only notable thing a Nepali did in the entire existence of the Nepalese people.
I’ll take your word on that, Kulm.
We all know that AI systems and the official records are often biased.
By the way, the most famous person that Nepal has a claim on in history was the Buddha. He was born in Lumbini is located in the Rupandehi District of southern Nepal, just a few miles from the Indian border.
I don’t know if there was a Nepalese identity back in those days, or what ethnicity the Buddha considered himself to be.
Hey reante,
Greetings. Came across a review of this book today which looks just like your sort of ideas. I assume like me you believe in the freedon of ideas, everything in the public domain
The Hidden Hand/Wealth, Power, and Control from Pharaohs to Corporations,by Eric Daniel BuesingM/I>
https://joesurkiewicz.substack.com/p/the-hidden-handwealth-power-and-control
I’d like to read it and am sniffing around for a downloadable copy …
Affordability becomes ‘in your face’ once blockchain tech and stuff like KYC (know your customer) carbon credits and digital ID’ s are fully implemented. It starts with a ‘small materials’ on your invoice, it ends with $430,- a head for a flight from Atlanta to New Dork. It’s very close now.
“Affordability” == Seneca Cliff, welcome to the future, ‘Murcan…
What’s in a name. A Murcan is just another shamename trying to avoid what is inevitable. Greetings from Holland.
I expected that. No more theft. No more slack
And any peasants caught poaching will be shipped off to Blighty—to be renamed Pan Demons Land. That frightening prospect should serve as an effective deterrent.
I’ve eaten whey protein for decades. Up 250 percent since March.
https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B000QSNYGI
Iran states there will be no passive opening of Hormuz with transit as the defacto condition. USA must explicitly honor the MOU as perceived by Iran for Hormuz to open. From Irans perspective this means USA must agree that Hormuz has no international status it is soley the territorial waters of Iran and Oman not just by withdrawal but explicitly. Iran is insisting Hormuz is leverage for them to be used as they wish at any point in time not establishing a rigid toll structure.
Greta!
https://x.com/IranIntl_En/status/2092579895469633543
The wording of the Iranian decree seems to be this:
Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz unless the United States accepts Tehran’s conditions and returns to an agreement reached with Oman, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The spokesperson said Iran and Oman had held talks over the past month and reached understandings on their respective shares of the strait’s waters and revenues.
“If the United States stops obstructing and returns to the memorandum, we can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within the framework of the agreement,” the spokesperson said. “If the United States does not accept our conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened under any circumstances.”
He said Iran controlled passage through the waterway and that no hostile military vessels were inside the Persian Gulf, adding that opposing warships were at least 400 km (250 miles) from the strait.
The spokesperson also said waters near Oman were under Iranian control.
The US needs to make some big changes.
Looks to me like we are not going to see the strait transit any time soon We can all stop holding our breath. Tank bottom and beyond.
The media sphere seems to confirm this. Suddenly everything is oh it won’t be so bad.
China is using less
There are other repositories. (Where?)
SPR structural will be just fine.
In other words calm the public mode. And a easing of criticism of Trump. The adjectives used to describe Trump’s actions are increasingly charitable. Poor guy made a boo boo. All of which indicates to me the reduction in oil we see across the globe is not changing any time soon. Now the public just needs to be calmed as we experience the consequences whatever they may be. I just don’t believe 20 percent of oil and much larger in a wide variety of critical materials can occur without significant consequences. Changes may need to occur as you state but I see no indication that is what is desired. What is desired is a relatively calm transition to the new reality as we transition to it. I believe this transition to be measured in years if not decades.
The world economy can shrink, somewhat, if it has less fuel. It can produce fewer goods and services. In some ways, it won’t be so bad, but it will likely cause a financial system collapse, I am afraid, because the financial system requires growth to repay debt with interest. The financial system collapse will push governments toward collapse, as well. All of this will be quite a change from what we are used to.
If the past is any guide, there will be no collapse. The elite don’t want to be cannibalized. The system will do what it did in 2008-2010 times 10: rewrite rules, ring fence debt and create new instruments, like the stablecoins, to soak up and etherize the debt. And the system will struggle along as long as there are enough energy inputs available to keep it running. The periphery will starve, the core will decline. Until it inverts and the periphery eats the core.
Has anyone thrown out an idea of what the head of the CIA was doing in Russia the other day? My first and gut reaction is that things aren’t going well for Ukraine. Any ideas?
An ultimatum was delivered… is the rumour. Apparently, it infuriated the Russians, and now American flags on US Diplomatic buildings have been taken down around Moscow. That’s all anyone knows.
I’m of the opinion that WW3 went from cold to hot in 2020. When covid could no longer be used we moved on to Ukraine. I think they’re close to collapse currently (i feel sorry for them being used as cannon fodder in the name of empire) and when they started to falter we did Iran. I think Ukraine will not survive the winter. What could the Ultimatum have been? Reante’s Nuclear scare? Isn’t it funny in a way that the government by the people, and of the people, deems it necessary in so many instances not to inform the people? I hate being treated like i’m stupid and can’t understand their motivations. I get why they feel that way though after watching people in 2020. Contempt makes sense.
” WSJ theorizes that the visit may have something to do with the US’s intelligence that Russia is preparing for some large-scale new campaign:
The U.S. has collected intelligence showing Russia’s early preparations for a possible military mobilization in Ukraine and plans for testing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s resolve, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Analysts said Ratcliffe could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to deliver a warning. “It could be to say, ‘We know what you are thinking about doing, and you better not,’” said Beth Sanner, a former U.S. deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration. “It could also be about the Iran ceasefire and putting someone else in the discussion,” she said, adding Ratcliffe might also touch upon the Kremlin’s support for Iran following a new U.S. sanctions campaign against the regime. ”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/cia-directors-mystery-moscow-trip?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=212736376&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
If the hand hypothesis is correct, this could be a choreographed episode on the way to the big nuclear scare, The USA has nothing but nukes now. It could also have been about threatening kaliningrad. The fact is that some processes have been put in motion within Russia, which were not in the western plans. The result will be underwhelming as the CIA was caught out of its depth, and Ratcliff as probably delivering the ultimatum in a way that grated nerves. Is the hand using the CIA for any input data?
I am happy to tell you all that Meloni is not participating in the coalition of the willing activities. If this is her one accomplishment, I will take it.
Planting the seeds:
https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/27/russia-considering-using-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-29474729/
The flags are not down but at half mast because of Dolly . Trump’s orders .
Maybe US came to warn Russia that since both sides quietly realize that US is militarily and economically impotent with respect to being to bully Russia, that the US will have to resort to nuclear weapons if the US does not get what it wants. A good reason for Radcliffe’s ass to be kicked out and the door slammed behind him on his hurried way back to Lithuania for his connecting flight.
A cargo plane? A big one. What got traded?
So I see in the telegram space that the cargo was to transport several cars so that Ratcliff and his entourage could drive to the Kremlin. Presumably some of the residents CIA guys did the driving because Moscow driving is not for everyone. But don’t they have their own cars that they could use?
Other hypotheses circulating. 1) this was about releasing some CIA guys recently captured in Ukraine. 2) this was about finding a nice Ukraine off ramp for the Donald. 3) find out what the price tag was for abandoning Iran.
The USA embassy had to provide drivers but couldn’t provide a vehicle?. I’m thinking a big package was coming going or both. Possibly the usual pallets of green paper to pay for services or goods. Or a Hormuz deal. Putin has way more sway than any gulf state..
Or Greta bobble heads. Who knows.
Scott Ritter blows up the WSJ narrative .
According to Ritter, the head of the CIA was sent to Russia to ask his Russian counterpart, “How can we bring this war against Ukraine to an end?” Ukraine is doing very badly–losing way too many male soldiers. Deaths are way outnumbering births. Now Ukraine will need to send women to the front lines, where they will also die.” Ukraine is without money, but all of the European countries are in too poor shape to lend money to help the Ukrainians.
“2:34 the CIA director does not issue ultimatums to heads of state. Understand that. It just doesn’t happen.”?
#1 – Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Disgusting if so.
Would actually explain why they brought vehicles instead of having the embassy bring them. The vehicles would return to the C17, allowing transport of individuals, hidden from view.
Rattcliffe endured a cargo plane across the pond to to travel in a vehicle of his choice a hour into Moscow? I suppose that is the most secure. No tarmac walking.
A vehicle doesn’t exactly fit into a diplomatic atache case immune from examination.
Ritter say they met for four hours. They are chatting about something.
Like a sequal of RED? Remember that time I shot you in Bulgaria.
Ok. So your director of the FSB. Out of the blue your arch nemesis appears surprisingly flying not only himself but a vehicle of some sort into Moscow on of all things a cargo plane.Relations are the tinyest bit rocky.
This thing does not fit into the diplomatic atache case to say the least. You are under no obligation to not subject it to examination. You are in fact under considerable obligation to subject it to examination as a function of duty. Under no circumstances would it be allowed to leave the plane let alone enter Moscow or a secure facility suitable for meeting.
There was no vehicle on that cargo plane but it either delivered or received cargo.
Or they received personnel (dead or alive) for pickup.
Ivan that fits perfectly. Certainly there have been numerous reports of NATO personnel casualties and prisoners in the Ukraine war and it would be a appropriate role for the director to facilitate a prisoner and or corpse exchange and a appropriate aircraft to do so. Such a exchange would also be covert to the public.
A.i. may not have caused a revolution but did cause a stir inside an executive or two on wall st.
Adjusted for SPR releases, American net imports of crude oil are at highest levels in 5 years as strong refinery utilization meets flatlined production!
During this same timeframe, 55% of 🇺🇲 SPR has been drained and 80% of DUC’s in Permian + Eagleford + Bakken are gone. 🛢💰
https://x.com/WhiteTundraSG/status/2092608003241660879/photo/1
Without the SPR and the Drilled but Incomplete Wells, the US will quickly be in tough shape.
What do you mean by drilled but incomplete wells ? Why are they incomplete?
They were drilled when the price of oil was quite high. Then the price of oil suddenly dropped. The owners of the oil wells said to themselves, “There is no point in pumping the oil out now. We will just temporarily “cap” the well, and start actual production later, when the price is higher.”
There has been a long enough time now since prices dropped and wells were capped, so that the benefit of these saved-up wells is pretty much gone.
This is one chart I found:
http://mercercapital.com/media/smykq3nu/drilled-but-uncompleted-wells.png
What does the price need to be? It seems like once they are discovered and drilled the main expense is there. Also don’t they have a timeline of when to get it out? What does the price need to be?
Venezuela abandoning the bolivar and adopting the U.S. dollar would be the biggest currency switch since the advent of the euro, Hanke says
https://fortune.com/2026/08/22/dollarization-venezuela-bolivar-currency-switch-hyperinflation-oil-revenue-debt-steve-hanke/
Only 30 million people in a globe of 8.3 billion when the world is already largely dollarized. Not important. Their oil will require investment before output can be increased. No near-term boon.
How many people they have doesn’t matter. (they can always add more from other places)
The worlds largest oil reserves being held in dollars does matter.
Yes indeed, if such dollarization of Venezuelan oil ( both real and imagined reserves ) step is real this will be great [ momentary trick ] helping to postpone globo energy/fin chaos for a while..
My point is that only once those barrels are being extracted and creating demand for dollars do they reinforce USD reserve status. That will require significant investment and at least several years, by which time reserve status may be on an irrecoverable decline.
True, by the time they boast production the world won’t need it anymore. (they don’t realize this though).
Whether Venezuela’s oil resources are really reserves or way too expensive to extract is an issue, however.