By Bill Rees: On the Virtues of Self-Delusion—or maybe not!

Dr. Bill Rees, Professor Emeritus from the University of British Columbia, gave a presentation on our overshoot predicament earlier this month to a zoom meeting of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR).

I’m a longtime fan of Dr. Rees and consider him to be one of the most aware and knowledgeable people on the planet.

This is, I believe, the best talk I’ve seen by Dr. Rees and he covers all of the important issues, including topics like overpopulation that most of his peers avoid.

Presentations like this will probably not change our trajectory but nevertheless I find some comfort knowing there are a few other people thinking about the same issues. This can be a very lonely space.

The Q&A is also very good. I found it interesting to hear how much effort Dr. Rees has made to educate our leaders about what we should be doing to reduce future suffering. He was frank that no one to date, including the Green party, is open to his message. Not surprising, but sad. Also inspiring that someone of his stature is at least trying.

Summary

Climate-change and other environmental organizations urge governments to act decisively/rapidly to decarbonize the economy and halt further development of fossil fuel reserves. These demands arguably betray:

– ignorance of the role of energy in the modern economy;

– ill-justified confidence in society’s ability to transition to 100% green renewable energy;

– no appreciation of the ecological consequences of attempting to do so and;

– little understanding of the social implications.

Without questioning the need to abandon fossil fuels, I will argue that the dream of a smooth energy transition is little more than a comforting shared illusion. Moreover, even if it were possible it would not solve climate change and would exacerbate the real existential threat facing society, namely overshoot.

I then explore some of the consequences and implications of (the necessary) abandonment of fossil fuels in the absence of adequate substitutes, and how governments and MTI society should be responding to these unspoken biophysical realities.

Biography

Dr. William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus, and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning.

His academic research focuses on the biophysical prerequisites for sustainability. This focus led to co-development (with his graduate students) of ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative tool that shows definitively that the human enterprise is in dysfunctional overshoot. (We would need five Earth-like planets to support just the present world population sustainably with existing technologies at North American material standards.)

Frustrated by political unresponsiveness to worsening indicators, Dr. Rees also studies the biological and psycho-cognitive barriers to environmentally rational behavior and policies. He has authored hundreds of peer reviewed and popular articles on these topics. Dr. Rees is a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada and also a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute; a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the OneEarth Initiative; and a Director of The Real Green New Deal. He was a full member of the Club of Rome from 2013 until 2018. His international awards include the Boulding Memorial Award in Ecological Economics, the Herman Daly Award in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with his former student, Dr. Mathis Wackernagel).

I left the following comment on YouTube:

I’m a fellow British Columbian and longtime admirer of Dr. Rees. Thank you for the excellent presentation.

I agree with Dr. Rees’ prescription for what needs to be done but I think there’s a step that must precede his first step of acknowledging our overshoot predicament.

Given the magnitude and many dimensions of our predicament an obvious question is why do so few people see it?

I found a theory by Dr. Ajit Varki that provides a plausible explanation, and answers other important questions about our unique species.

The Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory posits that the human species with its uniquely powerful intelligence exists because it evolved to deny unpleasant realities.

If true, this implies that the first step to any positive meaningful change must be to acknowledge our tendency to deny unpleasant realities.

Varki explains his theory here:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-030-25466-7_6

A nice video summary by Varki is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgYqW2Kgkg

My interpretations of the theory are here:
https://un-denial.com/denial-2/theory-short/

https://un-denial.com/2015/11/12/undenial-manifesto-energy-and-denial/

918 thoughts on “By Bill Rees: On the Virtues of Self-Delusion—or maybe not!”

  2. So I haven’t watched “Don’t Look Up” yet but I’ve been reading the reviews and I’m pretty sure I already know one of the things my review someday will say.

    The producers think they’re clever and aware by satirizing our species’ denial of climate change.

    Thing is, low cost energy depletion is going to take out modernity and most of our population long before climate change.

    Once again, the amazing power of human denial as explained by MORT is on full display.

    Even those who think they see reality, don’t.

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    1. I really enjoyed the movie. I did think it funny that the makers of the film are concerned about climate change, and yet chose to burn lots of carbon making a dumb movie that avoids the issue they really care about, while making fun of people for exhibiting the same behaviour. how meta! I wonder if Leo is still flying private jet to climate change conferences…

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    2. My family and I got COVID last week (all doing fine, minor cold) so I had time to watch it. I agree with all the criticisms about the movie, but I also enjoyed it more than I would have thought. Hipocrisy, denial, etc. is all true – but you can only ask for so much if you’re looking for entertainment these days!

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      1. Glad your covid experience was mild. Same experience for a close relative. Maybe we’ll get lucky and omicron will be the vaccine we hoped for at the beginning.

        I will watch DLU. I find it remarkable that almost everyone that worries about our future is oblivious to the threat that is the most certain, the closest, and the most destructive to modern civilization. FYI, I lump war in with peak oil because it will probably be energy induced scarcity that causes a nuclear exchange.

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        1. Yes, I agree with you fully. Doesn’t the US posturing (like we are still the predominant superpower) toward Russia about Ukraine seen kinda stupid/suicidal? I imagine we would sanction them for an invasion and they would turn off all the oil/gas to Europe. Hypersonic weapons anyone?
          Nukes in response?
          Scary indeed.
          AJ

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  3. There were a lot more impressive space achievements this year than this 60+ year old brain was aware of until now. Viewed from an un-denial perspective, we’re celebrating our ever more creative ways of burning the remaining fossil energy even faster, without even dimly acknowledging the consequences.

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    1. It’s commonly said the Arctic is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Try doubling that.

      “We demonstrate the Arctic is likely warming over 4 times faster than the rest of the world, some 3-4 times the global average, with higher rates found both for more recent intervals as well as more accurate latitudinal boundaries.”

      Peter Jacobs NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

      https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/898204

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  5. A good example of the fragility of poor countries to energy depletion and price inflation.

    Subsidies were removed from propane used for car fuel causing the price to rise from US$0.14 to $0.28 per liter in Kazakhstan resulting in violent riots with many dead.

    Imagine what would happen if they had to pay US$0.69 per liter of propane that I pay here in Canada.

    https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-explainer-why-did-fuel-prices-spike-bringing-protesters-out-onto-the-streets

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    1. Nice tweet by Tim Garrett on the events in Kazakhstan
      “Wondering if mass riots are accounted for in Integrated Assessment Models that prescribe carbon pricing”

      Also news of a new podcast with him on Planet Critical today.

      Also Art Berman has a fantastic article imo on overshoot, population renewables etc. Well worth a read
      https://www.artberman.com/2022/01/05/the-climate-change-trip-to-abilene/

      Too much information-hard to keep up. I think I need to make a list of essentials (starting with denial of course) to which I always go back to, in the face of the avalanche of information. It sometimes feels like we’re amusing ourselves to death not with trivialities, as feared by Neil Postman, but with information although, of course, that is probably trivial in the scheme of things as well.

      Hopefully James has forgotten to pay as usual or even better is preparing a new article and needs a bit of peace and quiet.

      The population of Kazakhstan tripled between 1950 and 2020 which is about par for the course.

      The Methane chart you posted is pretty eye-catching in a bad way. If the permafrost is giving up its methane reserves because of the heat up North then that seems to be a bit of a problem .

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      2. Thanks for the Art Berman link. Very good.

        I think Berman underestimates the oil supply decline rate once the debt bubble pops, and the export land model bites, and social unrest disrupts infrastructure, and wars begin over what remains, but Berman is much more knowledgeable than me so I may be wrong.

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      3. I listened to Garrett’s interview.

        His use of the term “capitalism” muddies and confuses the issue. Capitalism includes among other things property rights, contract law, and an opportunity for personal reward. The issue that is central to Garrett’s thesis is the monetary system.

        We should focus on whether it is possible to switch from a debt backed fractional reserve monetary system (which every country uses and requires infinite growth) to an energy backed full reserve system (which might be sustainable).

        Every “ism” (communism, socialism, fascism, etc.) uses a debt backed fractional reserve monetary system and they’re all unsustainable. Capitalism is the best system for achieving growth when there are no limits to growth like affordable energy depletion and climate change.

        The core issue now is how to shrink the economy without destroying civil society and worsening our destruction of the planet’s ecosystems.

        https://www.planetcritical.com/p/the-thermodynamics-of-collapse

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    1. After the tide went out we had a beachcombing bonanza today. Most amount of driftwood anyone has seen here.

      I got over a dozen 16′ 4×4’s. I bet they’re worth $100 each. A bundle may have broken loose from a barge.

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    1. I liked el gato in this piece. He lays out all the data and then says Sweden’s ACM (all cause mortality) is down and they are vaxing about the same as their neighbors. AND like a true scientist he says he doesn’t know why and solicits ideas from readers. Seems like a true lack of hubris there!
      AJ

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  8. Some more hope from el gato.

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/is-omicron-mild

    Notes from a call with Edward Ryan MD, Director of International Infectious Disease at Massachusetts General Hospital:

    1 Close to 100% of the positive cases in MA are Omicron. Delta is almost completely gone from New England.

    2 This surge will peak sometime between 1/10 and 1/21 and then begin a quick downhill journey of two to four weeks.

    3 We will end up with a 20-50% positivity rate.

    4 February will be clean up mode, March will begin to return to “normal”

    5 Omicron lives in your nose and upper respiratory area which is what makes it so contagious. It isn’t able to bond with your lungs like the other variants.

    6 The increased hospitalizations should be taken with a grain of salt as most of them are secondary admissions (i.e. people coming in for surgery, broken bones, etc. who are tested for COVID)

    7 We won’t need a booster for omicron because they wouldn’t be able to develop one before it’s completely gone and we’re all going to get it which will give us the immunity we need to get through it.

    8 COVID will join the 4 other coronaviruses we deal with that cause the common cold, upper respiratory infections, RSV, etc. It will become a pediatric disease mainly affecting young children with no immunity.

    9 40% of those infected will be asymptomatic

    10 Rapid tests are 50-80% sensitive to those with symptoms, only 30-60% sensitive to those without symptoms

    11 Contact tracing is worthless because we’re all going to get it and there’s no way we could keep up with it.

    12 We are fighting the last war with COVID and should be pivoting back to normal life, but society isn’t quite ready for it yet.

    13 There is no need to stay home from work or to be a hermit unless you’re immunocompromised or 85 or older, but he does recommend staying away from large gatherings for the next six weeks.

    14 Spring/Summer will be really nice

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  9. More good news and some really good insights into the flawed thinking of humans from el gato.

    In summary, there’s a good chance the pandemic is over, and there’s a near certain probability that most citizens will not have learned a single useful thing from their covid experience.

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/covid-policy-and-the-topology-of

    human fear response in a pandemic is a function of gompertz expression of disease prevalence and this predictably leads to panic right when things start getting better.

    people then mistake whatever their panic reflex was for an intervention that saved them.

    it becomes ingrained superstition and forms a kind of societal antigenic fixation whereby failed responses are mistaken for solutions.

    this is how a society trades science for superstition.

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  11. Anyone feels that the house of cards (also known as economy) will be able to keep up another year? Or will reality set in? I’m a permabear for at least a decade, so a fool in other words, but I’m amazed that somehow there is not a global depression by now.

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  12. Rob I’d just like to thank you for putting me onto the great cholesterol con. I love cream. All these years of guilt and moderation are now over. I actually feel cheated in a way. I keep thinking how the hell did I get sucked in by all the low fat bullshit!

    Along these lines I’ve been listening to prof Tim Noakes the last couple of days and found him very interesting. Here’s a link to one of his many YouTube lectures.

    It’s amazing the lengths people in certain professions with opposing (wrong) views have gone to try to discredit him.

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    1. Thanks for the tip on Noakes, I’ll check him out.

      The more I listen to Dr. Malcolm Kendrick the more I respect him. He is a wise truth seeker.

      I’ve lost what little respect I had for the health care profession. Their leaders are not very intelligent, nor open minded to new evidence, nor ethical.

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  14. The word is getting out that Dr. Fauci & Co. knew more than they were letting on:

    Click to access Letter-Re.-Feb-1-Emails-011122.pdf

    and EcoHealth Alliance was playing fast and loose and not following the rules:

    If it wasn’t for conspiracy theories, I would have no idea what was really going on…

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    1. Thanks I saw that. It’s mind boggling that the guy in charge of fixing the problem is also the guy that was unethically or illegally involved in creating the problem. Shame on our leaders for not acting to restore integrity.

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      1. Part of the problem is that our leaders have convinced themselves that they are part of a meritocracy. They have become leaders because they are the smartest in the “room”. So they trust the “scientists” in the same “room” because they must be the smartest too. Sadly they just got to where they are by luck, perseverance and maybe enough intelligence to be dangerous – AND a heaping big dose of denial (on anything that challenges consensus thought). Sad state of affairs.
        AJ

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        1. Any non-catatonic citizen still in possession of their faculties ought to be smelling a veritable mass grave of rats by now. There are too many contradictions in the “N-arrative”. For an interesting take on the bizzaro world of what we are supposed to perceive as ‘leaders’ and ‘officials’ and ‘experts’ in this insane trajectory try reading Julius Ruechel’s interpretation. This is no longer about “Public Health” and I am increasingly questioning whether it ever was.

          Who’s in Charge? The Rule Makers, Power Brokers, and Influencers of Lockdown Wonderland
          https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/04/whos-in-charge-rule-makers-power.html

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            1. And by definition the issuance of EUA for the ‘vaccines’ required that there not to be any alternative interventions – passive or active. I think we’re way beyond the threshold of mere incompetence or blundering stupidity here as some kind of logical explanation, although that still plays a part in it. We’re in a kind of “seal the exits” scenario.

              I don’t know if you pay attention to any form of MSM. But if you don’t, you should, if only because that is what the mass of your fellow citizens are tuned in to. And when I take the pulse of public sentiment as promulgated and portrayed by the MSM, I can only conclude that I no longer recognize what I though was my country. People, leaders, institutions – have all gone batshit crazy.

              Mattias Desmet’s explanations for all this are becoming more intelligible by the day.

              some pertinent examples:

              https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2022/01/09/time-to-raise-the-price-for-those-who-still-wont-get-vaxxed.html

              https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/tasha-kheiriddin-the-unvaccinated-must-be-deterred-from-harming-others/wcm/ca262dfd-962e-4a8d-b2ed-a91905d73f2d

              https://www.thesuburban.com/news/city_news/police-raid-hockey-game/article_8f065919-3358-5010-84dc-179cb529aeca.html#tncms-source=article-nav-next

              https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/first-reading-ottawas-180-degree-turn-on-mandatory-vaccination

              https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-government-orders-three-jewish-orthodox-schools-in-montreal-to-shut-down-1.5734616

              and here is a short, patronizing (and dare I say chilling) clip from our provincial health minister

              https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=2355009

              and so on.

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              1. Thanks. Every once in a while I dip into MSM like my local CHEK TV to see what they are thinking. It makes me sick to my stomach. They are unthinking morons who believe the latest cute cat story should be the headline. Zero discussion of data or evidence nor probing questions about anything.

                I observe that my few close friends and family mostly agree with what MSM is telling them. I guess it’s a good thing I’m comfortable with my own company.

                El gato wrote a interesting piece today making the case that citizens cannot blame our leaders and MSM. We are receiving the leadership and information we demanded. We need to look in the mirror for whom to blame.

                https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/we-wont-get-normality-back-without

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          2. I liked Ruechel’s piece. The problem he has identified in this “Alice in Wonderland” that we find ourselves in with Covid, is that the powers that be can’t afford to not stay in power because if they are out of power they may be held to account for their actions. Here in the U.S. I’m sure that there are plenty of republicans who would want to impeach Biden or prosecute Fauci for what they have done, re: Covid. So, one suspects that something that distracts from Covid shenanigans might be in order: War with Russia (or China or both), economic collapse/depression. Both those would make Covid a fast forgotten memory. IMHO.
            AJ

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      2. Here’s a strange thing: If you dig in to our literary inheritance as a culture, you’re likely to unearth gems like this which fortify the old adage “Life imitates art”.

        This passage, more or less well known, is a prime example:

        “Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity. ”
        ~ George Orwell (aka Eric Blair), 1984

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    1. With gas supplies so dependent on Russia, I would think there would be more push back in Europe to any U.S. war posturing with Russia over Ukraine? But then Europe might fell like they are between a rock and a hard place?
      AJ

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  21. Yeah I’m not either although that is by luck really. If I’d lived in Western Australia or Victoria I’d have been forced to. If I’d worked in health care, aged care or been a teacher I’d have been forced to. It’s totally fucking nuts.

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  22. Good news. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick has decided to end his self-imposed silence and is writing about covid again.

    In case you don’t know Kendrick, he has shown that all of the advice given by our health profession on cholesterol and heart disease is wrong.

    https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2022/01/14/dont-just-do-something-stand-there/

    OODA stands for. ‘Observe, Orient, Decide Act.’

    It was developed by the Air Force Colonel, John Boyd.

    What John Boyd taught was simple. If you don’t know what is going on, do not make immediate decisions. First, work out what is happening, then orientate yourself – before you decide what to do. That way you avoid most, if not all, stupid mistakes. For many years, without knowing anything of OODA my own medical strategy has tended towards ‘don’t just do something, stand there.’

    Unfortunately, the medical profession has always battled ferociously against doing nothing. It has always greatly favoured the ‘You must do something, anything, I don’t care what it is so long as it sounds like a good idea. Chaaarge!’ Strategy.

    This, the ‘do something strategy’, has always proven far more seductive, and almost always wins. It is easier to attract followers to do something, than to than to do nothing. Why not whack a hole in the skull and split the brain apart to cure various mental diseases? Why not… indeed. Ah yes, the good old pre-frontal lobotomy.

    The best part of the essay was the following open letter from Professor Ehud Qimron, head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University and one of the leading Israeli immunologists:

    Ministry of Health, it’s time to admit failure

    In the end, the truth will always be revealed, and the truth about the coronavirus policy is beginning to be revealed. When the destructive concepts collapse one by one, there is nothing left but to tell the experts who led the management of the pandemic – we told you so.

    Two years late, you finally realize that a respiratory virus cannot be defeated and that any such attempt is doomed to fail. You do not admit it, because you have admitted almost no mistake in the last two years, but in retrospect it is clear that you have failed miserably in almost all of your actions, and even the media is already having a hard time covering your shame.

    You refused to admit that the infection comes in waves that fade by themselves, despite years of observations and scientific knowledge. You insisted on attributing every decline of a wave solely to your actions, and so through false propaganda “you overcame the plague.” And again, you defeated it, and again and again and again.

    You refused to admit that mass testing is ineffective, despite your own contingency plans explicitly stating so (“Pandemic Influenza Health System Preparedness Plan, 2007”, p. 26).

    You refused to admit that recovery is more protective than a vaccine, despite previous knowledge and observations showing that non-recovered vaccinated people are more likely to be infected than recovered people. You refused to admit that the vaccinated are contagious despite the observations. Based on this, you hoped to achieve herd immunity by vaccination — and you failed in that as well.

    You insisted on ignoring the fact that the disease is dozens of times more dangerous for risk groups and older adults, than for young people who are not in risk groups, despite the knowledge that came from China as early as 2020.

    You refused to adopt the “Barrington Declaration”, signed by more than 60,000 scientists and medical professionals, or other common-sense programs. You chose to ridicule, slander, distort and discredit them. Instead of the right programs and people, you have chosen professionals who lack relevant training for pandemic management (physicists as chief government advisers, veterinarians, security officers, media personnel, and so on).

    You have not set up an effective system for reporting side effects from the vaccines, and reports on side effects have even been deleted from your Facebook page. Doctors avoid linking side effects to the vaccine, lest you persecute them as you did with some of their colleagues. You have ignored many reports of changes in menstrual intensity and menstrual cycle times. You hid data that allows for objective and proper research (for example, you removed the data on passengers at Ben Gurion Airport). Instead, you chose to publish non-objective articles together with senior Pfizer executives on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

    Irreversible damage to trust

    However, from the heights of your hubris, you have also ignored the fact that in the end the truth will be revealed. And it begins to be revealed. The truth is that you have brought the public’s trust in you to an unprecedented low, and you have eroded your status as a source of authority. The truth is that you have burned hundreds of billions of shekels to no avail – for publishing intimidation, for ineffective tests, for destructive lockdowns and for disrupting the routine of life in the last two years.

    You have destroyed the education of our children and their future. You made children feel guilty, scared, smoke, drink, get addicted, drop out, and quarrel, as school principals around the country attest. You have harmed livelihoods, the economy, human rights, mental health and physical health.

    You slandered colleagues who did not surrender to you, you turned the people against each other, divided society and polarized the discourse. You branded, without any scientific basis, people who chose not to get vaccinated as enemies of the public and as spreaders of disease. You promote, in an unprecedented way, a draconian policy of discrimination, denial of rights and selection of people, including children, for their medical choice. A selection that lacks any epidemiological justification.

    When you compare the destructive policies you are pursuing with the sane policies of some other countries — you can clearly see that the destruction you have caused has only added victims beyond the vulnerable to the virus. The economy you ruined, the unemployed you caused, and the children whose education you destroyed — they are the surplus victims as a result of your own actions only.

    There is currently no medical emergency, but you have been cultivating such a condition for two years now because of lust for power, budgets and control. The only emergency now is that you still set policies and hold huge budgets for propaganda and psychological engineering instead of directing them to strengthen the health care system.

    This emergency must stop!

    Professor Udi Qimron, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University7

    The letter is very good but I observe he neglected to mention other important points. Such as not providing advice for strengthening immune systems, ignoring early treatment protocols, distorting safety data used to approve the vaccines, and not punishing those responsible for creating the virus.

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    1. The satire was sooooo good. He does a good job of taking down all those bureaucrats (aka scientists?), politicians and the MSM that have used the Covid pandemic to attempt to control society for their own power/money. Too bad its kinda a distraction from collapse that appears to be accelerating.
      Winter is cold in the UK, and Europe doesn’t have enough natural gas. Russia and China see a weakened U.S. with a failed leadership elite. What better time to have a war? The problem is that nothing humans do go according to plans. Things spiral out of control. The short term is looking more bleak and with it the long term looks positively like . . . -and here we want to interrupt with DENIAL (things will really get better (yeah, we could only hope)). Denial seems to be the way everyone around me responds. I think (IMHO) that war is coming and we are in mid 1939. Good luck everyone. One day soon we may have no internet and will truly be on our own.
      AJ

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      1. A resource war seems to be low on people’s list of things to worry about. I agree with you AJ, it seems inevitable.
        Wait for the cries of, “no one could of seen this coming!” face palm

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    1. Thanks, first I heard of this trend. The rich and poor worlds are equalizing, but not in the direction most hoped. Our western rich governments are also behaving like banana republics. Imagine what it will be like when collapse shifts a gear with a stock market collapse and oil scarcity.

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      1. Yeah I agree w/ your comment and I’m personally offended because I’m still waiting to take delivery of my pizza scissors, quirky egg minder, levitation floating globe and “as seen on TV hat.” It’s been months. Inconsiderate bastards.

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  27. I find the threads started by by HHH at pob interesting.
    https://peakoilbarrel.com/september-non-opec-oil-production-slips/#comment-733494

    HHH: Without government fiscal stimulus coming down the pipe in 2022. With FED monetary stimulus being taken away. What exactly is there to pull economy forward in 2022?

    The savings glut has disappeared. Consumers credit is blowing out to all time highs as wages aren’t keeping up with inflation.

    I get the supply side argument for higher oil prices. Higher energy prices. But high prices in an over leveraged economy are ultimately deflationary. Because consumers just can’t afford price increases that outpace wage increase.

    Long term only way prices don’t crash is if we get lower interest rates. That allow for growth in credit.

    If you look at TIC data which is the flow of money from overseas into US treasuries. We’ve seen 4 months that on a net basis outflows exceeded inflows. Most view this as money front running FED tightening. Or some even see as money trying to avoid US assets. I don’t see it that way.

    When both Saudi Arabia and Norway are selling US debt on net basis. It means they need US dollars. It means there is a dollar shortage even when oil prices are tripled what they were.

    And with no stimulus either fiscal or monetary. That is deflationary money. And we will likely see more net selling of US debt to obtain US dollars to service dollar denominated debts going forward.

    I don’t see the pressure underneath oil prices lasting rest of this year.

    China just did cut rate again. When they get to the zero bound on interest rates look out because money in search of yield will no longer flow to China. And China demand for everything will fall off a cliff.

    China might have a lot of rare earth metals. But if their economy is in free fall at the time when those rare earth metals are needed the most don’t count on them being produced. My guess is they’ll have to import a lot of energy just to mine and bring to market and in an energy crisis those metals largely stay in the ground.

    Uulenspiegel: Can Biden create the much needed stimulus by a bunch of presidential orders?

    HHH: I think the answer is no Biden can’t. Not to say there is nothing that won’t come. It just won’t be near enough.

    If the FED ever gets to quantitative tightening. And actually allows balance sheet to shrink. That blows up REPO market as it means less bank reserves or cash and it also means less collateral less ability for banks to make loans. Don’t think we will ever see quantitative tightening though.

    In all honesty though while what happens with US fiscal and monetary policy absolutely matters. One thing I think that matters more is what is going on in the Eurodollar market.

    Eurodollar market is 3 times as big as the US onshore dollar market. 3 times the amount of US dollars are created outside the US as there are inside the US. FED doesn’t have a monopoly on the dollar.

    And the banks that are making all these dollar loans outside US are telling us by the inverted Eurodollar yield curve that extends from 2023 to 2026 that they believe something extraordinarily bad is coming just over the horizon.

    The dollars that leave the US via trade deficit are just not enough to service all the dollar denominated debt that exists outside the US. There is a global dollar shortage.

    Hole in Head: There are only 3 actions possible .
    1. Raise interest rates . Problem is at 2% the interest payment will double and eat up all tax revenues . Crash of market and deflation .
    2. QT . Do QT and take the wind out of stock buybacks . Suck USD from the Euro Dollar market and crash the world economy .
    3. Don’t do anything . Let inflation run wild . Result .Crash the Biden administration and democrats which will become a precursor to a social unrest and bring out the pitchforks .
    The Fed is now passing time . Doing small increments of 0.25% x 4 times or 7 times is going to fail when entrenched inflation is running at 7 % . The emperor has no clothes moment is here .

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    1. Yeah, there has been an increasing awareness in the last ~1year or so of an expanded understanding of the role of central banks. Between 2009-2019 I was in the very common mainstream camp of “They are printing money.” I think the latest round of inflation concerns gave rise to a counterpoint of people understanding CB operations better. The Eurodollar/shadow banking system is at the heart of many of these questions.

      HHH has great comments. I read every comment at POB but mostly lurk as the oil technicals are still beyond me. I do chime in occasionally on the “wind and solar will save us” side of things.

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      1. I dislike the debates over whether printing money is actually happening. They’re muddled I think because everyone has a different definition of printing money. I think it’s much clearer to say they are loaning money that cannot be repaid from real economic growth, and can only be repaid with more loaned money.

        It’s not money printing while everyone pretends that the debt will be repaid from growth, but the reality is that we’ve hit limits to growth and so we are buying 1 dollar of growth with several dollars of debt. When we reach the end of this can kicking the effect will be the same as if the money was printed. Do you have a different understanding?

        I don’t understand the Eurodollar system. I assume it means European banks loan $US but I also assume that means they do so under the control of the Fed, just like the big US commercial banks. Is my understanding wrong?

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        1. Rob – the Eurodollar system is loosely the “shadow banking system.” It means that banks outside of the USA make loans denominated in US dollars. These loans are not regulated by the US banking system and much of the data is not available. The issue that makes this important is that the dollar value of these shadow banking transactions is actually much more than that of the onshore banking system. So we are in some ways only ever seeing the tip of the iceberg in financial markets.

          Regarding your first point I am prone to agree. Money is loaned into existence. In the past this expansionary effect could take place so long as there were profitable activities (the ability to repay principal with a stream of future income). At some point I assume the financial result of the limits to growth means that there are no longer any legitimately profitable activities because the inputs of energy or resources are too expensive to be affordable to consumers.

          While things may fall apart sooner for other reasons I think the farthest we can stretch this is best captured by Lacy Hunt: We can continue down this path until debt and declining productivity lead us into deflation, or we can change the laws governing central banks and destroy the currency by backstopping consumption. The underlying reality remains the same – there will be less stuff. Whether or not there is simultaneously less money or way too much is hard to say.

          I posted on Tim Morgan’s site about this recently: Who can say what would happen if the concept of degrowth/limits entered the broad consciousness? It seems to me the banking and financial systems would collapse overnight. In this environment I doubt intervention would be possible without the use of unprecedented force and coercion.

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          1. Thanks, I agree with Lacy Hunt. I like to say the only thing we can be certain of is that we will be poorer. Whether poverty comes with less money or money that is worthless is a political decision that cannot be predicted.

            I clearly do not understand shadow banking. I like to try to distill the essence of things. I thought the essence of a bank (including shadow banks) was that it is a business legally permitted to simultaneously add offsetting assets and liabilities to it’s balance sheet, provided it abides by rules regarding reserves and collateral.

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            1. It’s a fascinating area as it has a lot of implications to the oil story. The following excerpt gives an idea. The whole article linked below is a good primer, particularly sections 2 and 3:

              “Let us look at the institutional evolution of the US monetary area more in detail. Offshore USD creation started with the emergence of the Eurodollar marketFootnote1 in 1956 (Einzig, Reference Einzig1964) – a financial innovation that did not emerge out of systematic planning, but ‘more or less by accident’ (Kindleberger, Reference Kindleberger1970: 173). London bankers, with the vigorous support of the Bank of England and the British treasury (Burn, Reference Burn2006; Helleiner, Reference Helleiner1994), invented Eurodollars as a new form of USD-denominated credit instruments that were not subject to US regulation and oversight – in particular regulation Q, a rule introduced after the Great Depression which capped the interest rates payable on onshore dollar deposits.

              In the early years, communist countries were interested in USD business without directly engaging with the US, and global oil trade was organized through the market: petrodollars are Eurodollars…”

              https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/evolution-of-the-offshore-usdollar-system-past-present-and-four-possible-futures/B36ED9082CECE54F3F5B8E8F40D15148

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                1. Finally got around to reading “The Big Short”. Yes, these things are complex, partly on purpose. I suspect that Eurodollars and other financial creations are just more scams and greed driven criminal or near criminal behavior as happened with CDS’s and similar back in 2005-2008.

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              2. Here is HHH’s take on QE and the Eurodollar system.

                https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-22-2022/#comment-733867

                Eurodollar system creates actual dollars that are injected into global economy. FED creates bank reserves that are denominated in US dollars that never leave the FED.

                It will be up to US government to spend dollars into economy. Not the FED. Good luck 😁

                Actual money in the US onshore dollar market is created by commercial banks via loans. Which FED manipulates banks to do with lower interest rates for borrowers.

                FED QE is nothing but a collateral swap. They swap bank reserves for US treasuries and MBS with primary dealers. Which allows collateral not to be marked to market. No money is injected into economy during the process.

                Banks however do use the bank reserves created by the FED at REPO to borrow collateral from the FED in the form of treasury mainly T bills. Collateral for which they use to borrow money at REPO to fund daily transactions between banks. So shrinking the amount of bank reserves or FED’s balance sheet is a no go. Margin debt used to pump asset prices takes a hit if FED’s balance sheet were to ever shrink.

                Eurodollar market dwarfs the FED and the onshore dollar market though. And when there is a contraction of lending in Eurodollar market all hell brakes loose and you get a wrecking ball dollar.

                Oil at $147 and 2008 have one thing in common. First people believe what they are told. It was high oil prices or subprime mortgage in USA that caused the crash.

                No it was smooth sailing Eurodollar market that created the dollars that drove oil to $147 and it was a contraction in the Eurodollar market that lead to the crash of oil prices and subprime and all of 2008

                People are focused on just the inflation created by supply side issues. But it’s these very supply side issues that will limit the ability of the banks the create the dollars or the loans in Eurodollar system from doing what they are supposed to do.

                China lockdowns lead to less lending. Is by far the biggest.
                European natural gas shortage if it continues will lead to less lending.

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        2. I missed one key point: As I understand it the fact that the Eurodollar system is not regulated by the FED typically means that the loans are backed by collateral. In a perfect world this tends to be UST’s. However, the risk of the shadow bank system comes from the fact that they create a wild array of financial instruments to serve as collateral. This includes corporate and mortgage backed securities – and various degrees of leveraged instruments based on multiples/fractions of underlying treasuries.

          So this system has a desperate need for UST’s in order to expand, and also a desperate risk of not being able to access dollars in times of contraction.

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  28. An apology from an environmentalist
    “Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to make a living by campaigning on climate change. Anyone who follows the logic through realises we are actually campaigning against industrial civilisation. For anybody in the industrialised world this is the source of all our wealth. It’s what pays all our wages. Have fun sawing down the tree branch you’re sitting on.”
    https://www.darkgreenauckland.nz/posts/an-apology-from-an-environmentalist

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    1. Bingo. That’s why I think the focus should be on overshoot. Once you accept that overshoot is the key issue then you can have an intelligent debate about lifestyle vs. population. Would you prefer 100 million affluent Canadians, or 2 billion poor peasants? But be aware, whatever lifestyle you choose you can’t have 8 billion people with depleted fossil energy.

      I’ll vote again when a party has overshoot mitigation as their top policy priority. I fully expect to never vote again. Fucking morons.

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  29. Very interesting analysis from el gato today. I love the way he thinks and criticizes his own hypotheses.

    https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/vaccines-and-boosters-associated

    the moralizing about “needing to be protected from the unvaxxed” is hallucinatory projection. it’s the opposite that is true. the vaxxed are the primary carrier on a per capita basis.

    there has been enough lying and misrepresentation and vilification and othering. that just piles societal poison on top of gross epidemiological malpractice.

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  31. The latest episode of Nate Hagens’ podcast The Great Simplification is pretty good and focusses on the risk of nuclear war.

    My summary using less politically correct words:
    1) The short term risk of nuclear war is high and much higher than many other risks we worry about.
    2) The core problem is that our leaders are idiots because they have to be idiots to get elected.
    3) Citizens are idiots and therefore vote for idiots (see point 2).
    4) The solution is probably some form of technocracy.

    https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/04-chuckwatson

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    1. OMG was my first thought on listening to this podcast. I we survive the next few weeks with the idiots in Europe and especially the Biden administration we will be lucky. The Biden establishment doesn’t understand Russia and their concerns and basically (today) flipped off the ultimatum that Russia gave us a few weeks ago. That wouldn’t be fatal EXCEPT that U.S. official policy is NUTS (acronym for Nuclear Utilization Target Selection) and the U.S. thinks they can have a limited nuclear war (probably in Ukraine) with Russia.
      I have been trying to improve my health (lost 10 lbs, walking 5 miles a day, no drinking alcohol) but this podcast made me ask why? The future really looks bad. I should have a drink.
      AJ

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      1. LOL. Good summary of the threat. I also liked his insight that the rest of the world fears but does not respect the unethical idiot US leaders.

        I haven’t had a drink or a cigarette for over 10 years but I’ve got a nice stash waiting for me when it’s clear there’s no point staying healthy.

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      2. NUTS is nuts.

        “There was no end to the evil schemes that a thought machine that oversized* couldn’t imagine and execute.” K. Vonnegut

        *3kg!

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        1. “So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”

          ― Kurt Vonnegut, “Breakfast of Champions” (1973)

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          1. Yeah, Vonnegut takes a dim view of our big brains. LOL. Maybe shaving off a few IQ points with alcohol isn’t such a bad idea? I know my big brain had led me astray and made me do stupid stuff. Thanks big brain.

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  34. Here’s a fascinating case study of our tendency to deny unpleasant realties.

    These guys are really smart dot connecting experts on the Eurodollar system. In today’s video they draw a connection between the mass formation (aka psychosis) the world is experiencing and the unprecedented (but unacknowledged) global economic depression the world has been experiencing since 2008.

    The amazing thing about the video is that they fumble around looking for an explanation when it’s staring them in the face: energy driven limits to growth.

    Doubly fascinating since they have viewed Chris Martenson’s work and still don’t see reality.

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    1. “Lithium is useful”

      For more than batteries Rob. Could be a tool in the toolbox for that mass psychosis you all talking about. Maybe the PTB can get creative and add it to the sulfate aerosols when they do their future geo-engineering sprays.

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  36. Nate Hagens’ podcast with Chuck Watson listed above is a must hear for everyone concerned with collapse. I subsequently went down the rabbit hole yesterday and read some more over on Chuck Watson’s blog: Enki Research. Mostly he is a risk analyst about weather/climate change (which he stated in the podcast). However, he did a blog post that is a short but even more important must read where he fleshes out our immediate nuclear risk with Russia/Ukraine. The U.S. is a weak, “old” collapsing super power that thinks it is still 1990. Nothing worse than collapsing super powers. They do foolish things, re: the U.S. “new” nuclear weapons and our intention to use them. We (the U.S. populace) are fools led by fools. I read Watson’s blog and all the links and it is bad – in the most depressing way. Maybe it’s time to break out the booze?
    I wonder, on a purely academic level, how it was at the moment of collapse in other civilizations when you could see the inevitable and you were one of the few who could (and wouldn’t deny it)?
    AJ
    https://blogenkiops.wordpress.com/2022/01/05/why-the-joint-statement-on-nuclearweapons-doesnt-matter/

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    1. Thanks, I’ll read Watson’s post.

      The US seems incapable of empathy. How did the US respond to Russian weapons in Cuba? How would the US respond if Russia and Mexico formed a military alliance and Russia began installing weapons in Mexico? How is the Ukraine any different?

      We know from thousands of years of history that our species responds to economic stress and scarcity with war. What’s different this time are weapons that can destroy everything.

      Jay Hanson in this rare interview predicts nuclear war around this time frame.
      https://un-denial.com/2018/03/26/by-jay-hanson-reality-report-interview-november-3-2008/

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      1. I have Jay Hanson on my blog list for one of the best explanations of the Maximum Power Principle. I will have to listen to the link you gave.
        I hate to agree with you, and Chuck Watson had some info on how out of touch the U.S. leadership is with respect to what other countries think of us and how we are seen in the World in general (very badly as ultimate hypocrites and bullies – how true). That is what so infuriates me with the Russia baiting. We (the U.S.) promised Gorbachev (and Yeltsin) that we would not expand NATO into Eastern Europe and then we did. And our response to their protestations is that we (the U.S.) said: “it isn’t in writing so we don’t have to adhere to any verbal agreement” (besides we are the sole Super Power – so there!!). No wonder Russia wants responses in writing now. We (the U.S.) don’t realize that while we wasted money and lives in the Middle East, Russia and China have modernized their weapons where ours are only the most expensive junk money can buy. The U.S. is led by fools.
        AJ

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          1. Maybe this is also a sign of decline of the American super power that politicians are getting dumber and dumber. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho seems not that far away in the future as predicted in “Idiocracy”.

            I still would not expect that the USA will start a nuclear war against an opponent who is capable of retaliation, as long as the problem of MAD is not solved.

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    2. I also had a listen to Hagen’s interview of Watson. Watson talked about the Joint Chiefs of Staff not being in the chain of command for quite some time. It’s my understanding that during the latter days of the Trump Administration, at some point they informally reinstated themselves into the chain of command by getting the various commanders to agree to not take any action without checking with them first even if Trump ordered it. It was informal but effective.

      Re: Enki Research. Unusual name Enki, not something you encounter everyday.

      Enki was the Sumerian god of wisdom, fresh water, intelligence, trickery and mischief, crafts, magic, exorcism, healing, creation, virility, fertility. Exorcism no less!

      Chuck felt compelled to change the name from Watson Technical Consulting (WTC) after 2003 for obvious reasons. And Methaz (meteorological hazards) was also a no go, again for obvious reasons. Which brings me to The Beaver. Another name change dear to my heart.

      The plan to change the title of The Beaver after 90 years to avoid online porn blockers made Canada’s top history magazine an international media sensation — first as joke fodder for Jay Leno and as the subject of an editorial printed in another venerable publication: the British-based newsweekly The Economist.

      “The Beaver website was attracting (albeit briefly) readers who had little interest in Samuel de Champlain’s astrolabe or what Prairie settlers ate for breakfast,” the editorial dryly observed, before concluding that the “dull” new name — “Canada’s History” — was necessary to help storytelling about this country’s past escape “Internet obscenity filters” and crude references to “female pubic hair.”

      The Economist, not above a naughty pun itself, ran a picture of the tree-chomping rodent alongside its editorial, with the caption: “No, it’s not a pussy.”

      Late-night TV host Leno also cracked wise earlier this week about The Beaver, suggesting the magazine has been a hot seller among young Canadian men who were, however, very “disappointed when they got it home.”

      It’s a publicity blitz that any company rebranding itself would crave, but the attention generated by the Winnipeg magazine’s makeover has also prompted criticism from some subscribers about the banality of the new name, and made the country’s bucktoothed national symbol a global laughingstock — or, perhaps, even more of a global laughing stock.

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  38. Preptip: On the energy conservation benefits of hot water bottles.

    Imagine a personal heating system that works indoors as well as outdoors, can be taken anywhere, requires little energy, and is independent of any infrastructure. It exists – and is hundreds of years old. The hot water bottle could save a great deal of energy and money without sacrificing thermal comfort.

    https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/01/the-revenge-of-the-hot-water-bottle.html

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      1. Funny you mentioned that. One of the British natural gas companies had to apologize to their patrons who were complaining about the high cost of natural gas when they suggested that they should sleep with their dogs to conserve heat.
        AJ

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        1. We had something similar in Germany but the politicians weren´t that creative. They just said that if you can´t pay the heating bill, just heat less. Awesome advice…

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  39. Please join this march if you are able to do so without burning large quantities of fossil energy to get there.

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/press-release-on-the-eve-of-washington

    On The Eve of Washington March, COVID Declaration Now Backed by More Than 17,000 Doctors and Medical Scientists Around the World

    Following Dr. Robert Malone’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, more physicians and medical scientists have joined with their colleagues from around the world in signing the Physicians Declaration. Now with more than 17,000 signatures confirmed through a rigorous validation process, these physicians and scientists are represented by Dr. Malone as he speaks at the march to Defeat the Mandates on Sunday, January 23 in Washington, D.C.

    The over 17,000 signers to the declaration have reached consensus on three foundational principles:

    1) Healthy children should not be subject to forced vaccination: they face negligible risk from covid, but face potential permanent, irreversible risk to their health if vaccinated, including heart, brain, reproductive and immune system damage.

    2) Natural Immunity Denial has prolonged the pandemic and needlessly restricted the lives of Covid-recovered people. Masks, lockdowns, and other restrictions have caused great harm especially to children and delayed the virus’ transition to endemic status.

    3) Health agencies and institutions must cease interfering with the physician-patient relationship. Policymakers are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, as a result of institutional interference and blocking treatments proven to cure at a near 100% rate when administered early.

    Led by Dr. Malone and staying loyal to the Hippocratic oath, the declaration’s signers have resisted financial inducements, threats, unprecedented censorship, and reputational attacks to remain committed first to patient health and well-being. After 23 months of research, millions of patients treated, hundreds of clinical trials performed and scientific data shared, and after demonstrating and documenting their success in combating COVID-19, the 17,000+ physicians and medical scientists who signed the declaration support the core principles Dr. Malone and many other doctors have been speaking out about since late last year.

    The 17,000+ signatures of the declaration are authentic and must pass a screening process before being officially identified as signing the declaration. Signatories are required to supply their affiliation and a link to their medical organization, facility, or profile. Nurses, non-MD practitioners and non-medical scientists are removed from the list signatories, as are duplicate entries and “bot” emails. The emails of the signatories have been separately and repeatedly tested and verified by a 3rd-party provider.

    As the number of signatures to the declaration continues to rise, we have published a select group of world famous, highly credentialed physicians and scientists who authored the declaration. Many other doctors who have spoken out against the corruption, censorship and hypocrisy by authorities have been threatened, fired, censured, lied about, intimidated, and harassed – all while saving patients’ lives daily. Never has the public been forced to become lab rats, for a vaccine 5 years away from adequate testing, violating basic principles of informed consent. Moreover, the medical and scientific evidence on the efficacy and safety of the COVID- 19 vaccine do not support mandating its use for anyone, especially healthy children.

    January 23 March on Washington

    The over 17,000 signers of the declaration will be represented on Sunday, January 23, when Dr. Malone stands with fellow doctors and scientists on stage in Washington DC, as part of the Defeat the Mandates march Sunday, January 23, 2022. At the Lincoln Memorial, they will be joined by a wide range of featured guests for a series of inspiring talks and musical performances. Join us!

    About the Global COVID Summit

    Global Covid Summit is the product of an international alliance of doctors and scientists, committed to speaking truth to power about Covid pandemic research and treatment.

    Thousands have died from Covid as a result of being denied life-saving early treatment. The Declaration is a battle cry from physicians who are daily fighting for the right to treat their patients, and the right of patients to receive those treatments – without fear of interference, retribution or censorship by government, pharmacies, pharmaceutical corporations, and big tech. We demand that these groups step aside and honor the sanctity and integrity of the patient- physician relationship, the fundamental maxim “First Do No Harm”, and the freedom of patients and physicians to make informed medical decisions. Lives depend on it. More information here:

    https://globalCovidSummit.org

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  41. Curious minds want to know. How much pain will the fed endure to protect the integrity of its only product?

    http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2022/01/weekly-commentary-market-structure-in.html

    Markets will on occasion reveal subtle hints, clues that can be critical when nearing inflection points. Last week’s CBB discussed the elevated correlations between the cryptocurrencies, technology stocks, and some financial conditions indicators. This suggested heightened risk of a bout of “risk off” selling that could presage illiquidity, panic and bursting speculative Bubbles. Not subtly, this dynamic gained important momentum this week.

    Bitcoin’s 11% Friday drop boosted losses for the week to 15.6%. Etherium dropped 28% this week, Litecoin 27%, and Binance 28%. It was a technology bloodbath, with the Semiconductors sinking 11.9%. There was an element of panic in many of the online trading community’s favorite stocks. A Friday afternoon Bloomberg headline: “Nasdaq 100’s Unrelenting Declines Ring a Dot-Com Bust Alarm Bell.” While there are notable similarities, the nineties was a rather petite Bubble in comparison to today’s gross obesity.

    Markets this week provided inklings of a potentially far-reaching Critical Juncture. Wednesday trading deserves special attention. Stocks opened the session higher, only to reverse sharply lower. “Risk off” was gaining momentum, with technology stocks and the cryptocurrencies appearing particularly vulnerable. But even in the face of faltering risk market Bubbles, Treasury yields were marching higher – trading Wednesday to 1.90%, the high since year-end 2019.

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  42. Here’s another really smart virus guy in the same class as el gato and eugyppius, and with similar wit.

    Damn the immune system is complicated, and it’s clear our idiot leaders don’t understand it.

    https://hiddenmarkov.substack.com/p/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-blogstack

    The only way out of this is through this. If you are vaxxed and haven’t encountered Omicron yet, you will, and if you saw Delta last year, it will be pretty mild if detectable at all. You will need a boxed government-sanctioned test to tell you if you are ill, just as the Founders intended. 5 days later you receive the good news: if you are one of the 99.976% (or so) people who can manage to survive this bout of coof, your immunity becomes suddenly almost as good as the average pureblood. You will have MP-CTLs on tap and standing guard for any remaining viral cells that may have escaped detection. You will have IgA production in your eyes and upper respiratory tract and maybe even in your gut, standing by to ward off another round. Pity the poor vaxxers who have been lied to and in their gullible way, absorbed the deceptions as fact. To break the spell, they will need to have their own breakthrough crises and their own realization that they have been played by TPTB. But I say again, the only way out is through.

    Be of good cheer. Rona is on it’s last leg. It is coughing up blood, er, um, so to speak.

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    1. Interesting article. I especially liked the part which talked about the business model of Substack, as I also have my problems with the payment model. I would really like to donate money to quite a few authors on this platform, but it gets expensive quickly. I currently have around 25 subscriptions at Substack. I am not sure if everyone has payments activated. Even if only 50% have payments activated, I would pay more than 50$ a month (based on 5$ per subscription.) I would never pay that much money for magazines, so why should I pay that much for Substack?

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  43. Must watch discussion between two very good men who got covid right from the beginning and are deeply worried that the bad guys are going to get away with it and citizens won’t learn a thing from this tragic event in our history.

    Brought some tears to my eyes.

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  44. Interesting comment by HHH at POB:

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-january-22-2022/#comment-733841

    Russia is building floating nuclear power plants to not only produce arctic oil but also mine lithium and copper and other recourses.

    But are they even going to make money if prices don’t go much higher and stay higher. Don’t let a trade surplus fool you. Higher nominal oil prices can make the value of their exports seem great even if volumes of exports aren’t making higher highs.

    Russia oil exports peaked in 1988. When the price of oil was $15. Russia had a second more recent peak after they recovered from collapse. Which was in 2006. And oil was $58. 2006 was 16 years ago and between 2006 and today and oil prices were much higher for a period of time between 2011-2014 than they are currently and Russia still hasn’t seen a peak in exports higher than in 2006.

    Oil exports from Russia have been on a 20 year plateau and they are starting to come off that plateau. They also need much higher prices in order to try to extend that plateau.

    And everything they have left is the hard to get to and costly variety.

    $58 in 2006 is today about $79 inflation adjusted. If the oil was there to increase exports we at the price they should be increasing at. But they are cutting exports instead.

    When Russia and Saudi exports fall a lot of dominos fall. It doesn’t really matter if production goes a little higher from here in producing countries if that doesn’t equate into more exports.

    Wheat takes a lot of fossil fuel inputs btw. Their exports of wheat will also be cut in not too distant future.

    And it’s not like exports have to go to zero for there to be a problem. Just a little less here and there and people go hungry.

    In just a handful of years at most the US will be importing on a net basis a lot more oil than we do today as shale oil production collapses. Which everyone here agrees will happen it’s just a matter of when. That means somebody somewhere gets left out in the cold.

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  45. https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=244930

    Ok, He’s Insane

    The market certainly thinks so.

    Don’t kid yourselves folks; the headline out overnight that Biden is contemplating committing actual troops to Ukraine is why the dive this morning in the markets.

    If you think any sort of armed conflict with Russia is a good idea you’re out of your mind. If you think projecting weakness toward them while at the same time doing anything that threatens their only 12-month deep-water port is going to turn out well you’re crazy enough that you deserve the collapse of civil society or even nuclear attack you’re risking.

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    1. Yeah, and market-ticker goes on to say that the U.S. really hasn’t had any casualties like we had in WWII. What happens if the U.S. loses an aircraft carrier (and they are the epitome of a soft target for a hyper-sonic weapon)? Looking longingly back at the start of WWI most historians think it was foolishness on all sides. If there are any historians left in the future, will they not think the same about the U.S. now?? senile president surrounded by people who personify the “Peter Principle” (idiots who are incompetent).
      Just tell me when you start drinking your stash, Rob!!
      AJ

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      1. Not drinking yet. 🙂

        On a more positive note, I was really moved in a good way yesterday watching the DC protest. I’m frequently critical of US (and Canadian) citizens but there are clearly still some good & wise people out there and they spoke up yesterday.

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  46. I’m thinking we might need a level lower than 1.

    Meanwhile, not a single word from the mainstream news sources I monitor on the stop the mandates protest in Washington DC yesterday. I was very impressed by the speeches and think they were fact-filled, heart-felt, and mostly non-partisan. Congrats to the organizers.

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    2. I also did not read anything about the mandates protest in the German media. At least the protests within Germany were reported, but I am not sure whether the amount of protestors was counted correctly. My experience is that protests againt the government are undercounted while government approved protests (like Fridays for Future) are overcounted.

      My proprosal for a DEFCON level below 1 would be 2G++, as we already have it here in Germany. It means that you need to be vaccinated or recovered, have a current negative Covid test and wear an FFP2 mask, it cannot get more extreme. At least, that is what I am hoping.

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        1. It is basically the same as when the Russians invaded Crimea. There is a big outcry in the media about the bad Russians, backed with the threat of governmental sanctions. The Green Party sees this possible invasion as a further point of attack against the Nordstream 2 pipeline. Even the chancellor said something along the line, that they will think about not putting this pipeline into operation, if Russia attacks the Ukraine.

          I would think that for most of the German citizens it is too far away to really be a concern. Even my mother, who is always watching the news, did not bring up this topic at all, when we met the last time.

          On a personal level, I am pretty disappointed by the NATO/US not keeping their promises, but based on my historical understanding, this is not an outlier. If there is no advantage in keeping the promise, it will be “forgotten” quickly.

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    1. My mother once told me a story about an Iranian friend, who lived in Teheran during the Islamic revolution of 1979. The friend told my mother, that even in the center of the revolution, you did not hear anything about it, if you weren´t directly involved. So I would expect, that reporting on a revolution within the western world would be suppressed by the mainstream media as long as possible.

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    1. Thanks more evidence that our leaders did everything wrong and nothing right. If our leaders were simply morons we would expect a random mix of good decisions and bad decisions, not 100% bad. Something other than pubic health must be the priority.

      The take-home lesson from this deep dive is that lockdowns and vaccines didn’t make a shred of difference to Covid outcomes, even as they delayed acquiring natural immunity and caused endless unnecessary misery. Meanwhile, the lifestyle differences that could have dramatically reduced the individual risk of severe outcomes for the vulnerable were completely ignored in favor of a hysterical obsession with vaccines, PCR tests, and suffocating social controls.

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  50. A message today from Nate Hagens to his subscribers. We discussed this podcast above.

    Given what’s happening (quickly) with Ukraine/Russia, I’m emailing to highlight/recommend last week’s conversation with ‘risk expert’ Chuck Watson.

    From what I am hearing, it seems a Russian move into Ukraine is highly likely at this point – but they will most likely stop with the Eastern oblast and hopefully don’t start a larger conflict. One of the (many) downstream risks is US/NATO response -not only militarily but economically. If the mother of all sanctions is imposed on Russia, this will cause the energy crisis – and political crisis to escalate in Europe. I’m no expert on all this but am watching it with trepidation.

    Chuck and I had an intense conversation. We talked about how humans generally misjudge risk, the reflexive relationship between climate change and nuclear war and the problems/ opportunities with governance in an era of accelerating risk. Give it a listen here:
    https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/04-chuckwatson

    and if you want weekly notifications of upcoming podcasts, videos and educational materials, sign up here:
    https://natehagens.substack.com/p/introducingthe-great-simplification

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