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!”

    1. Thanks, good essay.

      It seems to me that avoiding conflict requires leaders to be put themselves in the shoes of the other, and to not have double standards.

      If Russia was to establish a military alliance with Mexico and arm it with weapons, it would not matter if the Mexican government was “good” or “evil”, nor would it matter if the Mexican people democratically voted for the alliance. The US would oppose the Russian/Mexican alliance with military force.

      Enough said.

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      1. Double standards seem to be present everywhere in our society. Hartmut Danisch is a famous German blogger, who is dedicated to exposing these double standards. It is always a joy to read his snarky articles. One of his favourites is activists/domestic terrorists. A good example for activists are the people of organizations like Fridays for Future or Extinction Rebellion. They are “allowed” to terrorize the average joe with their intrusive actions, while the “Querdenker” movement, that are critical of Corona policies, are condemned as domestic terrorists (or even Nazis) by the media because their cause is not in alignment with the rulers.

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  2. Russian oil exports for March are down by 4.5 million barrels per day. Wall street sees 2 possible scenarios. One bad, the other really bad.

    Given interest rates are already at zero, and given we seem to have hit limits on printing more money, if Russian oil exports stay down I’m thinking there’s only one scenario, and it’s really bad. Add in reductions of natural gas, fertilizer, and food exports and it gets worse.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/two-oil-price-scenarios-one-bad-and-one-catastrophic

    In practical terms, this translates into two cases for the future of oil prices: an ugly, painful case which however does not crash the global economy, and a potentially devastating, global recession (if not depression) inducing one. This is how JPM lays them out:

    1) In the first scenario, JPM admits that so large is the immediate supply shock the bank believes prices need to increase to $120/bbl and stay there for months to incentivize demand destruction, assuming no immediate Iranian volumes. This could result in a 1.2 mbd hit to this year’s demand, bringing 2022 oil consumption 550 kbd below 2019 levels.

    2) The far scarier scenario is one where disruption to Russian volumes lasts throughout the year. In that case, Brent oil price could exit the year at $185/bbl, likely leading to a massive 3 mbd drop in the global oil demand. Key to this significant upside is the assumption that even if shale production responds to the price signal, it cannot grow by more than 1.4 mbd this year.

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  3. I try to keep politics out of this site and fanning tribal flames is not my intent of posting this video. Hell, I don’t even know if Fox is a right wing or left wing channel because I never watch it.

    I posted this review of US leadership actions just prior to the Ukraine invasion because it is shocking how stupid our US (and Canadian) leaders have become.

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    1. I also have never watched Fox News. Knowing that it was owned by Murdock & family is enough to me to let me know it is usually right wing crap MSM. And was usually a supporter for Trump. However, I have seen/heard enough to know that Tucker Carson is occasionally right about some things – like this analysis of Harris and the Biden inept administration. Sadly both right & left politics in the U.S. is bought and paid for by corporate interests in the service of the elite.
      AJ

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      1. It’s the first time I’ve listened to the vice president of the most powerful country in the world.
        Trump and Biden have problems stringing words into coherent sentences. She’s worse.
        How is this possible?

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  4. Zerohedge today points us to something important to watch.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/fra-ois-explodes-here-only-chart-powell-closely-watching-and-why-it-soaring

    Some were quick to mock repo guru and former NY Fed staffer Zoltan Pozsar when he warned that the unexpected western blockade of Russia had the feel of a Lehman weekend, because virtually nobody had any idea what the forced exclusion of a G-20 economy from the global financial system would lead to. In fact, just yesterday Jerome Powell admitted that he had not been consulted, suggesting that arguably the most momentous financial decision in modern history has made without consulting the single most important financial person in the world.

    However, it appears that while Pozsar may have been ahead of the curve, as usual, he was not wrong, and today the all important FRA-OIS indicator of interbank funding stress (and money-market risk) is surging, and at last check was above 37bps, up a whopping 12 pts…

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  7. I’m so depressed. Just saw a Reuters poll that 74% of U.S. idiots think the U.S./NATO should apply a no fly zone in Ukraine. I think I’m going to start drinking again. Idiot leaders of idiot people starting WWIII.
    AJ

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    1. I’m with you. 😦

      I guess it’s not surprising that people who put their children at risk for zero benefit because they heard a sound bite on the news, think it’s a good idea to provoke a war with a country that is defending its border from enemies that have attacked in the past, and that has clearly stated it will retaliate with nukes.

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  8. I’ve been spending time at the Saker.is website learning about the Ukraine/ Russia situation. Below is one of the best comments I’ve read recently:

    Rodrigo on March 05, 2022 · at 3:05 pm EST/EDT

    The Russian invasion is succeeding militarily, just as the US knew it would. The US plan to 1)fracture Western Europe from Russia and to 2) demonize, weaken and isolate Russia is also succeeding. The objective of the Russians is a neutral and demilitarized Ukraine. The remaining objective of the US (the two above are virtually fait accompli) is to sow chaos and stoke an insurgency in Ukraine that bleeds Russia. Each side has a strategy and a game plan. Each side’s strategy is unfolding according to plan. Neither side is crazy or irrational. Neither plan is stupid. At the top neither side is shitting their pants or hysterical. Each side is methodically executing its respective plan. We’ll see how things develop.

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  9. Skip to 25:30 for discussion on SWIFT and inflation.

    Summary:
    – SWIFT is a text messaging system that can be bypassed with a telephone.
    – Inflation as defined by bankers is too much money in the system and the market is saying this is not even a small problem.
    – Rising oil price is a different problem that will harm the economy and will cause deflation.
    – The global economy is in much worse shape than most people believe.

    They are of course talking about Steve Ludlum’s triangle of doom, but because they’re economists, do not understand what they’re talking about. These guys are however better than most so I watch them.

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  10. Just finished a big project to upgrade my music library so I’m set for entertainment until I die without requiring a functioning internet.

    I may unplug my internet soon to help maintain my sanity. 🙂

    Igor Chudov reports what sounds like bad news on its way from Hong Kong. I haven’t followed Igor long enough to know if he can be trusted. Can anyone vouch for Igor or corroborate this report?

    https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/bad-news-from-hong-kong?s=r

    Something very strange is happening in Hong Kong. I am not the first to write about it, but I wanted to do a good job compiling the information and informing my readers so this post is somewhat complete.

    Hong Kong’s very active China-inspired and stringent “Zero Covid” policy, stopped to work in mid-February and a “wall of cases” curve exploded in the territory.

    Now, we have seen such “walls of cases” before, but nothing close ever happened to deaths.

    You can see that deaths per million in Hong Kong are basically three TIMES the highest death rate in the US or Israel.
    – Cases between Feb 13-Feb 17: 18,493
    – Deaths between Feb 28-March 4: 895
    – Calculated Case Fatality Rate: 4.83%

    The relevant case fatality rate in the US for our recent Omicron peak is roughly 0.3%, or 16 TIMES lower.

    Slow down and let it sink in: the case fatality rate in Hong Kong is 16 times HIGHER than in the US. That should make you curious.

    Just as cases and deaths in HK skyrocketed, a new sub-variant called “BA.2 + S:I1221T” has taken over. Not much is known about that variant, other than it is minimal elsewhere.

    Lots of plausible explanations in the comments section. Most are some variation of “our leaders are idiots”.

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    1. If I unplugged my internet I would be blind. The only alternative source of information without the internet is the mainstream media, the “Empire of lies”(as Putin so accurately calls it). The internet is frustrating in that there are lies on all sides, I agree with Chuck Watson that you have to read both sides and figure the truth is somewhere in the middle and that each side is spinning it to their advantage. I also have been reading saker.is on occasion just to see what the Russian “man on the ground”s perspective is. Better perspective than CNN or Fox.
      AJ

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  11. “Nobody ever hides good news.” – Karl Denninger

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245329

    CDC Admits They Lied, And Granny Died

    Yeah.

    Listen to this folks.

    “I can tell you where it was when the CNN feed came that it was 95% effective…… nobody said waning”

    CNN feed that it was 95% effective?

    Nobody said “waning”?

    So you knew, or should have known.

    In fact we now have a very high level of evidence that the manufacturers, including specifically Pfizer and Moderna, gamed the trials by at least deliberate refusal to look. We know this because the trial in young people showed that protection goes negative within just a couple of months, that is, it makes you more likely rather than less to get infected.

    But the trials were designed only against symptomatic disease, they deliberately did not do surveillance testing on a regular (e.g. weekly) basis in the trial subjects to see if the shots were sterilizing and if they made infection more-likely in the first few weeks, they deliberately ignored or hid adverse events including deaths that were not reported where the public could see them and the doses were set inexplicably high which produced an antibody titer that, coincidentally, lasted the required three months to get the EUAs but were basically worthless or even enhanced infection by six months and the trial was….. coincidentally….. three months.

    It was claimed this was not “gene therapy” yet the head pharmacy person from Bayer just said in public that it is, which of course we all knew if you had any sort of competence in reading anything because the jabs all were designed to be taken up into your cells and hijack their genetic machinery to make spike proteins. That’s gene therapy by definition yet if you say that on Twitter it gets your post restricted and if you say it on a Google ad-supported site or on Youtube it draws either a black ball ban on advertising or a strike on your channel — or even a ban. Yet it is absolutely true — and has always been true. The media won’t allow this to be discussed because they know damn well that the public perception is that gene therapy is a last resort sort of thing (e.g. if you have cancer) because it is dangerous and thus the public would refuse to take them.

    Drug companies run trials for every single drug they produce. They are THE subject-matter experts in doing so because they have done it dozens or hundreds of times. This means they are in a perfect position to design trials to fit the test and if, in that environment, you give them a liability shield so they can’t be sued if they designed to the test and bad things happen the odds that bad things will happen goes up exponentially.

    I warned people repeatedly that I saw discontinuities in the public trial data — that is, intentional omissions that, were I trying to design an honest trial to prove that a given therapy was sterilizing and thus would increase public safety, not just personal safety, I would have included. I also pointed out that surveillance for adverse events, specifically full blood work before and after injections, would have almost-certainly detected the most-severe adverse events before the EUAs were issued and that work was intentionally not done because the “test” that the FDA set forth did not require it.

    I also warned people that mRNA was not a new technology but had been worked on for ten years and had always failed for other indications. That is, we knew it didn’t work very well and was dangerous, and in fact the reason the previous trials had failed was on safety margin between effective and toxic doses.

    Both Trump and Biden, along with BOTH CDC directors and the people at the FDA know all of the above. So do the executives and researchers in all of the mRNA drug firms. This became even more evident when Pfizer sought to have the detailed data which they had from the start of the jab campaign remain under seal from public scrutiny for 75 years.

    As I pointed out all the way back to 2007 and 2008 when I started writing The Market Ticker NOBODY EVER HIDES GOOD NEWS.

    My best guess at this point remains that one in thirty people who took these is going to be severely ****ed — either dead or saddled with a lifetime of disability of some material degree. At those numbers if you don’t know someone who has gotten hammered by taking these injections yet you will, and from the people I know and those who have accounts on my discussion forum that is now bearing out in direct reports of people who took the jabs and got screwed.

    When do you, Americans, decide to rise and hold these ghouls at the FDA, CDC and all of the so-called public-health and medical agencies, doctors, nurses and others ramming this crap in your arm accountable?

    Or are we simpering wimps who will let these people get away with screwing an utterly huge percentage of the population including children?

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      1. I agree.

        And then there’s that old guy at un-denial.com who thinks we might break through our genetic tendency to deny unpleasant realities and voluntarily reduce our population. Yeh right. What planet does that idiot live on?

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    1. Yeh, I’ve also got a bad feeling about this.

      Quite remarkable how many people want to escalate and how few understand all we had to do was keep Ukraine out of NATO.

      Won’t be surprised if the war drums increase because people are going to blame their pain on Russia rather than overshoot (aka peak oil).

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      1. Sorry, but wasn’t that the point of this “wag the dog” exercise by the idiots (Biden et al in the west). They were losing the Covid narrative and the everything bubble had been expanded to infinite proportions and was going to blow. BUT, with supreme hubris they think that they can control this thing they have unleashed before it goes totally nuclear – not realizing it is collapse from overshoot. (Isn’t this what all elites do in all terminal civilizations at the top?).
        AJ

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  17. Gail Tverberg on what we should expect…

    https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/03/02/russias-attack-on-ukraine-represents-a-demand-for-a-new-world-order/comment-page-9/#comment-352907

    I am afraid that we are entering into a period where jobs will be much less available. The reason that jobs will be unavailable is because an increasing number of businesses will close up operations and lay off workers because they cannot obtain the resources needed to make the products they make. Supply lines will increasingly be broken.

    In such a situation, banks are likely to be bankrupt as well, because debts cannot be repaid. Governments may institute withdrawal limits of say, $200 per week, to try to keep order in the system.

    The government will not be able to collect as much tax revenue either because of the lack of jobs for citizens and the lack of sales by businesses. They may elect to cut off Social Security and Medicare benefits because they cannot afford the cost. They also will not be able to guarantee private pension payments any longer.

    Shelves will be mostly empty, in such a circumstance.

    People will not be able to afford very many of the few goods that are available, in this circumstance. But I doubt that the issue would be considered inflation. It might look like deflation. Many shares of stock will become worthless. Without fuel and fertilizer, the value of farmland will, in some sense, be worth less than it is today.

    I expect in such a situation, central governments (such as the US central government) will not hold together for long. Each local area will issue its own currency. Travel will become much more local because exchange rates among currencies will be unclear. Moving to a new home will become very difficult, so home sales will fall.

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    1. Great video. Seems they agree with Saker.is and this is all going according to Russian plans. It’s also nice to see that Poland is pushing back against U.S. making them combatants. Of course, if we avoid a nuclear war (?hopium) – that the resulting Greatest Depression wipes the Dems from power in the U.S.. My only concern then is what would replace them? Worse? Who knows.
      AJ

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  19. Nate Hagens today with his perspective on Ukraine.

    The runway to The Great Simplification just got a lot shorter. The Ukraine situation -among other things -will narrow the wide chasm between the financial economy and the biophysical one.

    Our culture is hella dependent on: 1) cheap high quality energy at scale, 2) cheap credit at scale, 3) complexity/six continent supply chain, and 4) global trust. In best case, we will soon recognize and understand these ‘subsidies’. In worst, they shrink/disappear.

    Energy is most important commodity in the world. A barrel of oil does ~5 years of human labor equivalent -and we use 100 billion of these per year. Until now we largely ignore these fossil armies.

    In the short run money (via it’s fungibility and optionality) is what makes the world go round. In intermediate and long term, the world revolves around energy and commodities. We can print money we cannot print energy – only extract it faster.

    Due to multiplier effect, EVERYTHING in society will get more costly when energy gets more costly/less available. In USA, bottom 1/3 (by income) of society already spends 30% of their salary directly on energy, and close to 100% indirectly. This was before the war.

    When we fall short on economic growth, we issue credit to fill the gap. Credit allows us to pull resources from the future and call it GDP. All the while this social construct of total debt grows until it becomes a lodestone, or breaks.

    Best case: Ukraine is split like Germany post WWII into East and West with a stable military border between NATO and Russia, and Cold War 2.0 ensues. China becomes “bridge” so energy and commodities from Russia still end up in global system.

    That leaves Finance..Europe (and World) are connected at monetary hip. Europe will not be able to pay its bills much longer and will issue more debt to sustain itself. Eventually bond markets will anticipate the transition from financial economy to biophysical one.

    Ripple effects in bond/currency markets may create another 2008/2020 financial crisis. Will a ‘too big to save’ situation emerge this time? Where no amt of QE, artificial rates, guarantees, bailouts, coordination can save some central bank/currency? Japanification at best.

    In the worst cases, the military confrontation continues to escalate and a direct US/NATO versus Russia conflict is triggered, which would likely go nuclear, ending civilization. It’s that dangerous and pundits seem naive. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

    Other sundry observations (NB: below thoughts are not absolutes but imo solidly in the evolving distribution of possible outcomes):

    A) Bretton Woods III is on our doorstep. Financial veils and mirrors coupled with eroding trust will create new alliances and currency systems. A smaller material economy will result.

    B) Complexity in finance is even greater than in the physical world. In coming months we’ll likely discover new Lehman Brothers existing in the labyrinths of digital claims on real things.

    C) Europe is in deep doo-doo vis a vis USA/Canada. The forward nat gas prices 12 months out are STILL 10x what they are in USA. Since 1970s, globalization and tech created huge cross border opportunities. But energy underpins the wealth of nations.

    D) Germanys central financial and economic leadership in EU will wane. Ultimately this war will spell the end of Euro. Too many claims vs underlying productive capacity. Still some time though for better decisions/prep.

    E) This war (barring megaton++ nukes) will do more for climate change than any activism of last 50 years as it is defacto large carbon tax and tax on consumption.

    F) Renewable buildout will slow, not accelerate due to a) less available credit b) more focus on stability and c) less reliance on complex supply chains of e.g. neodymium, rare earths, etc.

    G) The initial gut reaction to scale nuclear power will also run into problems. Nuclear (like renewables) only fits/excels when paired with cheap, accessible NG (https://mdpi.com/1996-1073/7/1/150).

    H) “Conservation” the energy ‘source’ of last resort-in today’s world will lead to lower GDP which is the income stream to pay back financial debts. Ie. leads directly to The Great Simplification in developed world.

    I) Spite – or ‘losing something as long as the other party loses more’ will become more widespread in behaviors and calculations.

    J) Putin and Russia will -at least for a time -become a focal point to blame for much of woes in USA. It’s how we’re wired.

    K) The policies of ‘import substitution’ ie guns/bananas specialization the world over will be rethought overnight, as basic needs supply chains will be rebuilt and shortened.

    L) China’s wheat crop recently failed. They are going to be even more incentivized to keep Russia intact and as ally/commodity vector which suggests tighter geopolitical (monetary?) alliance.

    M) The Great Simplification just got closer. Think/collaborate/prepare at various scales to meet the coming future halfway. May we live in interesting times. Many good outcomes remain but hard work ahead.

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  20. I didn’t think it possible that our leaders could outdo the incompetence they demonstrated with covid, but they’ve succeeded with Ukraine.

    For no good reason they have triggered what will probably become the worst ever global economic crisis, and if we’re unlucky, a nuclear war.

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  21. Well rob if it goes nuclear and you survive and your prepared to sail your welcome to live out your days in the pacific south West. Harwoods road, Geeveston Tasmania. The invitation will remain indefinate. You can delete this once you’ve read it.

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  22. Australia might do better than most in a nuclear confrontation. It will be largely spared the worst from nuclear fallout and direct casualties. But nowhere is safe from overpopulation. I don’t think many Australian’s realise how grossly overpopulated our country is. I think the same applies for new zealand. Sure we produce a surplus at the moment but with an absence of fossil fuels these two countries food surplus will evaporate.

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      1. Interesting indeed. I’ve been a little obsessed thinking about food over the last week. Trying to imagine what might disappear from the stores or what might become too expensive for me to afford. Purchased another $400 of long term supplies yesterday.

        For example, I don’t want to live without coffee and we can’t grow it here. 😦

        The Science Channel on cablevision runs a series called “How Do They Do It?”. I watch it almost every day. A lot of the segments focus on some aspect of the global food supply chain. It’s a real eye opener. Without reliable electricity and a LOT of diesel most of what we take for granted disappears overnight.

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        1. They reported in the NZ news today that we produce enough food to feed 40 million people. Most of this food goes to Asia and the Pacific

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          2. I always wonder if that stat is a typical “calories per day” equivalent or just 40 million people buy our food products.

            The Future is Rural report by Jason Bradford is a favourite of mine to push on LinkedIn but nobody ever really takes any real interest. More evidence of denial of reality me thinks.

            We’re going flat out in the garden and food forest at our place. My wife is running a local seed swap this weekend. I’m one of the lucky ones who’s partner is on the same page with respect to overshoot and energy depletion.

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  24. Joes Blogs reviews impact of Ukraine conflict on price and availability of various metals and where they are used.

    0:00 Intro
    1:47 PALLADIUM
    4:40 PLATINUM
    6:51 VANADIUM
    8:18 NICKEL
    9:45 ALUMINIUM
    11:13 COBALT
    11:55 TITANIUM
    12:57 GOLD
    14:04 SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

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    1. If the West really cuts off the supply of all these strategic minerals from Russia it can’t be good news for Western economies. There are no replacements for these metals and the price will stay high. Biden etc al, really have no clue what they’re doing (Obama was a lawyer and although smart has no background in science, so is clueless-if he is pulling Biden’s strings?).
      AJ

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    2. He didn’t mention uranium – of which Russia is responsible for about 40% of exported enriched uranium. Good luck going nuclear to try and separate Europe from Russia.

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  27. I’m bummed out today.
    It seems I’m usually on the wrong side of issues with friends and family.
    Several heated discussions today about Ukraine with people I care about.
    A month ago heated discussions with the same people about covid policies.
    Before that heated discussions about peak oil/climate change.
    It’s a big tribe and I’m not in it.
    😦

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    1. I´m feeling the same. A few days ago, my mother asked me on the phone what I think about the current news. I knew which direction this talk was going and tried to play dumb. She insisted that we talk about the Russia/Ukraine war, but I told her that I feel bad about the people involved but otherwise don´t have the time to inform myself on a sufficient level to have a substantiated opinion. This irritated her totally, the flow of the talk was totally disrupted until I changed to another topic.

      Yesterday, I talked with her again. This time we somehow came back to the Covid issue. We have a few relatives, who are totally paranoid. Not only are they quadruple vaccinated, but they also only interact with other vaccinated people. As we wanted to visit my mother this weekend, she told me that some of these paranoid relatives also want to come. I offered her to test the whole familiy before coming over to her, but she is really ashamed that we are not vaccinated and told me that she will cancel the visit of the paranoid relatives. I also somehow got from our talk that she does not forward invitations to larger family events (birthday parties, weddings) to us due to our “outcast” status. And all this fuss happens even though no one in our family or circle of friends was seriously ill with corona. Even in my mother’s generation (70+) there is no one who even had to go to the hospital, let alone died from it.

      Normally, my mother is a pretty critical person who often got into trouble at work for saying the truth, but now she seems to be totally engulfed by the official propaganda.

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      1. Addendum: at work, the two minute hate also changed from the unvaccinated to the Russians like a switch was flipped. I am glad that I can work via Zoom/Teams and can switch off my Webcam that my colleagues cannot see my annoyed face.

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        1. Thank you for sharing that. The world has gone crazy. No one cares a wit about evidence or logic.

          As you say, in a heartbeat covid is gone and now everyone wants to attack Putin.

          I am coming to appreciate more deeply that:
          1) most people believe what they are told by mainstream news; and
          2) mainstream news makes money by telling people what they want to hear; and
          3) truth and reality are completely irrelevant.

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          1. I feel for you. I never discuss Covid or Ukraine outside my home. My wife kinda agrees with me on Ukraine. I no longer watch MSM news, or if its on I mute it. So illogical, jingoistic and emotional crap. Most people want to go along with the narrative and fit in – evolution made that a generally successful strategy.
            AJ

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    2. Hi Rob, sorry to hear you’ve had a rough day. It’s hard being a Cassandra at any time in history. The present is always the culmination of everything we’ve ever done, known, and have been, but we’re at a very pointy end indeed! In situations as you have gone through with friends and family, I suppose the best thing we can take away from it is knowing we are unique human beings who desire to connect with others and try to be seen and understood. Even if it brings despair and frustration, we are ever hopeful that we can find harmony in that middle ground of letting be. I find much solace these days in trying to practice even more compassion, maybe we can accept others’ perspective as a result of the myriad twists and turns that make up their biopsychosocial lives, even if they cannot accept ours. On a very bright side, you certainly have a thriving tribe here! Thank you for being the trailblazer who has lit a path for us to find and make our own. I feel very fortunate to have found this rarefied band and I am thrilled to have just discovered that one amongst you is practically my neighbour, hello there in the Huon Valley, Tasmania! I’m in Glen Huon; it’s a small world after all. This is my first public post on Rob’s site and I just want to send out all my positive thoughts for everyone here. There’s a poignant quote from The Lord of the Rings that has become a guiding beacon for me: “ I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to with the time that is given us.” Let us go forth boldly, but never alone.

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    3. Westerners can’t help but virtue signal and are allergic to critical thinking. Even considering a different viewpoint is treated like a sin. My partner and I were just talking today about how Telegram is viewed negatively by NZ media for spreading misinformation. Yet is praised by the same media for helping anti-Putin Russians connect with each other. Hypocrisy boils my blood and I feel like my culture is rife with it

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  28. Must watch discussion on the history of the Ukraine crisis by some wise elderly experts on the topic.

    I don’t care much about left-right but I do care about smart-stupid and our western leaders are clearly stupid.

    I left this comment on YouTube:

    Thank you. So nice to know there are still a few wise people in this world. Unfortunately no wise people hold positions of power in the west. Not only is this a dangerous military situation, its also very dangerous economically given our complex interdependent world, and given that a depression with our extreme debt will be a really bad thing. It is likely that sanctions have damaged western economies as much or more than the Russian economy given their new relationship with China. Incompetence is too polite a word for our leaders.

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    1. Good comment from YouTube…

      The most bone chilling contribution to this online discussion actually comes from Prof. Postol. If what he says is still accurate, namely the inaccuracy of early warning systems of nuclear missile launches from US/Nato from a Russian perspective, then the current situation of massive tensions between the power blocks, is far more dangerous than the during last Cold War; for the simple reason that prior arms control agreements have largely been scrapped, and verification processes are no longer in effect. It is the US foreign policy establishment which eliminated these safe guards. One miscalculation in terms of threat assessment can now easily lead to escalation + tactical use of nuclear weapons on either side. Particularly the INF treaties (no longer in effect), now present the ‘adversary’ with a response time of give or take 10 minutes before entire cities can be wiped out, and thus requiring another escalation spiral. To be honest, with all the nuclear mishaps just within the last 50 years, I’m surprised that we are still here. No sane individual would ever contemplate the use of strategic nuclear weapons, yet entire planning departments exist for this very purpose on all sides. All of this deeply troubling. The very realistic docu-drama THREADS was banned for years from the public, or only shown once, before it was suppressed by all powers. There is a good reason for this: the public is not to know the terrible consequences of such destruction + the immense suffering which would follow such an event, an event in which the living would envy the dead.

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    1. Yeah, to bad about DuckDuckGone (more Silicon Valley posturing). What can I use for a search engine on Firefox now? Any suggestions on a better (safer, anonymous) browser?
      AJ

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  30. Venezuela supports Russia.

    President Maduro: [On Monday] we made an assessment of the situation in the world and there are very dangerous components. Today there is a war on the southern border of Russia because of those who broke the agreements of Europe, the West and NATO with Russia, because of those who tried to surround Russia and target it with nuclear weapons, because of those who announced that Ukraine was going to have nuclear weapons targeting Russia. There are the culprits of the armed conflict.

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  31. The U.S. MSM has been pushing the line that the existence of chemical/biological labs in Ukraine was a Kremlin/CCP/QAnon Fake News conspiracy theory, but it was blown out of the water by State Department Ukraine meddler-in-chief Victoria Nuland’s admission that, yes, there are biolabs in Ukraine, in response to a question by GOP Senator Marco Rubio. Oops. Well, we’re trying to help Ukraine keep them out of the hands of the Russians. I wonder what they’ve been cooking up in those labs? Maybe to sidestep the ban on gain-of-function research in the U.S.?

    https://greenwald.substack.com/p/victoria-nuland-ukraine-has-biological?s=r

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    1. Assuming there’s a good reason for the labs, which I doubt, if the US really wanted to avoid conflict with Russia why in god’s name wouldn’t they put the labs in France or Germany?

      Clearly the US wants conflict, and they will get it if they continue to escalate.

      We are led by fucking morons.

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  32. Tad Patzek is an intelligent aware intellectual that I respect. Today he argues that Ukraine should resist Russia to achieve its goal of joining NATO.

    I can appreciate Patzek’s perspective having been raised in Poland. My view is that it does not matter if Patzek is correct because I expect Russia will crush Ukraine and nuke the west before they allow that to happen.

    https://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2022/03/about-suffering.html

    Here is some overshoot related work by Patzek that I’ve previously posted:
    https://un-denial.com/?s=patzek

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    1. Sorry,
      I don’t think Patzek is correct. If Russia wanted to they could be indiscriminately killing civilians and destroying infrastructure. They don’t appear to be (not by the few deaths reported or the few buildings destroyed). We (the west) have this great meme (democracy, freedom, opportunity) that is basically a lie – Patzek obviously believes it. Putin has said multiple times he wants a buffer between Russia and NATO and the west trampled on that idea. He will get his buffer or Patzek’s beloved Poland will be a wasteland along with his adopted country. I hope Putin is successful in getting his buffer and taking down the “Empire of Lies” (the west) a notch.
      AJ

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  36. LTO Survivor on the state of the oil industry.

    The ignorance of our leaders on the keystone of modern civilization is breathtaking.

    I am saddened by the world’s events. We have discussed energy poverty and we are here. OPEC would produce more oil in a minute if they could. Globalization has lead us to potential starvation and truly a fight over scarce resources on a crowded planet. We could possibly get to the STEO number but it would take Banks lending and not redlining the industry, woke PE firms and institutional capital flooding back into the industry and at least a 1,000-1,200 rigs running (mostly dedicated to the Permian) and a work force that doesn’t now exist ), a country united and dedicated to fossil fuel development. When I see the Presidents press secretary spouting “just buy EVs” as a solution to high gas prices (as though electricity is grown out of the wall), I just can’t believe what I am hearing. No one truly understands the oil industry and the fact that it doesn’t possess an unlimited supply of resource. Just wait until the shale acreage is all drilled up and the production falls like a rock, the MSM will again blame the oil industry for high prices. If you kick the dog long enough it won’t get up when you call for him/her/they.

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/december-us-oil-production-unexpectedly-drops/#comment-736461

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  38. Nate Hagens with a heads up on social media…

    It’s both funny and scary. It was explained to me today that the new Facebook/Meta algorithm downrates users who have cookies w evidence of visiting non-mainstream news sources/blogs. Even when one uses proxy servers and incognito mode, if you frequent eg Aljazeera or other news sites instead of CNN or FOX the algorithms categorizes your FB content (even if it’s a chicken soup recipe) as ‘non-mainstream’. (It’s why -if interested – you should sign up for my podcast or youtube page because often times my posts may be missing in feeds- not sure of real impact) Sign of the times.

    Big brother is watching (and not even thinking).

    I’ll not be posting cultural content on this platform much longer but may stay to share farm pics with relatives/friends.

    I have no way of proving this and my main point/ concern has nothing to w me or my materials and programs: Those ideas/voices outside the status quo aren’t on equal footing- and the status quo (material growth/cultural values) is what’s leading us down the current path, without a map or plan.

    The irony for me is that for the last several years I have considered Al Jazeera to be the most trustworthy news source on the planet. I find they provide intelligent balanced coverage on most issues including those involving the middle east where you would expect bias. I no longer believe a word from the BBC and CBC who simply parrot their government’s positions with their bullshit detectors and brain cells turned off.

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    1. In general, I find this whole Cookie topic is making internet usage so annoying that I often want to quit. Every time I go to a new website, they ask me about whether I consent with all their cookies or not. The consent with all cookies option is most of the time more prominent than all other options (partial or full rejection). I imagine that most people are already so annoyed that they just click on accept to get on. If these cookies are then used to rate me, this makes the whole internet a minefield, where you have to be extremely careful about each step you take.

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      1. Since this DuckDuckGo crap I ditched Firefox/DuckDuckGo and went with the Epic Privacy browser. They provide a free VPN and for $2.50/month have a private search engine too. They are in India and seem to have everything that TOR has but faster. The problem is that everytime you close the browser all cookies are deleted. They will save your bookmarks and web site passwords/logins, but third party log ins are crap. Like here where Rob uses those WordPress “shits”. They make me log on anytime I want to comment BUT they will not let me “Like” anything because they can’t track me or something. Every piece of internet software is trying to exploit the user, it’s just how much are you willing to put up with for some privacy?
        AJ

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        1. Thanks AJ for making me aware that it is a pain to comment on this site.

          I have turned off the requirement to log in to comment. Let me know if the experience is better.

          If I get flooded with spam I may have to revert the setting.

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  40. Dr. John Campbell, a long time advocate of covid vaccines, is shocked by data in the recently released Pfizer documents, and asks how is it possible that health officials told the public the vaccines were safe when they had access to this data? He also asks why did it take court order to force Pfizer release this data?

    In a subsequent video he clarified that he misread a section of the Pfizer report and it is not as bad as his first reaction.

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  44. Robert Malone today reflects on reality.

    I have been getting the question “How does it feel to be vindicated?”

    The biomedical world that I thought I was living in has been revealed to be a sham. The legitimacy of the industry and discipline that I have committed my entire professional life to is in shambles. I am now embarrassed to call myself a vaccines and biodefense expert, because the fundamental corruption inherent in those domains has been so clearly revealed. I cannot unsee what I have seen. I cannot recapture all of those years spent in a profoundly corrupt academic system, spent supporting a deeply compromised discipline which appears primarily driven by financial interests rather than by what I had naively believed was a commitment to saving lives. I chose to not pursue the careers of my father and father in law, which were spent building weapons of war. Only to find that I had inadvertently played a significant role in enabling one of the most tragic medical follies in the history of man.

    When first asked how it feels to be vindicated, I did not know what to say. It feels a long, long way from vindication. Those directly responsible are unlikely to face any form of reckoning. And rather than remorse, they seem to find the whole thing amusing. The unnecessary lives lost, the destruction of faith in the public health enterprise, vaccines in general, the entire medical/hospital system, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and government in general. Ha ha. Oh well, not our fault. Just the way things are.

    I looked inwards, deep into my heart and soul, and asked the question. How does it feel? Demoralizing and depressing. I experience absolutely no pleasure whatsoever in seeing my worst fears come to pass, and in having accurately predicted so many things during the last two years. Jill and I have put everything on the line. Parked our lives, our farm, our family, in a sustained effort to try to save lives and help average people understand what was going on, what the actual “Science” was, and to try to help people to think through the issues. Going back to ground zero, to try to enable “informed consent” in a time where that fundamental bedrock of medical ethics was thrown into the dumpster. We have experienced extraordinary efforts to delegitimize us, to re-write history, to deny us credit for intellectual and technical contributions, to slander and defame. They have destroyed the consulting business that we had built up together over decades. We have drained ourselves with the constant travel and stress of the speaking engagements. A constant stream of podcasts (up to nine per day) as a way to break through the wall of globally coordinated censorship and propaganda. I have been labeled a “right wing extremist” and “Nazi”.

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/how-does-it-feel-to-be-vindicated?s=r

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  45. Bret Weinstein had an important and thoughtful discussion today about the irrational and dangerous way our society is behaving.

    I left the following comment:

    Dr. Weinstein, I’m a long time fan. You are asking the right questions but appear to be blind to a key piece of the puzzle.

    How would you expect a social species to behave as it begins to sense that it is in a state of overshoot?

    We have depleted non-renewable resources (especially energy) and have damaged renewable resources (eg pollution & climate change) and have hit limits to kicking the can (extreme debt with 0% interest) such that it is no longer possible to sustain current lifestyles.

    I think our species is behaving irrationally because it senses scarcity. We are tribing up in preparation for a fight over the remaining resources.

    Unfortunately we have stone age brains and nuclear weapons.

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    1. You can’t make this shit up. Someone replied:

      As with each of us personally will thrive and enjoy abundance when we reject fear so it goes with society and populations. There is more than enough abundance on this planet for all who depend on it, the scarcity therefore is directly a consequence of bad leadership driven by greed and power impulses and selling fear to populations at individual and collective levels. Only when populations recognise this will they throw the yolk of fear of their back and once again enjoy abundance.

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      1. Sounds like the old hippy shit combined with this new “manifesting” crap.
        I’ll stick with Steve Keen.
        “Equally, both Labour and Capital are “sterile”, to use the old Physiocratic term: without energy, they can’t produce anything. Labour without energy is a corpse; capital without energy is a sculpture. ”
        We can have the most brilliant leadership from hereon (which we won’t) and still be fucked – leadership without energy is as sterile as labour and capital.
        Some good news – just like that James is back https://megacancer.wordpress.com/
        That’s my morning reading sorted.

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  46. Expect about another $1 per gallon increase in diesel and gas, and then a deflationary crash, unless of course nukes fly sooner.

    People are painfully aware of what happened to gasoline prices at the pump over the past two weeks, but what happened to diesel prices is even more astounding.

    The average retail price of No. 2 highway diesel – to be passed on in the costs of everything that arrives at the house, office, store, construction site, or manufacturing plant – has been rising since November 2020, and on Monday jumped to a record $5.25 a gallon, the US Energy Department’s EIA reported late Monday, based on its surveys of gas stations conducted during the day. And this comes after the prior week’s spike.

    Over those weeks, diesel spiked by $1.15, or by 28%! This was by far the biggest two-week spike in the EIA’s data going back to 1994. Diesel is now up 64.5% from the same week last year.

    The prior record high for diesel of $4.76 occurred in July 2008, after which it got blown out of the water by the demand destruction resulting from the Financial Crisis and the housing bust. Adjusted for CPI, $4.76 in July 2008 would be $6.40 today. So in “real” terms, today’s $5.25 a gallon is still not there yet.

    https://wolfstreet.com/2022/03/15/diesel-gasoline-retail-prices-spike-in-historic-leaps-but-futures-of-crude-oil-wti-gasoline-plunge-go-figure/

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    1. Pity the poor Europeans who use diesel for almost all personal cars. I worry more about how this will effect agriculture and food prices. If it killed Amazon all the better.
      AJ

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    2. Alice Friedemann called it back in 2016. Diesel will be the crumbling keystone of the global economy. Our recent fracked oil here in the U.S. has relatively less diesel fraction, so we are exposed to the more global commodity market.

      BTW- I was half finished with “Ukraine on Fire”, went back to finish this morning, and it’s now not on Vimeo. The censor bots have been busy.

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  47. Good one today from Alice Friedemann. I agree with her that Rare Earth is an important book. I’m about half way through it but stalled because it’s not available as an audiobook.

    https://energyskeptic.com/2022/rare-earth-updates-the-latest-research-on-why-complex-intelligent-life-is-likely-rare-in-the-universe/

    I think that Ward & Brownlee’s 2000 book “Rare Earth : why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe” is one of the most important books ever written. There’s a good case to be made that our planet hosts the only complex life in the galaxy, and if not that, the only intelligent life, since there is no goal to evolution (though maybe we’re not very intelligent given how we’re treating the planet and driving ourselves and all other species extinct).

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  48. Big global changes underway.

    https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-y2e9u-11ccab3

    The Grant Williams Podcast: Luke Gromen

    My guest in the latest episode of The Grant Williams Podcast is my good friend, Luke Gromen, publisher of Forest For The Trees.

    With events in Ukraine happening at breakneck speed, the moves by Western nations to isolate Russia through a series of escalating sanctions have revealed weaknesses in the global financial system that bring into sharp focus a set of dominos Luke has been lining up for a number of years.

    The dollar’s place at the heart of the financial system is now under serious threat after the sanctions placed on Russia’s central bank have fired a warning shot across the bow of every other central bank in the world.

    What does this mean for gold? Oil? Bond markets? Currencies? Luke lays it all out in brilliant fashion as he explains why the moves of the last two weeks have changed the financial world as we know it forever.

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    1. Very good history of the global monetary system since WWII.

      They try to connect the dots at the end and paint an optimistic picture:
      – US provoked Ukraine war to provide cover for dismantling the US petrodollar reserve currency system
      – system had to change so that US can re-shore manufacturing and become less dependent on China
      – good news for US middle class jobs and industrial stocks
      – bad news for bonds since interest rates will rise

      The dots I connect are less optimistic:
      – US emotional response to Russia blew up the US reserve currency
      – US standard of living will drop 30-50%, the rest of the world will be worse
      – insufficient affordable energy remains to rebuild US manufacturing & infrastructure
      – global trade will decline and many products will be unavailable at any price
      – nuclear war a significant risk since no one willing to back down

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      1. Thanks for this summary. I will listen to it. I’m surprised by some of the conclusions. On the petrodollar – Lynn Alden had the best summary I’ve seen, and a novel conclusion that perhaps being the reserve currency is not all it’s cracked up to be. No resource connection, however. I’ll comment again when I finish.

        https://www.lynalden.com/fraying-petrodollar-system/

        Preliminarily, I’m skeptical why the war would be a necessary cover for this if the US truly wanted to change. It seemed more of a trend already underway to me, one that wouldn’t require any catalyst.

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  49. Remarkable. So many dimensions to the covid insanity.
    h/t Ilargi

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/safe-and-effective?s=r

    Safe and Effective? What the smallpox vaccine can teach us.
    Robert W Malone MD, MS

    There is another important element in the national vaccine program, which is the requirement to keep the vaccine production facilities up and running. These facilities are producing a biological product; they must be kept in production or the process for re-licensure is onerous, if not impossible. In the case of seasonal flu, one of the justifications for the yearly vaccine is to keep the manufacturing plants running and ready for business in case of a truly severe strain of flu or some other, unknown pathogen become a threat. If those facilities are moth-balled, they can’t be brought back on line quickly. Bet you did not know that. One major reason for pushing annual influenza vaccines is to maintain influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity. The industry term used is “warm base manufacturing”. Of course, this results in a very nice annual “cash cow” for the vaccine industry, one which gets annually milked for a tidy guaranteed profit. The term “rent seeking behavior” applies.

    So, there is more than one reason to vaccinate the entire population on a regular basis, and the government basically props up the entire vaccine industry with what are functionally major annual subsidies. Once a policy decision is made to acquire a vaccine product or establish a “standard of care” involving a vaccine, it is never re-evaluated. Any politician or government administrator that even considers rethinking whether a vaccine policy makes good sense is confronted by the specter of being blamed for any outbreak or cases of that disease that may arise – regardless of how (in)effective or risky that vaccine product may be.

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