This is a comment by Hideaway with a CACTUS example from the Iran war that I haven’t seen anyone discuss.
I expect there are thousands of examples like this that will become apparent in the coming months.
To repeat my core CACTUS message: If you value modernity and want to keep it going as long as possible, we must spread awareness of CACTUS.
Because our leaders are CACTUS blind, they are destroying modernity for all countries, while believing they are protecting modernity for their own country.
USA has plenty of oil, so states the leader…
How much drill pipe does the USA have?? It manufacturers most of it’s drill pipe, so everything is OK.
Except it isn’t. Where does all the high grade steel come from that has to be used to make these pipes? The answer is mostly from Asia, plus some from Mexico and Canada, with a bit from Europe. Try over 65% from Asia.
Where does Asia get it’s high grade iron ore from?? Mostly Australia and some from Brazil, across the world.
What happens if this supply gets cut because of too expensive or unavailable diesel, bunker fuel and jet fuel (Australia’s iron ore production comes to a halt without jet fuel, as the mines are mostly FIFO (Fly In Fly Out!! from Perth 2,000km away).
Australia produces around 65% of the high grade iron ore sent to Asia, with Brazil providing most of the rest.
How long before China, Japan, South Korea stop exports of high grade finished billets and steel products, with no high grade iron ore coming into the country?? Not long at all, they will look after their own industries first, like every country is already doing.
Basically within 6 months most of the drilling in the USA will slow to a crawl or stop altogether as drill pipe becomes scarce. They could only make much weaker pipe in the USA because of the low grade iron ores full of impurities, without the processes in place to make this high grade. Nobody does this as it’s always been cheaper to just import low price high grade steel or iron ore to make high grade steel.
BTW how is anything repaired in the Gulf, if China and other Asian countries stop exporting all the high grade steel and steel products needed to repair everything?
It’s a nice catch 22 we are setting up with this war, Australia can’t export iron ore or grain without fuel, China/Asia can’t supply the finished products for repairs without the iron ore, the gulf can’t fix their broken infrastructure without sending oil to refineries in Asia, which need enough for their own citizens before they can send products to Australia. Also the gulf countries need to feed their own people with Australian grain to have the manpower to do the repairs, which leads to fertilizer that can’t leave the gulf, or LNG that gets turned into urea in China, that, that, that.
None of the media, nor any of the experts really wants to look at the real picture, some are starting to get ‘bits’ of it.
It’s denial at its finest…
April 4, 2026 addition
This post is just mainly about steel and iron ore, it could easily be about diesel, fertilizer and grains exported, or LNG, naptha and plastic packaging and insulation for electrical wires, or the sulphur route. The point being that if anyone thinks they are ‘safe’ anywhere in the world, then just wait until the feedback loops hit you unexpectedly, as no-one is interested in following the full ramifications of all the feedback loops.
As a recent example of how complex self adapting energy dissipative systems really work, we had the example of cyclone Narelle across Australia recently. It gained strength in the Coral Sea to the North East of Australia, drifted West reaching category 5 before hitting the mainland, where it lost intensity. This is likely just like the world economy that lost intensity during the depression of the 1930’s and during the second World war.
Then Cyclone Narelle went across the gulf of Carpenteria, picking up strength with a new energy source of warm sea water. This is also just like the world economy picked up strength again with the new energy source of oil allowing more coal and gas to also be gained in the following 25 years.
Then Cyclone Narelle again hit land across the Northern Territory and Northern Western Australia, again losing energy intensity, but still had enough to reach the warm ocean waters as it kept heading west. The world economy also lost intensity as the peak of USA oil production hit in 1970 and during the oil crisis of the early-mid 1970’s up to around 1982, with stagnant energy availability and vastly increasing costs.
Once again Cyclone Narelle picked up intensity as it travelled South West off the Coast of Western Australia in the warm tropical waters, just like the world economy picked up strength again from new oil fields of Alaska, the North Sea, lots of efficiency gains, then a massive increase in coal production from China, and huge increases in LNG production and transport over the next 25 or so years.
Then finally Cyclone Narelle made landfall around Exmouth on the Western Coast of Western Australia, moving South East across land where it finally dissipated as it lost enough of its energy sources to turn into a rain depression without much energy by the time it went South across the southern coast of Western Australia, totally dissipated.. The world economy has also likewise probably hit an event where so much energy is lost that the entire system can break down and dissipate into a minimal energy system, which is not good for the 8.3B humans part of this energy dissipative structure we call civilization.
Preptip:
In a recent preptip I said that I ordered a spare pair of eyeglasses using a prescription that predicts where my eyes will be a year from now.
I purchased the eyeglasses with progressive lens from my rock-bottom-price discount warehouse but they were still expensive at $520.
I decided to purchase another pair with dedicated lenses optimized for computer viewing from the most popular low-cost online supplier Zenni.
I needed to translate my progressive prescription and frame specifications, and I had to make many complicated decisions for the computer viewing optimized frame and lens specifications.
I used Gemini AI to help me and it was an incredibly positive experience. Don’t think I could have done it without the AI.
My computer viewing optimized glasses cost $120. Should arrive in 2 weeks.
Tim Watkins on the inappropriate “solutions” our leaders are implementing.
Rationing should have started a couple weeks ago.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2026/04/13/the-map-is-not-the-territory/
From a distance it looks like Berman is losing his mind, although it could be my mind that is lost.
Berman continues:
I don’t think Trump can back down. He only goes out of office in a straight jacket or on a gurney with an IV in his arm. He is a malignant narcissist and doesn’t know how to do back down.
AJ
I have noticed some comments here about other overshoot/collapse aware writers not mentioning or not believing in CACTUS. It could simply be that they are not aware of that aspect of overshoot.
I’ve shared some of the CACTUS articles on a collapse-aware discord server and I got some pushback.
What do the people who pushed back believe is incorrect in CACTUS theory?
Did they demonstrate that they understand CACTUS before they told told you it was wrong?
No to the first one, Some people seemed to partially understand CACTUS though.
The only direct argument against CACTUS I got was a claim that Hideway’s steel import statistics were incorrect. The guy who said that works in a steel mill BTW.
Hi Stellarwind72 … “The only direct argument against CACTUS I got was a claim that Hideway’s steel import statistics were incorrect.”
Except I never gave a percentage for “steel imports”.. I gave a percentage for “High Grade Steel imports” which is a subset of all steel used.
We don’t make drill pipe out of low grade steel, or recycled steel as the impurity level is too high, making the steel more brittle and/or less able to withstand the high pressures and temperatures deep underground.
In oil and gas drilling they already have enough problems of pipes getting stuck or broken downhole, when using all the different high grade steels like E76, X95, G105 and S135 steel grades.
None of them are made from low grade iron ores, nor recycled steel.
Anyone discussing “steel import” instead of “high grade steel imports”, in trying to prove a point is just in denial as they don’t want to know the big picture.
It’s the same type of denial that permeates the renewables industry, providing people clutch to numbers that fit their denial or narrative. For instance the high EROEI numbers often given are only true provided they use narrow boundaries of energy inputs and not total energy inputs.
No promoter of renewables will ever include the energy used by all the workers and the embedded energy of the background system, as the final result is too inconvenient for their argument (and not ‘simple’ to work out).
Back to your steel mill worker friend. Ask him if he thinks that O&G drill pipes are the same grade steel as used for rebar, of which the answer is no, because of impurities. Then ask him to reconsider his comment in terms of high grade steel suitable for drill pipe and how much of that the US imports, compared to the lower grade stuff used in rebar..
Personally I wouldn’t bother at all, as he has most likely already made up his mind and will just move to a totally different point about something else. Anyone that misconstrues steel for high grade steel and works in the industry is already deliberately deferring the question, as he would or should know the difference..
The Hormuz crisis isn’t just an energy shock, it is a food shock as well.
I am not familiar with these two guys but they seem to acknowledge the physical/real economy which alone makes them better than most neoclassical economists.
I followed Snider for a couple years but no longer. He’s an expert on the Eurodollar system but is overshoot/energy blind.
I also followed Steve Van Metre for a while. He’s a click bait magnet offering a new “must act on” stock market insight every day, but also blind to everything important.
There are lots of these economists coming out of the woodwork (on my feed at least) talking about the broken fertiliser supply chain, and the coming food yield cliff. And his conclusion, just like the Steven Newbury article said, is his belief we will hit stagflation in 2027, not a complete financial or economic collapse.
Obscure film recommendation. Shoot to Kill (1988) – IMDb
Fun movie. Better than anything playing in the theater right now. And beautiful cinematography of the wilderness.
I had never heard of the director, so I was checking out his resume. Dude has made some classics. Under Fire, The Best of Times, Turner & Hooch, Air America, And the Band Played On, A Street Cat Named Bob.
edit – I didn’t put enough effort into selling this. Let me try again. Good survival flick. Part mystery cuz you won’t know which one of the hikers is the bad guy till halfway through. And it falls into my favorite genre. The black and white buddy cop. FBI city boy (Sidney Poitier) partners up with the rugged mountain man (Tom Berenger). And Kirstie Alley was good as the hiking guide. She should’ve had more screen time.
Full movie here. If this link doesn’t work for you guys that aren’t in the US, there were more links on youtube:
Sounds great, thanks for the tip.
Watched half of it last night, up to the point where he pushed the hikers over the cliff!! The rescue scene before that was incredible. It did make me wish more than anything i had of been to see beautiful Canada in my lifetime, just stunning country. I have never been in one of boreal forests, only Australian or Asian forests, northern hemisphere forest are so different. And then I just start to feel sad. Maybe will finish it tonight.
This is not normal.
Wow, Satan as the Jesus Christ, what great imagery!! His ego has no limits, what grandiosity, positively unbelievable . . . probably the best example of malignant narcissism ever.
AJ
No mention of this Jesus 2.0 dumbfuckery in the mainstream news this morning.
Lots of talk about Trump blockading Hormuz but zero discussion about the implications.
Unbelievable!
Yeah, I noticed that too. . . But there are a lot of people on X noticing Trump has become the Antichrist. Also some noting that people on Truth Social are condemning him, but I don’t know how many.
AJ
Some mention…
This is not normal and we should not let this be normalized. Personally, I am not religious, but I still think this is just WTF!!!!
Trump has deleted his Jesus 2.0 image from Truth Social.
LOL. What is that? MORT?
As the obviousness of USA’s wicked ways (and its entire history of evil) gets more and more mainstream, its citizens begin to disassociate itself from the evilness by blaming it all on Israel. That’s cute… “I know we consume 25% of the worlds natural resources with only 4% of the population, but it’s not our fault. Israel made us do it” LOL!!
Time for the Ringmaster to pay these people a visit:
Greetings
Welcome to the gypsy of fortunes
Your coin was very much appreciated
And now I shall grant you your future
It seems my cards of tarot have dealt you a very odd hand
A hand of six jokers cards, this is very rare
And suggests something most hideous is approaching you
You should be visited by a dark circus
A circus of horror, pain and anguish
This traveling mass of evil will leave your lifeless corpse to rot
While entrapping your soul to be displayed at future stops
Oh yes, you must also be aware that it is your own evil doings
Which have brought about this dreaded carnival’s visit
All of the sins and hatred you have cast during your life
Have whipped and spun into form, the form of one
One who leads this gruesome parade of pain into your life
One sinister beast, one known only as… the Ringmaster!
ps. This is the 2nd ICP song I’ve posted in the last couple days. I recently got back into them because their old shit is so damn good. But I’ll try not to post anymore cuz I’m sure most people hate this music.😊
I think there are 2 simultaneous truths here:
1. Israel is a valuable CIA asset for intelligence and nasty work that can be blamed on a rogue state in a region with oil that the US wants to control.
2. Israel has a lot of rich expats and dual citizens all over the world that use their money to influence politics to favor Israel.
CIA and Israel objectives often align (or at least overlap) so it can be impossible to say who is driving the bus.
If a US president tries to shift policies away from CIA’s empire goals, then CIA can employ Israel to use its money network to influence the president, and if that fails, then it can use Mossad’s kompromat for blackmail to achieve the desired outcome, and if that fails, Mossad will assassinate the president.
LOL, ICP has 1.3M subscribers and I’ve never heard of them. I must be getting old.
Hideaway, this will interest you.
Good CACTUS supply chain examples.
No awareness of dependence on complexity growth to offset falling reserve quality, nor dependence of complexity growth on scale growth.
https://forcedalpha.com/news/japan-supply-chain-dependency
Yet the entire article doesn’t go into the inputs to these factories, or the processing plants required to feed these inputs, not their supply lines.
Just taking the silicon as a basis. Most of it likely comes from a single mine in a remote part of North East Australia, the Cap Flattery Silica mine, which runs entirely on diesel for it’s operation and bunker fuel to get the 3mt/a supply to Asia..
The glass for most solar panels is also made from the output of this mine, because of it’s high quality purity silicon.. It’s about 170km North of Mossman on the coast. It’s a massive resource, enough for hundreds of years, if we have diesel to gain access to it..
Does not mentioning that without diesel in tractors no worker will show up to the factory. In India most food is cooked with LPG. Poor people is leaving cities because they cant afford LPG. Low paid factory workers are leaving cities. Probably turning to using wood.
Interesting news clip Huldulaeki, thanks.
https://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/2043234148853121185
Top US military does not understand CACTUS.
Ireland citizens are shutting down their economy tomorrow to protest harms to their economy.
Quark today is very good.
He writes about MORT without being aware that’s what he’s writing about: “We have before us the mother of all crises and we continue to act as if nothing is happening.”
Also an interesting deep dive into how the crisis will curtail copper extraction.
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/nada-volvera-a-ser-igual
Pretty good rant.
https://havens.fund/p/this-is-how-a-civilization-dies
Find and replace “Israel” with “CIA + big money” and this becomes much more accurate.
Israel is a CIA branch office and convenient smoke screen for CIA activities.
Israel cooperates because CIA goals often align with Israel goals.
Indrajit Samarajiva put a lot of effort into his essay today discussing the global energy situation and history of US actions.
https://indi.ca/oil-markets-are-about-to-get-mugged-by-reality/
I would never have guessed that as energy scarcity emerged as a threat we would see energy infrastructure everywhere being destroyed in response.
What if we tried to work from the hypothesis that a major force wants collapse as fast as possible?
What is your theory on who and how?
I have no theory, no proofs, nothing. Just trying to sow some doubt 🙂 Hideaway would say, trying the counterpoint.
Either, this is a system exploding, so there is nothing to understand. Just an accelerating downward dynamic. (Frankly, that’s what I tend to think)
Or it’s simply media reporting things that regularly happens but they do not usually report when energy is not the current focus.
Or, deep green resistance is more effective than we thought.
Or, some major debtors can’t pay, and their only way out is to collapse the whole system 🙂
Or, some group of human is so ancient that it learned how to ride through collapses while keeping a somewhat similar amount of power. And it decided it was more advantageous to trigger collapse a bit earlier than it would occur naturally.
Ater all, we are 8 billion people seemingly organised in pyramidal hierarchies and pyramidal schemes, so how could I pretend to know what the top looks like (or side cars, not at the top, but able to topple the masses)?
To give an example, I am pretty sure, for instance, that the church will ride this crisis fine. The american state, not so sure.
And yes, this is paranoia at its finest. And if I had some obscure report, some dim elements of “proof”, that would make an entertaining conspiracy theory.
Just toying with crazy ideas, just before the world around me starts to become crazy.
Special nihilistic ending for Paq. It’s the story of a guy falling from a 50 story building:
From La Haine movie. There was this awkward scene too:
I was 17 when that movie was out. It was pretty scary for a young impressionable mind (although, Irréversible, 7 years later was way worse. Don’t watch it).
It is starting to look like that to me, too. Too many refineries and pipelines being mysteriously destoyed.
Depends on who is yanking Trump’s leash. If it’s Netanyahu/neocons then he’ll continue with this ramp up, if it’s Maga/Bessent/Susie Wiles then he will walk it all back. I doubt the U.S. will pull out of the war . . . Trump would be humiliated and that never happens.
AJ
Sorry Rob, but I can’t even muster the strength to read what whoever manages this account farts out. It’s as if my IQ drops a bit every time I try to make sense of this demented word salad.
Incredible this guy hasn’t been impeached yet.
It’s hard to believe these are not coming from a fake parody account.
Reflects very badly on the majority of US citizens that permit this behavior. If citizens spoke up in disgust he would stop. I think most US citizens support this bullshit.
Until Trump was elected for the second time I can proudly say I never listened to or read a single word from him.
Because Democrats are as feckless as Republicans and are owned by corporate interests (Defense Industries)/Wall Street/AIPAC too. None of these people will impeach him as long as there is a War going on and their side is also profiting.
AJ
With Russia’s oil export capacity down by roughly 40% in late March 2026, and a potential (and I’d agree most likely scenario) of a blockade of Hormuz, the world economy is heading for the greater depression. I think it’s likely that the central banks of the world print lots of money and that we head towards hyperstagflation over the coming year or 2, at which point the fiat currencies of the world collapse and we head back to a gold/silver standard, perhaps around 2028-2030. The winner in that scenario looks to be China to me, given its gold reserves, perhaps India on a similar basis (Indian individuals hold more gold than most central banks), and oil exporters like Russia, as I imagine oil will be trading at multiples of its current price as the supply collapses.
For those of us not in those parts of the world (I’m in Europe, which seems particularly stuffed, given its lack of fossil fuels), I’m guessing the bankers will try to force people into CBDCs; here peasant, have some benefits as we dilute your currency to infinity, but you’ll have to accept payment in CBDC. AKA the end of human freedom, so no thanks. I’m thinking a black market will emerge in gold and silver, and that having a stash of your country’s last actual silver coins (much of Europe had silver coinage into the mid-20th century, so it’s not completely unfamiliar to people) to buy food is probably wise, as is having a stash of food now. I’m converting fiat money into tins of sardines right now, as double digit inflation this year looks inevitable to me, as does triple digit next year.
Living through the collapse of the western empire of lies is going to be rough for the westerners, and I think we’re going to see starvation happening even in the first world next year. The only note of optimism I can find is that in the long run, I’ve seen it said that life for your average citizen of the Roman empire after its collapse wasn’t much different outside of the major cities, arguably better given the shrinkage of government interference, but the next few years is going to be very hard as our standard of living drops. Stashing food and getting old silver coins seem to me sensible solutions right now, as does living in a rural area that has an agricultural tradition. Good luck to us all.
No winner possible, because of CACTUS!
Thanks for stopping by Simon with the Europe view. Good luck to you too.
That was fast. Vance is on the way home.
US is considering what I originally predicted they would do: blockade oil to China.
Brian spent some time addressing the people who think Israel controls the US. I always considered that group like the flat earthers. No need to address them or give them a platform because they’re a waste of time. But the way he was talking made me think this group must be way bigger than I thought.
And his breakdown of that CNN article was funny.
My take is that the number of US citizens that believe Israel controls their government is growing rapidly and may be the majority now.
But I may be wrong.
Another feedback loop caused by CACTUS ignorance…
I’ve been trying to make sense of why Europe supports Ukraine destroying Russia’s energy infrastructure.
Apparently Europe is envious of Russia making more money due to high energy prices.
So they blow up energy infrastructure further increasing global scarcity and prices.
What a wise species humans are.
Was thinking about times when the mob mentality wasn’t having it.
Lance Armstrong
Tonya Harding
Danny Almonte
Milli Vanilli
Pete Rose
Bill Cosby
Ben Johnson
Sometimes it’s an entire sport. With congress getting involved. Steroids for MLB.
Sometimes it’s because of everyone else’s ignorance – the dixie chicks know all about that.
And sometimes it’s for being accused of touching someone inappropriately forty fucking years ago.
Imagine if the NFL superbowl ever had some type of obvious cheating… there would be hell to pay. The mob would gather with pitchforks in hand. But when it comes to insider trading and market manipulation from the president and his circle jerks… for some reason the mob is perfectly fine with it. LOL
I love the Dixie Chicks. Their treatment really pissed me off.
New 3 part documentary out on Michael Jackson. Downloaded and skimmed it. Really creeped me out so I deleted it.
Has Russia’s oil export capacity recently changed?
More from the avatar
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-infinity-asymptote-what-the-all
Thanks, a lot a words and not very much clarity.
I think he’s saying we increased debt faster than physical growth to keep asset prices growing.
I do not understand what he believes will happen, when, or why.
Do you understand his theory?
Essentially our market mechanisms are not based in any reality presently, in fact they seem to indicate the inverse. Soon though reality will be imposed through supply destruction and it will be catastrophic. Fictitious wealth will evaporate rapidly.
Thank you. I understood he was claiming markets indicate inverse of reality but I did not understand how he proposed that worked. I assumed he meant we have used debt to create a classic asset bubble but I’m not sure that is his idea.
I continue to be fascinated by how the human species avoids discussing reality.
Both the US 15 point and Iran 10 point peace plans DO NOT EVEN MENTION the core issue: selling Iran’s oil for USD.
US 15-Point Peace Plan
Iran 10-Point Peace Plan
I would love to be the lead Pakistani mediator. I would open the discussion as follows:
Clearly the Pakistani mediator is not following my advice.
You would make a great mediator Rob.
US still denying that it lost the war.
Iran simply has to keep Hormuz closed and wait.
Trump will never officially concede defeat because he is a pathological narcissist.
Do you know what we need at this moment? Another climate change feedback loop!
Hidden ocean feedback loop could accelerate climate change
https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hidden-ocean-feedback-loop-climate.html
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2521235123
Maybe the closure of the strait of Hormuz isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it was just what we needed to jolt us out of complacency.
Quark today argues the biggest impact of the Iran war will be our inability to continue denying reality by growing debt faster than the real economy.
https://rayonegro.substack.com/p/el-final-del-camino
Adrian Lambert discusses the history of civilization collapses and compares them to the impending collapse of modernity.
He argues (I think) that breakdown will occur due to supply chain failure rather than scarcity of energy and minerals. I think this is nonsense.
He predicts a period of instability and slow collapse for modernity.
I saw no evidence that he understands the core complexity and scale growth ideas of CACTUS. Nor did he explain why CACTUS is wrong.
Ratio of clear ideas to words is low.
https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/the-world-isnt-ending-its-stopping
Martenson’s news roundup:
https://peakprosperity.com/vance-starts-iran-talks-as-hormuz-stays-mostly-closed-and-selective-service-eyes-auto-registration/
No.1 news roundup:
https://no1sdailydigest.substack.com/p/daily-digest-2026-04-11
Trump today:
Good to know they are completely empty and some of the largest anywhere in the world…
Rising fertilizer prices are caused by gouging, not by the Biggest Blunder ever.
The new leaders will agree to a good deal because, praise be to Allah, we killed their old leaders and their families, while negotiating with them.
Looks like the damage has already been fixed. Prices are going down.
Could that be due to forecasted “demand destruction”?
Not sure, I would guess we need more economic damage before we can blame demand destruction.
Aussie? humor.
😂 😂 😂 I’m off to Bunnings
Explain fuel protests in Ireland.
More feedback loops:
Scarcity -> higher price -> social unrest -> accelerated scarcity + additional economic damage -> accelerated social unrest.
Mission accomplished, problem solved.
I’d like to know where he thinks the oil to load the tankers will come from. Surely the US sells all of the oil it produces (perhaps with some going to refill the SPR)? Empty tankers wanting to fill up will just push up prices for a fixed amount of oil. Exports won’t boom but revenue to oil companies will.
Theater to push up the stock market while they rearm for the next decapitation strike.
In case you’re wondering, I can find no one that is discussing gulf infrastructure damage or its implications.
I asked AI to explain the silence.
It confirmed significant damage and said IEA has publicly reported the damage but no one is discussing it because everyone is focused on the peace negotiations, and because the gulf states usually wait 24-48 hours to disclose extent of damages, and because most people view the Hormuz closure as being more important than infrastructure damage.
I asked AI to summarize recent IEA statements.
https://maaal.com/en/news/details/iea-warns-of-prolonged-en/
My take is that the correct authority has reported the damage and pretty much everyone is denying it including governments, mainstream news, alternate news, geopolitical analysts, energy experts, overshoot experts, citizens, etc. etc..
Exactly as MORT predicts.
Now that global civilization is a wrap… I’m wondering when I’ll be eating my meals in the same selfish & protective manner as Bear. My hopium is telling me that it won’t be till the end of the year
Rob, Can you please ease up a bit on all the Lego propaganda videos. I’m not really interested in watching any of them anymore, and find they are breaking up conversations, on meaningful topics when you put up a whole run of them..
Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not interested in anyone’s propaganda at all..
Sure.
I did tried to reduce the noise by combining them into threads that can be collapsed.
I dislike the US so much that I enjoy watching it be mocked but I can enjoy them without posting them.
What does this mean?
Martenson makes a good point.
You can suppress oil prices for a while, but eventually physical must align with paper, and when that happens the result will be worse than had you done nothing.
https://peakprosperity.com/the-fat-pipe-april-10th-2026-broken-markets-oil-update-the-golden-future-wth-europe-claude-mythos/
There’s only one reason that a country of 90 million people with 2500 years of rich and sophisticated culture are alive today.
I don’t know when it officially started (probably a week or two ago), but I have a mean case of TDS. Everything he does makes my blood boil.
I made fun of a lot of people in the last few years with this disease. Should’ve known it would only be a matter of time till I got infected.
ps. This is my proudest piece of prepping. 17 of em. We go through one every two days. So I’m figuring 3 days in conserve mode = 51 days.
Nice. Are you worried about your tap water becoming unreliable?
All of the influential people that helped get Trump elected seem to be turning against him.
No such thing as tap water in AZ. LOL. I haven’t been able to drink from the tap since prior to 9/11. Yeah, they say it’s legally safe to drink, but no it isn’t. (if it was the only option, yes I’d drink it no problem)
Yeah, I’m definitely worried about the tap water becoming unreliable out here in the desert.
You did not mention about my bright spark idea (not!) for you to get a water tank / ibc tank, not realising what living in a desert city actually means – virtually no rain. Impressive drinking water stash. And is that a chest freezer in the corner?
LOL, your sales pitch for those water tanks actually worked. Started checking em out. Might get a 200 gallon tank from Home Depot. Fill it up from the spigot. Still doing research. I’ll feel better knowing we don’t have to dip into the good water for cleaning dishes, washing ourselves, cooking, cleaning out toilet buckets… But I don’t know why I’m doin all this. The odds of me using an exit strategy within the first couple days of this new lifestyle is 100%.
edit: yes to the chest freezer. Full of the worlds finest frozen pizzas and tv dinners.😊
I agree that is nice. Are you worried about indoor temp when its 110 outside and power is out? I always tell my best friend who lives in Desert Hot Springs, CA that he should have a cave dug out under his mobile home for that eventuality. My personal worry is the forest fires this summer when the forest fighters are no longer employed and the equipment gets no diesel fuel – it will be a firestorm.
AJ
Yeah the time of year when the power goes down for good is the biggest factor. If it happens between Nov – March, I probably have a good chance to ride out my two months worth of supplies and go out on my terms. If it happens during May – Sept, I have zero chance.
No more deliveries at the grocery stores. Power out. Water out. – those are the big three. Will they be scattered or somewhat all at the same time? My bet is just like the planet’s polycrisis, they’ll converge simultaneously.
It’s not “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, when you are upset at all of the damage he is causing. At this point, I see the term TDS as gaslighting.
I hear ya. But in my eyes, TDS is a mistake because I don’t think “he” is causing all this damage. Feels like “they” want my blood to boil every time I see Trump. And now they have me right where they want me. LOL
BTW Donnie, holding the World’s premier waterway hostage is actually a pretty good card when you think about it..
Just wanted to thank you (Rob) and Hideaway for keeping us all so up to date. You must both spend way more time than I do on-line searching for relevant information. It will be a sad day when the power goes out and the internet goes down and I’m left fiddling with the short wave radio for info on where the radioactivity is spreading.
Also a shout out to Chris for making this site so entertaining!!
Thanks to all and good luck navigating the vertical downslope when the SHTF.
AJ
B today is good and explains why “green energy” is dependent on many non-renewable minerals that are mined, processed, and manufactured at locations all over the planet, all of which is dependent on fossil energy.
He discusses diesel, aluminum, gallium, iron, steel, graphite, lithium, and sulfur.
B’s still missing core CACTUS ideas like:
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/there-is-no-next-economy
Again pointing out how bad a shape Australia will be in.
This piece also ties the strings together.
https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-brittle-fracture-why-the-hormuz
It is a weird feeling knowing that it is going to get a lot worse but not yet.
Waiting waiting.
Hideaway any views on oil supplies still making it to Oz?
Good article, thanks nikoB.
Hideaway has completely change my view of the world. A couple years ago I believed a country like Australia without diesel would do worse than a country like Canada.
Now I understand we are all connected. Australia might shut down it’s mineral and food exports and experience economic hardship first, but the rest of us will follow the same path after a short delay.
We are all in the same boat.
we’re gonna need a bigger boat
Hi nikoB, I have had a look and questioned an A.I. on what’s physically happening.
It seems the government rhetoric of over 50 tankers heading to Australia, is accurate but not the full story.
Most of the tankers are travelling at much slower speeds than normal, to both conserve fuel and see if there is a better offer for the cargo, or wait redirections from head office etc.
Also some of the tankers are coming from the East Coast of the U.S, so they still count even if the time on water to get here is much longer than the usual cargos from Asia..
In other words fuel in Australia, despite the governments rhetoric will be drastically reduced in the next few weeks and I’d expect harsher fuel rationing to start in the next week or 2 at the latest.
At some point they will have to ban mining as it’s the largest user of diesel in the country, which means mines being put on care and maintenance. Once in that stage, (it still takes diesel to keep them in C&M, as machinery is still operated on regular basis, to keep it lubricated, still functioning for restart), and tougher C&M, the mines will require both the full range of energy and time to, bring up to operation again. Basically the longer the time they are turned off, the more ‘expensive’ (in fuel, time and replacement bits), it is to restart.
Governments for the most part don’t lie. They can be exposed on that. They just don’t bother telling the real, full truth of what’s happening. I would suggest most governments around the world are hanging their hat on the peace negotiations being successful, because if they are and the Straights of Hormuz opened straight away so that some oil and gas can start flowing towards refineries, which would allow the refineries to keep using up/ running down strategic reserves for now, and providing fuel to some degree.
No point in scaring the chooks about what happens if the ‘talks’ fail, so play the ‘we are fine game’ to keep the economy going..
nikoB, just adding that only around 18 of the inbound tankers are going at ‘normal speed’ 12+ knots, which tends to indicates they are going to deliver normally, with another 22 going at 2/3rd to 3/4 speed, 9 loitering, as in moving at less than 3 knots, and 4 having gone ‘dark’, as in turning off their transponders, which possibly means being redirected..
Thanks so much for the update.
I had heard that redirections were occurring and I imagine it will get worse.