By Fast Eddy: How the World Really Works

I saw this essay by Fast Eddy buried in the comment section of a post by Gail Tverberg.

It shed some light on what I perceive to be the insane foreign policy of the US.

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/08/10/how-economic-growth-fails/

“History is essentially a very long list of the strong smashing the weak and pillaging them.

And when the strong become weak – and the weak become strong — the same thing happens…

Again and again and again and again …. it has always been and it will always be.

I am not sure where this nonsense about sharing and being kind came from – I suppose the Jesus PR machine had a lot to do with it.

It is total koombaya bullshit. You either kill or you will be killed — you either pillage or you will be pillaged.

Screw the third world. You think for a moment these countries would not — if they could — swap places with any of the winners? They’d throw you under a bus in a heartbeat.

If we didn’t pillage these weaklings someone else would — and then we would be next because if we don’t take we weaken ourselves.

How the World Really Works

– The luckiest, fittest, smartest, with the capability for ruthlessness survive – always have – always will

– Resources are finite and therefore ownership is a zero sum game

– The strong always take from the weak – if they do not then that is a sign of weakness and a competitor will take from the weak and will usurp the formerly strong dropping them into weakling status

– Humans tend to group by clan or on a broader basis by nationality (strength in numbers bonded by culture) and they compete with others for resources

– Competition has always existed (I want it all!) but it becomes fiercer when resources are not sufficient to support competing clans or nations

– Tribal societies understand these dynamics because they cannot go to the grocery store for their food – so they are intimately aware of the daily battle to feed themselves and the competition for scare land and resources

– Modern affluent societies do not recognize this dynamic because for them resources are not scarce – they have more than enough.

– One of the main reasons that resources are not scarce in affluent societies is because they won the battle of the fittest (I would argue that luck is the precursor to all other advantages – affluent societies did not get that way because they started out smarter — rather they were lucky – and they parlayed that luck into advances in technology… including better war machines)

– As we have observed throughout history the strong always trample the weak. Always. History has always been a battle to take more in the zero sum game. The goal is to take all if possible (if you end up in the gutter eating grass the response has been – better you than me – because I know you’d do the same to me)

– And history demonstrates that the weak – given the opportunity – would turn the tables on the strong in a heartbeat. If they could they would beat the strong into submission and leave them bleeding in the streets and starving. As we see empire after empire after empire gets overthrown and a new power takes over. Was the US happy to share with Russia and vice versa? What about France and England? Nope. They wanted it all.

– Many of us (including me) in the cushy western world appear not to understand what a villager in Somalia does – that our cushy lives are only possible because our leaders have recognized that the world is not a fair place — Koombaya Syndrome has no place in this world — Koombaya will get you a bullet in the back — or a one way trip to the slum.

– Religious movements have attempted to change the course of human nature — telling us to share and get along — they have failed 100% – as expected. By rights we should be living in communes — Jesus was a communist was he not? We all know that this would never work. Because we want more. We want it all.

– But in spite of our hypocrisy, we still have this mythical belief that mankind is capable of good – that we make mistakes along the way (a few genocides here, a few there… in order to steal the resources of an entire content so we can live the lives we live) — ultimately we believe we are flawed but decent. We are not. Absolutely not.

– But our leaders — who see through this matrix of bullshit — realize that our cushy lives are based on us getting as much of the zero sum game as possible. That if they gave in to this wishy washy Koombaya BS we would all be living like Somalians.

– Of course they cannot tell us what I am explaining here — that we must act ruthlessly because if we don’t someone else will — and that will be the end of our cushy lives. Because we are ‘moral’ — we believe we are decent – that if we could all get along and share and sing Koombaya the world would be wonderful. We do not accept their evil premises.

– So they must lie to us. They must use propaganda to get us onside when they commit their acts of ruthlessness.

– They cannot say: we are going to invade Iraq to ensure their oil is available so as to keep BAU operating (BAU which is our platform for global domination). The masses would rise against that making things difficult for the PTB who are only trying their best to ensure the hypocrites have their cushy lives and 3 buck gas (and of course so that the PTB continue to be able to afford their caviar and champagne) …. Because they know if the hypocrites had to pay more or took at lifestyle hit – they’d be seriously pissed off (and nobody wants to be a Somalian)

– Which raises the question — are we fools for attacking the PTB when they attempt to throw out Putin and put in a stooge who will be willing to screw the Russian people so that we can continue to live large? When we know full well that Putin would do the same to us — and if not him someone more ruthless would come along and we’d be Somalians.

– Should we be protesting and making it more difficult for our leaders to make sure we get to continue to lead our cushy lives? Or should we be following the example of the Spartans https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I

– In a nutshell are our interests as part of the western culture not completely in line with those of our leaders – i.e. if they fail we fail – if they succeed we succeed.

– Lee Kuan Yew is famous for saying ‘yes I will eat very well but if I do so will you’ Why bite the hand that whips the weak to make sure you eat well…. If you bite it too hard it cannot whip the weak — making you the weak — meaning you get to feel the whip….

– Nation… clan … individual…. The zero sum game plays out amongst nations first … but as resources become more scarce the battle comes closer to home with clans battling for what remains…. Eventually it is brother against brother ….

– As the PTB run out of outsiders to whip and rob…. They turn on their own…. As we are seeing they have no problem with destroying the middle class because it means more for them… and when the weak rise against them they have no problem at all deploying the violent tactics that they have used against the weak across the world who have attempted to resist them

– Eventually of course they will turn against each other…. Henry Kissinger and Maddy Albright bashing each other over the head with hammers fighting over a can of spam – how precious!”

By Mac10: Globalized Death Star Countdown Sequence Has Commenced

Mac10 in fine form.

“The death star of denial isn’t global climate change, it’s Globalization itself – the invisible outer-most layer that controls all of the other risk factors. It’s unquestioned.

We need not expect Billy Bob next door to give a flying fuck about mass extinction, droughts, wildfires, or double tornadoes, when Walmart is their biggest threat to survival. We are witnessing in real time, the end of Commie Capitalism. Socialism for Billunaires. The system by which the impoverished middle class bail out the ultra-wealthy who laid them off, all while being told how lazy they are for claiming food stamps. Were it not for the free aka. “Socialized” bailout in 2008 which encouraged even greater asinine speculation, this shit show would have ended a long time ago. We wouldn’t have had to listen to entitled boy-men lecturing us endlessly on foodstamp “Socialism”, if they had actually believed in true capitalism in the first place – the status quo would have already self-imploded under the weight of its own greed and “rational self-indulgence”.

Tonight the People’s Bank of China debased the Yuan by a record amount in their latest desperately ironic bid to save Commie Capitalism from itself. Unfortunately, they broke the cardinal rule of Globalization which is that the developed nations debase while the developing nations strengthen, the only way the carry trades work.

Now, the race for the bottom just went into a steep cliff dive. Because all Emerging Markets will have to now follow suit to maintain competitiveness. The global carry trades, lifeblood of Globalization, just went deeper in the hole.

Debt accumulation has been jeopardized.

Death star countdown sequence has commenced. History’s largest game of musical chairs is about to end with all of the remaining chairs taken away at the same time.

And then everyone will be on the same fucking page. Finally.”

Globalized Death Star Countdown Sequence Has Commenced

By Gail Tverberg: How Economic Growth Fails

Another brilliant article by Gail Tverberg who has one of the best understandings and ability to explain the economy and its imminent collapse.

If you only have time for one article a week, Gail’s should be at the top of your list.

How Economic Growth Fails

By Mac10: Locus of Denial: Why I Don’t Watch CNN

The mysterious Mac10 at Ponzi World often has insightful and important things to say.

He also tends to be refreshingly brief.

I thought this post was particularly good and it has a denial theme for bonus points.

Locus of Denial: Why I Don’t Watch CNN

By Eric Holthaus: The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here

A nice update on climate change by Rolling Stone magazine.

“Historians may look to 2015 as the year when shit really started hitting the fan. Some snapshots: In just the past few months, record-setting heat waves in Pakistan and India each killed more than 1,000 people. In Washington state’s Olympic National Park, the rainforest caught fire for the first time in living memory. London reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest July day ever recorded in the U.K.; The Guardian briefly had to pause its live blog of the heat wave because its computer servers overheated. In California, suffering from its worst drought in a millennium, a 50-acre brush fire swelled seventyfold in a matter of hours, jumping across the I-15 freeway during rush-hour traffic. Then, a few days later, the region was pounded by intense, virtually unheard-of summer rains. Puerto Rico is under its strictest water rationing in history as a monster El Niño forms in the tropical Pacific Ocean, shifting weather patterns worldwide.”

The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here

By Eric Holthaus: Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning: More than 10 feet in 50 years

I observe that each new forecast is worse than the previous best guess.

Just what you’d expect from a non-linear system with self-reinforcing feedback loops that is past its tipping point.

Earth’s Most Famous Climate Scientist Issues Bombshell Sea Level Warning

By Nicole Foss: The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

It’s good to see Nicole Foss writing again. This is one of the better articles on Greece I have read.

“Crisis may be postponed, but at great cost. It cannot be prevented. Once a credit bubble has been blown, it will eventually implode, as all structures grounded in ponzi dynamics do. When it does, as we have noted before, politics will get much uglier no matter which part of the political spectrum comes to power.”

I agree with every word that Nicole wrote, and yet there is a layer of truth missing.

Everyone is broke. Everyone is living beyond their means. Everyone’s means (energy, climate, soil,  etc.) are in decline. More debt is not a solution for anyone and will only make things worse. The only peaceful path forward is voluntary conservation and population reduction.

Put another way, everyone is drawing down their capital. Those with the most capital (Germany) can extend and pretend a little longer than those with the least capital (Greece).

The Death of Democracy in a Byzantine Labyrinth

By Richard Smith: China’s Communist-Capitalist Ecological Apocalypse

This is the best article I’ve read on China and is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the difficulty of us voluntarily doing anything to make climate change less bad.

This article seeks to explain why China’s environmental crisis is so horrific, so much worse than “normal” capitalism most everywhere else, and why the government is incapable of suppressing pollution even from its own industries. I begin with an overview of the current state of China’s environment: its polluted air, waters, farmland and the proximate causes, including overproduction, overdevelopment, profligate resource consumption, uncontrolled dumping and venting of pollutants. I then discuss the political-economic drivers and enablers of this destruction, the dynamics and contradictions of China’s hybrid economy, noting how market reforms have compounded the irrationalities of the old bureaucratic collectivist system with the irrationalities of capitalism resulting in a diabolically ruinous “miracle” economy. I conclude with a précis of the emergency steps the country will have to take to take to brake the drive to socio-ecological collapse, with dire implications for us all.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31478-china-s-communist-capitalist-ecological-apocalypse

By Euan Mearns: Global Energy Trends

There’s lots of talk about renewable energy replacing fossil energy and reducing climate change.

What does the data show?

CO2 released per year continues to increase exponentially. We have not even leveled off, let alone begun to decline.

The portion of our energy that does not come from burning carbon is unchanged in 25 years.

http://euanmearns.com/global-energy-trends-bp-statistical-review-2015/

By Gail Tverberg: Why Oil Forecasts are Too High

Oil companies were not profitable in 2013 when oil was $100 per barrel. The investment required to maintain existing production levels has been increasing at about 17% per year because the oil that’s left is harder to get. Oil companies today need $130 per barrel to be profitable but the price is $60 because consumers cannot afford $130 oil.

We can expect trouble.

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/06/09/why-eia-iea-and-bp-oil-forecasts-are-too-high/