All over the world there are rapacious business enterprises and machines hunting for a mission, something actually useful to do. Investments are made in these enterprises, arguments are made that they are productive. This is beyond superficial dispute: a factory of five-hundred workers emits the same number of cars or lawyers or mortgage loans or athletic shoes as would five-thousand individuals working on their own in the same amount of time; far more than that for the cars. How can organizations such as these not be productive?
At some glorious day in the future these enterprises are to become ‘efficient’: not only will they pay for themselves going forward but will also repay the staggering accumulation of debts that have been taken on since the factory enterprise idea emerged in the first place hundreds of years ago.
The debts are astounding, yet the myth of repayment is a fixed point of reference within industrial capitalism. It must be without question: to not repay or to consider non-payment is to unravel the entire enterprise. There are no other reasons to proceed with it. Our businesses exist to repay debts instead they create more of them. As the debts grow, so does our attachment to the debt-taking process. It is an endless vicious cycle: debts lead to the debt-sucking businesses which in turn lead to more debts and to more businesses: I borrow, therefore I am!
Debt is taken on the kick-start enterprise: here is the Kick Start From Hell. When does it stop? When does the firm arrive that does not need trillions to ‘get off the ground’? Every form of capital has been invested against the false promises of tomorrows that never arrive, promises made by those who take the money-forms of capital and stuff it into their pockets, leaving just enough for those who believe in the promises to give those forms some validity …
Anyone who has been paying attention knows that this Kick Start Process has left Greece an economic corpse. It borrowed to pay for its energy tab. Then it borrowed more to pay off the old debts. Now Greece is ruined in the ‘Great Gatsby’ sense. The next order of business is for Greece to fade from the consciousness of the Europeans and fall under the jurisdiction of the IMF like other backwaters Ukraine and Sri Lanka. Best for the Greeks right now for them to burn their houses to the ground for the insurance money then walk away. They are going to have to move pretty fast as the flood of European emigration to these same IMF backwaters is certain to intensify.
Outward migration of the previously-bourgeoisie has been so far the only effective response to the World’s energy/finance misery.
Weep for the Greeks: they don’t have a government. There are a handful of buildings in Athens and elsewhere with a bunch of people scurrying around inside, a cabal of banking apparatchiks wedded to the status quo and to maintaining the vanished euro at all cost. It does not matter that the Greeks cannot bear the cost, the establishment insists that all alternatives are worse.
Here is the old international finance ‘in and out’, the inevitable outcome of a country not in possession of the instruments of organic credit creation within its own borders. Easy finance capital flows into a country from elsewhere promising citizens cheap progress. As soon as the new capital is deployed and the country is dependent upon it, the capital flows out again! The outflow strands the citizens and all of their fabulous ‘investments’. Funds to service or retire external debts cannot be had, the country becomes an effective colony of the lenders.
Weep for the Europeans: if the Greeks somehow escape the euro straitjacket, depositors in other countries will understand that theirs’ is next country into the euro air lock. This is a large reason why the apparatchiks are determined to hold Greece within the eurozone: a Greek exit and accompanying bank run is likely the end of the euro.
Germany won’t tolerate any exchange-rate losses: both euros and euro-denominated private credit are vanishing from widespread circulation. Funds injected by the central bank (including any into the European clearinghouse Target 2 system) are redeposited with the European central bank. Look for the dollar to gain traction in Greece and the other deficit-riddled euro-states.
Here we have the old energy in-and-out. Energy flows into countries: waste at two-percent looks to be a good deal. Times turn hard when the energy flows start slowing down as can be seen here in Germany:
Figure 1: Germany has zero domestic oil production, it may have an oil well somewhere, perhaps in a museum. Deutschland is another one of Europe’s hopeless energy basket-cases. (This and other charts is from Jonathan Callahan’s Energy Databrowser data by way of BP). According to the media, Germany is possessed of the strongest economy in the Eurozone. According to this chart, Germany is Greece with bad food.
The only reason Germany has fuel imports at all is because it can re-export some of that fuel in ‘value-added’ form to other countries for gain. The gain in turn allows Germany to borrow. The problem is the value-added form increase consumption pressure on petroleum. Germany is the classic example of the capitalist who sells the rope used to hang capitalists.
German industry has been synonymous for decades with German coal and iron. Germany is now required to import ever-larger amounts of coal, there is a lot of red on this German coal chart:
Figure 2: German coal consumption has steadily declined over the past decades but coal available in German coal-fields has declined much faster. To obtain coal the Germans borrow against the accounts of their trading partners. The question is: for how long will the Germans be able to do so?
The German ‘coal budget’ is the consequences of decades of over-consumption, largely to subsidize German industrialized warfare waged against those very same trading partners. The last time Germany exported coal was during the early 1980s. It has been downhill ever since. At current rates of consumption there will be no more coal left in Germany after another twenty-five years. Then what? No more coal means no coal forever which is a very long time …
Germany repaying its coal debt is a concept that simply does not exist is ignored. Perhaps this is why Germany is frantic for Greece to repay its finance debts, because Germany cannot repay its energy debts.
Figure 3: Natural gas represents another energy debt that the Germans along with the rest of Europe can never hope to repay. Germany is just as dependent upon external debt-based natural gas flows as are the Greeks. The Germans are equally unwilling to abandon an economy built around the waste of capital for negative real returns.
Like the energy-wasting Americans, the Germans have taken up the belief in the existence of ‘vast quantities’ of shale gas. This is paper gas: no doubt the Germans will discover the worth of this form of gas in the very near future …
Figure 4: A major effort was made in Germany several decades ago to construct a number of nuclear power stations to provide baseload electricity. Currently, the reactors are providing a surplus of electricity that will continue until the plants reach the end of their service lives and are shut down. The German government has decided not to build any more nuclear plants. This is sensible as the unsubsidized cost of replacement plants is unsupportable. Better for the Germans to follow the example of the Greeks and cut back on the waste.
Burn their fuel-waste industries to the ground to collect the insurance. The fires will keep the people warm for a little while. In the longer term there is not so much else the Germans can do, they are broke. Like the Greeks but on a larger scale, the Germans are energy deadbeats.
The Germans must be chagrined to see a trillion new euros created by their pet European Central Bank in the past few months: scant few of these trillions have gone toward the purchase of German luxury automobiles. Instead, funds flow toward dead-money debts on the accounts of derelict banks, for fuel long-ago guzzled for nothing.
Figure 5: Here is China energy consumption breakdown for comparison. Note the massive China coal consumption. It is hard to see the Chinese maintaining this breakneck increase in the amount of coal consumption for more than another year or two. The question never asked is ‘What are the Chinese going to do with the coal?’ There are only so many useful things that can be done at any one time in the world. Anything done in excess of these useful things — particularly in one country — is waste for its own sake. Waste weighs down on output, it becomes excess capacity. China consumes as much energy as the United States, but with half the GDP. It is hard to see how wasting more coal is going to improve anything other than to pad the accounts of a handful of mining- shipping- and power company executives.
At the same time, China has an easily-grasped ‘growth story’, integral to that story is the country’s colossal waste. China borrows against all accounts within reach to grab as much resources as possible so these can be burned up for nothing right away. People believe in China, in China capitalism and uber-wasteful China modernity. That nobody knows for sure what the stories are about or whether they are worth anything doesn’t matter. China can monetize its narrative and turn the funds into coal and other fuel which in turn allows for more Chinese leverage.
Germany and China are both mercantile countries draw funds from their customers. China draws funds from US finance which can issue debt against various accounts in unlimited amounts. Standing behind finance is the US Federal Reserve. Germany will draw funds from Greece, Portugal and the reast as soon as those deadbeats get around to paying their bills. China in fact draws from the same deadbeats, yet the growth story has not gotten to the point where China bankrupts its customers.
This bankrupting process is becoming the German story, how this fits into the overall modern narrative of care-free waste remains to be seen.
Right now China is the world’s number one coal importer: As in all things mercantile, Germany must compete with China for coal and petroleum. It must also compete for external funds. China is a magnet for funds with a very high official real interest rate compared to the rest of the world. The ‘unofficial’ or black-market currency exchange rates are even higher: they have to be otherwise the Chinese currency would appreciate rapidly and adversely effect exports. Currency appreciation would cause mayhem for millions of Chinese motorists and manufacturing interests.
Because of the rate-differentials, carry-trade funds flow from the greater world to China. Germany with its collaborative euro is structurally disadvantaged: China has the organic means to defend interest rates. There is a fiscal counter-party to the Chinese central bank and a Chinese treasury, there is a large ‘shadow’ economy as well. To compete with China, the real interest rates in the euro-area must be high otherwise capital will bypass Germany and flow straight to China and other ‘carry trade’ states such as Australia. The high real interest rates are impossible burden for the weaker euro states. Because of China’s mercantile success — and the structural flaws in the European Union — the lesser- euro states are thrown into the fire so that Germany can afford fuel. Meanwhile, these same weaker states have bankrupted themselves borrowing to purchase high priced fuel as well as the ‘value added’ varieties obtained from Germany.
The outcome is the Germans face a revolt in Europe and a clampdown on their profligacy. Germany has wasted itself into a corner. China’s ability to ‘finance’ itself on its finance account as well as its energy account gives it an advantage which Germany cannot overcome.
Here is the world’s fuel waste black hole: a different strategy but much more effective PR:
Figure 6: the USA is on its way to that car-crusher in the sky, before then it will delude itself with notions of ‘energy independence’. Note the last time US imports matched US domestic production was in the early 1990s. Also note, the US imports twice as much crude oil as it produces. Arguments that the US exports more crude oil than it imports are simply nonsense. Anyone who can read a chart can see for themselves that the US is in no way energy independent or even close to it.
Unlike the Germans, the US is possessed of both native sources of energy as well as the instruments of organic credit within its own borders. America can borrow in amounts limited only by the ‘dead money’ debt on its books. The Germans can borrow in unlimited amounts against its own account but only outside the the euro. If such a thing were allowed by the incredible euro rules, Greece would do this very thing and end its debt crisis!
Because the US can borrow on world- and US accounts, because of dollar seigniorage, the US can out-compete Germany for fuel. This is a gigantic problem for the countries that use the euro. The countries cannot borrow further, at the same time there are more depositor withdrawals from banks and increased flight out of the euro. Currency-related expenses become so high the euro becomes too costly to defend. The path of Greek decline is the German path: too-high costs of external financing of wasteful enterprises that cannot be arbitraged or leveraged by way of the euro.
Exit from the euro is no panacea: countries would be forced to depreciate their currencies to manage legacy debts. Germany would depreciate in order to export, offering goods that few can make use of because of unaffordable real fuel prices … rendered so by widespread currency depreciation!
The problem is the fixation on enterprises that cannot pay their own way, toys that cannot pay for themselves. The last time the United States did not have to import fuel was off this chart! To be free of the ongoing financial/energy deflation the US will have to not only live within its energy means — without imports — but also conserve its reserves for future generations.
Yes Poland & its coal is another very interesting example of “Growth” – its increased consumption means less of its neighbours gets Polish coal – so they get poorer if they cannot source cheap fuel from elsewhere – a zero sum game.
IEA – Polish coal / peat self suff.
1971 : 1.31
1980 : 1.2
2009e : 1.09…………….soon it will become a coal importer – but from where ?
I have to disagree about the Nuke question again – if Germany merely used the credit resourses spent /given on Irish fixed capital formation during the years 2005 – 2007 on Nuclear construction it would not have solid fuel scarcity problem now.
2005 Buildings & construction : 33.405 Billion
2006 : 38.037 Billion
2007 : 36.582 Billion
Total : 108.024 Billion
If Germany spent 108 Billion on the very expensive EPR reactor how many could it build ?
Well at 7 billion a pop thats 15+ 1.6Mwe reactors – coal problem solved.
Irish Imported capital goods (half of this is vehicles)
2005 :8.31 Billion
2006 :7.99 Billion
2007 :9.16 Billion
Total : 25.46 billion
Enough to stick electricity cables above all urban Bus route in Germany I imagine
Keep in mind Irish GNP peaked in 2007 at 163.413 Billion so these are huge numbers and give a idea of the scale of malinvestment.
In 2010 Buildings & construction was 10.672 Billion
2010 Imported capital goods : 5.256 Billion
Just Imagine the scale of malinvestment in Iberia ?
Germany merely used cheap oil to export very nice Grot.
It was almost a Reggie Perrin moment I imagine…..but without the humour and bad engineering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-3JvUdYR9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93bWZV3485I
We’re screwed Steve, and you know it. As we’ve talked about this is a global sickness that dates back to well before the two world wars. Humans just can’t rid themselves of the idea that there are infinite fuels out there to burn for the machines.
“Exit from the euro is no panacea: countries would be forced to depreciate their currencies to manage legacy debts.”-Steve
Or they could just repudiate all the lagacy debt as Odious đ
Of course, then the New Drachma would be completely worthless instead of just partially worthless.
Basically here since the Age of Oil and Industrialization began, those running the Credit Creation show issued the credit so they could sell the Energy reserves they took control of through the War process. Finite amount of Oil though which cannot be increased through infinte credit creation. Nuke fantasies of Infinite Cheap Energy notwithstanding, the Credit creation Jig is UP with the onset of a downsloping Energy curve here.
So, the Greeks get thrown under the Bus first, followed by the rest of the PIIGS with Germany sitting on top of a pile of smoldering rubble once again, this time courtesy of the Finance Machine rather than the War Machine.
What still has not been modelled well is just how Ringfencing may work to maintain Boutique Economies. If you lop off huge swaths of Worl Population from any access to Credit to buy Oil at all, this could leave quite a bit of Oil around for the Ringfencers. The Germans might even have enough Oil to build a Great Wall around Germany to keep the Greek, Itie and Spic Horde from Invading. Of course, logistically speaking they will have a hell of a time moving remaining Oil from MENA to Germany to keep the Mercedes speeding along the Autobahn.
Nevertheless, sufficent Military expenditure here by NATO can probably keep the Oil flowing into Germany for a while yet to come here. Far as the FSofA is concerned, the Big Ass Military can divest the Venezuelans and brazilians of their Oil Platforms in a Heartbeat. Why PAY for the Oil when you can STEAL it? Brazilians can go back to living off Bananas growing in what is left of the Rainforest while J6P here in the FSofA consumes Big Macs in his SUV purchased with Digimoney on his SNAP card.
Face it, this is not a question of Economics here now, its a POWER game, and as long as the integrity of the Big Ass Military holds up and there is not a direct confrontation between the Trilateral Powers of the Ruskies, the Chinks and the Nazis here in the FSofA, the Little People in all the backwater nations of the world who did not get on the Industrial Bandwagon early on in the Ponzi will be Tiraged out of their Oil access.
The Germans? They are TOAST. They sit right next door to Mother Russia, who still has plenty-o-oil locally to fuel their Tanks and Jets. Those MIGs may not be as High Tech as F-16s, but ya know, when the F-16s got no Jet Fuel and the MIGS do, who do you think wins that battle? The Ruskies roll over Germany in a heartbeat here, if not with tanks then with the economics of Energy.
Eventually it works down to a Battle of the Big Boys though for the last scraps of remaining fossil fuels. That final War will consume all that is left of positive EROEI fossil fuels extant on the planet, and in less than 5 years by my estimation all the Big hardware will be at the bottom of Davey Jones Locker.
Will anybody be left standing after that War? Who knows? If there IS anybody left standing after that, all the future Battles will be fought with Trebuchet and Atlatl, Bow and Arrow, Sling and Staff, and finally Mano-a-Mano. Still a nasty Bizness of course, but a whole lot less damaging to Mother Earth than flinging Nukes at each other. Count me IN as all for good old fashioned Wars with Primitive Weapons are concerned here. Level Playing field, everybody has a fair shot in the game. Worked well as a Population Control mechanism for a good 60,000 years after Toba went Ballistic. The Balance went awry though with the Enlightenment in Europe, and the “progress” made in understanding how thermodynamic work and heat are realted concepts. After that, it was NO MORE for anybody without Cannon, and then eventually of course the Death from Above.
In due time however, the Helicopter Gunships will no longer Fly, the Tanks will no longer Roll. When that day comes, and come it will, all Bets are OFF. The Playing field is Level once again. THAT is when you come out of hiding, THAT is when you Take no Prisoners, THAT is when you make the Reign of Terror launched by Robespierre look like a Sunday Picnic. That is when you do not just get MAD, you get EVEN.
Its the Failure of the Conduits, and its Coming Soon to a Theatre Near you.
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
@Reverse
You seem to have no idea about how much crap flowed into Ireland & Spain after EMU in 1987 , 1987 was a seminal year by many standards – with Basle , Greenspan everyfucking thing going into full credit destruction mode.
Ireland is a small place – look at those numbers for just 3 years ! – fixed capital formation if you could call that junk capital was increasing at a dramatic rate in both those countries since 87 with it reaching a unbelivable peak in 2007.
Look at the Graphs for Gas / oil consumption in Ireland & Spain – they are stupendous
If only a fraction of that “investment” went into Nukes Europe would not be importing coal and to a lesser extent gas – with a energy base to facilitate Trolley bus networks in every city worth a damn.
But the European banks could make more money from Financing 3 coal fired power stations in China to extract a free wage arbitrage rent rather then building 1 Nuke station in Europe (there was a amazing BIS paper which touched on this published last year – its name escapes me now but the heart of banking darkness was clearly in Europe not North America)
Thats the reality of what happened – nothing to do with Greenpeace really or even Chernobyl – although it was a great excuse to redirect investment and increase profits.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montalto_di_Castro_Nuclear_Power_Station –
Italy has now a crazy nat gas dependency because of its decisions in the 80s – thats what people don’t get about nuclear – its a long run kind of enterprise that needs a great deal of planning and thus monetory stability which vanished in the free floating currency / free trade era.
PS look at the BP oil consumption declines for Bulgaria & White Russia in 2010 – a 25.6% & 29.3% decline in 2010.
Devaluations I guess.
Dork, we have been down the road of arguing Nuke Puke too many times already. Far as investment goes, BEFORE we invest in any brand spanking NEW “safe” Nuke Plants, how about we invest in CLEANING UP the mess left behind here by the ones currently operating? How much is that gonna cost Dork? Who is going to pay taxes to take a monstrosity OFF LINE? Where’s the PROFIT in that?
Tell you what. As soon as you invest enough Money to clean up Fuk-U-Shima, you can use the leftover money to build a new “safe” Nuke Plant in Ireland. Then Kiss the Blarney Stone on St. Patricks Day, because you’ll need all the luck you can get here in upkeeping the thing.
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
@Reverse
If I had to choose between a 20 year radiation dose in 1 year and a guarantee of food in my belly for 20 I would make that compromise.
The amount of very valuable Nat gas burned in Europe for very wasteful electricity generation is beyond crazy.
Italy is way out there dude and is a classic example of lack of strategic thinking in energy provision.
http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/ITTPESPI.pdf
On a lighter note this Swiss German ranger / hobbyist ? is making preparations of sorts.
At least he does not need to spend his hard won Francs on Hotels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdCfZQsZEHQ
Also can’t help noticing on Irish papers last week – the biggest advertisment was for the Czech (German) Skoda Fabia Greenline – by far the most economical car in real world conditions. – a test driver managed 127.8mpg on a 2006km trip with 45 litres of fuel !
But many people can manage 90+mpg with a little care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns9HqlXs1NE
“If I had to choose between a 20 year radiation dose in 1 year and a guarantee of food in my belly for 20 I would make that compromise.”-Dork
That’s not a compromise you get to make. Nuke power doesn’t guarantee you food in your belly, so you could starve AND be irradiated too! LOL.
In any event, you still avoid the question of financing the decommissioning of all the old reactors and getting rid of the piles of spent fuel. I got no idea how much it will cost to decommission all the 1960s70s era reactors built here and in France and Germany and Russia etc, but I’ll bet Steve knows how much it will cost. A LOT.
RE
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Fusion Technology has been working on fusion technology and ways to clean up fission waste. Unfortunately, the money that has been invested is very small, and progress has been very slow. I will provide this link to the site, as you may find it interesting.
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/
Be sure to check out the research page. Lots of good stuff there. The preferred fuel for fusion is D-3He, which is in large quantities on the Moon. The UWM – Fusion Technology Center even has a research paper for a proposed Lunar Miner.
I found another one:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9122311/Plateau-Oil-meets-125m-Chinese-cars.html#comment-456364378
It looks like Ambrose Evans-Pritchard will get a stern warning from ‘higher-ups’ for mentioning Peak Oil in an important media outlet. I’m sure the same thing happened to Krugman last year when he slipped and did the same thing (by accident, of course).
I’m just wondering how that 9% world-wide depletion rate we are enjoying right now is going to go over. Right now it looks like Mexico is going to cease exporting pretty soon. That is going to be a big hit particularly for the US as Mexico exported 2+ million bpd not that many years ago.
Plus, artificial prices are wreaking havoc: http://mazamascience.com/EnergyTrends/?p=1014
Here’s a related article: http://mazamascience.com/EnergyTrends/?p=940
No problemo. Demand Destruction will take care of the problem of depleting Wetback Oil. The commuters are not commuting to jobs they don’t have in SUVs they can’t afford the Gas for.
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
I borrow, therefore I am
Finally a formulation of Rene’s self-referential bullshit phrase that can be taken seriously! Just in time too, according to this.
Science of the Soul? âI Think, Therefore I Amâ Is Losing Force
Best of all, it begets the complimentary idea, much loved by TPTB and the rabidly ignorant, that those who will not or cannot borrow should cease to exist. Steve’s awesomeness grows by the week. I can probably paint a bleaker picture. I cannot even begin to paint such a convincing picture. Kudos!
Steve runs the Numbers, this is how he paints his picture. Its what i love about the blog here. The Numbers do not paint the WHOLE picture though,just a part of it. I don’t think anybody does the Numbers better than Steve does, including Nazi CPAs on some other Blogs I will not mention by name. LOL.
The BIG Picture is one of how society has been run and organized going far back past the Age of Oil. Its really Human Behaviors we are talking about mostly, not Numbers in the end. The Numbers provide a Window through which you can observe the behaviors, but they are not the behaviors themselves.
The numerical debt here is unsalvageable, it is IRREDEEMABLE Debt. You cannot bleed money from a stone, nor can you pump OIl from a dry well. All the Credit issued since this cycle began has to be repudiated, and it will be one way or the other. Endlessly examining these numbers leads to a Dead End. In this regard, I find fault with the focus on the Debt. The Debt is NOT the real problem, it all could be repudiated with the stroke of a pen really. Its fictitious, a construct designed to manipulate resource distribution and the value of labor.
The REAL problem is in constructing a system which can manage a Die Off, and do so with some modicum of fairness. Its not a problem anybody wants to deal with, at least nobody who is not a neo-Nazi Eugenicist anyhow.
You can spin your wheels endlessly on the economic collapse, but really its pretty obvious now that you canot salvage a system based on irredeemable debt and a future of perpetual growth. It just is NOT going to Happen, no matter how long it gets Extended and Pretended out here. The real questions are not about Money here, but about the Life and Death of 7B people currently walking the Earth. Who will go to the Great beyond first, how will the Death be distributed out? Its an economics of Death we must concern ourselves with, not an economics of Toilet Paper.
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
It’s starting to play itself out here locally – and the sick, aged, and infirm who are not healthy will go first. Illinois is in big trouble – and it is obvious that the useless eaters will go first – as it has always been. I’m not making a judgement – I’m making an observation. The hardest thing for the Baby Boomers to do is accept death as a natural part of life. They are now going to learn it.
Selected quotes from the Chicago Tribune – for more go to the Chicago Tribune and search Gov Quinn Cuts:
“The truth is that over the past 35 years, too many governors and members of the General Assembly have clung to budget fantasies rather than confronting hard realities, especially with respect to pension and Medicaid investments. Today, our rendezvous with reality has arrived. We must navigate our budget out of past decades of poor fiscal management, deferring bills to the future, and empty promises.”
“Gov. Pat Quinn wants to eliminate state funding for two health insurance programs that provide coverage for retired schoolteachers and community college instructors across Illinois.
The idea, part of the new spending plan the governor unveiled last week, would cut roughly $92 million from the Teachers Retirement Insurance Program and the Community College Insurance Program.”
“Gov. Pat Quinn plans to call for major Medicaid cuts during his annual budget address Wednesday and issue a warning that immediate changes must be made or the state’s health care system for the poor could collapse.
A Quinn spokeswoman said the speech will serve as a “reality check” for lawmakers who also will be asked to approve 9 percent cuts for most state agencies and further reforms to the costly state worker pension system.”
Here in Wisconsin, From the Wisconsin State Journal:
“Retired public employees in Wisconsin could see their pension checks cut as much as 7 percent, effective May 1.
That’s the reduction for about 96,650 retirees whose payments come from the Wisconsin Retirement System’s Core Trust Fund, the Department of Employee Trust Funds said Friday. It is a lot higher than the 4 to 4.5 percent Core Fund reduction the agency projected in January.”
Meanwhile today’s Racine Journal Times was filled with legal notices concerning those who are to be sued by WE Energies for not paying their energy bills. Shut-offs start in April. More people will double/triple up, more homes will be abandoned; property tax revenues will decrease, forcing another property tax increase in 2013; creating a feedback loop that will economically collapse the City.
My concerns: Will the Sewer/Water Treatment system service be able to be maintained? They are dependent upon many inputs, and you need highly trained individuals to operate and maintain them. When these are gone – large scale civilization ends.
enicar333,
It really sounds like you are on the ‘front line.’ I hope you will keep giving us updates.
In case you aren’t familiar with her work, Gail Tverberg has the same concerns regarding infrastructure services:
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/01/17/how-to-prepare-for-peak-oil-impacts-some-thoughts-from-2007/
This was why I made the comment regarding ‘universities’ in a previous post. Universities have their own power plants, dorms, libraries, food services, infirmaries, athletic facilities, etc. all tightly clustered on campus grounds. They have implemented security measures in the wake of recent tragic shootings and have their own police forces. Many have incorporated solar PV arrays in recent years, vegetative roofing, cisterns and storm water collection systems, etc. to qualify for USGBC ‘LEED’ certification. Obviously they will need inputs from the ‘outside’ but I can imagine these becoming enclaves for survivors.
“The hardest thing for the Baby Boomers to do is accept death as a natural part of life.”-Any Car
Excuse me? How is this different from aging Silents who already occupied the Nursing Homes before the Boomers or the Millenials who will come after them, assuming there are still Nursing Homes by that time?
Acceptance or non-acceptance of Death is transgenerational and has absolutely nothing to do with what statistical group of people you were born with. This is what makes your writing so awful Any Car. You blame all the wrong groups here for stuff they aren’t in control of. First its the Unions, now its the Boomers. Newz Flash here friend, it ain’t the Unions and it ain’t the Boomers, its the Koch Brothers, the Rockefellers and Rothschilds who have run the whole show and Bankrupted every Goobermint on earth through the massive Fraud and Racket better known as Capitalism. In the words of Al Capone, “Capitalism is the Legitimate Racket of the Ruling Class”.
Live with it buddy, this is the TRUTH.
RE
I disagree with the idea that the shots are being called by a cabal of global elites. Having lived through the crash of 2008 and seen with my own eyes the panic on their faces, I now know that they are extending and pretending and hoping and praying, and even they don’t want to consign their heirs to the natural fate of being local warlords.
Generations have certain characteristics mostly because people of similar ages tend to pass through critical junctures in life at similar times, and in a background of similar national and global events. Mind you there is a limit to this type of analysis, but it’s still useful.
Boomers, at least the ones who have done reasonably well, are by far the most privileged people the world has ever seen.
They grew up within an era of Pax Americana that kept major world wars at bay and led to the biggest business boom in history. They have trouble admitting to themselves that much of their wealth is denominated in fiat dollars and may very well end up to be illusory. They have trouble with the concept of aging, much less death – witness plastic surgery and Viagra. They don’t relate to the cynicism of Gen X or the plugged in virtual world of the Millenials. They are now firmly in control of all the organs of power in almost all countries, and don’t ever see a point when they will have to relinquish it.
They are wrong, hopelessly wrong, but they just don’t know it.
“Boomers, at least the ones who have done reasonably well, are by far the most privileged people the world has ever seen.”
Incorrect. The Silents the generation that PRECEEDED the Boomers was the most priviledged. They got the retirements in FL playing Golf for 30 years. Their heading for the Great Beyond with perfect timing here.
Boomers are for the most part going to get screwed. The Silents soaked the system fr all they could and left bupkis for the Boomers.
RE
“Boomers, at least the ones who have done reasonably well, are by far the most privileged people the world has ever seen.
They grew up within an era of Pax Americana that kept major world wars at bay and led to the biggest business boom in history. They have trouble admitting to themselves that much of their wealth is denominated in fiat dollars and may very well end up to be illusory. They have trouble with the concept of aging, much less death â witness plastic surgery and Viagra. They donât relate to the cynicism of Gen X or the plugged in virtual world of the Millenials. They are now firmly in control of all the organs of power in almost all countries, and donât ever see a point when they will have to relinquish it.”-Dolph
Its this kind of ridiculous gross generalization I find most loathsome on many Blogs. What percentage of Boomers have money to even GET Plastic Surgery to fix the wrinkles? Its a LOT less than the 20% who fit your category of “reasonably successful” Boomers. I’d wager that fewer than 1% of Boomers get any kind of Plastic Surgery at all. What do you make of Millenials and GenXers who turn their faces into Pincushions and their bodies in Tattoo Parlor Art Canvas? A LOT more of them do this then Boomers who get Botoxed.
First off, you are talking about only a relatively small percentage of Boomers to begin with, the top 20% or so. 80% of Boomers struggle to meet the bills, and retired ones live just on SS Checks. I am as “Plugged In” to the “virtual world” as anybody, have you taken a look at Doomstead Diner? Its freaking loaded up with every Widget Peter can dig up, and yea he is a Boomer too! How many “plugged in” Milenials can keep up with that shit?
Far a having a monopoly on Cynicism goes, this is NOT a province of Millenials and GenXers exclusively. I swamp any GenXer on the Planet with my Cynicism, and *I* am a Boomer.
Your gross generalization are not only insulting, they are innacurate representations of the real statistics here. In a nutshell, what you are writing has about as much validity as the UE Numbers published by the BLS. Its complete and utter Bullshit.
Insofar as the Masters of the Universe are concerned, yes there is Panic there going on. However, these STILL are the people Calling the Shots here. WTF elected Super Mario Dragon or Super Mario “3-Card” Monte? Who elected the Koch Brothers to set political agendas and buy Pols into office? These aren;t even the top level either, these guys are just apparatchiks beholden to even more powerful folks at the BIS.
I suggest you read Carroll Quigley’s “Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time” and then get back to me if you still think its “priviledged Boomers” who have been calling the shots all these years. It just ain’t so. That’s a FACT, Jack.
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
I agree that labeling is useless. There’s this documentary that shows an anarchic society (yes, they still exist on this planet) and the way they dealt with the problem of aging people wanting to live forever and trying to get a much bigger part of their share or using their accumulated wealth, to become buffets or soroses or other psychopathic old farts with billions who try to defy death and steal from the future of their offsprings. (it’s the part in the documentary where they were reminded of their mortality and lost usefulness by being put closer to the angel of Death in church every time, just in case they thought they were special).
Documentary is in English:
http://www.trilulilu.ro/video-film/wild-carpathia-un-superb-documentar-despre-transil
The silents will go first – as the nursing homes go dark. Also – their meds will be denied, over time.
Boomers next. There are a lot of them dependent upon various medications and treatments.
Of course the weak, infirm and medically dependent of any age will also go with them. Resource allocation and your ability to gain it through work or force will determine your survival.
In the age of peak oil and peak credit, life boat ethics will come back in vogue to America, and good health will be PRICELESS – all others will die.
“The silents will go first â as the nursing homes go dark. Also â their meds will be denied, over time.
Boomers next. There are a lot of them dependent upon various medications and treatments. “-Any Car
Actually, Boomers will be preceeded into the Great Beyond by many Millenials and GenXers. They get to be Cannon Fodder.
RE
Rejection of negative ideas, even though they may be logically sound, could be the hypothalamus and the limbic system acting upon the prefrontal cortex. The substitution of âhappy thoughtsâ may result in a neurochemical reward that solidifies the false belief and makes it difficult to dislodge. Even with repeated exposure to negative ideas, the limbic system may foster the substitution of a âhappy thought.â The never ending cornucopian optimism is likely related to rewards in the limbic system. Those that harbor negative thoughts, like death without reward or economic collapse, are destined to be eaten up by depression. Seems like spiritual and cornucopian ecstasy are logical even in their defiance of logical thoughts.
What does it mean if true? No amount of education will dislodge âhappy thoughtsâ that come with their own rewards in the limbic system and the pain of peak oil will not be felt until it is actually felt and adaptation is no longer possible. We are blind because it feels good.
Perhaps China is stockpiling coal and not burning it? That would go along with the fact that they are stockpiling many other resources they are collecting from all over the world. The US did that at one time, but it was too big a temptation and was sold off for quick bucks to spend.
“Stockpiling” Coal? Like an SPR for Coal the Chinese have somewhere with mountains of already mined up Coal waiting to be Burned?
*IF* such a Stockpile exists somewhere in China, it would last no longer than the SPR we have in Oil would last after imports were cut off. 6 months, a year maybe with rationing. Energy is all JIT delivery, with just a small percentage Buffer possible with all the Storage Facilities available in the World, including all the Floating ones.
The Chinese are Buying Up Coal Contracts and Mines all over the world here with their excess FRNs, no doubt. They are NOT however storing immense quantities of the stuff on Home Soil for later Burning. The Chinese will have to MOVE the Coal out of the Mines in Australia and wherever else they contract up for the stuff and move it on bulk cargo ships into China on a JIT basis. Will the Aussies “honor” their contracts with the Chinese to ship out their Coal unless the Chinese send in an Invasionary Force to Enforce Compliance with the Contract they made last month? Why would you do that if you could sell the Coal AGAIN to somebody else for a higher price?
The Chinese can spend all they want of their excess Toilet Paper buying up Coal Mines all over the world here, but if they cannot Protect and Defend that ownership through physical force, the contracts are not worth the paper they are written on. They cannot MOVE the Coal JIT over the Sea Lanes unless they Play Nice witht he Big Ass Navy of the FSofA, until and unless they start sinking Carrier Groups with Cheap Cruise Missiles constructed by Suicidal Dhinese Wrokers at Foxconn.
The Chinese are TOAST. They have 1.3B people sitting on a patch of depleted and polluted land that MAX probably can support 1/10th of that once they get cut off from Energy imports. They can’t send 10M Troops out either to OZ top enforce their Ownership Rights over Aussie Coal, because Troop Transport Ships are freaking SITTING DUCKS. They’ll all be fish food in short order.
Stockpiling Energy is a waste of time for the most part. Its liek stockpiling Preps, amybe you can piut away enough for a year, but if you do not have a continuing source of food for the long term, all you did here is delay the inevitable.
RE
http”//www.doomsteaddiner.org
China has an interesting set of conditions with regard to coal. There are large deposits of ‘national’ coal within China. There are also immense deposits within neighboring Mongolia, which is becoming rich (a few Mongolians) by selling coal to Chinese firms.
China imports as much as it can get its hands on, primarily from Australia and Indonesia, but there are also coai-fields to come in Southern Africa. The US and Canadian miners want to sell coal to China and would but for the shortages of coal piers on the West coast.
China can ‘store’ coal by leaving domestic reserves in place while scooping up as much coal as possible overseas. This is eminently sensible b/c the Chinese cannot count on foreign exchange. Right now China claims a trade deficit, if true it means that there is an upper limit to what China can import (without becoming a coal deadbeat like Germany).
There have been numerous reports of diminished coal stockpiles in industrial areas leading to other kinds of shortages. It is almost impossible to measure coal demand in China. They burned over 3 billion tons in 2010. How much would China burn if there were no restraints on supply?
There have also been persistent shortages of diesel fuel in China. Not only are there mine-mouth/seaport coal shortages but the government wants firms to burn less coal in cities to clear the air. The substitute is diesel. If China goes on a ‘coal diet’ it can cut domestic production and store coal ‘in the ground’.
Dr. Joseph Farrell on Germany, Russia and Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZMhAZfe74M#t=7m00s
WUNDERBAR! As soon as the German’s cat paw swat Israel from nuking Iran, they can mobilize their boys for an invasion of Poland. Oh wait…
German’s may have compulsory military service, but last I heard their best and brightest preferred a 24 month stint taking care of the elderly.
But this is good, really. Once the German’s manage to finish skull-fucking the corpse that is the EMU, they can mobilize a truly Reich-worthy army and teach the Israelis a lesson in stoking the flames of war. Errr…Herr? Fuck.
I think the next Europe-wide “Improver and spreader of civilization” will come from the East this time. He will come, as it had always been the case. The East is now lean, mean and growing very angry that the party was over before they got a chance to join. There`s mandatory military service (I know first hand), and it`s tough to say the least. There might not be enough resources to build a Wehrmacht-like machine either in the East or the West, but wars have been fought with whatever resources there were on hand, and humans were never stopped by having to use rocks and sharp pieces of metal to obliterate whatever they hated as long as they hated it hard enough.
AAPL looked like a good short @ $400:
http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/AAPL-NASDAQ.jpg
What, Ben Worry?
http://chart.ly/6vhh699
Clearly, the printing press did not work in Japan …
@Reverse
My point is even now in Ireland after perhaps the biggest property bust per capita in recent history most of the remaining domestic fixed capital formation and capital imports is still houses and cars.
The banking system refuses to engage in any long term endeavours – (EPR reactors will have a offical working lifetime of 60+ years) – Banks can’t compute that into their little double entry books.
They just wait for the depressions they caused to subside as more oil eventually comes on line , ramping up their credit engines once again – but this time……..
I accept collapse is likely but it does not have to be this way – fission energy is of many orders of magnitude higher energy density then fossil fuels.
But we have a oil based reserve currency……………with the FED using its base of operations in a constant monetory & physical war with its foes.
And yes on a indivdual level nukes will not fill your stomach – but the NG not burned for electricity generation will have to be wasted somehow – perhaps wasted on myself.
A major nuclear programme in Iberia ,Italy & Ireland would have prevented some of the “investment” flowing into houses & cars – depriving some big players of short term profits that is subsequently protected from default by their big sisters the CBs.
Nuclear stations act like monetory batteries , releasing net positive energy slowly over their lifetime – however it ties down capital – me thinks modern post Basle banks do not like this characteristic in a footloose world.
It is extremely constricting in a free trade / free capital movement world.
“The banking system refuses to engage in any long term endeavours”
Ain’t no long-term eneavours [sic] left, mang [sic]!. Oil extraction IS the long-term endeavor. That’s it. Pump the oil, pipe the oil, burn the oil.
Everything else is superfluous non-sense.
Before it was till the soil, plant the soil, eat what comes out the soil. AKA harvest the sun. All we been doing is harvesting concentrated solar energy. That’s the endeavor. Harnessing the sun so we can live and breathe and, if we’re ever so lucky, fuck another day.
@Ross
What of soil depletion ? , deforestation etc.
If my gas heating went in my house and was unable to source coal then I would have to go out to the suburbs and strip trees and bushes for fuel.
There was no nirvana during agricultural days – The History of early 19th century Ireland is a dramatic example.
Look at 19th century photos of the Irish countryside – outside of landlords walls there was no trees.
It was a wonderfully efficient agricultural economy which was also a very delicate balance for the lower orders……famine followed.
There is no shortage of Uranium out there – it is a tiny part of the overall cost of Nuclear where fixed capital investment is the primary upfront cost.
Your argument seems to be why build a stove to conserve fuel as the act of stove building is a waste – but in the long run you burn more fuel in a open fire.
You perhaps wish to deplete the biomass to remain pure and non industrial.
What of soil depletion ? , deforestation etc.
– What of them? The vast majority of soil and forest losses can be attributed to Civilizations (ours, mostly.) that went too far, trying to take more than their “fair share” of the solar harvest.
“There was no nirvana during agricultural days â The History of early 19th century Ireland is a dramatic example.”
-You forget that the Treeless Famine Ireland you reference is flesh and blood of the present Civilization. In fact, the lessons of Irish despondency play into many of the cultural memes of endless abundance at all costs, especially in America. The Irish, like a batch of yeast, overpopulated and their population and was squeezed by the environment. The pain was compounded by their abusive relationship with nature. Only a rich continent, rid of it’s pesky prior inhabitants spared the Irish a famine-induced genocide.
-“There is no shortage of Uranium out there”
Indeud, there is no shortage of uranium. There is just a shortage of the capital, the accounting and the will to make sure the externalities don’t despoil the planet for gross of millenia.
You can pound the radioactive drum all you want. But, in the end, you’re harvesting solar energy in a different form. And that form happens to be deadly toxic to organic lifeforms.
Do you get why there’s so much resistance to nuclear power, to Industrial Civilization, as a whole? It is simply because no cost-accounting mechanism exists to pay for the poisons that are sabotaging the biology and chemistry of our bodies.
“What of soil depletion ? , deforestation etc.
If my gas heating went in my house and was unable to source coal then I would have to go out to the suburbs and strip trees and bushes for fuel.”-Dork
Is Ireland Prudhoe Bay? How many 20 Below days do you get a year on the Emerald Isle anyhow? You are not “forced” to strip down all the trees to heat your shelter, its something you CHOOSE to do. Good grief man, you don’t even need Fire to cook with, the rest of the animal kingdom INCLUDING the rest of the Great Apes do just fine without it.
Your “choice” of Nuke Power is so astonishingly short sighted it boggles my mind. You create radiosotopes with half lives in the 10s thousands of years, when typical nations can’t go more than a century without a war. Know what happens in a War? Nuke Plants get blown up, that’s what happens. Make a Nuke Plant safe from THAT!
RE
@Reverse
You are not familiar with the damp cold withen these Isles – ok the Met station might only occasionally report -5 degrees at night but…..
I have backpacked in the most remote areas of Scotland Winter & summer for months on end and if you don’t have shelter on some days you can get into a spot of bother…… just saying like
We have smaller canines for a reason – we have been using fire for at least 200,000 years, possibly longer.
@Ellen
You clearly don’t know what a blackhouse is – – the house slopes so that the heat & fleas from the pig and little cow rises upwards , there is no windows , the open hearth destroys your lungs over decades of use….. etc etc.
This is idealic spot though – shame about those Norse blokes and their sophisticated boats….. nasty fellows.
notice how these softies scurry back into the car on such a glorious day by Scottish standards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-NTGbMbn4
They clearly have not slept on bogs for weeks on end – the water gets into your bones….
Dork, do you know the root of the word “Eskimo”, which is not what the Inuit and Aleut call themselves? Its an Algonquin word which means “raw meat eater”. Do you know WHY Eskimos of just 200 years ago ate their meat raw? Because there is just about nothing to BURN on the Tundra in the dead of winter. Smaller canines and all, they functioned without much fire even for cooking much less heating. Its all about INSULATION in winter.
And BTW, the Iditarod got going this weekend. I’m doing updates on the Diner for you Sports Fans đ
RE
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org
Burn dung, burn peat – make small fire and sit around it.
@Ross
There was some Industry in Ireland before the act of Union 1801 – afterwards it was squeezed – we essentially continued to be a agricultural (energy) exporter throughout the 19th century.
It was more then the envoirment – after the false agricultural boom of the Napoleonic years the country went into a entropy vice.
The hedgerows of Ireland grew again in the first 70 years of the 20 th century because Industrialisation prevented manic exploitation of every blade of grass.
Only during EU accession was those farming practises and little fields destroyed during the first banking boom of post independence – a farming / bank / credit land boom and bust of the 1970s where rivers were polluted and hedges systematically destroyed and small sub 50 acre farmers removed from the landscape.
http://www.irishlabour.com/pamphlets/Crotty-Cattle-Crisis-1974.pdf
Without technology we will exploit everything to the bone in a Somalian like fashion.
PS – many limestone regions in Ireland with a Namurian shale bedrock have radiation exposure levels much higher then people who love near most Nuclear power stations.
Google : PDF]
Radon potential mapping of the Tralee-Castleisland and Cavan
“Without technology we will exploit everything to the bone in a Somalian like fashion.”
Maybe THIS civilization will rapaciously consume everything on the planet. But that is not the destiny of humanity, nor every civilization. Competition from other civilization obviates a survival advantage to the most short-sighted, moral-less and sadistic. Voila!
In fact, the fewer resources at ones disposal, the less likely a Civilizations seems bent on destroying itself and it’s environment. The Aborigines managed 50,000 years at a Stone Age existence. No picnic, indeed. All them spiders and snakes. And yet, it took the racist, sadistic and rapacious White-Skins about 200 years to (nearly) wipe out the oldest known Civilization.
This civilization, OURS, is sick. It is insane. It is nihilistic, suicidal and murderous. It is a function of our own delusions of grandeur that we would sack the future with, quite literally, smoking holes of radioactive refuse.
Love near Nuclear ! where did that come from ? – making strange mutant babies I suppose.
Toys of the Age of Oil and why the Boomers Want it All.
http://www.doomsteaddiner.org/blog/2012/03/07/i-want-it-all/
RE