Clusterfuck Nation
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What’s at stake in all these international confabs like the G-7 are the tenuous supply lines that keep the global game going. The critical ones deliver oil around the world. China imports about 10 million barrels a day to keep its operations going. It produces less than 4 million barrels a day. Only about 15 percent of its imports come from next door in Russia. The rest comes from the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Think: long lines of tanker ships traveling vast distances across the seas, navigating through narrow straits. The Chinese formula is simple: oil in, exports out. It has worked nicely for them in recent decades. Things go on until they don’t.
That game is lubricated by a fabulous stream of debt generated by Chinese banks that ultimately answer to the Communist Party. The party is the Chinese buffer between banking and reality. If the party doesn’t like the distress signals that the banks give off, it just pretends the signals are not coming through, while it does the hokey-pokey with its digital accounting, and things appear sound a while longer.
The US produces just over 12 million barrels of oil a day. About 6.5 million of our production is shale oil. We use nearly 20 million a day. (We’re not “energy independent.”) The shale oil industry is wobbling under the onerous debt load that it has racked up since 2005. About 90 percent of the companies involved in shale oil lose money. The capital costs for drilling, hauling a gazillion truckloads of water and fracking sand to the rig pads, and sucking the oil out, exceed the profit from doing all that. It’s simply all we can do to keep the game going in our corner of the planet, but it’s not a good business model. After you’ve proved conclusively that you can’t make a buck at this using borrowed money, the lenders will quit lending you more money. That’s about where we are now.
Europe is near the end of its North Sea oil bonanza and there’s nothing in the on-deck circle for them. Germany tried to prove that they could run the country on “renewables” and that experiment has flopped. They have no idea what they’re going to do to keep the game going in their patch of nations. They must be freaking out in their charming capital cities.
The next economic bust is going to amount to the crack-up of the oil age, and the “global economy” that emerged in its late stage. It was all about moving fantastic quantities of things around the planet. The movements were exquisitely tuned, along with the money flows that circulated freely, like blood carrying oxygen to each organ. All of that is coming to an end. The nations of the world must be feeling desperate, despite the appearance of good manners at meetings like the G-7. What’s at stake for everybody in the dark background is the ability to maintain high standards of living only recently attained. And the fear behind that is not knowing just how far backward these high standards of living may have to slide.
A lot of people still alive in China must remember a daily existence on par with the 12th century. In the USA, where democracy is mostly represented by low-order thinking skills, the memory of life before electricity and running water is long gone. We’ve been living in Futurama since the end of the last world war. That war, by the way, is not entirely forgotten in Europe, despite all the charm currently on display and the tourists swarming with their selfie sticks. The place was a charnel house for centuries and the Euro folk will do about anything to suppress conflict. Lately, it looks like they’re willing to give up on Western Civilization itself to keep the peace.
Lord knows what Mr. Trump’s strategy is with these so-called “trade talks.” He has explicitly enough pushed for the re-industrialization of America, and that implies — among other things — decoupling from the China’s torrential merchandise supply lines, cutting off its revenues. Closing off China’s access to US markets itself might be enough to finally blow up China’s deeply fraudulent banking system. Maybe the aim is to just disable China, derail it from its seeming aim of becoming the next world hegemon. Does Mr. Trump think he can do that without blowing up the rest of the world’s financial arrangements? The stock markets haven’t been digesting that story very well lately. Could the US government be collectively dumb enough to think that shale oil will permit this country to re-industrialize while the rest of the world stumbles back into a dark age?
More likely, all the advanced nations will make that downward journey together. The US is well on its way, despite all the MAGA bravado. The country is reeling in bad faith, delusion, official corruption, porno-pharmaceutical vice, and ethnic rancor. The people who live in FlyoverLand style themselves like Visigoths, all tatted up and armed to the teeth, moiling angrily at the edge of the Rome-like coastal enclaves. The elites want to stuff themselves inside their phones and live there. Guess what: that won’t be a “safe space.”
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The modern world is hopelessly overextended, because people keep clinging to a broken model instead of adapting. This will lead us directly into collapse and a new dark age.
The problem with “adapting” is the necessary population reduction.
Volunteers have been hard to find.
I read it. You seem to be getting it. Have faith, your journey will bring clarity and you will know what to do.
Hi, John! Between your post asking “what is a dark age?” and our host’s image of “The people who live in FlyoverLand style themselves like Visigoths, all tatted up and armed to the teeth, moiling angrily at the edge of the Rome-like coastal enclaves,” I’m reminded of John Michael Greer’s description of the external proletariat forming war-bands, a concept he borrowed from Toynbee. Of course, “the people in FlyoverLand” are really the internal proletariat. The external proletariat are the refugees coming across our southern border, but they’re not forming war bands. To see those, one would have to look at ISIS.
Your entry also mentions the $22 trillion in debt the U.S. has racked up. Congress lifting debt ceiling for two years has averted a crisis until after the election, but it will make the long-term situation worse. As Barry Commoner, said in his four laws of ecology, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Another of Commoner’s Laws is “there is no away” and yet another is “nature knows best.” The way people have been trying to combine the two is recycling, which is a way of imitating nature through culture and technology. Unfortunately, because China is no longer taking the rest of the world’s low-quality recycling, people in the U.S. are finding out we’re recycling wrong, which really screws up our attempts to be sustainable. Oops! Time to re-think the circular economy.
It should be patently obvious to anyone who’s paying attention that the debt ceiling will continue to be raised, which is probably until people finally quit paying attention to it. It can’t be paid and spending can’t be brought under control because of the social and economic chaos that would result.
As for the proletariats, the monopoly on the use of force in Rome dramatically eroded over time with one incursion and another. At some point, someone’s going to decide that the national government no longer speaks for them and will simply start running things locally. This probably won’t be an act of political defiance, but more because there are going to start being gaps in any kind of formal authority once economic pain truly begins to hit.
When the money fails [ Gen. 47:15 ] the bribes can no longer be paid.
Druid,
Well, when bribes can no longer be paid with money, time to “get on your knees” (In the Bible… lots of places)….
John, this was elucidated very cleverly in John Updike’s TOWARD THE END OF TIME, where he predicted such futuristic developments as killer drones, loss of government power and gradual social disintegration. Here’s how Wiki describes it: “Set in New England, like many of Updike’s novels, Toward the End of Time portrays a world in which the Chinese and the Americans have attacked one another with nuclear weapons. The aftermath is shown through retired investment advisor Ben Turnbull’s journal. Though the dollar and the central government are gone, life in Boston and the surrounding areas goes on thanks to FedEx and other less reputable entrepreneurs.”
Barry Commoner! That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Thank you. He was a High Priest of the New Religion. That’s what it is for most. I don’t say that to denigrate Barry. No doubt he was a Bernie Sanders kind of guy with his own denigratables.
One time I was reading the notices in the Cambridge Food Coop – the best billboard in the world. One group was trying to “hook up” their compost pile to their house – to heat the latter. They might have succeeded in stinking up the place but that’s about it. The amount of heat would be far too small, obviously. One must mediate on a bird flying over a frozen lake. The temperature of the bird is well over a hundred degrees, but the frozen lake has much more energy. It’s like that. The bird or compost pile is not going to be able to melt the lake or heat the house. They conflated temperature with quantity. An elementary mistake, eh Watson?
Too bad the technology for geothermal can’t be worked out for home heating. Obviously as one digs into the Earth it gets hot. I was reading yesterday where Russia dug the deepest hole in the world and after about eight miles they had to abort the project because all the tools were melting. Now the hole is still there with a rusted cover over it. “Watch your steeeeepppp!!!!”
I currently live with my son and daughter-in-law near Manhattan Beach in a house and even at 80 degrees outside I am fine with the windows open so I can hear the birds and life going on outside and also I might have the chance to feel a breeze or smell newly mowed grass.
But if they are in the house forget it!! Windows bolted shut and the AC blasting until the house is like a damn refrigerator and I have a sore throat brewing!
Honestly, I cannot imagine their generation EVER being able to survive any major economic downturn where they might have to part with their ESPN and RING cameras and the damn AC!
My God, Abby, your description of life without your son and daughter-in-law sounds like a scene straight out of the death chamber in the movie “Soylent Green.”
Paul Ehrlich was/is better known than Commoner. As a teenager I read his frightening “Population Bomb” which, for a long time, scared me out of getting married and having children. Ehrlich was right about overpopulation, but, unfortunately for the human species, those backward cultures which most needed to get the message weren’t paying attention. And those Western cultures which did listen so well that they quit having babies are now paying a terrible price.
At the moment there is not a market for recycling solar panels. Nor for lithium-ion batteries that are the chemistry of choice in utility-scale solar farm battery energy storage systems. In about 20 years there will be perhaps 1000’s of acres of solar panels at the end of life, to say nothing of the lithium-ion cells of all shapes and sizes.
Whether there will be a market by then — for that matter whether there will be a “20 years from now” at all is hypothetical. It’s a risky planet.
Nevertheless there are believers in the electric future and they are busy with new battery designs (polymer electrolyte) and electric motors (multiple rotors). If they succeed in scaling up we all might be surprised at the rapidity with which the oil paradigm diminishes in importance. It is possible that the automotive industry of today will be totally transformed by 2025 (with catastrophic economic effects similar to the widespread application of the internal combustion engine). Autonomous control, 1000 mile EV ranges, and the uber model will erode the concept of vehicle ownership, and — surprise — the suburban model will flourish.
All assuming anyone has any money of value. And assuming that our embedded cyber technology does not autonomously launch ICBMs owing to a “computer glitch.” Gee, that never happens…
You are right about a new dark age, I just wish I knew when. Everyone is so sure the next recession will be the big one but QE forever can work for a long time. Let’s be prepared for both outcomes!
I was thinking about the economic meltdown that hit in 2007-8 and the “toxic derivatives” market and was reminded of the excellent documentary PBS Frontline did about the CFTC and Brooksley Born trying to warn Congress and the public about what could happen.
I watched it again: “The Warning”. It could (and probably will) happen again. And to think how, in spite of it all, Obama filled The White House and his Cabinet with all the players who were behind the quagmire….Summers, Rubin etc.
Talk about corruption!!!
When I was a young man, I read all the comments on here and other prep sites, taking notes, looking forward to the challenge of being prepared, but now being in my late 50’s and recovering from a sciatica attack which still on going into week 6 weeks, heal time with modern meds and treatments assisting me. Being old in the new dark age, I will miss my Motrin!!
Birch bark works to ease pain make a tea out of it
How do you think the ancients delt with pain?
There are plants with pain easing extracts some legal and some not at the moment.
“How do you think the ancients delt with pain?”
Benr,
I expect most of them lived with it and died relatively young….
I had the same problem!
I ended up with the pain management guy, Dr. Ing, at UCLA Santa Monica and he did a cortisone injection in out-patient surgery on me.
Same problem persisted. When I was sitting, no pain. As soon as I stood up to walk I thought I was going to die with the pain.
He told me it might take two rounds. A few months later I did the second round.
Sure enough, we did the second round and the NEXT DAY I had no pain! I could walk pain free! I emailed him and told him it was like a freakin’ miracle! So liberating!
Now it has been about two years and I am noticing when I water outside as I bend over to turn the hose off/on as I come up I get shots of pain in my legs. Take a little Advil a few times a day and I am not really complaining. But I guess the time is coming where I may have to go in for another round of cortisone injections into my lower spinal area if it gets REALLY bad again.
Truly incapacitating and life-changing….that kind of pain.
And Vicodin may be a quick band-aid. And he will give out plenty of those. But the side-effects (constipation) are not worth it.
Best to you in what ever medical decisions you make!
Anyone willing to give odds if this trade war turns into something more ‘kinetic’? Will it be an accidental thing, or something more willful?
I won’t place odds on that because I would argue we already are in hot skirmishes with China in Africa. A couple years ago I asked a green beret who lived across the street and who was deployed to Africa a few times if this was the case and he replied “pretty much.”
Most likely this “kinetic” diplomacy will still use proxy states. I seriously doubt China, Russia or the USA has to worry about invasionary forces taking them over as all are way to large. This hold especially true if oil gets scarcer and more expensive. Nukes may come into the picture, but I don’t think they will. The most likely outcome for all three of these big players is internal destruction, which already is well underway in the US and China.
China and the US won’t get kinetic but US and Iran will – Israel is already bombing Iran via Syria and many of those bombs come from the US.
Look at history, more specifically the years running up to Pear Harbor and plug in Japan instead of China. China still has the Asian philosophy of community before individual which we stopped in Japan. China is dangerous.
Is Pear Harbor off Seattle?
No, on Taiwan
I tend to think that the vast bulk of billionaires running the world would prefer to just keep the status quo and do what it is they do to tamp down any major dissents that could blow up in THEIR faces.
As we have seen over this summer, they just love their little jet-setting soirees in the pristine beaches of the world and their good food and booze and servants. Peace all around them where ever they go. They just want to sun themselves and have their confabs and meditation/work out times in the morning and their organic smoothies and just throw the peons enough crumbs for helping them out that they are actually happy to go on home to their wives and kids and enjoy a meal and their own fun times as families. I can guarantee everyone that those who work for the Gates’, the Kardashians’, the Clinton’s etc. make a very fine wage and probably live a very nice life-style.
I have worked with the super-wealthy and their “people” whether nurses (like me) or physical therapists, or chefs or gardeners or dog groomers/walkers or pool boys etc. have GOOD lives. They make good money and like their jobs and are generally happy with their lives and I have seen have honest, respectable speaking relationships with their bosses.
I honestly cannot imagine the hoi-polloi wanting to upset their apple carts. (It is not easy to find quality professionals who deliberately WANT to cater to them and their spawn, happily).
Right now, the super-rich and their various staffs of nannies, pilots, various assistants all live in their own little pretty bubbles and when they all rest their heads on their pillows at night there is little to NO unhappiness with their lots in life or honest thoughts and prayers about “the others”.
The last thing I think ANY of the 1%ters want to do is to upset their precious apple carts.
Amazon burning or no amazon burning. Unrest in France with a refugee problem or not. Their plans for vacay(and their staffs) go on….be damned.
There is always “talk” of The Third World. Places like Senegal, where religious daarus are a tradition that put many youths at the risk of abuse. Tens of thousands of very young children weave among traffic tapping on car windows for money or food to survive. Children as young as two are sent to religious schools to memorize scripture and learn “humility”. The country is about 95% Muslim.
These small children are forced to learn to beg and at times are resorted to beatings if quotas are not met. These children often sleep in crumbled buildings, on roadsides or in shopfronts, just like so many stray dogs many Americans would be happy to adopt and to give forever homes to.
Most of these children have not seen their families for years and many just die.
Slave trafficking comes about with these children and they are often sexually abused.
This world is the “other world” from those partying on the Geffen yacht as they dine on lobsters and tuck their children into safe beds.
“It’s a human catastrophe”, said Souleymane Diagne, a social worker in Dakar’s Medina neighborhood.
Until we reach a point where the entire planet honors the child as precious and to be loved and cared for in a 2020 standard of care, whether in the streets of Senegal or in rural Alabama, we have failed miserably as a human “civilization”.
This recent trade spat reminds me of the traumas of teenage social life. Donald and China had a messy break-up with lots of shouting, accusations, and recriminations. Now Donald says China called twice last night and wants to make up.
China denies calling and says she’s still mad as hell at Donald. She says he’s a cheap date who expects her to pay and no way is she returning his factories. She also accuses him of improperly touching her down low in her Hong Kong.
Donald’s friend, the Mayor of Munchkin City, remarked, “There were discussions that went back and forth, and let’s just leave it at that.”
Donald’s other friend, John with the creepy mustache, is believed to have fomented the break-up because he has long desired to violently defile China under the bleachers.
It’s a sad state of affairs when I trust China much more to be telling the truth than the idiot hustler in the White House.
If you served in the military you’d know the best way for a leader to be to be is unpredictable and less than truthful. To take Trump literally is foolish; not to take him seriously is even more foolish. He has the same philosopher that Reagan had in bankrupting the Soviet Union; he’s just not quite as slick about presenting it
Uh-huh.
Or maybe it is just you.
Maybe. I can handle it. Or maybe you’re the gullible dupe. Time will tell.
Gullible for viewing China as a threat?
Or is this you concerned about your future social credit score?
Joe Biden thinks China is no threat at all. Hope he’s right. His son certainly likes them.
Crude allegory but it works. What is the metaphorical equivalent of a trade imbalance and property theft in dating terms?
Donald is paying lavishly for China to live in style, and she is returning the favor in kind with kisses and such, but Donald is ultimately going broke, and the relationship is unsustainable. She’s also stealing money from Donald’s wallet, which for many decades his flat mates pretended not to notice, and would like to continue not noticing, since the stress of confronting China is too great for them to bear.
Yeah, but Donald also got to dump his unwanted crap at China’s place for years too. Got cheap labor etc… None of it has been a one way street or it would have ended long ago. Further, the (parents) corporate owners wanted this arranged marriage so they could make lots of money. As your comment about crude allegory implies, this situation is more complex than a teen drama. However, the GGG has the emotional maturity of a teenager so it’s easy to relate to the teen drama allegory.
>>> However, the GGG has the emotional maturity of a teenager
If you say so. I think Trump’s emotional maturity levels are on par with those of his critics, especially since they can’t seem to acknowledge his accomplishments or their own egregious behavior. I mean is kicking people out of your restaurant because they’re not Dems mature? If you say so…
Yeah, his own comments, contradictions, lies, thinking out loud and whiny tweets are all indicative of a mature stable genius. I feel bad for people who have to defend “their guy” no matter what. Just because I rip Trump it doesn’t mean I 100% the whiny Dems. A huge part of the reason this country will go down is the over saturation of politicizing EVERYTHING into phony either/or and black/or white understanding. Hell, the whole of this country has become a bunch of childish whiners.
At this point, I don’t care if POTUS literally mewls whike holding a blankly—so long as he gets results.
We tried the poet philosopher diplomat President for eight years, and all it got us were a bunch of pretty speeches.
Trump’s base didn’t elect him for his elocution. Why his mannerisms matter so much to so many is a mystery. Is Biden-the-gaffe-machine any better? Nope—but they’ll vote for him just the same.
The vast majority of Trump’s base voted for for him to screw over people they dislike. Most are leery of and dislike people who are smarter than themselves. Keep swinging at the Dems if you feel the need (which sees to be the case) as I have no emotional investment in them either these days.
Trump’s a lot smarter than he shows, Sometimes, it’s smart to appear stupid.
>>> The vast majority of Trump’s base voted for for him to screw over people they dislike. Most are leery of and dislike people who are smarter than themselves.
And you know this how? Lots of Trump voters are friends of yours?
Your elitist attitude—echoed by Dems in general—is certainly one of the character flaws that led Trump to victory.
Elitist? Hah! I didn’t know I’m an elitist. And yeah, I know quite a few Trump supporters. Grew up in the thick of them. I know quite well how they operate in public, and more importantly, in private.
With that out of the way, how many elitist Dems as portrayed in your comments do you know? Or are you just an elitist?
“Most are leery of and dislike people who are smarter than themselves.”
Maybe replace smarter with *more psychopathic. The Clinton’s are psychopaths. IMHO, Trump comes off more as a frat boy who despite having the style and brains of an above average stereotyped frat boy, still steps in to correct a wrong here or there, and for the most part cares about his country and the well being of his nation.
Sorry, I just don’t fully believe in your statement or logic, but you are welcome to it. In 2019, what do you mean by smarter? I know people who are seen as ostensibly “smarter” because they have had higher professional achievements, are more traveled, make more money, etc; but they inevitably seem to lack the degree you can only get at from the school of hard knocks and from living in poverty. I see how easy it is to dump on white trash who live on cheese doodles and J.Springer re-runs; but this being the 21st c, I know just as many people of my generation versed in Schopenhauer and Mencken whom haven’t been able to afford a proper vacation or a working automobile in a decade and would run intellectual circles around a Never Trumper from the coastal regions born into “privilege” (and do). Some of these people voted for Trump because they are already living with the consequences of collapse.
Is the far-left and far-right divide really only the manifestation of a lens for whom a lack of “openess” or an overabundance of “openess” has been experienced and processed as leading to the most damning of an individual’s life experiences?
I agree. Many people who voted for Trump had already experienced the effects of the creeping collapse. But there are still many people who have not yet experienced it and so naturally they don’t understand nor wish to. But if the Doomers are right then they won’t have a choice at some point.
Yes, we’ve been waiting for that other shoe to drop ever since 2009, and the longer it takes for it to drop, the harder and louder it will drop.
“Guess what, that won’t be a ‘Safe Space'”.
Lol! What a great line!
And I’ll bet at the G7 the subject of energy and oil never comes up, unless its within the context of Climate Change.
Germany and Sweden seem pretty smug about their clean energy efforts, even tho both countries have experienced brownouts in the past year. In Sweden especially its full speed ahead no matter what.
Brh
“Guess what, that won’t be a ‘Safe Space’”.
I loved that line as well.
It works because it is true.
Entire last para is really good.
Brownouts. Double entendre time.
Black outs for them, my dear boy.
Living in the phone will certainly not be a safe space, absolutely not. Still getting ones’ elite ass into a phone in the first place will still be far easier than a rich man getting his ass into heaven or going through a needles’ eye. Bad faith, delusion, official corruption, porno-pharmaceutical vice, and ethnic rancor are things which fall under the label of vice. Visigoths were not without virtue. Be open to the possibility of surprise.
There is always the implication that barbarians were somehow worse than what they replaced, but I think that people miss that collapsing civilizations were already long debased by the time the barbarians came in. After all, why would it have collapsed in the first place? People point to Mad Max as a warning of a possible future, but ignore the fact that total global warfare by established nation-states are what created that fictional apocalyptic world in the first place. Rome became corrupt, decadent, and riddled with incompetence toward the end, otherwise the barbarians would never have found a home in Roman lands.
The Visigoths were pushed in as refugees by invading Huns. Roman soldiers separated the male children and spread them across the empire as hostages. Visigoth men became mercenaries in the roman army. Horribly abused and mistreated the Visigoths eventually revolted and two million hostage young men were killed in town squares all across the empire. I recall that number from Gibbon. Skilled as mercenaries they were a match for the Roman army because that is what they revolted from.
To keep weapons, a necessity for life a Visigoth father getting across the Roman border might have to give up a daughter or the use of a wife to a Roman soldier. When they later sacked Rome Visigoths spared it leaving it after only a day. Eventually peace was made and the Visigoths went to Spain where they adopted the Roman Culture. The Visigothic Kingdom was in southwestern France and the east coast of Spain from the 5th to the 8th centuries. It was the last vestige of the western empire eventually falling to the Moors.
They sound great. How different from the Ostro-Goths, Vandals, or Heathobards.
The Pope went out to talk to Attila the Hun. No one knows what was said, but Attila didn’t sack Rome. If the Pope had been the one we have now, he would have opened the gates for him and said, “Enjoy”.
Constantine the Crafty Dalmatian birthed/forged the RC church for power: he forced the top-priests of fledgling & disjointed early Christianity to get-it-together (Council of Nicea) to form an institution. Not long before, Rome chewed-up something like 50 emperors in 50 years!.. The Bishop of Rome – Holy Papa with the shoes of the fisherman & the hat taller than any crown – was THE western king-maker from then to Henry8…I don’t think HolyPapa chickened Attila with Fire&Brimstone, but rather shared with him some tricks of the trade. Maybe too some fella tio & $ payout… Constantine built his greatest monuments, which glorified HIMSELF & the Romanized Olympian Order, not Christianity, after he claimed to have seen the cross-in-the-sky prior to his emperor-making battle-win; only decided to be baptised, much later, on his death-bed. Gotta cover your bases!
Apparently as with many things, the third time is the charm. During their third siege of Rome the Visigoths were able to gain access to the city. Quite possibly because some discontented slaves opened the gates and let them in. They were destructive like the other barbarian tribes. But they allowed citizens to hide in the basilicas and they didn’t burn or pillage them. Interestingly enough Rome wasn’t even the capital of the Western Empire at the time, Milan was.
Despite much current popular belief, there are limits.
As in juggling, no one has ever put more than 12 balls in the air, and then only for a few seconds.
Talking about limits don’t win elections, unfortunately. Everyone wants something for nothing, and an unlimited something at that.
Yep. Limits will have to be forced on us – by nature.
When the PLA shows up in Seattle, maybe you can get a sample of EASTERN Civilization.
Perhaps you’ll like that better.
BRH
I’m more worried about homeless farmers with kids who have to move because we fracked them up.
The PLA doesn’t count as a representative of Eastern Civ, because the PLA is the fruit of something called Marxism, which came from the West. Confucianism would be a better candidate.
Until a majority of Americans learn and understand mathematics (which I do not think will ever happen) they will continue to delude themselves into believing that they can make $50K a year and spend $200K because they can afford the monthly payments, the decay will slowly move forward. As the losers slide one by one off of the economic treadmill and into their parent’s and grandparent’s basements, the vast majority of remaining consumers will not notice their disappearance. The retailers certainly have, but they too are expendable and easily written off as natural selection to the Cyber-stores and online betting parlors. As governments move in to desperately capitalize on any remaining vices like drug sales, gambling schemes, and probably even prostitution next, they too will feed off of the general public until nothing remains but bare bones.
I especially like the way the Good Book says that the ending act (not actually an end) will come as a total surprise because that is exactly how it is playing out, surprise, surprise, surprise.
youtube.com/watch?v=2TnkJ8_BmSI
You get two thumbs up on fiscal prudence, Walt. Mathematics is where it all starts & ends, you’re right on that one for sure!
Today’s millennial generation truly believes that money comes from Keynesian Trees that Professor Emeritus John Maynard Keynes planted back in his days in university.
As one raised by the Tax Man I, for one, can assure all that tax base & tax capture will envelop all utilities & necessities of life itself in order to stay alive. If governments topple financially they will legislate Martial Law & WW3 to cover up their collective incompetence so that the millennial generation will continue thinking that Keynesian Trees make the world go round.
RW
Not just millennials but also Uncle $am’s DofD…DC practises Michael Hudson’s MMT for them (& Wall St.) while it’s the Austerity Festivus-4-the-rest-of-us.
Ironic how the GoodBook(C)(TM)-readers will be surprised and most Heathens I know won’t be!
Gold is at all time high prices, in many markets, except in USA.
It did hiht 1565 last night.
WHERE GOES THE DOLLAR?
“WHERE GOES THE DOLLAR?”
Up. Not because we are so smart, but because we are sitting on the best piece of real estate on the planet.
Real estate, surely you jest. Bombs. we have bombs.
Cropland, forests, minerals, waterways, harbors, defendable borders, etc., that kind of real estate.
That’s correct, my friend,
All added up our assets amount to nearly $150 trillion.
There is value here yet.
Brh
Good article. I spent a few summers working in the Yukon. I lived in a beat up trailer, cooked on propane, used an outhouse full of mossies, and my shower and laundry facilities were the lake that I lived on. By September a wash-up was a very quick splash, but at least the mosquitos were dead. That was thirty years ago, and despite all our wonderful comforts and relative wealth of today I still take great delight in the simple joy of a hot shower. I even love cutting the grass with a lawn mower.
Guys like Trump and other pink handers will last about a year when tough times arrive. Their money won’t be worth a damn unless they can hide it. They’ll be torn apart and all the private security services in the World won’t be worth much if they are house bound and afraid to leave the ‘compound’. In fact, most likely their ‘protectors’ will simply take what they want. Too many guns. Too much anger.
Our little family? Partly in thanks to JHK’s ‘The Long Emergency’ we moved to a very small Village/Valley, have land, tools, stores, and many many skills, and value our great community relationships. Our friends down the road keep an eye on our ‘stuff’, and we look out for them. We don’t lock our houses or shops, and I keep my truck keys in the truck so I know where they are. If people need gardening land I’ll provide it and help them get started. Looking forward to the end of behemoth RV tourism, and rampant consumerism (including air travel) for sure.
@Paulo, I always appreciate your comments. May I ask where (roughly) in the USA you ended up?
I recently finished “The Long Emergency” (borrowed from our main library) and have similar concerns for close friends and family.
I’m considering our own urban exodus, but I don’t have much sense of where to go, being a product of the American “coastal” economic systems.
“don’t have much sense of where to go”
City,
In the ’90’s, when I purchased the property I live on now, I advertised for land “as remote and secluded as possible” in many of the small local papers in the surrounding area. It is more important to avoid crowds and urban areas that determining specific location, I would opine.
How many Non-Whites you have? Think you’ll still be able to do that once Canada sets up a Bantustan in your village? Or if Gypsies moved in next door?
You still aren’t appreciating Western Culture and the White Race – which are responsible for all that you have and all that you are.
hah! Canada has 10% of the population & more land than the good ol’ U.S. of Murica…Hopefully the invaders stop in upstate N.Y. – sorry sitekeeper!
And soon enough Canada could very well be covered by ice again. Those pesky years without summers coming back and all. Could it be they have lied about it all? And even if not, and Canada gets greener in the future, what makes you so certain people who have no respect for borders will magically appreciate and respect Canadian borders?
@Paulo
“simple joy of a hot shower”
Indeed, indeed
But your time is now, not when “tough times arrive”. The thing about being prepared [as I have endeavored to do for nearly 19 years now] is that it is an illusion.
Northern Idaho is going to look like nuclear powered Keystone Cops.
An H.sapiens dieoff of near totality is the plan.
As far as the trumpet blower is concerned, I rather suspect that he’s been afforded a seat in one of “their” life boats.
…just my musings ~ pay no attention
~toktomi~
I read about a consultant who recently attended a secret, private conference of mega-rich folks contemplating “how to survive the apocalypse”.
Interesting to me, the number one issue was “how to keep your own security from turning on you”. One guy thought of locking up all the food in a vault to which only he knew the combination. Once a day he planed to unlock it to feed his security detail. I wonder how much torture he could take before giving up the combo?
Another idea was to hire your poorer blood relatives for security, figuring that the DNA connection would add a measure of loyalty. LOL, good luck with that.
Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.
“I even love cutting the grass with a lawn mower.”
Fuckin A. Putting fossil fuels to good use.
Snacks
Do you use one of those push-power mowers they had in in Sears catalogs in 1908? I have one, keep it around for when oil runs out and the apocalypse arrives; keep my lawn looking good amidst the creeping chaos.
Brh
I don’t much worry about the aesthetics of the lawn after we replaced the inground, automated sprinklers with landmines and installed the perimeter razorwire!
Nice post, Paulo.
If I may ask, what were you doing in the Yukon territory?
If it was gold mining, did you find any? Jack London didn’t, but he got some good stories out of the attempt, and it appears you did the same.
Brh
Working in the Yukon. MMFA troll is salt of the earth narrative now.
You know Trumpi went to military school and could probably manage long after you are gone.
Paulo, I remember reading (perhaps in Mr Kunstler’s expositions) that the end of commercial jet travel for the masses will be the ‘canary in the coal mine’ signaling general breakdown. The banksters running Boeing and the Eurocrat crooks running Airbus will also see their enterprises stuck with idle factories and unsalable aircraft once the system freezes up.
I still find it a wondrous experience to be able to step on a jet and be three continents away within hours for the equivalent of a couple of weeks’ salary. And I do not take it for granted, even with global tourism at a ‘peak’.
Want to see something truly scary? Watch ‘American Factory’ currently on Netflix.
These buggers are taking over the world. It will not be pretty.
I see a new feudal model after the crash: With my extensive gardening skills perfected over the last 40 years, I will make a select few of you my debt servants. In exchange, I’ll feed you (mostly potatoes and onions) and teach you how to grow your own food. Hard physical work, but you’ll have little choice.
” Hard physical work, but you’ll have little choice.”
Neon,
Excellent plan! I recommend you indenture urban blacks exclusively…they will serve you well, and with gratitude.
Rock and a hard place. That’s where Trump and any putative future leader of the US finds themselves these days. Blow up China and they blow up the prevailing global wealth pump, whereby the US offloads its increasingly worthless government debt in exchange for cheap Chinese goods (and good little capitalists take profits all along the way, of course), which are the only thing the US’s impoverished working class can afford these days after decades of a race to the quantitative and qualitative bottom. To top it off, apparently Trump now believes that he has the power to order US companies to bring their businesses back home, in what one can only characterize as a mental case of jujitsu of the highest order, especially coming from one who claims with every breath to be the living breathing prophet of red, white, and blue American capitalism. The hits just keep on coming daily now from an administration and indeed a culture and a country that has moved so far beyond the term post-modern in every way, that we’re all at a loss to even describe what it is exactly we’re “post” anymore. Post-rational might be as good a place to start as any.
Oil is the transportation fuel that keeps the global economy moving. For many years the last few barrels needed to fulfill demand have been produced by some marginal companies that struggle to stave off bankruptcy. Such is the case today. With oil above $70 per barrel bankruptcy would be far in the distance. In the $50 range, the wolf is at the door.
This game can go on a lot longer than you might think. The U.S. is not the only country with shale and other tight sand oil and gas resources. When the price is high enough there will be marginal companies willing to drill them. It will be time to worry when the demand can’t be met at $100 per barrel. That is nowhere in sight yet.
” It will be time to worry when the demand can’t be met at $100 per barrel. That is nowhere in sight yet.”
Especially with the demand destruction that kicks in at $100/bbl. We will run out of tolerance for each other before we run out of oil.
James; There’s something about your economic analysis of the oil economy that doesn’t quite compute. You say that the oil dependent economy we’ve enjoyed for the last 150 years or so is coming to an end, yet American production is higher than it’s been in years. Like real estate developers in a boom, shale producers are producing so much oil and gas they’ve glutted the market. In the Permian Basin they’re flaring gas because there’s not enough pipeline capacity so send it to markets. A couple of months ago the price of natural gas was negative. That is, producers were paying pipelines to take the gas off their hands.
Sure, eventually the age of oil will end, but it will likely be a decades long process. They’re still pumping oil out of fields in the Permian Basin that were discovered in the 1920s and they are still discovering more. Right now oil is not even double the price it was during the Arab Oil Embargo in the early 1970’s. How many other things have appreciated in price so little over the last 45 years? My guess is that oil will become more and more expensive as it becomes less available. That should lead to more serious attempts to conserve energy while developing alternative technologies. Every time I drive through West Texas I see more and more wind turbines, and there are millions of acres to put more of them. I don’t think we all need to live like the Amish just yet.
The permian basin is a product of low-interest financing to shale oil companies that can’t make money. That is what I wrote in the blog. Soon, they will be cut off from further loans, because they can’t make good on the old loans. Production will go down, and probably very quickly.
Wind turbines can only be built and maintained with cheap oil. Wind and solar will end up disappointing the multitudes.
‘Could the US government be collectively dumb enough to think that shale oil will permit this country to re-industrialize while the rest of the world stumbles back into a dark age?
Climate war bonds.
Solar could still have potential. Here in Germany, there is often an energy surplus that gets sold back to the power companies, and this is largely from private solar panels.
We can literally grow our own power source in the form of switch grass and hemp oil from seeds to power diesels
Switch grass and hemp are weeds both excellent for making ethanol unlike corn which is not so good.
Brazil has managed to do it so can we.
But doesn’t that take up a lot of agricultural land for the purposes of fuel rather than food production? Is this maybe why so much of the forest is being clear-cut in Brazil?
The short answer to this question is no.
Markets—manipulated as they are—may not respond in such a linear manner. They reflect the availability of oil right now and in the near future, not the nonrenewable nature of oil itself.
Recall Hemingway’s quote on how one goes bankrupt: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
This description also happens to match the power output of most batteries.
@zekesdad
The “amount” of oil in the ground has virtually nothing to do with the health of the global industrial economy.
In the very simplest terms that describe everything you need know, an economic/financial system that must grow exponentially to survive is fueled by a requisite energy source that must grow exponentially interminably.
But don’t accept my stupid opinion. Do your own damn research before posting illiterate opinions of your own.
~toktomi~
“an economic/financial system that must grow exponentially to survive”
So basically Mammon that needs ever increasingly sacrifices.
“Sacrifice…Sacrifice…Sacrifice in the U.S>.AAA”
See track 12. circa 2005.
suncitygirls.bandcamp.com/album/carnival-folklore-resurrection-vol-14-static-from-the-outside-set
Zekesdad, I think you are correct that we have enough oil to last a long time, probably much longer than is needed as we switch to renewables. Of course, that opinion is very unpopular around here. The end of oil has been predicted many, many times. So far, they’ve all been wrong. Will they be right this time? Maybe, but not likely.
The only point I might disagree with you on is your guess that oil becomes more expensive as it becomes less available. I suspect what may happen is oil gets cheaper as demand drops because we find better, less expensive alternatives. In the end, we will probably leave a lot of fossil fuels in the ground.
Instead of the nightly “making a difference” segment on NBC news, it should have a daily story of people who can no longer afford the basics, live pay check to pay check, don’t know how to repair anything, or cook a simple meal or grow a tomato. Maybe it would help wake a few people up to the reality that people who are completely dependent are easy to exploit.
And another segment “did not make a difference” on how Obama did zip for the environment, labor unions, student loans, etc. In fact, medical costs are even worse and prescription costs, through the roof.
Why do you think the Left initiated the stupidification of America.
JohnAZ … that is worth a chuckle! Now squeeze your eyelids tighter.
Do you have left and right hands? Feet? Two sides to your face? There is no left or right to the Secret Power. Or to put it in terms of the bodily analogy, it’s both.
You want a figure with only one side, a stick with only one end. It cannot be.
Those student loans are part of growth, at all costs.
credit cards
sub prime auto loans
sub prime mortgages
etc
>>> Obama did zip for the environment, labor unions, student loans, etc. In fact, medical costs are even worse and prescription costs, through the roof.
Dems agree that none of their current contenders match Obama. Yet Obama, himself, punched way above his weight in terms of his accomplishments-to-popularity ratio. He really accomplished nothing except to make Dems feel warm and fuzzy for eight years. And that’s all Dems really want. Someone to shield them from a cruel and malevolent universe, and acknowledge that their great deeds, such as banning plastic straws or bags, just saved the world.
there is no bag ban they just charge 10 cents a bag.
I can go buy a bunch and feed them to the sea turtles all day long!
Stupid waste of time ever.
Just give me back the paper sacks already.
I exercised on the treadmill yesterday next to our mayor and asked him if he had any overarching concern about the future of defense contracting outlays that support our exploding growth in town and he replied the future looks very bright. And the chances for another financial crisis? Puzzlement. Non-existent…..
I like him. The city is booming. So I should run for office and point out to my fellow citizens that a tsunami of consequences is coming for them? I feel like the bearded guy with the “End is nigh” sign or maybe Chicken Little… Even my wife won’t listen to my laments anymore.
Why have I educated myself to Cassandra status when everyone wants the dream to never end? I have had two vacations this summer, I think I’ll take another one before I have to raise potatoes…..
You managed to educate yourself to ‘Cassandra status’ because you know it’s your job to take out the garbage & raise the potatoes when necessary as Mrs. RocketDoc likely won’t listen to your pleas to take the garbage out herself, or raise the potatoes when necessary given that that is your job, and she knows it too, Mr. RocketDoc.
Financial awareness begins in the home & wallet!
P.S. Don’t forget to mow the lawn.
RW
RW
Planning for the future is a waste of time. The deniers will not even believe there is a problem in the first place.
I think that the cities, without the supply lines full, are going to empty out onto the countryside and all the rural planning in the world will be instantly nullified by the outflow. The toughest will succeed.
A limited oil situation will create the need for more farmers as the tractor culture dies out. Sharecroppers may become prevalent again. The cities will lose impact and indeed large percentages of the city populations may die. So watch out, suburbs, exurbs and countryside, the ‘hoods are coming to get you.
Buy a gun.
I have to take the gun licensing course before I can license a long gun in Canada, or even purchase one. Even ammunition requires a permit & license here in CANUCKISTAN.
Also, being a Liberal as I am I, for one, don’t think my political colleagues want the prepper lifestyle or chickens in every backyard of the burbs in suburbia CANUCKISTAN.
My King James Bible sez ‘if I live by the gun I will die by the gun’ so I don’t really want a gun unless I see a wild turkey and I’m hungry enough to clean it & eat it after cooking it enough to make it edible.
I’m a fisherman at heart and don’t like killing Bambie, Bullwinkle, or Rockey if squirrel stew is on the menu de jour.
If society goes hunter/gatherer upper paleolithic again I don’t think we will fair too well populations wise as you so aptly state
as well.
Mass populations will die out I agree.
RW
RW
Remember in all the westerns that folks approached people’s houses very carefully and the person answering the door usually had a rifle or a pistol. Self defense in the future.
The movie “The Deer Hunter” is a classic despite its liberal overtones. But Liberalism was still some what sane back then so it’s not the same thing. In any case, what or who to kill and why is an enduring question.
Thank you for affirming my Dudley Do-right nature. However, the lawn is lying fallow. When the oak tree cover comes down for the wood stove–the potatoes will have full sun. And when my neighbors lose their job or have trouble making payments on their house, we will have a meeting at the church up the street and I will tell them what is possible now that conditions have changed. And I will listen to their grievances and good ideas. That is my “plan” unless extend and pretend works for another 15 years in which case I will get a few more vacations in…..
“And I will listen to their grievances and good ideas. That is my “plan”
RocketDoc,
Excellent plan…unless they decide to meet at your house instead of the church…you know, your house, where you keep the potatoes….
Honestly, as things get worse, normalcy bias and backfire effect are going to show up more and more in normal conversation. It takes a certain level of imagination and initiative to start thinking about what is coming and how to react to it, something that a lot of people don’t necessarily have in abundance.
Personally, I don’t bring this sort of thing up much in conversation. It’s like trying to explain electricity to a turtle. Most people are conditioned to be optimistic and not think twice about what might happen down the road. Seems particularly problematic with the overly-insulated millennials. Some people get it, but it’s a minority of a minority.
The human psyche is geared to ignore bad news and operate in a denial mode. Our politics operates based on this fact.
“Moiling angrily”, yes that’s it!!!!!!
Love today’s massaging of political reality in D.C. groupthink run amok. Frankly, the whole global debacle of finance is coming unglued as the unhinged one at helm pumps n’ dumps between BIG Macs whilst hallucinating [see ZeroHedge] whether or not China actually called him last night to end the Tariff Man’s Smoot-Hawley encore Second Act performance.
The Duck & day traders don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on much of anything anymore. And they were The Duck’s booster team all along too.
P.S. I know the tenor has shifted and the stakes are as high as they get but is anyone wondering which Democrat will be taking over in 2020 as the Orange one defects to persona non grata & political infamy as the good ship USA Titanic lists to starboard?
China & USA going head-to-head in WW3 hot war is going to be a toasty affair, methinks.
Ladies & gentleman start your engines & set your Tesla on autopilot for the ride downhill to the bottom of the global barrel of rotten apples.
RW
The. Action is already dead. It just hasn’t been officially pronounced.
A recent road trip showed town after town, village after village dead. I’ve not seen worse in third world countries. Derelict main streets, weeds growing in those main streets, “mobile” homes housing the druggies, obese people when you could see one that wasn’t inside the mobile home watching Jerry Springer. The largest business was public education. Those pits where the young are told they can dream and be whatever they want only they cannot and will live out their lives hoping for a winner lottery ticket.
The roads are trashed and there will never be any repaving. America has all sorts of cancers. One of them could prove fatal and yet it has a dozen that makes the state terminal.
MAGA my ass.
The NATION IS ALREADY DEAD.
Not yet. It is going to get a lot worse.
I think I tell myself I’m a Christian to ward off considerations of suicide. Also, I do imagine demons get to feed on you for a very long time if one offs themselves.
My younger sister starting a family and being an uncle to a young little man about to start kindergarten, and a beautiful little niece, and having both parents still alive keeps the thought away.
Everyone I know under the age of 40 is broken and at best just trying to stay distracted to keep away the thoughts.
Oh yeah, it’s dead. It’s a husk of its former self. What killed it? Diversity.
Good call Tate. When I was growing up, the motto was “Unity is strength” Now, in our Orwellian world, “diversity is strength.”
RB, what part of the country?
Or are you speaking of the whole United States?
Brh
West Texas, New Mexico. Permian Basin region. In Georgia, there are hundreds of DEAD towns. Streets that had beautiful Victorian homes are now streets of houses falling down. There are no young people who can afford the things or demographics has altered the environment such that no one will live in the area. Government is the main employer and SS and SSI are the main sources of income. The towns are dingy and plain ugly. No one picks up trash and homes are surrounded by junk. There is no civic dignity. Occasional towns that are more economically sound are tourist traps. Their communities are overgrown with garish signs that continue long after a business has closed. Much of the nation is ghetto.
The Detroit-ifcation of the entire nation!
‘Sure is one thing to be in a situation such as the Byrds in 66’ and adapt to music, “Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is a Season”, when you are drowning in women, pot, and lsd, and another thing to slide through side town Georgia in 2019…
Decency, morality, and cleanliness were all so square, man.
Their opposites were groovy! We groovy now….
” The people who live in FlyoverLand style themselves like Visigoths, all tatted up and armed to the teeth, moiling angrily at the edge of the Rome-like coastal enclaves.”
Mr. Kunstler,
Excellent observation! One of your best.
Here in Singapore a couple days back there was a public ‘Meet Your MP’ session (MP = Member of Parliament), during which I raised the issue concerning how a country like Singapore, with no natural resources of her own, could cope if the major supply lines to her were disrupted. I was reassured that the government would hasten to stockpile the necessary resources in the face of any ‘imminent threat’.
I wonder what to make of this?…
” I was reassured that the government would hasten to stockpile the necessary resources in the face of any ‘imminent threat’.”
SIA,
What to make of it? Repeat after me;
The check is in the mail…
The Mercedes is paid for…
I… (you can add your own ephemeral promise)
…Think Singapore early 1942….
Except there will not be a Japan to keep the supply lines moving.
The check is in the mail…
The Mercedes is paid for…
I… (can’t think of any ephemeral promise)
…Think Singapore early 1942…. :/
Use your microeconomic sense. How long would you and any family last if the retail infrastructure collapsed over the next ten years? The idea that Singapore could last more than two or three weeks without outside re-supply is ludicrous. Megapolises are a result of too many people dotting the landscape. They, the urban dwellers, think they own the political landscape here in the US but without full supply lines, they will find themselves in a sort of prison, unable to function at all.
Your MP is so full of KAKA, but he/she is typical of the denier state of the urban dweller. If you feel that the end times are coming, be one of the first to get out. The cities everywhere are going to become killing fields.
Sorry, but… what’s KAKA? 🙂
Sh*t.
“I pledge alliance to the fags
of the divided states of gender hysteria
And to the problematic….”
News to me; Francis Bellamy who composed the pledge of alliance claimed that Jesus was a Socialist.
He has also been called a Communist. How about apolitical?
Jesus tries to make us take care of ourselves, spiritually, and the collective problems will minimize. His solution is getting the crap beaten out of it today.
The book of Acts, while discussing how the early Christians shared what they had clearly stated: “He that does work, does not it.”
Jesus also said “The poor shall be with you always.” Digest that one.
…but like any measurement, ‘poor’ is a relative term.
I don’t recall any message that collective problems would minimize. In fact, if anything Jesus made it clear that problems for believers would always abound, particularly in an unbelieving society. And Christ did not come with a simple message of kumbaya. He said not to presume he came to earth to bring peace. The message divides. The Gospels were meant to separate not unite. Separating the wheat from the chaff.
Why do we pledge allegiance to a flag? Why not to the republic for which it stands?
Why do anything other than live on the land and laugh in the face at any other man or woman who tells any of us to bow before their conceptions and Faustian deals ? I don’t know…
It’s a symbol, “and to the Republic for which it stands”. That protesters can burn the American Flag and claim the right, “because it’s their property” is simply a Libertarian Abomination. Or Blacks filming themselves defecating on it. That’s a thing too.
My blood does boil when I see a flag being burnt. As every person is both good and evil, so is the flag and those countless things and histories it represents.
Those who can only see evil, without recognizing their own evil, are evil…
Don’t dare burn the ‘Pride Flag’. That goddam rag is is treated with more respect and reverence than the Shroud of Turin.
Brh
I’d as likely burn a flag (any flag) as I’d dye my hair, get a tattoo, or a mohawk…
Besides, everyone knows it is all about attention seeking (and daddy issues); best to let those gender pirates sink their own boats after p.o’ing the remaining 5 million people left in this country, who in the heart of their heart’s know this is all nonsense anyways.
I totally disagree with our host that such insignificant thing in our financialised age as lack of profit would stop shale oil companies from operating.
The public transport system is being reformed throughout America, new super-fuel-efficient gas electric buses have begun to drive around American cities, railways, light rail and metro lines are being modernized, hybrid vehicle recharging systems are being created at railway station parking lots, in general, everything is being done so that Americans can keep their lifestyle even if oil will cost $400 per barrel.
Moreover, the production of shale gas and oil allows the United States to get rid of its dependence on oil supplies from the Middle East and potential blackmail from the globalist sex perverts and pedophiles.
All new production of high-tech products of the next generation by all means, if not by tax benefits, than by the construction of infrastructure is lured into the continental United States.
In 10 – 15 years, America will be able to leave Eurasia relatively painlessly and allow the peoples living there to solve their problems all by themselves, fenced off by oceans and powerful fleets.
In the end, it was not for nothing that Islanders created America.
I just read a book that copies your ideas here. Basically it states that the US has succeeded because of its outstanding resource situation, its ability to transport easily, and the consequent ability to create wealth (capital). For example, in a world without fossil fuels, goods will move in the US through its waterways easier than anywhere else.
A potential problem with your isolation idea is that when the rest of the world goes down, they will come here and try to take our stuff for themselves. Look south, it is already happening.
That’s where the army comes in, John. Or the militia. The problem is actually Corporations and their Governmental flunkies selling off America to these foreign entities. It’s going to get much worse….
Boy do I agree with you on this one. To me the main foreign threat to the US is our southern border and that is where part of our military should be stationed. It is not police work any more.
And yes, the Deep State in all its glory is the no. 1 enemy of the people of America. The big question of the 21st century is and will be how the people will regain control of the country.
Giving the political will, stopping the illegal immigration, or rather returning the immigration to reasonably regulated Constitutional norms, would be easy – USSR did it very successfully on a much longer stretch of border.
All you need to do is to rein in Hillary’s Flying Monkeys with their absurd postmodern utopical “ideas” which they don’t believe themselves in.
@FTM
If you are referring to the collapsing national transportation infrastructure as some type of reform, then yes, “the public transport system is being reformed throughout America”.
~toktomi~
Well, it would be than a good starting point. wouldn’t it?
US do not need imports from China and their workforce to fix transportation, starting from rail and light rail.
Right, and the US does not need any other nation’s help to self destruct as Earth’s last human empire, but what that has to do with the price of rice in China is probably on a par with the US need of Chinese imports.
What, in the hell, are you talking about?
~toktomi~
T
Think about an oil less transport system. The waterways.
Singing: “Low bridge, everybody down, 15 miles on the Erie Canal.”
“…you’ll always know your neighbor, you’ll always know your pal….”
What waterways?!?
So, what method of propulsion? Sails? Steam power? Oars in galley-style?
“The public transport system is being reformed throughout America, new super-fuel-efficient gas electric buses have begun to drive around American cities, railways, light rail and metro lines are being modernized, hybrid vehicle recharging systems are being created at railway station parking lots, in general, everything is being done so that Americans can keep their lifestyle even if oil will cost $400 per barrel. ”
Kamaraden Finc!
Well, with all respect, I would suggest that we will see what you describe when Russia’s new wonder weapons cease to go critical on their launch pads….
In other words, not for a long, long time….
Problem seems to be U would make us all play Russian Roulette. U go to your “elysianfield” alone & leave the rest of us alone.
Alphonso,
Sorry. It is not my game, nor my first choice, but it is what it is….
>>> Basically it states that the US has succeeded because of its outstanding resource situation, its ability to transport easily, and the consequent ability to create wealth (capital).
Too simplistic, as it leaves out culture and leadership.
Recall that Native Americans occupied this rich land of resources and rivers (with which to transport said resources), and they did not succeed. Arguing that they lacked science and technology is beside the point, since it’s Western Culture that emphasizes such values in the first place.
It’s not just what you have, it’s what you do with it. It’s what you do in general. Singapore is not exactly resource rich, yet they punch well above their weight in terms of living standards and success. That’s all due to culture and leadership.
As I keep trying to tell people, the Native Americans had a thriving Neolithic agricultural civilization that only ended when their population was all but annihilated by smallpox and the bubonic plague, among other diseases that were brought to these shores by Europeans. I wish more people would read 1492 by Charles Mann, which describes the primitive yet successful civilizations that occupied the Americas prior to the sixteenth century.
No, many of them had little or no agriculture and where mostly hunter gatherers. Or what agriculture they had was “horticulture” or work with the hoe not the plough. Women’s work in other words. You don’t know much about the Indians it seems.
Central America had agriculture but not pastoralism. Not enough protein in other words. Thus humans became food via their religion.
“You don’t know much about the Indians it seems.”
“Among us, it is women who are responsible for fostering life. In our traditions, it is women who carry the seeds, both of our own future generations and of the plant life. It is women who plant and tend the gardens, and women who bear and raise the children. It is my right and duty, as a woman and a mother and a grandmother, to speak to you about these things, to bring our minds together on them. . . .
In making any law, our chiefs must always consider three things: the effect of their decision on peace; the effect on the natural world; and the effect on seven generations in the future. We believe that all lawmakers should be required to think this way, that all constitutions should contain these rules. . . .
. . . we are a powerful people. We are the carriers of knowledge and ideas that the world needs today. We know how to live with this land: we have done so for thousands of years and have not suffered many of the changes of the Industrial Revolution, though we are being buffeted by the waves of its collapse.
Our families are beyond the small, isolated nuclear families that are so convenient to big industry and big government and so damaging to communities.”
ratical.org/many_worlds/6na the ions/
ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EldersSummit.html
They were supplanted by a technologically superior civilization with seafaring, metal weapons, metal tools & large draft animals. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome much even if they had had greater resistance to European diseases. The only difference would be that ‘America’ would be more mestizo.
Whites wouldn’t have needed the Blacks if Indians could have been worked as hard. That would have been a blessing in a way.
Ive read it. One thing I found out is that Indians, after 20,000 years on the American, had not come up with the concept of the wheel. And they didn’t have horses because they ate them all.
Brh
What happened to the platypuses?
Hear Hear BRH!
I believe Native Americans were world-beating leaders in natural psychotropics!
And even that didn’t help very much in the end. What goes up must come down.
The most surreal imaginings is replication of mid 20th century USA railway matrix as a necessity for soft landing this economic Spruce Goose… How can such dated infrastructure be considered in this erudite company?
JHK no longer wastes a sentence on his railway lamentations, and yours truly does so without joy, in expectation of zzzz snoring sounds in meetings, etc. The use of railways includes a framework for local scaled economies using the rail fixed plant as a source of skilled labor; not solid state, but men and women with shop skills. Actual maintenance shops with tools and machines dedicated to making/fixing things needed to keep local utilities, farms, and the Interurban railway itself operational. Likewise fire departments were the main garage in towns, shops with equipment carried over from turn of the century transition from steam pumpers to internal combustion ladder trucks etc.
Thank the Lord who keeps His errant humans safe for the appointed time of reckoning. And, Covenant Nations like America given railways as famine hedge although few think of the remnant trunk RR line container speedways in terms of assuring de minimus food distribution role in the LONG EMERGENCY. Some OES planners, too few, still can see railway in the crisis solution set. Expect kinetic as well as financial disarray!
3000 US County Planners are invited to obtain Mike Walker Rail Atlas Maps of all present and past branch rail lines: books of maps for their respective locales, Still on many City/County office walls are large circa 1950 Metropolitan street maps, including detailed railway spur connections to warehouse and factory and especially, downtown farmers market produce terminals. Of course only remnants of downtown rails remain, regarded an oddity when some sticks of rail are uncovered during street excavations!
The point of railways is they offer apolitical transport mode, outside usual class driven levels of urban road maintenance. When solid state succumbs to EMP and Cyberwarfare resulting from satellites & including jamming coils in containers scattered across the land, railways have inhouse ops & repair ethic & can get victuals moving first, with 200 fold multiplication of trucking capacity. This writer has lifetime compendium of whys & hows of railway matrix rehab in pre-crisis preparation set, and for those expecting to survive to the rebuild era, this information shall prove crucial in solution set. JHK knows this writer shares information.
Army moniker “Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform” is still seen empirically at the Ft. Eustis VA Army Transportation Corps Railroad Battalion template. Work Force (SF Transit Depot roof) garden area is possible neutral meeting place with interested principles looking to discuss ways and means to change electronic wealth to Famine Hedge railway line rehab.
@4014HAMPHEDGE
“rebuild era”
Now, that’s what I call a classic John-Michael-Greer, a completely erroneous and impossible assumption on which an entire cognitive postulate is predicated and pontificated.
But, knowing nothing affords me complete freedom to posit such notions.
~toktomi~
“Thank the Lord who keeps His errant humans safe for the appointed time of reckoning. And, Covenant Nations like America…”. Uh-huh…
I predict that Joe Biden will win the 2020 election in a landslide and go on to be the most successful and popular president ever!
Joe Biden is an old political hack who sold out years ago. I’m sure the one percenters would like to see him in office.
LOL. You should forewarn people before making predictions like that. Some of us are drinking hot coffee.
Given the current levels of mass delusion, I’m thinking it won’t be very long before peeps on Twitter and Facebook start saying that very sort of thing. I just thought I might be an “early adopter” for once. 😉
My question is, how will voters tell them apart? Biden is like Trump’s Mini-Me. I mean they differ in policy, but are more similar than not in style. And style seems to be what Dems care about most. Will they seriously accept another old white privileged patriarchical male who swaggers and exudes bravado?
@venuspluto67
Perfect!
makes as much sense as any of the tsunami of comical offerings posing as reasoned observations offered hereabouts in the comment gallery
Be careful with staring at the light. It will blind you.
~toktomi~
Joe reassures us that everything’s OK.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
theweek.com/speedreads/861039/joe-biden-want-clear-im-not-going-nuts
“I want to be clear, I’m not going nuts,” Biden said during a campaign rally in New Hampshire —
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
“Biden made the declaration while speaking to supporters at New Hampshire’s Loon Lake…”
Comedy gold.
Omigod, I totally missed that part. But you cut off your excerpt too soon:
/////////////////////////////////////
Biden made the declaration while speaking to supporters at New Hampshire’s Loon Lake, defending his inability to remember just where he’d spoken at Dartmouth College a few hours earlier. “I’m not sure whether it was the medical school or where the hell I spoke. But it was on the campus,” he said…
/////////////////////////////////////
And the piece ends with this:
/////////////////////////////////////
Yet the man who performed surgery on Biden three decades ago following two brain aneurysms agrees with the 76-year-old’s weekend comment, saying that he’s clearly “as sharp as he was 31 years ago.”
/////////////////////////////////////
Maybe he’s the reincarnation of Steve Allen.
Only if the DNC ratchets his Dementia up a notch.
” The people who live in FlyoverLand style themselves like Visigoths, all tatted up and armed to the teeth, moiling angrily at the edge of the Rome-like coastal enclaves.”
I find that you’re about half-right. I live in an extremely liberal east coast area, and I can tell you that the people styling themselves like tattooed Visigoths are the leftists, primarily the young. It’s hard to find anyone under the age of 50 that isn’t covered in tats, looking like some circus freak.
Those of us that are older and armed to the teeth are quite tattoo-free.
Good point.
In our local ‘Culture’ magazine, feature story on a married couple ‘bringing back Hartford’. Its a glossy rag that makes Hartford look like Paris in 1927. I usually skip it but my interest was piqued. Surprise! It was a lesbian married couple! What did I expect, really? Anyway, color pics included. Two middle aged, manly looking broads, literally tatted head to toe. Could hardly see any unmarked skin. This is who is expected ‘Bring back Hartford’.
Brh
As much as dykes hate men, they sure love to emulate stereotypes of them.
Oh, c’mon – who among us doesn’t hate the competition.
Neil Young wants artists to use words of imprisoned children…
comments on article…..
A little help for the writers.
“No english”
“Bad man touched me”
“Are we there yet?”
“These are not my parents”
“I was kidnapped by the cartels”
No mention of using the words of the remaining family members who’s relatives were killed or raped by these invaders.
“I am being sex trafficked to get criminals into the USA and raped by them and Leftist/Communists in the USA are the money behind all this
chewed-up guitar strap, the down-dressing, the backward hat. Neil is trying REAL HARD to look like a Relevant Prole, but it’s all a fake. Been a mega-millionaire since his twenties.
Hey Neil how’s that classic-car collection coming along,
Those poor detained ILLEGAL aliens are free to leave those horrible detention camps and go back to their home countries. Neil Young is welcome to go with them
hildren that were detained by Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama? The same children detained under Democrat legislation written in the 90’s that no-one on the Left had any issue with for 20 years? Those children Neil?
Sing a song about Kate Steinle, Neil. I’d love to hear it.
WENT TO A NEIL YOUNG SOLO ACOUSTIC CONCERT (GIFTED TICKETS) A FEW YEARS AGO.
THE STAGE HAD WOOD CARVINGS OF BIRDS NOT UNLIKE TOTEMS OF THE PACIFIC NW . NO INTERACTION WITH THE AUDIENCE;
HE PREFERRED TO LOVINGLY STROKE THE CARVINGS UNTIL HE PLAYED THE NEXT TUNE. HAD TO SIT THROUGH A 45 MINUTE DIRGE ABOUT DEAD BUFFALO. IT WAS PAINFUL. HE NEEDS HELP
Well, he lost all his classic cars when the garage burned down. It must have been traumatic.
Speaking of cars, witnessed something I haven’t seen in decades. Was at a neighborhood gathering, this old guy showed up in one of those retro Dodge Chargers, bright orange, racing stripe, about 700 horses. I’m not sure why he did it, maybe just to show off, said “Watch This”, then revved up the car, dropped the hammer, and spun the wheels for about 30 seconds, car not moving forward, then proceeded to lay down 200 feet of rubber. The sound and the fury was something to behold, and more smoke than a tire fire. Burning rubber! That brings you back, don’t it Malth?
Brh
What’s at stake for everybody in the dark background is the ability to maintain high standards of living only recently attained. And the fear behind that is not knowing just how far backward these high standards of living may have to slide.
But – wait for it – even before living standards go South – discretionary energy consumption will drop.
And color me puzzled – I can’t understand how a so-called civilization is incapable of understanding preserving fossil fuel usage for fire trucks and police cars might be more important than watching Pro sports or NASCAR.
I guess that’s the market-driven economy..
Good comment!
We have destroyed countries and killed millions, either overtly through invasion or proxies or covertly through intelligence psyops or sanctions.. For example, harsh, crippling sanctions of Iraq driven by the US , in the 90’s, resulted in the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children due to a lack of food and medicine. All this brutality was deemed necessary because Sadaam wanted to sell oil in euros rather than dollars.
Being able to drive our gas guzzlers to our local health club for a spinning class or a run on the treadmill, evidently, supersedes the lives and well-being of our fellow humans living in oil producing lands, like, Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Iran , etc.
And we call ourselves civilized!
Karma is a bitch!
U aints 1 of dem der pinkos, ain ya?!?
Nah! Just an American who is sick of our country acting like a thug, whether, Elder Bush’s Highway of Death, Clinton’s gemocidal Iraqi sanctions and the bombing of Belgrade, Younger Bush’s illegal Iraq invasion and subsequent genocide, Obama’s and Hillary’soverthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and subsequent anarchy and gemocide, backing of rebels in Syria including AlQaeda, overthrow of democratically elected president in Honduras, escalation of drone attacks that killed thousands of innocents in Pakistan, yemen, Afghanistan orTrump’s gencidal sanctions of Iran and Venezuela.
With history as a guide,all empires eventually fall and America will not be any different. After all the pain, death and hardship we have inflicted on weaker nations around the world for oil and the hegemony of the fiat dollar, the world will not mourn our demise.
WE allowed thugs, gangsters and reptilian brains to take over our country and institutions. Can America be saved?
You list all the bad things. Can you think of anything good?
Thank you for sharing your visions Mr. K. I love the reference to the modern day Visigoths. I myself can’t help but imagine armies of modern day Huns and Vandals storming Wall Street, K Street, and Hollywood Boulevard. But I have grave doubts that the modern Vandals and Huns would be as measured as their ancient counterparts. After all, there is a big difference between taking something that you ultimately wish to preserve or get some use of, and taking something that you ultimately wish to see destroyed and forgotten.
I’d like to know JHK’s thoughts on Russia’s future. Russia stands out as an oil-rich nation with lots of other natural resources and enough space to feed and settle a growing population. Climate change may even work out well for Russia. It appears that the problems in Russian society are due mainly to politics (trying to become a modern society when its entire history is rooted in feudalism and its successor, Communism) and not the hard physical problems of resource depletion and overpopulation that affect other nations. When modernity fails, the authoritarian and collectivist impulses in Russian society might actually be a plus – one can imagine the Orthodox Church being a stabilizing force in Russia, while the various religions in America are apt to further divide the country in a time of real crisis. Could a Russian/Chinese alliance keep modernity going in the East for another century? Will Europe turn to Russia to keep the lights on? Or will Russia be forced to use nuclear weapons to defend itself as the rest of the world comes for its oil, water and minerals?
Very good questions!
“Closing off China’s access to US markets itself might be enough to finally blow up China’s deeply fraudulent banking system. ”
Contrary to our ‘exceptional’ meme, we are not China’s Number 1 account. EU and ASEAN outrank the US. China can survive nicely as we slid into 2nd world status.
“Closing off China’s access to US markets itself might be enough to finally blow up China’s deeply fraudulent banking system. ”
Contrary to our ‘exceptional’ meme, we are not China’s Number 1 account. EU and ASEAN outrank the US. China can survive nicely as we slide into 2nd world status.
In today’s excellent blog, I was a little surprised that Mr. Kunstler didn’t consider that the end of cheap oil could be THE reason why Trump now wants to buy Greenland. There must be billions of barrels of untapped oil under the surface there, and who cares about global warming anyway when there is nothing that can or will be done to stop it.
Correct! China has designs on Greenlands oil, and whatever rare earth minerals they can claw out of the ground. They have approached the govt of Denmark about it, and have plans to develop an industrial seaport and an airbase on the island (or is it a continent?)
Here’s the template, and how it worked in Africa, and more recently, the Caribbean. China shows up and offers to make improvements to your infrastructure. Makes loans at high interest rate with the understanding the work will be done by Chinese construction companies, at the same time buying off top Pols with expensive foreign cars, cash and mansions. The Chinese refuse to hire any locals, and in fact are racist against Africans and Jamaicans. When the loans come due of course they can’t be repaid. Guess what, China now claims the seaport, airfield, or sports stadium. That’s how they colonize. Its all perfectly legal. How can anybody object? And that’s how they’ll get Greenland. Of course Denmark can then try to dislodge the PLA with their mighty army and navy. After all, like the Swedes, they have Viking blood.
Brh
The Arctic Ocean, a reservoir of oil supposedly under it, is surrounded by 6 countries. America, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Finland and Russia with Russia having the lion’s share. China needs access to protect its oil security. Trump is playing defense. China will get nothing if we own Greenland and having both sides of the Northwest passage covered, we protect Canada.
This is a chess match. Whoever outthinks the other wins.
Again remember, we cut Japan off from its oil sources in the 1930’s.
Nuff said.
Sounds like “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” don’t it? The guy who wrote that wasn’t Chinese, was he?
Tate,
I read the book several years ago, and the Chinese are now doing EXACTLY what we did for decades in South America (You know, the other Mexican Countries…).
That’s the exact gameplan described by Naomi Klein, the guy who wrote “Confessions of an Economic Hitman, & others, I’m sure…The IMF, neoliberal way. China copying something American, imagine that.
“Excellent plan! I recommend you indenture urban blacks exclusively…they will serve you well, and with gratitude.” –elysianfield
In the Netflix documentary “American Factory” the Chinese are the owners and supervisors; the Americans are the workers.
The Chinese supervisors at US factories are like one of our political parties when it comes to managing American workers: the Chinese do not want unions. Which side are you on, boys?
The Chinese pay factory workers in the USA $12.84 per hour. American UAW members in GM plants got $29 (or more) an hour. The 1% Chinese will suck up those worker wages and benefits.
The UAW and the union movement fought hard to keep a better balance, with more money in the hands of the workers, more benefits, and safer working conditions.
Ironic, eh? “Communist” China is far less socialist than “Capitalist” America.
Did you watch the Netflix documentary? It’s an eye-opener.
I thought it was very well done. I’m kind of amazed at how invisible the film crew was. Like flies on the wall. How did they manage it?
“Capitalist” America loooves those $29 (or more) an hour blue-collar factory jobs. Creating them like cocktails at the sorority house.
Personally I see the state of the world as an ongoing epiphenomena of multi-lateral trade agreements between political organizations.
Question:
What does the G7, CARTIFA, ECO, G20, MIKTA, N11, SAARC, BIMSTEC have in common?
The entire world (that matters) is covered.
And in those hallowed halls…
No one believes a gasoline powered car is worth anything.
Same for the Apple cell phone in your hand.
I mean, if you stopped to think about it…
Depreciation never sleeps.
Everything is becoming ever closer to worthlessness with every passing day.
(With the caveat that some things hold their value longer than others. For example, the 10 year old iPhone still works, Although Apple is trying right now to kill it off.)
Consider the scale of waste.
Real production of products that have no use or are obsolete as soon as they are created, and then distributed.
This is the only world we now.
What if.
What if… is our only hope.
(It’s kind of why I like Trump’s shut the eyes and mash buttons approach to statecraft.)
SOMEBODY HAS TO FU`KING DO SOMETHING
I bought a 30 year old Makita Mitre Saw yesterday at the Flea Market. I disassembled it and sanded down the rust to clean steel for preparation for paint. I painted it & greased the turntable mechanism so that it would not seize up with rust again. It took me about two hours of work and a tiny bit of old spray paint that I had lying around. The saw is now good for another 30 years of use and will be used for many years to come as long as the Democrats take the helm in 2020.
I bought the mitre saw for $20.00 CDN used so that no tax interrupts my purchasing power to buy tools dirt cheap especially when they need servicing that the average consumer is ill equipped to manage.
Manufactured products are only obsolete if you can’t find parts or get them repaired for cheap. Our throwaway society manifested due to a skills shortage on technical knowhow to repair broken products.
Today I think like it’s 1929 all over again except the banks have still not crashed yet.
RW
RW
I was walking through the grocery store the other day.
Waaay in the back, by the bathrooms,
A news-stand magazine title caught my eye.
“Prepper”
Wow.
I thought,
“What a sad replacement for MAD magazine…”
and continued on my way.
MAD magazine was popular back when the average person in society had disposable income & discretionary income. Today, after Neoliberalism via the Chicago School eviscerated their disposable income & discretionary income the average debt peon indentured into servitude is attempting to understand how to consolidate what cash/fiat they have left to plan their lives around and ‘Prepper’ magazine would likely seem appealing especially in light of the fact that the Federal Reserve can’t normalize Interest Rates or even stimulate the economy anymore.
World War Three is now certainty for the average American magazine consumer so it would seem that ‘Prepper’ magazine would likely outsell MAD magazine if either was an option.
RW
RW
One other criterion on MAD magazine. People used to have a sense of humor!
WW3?
Does that mean Canada will be jumping in?
If so, in whose side?
Brh
We can’t afford to jump in on anymore wars & if CBC reports are correct the intel agency can’t find enough recruits either as they just enlisted the help of a private company to do their recruitment drive for them given that the millennial generation does not likely want to join after the George W. Bush Torture Regime ruined the discipline for everyone with their black sites of torture headed up by the CIA & Bloody Gena Haspel.
Five Eyes partnership means that one is tainted by the CIA if one joins any of the Five Eyes players.
I’d rather be One Eye Bob!
RW
The fact that a publishing firm thinks there is a profitable market for “Prepper”, due to coming conditions, is somewhat alarming.
Americans have been preppers since day 1 for so many reasons – could discuss that forever…Now praise the Lord, pass the ammo & git me my great-equalizing 6-shooter cuz some1’s gonna try to mess with my God-given right of liberteee.
Webster’s is going to add a definition.
Asshole n. A member of the Ind
Ianapolis Colts fan base that boos Andrew Luck when he makes to really tough decision to hang up his spikes due to repetitious injuries.
Note to the NFL. Stand by, this is just the beginning.
Oh relax, soon there will be bowling bumpers around the field and they’ll roll around like mice in plastic balls.
Players’ salaries will fall to median ($63,298) and Hearst / Walt Disney will see huge profit margin increases until all the franchises are sold off circa 2035
A former top 100 porn star known as Jenni Lee, was found living in a massive Las Vegas tunnel. She was found by a Dutch TV crew while they were interviewing some of the hundreds of homeless people who camp out in Sin City’s storm drainage system.
Her real name is Stephanie Sadorra. “I used to be so hot,” she told Ewout Genemans, host of the Dutch TV show “Ewout & company.”
With a little cleaning up, she could still be hot, IMHO. But that’s from an old man’s perspective, he-he.
Nevertheless, she probably couldn’t make the big bucks anymore in the porn business. Past her prime. This is what happens to women who want to be independent of a man. They get f*cked in the ass & cast to the curb (or tunnel in this case). These shameless creatures will keep riding the cock carousel until society finally decides to publicly mock, shame, ridicule & cage women for engaging in such whorish behavior.
You might be blaming the victim here, Tate.
A lot of these women are addicted, and come from bad family situations. Many have been abused as young girls. They are vulnerable, then ‘Discovered’ by pornographers. After that it is too late (to save them)
Brh
As well, they’re not paid as much as you’d expect. How can anyone make a dollar in porn production these days when so much product is available for free?
She doesn’t look in too bad shape. She could clean up if she got her act together. Probably a dozen poker millionaires would propose to her in a heartbeat if they knew where to find her. But there would have to be, ahem, ‘special arrangements’. I suspect there are worse places to live than underground Vegas.
Probably a little dental work.
Ok Tate I watched the video and the girl has her wits about her, seems intelligent and well spoken. Obviously living underground isn’t the best situation, and I can’t help but think she may have placed herself in physical danger by living rough like that. She’s still young, most likely an addict. Hopefully somebody will help her get out of there. (Now that the story is out)
Brh
@Tate
What’s up with the blatant misogyny?
~toktomi~
@toktomi
That’s nothing compared to the blatant racism.
~Tate~
A successful Lakota warrior is a bloke who by the age of 25 has killed a bloke by caving in his skull with a war club after touching him with his coup, has a few scalps, stolen a bunch of horses and has two families of 2 tee-pees.
Peter Cozzens
The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
” This is what happens to women who want to be independent of a man. ”
This is what ultimately happens to anyone who fancies they can be independent.
It’s why I call myself a Monarchist , and wouldn’t wipe my ass with The Declaration of Independence. That rag only taught a lot of spoiled brats a lot of mischievous notions.
” These shameless creatures will keep riding the cock carousel until society finally decides to publicly mock, shame, ridicule & cage women for engaging in such whorish behavior. ”
You might think I got my intensely cynical and jaded view of the species working as a call girl for three years ?
No.
I got my intensely cynical and jaded view of the species working as a secretary in a law office for six years , where I saw , in plain black and white , on paper , the thousand and one ways people fuck each other over for money and status , and call it , ” Justice ” with a straight face.
Or —
” They get f*cked in the ass & cast to the curb .. ”
Describes pretty well my ten years working in a factory for 7 dollars an hour.
” Whorish ”
I never had any job that didn’t require some measure of whoring .
Even school required whoring , and quite a lot of it too.
” You might be blaming the victim here, Tate. ”
Pfft .
There are two kinds of people in the world ;
— Those who have options ( given to them by another . And typically the beneficiary is the last person to admit it . )
— And those who don’t have options.
The former think they know something , but they don’t know shit.
And the latter group can never get through to them.
* Even school required whoring , and quite a lot of it too.
The only people I hate more viscerally than Brits and police are school teachers. They make my fucking skin crawl .
@KesaAnna
Ah, shit! Finally, somebody that knows how to speak English around here besides JHK and possibly a couple others.
“never had any job that didn’t require some measure of whoring”
That was one area of my life that I lucked out in spades. My greatest go-round was 17 years with one organization that I loved for the first 15. Then, they found me out that I was exactly what they had suspected all along, not exactly the cum sucking summa cum laude bitch that they thought they had paid for. So, they butt fucked me for the last two years until I quit with wisp of some retirement money, enough to pay my car insurance and a bit of gas.
I know nobody
Nobody knows me
My ol’ buddy, nobody
Nobody makes me free.
~toktomi~
8 billion to 1 billion in 20 years or much less.
You know your Robert Hunziker
The good news is that it has not happened yet.
I don’t see the population doing anything but growing. The meadows and woodlands in NE aren’t being plowed under and paved over because the population is shrinking.
>>> Ah, shit! Finally, somebody that knows how to speak English around here
>>> So, they butt fucked me
No comment.
twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1166012265860096001
Greta is facing seriously energetic conditions on the North Sea.
But I have no doubt like the Nordes before her she will make landfall on Manhattan island before long.
No statements yet from Homeland Security or the Secretary of Education who must be wondering if her brand of weekly school walkouts will metastasize across the pond into an epidemic of truancy.
No word yet from America’s religious communities, which is surprising since no sign would be clearer fulfillment of prophecy (Isaiah 11:6) “a child shall lead them”.
The US Coast Guard is standing by.
Trump will be landing in air force one by tomorrow. This is going to be good. Maybe this is where TV news still makes a difference.
I’ll wait until the New York Times prints photographs.
Now if only we had a million like her crossing the border. I’m assuming she’s going to ask for asylum as soon as she makes landfall.
Uh probably because that verse taken in the context of the chapter it is in references conditions after this current world is finished. You are mixing your religions up here. You’re better versed in the AGW/SJW religion.
Go Greta!
No statements yet from Homeland Security or the Secretary of Education who must be wondering if her brand of weekly school walkouts will metastasize across the pond into an epidemic of truancy.
Snack, you are being a poster child for Dunning-Kruger.
Greta’s brand of walkout teaches more out of school in a day than a classroom can in a week. Can yuze spell anthropogenic? Existential, Carrying Capacity, Overshoot and Drawdown? Explain what biosphere ecology is and perhaps say what dirt is made of? Can you tell if Greta will have enough dirt when you are gone?
Outside would be a good place to explain what dirt is. It is more than little rocks. Or will Greta be gone too, before she can say CO2?
A school walkout
That’ll cool down the climate almost as good as the carbon tax.
I found this—-
Mexico’s rulers, they pretty much are whites, or at least, of white European ancestry (Spain).
Agreed with the rest of your post though, the main point being that non-whites certainly won’t be able to run America.
Speaking of Mexico, I was down there recently and couldn’t help but notice that all the people in the commercials and advertisements were all white.
Not a single negro, LOL!
It was f*cking refreshing and even my kids noticed it right away.
Then, as soon as I come back up here to clown-world America, it’s back to seeing 80% of the commercials and ads being filled with blacks.
Yes and at least half if not more of the commercials I see don’t show any White people at all. As far as commercials are concerned Whites are already an inconsequential minority.
And that makes it reality TV.
Just watched J.F. Gariepy’s livestream on Taylor Swift hooking up with a spear-chucker. Disgusting. He suggests subbing Dolly Parton as a good ‘representant’ of Aryan identity instead, despite her ‘hage.’
You should learn to drop breadcrumbs.
Can I go where you go?
Can we always be this close forever and ever?
And ah, take me out, and take me home (Forever and ever)
You’re my, my, my, my lover
There I did it 4 U.
Will you learn to drop dead?
She also stepped up for planned parenthood.
see–vigilant citizen.com
Accustomed to seeing the pickups of hunters festooned with an NRA decal. Occasionally, a sticker of the favorite docile herbivore they proud shoot. Now, more and more have their favorite handgun brand alongside a silhouette of an AR. Stickers of guns on pickups. It’s absurd. It’s crass. It’s America’s lower class.
Tattooed arms and necks, vape/jul electronic phalluses dangling from their mouths, and on patrol in the exurbs.
Although the elites may want to stuff them inside a phone, not sure how a social score is going to keep them in.
Up thread some lamented the disappearance of common NSAIDS for pain relief. Believe me there are plenty of natural altternatives, Easily grown anywhere in the world. Make a tincture and get a double whammy. A smile and pain relief.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papaver_somniferum
Laudanum sweet Laudanum
China’s banking is no worse than America’s.
what no one is mentioning is a great reversal in america’s and china’s currency values.
Essentially, this would make china’s relationship with the U.S. similar to the U.S. relationship with Mexico 100 years ago.