Debt Rattle June 11 2019

 

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    James Ensor Baths at Ostend 1890   • 1 in 4 Americans Skip Medical Treatment Because They Worry About the Cost (M.) • House Committee To See Muel
    [See the full post at: Debt Rattle June 11 2019]

    #47877
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    James Ensor Baths at Ostend 1890

    A romp with the unwashed? Uncountable people of all walks, obviously; but yet, a generous view of humanity mixing at the beach?

    The rest is an almost boring repitition of what is driven into our psyches everyday…
    The impotent calls to action, become banal bleatings of human sheep, incapable of action…
    What is the answer to that?

    #47878

    What is the answer to that?

    Crisis

    #47879
    John Day
    Participant

    http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/06/green-old-deal.html
    ​I’m going to start with the conclusion, which is that actual productive economic growth has already ended, and we are keeping the complex system coherent by using fake financial “growth”, which can seem to work, until it doesn’t. I think the dateline “2019” on the graph below should be 2-3 mm to the right. People keep changing the year on that same line. The real economy is rolling over.
    The article on “degrowth” caught my interest, but it sounds like it was written by city people who are stressed out by paychecks that don’t keep up with shopping, and see a life with less shopping, less pay, city buses, and free education and medical care as being simpler, with more leisure time.
    It does not seem that the author has had to solve existential problems, grow food, or make useful necessities, like clothing or furniture.
    The life with more leisure time was easier to believe in the 1960s, when there was more of everything for everybody every year.
    This is the simpler, easier life we are living now, which is why so much of the world wants to get in where there is plenty of food, cars, public services and clean water..
    I’ll put in a piece Eleni sent from Jim Kunstler about where some of us might get to some day, without some of the others.
    Gail Tverberg’s article, sent by Charles, along with the one about high tech can’t last (really limited existence on the planet of rare-earth elements, which are completely critical to the screen I’m looking at and everything that precedes it).
    There’s more about the trade wars from other perspectives, but Gail’s perspective is paramount, directly related to global energy limits and the effects that expensive energy is having on the global economic web. She doesn’t mention the US policy of bombing all the oil countries that start selling oil for anything other than dollars. That moves their oil into the future, by destroying their ability to pump and burn it now.
    The latest analysis, still showing the financing of the shale oil miracle to be a lot like the housing bubble is included. Shale oil is useful as a US weapon on the global stage, increasing the power of the Petrobuck-Empire to bomb and blockade oil-producing non-vassals, while keeping tribute-paying vassals in Europe and Japan from economic collapse.
    Charles’ own essay about a rural revival follows that, and one I have sent before, about the rural creative class.
    Creativity and manufacturing going rural is important, because what is happening in the cities is compliance economy, with creativity fading away, too risky. To afford a creative project, one has to be where rents are lower, code-compliance less daunting, and expectations of workers less tightly scripted and defined.
    ​ The article that packed the most punch for me was the one about the very limited supplies of rare-earth elements on our fair planet.
    There is not enough to keep making laptops, smartphones, video screens, hard drives, microchips, electric car and wind turbine magnets and so on. Some of these very hard limits have already been brushed a few times, but the global trade war (best kind of war, I think) is likely to make them acute. The majority of these come from China, because that’s where most of them are. China has few enough cards to play in a trade war. China will probably stop exporting these, except in manufactured products.
    I suspect there is already a lot of quiet coercion going on. Apple has to make iPhones in China, right?​

    ​Imagine an almost infinite celestial fruit-​cobbler…
    In 1972, a team at MIT published The Limits to Growth, a report that predicted what would happen to human civilization as the economy and population continued to grow. What their computer simulation found was pretty straightforward: On a planet of finite resources, infinite exponential growth isn’t possible. Eventually, non-renewable resources, like oil, would run out.
    Historically, we have considered growth a positive thing, synonymous with job security and prosperity. Since World War II, the gross domestic product (GDP) measure has been used as “the ultimate measure of a country’s overall welfare.” …
    But growth has led to other problems, such as the warming of the planet due to carbon emissions, and the extreme weather and loss of biodiversity and agriculture that comes along with that. Consequently some activists, researchers, and policy makers are questioning the dogma of growth as good. This skepticism has led to the degrowth movement, which says the growth of the economy is inextricably tied to an increase in carbon emissions. It calls for a dramatic reduction in energy and material use, which would inevitably shrink GDP.
    The Green New Deal, popularized by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeks to decrease carbon by growing the renewable energy industry. But the degrowth movement believes we need to take this further, by designing a social upheaval that disentangles the idea of progress and economic growth once and for all. This new accounting of economic success would instead focus on access to public services, a shorter work week, and an increase in leisure time. Their approach, they say, will not only combat climate change, but free us from a workaholic culture in which so many struggle to make ends meet…
    This is how degrowthers envision the process: After a reduction in material and energy consumption, which will constrict the economy, there should also be a redistribution of existing wealth, and a transition from a materialistic society to one in which the values are based on simpler lifestyles and unpaid work and activities…
    People can try to live a degrowth-esque lifestyle today by buying fewer things, but ultimately it’s challenging to commit to degrowth without those public services that are built into the model…
    Since there are so few real-world examples of degrowth, Kallis has used a fictional utopia to explain the concept in a 2015 paper…
    “It’s how we imagine the good life,” Kallis said. “A life that is simpler, not a life where we keep producing more and more running faster and faster, and having more and more products to choose from.”
    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj9yjq/the-radical-plan-to-save-the-planet-by-working-less

    ​Eleni sent this from Kunstler: Going Where, Exactly?
    ​ ​Well, we’d better adjust our thinking to the fact that the horn-of-plenty is shockingly out of goodies, and that no amount of financial hocus-pocus is going to refill it. Valiant attempts to redistribute the already-existing wealth are liable to prove disappointing, especially when the paper and digital representations of that wealth in “money” turn out to be figments — promises to pay that will never be kept because they can’t be kept.
    ​So, instead of fantasizing about free PhD programs for everybody, and free insulin for the multitudes, consider instead the vista of a reduced population working in the fields and pastures to bring enough food out of the long-abused land to live through the next winter. Consider a world in which, if we are lucky, the electricity runs for a few hours a day, but possibly not at all. Imagine a world in which men and women actually function in different divisions of labor and different social spaces because they must, to keep the human project going. Imagine a world in which the ideas in your head about that world actually have to comport with the way the way that world really works — and the severe penalty for failing to recognize that.
    ​https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/going-where-exactly/

    ​ ​Nearly everyone wonders, “Why is Donald Trump crazy enough to impose tariffs on imports from other countries? How could this possibly make sense?”
    ​ ​As long as the world economy is growing rapidly, it makes sense for countries to cooperate with each other. With the use of cooperation, scarce resources can become part of supply lines that allow the production of complex goods, such as computers, requiring materials from around the world.
    The downsides of cooperation include:
    (a) The use of more oil to transport goods around the world;
    (b) The more rapid exhaustion of resources of all kinds around the world; and
    (c) Growing wage disparity as workers from high-wage countries compete more directly with workers from low-wages countries.
    ​ ​These issues can be tolerated as long as the world economy is growing fast enough. As the saying goes, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
    ​ ​In this post, I will explain what is going wrong and how Donald Trump’s actions fit in with the situation we are facing. Strangely enough, there is a physics aspect to what is happening, even though it is likely that Donald Trump and the voters who elected him would probably not recognize this. In fact, the world economy seems to be on the cusp of a shrinking-back event, with or without the tariffs. Adding tariffs is an indirect way of allowing the US to obtain a better position in the new, shrunken economy, if this is really possible.
    Why it (sort of) makes sense for the US to impose tariffs

    ​ ​Yet another downturn could not come at a worse time for U.S. shale drillers, who have struggled to turn a profit. Time and again, shale executives have promised that profitability is right around the corner. Years of budget-busting drilling has succeeded in bringing a tidal wave of oil online, but a corresponding wave of profits has never materialized.
    ​ ​Heading into 2019, the industry promised to stake out a renewed focus on capital discipline and shareholder returns. But that vow is now in danger of becoming yet another in a long line of unmet goals.
    ​ ​“Another quarter, another gusher of red ink.”
    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-Gusher-Of-Red-Ink-For-US-Shale.html

    High Tech Can’t Last; There Are Limited Essential Elements:
    ​ ​This long post describes the rare metals and minerals phones, laptops, cars, microchips, and other essential high-tech products civilization depends on.
    ​ ​Metals and minerals aren’t just physically limited, they can be economically limited by a financial collapse, which dries up credit and the ability to borrow for new projects to mine and crush ores. Economic collapse drives companies and even nations out of business, disrupting supply chains.
    ​ ​Supply chains can also be disrupted by energy shortages and natural disasters. The more complex, the more minerals, metals, and other materials, machines, chemicals, a product depends on, the greater the odds of disruption.
    ​ ​Minerals and metals can also be politically limited. China controls over 90% of some critical elements.
    ​ ​And of course, they’re energetically limited. Once oil begins to decline, so too will mining and all other manufacturing steps, which all depend on fossil energy.
    ​ ​The next war over resources is likely to be done via cyber-attacks that take down an opponent’s electric grid, which would affect nearly all of the other essential infrastructure such as agriculture; defense; energy; healthcare, banking, finance; drinking water and water treatment systems; commercial facilities; dams; emergency services; nuclear reactors, information technology; communications; postal and shipping; transportation and systems; government facilities; and critical manufacturing (NIPP)

    High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements

    #47880
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    What is the answer to that? Crisis.

    Indeed it is, isn’t it?

    #47881
    zerosum
    Participant

    A crisis for who?
    A crisis for where?
    A crisis for when?

    The glass is 99% full for the elites.
    The glass is 99% empty for the rif-raf.

    MILLIONS around the world think that change must occur now.
    Do a search for protest in the news.

    A 30th consecutive weekend of yellow vest protests across France saw minor clashes and numbers well below peaks seen compared to earlier …

    An estimated 1 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong to demonstrate against the controversial extradition bill, with multiple other …

    Haiti protests against government corruption lead to 2 deaths

    Kazakhstan elects new leader as hundreds arrested in protests

    Sudan Protesters, Devastated but Defiant, Regroup Underground After …

    Reporter’s Arrest Sets Off Widespread Protests in Russia

    Birmingham anti-LGBT protesters banned from school by injunction

    Hundreds join protests in Ottawa against Ford government policies

    Protesters Hit London Streets, With a Giant Trump Balloon in Tow

    #47882
    Dr. D
    Participant

    “1 in 4 Americans Skip Medical Treatment Because They Worry About the Cost (M.)”

    I haven’t been able to go to the doctor in my lifetime, as they got rid of capitalism in 1990 when the government intervened on behalf of the insurance and medical companies to keep prices high. Since Obamacare was going in, prices have risen 10% yearly compounding, for something like 10 years, after 5% compounding for the 10 years before that.

    So, thanks to government ‘helping’, like in housing and college, prices are 5x? 10x? 20x? higher than they were and than they need to be, devastating industry and employment and hollowing out the nation. So – nice going! Thanks! I used to see a doctor for $100 flat rate for half an hour, now it costs $100 for 5 minutes, PLUS $500/month, he also won’t do anything and refers me to a specialist and a testing agency who will charge me ANOTHER $100 apiece.

    So thanks to our great care, I’m not sick, but I am bankrupt and living under a bridge where I can get Hep B from needles and typhus from rats. Don’t worry, this will be my fault somehow. Go Team!

    “House Committee to See Mueller Evidence (AP)”

    Isn’t this the evidence in the report by Mueller that they didn’t read? And why have a special counsel if you’re going to re-do a do-over and re-interview, re-investigate, and re-council again? And again and again? Why? Politics of course! Not that it will critically weaken our country at a time we’re about to collapse anyway. There’s nothing else going on, no other challenges to address, certainly not in the next 6 months as rates invert, nations stop buying bonds, and the economy collapses.

    “Was Mueller the Wrong Man to Investigate Trump? (G.)”

    Well, considering he made a career of railroading innocent men and personally muled the uranium to Russia in the multiple felonious Uranium One scandal, I’d have to go with ‘yes.’ Probably not legally appropriate to investigate yourself, your best friends, and your own malfeasance. However, thanks to a media that won’t report it, he has the public trust despite paying multiple damages for false prosecutions! Men like this: we only promote them, up and up and up, until they are especially-trusted, paragons of virtue, lauded for generations to come.

    “Big US Defense Merger Touts Tech, But Trump Has Questions (AFP)”

    See how we have capitalism? With one company that has no completion, protected and merged with government? Now they just need to merge with GE and Disney and follow JD Rockefeller, that “Competition is a Sin.” Just like health care.

    “Google Earned $4.7 Billion from News Organizations in 2018 (RT)”

    Maybe. Google said they don’t run ads on news searches, so… However, since the old media is dying due to biased misreporting and decades of serial lying, they are now attacking the competition that is replacing their irredeemable terribleness. Thus going after all high-rated Youtube (Google) and Twitter competition one by one, beginning with the Right, but as already seen immediately extending to any anti-war Left. This is similar to how the RIAA – rather than sell music at an honest price, like $1 a song on iTunes where everyone makes mint – attacked Napster, sued posters, websites, individuals, and generally made a villain and nuisance of themselves, while catastrophically losing firehoses of cash, and completely ceding their market, anyway. Except that in their case, the music actually WAS illegal, unlike Free Speech.

    “Kim Dotcom Fights U.S. Extradition in New Zealand Court (AP)”

    Speaking of illegal file-sharing. But the U.S. is attempting to make its jurisdiction the entire world. Totally. Illegal. Yet the only shocking part is that New Zealand is even attempting to uphold some kind of law or sovereignty, as nobody else does and they’ve long proven they’ll roll over for anyone.

    “it’s worth remembering that the top marginal tax rate during the time hailed as capitalism’s Golden Age floated somewhere north of 90% in the US.”

    Yes, but just like all taxes, the rich didn’t pay them. They used tax breaks and loopholes, just like now. Reagan closed the Kafkaesque leviathan of loopholes in EXCHANGE for a lower tax rate, but, as everyone expected, they immediately double-crossed the taxpayers in the Bush I administration and got “Read My Lips: More Higher Taxes” AND no loopholes. Suckers. Don’t you know by now if the government says it, they’re lying? Just like how Income Tax would be only on the rich and only 1%, and we’d never have Income Taxes AND Tariffs, and every other thing the government has ever said since John Adams. So no, there was NOT a 90% tax rate, just like there isn’t now. Amazon, GE, Bezos, they don’t pay taxes:

    YOU DO.

    So it has been, so it shall always be. So don’t be a sucker and buy this stuff.

    PS, England and France have 90% upper tax rates, and their billionaire oligarchs DON’T run roughshod over the people? Have you even tried to substantiate your argument?

    “The Permafrost Thawing Nightmare (CP)”

    In other news, they put up signs in Glacier National Park 20 years ago saying the glaciers would be gone by 2020. In fact, they started melting in 1919, and were predicted to end in 1948, then in 1980, then 2000, then 2020. But 100 years later, the glaciers are still here, and instead, the signs have been removed to save the continual embarrassment of being always wrong. In fact, there are late snows there preventing planting, but we’ll see what that means for glaciers. From the snow still hiding in the shadows of Arizona’s Grand Canyon in June, it suggests the glaciers will start building, but unlike the other side, I won’t jump to conclusions but wait for proof.

    “Honey Bee Colonies Across Europe Plunge 16% (ZH)”

    That’s awful fast. And an amazing parallel to the admission of glyphosate into Europe. More research needed, if you have time. I don’t, so I’d just ban them first and make them (finally) do some research to prove it’s safe. To anyone. Anywhere. Bees included.

    #47883

    No one found the leopard?

    #47884
    Glennda
    Participant

    I found the snow leopard. She is not as white as I expected.

    On another note – Here is an article about the demise of our small/medium family farmers. This is the exact opposite of what we need to face our dismal future of collapse.

    The devastation of farm country is biting us all on the butt

    On a more active note – Here is a long essay on how activists are stepping up to the challenge from our young people to fight for a future world that’s not just a tragedy.

    https://medium.com/@margaretkleinsalamon/leading-the-public-into-emergency-mode-b96740475b8f

    I’ve started to work with some 350 people locally to help the cities locally that have declared a Climate Emergency to work together on chosen goals that can lead to a regional response, with in put from front line communities and activists.

    I’m in the flow of doing all I can locally to survive the coming collapse. I also am working with supporters of the GND to spread the idea. The GND may not happen this year, but soon, soon, I hope.

    #47885
    zerosum
    Participant

    Leopard is well camouflaged above the snow
    Tracks are in the snow at 6:30.

    #47895

    Isn’t (s)he beautiful? Can you imagine losing her?

    #47896
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    Peer as I might, I cannot see the leopard. So I guess I’d be a leopard’s lunch…

    #47898
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    ezlxa1949

    Peer as I might, I cannot see the leopard.

    Me too; usually pretty good at seeing, but not this time…

    Well, I finally see her head/face at the bottom of the snowfield (the snowfield above the bottom one).

    #47900
    John Day
    Participant

    Look at the bottom of the large patch of snow at the top of the picture. The leopard os lying catlike, face clearly just watching with a saddish look, Her head is directly to the left of the small patch of snow, just below the big patch of snow. Her bodi is to the left and angles up from her head. Her facial features are fairly well marked.

    #47910
    zerosum
    Participant

    Above the two white streaks which point to her neck.

    #47915
    ezlxa1949
    Participant

    NOW I see her! Wonderful camouflage! Thanks.

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