Debt Rattle February 5 2015

[Raúl Ilargi Meijer]

DPC City Market, Kansas City, Missouri 1906 • A World Overflowing With Debt (Bloomberg) • A Greek Morality Tale: We Need A Global Debt Restructuring F
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 5 2015]

[V. Arnold]

Okay, lets say I believe all the charts, all the analysts, and everything the economist’s say: What keeps this going?
The answer to that is the key to everything, no?
With all due respect Ilargi; and I do respect what you are doing, but; nothing changes. Every day, week, month, and now year(s), nothing changes; except the falling standard of living across the globe.
I’m going into ignore mode while trying to cover all eventualities.
It’s all rather too much…

[Dr. Diablo]

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (AEP) has always been a waterboy, but when did he become such an ignorant baboon? I used to respect him as he brought real facts, even if his conclusion was generally the party line, i.e. the opposite of sense.

“China is trapped”? They are misstating their unemployment that is –gasp– really 6%? With 100M adults not in the workforce, if the US could cut their unemployment by 80% they might reach 6%. Numbers are numbers and economies have a lot of similarities, but China is NOT the west. They are not a neoliberal, democratic country, whatever that would mean anymore. As in the millennia-tradition of kingship, they can do anything they want, change any rules they want, print or remove any money they want, close any border they want, imprison anybody they want, and not experience the expectations we would have here in the west that the government has no legitimacy and should fall. They run on a different model, and we must respect that.

That said, let’s compare the collapse of China on western terms, as AEP suggests. They own the world’s factories, have a massive military, anti-ship EMP, anti-satellite, and ICBM nuclear weapons. They have a massive new trade deal and pipeline with a non-ocean direct feed to the world’s largest stable supply of oil and gas via Russia. They have a war chest in the US$ trillions and have bi-lateral non-dollar trade agreements approaching 150 nations worldwide. They have perhaps as much as 20,000 tonnes of gold, but at least 6,000 official and increasing rapidly. They have bought up commodity and food producers worldwide, including in Spain and the US. They bought Detroit, and parts of Ohio, Pittsburgh, and the Midwest. They own perhaps 2/3 of Manhattan commercial property. Sounds like they’re on the skids.

Debt levels? You mean compared to the EU, Greece, or the United States? Are you kidding me?

Now are they in trouble? Yes, probably. As is the rest of the world. But like the U.S in the Great Depression, who’s in the best position to weather this bad spell? Nations with huge debt, no factories, no food, no gold, worn-out or nonexistent militaries, and disintegrating trade and oil relationships, where any further repression is going to have serious social blowback like you see in Spain or Greece and break the very legitimacy of government? Or China, which is no worse off in civil unrest, but has more options and tools in the box?

China is in trouble, but make no mistake, they’re not the west.

[SteveB]

At this degree of scale, V. Arnold, things take time to play out. Patience. Be thankful you’ve had some more time to prepare. Maybe an extra growing season this past year? If you’re in the US it would be a great time to unload a gas guzzler while gas prices are still low and before people catch on that it’s not a good thing after all. Of course, that would stick someone else with that albatross. When it gets started, though, and that’ll be any day now, it’s going to be rip roaring for a solid year or more.

[E. Swanson]

Here’s a bit about the leader of the Truth in Texas Textbooks group which wants to re-write the presentation of climate change in school books:

Lt Col Roy White, TTT Chairman

Lt Col Roy White (ret) is a combat veteran fighter pilot who served honorably in the Air Force for 20 years as an instructor pilot in the A/OA-10, AT-38 and T-37. He retired in 1999 and is a commercial airline pilot with over 12,000 hours of accident free flying experience. Prior to being commissioned he was a public school teacher in NC and received a BS in Physical Education and Health from Appalachian State University in 1976. He has been a resident of Texas for over 34 years residing in Lago Vista, TX, Flower Mound, TX and lives now in Boerne, TX.

With all due respect to Mr. White, he has no apparent expertise in science, let alone the atmospheric sciences. He may be a great pilot, but that has nothing to do with the atmospheric sciences. He is rather like the TV weather men who seem to think they too can ignore the scientific theory and data which is the basis for concerns about global warming and climate change. From the article:

“If the coalition had its way, any reference to “global warming,” melting polar ice caps or rising sea levels would be excised from textbooks, or paired with dissenting views. ”

The religious fundamentalist in the US represent at least 25% of the public. Every finding by scientists which run counter to their literal interpretation of the Bible is a direct threat to their world view. Thus, they can not accept these scientific findings and somehow wall themselves off form the rest of society which does accept the scientific facts. Perhaps that’s the reason for the strong connection between the climate denial camp and the Fundamentalist with creationist beliefs. The resulting conflict won’t be easily resolved, as it’s nearly identical to the intellectual divide that which separates the Islamic State from the modern world…

[Nassim]

“ast year, as the situation in the Ukraine began to boil, I read a book called “Lost Victories” by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, who for a time commanded the southern end of the Russian campaign of WW II. He made it abundantly clear that the main reason the Germans lost in that effort was Hitler’s insistence on running the war, micromanaging the generals in ways which ultimately led to the defeat by the Russians. ”

Swanson,

Yesterday, you explained how the German generals were messed up by Hitler – which is entirely true.

However, you should have also told us how Stalin did an even better job on the Soviet military – from long before the war and during the war. Thousands of Red army officers were executed, for example. Stalin had an excellent intelligence system – a huge number of Germans were communist – and he refused to believe their warnings about the invasion – Operation Barbarossa. Trains laiden with Russian raw materials and heading for Germany were encountered by the advancing Germans. The Soviet Union was prostrate economically when the Germans attacked – decades of famine had decimated the peasantry (not just in Ukraine).

During the actual fighting, Stalin and his commissars micromanaged everything and huge number of Soviet soldiers were executed – for not toeing the communist line, not for not following orders or fighting. I could go on.

If the Soviet Union had been properly managed, Hitler would not have contemplated attacking at all. All his information suggested that it was a collapsing society.

[Nassim]

Euan Mearns – only an engineer like me and not a “climate scientist” – has some good articles with lots of interesting data. Not much change for past 18 years – despite rocketing CO2

“NASA Satellite Climatology Data”

NASA Satellite Climatology Data

“Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover”

Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover

Frankly, I don’t care a stuff as to the qualifications of Lt Col Roy White. I am only interested in the raw – unimproved – data. The story seems to be pretty consistent.

BTW, I don’t recall any professors of petroleum technology or of business pointing out that fracking in the USA was uneconomic when oil is below $90. That does not mean that these guys were stupid – they just wanted to keep their jobs.

[Author]

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