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Guest Post: Prediction: Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think
Submitted by Chris Martenson
Prediction: Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think
By my analysis, we are not yet on the final path to recovery, and
there are one or more financial 'breaks' coming in the future.
Underlying structural weaknesses have not been resolved, and the
kick-the-can-down-the-road plan is going to encounter a hard wall in the
not-too-distant future. When the next moment of discontinuity finally
arrives, events will unfold much more rapidly than most people expect.
My work centers on figuring out which macro trends are in play and
then helping people to adjust accordingly. Based on trends in fiscal
and monetary policy, I began advising accumulation of gold and silver in
2003 and 2004. I shorted homebuilder stocks beginning in 2006 and
ending in 2008. These were not ‘great' calls; they were simply spotting
trends in play, one beginning and one certain to end, and then taking
appropriate actions based on those trends.
We happen to live in a non-linear world; a core concept of the Crash Course.
But far too many people expect events to unfold in a more or less
orderly manner, with plenty of time to adjust along the way. In other
words, linearly. The world does not always cooperate, and my concern
rests on the observation that we still face the convergence of multiple
trends, each of which alone has the power to permanently transform our economic landscape and standards of living.
Three such trends (out of the many I track) that will shape our immediate future are:
- Peak Oil
- Sovereign insolvency
- Currency debasement
Individually, these worry me quite a bit; collectively, they have my full attention.
History suggests that instead of a nice smooth line heading either up
or down, markets have a pronounced habit of jolting rather suddenly
into a new orbit, either higher or lower. Social moods are steady for
long periods, and then they shift. This is what we should train
ourselves to expect.
No smooth lines between points A and B; instead, long periods of
quiet, followed by short bursts of reformation and volatility. Periods
of market equilibrium, followed by Minsky moments.
In the language of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, we
live in a system governed by the rules of "punctuated equilibrium."
Complex Systems
Our economy is a complex system. The key feature of such systems is
that they are inherently unpredictable with respect to the timing and
severity of specific events. For the uninitiated, they can look
enormously fragile and prone to flying apart at any minute; for the
seasoned observer, there is an appreciation that the immense inertia of
the economic system will almost always delay and dampen the eventual
adjustments.
Like everybody else, I have no idea exactly what’s going to happen, or precisely when. Anybody who says they do know
should be greeted with a furrowed brow and a frown of suspicion. As
my long-time readers know, I prefer to assess the risks and then take
steps to mitigate those risks based on likelihood and impact.
Which means that although we cannot predict the size (exactly how much) or the timing (precisely when) of economic shifts or world-changing events, we can certainly understand the risks and the dimensions of what
might happen. Just as we cannot predict when an avalanche will
release from steep slope, or even where or how big it will be, we can
readily predict that constant snowfall coupled with the right
temperature conditions will lead to an avalanche sooner or later, and
more likely in this gully than that one. Given certain conditions, we
might expect one that is larger or smaller than normal. Although we
don't know exactly when or how much, we do know that when snow
accumulates, so do the risks of more frequent and/or larger avalanches.
Such is the nature of complex systems. While inherently
unpredictable, they can still be described. The most important
description of any complex system is that it owes its order and
complexity to the constant flow of energy through it. Complex systems
require inputs. This is one way in which we can understand them.
Given this view, one easy "prediction" is that an economy without
increasing energy flows running through it will stagnate. To take this
further, an economy that is being starved of energy becomes simpler in
the process -- meaning fewer jobs, less items produced, and a reduced
capacity to support extraneous functions.
Accepting "What Is"
The most important part of this story is getting our minds to accept
reality without our passionate beliefs interfering. By ‘beliefs’ I
mean statements like these:
- “Things always get better and are never as bad as they seem.”
- “If Peak Oil were ‘real,’ I would be hearing about it from my trusted sources.”
- “Dwelling on the negative is self-fulfilling.”
While each of these things might be true, they also might be false
and therefore misleading, especially during periods of transition. Our
job is to remain as dispassionate and logical as possible.
Let's now examine more closely the three main events that are
converging -- Peak Oil, sovereign insolvency, and currency debasement --
using as much logic as we can muster.
Peak Oil
Peak Oil is now a matter of open inquiry and debate at the highest
levels of industry and government. Recent reports by Lloyd's of London,
the US Department of Defense, the UK industry taskforce on Peak Oil,
Honda, and the German military are evidence of this. But when I say
“debate,” I am not referring to disagreement over whether or not Peak
Oil is real, only when it will finally arrive. The emerging consensus
is that oil demand will outstrip supplies “soon,” within the next five
years and maybe as soon as two. So the correct questions are no longer,
"Is Peak Oil real?" and "Are governments aware?” but instead, "When
will demand outstrip supply?" and “What implications does this have for
me?”
It doesn't really matter when the actual peak arrives; we can leave
that to the ivory-tower types and those with a bent for analytical
precision. What matters is when we hit “peak exports.” My expectation
is that once it becomes fashionable among nation-states to finally
admit that Peak Oil is real and here to stay, one or more exporters
will withhold some or all of their product "for future generations" or
some other rationale (such as, "get a higher price"), which will rather
suddenly create a price spiral the likes of which we have not yet
seen.
What matters is an equal mixture of actual oil availability and
market perception. As soon as the scarcity meme gets going, things will
change very rapidly.
In short, it is time to accept that Peak Oil is real - and plan accordingly.
Sovereign Insolvency
Once we accept the imminent arrival of Peak Oil, then the issue of
sovereign insolvency jumps into the limelight. Why? Because the hopes
and dreams of the architects of the financial rescue entirely rest upon
the assumption that economic growth will resume. Without additional
supplies of oil, such growth will not be possible; in fact, we’ll be
doing really, really well if we can prevent the economy from
backsliding.
Virtually every single OECD country, due to outlandish pension and
entitlement programs, has total debt and liability loads that Arnaud Mares (of Morgan Stanley) pointed out
have resulted in a negative net worth for the governments of Germany,
France, Portugal, the US, the UK, Spain, Ireland, and Greece. And not
by just a little bit, but exceptionally so, ranging from more than 450%
of GDP in the case of Germany on the 'low' end to well over 1,500% of
GDP for Greece.
Such shortfalls cannot possibly be funded out of anything other than a
very, very bright economic future. Something on the order of
Industrial Age 2.0, fueled by some amazing new source of wealth.
Logically, how likely is that? Even if we could magically remove the
overhang of debt, what new technologies are on the horizon that could
offer the prospect of a brand new economic revival of this magnitude?
None that I am aware of.
In the US, the largest capital market and borrower, even the most
optimistic budget estimates foresee another decade of crushing deficits
that will grow the official deficit by some $9 trillion and the real
(i.e., “accrual” or “unofficial”) deficit by perhaps another $20 to $30
trillion, once we account for growth in liabilities. This is, without
question, an unsustainable trend.
It’s time to admit the obvious: Debts of these sorts cannot be
serviced, now or in the future. Expanding them further with fingers
firmly crossed in hopes of an enormous economic boom that will bail out
the system is a fool’s game. It is little different than doubling down
after receiving a bad hand in poker.
The unpleasant implication of various governments going deeper into
debt is that a string of sovereign defaults lies in the future. Due to
their interconnected borrowings and lendings, one may topple the next
like dominoes.
However, it is when we consider the impact of the widespread
realization of Peak Oil on the story of growth that the whole idea of
sovereign insolvency really assumes a much higher level of probability.
More on that later.
For now we should accept that there's almost no chance of growing out
from under these mountains of debts and other obligations. We must
move our attention to the shape, timing, and the severity of the
aftermath of the economic wreckage that will result from a series of
sovereign defaults.
Currency Wars
We could trot out a lot of charts here, examine much of history, and
make a very solid case that once a country breaches the 300%
debt/liability to GDP ratio, there's no recovery, only a future
containing some form of default (printing or outright).
In a recent post to my enrolled members, I wrote:
The currency wars have begun, and the implications to world stability
and wealth could not be more profound. Fortunately, all of my
long-time enrolled members are prepared for this outcome, which we've
been predicting here for some time.When pressed, the most predictable decision in all of history is to
print, print, print. So I can't take credit for a 'prediction' that
was just slightly bolder than 'predicting' which way a dropped anvil
will travel; down or up?The only problem is, widespread currency debasements will further
destabilize an already rickety global financial system where tens of
trillions of fiat dollars flow daily on the currency exchanges.
You can be nearly certain that every single country is seeking a path
to a weaker relative currency. The problem is obvious: Everybody
cannot simultaneously have a weaker currency. Nor can everybody have a
positive trade balance.
If a country or government cannot grow its way out from under its
obligations, then printing (a.k.a. currency debasement) takes on
additional allure. It is the "easy way out" and has lots of political
support in the home country. Besides the fact that it has already
started, we should consider a global program of currency debasement to
be a guaranteed feature of our economic future.
Conclusion (to Part I)
Three unsustainable trends or events have been identified here. They
are not independent, but they are interlocked to a very high degree.
At present I can find no support for the idea that the economy can
expand like it has in the past without increasing energy flows,
especially oil. All of the indications point to Peak Oil, or at least
"peak exports," happening within five years.
At that point, it will become widely recognized that most sovereign
debts and liabilities will not be able to be serviced by the miracle of
economic growth. Pressures to ease the pain of the resulting financial
turmoil and economic stagnation will grow, and currency debasement
will prove to be the preferred policy tool of choice.
Instead of unfolding in a nice, linear, straightforward manner, these
colliding events will happen quite rapidly and chaotically.
By mentally accepting that this proposition is not only possible, but
probable, we are free to make different choices and take actions that
can preserve and protect our wealth and mitigate our risks.
What changes in our actions and investment stances are prudent if we
assume that Peak Oil, sovereign insolvency, and currency debasement are
'locks' for the future?
I explore these questions in greater depth in Part II of this report (enrollment required)
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I have one caveat.
I am not going to live anywhere where the weather can outright kill me.
I did enough Winters in the Midwest. The last one froze the car's antifreeze.
Also, spent too much time in the desert inhaling the DU.
the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of us all ....leonard cohen
ka-WHOOSH!
Al Bundy.
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
Just swap 'peak oil' for 'peak babyboomer productivity'
I know there's a joke in there somewhere.
Much like your boxers.
That is funny, Crockett. How did you get out of the asylum?
it's behind the viagra
Another good one. But I don't get it.
I'm, prettty sure you wouldn't exist without peak baby boom productivity-fuckwad
If the political enviornment wasn't so toxic, we would get to work on Nat Gas or Liquified Coal. It will get used eventually, after this global warming/cooling/climate change shit blows over and these fascist have sufficiently banked it or achieved the change they demand. Some body will use this energy at some point in the future. Wind and solar are secondary.
global warming is good for the economy we can drill the poles.there is one little problem th desert will start following both directions to the poles.we can escape but will the trees catch up?
poles warming is not a myth.globally no man and no machine can predict the outcome
I can see what you mean, toto. I'm thinking that with all the burden on the planet of air conditioning, though, maybe we can all jet to the poles in the summer and cut out the middle man.
I never thought of it.But I must admit that it sounds OK.
You are funny after all(and a genius of course).
toto
You have a lot of imagination (and ingenuity I think). I like you too.
Nobody said it wasn't warming. It has been warming for thousands of years. Nature is not linear. The hockey stick was a fraud, and the data has been destroyed by corrupt pseudo-scientists.
Actually, in past global warming events (yes, it is cyclical) the south pole gets even thicker with ice. As sea water evaporates it rises and rides the air stream south. During "normal" weather, the water condenses and falls in the amazon and south america. During global warming, the water travels much further south before condensing and falling as snow on the southern ice sheet. That is in effect, the water "battery" for the planet. As weather cools, the water evaporates earlier and falls over the deserts turning them into grasslands. Many years ago, the Sahara desert was grassland as was the rest of northern Africa. So, during global warming, areas of Asia (Russia, Canada and China) will become fertile grassland (think Kansas or Oklahoma) and areas of the southern US and Europe would become deep deserts (think Sahara). Humans would naturally migrate to the more fertile lands, abandoning the deep south and the south west.
THEY are not about to let us use our own energy resources.
The best thing we can all do is start breeding mules.
Last one in is a filthy feed bag.
Mules don't breed. You breed a horse and a donkey, and you get a mule. Other than that, I am in agreement with you.
Hopefully, neither does the poster above you.
The March of the Morons is already a very crowded parade.
The rage of dreaming sheep.
Donkey stud w/ mare= mule
Horse stud w/ donkey= jeanette mule= worthless, (like the gov.)
Lion + Tiger = Liger
http://www.unp.co.in/f81/ligers-worlds-largest-liger-lion-tiger-50568/
Are you referring to coal gasification? What are the drawbacks and advantages? What are the impediments other than regulatory to getting started?
I can't take the peak oil concept seriously after seeing the oil flow in the gulf non stop for months.
We do not have the technology to get out there and get the oil out of the ground adequately without creating environmental disasters; peak oil.
We're just not sucking hard enough,
Calling Barney Frank, calling Barney Frank.
Explain it for us, Liberal Sodomite.
Your commentaries here seem to be doing more than their fair share, however.
Buried canned ham, bitch! Buried canned ham!
kakakakakakaka
Sorry you are so humorless. But then, that's about what can be expected from a priest of doom.
I take it very seriously since I saw the waste of that precious fluid at the Italian barbershop down the street.
then ur pretty gd stoopid
7777
8.9 on the Rectum scale.
I've just read an armageddonish economicish thingie and I'm feeling blue. Think I'll go out and howl at the moon.
Pity about all those human things I didn't have time to worry about. This end-of-existence-as-we've-known-it thing has got me down so bad I just can't be bothered.
I've lost my appetite for steak and wine and I don't even want to look at the yacht channel anymore.
To be or not to . . .Forget it.
''howl at the moon''
You forgot it, but it sounded like a healthy reaction
heh heh.
heh heh.
Francis, I hear your daddy Jon Nadler calling you home for dinner.
Looks like your mommy is serving him, and you, up another big dinner of humble pie. One would think that you and he would get tired of eating it day after day for years now.
Loggers, seventy five cents silver per day.
Diesel mechanics, one dollar silver per day.
Akaka gobblers, quartered and made stew meat in the pot.
75pt IQ'ers, WORTHLESS !
Fat green gobs that know how to break things real easy, twenty five cents silver per day. Must wear chain at all times.
Isn't there somebody on Facebook that you should be tormenting right now?
BTW, Walmart has a sale on zit cream --- might want to stock up.
Me thinks its Bravo...reacts just like Bravo and can be quite funny
The zit head is back!
Yes, JB without a doubt.
So much for honoring his promise.
Arrested development of imagination is a common denominator of humorlessness.
You confirm this.
little johnny wasn't so psycopathic. whoever johnny was working for replaced him with this spawn.
Yup. Johnny is just youg and confused and likes being directed. This guy is the real deal psychopath. Remember the good old days when you would get a warning buzz up your back in their presence or a queeze in your stomach. Now they just walk around like you aren't going to push them off a cliff at niagra falls when nobody is looking.
THEY are all around you. Relax. Sleep. That's it. See, THEY'RE just your dreams. You're supposed to be asleep. Orderly! Another one for the seventh floor. What a mess.
you are one sick ........
Not really, s/he is just impressed with him/herself and thinks s/he is clever. S/he does not have a position on anything, just looks to fuck with other people and disrupt things. At least this is how it looks on this thread.
I would be interested to see him/her compose a post that represented a comprehensive argument/take/position on something. I'd be interested to know if he/she has the capacity to do it without needing to hurl insults. This person appears to think the posts here are too pessimistic, I can discern that. If francismarion would take the time to explain why we are all wrong, that would be really fruitful. I'd love to be more optimistic than I am and welcome anyone who would talk to me about it in a civilized manner. This pseudo head trippy, "I'm such a mind fucker bullshit" doesn't cut it for anything but trolling (and it is solid trolling, gotta give credit where it is due).
"How's that working for you?" "What?" "Being clever." "Good I guess." "Then keep it up! Keep it right up."
uck uck uck uck uck uck uck uck uck.
Your desperation to be accepted is showing.
Your desperate desire to be accepted is showing.
Your desperate desire to post is showing! Funny how you go to this shit instead of answering the fucking question.
.
Mscreant, I agree with you 100%, but have another issue to bring up here that has rankled me for a long time in this forum.
I would ask everyone, PLEASE, when you know that you are posting in an increasingly narrow thread column, to put a "." (period) or some other mark, followed by several hits on the "Return" key, putting in two or more blank lines, before beginning to type in your comments --- as you will note that I did here. Otherwise, the first several line of every narrow post are obliterated by the comment header, including the date, time and comment number.
Countless comments I have had to skip over, merely because they were utterly unreadable behind all the data of the comment header. Please be cognizant of this fact!
Again, that was not specifically addressed to you MsCreant, but to everyone reading your comment here. And I hope you and others will mention it elsewhere as well. It is a real fault of this forum's format that that is allowed to happen at all.
Thanks for sharing that. I thought it was just my browser.
It happens on mine, but much later. I think print size on the screen matters too. Thanks akak.
Ultimate ZH CAPTCHA?
63 minus ___ equals 63
That's funny. Reminds me of a dream I had where I kept busting up the choreography of it. Till it ended. Talk sense or get the fuck out ghost bitches!!
Ak ak akakak ak, AK!
MB! JB! Buried canned ham in the backyard Bitchez!
An utter lack of imagination usually goes along with a lack of humor. Confirmed in your case.
Is that for the sum of two, three, or five of these "francismarion" trolls?
Heavy day, Maxi, or just mad?
Fed can't even get the money printing thing right and you guys think this is some diabolic organization?
Notice the misspelling of October as well..
http://www.moneyfactory.gov/
Announcement from the Federal Reserve Board
Octobber 1, 2010
On October 1, the Federal Reserve Board announced a delay in the issue date of the redesigned $100 note. This new design incorporates cutting edge, anti-counterfeiting technologies and the Federal Reserve imposes strict quality controls to ensure that users of U.S. currency around the world receive the highest quality notes. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing manufactures Federal Reserve notes and has identified a problem with sporadic creasing of the paper during printing of the new $100 note, which was not apparent during extensive pre-production testing. As a consequence, the Federal Reserve will not have sufficient inventories to begin distributing the new $100 notes as planned.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is working to resolve this problem, and the Federal Reserve Board will announce a new issue date for the redesigned $100 note as soon as possible. The originally scheduled issue date was February 10, 2011.
All this conspiracy stuff about the Fed.
It's been said before, but c'mon, fellas, Occam's razor and all that.
Can't we just believe in ineptitude and greed and not have to accept all this Bilderberg under the bed codswallop?
My doom meter is off the scale here and not a twinge. I know, I know- just you wait. And wait. And wait.
The International Forecaster's been predicting fiscal shmiscal hibbertygibberty since the sixties. Waiting.
You disappoint me, FM. I was enjoying your taunts and thought you were quite smart ... until you just gave the game away by expressing an actual opinion. (Thanks, MsCreant, for forcing his hand).
"ineptitude and greed"? Hahahahahaha ... not even close. One [middle level] organisation that has nearly succeeded in its mission after a continuous effort that has now spanned over 200 years (97 years "officially"). On one scale (efficiency), it has certainly taken longer than the oligarchs had initially hoped for. Though, on another scale (effect), it has nearly achieved its final goal. You -- of the TV generation, sound bite and instant gratification -- cannot comprehend the timescales these people work to. Whether it takes another 2 years (their current target) or another 200 years (due to unforseen complications) won't bother them ... they'll still keep working at it. Like inbred cockroaches, they are not over-bright but they sure are persistent.
Bilderberg doesn't control anything. It is (like the CFR and TC) a middle level tactical committee of bureaucrats that are led to believe that they are important people making important decisions. Bzzzzt ... they are simply implementing decisions in accord with strategies set by people that most of them will never ever meet.
I thought you were onto the game in your initial "plantation" post, but it turns out now that you just made a lucky guess.
Whether it takes another 2 years or another 200 years won't bother them ...
These guys are part of that Twilight group then??
?
You'll have to explain yourself: Is that a novel or a movie?
Sorry. If you know any young girls, ask them what Twilight is. Just the biggest phenomenon for women in the past five years. Is making a ton of money worldwide.
Vampires - who "live" forever. Three movies down; two more to go.
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilightseries.html
sighhhh :(
if we are running out in two years, then aren't we a few decades off on calling peak oil??
China is building freeways like a son of a bitch. They are doing the math on reserves.
The Feeeeeeeee-eeeeeeed!
goose bumps!
Things Will Unravel Faster Than You Think
Breathtaking with cretins of Amerika
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s address to Wall Street wigs of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on the eve of this year’s session of the United Nations General Assembly documents the startling degree to which the mental processes of the US ruling elite have become disconnected from world reality. Hillary’s Leitmotiv in this speech was a constant harping on the reality and imperative necessity of US world leadership, which she claimed had opened the immediate perspective for a “New American Moment” on her watch. To this extent, she sounded very much like any neocon of the Bush-Cheney era. But Hillary did offer some slight variations on the usual note of triumphalism, which of course goes back to Madeleine Albright’s slogan of the United States as the “indispensable nation.” Hillary’s unilateralism comes dished up in a slightly more appealing camouflage than was the case with the neocon plug-uglies. The current US line under Obama can therefore be described as unilateralism in disguise, unilateralism in drag, or unilateralism lite.
Hillary made clear that she does not want a multi-polar world, since this would involve a frank recognition of the legitimate conflicts of interest between the would-be US hegemon and the other major powers. Hillary’s formula for expressing this difference is to say that she does not want a multi-polar world, but rather a multi-partner world – with the latter being centered, it goes without saying, on the United States. She quoted Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who made policy for Harry Truman, the obedient Missouri ward heeler who served the US financier elite by restoring the presidency to its puppet status after a dozen years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s powerful and independent leadership.
Acheson, who functioned as a retainer for W. Averell Harriman of the Brown Brothers Harriman investment bank, once observed that it is better to evoke support rather than merely compelling it. This means in today’s terms that it is better to offer trifling concessions and soothing rhetoric to the junior partners in US-led aggressive coalitions, rather than trying to bully these other nations into line with threats and bluster. But the outcome envisaged by Clinton is clearly the same.
Condoleezza Rice, who was widely caricatured as a vampire, came to the United Nations as the de facto dominatrix of the world, metaphorically brandishing her riding crop at every opportunity. Hillary is not so crude: she wants to be the schoolmarm of the world, or better yet the governess of the world – provided that her unruly charges are kept in their place. But there is no change in the grating notes of arrogance, hypocrisy, and double standards. Hillary claimed that the United States policy is helping less developed countries to lift themselves out of poverty, and then cited the Palestinian occupied territories as a success story. What planet does the US elite live on?
Hillary’s talk of a new American moment, complete with reference to Dean Acheson, points up the difference in the US world position today as compared to 1945-1950. Despite the Hillary’s references to a US national renewal focusing on the restoration of “economic might,” the fact is that the post-industrial, de-industrialized United States of today has almost nothing positive to offer the rest of the world in terms of economic cooperation. Towards the end of World War II, the United States could offer Lend-Lease assistance to its allies, both for self-defense and for postwar reconstruction, thanks to FDR’s policy of including development aid along with military shipments as the fighting wound down. Starting in 1944, the US could offer participation in rapidly expanding world trade under the Bretton Woods system, whose fixed parities and gold settlement made it the most successful world monetary system in human history before or since. A few years after the war ended, the United States could offer Marshall Plan assistance, also for postwar economic reconstruction. This was supplemented by the Point Four Program, a serious program of US foreign aid. As a result of all these, cooperating with the US became a way to take part in a global economic upswing which lasted a quarter century and more.
And what does the United States have to offer today? Free trade, globalization, hot money, the world casino economy, a $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble, deregulation, privatization, growing income disparities, and immiseration -in short, the hated and discredited Washington consensus which the IMF is still trying to impose. There is also an incessant meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign states done under the hypocritical cover of human rights, sometimes reaching a culmination in the form of a color revolution or CIA people power coup. It should not be a surprise that so many turn away and begin wondering what China might have to offer. At the CFR, Hillary targeted Egypt, Russia, and China as top human rights abusers on the US hit list.
In terms of the details, we can say that the entire world economy has been deteriorating since 2007 at the very latest. The Israel-Palestine talks which Hillary touts appear less concerned with actually solving this dispute than with making it easier for Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Jordan to take part in a US-led Sunni-Arab coalition against the Persian-Shiite forces arrayed around Iran. In Iraq, the war goes on despite all the claims of the Obama administration, and the US has been utterly unable to produce the desired outcome of an Allawi puppet regime that could make some trouble for Iran.
Cryptome has published what purports to be a diplomatic cable from Hillary Clinton herself to the US Embassy in Israel announcing the existence of a bipartisan US consensus that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, that such an eventuality is utterly unacceptable, and that a military attack on Iran would create optimal conditions for regime change in that country. The cable also suggests that it is time to play Colombia against Venezuela, and thus overthrow the allegedly pro-Iranian Chavez regime in Caracas.
In Afghanistan, NATO losses have reached an all-time high, even as the US-led coalition crumbles, with the Dutch already gone, Canada on its way out, and British and US generals fighting among themselves over who is responsible for defeat. Hillary herself has inaugurated a policy of aggressive US meddling in the multilateral South China Sea territorial waters disputes as well as in the Yellow Sea, where the presence of US warships so close to Beijing has created much tension in the Chinese capital. As part of this general thrust, Hillary signaled that the United States will apply an all-court press to ASEAN, barging in as an unwelcome intruder to make trouble where the US presence is clearly not desired,
Hillary gave herself much credit for the signing of the US-Russian START treaty on nuclear weapons, but it is far from clear whether this treaty can be ratified soon. Indeed, Hillary went out of her way to keep alive the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia, mentioning en passant that she will never agree with the Russian accounts of what happened in August 2008, i.e., with the reality of Georgian aggression.
As regards Africa, Hillary is obviously very nervous about the growing Chinese presence, which she would obviously like to contain under the cloak of bilateral coordination between Washington and Beijing. The real US intentions concerning Africa came out more clearly when she turned to the question of whether the southern Sudan would secede from that country in the near term, an outcome which she obviously ardently desires, but which has a very good chance of leading to a civil war and perhaps a regional war as well. Since the US is economically incapable of offering a realistic alternative to Chinese economic cooperation offers, Foggy Bottom obviously prefers scorched earth on that entire continent, starting with the oil-rich Sudan, to a robust Chinese presence.
Finally, Hillary has not forgotten her own consuming personal ambition. On the one hand, she remains terrified of any accusation of softness or appeasement, which automatically requires her to act out as the biggest warmonger on any given issue. She is still unaware that this is what weakness really means in practice – the need to overcompensate with aggressive posturing for a pervasive feeling of personal inadequacy. But at the same time, Hillary appears oriented towards the post-Obama era, and especially towards the time later this year and early next year when Obama is likely to have been further weakened by a humiliating defeat in the November elections, and by more losses, disarray, and defections in the Afghanistan war effort. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the leading right-wing paper in Germany, recently reported that top financial angels of the Democratic party are now demanding a minimum program of Hillary as vice presidential candidate for 2012 in place of the motor mouth Biden, while preferring a maximum program of dumping Obama in favor of Hillary for President. At this point, any primary challenge to Obama would be welcome, since it would tend to bring multiple contenders into the presidential field.
Geopol, I am going to hold you personally responsible, after cruelly posting that photo, for the vomit covering my keyboard. Damn, man, I was eating dinner here!
And that responsibility will manifest..HOW?
It was a hard decision,,,, How about this!Robo's got nothing on this guy..
Pretty girl.
Air brush tush.
May I lick the brush when they are done?
I don't want to give you the brush to lick, I'd rather give you the girl, herself, her pretty ass in all it's natural glory. I think the real one would be more erotic.
I think a growing minority get much of this, peak oil seems less appreciated. Well laid out as usual by the maestro.
Can someone help me understand what happened with commodities this Friday? All the metals were up while all the consumables (corn, wheat, lumber etc.) were in the red?
Good question ---- I wondered that as well.
Gold, silver, oil all up, everything else down HARD! Can't recall seeing anything quite like this before.
Duh! I got a dock up by doze. Guh-hyuh guh-hyuh. Doh, wait, dit's by pinger! Guhhhhh Guh-hyuh guh-hyuh guh-hyuh!.
Can someone help me understand what happened with commodities this Friday? All the metals were up while all the consumables (corn, wheat, lumber etc.) were in the red?
Geopol
Odd how you so explicitly dislike the idea of US hegemony yet offer nothing to take its place; other than multipolarity, without any elaboration of the inevitable hard give and take that would necessarily result in the stronger power- namely the US- having its way anyhow.
And how can you say the US was pushy in the South China Sea when not a whisper was heard in the press about US intervention in the recent Japan-China row?
And you say this:
"Foggy Bottom obviously prefers scorched earth on that entire continent, starting with the oil-rich Sudan, to a robust Chinese presence."
How are we to take anything you say at face value after such nakedly anti-American hyperventilation? The US, of all the nations of the earth, is by far the largest benefactor of the continent of Africa.
When you finally reveal your real target is the political ambitions of Hillary Clinton, it it the foreign policy of the US that has been the victim of a scorched-earth policy, yours.
But you vitiate even this line of attack when you say this:
"Indeed, Hillary went out of her way to keep alive the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia, mentioning en passant that she will never agree with the Russian accounts of what happened in August 2008, i.e., with the reality of Georgian aggression."
It hardly needs pointing out that merely disputing the sequence of events of August 2008, which are certainly open to dispute, does not prolong that conflict. There is diesel fuel aplenty to keep that fire burning without worrying about Hillary's fulminations en passant over the sequence of events.
For all your erudition you are overly partisan, unwilling to offer a viable alternative to the existing world order and unbalanced in your criticism of American goals and means.
But I don't like Hillary either.
Odd how you so explicitly dislike the idea of US hegemony yet offer nothing to take its place;
Try readjustment of constitutional preferences..
And how can you say the US was pushy in the South China Sea when not a whisper was heard in the press about US intervention in the recent Japan-China row?
Now I need to escort the MSM view of of the world?
alternative to the existing world order,,,,
And that would be??
I don't like Hillary, with extreme vigor.
The only comprehensible sentence in your answer was the one about Hillary. I get it already.
Why will knuckleheads like you smear your anti-American tripe wide and deep but never systematically answer a rebuttal?
Or is that beneath your Parnassian plane of reality?
Waiting.
Francis, you show your true neocon-esque colors by automatically labeling disagreement with the overtly aggressive, offensive (as opposed to defensive), bipartisan interventionist US foreign policy of the last 65 years as "anti-American". I take deep offense at your equation of anti-federal government, or anti-particular-government policy, as being anti-American. It would seem you believe that America, our homeland, is functionally equivalent to our metastizing federal government. How delightfully statist of you.
AKAK
Modern US foreign policy began after WW II. I do not defend the federal government per se since that includes a great many more things than either of us can delve into here.
But to smear American interventionism as purely self-interested ignores the benefits to the world that have flowed from it.
For example, a world risen from the ashes of WW II, a relatively bloodless end to the Cold War, the liberation of Eastern Europe, the rise of prosperity in East Asia.
These are all Big Things. The antagonistic minds that ignore them and can only see the failures of US foreign policy elicit a smile of contempt from me.
You are like so many that leap upon your hobbledehoy of revulsion at the US at the first sign of US interventionism, disregarding the historical forces that propelled us to this point or the forces in the world today that hold us on the course we chose to take in 1945.
Did no one ever tell you that if you have to fight a war it's better to do it in the other man's house and not your own? Or that the best defense is a good offense. How chic, how noble to be above such considerations. But your right to be so has been dearly paid for. And is not so certain as you may think. Sneer if you will but that merely proves my suspicion that you and those like you know nothing of the reality of the world today.
Go back to your peak-oil doomsterism. Count your kruggerrands. The US Armed Forces are making it safe for you.
Ah, "The White Man's Burden", is that your stale and lame statist, militaristic, foreign interventionistic argument? I don't think Rudyard Kipling would be very happy with your feeble attempt at plagiarization.
"We're only invading, occupying, oppressing and killing them in order to save them!" LOL!
You sound like every other apologist for empire and militarism throughout history ---- self-serving, hypocritical and morally spineless. I guess you never heard that classic quote of Edmund Burke: "War is the health of the State". And with our multiple, far-ranging, undefined and never-ending wars, cheered on by jingoistic Quislings such as yourself, boy, is our state healthy!
No analysis, only rant.
Curl up tight in your little nest, snug and cozy.
Pleasant dreams.
Or is that beneath your Parnassian plane of reality?
No,, a different contemporary reality not in your toolkit..
Keep waiting
P.S Give here at ZH the books you have written,,and your evidence of economic contributions to facilitate a recovery of this sad state.. I'm waiting...
Mr. Bolton
You will not engage. That makes you a scaredy cat. Your use of character assassination is certainly a contemporary reality I am familiar with. Scaredy cat. See?
But there's nothing really new about it. Trying to tart up your invective as something more than idiosyncratic rehashed blather is well, disappointing.
Your turn. Scaredy cat.
Now your tiring me out...Bolton
State funded liberal arts university Francis Marion..Put up your money for your education or was it FASFA that you could have received with ten dollars worth of late charges at the public library. HAHAHAAH
HOW'S THAT FOR ENGAGEMENT???
What a remarkable vacuity!
Disappointing. Scaredy cat.
What a remarkable vacuity!
I don't think it's remarkable,,it's sad
NOW YOU GET IT,,,, GOOD BOY
What a lying douchebag.
Geopol did engage you, in good faith from all apperances, only to have you shit on him with gratuitous and uncalled-for ad hominen attacks. The same sort of behaviour that we used to regularly see from one JohnnyBravo, just coincidentally. In addition, I note that it is YOU who refuses to engage HIM, as you did not directly respond to his questions or challenges in any way. Coward and troll.
Ak ak akkakkak ak ak ak ak AK AK!
Ak ak akkakkak ak ak ak ak AK AK!
Now I get your view on international, geopolitical, deep analysis, formulation...FRANCISMARION exited financial stooges...
Its Johnny, gold back to nine hundred, Bravo, Geopol.
No problems here, cash is King , all is well Bravo...
I guess once his week-long shopping trip for crayons and zit cream was over, he decided to grace his with his presence once again.
akak...
Nice support of the obvious..
oh, ya got me! right tru da hart
I'm sorry to hear that...I've been away,,,good to revisit old posts..
Book number one: "How I flicked a booger in Geopol's eye and spent half the night trying to talk him into giving it back"
Book number two: "How Geopol got scared by an ostrich when he was a baby and could never adopt a synoptic viewpoint ever after."
Book number three: "Why Geopol gets all squishy inside when he talks about how Hillary looked his way at a book signing event one time as he heard Barbara Streisand singing 'Feelings'"
Johnny, just curious here, when you decorate the house for Christmas, how many sockpuppet socks do you have to hang on the mantle for yourself? 10? 20? Does it get hard keeping track of all of them, or do your paymasters just assign you new ones as needed?
Nothingness again.
Sleep, sleep.
All is well. Your gold is in the jar. Your rifle is by the door.
I'm the smartest one ever, I'll show'em, I'll show'em, I'll....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Hey... watch what you say about sock puppets.
:D
Nice ,,,
Holy shit, I pushed you off the edge!!! Sorry
Thanks, geopol. I like you, too.
The fuck you do!!
+-1 useless exchange of inanity.
Calmyourself:
Easy for you to say!!! Fence sitter +-
I would never have you in my fucking fox hole...
Just a simple question, not an insult of the blog whatsoever.
As I marinate my ice cubes I ponder, IS THIS SITE RUN BY GOLDMAN SACHS?
"marinate my ice cubes"
FAIL.
I'm gonna teach a little geology lesson here.
Permeability and Porosity.
Oil underground in a "reservoir" . . . is very poor phrasing. There's no ocean down there. You don't drill a hole and push the pipe down into the ocean and have it flow up. That's not what is going on.
It's all rock. The rock is like a sponge. It has porosity. Tiny pores within which there is oil. That's the first parameter; how many pores filled with oil is in the rock.
The second parameter, permeability, is the interconnectedness of the pores. It's the degree to which the rock really does look like an ocean, so that a single hole can access all the oil for hundreds and thousands of feet around it.
THIS . . . THIS is the problem with shale oil and Bakken. The permeability is very poor. you will thus hear stories of enormous amounts of reserves in the rock, very porous, but the permeability is terrible. The oil doesn't flow. It can't get to the drill hole. Horizontal drilling helps you go from pore to pore, and fracking helps with the permeability, but it remains very, very non permeable.
The result is that those big reserves numbers . . . they largely don't matter. You will never get more than maybe 600K bpd (as in barrels PER DAY) from the area and it may take 10 years to get to that peak of production. We're presently getting about (and pay attention here) about 2 million barrels PER YEAR from there. When you see that quiet little unit change, it should tell you the pimps are trying to fleece investors.
The US consumes about 19 million barrels PER DAY. The world, 80ish mbpd.
Does the low permeability of shale oil mean it can only be gotten my strip mining sort of like coal?
>>
Does the low permeability of shale oil mean it can only be gotten my strip mining sort of like coal?
>>
No, it largely means it can't be gotten at all.
Visualize the porous rock. You drill down to it with a bore that is a few inches in diameter. The rock is under pressure and that hole is a low pressure zone and up comes whatever oil from whatever pores you intersected. When those pores in that few inches of diameter are empty, that's that for that hole.
You can bend the hole and moving it horizontal through the rock, trying to get more pores intersected, and you can even do things to fracture some surrounding rock and create interconnectedness of the pores, but in general you will always be working with a few inches of diameter. Each time the oil in that diameter is gone, you have to move the drill.
Every drill move event costs time, power and money. It's like the slurpee at the bottom of your cup. It stops flowing up the straw so you stir and poke, stir and poke.
The stir and poke costs thousands of dollars a day. Each such event only gets a bit more slurpee harvested.
It just doesn't work for significant production rates.
This is the true definition of easy vs difficult oil. Easy oil is in high permeability rock. It's a sponge. Up it comes. If it slows flow, you inject water under pressure some distance away (squeeze the sponge) and up comes more, until the water reaches the upward flowing bore. Then you get "water cut" and the water has to be separated. Eventually all you get is water.
We may have reached peak EASY oil, but there's lots more available, otherwise I agree with the rest of the thesis. Especially about the speed of the unraveling, as a critical mass realizes what is happening and herd behavior kicks in.
But we still have a trillion (with a T) barrels of shale oil in the Rockies and it costs about $13/bbl to extract and we know how (it's $2/bbl to pump out of the Saudi desert). If the relative price of oil gets high enough we may find the will power to tap it. We are also the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and coal. We should be exporting our way to prosperity and be at the forefront of new energy technology such as Thorium reactors (like nuclear, but safe and can't be weaponized).
Our problems are self imposed. It's as if TPTB have decided to forfeit all energy resources and the future to Asia for easier pickings. (btw, if Al Gore = TPTB, then we need to shoot ourselves.) Chris is correct, it will be our ultimate downfall if we don't have access and utilize energy resources. We need to liberate our energy resources, not have them foreclosed on later by foreigners for our nonuse now. The way to move away from fossil fuels is to pay for the transition with the energy resources we have in the ground now.
The point of the EPA was to make things cleaner, not shut us down. The greenies need to go to China where they could actually do some good and let us do what we need to do here to compete. They're obviously not playing for the American team.
(The Carboniferous Period 350 mil years ago got it's name for good reason. AGW is a proven fraud, sorry if anyone's feelings are hurt)
I shall presume you typed that before I posted my geology lesson. Shale permeability is horrible. To get all that oil you have to drill tens of thousands of wells, and each one costs about 2 million dollars.
It will never happen. It matters only peripherally, oddly, how much is there. What matters primarily is how quick it can come out. For shale, that's just not quick at all.
This is why you read about fields that can produce for 100 years. They drain a few barrels a day.
We need 19 million of those.
It is not even oil, its called Kerogen and lots of energy (heat) needs to be added to yield oil...That pesky EROEI reels its ugly head again...
What in God's name was even remotely junkable. Someone had to be drunk.
Assuming we don't go into hyper inflation on overdrive (and peak whatever doesn't fully arrive for another 30+ years) I think I have enough resources to buy a small cabin by the sound and live comfortably with my wife for the rest of my days. I think I am ready. I'll probably still get an internet connection and trade the over sold and over bought markets. Hopefully I can beat the 1% returns the banks want to give me.
Lot of words to say Peak poverty. Peak cowbell!!!
Looks like he's saying buy gold oil and short USD.
Think twice about those. Metals are almost done there's more oil in tankers than in US storage and when the global meltdown occurs the dollar will go from 70 ish to 100 over night.
Yes, the irredeemiable paper promises of profligate and bankrupt entities always rise in value as the debt taken on by those entities skyrockets and approaches the exponential.
There is this little thing called "history" that you might want to look into. It just might change your mind.
Phut!
Another little thing...callllled....wait for it..."spelling". Check in it. It might just strain you mind.
And JohnnyCowardo dodges the issue once again!
TWO WORDS FUCKTARDS. TWO. DEUSTCHE BANK ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
holds the "trusts" for all of those big boys. I know. That is why I did not pay those fucktards the 50K on my 350K loan that I paid some entity 170K cash for (lawyer with finance contacts and a clue - daddy in the game with the bankersters....so I took advantage of my inside information (family) to fuck them (but there is not a law I broke. I did not "profit" even though I benefitted...ca difference -- I had to. My family did not give me any money ever. Ever fucking ever. Broke with a rich name and no drug habit or arrest. Have fun with that. People ask you for shit you do not have all the time.)......Deustche Bank "in the care of, for the benefit of...." well, my pussy obviously. Losers. We are on to them. They is upset about it. Deustche Bank took MY deposition. I am the Defendant. And they lost in it. The atty for Akerman was so ready to cry. Can you imagine? Going to law school for all those years just to do stupid foreclosure bullshit. He was so bored. Thanks for catching on. Thank you Zero Hedge. The Dominoe game just got interesting. Maybe you other folk will learn why latins play dominoes.......Maybe...
+1,000,000
I am sorry. Let me speak in the present. douche bank. fucktards. like someone would not have figured it out.....huh?
Douche Bank....now accepting employee resignations quickly.......
And are they even a real "bank" we all know the answer to that....sell out fucktards....that is who "they" are and we all participated so let us be decent to those who drank the kool aid. Note, I did not say nice. Blood optional.
Two questions: What planet are you from? Does the dirigible that brought you here have a return flight? Can you get yourself back aboard by then? Oh, sorry, that's three questions. Anyhow, here's some koolaid for your voyage. Lots and lots. Your favorite flavor. Red. Yes. That's right. Bon voyage. Bye bye now. Bye bye then. Bye bye. Bye. Whew.
What?
Much less provocative than your original declamation of the obvious, there, geopol. Seems that thing in your avatars mouth is just the tail of something living in cavity where your brain used to be.
Folks....
We're #ucked. We all know it. Many in gov't know it... you can tell this from the answers many gov't officials put out as they lurch from one crisis to the next. They can't even say when deficit spending will end.
No reasonable person believes that Bernanke, Obama or aliens in Area 51 are to blame for this mess. Ya - we're all pissed... but most sensible people understand that we live in a world of systems... where we use patterns and rules to try to manage these systems to our advantage.
It's likely that when history is written in Mandarin in several hundred years, people will come to understand that we got ourselves into this mess due to a credit bubble that began in the latter part of the 20th century... which leads me to the following conclusion.
Since we are #ucked, the gov't knows it and most people with a brain know it, there is only one credible way out, which history has shown works... we allow hyperinflation to occur which renders the USD (and debt) worthless... Following this, then a likely move to gold standard for several years as the US reasserts itself. The end result is that everyone feels the pain and everything in the system resets.
This in my sock puppet view, is the only real way out of this mess... and you can bet that despite the social unrest etc... that would accompany this, the gov't is considering this as an option. The trick is to bring the rest of the major governments down at the same time... this way, when the US reasserts itself, it is somewhat on an equal footing.
Thank you and good night.
Don't call us, we'll call you.
Next!
Gold standard? Wouldn't that make the current elite the new elite?
Not necessarily. Fifty-two percent of gold is in the form of jewelry which is pretty evenly spread around. Central banks hold eighteen percent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve
People. There is NO SUCH GODDAMNED THING AS PEAK "CHEAP" OIL.
I disagree.
Suggested reading : Twilight in the desert
Huh?
I read that book 4 years ago. I have a copy right here.
An oil well does not know what the price on the surface is. Peak is a matter of geology, not monetary constructs.
Filth is not debate. Just filthy.
7777
When you run for prez of the idiocracy I doubt if even the idiots will vote for such a fine gennelman as yuursef.
Next. Next! NEEEXXXXT!!!
I feel sorry for you.
Your weenie flag and flatulence-release sounding moniker belong where all pirates end up. Deep six.
This coming from a guy with a fucking bag over his head..............MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Show yourself you fucking cretin....francismarion
Francis Marion University, founded in 1970, is one of South Carolina's 13 state-supported universities. As one of the state's six comprehensive institutions, FMU prides itself on providing a strong liberal arts education.
1970 WOW that's an evergreen....
Admissions counselor..
Seems like a forgiving chap..
We pushed Bravo right over the edge....he's bonkers now!
Grrrrrrrrr!