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Four Ticking Global Time-Bombs Few Even Hear
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
A few charts help us grasp the magnitude of the four global time-bombs.
The geopolitical and financial risks facing the global economy are well-known. Hot wars and currency meltdowns garner headlines around the world.
But few even hear, much less discuss, four ticking global time-bombs:
1. The demographic time-bomb.
2. The public health time-bomb.
3. The food/water/soil time-bomb.
4. The oil-export time-bomb.
Each is largely self-explanatory:
1. The demographic time-bomb: as the global economy melts down, the realization that the pensions and healthcare promised to hundreds of millions of elderly cannot be funded out of tax revenues will upend the social contract in countries rich and poor.
As the chart below depicts, as the population of elderly rise, so do the non-communicable lifestyle diseases of aging. The costs of treating these lifestyle diseases (metabolic syndrome, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.) soar as the population and incidence of these diseases both rise.
Global Aging 2010: An Irreversible Truth:
This Standard & Poor’s study warns that “no other force is likely to shape the future of national economic health, public finances, and policymaking as the irreversible rate at which the world's population is aging... The cost of caring for [the elderly] will profoundly affect growth prospects and dominate public finance policy debates worldwide.”
2. The public health time-bomb: 100 million diabetics and 500 million pre-diabetics in China, 80 million diabetics and hundreds of millions more pre-diabetics in India, and another 100 million diabetics in the developed world will overwhelm a global healthcare system that is already struggling to provide care for an aging population.
Diabetes Is a Major Public-Health Crisis in China
No Answers in Sight for India’s Diabetes Crisis
The Global Diabetes Epidemic (New York Times)
3. The food/water/soil time-bomb: the world's success in feeding its exploding population of humans and their favored animals has generated a complacent confidence that we can always grow more food, even as the weather gets increasingly wonky and global supplies of fresh-water are strained to the breaking. Loss of soil and the depletion of mineral fertilizers are also global issues.
It's not just the rising number of human mouths to feed--it's the rising appetite of humanity for grain/protein-fed animals and fish. Raising livestock requires abundant fresh water and feed. Even the most efficient meat sources (other than insects, of course) require three or four times their weight in feed; less efficient meat sources need ten times their finished weight in feed.
Fish such as salmon don't live on algae--they eat other fish. Their fish food is rich in protein, and so in effect, salmon and similar farm-raised fish sit atop a food-chain pyramid.
The risk that multiple crop failures around the world could strain global grain supplies and trigger geopolitical crises as costs soar are under-appreciated outside agricultural policy circles.
4. The oil-export time-bomb: as the populations of oil exporting nations rise, they consume so much of their dwindling oil production that there's little left to export.
The technologies of fracking have given oil/gas production in the US a mighty boost, and this may well continue increasing supply for a time.
But the larger global energy picture is dominated by the Export Land Model, which describes how oil exporting nations, which typically have rapidly rising populations and undiversified economies dependent on oil exports, begin consuming more of their oil domestically while production stagnates.
The net result is there may be plenty of oil still being pumped, but very little is available for export.
That leave oil importing nations without enough energy to sustain their industrial economies.
While it's possible to invest enough in alternative energy to keep some infrastructure working, globally, total alternative energy is a scant few percentage points of total energy consumption.
Even if we take global leader Germany, famous for generating large quantities of electricity from alt-energy sources--is Germany ready to replace its vehicle fleet with electric cars and trucks? How about building enough alt-energy capacity to recharge 30 million vehicles?
That is quite a tall order for a wealthy industrial power. What sort of challenge awaits the 2.6 billion residents of oil importers China and India?
This chart of the thermodynamic (i.e. energy) population equivalent--the human population plus our billions of energy slaves-- reveal the staggering magnitude of industrial civilization's reliance on fossil fuels.
These charts help us grasp the magnitude of the time-bombs:
Many people look to technology to solve these problems before the bombs go off. Perhaps miraculous advances in artificial photosynthesis and biochemistry will solve all these global crises. But a healthy skepticism is in order, for all sorts of wondrous technologies that work in the lab and small-scale experiments fail to scale, i.e. become cheap enough and reliable enough to spread quickly around the world.
Technologies require vast quantities of capital and energy to spread throughout the global economy. Capital and energy are precisely what will be in short supply as demands on resources, tax revenues and social safety nets skyrocket.
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100 million diabetics and 500 million pre-diabetics in China, 80 million diabetics and hundreds of millions more pre-diabetics in India, and another 100 million diabetics in the developed world will overwhelm a global healthcare system that is already struggling to provide care for an aging population.
Diabetes can be easily prevented though there are 400 million diabetics in this world and 1200 million prediabetic. You can easily reduce your diabetes risk by 90% and more in just 5 minutes:
http://diabetesrisk.net/
Most diabetes is related to obesity.
Obesity is easily cured.
Stop eating HFCS.
Work up to a 30" run or swim, 3x per week, and a long run or swim on the weekends.
Keeping your waist size less than 50% of your height is easy way to prevent diabetes. For South Asians, who have a higher propensity for diabetes, waist to height ratio should be less than 0.48 to reduce risk by more than 50%.
GMO foods and Glyphosate are highly correlated with diabetes as they destroy gut bacteria that process sugar,
New Review Links Roundup to Diabetes, Autism, Infertility and Cancerhttp://sustainablepulse.com/2013/04/18/new-study-links-roundup-to-diabet...
Losing weight would also help to reverse the aging demographics problem.
Fat people don't fuck much, they mostly just watch porn on the internet.
Fit people fuck all the time.
Roundup and GMO's are poison. Beyond that, did Harry Dent write this article? Spot on info here.
Here are data linking GMOs and Glyphosate to Diabetes:
http://diabetesrisk.net/Default10.aspx
Anything to remove blame from those holding the fork.
pods
My Bro has insulin dependent Diabetes. His risk factor was Irish Beer. Just about died on a building site over there.
I disagree with Tyler / Charles on one thing:
"Technologies require vast quantities of capital and energy to spread throughout the global economy. Capital and energy are precisely what will be in short supply as demands on resources, tax revenues and social safety nets skyrocket."
Certain technologies cost a lot to implement, but software technologies can be implemented in days by cloning or copying. An example is here: http://zhc0.com - I have cloned the idea for a fancoin (or altcoin), and applied it to Zero Hedge. The goal is to create a currency that is tradable for other cryptocurrencies. Total time to get the website up, a few hours, over a few days. Time to create the coin. Similar. Technology generally piggybacks on other technology, and the foundation is out there in many places...
15horses1donkey. I think if you keep pimping this idea on Zero Hedge as a cryptocurrency, I am gonna have to track you down, and bitch slap you into the middle of next week for being a pimp ass bankster schill bitcoin wannabe rat bastard motherfucker. IF ZERO HEDGE HAD A FUCKING CURRENCY OF IT'S OWN, IT WOULD BE MINTED IN INCORRUPTABLE NON HYPOTHECATED NON DERIVATIVE NON MARGIN ABLE SILVER OR GOLD. Get your shit together, and change your direction while you still have an ass to kick. Jesus, fucking kids these days. You all think technology is a miracle. All it is is electrons that can be made to go poof any fucking minute now. if i blew up your phone right now, you would look like a cow at the slaughterhouse just at the moment the bolt gun goes off - " How could you do this to me ? What'll I do now ? " Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. Triumph over adversity. And, transform your idea into minting a fucking coin out of noble metals, or I will make you look like a one legged man at a nut kicking contest.
I am 82 and if I do all the recomendations at this site I can add an average of 1.4 years to my life. I am just happy to find that I am alive in the morning and get to read ZH. :-)
H.H. Must eat animal fat to make hormones. No low-fat diets.
Most people have no clue how/what to eat. Diabetes(type 2) comes down to one thing, controlling the amount of insulin your body kicks out in response to the food we eat. High carb/sugar diet = high insulin output and myriad negative downstream effects from said insulin output. Control insulin, you control your blood sugar. All summed up in the Zone diet.
Insulin is actually a fat storage hormone. It take excess sugars from hfcs, wheat carbs, and excess protein and turns them into fat, it just has the side effect of lowering sugar in the bloodstream. The best diet for me has been going ketogenic. Most of my calories from saturated fats and oils. Lots of green vege's some fruit. Almost no starches or sugars. Cured my gout and my waistline.
One positive may be LED lighting. I saw GE three pack of 60 watt equivalent bulbs for 9.99 the other day in Home Depot. I have my house completely converted now, including landscape lighting.
My LED landscape lighting is 12 volts AC or DC. When we had a power outage a few years ago I just hooked it up to my boat battery. We live outside the city and there are no street lights. It gets really dark during an outage, but my house was lit up like a christmas tree. Every neighbor walking up and down the street said the same thing, "How come they got power?"
Of course I didn't tell them about my ability to transmit by HAM radio and send emails across the country using a boat battery and other things.
Get off the grid. Even if you are in the city.
Seriously, proper diet and moderate exercise can reduce the risk of not only diabetes, but many other diseases as well. The whole health care complex is a mighty scam, in cahoots with food (crap) producers and big pharma companies.
Get off the rat wheel.
True story: friend of mine recently got laid off from an executive administrative assistant position. Good money, but high stress. She had chronic high blood pressure when employed.
A week after her layoff, I said, "check your blood pressure. I'll bet it's lower, and then we'll smoke a little weed and it will be lower still."
Results were almost normal blood pressure, then, about 15 minutes after a little smoke, normal blood pressure.
Three weeks later, she's off the meds she was taking and blood pressure is normal. She's thinking about going back to work, but I continue to advise against it, stressing the importance of being your own boss.
My advice to everyone. Stop working. Grow your own food, etc. Get off the corporate whatthefuck.
good advice if one can take it.
however a quibble with the original post: "the irreversible rate at which the world's population is aging.."
it's hardly irreversible. it reverses when the baby boom dies out, about 2040, 25 years from now.
the actual big news in demographics is that about then the human population of the world for the first time in history (and probably the last) reverses course and declines with no obvious end in sight. prior times, plagues, etc., were short-lived and quickly reversed.
p.s. oil-exporting iran and russia are already below the replacement rate, 2.1, of fertility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_ter...
A decrease in life exptancy will also help reverse the aging of the population. The shorter lifespan will result from people quitting their jobs to smoke pot and try to grow their own food.
Russians met by our friends on trips confirm that Rus are very worried about their low population and birth rate; they want Americans to come there to live. US birth rate is below replacement and has been for some time but no one seems to talk about it. Don't know? Don't care?
Solution...Socialist Death Panels...it is in the Hillary plan
Nice link. Puts me at under 20% risk.
Not sure I trust that though since one of my grandmothers and all her 6 siblings were diabetic and my mother and her 3 siblings also, all diabetic.
With the ubitquitous cheap meters and test strips (Walmart 50 strips $9.00) and the advanced insulin of today, diabetes is easy to beat.
Unless you weigh over 300 pounds and the only exercise you get is walking from your bed to the refrigerator.
When I got type 1 diabetes over 20 years ago the threshold of being diabetic was blood sugar over 120 mg/dL. Then they moved that down to 100 mg/dL. A couple of years ago, they said it was 99.
By reducing the bllod sugar number, all the major pharma are now selling zillions of dollars more test strips and type 2 pills.
But they're only doing it for our wellbeing. Not for the zillions moar in profits.
It's the American way of medicine.
The agenda has been set out by the UN and is clear!
More here......
http://beforeitsnews.com/global-unrest/2015/10/the-un-2030-agenda-a-blue...
.... Which is why ZH has it's tag line.
Fine work, gentlemen. I'm officially scared shitless. Next up? Second cup of coffee and back to work. There are millions on welfare depending on me.
Look on the bright side, the Mayan thing didn't happen?
Once the whole "growth at any cost" system of fractional reserve banking collapses, these things will solve themselves.
Most of the things above are not possible without this system.
pods
I don't have much in the way of fear left. I remember the old saying "everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die". It may be fatalistic, but when you worry about too much about dieing you forget how to live......
ZH's tagline has the word 'enough' in it which presumes infinity.
Another Ehrlich time bomb. No. Populations control themselves when food is scarce. Populations will not increase exponentially forever unless there are artificial supports.
5. The evisceration of over $9T in USD based carry trades along with multi-T more of USD based positions in part leading to a further violent move upwards in USD thus adding more pressure on top of a deflationary bust, margin call, risk asset meltdown triggering massive derivatives losses globally. Questions?
Many. I don't know where to start. You are speaking of deflation of leveraged financial assets, and implosion of related derivatives and their writers, I got that much. What's the value of the USD or any debt money when that gets going or gets done?
All in my humble view . . . . . .
First and foremost the TA for USD:
- focusing mainly on longer term charts (weekly and monthly) USD looks to me still working it's way around and within the slightly descending wedge and/or triangle consolidation pattern it has been in since Feb/Mar of 2015. No less than five times during this consolidation it has bounced from support at 94 and change-ish and touched the upper boundary 3-4 times depending on how you detail that on your own.
- this to me has been a healthy consolidation after a very sharp move higher starting back in July/Aug of 2014. If you look at those monthly charts you can see that USD broke out above very long term resistance with quite a bit of enthusiasm. Probably need explicit, new USD QE to break it down below 93 or some type of Grand Reset that does the same although I can make a case the Reset actually helps USD in the intermediate term quite a bit. A break above 96-97 with energy and in my humble view you'll see this thing move quite aggressively.
I can make cases that most commods to include PMs remain within their long term downtrends and still have not yet completed their bear cycles and still have too much bullish enthusiasm hoping "this might be the time". that still needs to be crushed and flushed. Equities appear to be in a long term topping phase and frankly running on fumes yet somehow magically fending off a crash (to me August was the warning shot).
As far as the mechanics go in my humble view you have the vast majority of positions globally denominated in USD. In the short to intermediate term exiting these positions whether voluntarily or not creates demand for USD in a literal and "physical" sense (gotta "settle" in USD). Dollar carry trades globally are net-short USD positions and these are unwinding. We're talking several T in positions here which in my view can put a consistent bid under UST. Looking at China's Yuan deval (remember there were signals they could go as much as 20% over a period of time despite the Yuan strengthening we see to stem the decline in the short term flows) you have the natural Yuan/USD implications of lower Yuan and higher USD but also the liquidating of UST which is also a demand for USD (sell UST and receive USD). Some feel this puts China in the driver's seat by controlling "Reverse QE" and I'm sure all those buildings exploding were just a coincidence.
There's a lot more but essentially I take everything into account and I'm inclined to stay bullish USD intermediate/long term and bearish commods.
Mean to say:
We're talking several T in positions here which in my view can put a consistent bid under USD.
Though I do see technically and fundamentally any sustained equity weakness helping not only USD but UST as well.
Thanks, Ill go through all that during the day as I have time.
mark it zero...
Add to those statistics the fact that the educated "civilized" of the world are having fewer and fewer children as the barbarous stick waivers breed like rabbits.
In a food shortage, the stick waivers will be last on the list to get what comes from the industrial food system.
That's the problem, our system allows this kind of side effect. I am being generous saying allows, more like encourages.
But, nobody is going to have 8 kids if there is no cheese to feed them.
Same with corporations, the MIC, etc.
pods
The Octo-Mom & her fertility doc went ahead with it, even with her already having 4 kids already ....(she gave birth to 8 children as a result of her fertility drugs)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/octomom-pleads-no-contest-to-welfare-fraud/
Rest my case. No cheese, no kids.
Same thing in the ghetto. If having kids was actually a financial detriment to those people they would not have kids.
pods
Pods you are such a fountain of wisdom I can't believe I find myself seemingly at odds with you. Come and see how many children people have in Africa without being able to afford them. Welfare isn't even part of the equation in most cases. It's a bizarre phenomenon for sure but I would argue it's an expressed evolutionary imperative to breed quicker in times of scarcity to ensure genetic survival and slower in times of plenty to avoid resource depletion. This is just my hasty assessment of things here in the jungle.
Freedom, education and money to buy contraceptives are the fundamental differences between your country and mine's birth rates.
Forget healthy lifestyles, etc...govts now NEED PEOPLE TO DIE. The first 7 countries (EU & Japan), easy-peasy: a virulent winter flu that's GE'd to wreck havoc with old people.
I'm easily amused.
Stick waivers. :) Legal contract; signature required prior to use of a stick.
Take the mask off Charles... It is painful to watch the Eugenics-meisters try and hide behind 'economics' and 'peak' this-or-that, when what you're really all about is population reduction - as long as it isn't the high-minded, 'eductated' types over at Peak $$$Prosperity, right...? Sorry, I don't mean to dismiss out of hand, your 'efforts', but let's cut the Crap, Ok...?
good point but as i mentioned above, it's coming by 2040 no matter what. and should there be persistent world wide depression (i'm betting on it) or nuclear war (hope not) it will come sooner.
when given the chance at a job and contraception, women say yes twice. they control the future.
Does that hold true in Zimbabwe, Burundi, Niger?
When African women get the freedom, education and money to access contraceptives they use em.
Perhaps. How much freedom, money, education do women have in Sub-Sahran Africa? How much will they have in your lifetime?
And most of these kinds of these things manifest themselves as either economic crises or as wars when they come to a head.
The four horsemen of the apocalypse:
Disease, war, famine, opression
Red = Communism
Black = Crony Capitalism
White = Catholicism
Pale or Green = Islam
Red = Communism (Opression)
Black = Crony Neo Darwinian Capitalism (Opression)
White = New Age Catholicism (Apostacy)
Pale or Green = Islam-Isis (Death and Hell)
I don't like talking about scripture, because somewhere out there some numbnut might think it's true... but for accuracy's sake I thought it was:
Empire Prosperity
Empire Division
Empire Oppression
Empire Destruction
A lesson on how empire's fall is all this was. No prophecy. Just a story. Probably about the Roman empire.
Well at least the rising prices of Gold and Silver will not be one the problems. As they are getting hammered again I believe for the 200th time in 2015.
what is the sound of one hand clapping?
It sounds a lot like a middle finger snapping to attention.
Slapping.
Fapping?
Let's all head down to "The Puke" for a Big Mac,fries and a large coke.(not too much ice)
Technology will solve the problem? Well, there's the real problem right there. Technology is the problem.
Few people alive, and almost zero intellectuals, understand reality. Here's the shocking truth for all the intellectual ninnies in the world.
REALITY IS NEITHER SCIENTIFIC NOR EVEN MATHEMATICAL. Reality is something else altogther. What we consider to be scientific and mathematical are mere
The Luddites had it right all along.
Read God's commandments 5-10 and you will see it is a morality issue and nothing more, but fixed moral standards are the compass that guided this nation and we have abandoned and now have been abandoned by God Almighty; just read 5-10...in its obedience is peace, but we, as a nation, love violence and futility.
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/law-god (Aside from commandments 1-4; those describe mans relation to God, but 5-10 are man's relationship (as it is commanded) to his fellow man, for our good.)
Anyway, doesn't really matter even though eternity is at stake, for those who are among the called will come and those who are not cannot; as it is written.
i like the fill in the blank aspect. one of my favorite techniques although i am usually more obvious.
Metabolic syndrome/type 2 diabetes can be completely controlled by diet, without drugs. www.dietdoctor.com .
Worked for me; six years after starting I'm healthy (i.e. have no inflammation though my pre-ketogenic-diet doc said I would have a heart attack and/or stroke if I didn't take her prescriptions.)
Ha ha, I'm still here and feel better now (advanced age!) than when I was 20, 30, 40, 50, 60... If I can do it, anyone can.
Congrats. Do watch out for your digestive system, particularly that you are digesting fats well with sufficient HCL and bile production.
What a surprise, a world bent on overturning what God has ordained is reaping what was and continues to be sown.
Attack on the family (one ex. feminism) and marriage (redefining) and you get the next generation no longer nurtured by the mother and absent of a father; what could go wrong?
Make it unaffordable to have children, then what happens to the demographics?
Ignore the righteousness found in the law, particularly commands 510, then everything is redefined morally; what could go wrong?
Devalue human life as given by our creator and we practice infanticide, war, genocide and eugenics; what could go wrong?
Ignore the divine calling; all goes wrong as it continues to unfold before our eyes and it will get much much worse, for we are Abandoned By God because we first Abandoned Him. Romans 1:18-32 for details that most cannot because they are unable to understand nor believe despite the evidence.
Celebrate the freak shows (one ex. reality TV) we have formed and embrace and participate-in and call it morality; what could go wrong?
Sowing and now reaping.
There are still too many fucking people on this planet. Plus, the number one problem humanity faces is that ALL of our economic system models are based upon an expectation of eternal growth. Remove that expectation and EVERY economic system fails ....
A poignant article and its message is well worth regarding. Of course, there is an important caveat here: assuming no change in direction, these bombs will go off.
We, in the West, have spent the last few centuries moving people off the land, into cities and calling it "progress." In the cities, the people can't have kids. They are forced to sit still for a living. Their food is poisoned. Their health suffers and their energy consumption soars. Meanwhile, the arable land is left to the tender mercies of Monsatan. These four time-bombs are the result.
If we recollect our sanity and move people back to the land and help them build small-scale, biodynamic farms, these problems will magically correct themselves. (NB: meat animals don't need "feed." They need grass and you want a few of them around to keep the weeds down.)
Unfortunately, I fear that most people would rather die horribly than return to the land.
I strongly suspect that the Industrial Revolution will run out of people before it runs out of physical resources. We'll abort and contracept ourselves to extinction while the Amish buy up all the arable land. (The Amish aren't just in Pennsylvania -- Amish country now extends all the way to Iowa! And they all bought guns after the Nickel Mines Massacre.)
Since children were banned from working in factories, kids haven't been much use in industrial society. To their parents, they're just very expensive pets, so there's little incentive to have more than one or two.
Whereas the Amish get a lot of work out of their kids before they turn 18. Some then flee to the cities, but it's fewer each generation, because this freedom to leave selects for people who are naturally suited to low-tech agriculture and simple living.
5. The fascist muslim time-bomb.
-retard, ugly, stupid, agressive, criminal idiots have 10 retard, ugly, stupid, agressive, criminal, idiot children per family
-oligarchs prefer muslims, because they are like sheeps and bring green numbers, work on dirtiest jobs etc
result: people become more and more ugly, bring more and more genetical diseases and become more and more agressive while IQ is shrinking with each generation
example: saudi arabia
-taken over by jews easily, now supporting israel
-forcing people to practise fascist islam
-average people are ugly, uneducated, mental ill, radical, agressive, primitive, ignorant
example 2: muslim immigrants vs asian immigrants
muslims:
-no education
-high crime rate
-rape
-abuse of welfare and healthcare and society
-radicalism
-agression
-trow away trash on streets/ graffity
-incest
-no go zones
-do not integrate
-gangs
-ugly
-dont work
VS
asians
-high education
-friendly
-integrate fast
-crime rate sometimes lower than native population
-work
This is nonsense on two points. The old running out of food B.S. is not really supported by government subsidies to keep prices up and the fact that the USA burns more corn than it eats every year, and that is over 4 Billion bushels. And you can buy 15lbs. of potatoes this time of year for $1.50, retail even, because they are so scarce? Sorry, not running out of food any time soon. and there is still plenty of arable land left in the world. the oil exporting countries with fast growing populations using up all the oil? you are kidding, right? Russia has a fast growing population? Canada? Iraq? Iran? It seems Charles has temporarily lost both of his minds.
Over-consumption of starch causes hyperglycemia (and type 2 diabetes). Starch is cheap. (High carb US diet)
Protein (and its fat) solve the problem, but aren't cheap. (Low carb diet)
"fact that the USA burns more corn than it eats every year" If you consider corn food. You'd be better off eating the dandelions out of your front yard.
Americans are totally accustomed to spooky situations like these. And know exactly how deal with them.
Ya had me going until #4:
"4. The oil-export time-bomb: as the populations of oil exporting nations rise, they consume so much of their dwindling oil production that there's little left to export."
So which countries are you talking about? Russia? Their population is declining. Saudi Arabia? No significant growth there. The rest of the Middle East? I am thinking that the constant war and (cough cough) depleted uranium left in the ground will have a negative effect on population.
... oh, and the public health time-bomb works against #4 as well.
Academic: Underclasses have very low life expectancy. Reason: non-communicable disease. Reason: social exclusion. Reason: income & wealth inequality. Reason: debt monetisaton. Conclusion: you print money, you kill people.