From Jenna Orkin
Headlines
Tanker Terror Alert In Crucial Shipping Lane The Straits Of Malacca
Shanghai Plummets 2.5% Ahead Of Possible Tightening, US Drifts Lower
Yemen separatist shot dead, southern tensions rise
Germany Wants Greece To Sell Off Its Islands In Return For Cash
Hidden Gas Source Could Speed Global Warming
Scientists find the Arctic Ocean seabed is leaking methane into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates.
How Safe Is Britain's Proud Pound?
Economy
"A lot of funny stuff going on"
Forget US Stocks; Buy Gold Every Month Forever - Faber
Beige Book: Economy is improving, but snow hit some areas hard
China’s state budget deficit is tip of iceberg
Chávez, Shunning IMF, Gushes About China Oil-for-Credit Deal
JPMorgan Tops Goldman in Investment Banking as Fees Rise 13% Amid Optimism
Pending Sales of U.S. Existing Homes Unexpectedly Dropped 7.6% in January
Intelligence/Unrest
Merged voting machine company stoking fears
Europe's far right is surging
Greek, Portuguese Workers Strike as Protests Over Austerity Measures Grow
Students, professors protest cutbacks
No school today in California!
Environment/Science
GM Potato Approval 'A Big Step for Germany'
Taiwan Earthquake Injures at Least 64 People, Disrupts Power, Production
Oil firms sued over hurricane
Fleeing Haiti, family gets hit by Chile quake
And...
Ex-madam wants to run for governor
Why are people taking plant fertiliser for fun?
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20 comments:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/51799
For "No School today in California!", I find it a very interesting situation.
I work in I.T. for the Office of Education. The union for the State education employees including support staff, have a different set up for the PERS and STERS pension in California. While most other state workers actually pay 5% into their pension plans, most of the thousands of employees in education pay NOTHING. So after 30 years of employment, the typical example given to the people is that Joe paid in $200,000 and over the next 10 years will pull out $1.3 million + payments for medical. However in reality, for the education employee, they will pay NOTHING and pull out $1.3 million + medical. The typical non-education related state worker also pays an amount for medical, like $200-$300 a month. For at least the department where I work, the employees pay $0.
So, I bring this up only to give an observation of peoples behaviors. we have a day of revolt from the entire spectrum of people dealing with and through education when they are asked to give something up. Even when there is so much entitlement given to them in the first place and the signs are blatantly visible around them that everyone will have to give something up. It is interesting to see how different groups react.
For "No School today in California!", I find it a very interesting situation.
I work in I.T. for the Office of Education. The union for the State education employees including support staff, have a different set up for the PERS and STERS pension in California. While most other state workers actually pay 5% into their pension plans, most of the thousands of employees in education pay NOTHING. So after 30 years of employment, the typical example given to the people is that Joe paid in $200,000 and over the next 10 years will pull out $1.3 million + payments for medical. However in reality, for the education employee, they will pay NOTHING and pull out $1.3 million + medical. The typical non-education related state worker also pays an amount for medical, like $200-$300 a month. For at least the department where I work, the employees pay $0.
So, I bring this up only to give an observation of peoples behaviors. we have a day of revolt from the entire spectrum of people dealing with and through education when they are asked to give something up. Even when there is so much entitlement given to them in the first place and the signs are blatantly visible around them that everyone will have to give something up. It is interesting to see how different groups react.
I tried posting this at 1:58pm, no luck so here goes again.
Plus a link from the latest Thread!
WeaselDog,
I would never ignore you, or anyone who posts here.
You have to look at history & think like someone in Power.
This has been going on for several years, people have been laid back,
holding off, weather has been bad, there is the possibility that someone "deserves" a break, after all things are looking up!
Added link;1:12am.;
Beige Book: Economy is improving, but snow hit some areas hard
Look for a drop in early April (All fools), with Gas, plane fares to follow by the middle of April. By May the signs will point the way (Ha Ha), If the Suckers take the bait, the price will go up. If it looks like everyone stays
home the price stays down! I have seen this trend since the 1950's when I started driving. That is just MY uneducated guess.
I was a Service Tech. for 29 Yrs. in the equipment area, servicing heavy industry from Oil, Meat Packing, Electric generation, Cement processing, Mining (underground & strip), Space, & NORAD (under Cheyenne Mountain, Colo.). As MCR said "Feet on the ground.
Gold roughly follows Crude, The Stock Market also "Roughly" follows the Superbowl!
Don't hold your Breath or bet money on ether, but then that is just my opinion, also.
Just the way Selfishness/Money works. Your reasoning is right, just I see more "lead time in today's market.
Stock we used to receive 5 days after we ordered, now take 20 to 30 days!
As I said Gold is dangerous, you have to trust who BUYS, or steals from you, NEVER deal with a Pawn dealer!
Keep your powder Dry.
>From your 8:11 post; " It takes a while for these, 'Economists' to figure things out."
Delex, It isn't the Buying, or Storing; it's being taken when selling, it has to be-Hand to hand,
look me in the Eye, or no sale!
RE: Germany wants Greece to sell
“A bankrupt party must use everything he has to make money and serve his creditors,” said Josef Schlarmann, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, who heads a lobby representing 40,000 business owners and managers allied to the party.
Well aint that just the typical line from business owners and managers: if you owe money, you work for us AND use everything you have (oh, MY!) to pay off the bankers. Seeing how almost everybody is in debt, and the major creditors are ... well, the guys who supply most of the candidates in the "democratic proccess" (and all of the African dictators)... I guess that means the whole world has to serve global capital.
When can America pay off 12 trillion dollars? Let's see, millions are out of a job, and many more millions are working for $8 an hour, in an age when that will barely buy burgers for a family of 3. How much can we afford for taxes? Enough to keep paying the interest IF we use EVERYTHING WE HAVE to make money for our creditors. The capital, of course, remains on the books. That's the choker chain by which we are led.
And since we've already sold off our democratic proccess to these guys for cell phones and plasma TVs, we can be sure that wages will drop as prices rise. So in addition to selling our uninhabited islands, national parks, aircraft carriers and children, we will be forced to eat sand for breakfast before going down in the tin mines. The bankrupt cannot be choosers.
If these guys get their way, American life will make the Spanish occupation of the Andes look humane.
One more thing. Who signed us up for these trillions we supposedly owe, which have largely been paid in cash to defense contractors and bankers? Oh, now I remember, the candidates given us by ... the defense contractors and bankers. Civics is a lot easier to explain if you cut the crap.
Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America - Part I
Must Read Article!!
GrTz,
V
Dubai said... "I have been reading this blog for a while. Some of YOU are are WAY over alarmist. There is no doubt, energy is on the down-turn. Somedays, I feel like vomit when I hear MR talking - feels like he's sorry for himself or in general, a suck and wants the world to hear.
Your movie was great - never saw it in theatres but found it on torrent. Your breakdown was emotional and I feel passion.
Many of you feel because the passive condition of people in some societies (north america) feels absolute, you feel people will simply fall apart and die. I do remember LA and Rodney King and then saw a bunch of people pull together to stop that race b.s.
Don't ever question to HUMAN condition to sell whatever it is you are selling. Mike is not a messiah and some of you write like he is. Stop being sheeple to media and to this blog. You will survive if FORCED to survive.
I haven't seen his movie yet. I intend to.
As to many of us being way too alarmist..., I think the tone here is rather subdued. Go to dieoff.org if you want to see PPO laid out in clinically depressing fashion.
If you have a disagreement over any particular point made here, please provide a rational counter argument. What you wrote in yesterday's comment only tenuously relates to what we are discussing.
Do you think the LA riots would've been in different in character if the city were experiencing shortage of food and water? I believe they would. Have you looked at any historical examples of nations that were denied ample food and water due to drought famine or war? I know of a few.
In those examples people were forced to survive. But after going for extended periods of time without food or water, these people, who often started out tougher and smarter about survival than the average American, died anyway.
My opinions on this topic haven't come from Michael Ruppert. i got them from college education in biology, evolution and ecosystems, coupled with decades of self study in a variety of other fields. For me, the Eureka moment came after reading Colin Campbell and Jean Laherre's article 'The End of Cheap Oil', in the May 1998 Scientific American.
Up until then, much of the world didn't make sense to me, as taught by the public school system and universities. Once I realized that everything in our lives is bounded by the flow of energy and the consumption thereof, just like it is in biology and ecosystems, it all made sense.
If you deprive people of food and water long enough, they die.
Without cheap and plentiful energy, we can't make millions of tons of fertilizer every year, nor can we pump water from rivers and lakes, for hundreds of miles to irrigate crops. Further, we're rapidly depleting groundwater all over the world. Without abundant and cheap energy, we can't keep pumping it from lower and lower depths. Many of these water tables will take thousands or millions of years to replenish.
We actually pump well water to refill rivers in Nevada, to keep ecosystems alive. When we stop, even our deserts are likely to die out completely.
Once we're far enough down the slope of Peak Oil (that happened in 2005 / conventional crude), agriculture as we know it will being it's end. Racism won't mean a thing. What will matter is that populations will be migrating to where food can still be grown, and overwhelming those farms and ranches.
Would you let your children die from hunger, because you want to be nice, or would you get mean to defend them and get them food? I'm betting most people would go for mean.
If you have rational counter arguments, feel free to post them.
On, 'Taxpayers hit as TARP takes a new turn' or "A lot of funny stuff going on"...
This isn't a new turn. This how they've been doing it all along.
It's just that the media has been complicit in under or improperly reporting it.
The scam has gone like this.
1. The gov buys Preferred Stock at an inflated market value.
2. The gov and the bank then agree to swap the Preferred stock at a discounted level, for common stock priced at an inflated market value.
3. The bank then buys back the common stock at a discounted level.
This is how the banks repay a $30 billion loan with only a $2 billion. The $28 billion difference is lost through the magic of sleight of hand
This isn't new, this is how they've play the game all along.
I've been puzzled for a while now that the evidence of collapse has been scant, if invisible, in my hometown on Long Island; an affluent, NYC commuter community. Seeing this in the local newspaper this morning confirmed to me that things are not as placid and complacent as the surface suggests. Even weirder, my sister used to babysit for this woman's children:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/da-garden-city-mom-wanted-hit-man-to-kill-husband-1.1793883
agape wins said... WeaselDog,
I would never ignore you, or anyone who posts here.
You lost me there.
As to following trends since the 1950s, that's well and good. After all, so long as we were in a period of sustained energy growth, markets functions much like the textbooks say they should.
It's in the periods of dislocations, when energy production is flat or declining that things change.
Gold roughly follows Crude, The Stock Market also "Roughly" follows the Superbowl!
And in my house, dogs roughly follow cats...
You're comparing apples to oranges. Gold and Oil are physical things. The Stock Market is a gambling casino with a lot of cheaters, and the Superbowl is simply an extension of the bread and circuses that the Caesars used to supply.
A business can't operate without consuming energy, and driving the consumption of energy. Even if they just buy and sell products, they are serving entropy and the consumption of energy.
As energy costs rise, the whole supply chain must adjust. The rising energy costs, increase the costs of of every operation in the supply chain.
Finally, the cost of product at retail rises. Consumers who aren't seeing raises in income, then are forced to buy fewer products, as they simply don't have the money to keep buying the same quantity of product at ever rising prices.
So the supply chain sees fewer sales. Folks get laid off. Bankruptcies ensue. Investors begin losing their shirts.
As the losses during the downturn mount, speculators and investors (same people maybe), are forced to find cash to cover losses.
They sell gold. The price of gold drops.
Agape Wins, at least we don't have long to wait to see if I'm blowing smoke or not.
Diamond, it's funny how stories like that can hit home.
Some years back, I had friend that began dating a woman who had terrible problems with her ex-husband. The man was emotionally unstable. Was often violent, and known to abuse drugs.
On the way to work one morning. Traffic was backed up. On the radio, the waves were a buzz with the news a two hour car chase that ended in a shootout. The suspect was shot to death.
Later that day my friend calls to tell me that his girlfriend's problems with her ex were over. Did I hear about the car chase and shootout he was in that morning?
Peddler
Your energybulletin link was fascinating. Stratfor likes to pull rabbits out of their hat, though - a lot of speculation there. It's an interesting idea, but has its own perils.
First and foremost, Friedman minimizes the influence of Israel in American politics. That would be a no go in the Obama administration for sure.
Friedman also minimizes the importance of Saudi Arabia. Unless you're ready to partition Arabia, with the oily Shiite region breaking off and palling around with Iran, the Saudi government has to be propped up, not abandoned. This has also been core policy for years.
Also, the expectation that Turkey would influence Iraq as a counterweight to Iran is highly conjectural. We really don't even know which faction will dominate Turkey, or what the emergent power there might do.
And finally, taking American troops out of Iraq sounds good, but it would end some very lucrative defense contracts and leave the entire oil region there sort of up to Iran to sort out. I can't believe the Obama administration is going to seriously consider that. I know, he said he would end the Iraq war. He also said we'd get real change, but he can't deliver on that because SOME THINGS ARE JUST THE WAY THEY ARE. And that's true of Israel and S.A. being Uncle Sam's favorite nephews.
If the US had not alienated Venezuala, we could have gone regional and let Eurasia have the Mideast oil. But those decisions were made way back. To late to change em, I think. Pity.
Re: Gold -- The reason why I've been pretty successful is because I can analyze and see influences across several dimensions. Agape's argument is a good one, but for the short-term only. And it doesn't encompass a lot of other influences. As currencies collapse and become increasingly viewed as risky that will trigger a flight to gold. Also as sovereign default becomes more pronounced and widespread that will trigger a flight to gold. As the next wave of foreclusres and bank failures hit, that too will trigger a flight to gold. When Chjina revalues the yuan and the dollar suffers, that will likely trigger some flight to gold. Nothing happens in a linear, diect cause and effect event in an era of increasing chaos.
MCR
Dubai,
I don't know anyone who thinks Mike is a messiah. I do know that as the SHTF (like right now, like the last couple years), the best place to ride is with MCR, you want to go shotgun if you can, or ride in the backseat... and with the new CollapseNet network, thousands or millions can get to ride shotgun with Mike... until the lights or network go down.
You said people here are alarmist and gloomy, perhaps. But energy decent at 5-9%, that's cause for alarm. I don't see doom. I see the coming challenges as a huge opportunity to make a big difference in the world. There's going to be a lot of sad news in the decades to come, but I'm confident that the time will come when mankind intelligently manages the Earth's resources... for the benefit of the Earth and all the people on it.
First comes taking care of my situation (family and friends), I have about 6 months of hard work to make sure we get enough food no matter what happens. Then I take the innovation me and my network build up and share that with whoever we can reach, the 3rd world, the whole world.
Taking care of the people around us, here and in the 3rd world, that's living life to the fullest. Helping farmers get the most out of a little bit of land... so much great innovation is coming.
Sheeple are the ones believing that the markets will magically find an oil alternative. Or the government will fix everything. It takes alot of guts to face the reality of energy decent and do something about it, from my experience working with these people (e.g. Transition Towns) these are leaders.
Maybe I'm wrong and I'll be fighting over scraps of meat in the streets. Maybe I'll be struggling to keep Zombies out of a small farm. Or maybe I'll listen to Mike, adapt to the new paradigm, and get to help others adapt too. Time will tell.
God I hate Zombies.
Jenna Orkin, you gave some good why gold can go up.
Is there no reason for the price to ever decline?
As the next wave of foreclusres and bank failures hit, that too will trigger a flight to gold.
I'm not so sure that as the economy continues to decline, that the average person will have more discretionary income to invest.
Now it's possible that the people who are getting rich off of the taxpayer funded bailouts, will buy more gold. They could counter the effects of a sell-off as the middle class disappears into poverty. I guess it depends on just how many new multi-millionaires the government creates in the banking sector, with it's ongoing bailout program.
I just watched a documentary film on the 1929 stock market crash. They discussed how it was common at the time for wealthy investors to join together and begin buying stock...for the purpose of deceiving all of the average investors. The wealthy investors would give cash to Wall Street journalists to have them write articles recommending investments in particular stocks, and also mentioning the names of these same wealthy investors in the articles, telling the public that they were buying these stocks themselves.
Then once the public would begin buying into these stocks in big numbers, driving the price of the stocks sky high, the wealthy investors would then unload their shares of the stocks, leaving the average investors completely holding the bag.
that aint the only place methane is leaking:
Friday’s journal Science finds a key “lid” on “the large sub-sea permafrost carbon reservoir” near Eastern Siberia “is clearly perforated, and sedimentary CH4 [methane] is escaping to the atmosphere.” Scientists learned last year that the permafrost permamelt contains a staggering “1.5 trillion tons of frozen carbon, about twice as much carbon as contained in the atmosphere,” much of which would be released as methane. Methane is is 25 times as potent a heat-trapping gas as CO2 over a 100 year time horizon, but 72 times as potent over 20 years
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/03/methane-bubbles-in-arctic-seas-stir.html
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/03/natalia-shakhova-i-semiletov-salyuk-v.html
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/03/natalia-shakhova-igor-semiletov-arctic.html
http://climateprogress.org/2010/03/04/science-nsf-tundra-permafrost-methane-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-venting/
sorry for previous post; i misread your headline, & now see you have a link to that story...
Weaseldog,
At the end of your 12:21 post you said, "This is a guess. I'm not making money either way on this. As I'm just some random guy on the internet, my best advice to you is to ignore me." I value your input, & respect your viewpoint. I also am just a random guy, with no more expertise than you.
This could go round and around, but this will be my last comment.
What you say is more than true on all points, especially about trends and textbooks; The point I am making is "everything" has changed.
We were discussing "Gold", & the purchase thereof, my point being, worry more about how you are going to turn Gold into something useful, something to eat or
Wear. If you have $1,000 NET worth of anything and are forced to "exchange" it for $500, or even $3,000 if it's true value is $4,000, the "deal" you got when you bought means nothing; as I explained with the gold nugget example! How do you expect to value your "Hoard" after the grid goes down?
It comes down to the dilemma twins of Communication/Trust
You were aware that Gold AND Oil, even Sand is "Traded" on the Commodities Exchange, just like stock on the "Stock market", & subject to the same Manipulation, you can watch their movement in your daily paper, or look it up on the Internet. After the "System" is gone who will have their finger
on the scale? Apples & Oranges are also traded, & both are "Produce".
All forms of Energy are "Roughly" connected, but none "Exactly", the amount can be 10% to 50% in the same direction, or in opposite ones, This includes Money. If I were to speculate I would Buy a Commodity like beans, or grain. You can at least sleep on or eat them!
May your future be bright
I concur with everything MCR says in his 11:15am post, under Jenna's name!
things will come apart in bits and pieces with no order.
It matters little which of us is right, we each has to sleep with our decisions.
Paul Mineau:-
I find myself in agreement with many of the things you speak of on this blog. Love the idea of a million plus, riding shotgun with MCR.
For many years we have fostered children with varying forms of trauma. We have attempted to teach them self esteem and inculcate in them what it means to be a compassionate human being. We have also taught them to question everything they are told (and boy did that come back and bite us many a time) by politicians, religious leaders, the media etc.,
We have tried to be as succint as possible when teaching them, as so many have had too many fears inside their heads for any great philosophising screed.
My favourite succint saying has always been from (I think) Marcus Aurelius, Roman Senator, who wrote:
If it is not true
Don't say it.
If it is not right
Don't do it.
Of course we have always been cross examined on what is RIGHT.
Discussing "What is RIGHT" with them, has clarified for us what we believe in, and stand for.
In the times ahead I hope we can continue to do, that which we believe is right, for if we do not, then our whole lives have been a lie. We do not wish to simply survive.
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