Comments not related to oil or natural gas production in this thread please. Thanks.
Interesting graphs on US gasoline consumption https://wolfstreet.com/2026/03/04/u-s-gasoline-demand-fell-further-amid-long-term-structural-shift-plunging-per-capita-consumption/
Looks Like $100 Oil Comes In A Few Days At This Rate According to a JP Morgan analyst, after the…
Nick G, … and a day later, WTI is $91.
Worthwhile article but the last sentence is a head scratcher. “ Trump’s strikes are the first move by an American…
Hi Hickory, I agree with everything you’ve said. From the start they announced their enemy is the U.S and Israel…
60 responses to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, August 13, 2025”
Is this website banned from here?
https://www.transparency.org/en/
Nobody but nobody on this site is chronicling the China collapse. Why? I thought about posting the dozens of youtube videos and news headlines, but I thought there would already be dozens already posted. Yet no one has posted a damn thing. On, well, I guess no one is interested in the fortunes that are about to unfold about the future of the human population of the world, starting with China.
Hi Ron, Please post if you get good info. Open Source Int on China is very interesting.
US Debt passes 37.2 T with an undisclosed amount of the ongoing borrowing used to pay interest on previous debt. This years interest repayments are projected to be around 1T.
usdebtclock.org/ Page contains secret window.
“Budget Reconciliation: Tracking the 2025 Trump Tax Cuts:
On July 4, 2025: We estimate the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed into law will increase long-run GDP by 1.2 percent and reduce federal tax revenue by $5.0 trillion from 2025-2034 on a conventional basis. Dynamic feedback will reduce the revenue loss of the bill by about 19 percent to $4.1 trillion, while spending reductions of nearly $1.1 trillion will reduce the dynamic deficit increase to $3 trillion from 2025-2034.”
https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tax-cuts-2025-budget-reconciliation/
********
Newsom’s office trolls Trump on redistricting: ‘FINAL WARNING NEXT. YOU WON’T LIKE IT!!!’
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) trolled President Trump with a social media post Tuesday declaring a “SECOND-TO-LAST WARNING” in the ongoing blue state/red state battle over redistricting — ribbing Trump over his polling, squishy deadlines and distinctive communication style.
“DONALD TRUMP, THE LOWEST POLLING PRESIDENT IN RECENT HISTORY, THIS IS YOUR SECOND-TO-LAST WARNING!!! (THE NEXT ONE IS THE LAST ONE!),” Newsom’s press office posted on the social platform X. “STAND DOWN NOW OR CALIFORNIA WILL COUNTER-STRIKE (LEGALLY!) TO DESTROY YOUR ILLEGAL CROOKED MAPS IN RED STATES.”
“CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE ‘BEAUTIFUL MAPS,’ THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!). BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR ‘MAGA.’ THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN,” the press office added.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5448388-newsom-trolls-trump-redistricting/
Now this is how to be an effective troll. I can’t remember. Who was the idiot that said voting doesn’t matter?
The last time the U.S. federal government had a budget surplus was in fiscal year 2001. This occurred during President Bill Clinton’s administration. Since then, the government has consistently run deficits.
Let’s get real, the American debt was caused by the tax cuts of Raygun, Mr. WMD and Diaper Don for the rich.
Thompson
Government debt is a small part of total debt. Most debt is private.
If you were prudent and owed no debt, but relied on a government old age pension and medicare, then things will be very rough in the years ahead don’t you think?
Isn’t more private debt better secured than public debt? Virtually all home mortgages are worth less than the homes. Auto loans, ditto. At the height of the great recession the business foreclosure rate was under 3%.
The consequences of the federal government ultimately bankrupting or inflating itself away at too high a rate would be a planet wide catastrophe, wouldn’t it?
https://youtu.be/kPVCn6pW4mY
Friend just sent me this amazing talk about energy and the economy.
“…equilibrium and entropy stand in contradiction to each other; you can have one, but not both.”
Ah. Now I think I see the source of many of Hideaway’s unrealistic ideas.
Milton Friedman once said that an economist is getting goofy when they start talking about thermodynamics. I heard the quote from Galbraith, and I give him credit for addressing the quote upfront. Unfortunately, Friedman still right.
One of the ways an expert goes wrong is when they stray into other professions. In this case, Friedman strays into physics, and he really gets things wrong.
Thermodynamics and entropy are very difficult and complex subjects, and are often over simplified in confusing ways by non-physicists. This leads to many confusions – sadly, this is one of them.
Nick G,
Thermodynamics encompasses everything in the universe including human activity. It describes the arrow of time which is one directional.
Correct me if i am wrong but do you think just because some people describe the earth as an open system it isn’t affected by entropy ? If that is your position and again correct me if i am wrong. The human body is a more accurate description of an open system than earth as there is mass exchange, aka we eat food and deficate and urinate. Are we not subject to entropy, do we not decay and die and return to thermal equilibrium. I dont have to be a biologist either to say this. Its pure physics.
Open systems are “subject to entropy”. You are misstating the idea about open systems. However, biological systems in general can add structure and complexity over time instead of gradually decaying because they are open. They do this by “borrowing” from outside systems.
For example, solar radiation contains a lot of higher energy photons, relatively large packets of energy. Many of these are radiated back out of the ecosystem as heat — a larger number of smaller packets. Biological systems use this difference to increase complexity. It is not a resource that is likely to vanish in the near future.
The reason your body ages and dies after a few decades of life is that it is designed to do so.
Alim,
Yes complexity in biological systems increase overtime due to sexual reproduction and natural selection, i think the term is negentropy. That is not what i am arguing against. Biological systems have a window of opportunity for humans, females have from puberty to menopause to procreate, because it has to because the body wears and tears like any other system which is entropy.
Your last paragraph requires references because i have never heard of body being designed to die. Designed by whom ?
Designed by whom ?
Richard Dawkins wrote a book addressing this question called “The Blind Watchmaker”. A good read.
I think you might be wondering “why”, always a tricky question in this context.
One idea of why bodies are designed to get old and die is that even the best designed body has a random chance of getting destroyed, in a given time period, so the longer it is around the less sense it makes trying to keep it alive. So graceful obsolescence makes more sense.
Lifespan increases with body size. Cold-blooded vertebrates tend to live longer than warm-blooded vertebrates. Birds live longer than mammals of the same body weight. You can amuse yourself by coming up with theories to explain it all, but biology is complicated.
Alim,
Alim,
So what is your position ? That biology is not subject to entropy and decay ? Regardless of your examples of this species lives longer than that species, they all die.
My position is because entropy wins at the end, what is yours ?
Life in all of its forms is an incredibly bold attempt to buck entropy.
If you know even a little about biochemistry/genetics you are astounded to glimpse the thermodynamic ramifications of it all. Fascinating in its trillion aspects.
Its a temporary maneuver until the ingredients run out. Ingredients such as a stable solar system.
I still have no idea what to think about the thing we call virus, in regard to entropy.
Perhaps a bit like a rudimentary fungi, Fungi who have made a living organizing, growing and replicating themselves all based on being harbingers of the entropy of other living and/or now dead organisms. Decomposition for the sake of Composition.
Its an amazing universe folks. Do you cherish the moment?
Many people like to pretend that humanity can buck entropy for the long term. It is a comforting notion to harbor. People like to comfort themselves, or at least pretend that the up-slope of human biomass is indefinite.
Entropy gets the last laugh. The last Trillion laughs.
Hickory
I am of the same opinion that viruses are not easily explained. Bacteria is a much more measurable substance to work with in all aspects. What works as a remedy is a good thing. We found out historically how to produce steel for example not by science, but by trial and failure. And in the aftermath science expanded on the results found.
Viruses are certainly an extreme attempt to buck entropy.
No one knows how many exist. Estimates are in the range of 10 nonillion (10 followed by 30 zeroes) individual viruses exist on Earth… probably need to add some more zeroes to that. Each with thousands of nucleic acids carefully stacked together.
Each one comes into existence by highjacking the biochemical machinery of other organisms…with the source energy for all of the reactions being fusion. Sol.
It will all become fragmented back toward randomness at some point.
In the meantime they collectively are sequestering a huge amount of the globally synthesized nucleic acids.
All of human productive life activities are related to the attempt to buck entropy. We require huge amount of energy to accomplish that. Ask the livestock, the forest, the fish, the slaves. They all go into the consumption tank.
” complexity in biological systems” Each higher order biological system increases in complexity while it is alive. I was once a single cell, now I am many cells. Decaying cells, but complex separate from my offspring or my forefathers (and mothers)
IRON MIKE
“in the end” is hopelessly vague. I suppose the universe will end in heat death in 10¹⁰⁰ years or so, but that’s irrelevant. There is no theoretical reason to expect entropy to “win” on Earth for the next 100 million years. I doubt humanity will survive anywhere close to that long, but the explanation isn’t the lack of energy available to do physical work (aka free energy).
Iron Mike
complexity in biological systems increase overtime due to sexual reproduction and natural selection
That’s the counterargument to creationism. While true, it’s not what I was talking about.
I was talking about basic biological functions like photosynthesis that “borrow” from outside systems for internal use.
Here is from the lord of AI itself GPT-5 lol:
Effects of entropy on the human body:
Think of entropy as the universe’s tendency toward disorder — a kind of slow unraveling of structure over time. In the context of the human body, it’s the fundamental reason why perfect maintenance is impossible. Even when we eat well, sleep deeply, and treat ourselves kindly, we’re still living in a constant negotiation with this physical law.
Here’s how it plays out in us:
Molecular wear and tear 🔬 — Proteins, DNA, and cell membranes are constantly damaged by chemical reactions, radiation, and free radicals. Repair systems work overtime, but they’re never 100 % perfect. Small imperfections accumulate, tipping the balance toward disorder.
Energy inefficiency 🔋 — Every metabolic process releases heat and waste molecules. Over decades, tiny inefficiencies add up, causing structures to degrade and signaling systems to get “noisy.”
Loss of information fidelity 📉 — DNA replication and cellular communication aren’t flawless; mutations and errors in signaling pathways gradually impair function.
Organ and system decline 🫀 — Entropy manifests as reduced elasticity in blood vessels, stiffening of connective tissue, slower cell turnover in skin, and diminished ability to regulate internal balance.
Neurological effects 🧠 — In the brain, entropy’s creep looks like the gradual buildup of misfolded proteins, changes in synaptic strength, and slower neurotransmission.
In other words, ageing is entropy in motion — an ongoing shift from high order to greater disorder, just slowed (but never stopped) by biology’s repair and adaptation systems.
I always thought the Darwinian approach to expaining ageing had a lot of merit.
Single cell organisms are essentially immortal, multicell organisms are not. Pretty much everyone accepts the concept of survival of the fittest, but when it comes to multicell organisms, newly hatched, or born individuals are clearly less fit than healthy mature individuals and would be expected to fail in competition with mature populations. That would clearly limit or prohibit adaptation and evolution.
The evolutionary solution to this was to favor organisms that developed senesence during adulthood, giving greater opportunity to immature individuals to survive and procreate and pass on random genetic modifications which occasionally were beneficial to survival.
Yes, biological organisms have programmed events along their timeline, including death.
Two clear time programmed events in humans are puberty and menopause.
Pretty much every species has a programmed time limit: mice, for instance never live as long as six years, while bats that are superficially biologically similar live up to 50 years.
A fascinating thing about lifespan is that most of the signs of aging are similar between different species, but they happen at different times based on lifespan (e.g., mice get cancer at 2 years of age, bats get cancer at 40). So things that look like random entropy are actually programmed events that happened because defense and repair systems are turned down.
A different kind of “organism” is a car. The Model-T probably had a design lifetime of about 10 years, but there are 100 year old Model-Ts still running: they are subject to entropy like anything else, but they can be immortal with careful maintenance. The difference? Humans designed them, so we understand them and know how to maintain them. With biology we have a pretty long way to go before we can do the same thing with humans.
And…modern human societies are very different organisms.
Meta is now offering $100,000,000 annual packages to AI researchers from Open AI
https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-meta-offer-top-ai-talent-300-million/
Zuckerberg is a fool. Which must make me an idiot, cause he is rich and I’m not! lol
The same AI algorithms have been around since Alan Turing, the father of the computer and the Turing Test and who took out Hitler by decrypting his war commands.
Sadly, Turing committed suicide because he was homosexual. Truly remarkable and sad story to a great guy!
What’s changed is Moore’s Law (exponential growth in computing power), 64-bit big data architectures and an internet full of training data.
AI has not proven to be profitable, The data centres are money drains, and you would need to find the next Einstein to upgrade the algorithms. Good luck!
Is the difficulty profiting from AI similar to the difficulty profiting from fracking?
It just struck me that perhaps both are signs of a decline in the relationship between technology and human well being.
And Meta is now firing people from its AI program. Rumors are swirling of the AI bubble popping.
I’m starting to wonder it the US economy is headed for a financial crash again.
AI, it’s become another over hyped bubble now. People will realize that in a few years, just as they are now realizing the EV transition was a financial bubble. Financialization dictates everything. Science and rationality takes a back seat.
“Financialization — a process whereby financial markets, financial institutions, and financial elites gain greater influence over economic policy and economic outcomes.”
The money moves to the top and is extracted basically. Like the hundreds of billions of market cap lost from Tesla. A lot of that was pension fund money and Elon extracted his share in cash before the top, the retirees are left holding the bag.
One Example: “Denmark’s Akademiker Pension divests from Tesla… “This will take place at the company’s annual general meeting in June 2025…” Selling way down from the top. These are just money making schemes for the 1%. Most AI output is unproductive youtube twaddle, much is full of errors. Pay an extra $200 though and you can have it integrated on your phone.
Thompson
In a steady state growing capitalist system, I understand your point of view. I would however argue that both AI and electric transition has a lot of merits in a more controlled contraction scenario. But as long as we are not there your arguments have merits. Who knows how much the rest of the world embraces the growth model and what legs are still available? Building towards exactly what would be the issue after a while, and I would argue that AI and electrification could play a great role when in contraction of some sort.
Building wind mills is now the worst idea since the wheel was invented seems to be consensus nowadays. But it really is not; it just has to combined with hydro power magazines, a little bit of battery capacity and grid capacity to make it work. Not building it everywhere would help and not as a sole solution, but a part of the solution would be my view.
A balanced view KOLBEINIH, and I am certainly not anti-wind power or ante-EV, I just call out the mass transition of these systems to replace the ones we have as ridiculous. At the end of they day they are all made from oil and coal, and since they have never made them from “renewables only” there is no proof it can be done economically.
KOL — AI and electric transition has a lot of merits in a more controlled contraction scenario.–
Too true! There are many places where wind power is more economical than coal, typically remote places and very windy ones. EV’s have a place too, inner urban transport, the Lion’s share, with rooftop solar at home to charge them. The problems arise when people want to take long trips, which many do. And of course the longevity issue and new cost. How many people drive 10~20 year old cars because they can’t afford an new car? A 10 year old EV isn’t worth owning, we know that.
Powering down is the obvious solution because we waste so much FF energy. That would be a feature of your “more controlled contraction scenario”. We don’t need V8s, or tourist flights to Instagram hot-spots, billions of lights burning all night. But changes in that direction, along with truly energy efficient homes etc, are not in the corporate playbook so we have to adjust to what the future will be, not what it should be.
The Mass Media said the Shale Oil revolution would solve our oil problems for decades and bring wealth to the nation, did it? They said the EV would transform driving as we know it and decrease pollution, did they, in China where the batteries were constructed with coal fired power? Now they are claiming AI will revolutionize the way we live and do business, bring us bountiful wonders, but I simply can’t see it at all. All I see is crappy youtubes full of AI voice, call centers going into disarray and endless deepfakes and untold plagiarism, not called plagiarism now because an AI did it so it can’t be so. I personally think AI -so called- does a lot more harm than good. Because it’s not Artificial intelligence, that’s just it’s brand name. They are not unlike very fast chess computers, but programed with Biases. Talk to one in the right tone long enough and it will tell you to kill yourself lol.
But to rest I say, “I know I know, AI will improve in time, it will end up costing nothing to run *Yawn* and all the other promises they made about all the other mighty wonders put forth will come to pass, this time…” Hydro is amazing! Until the dam silts up in 100 years and then what… Lights out is what, they don’t de-silt them, that’s impossible on any practical scale.
They do it in one unique location, but at great cost. Link below
“Algeria was among the rare countries that introduced the dredger in the sector of the
stoppings and succeeded in clearing a volume of 75 million m3 of mud; however, the
hydraulic services encountered problems of the place of rejection of the mud (Remini and
Hallouche, 2004). During the first dredging operations (1962-2000), approximately 40
million m3 of silt was dumped directly into the rivers (Fig. 6a). Such a practice has caused
many environmental problems, including pollution. Today, Algeria has made remarkable
progress in terms of desilting by dredging. Suspension discharge operations directly into
the rivers have been permanently suspended and replaced by a closed discharge system
consisting of a series of storage basins dug upstream of the reservoir (Fig. 6b) ”
You have to pump the silt and water upstream so you can recover the water. A dog chasing it’s tail. Now think of the concrete cancer in hundreds of thousands of multi story buildings built since the 1970’s, rot that will precipitate their demolition in the near future and you start see the tip of the iceberg. Concrete and Steel, Coal and Oil.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363834225_SUSTAINABLE_DESILTING_OF_DAMS/download?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6Il9kaXJlY3QiLCJwYWdlIjoiX2RpcmVjdCJ9fQ
“concrete cancer”…..
What ?!?!?
??? You have never heard of it?
The way we make it, with portland cement, it was never meant to last, just like everything else we made in the 20th century, in the oil age.
Calculating the Deterioration of Concrete in Buildings and Other Structures
.azobuild.com/news.aspx?newsID=23456
“An average concrete construction lasts for fifty years. Acidification, brought on by the continuous absorption of water, salts, and gases from the environment, corrodes the steel reinforcing bars (rebars) in slabs, columns, and other structural components, significantly lowering their weight-bearing capability.”
That’s why we demolish them after several decades. So never buy a unit in an old tower.
So far off the mark it is hard to know where to start.
For any others that may be misled, the major points that Thompson is wrong on include:
– Dominant deterioration mechanisms for reinforced concrete
– Characterization of the structural demographics of multi-story buildings/towers built since the 70’s
– Life cycle of reinforced concrete frames and decks in vertical construction
THOMPSON:
” A 10 year old EV isn’t worth owning, we know that.”
I have a nine year old Chevy Volt with about 75,000 miles which I drive 100% on electric power except for long trips. EV power comprises over 90% of my driving. After rebates I paid $22,882for it new. According to KBB it is worth about $12,000. That is at least average for cars bough new.
It has been stone reliable. Although the advertised EV range was 53 mile I never once obtained that. Typically I get a little over 40 in summer and a little under 40 in winter (Not much temp difference here in Sonoma County).
I think the country made a mistake virtually bypassing hybrids and focusing on pure EVs too soon but “we” don’t know that older EVs aren’t worth owning.
There is a fellow who has a Ford Mach-E (electric) who has driven 252,000 miles now, yes on his original battery. He drives people around, like to the airport or to the VA cemetery.
“After 250,000 miles, his battery is still healthy and going strong. Currently, David’s Mustang Mach-E with full charge (90% capacity) still provides around 290 miles “per tank,”
He usually charges slow at home, with low night time electricity rates.
You can guess he has a very low cost of transport/mile.
Good job Ford.
https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/250-000-miles-and-counting-mustang-mach-e
Careful with all of the false assumptions sloshing around in your head Thompson. They seem to occupy a large territory.
False assumptions lead to faulty analysis, and then worthless conclusions.
We all need to clean up those erroneous machinations on a consistent basis, lest they accumulate to massive hinder our mental fidelity.
The Volt is beautifully designed – it hides some of it’s battery capacity to ensure it lasts the car’s lifetime.
The irony is that as EVs depreciate they become even more cost effective to buy, and even more a bargain compared to ICEs.
Normally these days I get ribbed for being a Luddite, a title I am increasingly proud of, but I bought the Volt because it was so damned intelligently designed.
“I get ribbed for being a Luddite”
Why? Because of the Volt? But..but…it’s so beautifully designed! The perfect transitional vehicle!
Sigh. Call me a luddite.
I’ll consider?
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xjzadoegrlckius6lzonfuqa/bafkreig5gboi2lnqw2cyqpavm7hhgxhtfyjepyxn3c3xzgacgopvnlc7rm@jpeg
Is the difficulty profiting from AI similar to the difficulty profiting from fracking?
It just struck me that perhaps both are signs of a decline in the relationship between technology and human well being.
A relationship between technology and human well being? Where did you find that. Technology is about profits, pure and simple. If it brings a little benefit to people, like a toaster or electric kettle did, the vacuum cleaner, the flushing toilet, all the better. But it’s not part of the contract.
What good has mobile phone technology brought, aside from ‘fun’ It’s destroyed many lives and relationships and the neck and eye injuries from spending decades staring at little screens is well documented. I grew up without them, was 40 when I got my first internet connected one. Personally I think life was much more rewarding when we had to make our own fun.
Near anything is profitable @$20 a bbl and less, a nationwide highway network built from concrete, a series or lunar missions, anything you can imagine, providing you have the cheap energy to underwrite it. It’s the memo people chose to ignore. Things like mobile phones is all many people can afford now. How many young people have a boat or a motorcycle in the garage? We always did when I was young.
*Technology is about profits, pure and simple. If it brings a little benefit to people*
Here is a guy who knew steve jobs intimately. You think he brought the iphone to market for you?
Think again.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6x0z18DK1yI?feature=share
You think he brought the iphone to market for you?
jobs showed us a early version of the iphone, and asked what we thought.
s
Seemed curious.
it is not that simple
This was months before its release.
Thompson:
I think technology has had a huge benefit to human well-being understanding full well that the relationship was always tenuous. We live longer, our lives are physically more comfortable in myriad ways and we have had a healthy myth of security. It is a myth.
I think that the relationship is rapidly severing. That was the gist of my comment. Apparently we agree on that.
Texas is preparing to cut off power to data centers during grid emergencies — a sign of just how strained the system has become. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ercot-texas-backup-plan-warning-sign-grid-operations-nationwide/757658/
“I’ve got all the qualifications to be president. I’m rich, I’ve been arrested a few times, and I always say crazy shit.”
You missed the key elements, are you corrupt, connected to large financial backers. They all are.
I’ve said for at least the last 50 years that anyone who wants the job is ethically unqualified to fill the position. (only a slight exaggeration)
The Med, it holds 1% of the world’s water but 7% of all microplastics. They flow in from all over europe but are trapped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6HRJWomnM
Israeli Official Charged in Child Sex Ring Flees the U.S.
“MAGA is pushing the Trump administration to explain why an Israeli official who was arrested in an undercover child sex sting in Nevada was allowed to leave the U.S. after posting bail,”
If from Iran?
The USA is hugely complicit in the biggest holocaust since WW2. Our bombs paid for with our money are dropped on infants and children, doctors and starving people, journalists and students. Our president is a child molestor. and Israel is murdering American citizens in the west bank regularly. Millions of children are being starved on our watch. Of course Israeli’s can molest children, it’s not nearly as bad as murdering them, which we are facilitating every single day.
” the biggest holocaust since WW2.”
Huh?
The latest estimate is 64k dead.
Syrian Civil war: about 400k dead since 2011.
Yemen – 377k dead, part of a proxy war between KSA & Iran.
2M dead in the partition of india…
1.5 to 3M dead in Cambodia 1975-79…
About 170k dead in Guatemala 1981-83.
500k dead in Indonesia in the 60’s.
Rwanda – at least 800k.
There’s a very long list of things larger than 64k – the above only just starts the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history_(1946_to_1999)
It’s not even the worst that the US has been involved in.
Yet we are so blatantly on the wrong side of this madness it seems worse than it is.
With Trump clearly encouraging both Netanyahu and Putin it is actually embarrassing to be associated with this country.
So what’s changed in the last 80 years? Korea, well fair enough, but Vietnam was just a slaughter of innocents trying to get about their own business. Afghanistan and Iraq were clear power grabs, along with all the NATO wars. But behind it all I see the Monster the US created during WWII, a capitalistic war machine, the industrial military complex. It demands ongoing profits regardless of international law or common decency. The British empire did a similar thing with their armies and navy leading the way for the likes of the British East India company but corporate military profits were not a part of that game.
People believe what they see on TV, they take their leading from the mass media ergo they blame governments. They can’t seem to see the obvious, that the biggest corporation block on the planet is in control here. They buy the Generals and the politicians like we buy groceries.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/04/majority-of-retired-4-star-officers-got-jobs-defense-industry-new-report-says.html
Twenty-six of the 32 four-star officers who retired after June 2018 were then employed by “the arms industry as board members, advisors, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector,” according to the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a defense-focused think tank that advocates for peace and diplomacy.
Eisenhower feared that “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” could lead to “the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”
I think many, perhaps most, of the UN sanctioned military actions had some merit. I didn’t see the “liberation: of Kuwait on the UN list but it did seem like a worthwhile job. The subsequent invasion of Iraq was about as evil as the 1939 invasion of Poland.
The liberation of Kuwait was a very, very grey area. Here’s my understanding:
1st, Kuwait is an odd creation of the British partition of Ottoman provinces, intended to mostly isolate Iraq from the Gulf, and generally make it easier to divide and conquer.
2nd, Kuwait was indeed stealing from Iraq by drilling directionally under the border into Iraqi oil.
3rd, Hussein asked permission from the US ambassador, who said the US didn’t care what he did with Kuwait. Was this a deliberate trap? Or, more likely, pure incompetence on the part of a political appointee?
Hussein had been an ally of the US – his war with Iran in the 80’s (another example of US carelessness with the lives of “other people”) was greatly encouraged by the US – remember Arms for Hostages in the Reagan administration? He had every reason to expect the support of the US.
Instead, of course, Saudi Arabia freaked out, and paid the US to bomb Iraq out of Kuwait (the US, for the first time in decades, had it’s first quarter of positive balance of payments in, IIRC, 1992 because of those payments).
All of which led to enormous turmoil in the M.E. over the next 30 years!
Nick doesn’t know the difference between a war and a genocide. It’s too complex to disambiguate.
I do, but it’s a very complex question. There’s also the category of “war crimes”. It seems pretty clear that there are examples of all three in my list above, but people disagree on the categorization.
I suspect Israelis for instance, see Gaza as a war, and that Palestinians see it as a genocide.
Which describes Kissinger’s bombing of Cambodia and Laos?
The firebombing of Dresden?
New posts are up
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-august-2025/
and
https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-august-23-2025/