120 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, Jan 19, 2022”

    1. Canada (USA Monroe Doctrine)- low population, lots of resources, lots of food, Might benefit from Climate Change

      And gets the 900 billion dollar USA military for Free.

      Supply chain (microchips) and Population demographics are the biggest risks there IMO

    3. Taken all around, the mountains in the South East and up into the Mid East are ideal spots, at least for the next few decades, out to around 2050 or so. I’ve checked the climate map projections.

      But you might have problems finding work, depending on what you do. On the other hand, in a SHTF scenario, most of the white collar work most people do these days will be scarce to non existent just about anywhere.

      This is where I am, as a matter of luck, because this is where my family has been for generations.

      It gets cold enough to control epidemic diseases associated with hot weather, but it’s probably not going to get too hot here for at least this long. ( Except at low elevations of course. )

      Tornadoes are rare in mountains, and we’re far enough from the coast that hurricanes are pretty well blown out by the time they get a hundred plus miles inland. There are lots of streams and rivers, and they’re mostly reasonably clean.

      We do get some pretty cold weather, down to Zero Fahrenheit once in a while, but it seldom lasts more than a week. This is really good for farming, as it wipes out tons of overwintering pest insects.

      The population is relatively low, both in absolute terms and in density, there’s ample good farmland, in small tracts, quite suitable for small scale farming. We can grow almost anything except tropical crops.

      There’s wood out the ying yang, and you can buy land with a spring emerging from under a thousand feet or more of granite….. the water would be still good even after a nuclear bomb for quite some time…… months or years.

      In my neighborhood, there are guns in virtually every house, and three quarters of the people at least own a KJB, although no more than half of them take seriously. Not more than a quarter take it VERY seriously these days.

      Ninety nine percent of all the trump signs are gone now. I see a stars and bar bumper sticker once in a long while…….. just about always on pickup truck driven by young guys doing the young guy thing….. showing off trying to attract attention.

      The constant steady drip of TRUE news about trump and company has pretty much gotten thru to eighty or ninety percent of all the people I know who used to worship him. Plenty of them still want what they thought he would give them, but hardly any of them actually say anything positively, or even at all, in public about him anymore.

      The thing you have to understand about evangelicals and trump is that virtually all of them are politically naive, extremely so. They simply don’t know shit from apple butter when it comes to any issues except trump type talking points. So they WANTED to believe in him, and did, up until recently.

      The simple and unadorned truth is that most of them don’t know shit from apple butter about ANY of the large issues such as climate, natural resource depletion, public health, international relations, etc.

      There are interracial couples in my family these days. Nobody bats an eye when they see a mixed couple on the streets of mythical Mayberry……. the setting of the ever popular Andy Griffith TV show……. and the nearest town to my home, where I go for hardware and groceries .

      Racism is still alive and well, but it’s mostly underground now. It’s expressed mostly at the ballot box, as evidenced by the fact that NC is the worst gerrymandered state in the union, dominated by Republicans who hold two thirds of the offices with half of the vote.

      It’s also still alive and well in places like NYC…… a place I used to go on a regular basis.

      Burglaries are rare. Shootings are fairly common, but just about every last one I know about personally has been about personal issues…… love triangles being the most common, drug deals gone bad accounting for nearly all the rest except an occasional accident.

      So if you don’t do drugs or sleep around, you’re as safe as you would be anywhere else, in terms of violence. If the shit gets into the fan REALLY HARD, I would personally rather be in a place like this than any nice quiet ( for now) suburb of a large city.

      In a rural area such as this one anybody who sees you sitting on the side of the road is more likely than not to stop and help you change a flat.

  3. I almost sh-t myself yesterday when I saw at the store that avocados were 2.99 each (that’s 3 dollars to you and me).

    I bought one anyway. Live today, die tomorrow.

    1. We can only be certain of Peak Avocado in the rear view mirror.

      It doesn’t matter if Peak Avocado is caused by a shortage of Avocados for geological reasons or Geopolitical reasons or Global Pandemic.

      It’s all downhill from here!!!!

      Call in the USA Marine Corps!!!

      I’m gonna have to start putting some sort of refried bean spread or alternative salsa on my tacos and burrito supremes!!!

  4. I’m totally lost in trying to figure out whether the price of Tesla stock and Musk’s Twitter shenanigans are conjoined twins or otherwise.

    If Musk extricates himself from the Twitter mess at the cost of losing some or most of his own personal fortune, does this mean Tesla will come roaring back?

    1. Tesla is becoming a partisan brand – losing the support of Democrats and gaining support from Republicans, according to a survey from Morning Consult.

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-politics-add-to-pressure-on-teslas-brand-image-11669764014?mod=article_inline

      Musk’s Twitter reads like that of an irritatingly idealistic and naive adolescent. It would do him no harm to hire a few personal advisors that are both quite smart and strongly disagree with him.

      1. One of the most notable things about Elon’s Twitter presence is that he looks at proper journalists whose motives are usually just “to get at the truth of what’s going on,” and he ascribes to them the sinister motivation of “disseminating the woke mind virus.” Meanwhile Musk engages with entirely unscrupulous propagandists and disinformation purveyors like Posobiec, Catturd2, Tom Fitton, Kim Dotcom or Rebel News as if they are just noble “citizen journalists” following the truth wherever it takes them. Check out their telegram; it’s just racist conspiracies all the way down.

        Basically, the guy in charge of Twitter, Tesla, SolarCity, SpaceX etc etc is that goof at the bar who unironically tells you that he’s done his own research on the vaccine, Hunter Biden, Woke undergrads and 5G technology and now wants to share with you the forbidden truths he’s uncovered. What he’s uncovered, though, is what anyone would find if they just read Breitbart, Newsmax, or Daily Wire articles on the subject.

        1. Sometime back I posted a comment to the effect that if I were to say anything nice about Musk, somebody please remind me to wash my mouth with soap.
          I have basically zero respect for him, in political and personal terms.

          But Tesla as a COMPANY, whether he gives up or is forced to give up his position as the boss, is still going to be around, and a going concern, as best I can judge…….. possibly under not only new management but new ownership as well.

          I don’t invest in the stock market, but I have friends who do, and some of them come to me for advice about future trends. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve mostly given them good advice, lol.

          So…….. now they’re thinking about buying stock in Tesla, since it’s down to a realistic level, or somewhere near what they see as realistic.

          And they’re going to either buy, or not, based on whatever they think will happen to Tesla as a company, over the long run.

          Twitter is not going to be an issue, over the long term. One way or another, Twitter will be history. But will Tesla stock come back after this shit show, or has Musk managed to permanently destroy Tesla as an investment ?

          1. Ii feel that Tesla is salvageable once Musk is gone. Anyone who likes Tesla and wants it to do well should want Musk to go.

          1. Elon Musk/Twitter just restored the verified account of white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes.

            Kinda weird for a guy who mostly sells overpriced cars to Libs.

            The only ads I’m getting in my twitter feed these days are scam looking clickbait ads and over priced junk that’s literally on the shelves and cheaper at Walmart.

            I can’t imagine Twitter ad revenue is making much.

            1. I don’t have/use/follow twitter, so I don’t know.
              I’d love to see it fold up.
              Could there be a system where falsehoods/lies, and hate speech
              are filtered out on an automated basis, and where people have their identity tagged/flagged.
              Perhaps people or AI generated information shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind false identities….such as ‘Hickory’.

              And while we are at it, no secret bank accounts either.

    2. Tesla has cut the price of most of its cars here in the UK and Europe by 10 to 20 percent. Supply has finally caught up with demand, and second hand value of 1 year old Teslas has fallen sharply. EV sales are still booming, but the market has much more competition, for example the polestar 2 is very similar to the model 3/y. The price of electricity here due to the Russian natural gas situation makes dribing an ev as expensive as diesel, at least here in the UK.

  5. CHINA TO ACCELERATE THE CONSTRUCTION OF COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

    “After the end of the ‘zero Covid’ policy, China’s power demand is expected to jump by 6% in 2023, up from the 3.6% growth seen last year, according to the China Electricity Council. Although renewable energy installations are set to jump, coal-fired capacity additions in China will also surge this year as Beijing has put more emphasis on energy security since the autumn of 2021 when power shortages crippled its industry. In 2022, China said it would continue to maximize the use of coal in the coming years as it caters to its energy security, despite pledges to contribute to global efforts to reduce emissions. In recent months, China has significantly boosted its coal production, following government orders.”

    https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-To-Accelerate-The-Construction-Of-Coal-Fired-Power-Plants.html

    1. Countries with the highest coal consumption/capita..in order of higher to less high
      Australia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Czech, Poland, S Africa, Greece, Germany, S Korea, Taiwan, China, Mongolia, US, Japan, Russia, Turkey…

      About 30 other countries burn a lot too, including Canada.

      Who is adding the most new coal power plants?- China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam plan to build more than 600 coal power units.

      Who exports the most coal? in descending order
      The big 3- Indonesia, Australia, Russia,
      followed by US, S Africa, Colombia, Canada

      1. Meanwhile, global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually.

        1. Any credentialed economist will tell you this is great news; increased production plus population growth creates GDP growth, the ultimate good news!
          What could possibly go wrong?

          1. Growth in the work force is usually a good thing, but the fastest growing population segment is older.

            High birth rates used to drive population growth. Now it’s low death rates. The result is a tendency towards an upside down population pyramid. As a result, the working age population is stalling despite continued population growth.

            1. The projected inverted population pyramid is a real problem, for sure, but for the most part, the older folks own just about everything, and the younger ones stand to inherit.
              Sometimes I’m damned near dead certain that at least a third of all the people working in this country today are working at jobs that produce just about zero in terms of USEFUL products or services.

              We sure as hell don’t need a bank on EVERY corner in town, or a lawyer or two in every building big enough for a law office within a mile of the courthouse, even in small town and rural America.We don’t need telemarketers, or advertising copy writers, or Kardashians.

              Personally I don’t see this problem as being any tougher than the move of most of the population from the farm to the city. We survived that. We’ll survive this one too……. unless failure is due to environmental and ecological collapse.

              I foresee the return of the personal servant as a respectable and well paid profession.

          2. Well right now there is some disturbing news coming from the insurance industry. The increase in excess deaths among working age adults has been remarkable. Former Blackrock portfolio manager Ed Dowd in his new book “Cause Unknown” analyses the phenomenon through the lens of Wall Street including how it is likely affecting insurance company profits and how it will affect insurance premiums.

            Last Wednesday (Jan 18) Dowd was a guest on a weekly webinar put on by an organisation (flccc.net) founded by a small group of doctors back in April 2020 with the aim of exploring treatments for COVID-19 using existing therapeutics. Dowd was at pains to point out that the phenomenon of excess deaths is most notably impacting working age adults (18-64), the sector of the population that traditionally experiences the lowest death rates. It was also observed that that highest increase in death rates among that cohort was for those enlisted in group life insurance schemes.

            This data has been repeated in the UK where nurse educator John Campbell PhD. has cited data from the following link highlighting excess deaths among young adults.

            https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2023/jan/17-january-23-cmi-says-2022-had-the-worst-second-half-for-mortality-since-2010/

            Working age and young adults are the group most likely to be having kids.

            1. ISLANDBOY —

              Meanwhile, closer to (your) home, Canadian government has warned its citizens thinking of travel to Jamaica. Their advisory noted that “violent crimes, such as home invasions, armed robberies, sexual assaults and homicides, are common” and that “sexual assaults occur frequently,” even at all-inclusive resorts. “Local police lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.” And, apparently ongoing gang wars are a fact of life in your country or perhaps it’s all grossly exaggerated?

            2. Just yesterday I watched the classic Jamaican Movie “The Harder They Come”, a movie starring reggae musician Jimmy Cliff that is a sort of cult classic all over the world. It was really nostalgic showing scenes mostly from around the capital city, Kingston as it was 50 years ago. Aside from the scenery (absence of development) and the age of the vehicles this movie could have been made yesterday.

              One big example of the difference is the two lane road passing the Ferry Police Station heading east into the City has become the six lane Mandela Highway after becoming a four lane highway shortly after the movie was made. One thing that has not changed is the corruption of the police, which if anything has gotten worse.

              I found one particular dialogue (YouTube 1 hour 24 min. in) between Hylton, the producer of the main character’s hit record and the police detective running a protection racket for the marijuana trade particularly prescient. Hylton ends by saying:

              “Naturally it interests me. It’s the only thing that brings money into this area. You know supm, no Hit Parade, no ganja (marijuana), hmpf, you better catch him fast. because once these jokers get hungry enough to start trading without you then you’re finished and then law and order’s finished in this entire area. You understand that don’t you?

              That warning turned out to be a prophecy.

              Now 50 years on guns are all over in the ghetto’s despite draconian laws surrounding possession starting in the early seventies. Poverty is till a huge problem as are squatter settlements some of which are incubators for criminals as young men with limited opportunities for upward mobility see crime as the only way to survive. They see the corrupt flourishing and choose to join them at any cost rather than live a life of abject poverty. Just like in the movie, a real life case of art imitating life!

              Now the crime is more high tech with phone scamming based on contact lists extracted from call center operations being used to scam mostly elderly North Americans out of millions of dollars to the point that US law enforcement has become involved. Many of the gangs and crime are now connected to conflicts surrounding this criminal enterprise. The latest scandal this past week surrounds the disappearance of some US $12 million from the account of the current record holder for the men’s 100m sprint, Usain Bolt. This week an employee of the securities firm that is involved in the scandal confessed to “borrowing” significant sums of money from client accounts (but not Bolt’s) ostensibly to finance medical treatment for her ailing father. Yesterday I read an article about this lady and as it turns out she went to the same high school I did and her mother was a teacher (and guidance counselor!) who was there during my mom’s tenure as a teacher also. Now the poor huddled masses will look at anybody that is wealthy and wonder if they got rich on the straight and narrow.

              The funny thing is, I feel safer here than I do anywhere in the US. As a lighter skinned older Jamaican it is hardly likely that I have to worry about being manhandled by the police and as long as I don’t make any enemies I am not likely to be the victim of violent crime. The worst that could happen is that I am mistaken for somebody that has made enemies of some really hardened criminals and even that is unlikely. In the US I have to contend with possible racial profiling by the police as well as heavily armed nut cases that can pull out an AR15 and start shooting strangers at random. One of the last places I would want to have to visit in the US is a hospital. I can’t afford US style health care. Strange world we live in.

            3. I had a friend killed in Jamaica.
              Not close, but in my social circle—-

      2. This is why we feel zero guilt about burning anthracite in our antique kitchen range. It’s American coal, it’s hard and “clean” burning (low sulfur), it’s going to get burned anyway, so we might as well burn it to heat the house, cook our food, and heat our hot water in the wintertime. One has to burn something in Maine to survive. We manage to cut back year by year as we improve the insulation on the farmhouse. 4 metric tons of anthracite is as nothing in the great scheme of things.

        Our contribution: we have not reproduced.

  6. FORESTS FACE FIERCE THREATS FROM MULTIPLE INDUSTRIES, NOT JUST AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION

    “Intact forests are important climate regulators and harbors of biodiversity, but they are rapidly disappearing. Agriculture is commonly considered to be the major culprit behind forest loss, but the authors of a new paper published on January 20 in the journal One Earth show that agriculture isn’t solely to blame.”

    https://phys.org/news/2023-01-forests-fierce-threats-multiple-industries.html

  7. Any insight as to why Bitcoin USD is going up?
    Seems strange—

    2. Weaker USD. Markets already creaming its pants over the fed pivot.

      2. Another explanation that I have read in a couple of places is that there are withdrawal request from exchanges. And supposedly a number of those exchanges don’t actually have the BTC that they claim to have so now they have to go into the open market, buy BTC so they can deliver them. Sounds reasonable but I have zero clue if there is any truth to it.

        Rgds
        WP

  11. Some scientists are now suggesting that the recent increase in rate of increase of methane in the atmosphere is not (just) because of La Nina or a decrease in NOx in the lockdowns, but from permafrost melt (e.g. possibly indicating passing the tipping point).

    1. Meanwhile CO2 level continues its relentless climb:

      Jan. 17, 2023 419.07 ppm
      Jan. 21, 2022 417.73 ppm
      1 Year Change 1.34 ppm (0.32%)

      1. I remember when it crossed 400 – it was a big deal back then.
        Let’s just keep our heads in the sand and all will be good. /s
        rgds
        WP

      2. Methane growth now is getting close to 1 ppm CO2e each year and seems to be increasing.

  14. Ok folks, here is life in Denmark as I’m writing this comment. The electric consumption is 5000 MW. The sun is down so their power delivered from their solar farms is ZERO and the wind is very calm so the power supplied from their 6500 MW of installed capacity is about 100 MW.
    Do the math and you get that 4900 MW are fossil fueled. Oh by the way the temperature in Denmark is 32 degrees. Carbon dioxide is about 4/100,s of a percent of the gases in the atmosphere so to make sure the level never gets to 5/100,s I hope Denmark builds plenty of new solar farms and wind farms in the future and they might as well double the tax on carbon dioxide too then just maybe the world will be saved.

    1. At the moment of posting Sweden is exporting 1655 MWh/h to Denmark, out of our 6600 MWh/h wind production, but that´s OK, as long as they export Carlsbergs in return.
      FYI, it´s not at all uncommon that Denmark export their excess wind power, just like Norwy export oil but I guess that goes way over your head…

      https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Power-system-data/Production1/Wind-Power/se/hourly/?view=table
      https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Power-system-data/Exchange1/SE/Hourly2/?view=table

      Addendum: Note to self, don´t feed the you know what

    2. Denmark is one of the world’s richest countries, and they got that way by selling oil and gas rather than using it at home, wastefully, the way we do here in the USA.

      YOU will never bother to post on the days wind and sun are producing record amounts of electricity, lol.
      But on the GOOD days, Denmark makes enough electricity to save a TON of oil and gas, which is sold for VERY HIGH PRICES.

      Plus the people of Denmark are generally very well educated, compared to the rest of the world, and they understand that one day, oil and gas will be in short supply. When that day comes, they’ll still have some left for their own use at home, or to swap for things such as food or fertilizers.

    3. Life is fine in Denmark. It’s about 0, not 32. And they live next door to Norway which has huge hydro resources, and exports to Denmark when they need it. The also import from Denmark when Denmark produces more than it consumes.

      About 2/3 of Denmark’s electricity is renewable, and the share is increasing quickly. Meanwhile nearly 40% of new cars are EV or plugin hybrids, which is starting to put downward pressure on oil demand.

      https://app.electricitymaps.com/map

  15. Ok folks here is life in a little community in China called Harbin. The greater Harbin area has nearly 10,000,000 people living there and right now is 1:50 am and it 20 degrees below zero. Since it’s night ZERO power from solar and the wind speeds for all of northern China are in the 5 to 10 mph range. So. Staying warn is not the issue it’s staying alive. Let’s see, my guess it’s coal, nat gas and oil keeping them alive. Again I hope China keeps building solar and wind farms or surly we are all going to die because of carbon emissions.

    1. The Chinese have a HUGE HUGE problem with oil and gas, Ervin.
      And they have a problem that’s not a whole let better with coal, Ervin.

      All three come out of holes in the ground, and there aren’t enough holes with oil, coal and gas in China to keep their country up and running.

      SO………. they have to BUY coal, oil, and gas on the world market, and it’s costing them an arm and a leg, and if deliveries are ever interrupted by war or natural disaster……….. they’re in BIG trouble sure enough.

      Every day the sun shines on a Chinese solar farm, and every time the wind blows at a Chinese wind farm, the Chinese people are ahead, leaving them more money to live on and spend on other things such as a better house or even a car.

      Ya know the between right wing/ propaganda/ news and a mushroom farm? Both of them feed you shit all day while keeping you in the dark.

      1. OFM, I agree with you that China has to build all of the wind and solar as possible and get as many EV,s on the road as possible. Their two greatest shortages are energy and clean water and I believe that the leaders couldn’t give a shit about carbon dioxide. The West is making all of its energy decisions keying off of carbon dioxide not what’s reasonable and cost effective or what can provide a reliable energy system. I find the fact that Duke Power actually ran out of electricity in December criminal and a direct result of the West’s carbon dioxide obsession. Denmark is rich and I guess they can afford the second highest electricity costs in Europe. I always go back to 1988 whenDr. Hanson’s testimony to the US Senate and he told us that if the use of fossil fuels weren’t curtail quickly that in 10 to 20 years the earth would be experiencing horrific catastrophic events. Well nothing out of the ordinary has occurred.

        1. Ervin,
          Can you provide a link to the official transcript in 1988 where, “Dr. Hanson’s testimony to the US Senate and he told us that if the use of fossil fuels weren’t curtail quickly that in 10 to 20 years the earth would be experiencing horrific catastrophic events”? I haven’t read any such statement from the 80s by Dr. Hanson.
          Thanks.

        2. Nothing out of the ordinary:
          https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/time-series

          Ervin wrote:
          “Dr. Hanson’s testimony to the US Senate and he told us that if the use of fossil fuels weren’t curtail quickly that in 10 to 20 years the earth would be experiencing horrific catastrophic events.”

          Transcript of James Hansen’s 1988 testimony to congress:
          https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5127807;view=1up;seq=45

          I’ve read the entire transcript. I failed to find him making any such claim. Can you please direct me to where he does?

          Below is a an image of the projected warming that Hansen presented.
          Actual warming.

          1. You need to plot the actual observed temperatures on that chart, then you see just how wrong Hansen really was; maybe purposely, maybe not.

            1. “That is where James Hansen’s 1988 models for NASA went wrong. The forecasts were inaccurate because his predictions on future emissions did not account for the Montreal Protocol, which came into effect a year later. This meant his predictions for future warming were also wrong.

              The Montreal Protocol banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were potent greenhouse gases that were depleting the ozone layer.

              “If you account for these and look at the relationship in his model between temperature and radiative forcing, which is CO2 and other greenhouse gases, he gets it pretty much dead on,” Hausfather said. “So the physics of his model was right. The relationship between how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere and how much warming you get, was right. He just got the future emissions wrong.”

              https://www.newsweek.com/climate-change-models-right-global-warming-1475660

        3. “I find the fact that Duke Power actually ran out of electricity in December criminal”

          And your entitlement comes from what ? Because you pay your bill

          “Well nothing out of the ordinary has occurred”

          Denial (willful ignorance)

          1. Back in the 1970,s while at Penn State getting my EE degree, I went to an event where the CEO of PPL spoke and I have never forgot his opening comment. He said that his job was to provide the most reliable power at the lowest cost possible following all current laws and regulations. In todays world reducing carbon is front and center and everything else be damned. Base-load dispatch-able power not so much, and the proof was this past December. In a modern civilized first world country, power companies should by all measures have enough reserve power so as to never ‘run out of power’. North Carolina is not Pakistan.

            1. Ervin,
              the problem with electricity delivery in N Carolina in December
              was not due to generating capacity shortfall.
              The outages were do to weather related grid failures.
              “It really was kind of a perfect storm in that we had a couple of thousand outages from the wind event. And then overnight, we had record energy use,” said Bill Norton with the utility.
              Duke Energy, which provides electricity across a large portion of both North Carolina and South Carolina, said it had about 450,000 customers without power Saturday morning at its peak.”

              And in a separate incident earlier in the month when those right wing nut jobs decided to commit domestic terrorism against the two substations.

              We can agree that the electric grid needs plenty of hardening and upgrading.
              I’d be putting that at the top of a government spending priority list.

              The coal burning is a whole other issue.
              I grew up in an area with big coal. Pennsylvania.
              I now live in a region without coal, and I am thankful for that.
              Although we have forest fires smoke too often. Not thankful for that.

            2. Ervin, like your buddy says. Put your money were your mouth is. Buy yourself a back up battery. “Back in the 1970,s” was 50 years ago, You just want others to solve your problems. America isn’t a communist country.

  16. JAPAN PM SAYS COUNTRY ON THE BRINK OVER FALLING BIRTH RATE

    “Japan’s prime minister says his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate. Fumio Kishida said it was a case of “now or never.” Japan – population 125 million – is estimated to have had fewer than 800,000 births last year. In the 1970s, that figure was more than two million.”

    But the issue is particularly acute in Japan as life expectancy has risen in recent decades, meaning there are a growing number of older people, and a declining numbers of workers to support them.

    Japan now has the world’s second-highest proportion of people aged 65 and over – about 28% – after the tiny state of Monaco, according to World Bank data.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64373950

    1. I will never understand the logic of attempting to solve economic problems by producing more babies. Yes, a smaller and older population will likely produce an consume less with an inevitable reduction in GDP. The interesting question is not how to increase economic growth but how to match economic output to demand and demand is going to go down faster than the population because older inhabitants buy less stuff. It is highly likely that many older residents will be happy to stay in the work force longer and at lower wages tif they are made welcome. I would think that economists should be spending their time describing how to “power down” modern industrial society rather than hurrying up the end of civilization due to over-consumption.
      “..function as a society” =nonsense.

      1. The segment of the population that buys a lot is 25 to 45, and that segment stopped growing all over the rich world years ago.

        A lot of the concern is that other countries will be bigger than you. Look at the Angst created by the current African population boom.

  17. So Japan won’t be needing a ton of new schools, shopping centers, highways, or water and sewer lines.

    Nor any more new houses and apartments than are necessary to replace the oldest and least desirable as such properties get to be too expensive to maintain.

    There’s nothing insurmountable in dealing with old people.

    People with no better employment prospects can live in and care for such people, while collecting a modest salary as well.

    They will have enough man and woman power to take care of the old people, and with a falling population, the country will actually be even safer than it is now…….. because they’ll be closer to having enough farm land to support themselves without importing so much food.

    1. If I lived in Japan, I would be trying to find a way to move somewhere else (Canada).

      – Right Next to China ( The assault on Nanking has not been forgotten)

      – No Fossil Fuels ( That’s why they built Nuclear Reactors in the “Ring of Fire” earthquake hotbed ) and

      why they tried to invade Indonesia and Australia in WWII

      – North Korea fires missiles at them once a month

      When you are trying to figure out how to mine methane hydrates from the Ocean sea floor…you know you are in trouble.

      1. I wouldn’t want to live in Japan myself.
        But with the population low enough, Japan would be pretty much safe from everything except an invasion from China.
        And that’s not likely, given the balance of power in the world today.

        1. I spent a lot of time in Japan (based at the University of Tokyo) and loved the country. Even went to a lot of trouble learning to read, write and speak the language. As a white Anglo Saxon I could NEVER become part of their culture (always a Gaijin, or foreigner). This never bothered me; it was a wonderful experience which included many friendships plus field trips to see some unique geological sites throughout the country. Great memories!

          1. “Gaijin” That reminds of an experience of the son of a friend of mine. The son was one of those people who found learning languages to be quite easy. He ended up on a business trip to Japan and called his Japanese contact to make an appointment. Upon arriving at the man’s office and being introduced the Japanese fellow, upon seeing the “gaijin”, absolutely refused to believe he was the person who called speaking Japanese. It took several minutes of conversation before he believed the “unbelievable”, that is that a person who doesn’t look Japanese could actually speak it!
            If you speak three languages you are tri-lingual
            If you speak two languages you are bi-lingual
            If you speak only one language most likely you are American ;<)

  18. The cost of living crisis shot up to number one in the short term WEF risk indices for 2023. Longer term environmental and climate risks still dominate. With fossil fuel decline accelerating I doubt if the cost of living is going to get easier as the report indicates, but equally extreme climate events are going to get worse.

    https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-report-2023/

    1. At what point will higher cost of living (related to higher energy costs and the gradual depletion of basic mineral resources including mineral ore, soil, fisheries,fresh water,and forests)
      result in actual contraction of the population?
      Maybe we are already starting to see the early signs of that process in some places.

    1. Yes to that.
      A couple comments
      -just as the energy content of ‘liquids’ is declining, the energy content of coal is extremely variable and has been declining over the decades as higher grade deposits have been targeted first. I have not seen comprehensive data on this.
      -the thermodynamic payoff of ethanol from corn is close to what we would consider pitiful. If it wasn’t for the politics of this big job program in the US corn growing regions, there is no way this would be a big industry with about 30 million acres of prime farmland diverted to this product.

    2. Energy content of various grades of coal.
      Lignite in yellow has less than 1/2 of energy and more than twice as much ash/slag/mineral as compared to the
      best grades- anthracite.

      1. Is there any significant anthracite left that is used in power generation? I thought any available was used in metals production, or a bit for domestic heating.

        1. I don’t know what the various grades percent of global production is, however

          “Anthracite is categorized into standard grade, which is used mainly in power generation, high grade (HG) and ultra high grade (UHG)- the principal uses of which are in the metallurgy sector. Anthracite accounts for about 1% of global coal reserves,[6] and is mined in only a few countries around the world.

          The Coal Region of northeastern Pennsylvania in the United States has the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.[7] China accounts for the majority of global production; other producers are Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, South Africa, Vietnam, the UK, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Total production in 2020 was 615 million tons”

          1. U.S. Anthracite production peaked in 1915. The coal we burn for heating is the last of the last. Old mines are basically stripped of their “pillars” and the coal bagged for the home heating market. The depleted mines are then restored to near-natural conditions.

            https://www.blaschakanthracite.com/reclamation/

            Here’s a jaw-dropping statistic: My dad said when he was a kid in the early Forties, heating coal for his parents’ house was $5 a ton. Now, a one-ton pallet of bagged coal is $500.00.

  21. For anyone interested, discovery of over 11 billion barrels of oil reserves off the coast of Guyana in the last five years is the largest addition to global oil reserves in the last 50 years.

    GUYANA’S OIL INDUSTRY IS IN FOR A STELLAR YEAR

    • Offshore Guyana, in as little as seven years, has emerged as the world’s hottest frontier oil play.
    • Guyana’s appeal to energy investors is bolstered by favorable geology, growing petroleum infrastructure and low breakeven prices.
    • Guyana’s oil auction is attracting considerable interest with major energy companies from Asia to Europe reviewing the opportunities available.

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Guyanas-Oil-Industry-Is-In-For-A-Stellar-Year.html

      2. Capitalism will push profits to the 1%, like the rest of the world.
        But the general populous could get a boost from the economic activity.

    2. Well, that pushes BAU for the world out by another three months. After that?

    3. A billion barrels is very roughly ten to fifteen days supply on the world wide market, depending on how you define oil and count it.
      So…… the biggest find in fifty years is enough to run the world six months, give or take.

      Personally I believe there’s a strong likelihood of a really nasty oil supply crisis in the cards, sometime in the next decade or so. It will most likely be triggered by a combination of depletion and war, hot or cold.

      I hope I’m wrong. I find it hard to believe that enough electric cars and trucks will be sold any sooner than ten years at the very earliest to seriously reduce the need for oil.

      And ten years is a long time, in terms of things going wrong , in today’s world.

  22. Huntingtonbeach, I’ll call the condo association today and see if I can put a Generac and propane tank out front so I can get through the next outage.

    1. Ervin, Generac offers electrical battery back up. Mount it inside in your garage. “propane tank”, you are your own worst enemy, especially for an electrical engineer. You should be able to figure it out. If not, maybe you should also ask your association if you can keep a horse in your garage. In case you car brakes down. It’s the 21st century.

      1. Sorry. 336 units and ZERO garages. You seem to have trouble imagining that people live in completely different circumstances than you. There are three other condo complexes in the immediate area and not one garage to be seen. Please tell me your next solution.

        1. A Ford EV pick up and a long extension cord. Maybe a big ass flashlight. Move or something. Cut your losses. My god, your an educated engineer. Accept some responsibility. Power outages happen everywhere.

    2. Hi Ervin,
      It’s my impression, having talked to many engineers over the years, that they’re really good at what they do……. but as often as not, clueless out side their own professional fields.

      It’s my impression that you haven’t put much if any effort at all into considering the BIG PICTURE in terms of our fossil fuel habit.

      Being an engineer, you obviously have ample intellectual capacity to understand the big picture……. but only IF you take a good look at it.

      OR……… maybe you’re just doing a little trolling, spreading a little FUD, hoping to convince a few readers that renewable electricity is a bum deal.

      Wind and solar power infrastructure is fully justifiable on purely economic grounds alone, because the more we have, the longer our one time gift of nature supplies of fossil fuel will last.

      The more renewable energy we have, the more money energy importing countries can keep at home, rather than spending it for fuel imported form countries that, to put it as mildly as possible, are NOT necessarily friends.

      More renewable energy means the possibility of lower expenditures for military gear and personnel, fewer bodies in bags.

      And when your country is faced with the necessity of importing ever more expensive ( and fossil fuel prices do trend up, more or less forever, due to population growth and depletion, etc) fuel newer wind and solar farms can pay for themselves in as little as five or six years sometimes by way of avoiding the purchase of coal, oil, and natural gas, given recent prices.

      Furthermore, the LESS of each fossil fuel we use, the LOWER the price , everything else held equal, meaning it’s cheaper to heat your home with gas, cheaper to buy the food I raise using nitrates manufactured with natural gas feed stock and diesel fuel to run my equipment.

      And for every case you can turn up when wind and solar production is in the pits, I can turn up another, or two or three, when it’s possibly to shut down or idle back coal and gas fired power plants.

      It’s not just about climate.

      Making it all about climate is right wing propaganda.

      From RenewEconomy:

      According to National Grid, the UK’s electricity system operator, maximum wind generation hit a new high on December 30, 2022, hitting 20,918MW. At the same time, zero carbon generation peaked at 87.2% of the country’s electricity mix.

      However, on January 4, the zero carbon generation record hit a new high of 87.6%. And a week later wind generation again set a new record of maximum generation of 21,620MW.

      According to a year-end review by National Grid, the UK’s electricity generation mix in 2022 saw a new r4cord share for wind energy of 26.8 per cent, beaten only by gas with 38.5%.

      That twenty six percent over the course of a year means the UK had to buy that much less gas…… and will continue to buy that much less gas for about twenty to twenty five years due to savings in place from existing wind and solar farms.

      1. OFM, thanks for your thoughts.
        I invest many hours a day reading a collection of websites concerning energy and transportation. I would say 90% of what I read today always has some mention about carbon dioxide. The most basic believe is that we humans can and are changing the plant’s climatic. I have not read or seen about one of the many apocalyptic predictions even come close to occurring therefore I reject that premise. I guess the worst would be mass starvation do to extreme droughts and or floods brought on by climate change. The fact of the mater is that world wide production of crops have never been greater. After the first ice free summer in the Arctic I’ll gladly send you a $1000 check.
        We do agree that the earth isn’t a bottomless pit filled with oil and gas. We also agree that every btu supplied by wind and solar is one less from fossil fuels. I think you feel that that cost of that btu doesn’t matter because the end justifies the means.

        .

    3. The fastest energy change in history

      Solar and wind are being installed at a rate that is three times faster than all other new electricity sources combined. This offers compelling market-based evidence that PV and wind are now the most competitive and practical methods for deploying new generating capacity.

      I would have thought that an electrical engineer would be chomping at the bit to take advantaged of the opportunities that this “energy change” presents for electrical engineers. This will generate more work for electrical engineers than any other transition in history. Instead of a small number of huge electricity generating plants there will be a much greater number of smaller generators and the job of designing and managing all the connections between the various components of the system is largely done by electrical engineers. So, instead of whining about the fact that the sun doesn’t shine at night and the wind isn’t always blowing, why not learn more about renewable technology and try to solve some of the challenges that the transition brings with it.

      I have observed one facet of PV technology that even seasoned EEs have a hard time getting used to. No matter what happens, a solar panel or even a huge array of solar panels can never deliver more than a few percent more than their rated current. This is very different compared to conventional generator that can deliver orders of magnitude more than it’s rated current into a short circuit. This means that traditional short circuit protection schemes for power transmission lines won’t work since they depend on circuit breakers that will respond to the huge spike in the current a traditional generator can supply into a short circuit. With a solar PV source there is no massive spike in current in response to a sort circuit. The source will just continue to deliver it’s rated current or slightly more. To get around this utilities have to resort to sensing the current at each end of the line and disconnecting the source if the current leaving the source is not getting to the other end of the line. This is just one example of the work that will need to be carried out by electrical engineers.

      Ervin talks more like a mechanical engineer that is worried about the prospects of the shutting down of all these plants that depend on the heat engines, designed, built and maintained by mechanical engineers.

  23. In his case the source of Willful Ignorance is the same three reasons as for most who practice that form spiritual self belittlement
    -vested interest in the status quo of business over all other concerns
    -partisan alliance and brainwashing
    -fear of inconvenient truths

    If that sounds at all familiar it because the pattern is not new. That’s how slavery was justified in the minds of ‘good christians’ for so many centuries, for example.

    1. Dead on as usual, Hickory

      Ervin is either a troll or ignorant in respect to the big picture.

      1. I think he is simply desperate to hold on to his ideology, for the kind of reasons I shared above.
        It is amazing the mental gymnastics that people will come up with to avoid acknowledging anything that is a threat to their beliefs, or vested interest. Anything to avoid having two feet rooted on the floor of reality.

        1. Wow Hickery, you’re not a very nice person.
          I have no vested interests or some intense ideology what I do have is a response to things that just do not make sense to me. Case in point, a solar farm is built and a glowing article is written saying that it can supply a 1000 homes. What is not told is that this might occur at high noon on the summer solstice. And in twenty years that said solar farm will have to be bulldozed and rebuilt. Renewable indeed.

          1. Solar panels bulldozed in twenty years??

            I’m sorry, but there is no way you are an Electrical Engineer.

          2. “things that just do not make sense to me.”
            Ervin the greenhouse gas problem is understood and acknowledged by something like 97% of climate scientists.
            Even if it doesn’t make sense to Tucker Carlson and to you, doesn’t mean it is not truly a problem.

            And you might not think the major utilities of the world, from USA to China to Denmark, are making good decisions about new source deployment of electrical generating capacity.
            But regardless of what you think, or I think, they are using their collective expertise in that field to arrive at their long term decisions- many of which are very similar, varying somewhat on their particular local strengths and vulnerabilities.

            You and I likely agree strongly on one point here- it is foolish to voluntarily withdraw base fossil fuel electrical generating capacity before having adequate replacement on line. Adequate meaning 24/7/365, with spare capacity.
            On the other hand, we’ve got to put forth a full strength effort like we are on the front edge of an energy crisis to bring as much solar and wind and storage capacity online as we can muster. Put everything on the table of consideration- nucs, geothermal. None of it is going to be easy. And regardless, contraction is still likeley in cards- its a matter of degree.

  24. I doubt not that I’m the only regular here who reads the National Review once in a while.
    But it’s one worth checking in on occasionally, because it’s run and operated by conservatives with working brains.
    Whether they hew to any real moral or ethical principles is a matter to open to interpretation in a number of ways.

    When you see a piece like this one in such a publication………

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/trump-has-completely-lost-his-grip-on-reality/

    1. If that publications editors had been paying attention they would have published such a piece before the 2016 election. It was obvious then that he was steeply unqualified and untrustworthy.
      Would not have even been qualified to be a school principal, let get elected to the city council.

      Now they want want a different crusader.
      Watch out for a DeSantis/Haley ticket.

      1. Right on again, Hickory

        The NR is owned and operated by hard core right wingers, and the readership is such that hardly anybody else reads it.

        Let’s not forget that trump came out of nowhere, like an angel, in the eyes of the people who supported him early on and later.

        At that time, early on, the Republican/ conservative establishment was either laughing at him or trash talking him or both. People such as Lindsey Graham who are kissing his ass today described him accurately as what he IS back THEN.

        Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. He actually more or less managed to HIJACK the Republican Party, and once he accomplished that, the conservative establishment was perfectly willing to use him to get what was wanted, such as lower taxes, less environmental regulation, etc. Along the way, the evangelical establishment got what it wanted…….. a redneck right wing Supreme Court in terms of religion.

        The people running the NR were in a tough spot, in terms of making decisions, which necessarily had mostly to do with successfully running the business. They had to keep their advertisers happy, and their owners happy, and above all their READERS happy. Plus of course all of them, or nearly all of them, believed in their own political philosophy, unfettered right wing style capitalism.

        You can’t expect the editor of your local paper to say much about electric cars on the editorial page when the advertising department head comes around and tells you that the paper lives or dies based on ads placed by local dealers and car manufacturers.

        Now having said all this, I’m perfectly sure and perfectly willing to not only admit but to SAY that the editors were mostly sympathetic towards ( or supportive of) trump type politics back then, once it was clear he was a serious contender for the nomination.

        They have been critical of trump and trump type politics quite often, to the extent they could get away with it, and now……… they’re among the leaders in the fight among conservatives hoping to get rid of trump.

        The smarter conservatives never wanted him, except as an either/ or….. him or a Democrat.
        They were incredibly lucky in that they mostly got what they could out of him and now they’re kicking HIM to the curb.

        The Republicans made the same mistake as Germany’s old guard conservatives made. He likewise more or hypnotized working class German voters. And once they were stuck with him….. the German elite was happy as pigs in shit, using him, and THINKING they could control him. The Republicans got most of what they wanted out of trump but they couldn’t control him.

        Now he’s hurt them pretty bad in the recent mid terms, and threatens to hurt them a lot worse in 2024, in the estimation of the party elite.

        The German elite had a LOT worse luck with Hitler. He dragged them into the biggest war ever, and lost it.

        The calculus is as bright as the sun at high noon.

        trump is poison as far as the RP establishment is concerned, from here on out. They might like to have him make speech or two, in some deep dark red venue, but they know better, because any speech he makes is always about him alone.

        Incidentally, old hands here may remember that I often said HRC should never have won the D nomination, because the D Party, and a HELL of a lot of the D voters were just tired of her, period.

        She had no charisma. “I’m with her….. I guess” is the single most illuminating single line I know of, explaining how she lost. People didn’t vote for trump, in a lot of cases, because they were voting against her. A lot of people who would have voted blue just didn’t bother to show up.

        Evangelicals generally hated her guts, because of things such as the PISS CHRIST. She was UNNECESSARILY too outspoken about things such as gay rights. She owned that vote, she didn’t have to ostentatiously cater to it. Doing that cost her the vote of countless people whose prejudices matched those of trump, but who otherwise might or would have voted for her. I’ve BEEN in unions. Union tradesmen may be Democrats, in political terms, but in cultural terms, they’re mostly about as red about the neck as the average tobacco spitting southern evangelical hillbilly. It’s no accident that Reagan won a shit load of their vote.
        All this is why Obama could come out of nowhere, and win himself. HE had charisma, and he WASN’T HRC. He didn’t cater to the left wing of his party, he campaigned with all classes, and D voters and independents trusted him.

        The next time around, HRC won due to spending the intervening years building up an old time political machine, one so powerful that she SCARED the rest of the prominent Democratic Party office holders out of even seriously trying for the nomination…… except for Sanders of course.

        With an earlier start, if he had been willing to move to the Democratic Party center, he could have won the election.

        He was too far left for the country, but she was too far right to really win the heart of the party, the working people, too busy making speeches to Wall Street types, too prone to catering to the Democratic leftish voter, leaving the working people thinking she didn’t give a damn about them, and so they voted for trump.

        She counted on a firewall in the Rust Belt…… but she took the people of those last three states FOR GRANTED….. and even a dog knows when you’re looking down on it or worse, ignoring it.

        Now in spite of all this criticism……. I ‘m sure she would have been a better than average president, and quite possibly an excellent one. She certainly knew the issues, and I pretty much agree with her positions.

        But the lesson Democrats should never again overlook is that you just don’t nominate people with really rotten numbers in terms of public perception. Those numbers were no more than half her own fault…… the other half, maybe a lot more than half, came from the right wing propaganda machine.

        Sometimes I’m scared that Biden will slip up a few times too many in public, or have a serious medical problem, thus allowing the Faux News crowd to convince enough voters that he’s senile, resulting in a loss for the D’s in 24.

        I should take time to better organize this ramble, but I’ve got things that need doing right now.

        1. OFM,
          From a non-USA perspective, it is interesting how USA voters appear willing to abandon their moral principals and sell their soul to get their party’s nominee elected (i.e., don’t care if Trump has a reputation as a lier, cheat, molester, etc. as long as a republican becomes president)

    1. In the coverage of this in the Times there was mention of some scientists considering that the forest is now at the tipping point and large portions must inevitably decline to savanna, possibly over a few decades. I haven’t seen any studies of what this does specifically to weather worldwide but I’d imagine various monsoons would be the first to be affected.

      1. There is about 1/3rd less forest cover than there was 10,000 yrs ago.
        But that simple summary hides a more profound shift.
        There was still high levels of glaciation back then, and since that time cold boreal conifer forests have rebounded to cover large parts of the north in the regions that we call Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, Alaska.
        At the same time there has been a huge loss of temperate, subtropical and tropic forests to logging, agriculture and urbanization.
        “I haven’t seen any studies of what this does specifically to weather..”
        Neither have I.

  26. With whack-a-mole deniers making a comeback, maybe empowered by Muskie Muskrat’s all new twitter, the first half of this program from RadioEcoshock (which keep getting better) is about why some people group together to believe so much tripe (not just deniers, but flat earthers, QAnon, abiotic oil etc. ) and how you should approach communications with them.

    Results from five studies show that the people who disagree most with the scientific consensus know less about the relevant issues, but they think they know more.

    …

    After another mega heat wave, Uncle Frank claims the global warming scare is a hoax. Susan at work rails against masks and vaccines, even when half the staff are off sick. Most of us have someone like that in our lives. If scientists discover how the world works, and can prove it, why doesn’t everyone understand? We all want to know.

    …

    In the end, these multiple studies found “knowledge” is very political in our minds. A person’s politics may be more predictive of the base of “facts” they accept – whether their views come from science or a politically biased TV Network or Tweeter. It turns out brains are political. We even deny that denial is taking place. Maybe other people are denying things, but not me!

    https://www.ecoshock.org/2023/01/polycrisis-angst-denial-or-gaia.html

    The second half is a pretty fatalistic account of the world’s suddenly appearing and rapidly growing poly-perma-meta crisis (basically how to get by now in WASF land).

    So many things are going wrong, with more teetering on the edge of collapse. Continuing waves of COVID impact the economy, which has its own deep problems. Storm after storm pummels North America, while Europe gets Spring in January. Some countries are bankrupt, inflation rages, and war is back. These interlocking threats have been called “a polycrisis”. If we can’t tame them – are we entering an age of permanent crisis?

    See also: https://cascadeinstitute.org/what-happens-when-a-cascade-of-crises-collide/

    In reality, the likelihood that the current mess is a coincidence is vanishingly small. We’re almost certainly confronting something far more persistent and dangerous. We can see the crises of the moment, but we’re substantially blind to the hidden processes by which those crises worsen one another — and to the true dangers that may be enveloping us all.

    1. Thanks for the links George. I’ve been quite taken aback the last 3 years by what I feel is a lot of vulnerable minds twisting off. COVID seemed a low bar. It’ll be interesting to see the responses to future challenges.

  28. Food for thought as Saudi Arabia confirms they are moving away from the US dollar for their trades! Or maybe just alarmism?

    A DOLLAR COLLAPSE IS NOW IN MOTION – SAUDI ARABIA SIGNALS THE END OF PETRO STATUS

    “The decline of a currency’s world reserve status is often a long process rife with denials. There are numerous economic “experts” out there that have been dismissing any and all warnings of dollar collapse for years. They just don’t get it, or they don’t want to get it. The idea that the US currency could ever be dethroned as the defacto global trade mechanism is impossible in their minds. One of the key pillars keeping the dollar in place as the world reserve is its petro-status, and this factor is often held up as the reason why the Greenback cannot fail. The other argument is that the dollar is backed by the full force of the US military, and the US military is backed by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve – In other words, the dollar is backed by…the dollar; it’s a very circular and naive position.”

    “I believe the next phase of the global economic reset will begin in part with the breaking of petrodollar dominance. An important element of my analysis on the strategic shift away from the petrodollar has been the symbiosis between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been the single most important key to the dollar remaining as the petrocurrency from the very beginning.”

    https://alt-market.us/a-dollar-collapse-is-now-in-motion-saudi-arabia-signals-the-end-of-petro-status/

    1. I disagree with this guys conclusion
      “This time, though, it will not be a single foreign currency that takes on the role of world reserve, it will be a basket currency system controlled by the IMF called Special Drawing Rights, along with a single global digital currency that is yet to be named but is now under development.”

      Doubtful a single global currency will emerge after the dollar decline. Rather there will likely be fragmentation into competing blocks. The IMF and other western financial institutions will likely lose relevance and influence.

    2. Whether the Saudis deal only in dollars doesn’t really matter. The only real threat to the dollar is that America imports more goods and services than it exports, and exports a lot of dollars in exchange. There are huge amounts of dollars floating around the world, and American debt is also huge.

      American households have a lot of debt, and they borrow it from overseas. Those dollars come from American paychecks and are spent on imported goods. That is why foreigners hold a lot of dollars. The dollars end up in the possession of non-Americans instead of flowing into the American savings accounts. As a result, Americans borrow from foreigners when they want to invest, or foreigners invest themselves.

      If there is any threat to the value of the dollar compared to other currencies, it is caused by an oversupply of dollars. The manage the problem, the supply can be reduce by improving America’s balance of trade.

      The solution to that problem is a tax regime that encourages investment over spending, such as taxing fuel at the pump. At the same time every effort should be made to increase exports.

      1. There is no threat to the USA dollar. There is no currency that can replace it under the current regime.

        Imagine trying to ship gold around the world for every transaction. LOL!!!!

        The USA dollar is backed by the USA military that controls “The Freedom of the Seas”.

        That is all that matters.

  29. The saudis can take some other currencies in exchange for oil but I feel they will find them not as useful as USD when trying to do something with them. If I was KSA I’d take Chinas gold for oil payments before I’d take their currency. KSA needs to spend their money on shit. Their supply chains take USD.

    1. Remember Weimar anyone? There are similarities, but you have to think a little…

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