Debt Rattle February 21 2018
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Vincent van Gogh Landscape with House and Ploughman 1889 • 90% Of Americans Strongly Opposed To Each Other (Onion) • Mueller’s Comic Book Indic
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle February 21 2018]“Farmers are running out of patience with what they see as government inaction over the future availability of seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers”
I moved back to the UK from Australia a few weeks ago. The food in the UK is vastly cheaper than in Australia – although Australia is a major exporter of meat, wine and grains. I really cannot work out why this should be so. Perhaps we should thank the Polish university graduates who pick the food that the UK’s indigent population will not.
“There Is No Time Left”
It must be so much more simple to live in a world with only one important variable – CO2. There is plenty of geological evidence that the earth was frozen when atmospheric CO2 was tens of times more than is the case today.
In fact, if CO2 were half what it currently is, lots of plants would struggle to survive
During the last ice age, too little atmospheric carbon dioxide almost eradicated mankind
Come the Recession, Don’t Count on That Safety Net (NYT)
We have a safety net? Maybe someone should tell the guys in Baltimore and Detroit. They don’t look too good…for the last 30 years. I remember how health care got suddenly better after ACA…oh wait, that was the OPPOSITE.
Wasn’t going to add, but that CO2 thing is just…bleh.
Here’s the temp history (and remember, even this is not as solid as it appears)
CO2 levels have been both higher and lower in the past. Without SUVs. More importantly, without ANY runaway greenhouse effect, EVEN when the ice caps were (may?) have been completely melted. In fact the very first thing reported about Global Warming was the Ice Core vs CO2 numbers. Guess what? The CO2 FOLLOWED the warming. Therefore it was not, could not be, the cause. We all assumed this was an anomaly, remedied by more research. Nope. Not only did CO2 FOLLOW warming, but CO2 and warming are not related all that well at all. Which, if you’ve followed the terrible attempts at modelling is not that surprising, as they discovered water vapor — highly influenced by warming — has the largest effect and is impossible to model. At the same time, they seem to minimize the effects of the sun and mass volcanoes, which clearly DO affect climate, and would be the #1 suspect considering the 100,000 year timescales and sharp regularity of ice ages vs warming a million years before humans. Heartbeat of the sun. Maybe that’s why all the planets are experiencing global warming, not just earth.
But anyway, talking to the corner, no one is convinced with facts anymore. Not even when they get caught fabricating evidence twice a year for a decade and have a trillion-dollar profit/control motive at stake. The good news? Relax! It’s all good, mate. The world is not going to end. NYC is not underwater. At All. If anything, the terrible Depression and/or war will stop oil use long before these dumdums do anything except steal from us and power grab. Better use of time to stop actual environmental destruction with plastics, nuclear, and pesticides. …Oh wait, that would reduce profits. Nevermind.
”People rolling in and out
Those circles and tides confound me
And there’s just one thing
Yes there’s just one thing
Who can stand in the way
When there’s a dollar to be made?”https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/midnightoil/whocanstandintheway.html
Funny how the guys who come out with the most ridiculous predictions invariably get the media’s attention.
In the real world, things are a bit different. It was snowing in Tasmania this week – that is like snow in August in the northern hemisphere. Here is a short list of temperature records being broken to the downside these past few months:
Thought I might try to be more positive in what the Ice Age cycles actually are, or could be.
We do have CO2 evidence and a whole lot of other data over the multi-million year time span, and as you go further back, it gets ever less certain. For example, they measure ice cores by location, but over such timescales there is continental drift, so it’s not fair to compare ice core build on the latitude of Greenland if it used to be the latitude of Scotland. They geolocate continental drift by magnetic stamping in the rock (mostly). However, the poles, and therefore the magnetic map are moving at the same time the continents are moving, and going back ever-further into ever-more speculative time. It’s very complicated, and they try to get a map of these many, many moving parts best they can, but it’s easy to see if the poles moved differently over a period, or a tree ring grew differently, or we mistake one volcano ash-layer for another, it can throw off the science quite a bit, and they’re correcting themselves constantly.
But let’s follow a theory: suppose, just suppose it is the sun, because the sun is the one constant for the planet and suppose that this is its EKG:
(wiki chart)
Or small-scale:
Which matches the small-scale temps:
Look! 1700! A match!And very regular, going WAAAY back. What’s more, long-term the temperatures gets stuck low, then for no apparent reason, spikes wildly right on schedule. If the earth is homeostatic, unchanged for 10,000 years, why one day does it wake up and warm? And what does that have to do with CO2 which follows the warming (mostly)?
Well if the Ice Age closes in with great stability, then it’s likely ice builds up on the poles endlessly. Over the 10,000 years it’s one mile, two, five, ten, until it crushes the earth, making it bulge at the equator, leaving artifacts like the hole of Hudson Bay where the pole (probably) used to be.
It does this for 10,000 years in a row, then the sun cycles, warming the earth. But more than just warming, the ice begins to melt, causing a spiral effect: less ice, less cold, less white, more absorption, more heat. The glaciers melt, sometimes suddenly, then the poles. The earth then becomes round, but far more quickly than it was oblong. As this last drive of heat finishes, the earth is cracking on all the fault lines, creating more earthquakes and eventually volcanoes, particularly undersea ones. The oceans warm from volcanoes like we see in Antarctica, mass CO2 is released, as was measured, thousands of years before man.
The sun finishes the cycle, the warming seas increase evaporation and precipitation, turning places to rainforests, as recorded. The volcanoes throw enough ash to darken the sun DESPITE the CO2 they also release, which accelerates vegetation. The weaker sun, now darkened, with increasing warm rain, then turns to snow, more white, more cold, more glaciers, then ice caps, and the whole thing repeats another 10,000 years.It’s a theory, one we can test now, and confirms ancient data we have that a warmer earth with multiples higher CO2 did NOT cause a runaway loop, nor did the cooling cause a runaway cooling into Ragnorok, the icy end the world. I think before the AGW tax-grab, this was just conventional schoolbook science.
Just to think about since we’re in exactly the same earth cycle we always were, and humans are not all that powerful and likely to plummet further in influence with the slightest setback in food, electric, inventories, communication, or nuclear war. Ask Rome how well it is to field armies in a mini ice age, dropping ever into 500AD. There’s one out there waiting for us, somewhere, or so 2.4 billion years of science suggests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
In my view the CPTPP is likely, and should, bring down the new New Zealand Government. Although if that were to happen we would get the other mob back in which would be a catastrophe. Why is a ‘suspension’ of many of the odious clauses a good thing? Suspension means reinstatement at a future date. Even if it is signed in March, Parliament still has to vote on the Treaty. As there are many Treaty of Waitangi issues yet to be resolved if sufficient MPs refused to bow to their Party’s orders then we, hopefully, would not ratify it. We should not allow Corporations to rule the World let alone our little Country and there are so many clauses, whether suspended or amended, that can do that especially when they can be cut and pasted into other treaties. Free Trade is never the panacea for any Countries problems. It is just a synonym for rape and pillaging. Just look at history.
Patricia, been looking at history and can’t find anything to suggest that trade is synonymous with rape and pillaging. Quite the revers.
Trade appears to be an alternative to rape and pillaging and offers higher standards of living to the participants. Imagine that you lived in a rural community of 5,000 people and were only able to trade within that community. What standard and quantity of goods would you have access to. Fortunately we don’t have to imagine; there are plenty of real world examples. You can’t just make stuff up to suit your ideology.David, history is written by the victors. Just ask the people of those countries where Corporations were allowed to exploit them usually by pillage with a little rape on the way…
What sort of a response is that? We are talking about trade by mutual agreement and for mutual benefit.
I’m not denying that there has been (and still is) exploitation; the current Chinese takeover of resources in Africa comes to mind. You are attempting to distort reality to suit your agenda I suspect; not helpful.`My agenda!!! I don’t want my country to be able to be exploited and damaged by more powerful countries in the thrall of free trade “by mutual agreement and for mutual benefit.” Words David just words. They are sweeteners. The benefit is not there and even if there were, look for the dangers and there are many. Sovereignty is, in my view, the most important thing and to give that up is stupid.
Patricia
D. George is naive at best or a willful troll at worst.
Free Trade is a myth; trade is a power game with no holds barred.
Stick to your guns Patricia…I’m not a troll or naive, I signed the petition against the original TPP because of it’s provisions that are a direct threat to New Zealand sovereignty. That doesn’t mean I support a lot of this anti free trade dogma since it tends to willfully ignore the huge benefits of trade. I certainly dispute that trade is equivalent to “rape and pillaging” and nothing subsequently presented by Patricia supports her original assertion. Thank you for your input V Arnold but childish name calling suggests no substance.
David George
Okay, fair enough.
Please show me one example to support your contention “free trade” is not a euphamism for rape and pillage.I’ve no way of knowing how things are where you live but my most recent experience: I’ve just come back from town to buy some milk. I wasn’t raped or pillaged, a mutually beneficial free trade in fact.
Seriously; do you have to even ask?D.G.
So, in other words you cannot answer me, except with a infantile response.
Later will be greater.My final words. Trade is mostly equal but free trade is not. It comes with many so-called advantages which are designed so that over a period sovereignty is lost by many many small steps. Once sovereignty is lost it can never be regained.
V. Arnold. Have you ever listened to Bill Mitchell, Stephanie Kelton or Randall Whray on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)? Over the years I have tried and tried to understand economics but to no avail until I listened to them on YouTube. I have to go to the gym 3x a week to keep the body working so I listen to them then. It all made sense. They talk of macroeconomic and how the monetary system works. From that knowledge you can add your own value system. I listen and listen each time I go to th gym because each time I hear and understand a bit more
They had a website, the name of which eludes me, but, my overall impression is, they held their theory a bit too dear for my comfort.
My go to economists are Michael Hudson, Steve Keen, and Bill Black.
My foundation for sound economics is:
Understand store of value
Understand fiat currency
Understand debt
Understand debt
Understand debt
Understand credit and its relationship to debt
Lastly; avoid debt like the plague.
If you’re in debt; get out ASAP if possible.
Did you ever finish Graeber’s, Debt; the First 5,000 years?
I’ve read it at least 3 times, a fourth is coming soon.Yes, I like your “go to Economists” too and Steve Keen also discusses MMT. But for me the MMT is the best because I now have a grounding on how the system works. I then can determine a political Party’s value system for government that is appropriate for me. Personally I think that any system must always, first and foremost take into account the people and that is why MMT is good for me. My age group in New Zealand is mostly fine. We were brought up on savings and not getting into debt but it is my grandchildren I worry about. I have given up on my children because they have bought into the “debt is good” system and no matter what I say it makes no difference.
No I haven’t finished Graebers book. I know I would like it but my copy is just too heavy and while I have downloaded. It I can’t work out how to download it to my iPhone to listen to it at the gym. I have to find someone to show me how!Many roads to Rome; any will do as long as you arrive in Rome, so-to-speak.
Can’t help you with I-Phone, but should be easy for those so apt, cheers.Free trade seems like such a wonderful, egalitarian concept (barf). In reality (often linked conceptually with “bringing democracy to the natives”) it is neocon jargon for economic warfare. It has been used for decades now by the Zioglobalist-corporatist “New World Order” crowd to justify installation of corrupt politicians, privatization of natural resources (usually with associated wanton environmental degradation) and public infrastructure, reducing nations to debt slaves, and creating a supranational legal system that demolishes sovereign national rights. The only way to view it in current reality is as the incarnation of evil imperialism/totalitarianism. Thinking people reflexively react negatively to people and institutions who use “free trade” in a positive sense, especially internet trolls.
Caught a very interesting and wide ranging interview last night – with particular reference to trade and trust starting about 36 minutes in. It’s five or six years old and includes discussion of too big to fail and our response to environmental change – highly recommended.
Seychelles, there’s a mistake in your post: “Thinking people reflexively react….”
Shouldn’t that be ”Unthinking people …..” or “Non thinking people….” or, perhaps more correctly, “Idiotic ideologues and conspiracy nut-jobs reflexively react…..”Ad hominem attacks are always weapons of desperation and a sign of disrespect to their intended audiences.
I’m not sure why you have an issue with my comment, it’s not an ad hominem attack. I was drawing attention to the fundamental flaw in your statement – no need to take it as a personnel attack.
You described a “thinking person” as someone that “reacts reflexively”. That doesn’t make any sense.
If the clearly nonsensical last two posts are an example of your “thinking” then a little disrespect is probably the least of your problems.
That’s more of an ad hominem.
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