March 11, 2021
My latest paper is here:
A CLIMATE AND ENERGY PRIMER FOR POLITICIANS AND MEDIA
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/a-climate-and-energy-primer-for-politicians-and-media.pdf
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March 10, 2021
I'm laughing too hard to extract any more of this. I personally "intersect" (dangerous word these days) this thing in two places: short, and I grew up rural. Oh yeah... I'm male, too. Editor Jack Kemp, who knows me personally, will attest that I am movie-star handsome (right, Jack? RIGHT?), so the unattractive part is not relevant. I'm not fat -- in fact, I've lost a few pounds from the last time I stepped on the home bathroom scale, and I wonder if I should be concerned about that. But this whole thing is an attempt by the Left to turn everybody into some sort of a victim. If you want a big horselaugh, go here https://www.foxnews.com/us/harvard-westlake-prep-school-fat-short-unattractive-people-oppressed for the entire article."Fat, short, unattractive" people, females and individuals without children are among the groups facing "oppression" or "resistance," according to a graphic allegedly given to eighth-graders at a California prep school.
A screenshot of the slide appeared on an Instagram account dedicated to posting about the purported "woke excesses" at the Harvard-Westlake prep school in Los Angeles.
"If you are ‘urban’ you are privileged, but if you are ‘rural’ you are oppressed," the post from @WokeAtHW reads. "We don't get it either."
A Harvard-Westlake spokesperson declined to comment.
The image appears to have been taken from the Intertwine Charter’s "Wheel of privileges and oppression," part of a jargon-infused Australian document that aims to "aid organisations to become an ally along the axes of oppression the organisation does not inhabit."
The charter does not appear to have been designed with children in mind. But the graphic was presented to students as part of their eighth-grade "human development" course, according to @WokeAtHW.
It lists a number of characteristics purported to carry "privilege," and others that invoke "oppression/resistance."
Privileged descriptors include "male," "white," "healthy, coping," and "sexual."
Terms on the "oppression/resistance" side include "too young, too old," "rural, remote," LGBTQ, "female" and "unqualified, illiterate."
"In general, society is set up for people with attributes at one end of the spectrum — that is, the default is for people with those attributes," the Intertwine Charter reads. "As a result, even though they might not be aware of it, they are treated as valued and experience ‘privilege’ while people with attributes at the other end experience disadvantage or oppression."
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I nailed the current global cold Winter forecast in August 2020 below. The hard part is forecasting where the polar vortex is going next – but those who forecast a warm winter were delusional.
Regarding the warmist loons who claimed "Global Warming caused this extreme cold†– their lies are not even credible enough to be specious.
From previous posts on wattsup:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 15, 2019
[excerpts]
This formula works reasonably well back to 1982, which is the limit of my data availability.
5. UAH LT Global Temperatures can be predicted ~4 months in the future with just two parameters:
UAHLT (+4 months) = 0.2*Nino34Anomaly + 0.15 – 5*SatoGlobalAerosolOpticalDepth (Figs. 5a and 5b)
6. The sequence is Nino34 Area SST warms, seawater evaporates, Tropical atmospheric humidity increases, Tropical atmospheric temperature warms, Global atmospheric temperature warms, atmospheric CO2 increases (Figs.6a and 6b).
I wrote in August 2020:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/23/solar-plasma-temperature-is-plunging-should-we-worry/#comment-3068819
Check out NIno34 temperatures, again down to Minus 0.6C – winter will be cold.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino34.png
Nino34 SST anom’s hit minimums of minus1.4C-1.3C in Oct2020 and Nov2020 – so global coldest temperatures (+4 months) should be Feb2021 and Mar2021.* Spring could also be late in many parts of the world.
[* Looking at the data – I’d have to go with Yankee Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil (predicts six more weeks of winter), not Canuck’s Wiarton Willie, Shubenacadie Sam and Fred La Marmotte (called early spring). The Rite of Spring, like science, is not a democracy – it’s not about consensus – it is what it is! Attaboy Phil! Hi Four!]
Check the beautiful La Nina in the equatorial Pacific Ocean – the blue stuff.
https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/cb/ssta/ssta.daily.current.png
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Man-made global warming: defying science
"To investigate the premise of AGW, a climate scientist would set about testing a complex hypothesis containing three conjectures, each of which must be proven to be true:
• global warming has occurred by a statistically significant amount
• global warming has been caused by man’s activities
• to the extent which global warming has occurred, or is reasonably projected to occur in the future, it will adversely affect life on earth
If any one of these three conjectures cannot be proven to be true, then the complex hypothesis must be declared false and discarded.â€
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Well, what do you know? A stopped clock IS right twice a day!
Naomi Wolf: We've Reached Step 10 of the 10 Steps of Fascism
I detest Naomi Wolf and took her to task over her original "Ten Steps of Fascism" thesis years ago (which was mainly a diatribe against George W. Bush) but I have to agree with most of her reasoning in this essay. Has she learned wisdom in her dotage? Perhaps.
We clearly live in a fascist state now - a GLOBAL fascist state.
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Read the numbers on the effectiveness of mask mandates. Tiny. Statistically significant? I don't know, but I suspect they fall within the margin of error. Worth all the monetary and psychological and sociological and political expense? That would be a really tough claim to justify.
The Media's Miserable Record on Getting it Right
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This working paper is a long read so here's the short version as best I can articulate it regarding SARS-CoV-2 (CvD 19)...
It seems there is overwhelming evidence in this paper that this virus had no opportunity to mutate in an intermediate host and it just arrives in humans with a near-perfect (far more perfect than seen in nature) adaptation to infect human cells with unnatural precision.
https://
Draw your own conclusions.
When SARS-CoV1 made its appearance, it was very quickly proven to have used a horseshoe bat as the reservoir host and the civet cat and later a camel as the intermediate host. That was all proven within a few months of the first infection. After over a year, virologists have been unable to tie SARS-CoV2 (CvD 19) to any intermediate or reservoir host animals - none - zilch - nada! There are no animals in China capable of hosting it that it could have mutated in and eventually jumped to humans. Since no hosts exist, I am convinced it was precision brewed in a lab and escaped. I fear what this bug could have done if they had another five years to work on it.
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The WOKE are now going after statues of great men who opposed slavery.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/adam-smith
More can be read at Quillette of the great visionary Adam Smith.
https://quillette.com/2020/06/22/the-father-of-capitalism-and-the-abolition-of-slavery/
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While I take anything from the Kennedy family with a grain of salt (btw my mother was a Kennedy but not a close relative of them) I do have to take this seriously. Gates wants to depopulate the world and he'd be perfectly willing to do it using vaccinations. This is something we must take seriously. And this Covid business works out just too gosh darn well for these people.
Read this with some skepticism but consider it.
Hat tip: David Redfern.
Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination
From the article:
Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.
Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.
Promising his share of $450 millionof $1.2 billion to eradicate Polio, Gates took control of India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization (NTAGI) which mandated up to 50 doses (Table 1) of polio vaccines through overlapping immunization programs to children before the age of five. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) epidemic that paralyzed 490,000 children beyond expected rates between 2000 and 2017. In 2017, the Indian government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and asked Gates and his vaccine policies to leave India. NPAFP rates dropped precipitously.
The most frightening [polio] epidemics in Congo,Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines.
In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) reluctantly admitted that the global explosion in polio is predominantly vaccine strain. The most frightening epidemics in Congo, Afghanistan, and the Philippines, are all linked to vaccines. In fact, by 2018, 70% of global polio cases were vaccine strain.
In 2014, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates-funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
South African newspapers complained, ‘We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.’
In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a phase 3 trial of GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,949 children.
During Gates’ 2002 MenAfriVac campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates’ operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Approximately 50 of the 500 children vaccinated developed paralysis. South African newspapers complained, "We are guinea pigs for the drug makers.†Nelson Mandela’s former Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philanthropic practices as "ruthless and immoral.â€
Read the rest!
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March 09, 2021
The purpose of the lockdowns and the rest of the covidiocy was to take out Trump and fundamentally alter America. Seems to me they did exactly that.
Willis Eschenbach observes:
One year ago, as soon as the asinine lockdown policy was announced in California, I put up a post on my blog called "End The American Lockdown".
Now, Nature magazine shows that science has finally caught up with me and others who objected that quarantining the healthy rather than the sick was the epitome of idiocy.
Here's their conclusion:
===
"In conclusion, using this methodology and current data, in ~ 98% of
the comparisons using 87 different regions of the world we found no
evidence that the number of deaths/million is reduced by staying at
home."
===
In other words, the lockdowns do nothing beneficial, while harming people in dozens of ways from increased suicide to economic harm to increased domestic violence.
END ALL LOCKDOWNS NOW!!!
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Raging RINO Roy Blunt has announced he won't run for re-election to the U.S. Senate.
Great news! I was going to vote against the dope if he did.
Blunt was reasonably conservative when he was in the House but he turned RINO once he got in the Senate and they put him in leadership. By the time he left he was indistinguishable from Mitch McConnell.
I think that's why he is leaving; he suspected a tough primary challenge, possibly from former Governor Eric Greitens, who has expressed an interest in running for the Senate (and roiling the entire GOP in Missouri if he does.) Blunt really can't defend himself to the base of the Party and so I think he did what he does best; ran from trouble and into hiding.
Good riddence!
Unfortunately there really aren't any good Missouri conservatives to run for his seat. We may well lose it to a Democrat.
But I'm tired of voting just because someone has an R behind their name. Blunt was a POS, plain and simple, and his leaving is welcome. Maybe we'll lose the seat, but at least it's one fewer RINO to have to battle for the soul of the GOP.
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A recent survey found the some 46% of the population does not wantthe lockdown to end. They have become comfortable in their isolation, and feel uneasy at the idea of coming into personal contact with others.
That should not surprise us, actually. We know that solitary confinement in prisons does enormous psychological damage, often causing a complete psychic break with reality. This lockdown has been a form of solitary confinement, and we could have predicted that it would emotionally and psychologically damage people if prolonged.
According to that survey, showing that almost half the population now prefers to remain in isolation, "feels safer†doing so, confirms that such damage is occurring.
Dana Mathewson adds:
And this will continue, Bill, as long as the government cheese represents more money than their employers were paying them before the lockdowns.
At the same time, many people are feeling the negative effects of loneliness, especially those folks who can't go and see close family members. I tell you though, some people are overdoing this. My older daughter -- a liberal -- and her partner are carrying this "staying in" to the point where she has still not gone to the bank to cash her birthday check from me -- which she received early last September.
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Now, with breakfast and lunch being handed out to kids, the government and the liberals driving it want free dental care in schools.
This is cradle to work nanny statism, and it's aim is to make the public increasingly dependent on government handouts.
Most Americans don't have dental insurance, and for a reason; it's one more expense they cannot manage.
BTW Anyone who is on Obamacare has to pay for dental insurance for kids - not their own kids. I thought Obamacare was going to fix all of our problems!
When government starts fixing your teeth then it is a short step for them to start telling you how you can use them - and what you have to eat to take care of them.
Unless everyone wants a bunch of bureaucrats fingers in their pieholes they had best start rejecting the endless intrusion into our lives and the lives of our families.
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From the drool cup department:
Study Projects Global Warming Could Make Survival in Tropics Impossible
From the Newsmax article:
Limiting global warming to targets proposed in the Paris Agreement could keep tropical regions from reaching temperatures that are beyond human tolerability, a new study projects.
Researchers estimate that if countries are able to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the tropics will be spared temperatures that surpass the "survival limit." But life in the world's hottest latitudes could become intolerable if those controls aren't met.
The study focused on a measure called wet-bulb temperature, which accounts for heat and humidity, and is similar to what weather watchers know as the heat index.
"The general idea is, the body doesn't just respond to temperature, it responds to humidity," said Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist who was not involved in the study.
The body cools itself primarily through sweating and the evaporation of sweat from the skin, Dahl explained. At a certain heat-humidity point, she said, it becomes "thermodynamically difficult" for that to happen.
Scientists believe that a wet-bulb temperature of 35 degrees C is the upper limit of human tolerance. It's akin to a heat index of 160 degrees Fahrenheit.
People vary in how much heat they can stand. But at a wet-bulb
temperature of 35 degrees C, anyone lingering outdoors would be in
trouble.
They don't seem to realize planetary temperatures were much higher during any number of periods in history, such as the Neproterozoic or the Jurassic, and life flourished very well. Even the middle Holocene was warmer than it is now.
Ever heard of air conditioners?
Another fantasy disaster, like Covid or Nuclear Winter or the Ozone Hole or dioxin or Alar or Global Cooling.
Human intelligence is dropping to low to comprehend it's own stupidity.
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Now that SCOTUS has rejected a Wisconsin vote fraud lawsuit, America is descending into banana republican status or worse. Yet we are told they upheld the rule of law! At least the Democrats and especially the labor unions are all crowing about it.
Hmm...are the courts immune from political pressures? Did they look at the evidence and reject the case based on that, or were they arm-twisted into it? Many of our liberal friends would say this was a pure decision, but I disagree.
Writing in Canada Free Press Dennis Jamison reminds us of some history:
One famous incident occurred at the time of the Dred Scott decision. James Buchanan influenced the votes of justices on the Supreme Court. Recent sources indicate that Buchanan was quite pro-actively involved in the decision-making process of the Court a number of months leading up to his own inauguration as president-elect. At the time, southern Democrats (possibly including much of the northern Party as well) were aligned against any effort that would lead to abolition of slavery. The Supreme Court was handily in the pocket of the "Democratic†Party, and that is why the infamous Dred Scott decision was easy to pass. Yet, James Buchanan helped to expand the effect of the decision.
James
Buchanan was one of those northern Democrats, according to some current
historians, motivated to rid the nation of the Republican Party as they
were enemies to the free exercise of slavery across the nation. In
addition, he seems to have been motivated to single-handedly putting an
end to the divisiveness over the potential expansion of slavery into
the northern territories. According to historians who examine his
political shrewdness, he saw an opportunity in the Dred Scott case
coming to a climax in the Supreme Court just prior to his inauguration
as POTUS. Ignoring the constitutional concept of "Separation of
Powers,†Buchanan wrote to a friend, Justice John Catron, in January of
1857 and made an overt suggestion that a much broader or more pervasive
decision was wise.
This initial exchange was followed by Justice Catron, a Southern
Democrat, suggesting that Buchanan persuade a northern justice to also
support the Southern justices on the Supreme Court, otherwise it would
look like a sectional decision, and they would not be able to write a
more pervasive judgment on Dred Scott. Buchanan had nurtured the hope
that a broad-based decision would protect the expansion of slavery into
the other northern and western territories, and put the contentiousness
over slavery to rest, as well as totally undermining the Republicans.
Buchanan was able to influence his fellow Pennsylvanian, Justice Robert
Grier, since he had promoted Grier’s appointment to the Court.
According to a 2004 book by Jean Baker, president-elect Buchanan did write to Grier and persuaded the justice that a "comprehensive judgment that moved beyond the particulars of Dred Scott’s individual status into that of all black Americans—slave and free, North and South…†could be used "as a turning point for a triumphant program of national harmony.†Grier’s vote added to the Supreme Court’s Southern majority and made the decision appear to the public as nothing like a North-South divisive issue. The high court’s 7-2 vote against the slave, who was relegated to a piece of property, did provide a much more far-reaching judgment, additionally rendering the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. Chief Justice Roger Taney, himself a slave owner, in his opinion on the case, wrote that Blacks "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.â€
There is other evidence of the breach of the Separation of Powers among the three branches of the federal government, but could there still be tampering with the decisions of the Supreme Court? Use common sense; do not eat the poison the MSM propagates on a daily basis. The extensive evidence would not be received.
Chief Justice Taney’s Court was controlled by a majority of slave owners with the ‘excuse’ that they were bigots and racists. In an incredible twist of true justice, the black member of the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas bore the brunt of what his colleagues seemed to be afraid of. He was one of three demonstrating genuine courage to protect and defend the constitution, despite the recent rejections. What will history reflect about the "excuse†of Chief Justice John Robert’s Court? So far, anemic legalese cannot cloak cowardice.
Yes, the Supreme Court is capable of being coerced. And in this era where the Congress and the President are both Democrats and have 100% media support the Court - a divided Court - was not going to touch this. If they had they would have had to either lie in their opinions or admit the election was fraudulent - something that would tear the country apart. None of the Justices were willing to do that. The best, most logical course of action from their limited perspective is to not take the case - just as most courts also did not take the cases. If the evidence is not heard they won't have to rule and it won't come out. Now liberals can claim it was an "honest election" with impunity. The idea is the rest of us will just have to move on.And that is what the GOP is promoting. But letting this go will only make it happen again.
Neville Chamberlain should have taught us a thing or two. Giving in means greater transgressions later. No "peace in our time".
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Being elderly, obese, or having certain medical conditions covered about 100% of the Covid-19 deaths.
We only ever had to ensure the old and medically vulnerable, could be isolated until a vaccine was available. If that was their choice.
Everyone else should have been allowed to go about their business normally. They could choose to take a few precautions in close or crowded circumstances.
Were we too concerned about fat shaming people? Maybe suggesting seriously obese kids wear masks at school while other kids do?
The mass shut-down, lock-down approach was always unnecessary. But in many countries it has created the worst recession since the great depression. People have lost jobs and livelihoods. Suicides and domestic violence, has skyrocketed. Kids are failing at school.
The scare mongers were not following the science, they were following their political ambitions.
Historians will not look back favourably on them. Particularly since the world is yet to see the major economic impact of government borrowing and printing of money, with no tangible, or economy growing benefit.
In fact, increased body weight was the second greatest predictor -- after old age -- of hospitalization
To reach that conclusion, the researchers examined mortality data on 160 countries from Johns Hopkins University and the World Health Organization. Of the 2.5 million COVID-19 deaths reported by the end of February, 2.2 million were in countries where more than half the population is overweight, CNN reported.
Every country where less than 40% of the population was overweight had a COVID-19 death rate of no more than 10 people per 100,000.
But in countries where more than 50% of the population was overweight, the COVID-19 death rate was much higher -- more than 100 per 100,000.
"An overweight population is an unhealthy population, and a pandemic waiting to happen," the group wrote in its report.
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March 07, 2021
Believing in impossible things.
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Anyone need proof the Nazis and Fascists were Socialists?
"To be a socialist is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the wholeâ€
--Joseph Goebbels
"We are Socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.â€
--Gregor Strasser, one of the founding fathers of the National Socialist German Workers Party
"National Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.†– January 27, 1934, Hitler interview with Hanns Johst in Frankforter Volksblatt
"There is a difference between the theoretical knowledge of socialism and the practical life of socialism. People are not born socialists, but must first be taught how to become them.†– October 5, 1937, Hitler speech in Berlin
"In those countries, it is actually capital that rules; that is, nothing more than a clique of a few hundred men who possess untold wealth and, as a consequence of the peculiar structure of their national life, are more or less independent and free. They say: ‘Here we have liberty.’ By this they mean, above all, an uncontrolled economy, and by an uncontrolled economy, the freedom not only to acquire capital but to make absolutely free use of it. That means freedom from national control or control by the people both in the acquisition of capital and in its employment. This is really what they mean when they speak of liberty. These capitalists create their own press and then speak of the ‘freedom of the press.’ In reality, every one of the newspapers has a master, and in every case this master is the capitalist, the owner. This master, not the editor, is the one who directs the policy of the paper. If the editor tries to write other than what suits the master, he is ousted the next day. This press, which is the absolutely submissive and characterless slave of the owners, molds public opinion. Yes, certainly, we jeopardize the liberty to profiteer at the expense of the community, and, if necessary, we even abolish it.†– December 10, 1940, Hitler speech in Berlin
"Socialism as the final concept of duty, the ethical duty of work, not just for oneself but also for one’s fellow man’s sake, and above all the principle: Common good before own good, a struggle against all parasitism and especially against easy and unearned income. And we were aware that in this fight we can rely on no one but our own people. We are convinced that socialism in the right sense will only be possible in nations and races that are Aryan, and there in the first place we hope for our own people and are convinced that socialism is inseparable from nationalism.†– August 15, 1920, Hitler speech in Munich at the Hofbräuhaus.
"In the course of history periods of capitalism and socialism alternate with one another; capitalism is unnatural, socialism the natural economic system... The National Socialists and the Red Front have the same aspirations.â€
--Heinrich Himmler
"We must on principle free ourselves from any class standpoint.†– April 12, 1922, Hitler speech in Munich
"There are no such things as classes: they cannot be. … here there can be no class, here there can be only a single people and beyond that nothing else.†– April 12, 1922, Hitler speech in Munich
"Because it seems inseparable from the social idea and we do not believe that there could ever exist a state with lasting inner health if it is not built on internal social justice, and so we have joined forces with this knowledge.†– August 15, 1920, Hitler speech in Munich at the Hofbräuhaus
To put it quite clearly: we have an economic program. Point 13 in that program demands the nationalization
"What they hate is the Germany which sets a dangerous example for them, this social Germany. It is the Germany of a social labor legislation which they already hated before the World War and which they still hate today. It is the Germany of social welfare, of social equality, of the elimination of class differences—thi
"The hammer will once more become the symbol of the German worker and the sickle the sign of the German peasant.†– May 1, 1934, Hitler May Day speech in Berlin
"Is there a nobler or more excellent kind of Socialism and is there a truer form of Democracy than this National Socialism which is so organized that through it each one among the millions of German boys is given the possibility of finding his way to the highest office in the nation, should it please Providence to come to his aid?†– January 30, 1937, Hitler On National Socialism and World Relations speech in the German Reichstag
"And justice is on the side of those nations that fight for their threatened existence. And this struggle for existence will spur these nations on to the most tremendous accomplishments
See also here and here,
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March 06, 2021
And there you have it. Go here https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/myths-green-energy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29 for the source.Finance is often cloaked in arcane terminology and math, but the one dynamic that governs the future is actually very simple. Here it is:
All debt is borrowed against future supplies of affordable hydrocarbons (oil, coal and natural gas).
Since global economic activity is ultimately dependent on a continued abundance of affordable energy, it follows that all money borrowed against future income is actually being borrowed against future supplies of affordable energy.
Many people believe that alternative "green†energy will soon replace most or all hydrocarbon energy sources, but this belief is not realistic. All the "renewable†energy sources are about 3% of all energy consumed, with hydropower providing another few percent.
There are unavoidable headwinds to this appealing fantasy…
Reality Check
1. All "renewable†energy is actually "replaceable†energy, analyst Nate Hagens points out. Every 15-25 years (or less) much or all of the alt-energy systems and structures have to be replaced, and little of the necessary mining, manufacturing and transport can be performed with the "renewable†electricity these sources generate. Virtually all the heavy lifting of these processes require hydrocarbons and especially oil.
2. Wind and solar "renewable†energy is intermittent and therefore requires changes in behavior (no clothes dryers or electric ovens used after dark, etc.) or battery storage on a scale that isn’t practical in terms of the materials required.
3. Batteries are also "replaceable†and don’t last very long. The percentage of lithium-ion batteries being recycled globally is near-zero, so all batteries end up as costly, toxic landfill.
4. Battery technologies are limited by the physics of energy storage and materials. Moving whiz-bang exotic technologies from the lab to global scales of production is non-trivial.
5. The material and energy resources required to build alt-energy sources that replace hydrocarbon energy and replace all the alt-energy which has broken down or reached the end of its life exceeds the affordable reserves of materials and energy available on the planet.
6. Externalized costs of alt-energy are not being included in the cost. Nobody’s adding the immense cost of the environmental damage caused by lithium mines to the price of the lithium batteries. Once the full external costs are included, the cost is no longer as affordable as promoters claim.
7. None of the so-called "green†"replaceable†energy has actually replaced hydrocarbons; all the alt-energy has done is increase total energy consumption. This is what’s called Jevons Paradox: every increase in efficiency or energy production only increases consumption.
Here’s a real-world example: Building another freeway doesn’t actually reduce congestion in the old freeway; it simply encourages people to drive more, so both freeways are soon congested.
All Future Income Is a Claim on Future Energy
Setting aside the impracticalities of replacing most or all hydrocarbons with "replaceable†energy, the real issue is all debt service/repayment is ultimately funded by future energy.
On the face of it, future income is used to pay back borrowed money, but all future income is nothing more than a claim on future energy.
"Money†without access to affordable energy is worthless.
Imagine being air-dropped into the Sahara desert with a backpack of gold and $100 bills. You’re wealthy in terms of "money†but if there’s no water, food and transport to buy with your money, you’ll die.
The point is that "money†is only valuable if the essentials of life are available at affordable prices.
Right now the average full time wage in the U.S. is about $19/hour, and the average cost of a gallon of gasoline is $2.25. So a mere 7 minutes of (pretax) labor will buy a gallon of gasoline.
But what happens if inflation increases the cost of oil but wages continue stagnating? What happens to the economy if it takes one hour of labor to buy a gallon of gasoline instead of 7 minutes?
The Hidden Costs of Alternative Energy
Economics claims that cheaper substitutes will appear to replace whatever is expensive, so cheap electricity will replace costly oil, or transport will switch to cheap natural gas, etc.
But these proposed transitions are not cost-free.
The cost of replacing 100 million internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is non-trivial, as is building the "replaceable†energy infrastructure needed to power all these vehicles.
The true costs of "replaceable†energy have been fudged by not counting external costs or replacement costs; the full lifecycle costs of "replaceable†energy are much higher than promoters are claiming.
There are supply constraints that are also not included. For example, all the plastic in the world is still derived from oil, not electricity. (Note that each electric vehicle contains hundreds of pounds of plastic.)
Energy in any form is not magically pliable. Just as we can’t turn electricity into jet fuel, we can’t turn a barrel of oil into only diesel fuel. Coal can be turned into liquid fuel but the process is non-trivial.
All of which is to say that the cost of energy in hours of labor is likely to increase, possibly by more than the global economy can afford.
There may also be supply constraints, situations where the energy people want and need is not available in sufficient quantities to meet demand at any price.
As "software eats the world†and automation replaces costly human labor, it’s also likely that the erosion in the purchasing power of labor that’s been a trend for 20 years will continue and accelerate.
Analyst Gail Tverberg has done an excellent job of explaining that it’s not just the availability of energy that matters, it’s the affordability of that energy to the bottom 90% of consumers.
Central Banks Can’t Print Energy
Again, "money†is nothing but a claim on future energy, because energy is the foundation of the global economy. Without energy, we’re all stranded in the desert and all our "money†is worthless because it can no longer buy what we need to live.
Central banks can print infinite amounts of currency but they can’t print energy, and so all central banks can do is add zeroes to the currency. They can’t make energy more affordable, or guarantee that a day’s labor will buy more than a fraction of the energy that labor can buy today.
The global financial system has played a game in which "money†is either printed or borrowed into existence, on the theory that energy will be more abundant and more affordable in the future. If this theory turns out to be incorrect, the "money†used in the future to pay back debts incurred today will have near-zero value.
The question is: how much energy, water and food will the "money†created out of thin air in the future buy?
If the lender can only buy a tiny sliver of the energy, water and food that the "money†could have bought at the time the "money†was borrowed, then it won’t really matter how many zeroes the "money†will have. What matters is how much purchasing power of essentials the "money†retains.
Borrowing trillions of dollars euros, yen and yuan every year expands the claims on future energy at a rate that far exceeds the actual expansion of energy in any form.
This has created an illusion that we can always create money out of thin air and it will magically hold its current purchasing power for ever greater amounts of energy, food and water.
The monumental asymmetry between the staggering rate of expansion of "money†— claims on future energy — and the stagnant supply of energy means this illusion is only temporary.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:37 PM
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