[Newfie]

We have lost a large number of posters who were quite active and then quit rather suddenly.

Ruminating on the matter it seems people post here and get rather roiled up. Then they quit.

Perhaps it is the frustration of not being able to change minds?

I find the best use of the forum is as an excuse to type out my ideas. I find writing out my ideas helps me to develop them. It is the same with talking.

Anyway I because my need is met by the typing I am better able to resist the frustration of not changing minds. Not sure of this, just typing about the possibility.

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'W')e have lost a large number of posters who were quite active and then quit rather suddenly.

Ruminating on the matter it seems people post here and get rather roiled up. Then they quit.

Perhaps it is the frustration of not being able to change minds?

I find the best use of the forum is as an excuse to type out my ideas. I find writing out my ideas helps me to develop them. It is the same with talking.

Anyway I because my need is met by the typing I am better able to resist the frustration of not changing minds. Not sure of this, just typing about the possibility.

[AgentR11]

I tend to quit posting from time to time; mostly as a matter of available time! Just variations in how much stuff I'm trying to do at once really.

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')
I find the best use of the forum is as an excuse to type out my ideas. I find writing out my ideas helps me to develop them. It is the same with talking.

[Newfie]

A bit of interesting art work.

Read the description.

Art imitates life imitates art.

https://www.facebook.com/599283438/post ... tid=cr9u03

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'A') bit of interesting art work.

[Pops]

If interested check out Peter Zeihan on the UTube.

I have for many years here said the old demographc curve will continue to bend toward degrowth as the birth rate continues falling to match the death rate. I debated people up one side and down the other arguing the population bomb will fizzle, pretty much as it is doing. Zeihan talks about this a lot, pointing out where this has already taken place and the reactions. Degrowth per se isn't his main schtick, he brings in many more observations and trends such as the US becoming more and more inward looking, China's collapsing economy, not to mention Germany's failing industrial sector behind the loss of RU gas imports and so on.

He's a bull on North American energy and its positioning to reshore manufacturing. He isn't a polyanna, if anything he is a investment bull. Many of his theses are simplistic, but he points out macro trends and situations I wasn't aware of. For example his take on Ukraine is that putin doesn't necessarily want it, he wants what is on the other side: the passes that are the route the EU would take to invade RU.

Another idea (not Zeihan's, more seeking alpha) I've argued is that we have been in actual degrowth since at least the '70s. Imagine being fired from your job and subsisting, in fact splurging, on your lifestyle by financing everything, including the interest payments. It is truly a ponzi scheme. Bitcoint, NFTs, home prices, stock values @ 25x earnings and earnings themselves at record levels on blatant price gouging, etc are just the most obvious signs.A quick look at the overall growth in debt vs growth in GDP shows the illusion of growth has been entirely financed.

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), All Sectors; Debt Securities and Loans; Liability, Level [TCMDO], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCMDO, May 1, 2020.

Probably some double counting there but you get the gist. The point of Brenton Woods was to remove the benchmark (gold) so everything could be made up and the points don't matter. The US as post WWII guarantor of globalism (as long as you were against the USSR) is another of Zeihan's hobby horses. The increasing nationalism worldwide but in the US particularly is the death knell for that globalism because who else will be the cop that guards global trade routes? The post-war global order is coming to and end and that will result in the confiscation of our credit card. I think that will be the great dawning.

Degrowth won't ever be voluntary. But already all around us. Makes me think of how the prequel to Gilead might look.

[theluckycountry]

Love that debt chart. From one or two Trillion in 1970 to 80 odd Trillion today. Not Y=X^2, but certainly in the same family. When did growth start? In the 1700's, at the founding of Rome? It's always been there hasn't it, as long as there was a way to grow or steal more food than people could eat. And when it isn't growth, well then it's collapse, Not Degrowth.

Degrowth has a nice orderly ring to it. Like we will just slowly get poorer over time, slowly go back from smart phones to landlines with dials on them. 1970 was a good year, though I was very young then I still remember bits. I even remember using real silver coins a few years before. My father got involved in a pyramid scheme back then called SCOPE. It was to be a credit card like American Express but it never took off and he lost his $2000 buy in directors fee. Someone though made a lot of money.

That was the beginning of the "Get something for nothing mindset" and we have gone downhill ever since. I'm glad the moon landing by Armstrong and Aldrin was made in 1969. That was an honest decent endeavor and doesn't deserve to be associated with the 1970's.

[Newfie]

I don't agree with all of zeihan's positions but in general I think he has it about right. Be seems to have a harder time with short range predictions.

But for his larger global view, he has a lot to offer.

I find his explanation of the Japanese adaptations interesting and helpful.

[Newfie]

Love him or hate him Peter Zeihan is relatively influential.
He is going to post a series of short videos, usually about 6 min, on the larger world picture.

We may find something of interest here to discuss.

https://youtu.be/lf6YnP9ZcAk?si=bW-b0feei-1TV65R

[Newfie]

Zeihan, love him or hate him he is thought provoking.

He is going to post a series of short videos, usually about 6 min, on the larger world picture.

We may find something of interest here to discuss.

https://youtu.be/lf6YnP9ZcAk?si=bW-b0feei-1TV65R

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('theluckycountry', 'D')egrowth has a nice orderly ring to it.

[mousepad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'B')oomers of course are the Prophets, the makers of righteous war. We of the Non-negotiable Lifestyle generation simply can't tolerate sacrifice.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mousepad', '
')Such a stupid thing to say.

[theluckycountry]

Merry xmass lol lol

[Newfie]

I agree degrowth is inevitable. The form is exceeding difficult to predict. Yes, a whole lot is going on right now.

I sure understand that thinking PO was going to take us down, and I too have been surprised by a lot.

When I look at my personal risk list top 5 I don’t much reason to change any one.
No order:
Climate change
Resource depletion
Some biological bug; plague, virus, whatever
Global financial collapse
Over population

How this all breaks out is anyones guess. And maybe I am missing something. The resurgence of authoritarian style rule may gain more traction.

But most likely there will be such chaos and turmoil that trends and causes will be difficult to sus out.

What this means for me practically is that my planning has almost stopped, I have no idea what to plan for. We are just plodding along, keeping an eye on the heard so as not to be trampled in the stampede. We are in fairly good shape, physically we have no major problems, our arrangements have a lot of flexibility. And our realistic planning horizion gets shorter daily as we age.

[theluckycountry]

When kuntsler penned, the long emergency in the 00's I started to look around for this emergency, I saw the GFC, that was certainly a blow, but by and large people were just spending more and more of their future earnings by taking on debt. It was almost a "give it to me now because this might be the last chance" mentality. People were not willing to save up anymore, they consumed like a furnace, new cars, new homes, OS holidays. This was unheard of in the 90's.

Well now interest rates are rising and all that debt is coming home to roost, destroying their future happiness just as the cars they bought are getting long in the tooth and the holidays a distant memory. They should have been more prudent. But prudence is a concept out of favor this century.

The Roaring 20's all over again?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')...Between 1919 and 1929 horsepower per wage earner in manufacturing skyrocketed by 50 percent, signaling a robust wave of mechanization that increased productivity by 72 percent in manufacturing.

And it was a decade of technological wonder.

In 1912, only 16 percent of American households had electricity; by the mid-20s, almost two-thirds did. Overnight, the electric vacuum cleaner, the electric refrigerator and freezer, and the automatic washing machine became staples in middle-class homes.

...by 1922 more than three million households had acquired radio sets. Seven years later more than twelve million households owned radios, fueling an industry that saw $852 million in annual sales.

[Newfie]

Zeihan just did a short video on Australia and touched on their debt issue.

https://youtu.be/8hSYixFjZWM?si=90S0NtC7kVenoIRY

[careinke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'Z')eihan just did a short video on Australia and touched on their debt issue.

https://youtu.be/8hSYixFjZWM?si=90S0NtC7kVenoIRY

[theluckycountry]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('careinke', '
')
I'd be interested in Lucky's take on this.

Peace