EU Countries Are Attempting to Enact "Green" Starvation and Freeze to Death Policies

The Dutch government is trying to impose limits on "emissions" from cows or something. The farmers aren't having it.

It's going to be really interesting to see what happens over the next few years. The "green" policies are insane for the most part. I remember reading a "net zero" plan from the UK a couple of years ago; I think it was written by an 8th grade girls slumber party--or some academics. People are going to be really shocked that freezing and starving their population to death are top government priorities.

None of these pie in the sky ideologies are going to survive the next couple of years. I doubt many governments will or politicial parties will either.

The uniparty cretins in Washington overstayed their welcome and a whole bunch of people strongly dislike both fake parties now in the USA. I imagine the same will be true through the whole western world soon enough.

US Spent the Total Tax Money from a Big State on Ukraine Already

 So far the USA plans to spend around $50B on the war in Ukraine. We hear these big numbers all the time when the feds are talking about spending money, but how much is that in real terms? Well, it's more than the total amount of income tax paid by big US states like Ohio or Washington in 2021. Every single man, woman, and corporation that paid income tax from a state like Ohio essentially sent it to Ukraine for ??? There's no tracking of that spending. I'm assuming it's all being stolen primarily by US politicians.

Abortion and Gun Rights

 The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade today. It is a big news event. In fact, some people will obsess over it for weeks to come. People will temporarily forget about high gas prices and impending economic collapse and focus on an issue that's purely hypothetical for most.

Wait, You Want Me to Starve and Freeze?

Most people who are supporters of climate change related policies don't understand that oil is the prima materia of the economy. Without oil 95% of the people will die of starvation or in war for the last remaining resources. People think it's going to be possible to "transition" into a new system overnight due to this or that climate emergency.

They think, though, that they're going to keep their lifestyle in the process of that transition and someone else--some lesser person is going to be the one who suffers. Europe is getting a sneak preview of the reality of the "energy transition" right now.

Due to the sanctions on Russia from the weird war in Ukraine, Europe's supply of fossil fuels is being curtailed. (the "war" in Ukraine is weird. Russia has total air superiority, cruise missiles, etc... but does not strike at the Ukrainian government at all.) In the Netherlands, gas is $11/gallon! Natural gas is becoming scarce and its not even close to winter yet. If real shortages set in, it won't matter how "rich" people are, everyone is going to go to a third world lifestyle.

Some EU countries have restarted coal plants to generate electricity, which makes sense. It's also fairly stark proof that the "green" agenda is another pipe dream.

Joe Biden Calls for Gas Stations to "Cut Prices"

 Joe Biden recently gave a speech where he called on gas stations to "cut prices" because we're in a time of "war for democracy".

Obviously they can't cut fuel prices and lose money, or they'd go out of business. Biden is putting blame on gas station owners because his voting base is that stupid.

If the feds get involved in price caps or setting prices, supply is going to disappear.

Pritzker Family Pushing Trans Stuff

The Pritzker family is pushing the trans agenda; it's a bizarre idea that has permeated many institutions in the USA. People are watching videos in corporate jobs all over the US every day to learn about "pronouns" of completely insane retard people. This article lays it out really well. It's just a money making venture based on some bizarre jewish religious idea as far as I can tell. It's unfortunate that so many people are suckered into believing this insanity. WTF is wrong with the western world? People are terrified of their own shadows and keep bowing down to tyrant scumbags.

Fossil Fuel Reality Check

 The USA consumes 13 million barrels of oil PER DAY for transportation.

The amount of energy in 13 million barrels of oil is 7.95322216e+16 joules.

That's a daily average power (joules/second) of 920511824074.074074074 Watts. (920 gigawatts)

A nuclear reactor produces about 1 gigawatt of power.

Therefore, to replace fossil fuels with nuclear will require around 920 additional nuclear reactors just for transportation "fuel"--obviously this is based on an extremely simple model of how power is produced, used and transmitted, etc... (There are currently 55 nuke plants in the US). That's roughly 20 nuclear power plants per state, of course, more in the bigger states, less in the smaller states, obviously. There's currently no way to dispose of spent fuel rods safely, and I doubt there will ever be a way to dispose of that waste economically in a safe way. Clearly, that is not going to happen.

A very large amount of solar panels are produced and installed per year. In the USA, something like 15 gigawatts is added per year, i.e. 1.6% of the amount of power needed per day for transportation; really 0.8% because the sun is only out during the day time. How many panels are needed to support quick charging at 150 kWatts? I guess 750 x 200 Watt panels at noon would work for that task. That's around $150,000 for just the panels that could support fast charging one car at a time. Lol.

The math is pretty bleak. There's no feasible energy "transition".

We might end up with a very different mix of vehicles on the road, which probably makes a lot of sense, and that will be in the context of a completely different economy than today. That will be extremely violent transition that kills a large portion of the population and I doubt anyone from the current top of the pyramid is going to make it into the new thing.

The Western Empire

The Empire that dominates the world today is based in the USA, but in a broader sense, the "western empire" is a coalition of the nations of the Northern Germanic tribes. That is, it's comprised of the countries like France and Britain plus the US. In a prior era this group was referred to as "Christendom", but the roots are much deeper than that. They're probably genetic, and maybe there's a hidden religious tradition that goes back thousands of years that predates any modern religion by ages.

For most of their history, this group has been at odds and fought long bloody wars for dominance, but at the same time expanded around the globe, so by 1900 western countries were in control of almost every region of the planet. After WWI, and WWII the western countries began to work together and engage in trade and internal economy building rather than fight with each other. That was probably helped along by the communist countries being a common enemy.

The idea that there could be a global government based on mutual shared interest seemed plausible in that era. That is, in the era of expansion at the peak of a world spanning all consuming Empire, global government seemed plausible. In an era of contraction, however, the idea of a global government seems extremely far fetched. In fact, the idea of existing national governments seems extremely far fetched.

In Australia, there's not enough electricity to go around; the same thing is sometimes true in California and Texas. At the same time baizuo (aka shitlib) governments insist on green energy policies and mandatory EVs. Countries in Europe seem to be in an even worse scenario from the energy point of view. Germany might freeze this winter and see industry grind to a halt. Food shortages seem like a plausible future occurrence.

The answer to these problems will not be more government at any level. In fact, it seems extremely likely that all the governments are going to crack up, especially in Europe. The EU is a big parasite. What will it offer to freezing citizens? Fake money pulled out of a banker's ass?

The go-to Empire example is the Roman Empire. It's been analyzed to death, but a fairly recent paper does a nice job explaining the mechanical causes of its undoing. It's engine of expansion failed once the cost of conquest of new territory was too high, and when the tax farming system failed.

The engine of expansion of the west is cheap energy, specifically oil. Without oil, the system doesn't work anymore. It can't be replaced with solar or wind, or even nuclear power plants. The number of nuclear power plants required to power 300 million EVs in the USA is absurd. 13 million barrels of oil are consumed per day in the US by transportation. That's the equivalent power output of 920 nuclear power plants. (The US currently has 55 nuclear power plants)

Once Rome hit the wall, it lasted another 150 years or so; 150 years of constant civil war and decline by the way.

Western "Leadership" Hates Their People

"Germany" is taking a hard line against Putin's war in Ukraine and is going to severely punish their own citizens to prove it. They're going to curtail gas imports from Russia. Israel and the US are going to help supply Europe with more expensive LNG. Hurray! But the infrastructure for that doesn't exist yet; in the meantime, the Germans are going to have power outages, freeze in the winter, and severely damage their economy.

It's hard to find a western country where the government and the people have the same or even slightly aligned interests. Most of the governments seem to be in a kind of war with their citizens, which is pretty weird. It's strange people put up with it. It's an extended Stockholm syndrome.

Antagonism between parasitic governments and the people is, perhaps, the norm. It seems more unusual in ostensible democracies or republics, but voting doesn't really seem to have much impact on what governments do.

I think there's going to be a generalized dissolution of central authorities all around the world over the next years. They only work when there's an illusion of expansion and enough for all. In a time of contraction it's every man for himself.

Teslas but no Electricity

 I think one of the most striking characteristics of this particular moment in time is that there are exotic "high tech" products and systems coming on line at the same time the real economy is completely collapsing. People can get a 5G phone or a Tesla Model 3, but can't find baby formula in the store, or can't find dog food, or it costs $50 a pound.

The essentials aren't even working, but the completely superfluous is "advancing".

It's probably a byproduct of the financial system. There's money for every project, but that doesn't mean there's enough stuff or people to do it all, so it's not getting done.

College in the 1990s

 We seem to be caught in what I'd call a dummy spiral. The plans of highly credentialed dummies have been failing for years, and what does the public demand? More plans and more government.

I think the people I went to college with in the 1990s, that is the white liberal do-gooders are essentially in charge of the United States. They are highly credentialed people with advanced college degrees and lots of "experience" in their particular things that they spend time at, but they're actually incompetent, foolish and incapable. They have no idea what they're doing, but that won't stop them from doing it. They're the type that for sure knows they know how a house should be built, but haven't ever picked up a hammer or a saw.

I'm pretty sure there will be severe food and fuel shortages starting this year which will be exacerbated by a flailing and incompetent government. It's already happening in places like Australia. "Green" energy plans plus general incompetence are starting to cause blackouts. That will lead to rationing and a decline in infrastructure capability. The whole "developed" world suddenly went third world.

There are "natural" cyclical forces at work causing some of these problems, but there's also irrational clownish people in charge of trying to manage those forces of decline.

The Hyperborea Meme

Writers and thinkers have been meditating on the "Hyperborea" concept for a very long time, really since classical world Greece. It's the mythical arctic homeland of the Aryan people, i.e. the Europeans (and the Indians in Asia). The meme has been elaborated in various directions by various groups, and is still a subject of wild speculation. There's a lot of artwork, especially by Russian artists, that imagine the place. There are countless paintings like the one shown here:

The gist of the hyperborea meme is there was an advanced civilization of tall white people who lived in the extreme north which was a subtropical climate at the time. Then the climate changed catastrophically and they were pushed south.

There are many variations on the theme. Some are obvious government supported propaganda that push a political narrative. For example, one of the variations is that back in the days of Hyperborea, Atlantis was the main competitor, and indeed there was a conflict. Modern governments could coopt that myth and say we're the ______ and they're the ______ as if the source of modern conflicts were really the result of descending from two extremely ancient homelands.

I think the wild speculation is actually quite "valid". I think it's an attempt, essentially, to give an expression to genetic "memory". It's essentially a big unsubstantiated hypothesis that might or might not be true, just like the Out of Africa theory. Archaeology and genetic research provide pretty scant evidence, really, that's heavily interpreted, but still deemed "scientific".

The method of deriving the Proto-Indo-European language and religion is akin to the myth speculation, and it seems "valid". That is looking for traces of common language elements among contemporary languages in order to reconstruct older languages seems like a valid approach. The speculation about hyperborea, or outright invention of what it might have been like is similar.

Dog Food Scarcity

My family has always owned pet dogs, and there's always been dog food in the house. In 45 years of sentience, I can't remember a scarce dog food situation, but it's a commonplace thing now.

What exactly is going on there? I don't really know. There are other random shortages in the grocery store, too, but the dog food one is kind of strange. There are several brands, but for all I know there might only be a couple of factories for the whole USA.

The USA is hugely in debt. The debt is really a bunch of plans about the future--like the US federal government plan to build 500,000 electric car chargers... while there are food and fuel shortages. There really might not be enough stuff or people to meaningfully carry out all the stupid plans of the corporations and the government.

How many different electric car or truck or vehicle companies are there right now? I would guess there are at least 20. There's probably not enough copper or metals like lithium to build all those future cars. Copper stockpiles are rapidly dwindling, for example, and are at a 50 year low; at the same time basic energy supplies are low too, so what's going to power the mining equipment around the world.

The various green energy plans are super resource intensive.

What's more important the "elite's" pie in the sky projects or food and fuel?

Is Every Western Government Run by Retards?

Australia is having blackouts right now due to pricing problems and price controls in their energy generation system.

Link

What happened? It seems like every government turned retarded in the past couple of years. Maybe they always were, but economies didn't start breaking down and revealing how grossly incompetent and not-up-to-the-task governments are until covaids. The lockdowns were one of the dumbest things ever done in human history.

Anyway, it seems like it's going to keep getting worse. I can't really imagine any of the dummies in the Biden administration dealing with a real crisis. It's probably well past time for citizens of western countries to hard ignore their central authority cesspits. 

Fearmap

Over the past year or so I went on the "nextdoor" website from time to time. It's like local facebook where you see posts from people in your neighborhood rather than your "friends". One common theme of the posts on there is: "here is an animal in my backyard and I am afraid." The animal might be a bear, a coyote, a fox, or even a squirrel or raccoon. The fear in the case of the squirrel or raccoon is that "it might damage my house." The fear in the case of the coyote is "it might kill me or my pets!"

People are similarly afraid of guns, or terrorism, or whatever the media is talking about. The animal fear, though is a little more interesting to me because it's "folk fear", that is, it's an organic fear topic rather than a media fabricated source of anxiety.

People don't post a picture of their car and say, "this thing might kill me!" even though there's been tens of thousands of traffic fatalities per year for ages, and they increased in recent years because of smartphone distractions. About 5,000 people die in the US now per year because of smartphone use in cars. (last time I looked) The odds of a severe car accident over a person's average lifespan is almost 1:1.

Fear is a pretty useful thing. It's anticipation of danger. It was pretty useful to be afraid of a cave that might have a bear in it 14,000 years ago, for example. Fear preps the body to react. It focuses the mind and sharpens the senses.

Fear about extremely unlikely things, like terrorist attack or mass school shootings, is a pretty big waste and leads to a big waste of resources and can lead to irrational plans, like Ohio's "armed teacher" plan. That's a very stupid plan. It's going to require a lot of expense and regulation to implement. It's like investing huge quantities of money against bear attacks or lightning safety because of media driven hysteria. Fear driven mass action seems pretty stupid most of the time.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that the "bear in the cave" model shouldn't apply to most things, but it does. The bear in the cave model is what hysterical women use when they see a coyote in their back yard. They also apply it to school shootings.

The reality for most people is they will die of a disease that's probably caused by their diet. If they stick to a strict diet, they will die of old age, or an accident. The things that will almost certainly cause their eventual demise do not cause fear. The things that are extremely unlikely to cause their death are a source of terror.

How can People be Dumber Today than in Ancient Times?

Humans lost a lemon sized portion of their brain in recent millenia.

Modern people who believe in linear historical progress (a concept that was invented by Francis Bacon in the 1600s) cannot believe that they are actually dumber than a "caveman". Cavemen didn't have technology or science, which start in the 1600s by the way.

Do modern people create technology or science? No. 99% of modern people do not create technology or science. They use technology, and some can barely manage that. They mistake the existence of technology and culture for everyone being involved in its creation.

Several thousand years ago every family had to be a family of MacGyvers. Every family member had to know how to do everything to survive. If you weren't a MacGyver, you just died if you lost family support. That was the human condition for a very long time.

Eventually, those MacGyvers realized they could reduce the difficulty level of life by storing seeds in jars and living in buildings that they MacGyvered into existence. Those innovations made it possible for dumber people to survive. That process continued for thousands of years. The average person is dumber today than 100 years ago, and he was dumber than the average person 1000 years ago.

Belief in linear progress based on science and technology permeates the society and allows the dumb people to imagine they're really smart because they are alive in the present moment rather than 200 years ago.

Gaypox

85% of gays got vaccinated.

"Monkeypox" is a disease that's almost entirely confined to gay men.

Many of the men who had "monkeypox" had other STDs at the same time.

Happy pride month!

Lots of Moving Parts that are Cheap and Last Forever

 I have a 2008 Honda Element. The body is rusting out, but the engine and transmission are fine. The engine required a fairly expensive repair about 10 years ago because I used to go to a quick oil change place and they use crappy filters. If I had always done my own oil changes, the cost of maintenance would have been very small over its 12 year life with nearly 300k miles. The engine has lots of moving parts. It will eventually "wear out", but many of the wear items could even be replaced in the engine for a few thousand dollars.

Most of the parts are cheap now. They're made with 100+ year old techniques that have been refined and optimized with real world experience. Imagine if engines were mostly standardized across the industry! They'd be dirt cheap.

One of the supposed selling points of EVs is that they have fewer moving parts, so they're inherently more reliable and cheaper to build, own, and operate. That currently doesn't seem to be the case. It might be one day, but isn't now. That claim is made repeatedly in the face of the real world experience of people who drive 1989 Honda Civics with 500,000 miles on the original engine and transmission.

In theory it would be possible to make a ICE car that basically lasts forever; use an aluminum frame with a body-on-frame design with rust-free or easily replaceable body panels and boom, you've got an eterna-car. Sure, the suspension and other components will need to be replaced periodically, but they will need to be replaced on any vehicle regardless of the power plant.

It's all but impossible to say which approach is better overall--EVs are cheap, long lasting ICE cars. Governments want to make sure there's no competition for their favored technology for whatever reason. I really hope people start fighting back hard and throwing some elbows soon.

The New New Thing

One of the key myths of the western world is that linear history is constantly unfolding toward utopia, e.g. The New Atlantis or the New Jerusalem. There's a corresponding set of new things all the time and constant "innovation" of the scientific and social varieties.

The experts of technology are certain that their new things are significantly better than everything that came before. The EV for example is "revolutionary". It will replace all the ICE vehicles. It doesn't matter that the batteries kind of suck and aren't up to the job and make no sense in certain use cases, the linear history aficionados assume they will certainly be better if enough resources and big brains are thrown at solving their problems.

The experts of "social" things are sure that gender is passe. In the New Atlantis you could be a girl one day and a boy the next or vice versa. You can make up your "gender identity". It's very new and cutting edge to make up a gender, pronouns, and a corresponding hair color.

The perpetual "revolution" must fight against anyone who would hold them back or even question them, which is pretty interesting. It maneuvers for the tyrants privilege of avoiding competition. It makes claims to all resources. That is, rather than proving that a new technology or way of life is better than what came before it merely asserts it's better. Everyone must comply with the idea or face sanctions and taxes.

Vat meat, for example, will enjoy protected monopoly status, and conventional farmers will face taxation like in New Zealand where taxes will be leveled on animals. EVs will get tax credits and subsidies from the fossil fuel industry.

Ironically the perpetual revolution for "human freedom" will involve a rigid totalitarian system. "Freedom" means something very specific in this case. If you're in the "revolution club" you will be somewhat "free", but everyone else will be squeezed to pay for your stupid projects. In fact, the revolution club wants to make it possible to escape paying by using electronic money and totalitarian control of every aspect of life. If it isn't part of the revolution it will be censured.

All this happened before, of course in Russia and China and France for example. A new totalitarian order was built on the ashes of the old and a giant stack of bodies... and the new order totally sucked and failed.

If the new, new ideas and schemes had to compete on their own merits, it might not be so bad. Innovation itself is not inherently bad, of course, but most new things really don't stand the test of time. New inventions come and go on a daily basis in every field. How many kitchen gadgets become a mainstream tool for example? There's dozens issued in a year, but hardly any become the next spoon or fork.

Perpetual "Revolution" Via Tech

 The people who developed vat meat make all kinds of claims about how superior it is to the traditional forms of animal husbandry which were developed over the course of thousands of years. Almost every new technology that would potentially replace a large incumbent industry makes similar grandiose claims, like the EV industry. Such claims rarely pan out. Nothing is a panacea, every technology comes with hidden noxious problems, and few innovations stand the test of time.

The bicycle industry is a really great example of this. There's new bicycle products every year, but few stand up to harsh testing and real world use, so the bicycle improves slowly and incrementally. The cultural evolution of technology is generally slow and steady.

Every day, now, there's some breakthru gamechanger, world changing revolutionary technology announced and its pretty common for the government to get involved in pushing them and banning competition.

I think the people and countries that reject this approach will fare much better in the longer run than those who adopt all the new things. EVs are a really great example--they might always suck and not really be a viable replacement for liquid fuel cars. Western countries will mandate them and sink a lot of resources into charging networks, etc... and might end up with a worse system overall than a country like Russia for example which is going the opposite direction.

The perpetual top-down "revolution" by tech won't work so well. It's got too much management overhead and is too brittle.

Are Factories Better than Cows?

There's a background drone of news stories promoting factory "meat", i.e. cultured GMO cells, as a "green" alternative to beef. I'm an extreme skeptic of the claims made by the scheming promoters of that scheme.

Is a vat of cells more efficient than a cow?

How does a vat of cells regulate its temperature? Probably with a variety of technology, like computer controls, sensors, water jackets to cool the tanks, and HVAC equipment to keep a facility at a nominal temperature.

How does a cow? It just does.

How does a vat of cells eat? I don't really know what they do in this case, I suppose they flow nutrient solution through the vat and also remove the waste the cells produce the same way. The cells are probably free floating rather than fed with a circulatory system. They're probably just goo suspended in a fluid that's mostly nutrients and partly waste. Where does that nutrient goo come from? It's probably sugars and other materials that come from plants on a farm that are highly processed and purified.

How does a cow eat? Well everyone knows that. They either eat grass out in a pasture, or eat feed. Their stomach breaks down the material into nutrients they digest, and the rest becomes fertilizer. A cow converts the plant material almost directly into muscle and energy.

How does a vat of cells fight infection from bacteria, mold, fungus and the like? It probably doesn't. The cells must be cultured in a tightly controlled clean room environment. If a vat gets contaminated, they probably dump it and sterilize the tanks. Where does that thousands of gallons of cell goo go? It's basically like gel meat. It's probably a disposal issue.

How does a cow fight infection? It has an immune system.

I am extremely skeptical of the claims that these factory type food production systems like vat "meat cells" and vertical farms are efficient or are better in any way than traditional agriculture, which has its own problems. They are only more efficient at concentrating wealth via government mandated cartels into the pockets of a few people.

No Vote = No Confidence Vote

 The clowns in congress are holding some staged hearings on the January 6th bullshit that happened 2 years ago now. A bunch of dummies got conned into breaking the "law" by the FBI or whomever (and Trump) by going into the capital building. They were let in by the police at the building. It is the most obvious setup scam ever.

The congress is going to waste millions of dollars holding "hearings" on this sham when gasoline prices are soaring and after two years of inept bungling of "covid".

Many people moan about the lack of participation in each election. I think it's a no confidence vote in this sham system. If aliens ever fly over DC and blow it up with a giant laser quite a few people in the USA will cheer.

Centrally Planned

The US economy isn't centrally planned, but the structure was "designed" and that design affected everything from corporations to the financial system to schooling. Schools were setup to produce a certain type of person to be a corporate employee. There were several architects of these plans over the decades. Influential people in think tanks affiliated with the wealthiest families promoted their ideas heavily until they became a consensus point of view.

When I was in high school in the 1980s I read articles in popular magazines about restructuring the US economy, really the world economy, into the neoliberal system. Authors argued that the US should do high tech manufacturing, like building airplanes and computers, and consumer products and cars should be made overseas where labor is cheap. Of course, that's exactly what happened. It wasn't a conspiracy, it was a plan.

As a part of that plan, some students, like me, were steered toward tech jobs in school, and also with Hollywood propaganda. Stupid movies like Revenge of the Nerds or Weird Science and Real Genius made it seem like there would be a big payoff for studying obscure subjects in high school and college. Other movies depicted tech and computers as magic and powerful, even though at the time they were kind of lame and useless.

The current economic system isn't the organic outgrowth of people's needs and interests. It's basically a game that was imposed on billions of individuals. The 1970s through now economy, the neoliberal economy, squished the working class people in the western countries. The mechanism is really simple--"investment" in high tech came from debt, rather than "capital", and the wealthy people paid themselves first. So when a company took a loan to movie a factory overseas, for example, the CEO pocketed $1M from that financial activity, the other executives pocketed $100k, some engineers and scientists pocketed $1000, and the factory workers who would soon be laid off got an Arby's coupon at the company picnic.

The system that the WEF is currently promoting is even worse than the neoliberal system. It's corporate computer communism, essentially. It's pure central planning. So the managerial class that implemented the prior system with debt to meet theoretical market demand will now just follow orders from the top of the pyramid down.

People can see this system coming, because the plans are publicized every day. People could also see the neoliberal system coming for the same reason; they also realized back in the 1980s that it would suck. Ross Perot ran a nearly successful presidential campaign as a third party as an opponent of the neoliberal system.

The opposition to the neoliberal system was entirely ineffective, obviously. The US and world economy were restructured and the financial system ran buck wild, and now the system is ending so that people are forced into the WEF communist system. The US government is totally infiltrated and controlled at this point, as are many other governments around the world; any politician using the phrase "build back better" is a puppet of the globalists.

Prefab Solutions to Life's Problems

There is an endless list of pre-fab solutions to various life problems. A lot of hobbies, for example, are entirely pre-fabbed. Let's take backpacking as an example. If a friend invites you on a backpacking trip, and you know nothing about it, you can spend a few minutes looking at a web site that tells you what you need and then you buy, borrow, or even rent all the stuff. The stuff, like a backpack and a tent and boots is now produced in a factory; in some cases the factories are on the other side of the planet. All the problems of living outdoors for a short while are pre-solved and available as products. Almost everything I can think of is like that, which makes sense because the economy has been packaging up solutions to every single life problem of all types for many decades in a row.

The pre-fab solutions are great until something breaks. For example if your tent gets a leak, the problem of staying dry outdoors in a rain storm is no longer solved. The camper needs to improvise to fix the issue. 

The baby-formula shortage is another great example--right now in the US, there's a big baby formula shortage. Some people, I imagine are learning to make their own. Some people are just driving around all over the place to buy it, which is probably a bad option when gas is $5+. In fact, I think knowledge of basic nutrition--what's required to live and thrive and where to get it is going to be extremely valuable. Anyway, a broken pre-fab option forces improvisation and invention.

In China, there's a persistent baby formula shortage because the Chinese mothers do not trust Chinese made baby formula. Some factories used fire-retarder for plastic to falsify protein content a few years ago and poisoned infants. (it also went in dog food and killed some pets) In China, there's a gray market for imported infant formula from Australia and the US and other western countries, so that's how the Chinese solve the problem. There's a huge mule-smuggler economy, apparently in China. People go abroad buy the limit, then bring it home.

It seems like a lot of systems that people assumed were reliable are going to start breaking down left and right because the most essential ingredients for those systems are in short supply, for example in Europe, natural gas might go into short supply. This is really and end result of massive malinvestment and "leadership" that's focused on dumb ideas. The same things have happened in the USA, of course, but we have more natural resources per-capita, so are more insulated from the stupidity of our system.

Transportation will become a major problem, for example. When gas is $10 a gallon it's essentially unaffordable for almost everyone. For SUV and truck owners, a single fill up might be $200! For a lot of people that is not viable. A car trip for a single task will no longer be a viable choice; commuting to work won't be viable for many people--it's always been kind of stupid to drive to sit in front of a computer, but now will just be impossible for most people. I don't think EVs are a solution to these problems at all, by the way, they're at least as reliant on fossil fuels as ICE cars.

In short, people will have to start to invent and improvise as the old system becomes unreliable. That will actually kill the economy and the government. The "solution" the oligarchs have in mind is pre-fab poverty: live in a block apartment like in the USSR, use electronic "money", and eat bug paste. That happened in the USSR, but they also developed a shadow economy. I don't think the pre-fab poverty solution in the west will work at all, except for the urban poor.

Once people start to improvise, it will transform the entire economy and the government will just be in the way at every turn for a short time. People will ignore it en masse. It has no solutions to offer. It's a giant parasite and the system the oligarchy has in mind is retarded. It relies on high tech and electronics which are produced at the pinnacle of the house of cards supply chain. Their excuse to bring in the electronic gulag will be a failing supply chain... so what's the point?

The people who are on the fringes of society experimenting with different ways of life are miles ahead of the masses in some cases. The off-grid homesteaders, for example, are, in some cases, light years ahead of the average Joe who totally relies on the system to survive in a suburban zone with a HOA. Ironically the hobos and homeless people who are already on the fringe are better prepared than most. Simple, cheap, basic is the way to go. No pre-fab solutions is the way to go, too.

 

Ukraine has the Means, Motive, and Opportunity to Suck the US into War with Russia

 It's really dumb that the United States is supplying weapons to Ukraine. Russia put up with it for a while, but finally just said they will strike western targets if Russia is attacked by American supplied weapons.

The Ukrainians would like to expand the war so they can keep their eastern counties. That'd be a good way to do it. Imagine going to war over the loss of Geauga County, Trumbull and Ashtabula county to Canada and destroying billions upon billions of dollars to do it. It's so dumb, on all sides, it's hard to even grasp why it's happening.

The Owl of Minerva

The US "won" WW2, then the cold war which gave the government and corporations several decades to grow without challenge, which is demonstrated by the level of debt in the country--the debt to GDP ratio was about 30% in 1980, but it's over 130% today. This indebtedness is reflected in every level of society from individual households to corporations and institutions like colleges and universities.

At the same time, the US shifted jobs and production overseas, and individuals outsourced more and more basic life skills. These strategies, by the way, are very similar to going into debt. It's essentially extracting as much wealth as possible in the present. When credit is "free" it makes sense to live like that. There's no point in saving at 0%, really. In fact the "crisis after crisis" scenario is inevitable when credit is "free". It allows for more and more spending and elaborate schemes where the "elite" mafiosi can extract as much wealth as possible in the present.

The problem with this scenario is there are limited resources. It's not possible to live like kings, and undertake every possible plan, like building "green energy" infrastructure, plus put 35% of kids through school to get PhDs in every field, plus have welfare programs, a giant military, etc...

I think what's happening right now is the top of the pyramid is trying to prioritize resources, but within the framework of unlimited credit and endless money. The woman I wrote about in prior posts with $250k in student loan debt is the poster child of this moment. She is currently in a PhD program, by the way, which is hilarious. She'll be able to dig her hole deeper and get more worthless credentials, but she'll never be able to buy a house or own a car. There will be unlimited credits for buying corporate produced bug paste, or for more vaccines, but hardly anyone will be able to buy a car.

The "elites" will keep partying as hard as ever, own mansions, yachts and helicopters and will throw truckloads of money at artwork and whores, and will push their pet projects forward. It's just the USSR over again. They imagine they can keep extracting wealth from a pyramid of slave serfs with no middle class. Good luck with that, scumbags!

This scheme will not "work" for long, if at all. I wrote about this in several posts. The elites are under the delusion that they are the innovators--like Al Gore "invented the Internet"--they are parasites and con men. I am not sure why anyone believes any of those people or their lackeys on any subject anymore. It's infantile. When the system kills the incentive to work, the system will die. There won't be robots to take over or third world slaves to do the work anymore.

I think the people who make it through the next 20 years or so will be in a completely different world than today, and it will be more 19th century than sci-fi new Atlantis.

The Soviet Underground Economy

 I've been reading up on the underground economy in the USSR. I think we'll have a growing and thriving shadow economy in the USA in the future--in fact, I think it's going to be the next "big thing". The mainstream economy is full of debt and regulation and traps. That woman I wrote about who has $250k in student loan debt is a great example (if that story is true and is not propaganda).

There's really not much info out there on the subject. Here's one fairly short paper: The Russian Underground Economy in Transition. That paper is an example of the literature. I don't think it's necessary to do an extensive survey because the scenario corresponds to stereotypical descriptions of a black market economy. Communism was a dysfunctional system, so "black market" entrepreneurs jumped in to fill the gaps. Eventually the government tried to liberalize the economy to incorporate the shadow economy (and tax it), but it didn't really work out.

Their experience is probably a good indication of what will happen in the years ahead. As western governments turn more soviet and attempt to control every aspect of life, the system will just crumble and people will shift their energy into shadow economy activities. The mainstream system will be a husk in just a handful of years.

The EU and USA are the USSR

A few days ago I read an article about a woman who has $250,000 of student loan debt; $100k of that is interest and penalties. I think her scenario epitomizes the condition of the western world.

Money took over for common sense and skill quite a while ago and it rotted the whole framework of "the system" out maybe decades ago. People are foolish from top to bottom, from Presidents and Prime Ministers and their advisors down to poor suckers like that in debt lady. The people in power have no idea what they are doing, except when it comes to lining their pockets and making sure they get paid. They are a carbon copy of that woman. When the politicians and corporations and think tanks need money for their stupid plans and schemes it's always there... but they have no way to pay the bills.

There's whole departments in colleges and universities that are there to harvest the life energy of people like that lady who is in such massive debt. They provide no answers to life's problems for their students, so what chance is there that something like a sociology department and its collective "brain power" can solve the problems of poor people? I think a big fat zero. In spite of that, they always have money to teach people useless skills.

The difference between the common person and the people in charge is those in charge know how to harvest the masses--fleece them or slaughter them. They've got no good plan, no extraordinary talent or foresight, but they are able to con the people really well.

This whole mess is possible, by the way, because the USA "won" the cold war. The US and EU countries were able to keep their giant, bloated WW2 era bureaucracies and government programs. They are the former USSR. Now it's all collapsing and will soon be a total free-for-all.

The people in power are trying to save themselves, and they'll sacrifice everyone else to do it. How long will the common people play along?