Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is the Coming Man in China. He'll shortly be the next Supremo. The world is at his feet. With a massive delegation of nearly 200 he visits Europe. And the only country he calls on, and incredibly, stays the best part of four days, is tiny insignificant Ireland, anchored in the howling Atlantic off the north-west coast of the Continent.
What's going on here?
Now we can safely put aside all the usual shite about long-standing links and mutual respect and extraordinary strong trade links between the two peoples, and other such cliches and bromides. He didn't come here to see the Cliffs of Moher or see a hurling match in Croke Park or even to sign trade deals. Strong and all as the trade is between the two countries, our tiny 3.5 million people get dwarfed by numerous other European giants such as Germany, France or the UK.
Yet he didn't go near them?
I don't know what's behind it.
Anyone any ideas?
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Friday, 27 January 2012
Load. Aim. Fire at foot
The madness of the US getting involved in a fight with Iran seems boundless. Quite apart from a shooting war and all that that entails in terms of blood and treasure (cf. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) the less direct economic costs can also be vast. If one 
country tries to force sanctions on another it needs to be in a very strong economic position. The US had been in that position for almost the last century but is now rapidly losing it.
When this happens the countries that don’t support the sanctions, or who see an advantage in avoiding them, will do just that. When that happens the country initiating the sanctions loses out on a whole range of commercial opportunities. Often for a very long time.
This is what’s happening now. The unilateral and imperious imposition of sanctions has lead to an outbreak of new arrangements among powerful countries which will benefit Iran and have catastrophic impact on the US. The most significant in my view is the move by China to buy oil from the UAE using the renmimbi. The Gulf Arabs have broken rankes on the dollar. This on top of Chinese agreements with Russia, Japan and Iran to conduct their trade in their own currencies. Now India is apparently using gold to buy oil from Iran. Stuff the boycott. The US is powerless to do anything about it.
This is earth-shattering news for Americans – or should be. But you’d never guess it from its meagre coverage in the MSM. What it means is that the undermining of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will undergo a step-change increase. And once such a retreat begins it can quickly become a rout. Impact on American standard of living? Catastrophic.
Yet the American establishment continues on its merry way, 100-0 votes in the Senate, cruising to disaster, oblivious. For what?
country tries to force sanctions on another it needs to be in a very strong economic position. The US had been in that position for almost the last century but is now rapidly losing it.When this happens the countries that don’t support the sanctions, or who see an advantage in avoiding them, will do just that. When that happens the country initiating the sanctions loses out on a whole range of commercial opportunities. Often for a very long time.
This is what’s happening now. The unilateral and imperious imposition of sanctions has lead to an outbreak of new arrangements among powerful countries which will benefit Iran and have catastrophic impact on the US. The most significant in my view is the move by China to buy oil from the UAE using the renmimbi. The Gulf Arabs have broken rankes on the dollar. This on top of Chinese agreements with Russia, Japan and Iran to conduct their trade in their own currencies. Now India is apparently using gold to buy oil from Iran. Stuff the boycott. The US is powerless to do anything about it.
This is earth-shattering news for Americans – or should be. But you’d never guess it from its meagre coverage in the MSM. What it means is that the undermining of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will undergo a step-change increase. And once such a retreat begins it can quickly become a rout. Impact on American standard of living? Catastrophic.
Yet the American establishment continues on its merry way, 100-0 votes in the Senate, cruising to disaster, oblivious. For what?
Friday, 19 February 2010
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
China and blacks in the MSM
Are you interested in the films I watch? Of course not. But bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this. While sick in bed for a few days in Sweden recently I spent some time watching the only English-language film channel available in my apartment. I watched five, and I’ll describe four of them.
First, ‘A dry white season’. This was about the struggle for ‘freedom’ in South Africa and was the usual cut-and-paste story line and cutout characters. All whites (apart from one) being vile racists, all blacks noble, honourable and decent. Even the one who shoots dead a policeman outside his home. To give this the right perspective, we were treated to a montage of scenes from ‘the legacy of apartheid’ before he was gunned down.
Then there was ‘Rosewood’. This again featured exclusively vile Southern whites and exclusively noble, honest, hard-working put-upon blacks. Without exception.
Ok, move on to what looked to be a very promising concept. ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ had as its theme the rape and murder of a young American girl by a foreigner, who escaped back to his homeland luxurious lifestyle because he was covered by the eponymous diplomatic immunity. Cue for the outraged father of the victim to take things into his own hands.
But the producers were faced with a problem. The rapist/murderer had of necessity to be white, but problem was, those pesky white countries have this annoying habit of putting such people on trial back home, diplomatic immunity or no, or in surrendering immunity.
What’s a peecee multiculti director to do? Eureka! Paraguay! Kill about three birds with the one stone. Not just white, but (roll on the bass drum) Germans! Nazis. They came to Paraguay and siezed power. When our hero gets there he wipes out every single, blonde, cold-eyed killer. And goes back to report, informally to his kind, understanding Commanding Officer – who is, you’ve guessed it, black.
I was getting fed up at this stage when I came to my last one. Girl being raped by evil whites. Only to be rescued by - wait for it – a black gang! Which is about as realistic as Darth Vader togging out in midfield for Scunthorpe United. Seeking something more realistic I turned to ‘Lord of the rings’…
My point, in case you’re slow on the uptake, is that blacks are uniformly portrayed in the MSM and ‘Hollywood’ in a way that’s totally at variance with reality. But we know that, sez you, you’ve repeatedly posted about it.
Yes, and that brings me to China. As I posted in ‘China taking over Africa, now watch the fun’ the Chinese are amongst the worst racists in the world. They’ll tell you openly and without embarrassment that the whiter the skin the better. And they’re going to be seeing a lot more of their non-white brethren in the future. And, if what’s happening in China itself is anything to go by, the future will fulfil the old Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’.
Here are some excerpts from my ‘research’
“People in China think most black people play basketball and are violent. Many people in China also assume that if you are black, you have very little money’
‘One city resident told the Shanghai Star that "crime is so low in Shanghai because there are no black people."’
“If a Chinese woman dates a white man it is social climbing. If she is with a black man, it is 'stepping down'.
“Although individual black athletes and entertainers are respected and idolized, a “generic” black person is often perceived by Chinese, even well-educated ones, to be dangerous or ignorant.”
“When I asked my Chinese teacher and several friends what they think of black people, almost all of them say the same thing, "They're scary, they smell, they're loud"
“One Chinese journalist told me that she believes black men have an abnormally high sex drive. Her friends believe that one can get AIDS from sleeping with black men.”
“A middle aged Chinese driver "Black people are poor and the men are usually really big and intimidating looking. Sometimes they don't pay."’
“The impression mostly gained from west media is that many blacks are violent, less-educated and lazy. Thanks to a steady diet of Hollywood movies.”
“Unfavourable portrayals of dark-skinned characters in movies is also widely cited as unhelpful.”
Now I draw your attention in particular to the last two comments, neither of which came from Chinese, rather from Western observers. Isn’t it incredible that people can still say things like that? Now if they said that the portrayals of dark-skinned characters in movies is totally at variance with reality we could all agree. Although for contradictory reasons obviously.
The interesting thing though is that, despite the MSM and Hollywood, they’ve managed to get an excellent steer on the realities, haven't they?.
First, ‘A dry white season’. This was about the struggle for ‘freedom’ in South Africa and was the usual cut-and-paste story line and cutout characters. All whites (apart from one) being vile racists, all blacks noble, honourable and decent. Even the one who shoots dead a policeman outside his home. To give this the right perspective, we were treated to a montage of scenes from ‘the legacy of apartheid’ before he was gunned down.
Then there was ‘Rosewood’. This again featured exclusively vile Southern whites and exclusively noble, honest, hard-working put-upon blacks. Without exception.
Ok, move on to what looked to be a very promising concept. ‘Diplomatic Immunity’ had as its theme the rape and murder of a young American girl by a foreigner, who escaped back to his homeland luxurious lifestyle because he was covered by the eponymous diplomatic immunity. Cue for the outraged father of the victim to take things into his own hands.
But the producers were faced with a problem. The rapist/murderer had of necessity to be white, but problem was, those pesky white countries have this annoying habit of putting such people on trial back home, diplomatic immunity or no, or in surrendering immunity.
What’s a peecee multiculti director to do? Eureka! Paraguay! Kill about three birds with the one stone. Not just white, but (roll on the bass drum) Germans! Nazis. They came to Paraguay and siezed power. When our hero gets there he wipes out every single, blonde, cold-eyed killer. And goes back to report, informally to his kind, understanding Commanding Officer – who is, you’ve guessed it, black.
I was getting fed up at this stage when I came to my last one. Girl being raped by evil whites. Only to be rescued by - wait for it – a black gang! Which is about as realistic as Darth Vader togging out in midfield for Scunthorpe United. Seeking something more realistic I turned to ‘Lord of the rings’…
My point, in case you’re slow on the uptake, is that blacks are uniformly portrayed in the MSM and ‘Hollywood’ in a way that’s totally at variance with reality. But we know that, sez you, you’ve repeatedly posted about it.
Yes, and that brings me to China. As I posted in ‘China taking over Africa, now watch the fun’ the Chinese are amongst the worst racists in the world. They’ll tell you openly and without embarrassment that the whiter the skin the better. And they’re going to be seeing a lot more of their non-white brethren in the future. And, if what’s happening in China itself is anything to go by, the future will fulfil the old Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’.
Here are some excerpts from my ‘research’
“People in China think most black people play basketball and are violent. Many people in China also assume that if you are black, you have very little money’
‘One city resident told the Shanghai Star that "crime is so low in Shanghai because there are no black people."’
“If a Chinese woman dates a white man it is social climbing. If she is with a black man, it is 'stepping down'.
“Although individual black athletes and entertainers are respected and idolized, a “generic” black person is often perceived by Chinese, even well-educated ones, to be dangerous or ignorant.”
“When I asked my Chinese teacher and several friends what they think of black people, almost all of them say the same thing, "They're scary, they smell, they're loud"
“One Chinese journalist told me that she believes black men have an abnormally high sex drive. Her friends believe that one can get AIDS from sleeping with black men.”
“A middle aged Chinese driver "Black people are poor and the men are usually really big and intimidating looking. Sometimes they don't pay."’
“The impression mostly gained from west media is that many blacks are violent, less-educated and lazy. Thanks to a steady diet of Hollywood movies.”
“Unfavourable portrayals of dark-skinned characters in movies is also widely cited as unhelpful.”
Now I draw your attention in particular to the last two comments, neither of which came from Chinese, rather from Western observers. Isn’t it incredible that people can still say things like that? Now if they said that the portrayals of dark-skinned characters in movies is totally at variance with reality we could all agree. Although for contradictory reasons obviously.
The interesting thing though is that, despite the MSM and Hollywood, they’ve managed to get an excellent steer on the realities, haven't they?.
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Chinese taking over Africa; Now watch the fun
On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring new method to `tame´ and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent:
`My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,´
'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, thieving savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.´
Francis Galton, letter to the Editor of The Times, June 5 1873
Well, it’s happening. Big time. Check this over at the South Africa Sucks blog. I can assure our African friends of this: after a few years with the Chinese on top, they’ll be begging for whitey to come back and take over again. I watch this space with a certain grim satisfaction.
`My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,´
'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, thieving savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.´
Francis Galton, letter to the Editor of The Times, June 5 1873
Well, it’s happening. Big time. Check this over at the South Africa Sucks blog. I can assure our African friends of this: after a few years with the Chinese on top, they’ll be begging for whitey to come back and take over again. I watch this space with a certain grim satisfaction.
Friday, 11 April 2008
PC/CP update
Further support for the previous post on PC totalitarianism has just arrived from South Africa. David Bullard, a regular contributor to the Sunday Times in Soutrh Africa and a keen enthusiast for the Rainbow Nation before reality smacked him over the head has been fired for a ‘racist’ (there we go again) column.
Editor Mondli Makhanya. (a Black Empowerment nobody parachuted in to the top post at the paper) said the column was "not in accordance with the character and values of the Sunday Times. It's not about censorship [good God, of course not! Perish the thought!], but about the fact that the column was not in accordance with the values to which our country and its constitution adhere"
Here’s what the column said:
Bullard's column, titled "Uncolonised Africa wouldn't know what it was missing" describes what South Africa would have looked like had the "evil white man" not come "to disturb the rustic idyll of the earl
y black settlers".
He wrote: "There are no roads because no roads are needed because there are no cars. It's 2008 and no one has taken the slightest interest in South Africa, apart from a handful of botanists and zoologists who reckon that the country's flora and fauna rank as one of the largest unspoilt areas in a polluted world.
Bullard describes how, never having been exposed to "the sinful ways of the West", the various tribes of South Africa live healthy and peaceful lives, "only occasionally indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing".
"They live in single-storey huts arranged to catch most of the day's sunshine and their animals are kept nearby.
"The dreaded internet doesn't exist in South Africa and cellphone companies have laughed off any hope of interesting the inhabitants in talking expensively into a piece of black plastic.
"There are no unsightly shopping malls selling expensive goods made by Asian slave workers and consequently there are no newspapers or magazines carrying articles comparing the relative merits of ladies' handbags.
Bullard writes: "Life is, on the whole, pretty good, but there is something vital missing. Fire has been discovered and the development of the wheel is coming on nicely, but the tribal elders are still aware of some essential happiness ingredient they still need to discover.
"Then something happens that will change this undisturbed South Africa forever. "Huge metal ships land on the coast and big metal flying birds are sent to explore the sparsely populated hinterland.
"They are full of men from a place called China and they are looking for coal, metal, oil, platinum, farmland, fresh water and cheap labour and lots of it. Suddenly, the indigenous population realise what they have been missing all along: someone to blame. "At last their prayers have been answered," the column ends.
And for this he was fired.
Anyone still doubt that PC is CP (Communist Party) in a fetching shade of black?
Editor Mondli Makhanya. (a Black Empowerment nobody parachuted in to the top post at the paper) said the column was "not in accordance with the character and values of the Sunday Times. It's not about censorship [good God, of course not! Perish the thought!], but about the fact that the column was not in accordance with the values to which our country and its constitution adhere"
Here’s what the column said:
Bullard's column, titled "Uncolonised Africa wouldn't know what it was missing" describes what South Africa would have looked like had the "evil white man" not come "to disturb the rustic idyll of the earl
y black settlers".He wrote: "There are no roads because no roads are needed because there are no cars. It's 2008 and no one has taken the slightest interest in South Africa, apart from a handful of botanists and zoologists who reckon that the country's flora and fauna rank as one of the largest unspoilt areas in a polluted world.
Bullard describes how, never having been exposed to "the sinful ways of the West", the various tribes of South Africa live healthy and peaceful lives, "only occasionally indulging in a bit of ethnic cleansing".
"They live in single-storey huts arranged to catch most of the day's sunshine and their animals are kept nearby.
"The dreaded internet doesn't exist in South Africa and cellphone companies have laughed off any hope of interesting the inhabitants in talking expensively into a piece of black plastic.
"There are no unsightly shopping malls selling expensive goods made by Asian slave workers and consequently there are no newspapers or magazines carrying articles comparing the relative merits of ladies' handbags.
Bullard writes: "Life is, on the whole, pretty good, but there is something vital missing. Fire has been discovered and the development of the wheel is coming on nicely, but the tribal elders are still aware of some essential happiness ingredient they still need to discover.
"Then something happens that will change this undisturbed South Africa forever. "Huge metal ships land on the coast and big metal flying birds are sent to explore the sparsely populated hinterland.
"They are full of men from a place called China and they are looking for coal, metal, oil, platinum, farmland, fresh water and cheap labour and lots of it. Suddenly, the indigenous population realise what they have been missing all along: someone to blame. "At last their prayers have been answered," the column ends.
And for this he was fired.
Anyone still doubt that PC is CP (Communist Party) in a fetching shade of black?
Tuesday, 8 April 2008
China controls US military capacity
In Napoleon’s famous dictum, ‘an army marches on its stomach’. Maybe, but it keeps marching on its bank balance. Britain would have had to surrender in 1939 had not the US provided the finance for it to continue in the war. A country can fight only to the duration of its economic capabilities.
Poor countries like Russia and Vietnam may have been able to outlast far richer enemies in Germany and the US, but only because their objectives were limited. Namely, making the cost of sustaining the invasion of their lands too high for the invaders. But a foreign war, beloved of the neocons in the US, requires vast financial resources.
The US not only does not have these resources, it's choking in debt. The capacity of the US to wage war is now entirely dependent on the Chinese, and to a lesser extent the Sovereign Funds of the oil-rich Arab states. It’s really shockingly simple.
The Chinese have the ultimate weapon in the trillions of US dollar-denominated reserves they hold. If they were to flood the markets with these, the value of the dollar would collapse. The capacity of the US to then buy oil would be drastically curtailed, and with it the running of its industries, airlines and much of its infrastructure. Add to this the fact that, due to globalization and the avarice of US corporations, there has been a catastrophic reduction in US manufacturing capabilities, especially of the high-tech variety. Most of this is imported at present, but a collapsed dollar would make this prohibitively expensive.
Sure, were China to do this it would cause them considerable damage as well, not least in that their main market would be blitzed, and their reserves would show a corresponding diminution in value. But this brings me to a wise aphorism attributed to Vietnam’s General Giap: ‘victory comes, not to whoever can inflict the most pain, but to whoever can endure the most’.
No US politician presiding over such a rapid and catastrophic collapse in living standards would survive long, irrespective of how much the media would beat the war drums ( as they did with the Iraq adventure). Correspondingly, the Chinese are well used to suffering, have a command economy/society, and haven't that much to lose compared to Americans.
This is not so say that China, still less the Arabs, would take such a measure lightly. However, it would far less painful than a military conflict, especially between nuclear powers. Nonetheless, the fact remains that China has the capacity to strangle American military might. Or just like the US does today, it can quietly exert and ramp up pressure by reducing its uptake of US debt, and/or selling an increasing amount of their dollar-denominated assets.
This is the legace of the Bush regime - the castration of American power. Yet it hardly merits a mention in the MSM..
Poor countries like Russia and Vietnam may have been able to outlast far richer enemies in Germany and the US, but only because their objectives were limited. Namely, making the cost of sustaining the invasion of their lands too high for the invaders. But a foreign war, beloved of the neocons in the US, requires vast financial resources.
The US not only does not have these resources, it's choking in debt. The capacity of the US to wage war is now entirely dependent on the Chinese, and to a lesser extent the Sovereign Funds of the oil-rich Arab states. It’s really shockingly simple.
The Chinese have the ultimate weapon in the trillions of US dollar-denominated reserves they hold. If they were to flood the markets with these, the value of the dollar would collapse. The capacity of the US to then buy oil would be drastically curtailed, and with it the running of its industries, airlines and much of its infrastructure. Add to this the fact that, due to globalization and the avarice of US corporations, there has been a catastrophic reduction in US manufacturing capabilities, especially of the high-tech variety. Most of this is imported at present, but a collapsed dollar would make this prohibitively expensive.
Sure, were China to do this it would cause them considerable damage as well, not least in that their main market would be blitzed, and their reserves would show a corresponding diminution in value. But this brings me to a wise aphorism attributed to Vietnam’s General Giap: ‘victory comes, not to whoever can inflict the most pain, but to whoever can endure the most’.
No US politician presiding over such a rapid and catastrophic collapse in living standards would survive long, irrespective of how much the media would beat the war drums ( as they did with the Iraq adventure). Correspondingly, the Chinese are well used to suffering, have a command economy/society, and haven't that much to lose compared to Americans.
This is not so say that China, still less the Arabs, would take such a measure lightly. However, it would far less painful than a military conflict, especially between nuclear powers. Nonetheless, the fact remains that China has the capacity to strangle American military might. Or just like the US does today, it can quietly exert and ramp up pressure by reducing its uptake of US debt, and/or selling an increasing amount of their dollar-denominated assets.
This is the legace of the Bush regime - the castration of American power. Yet it hardly merits a mention in the MSM..
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Peak Oil: Are we all fucked?
Yes.
The great HL Mencken once said that for even the most complex, intractable problem an answer could be found that was simple, clear – and wrong. Unfortunately, in this instance the simple answer to the complex problem is right. We are all truly fucked.
Your Savant has deployed his laser-like intellect to studying the problem for some time now. While the concept of ‘peak oil’, (or Hubbert’s Peak, after Dr. Marion Hubbert who predicted it in the 1950s with stunning accuracy) was derided in some quarters, it is now accepted by virtually every responsible source.
We have passed the world’s production high point, which occurred in the middle of last year, when pro
duction was over 86 m/b/d. Since then it’s fallen to 84 m/b/d, while demand continues to increase sharply (mainly from India and China).
Think that’s serious? It is – but we’ve only scratched the surface.
Here are a few more facts to chill the spine:
World-wide discovery of oil peaked about 1968 and new discoveries – despite the hoopla you’ll see in the MSM – barely register in comparison to the rates of depletion. And not only is the amount of available oil in decline, so is the quality. This is important as lower quality oil calls for more expensive (and energy-using) processing and leads to less end product.
Consider this: Most of us today think the famous/infamous Seven Sisters (now down to four because of mergers) control the industry. But the giants of Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP control far less than 10% of the world’s production. Who are the new owners? Our good friends are governments in such pillars of democracy as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. Sure they’ll look after us when things get tough. I'd say.
Another factor is that such producers, as their populations grow and as they get fat from oil revenues, are exporting far less, both in proportional and absolute terms. They’re keeping more and more of it for themselves and will have us all well and truly by the bollocks in short order.
Surely a small shortfall wont make much difference?
Oh, it will. It will. A prolonged shortfall between demand and supply of as little as 10 to 15 percent is enough to consign our ‘advanced’ economies to poverty. Shortfalls in production as small as 5% in the 1970s caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.
Now put this in context: Andrew Gould, CEO of the giant oil services firm Schlumberger recently said:
An accurate average decline rate is hard to estimate, but an overall figure of 8% is not an unreasonable assumption.
Such a decline would cut global oil production by 50% in under nine years. If a 5% cut in production caused prices to triple in the 1970s, what do you think a 50% cut is going to do, especially when demand has been skyrocketing?
Nurse! Change of underwear for that gentleman please.
Ok, so we just travel less
Sorry, travel is the least of it, although, thanks to the activities of such planning luminaries as George Redmond, Liam Lawlor and Ray Burke (‘fine honest gentleman’ according to Bertie Ahearn) we have almost American-like urban sprawl which won't be countered easily, if at all.
One of the biggest problem may, surprisingly, be food. Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the West This is because food production, at every step, fertilizers, insecticides, tractors, food storage (freezing) and transport is hugely dependent on fossil fuels. And don’t forget that hundreds of millions of new gifts from God (as my mother used to describe babies) are being added to the world’s population each year.
But just about everything, plastics, computers, the list is endless, is hugely dependent on oil. If we all stopped driving it wouldn’t stave off disaster.
So is there any hope?
That's a story for another day, but basically, no. Bio fuels, wind farms etc. will only be a drop in the ocean. Nuclear power is an obvious part of the solution but this would take decades to deploy and will in any event meet only part of our requirements. Tar sands and oil shale in theory could produce enough product, but every barrel of oil so extracted could take up to three barrels of water to produce. They are low in energy content and in turn use up lots of energy in the conversion process. And of course that process would have a devastating environmental impact.
If you think we’re being swamped by the Third World now, can you imagine the dystopian nightmare that awaits us around the corner?
Why is the MSM more interested in whether Britney Spears is wearing her knickers than an existential crisis such as this? It's because the great unwashed have similar priorities. Britney's drawers and the next BB reject are what interest today's lobotomised public.
In the meantime I'm buying a gun and going on a survivalist course.
The great HL Mencken once said that for even the most complex, intractable problem an answer could be found that was simple, clear – and wrong. Unfortunately, in this instance the simple answer to the complex problem is right. We are all truly fucked.
Your Savant has deployed his laser-like intellect to studying the problem for some time now. While the concept of ‘peak oil’, (or Hubbert’s Peak, after Dr. Marion Hubbert who predicted it in the 1950s with stunning accuracy) was derided in some quarters, it is now accepted by virtually every responsible source.
We have passed the world’s production high point, which occurred in the middle of last year, when pro
duction was over 86 m/b/d. Since then it’s fallen to 84 m/b/d, while demand continues to increase sharply (mainly from India and China).Think that’s serious? It is – but we’ve only scratched the surface.
Here are a few more facts to chill the spine:
World-wide discovery of oil peaked about 1968 and new discoveries – despite the hoopla you’ll see in the MSM – barely register in comparison to the rates of depletion. And not only is the amount of available oil in decline, so is the quality. This is important as lower quality oil calls for more expensive (and energy-using) processing and leads to less end product.
Consider this: Most of us today think the famous/infamous Seven Sisters (now down to four because of mergers) control the industry. But the giants of Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP control far less than 10% of the world’s production. Who are the new owners? Our good friends are governments in such pillars of democracy as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. Sure they’ll look after us when things get tough. I'd say.
Another factor is that such producers, as their populations grow and as they get fat from oil revenues, are exporting far less, both in proportional and absolute terms. They’re keeping more and more of it for themselves and will have us all well and truly by the bollocks in short order.
Surely a small shortfall wont make much difference?
Oh, it will. It will. A prolonged shortfall between demand and supply of as little as 10 to 15 percent is enough to consign our ‘advanced’ economies to poverty. Shortfalls in production as small as 5% in the 1970s caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.
Now put this in context: Andrew Gould, CEO of the giant oil services firm Schlumberger recently said:
An accurate average decline rate is hard to estimate, but an overall figure of 8% is not an unreasonable assumption.
Such a decline would cut global oil production by 50% in under nine years. If a 5% cut in production caused prices to triple in the 1970s, what do you think a 50% cut is going to do, especially when demand has been skyrocketing?
Nurse! Change of underwear for that gentleman please.
Ok, so we just travel less
Sorry, travel is the least of it, although, thanks to the activities of such planning luminaries as George Redmond, Liam Lawlor and Ray Burke (‘fine honest gentleman’ according to Bertie Ahearn) we have almost American-like urban sprawl which won't be countered easily, if at all.
One of the biggest problem may, surprisingly, be food. Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the West This is because food production, at every step, fertilizers, insecticides, tractors, food storage (freezing) and transport is hugely dependent on fossil fuels. And don’t forget that hundreds of millions of new gifts from God (as my mother used to describe babies) are being added to the world’s population each year.
But just about everything, plastics, computers, the list is endless, is hugely dependent on oil. If we all stopped driving it wouldn’t stave off disaster.
So is there any hope?
That's a story for another day, but basically, no. Bio fuels, wind farms etc. will only be a drop in the ocean. Nuclear power is an obvious part of the solution but this would take decades to deploy and will in any event meet only part of our requirements. Tar sands and oil shale in theory could produce enough product, but every barrel of oil so extracted could take up to three barrels of water to produce. They are low in energy content and in turn use up lots of energy in the conversion process. And of course that process would have a devastating environmental impact.
If you think we’re being swamped by the Third World now, can you imagine the dystopian nightmare that awaits us around the corner?
Why is the MSM more interested in whether Britney Spears is wearing her knickers than an existential crisis such as this? It's because the great unwashed have similar priorities. Britney's drawers and the next BB reject are what interest today's lobotomised public.
In the meantime I'm buying a gun and going on a survivalist course.
Monday, 17 September 2007
China has America by the balls
As my avid readers will know, your Savant has a low opinion of the mainstream media (MSM), who display an uncanny knack for missing the important issues and focusing on the dross. Thus it was to be expected that they largely missed out on one of the most significant occurrences this year.
A few weeks ago senior Chinese Finance Ministry officials announced that if the US didn’t stop pissing them off and threatening them with trade sanctions, they’d dump a large swadge of their dollar reserves on the market. China holds $1 trillion worth of US bonds and bills. Dumping them would bring the dollar crashing down unless the Fed hiked interest rates, which in turn would drive the US economy into deep recession.
Will they do it? Unlikely, as they’d suffer greatly themselves. Could they? Absolutely. And there’s no saying that some less pragmatic leaders might do so in the near future. In any event they’re bound to slow down their purchase of such assets, which pay a relatively low premium. What this means is that the American economy is now utterly dependent on the Chinese, and gets ever more so as the country borrows $15 billion a week to sustain its budget deficits.
America is on the way down, slowly but surely. Swamped by borrowings and drained by military adventures abroad. This then is the legacy of the tough-guy Bush administration, the dream team of chicken hawks who claimed that they were so powerful ‘we create our own reality’.
Hasta la vista, guys!
A few weeks ago senior Chinese Finance Ministry officials announced that if the US didn’t stop pissing them off and threatening them with trade sanctions, they’d dump a large swadge of their dollar reserves on the market. China holds $1 trillion worth of US bonds and bills. Dumping them would bring the dollar crashing down unless the Fed hiked interest rates, which in turn would drive the US economy into deep recession.
Will they do it? Unlikely, as they’d suffer greatly themselves. Could they? Absolutely. And there’s no saying that some less pragmatic leaders might do so in the near future. In any event they’re bound to slow down their purchase of such assets, which pay a relatively low premium. What this means is that the American economy is now utterly dependent on the Chinese, and gets ever more so as the country borrows $15 billion a week to sustain its budget deficits.
America is on the way down, slowly but surely. Swamped by borrowings and drained by military adventures abroad. This then is the legacy of the tough-guy Bush administration, the dream team of chicken hawks who claimed that they were so powerful ‘we create our own reality’.
Hasta la vista, guys!
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