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US and European flags float in front of the European Commission headquarters in Brussels 22 February 2005 - Sputnik International, 1920, 18.01.2024

Emmanuel Todd, historian, demographer, anthropologist, sociologist and political analyst, is part of a dying breed: one of the very few remaining exponents of old school French intelligentzia – a heir to those like Braudel, Sartre, Deleuze and Foucault who dazzled successive young Cold War generations from the West down to the East.

The first nugget concerning his latest book, La Défaite de L’Occident (“The Defeat of the West”) is the minor miracle of actually being published last week in France, right within the NATO sphere: a hand grenade of a book, by an independent thinker, based on facts and verified data, blowing up the whole Russophobia edifice erected around the “aggression” by “Tsar” Putin.

At least some sectors of strictly oligarch-controlled corporate media in France simply could not ignore Todd this time around for several reasons. Most of all because he was the first Western intellectual, already in 1976, to have predicted the fall of the USSR in his book La Chute Finale, with his research based on Soviet infant mortality rates.

Another key reason was his 2002 book Apres L’Empire, a sort of preview of the Empire’s Decline and Fall published a few months before Shock & Awe in Iraq.

Now Todd, in what he has defined as his last book (“I closed the circle”) allows himself to go for broke and meticulously depict the defeat not only of the US but of the West as a whole – with his research focusing in and around the war in Ukraine.

Considering the toxic NATOstan environment where Russophobia and cancel culture reign supreme, and every deviation is punishable, Todd has been very careful not to frame the current process as a Russian victory in Ukraine…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Eagle Ford Shale–A Preview of Permian Decline

January 18, 2024

Eagle Ford Shale–A Preview of Permian Decline

The Eagle Ford Shale was the hottest play in the United States a little more than a decade ago. In mid-2012, there were twice as many rigs drilling horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford as there were in the Permian basin.

U.S. Shale Plays — Figure 1. Map showing U.S. shale plays. Source: EIA.

Now its decline is probably a preview of what to expect from the Permian basin a few years from now.

The Eagle Ford still produces more than a million barrels of oil (mmb/d) and 5 billion cubic feet of gas per day so that’s the first thing to expect about the future Permian. Plays don’t crash and burn but follow an undulating path downward over years or decades.

Eagle Ford production climbed steeply after 2010 and peaked at 1.6 mmb/d in September 2015 (Figure 2). Much of its decline over the years that followed were because of low oil prices. Although output increased again in 2018 and 2019, it never reached its 2015 level. The Pandemic in early 2020 resulted in a second period of decline and recovery. Production has fallen about 6% since August 2020.

Many people think that advances in technology and ingenuity will somehow reverse the inevitable decline of shale plays like the Eagle Ford. Indeed, those factors have made some difference. The estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) for the average well increased through 2021 despite falling field production levels (Figure 3). That was mostly because operators drilled longer laterals and used more effective fracking methods. The advances were impressive but the technology wasn’t free and well costs increased.

Since then, however, well performance has fallen below levels before 2021. Wells that began production in 2022 will produce about 26% less than 2021 wells and the most recently drilled wells will probably produce more than one-third less oil.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The End of the Colombian Age

January 16, 2024

The End of the Colombian Age

We are witnessing the end of an era in history spanning half a millennium; the end of Western dominance in geopolitics. For those who understand the role of resources and energy in economics, culture and politics, it comes as no surprise that this shift in global power has an awful lot to do with resource depletion in particular, and overshoot in general — not unlike the many major shifts in human history. What we are facing here is something akin to the fall of the Soviet Union, but this time on steroids, and with global consequences affecting every nation on the planet to boot.

We live in truly remarkable times. Most people born into a middle of an era expect things to continue smoothly, with the past being a reliable guide for the future. Those who have the “fortune” to born into the very last decades of an age tend to think similarly, and fail to recognize that they are witnessing something which future historians (if there will be any) will commemorate as an end to a period, and a beginning of a new era. Perhaps its no exaggeration to say, that what we see here is the collapse of modernity in two acts, the first being the fall of the West.

Let me start with Erik Micheals and his fine blog Problems, Predicaments, and Technology, where he has recently shared an interesting story about us, Rationalizing, Storytelling, and Narrative-Generating Apes. He closed with citing historian Joseph Tainter, author of the book The Collapse of Complex Societies, on how civilizations end. Incidentally, I also closed my last article with a definition and description of civilizational decline, so I think this is a good place to pick up the thread.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Will The Texas Power Grid Survive Next Week’s Polar Vortex?

January 10, 2024

Will The Texas Power Grid Survive Next Week’s Polar Vortex?

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center forecasts extreme cold weather “across the heart of the country this weekend and is expected to continue into next week.” We previewed this cold blast in a note titled “Gobsmackingly Bananas”: Weather Models Predict Polar Vortex Invasion Into US.

Whenever cold air spills south from Canada into the Heartland, attention usually shifts to Texas.

Next, power demand forecasts from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the power grid operator for Texas, are analyzed to see if demand forecasts exceed supply. Current forecasts show ERCOT faces the first major test of grid stability for the new year.

And this:

ERCOT has warned its 26 million Texas customers about the upcoming cold blast this weekend into next week. The grid operator assures customers, “Grid conditions are expected to be normal, and ERCOT expects to have sufficient supply to meet demand.”

Energy-focused research firm Criterion Research told clients in a note Wednesday that ERCOT will likely survive the big cold shot:

ERCOT has issued an Operating Condition Notice (OCN) for the upcoming cold weather event forecast from January 15-17, 2024. The OCN is the first of four levels of communication provided by the agency ahead of a possible Emergency Condition – the following three levels would be Energy Emergency Levels 1 through 3.

ERCOT’s current forecast run shows extreme demand conditions starting on Tuesday, January 16, 2024. That includes a projected peak load of 85,587 MW at 7 AM that morning. However, renewable generation from wind and solar are expected to help out as demand pushes to a seasonal record, with early morning wind + solar contribution 14,137 MW.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Iran Warns Against US ‘Adventurism’ After Parking Cruise Missile-Armed Warship In Red Sea

January 10, 2024

Iran Warns Against US ‘Adventurism’ After Parking Cruise Missile-Armed Warship In Red Sea

The Red Sea continues to grow busy with the presence of naval assets, as the West and its allies attempt to keep international shipping lanes open despite the threat of Houthi missiles and drones launched from Yemen. This has lately included nations such as Denmark, Pakistan and Sri Lanka sending military ships to regional waters as well.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while meeting with Arab leaders over the weekend before he arrived in Israel Monday evening said, “These attacks are having a real effect on the prices that people have to pay for food, for medicine, for energy. Ships have to get diverted to other places. Insurance rates go up.”

Maritime and industry analyst Sam Chambers has observed, “Over the weekend, the number of transits through the Suez Canal fell to the lowest since the waterway was blocked by the Ever Given containership in early 2021, according to Inchcape Shipping Services.”

*Iranian warship Alborz, file image, Fars News Agency/AP*

But amid the heavy presence Western coalition military ships, there is now an Iranian frigate parked in the Red Sea after its arrival starting nearly a week ago. “2024 was only a few hours old when Iran dispatched a warship, the frigate Alborz, to the Red Sea,” FP recently noted. “Its arrival was yet more bad news for shipping, already facing a crisis from the Iran-backed Houthi attacks on merchant vessels.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has issued a new statement warning Israel and America against ‘adventurism’ which will expand war in the region:

“Iran issues a stern warning against any US adventurism that could endanger regional peace,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Tuesday in a letter directed to the US and its allies, a week after Iran’s Navy deployed a cruise missile-armed warship in the region.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

US Debt Hits A Record $34.001 Trillion

January 3, 2024

US Debt Hits A Record $34.001 Trillion

The US Treasury has a morbid habit of revealing big, round numbers of debt around major calendar milestones, and the new 2024 year was no different because according to the latest Treasury Daily Statement published after the close today and reflecting the US Treasury’s financial statements as of Dec 29, 2023, total US debt as of the end of the year was – drumroll – just over $34 trillion for the first time ever, or $34,001,493,655,565.48 to be precise.

Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since zerohedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have gone a long way since then.

Some context: US debt increased by…

$1 trillion in the past 3 months
$2 trillion in the past 6 months
$4 trillion in the past 2 years
$11 trillion in the past 4 years

… and so on. You get the exponential picture. At this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…

… but since there is no way to reverse the catastrophic outcome, there is no point in even talking about it. At best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.

And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.

This not only explains where US “growth” has come from, but begs the question just how much debt will be needed when the US falls into an official recession.

Or actually not, because at this point the best anyone can do is polish the brass on the titanic while waiting for the inevitable, captures so vividly by the following endgame chart.

“It’s Disgusting What They’re Doing”: Tucker Carlson Describes Visit With Julian Assange

December 23, 2023

“It’s Disgusting What They’re Doing”: Tucker Carlson Describes Visit With Julian Assange

As Julian Assange approaches his ‘final’ appeal against extradition to the United States, where he faces some 18 counts related to the release of vast troves of damning and embarrassing evidence against the US government, the 52-year-old WikiLeaks founder received a visit from Tucker Carlson to discuss his situation.

Carlson describes Assange as “one of the greatest journalists of our age,” who has “spent his adult life bringing previously concealed facts to the public about what our leaders are doing.”

Perhaps most notably, Assange published internal emails from the Democratic National Committee, revealing among other things that the Hillary Clinton campaign conspired to cheat against rival Bernie Sanders. These leaks, claimed by Democrats to be Russian hacks, were actually internal leaks, according to Carlson.

What’s more, Carlson noted how a fabricated, media-amplified sexual assault charge in Sweden was used against Assange, who spent more than seven years in asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. And when he exposed the CIA’s spying apparatus, former CIA Director Mike Pompeo discussed kidnapping or assassinating him while not being charged with any crime in the US at the time.

Watch below as Carlson lays out the Assange situation…

Subscribers to the Tucker Carlson Network (which of course, everyone should be) can watch the rest of the segment, in which Carlson describes sitting down with Assange for around an hour (no cameras allowed). He also discusses the situation with Assange’s wife, Stella.

Highlights:

“We talked about why he is in prison, and my first question to him was: ‘what do you think this is actually about?’,” to which Assange replied that he “first became famous when WikiLeaks published documents and videos that the US government had kept secret from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were politically embarrassing to the Pentagon…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

What the “Rules Based International Order” Really Means

December 5, 2023

What the “Rules Based International Order” Really Means

This map, from Multipolarista, shows the US-centred Empire bloc of nations (in red) that subscribe to the US-invented Rules Based International Order. The countries in green do not recognize that order, and they continue to support de facto a UN-centred international system governed by international law.

There was a meeting a couple of years ago between the US and China where the two sides — pro-Empire and pro-Multipolarity — each used their own coded language to express what they had been conditioned, very differently, to believe to be in the best interests of world order and security. Clinton Fernandez, an Australian professor and former intelligence officer, recounts the event in his book Sub-Imperial Power:

AT A HIGH-LEVEL SUMMIT between the United States and China in March 2021, the US Secretary of State said he was ‘committed to leading with diplomacy to advance the interests of the United States and to strengthen the rules-based international order’. The director of China’s Foreign Affairs Commission countered by saying that China and the international community upheld ‘the United Nations–centred international system and the international order underpinned by international law, not what is advocated by a small number of countries of the so-called rules-based international order’.

China was essentially saying that the ‘rules-based international order’ was simply a euphemism for the will of the (US) Empire, and that China would fiercely oppose that Empire in favour of an ‘international order’ underpinned by international law (ie governed, at least ostensibly, in the interests of the people, not that of corporate wealth and power, and based on bilateral negotiations between autonomous nations, not the edicts of Empire).

This is perhaps the ultimate expression of the 21st century’s greatest “clash of ideologies”, one that could quite conceivably end in nuclear annihilation…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

David Stockman on Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday Machine

November 22, 2023

David Stockman on Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday Machine

Here’s one that will make your hair stand on end: The US Treasury closed the books on FY 2023, bringing the four-year cumulative deficit to $9.0 trillion!

That’s right. During the last 1,461 days (FY 2020 thru FY 2023), Uncle Sam has generated $6.2 billion of red ink each and every day including weekends, holidays and snow-days. For anyone keeping score at home, that’s $4.2 million of red ink per minute.

For the purpose of perspective, here’s how long it took to generate the first $9 trillion of US government debt: It took all of 43 presidents and 219 years to reach $9 trillion of public debt in July 2007. So the national debt clock has now accelerated to hyper-drive.

Market Value of Public Debt Outstanding, 1940 to July 2007

And, yes, we do mean accelerate. It turns out that when you remove the budgetary Mickey Mouse from the numbers, the federal deficit for FY 2023 clocked in at over $2.0 trillion, or double the comparable level in FY 2022. The reported numbers, of course, do not look quite as alarming, posting at $1.4 trillion last year and $1.7 trillion this year.

But as The Wall Street Journal cogently explained recently, that comparison is very misleading because it includes a $380 billion budgetary shuffle between the two years. It seems that Sleepy Joe’s student debt cancellation got recorded as a cost in September 2022, but then got canceled by the courts in FY 2023, turning it into a giant “savings”!

When the Biden administration announced its plan to forgive federal student debt held by 40 million Americans in September 2022, it logged the long-term cost of the program, $379 billion, on the budget all at once, even though effectively no money was spent on it that year… But in June 2023, the Supreme Court tossed the debt-cancellation program, meaning most of that money wouldn’t actually be spent. Rather than update last year’s deficit numbers, though, the Treasury recorded the changes as a $333 billion spending cut in August 2023.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Leaving Blobtopia

November 17, 2023

Leaving Blobtopia

“The vibe shift being witnessed is nothing more then a managerial class losing the mandate of heaven as they squander the inheritance of empire.” —Jim Sharp

A nation can only take so much corruption, crime, and unreality. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,” said Karl Rove, veteran blobster and advisor to George W. Bush, when he uttered those fateful words. Even political junkies forget the rest of what he said:

And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Old Karl was being too polite, you understand. What he meant to say is: We’re gonna lay trip after trip on you, all of you smart-asses watching the political scene until your over-mis-educated Ivy League brains turn into something that resembles a patty-melt so that you’re lost in a fog of incoherent blabbery, parroting whatever nonsense we proffer as we asset-strip what’s left of Western Civ.

What they call “the cognitive infrastructure” of we-the-people has been twisted, crinkled, folded, looped, and twiddled until it’s nearer a state of criticality than the ten-thousand rusted-out bridges on our county roads. This week, the FCC board voted to adopt new rules to “prevent and eliminate digital discrimination.” Sounds great, huh? Reality check: I do not think that the words mean what you think they mean. They are, rather, an invitation to the rest of the US government — any malicious blob-driven agency — to meddle with the Internet, block content that they don’t like, and conduct mind-fuckery operations to their heart’s delight. Uh-oh, I think they just destroyed the Internet.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Is World War III About to Start? Part I: Drift Toward War

September 27, 2023

Is World War III About to Start? Part I: Drift Toward War

Nuke rattling from both sides over Ukraine.

Read Part 2 of this series here.

It is likely that billions of people around the world view the conflict in Ukraine as a proxy war being waged by the U.S. against Russia. US President Joe Biden has pledged to aid Ukraine’s pursuit of victory “for as long as it takes,” without defining what the end state might be. Russian President Vladimir Putin has interpreted U.S. intentions to mean a fight “to the last Ukrainian.”

Anyone with a discernible pulse is aware of the danger that the conflict could escalate into a conflagration large and destructive enough to morph into World War III. The threshold would likely be crossed once nuclear weapons were unleashed. The military doctrines of all nuclear powers stipulate that such an attack would justify an in-kind response, though without always ruling out the same for lesser provocations of a potentially existential nature.

President Biden has said “the world faces the biggest risk of nuclear Armageddon since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.” The context of Biden’s statement came a month earlier on September 21, 2022, when Putin warned the West he was not bluffing when he said he would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia against what he said was “nuclear blackmail.” Earlier, in an April 21, 2021, speech, Putin said:

We really do not want to burn bridges. But if someone mistakes our good intentions for indifference or weakness and intends to burn or even blow up these bridges, they must know that Russia’s response will be asymmetrical, swift, and tough. Those behind provocations that threaten the core interests of our security will regret what they have done in a way they have not regretted anything for a long time.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Central Asia is the prime battlefield in the New Great Game

August 21, 2023

Central Asia is the prime battlefield in the New Great Game

So long as Russia and China remain the region’s dominant political and economic powers, the Central Asian heartland will remain a US and EU target for threats, bribes, and color revolutions.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Samarkand, Uzbekistan – The historical Heartland – or Central Eurasia – already is, and will continue to be, the prime battlefield in the New Great Game, fought between the United States and the China-Russia strategic partnership.

The original Great Game pitted the British and Russian empires in the late 19^th century, and in fact, never got away: it just metastasized into the US-UK entente versus the USSR, and, subsequently, the US-EU versus Russia.

According to the Mackinder-designed geopolitical game conceptualized by imperial Britain back in 1904, The Heartland is the proverbial “pivot of History,” and its re-energized 21^stcentury historical role is as relevant as in centuries ago: a key driver of emerging multipolarity.

So it’s no wonder all major powers are at work in the Heartland/Central Eurasia: China, Russia, US, EU, India, Iran, Turkiye, and to a lesser extent, Japan. Four out of five Central Asian “stans” are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. And some, like Kazakhstan, may soon become members of BRICS+.

The key direct geopolitical clash for influence across the Heartland pits the US against Russia and China on myriad political, economic, and financial fronts.

The imperial modus operandi privileges – what else – threats and ultimatums. Only four months ago, US emissaries from the State Department, Treasury, and Office of Foreign Affairs Control (OFAC) toured the Heartland bearing a whole package of “gifts,” as in blatant or thinly disguised threats. The key message: if you “help” or even trade with Russia in any way, you will be slapped with secondary sanctions.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Summer of the Hawks

August 20, 2023

SUMMER OF THE HAWKS

Wishful thinking is still the rule among Biden’s foreign policy team, as the slaughter in Ukraine continues

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the Oval Office at the White House on June 22. / Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

It’s been weeks since we looked into the adventures of the Biden administration’s foreign policy cluster, led by Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland. How has the trio of war hawks spent the summer?

Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently brought an American delegation to the second international peace summit earlier this month at Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The summit was led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, who in June announced a merger between his state-backed golf tour and the PGA. Four years earlier MBS was accused of ordering the assassination and dismemberment of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, for perceived disloyalty to the state.

As unlikely as it sounds, there was such a peace summit and its stars did include MBS, Sullivan, and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. What was missing was a representative of Russia, which was not invited to the summit. It included just a handful of heads of state from the fewer than fifty nations that sent delegates. The conference lasted two days, and attracted what could only be described as little international attention.

Reuters reported that Zelensky’s goal was to get international support for “the principles” that that he will consider as a basis for the settlement of the war, including “the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory.” Russia’s formal response to the non-event came not from President Vladimir Putin but from Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov. He called the summit “a reflection of the West’s attempt to continue futile, doomed efforts” to mobilize the Global South behind Zelensky.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Brace Yourselves, Because What They Have Planned Is Going To Absolutely Devastate The U.S. Economy

August 20, 2023

Brace Yourselves, Because What They Have Planned Is Going To Absolutely Devastate The U.S. Economy

Do you remember what happened in 2008? Many people believe that another historic financial disaster is coming and that it will absolutely devastate the U.S. economy. Earlier this week, I wrote about an investor named Michael Burry that has actually bet 1.6 billion dollars that the stock market is going to crash. He made all the right moves in 2008, and he fully intends to be proven right once again in 2023. Of course current conditions definitely resemble 2008 in so many ways. The residential housing market is so dead right now, and commercial real estate prices are plummeting at a very frightening pace. Unfortunately, officials at the Federal Reserve are making it quite clear that they are not done strangling the economy.

This week, mortgage rates jumped above the 7 percent mark to the highest level that we have seen in more than 20 years…

Mortgage rates surpassed 7% this week, hitting the highest level in more than two decades.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage increased to 7.09% this week, up from 6.96% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac’s release on Thursday. That’s the highest point since the first week of April 2002 and marks just the third time rates have exceeded 7% since then. The last times were in October and November of last year, when the rate reached 7.08%.

Needless to say, high mortgage rates have been crippling the housing market in recent months.

At the midpoint of this year, existing home sales were down a whopping 18.9 percent from the same time in 2022…

Total existing-home sales1 – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – receded 3.3% from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.16 million in June. Year-over-year, sales fell 18.9% (down from 5.13 million in June 2022).

…click on the above link to read the rest…

3,000 US Troops Enter Gulf Region In Latest Escalation With Iran

August 7, 2023

3,000 US Troops Enter Gulf Region In Latest Escalation With Iran

Two American warships with over 3,000 newly deployed US military personnel between them have entered the Red Sea, new statements confirm Monday, as part of the Pentagon’s efforts to thwart Iranian seizures of international vessels in regional waters.

The US Fifth Fleet announced Monday the ships have transited the Suez Canal with the fresh deployment of sailors and Marines. The Bahrain-based command said the USS Bataan and USS Carter Hall warships provide “greater flexibility and maritime capability” in ensuring the safety of global shipping in the Gulf and Mideast area of operations.

The statement further said the new troops and warships will seek to “deter destabilizing activity and de-escalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels.” Both US warships are amphibious assault-style vessels with rapid deployment capabilities of both Marines and helicopters, and other assets.

It comes after the Pentagon has tallied that over 20 internationally-flagged tankers have been either seized or harassed by Iran’s military over the last two years, particularly in the vital Strait of Hormuz.

Last week the Pentagon announced an unconventional and controversial plan to “deploy a security guard composed of Marines on board commercial tankers passing through and near the Strait of Hormuz, to form an additional layer of defense for these ships,” according to Fifth Fleet spokesman Tim Hawkins.

But there are legal questions and hurdles to such a proposal, still reportedly being mulled – given the US Marines would be dealing with various foreign vessels, and presumably some would not give permission for them to board. It further remains unclear whether the Marines would only provide security details on US-flagged tankers, or among other close Western allies such as British-flagged vessels.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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