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The European Union (EU) is going down in flames as its fuel taps from Russia run dry.

Issues related to the war in Ukraine have resulted in no more gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 (NS1) pipeline and soon-to-be tripled gas prices across Europe.

To avoid what will inevitably become a widespread catastrophe for the European economy, EU officials are reportedly discussing fuel rationing as the next step in their standoff against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who quite frankly appears to be winning on every front.

Should the NS1 pipeline never get turned back on due to issues with a key engine turbine component that is still stuck in Canada due to sanctions, Western Europe faces a total loss of energy in the coming months.

Up until now, the public was simply hearing about these problems on the news. Now, however, the consequences of failed political leadership are turning into sky-high gas prices and now the potential for forced rationing.

A recent poll found that more than 60 percent of German citizens fear there will not be enough gas to go around this winter, especially since some people will be stocking up and hoarding what they can before prices triple come 2023.

Germans are starting “to sweat” as they realize there will be no gas available for heat this winter

Draft EU measures propose limiting the heating of public and commercial buildings to 19 degrees Celsius, or around 66 degrees Fahrenheit, which is cold enough to require the use of extra layers of clothing indoors.

Private households are also being encouraged to lower their thermostats by one degree, a proposal that was also made back in February right after Russia invaded Ukraine.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

un-Denial Manifesto: Energy and Denial

February 7, 2021

un-Denial Manifesto: Energy and Denial

Winners and Losers

Six years ago this essay launched and defined un-Denial.com. I’m featuring it on the home page to celebrate 500 posts.

This is the story of the two most important things that enabled the success and possible demise of humans: energy and denial.

Simple single cell (prokaryotic) life emerges as a gradual and predictable transition from geochemistry to biochemistry, in the presence of rock, water, CO2, and energy, all of which are found within alkaline hydrothermal vents on geologically active planets, of which there are 40 billion in our galaxy alone, and probably a similar number in each of the other 100 billion galaxies.

Simple life like bacteria and archaea is therefore probably common throughout the universe. Strong evidence for this is that prokaryotes appeared 4 billion years ago, as soon as the earth cooled down enough to support life, and never once winked out despite many calamities throughout geologic history.

LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor), and all life that followed, is chemiosmotic meaning that it powers itself with an unintuitive mechanism that pumps protons across a membrane. This strange proton pump makes sense in the light of its hydrothermal vent origins. For a sense of the scale of life’s energy, consider that the human body pumps a staggering 10**21 protons per second of life.

The transition to, and existence of, complex multicellular life, like plants and animals, is much less predictable and certain. All of the complex life on earth has a common eukaryote ancestor, and it appears this ancestor emerged only once on Earth about 2 billion years ago. This is a vital but rarely acknowledged singularity in biology.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Crazy long food lines across America reveal the total LACK of preparedness that now characterizes our just-in-time society

April 14, 2020

Crazy long food lines across America reveal the total LACK of preparedness that now characterizes our just-in-time society

(Natural News) As the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread across the United States, sickening and killing tens of thousands, other problems are just beginning, including food shortages.

As reported by The Sun, the U.S. now has more recorded COVID deaths than any other country in the world, though there are doubts even among U.S. intelligence agencies that China has been completely transparent and up-front in reporting its true number of cases and deaths.

That said, as the virus spread and governors ordered non-essential businesses closed to help contain the spread, newly out-of-work Americans, by the millions, are already beginning to suffer basic shortages of food.

The news site reports:

The shocking statistics come as the need for emergency food aid has exploded in recent weeks due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Nearly 100 per cent of food banks in the Feeding America network are serving more neighbors in need during the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet nearly 60 per cent are facing reduced inventory levels amidst rising demand,” according to a survey by Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief and food rescue organization.

Meanwhile, organizations are having difficulty replenishing their food stocks and keeping food on hand for the growing numbers of needy, many of whom line up for hours in cities like San Antonio, Texas, and elsewhere waiting for assistance.

The survey noted further that the current number of people needing food assistance has surpassed the 37 million who faced hunger in the country last year.

It added that “since establishing the COVID-19 Response Fund on March 13, Feeding America has distributed $112.4 million and over 94 million pounds to food banks throughout the network, helping provide nearly 79 million meals to neighbors facing hunger.”

If this doesn’t prove to you why aspects of “prepping” are vital, nothing will.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Coronavirus Is A Nightmare For The Global Economy

February 9, 2020

The Coronavirus Is A Nightmare For The Global Economy

Trade is already being crippled. And there’s no relief in sight.

As China has now placed hundreds of millions of its citizens under quarantine, its economy is grinding to a halt.

Workers can’t leave their homes. Factories are idle. Most (if not all) of China’s ports are no longer shipping. International flights are increasingly banned from the country.

When the world’s #2 economy hangs up a big “CLOSED” sign, that’s going to result in a major negative impact on global trade.

As the manufacturing powerhouse to the world, you’ll be challenged to think of ANY industry that won’t experience serious supply chain interruptions and shortages from China’s woes. For instance, did you know China makes the vast majority of our prescription pharmaceuticals?

A MASSIVE hit to the global economy will directly result from the damage the Wuhan coronavirus is currently doing. And it may get worse, a lot worse.

So ignore today’s ridiculous all-time high stock prices. They can’t last in the face of what’s coming.

Surf’s Up!

January 15, 2020

Surf’s Up!

The wave of change is finally here. Are you prepared to ride it?

Nothing seems right anymore.

In whichever direction we choose to look, things are unraveling at a quickening pace.

Welcome to the Fourth Turning; and with it, a profound loss of trust in institutions and government.

Such lack of social cohesion is a hallmark of a Fourth Turning. Sadly, it’s happening at a time when society desperately needs to pull together, set aside our differences, and make some really big decisions.

Dirty Hands Everywhere

For my own part, my loss of trust in what is termed the ‘mainstream media’ (MSM) is nearly complete. Its sins of omission and commission have piled up too high to forgive – the bank of trust I once had in it has lost every penny and is now in deep overdraft.

In my opinion its gravest sin is the willful and deliberate fracturing of society into many disparate warring camps. The MSM has a lot to answer for in that regard.

Similarly guilty is our political system. The core power players are unable to hold each other accountable, revealing that we don’t have two parties after all, but rather a uniparty organized around power and money.

The rules are increasingly re-written to benefit a smaller and smaller group of elites at the expense of everyone else — and that’s now becoming increasingly crystal clear to the 99.9% who are getting screwed. The corrosive effects of that are going to take decades to resolve.

As a result, the social fabric is rending apart. Stress is epidemic with more people than ever reporting being unhappy, unfulfilled, isolated and alone. Suicide is the second leading cause of death. It’s worse than just depression, it’s something far more insidious — it’s demoralization. There’s no hope left any more for too many of us.

A Dying Ecosphere

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Fed is Lying to Us

October 19, 2019

The Fed is Lying to Us

“When it becomes serious, you have to lie”

The recent statements from the Federal Reserve and the other major world central banks (the ECB, BoJ, BoE and PBoC) are alarming because their actions are completely out of alignment with what they’re telling us.

Their words seek to soothe us that “everything’s fine” and the global economy is doing quite well. But their behavior reflects a desperate anxiety.

Put more frankly; we’re being lied to.

Case in point: On October 4, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell publicly claimed the US economy is “in a good place”. Yet somehow, despite the US banking system already having approximately $1.5 trillion in reserves, the Fed is suddenly pumping in an additional $60 billion per month to keep things propped up.

Do drastic, urgent measures like this reflect an economy that’s “in a good place”?

The Fed’s Rescue Was Never Real

Remember, after a full decade of providing “emergency stimulus measures” the US Federal Reserve stopped its quantitative easing program (aka, printing money) a few years back.

Mission Accomplished, it declared. We’ve saved the system.

But that cessation was meaningless. Because the European Central Bank (ECB) stepped right in to take over the Fed’s stimulus baton and started aggressively growing its own balance sheet — keeping the global pool of new money growing.

Let’s look at the data. First, we see here how the Fed indeed stopped growing its balance sheet in 2014:

And we can note other important insights in this chart.

For starters, you can clearly see how in 2008, the Fed printed up more money in just a few weeks than it had in the nearly 100 years of operations prior.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Getting Real About Green Energy: An honest analysis of what it CAN’T promise

October 12, 2019

Getting Real About Green Energy: An honest analysis of what it CAN’T promise

I want to be optimistic about the future. I really do.

But there’s virtually no chance of the world transitioning gently to an alternative energy-powered future.

These Are The ‘Good Old Days’

I’m often asked where I stand on wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.

My answer is: I love them. But they’re incapable of enabling our society to smoothly slip over to powering itself by other means.

They’re not going to “save us”.

Some people are convinced otherwise. If we can just fight off the evil oil companies, get our act together, and install a national alternative energy system infrastructure, we’ll be just fine. Meaning that we”ll be able to continue to live as we do today, but powered fully by clean renewable energy.

That’s just not going to happen. At least, not without a lot of painful disruption and sacrifice.

The top three reasons why are:

Math
Human behavior
Time, scale, & cost

I walk through the detail below. I’m doing so to debunk the magical thinking behind the current “Green Revolution” because I fear it offers a false promise.

Look, I’m a huge fan of renewable energy. And I’m 1,000% in favor of weaning the world off of its toxic addiction to fossil fuels.

But we have to be eyes wide open about our future prospects. Deluding ourselves with “feel good” but unrealistic expectations about green energy will result in the same sort of poor decisions, malinvestment, and crushed dreams as fossil-based system has.

As we constantly repeat here at Peak Prosperity: Energy is everything.

Without as much available, the future is going to be exceptionally difficult compared to the present. Which is why I call the time we’re living in now The Good Old Days.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Bizarro World: The Herd Has Truly Gone MadYou’re not crazy. The world we now live in is

July 6, 2019

Bizarro World: The Herd Has Truly Gone MadYou’re not crazy. The world we now live in is

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
~ Charles Mackay (1841)

Like me, you may often feel gobsmacked when looking at the world around you.

How did things get so screwed up?

The simple summary is: the world has gone mad.

It’s not the first time.

History is peppered with periods when the minds of men (and women) deviated far from the common good. The Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the rise of the Third Reich, Stalin’s Great Purge, McCarthy’s Red Scares — to name just a few.

Like it or not, we are now living during a similar era of self-destructive mass delusion. When the majority is pursuing — even cheering on — behaviors that undermine its well-being. Except this time, the stakes are higher than ever; our species’ very existence is at risk.

Bizarro Economics

Evidence that the economy is sliding into recession continues to mount.

GDP is slowing. Earnings warnings issued by publicly-traded companies are at a 13-year high. The most reliable recession predictor of the past 50 years, an inverted US Treasury curve, has been in place for the past quarter.

Yet the major stock indices hit all-time highs earlier this week. And every one of the 38 assets in the broad-based asset basket tracked by Deutsche Bank was up for the month of June — something that has never happened in the 150 years prior to 2019.

It has become all-too clear that markets today are no longer driven by business fundamentals. Only central bank-provided liquidity matters. As long as the flood of cheap credit continues to flow (via rock-bottom/negative interest rates and purchase programs), keeping cash-destroying companies alive and enabling record share buybacks, all boats will rise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Living With Integrity

April 24, 2019

Living With Integrity

It’s time to choose a new direction.

Every so often, our work in the premium side of PeakProsperity.com is deemed so important that our paying subscribers request we share it with the general public. Last week’s ‘Off The Cuff’ podcast received so many of these requests that we are releasing it to all here.

In last week’s Off The Cuff podcast, Chris delivered a very personal message about how we each decide to live our lives.

A growing number of people are watching the “prosperity” around them — record high asset prices, record-low unemployment, new technologies, etc — and yet feeling that we’re making the wrong trade-offs as a society. All that wealth is flowing into fewer and fewer pockets, ecosystems are faltering and an alarming number of species are dying off, depression rates (especially among the youth) are skyrocketing.

In short: there’s more money flowing around than ever, and yet we and the planet are becoming sicker and unhappier.

Why?

From Chris’ point of view, it comes down integrity. The modern human way of life lacks integrity as a guiding principle. For those of us who desire a better future, brining our actions into better alignment with our integrity is the path to true prosperity.

My ultimate diagnosis of what’s going on in the United States culture and a lot of Europe culture — probably in other cultures, but I can’t speak to them as well – it’s that they lack integrity. Now, integrity isn’t simply “Oh, I don’t lie”. Integrity means that your actions are for the greater good. Sometimes there are acts of integrity which actually are not optimal for you; they’re optimal for the larger society around you.

Integrity is thinking out seven generations. Integrity is saying that beauty matters in our life, and that when we take out a species, we’re taking away something extraordinarily beautiful.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Preppers save for a rainy day: Why financial planning is crucial for surviving an economic downturn

April 3, 2019

Preppers save for a rainy day: Why financial planning is crucial for surviving an economic downturn

(Natural News) As a prepper, one of the first things that you need to learn is the importance of financial preparedness. Don’t wait until an economic collapse before you start settling your debts or saving money. (h/t to TimGamble.com)

The basics of financial preparedness

Personal, business, or government debt is bad. It will stress you out, and it makes you more vulnerable to economic downturns.

To become financially prepared, you must first eliminate consumer debt. This includes credit cards, car loans, payday loans, personal loan, and installment plans.

To clear your debts, you may need to make sacrifices, such as:

Putting off major purchases.
Avoiding impulse purchases (e.g. luxury items, etc).
Bringing your own lunch to school or work.
Having a major yard sale to raise some money.
Starting a second job.

Making these sacrifices may seem hard, but keep in mind that in the end, the benefits will be more than worth it. (Related: 7 obvious warning signs we are heading for an economic meltdown.)

Second, you need to have emergency savings. Start by holding yard sales or getting a second job. Put the money somewhere safe, such as an insured certificate of deposit(CD). A CD is a type of federally insured savings account with a fixed interest rate and fixed date of withdrawal or maturity date. CDs don’t usually have monthly fees and they are different from traditional savings accounts in several ways. Savings accounts let you deposit and withdraw funds rather freely.

However, with a CD you agree to leave your money in the bank for a set amount of time (know as the “term length”). If you do access the money in a CD, you will need to pay a penalty. Term lengths can range from several days to a decade. The standard range of options for CDs is between three months and five years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Real New Deal

March 8, 2019

The Real New Deal

While we’re on the issue of the Green New Deal, here’s an article by Dr. D. with an intro by Dr. D., one he sent me in the mail that contained the actual article, and that I think shouldn’t go to waste. I hope he agrees.

Waste being the key term here, because he arrives at the same conclusion I’ve often remarked upon: that our societies and economies exist to maximize waste production. Make them more efficient and they collapse.

Ergo: no Green New Deal is any use if you don’t radically change the economic models. Let’s see AOC et al address that, and then we can talk. It’s not as if a shift towards wind and solar will decrease the economic need for waste production (though it may change the waste composition), and thus efficiency is merely a double-edged sword at the very best.

Here’s Dr. D. First intro, then article:

Dr. D: [..] of course there are a thousand things I can say, but I wanted to make just this one point: that the economy as we know it is prohibited from contracting by its own system structure. One thing I couldn’t expand on is that I believe it is almost entirely unconscious. People like AOC, the Aspen Ecological Center, these people have in the back of their minds “What is possible” and “how things are done” and “can I sell this or will people turn away.”

As I say, the idea of saying, “Everything will be perfect, just live like a Zen Monk” is a non-starter. Why, I don’t know, as it’s very pleasant and quite provable.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

These New Numbers Are Telling Us That The Global Economic Slowdown Is Far More Advanced Than We Thought

January 15, 2019

These New Numbers Are Telling Us That The Global Economic Slowdown Is Far More Advanced Than We Thought

We continue to get more confirmation that the global economy is slowing down substantially. On Monday, it was China’s turn to surprise analysts, and the numbers that they just released are absolutely stunning. When Chinese imports and exports are both expanding, that is a clear sign that the global economy is running on all cylinders, but when both of them are contracting that is an indication that huge trouble is ahead. And the experts were certainly anticipating substantial increases in both categories in December, but instead there were huge declines. There is no possible way to spin these numbers to make them look good…

Data from China showed imports fell 7.6 percent year-on-year in December while analysts had predicted a 5-percent rise. Exports dropped 4.4 percent, confounding expectations for a 3-percent gain.

China now accounts for more total global trade than the United States does, and the fact that the numbers for the global economy’s number one trade hub are falling this dramatically is a major warning sign.

And of course it isn’t just China that is experiencing trouble. In fact, we just witnessed the worst industrial output numbers in Europe “in nearly three years”…

Adding to the gloom were weak industrial output numbers from the euro zone, which showed the largest fall in nearly three years.

Softening demand has been felt around the world, with sales of goods ranging from iPhones to automobiles slowing, prompting profit warnings from Apple among others.

If we were headed for a major global recession, these are exactly the types of news stories that we would expect to see.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2018 Year in Review

December 22, 2018

2018 Year in Review

The year everything changed

Every year, friend-of-the-site David Collum writes a detailed “Year in Review” synopsis full of keen perspective and plenty of wit. This year’s is no exception. As with past years, he has graciously selected PeakProsperity.com as the site where it will be published in full. It’s quite longer than our usual posts, but worth the time to read in full. A downloadable pdf of the full article is available here, for those who prefer to do their power-reading offline. — cheers, Adam

David B. Collum
Betty R. Miller Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology – Cornell University
Email: dbc6@cornell.edu
Twitter: @DavidBCollum

“Dave: You are roundly tolerated.”

~Danielle Dimartino Booth, former Fed advisor and founder of Quill Intelligence

Introduction

Every December, I write a Year in Review^{ref 1} that’s first posted on Chris Martenson & Adam Taggart’s website Peak Prosperity^{ref 2} and later at ZeroHedge.^{ref 3} This is my tenth, although informal versions go back further. It always presents a host of challenging questions like, “Why the hell do I do this?” Is it because I am deeply conflicted for being a misogynist with sexual contempt—both products of the systemic normalization of toxic masculinity perpetuated by an oppressively patriarchal societal structure? No. That’s just crazy talk. More likely, narcissism and need for e-permanence deeply buried in my lizard brain demands surges of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that drives kings to conquer new lands, Jeff Bezos to make even more money, and Harvey Weinstein to do whatever that perv does. The readership has held up so far. Larry Summers said he “finished the first half.” Even as a fib that’s a dopamine cha-ching.

“If you think you are too small to make an impact, try spending the night in a room with a mosquito.”

~African proverb

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“The Outlook For The Global Economy Has Deteriorated”: Oil, Copper And Lumber Are All Telling Us The Next Economic Downturn Is Here

November 19, 2018

“The Outlook For The Global Economy Has Deteriorated”: Oil, Copper And Lumber Are All Telling Us The Next Economic Downturn Is Here

Oil, copper and lumber are all telling us the exact same thing, and it isn’t good news for the global economy. When economic activity is booming, demand for commodities such as oil, copper and lumber goes up and that generally causes prices to rise. But when economic activity is slowing down, demand for such commodities falls and that generally causes prices to decline. In recent weeks, we have witnessed a decline in commodity prices unlike anything that we have witnessed in years, and many are concerned that this is a very clear indication that hard times are ahead for the global economy.

Let’s talk about oil first. The price of oil peaked in early October, but since that time it has fallen more than 25 percent, and the IEA is warning of “relatively weak” demand out of Asia and Europe…

The International Energy Agency said on Wednesday that while US demand for oil has been “very robust,” demand in Europe and developed Asian countries “continues to be relatively weak.” The IEA also warned of a “slowdown” in demand in developing nations such as India, Brazil and Argentina caused by high oil prices, weak currencies and deteriorating economic activity.

“The outlook for the global economy has deteriorated,” the IEA wrote.

Meanwhile, the price of copper has been declining for quite some time now. The price of copper also fell substantially just before the last recession, and many analysts are pointing out that “Dr. Copper” is now waving a red flag once again…

The message of weakening demand on the oil front was reinforced by the falling price of copper.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Steen Jakobsen: The Four Horsemen Portend A Painful Reckoning

November 14, 2018

Steen Jakobsen: The Four Horsemen Portend A Painful Reckoning

Even the US is now ‘swimming naked’

Steen Jacobsen, Chief Economist and Chief Investment Officer of Saxo Bank sees economic slowdown ahead.

Specifically, his “Four Horseman” indicators: the drivers of economic growth, are all flashing red.

Jacobsen believes that the central banks will continue their liquidity tightening efforts for as long as they can get away with (i.e., until the financial markets start toppling over). In his opinion, they eased way too much for way too long; and the malinvestment and zombification that resulted needs to clear the system — and it will likely do so more violently and painful than the central banks will like:

I like to make things simple. Right now we have the Four Horsemen: the four drivers of the global economy. They are the quantity of money, which is falling; the price of money, which is rising; the price of energy,which is a tax on consumers and is rising; and globalization/productivity, which is falling.

So, if you look at the economy as a black box, I really don’t know what happens inside of it. But I can observe what goes into the black box: it’s these four things.

Globalization / productivity, we know that’s all about Trump, trade war and the likes. It’s not exactly improving; it’s actually worsening.

As for the quantity of money, a lot of people argue with me that the Central Banks are still expanding their balance sheets, but the fact of the matter is that the QT in terms of the U.S has been reducing the Federal Reserve balance sheet. And we have a stealth reduction of the balance sheet in terms of the Bank of Japan. The EBC would love to cut and is publicly committed to doing so. The Bank of England is doing its first hike. So the quantity of money is falling.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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