Paleo or Phyle?
Off the keyboards of Clipney & RE
Published on Reverse Engineering June 2009
Discuss this article at the Rewilding Table inside the Diner
Note from RE: This article is a re-edit from posts made in June 2009 on Reverse Engineering. I am including substantial new material however based on the ever evolving collapse scenario and ongoing discussions inside the Diner.
There is endless ongoing debate inside the Diner, as well as in the Blogosphere as a whole as to what the best methodology is to adapt to a world where energy is in increasingly short supply and jobs and money to buy the products of industrialization are ever more difficult to come by.
The most popular proposed Solution you come by is Relocalization and developing an extension on what I would call the Amish Economy, a kind of 18th Century model of small Family Farms, but even this model is surprisingly Energy Dependent in many ways. Although the Amish foreswear use of many labor saving Machines driven by the thermodynamic energy of Oil, they still do use many Metal farm implements that take a whole lot of energy to mine, refine and manufacture. There are also issues with how agricultural process, even done on [...] Continue Reading…
A Creeping Sense of Futility…
Off the keyboard of Steve from Virginia
Published on Economic Undertow on May 6, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
There is a point in your life when you wake up in the morning and realize you have become a cliché …
‘The End is Near’, David Sipress (The Phoenix) … when you realize it is impossible for anyone to take you seriously. You are beating your head against the wall, others laugh at you or they hate you because you are exposed and an easy ‘hate target’. You cannot accomplish anything, you are a boat beating against the current … borne back ceaselessly into ridicule, you are spitting into the wind, up a creek without a paddle, betting the wrong horse. Think of the others who have been pounding that same wall for decades … Nothing changes … the speculators always win, you are a muppet.
Dow Reaches 15,000 as Jobs Growth Exceeds Forecasts!Inyoung Hwang – Lu Wang – May 3, 2013 (Bloomberg)!U.S. stocks rose, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 15,000 for the first time, as employment picked up more than forecast in April and the jobless rate unexpectedly declined to a four-year low!!!!!!
So much [...] Continue Reading…
Machiavelli, Freud & Bernays
Off the keyboard of A. G. Gelbert
Published inside the Diner on May 7, 2013
Discuss this article at the Newz Desk inside the Diner
Quote from: Eddie on May 07, 2013, 06:11:05 AM
You have to wonder how it got to this. I don’t think most people are naturally greedy. It’s all fear based, scarcity consciousness taken to the extreme end of the spectrum. We need to rediscover that we can create abundance….real abundance, not the kind we erroneously perceive based on media input.
We need less stuff and more time to breathe the outside air. Less driving and more time spent at family meals. Less advertising and more art. Less TV watching and more meditation. It’s simple really, but far from easy.
That’s the Diner Quote of the day, IMO.
Eddie and Surly,
Well and truly said.
As to how it got this way and how the greed meme took hold when most people are naturally not greedy, let me take a stab at answering that.
Machiavelli, the author of an early version of today’s Wall Street game theory religion, taught that palace intrigue, double crossing your oponent, competitor or friend, murder, mayhem, slavery, boundless greed and a ruthless grip on power were REQUIRED to be [...] Continue Reading…
Capture the False Flag
Off the keyboard of Steve Lendman
Published on the Steve Lendman Blog on May 3, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
US Hatched Terror Plots
by Stephen Lendman
Terrorists “R” us. Washington bears full responsibility. Numerous schemes are planned. Some are alleged and foiled. Others involve violent plots. Media scoundrels convict innocent people in the court of public opinion.
Later they’re wrongfully accused and prosecuted. Juries are intimidated to convict. Imprisonment follows. Culprits remain free. One scheme leads to others. Numerous political prisoners fill America’s gulag.
Even The New York Times was candid. At least party so. Most often it’s part of the guilt by accusation chorus. On April 28, 2012, it headlined “Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the FBI,” saying:
“THE United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed.”
Dozens were foiled just in time. Among others, they include:
a fake shoe bomber;
fake underwear bomber;
fake Times Square bomber;
an earlier one there;
fake shampoo bombers;
fake Al Qaeda woman planning fake mass casualty attacks on New York landmarks;
fake Oregon bomber;
fake armed forces recruiting station bomber;
fake synagogue bombers;
fake Chicago Sears Tower bombers;
fake FBI and other building bombers;
fake National Guard, Fort Dix and Quantico marine base attackers;
fake [...] Continue Reading…
Rat Kidneys, Science and the Promethean
Off the keyboard of Lucid Dreams
Published on Epiphany Now on May 5, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
I recently finished a semester at our local community college where I took prerequisites for their nursing program. I was 33 taking 13 hours of classes in this bastion of hopium, wishful thinking, and just plan reality distorting dysplagia that is American higher education…or whatever the hell it’s called these days. My classes were Anatomy and Physiology 2, Medical Terminology, Probability and Statistics, and Compter Science 101, and each class had it’s own brand of incompetence, egomegaly superhero professors, and creative academic bullshit as required reading. I’ll be taking you on a quick tour of what economically accessible higher education looks like in America in 2013 in the following expose.
I’ll start with CPT 101 (computer science) since it represented the absolute pinnacle of what a pointless waste of brain cells college has become. The first class our instructor told us that she was only going to be our instructor for a couple of classes. Apparently she was going to be teaching at the community college in the next town and couldn’t be bothered with us. The first [...] Continue Reading…
The Week in Doom May 5, 2013
From the Keyboard of Surly1
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on May 5, 2013
Discuss this article here in the Diner Forum.
Given the various vectors of Doom for which we at the diner keep track, and the relative noise made in each one of those vectors, it occured to me to stand up a semi-regular summary called “This Week In Doom,” in which we survey the big breaking issues in the Wide World of Doom. Think of it as “The Wide World of Sports” for doom; certainly not all inclusive, and invested with a particularly Surly point of view.
First on the docket is Fukushima, the gift that keeps on giving. Even Charlie Pierce, Esquire’s redoubtable political blogger, felt obliged to weigh in on the subject.
Gray and silver storage tanks filled with radioactive wastewater are sprawling over the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Remember Fukushima? That was our Environmental Tipping Point two years ago, when a tsunami caused a catastrophic event at a Japanese nuclear power plant, a triple meltdown that resulted in, among other things, all kinds of noxious debris continuing to wash up in Alaska, in Hawaii and, just the other day, in California, Perhaps to celebrate [...] Continue Reading…
Go Ask Alice
Off the keyboard of RE
Published on Reverse Engineering June 2009
Discuss this article at the Frostbite Falls Daily Rant Table inside the Diner
It was another one of those Alice in Wonderland days here up on the Last Great Frontier.
Last summer I wrote about the 4th of July Parade and the Alaska State Fair, two of the main Americana style events held here in the summertime. At that time I was wondering whether I would see such a thing happen again, as always DOOM seems just around the corner to me.
So here we are a year later with things even WORSE than they were last summer, but today we marched in the Colony Days Parade over in Palmer. It wasn’t quite the beautiful summer day we have had many of this year so far, a little cool and drizzly, but nevertheless the Parade Route was PACKED! Knowing as I do the total Population of Palmer and of the entire Mat-Su Valley, it astounded me to see the thousands stretched out along the Parade Route. I’m going to guess around 5000 people, which would be around 8% of the total population around here.
There were numerous Antique Tractors pulling Floats; numerous Antique Cars [...] Continue Reading…
King Corn
Off the keyboard of Roamer
Published on the Doomstead Diner on May 3, 2013
Discuss this article at the Environment Table inside the Diner
So I am waiting out the bizarre Midwest snow storm before I engage in corn planting. As someone keen on small scale low tech pasture based farms and desirous of a grain free paleo diet it’s a pretty odd situation I am. In a week or so I’ll sit in a tractor a couple days on end and plant in automated comfort the same land 10’s of family farms used to derive a living from. Its not all that unlike modern warfare, GPS based guidance systems, chemical sprays, high tech cockpits all to launch a chemical blitz on the land in the name of “progress”.
Today I am pondering though the nature of this progress, why have markets come to favor this system of food production, is it really more efficient than what it replaced? What follows are some order of magnitude calculations to put things into perspective on a calorie to calorie basis.
Pasture Based System Gross Caloric Yield
Dairy cattle and their rumens are incredible efficient at converting grass proteins, sugars, and starches into
healthy milk. The net caloric yield [...] Continue Reading…
Big Brother has ARRIVED!
Off the keyboard of Steve Lendman
Published on the Steven Lendman Blog on May 1, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
Institutionalized Spying on Americans
Big Brother no longer is fiction. It hasn’t been for some time. It’s official US policy. According to ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program director Barry Steinhardt:
“Given the capabilities of today’s technology, the only thing protecting us from a full-fledged surveillance society are the legal and political institutions we have inherited as Americans.”
“Unfortunately, the September 11 attacks have led some to embrace the fallacy that weakening the Constitution will strengthen America.”
Manufactured national security threats matter more than fundamental freedoms. Domestic spying is institutionalized.
Anyone can be monitored for any reason or none at all. Privacy rights are lost. Patriot Act legislation authorized unchecked government surveillance powers.
Financial, medical and other personal information can be accessed freely. So-called “sneak and peak” searches may be conducted through “delayed notice” warrants, roving wiretaps, email tracking, and Internet and cell phone use.
The FBI, CIA, NSA, and Pentagon spy domestically. So do state and local agencies. Spies “R” us defines US policy. America is a total surveillance society. It’s unsafe to live in. Everyone is suspect unless proved otherwise.
The 2012 [...] Continue Reading…
Reaching Oil Limits – New Paradigms are Needed
Off the keyboard of Gail Tverberg
Published on Our Finite World on April 30, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Table inside the Diner
I have written in recent posts that oil limits are more complex than what many have imagined. They aren’t just a lack of a liquid fuel; they are inability to compete in a global economy that is based on use of cheaper fuel (coal) and a lower standard of living. Oil prices that are too low for oil exporting nations are a problem, just as oil prices that are too high are a problem for oil importing nations.
Debt limits are also closely tied to oil supply limits. It is actually debt limits, such as those we seem to be reaching right now, that may bring the whole system to a screeching stop. (See my posts How Resource Limits Lead to Financial Collapse, How Oil Exporters Reach Financial Collapse, Peak Oil Demand is Already a Huge Problem, and Low Oil Prices Lead to Economic Peak Oil.)
We have many Main Street Media (MSM) paradigms that mischaracterize our current predicament. But we also have what I would call Green paradigms, that aren’t really right either, because they don’t recognize the true state of our predicament. What we [...] Continue Reading…
Adios to Orange Blossom and Stranded Assets
Off the keyboard of Jason Heppenstall
Published on 22 Billion Energy Slaves on April 29, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
I have just returned from Spain, where we had to go at short notice to give a farewell kiss to our stranded asset. Yes, our farmhouse, which had been the focus of all my dreams and efforts a few years back, was finally released from legal limbo land and the keys handed over to the happy new owners. We got back around half of what it cost us to buy it and do it up, but speaking with other people in the same situation we know that we are among the lucky ones.
What a strange place Spain is! This truly is a country where dreams go to die. To the casual visitor it looks like an earthly paradise. The entire region was bursting forth with a trillion wildflowers on our visit, the air was scented with jasmine and orange blossom and the boughs of the lemon trees still hung heavy with fruit. A bumper wet winter had left the Sierra Nevada mountains with a deep snow pack – meaning happy times for farmers in the [...] Continue Reading…
History & Future of Coinage & Money
Off the keyboard of RE
Published on Reverse Engineering June 2009
Discuss this article at the Money Table inside the Diner
Note from RE: Monsta and I have both been engaged lately in taking a deeper look at how Money works, particularly in the aftermath of the Gold Smackdown that went down in the paper/digital markets a short while back.
This is not a new topic of course, it’s an old one in the collapse blogosphere, particularly as it relates to the effects of Deflation & Hyperinflation, and I’ve hit on the topic numerous times in the past. In the course of putting together the most recent series on Money, Monsta turned up the following articles originally published on Reverse Engineering. Since they relate to my last Future of Money article, I’m republishing them now here on the Doomstead Diner.
RE
We all love to hate Fiat Money. I certainly write plenty of metaphors about “Printing” and “Burning Up the paper we use for currency (though less these days than the Digibits in your account, accessed with your Plastic Card and Password). As the digibits and the paper dissolve and burn up here however, recidivists of the PM variety pine longingly for the days of [...] Continue Reading…
Can We Envision Future Homo Eusapiens?
Off the keyboard of George Mobus
Published on Question Everything on April 20, 2013
Discuss this article at the Epicurean Delights Smorgasbord inside the Diner
Why Try?
Quite likely many readers will wonder why I spend time thinking about the distant future, why I would speculate about where human evolution might lead when I could never possibly know what will actually happen. Undoubtedly their questioning is well founded. I myself wonder what motivates me! There is no way I could ever find out if my speculations were in any sense accurate. Why even bother to write any of this down?
There are possibly three arguments I can offer, all of which may still seem weak to many, but then again, maybe they are enough.
The first argument is very personal. Thinking that there might actually be a future for the human genus is comforting. More than that, thinking it is highly likely fills me with a sense that our lives have actually meant something good, ironically as it is, even as we work furiously to destroy the environment that nurtured us. We all have a deep biologically-based need for this kind of sense being fulfilled. It is the basis for so many humans accepting theistic [...] Continue Reading…
Outta Gold, Outta Ammo
Off the keyboard of Michael Snyder
Published on Economic Collapse on April 25, 2013
Discuss this article at the Gold Table inside the Diner
All over the United States we are witnessing unprecedented shortages of ammunition, physical gold and physical silver. Recent events have helped fuel a “buying frenzy” that threatens to spiral out of control. Gun shops all over the nation are reporting that they have never seen it this bad, and in many cases any ammo that they are able to get is being sold even before it hits the shelves. The ammo shortage has already become so severe that police departments all over America are saying that they are being told that it is going to take six months to a year to get their orders. In fact, many police departments have begun to trade and barter with one another to get the ammo that they need. Meanwhile, the takedown of paper gold and paper silverhas unleashed an avalanche of “panic buying” of physical gold and physical silver all over the planet. In the United States, some dealers are charging
premiums of more than 25 percent over the spot price for gold and silver and they are getting it. People [...] Continue Reading…
Ambush on Gold Street…
Off the keyboard of Steve from Virginia
Published on Economic Undertow on April 23,2012
Discuss this article at the Gold Table inside the Diner
Events emerging from the murk of crisis bring to mind Billy Batts.
Billy who?
Murder of William “Billy Batts” Bentvena, Wikipedia (Edited)
In Nicolas Pileggi’s book ‘Wiseguy’, Henry Hill describes a 1970 “welcome home” party held at a lounge called ‘The Suite’, in Queens, NY, for William “Billy Batts” Bentvena, 49, a mid-level soldier in New York’s Gambino crime family. The Suite was a mob hangout owned by Hill, an associate of Lucchese family gangster James ‘Jimmie the Gent’ Burke, who later became notorious for the December, 1978 Lufthansa Heist of $5.8 million dollars in cash-plus valuables from JFK International Airport.Bentvena had just been released from prison after serving a six-year term for drug possession. Hill states that Bentvena saw Burke enforcer Tommy DeSimone and asked him if he still shined shoes … DeSimone took this as an insult. Hill also stated that Bentvena provoked DeSimone to impress mobsters from another crime family.Shortly afterward, intoxicated Bentvena was ambushed in the bar, pistol-whipped repeatedly and stomped by DeSimone and Burke. Believing he was dead, the three placed Bentvena’s body into the trunk [...] Continue Reading…
Money & Wealth: Part IV
Off the keyboard of Monsta666
Discuss this article at the Money Table inside the Diner
Monetary terms
The terms below should prove useful in understanding the content of this article:
Anchor/Reserve Currency – Is the currency that is most commonly held by foreign central banks as reserves and is most commonly used to settle accounts when trading for vital commodities such as food/oil etc.
Fixed Exchange Rate – Sometimes referred to as a pegged exchange rate. A fixed exchange rate means a currency is priced at fixed range to another currency most commonly the reserve currency. Fixed exchange rates offer price stability to exporters but this comes at the expense of the country being unable to alter its competitiveness, in terms of exports, on the world market. A fixed exchange rate also leaves the country open to speculative attack meaning the country’s central bank must defend its exchange rate using foreign reserves. Notable examples of a country failing to defend its exchange rate occurred in 1992 when the UK failed to defend its rate in what was to be later dubbed “Black Wednesday”.[1]
Floating Exchange Rate – Is when a currency is openly allowed to be traded in the foreign exchange market. A floating [...] Continue Reading…
Low Oil Prices Lead to Economic Peak Oil
Off the keyboard of Gail Tverberg
Published on Our Finite World on April 21, 2013
Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside the Diner
We have all heard the story about oil supply supposedly rising and falling for geological reasons. But what if the story is a little different from this–oil production rises and falls for economic reasons? If this is the issue, it doesn’t really matter how much oil is in the ground. What matters is if economic conditions are “right” for continued and rising extraction. I have shown in previous posts that oil prices that are too high are a problem for oil importers while oil prices that are too low are a problem for oil exporters. As a result, oil prices need to be in a Goldilocks zone, or we have serious problems, of one sort or another.
As long as the price of oil keeps rising, there is at least some chance the amount of oil extracted each year will keep rising, because more oil resources will become economic to extract. The real problem arises when oil price falls back from a price level it has held, as it has done recently, and as it did back in July 2008. Then there [...] Continue Reading…
Diners on the Spaceship Earth
Off the keyboard of RE
Published on the Doomstead Diner on April 23, 2013
Discuss this article at the Energy Table inside the Diner
Of all the charts and graphs which can be pulled up off the net to demonstrate that the Peak Oil corner has been turned, none do it more effectively than the Total FSoA Gasoline Sales History chart published by the EIA at the top of this article.
Retail Gasoline sales to J6P essentially fell off a cliff beginning in 2005, actually well before the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and the implosion of the Subprime Mortgage Market, all today seen as watershed moments in the ongoing collapse of Industrial Civilization. Today in 2013, retail gasoline sales are 50%, HALF what they were at the Peak of Happy Motoring in 2005. That is roughly 8 years of time, an average rate of decline of around 6% per year. Assuming no other trend line changes, retail gasoline demand in 2021 would hit ZERO. This all while total population size (if you believe the stats) continues to INCREASE, which can only mean a lower per capita usage of energy through this period.
It may not take that long of course if [...] Continue Reading…
Paleofantasyfallacy
Off the keyboard of Peter Michael Bauer
Published on Urban Scout on April 10, 2013
Discuss this article at the Primitive Living Table inside the Diner
When I saw Paleofantasy on the shelf at the bookstore, I got excited. “Finally, another Clan of the Cavebear!” I was disappointed to discover that Paleofantasyis not a fictionalized novel about paleo peoples. Rather, it is a pop-cultural, non-fiction book about how the paleo craze (that has been growing for some time now) is allegedly based on a false understanding of evolution.
The first premise of the paleo craze (of which Rewilding is definitately a relative if not, driving force) is the idea that our culture, over the last 10,000 years or so, has changed faster than our bodies (or more specifically, DNA). The second premise is that this means our bodies are not designed for the differences in culture of the modern era, but more suited to our prehistoric, or “paleo”, past. The third premise is that because of premise one and two, we should three: mimic our ancestors lifestyle to attain maximum health and well-being. This triad of premises has led to all kinds of pop cultural fads, but three stand out more than others: diet, exercise, [...] Continue Reading…
The Future of Money
Off the keyboard of RE
Published April-May, 2010 on Reverse Engineering
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
Note from RE: File this article under “the more things change, the more they remain the same”. What follows is an exchange I had with Toby Russell, a quite brilliant Brit 3 years ago on Reverse Engineering, pondering on the Economic Issues of the day and the Future of Money. We rehearse these questions now on the pages of the Doomstead Diner for a somewhat larger audience, but in all honesty in 3 FUCKING YEARS, not a whole lot has changed here as of yet and the same questions remain to ponder on until they do.
Toby and I had many a great chat on the subject of money, and inside the Diner I will paste a few more of them. With luck, Toby will find his way to the Diner as well, and we can renew, refresh and update the $64,000 Question on the Future of Money in the post-Industrial Economy.
RE
To begin, from my keyboard:
Who ARE the Bond Vigilantes?
Exactly how the monetary system will come apart remains an open question, but more and more each day you see a structure developing [...] Continue Reading…