[Red States] As we head into Father’s Day, it’s important to remember the millions of young Americans who don’t have dads in the house and who never had a male role model to look up to. According to Fox News, more than 18.5 million children are "fatherless," and the United States leads the entire world in that category.
This is a record we surely do not aspire to and is clearly—at least partly—to blame for the dysfunction among today’s youth.
Think not having a father isn’t that big a deal? You’d be mistaken. Eighty-five percent of children and teens with behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes, according to the Fox News piece, as do over 70 percent of all adolescent patients in drug and alcohol treatment centers.
If you’re lucky enough to have grown up with a father who taught you how to behave, how to put a worm on a hook, how to ride a bike—how to be a good person—you know how important he was to you and your life. Take this beautiful Father’s Day tweet from Coach Kurt Hines:
#2
Texas need to change their divorce laws to allow/encourage fathers to spend time with their kids. A 50-50% custody requirement is a good place to start instead of the current !00% to the mother only, leaving the father out of the picture.
#5
Father's Day Crisis, as the US Leads World in ‘Fatherlessness'
All by design. The Great Society programs were based upon 'Big Brother' replacing the father. The social and economic consequences of choosing poorly the sperm donor and out of wedlock birthing were removed. Thousands of years of social evolution that focused on stability of the family and the society were tossed over board. Check the rate of out of wedlock births among groups in 1960 and today. As ye sow so shall ye reap.
#6
That's too bad, SCFI. Texas used to be pretty much in the forefront for protecting a father's rights.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/19/2022 7:33 Comments ||
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#7
^re#3 They also don't practice what they preach. Fatherlessness and divorce rates among white, upper and upper middle class families is very low, statistically speaking. The social chaos and failure is directed downward.
[USAA News] FREE HIGH SPEED INTERNET: To get the poor on board with the digital dystopia and keep them transfixed to their media outlets, high-speed internet rates have basically been cut to zero. This was an element of the Affordable Connectivity Program passed by Congress as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill. 11.5 million people whose annual income is $27,180 or less will be able to get a high-speed internet connection from Verizon (via Fios), Comcast or Cox Communications gratis. Of course, as always happens with government largesse, the ordinary paying customers of these companies will now see their rates rise to cover this "giveaway." Remember, nothing is "free!" This will allow the Government and the tech tyrants to better spy on and keep track of consumers who had previously escaped surveillance because they weren’t "tech savvy" or obtained their consumer goods the "old fashioned way" via direct cash purchases. This "gift" will provide another means for advertisers to ply their wares to the historically foolish and unwary.
FANATIC FOOL FURTHERS (ANTI-)FOSSIL FUEL FOLLY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wants the world to abandon the use of "fossil fuels" — coal, gas and oil — in favor of so called "renewable resources!" Guterres has declared in his wisdom [!], "The ’scientific’ imperative is clear. (Huh?) There must be no new investment in fossil fuel expansion, including production, infrastructure and exploration." How ignorant must one be or how low an IQ must one have to qualify to lead the UN? Apparently, we have yet to plumb those particular stygian depths but I’m willing to bet that it’s deeper than coal, gas or oil!
LEADING "DEMONRAT" DELIVERS STUPID QUIP: Faux President and all-round bad joke Brain-Dead Biden made this quip at a recent Annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, drawing a chuckle from his "awedience" when he took aim at Donald Trump’s Presidency as a " . . .horrible plague followed by two years of Covid." According to Sleepy Joe, "I’m really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower (approval) rating than I have!" Instead of chuckles, anyone with brains would have said it was about time that he — Biden — was himself "chucked".
OVAL OFFICE VOIDED OVER LACK OF TELEPROMPTER: The White House has abandoned using the "Offal" [sic] Office for press events "in part" because it can’t be equipped with a teleprompter. As is very well known by now, Brain-Dead Biden requires a teleprompter in order to "follow the script" since he frequently forgets his lines. Hell, he probably forgets his name! However, it must be noted that this is not a first. Barack Obama was notoriously speechless when his own teleprompter failed to function! Needless to say, Donald Trump had no such problems but then it is always easier to speak the truth than lies! Biden aides prefer the prop stage built into the Old Executive Office Building across the street, sacrificing the historic Oval Office for an otherwise sterile room outfitted with an easily read teleprompter screen for Joe’s screeds. The fake setting is styled to look like the White House and features fake windows that display a digital view of the Rose Garden. This "new" reality was apparently deemed a necessity to avoid even more gaffes by the gaffer-in-chief. Next, natural intelligence may be replaced by AI if Biden gets an implant to fill in for his failing faculties! Meanwhile, we keep hitting lower and lower bottoms.
WHITEWASHING (BLACKWASHING?) CRIME STATISTICS: After the Serial Criminal George Floyd inspired riots of 2020, newspapers were seven times more likely to mention the race of an offender if he were White than otherwise. Before May 2020, news outlets were likely to mention a White offender’s race "only" twice as often as that of a minority. Statistically, half of media reports on homicides mention the race of the perp within the opening sentence of the article if the criminal is White, whereas half the articles that bother to mention a Black offender’s race, do not do so until halfway through the article — if race is mentioned at all. Where some sort of description is required of those involved, most readers recognize such adjectives as "youths" and "gangs" are as close to placing the blame where it belongs as the media is willing to go. It is amazing that given the tremendous rise in violent crime especially in our large cities, that reports of the true extent of Black crime is both half-hearted and half-headed!
BIG (a/k/a OBESE) IS BEAUTIFUL: Here’s the skinny: LARGE Black women exhibiting big breasts and prodigious rumps is the new Western cultural ideal. The latest women’s clothing ads display acres and acres of brown or black adipose. This "trend" indicates quite a change from the days of Ms. Twiggy when the ideal was skinny and white. Accordingly, the term "obese" — a word that does not lend itself to compliments — is now deemed "racist" by the woke police. More than 40% of Americans including half the Black population are considered obese, a condition associated with a plethora of health issues such as increased risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, cancer, and diabetes. The US is considered the most obese country in the West. In 1960, only 13% of the country’s population was considered obese but with chowing down on snacks and watching TV and the internet almost 24/7 it was inevitable that Americans would gain weight. The restoration of fat shaming would be a good sign that normalcy was returning to the USA. Fat chance that will happen anytime soon especially as the criteria now used to determine what is "beautiful" has gone from white to black and from trim to portly.
MURDER METHOD MEANINGLESS: One thing most intelligent people have discovered is that any crisis in government is usually followed — that is, offset — by a "mass shooting" event. These events have been and continue to be a direct consequence of something that our government doesn’t wish ordinary, intelligent Americans to think about or pay attention to for any length of time. Like a stage magician, some nut-job comes out of the woodwork to shoot a bunch of innocents as a means of distracting Americans from wondering why our food processing plants are burning down and our infant formula is being given away to people who aren’t even Americans!
And, of course, mass shootings provide a most needed opportunity to decry the "violence" in our society — violence our leaders do nothing to stop or even curtail! — while providing yet another opportunity to disarm law abiding Americans! Indeed, we’ve gone though this nonsense so many times that one wonders how it can all be trotted out yet again without ordinary Americans questioning the same old script.
Now, given the state of our present economy and more and more proof of a crooked election in 2020, the ante has been upped and so today we have not one "mass shooting" but several scattered throughout the US. Meanwhile, with every incident, all the past shootings are recalled and that includes the "crisis actors" who seem to appear in every such incident and ending with the school — if the event takes place in a school — being bulldozed to the ground very much as the remnants of the Twin Towers were removed before any forensic examination could take place!
Of course, even if at least some of these events are not "staged" — that is, they aren’t false flag "ops" intended to obfuscate all the real crimes going on, it really is possible to address them as actual crimes. First, of course, it is necessary to target the causes involved; that is, to look for both common causalities as well as behavioral commonalities in their commission. It’s easy to piece together profiles that lead to pugnaciousness and off-putting behavior in those involved. For instance, not too many years ago, it was discovered that virtually all mass shooters were on psychotropic medications. As these had been dispensed by physicians rather than being "street drugs," there certainly was information available to law enforcement about those who might pose a threat as possible gunmen as well as those who had already acted on their madness.
Of course, given the desire by the Deep State to disarm decent, law abiding Americans, the nature of these attacks and the weapons used are very much part of the dialogue. Yet, statistics show that when it comes to assault and murder in the culture, guns play a much lesser role than Americans are led to believe. More people are killed and injured by knives, hammers and even fists than are murdered by guns. Ghetto entertainment like the knockout game and general fisticuffs are much more common means of murder and mayhem in our cities than is the armed thug. Even arson is more common than acknowledged, and among Muslims it is a routine means of violence often on a mass scale.
The rundown on the cultural maladies and social conditions associated with murderous mass mayhem include the fact that most murderers live in social settings far removed from normal life as seen on TV including black family sitcoms. They are not a part of or adjusted to a traditional nuclear family; that is, they have no normal relationship with a father-figure. Indeed, there is no father in the home at all if it can even be said that they have a "home" as we understand that word. Most criminal types — men and women — have no respect for human life; they are loners, locked out of day to day reality, connected to computers and/or "mobile devices" through which they live vicariously in violent video games and pornography. Such human interaction as they experience involve mindless "social media" rather than face-to-face relationships.
Where there is a mother figure involved, often the child has little support or comfort from her as can be seen when riots and looting often includes very small children learning the worst of lessons from that "parent." Children who do remain home all day absorb leftist brainwashing and guilt-tripping from an early age, eventually becoming drug or alcohol addicted. They suffer from rejection and are often ill as the result improper diets and living conditions. The Covid lockdowns only exacerbated the situation by eliminating what opportunities for socialization that did present themselves.
BLACK LIES MATTER. Black lives don’t matter at all to those out to soak the suckers for Simoleans to supposedly help Blacks. The Black Lives Matter (Racist Hate Group) Global Foundation has released its Crooked IRS forms revealing that it is sitting on $43 million after raising nearly $90 million during the violent riots of summer 2020. What happened to the other $47 million plus is anyone’s guess but one doesn’t have to be Einstein to make a correct one! The filing shows BLM has an operating budget of $4 million, despite having no executive director or in-house staff while spending millions on real estate that includes $6 million on a sprawling Los Angeles compound complete with a sound stage, game room, and swimming pool. Just another example of advancing infantile and criminal personalities beyond their ability to function! As the old saying goes, "Put a beggar on horseback and he’ll ride it to death!"
It is characterized by the final completion of the Second ("concrete") stage of the so-called. NWO. The offensive of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the Armed Forces of the LDNR (who are completely subordinate to the command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, if someone has not yet understood this) in the Donbass has completely fizzled out.
Apparently, our troops have reached the limit of their offensive capabilities and now the maximum that can be expected is that they will be able to "torment" the industrial zone of Severodonetsk and the remnants of the bridgehead of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Seversky Donets in this area.
There was an operational pause in the remaining areas in active hostilities.
During the battle, which lasted almost two months, both sides suffered huge (in relation to the total number of manpower and equipment involved) losses. In terms of manpower, the Ukrainians lost noticeably more, but they are able to quickly make up for the losses, and even being "on a string" from defeat, they did not use their main strategic reserves here, firmly adhering to the defensive tactics chosen in this operation.
In general, if we evaluate the past operation from a military-theoretical point of view, then it is incorrect to talk about "victory" on both sides:
- Russian troops failed to achieve the set strategic goals, or even to get much closer to them (the complete liberation of Donbass is almost as far away as in early May). At the same time, they managed to liberate a number of important territories and large settlements (Popasnaya, Krasny Liman, Severodonetsk), push the Armed Forces of Ukraine behind the Seversky Donets and defeat a number of units and formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine almost "to the ground".
- the Ukrainian command, in general, managed to solve its main task - to stay in the area of Donetsk and Gorlovka, prevent the defeat of the main forces of its Donetsk group and gain time to create new reserves. At the same time, this result was worth heavy losses and a drop in the morale of part of the troops.
In general, therefore, the result of the May-June battle in the Donbass can be called a "draw". However, in general, the scales (in my subjective opinion) leaned slightly towards Kyiv. Why? - The answer is elementary: the very gain of time.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation failed to defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine, even partially "on the last homemade pies." "Pies" are almost completely "eaten up" and need to be re-formed and large replenishments to restore combat capability.
This, of course, does not mean that the Russian General Staff no longer has reserves at its disposal. There are reserves - they have been prepared "urgently" since April or early May. New units and formations are being knocked together - moreover, their replenishment (according to the idiotic-ostentatious desire "a la Hitler in 1944" - to have "as many units and formations on paper as possible") is carried out due to the lack of replenishment for those already at war and carrying large loss of shelled military units. The result is that "completely raw" units will again fall to the front, mixed with those withdrawn and replenished after the "first-stage run to the border."
However, the picture of the Ukrainians is approximately the same: many new units from recruits + some ahead of time replenished personnel who have avoided the "Donetsk meat grinder".
How long the operational pause will last and when the summer battle for the initiative will begin (from a great mind, everything was "announced" by the same R. Kadyrov as a "rapid and effective stage") - I do not know.
Terms can be from a week to a month and a half. Hardly any longer. It is unlikely that our military will be able to delay until autumn with the start of a new offensive operation, enduring continuously growing attacks on Donetsk and the territory of the Russian Federation itself. Or rather, it is unlikely that the political leadership will tolerate such restraint. Similarly, the Armed Forces of Ukraine - after heavy losses at the front, their military-political leadership urgently needs a major (or at least looking like such) military success.
I still assume that the battle may have a "counter-multidirectional character." That is, Russian troops can attack in one region, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine - in another. Moreover, both sides will try to "catch" the enemy on a successful defense in combination with counterattacks. The Donetsk front is likely to become "quiet" for some time (which does not at all mean an end to terrorist shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and fighting of local significance). I cautiously assume the main battles in the area of Kherson and Kharkov. At least, it is in the Kherson direction behind the front that a fairly large strike force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is concentrated.
To what extent my predictions will come true - time will tell. It is difficult for me to claim high accuracy in the field of "event / time of event" without having ANY information from headquarters military sources and drawing conclusions based on a very rare "mosaic" and my own thoughts.
#3
The new chief of Britain's Army just told us to get ready for World War III.
Stoltenberg says the war will go on for years.
Perhaps they're just posturing while Macron Scholz and Draghi are secretly passing along the capitulation terms to Zelensky... Stoltenberg a week ago said publicly that there has to be a peace settlement with territorial concessions. So maybe this is just more bullshit from a crew that's spread nothing but lies and nonsense for months.
But it's more likely that demented old Biden actually believes this shit and welcomes a world war. Biden and Raytheon-Austin are escalating the war and destroying the world's economy. These people are fucking insane and need to be overthrown.
Prepare to fight and beat Russia in a Third World War, Britain's top general warns: New UK Army commander tells troops to brace for European land war
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/19/2022 12:58 Comments ||
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#4
They're lying to us. They're not lying when they talk to Zelensky or Putin. A great political scientist who studied elites' lying found that leaders of democracies are far more likely to lie to their own people than to other leaders. This is because their own people trust them, whereas leaders do not trust each other. Thus they can get away with lying. He cites Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Donald Rumsfeld as examples.
Summary
In Why Leaders Lie, Mearsheimer provides the first systematic analysis of lying as a tool of statecraft, identifying the varieties, the reasons, and the potential costs and benefits. Drawing on a trove of examples, he argues that leaders often lie for good strategic reasons, so a blanket condemnation is unrealistic and unwise.
Yet there are other kinds of deception besides lying, including concealment and spinning. Perhaps no distinction is more important than that between lying to another state and lying to one’s own people. Mearsheimer was amazed to discover how unusual interstate lying has been; given the atmosphere of distrust among the great powers, he found that outright deceit is difficult to pull off and thus rarely worth the effort.
Leaders more often mislead their own publics, sometimes with damaging consequences. Though the reasons may be noble–Franklin Roosevelt, for example, lied to the American people about German U-boats attacking the destroyer Greer in 1940, to build a case for war against Hitler--they can easily lead to disaster...
#5
In Joe Bidet's case, it's much less elaborate. He's the sort of incontinent and indiscriminate liar who will lie even when the truth would actually be more to his advantage.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/19/2022 13:29 Comments ||
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#6
^ Very well said. Biden is a pathological, congenital liar whose lies advance no strategic concept at all.
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/19/2022 13:46 Comments ||
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One of the most famous philosophers of the ancient world, Diogenes of Sinope , considered lies the currency of politics, and it was precisely these lies that he sought to expose and make unacceptable. To prove his point, Diogenes sometimes walked the streets of Athens with a lit lantern in daylight. When asked why, Diogenes replied that he was looking for an honest man.
Finding an honest man in Washington today is no easier. Today, a well-known cynic would need a powerful searchlight in each hand to do this, writes retired US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor in an article published June 17 in The American Conservative.
Yet there are brief moments of clarity within the Washington establishment. Having lied to the American public in the strongest terms for months about the causes and course of the conflict in Ukraine, the American media is now preparing the public in the US, the UK and other Western countries for Ukraine's military collapse. It is high time.
The Western media have done their best to make the Ukrainian defense look much more powerful than it really is. Attentive observers noted that the same video clips of Russian tanks that came under fire were repeatedly shown. It was reported that local counterattacks were in the nature of operational maneuvers.
The mistakes of the Russians were exaggerated beyond any measure of their significance. Russia's losses and the true extent of Ukraine's own losses have been distorted, fabricated, or simply ignored. But conditions on the battlefield have changed little over time. As soon as the Ukrainian forces were pinned down in fixed defensive positions in urban areas and in the center of Donbass, the position of the Ukrainian side became hopeless. But the event was presented as Russia's failure to achieve " her goals."
Land units that find themselves pinned down on prepared defensive structures will be detected and destroyed from a distance. When permanent aerial reconnaissance, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, whether manned or unmanned, are linked to precision weapons or advanced artillery systems informed by accurate targeting data, "holding the ground" is fatal to any ground force. This is all the more true in Ukraine, as it was clear from the outset that Moscow was focusing on destroying Ukrainian forces rather than capturing cities or seizing Ukrainian territory west of the Dnieper.
The result was the gradual destruction of Ukrainian forces. Only an episodic infusion of American and allied arms kept Kyiv's battered legions on the battlefield; legions that are now dying in huge numbers thanks to Washington's proxy war.
The war between Kyiv and Moscow is lost. Ukrainian forces are drained of blood. There are no trained replacements in sufficient numbers to influence the course of the battle, and the situation grows more desperate by the hour. No amount of military assistance from the US and its allies, other than direct military intervention by US and NATO ground forces, can change this harsh reality.
The problem today is not that we will have to cede to Moscow the territories and population in eastern Ukraine that Moscow already controls. The future of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, together with the Donbass, has already been decided. Moscow is also likely to secure Kharkiv and Odessa, two historically Russian and Russian-speaking cities, and their surroundings. These operations will prolong the conflict into the summer. Now the problem is how to stop the fighting.
Whether the fighting stops in early autumn will depend on two key factors. The first concerns the leadership in Kyiv. Will Zelenskiy's government agree to Biden's program of eternal conflict with Russia?
If the Biden administration gets its way, Kyiv will continue to act as a base for building up new forces ready to threaten Moscow. In practice, this means that Kyiv must commit national suicide by subjecting the central part of Ukraine west of the Dnieper to massive, destructive strikes by Russian long-range missile forces.
Of course, these events are not inevitable. Berlin, Paris, Rome, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn and, yes, even Warsaw should not blindly follow the example of Washington. Before the inhabitants of European countries, as well as before most Americans, the abyss of an all-encompassing economic downturn is already opening up, which the Biden administration is creating with its policies inside the United States. Unlike the Americans, who have to live with Biden's ill-conceived policies, European governments can abandon Biden's eternal war plan for Ukraine.
The second factor has to do with Washington itself. With the US pouring over $60 billion or just over $18 billion a month in direct or indirect transfers into the now collapsing Ukrainian state, the big question is what happens to the millions of Ukrainians in the rest of the country who didn't flee? And where will the funds come from to restore the destroyed Ukrainian society in the context of the developing global economic catastrophe?
When the average American household needs $460 more a month to buy the same goods and services this year because of inflation this year than it did last year, it's entirely possible that Ukraine could quietly sink like the Titanic without causing of particular concern to the American electorate. Experienced politicians know that American attention to issues outside of America is so low that admitting defeat in Ukraine would probably have little or no immediate consequences.
However, the consequences of repeated strategic failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria are cumulative. In the 1980s, General Motors wanted to dictate what cars Americans would buy, but American consumers had other ideas. That's why GM, which has dominated the US market for 77 years, lost its top spot to Toyota. Washington cannot dictate the course of events around the world, just as Washington cannot escape responsibility for its wasteful spending and the destruction of America's prosperity.
In November, Americans will go to the polls. This election will not only be a test of the integrity of the American electoral process. Thanks to them, Biden is likely to be remembered for his intransigence — his refusal to change course, as he did to Herbert Hoover in 1932. Democrats remember that their predecessors in the Democratic Party effectively opposed " Hoover " for more than half a century. Now the situation may change, and already the Republicans will be able to fight against " Joe Biden " for the next 50 years.
#1
Ukraine is going to kill a ton more Russian soldiers( mainly minorities, not Russki), Ukraine is going to drive all Russia's Army out of Ukraine back to the Rodina and you Badanov have to sit back and enjoy knowing that's true.
Russian loser, mass rape, mass theft, mass murder, Russian culture.
[Two Minds] The economy has reached an inflection point where everything that is unsustainable finally starts unraveling.
Our economy is in a crisis that's been brewing for decades. The Chinese characters for the English word crisis are famously--and incorrectly--translated as danger and opportunity. The more accurate translation is precarious plus critical juncture or inflection point.
Beneath its surface stability, our economy is precarious because the foundation of the global economy-- cheap energy--has reached an inflection point: from now on, energy will become more expensive.
The cost will be too low for energy producers to make enough money to invest in future energy production, and too high for consumers to have enough money left after paying for the essentials of energy, food, shelter, etc., to spend freely.
For the hundred years that resources were cheap and abundant, we could waste everything and call it growth: when an appliance went to the landfill because it was designed to fail (planned obsolescence) so a new one would have to be purchased, that waste was called growth because the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) went up when the replacement was purchased.
A million vehicles idling in a traffic jam was also called growth because more gasoline was consumed, even though the gasoline was wasted.
This is why the global economy is a "waste is growth" Landfill Economy. The faster something ends up in the landfill, the higher the growth.
Now that we've consumed all the easy-to-get resources, all that's left is hard to get and expensive. For example, minerals buried in mountains hundreds of miles from paved roads and harbors require enormous investments in infrastructure just to reach the deposits, extract, process and ship them to distant mills and refineries. Oil deposits that are deep beneath the ocean floor are not cheap to get.
Does it really make sense to expect that the human population can triple and our consumption of energy increase ten-fold and there will always be enough resources to keep supplies abundant and prices low? No, it doesn't.
Many people believe that nuclear power (fusion, thorium reactors, mini-reactors, etc.) will provide cheap, safe electricity that will replace hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas). But nuclear power is inherently costly, and there are presently no full-scale fusion or thorium reactors providing cheap electricity to thousands of households.
Reactors take many years to construct and are costly to build and maintain. Cost over-runs are common. A new reactor in Finland, for example, is nine years behind schedule and costs have tripled.
The U.S. has built only two new reactors in the past 25 years.
The world's 440 reactors supply about 10% of global electricity. There are currently 55 new reactors under construction in 19 countries, but it will take many years before they produce electricity. We would have to build a new reactor a week for many years to replace hydrocarbon-generated electricity. This scale of construction simply isn't practical.
Supplying all energy consumption globally--for all transportation, heating of buildings, etc.) would require over 10,000 reactors by some estimates--over 20 times the current number of reactors in service.
Many believe so-called renewable energy such as solar and wind will replace hydrocarbons. But as analysts Nate Hagens has explained, these sources are not truly renewable, they are replaceable; all solar panels and wind turbines must be replaced at great expense every 20 to 25 years. These sources are less than 5% of all energy we consume, and it will take many decades of expansion to replace even half of the hydrocarbon fuels we currently consume.
To double the energy generated by wind/solar in 25 years, we’ll need to build three for each one in service today: one to replace the existing one and two more to double the energy being produced.
All these replacements for hydrocarbons require vast amounts of resources: diesel fuel for transport, materials for fabricating turbines, panels, concrete foundations, and so on.
Humans are wired to want to believe that whatever we have now will still be ours in the future. We don't like being told we'll have less of anything in the future.
The current solution is to create more money out of thin air in the belief that if we create more money, then more oil, copper, iron, etc. will be found and extracted.
But this isn't really a solution. What happens if we add a zero to all our currency? If we add a zero to a $10 bill so it becomes $100, do we suddenly get ten times more food, gasoline, etc. with the new bill? No.
#1
Not entirely true. Every "peak oil" prediction for the last half century has failed to materialize because of technology advances.
The obvious solution to our current malaise is to produce more, build more pipelines and refineries, and immediately revoke America's foolish, ruinous, self-destructive sanctions.
End the sanctions, now. Unleash the world's greatest oil companies to invest in exploration, production, R&D and refining capacity.
#2
Photo depicts an oilfield power driven pump near Palestine, IL. Circa 1909 "technology." Still pumping last week, along with a 6 other units connected to the power. Power sits back in the woods and runs on propane. Many used to run on regulated natural gas from the wellhead. This well (termed shallow) is probably in the 1000-1300 foot depth range. Oil from this well is pumped via a 2 inch underground line back to a set of tanks in the woods. Tank trucks pump it out and take it to the refinery, trunk line, or larger tanks when the smaller tanks are full. An operator known as a "pumper" manages the process at the wellhead and power. The operation is termed a "lease" and is, or was generally named after the property owner, ie, the 'Johnson Lease' 'Goodson lease', etc. A lease could have numerous fractional owners or heirs due to family inheritances, farm sales, etc. 'Mineral rights' are oftentimes retained by the original owners.
Farmers used to complain about having to farm around the elevated rod lines. Not much complaining going on today at $110. per barrel. Only a hand full of old oilfield powers operate today.
#3
The oil price is ultimately responsible for about 70% of the inflation index:
"Energy prices have become the main driver of G7 inflation. Changes in the oil price lagged by one to four months explain 70% of the monthly change in the CPI, according to an Asia Times study.
"The sensitivity of the US Consumer Price Index to the oil price, moreover, was about twice as high during the February 2020 to May 2022 period than it had been during the preceding 15 years, the study shows."
"President Joe Biden’s administration faces a double disaster after its Ukraine miscalculation, namely a US recession and a second strategic humiliation in the space of a year. The US economy is almost certainly in recession, while oil prices drive inflation that has cut workers’ real pay by about 6% year on year.
"Washington’s earlier boasts of driving Russian President Vladimir Putin from power, destroying Russia’s capacity to make war and halving the size of the Russian economy look ridiculous in retrospect....
"The world economy is reeling from supply shocks in energy and food provoked by Western sanctions on Russia. Monetary policy can reduce inflation only by forcing consumers to stop buying, which forces retailers to liquidate inventory at lower prices and crushes demand for raw materials – a cure that is worse than the disease.
"Russia meanwhile earned a record €93 billion (US$97 billion) from energy exports during the first 100 days of the war, a Finnish study concluded. China and India, which refused to join Group of Seven sanctions against Russia, reportedly arebuying oil at a discount of $30 to $40 per barrel, while American and European consumers are paying the full price..."
#5
China and India, which refused to join Group of Seven sanctions against Russia, reportedly are buying oil at a discount of $30 to $40 per barrel, while American and European consumers are paying the full price
Biden and his son are CCP agents.
The Big Guy probably gets kickbacks on China's discounted Russian oil buys from that bogus Chinese "energy company" that his corrupt crackhead son did a joint venture with after he flew with his Vice President dad to Beijing on Air Force Two
#7
The Fed is fighting inflation using an old playbook
Raising interest rates discourages investment in homes cars and capital goods
This inflation is being driven by energy policy and you can’t discourage inelastic demand people have to buy gas and groceries no matter what the cost
Jacking the prime rate won’t touch that
It will make investment in energy more expensive and exacerbate the cost of fuel
#9
Yes, there's another person with an semi-WASP name here to lecture us about how the main problem with the shut-down American oil industry is that it isn't going to work for Russia. Yeah, right.
In other news:
Biden and his son are CCP agents.
The Big Guy probably gets kickbacks on China's discounted Russian oil buys from that bogus Chinese "energy company" that his corrupt crackhead son did a joint venture with after he flew with his Vice President dad to Beijing on Air Force Two
Well, that's a definite possibility if you have overlooked all the evidence that they're also agents of Putin's. Which is what they try to distract away from with their flood.
#10
You're trying, son, but you miss the point. The sanctions are not hurting Russia anywhere near as much as they are hurting America, Britain and Europe. Sanctions are what football (soccer to you) fans call an own goal.
It matters not a whit if removing the sanctions helps Putin. Doing so helps us. If we want to avoid years of hyperinflation and a nasty recession, there is no alternative to lifting the sanctions. Our leaders should stop being so emotional and start using their brains for once.
You miss the point because it's against your slimy fucking lies.
The sanctions are not hurting Russia anywhere near as much as they are hurting America, Britain and Europe. Sanctions are what football (soccer to you) fans call an own goal.
You think this is about the sanctions when Putin's appeasing agent Biden and his predecessors has done everything in his power to SHUT DOWN the American oilfield? Not to mention the effect of banning coal in such a way that it has to be replaced with natural gas.
It matters not a whit if removing the sanctions helps Putin. Doing so helps us.
Who the fuck is "us?" You weren't here for the past thirteen years of aggresive sanctions against the _American_ oilfield but you came out of nowhere in 2022 to tell us all about how the real problem is we're not going along with Putin?
If we want to avoid years of hyperinflation and a nasty recession, there is no alternative to lifting the sanctions. Our leaders should stop being so emotional and start using their brains for once.
Again, "we?" You laid the groundwork for the hyperinflation and economic contraction with your silence during the last fourteen years of war on the US energy sector.
If appeasing Putin but keeping the foot on the neck of the American oilfield _doesn't_ do anything to halt hyperinflation can Ukraine get their country back? Will you even be here for that conversation or will "you" vanish and another nym from the boilerroom be in your place?
You're basically a propagandist trying to extinguish the argument for American energy production by flooding the zone with non-sequiturs. You're not going to say it's impossible but you refuse to say that anything _is_ possible except for appeasing Putin. You and Biden are codependent in this manner.
#14
America was not only supplying its own oil needs through January 2021, but had become a major exporter and the primary driver for for low oil prices worldwide — much to President Putin’s frustration. President Biden reversed that, as so much else, which helps Russia while making things difficult for China — though abetting China’s economic war against the U.S.
And yet his paid keyboardists still show up to proclaim how it's in "our" interests to stop the sanctions SO MUCH!
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/19/2022 16:16 Comments ||
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#16
Conservative Russians throw curves,
Discussing, maneuvring with verve,
Saying "neocon c---,"
Sending Frankie to front...
Where they'll follow on finding their nerve.
Posted by: Bob White3967 ||
06/19/2022 16:43 Comments ||
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#17
You know there is a difference between soldiers and cannon fodder. I doubt Russia is running out of the latter. A German leader found that out to his sanguine.
#18
Palmerston is right. There is no excess refining capacity in the US -- none. Chevron's CEO talked about this the other day. So y'all can bitch all you like about Biden's screw ups but that horse has left the barn. The only way to push prices down in the next 18 months is by dumping Russian and Saudi oil on the market.
Chevron CEO Wirth said, "Capacity is added by de-bottlenecking existing units by investing in existing refineries … but what we’ve seen over the last two years are shutdowns. We’ve seen refineries closed. We’ve seen units come down. We’ve seen refineries being repurposed to become bio refineries. And we live in a world where the policy, the stated policy of the U.S. government is to reduce demand for the products that refiners produce.”
Wirth said that the federal government’s current policy is to reduce the demand for oil, making it “very hard” in a company “where investments have a payout period of a decade or more.”
#22
The analyst above us also right that Biden and Jay Powell are pursuing the absolute worst policy you could imagine. They're raising the cost of capital thus the hurdle rate for new projects, starving the American oil industry of investment and new capacity, while preventing Russian supply from reaching western buyers. A foreign enemy could not come up with a policy better designed to screw the American and European economies.
#24
There's nothing that can be done now about the lack of spare refinery capacity. The only thing to do is free up existing production, and the swing producer whether we like it or not is now Russia.
The guy above is right. Dump Russian oil on the market is unfortunately the only way out of this jam
#26
Top ten biggest refineries in the world.
How do we help them operate at peak capacity while we push an Operation Warp Speed to build several in CONUS?
Thank you, Oli Derek. I was discussing this with Mr. Wife over dinner tonight — he trained as a chemical engineer and worked with/on internal and external manufacturing throughout his career. He pointed out that just to restart a closed processing facility takes 18 months to 2 years, plus the cost of refurbishment of untouched equipment.
#28
I'm not into politics... just an oil guy with no dog in the Ukraine-Russia dustup, and I really don't care who "wins" over there.
It's just obvious to anyone who understands how the oil industry works that we the American people are losing from this crazy policy of punishing us in order to try to punish putin
#29
It's really important to understand that this hyperinflation is not demand-driven. It's not a demand shock, it's a supply shock. There's not enough supply.
This insufficient supply is 100% a problem of US policy. It used to be just because Biden wanted to throttle American oil production but it's gone way beyond that. It's now about Biden's drive to starve the world of Russian oil.
That's a joke. The Chinese and Indians and even the Europeans are buying all the Russian oil they can get. Even at discount prices, the Russians are making money hand over fist.
There's just no other way to get out of this very deep hole we're in except to free up purchases by Europe and the US of Russian oil. You can bitch and moan all you like about putin but this is just the simple hard reality of the situation we're in.
#31
Biden's not a capitalist. He and Raytheon and the MIC and other Swampies are crony capitalists at best ... socialists at heart. These assholes wouldn't know a "supply shock" if it bit them in the balls
Posted by: Billy Budd ||
06/19/2022 22:15 Comments ||
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#32
Which is why they don't understand the unintended consequences of their retarded sanctions
#35
It's just obvious to anyone who understands how the oil industry works that we the American people are losing from this crazy policy of punishing us in order to try to punish putin
It may be obvious to the Russian stooges that IT MUST NOT BE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE PAIN IS FROM BIDEN DESTROYING THE AMERICAN OILFIELD AND NOT FROM HIS HALFHEARTED FAKE ATTEMPTS AT FIGHTING PUTIN but what do I know, I don't have a fucking boiler room and don't enjoy seeing Rantburg turned into a czarist equivalent.
[Market Watch] When it comes to bear markets, investors can take comfort from history, which suggests that where there’s a beginning, there’s always an end.
And according to Bank of America, investors have only got a few bear-market months left to endure after the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 SPX, +0.22% tumbled into bear territory at the start of this week. And then will come a bull market.
Per history, B. of A. Global Investment Strategy’s chief investment strategist, Michael Hartnett, points out, the average peak-to-trough bear-market decline is 37.3% over a span of 289 days. Matching that pattern would put the end of the pain on Oct. 19, 2022, which happens to mark the 35th anniversary of Black Monday, as the stock-market crash of 1987 is widely known, with, again according to statistical averages, the S&P 500 likely bottoming at 3,000.
A popular definition of a bear market defines it as a 20% drop from a recent high. As of Thursday, the index was off 23.55% from its record close of 4,796.56 on Monday, Jan. 3, 2022.
And an end typically marks a new beginning, with Bank of America noting the average bull market lasts a much longer 64 months with a 198% return, "so next bull sees the S&P 500 at 6,000 by Feb. 28," said Hartnett.
Meanwhile, another week saw the bank’s own bull-and-bear indicator (below) fall as far as it can into "contrarian bullish" territory.
"Amid the increasing concerns over the international economic turmoil that has plagued the markets for months and the lackluster performance of the United States economy, Bank of America has taken a tougher beating than the other large financial institutions. Over the last 6 months, Bank of America has seen its market capital fall 56.03%,... "
With that said.
Remember back in 2008-2010 bank failures, BOA swooped in and purchased and number of failing financial groups. But this go around, it may not be in the same position.
#9
The stock market took almost 25 years to get back to pre-depression level. About 20 years to get back from the 1969 top and the internet top took about 15 years to reach that level again when adjusted for inflation.
#10
If B of A is correct, the next few months will be a horror show. The S&P closed last week at about 3675. To hit 3000 would mean a drop of 18% from existing levels. That would devastate tens of millions of 401 plans, bankrupt dozens of pension funds, etc.
The only thing good about it would be the humiliating loss the Democrats would take in the mid terms.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
06/19/2022 20:59 Comments ||
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[JPost] By contrast, Trump conditioned the elevation of Palestinian leadership on two criteria: First, stop rewarding terrorist actions; second, if you want to become a state, then start acting like one.
President Joe Biden’s first visit to the Middle East next month will include stops in Israel and the West Bank. It is notable that in listing the priorities Biden plans to raise with Israeli and their Palestinian counterparts, the word "peace" does not appear in the White House press statement.
This is not because he is simply not interested in advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as some media outlets have characterized.
On the contrary, he has taken a series of steps to elevate Palestinian leadership over the past 17 months, including restoring the United States assistance to the Palestinians that former president Donald Trump halted. Just this month, on June 9, the Biden administration opened a new Office of Palestinian Affairs in Jerusalem, three years after the Trump administration closed their Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.
The move is not only a reversal of Trump administration policy, but it is also an explicit rejection of the Israeli government’s opposition to an earlier plan by the current administration to reopen the Palestinian consulate.
BIDEN'S MIDDLE EAST "FAILURES AND POLICIES"
Biden’s failures in the Middle East are markedly different from his failures in other parts of the world. His disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan (which, although in the same Central Command area of responsibility, has become its own distinct portfolio area outside of US Middle East policy), his emboldening of President Vladimir Putin that enabled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his repeated gaffes regarding Taiwan, among other difficult moments over the last 17 months, all stem from carelessness and a lack of engagement.
Biden’s Middle East policy, by contrast, is a systematic kind of engagement in the worst possible way. Indeed, his track record with the Iranian government is a case in point.
In the context of Middle East peace, it is pursuing a new appease process characterized by a single-minded elevation of the Palestinian leadership, while not holding them accountable for incentivizing violence against Israel and disregarding Israel’s expressed concerns.
By contrast, Trump conditioned the elevation of Palestinian leadership on two criteria: First, stop rewarding terrorist actions; second, if you want to become a state, then start acting like one.
If the Palestinian leadership accepted this agreement, it would have received a $50 billion (NIS 173 b.) investment to boost the Palestinian economy.
Until the above conditions were met, the Trump Administration contended that the Palestinian government was not qualified to be part of any peace arrangement and certainly not US financial support.
In the meantime, America would not wait for the Palestinians to achieve peace in the Middle East but would instead work with nations in the region who have a genuine commitment to it — a rigorous diplomatic effort that resulted in the signing of the historic Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom of Bahrain.
TRUMP DESCRIBED his Peace to Prosperity vision on January 28, 2020, as "a historic opportunity for the Palestinians to finally achieve an independent state of their very own."
But that opportunity, as the Trump administration’s policy made clear, could only come after Palestinian leaders stopped "using them as pawns to advance terrorism and extremism," and accepted that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the Golan Heights belongs to Israel. In other words, Israel’s sovereignty and security are not negotiable.
That is also why the Trump administration signed the Taylor Force Act into law in March 2018 — legislation named after Taylor Force from Lubbock, Texas, a West Point graduate and Afghanistan war veteran who was killed in a Palestinian terrorist attack in Israel.
The legislation cut all American aid to the Palestinian authority until they stopped their pay-to-slay program, a government-run fund that provided remuneration to the families of Palestinian terrorists.
These actions signaled not only that the Trump administration stood clearly with the people of Israel but also with the Palestinian people. It signaled it was serious about working towards a Palestinian state if Palestinians were serious about it themselves.
Tragically, Biden and his team lack any serious vision for promoting peace in the Middle East. They not only want to revert to the failed land-for-peace arrangements of previous administrations, but they also think offering mere gestures of appeasement to the Palestinian leadership will be enough. In the Biden administration’s likely calculus, the fact that those steps happen to be reversals of Trump administration policy is an added bonus.
This move is both a real setback to peace and damages America’s credibility. It comes just as Biden is set to travel to the Middle East as president for the first time next month. His visit includes a visit to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the latter’s invitation in the midst of a deadly wave of terrorist attacks.
Incidentally, on the same day that the Biden administration announced its decision to open the Office of Palestinian Affairs, two Palestinians were indicted for their role in a deadly ax attack in Elad several weeks before, in which they killed three Israelis and wounded several others.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/19/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Photo depicts an oilfield power driven pump near Palestine, IL. Circa 1909 "technology." Still pumping last week, along with a 6 other units connected to the power. Power sits back in the woods and runs on propane. Many used to run on regulated natural gas from the wellhead. This well (termed shallow) is probably in the 1000-1300 foot depth range. Oil from this well is pumped via a 2 inch underground line back to a set of tanks in the woods. Tank trucks pump it out and take it to the refinery, trunk line, or larger tanks when the smaller tanks are full. An operator known as a "pumper" manages the process at the wellhead and power. The operation is termed a "lease" and is, or was generally named after the property owner, ie, the 'Johnson Lease' 'Goodson lease', etc. A lease could have numerous fractional owners or heirs due to family inheritances, farm sales, etc. 'Mineral rights' are oftentimes retained by the original owners.
[Market Watch] When it comes to bear markets, investors can take comfort from history, which suggests that where there’s a beginning, there’s always an end.
