But let’s talk about the big elephant in the room: America. China’s largest trading partner, by far. And Americans can no longer consume Chinese junk in embarrassing quantities because…. You guessed it….. our economy is “best ever!!!!” 😂😂
Take out the unceasing demand for Chinese stuff from the good ‘ol US of A, and nobody else in the world can step up to fill the gaping hole. Especially during a globally synchronized economic downturn.
What China is telling us is that the entire world is one giant economic Titanic. America May currently be the now, but the now rising up above every other part of the ship is just a temporary sign that the rest of the vessel is sliding below the water. China committed a lot of economic sins to pull off its fake “miracle” of economic development, and one of the worst was building its new economy mainly on the business that bad economic policy and labor unions in America drove its way decades ago. China should have grown more slowly and diversified more. And Americans should have been a bit less insistent on demanding the moon as compensation for labor. And of course we ALL should have dumped the central banks and returned to hard money instead of their paper debt.
Now we will all pay the Piper and the central banksters will laugh all the way to their AI controlled electronic CBDC ledgers.
Every country on the planet is in bad ... or worse shape than China.
The US debt trajectory is out of control... and that is all that is what is behind 'this awesome economy' and a total implosion.
Europe is a total basket case... the UK is on its death bed... Canada is fucked... Australia etc...
This is what happens when :
Conventional oil production peaked nearly 20 years ago, we have been desperately cannibalizing nuclear war heads to fuel reactors, and shale oil production is now declining. Renewable energy is nothing more than a mirage of hopium.
The fourth horseman of the apocalypse is now mounted - natural gas production is contracting.
And the currency is nothing but green toilet paper.
The discipline imposed by hard money would never have allowed this to happen. That’s why the central banks had to get rid of it.
We can have a good quality of life in perpetuity, or extreme excess and the mass degeneracy it brings for a short whole, , but not both. Paper money allows the extreme society that burns itself out. But not until it allows those in the know to steal everything from everybody else. And once they’ve reduced the population and creates an electronically- managed North Korea-style subsistence society in America and globally, even the declining energy stocks will be sufficient to find their lavish lifestyles, and the two bowls per day of swill for the small body of peasantry.
This is happening not because of currency or whatever... it is happening because we are running out of affordable energy.
If the central banks did not run the presses hard and stimulate by dropping rates... the economy would have collapsed into a deflationary death spiral just after the turn of the century....
They had to do something to offset the pernicious effects of expensive energy
HIGH PRICED OIL DESTROYS GROWTH
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices.
That works... until it doesn't... and now it's stopping working... all it is doing is driving inflation ... the medicine that kept the beast alive... is not poisoning it.
I’m not contesting that energy stocks are declining. I agree with you in the long term. But we’re still, IMO, far from either an imminent crash, or prices shooting to the moon (absent politically-motivated, artificially generated scarcity).
The Saudis are upset because they’ve been cutting oil production but prices haven’t risen substantially in response. The “problem” is that American (and global) demand for oil keeps dropping even faster. Even with several wars going on! Meanwhile, the US is busy helping Guyana beat off Venezuela’s attempts to steal the oil from the massive offshore oil field to which Guyana lays claim, and to which it granted drilling licenses in 2023. If that oil comes on to market under Guyana’s flag, it will help the Eurodollar retain its iron grip on the global reserve status and go on to fuel our admittedly eco- and energy-dysfunctional societies for a while longer, even with the stupidly high energy use of nonsense like AI and crypto. Especially for a much smaller population (yes, the ultimate goal).
I repeat that none of this would be possible, including the exploration and construction of infrastructure to bring such mass quantities of cheap energy to most parts of the developed world - had we stayed on a bi-metallic, Constitutional money standard. Neither would the explosion of the “human bubble”, as Gregory Mannarino puts it, to over eight billion souls, have happened.
This is why central banks had to be formed and instituted all over the world and sound money replaced by worthless paper derivatives. This switch from money as an asset to money as debt unleashed both the economic and population growth potentials facilitated by cheap and abundant energy. The growth could be both facilitated and economically exploited by those in charge of the energy itself, those who owned the industries the energy made possible, and those who controlled the currency on which the growth of both industry and the energy supply, depended. As a natural consequence, the masses became more wealthy -to a point - as cheap energy made production and trade (ie, pulling resources from the future into the now), faster and easier. And those who controlled the energy, the industry and the abundant currency which controlled both, made out proportionally better.
So as I see it, growth in the energy supply and the industrial development it fueled, and which in turn fed the human bubble, all interlock, and are all made possible by an infinitely elastic money supply that can expand faster than the population can grow. But since fossil energy supplies are limited and rational evolution into alternatives (including things like regenerative farming and Tesla energy) are politically toxic, now that the human bubble is catching up to the limits of politically acceptable energy supplies, the only “rational” response, at least in the minds of the predators generally contemptuous of humanity and life generally, is to kill off all the “useless eaters”.
We had our fun; now we will pay the bill for dissipating, with no concern, the lion’s share of the earth’s stock of hydrocarbons into the air, the soil, the water, our bodies, the plants and animals we eat, and landfills. It’s not going to be a fun process for anybody, but those who dissipated a little of the energy into precious metals will have it better than those who didn’t, I think. Provided they’re not stupid and get themselves vaxxed, etc. Gold and silver have been humanity’s lifeboats ever since currency-based economies evolved, and they will once again save those who are sufficiently farsighted to hold some, provided the ecocide doesn’t get out of control.
These are uncharted waters we’re rapidly being sucked into and none of us really know what to expect. In the end I think the arguments over exactly what caused the polycrisis are going to be academic for most people. But I appreciate the opportunity to debate and explore the issues with others like yourself who are trying to rationally puzzle this out so we can have at least some framework for understanding what’s really happening and thinking our way through it.
Bumble, you need to understand that you have to dominate the world and establish codependency links to have a first world standard of living maintained. Other humans would be jealous of you the moment they saw you were more advanced. This was already seen in Japan and whatnot with everyone wanting to industrialize. Just because you use gold currency it does not change anything as the system is only one fact of the matter— the other is excessive human greed that cannot be curtailed. The evil men already told the population about energy shortages and overpopulation since 1970 and yet even westerners still poop our babies and drive to Costco for chickens. Gold money is not going to stop human growth or taking out loans or devaluatio being demanded —- historically the populace got annoyed if they could t dissipate more energy infinitely— every empire died to same reason.
Apparently they have a huge reservoir offshore that they’ve only begun to tap, and that’s why we’re fighting Venezuela for it. But no matter; you see the collapse in energy as being fairly imminent; I see it, based on the evidence I’ve read, as being in slow decline over several decades before a full-on, apocalyptic crisis hits. But we both agree it’s coming and can’t be stopped by conventional approaches to energy production and usage.
Meanwhile, we’ll run out of silver in likely 2-3 years, maybe sooner (LBMA appears to be possibly cracking already) and without silver, the electronic world ceases to exist. Credit circulation collapses, fossil energy production stops, the lights go out, and we all quickly become Amish, or perish. No silver, no energy; no energy, no more silver production or debt production or food production and our disagreement on the timeline of energy collapse becomes moot.
Oh, and most of America’s topsoil will be plowed away in about 30 years, now, because of our completely insane farming methods. So if the fossil energy doesn’t go away by then, the loss of topsoil will get us. And I don’t see Billy Boy or the Chinese or any of the other oligarchs and financial players who are buying up all the farm land, doing anything about that. Apparently they believe the Rapture will happen before food production collapses from either the loss of soil, or the end of cheap energy, or the ongoing ecocide, or the lack of available silver, so they won’t have to worry about living the effects of any of the above. Must be nice to have the ultimate safety net, eh? 😉
And the currency is nothing but green toilet paper.
The discipline imposed by hard money would never have allowed this to happen. That’s why the central banks had to get rid of it.
We can have a good quality of life in perpetuity, or extreme excess and the mass degeneracy it brings for a short while, but not both. Paper money allows the extreme society that burns itself out. But not until it allows those in the know to steal everything from everybody else. And once they’ve reduced the population and created an electronically- managed North Korea-style subsistence society in America and globally, even the declining energy stocks will be sufficient to find their lavish lifestyles, plus the two bowls per day of swill and simple uniforms for the small body of peasantry.
"Take out the unceasing demand for Chinese stuff from the good ‘ol US of A, and nobody else in the world can step up to fill the gaping hole."
This isn't true any more. China has already cut off exports of numerous metals to the US. China doesn't need America but America depends entirely on China.
Yes, they cut off exports of certain critical metals recently, and we do send a fair amount of certain things there such as meats. Largely to undercut their domestic meat producers. But you’re saying that America has huge factories running on our soil to produce socks, cars, plumbing fixtures, light bulbs and computers to send to China? Maybe that’s why Americans can no longer find much of anything made in America any more, because we’re sending vast quantities of stuff to China and selling their goods over here? I think Boeing sells aircraft to China, but they’re not doing so well these days.,,,,,
Anyway, the truth will is in the economic numbers, I think. Look at China’s crashing bond market. Why is it crashing? Because the government keeps lowering the yields in a Hail Mary attempt to revive China’s economy. Their post convid “grand re-opening” failed. Their stimulus bazooka failed. Now their yield curve suppression attempt is failing. Their real estate market is crashing, and along with it, so is the major portion of their citizens’ wealth and savings. No amount of Chinese economic stimulus can force their largest trading partner, America, to consume more goods and services when Americans are running out of currency with which to buy said products, and China developed so much production overcapacity based on the belief in neverending growth of the American economy, that it’s own citizens can’t consume what they can produce. With the global economy currently in a synchronized downturn, there’s nobody else who can pick up the slack, either. So there’s little hope at this point that China can escape a rather nasty depression.
As we lose our ability to purchase, they lose the ability to produce the goods we depend on (or at least have gotten used to) in sufficient quantity. There will be a brief spurt of deflation in goods of more marginal value (already happening in some sectors), followed by deflation in more important goods, then a very long period of scarcity and much higher prices for most goods still being imported. I see us as turning into the old Soviet Union: there will be nothing to buy, and if you CAN find something to buy, you won’t be able to afford it (unless you’re a member of the small upper class). The vast majority of citizens in both China and then the U.S. will become impoverished, and governments will have an easier time bridging everybody to the new total surveillance electronic tokenized money system.
China cutting the U.S. off from some critical metals will do nothing to stop this process because the issue is that you and I can’t (or won’t if we’re saving our money in fear of losing our jobs or not being able to pay our property taxes next year or whatever), consume more Chinese imports. So, while such a political move may hurt us in some ways, it won’t put money in your pocket or mine to make purchases from Chinese manufacturers, and it won’t open up markets for China elsewhere. So, it’s not really germane to the economic end game we all find ourselves in. Yes, America needs China in some ways just as they need us, but the two needs don’t complement one another.
If you can see a politically feasible way out of the global economic conundrum in which America and China are both trapped, I’m sure we’d all love to hear it. Nobody I watch or follow has any solutions. Maybe I’m just tuned in to all the wrong people? I’d love to know.
This is an artefact of the economic system. Logically speaking you should have all people employed for less hours at fixed schedules for routine fixed consumption levels. Debt systems cannot balance energy flows and IOUs like bonds are just energy flow demand functors— when one collapses they all collapse because they are interdependent in the abstraction sense.
This is out of date. China now imports far less corn and soybeans from the US while imports from Brazil have increased. China does not need the US. The US is dying.
Soybean is Brazil's main export commodity. In 2023, Brazil held the top rank as China's largest soybean supplier with a market share of about 69 percent.
China is on the precipice of a deflationary death spiral... unplug the demand for Chinese stuff from Americans... and that death spiral accelerates and quickly the country implodes
The US is bad... but nowhere near as bad as China...
The way it works in China is you pay the full value of the property purchase price --- even if it does not get built....
So all of these people are paying off properties ... that are not built ... and that will never get built...
Maybe that is why they are experiencing severe deflation.... in addition to paying off these mortgages... they also have to pay for a place to live.... that saps your spending power...
Then of course the unemployment rate for grads is upwards of 20% (they stopped reporting because it's so bad).
America by comparison ... is an economic utopia... but it will of course follow China down the toilet....
I would say everyone is in trouble at this point. Why? Because every country is doing the exact same thing by loading up on debt and everyone is interconnected. I remember what Greece did to the markets when they were bailed out by the EU and IMF. The markets went nuts, wondering if a contagion was to follow and take down larger economies.
When the US defaults and that is assured because eventually no one is going to buy new debt to pay off the old debt. When that happens, the US will default. That will have a catastrophic effect on the world and it will have severe blowback on everyone else. China is a mess as Fast has pointed out. There's no question about that and that's why they are now doing more business eastward but it all centers around who is their biggest consumer. That would be the US and when the US goes down, it takes others down along with the US which further impacts China's ability to sell its trinkets.
When the shit hits the fan it will be a global shitshow and one for the ages. Here's Martin Armstrong's take on China's deflation worries.
Evidence that this detailed elaboration is spot-on can be seen in the trickle-becoming-flood of rich rats doing their best to abandon ship, shifting their loot out of the PRC to queasy destinations like Malta (citizenship for sale, cheap). A stopgap tactic at best: when the global economy goes tits-up then any bank anywhere will start to look dodgy.
Initially it was Canada where the Hong Kong money escaped to, in the 1980s, starting with the handover. The three-story wooden house at Sophia and 26th I could have purchased for CAD 70,000 when I arrived in Van in 1970 is now going for CAD 15 million. Docile British Columbians have stood by, meek, compliant lambs, as they are priced out of the housing market by hot Chinese money.
Many of those "astronaut" Chinese (or their kids) actually end up in the USA, as they are frustrated and stymied by Canada's stolid, constipated economy. Just as the third-world invaders are making life unpleasant in American cities, Chinese money and enterprise will shove aside the "native Americans" (that's a pun, son). As Slo-Jo philosophically observed, Whitey is doomed.
Who would have thought it would be a kind of suicide?
China’s homegrown C919 takes flight beyond the Chinese mainland,
but real milestones – and global recognition – still lie ahead.
To ring in the new year, China’s homegrown jet, the C919 – nicknamed “daifeiji” (大飞机), or “Great Airplane” – took its first regularly scheduled passenger flight outside the Chinese mainland. The new daily route, linking Shanghai Hongqiao and Hong Kong, has been hailed by Beijing as a landmark milestone in showcasing the C919 to the world.
China is dying .... arguing if China needs America or not is irrelevant
Of course America is dying to... the world is dying....
China corporate profits set for third year of declines
Oversupply drives intense competition that is undermining prices and profitability
Chinese corporate profits are set to show a third consecutive year of declines in 2024, with the trend expected to continue into this year as deflationary pressures weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
Corporate profits in China for companies with more than Rmb20mn ($2.7mn) in revenue declined by an average of 4.7 per cent year on year between January and November, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This is greater than the 4 per cent decline seen during the whole of 2022 when the country was under pandemic lockdowns.
Revenue grew just 1.8 per cent year on year between January and November 2024 on the same period in 2023.
This compares with 5.9 per cent growth in 2022 on the previous year.
In addition, 25 per cent of companies in China with revenue of more than Rmb20mn made outright losses between January and November 2024, compared with 16 per cent in the full year of 2019 before the pandemic, NBS data showed. The agency’s data covers 500,000 companies.
“The biggest reason behind that slowdown, I would say, is deflation,” said Laura Wang, chief China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley.
I am absolutely confused how on one hand there is so much printed "currency" sloshing around from dollars to RMB to BTC to collateralized loan debt instruments and derivatives that you would think we would have hyperinflation looming as people suddenly want to get out of currencies. But no one is looking at the fact that in the end, currency is just a claim on actual goods and services, like food and energy. It does not matter if the financial system breaks down in a deflationary death spiral or explodes into a hyperinflationary supernova. What matters is whether production of real goods and services can continue under either scenario. Currency becomes meaningless.
I draw an analogy of all the potential hyperinflationary trillions of dollars being sequestered in debt instruments being like all of the fresh water sequesterd as ice in Antarctica. If it does not melt, it becomes irrelevant and not felt as inflation. In fact we could theoretically die of thirst!
I would think that as industrial civilization unwinds and eventually (not in my time though) reverts back to the 1800's, the only thing left will be barter until local markets get re-established on a drastically smaller scale. Forget about global trade. Eventually, when limited localized trade emerges, gold and silver may once again re emerge as money -as it has done for millenia. After all, when humanity "specializes" from farming to blacksmithing to making buggy whips, a form of real money as a store of value and medium of exchange is required, otherwise we regress even further to simple hunter gatherers.
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies.
One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl. Source
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in pools in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. Source
Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident Source (Note: The Chernobyl accident was relatively minor, involved no spent fuel ponds, and was controlled by pouring cement onto the reactor. This was breaking down so a few years back they re-entombed.)
“However, many of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have long half-lives. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,800 years. Because it contains these long half-lived radioactive elements, spent fuel must be isolated and controlled for thousands of years.” Source
It does not matter how remote you are, the jet stream and ocean currents will circulate these toxic cancer-causing substances around the globe. They will be picked up by convection and pour deadly rain on your crop and water supply.
Nobody survives the collapse of civilization. This will be an extinction event.
China is hanging on by a thread.... youth unemployment is likely over 20%.... the property market is fucked... they are throwing everything at the export market using subsidies...
And just think, they pulled off their bogus economic growth with relatively cheap oil. As it gets more costly to get out of the ground, eCONomies will start to feel the pressure.
You wanna take a look at China's and Industrial Civilization's future? Have a look at Europe and especially Germany who basically funds the EU. They refused Russia's oil and now they are heading towards if they are lucky, a major recession. If they're not so lucky, a Depression and the rest of Europe will follow as governments implode. That's how important, Black Gold is to the world's economy.
I am told Ukraine is not allowing Russia to ship gas to Europe...
Russia Reclaims Its Position as Europe’s Top Gas Supplier - Russia has surpassed the U.S. as the primary supplier of gas to Europe, despite efforts by the region to reduce reliance on Russian energy sources. Source https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/you-are-being-1984ed
So are they allowing oil but not gas?
And wouldn't Europe stop supporting Ukraine in the supposed war if they shut off the gas to Europe?
Maybe the Europeans are stupid... they don't realize that they could resume the gas with a phone call to The Pecker Head piano player.
And why doesn't Russia stop the gas... it's his gas... and apparently he thinks NATO is trying to kill him.
Why does he need Ukey to stop it?
And why is he sending record amounts of oil to the EU?
Can someone tell me why Russia continues to supply the US with uranium? Bit odd when Putin says the US wants to unseat him.... bizarre - NO?
The United States imports most of the uranium it uses as fuel - Sources and percentage shares of total U.S. purchases of uranium: Canada 27%. Kazakhstan 25%. Russia 12%. Uzbekistan 11%. Australia 9%. Six other countries combined 16%. Source
Russia now controls 25 per cent of Kazakhstan's uranium production - Almost half of all foreign companies working in Kazakhstan are now Russian, and there is huge interest in Kazakhstan from Russian state-owned enterprises and private companies with links to the Kremlin. Russia now controls 25 per cent of Kazakhstan's uranium production, after Tokayev quietly permitted the sale of important strategic licenses. Source
Russia’s influence in Kazakhstan is increasing despite the war in Ukraine - Some hoped the war would pivot Astana’s foreign policy towards the West – but economic ties with Moscow have deepened. Source
Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium miner, is conducting “active work” to boost exports of uranium to US energy companies - The country’s energy ministry said cooperation in the energy sector had been discussed at a meeting with US Senator Steve Daines on Tuesday. The nation already has contracts to supply uranium products until 2032 with firms including Southern Co., Constellation Energy Corp. and Duke Energy Corp., it said. Source
I am very confused... nothing makes sense... could it be that the Ukraine war and all this is fake... after all...we know collapse is imminent - therefore so do those who run the world... there is nothing left to fight for...
Could it be that the Ukraine war is a distraction coupled with an excuse for the energy depletion and raging inflation and energy costs we are experiencing....
You were told correctly. It was the Ukies who killed the flow of oil to Europe. However long before that Europe as a whole was banning Russian oil because of the Neocons in Washington, who don't give two shits about Europe or the EU. Washington watched their economies implode.
There's a famous Henry Kissinger quote that applies here: "it's dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal".
I see... so Ukraine ... beholden to Europe for support ... stops gas supplies to Europe... and there are no repercussions.
As we know ... before this happened... energy prices were out of control... even though:
Russia Reclaims Its Position as Europe’s Top Gas Supplier - Russia has surpassed the U.S. as the primary supplier of gas to Europe, despite efforts by the region to reduce reliance on Russian energy sources. https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/you-are-being-1984ed
Now what do we think would happen ... if Ukraine shut the gas from Russia to the EU.... Russia - THE TOP GAS SUPPLIER TO EUROPE.
Surely gas prices should explode higher no?
Surely the economy of the EU... already in deep shit .... should be imploding since THE TOP GAS SUPPLIER TO EUROPE....is no longer supplying gas.
Come the fuck on .... this is all make believe ... it's FAKE.
The Ukraine War is FAKE.
But it sure gives nice cover for the actual situation which is ... there is no longer enough affordable gas to go round....
cnnbbc will NEVER tell you there is not enough ... that would freak out the barnyard animals...
Instead they throw handfuls of sloppy shit in your face.... sowing confusion ... and blaming everything on the manufactured whipping boy ... Ukraine...
Now that does make perfect sense...
Cutting off the gas from Russia hahahahaha now that is totally ridiculous
And these breakdowns are only going to accelerate with all the Data Centers being built for AI. Demand for energy is only going to increase exponentially and as a Nuclear Engineer recently stated, Thorium reactors are not the end all answer.
Economies only thrive when cheap energy is available and we are beginning to feel its effects.
Global oil supply rose by 130 kb/d m-o-m to 103.4 mb/d in November, up 230 kb/d y-o-y, on a continued recovery in Libyan and Kazakhstan output. Total oil supply is on track to increase by 630 kb/d this year and 1.9 mb/d in 2025, to 104.8 mb/d, even in the absence of unwinding of OPEC+ cuts. Non-OPEC+ supply rises by about 1.5 mb/d in both years, led by the United States, Brazil, Guyana, Canada and Argentina.
With only six weeks left of the year, global oil demand is on track to expand by 920 kb/d to an average 102.8 mb/d in 2024, compared with growth close to 2 mb/d last year and 1.2 mb/d per year on average over 2000-2019. China’s marked slowdown has been the main drag on demand, with its growth this year expected to average just a tenth of the 1.4 mb/d increase in 2023.
World crude oil extraction reached an all-time high of 84.6 million barrels per day in late 2018, and production hasn’t been able to regain that level since then.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released recently, the world produced an average of 76.10 million barrels of crude oil per day in the third quarter of 2024.
That compares to an average of 76.19 million barrels per day in the second quarter, an average of 76.70 million barrels per day in the first quarter, and an average 76.57 million barrels per day overall in 2023, the EIA’s November STEO showed.
The agency bumped up its global oil output forecast for 2024 to 102.6 million bpd, from its prior forecast of 102.5 million bpd. For next year, it expects world output of 104.7 million bpd, up from 104.5 million bpd previously.
I think the latter number includes all liquids, like NGPL and biofuels, while the 76M number is just crude+condensate, or what is traditionally just called "oil".
>> The U.S. made up 13.27 million barrels per day of the third quarter total
I know that that's about how much the US produces of crude+condensate. The 19mbpd number one often hears bandied about for the US include NGPL, biofuels, refinery gains, i.e. not just oil.
C+C production is officially 13.5mbpd. NGPL is about 4 million barrels in the US. Plus 1 million refinery gain, 1 million biofuels, that accounts for the US 19.5mbpd "total liquids" production.
China corporate profits set for third year of declines
Oversupply drives intense competition that is undermining prices and profitability
Chinese corporate profits are set to show a third consecutive year of declines in 2024, with the trend expected to continue into this year as deflationary pressures weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
Corporate profits in China for companies with more than Rmb20mn ($2.7mn) in revenue declined by an average of 4.7 per cent year on year between January and November, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This is greater than the 4 per cent decline seen during the whole of 2022 when the country was under pandemic lockdowns.
Revenue grew just 1.8 per cent year on year between January and November 2024 on the same period in 2023.
This compares with 5.9 per cent growth in 2022 on the previous year.
In addition, 25 per cent of companies in China with revenue of more than Rmb20mn made outright losses between January and November 2024, compared with 16 per cent in the full year of 2019 before the pandemic, NBS data showed. The agency’s data covers 500,000 companies.
“The biggest reason behind that slowdown, I would say, is deflation,” said Laura Wang, chief China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley.
Eddy, a very extensive in depth article as always. But, it all hinges on the situation actually being real, put it another way, the Matrix will subject us to whatever suits its needs! Therefore I worry not about all the crap!
I have done business in HK/China for over two decades... trust me ... it is real... I have never experienced conditions anywhere close to this... and I survived the Asian Financial Crisis and the GFC.
But let’s talk about the big elephant in the room: America. China’s largest trading partner, by far. And Americans can no longer consume Chinese junk in embarrassing quantities because…. You guessed it….. our economy is “best ever!!!!” 😂😂
Take out the unceasing demand for Chinese stuff from the good ‘ol US of A, and nobody else in the world can step up to fill the gaping hole. Especially during a globally synchronized economic downturn.
What China is telling us is that the entire world is one giant economic Titanic. America May currently be the now, but the now rising up above every other part of the ship is just a temporary sign that the rest of the vessel is sliding below the water. China committed a lot of economic sins to pull off its fake “miracle” of economic development, and one of the worst was building its new economy mainly on the business that bad economic policy and labor unions in America drove its way decades ago. China should have grown more slowly and diversified more. And Americans should have been a bit less insistent on demanding the moon as compensation for labor. And of course we ALL should have dumped the central banks and returned to hard money instead of their paper debt.
Now we will all pay the Piper and the central banksters will laugh all the way to their AI controlled electronic CBDC ledgers.
Every country on the planet is in bad ... or worse shape than China.
The US debt trajectory is out of control... and that is all that is what is behind 'this awesome economy' and a total implosion.
Europe is a total basket case... the UK is on its death bed... Canada is fucked... Australia etc...
This is what happens when :
Conventional oil production peaked nearly 20 years ago, we have been desperately cannibalizing nuclear war heads to fuel reactors, and shale oil production is now declining. Renewable energy is nothing more than a mirage of hopium.
The fourth horseman of the apocalypse is now mounted - natural gas production is contracting.
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/natural-gas-production-is-contracting
US debt could hit according to some estimates $60T in a few years. This global shitshow is going to get real pretty soon.
And the currency is nothing but green toilet paper.
The discipline imposed by hard money would never have allowed this to happen. That’s why the central banks had to get rid of it.
We can have a good quality of life in perpetuity, or extreme excess and the mass degeneracy it brings for a short whole, , but not both. Paper money allows the extreme society that burns itself out. But not until it allows those in the know to steal everything from everybody else. And once they’ve reduced the population and creates an electronically- managed North Korea-style subsistence society in America and globally, even the declining energy stocks will be sufficient to find their lavish lifestyles, and the two bowls per day of swill for the small body of peasantry.
This is happening not because of currency or whatever... it is happening because we are running out of affordable energy.
If the central banks did not run the presses hard and stimulate by dropping rates... the economy would have collapsed into a deflationary death spiral just after the turn of the century....
They had to do something to offset the pernicious effects of expensive energy
HIGH PRICED OIL DESTROYS GROWTH
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices.
http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf
That works... until it doesn't... and now it's stopping working... all it is doing is driving inflation ... the medicine that kept the beast alive... is not poisoning it.
There is no way out... therefore https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-extinction-plan-uep
I’m not contesting that energy stocks are declining. I agree with you in the long term. But we’re still, IMO, far from either an imminent crash, or prices shooting to the moon (absent politically-motivated, artificially generated scarcity).
The Saudis are upset because they’ve been cutting oil production but prices haven’t risen substantially in response. The “problem” is that American (and global) demand for oil keeps dropping even faster. Even with several wars going on! Meanwhile, the US is busy helping Guyana beat off Venezuela’s attempts to steal the oil from the massive offshore oil field to which Guyana lays claim, and to which it granted drilling licenses in 2023. If that oil comes on to market under Guyana’s flag, it will help the Eurodollar retain its iron grip on the global reserve status and go on to fuel our admittedly eco- and energy-dysfunctional societies for a while longer, even with the stupidly high energy use of nonsense like AI and crypto. Especially for a much smaller population (yes, the ultimate goal).
I repeat that none of this would be possible, including the exploration and construction of infrastructure to bring such mass quantities of cheap energy to most parts of the developed world - had we stayed on a bi-metallic, Constitutional money standard. Neither would the explosion of the “human bubble”, as Gregory Mannarino puts it, to over eight billion souls, have happened.
This is why central banks had to be formed and instituted all over the world and sound money replaced by worthless paper derivatives. This switch from money as an asset to money as debt unleashed both the economic and population growth potentials facilitated by cheap and abundant energy. The growth could be both facilitated and economically exploited by those in charge of the energy itself, those who owned the industries the energy made possible, and those who controlled the currency on which the growth of both industry and the energy supply, depended. As a natural consequence, the masses became more wealthy -to a point - as cheap energy made production and trade (ie, pulling resources from the future into the now), faster and easier. And those who controlled the energy, the industry and the abundant currency which controlled both, made out proportionally better.
So as I see it, growth in the energy supply and the industrial development it fueled, and which in turn fed the human bubble, all interlock, and are all made possible by an infinitely elastic money supply that can expand faster than the population can grow. But since fossil energy supplies are limited and rational evolution into alternatives (including things like regenerative farming and Tesla energy) are politically toxic, now that the human bubble is catching up to the limits of politically acceptable energy supplies, the only “rational” response, at least in the minds of the predators generally contemptuous of humanity and life generally, is to kill off all the “useless eaters”.
We had our fun; now we will pay the bill for dissipating, with no concern, the lion’s share of the earth’s stock of hydrocarbons into the air, the soil, the water, our bodies, the plants and animals we eat, and landfills. It’s not going to be a fun process for anybody, but those who dissipated a little of the energy into precious metals will have it better than those who didn’t, I think. Provided they’re not stupid and get themselves vaxxed, etc. Gold and silver have been humanity’s lifeboats ever since currency-based economies evolved, and they will once again save those who are sufficiently farsighted to hold some, provided the ecocide doesn’t get out of control.
These are uncharted waters we’re rapidly being sucked into and none of us really know what to expect. In the end I think the arguments over exactly what caused the polycrisis are going to be academic for most people. But I appreciate the opportunity to debate and explore the issues with others like yourself who are trying to rationally puzzle this out so we can have at least some framework for understanding what’s really happening and thinking our way through it.
Bumble, you need to understand that you have to dominate the world and establish codependency links to have a first world standard of living maintained. Other humans would be jealous of you the moment they saw you were more advanced. This was already seen in Japan and whatnot with everyone wanting to industrialize. Just because you use gold currency it does not change anything as the system is only one fact of the matter— the other is excessive human greed that cannot be curtailed. The evil men already told the population about energy shortages and overpopulation since 1970 and yet even westerners still poop our babies and drive to Costco for chickens. Gold money is not going to stop human growth or taking out loans or devaluatio being demanded —- historically the populace got annoyed if they could t dissipate more energy infinitely— every empire died to same reason.
Guyana only has a couple months of world oil consumption in its reserves. It can only temporarily offset other declines and won't change the trend.
Apparently they have a huge reservoir offshore that they’ve only begun to tap, and that’s why we’re fighting Venezuela for it. But no matter; you see the collapse in energy as being fairly imminent; I see it, based on the evidence I’ve read, as being in slow decline over several decades before a full-on, apocalyptic crisis hits. But we both agree it’s coming and can’t be stopped by conventional approaches to energy production and usage.
Meanwhile, we’ll run out of silver in likely 2-3 years, maybe sooner (LBMA appears to be possibly cracking already) and without silver, the electronic world ceases to exist. Credit circulation collapses, fossil energy production stops, the lights go out, and we all quickly become Amish, or perish. No silver, no energy; no energy, no more silver production or debt production or food production and our disagreement on the timeline of energy collapse becomes moot.
Oh, and most of America’s topsoil will be plowed away in about 30 years, now, because of our completely insane farming methods. So if the fossil energy doesn’t go away by then, the loss of topsoil will get us. And I don’t see Billy Boy or the Chinese or any of the other oligarchs and financial players who are buying up all the farm land, doing anything about that. Apparently they believe the Rapture will happen before food production collapses from either the loss of soil, or the end of cheap energy, or the ongoing ecocide, or the lack of available silver, so they won’t have to worry about living the effects of any of the above. Must be nice to have the ultimate safety net, eh? 😉
And the currency is nothing but green toilet paper.
The discipline imposed by hard money would never have allowed this to happen. That’s why the central banks had to get rid of it.
We can have a good quality of life in perpetuity, or extreme excess and the mass degeneracy it brings for a short while, but not both. Paper money allows the extreme society that burns itself out. But not until it allows those in the know to steal everything from everybody else. And once they’ve reduced the population and created an electronically- managed North Korea-style subsistence society in America and globally, even the declining energy stocks will be sufficient to find their lavish lifestyles, plus the two bowls per day of swill and simple uniforms for the small body of peasantry.
"Take out the unceasing demand for Chinese stuff from the good ‘ol US of A, and nobody else in the world can step up to fill the gaping hole."
This isn't true any more. China has already cut off exports of numerous metals to the US. China doesn't need America but America depends entirely on China.
Yes, they cut off exports of certain critical metals recently, and we do send a fair amount of certain things there such as meats. Largely to undercut their domestic meat producers. But you’re saying that America has huge factories running on our soil to produce socks, cars, plumbing fixtures, light bulbs and computers to send to China? Maybe that’s why Americans can no longer find much of anything made in America any more, because we’re sending vast quantities of stuff to China and selling their goods over here? I think Boeing sells aircraft to China, but they’re not doing so well these days.,,,,,
Anyway, the truth will is in the economic numbers, I think. Look at China’s crashing bond market. Why is it crashing? Because the government keeps lowering the yields in a Hail Mary attempt to revive China’s economy. Their post convid “grand re-opening” failed. Their stimulus bazooka failed. Now their yield curve suppression attempt is failing. Their real estate market is crashing, and along with it, so is the major portion of their citizens’ wealth and savings. No amount of Chinese economic stimulus can force their largest trading partner, America, to consume more goods and services when Americans are running out of currency with which to buy said products, and China developed so much production overcapacity based on the belief in neverending growth of the American economy, that it’s own citizens can’t consume what they can produce. With the global economy currently in a synchronized downturn, there’s nobody else who can pick up the slack, either. So there’s little hope at this point that China can escape a rather nasty depression.
As we lose our ability to purchase, they lose the ability to produce the goods we depend on (or at least have gotten used to) in sufficient quantity. There will be a brief spurt of deflation in goods of more marginal value (already happening in some sectors), followed by deflation in more important goods, then a very long period of scarcity and much higher prices for most goods still being imported. I see us as turning into the old Soviet Union: there will be nothing to buy, and if you CAN find something to buy, you won’t be able to afford it (unless you’re a member of the small upper class). The vast majority of citizens in both China and then the U.S. will become impoverished, and governments will have an easier time bridging everybody to the new total surveillance electronic tokenized money system.
China cutting the U.S. off from some critical metals will do nothing to stop this process because the issue is that you and I can’t (or won’t if we’re saving our money in fear of losing our jobs or not being able to pay our property taxes next year or whatever), consume more Chinese imports. So, while such a political move may hurt us in some ways, it won’t put money in your pocket or mine to make purchases from Chinese manufacturers, and it won’t open up markets for China elsewhere. So, it’s not really germane to the economic end game we all find ourselves in. Yes, America needs China in some ways just as they need us, but the two needs don’t complement one another.
If you can see a politically feasible way out of the global economic conundrum in which America and China are both trapped, I’m sure we’d all love to hear it. Nobody I watch or follow has any solutions. Maybe I’m just tuned in to all the wrong people? I’d love to know.
This is an artefact of the economic system. Logically speaking you should have all people employed for less hours at fixed schedules for routine fixed consumption levels. Debt systems cannot balance energy flows and IOUs like bonds are just energy flow demand functors— when one collapses they all collapse because they are interdependent in the abstraction sense.
https://rb88rb.com/articles/what-does-china-import-the-most-from-us/1781
This is out of date. China now imports far less corn and soybeans from the US while imports from Brazil have increased. China does not need the US. The US is dying.
Soybean is Brazil's main export commodity. In 2023, Brazil held the top rank as China's largest soybean supplier with a market share of about 69 percent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-20/brazil-pulls-ahead-of-us-as-biggest-supplier-of-corn-to-china
And China is not dying?
China is on the precipice of a deflationary death spiral... unplug the demand for Chinese stuff from Americans... and that death spiral accelerates and quickly the country implodes
The US is bad... but nowhere near as bad as China...
In any event - if one goes we call go
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/financial-system-supply-chain-cross
No, China is not dying. Not yet. China is by far the world's largest economy. The US is a hollowed out shell verging on being a failed state.
China is experiencing serious deflation ... America is experiencing inflation ...
Deflation is far more dangerous than inflation ....
Then there is this https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/china-120000000-unfinished-homes/
The way it works in China is you pay the full value of the property purchase price --- even if it does not get built....
So all of these people are paying off properties ... that are not built ... and that will never get built...
Maybe that is why they are experiencing severe deflation.... in addition to paying off these mortgages... they also have to pay for a place to live.... that saps your spending power...
Then of course the unemployment rate for grads is upwards of 20% (they stopped reporting because it's so bad).
America by comparison ... is an economic utopia... but it will of course follow China down the toilet....
I would say everyone is in trouble at this point. Why? Because every country is doing the exact same thing by loading up on debt and everyone is interconnected. I remember what Greece did to the markets when they were bailed out by the EU and IMF. The markets went nuts, wondering if a contagion was to follow and take down larger economies.
When the US defaults and that is assured because eventually no one is going to buy new debt to pay off the old debt. When that happens, the US will default. That will have a catastrophic effect on the world and it will have severe blowback on everyone else. China is a mess as Fast has pointed out. There's no question about that and that's why they are now doing more business eastward but it all centers around who is their biggest consumer. That would be the US and when the US goes down, it takes others down along with the US which further impacts China's ability to sell its trinkets.
When the shit hits the fan it will be a global shitshow and one for the ages. Here's Martin Armstrong's take on China's deflation worries.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/ecm-armstrongeconomics101/chine-deflation-into-2026-beyond/
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/this-will-end-badly
Evidence that this detailed elaboration is spot-on can be seen in the trickle-becoming-flood of rich rats doing their best to abandon ship, shifting their loot out of the PRC to queasy destinations like Malta (citizenship for sale, cheap). A stopgap tactic at best: when the global economy goes tits-up then any bank anywhere will start to look dodgy.
Initially it was Canada where the Hong Kong money escaped to, in the 1980s, starting with the handover. The three-story wooden house at Sophia and 26th I could have purchased for CAD 70,000 when I arrived in Van in 1970 is now going for CAD 15 million. Docile British Columbians have stood by, meek, compliant lambs, as they are priced out of the housing market by hot Chinese money.
Many of those "astronaut" Chinese (or their kids) actually end up in the USA, as they are frustrated and stymied by Canada's stolid, constipated economy. Just as the third-world invaders are making life unpleasant in American cities, Chinese money and enterprise will shove aside the "native Americans" (that's a pun, son). As Slo-Jo philosophically observed, Whitey is doomed.
Who would have thought it would be a kind of suicide?
You are mentally ill.
BITCOIN WILL SAVE ME!
Along with the Tag Team Messiahs... Trump and Elon.
China no longer needs Boeing aircraft:
China’s homegrown C919 takes flight beyond the Chinese mainland,
but real milestones – and global recognition – still lie ahead.
To ring in the new year, China’s homegrown jet, the C919 – nicknamed “daifeiji” (大飞机), or “Great Airplane” – took its first regularly scheduled passenger flight outside the Chinese mainland. The new daily route, linking Shanghai Hongqiao and Hong Kong, has been hailed by Beijing as a landmark milestone in showcasing the C919 to the world.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/great-leap-skyward-china-s-jetliner-dreams-are-getting-real
China is dying .... arguing if China needs America or not is irrelevant
Of course America is dying to... the world is dying....
China corporate profits set for third year of declines
Oversupply drives intense competition that is undermining prices and profitability
Chinese corporate profits are set to show a third consecutive year of declines in 2024, with the trend expected to continue into this year as deflationary pressures weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
Corporate profits in China for companies with more than Rmb20mn ($2.7mn) in revenue declined by an average of 4.7 per cent year on year between January and November, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This is greater than the 4 per cent decline seen during the whole of 2022 when the country was under pandemic lockdowns.
Revenue grew just 1.8 per cent year on year between January and November 2024 on the same period in 2023.
This compares with 5.9 per cent growth in 2022 on the previous year.
In addition, 25 per cent of companies in China with revenue of more than Rmb20mn made outright losses between January and November 2024, compared with 16 per cent in the full year of 2019 before the pandemic, NBS data showed. The agency’s data covers 500,000 companies.
“The biggest reason behind that slowdown, I would say, is deflation,” said Laura Wang, chief China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley.
https://archive.md/j6MCV#selection-2413.0-2439.69
Posting rubbish from Western banks proves nothing. The economy is not about banks.
I am absolutely confused how on one hand there is so much printed "currency" sloshing around from dollars to RMB to BTC to collateralized loan debt instruments and derivatives that you would think we would have hyperinflation looming as people suddenly want to get out of currencies. But no one is looking at the fact that in the end, currency is just a claim on actual goods and services, like food and energy. It does not matter if the financial system breaks down in a deflationary death spiral or explodes into a hyperinflationary supernova. What matters is whether production of real goods and services can continue under either scenario. Currency becomes meaningless.
I draw an analogy of all the potential hyperinflationary trillions of dollars being sequestered in debt instruments being like all of the fresh water sequesterd as ice in Antarctica. If it does not melt, it becomes irrelevant and not felt as inflation. In fact we could theoretically die of thirst!
I would think that as industrial civilization unwinds and eventually (not in my time though) reverts back to the 1800's, the only thing left will be barter until local markets get re-established on a drastically smaller scale. Forget about global trade. Eventually, when limited localized trade emerges, gold and silver may once again re emerge as money -as it has done for millenia. After all, when humanity "specializes" from farming to blacksmithing to making buggy whips, a form of real money as a store of value and medium of exchange is required, otherwise we regress even further to simple hunter gatherers.
There will be no recovery from the collapse this time. No more metal ores that can be used without fossil fuels. There will be no more civilisations.
There are 4000 Spent Fuel Ponds Around the Globe…
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere. Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies.
One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl. Source
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in pools in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. Source
Estimates of the cancer burden in Europe from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident Source (Note: The Chernobyl accident was relatively minor, involved no spent fuel ponds, and was controlled by pouring cement onto the reactor. This was breaking down so a few years back they re-entombed.)
“However, many of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have long half-lives. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,800 years. Because it contains these long half-lived radioactive elements, spent fuel must be isolated and controlled for thousands of years.” Source
It does not matter how remote you are, the jet stream and ocean currents will circulate these toxic cancer-causing substances around the globe. They will be picked up by convection and pour deadly rain on your crop and water supply.
Nobody survives the collapse of civilization. This will be an extinction event.
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/the-utter-futility-of-doomsday-prepping
Cancer doesn't matter. It kills the old, mostly, and the old are not needed.
China Deflation into 2026 and Beyond
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/ecm-armstrongeconomics101/chine-deflation-into-2026-beyond/
China is hanging on by a thread.... youth unemployment is likely over 20%.... the property market is fucked... they are throwing everything at the export market using subsidies...
Seeing a few YouTube reports on the economy. Not good
And just think, they pulled off their bogus economic growth with relatively cheap oil. As it gets more costly to get out of the ground, eCONomies will start to feel the pressure.
You wanna take a look at China's and Industrial Civilization's future? Have a look at Europe and especially Germany who basically funds the EU. They refused Russia's oil and now they are heading towards if they are lucky, a major recession. If they're not so lucky, a Depression and the rest of Europe will follow as governments implode. That's how important, Black Gold is to the world's economy.
I am told Ukraine is not allowing Russia to ship gas to Europe...
Russia Reclaims Its Position as Europe’s Top Gas Supplier - Russia has surpassed the U.S. as the primary supplier of gas to Europe, despite efforts by the region to reduce reliance on Russian energy sources. Source https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/you-are-being-1984ed
So are they allowing oil but not gas?
And wouldn't Europe stop supporting Ukraine in the supposed war if they shut off the gas to Europe?
Maybe the Europeans are stupid... they don't realize that they could resume the gas with a phone call to The Pecker Head piano player.
And why doesn't Russia stop the gas... it's his gas... and apparently he thinks NATO is trying to kill him.
Why does he need Ukey to stop it?
And why is he sending record amounts of oil to the EU?
Can someone tell me why Russia continues to supply the US with uranium? Bit odd when Putin says the US wants to unseat him.... bizarre - NO?
The United States imports most of the uranium it uses as fuel - Sources and percentage shares of total U.S. purchases of uranium: Canada 27%. Kazakhstan 25%. Russia 12%. Uzbekistan 11%. Australia 9%. Six other countries combined 16%. Source
Russia now controls 25 per cent of Kazakhstan's uranium production - Almost half of all foreign companies working in Kazakhstan are now Russian, and there is huge interest in Kazakhstan from Russian state-owned enterprises and private companies with links to the Kremlin. Russia now controls 25 per cent of Kazakhstan's uranium production, after Tokayev quietly permitted the sale of important strategic licenses. Source
Russia’s influence in Kazakhstan is increasing despite the war in Ukraine - Some hoped the war would pivot Astana’s foreign policy towards the West – but economic ties with Moscow have deepened. Source
Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium miner, is conducting “active work” to boost exports of uranium to US energy companies - The country’s energy ministry said cooperation in the energy sector had been discussed at a meeting with US Senator Steve Daines on Tuesday. The nation already has contracts to supply uranium products until 2032 with firms including Southern Co., Constellation Energy Corp. and Duke Energy Corp., it said. Source
I am very confused... nothing makes sense... could it be that the Ukraine war and all this is fake... after all...we know collapse is imminent - therefore so do those who run the world... there is nothing left to fight for...
Could it be that the Ukraine war is a distraction coupled with an excuse for the energy depletion and raging inflation and energy costs we are experiencing....
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/you-are-being-1984ed
You were told correctly. It was the Ukies who killed the flow of oil to Europe. However long before that Europe as a whole was banning Russian oil because of the Neocons in Washington, who don't give two shits about Europe or the EU. Washington watched their economies implode.
There's a famous Henry Kissinger quote that applies here: "it's dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal".
I see... so Ukraine ... beholden to Europe for support ... stops gas supplies to Europe... and there are no repercussions.
As we know ... before this happened... energy prices were out of control... even though:
Russia Reclaims Its Position as Europe’s Top Gas Supplier - Russia has surpassed the U.S. as the primary supplier of gas to Europe, despite efforts by the region to reduce reliance on Russian energy sources. https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/you-are-being-1984ed
Now what do we think would happen ... if Ukraine shut the gas from Russia to the EU.... Russia - THE TOP GAS SUPPLIER TO EUROPE.
Surely gas prices should explode higher no?
Surely the economy of the EU... already in deep shit .... should be imploding since THE TOP GAS SUPPLIER TO EUROPE....is no longer supplying gas.
Come the fuck on .... this is all make believe ... it's FAKE.
The Ukraine War is FAKE.
But it sure gives nice cover for the actual situation which is ... there is no longer enough affordable gas to go round....
cnnbbc will NEVER tell you there is not enough ... that would freak out the barnyard animals...
Instead they throw handfuls of sloppy shit in your face.... sowing confusion ... and blaming everything on the manufactured whipping boy ... Ukraine...
Now that does make perfect sense...
Cutting off the gas from Russia hahahahaha now that is totally ridiculous
And these breakdowns are only going to accelerate with all the Data Centers being built for AI. Demand for energy is only going to increase exponentially and as a Nuclear Engineer recently stated, Thorium reactors are not the end all answer.
Economies only thrive when cheap energy is available and we are beginning to feel its effects.
Am I missing something .... what happened to the 84m barrel peak?
https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-december-2024
Global oil supply rose by 130 kb/d m-o-m to 103.4 mb/d in November, up 230 kb/d y-o-y, on a continued recovery in Libyan and Kazakhstan output. Total oil supply is on track to increase by 630 kb/d this year and 1.9 mb/d in 2025, to 104.8 mb/d, even in the absence of unwinding of OPEC+ cuts. Non-OPEC+ supply rises by about 1.5 mb/d in both years, led by the United States, Brazil, Guyana, Canada and Argentina.
With only six weeks left of the year, global oil demand is on track to expand by 920 kb/d to an average 102.8 mb/d in 2024, compared with growth close to 2 mb/d last year and 1.2 mb/d per year on average over 2000-2019. China’s marked slowdown has been the main drag on demand, with its growth this year expected to average just a tenth of the 1.4 mb/d increase in 2023.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/09/11/crude-oil-extraction-may-be-well-past-peak/
World crude oil extraction reached an all-time high of 84.6 million barrels per day in late 2018, and production hasn’t been able to regain that level since then.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest short term energy outlook (STEO), which was released recently, the world produced an average of 76.10 million barrels of crude oil per day in the third quarter of 2024.
That compares to an average of 76.19 million barrels per day in the second quarter, an average of 76.70 million barrels per day in the first quarter, and an average 76.57 million barrels per day overall in 2023, the EIA’s November STEO showed.
https://www.rigzone.com/news/how_much_crude_oil_is_the_world_producing-25-nov-2024-178842-article/
The agency bumped up its global oil output forecast for 2024 to 102.6 million bpd, from its prior forecast of 102.5 million bpd. For next year, it expects world output of 104.7 million bpd, up from 104.5 million bpd previously.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/eia-slightly-raises-us-global-oil-production-forecasts-2024-11-13/
WTF? There is a 26M barrel per day discrepancy....
I think the latter number includes all liquids, like NGPL and biofuels, while the 76M number is just crude+condensate, or what is traditionally just called "oil".
Edit: This part to me confirms the above:
https://www.rigzone.com/news/how_much_crude_oil_is_the_world_producing-25-nov-2024-178842-article/
>> The U.S. made up 13.27 million barrels per day of the third quarter total
I know that that's about how much the US produces of crude+condensate. The 19mbpd number one often hears bandied about for the US include NGPL, biofuels, refinery gains, i.e. not just oil.
I suspect they are lying ...
C+C production is officially 13.5mbpd. NGPL is about 4 million barrels in the US. Plus 1 million refinery gain, 1 million biofuels, that accounts for the US 19.5mbpd "total liquids" production.
We'll see how bogus the growth was when they sink your rusty old navy. China currently produces more than 60% of global shipping.
China corporate profits set for third year of declines
Oversupply drives intense competition that is undermining prices and profitability
Chinese corporate profits are set to show a third consecutive year of declines in 2024, with the trend expected to continue into this year as deflationary pressures weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.
Corporate profits in China for companies with more than Rmb20mn ($2.7mn) in revenue declined by an average of 4.7 per cent year on year between January and November, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics. This is greater than the 4 per cent decline seen during the whole of 2022 when the country was under pandemic lockdowns.
Revenue grew just 1.8 per cent year on year between January and November 2024 on the same period in 2023.
This compares with 5.9 per cent growth in 2022 on the previous year.
In addition, 25 per cent of companies in China with revenue of more than Rmb20mn made outright losses between January and November 2024, compared with 16 per cent in the full year of 2019 before the pandemic, NBS data showed. The agency’s data covers 500,000 companies.
“The biggest reason behind that slowdown, I would say, is deflation,” said Laura Wang, chief China equity strategist at Morgan Stanley.
https://archive.md/j6MCV#selection-2413.0-2439.69
Dozens of British women have seen their breasts grow after the Covid jab - experts reveal why
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14263459/women-covid-jab-breast-enlargement-reaction.html
Eddy, a very extensive in depth article as always. But, it all hinges on the situation actually being real, put it another way, the Matrix will subject us to whatever suits its needs! Therefore I worry not about all the crap!
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/this-will-end-badly
I have done business in HK/China for over two decades... trust me ... it is real... I have never experienced conditions anywhere close to this... and I survived the Asian Financial Crisis and the GFC.