Economy
(Why) The Future is a Choice Between Two Socialisms (Afridev)
Unless you believe in cosmic coincidences, the reason that ultranationalist movements have popped up, seemingly overnight, is straightforward: economies are stagnant and so people’s lives aren’t improving, . But what does that really mean? It means life has become governed by artificial scarcity. Middle and working classes are on the brink — because capitalism makes things artificially scarce, so that it can maximize profits. What things? Healthcare. Affordable education. A mortgage an average person can pay off in a lifetime. Decent jobs themselves. For young people, marriage, having kids, and homes of their own. When insulin costs thousands, though we all know it can and should cost pennies — that’s artificial scarcity.
Tariffs Are a Tax that Will Hurt American Companies Like Mine (jdargis)
International trade has been the single most important contributor to growth and hiring at Cummins for nearly two decades. Half of our business is outside the United States, and more than 20 percent of the 25,000 Cummins jobs in America are directly tied to international business. And when we are growing, it often means our suppliers are also growing.
Prepare for a Chinese Maxi-devaluation (thc0655)
They only import about $150 billion of U.S. exports. At the rate they’re going, they’ll run out of goods to impose tariffs on. Trump can keep going because the U.S. imports so much more from China than they buy from us.
But the Chinese are obsessed with not losing face. Chinese President Xi has just been named in effect dictator for life. He doesn’t want to start out his new dictatorial regime by backing down from a stare-fest with Donald Trump. So he needs another option.
Reflections on Media Gone Russia-Wild (Matt H.)
In the wacky aftermath of the Trump-Putin Helsinki summit debacle last week, Browder is back on the guest roster of a U.S. cable news establishment that has gone Russia wild. Last Wednesday night for just one example, MSNBC’s Russia-crazed ratings star Rachel Maddow leaped from (a) reporting a Sarah Huckabee-Sanders comment on how the Trump White House was discussing whether or not to honor Putin’s request to hand over McFaul and Browder to Russia (which would be a bizarre and astonishing development and was obviously never going to happen) to (b) telling ordinary Americans they could soon be at risk of being picked up by the White House and handed over to Russia to be killed by Putin (or “other foreign dictators”).
DHS: Russian Actors Infiltrated Electric Grids, Possibly Causing Blackouts – Attack Might Be Ongoing (Thomas R.)
The Russian hackers familiarized themselves with how the facilities worked normally in order to “take the normal and make it abnormal” in order to cause disruptions, Homer said.
Homer added that the Russian’s goal was to disguise themselves as “the people who touch these systems on a daily basis.”
Are recyclers ready for the coming glut of lithium-ion batteries? (tmn)
“We expect the global Li-ion industry to grow from 100 gigawatt hours of annual production to almost 800 gigawatt hours in 2027,” says Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors, a battery consultancy. “That’s nearly an eightfold increase. Stationary storage will account for less than 8% of that. The vast majority will go into cars,” he adds.
The Regulation That Could Push Oil To $200 (Michael S.)
By 2020, diesel production will need to rise by at least seven percent, according to Philip K. Verleger, on top of the three percent increase needed for road transport and other uses. All of it will need to be low-sulfur. “It is not clear that the greater volumes can be produced,” Verleger wrote in his paper. “Instead…very large price hikes may be required to suppress non-maritime use.”
The mayor of Rafina, Vangelis Bournos told SKA that 1,000 homes had been destroyed by the ferocious blaze while later adding that he hopes the death toll would not reach “three digits”.
Japan heatwave declared natural disaster as death toll mounts (tmn)
More than 22,000 people have been taken to hospital with heat stroke, nearly half of them elderly, officials say.
On Monday, the city of Kumagaya reported a temperature of 41.1C (106F), the highest ever recorded in Japan.
Methane Deathtrap Threatens Democracy (Cornelius999)
Climate scientists have long sighted methane (CH4) bubbles rising to the surface in the Arctic for well over one decade now, especially along the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS). Problem: Methane eruptions are gradually turning into virtual monsters, getting bigger and wider (up to a half-mile across of rippling bubbles, according to Russian scientists), and potentially more dangerous and destructive, expanding more and more, in anticipation of a gigantic CH4 burp (maybe 50 gigatons suddenly vs. only 5 gigatons now in the atmosphere) followed by a massive global self-reinforcing planetary heat stroke.
California power grid urges consumers to conserve energy in heat wave (Thomas R.)
Gas supplies are expected to remain tight in Southern California this summer and winter due to reduced availability from SoCalGas’ Aliso Canyon storage facility in Los Angeles, following a massive leak between October 2015 and February 2016, and ongoing shutdowns of several pipelines.
Gold & Silver
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5 Comments
Thu, Jul 26, 2018 - 10:19am
Orlov: Collapse and the Good (simple) Life
Dimitri Orlov writes something that I think is very inspirational. Reminds me of several of the homesteaders and boat-steaders around PP.
Matt Bracken is a big advocate of living on a 30-40 foot sail boat, too. [See Chapter 18, "Get yourself a 30-Footer and Go," from "The Bracken Anthology."]
Robie? Is this you?
Community building
Building boats. In Russia
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Thu, Jul 26, 2018 - 11:18am
Investing in land?
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Thu, Jul 26, 2018 - 12:43pm
Oh no! My gold and silver!
A sad picture of my entire hoard of gold and silver slipping beneath the waves, the Marianas Trench right beneath.
🙁
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Thu, Jul 26, 2018 - 4:07pm
Load of poo!
because capitalism makes things artificially scarce, so that it can maximize profits. What things? Healthcare. Affordable education. A mortgage an average person can pay off in a lifetime.
What a complete load of poo! I also find it interesting that the things listed as scarce are those heavily controlled by government already.
Perhaps that's why there is such abundance in Venezuela!
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Thu, Jul 26, 2018 - 7:51pm
The good life
doesn't wail for the collapse,,, it has always been,(thanks SP)
collapse now, avoid the rush.
Kelsey didn't settle on her last exposure. However, her daughter is going to draft horse camp, and all who would like to attend can meet her and My partner and I at, well shit I cant cut and pastethe event.
it is the American Suffolk Horse Assn.(the best of the heavy horses) in New river Valley VA. Oct 5,6,7.
PM me if really interested
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