SURREAL ECONOMICS OR CONCRETE SCIENCE? Original Post It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it wa...
I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me - they're cramming for their final exam.
George Carlin
On Stage Performance- Just Too Funny
HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE?
It is so strange that the answer to our demise comes from a straight-forward overall calculation that seems so simple because the equation consists of just three key primary factors that can be used to theoretically calculate our species expected long term existence in any environment - where there are determinable finite resource inventories and constraints; big or small - including the resource inventories of our whole planet.
The theoretical calculation goes roughly like this - there are A current quantities of total combined energy and material resource units available to use for survival on this planet; there are B probable quantities of people units existing in an annual time period going forward, and they will each in turn consume C total resource units per capita annually. Then just divide A total resource units available by B times C (= total of expected annual consumption of resource units of all people) to calculate D - and the answer then tells us what the probable expected duration or the number of years that the species can roughly expect the resources to last and provide for its survival.
Expected Time Remaining Formula
D = A\ ( B x C)
To illustrate; suppose there are 100 million combined energy and material resource units available for consumption from an environment and 10,000 people exist there and they consume 100 resource units annually. Therefore, every year 1 million resource units are consumed. The equation calculates that there is roughly 100 years left if this people/consumption pattern is continued under the constraints and numeric inventories of this environment.
INDUSTRIAL EXPERIMENT FINAL CURTAIN
Admittedly, this result is a ballpark figure, but it is still close enough to draw our attention to the critical metrics we need to manage and their resultant and variable timelines. Moreover, based on our general knowledge of energy and material resource inventories - we can reasonably assert that we don't have thousands or even hundreds of years left to manage these factors and get the equation right. Time is quickly running out...
To add even a little more acceleration to the mathematically expected outcomes - also apply exponential growth laws to the B and C factors or inversely to the A factor and you dramatically and quickly reduce the total resources available for consumption and thus the amount of survival time remaining.
To sum up - you can never defeat the combined numerical laws of mathematics and physics - I guess Moses left the tablets with these commandments behind somewhere on the old hill. Yet, from the beginning we were taught by secular doctrines that we are playing a positive sum economic game with a guiding mantra of infinite growth that is authoritative and unquestionable - when the true reality is we were actually engaged in a negative finite sum game rapidly using up the planet's scarce resources - that is consequently now heading towards a terrible conclusion.
T A McNeil
First Financial Insights Group
Further Background:
Exponential Growth Arithmetic, Population and Energy, Dr. Albert A. Bartlett
There is an eternal debate among various experts as to when globalization actually started; whether it was with the Silk Road, the Vikings, Columbus's voyage, or even before then, with the earliest human migratory routes.
Now, it’s no longer relevant when it started. Instead, the new question is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will end it.
Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Western sanctions that necessarily followed, could have a lasting impact on globalization, a process that regardless of when the first seeds were planted, really became entrenched a few decades ago.
Globalization was under attack on some level prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Most significantly, the global pandemic let us all see very clearly the vulnerabilities, especially with supply chains and our dependence on their global nature.
Now, everyone is desperately calling for “independence”, whether it is of energy or other resources.
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dali
Inspirational Wisdom Quotes
March 27, 2020
MORE
Workers still aren’t flocking back to offices and unemployment is double the U.S. average, ratcheting up pressure to reinvent the city’s economy.
New York City’s apartment sales are sizzling, popular restaurants are booking up and Covid mandates are fading away. But underneath the buzz, an economic pain persists in a city where twice as many people are unemployed compared to the seasonally adjusted U.S. average.
At 7.6%, the city’s unemployment was among the worst of major cities. It also lags behind neighboring Northern New Jersey and Long Island. The jobless rate jumps to 11.1%, not seasonally adjusted, in the Bronx, the highest of New York’s five boroughs, and even higher for Black New Yorkers, who were disproportionately impacted by job losses during the pandemic.
“New York’s economy is enduring a slower recovery because it is so dependent on the office and entertainment sectors,” said Mark Vitner, a Wells Fargo senior economist. “Cities that were quicker to reopen following the initial lockdowns at the start of the pandemic have also tended to see stronger recoveries.”
NO RECOVERY FOR THE BIG APPLE?
OILPRICE.COM
Earlier this week, we quoted the heads of some of the world's biggest independent energy trades, who spoke at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland and unveiled a dire forecast for the diesel market: "The thing that everybody’s concerned about will be diesel supplies. Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East,” said Russell Hardy, chief of Switzerland-based oil trader Vitol. “That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.”
As a reminder, Russian supplies account for about 15% of Europe’s diesel consumption, according to the FT which carried their comments.
Hardy said the shift to more diesel consumption over gasoline in Europe had helped to create shortages of the fuel. He added that refineries could boost their diesel output in response to higher prices at the expense of other oil-derived products to shore up supply, but warned that rationing was a possibility.
THE NEW ENERGY ORDER?
Better Dwelling
Canada’s largest bank doesn’t see much happening in real estate over the next year. RBC risk models show the bank expects almost no price growth over the next 12 months, and modest growth at best. At worst, the bank sees a 30% drop in home prices and 18 months of deteriorating conditions.
Under IFRS 9, institutions need to prepare three forecast scenarios: a base case and two alternative scenarios — downside and upside.
A base case scenario is your working assumption. Not too hot, not too cold. Little out of the ordinary occurs, such as monetary policy missteps. The CEO of the bank recently criticized the central bank, so it’s hard to see that happening. That’s how they defined their base case.
MORTGAGE PAYMENTS TO GROW EXPONENTIALLY
PREPARE FOR SUPER-INFLATION
Inspirational Wisdom Quotes
March 23, 2020
' The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions '
Leonardo da Vinci
The difference between short-term and long-term interest rates is quickly narrowing, and that means an economic recession could be right around the corner.
The yield curve, which plots the interest rate of various bond maturities, is on the verge of an inversion. That means short-term interest rates are almost higher than long-term interest rates. As of Monday, the US 10-year Treasury had a rate of 2.24%, while the US 2-year Treasury had a rate of 2.03%. Meanwhile, the 5-year and 10-year rates are already slightly inverted.
The convergence of interest rates comes as the Federal Reserve kicked off its rate hiking cycle for the first time since late 2018, and as inflation soars to 40-year highs. With many investors believing that the Fed is "behind the curve," meaning rates are still low while inflation is high, the Fed is expected to play catch-up with up to six more rate hikes this year.
WHY YIELD CURVE INVERSION IS IMPORTANT
The Wall Street Journal
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Inspirational Wisdom Quotes
March 21, 2020
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America -- not on the battlefields of Vietnam.
Marshall McLuhan
THE TRUTH HURTS
SING ALONG FOLKS
Once again, China’s government failed to approve a property tax law, seen as a key part of reforming the real estate sector.
The 2022 National People’s Congress surprised many China observers – not because of what happened, but because of what did not happen. The Chinese government failed to approve a property tax. The Government Work Report did not even mention property market reform.
After the real estate sector’s structural crisis in 2021, reforming the property market seems inevitable, and implementing a property tax is the first step toward property market reform. In an essay in Qiushi, the official theoretical journal of the Chinese Communist Party, top leader Xi Jinping singled out a property tax as the flagship project for property market reform and vital to his “Common Prosperity” campaign. Following Xi’s essay, the National People’s Congress drafted and approved a decision to expand the property tax experiment. Minister of Finance Liu Kun declared that the Ministry must “prepare for property tax experiments.” As a result, an insider of the Chinese government predicted with confidence that the central government would launch property tax during the 2022 National People’s Congress.
HIGHEST-RISK
Global Investing
#1 Chinese Real Estate Market
