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ralfy

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Posts posted by ralfy

  1. About food production,

    "Dramatic decline in industrial agriculture could herald 'peak food'"

    Most conventional yield projection models are oblivious to the real world say US researchers

     

     

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/19/industrial-agriculture-limits-peak-food

     

    As suggested at the end of the article, farming as part of localization will be important in the long run.

     

    The implication is that not just the poor but even the middle class will be employing these suggestions in the long run.

  2. 1)Whose? The public debt?

    Total debt, including public debt.

     

     

    2) That illustrates the fact that easy credit - not the most significant part of the deregulation - was not the driving factor. If you look at what was, another driver of more importance was tax cuts for the rich - the resulting diversion of productivity gains away from wages and other payouts reduced almost everyone's ability to retire debt undertaken before the tax regime was altered.

     

    It was easy credit:

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession#Causes

     

     

     

    Increases in productivity are the best way to retire debt - and create money, for that matter.

     

     

    That actually reinforces my views. Don't forget that you can also create money without increasing productivity.

     

     

    So I'm completely right - one is not the "cause" of the other, but rather they are mutually influential.

     

    Tax cuts led to increasing public debt, but it was easy credit that led to higher total debt. In fact, the latter is feeding the former, as seen in tens of billions a month in quantitative easing. But contrary to fantasies of kicking the can continuously,

     

    http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-federal-reserve-taper-ben-bernanke-stimulus-20131218,0,4171964.story

     

     

     

    And you are partially wrong - you can in fact, for example, have high debt levels without easy credit, as the victims of depressions and crashes and wars and droughts and plagues have discovered periodically over the centuries.

     

     

    Also easy credit:

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Depression#Austrian_School

     

     

     

    Energy is a material resource.

     

     

    No, it's not.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy

     

     

     

    And you need productivity and market access to acquire energy, and to profit from the use of it. Three legged stools need all three legs. The people of England sat on its huge piles of easily mined coal for a thousand years, after the Romans had cut down all the trees to makle cement and steel, in poverty and misery and plague.

     

     

    Not initially:

     

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704436004576299421455133398

     

     

     

    You don't, by the way, need more energy for higher productivity - quite often, indeed almost by definition, you need less.

     

     

    Yes, you do, unless by "productivity" you mean something like investing in financial markets. Your last point is completely wrong.

     

     

     

    People with very clear and sophisticated ideas about money have looked very carefully at energy and its crucial economic role for a long, long time.

     

     

    No, they're not, which is why oil prices tripled.

     

     

     

    Money is measured in economies as often as economies are measured in money - there's an entire market devoted to currency trading on this planet.

    The first phrase makes no sense at all: "measured in economies"?

     

    The last part of the sentence proves my argument.

    Tell me which one, and which argument you find within it that is somehow compelling. It's not my job to read the entirety of all of the 200 links you've pasted into this thread (as if arguing using the gish gallop).

    200 links? I gave only six for that point.

     

    And it's not my job to spoon-feed you on that. You wanted an explanation? I gave it.

     

    I'm referring to core inflation, not headline inflation that is incredibly volatile like oil and food. Also, oil prices are down relative to last year, so tripling since when? Also, not likely to be explained by inflation, but by increased demand and higher regional volatility... as already corrected for you like nine times.

    Tripling since 2005 (from 30 dollars to almost a hundred), when conventional oil production peaked, according to the IEA. The last time that took place was during the early '70s. Good thing Saudi Arabia was there to help.

     

    Now, we have almost double the population and increasing consumption for the rest of the world. At a 2-pct oil demand increase per annum the last three decades, we'll need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every seven years just to stay afloat.

     

    And we're relying on unconventional oil which has low energy returns and steep decline curves to solve that issue, not to mention a transition to renewable energy that will require decades. Given that, good luck with the fantasy of continuous bailouts.

     

    There is so much ignorance and wrong here that I'm not even sure where to begin, at it's root, though, you're conflating income and wealth creation and focused investment with the printing of money.

    Actually, that was what YOU were doing. I tried to resolve the issue by referring to a real economy involving resources such as oil. You kept ignoring that.

     

    Thanks for proving my argument.

     

    The rest of your post... as per usual... is little more than another peak oil diatribe, and I have no interest in trying to force a complex and nuanced set of economic circumstances into such a myopic, ideological, and one-size fits all worldview.

    Notice how this paragraph CONTRADICTS your previous one. In the previous one, you argue that I was conflating income and wealth with money, which is what you've been doing as you ignore the importance of oil and other resources for the economy.

     

    This isn't a thread about peak oil, and the mods have been asked to split it, but alas... we're still here.

    See what I mean? You prefer to talk about income and wealth in terms of money, which is why you're not interested at all in understanding how energy and material resources are critical to an economy. Why do you keep insisting on holding on to such a narrow world view, especially given the fact that the Fed is running out of steam?

     

    http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-federal-reserve-taper-ben-bernanke-stimulus-20131218,0,4171964.story

     

    Finally, I am clearly wasting my time having to explain problems in your argument, which is why I am putting your account and Overtone's in my ignore list.

  3. You have yet to explain why you believe high debt levels are bad, and continue instead to implicitly ask us to accept without justification that this is so. Why do you believe high debt is a problem for us right now? What will happen exactly if we continue running current debt or even higher debt levels? Please explain.

    I already explained to you why high debt levels are bad. There are multiple links given in previous messages. Go over them carefully.

     

    Sure, why not? A bit of inflation would be very good for jobs right now and would make exports in US dollars more attractive to purchasers in other currencies. As strange as this might sound, part of our current problem is that inflation is too low right now. Again, why do you see this (increased supply of dollars) as a problem?

    Oil prices tripling is not "a bit of inflation."

     

    Now this is where you're just wrong. Demand went up because investments were made, more jobs were created, and people had money to spend. When people have money to spend, they buy things they need and want. This then creates additional demand as their spending becomes the income of the retailer and the producer, who use that money to buy more things... and it's a self-reinforcing cycle with a multiplier effect.

    You can only make investments when you create more dollars. All you did was prove my point further.

     

    This is not about "more dollars" being created, but instead about investing in programs that create (or save) jobs. Firing teachers and firefighters meant fewer people could buy groceries or pay their bills. By having a stimulus, we could keep those people in their jobs, which means they didn't default on their bills and didn't have to collect unemployment insurance or food stamps. The people to whom they pay their bills also could stay in business, as they were having their debt obligations met.

    One more time: you can only make more investments when you create more money. That's your "stimulus."

     

    http://www.bloomberg.com/video/quantitative-easing-is-a-ponzi-scheme-dever-qm3k_g8xRbyhUGGvYgxIjA.html

     

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/qe2-a-ponzi-scheme-says-pimcos-gross-2010-10-27

     

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/27/bill-gross-fed-ponzi_n_774849.html

     

    http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/an-idiots-guide-to-quantitative-easing-what-is-quantitative-easing-is-qe3-a-looming-apocalypse/

     

    How much are we looking at now? Around 850 billion dollars every month?

     

    You are here trying to oversimplify things, and it seems to be leading you to make incredibly flawed and false conclusions. Demand did not go down due to the increase in dollars or printed money. Demand went down because the banking system started to collapse, massive layoffs happened, and people lost their incomes so could not spend money... thus causing other people to lose their jobs as demand for their products and services went down... lather, rinse, repeat. The infusion of money into the system was a RESPONSE to the crisis, not a cause of it.

    Demand has been going down for the U.S., EU, and Japan since 2008, but has been going up for the rest of the world:

     

    http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/04/11/peak-oil-demand-is-already-a-huge-problem/

     

    Why do you think printing money has led to increased oil demand globally? Much more simple explanations exist, like the growing middle class in China and India where people finally have higher income jobs and can now afford to buy things that require oil. You don't need to invoke increases in the currency supply to explain this incredibly straight forward phenomenon. Also, we're not at peak oil yet, and we have alternatives, but this isn't a peak oil thread so let's just leave it at that...

    Again, you're just repeating my arguments.

     

    Also, the IEA confirmed that conventional oil production peaked in 2005:

     

    http://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-11-11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil

     

    When you refer to alternatives, then that shows that we are at peak oil. Otherwise, there'd be no need for the former.

     

    Worse, if you look at it in terms of population, then oil production per capita peaked back in 1979:

     

    http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2013/07/peak-oil-what-peak-oil.html

     

    All of these were explained in the peak oil thread, but you are not bothering to find out what is taking place by yourself. Instead, you make me waste my time explaining the basics of this issue and others to you.

     

    You're basically just repeating the same points, though, without explaining why high debt levels are supposed to be bad. You're talking about completely nonsequitur points with assymetries in wealth and income growth among the rich and the poor, stimulus and investment acts, etc. That's all peripheral. I'm asking, why is a high debt level supposed to be a problem right now? What specifically will happen if we run high debt? You have yet to clarify that point.

    No, they are not non-sequitur, as explained in links given earlier. The problem is that you got it the other way round: quantitative easing IS what is peripheral in this topic. You're not looking deeper into this issue and instead find comfort in that.

     

    The high debt level has been explained to you multiple times, and you still don't get it: high debt levels means more money has to be created to pay for previous debts. The material resources needed to buy those goods do not go up as easily, and in the case of conventional oil production, is going the other way round. At the same time, you see more market volatility.

     

    Put simply, we now have a credit market that is twenty times larger than the real economy:

     

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/top-derivatives-expert-finally-gives-a-credible-estimate-of-the-size-of-the-global-derivatives-market.html

     

    Take not that "only" one trillion dollars' worth of that, in the form of subprime lending, led to the 2008 crash. That crash led to over thirty trillion dollars vaporized worldwide, with government scrambling to bail out banks. Most of the bail out money came from public debt, while in the case of the U.S., the bailout money was used by the rich for the rich:

     

    http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get-richer-through-the-recovery/

     

    Despite your rant against Keynesian economics, the ideas put forth have actually performed remarkably well these last 5 years, and the ideas you and others continue to espouse have been proven wrong at every turn... Just sayin... Calling something Keynesian isn't actually a slur since it works and is empirically supported.

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/the-confidence-gnomes/

    How do you explain these points from the same writer?

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/opinion/krugman-rich-mans-recovery.html

    That is

     

    1) false, both in evidence (the US debt levels rose sharply in tandem with the Crash and recent tightening of credit, also in tandem with the huge borrowing for WWII, and so forth) and in theory (large increases in the public debt level, massive government borrowing, usually tighten the private credit market in standard economic theory) ; and neither requires slack financial industry regulation in fact (note the periods of easy credit and various debt levels in the US between WWII and 1980, under fairly strict financial regulation) or in theory (competent financial regulation merely curbs abuses - genuinely sound loans of available money are not affected regardless of demand, rates offered, etc).

    Debt levels had been going up before the crash and primarily because of deregulation, from 1981 onward:

     

    http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/09/30/krugman-and-the-pied-pipers-of-debt/

     

    The whole scheme fell apart by 2008 with fallout from the subprime lending market.

     

    2) irrelevant to your argument - whether or not the one requires the other, high debt level is not what leads to speculation or consumption of resources. High debt levels are blamed for much of the sharp drop in consumption in the US recently, and that was predicted by standard economic theory despite the historically easy credit that has been the norm in the US for years now (even after the recent tightening).

    Completely wrong: you cannot have one without the other. Your second point about speculation and consumption proves my argument. The third point also proves my argument, except that "standard economic theory" did not predict this. Not even close. In fact, those who did were criticized by most:

     

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/magazine/17pessimist-t.html

     

     

    Energy is a resource. Other major factors, besides resources, are productivity and and market access. If energy were the single dominant factor, Japan would be one of the poorest countries on the planet and Texas would be the richest State in the Union.

    I am referring to material resources.

     

    You need energy to obtain those resources, to have higher productivity, and even to gain market access.

     

    The reason why energy is not seen as a "single dominant factor" is because economies are measured in money. Ironically, it's the same money that is causing problems for the global economy. Hence,

     

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/04/japan-quantitative-easing-70bn

  4. And yet we're able to borrow right now at historically low costs, despite our existing debt levels. Your conclusion is at odds with the facts before us.

    It's obvious that we're borrowing at low costs because that's part of bailouts and quantitative easing, i.e., decreasing interest rates. But that also increases debt levels significantly, burying the country in more debt and leading to fewer cents for every dollar borrowed. Only the incredibly naive can imagine that to continue, especially given oil supply issues.

     

    The amount of oil supply available to humanity is independent of our debt levels. I don't see this as a valid argument in favor of your claim, and it's made less concerning when we realize there are energy sources available besides oil (as we already discussed in this very thread last year when you brought it up the first time).

    The first point is exactly what I mean. In order to back the value of increasing credit created, more goods need to be produced and sold. But because oil supply is not barely catching up with demand, then we see higher prices. Want to create more dollars to deal with that?

     

    Likewise, it wasn't "recovery" that led to increases in oil prices, but demand.

    Demand went up because more dollars were created. The creation of more dollars was the "solution" that led to "recovery." But because oil production has barely caught up with demand, we now see a tripling of oil prices. Given high oil prices, we should be seeing oil production ramping up considerably so that producers can take advantage of the former, right? Why didn't that happen? Because of peak oil. No matter how many dollars you create, you cannot ultimately set aside the physical limitations of oil production. That's why the world is now relying on unconventional oil.

     

    That's why when you look at the data, you will see oil demand destruction in the U.S., EU, and Japan, increasing oil consumption in the rest of the world (where more of the money that was created is being used), conventional oil production in an undulating plateau and dropping for the six major players, and more expensive unconventional oil used to meet increasing demand (which are exactly what happens when you have peak oil). More details are available in the peak oil thread.

     

    You've yet to demonstrate how a high debt level is in any way dangerous or bad as you continue to assert. Can you support your position? Suggesting we're at peak oil (which is itself questionable) doesn't support your contention that high debt is bad. You also suggested it would be more costly to borrow if debt levels are high, yet we can still currently borrow at historically low rates and there is no shortage of creditors willing to lend to us.

    I demonstrated the first point multiple times in previous messages, complete with links. High debt levels, especially for a consumer spending economy like that of the U.S., and coupled with high oil prices due to peak oil, does not make the situation any safer. That's why much of the good news you are seeing is based on fudged numbers, e.g., month-by-month unemployment rather than broad unemployment, equating part-time with full-time employment, no economic recovery but simply Keynesian economics involving lowered interest rates leading to more investments in an already overpriced stock market, etc. That's why thanks to such conditions and the bailouts, the rich have not only recovered what they lost they even profited. And the rest of the country? See one of the links I gave for details.

     

    As for your last point, the need for credit won't be a problem. Remember, we're dealing with money, which essentially has no value and can be created readily. In fact, much of it worldwide consists of numbers in hard drives, and the largest level of credit globally has a notional value of over a quadrillion dollars.

     

    The problem is the real economy, i.e., the one that involves energy and material resources. That can't be increased readily in the same way as money, and definitely not given the amount of credit we now have.

    Energy has been an important factor - one of the two or three mos important - in the industrial revolution. But it is not the only major factor, and it does not dominate everything else - if that were true, productivity increases would have nothing to do with prosperity, and Japan would be one of the poorest countries on the planet.

    The two major factors are energy and resources.

     

    Your last point is easy to explain: our definition of prosperity is based on money. We have lots of that and can create it easily.

     

    You appear to be confusing debt level with easy credit again;

     

    and with absence of competent financial industry regulation.

    You can only get the first by having the second, and the second by the third.

  5. You seem to accept a priori the assumption that a high debt level is bad, then base your entire argument on that premise. Can you explain why our current debt levels are bad, and what specifically you think will happen as a result of them? What is the logic you are using? What horrendous thing comes next if we stay where we are? I'm curious.

    A high debt level is bad because it leads to more financial speculation and consumption of resources, with the first leading to a credit crunch and the second to predicaments like peak oil. This is precisely what happened, as seen in the 2008 crash with "recovery" consisting of bailouts and oil prices tripling.

     

    For more details, read my previous messages.

  6. Credit is NOT increasing. Perhaps you instead meant to say that "in the past, part of our growth was due to over-leveraging and that's some of the reason we are struggling now?" If that's not what you meant, you are simply wrong.

     

    grfhneesge63ejigfnujuq.gif

    I'm not referring to credit availability but debt levels. Keep in mind that debt goes up when the amount of credit increases: Hence,

     

    from October:

     

    "U.S. debt jumps a record $328 billion — tops $17 trillion for first time"

     

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/18/us-debt-jumps-400-billion-tops-17-trillion-first-t/

     

    A few days ago:

     

    "Debt Up $3T In Less Than 3 Yrs Under Boehner's Deals; More Than Under All Presidents from Washington Through Reagan"

     

    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/debt-3t-less-3-yrs-under-boehners-deals-more-under-all-presidents

     

    Gross and public debt, etc:

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States

     

    For long-term and global trends, total debt went up by 300 pct during the last decade:

     

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2011/10/unemployment-and-deleveraging

     

    And now three times what is earned:

     

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/05/11/number-of-the-week-total-world-debt-load-at-313-of-gdp/

     

    and that doesn't include the notional value of unregulated credit that has to be covered:

     

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/top-derivatives-expert-finally-gives-a-credible-estimate-of-the-size-of-the-global-derivatives-market.html

     

    Alternatively, maybe you're making some off-hand remark about borrowing and China? It's hard to tell, but I really don't care. I'm unsure why you're trying to force this thread to be about oil and debt. If you'd like to discuss those things, you should open your own thread.

    It's increasing globally, and for the U.S.:

     

    http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/2009/09/30/krugman-and-the-pied-pipers-of-debt/

     

    The reason why I'm not forcing but adding these two points is that ultimately the amount of credit created should be seen in light of what is currently taking place (e.g., bailouts, billions of dollars of quantitative easing, debt ceilings reached, ultimately boiling down to "recovery" based on increased credit created to deal with a problem caused by too much credit created), and oil in terms of the economy:

     

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-110-effect-what-higher-gas-prices-could-really-do-to-the-economy/254386/

     

    http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/02/23/what-do-rising-oil-prices-mean-for-u-s-economic-growth/

     

    http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/The-Devastating-Economic-Impact-of-Constantly-High-Oil-Prices.html

     

    and that's because in the end, what drives economies isn't money but oil and other resources that give value to the same. But unlike money creation which can be done easily, resources have physical limitations. Hence,

     

    http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/our-oil-constrained-future

     

    http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/07/18/how-much-oil-growth-do-we-need-to-support-world-gdp-growth/

     

    That's why one has to see the economy, if not the global economy, amid conventional oil production in an undulating plateau and more expensive (energy-wise) unconventional oil now being used to meet increasing demand.

     

    This one is intended to be more objective and not about any specific issues. I created it a year ago with several useful charts summarizing the major economic issues throughout 2012. When a similar overview became available last week for 2013, I posted that as an update.

     

    If you want to rant about spending or debt or oil or whatever else, open your own thread. This really isn't the place for it.

    I think what has been presented is incomplete, and more factors (such as oil prices) have to be considered. I think that allows for an objective approach to this issue, not to mention additional points, such as those raised at Zero Hedge and other sites (e.g., unemployment based on monthly layoffs and unemployment benefits still received versus broad indicators)

     

    Finally, if one wants to summarize all of the data presented, then how about something like the EFI?

     

    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-imf-economic-performance-index-2013-10

  7. Focusing solely on oil without incorporating inputs for innovation and other energy sources strikes me as a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.

    It's the other way round, as energy is the main driver of a real economy. What we are seeing now is growth based on increasing credit, and that's something that can and has been created easily. Hence,

     

    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/05/top-derivatives-expert-finally-gives-a-credible-estimate-of-the-size-of-the-global-derivatives-market.html

     

    See if you can figure out where to get the oil and other resources to keep that propped up.

     

    That trillion dollars in deficit you reference is also not as big and scary as you make it out to be. Most of it is because revenues have gone down (more people out of work, fewer payroll taxes collected, on top of the Bush tax cuts) at the same time that expenditures on social safety nets have gone up (unemployment insurance, medicaid, food stamps, etc.) for those people who are out of work through no fault of their own. Essentially the numurator has grown at the same time the denominator has shrunk... exactly as I described above.

    That's because the deficit isn't the only problem for the U.S. It has over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities:

     

    http://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-try-211-trillion

     

    Once more people go back to work, that deficit that scares you so much becomes much smaller and more manageable, and we don't need to invent new explanations or schools of thought or invoke massive draconian cuts to make that happen.

    http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/ronald-cooke/will-america-ever-pay-of-its-debt

     

    And that's not the only problem:

     

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-09/37-reasons-why-economic-recovery-2013-giant-lie

  8. You are arguing about things that I didn't even say, such as "many nations". And then you added "as a whole" when I was not referring to military capabilities as a whole. So I am going to stop this conversation with you.

     

    From what you wrote previously:

     

    That doesn't make any sense to me. This is a gain for China and every other country. Ideally, nothing changes militarily if every country makes fair cuts; they will only gain by advancing medicine for human beings.

     

     

    Note "every country."

    Just to clarify, what I said is that sometimes they cannot even be counted on to do that.

     

    I think it's the default, i.e., realpolitik. The same should apply to acting in favor of everyone, from which the government and Big Business always get something in return.

  9. What we have today, especially given unregulated derivatives with a notional value of over a quadrillion dollars, is the effect of free market capitalism. This should not be surprising as, given the New Scientist article shared earlier, much of the credit of the global economy is controlled only by a few powerful corporations. This also explains why the U.S. government bailed out Wall Street banks, as Wall Street, especially through the Fed (which is a private consortium of commercial banks) controls the money supply of the country.

     

    Will governments regulate these corporations? Likely not given such conditions and government reliance on continuous economic growth for tax revenues. This also explains why most do not want to talk about predicaments such as peak oil and global warming, as the belief is that the same free market capitalism will allow for innovation leading to efficiency and more resources available, thus rendering these predicaments meaningless.

     

    Meanwhile, the truth is that there has been no recovery from the 2008 financial crash, the world is now resorting to unconventional oil as crude oil production has been in plateau, and that more scientific organizations are warning of more problems involving global warming. With that, the continued existence of the three predicaments of debt-ridden economic crisis, peak oil, and global warming coupled with environmental damage is assured.

  10. My point was that there has been a collaboration that involved nations agreeing to weaken military capabilities.

    That was between only two countries (not many nations) and focused on nuclear weapons (not "military capabilities" as a whole). Even then, both countries continued to use military forces to engage in proxy wars. Today, we see the same plus more nuclear powers.

     

    My post was responding to iNow's post.

    My argument is based on what iNow said, that countries operate based on their own interest.

  11. I strongly disagree. The U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. agreed to curtail the production of nuclear arms and reduce their stockpiles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SALT_II#SALT_II .

    But the number of nuclear powerss grew, and the threat of nuclear war today may be as great as it was during the Cold War. Add to that proliferation of more advanced weapons, predicaments mentioned earlier, and more. Hence,

     

    "Nuclear Attack a Ticking Time Bomb, Experts Warn"

     

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nuclear-attack-a-ticking-time-bomb-experts-warn/

     

    Don't forget to look at militarization in general worldwide.

     

    My example is way too vague. I meant something else.

    Feel free to explain what you meant.

     

    There are many things that many people want and don't want. But we can all agree on two things that we want at least for ourselves; the two things are health and life.

    I am not referring to what people want. I am referring to the manner by which nations have been behaving the last six decades or so, and that puts to question the claim that they will suddenly decrease military budgets and cooperate with each other.

  12. Can you give me a reason or reasons why a country wouldn't want to participate in such an agreement?

     

    What I feel that I have designed is a win-win proposal where no country loses in such an agreement but only gains.

     

    Imagine you square off with somebody in a street fight because of an argument or whatever. But before you fight, someone offers you both $1000.00 each to simply move the fight closer to a crowd where the guy can raise the money. So, you both are going to beat each other up, but you will both gain/win in a different way. So one person loses the fight but receives money, and the other person wins and receives money. This is a synergy of benefit - if you will. It is a win-win proposition to move the fight.

    You can look back and see many reasons why agreements or attempts at such failed, from the years before the start of WW2 to the Cold War years to the present. I am not sure how the future will be any different, especially given increased arms production, profits from the same, etc., not to mention predicaments such as peak oil, global warming, and financial crisis.

     

    About the example, the fight continues, which means both sides still have to beef up on military spending, and the costs are passed on to citizens. Worse, it's moved elsewhere, which means citizens of those places become collateral damage. The winners are the two armies that get their armaments and any financial elite that will profit from arms sales and from the effects of the war, such as control of various natural resources and deals struck with the government and elite in that area.

  13. The U.S. military is currently engaged in the same:

     

    "Algae Fuel Could Help Solve The Navy’s Oil Dependence"

     

    http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jan/17/algae-fuel-could-help-solve-navys-oil-dependence/

     

    Because of the threat of peak oil:

     

    "US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015"

     

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/apr/11/peak-oil-production-supply

     

    A warning shared by others, such as the German military:

     

    "Leaked German Military Report Warns Of Apocalyptic Peak Oil Scenarios"

     

    http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-german-military-report-warns-of-apocalyptic-peak-oil-scenarios-2010-9

     

    not to mention business organizations:

     

    "Lloyd's adds its voice to dire 'peak oil' warnings"

     

    http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jul/11/peak-oil-energy-disruption

     

    and others:

     

    https://sites.google.com/site/peakoilreports/

     

    The catch is that algae biofuels have low energy returns:

     

    "Algae biofuel not sustainable now-U.S. research council"

     

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-usa-biofuels-algae-idUSBRE89N1Q820121024

     

    which means they will not allow for "business as usual," but should help in meeting needs, if not allow military and police forces to continue operations and control local populations.

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