A must read

[JimD]

While I try hard I am certainly not the most articulate writer.  JMG does not suffer from that affliction and is one of the best at presenting the realities of our situation.  Below is his most recent piece and it is spot on about much of what I have been trying to say recently.  There has been no one better at explaining the situation over the last 10 years. 

One of the things my readers ask me most often, in response to this blog’s exploration of the ongoing decline and impending fall of modern industrial civilization, is what I suggest people ought to do about it all. It’s a valid question, and it deserves a serious answer.

Now of course not everyone who asks the question is interested in the answers I have to offer. A great many people, for example, are only interested in answers that will allow them to keep on enjoying the absurd extravagance that passed, not too long ago, for an ordinary lifestyle among the industrial world’s privileged classes, and is becoming just a little bit less ordinary with every year that slips by.  To such people I have nothing to say. Those lifestyles were only possible because the world’s industrial nations burnt through half a billion years of stored sunlight in a few short centuries, and gave most of the benefits of that orgy of consumption to a relatively small fraction of their population; now that easily accessible reserves of fossil fuels are running short, the party’s over.

Yes, I’m quite aware that that’s a controversial statement. I field heated denunciations on a regular basis insisting that it just ain’t so, that solar energy or fission or perpetual motion or something will allow the industrial world’s privileged classes to have their planet and eat it too. Printer’s ink being unfashionable these days, a great many electrons have been inconvenienced on the internet to proclaim that this or that technology must surely allow the comfortable to remain comfortable, no matter what the laws of physics, geology, or economics have to say.  Now of course the only alternative energy sources that have been able to stay in business even in a time of sky-high oil prices are those that can count on gargantuan government subsidies to pay their operating expenses; equally, the alternatives receive an even more gigantic “energy subsidy” from fossil fuels, which make them look much more economical than they otherwise would.  Such reflections carry no weight with those whose sense of entitlement makes living with less unthinkable.........

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-mariners-rule.html

He has a few dozen other "must reads" you can find on his blog.

[crandles]

There’s a certain irony in the fact that 2005, the year this study was published, was also the year when conventional petroleum production peaked; the transition would thus have had to begin in 1985

3 facts to check (are there any other facts to check?)
1. Report published 2005? Yes

2. Report stated something along lines of "the transition would have to begin twenty years before conventional petroleum production reached its peak and began to decline"?

Well report has two scenarios one starting 10 years before peak and one 20 years before peak and says
Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps
considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the
time that oil would have peaked.

3 2005, the year when conventional petroleum production peaked?

Unconventional petroleum has been growing so this from BP statistical review

Production*
Thousand barrels daily 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
World 77639 81054 82107 82593 82383 82955 81262 83296 84049 86204 86754

doesn't mean this is wrong. The report does state world oil production at just under 80 million barrels per day in 2003.

Searching every occurence of conventional did not lead me to a source for the level of unconventional rather than conventional. However assumption used include:

Under business-as-usual conditions assumed by the WEC, Venezuela
would have production of 6 MM bpd in 2030  -- 5.5 MM bpd beyond
production of 0.5 MM bpd in 2003

Current plans [for  Canadian oil sand production] are for production of 3 MM bpd of synthetic crude oil from which refined fuels can be produced by 2030. This is above current production of
0.6 MM bpd.

Together with production figures
Canada 3003 3080 3041 3208 3290 3207 3202 3332 3515 3740 3948
Venezuela 2868 3305 3308 3336 3230 3222 3033 2838 2766 2643 2623

Seems to suggest that the actual increase of 4.647 MM bpd is unlikely to have been exceeded by increase in unconventional production. Therefore it seems that conventional oil likely did not peak in 2005.

Perhaps fracking should be counted as unconventional? US has increase in production of 2.45 MM bpd from 2010 to 2013. So if you think fracking should be considered unconventional peak conventional oil would be 2010 at the earliest rather than 2005. If report had known about fracking then it would have been regarded as one of its 'mitigation' strategies and the problem wouldn't have been seen as so serious. Of course using fracking in advance of peak reduces the effectiveness of this 'mitigation'.

[wili]

Jim, this looks like an author you may appreciate:

http://booklocker.com/books/6266.html

Already Extinct
by Minoru Kyo

 'We don't understand the problem;

we couldn't do anything about it if we did;

and we wouldn't do anything about it if we could.'

[johnm33]

Crandles I'm pretty sure JMGs own definition of conventional is land based wells that aren't too deep, but his writings are too prolific for me to even begin to know where to look. Probably anyone who could make a profit at 18$pb is a good proxy.
 On the breakdown of society in the way JMG describes i think it's still a few years off. Our current situation looks to me better expressed by the analogy of how elephants used to 'control' african savanah before rifles came along. Elephants would eat anything and since their numbers constantly grew, at some point, of climate stress?, there would not be enough grasses or low branches on trees for them to get by then they push over all the trees that they can, then they starve,along with everything else, then the whole ecosystem regenerates. The financial sector has consumed all of the productive resources, and has established multiple claims directly or indirectly on all capital assets, which cannot be serviced, now they're pushing over the trees.

[JimD]

Well the latest JMG post is another good one.

All things considered, 2015 just isn’t shaping up to be a good year for believers in business as usual. Since last week’s post here on The Archdruid Report, the anti-austerity party Syriza has swept the Greek elections, to the enthusiastic cheers of similar parties all over Europe and the discomfiture of the Brussels hierarchy. The latter have no one to blame for this turn of events but themselves; for more than a decade now, EU policies have effectively put sheltering banks and bondholders from the healthy discipline of the market ahead of all other considerations, including the economic survival of entire nations. It should be no surprise to anyone that this wasn’t an approach with a long shelf life.

Meanwhile, the fracking bust continues unabated. The number of drilling rigs at work in American oilfields continues to drop vertically from week to week, layoffs in the nation’s various oil patches are picking up speed, and the price of oil remains down at levels that make further fracking a welcome mat for the local bankruptcy judge. Those media pundits who are still talking the fracking industry’s book keep insisting that the dropping price of oil proves that they were right and those dratted heretics who talk of peak oil must be wrong, but somehow those pundits never get around to explaining why iron ore, copper, and most other major commodities are dropping in price even faster than crude oil, nor why demand for petroleum products here in the US has been declining steadily as well.

The fact of the matter is that an industrial economy built to run on cheap conventional oil can’t run on expensive oil for long without running itself into the ground. Since 2008, the world’s industrial nations have tried to make up the difference by flooding their economies with cheap credit,...

.....The problem we face now is precisely that the unimaginable is now our reality. For just that little bit too long, too many people have insisted that we didn’t need to worry about the absurdity of pursuing limitless growth on a finite and fragile planet, that “they’ll think of something,” or that chattering on internet forums about this or that or the other piece of technological vaporware was doing something concrete about our species’ imminent collision with the limits to growth. For just that little bit too long, not enough people were willing to do anything that mattered, and now impersonal factors have climbed into the driver’s seat, having mugged all seven billion of us and shoved us into the trunk.

As I noted in last week’s post, that puts hard limits on what can be done in the short term. ..........

...... It’s a common phenomenon, and I propose to get ahead of the curve here by proposing, as raw material for reflection if nothing else, something that’s utterly unthinkable today but may well be a matter of necessity ten or twenty or forty years from now.

What do I have in mind? Intentional technological regression as a matter of public policy.

Imagine, for a moment, that an industrial nation were to downshift its technological infrastructure to roughly what it was in 1950.........

It gets better if you read it all.

[JimD]

Crandles

JMG counts conventional oil as it was counted in 2005 terms.  How oil is referenced today is very different and much of that change is synonymous the types of changes you see in economic statistics to make them look better.

Conventional oil production did indeed peek circa 2005.  Total production did not of course.  But the definition of Peak Oil and what would occur in energy production over time has proven very accurate.  To such an extent the oil industry has spent considerable effort in trying to discredit it.  Sort of like the climate change denial industry.  Some of the players are the same.

We are riding what was then called the "bumpy plateau" of oil production.  We are at the point where in order to produce sufficient oil we have resorted to going after the unconventional sources which were not worth drilling in the past.  These sources are very expensive to drill and result in much less energy return on investment.   We have not yet reached the point where there are significant declines in production of conventional oil.  But that day is coming regardless of whether we deal with climate change or not. 

[JimD]

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/02/as-night-closes-in.html

No one explains better why what we are doing will not work.

[quote....]I encountered Overshoot for the first time in a college bookstore in Bellingham, Washington in 1983. Red letters on a stark yellow spine spelled out the title, a word I already knew from my classes in ecology and systems theory; I pulled it off the shelf, and found the future staring me in the face. This is what’s on the front cover below the title:

carrying capacity: maximum permanently supportable load.

cornucopian myth: euphoric belief in limitless resources.

drawdown: stealing resources from the future.

cargoism: delusion that technology will always save us from

overshoot: growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity, leading to

crash: die-off.
..[/quote]

[JimD]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/man-youve-never-heard-saved-life.html

A Man You’ve Never Heard of Saved Your Life

On October 27, 1962, a man you’ve never heard of saved your life …

It was at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union were on hair trigger alert for World War Three.

And an order to launch a nuclear missile against Americans was actually given by the commander and political officer of a Soviet nuclear submarine.

One man stopped global nuclear war....

[JimD]

A superb piece and it should be mandatory reading for anyone in a policy position in the US or EU.  I worked a lot in the middle east during my career and spent some time studying the cause and effects of our problems related to that part of the world.  There can be no denial that the US and the EU have made bad decisions on what to do and how to handle the issues of the Middle East absolutely every time they decided to do anything.  Every action they took made things worse.  The primary reason for such incompetence is their utter ignorance of who they are dealing with.  This article goes a long way towards filling in the voids in their brains.

The US is almost certainly going to put boots on the ground in Iraq/Syria in substantial numbers fairly soon.  Is this a good idea or not?  Do we have a chance of winning?  Why have we lost every time we have tried so far?  What don't we understand?  If your opponent is doing everything possible to goad you into a fight what are the odds that he thinks he has any chance of losing?

It is long, but well worth the time.

Every dollar spent in war is a dollar taken away from dealing with climate change.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

What ISIS Really Wants
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.......

[Laurent]

I don't know if it is a must read.

Climatology versus Pseudoscience book tests whose predictions have been right
http://loetitiacuisine.com/2012/08/21/tempehs-maison/

[JimD]

http://www.ianwelsh.net/ethics-101-the-difference-between-ethics-and-morals/

This article goes a long way towards explaining why our current culture and civilization does not work as it should.

[JimD]

Everyone should be able to find themselves in this story.  Which temple do you worship at?

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/04/atlantis-wont-sink-experts-agree.html

[JimD]

Cross posting this link from the Empire thread as it deserves wide distribution.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/pentagon-prepares-century-climate-emergencies-and-oil-wars-2021134422

[JimD]

T.S. Eliot, 1944

“In our age,” Eliot said, “when men seem more than ever prone to confuse wisdom with knowledge, and knowledge with information, and to try to solve problems of life, in terms of engineering, there is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism, not of space, but of time; one for which history is merely the chronicle of human devices which have served their turn and been scrapped, one for which the world is the property solely of the living, a property in which the dead hold no shares. The menace of this kind of provincialism is, that we can all, all the peoples on the globe, be provincials together: and those who are not content to be provincials, can only become hermits.”

[JimD]

The Death of Capitalism

Let us state the obvious.

Capitalism has failed.

It has failed because it failed to deal with climate change.  This was a forseeable, and foreseen disaster.  We knew it, without any reasonable doubt, by the late 70s. If we had acted then, we could have stopped the worst of it.

We did not.

The death count will be in excess of a billion people. I think, given the way that damage counts keep coming in above prior estimates, and given how vicious cycles act, that the death count will be in the billions.....

Capitalism’s great claim to being a superior form of organization for production and distribution of goods and services is that it is best able to account for costs and benefits: It produces that for which people are willing and able to pay.

People weren’t willing and/or able to pay to stop climate change. In part, this is because actors with money were able to obfuscate both the science and the situation, spending millions on doing so, and buying the political process. In part, it is because climate change’s worst effects were expected to take place AFTER the death of the people who needed to act to stop it.

If you were 30 in 1980, you are 66 today. If you were 40, you are 76. If you were in the decision making class, overwhelmingly allocated to those who were 50+ in 1980, you are 86 today.

People who were in their prime and during their decision-making days, when we needed to act on climate change, were making a DEATH BET.

They bet they would be dead before the worst results of climate change happened.

They will win this bet.

This was a RATIONAL thing for them to do. I want to repeat that, because too many people think “rational=good.” It does not. It was rational for them to discount a future they would not see.....

Could it be that the most ardent supporters of the various forms of BAU are making this same bet?  Capitalism also failed because we live in a finite world and it cannot function in a sustainable manner.

http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-death-of-capitalism/

The responses to my article The Death of Capitalism made something clear:

Most people don’t know what Capitalism is.

We need two definitions.....

http://www.ianwelsh.net/what-is-capitalism/

[JimD]

I see a lot of these folks around where I live in the summer.

http://graphics.latimes.com/retirement-nomads/

[JimD]

Interesting piece.  Kind of the opposite of today in terms of climate, but coincidently the time period covers the rise of Islam and the collapse of empires.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2076713-125-year-mini-ice-age-linked-to-the-plague-and-fall-of-empires/

[JimD]

This is so spot on.  This tendency, which is celebrated in our culture, is one of our greatest weaknesses and the source of almost all of our great failures.

It runs rampant throughout both the Black and Green BAU camps.

In his first inaugural address, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, “So first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is … fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
FDR was wrong. Far worse than nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror is nameless, unreasoning, unjustified optimism which leads to catastrophic blunders that would not have occurred if potential costs and risks had been properly weighed in advance. The greatest thing we have to fear is … optimism itself............

In my former profession we had a saying often repeated to inexperienced officers, "Optimists die young."  This was said in an attempt to get folks to actually analyze a problem and weigh its potential risks and costs with an eye towards what odds of success might be achieved.  This allows one (some of the time) to perceive what the core of the problem being worked really "is" and thus improves the odds of success because one then focus's on primary issues and not symptoms of them. 

http://thesmartset.com/our-greatest-enemy-optimism/

[johnm33]

Another from the Archdruid
"That, I’m convinced, is one of the major forces behind the widening failure of climate change activism, and environmental activism in general, to find any foothold among the general public. These days, when a scientist like Tyson gets up on a podium to make a statement, a very large percentage of the listeners don’t respond to his words by thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know that.” They respond by thinking, “I wonder who’s paying him to say that?” That would be bad enough if it was completely unjustified, but in many fields of science—especially, as noted earlier, medicine and pharmacology—it’s become a necessary caveat, as failures to replicate mount up, blatant manipulation of research data comes to light, and more and more products that were touted as safe and effective by the best scientific authorities turn out to be anything but. "
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/scientific-education-as-cause-of.html

[JimD]

John33

Yes.  I have a young relative who is a degreed chemical engineer who works for a NYC advertising firm.  His clients are the big pharma companies.  He helps write the text to all the commercials which are intended to convince the public to run down to their physician and get a prescription for the latest fad drug.  And we see all the time what a good idea that is.  Science in service to humanity...not.

[JimD]

A very interesting sentence in the first paragraph.  Excellent article.

Writing up articles on climate change is difficult these days. Last week alone, 46 new papers and reports were published. I am certain that there are many more. The figure only refers to the sources I usually consult. I try to read all abstracts and all articles I find interesting, but sometimes I shy away from it: it is just too depressing. According to Naomi Oreskes, a great number of climate change scientists (she interviewed most of the top 200 climate change scientists in the US) suffer from some sort of mood imbalance or mild or serious depression. It is easy to understand why: we see the climate change taking the planet apart right in front of our eyes. We also clearly see, right in front of us, what urgently needs to done to stave off global disaster on an unprecedented scale.

http://www.flassbeck-economics.com/how-climate-change-is-rapidly-taking-the-planet-apart/

[sesyf]

JMG has just put up an article about 'http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.fi/2016/07/climate-change-activism-post-mortem.html' about why the different climate activists etc have not been able to achieve results... main issue in his opinion is that the message has been only doom and warnings - that people need also something positive in the messsage etc. and that in many aspects the relevant experts haven't succeeded politically...

In comments are already several thoughtful comments on this - and probably there will be lot more later... one that I did not much notice was that for many ordinary people the threats are somewhere in 'far' future or that 'they will think of something'.  Also the discussions in this forum show that issues are complicated and all that - how to communicate those so that enough people in all layers or classes of our societies really take action? I have no idea...

[AbruptSLR]

JMG has just put up an article about 'http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.fi/2016/07/climate-change-activism-post-mortem.html' about why the different climate activists etc have not been able to achieve results... main issue in his opinion is that the message has been only doom and warnings - that people need also something positive in the messsage etc. and that in many aspects the relevant experts haven't succeeded politically...

In comments are already several thoughtful comments on this - and probably there will be lot more later... one that I did not much notice was that for many ordinary people the threats are somewhere in 'far' future or that 'they will think of something'.  Also the discussions in this forum show that issues are complicated and all that - how to communicate those so that enough people in all layers or classes of our societies really take action? I have no idea...

Personally, I suspect that the failing is on the part of those who do not understand that major (but not complete) socio-economic collapse is going to occur by 2060.

[ritter]

JMG has just put up an article about 'http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.fi/2016/07/climate-change-activism-post-mortem.html' about why the different climate activists etc have not been able to achieve results... main issue in his opinion is that the message has been only doom and warnings - that people need also something positive in the messsage etc. and that in many aspects the relevant experts haven't succeeded politically...

In comments are already several thoughtful comments on this - and probably there will be lot more later... one that I did not much notice was that for many ordinary people the threats are somewhere in 'far' future or that 'they will think of something'.  Also the discussions in this forum show that issues are complicated and all that - how to communicate those so that enough people in all layers or classes of our societies really take action? I have no idea...

I've been working locally on adaptation efforts (fledgling, though they may be). It's a difficult message. To be accepted, one must first acknowledge that we've failed to mitigate. Failed is not an easy sell to most people. Especially when we're only now getting serious about mitigating CO2 (reductions), at least in the Bay Area. Couple that with the fact that there are no palatable solutions to 7+ billion people living on finite resources, the majority of which are trying desperately to gain our Western standard of living, and it's no wonder scientists' messages are lost in the wind.

[AbruptSLR]

Here is a link to a mini-documentary that James Cameron prepared on climate change for the DNC convention.  Most people to not yet understand that with exponential functions, we are only just now experiencing (depicted in the documentary) the tip of the climate change iceberg in the near future:


http://notrealitytv.org/

[sesyf]

And as an anecdote of how the governments, press, nearly everybody thinks: today's paper had the editorial demanding more growth and so on, BAU etc. And to insult all the intelligent people on this forum, more growth -> more energy and resource use and so forth...

No politician wishes or dares to say that current situation/economy/whatever is as good as it will ever be, it could be downhill from now on...

[JimD]

I'm posting this here to just catch attention rather than in the morass of the Trump threads where it will get largely missed or lost in the blizzard of comments.

The reason Trump got elected is largely completely missed in the angst of Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Here is a serious in-depth piece of research which is logical, comprehensive and compelling.  Additionally it carries in its analysis a huge strategic threat to current Democratic perceptions of where they are and where they think they are going to be in mid-Nov following the next election.

It is almost a small book in length so don't try to read it all at once, but rather in pieces where you have some time to digest it.  If you just do not have that kind of time then the old adage works pretty well; "Follow the money." (Figure 1, pg 82 is really insightful).  In that if you concentrate on the money trails and the very useful tables at the end and the timeline of expenditures the picture becomes pretty clear on what really happened.

Re: this Nov.  After seeing what strategic spending accomplished in 2016 think how motivating it will likely be for the 0.1% to spend a billion or so of those untold billions of new monies provided by the huge tax cut which resulted from the rather medium amount of dark money which flowed into the Trump campaign in the last 6 weeks or so. The cost/benefit analysis is a no-brainer.

https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Ferg-Jorg-Chen-INET-Working-Paper-Industrial-Structure-and-Party-Competition-in-an-Age-of-Hunger-Games-8-Jan-2018.pdf

[sidd]

Thaks for the Ferguson et al. reference. This will bear reading carefully, and the datasets are quite good. I would also pay close attention to the references (although I note Gilens and Page is missing.) I list some points that struck me immediately. The similarity of Clinton campaign financing to the Romney campaign is particularly striking.

-- begin excerpts

In 2016, Donald Trump attracted a higher percentage of small contributions than President Obama did in 2012.

...

In 2016, Bernie Sanders was sui generis – not at all comparable to Ron Paul, whose 2012 campaign was hoisted aloft in part by a Super PAC funded by Peter Thiel and other mega-donors (Ferguson et al., 2013). He was exactly what he appeared to be, something truly new under the American sun.

...

Many rebelled as they listened to commentators tell them that the US economy was really doing better than it had in many years and that they should be celebrating America’s exit from the Great Recession. They were unmoved by the chorus of conventional politicians trying to sell old nostrums that by 2014 were plainly obsolete for them in their communities. The reality of the Hunger Games was just too obvious and empty slogans no longer appealed, they just disgusted or enraged. When two politicians broke through the big money cartels that dominate both major parties, popular enthusiasm surged almost overnight to seismic levels, shocking elites in both parties and flummoxing the entire American establishment.

...

only appeals that can be financed have any prospect of making it into the political arena

...
In front of millions of people who probably had never heard anyone press such issues before, Sanders argued for implementing single-payer health care and getting big money out of politics. He also tackled the college debt problem head on, saying that the first two years of college should be free and proposed a plan to forgive student debt. The response was overwhelming.

...

Most astonishing of all, though, was how Sanders financed his effort. This was the real secret of his “revolution”: Money just kept pouring in from small contributors. We have checked carefully to see if Sanders, like Obama in both 2008 and 2012, perhaps received large sums delivered in small doses from big donors (Ferguson et al., 2013). He did not. The entries for big business in Table 5 come from scattered small contributions from firms where large numbers of individuals contributed. There were essentially no big ticket contributions from top executives and, a fortiori, no Super PACs.

...

The result is evident in our Table 7, in which – with the possible exception of 1964 – the Clinton campaign looks like no other Democratic campaign since the New Deal. The Clinton campaign reached far into sectors and firms that have rarely supported any Democrat. The strong resemblance to the profile of the Romney campaign in 2012 in many (though not all) particulars is striking (see, again, Table 3, above and the industrial breakdowns presented in (Ferguson et al., 2013).

--end excerpts



Read the whole thing. I intend to reread it.

sidd

[TerryM]

JimD


Thanks so much!
I'm taking your advice and slowly savoring everything. The first 20 pages are a must read for those still beating the "Russians Stole the Election" meme.


Terry

[AbruptSLR]

JimD


Thanks so much!
I'm taking your advice and slowly savoring everything. The first 20 pages are a must read for those still beating the "Russians Stole the Election" meme.


Terry

When one lives in an echo chamber, all the world can seem to be a dream.  However, when Mueller presents his evidence that echo chamber bubble world may well be popped.

[JimD]

When one lives in an echo chamber, all the world can seem to be a dream.  However, when Mueller presents his evidence that echo chamber bubble world may well be popped.

I impatiently await results as well.

Just for fun what do you think we will see when Mueller finishes up?

Here are my guesses.

1.  They ALL have lied to the FBI, but that is not a big deal when it comes to high level govt folks so I don't expect that this will amount to much. Maybe some will get this hung around their necks but I doubt it lands on any of the high principals with any meaningful force.

2.  Kushner - money laundering and tax evasion via his companies activities, possible RICO charges
3.  Ivanka - nothing
4.  Don Jr. - maybe obstruction of justice and/or, conspiracy to
5.  Eric T. - nothing
6.  Bannon - nothing

7.  Trump - maybe obstruction of justice and or conspiracy to. But if so there will be no impeachment by a Republican Congress - just a slap on the wrist

8. The Trump Companies - money laundering and tax evasion is highly likely and there is naturally a RICO aspect to this.  This all predates candidate Trump but is within the scope of the investigation. But I suspect that hanging it on the Trumps personally is unlikely to be possible as they have dealt with such things before and survived them.  Note that they have been audited over and over again and nothing could be stuck to them.  Trump survived a RICO charge related to his university by paying 25 mil to settle with no admission of guilt.  They have decades of experience in this and access to the best lawyers and accountants available - thus getting by the audits and worming out from under charges.  If you are good at this you might get squeezed and have to accept a fine but not admit guilt, but most of the time you just walk.  Literally all of the very wealthy do this to avoid taxes and very few ever pay a price.  There are quite a few of the highest end law firms in existence who's main business is figuring out how to launder the money without getting so far outside the law that someone goes to jail (I know someone in one of those firms who has this exact job description- and it pays really well).  The best that the USG have in catching these folks are almost always one step behind the folks in the law firms hiding the money.  Kushner does not appear to have the experience and expertise to get away with this like the Trumps - his dad should have been teaching him but Christie put him in jail.  But we will see.

9.  And nobody else matters (channeling Metallica).

[AbruptSLR]

When one lives in an echo chamber, all the world can seem to be a dream.  However, when Mueller presents his evidence that echo chamber bubble world may well be popped.

I impatiently await results as well.

...

The Mueller findings/indictments before the midterm elections is just one important consideration.  Also, we should consider that GOP gerrymandering is currently under assault by lower courts and that the Women's movement has taken as square aim at the whole slate of GOP-held congressional seats (to flip to Democrat, or Independent, seats).  It seems likely that the Democrats will soon (January 2019) the House and that with luck they have a short at controlling the Senate:

Title: "Women Overwhelmingly Want Democrats to Win This Year’s Midterm Elections"

http://time.com/5112246/women-democrats-midterms-poll/

Extract: "A new poll shows Democrats have an edge leading in to this year’s midterm elections, bolstered by support from women nationwide.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, released Monday, shows that 51% of registered voters say they would vote for the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, compared to 39% who said they would support a Republican.

Democrats have an even larger advantage among female voters, with 64% saying they would vote for a Democrat over 29% who said they would choose a Republican. By contrast, 42% of men said they would vote for a Democrat, while 51% said they would vote for a Republican.

The Democrats’ 12-point overall lead is the most significant gap in a ABC News/Washington Post poll since 2006, according to the Washington Post."

[AbruptSLR]

I don't know how successful the Democrats will be, but according to this website, at least they are trying to fight GOP initiated voter suppression:

Title: "Let America Vote is leading the fight for voting rights."

https://www.letamericavote.org/about/
&
https://www.letamericavote.org/about-jason/

Extract: "The Democratic National Committee appointed Jason chairman of the Commission to Protect American Democracy from the Trump Administration to fight back against Republican efforts to make it harder to vote for eligible Americans across the country."

[JimD]

Yes I have read that.

But what I find more indicative is looking at the past and what has transpired.

The single most important item when election day comes is the state of the economy.  The current economy and its upward trend point towards a GOP advantage.  Add in the tax cut, the ability of the administration to hold the line somewhat on raises in the federal funds rate, a possible large scale infrastructure program, and a fairly strong global economy to the mix and one can hazard that the economy will be strong in the GOP favor come Nov.

If you look at those funding numbers in the post above you will see that it was a timely infusion of money into the campaign which appears to have a large pay back.  But that being given Clinton machine still out spent Trumps by about 500 million.  The GOP is not going to let that happen in Nov or 2020.  Expect at least parity in spending.  Those 1%ers who spent their money so wisely will have taken note and have already been prefunded (or rewarded) for the next round of electons by the giant tax cut they basically paid for.  That is a well they will be loath to stop drinking from.  This will favor the GOP once again.

Democratic Party strategy - an oxymoron.  The Party leadership has already committed to the same basic operating plan which it has been following for years and executed so well in the last election.  They have done everything they can to throw the Progressives under the bus and to disenfranchise them again.  Clinton lost just as much due to Sanders supporters staying home (like I did) due to their disgust and anger with the moderately conservative Republican Democratic leadership.  I freely admit I hate those people and hope they all choke on their dinners.  Back to the point - they are repeating the same mistakes they made last time.  This does not help them in any way.

Another factor is that some of these likely democratic winners will be even more conservative than the Clinton camp.  The new guy in Alabama I guarantee will have a strongly conservative voting record and if Sinema beats out the fascist Arpaio here in AZ she is already the leader of the Blue Dogs in the House so ... no liberal there.  There will be others as well.

And there is always the Presidential option to start a war which tends to result in additional support for the party in the WH.

Just saw your post about voting rights as I finished this.  Most voting rights and gerrymandering cases are going to run into a conservative judiciary not inclined to change current practices much if at all I expect.  By the time the Republicans are finished packing the courts in 2020 or 2024 the conservative bent of the courts will out live most of us reading here.  If the Democrats were really serious about voting rights the most important program being run out of the DNC for the last 30 years would have been a 24/7/365 effort at registering voters - but no that's never been what they do.  I better end here as I can really get into a rant about this long term failure of theirs as it has driven me crazy for longer than I can remember.

I do expect the Democrats to gain seats in Nov but I expect that they will not gain as many as they are presently assuming.  They have a great affinity for screwing up winning hands.  And Nov is a long ways away of course and either side could implode over something we are not even aware of today.

[JimD]

I thought I was done for the night but right after I submitted the above post I finished reading an article I was working through.

It ends with this and is talking about Tom Perez the head of the DNC.

That the Democratic National Committee tolerates its chair frequently shuttling to Rhode Island to teach a college course while the Democratic Party is supposed to be going all-out to defeat Republicans this year tells us a lot about the quality of the current DNC leadership.

This is exactly what I am talking about.  Complacency vise a sense of urgency.  Perez was put in by the freshly defeated Clinton machine to defeat the Sanders backed candidate.  And then he set about purging all the of Sanders supporters he could from any positions of power in the party.  Then he went back to sleep. And they all went back to their tired ways.  Think how different the DNC would be if it had someone who was passionate and motivated to kick the Republicans to the curb?

[AbruptSLR]

In midterm elections the DNC traditionally plays a minor roll, & in 2018 the Democrats are counting largely on grassroots groups to carry themselves over the goal line.

Title: "Grassroots Democrats helping the left wrestle back power in the United States"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-14/democratic-blue-wave-presents-midterms-struggle-for-republicans/9324500

Extract: "Usually parties won't bother running candidates in seats they don't think are competitive, but grassroots Democrats are bucking that tradition.
…
Grassroots groups and women 'aren't going away'"

[AbruptSLR]

If Trump refuses to testify under oath, fires Mueller and/or pardons Russiagate defendants (like Manafort), then the Democrats could ride a blue wave to a midterm landslide.

Title: "Mueller mania and midterm madness"

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/370851-mueller-mania-and-midterm-madness

[AbruptSLR]

The GOP hit-teams are looking more like Keystone Cops than like Democrat killers:

Title: "With the Mueller bombshell, the GOP’s grand conspiracy theory falls apart"

https://www.salon.com/2018/01/26/with-the-mueller-bombshell-the-gops-grand-conspiracy-theory-falls-apart/

Extract: "Trump couldn’t get his henchman to fire Mueller, and backed down. His defenders are left looking like idiots again"

[Susan Anderson]

This is exactly what I am talking about.  Complacency vise a sense of urgency.  Perez was put in by the freshly defeated Clinton machine to defeat the Sanders backed candidate.  And then he set about purging all the of Sanders supporters he could from any positions of power in the party.  Then he went back to sleep. And they all went back to their tired ways.  Think how different the DNC would be if it had someone who was passionate and motivated to kick the Republicans to the curb?

Such a tired biased argument. The "Clinton machine"? There is some truth about the old guard and the old ways being a problem, but these exaggerations are not helping.

Enough with the purity monster and circular firing squad.

Nobody around here is "complacent".

[AbruptSLR]

It is possible that Ted Cruz's Senate seat could be in-play in November:

Title: "Is Ted Cruz in Real Trouble for 2018?"

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ted-cruz-real-trouble-2018

Extract: "A new poll paid for by Democratic Political Action Committee End Citizens United shows Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, within single digits of his likely Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke. The poll, conducted by Public Policy Polling, found Cruz ahead of O’Rourke 45 to 37 percent among 757 Texas voters polled by phone and online. It also may have revealed at least one reason for Sen. Cruz’s apparent weakness.

Some questions in the poll focused on the influence of special interest money in Texas, which 53 percent of respondents thought was a “major problem” in the state and only three percent said was “not a problem at all.” Nearly half of those polled, at 48 percent, think Ted Cruz is more responsive to “big campaign donors” than “ordinary Texans,” compared to 33 percent who believe the incumbent senator is more responsive to ordinary Texans."

[TerryM]

This is exactly what I am talking about.  Complacency vise a sense of urgency.  Perez was put in by the freshly defeated Clinton machine to defeat the Sanders backed candidate.  And then he set about purging all the of Sanders supporters he could from any positions of power in the party.  Then he went back to sleep. And they all went back to their tired ways.  Think how different the DNC would be if it had someone who was passionate and motivated to kick the Republicans to the curb?

Such a tired biased argument. The "Clinton machine"? There is some truth about the old guard and the old ways being a problem, but these exaggerations are not helping.

Enough with the purity monster and circular firing squad.

Nobody around here is "complacent".

Susan
You echo the sentiments of JimPettit on the Corporate Democrats thread, and I hope fervently that both of you are right.
I believe that JimD though was speaking of complacency at the level of top DNC figures. Their disregard for the progressive wing is difficult to deny.
To my admittedly jaundiced eye it appears that the DNC has become more concerned with keeping the corporate taps open than in broadening their voter base.
If 2016 taught us anything it taught us that the DNC could lose seats and the presidency, even as they raised and spent far more money than their opposition. JimD's paper illustrates this.


Terry

[TerryM]

ASLR
I don't see how the last 4 of your posts are at all related to the subject at hand?


JimD had re-opened this thread as a place to discuss the paper he presented and I fail to see how you are addressing these concerns.


If I suddenly began posting election material in one of your Antarctic threads, what would your reaction be?
Terry

[AbruptSLR]

ASLR
I don't see how the last 4 of your posts are at all related to the subject at hand?


JimD had re-opened this thread as a place to discuss the paper he presented and I fail to see how you are addressing these concerns.


If I suddenly began posting election material in one of your Antarctic threads, what would your reaction be?
Terry

My posts were made in response to JimD's Replies #26, #30, #33 & #34.  If JimD finds my posts to be off-topic then I will gladly cease and desist.

[JimD]

Ok well back to the main thrust of the thread then.

Check this out.  It is excellent.

https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse-be04d9e55235

[TerryM]

Ok well back to the main thrust of the thread then.

Check this out.  It is excellent.

https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse-be04d9e55235

Wow!
That's extreme.


In Canada we've experienced a few school shootings, (Wiki lists 7) so the problem isn't entirely locked away between America's borders. Whether these can be excused as simply mimicking the crimes we view on the news doesn't alter the fact that kids kill kids here as well.


Opioids are used here also, though not apparently at the rates seen Stateside. In Ontario our drugs are free for anyone under 25, and for those over 65 at a very reasonable dispensing fee that is waved for anyone in financial distress.


Our social net is still quite robust. I'd never witnessed poverty until I moved to the States, and it's been well hidden again since I returned to Canada.


Life expectancy for Canadians is the highest on the continent, and compares well to even the best in Asia and Europe. Single payer healthcare is almost certainly the major reason.


Umair's final paragraph:


[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.84)]But that is America’s task, not the world’s. The world’s task is this. Should the world follow the American model — extreme capitalism, no public investment, cruelty as a way of life, the perversion of everyday virtue — then these new social pathologies will follow, too. They are new diseases of the body social that have emerged from the diet of junk food — junk media, junk science, junk culture, junk punditry, junk economics, people treating one another and their society like junk — that America has fed upon for too long.[/color]


is the most damning. Lots of insight, but no solutions, for America or Americans.
Terry

[TerryM]

JimD


On page 32 your paper touches on American healthcare.
Hillary made what I believe to have been a sincere and impassioned case for single payer some decades ago.
Candidate Hillary, perhaps because of her newfound reliance on major donors, ran away from the one issue that would have assured her win. At some point amassing campaign funding became more important than winning, or saving millions of Americans.
We may not get the leaders we want, but perhaps we get the leaders we deserve.


Terry

[Susan Anderson]

Yes, that "Underestimating American Collapse" is an accurate description of how bad it is becoming here. The copycat killers, the proliferation of weapons, the fear, the hatred, the paranoia. Even in progressive Boston, a lot of kids are being bullied or bullying based on race, religion, poverty, etc. Crime is moving into some of the more prosperous areas as well.

The great divide. People like me, comfortably off, are catered to with toys and privilege. I'm on the low end of comfortable, but there is a gulf between me and your ordinary working stiff with a low-paying job unable to get by. It is collapse. They are forced to use credit, and rates there are usurious (well over 20%). [And compared to climate refugees in their millions, these people are "well off".]

However, if, as I think, climate change is going to be truly horrible in a couple of decades, this may become irrelevant. Consider Puerto Rico, a whole country gone powerless, with (human) vultures skimming the cream.

[AbruptSLR]

Yes, that "Underestimating American Collapse" is an accurate description of how bad it is becoming here. The copycat killers, the proliferation of weapons, the fear, the hatred, the paranoia. Even in progressive Boston, a lot of kids are being bullied or bullying based on race, religion, poverty, etc. Crime is moving into some of the more prosperous areas as well.

The great divide. People like me, comfortably off, are catered to with toys and privilege. I'm on the low end of comfortable, but there is a gulf between me and your ordinary working stiff with a low-paying job unable to get by. It is collapse. They are forced to use credit, and rates there are usurious (well over 20%). [And compared to climate refugees in their millions, these people are "well off".]

However, if, as I think, climate change is going to be truly horrible in a couple of decades, this may become irrelevant. Consider Puerto Rico, a whole country gone powerless, with (human) vultures skimming the cream.

Perhaps we should steer capitalism away from neoliberalism:

Title: "Neoliberalism Is Taking a Steep Toll on an Entire Generation's Mental Health: Study"

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/neoliberalism-taking-steep-toll-entire-generations-mental-health-study

Extract: "The source of your unhappiness may not be chemical or emotional but a product of our economic system. According to a study from Psychological Bulletin, neoliberalism is producing generations of young people who are increasingly demanding, both of each other and themselves.

So what is neoliberalism, anyway? Despite what the pundit class might have you believe, it's more than a glib pejorative for the policies of corporate Democrats and the GOP, although both parties have embraced a neoliberal model to varying degrees. Mike Konczal offers the following definition at Vox:

"'Neoliberalism' encompasses market supremacy—or the extension of markets or market-like logic to more and more spheres of life. This, in turn, has a significant influence on our subjectivity: how we view ourselves, our society, and our roles in it. One insight here is that markets don’t occur naturally but are instead constructed through law and practices, and those practices can be extended into realms well beyond traditional markets."
...
"Even young people without diagnosable mental illnesses tend to feel bad more often, since heightened other-oriented perfectionism creates a group climate of hostility, suspicion, and dismissiveness—in which the jury is always out on everyone, pending group appraisal—and socially prescribed perfectionism involves an acute recognition of that alienation," Meagan Day adds ruefully. "In short, the repercussions of rising perfectionism range from emotionally painful to literally deadly.""

See also:

Title: "Under Neoliberalism, You Can Be Your Own Tyrannical Boss"

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/01/under-neoliberalism-you-can-be-your-own-tyrannical-boss

[JimD]

Another interesting item in light of my previous item.

Remington Outdoor Company inc.  Makers of cool outdoor equipment such as the Bushmaster (Sandy Hook!) series of assault rifles and a host of other cool toys.  They are having something of a debt problem.

This debt problem for our local arms industry is widespread due to Trumps election and the subsequent decline in concern over the 2nd amendment being restricted - gun sales are always a lot lower when a Republican is in office vice a Democrat.  Arms makers prefer Democrats as they are good for business (remember this little tid bit when we get to the end of the post).

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-remingtonoutdoor-debtrestructuring-ex/exclusive-u-s-gunmaker-remington-turns-to-debt-restructuring-advisors-sources-idUSKBN1FF2B6

Now some of you may not know it but Remington is owned by Cerberus Capital Management.  Of some fame due to its ties to the Bush family, its Chairman of Global Investments is Dan Quayle (yup), and it has ties to The Carlyle Group (nuff said there).

It is kind of instructive who Cerberus donated money to in the 2016 election. Out of the top 20 we find:

Rubio (1)
Clinton (3)
Ryan (4)
Trump (
Sanders (10)
Kaine (12)
Schumer (14)
Gillibrand (19)

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/toprecips.php?id=D000021907&cycle=CAREER

Just another reason why it would not be friendly fire if I got out my guillotine and lined up the Democrats for processing.

[Susan Anderson]

I seem to have given the wrong impression about who is violent and pro-gun - it's not democrats, we're trying to get some restrictions, and Massachusetts has been one of the best. The bullies are being enabled by Trumpians, who are making it OK for their kids to be openly racist, and for muslims and the homeless and the powerless "unwashed" to be publicly attacked. I personally am nonviolent, and I don't expect to find anyone with a gun in any of the places I go, though I may be mistaken. Boston is a city, but we're more open-minded than not, and as they say there are no atheists in the trenches it's hard for a Bostonian to deny climate change these days.

As to donations, I'll take your word for it (OpenSecrets I trust). Note Bernie Sanders, who is your ultimate anti-"neoliberal" is high on the funding, because he's had to oppose gun restrictions - he's from Vermont. By the way, Reagan was a neoliberal. The term gets thrown around sloppily, and is also confused with liberal, which is almost identical with progressive as it is used now. Some of you seem to have bought some oversimplifications and propaganda that fails to make distinctions between victims and perps.

But if you're planning to come after me with a guillotine ... hmmm