Steve Bull's Blog, page 147
December 30, 2022
My One Prediction for 2023
The question that should be on our minds is: how are my household’s buffers holding up?
Lists of predictions for the new year are reliably popular. Here’s 10 predictions, there’s 17 predictions, over here we have 23 and a half… let’s strip it all down to one prediction: everyone’s predictions will be wrong because 2023 isn’t going to follow anyone’s script.
There are several reasons for this. One is that the vast majority of predictions are based on historical comparisons to previous eras. If the current era is unique in its combination of dynamics and instability, previous pathways are not going to accurately predict what happens next.
Recency bias leads us astray. The past 50 years of relatively mild weather, the past 40 years of Bull Markets, the past 30 years of financialization and the supremacy of monetary policy–all of these offer a warm and fuzzy confidence that the future will be comfortingly similar to the recent past. This assumption works pretty well in stable eras but fails dismally in destabilizing, transitional eras.
Stability and instability are not evenly distributed, so every cherry-picked bias can be supported. You predict slow sales? Here’s an empty shopping mall. See, I’m right! You predict a return to the good old days? Here’s a crowded street fair. See, I’m right!
Those who happen to be living inside an island of coherence are inside a bubble that they mistakenly think encompasses the entire world. This is especially prevalent in the top 5% who shape the narratives that influence the rest of us. If real estate is sinking in their little corner of the world, they predict real estate will crash everywhere.
If everything’s rosy in their protected enclave, they predict a mild recession and steady growth, blah blah blah.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
The most important question
Looks like we will make it to Dec 31, 2022. Will we make it to December 31, 2023?
This question is not hyperbole. I would even argue that this is the single most important question for at least the entire northern hemisphere.
I have been warning that Russia is preparing for a fullscale war since at least 2014. Putin basically said just that in his recent speech before the Russian Defense Ministry Board. If you have not seen this video, you really should watch it, it it will give you a direct insight into how the Kremlin thinks and what it is preparing for. Here is that video again:
I will assume that you have watched that video and that I don’t need to prove to you that Russia is gearing out for a massive war, including a nuclear one.
Foreign Minister Lavrov has publicly declared that “unnamed officials from the Pentagon actually threatened to conduct a ‘decapitation strike’ on the Kremlin…What we are talking about is the threat of the physical elimination of the head of the Russian state, (…) If such ideas are actually being nourished by someone, this someone should think very carefully about the possible consequences of such plans.”
So, we have the following situation:
For Russia this war is clearly, undeniably and officially an existential one. To dismiss this reality would be the height of folly. When the strongest nuclear power on the planet declares, repeatedly, that this is an existential war everybody ought to really take it seriously and not go into deep denial.For the US Neocons this is also an existential war: if Russia wins, then NATO loses and, therefore, the US loses too. Which means that all those SOBs who for months fed everybody nonsense about Russia loosing the war to the general public will be held responsible for the inevitable disaster.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
December 29, 2022
Nuclear Fusion: Don’t Believe the Hype!
Photo by Ilja Nedilko
In a dramatic scientific and engineering breakthrough, researchers at the Bay Area’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab recently achieved the long-sought goal of generating a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than was directly injected into a tiny reactor vessel. By the very next day, pundits well across the political spectrum were touting that breakthrough as a harbinger of a new era in energy production, suggesting that a future of limitless, low-impact fusion energy was perhaps a few decades away. In reality, however, commercially viable nuclear fusion is only infinitesimally closer than it was back in the 1980s when a contained fusion reaction – i.e. not occurring in the sun or from a bomb – was first achieved.
While most honest writers have at least acknowledged the obstacles to commercially-scaled fusion, they typically still underestimate them – as much so today as back in the 1980s. We are told that a fusion reaction would have to occur “many times a second” to produce usable amounts of energy. But the blast of energy from the LLNL fusion reactor actually only lasted one tenth of a nanosecond – that’s a ten-billionth of a second. Apparently other fusion reactions (with a net energy loss) have operated for a few nanoseconds, but reproducing this reaction over a billion times every second is far beyond what researchers are even contemplating.
We are told that the reactor produced about 1.5 times the amount of energy that was input, but this only counts the laser energy that actually struck the reactor vessel. That energy, which is necessary to generate temperatures over a hundred million degrees, was the product of an array of 192 high-powered lasers, which required well over 100 times as much energy to operate…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Can geoengineering fix the climate? Hundreds of scientists say not so fast
The Biden administration is developing a controversial solar geoengineering research plan to the dismay of many experts
Proposed geoengineering methods include pumping salt water into clouds to make them more reflective of sunlight, or to place ice particles in clouds to stop them from trapping heat. Photograph: Charlotte Observer/MCT/Getty ImagesAs global heating escalates, the US government has set out a plan to further study the controversial and seemingly sci-fi notion of deflecting the sun’s rays before they hit Earth. But a growing group of scientists denounces any steps towards what is known as solar geoengineering.
The White House has set into motion a five-year outline for research into “climate interventions”. Those include methods such as sending a phalanx of planes to spray reflective particles into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, in order to block incoming sunlight from adding to rising temperatures.
Carbon bombs and Gulf Stream collapse: the most urgent climate stories of our timeRead moreThe work is required by Congress. It is “not new research, but a report that highlights some of the key knowledge gaps and recommendations of priority topics for relevant research”, said a spokesperson for the White House’s office of science and technology policy, adding Joe Biden’s administration wants “effective and responsible CO2 removal” as well as deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
Several American researchers, somewhat reluctantly, want to explore options to tinker with the climate system to help restrain runaway global heating, even as they acknowledge many of the knock-on risks aren’t fully known. “Until recently, I thought it was too risky, but slow progress on cutting emissions has increased motivation to understand techniques at the margins like solar geoengineering,” said Chris Field, who chaired a National Academies of Sciences report last year that recommended at least $100m being spent researching the issue.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Zoltan Pozsar: G7 Investors Should Worry About Gold-Backed Renminbi Eclipsing Dollars, Commodity Encumbrance
Zoltan Pozsar: G7 Investors Should Worry About Gold-Backed Renminbi Eclipsing Dollars, Commodity EncumbranceCredit Suisse contributor Zoltan Pozsar has continued his ongoing series about Bretton Woods III where commodities will dictate the new world order. For his last dispatch of the year, he described how the world is now shifting to a multipolar order “being built not by G7 heads of state but by the ‘G7 of the East’ (the BRICS heads of state).”
BRICS stands for the group of five nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. But Pozsar said that with the poised expansion via rumored applications for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Egypt, he took the liberty to round up the current “G5.”
The author focused on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the recent summit in the Arab states, which for Pozsar is very telling on how Beijing plans to outmaneuver the West in global economy.
“Fixed income investors should care – not just because the invoicing of oil in renminbi will hurt the dollar’s might, but also because commodity encumbrance means more inflation for the West,” Pozsar said.
In the next three to five years, China is ready to work with GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries in the following priority areas: first, setting up a new paradigm of all-dimensional energy cooperation, where China will continue to import large quantities of crude oil on a long-term basis from GCC countries, and purchase more LNG. We will strengthen our cooperation in the upstream sector, engineering services, as well as [downstream] storage, transportation, and refinery. The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange platform will be fully utilized for RMB settlement in oil and gas trade, […] and we could start currency swap cooperation and advance the m-CBDC Bridge project.
Pozsar quoted Xi’s speech
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Lviv & Kiev Plunged Into Darkness After ‘Massive’ Missile Attack; Ukrainian S-300 Lands In Belarus
Ukraine has been hit with a “massive” attack of over 120 missiles across the country Thursday, its military and presidency’s office said. “December 29. Massive missiles attack… The enemy is attacking Ukraine from various directions with air and sea-based cruise missiles from strategic aircraft and ships,” Ukraine’s air force said in a public statement.
It marks the largest barrage of missiles since there was weekend talk from both sides of mutual ‘openness’ in getting to the negotiating table. Ukrainian leadership floated the proposal of UN-brokered talks by the end of February, but its insistence on Russian officials facing a war crimes tribunal first was seen in Moscow as not serious and a non-starter.
Social media footage showing missile contrails over Kiev.Regardless, at this point, Thursday’s fresh aerial attack effectively slams the door shut on the possibility of talks. According to a blistering statement from Zelensky aide Mykhaylo Podolyak, the missiles were launched:
…by the “evil Russian world” to destroy critical infrastructure & kill civilians en masse. We’re waiting for further proposals from “peacekeepers” about “peaceful settlement”, “security guarantees for Russian Federation” & undesirability of provocations.
Thus with the obvious sarcasm Zelensky’s office has clearly signaled talks at this point are all but an impossibility from its point of view.
The Ukrainian military said missiles reached as far West as Lviv, parts of which were left without electricity Thursday morning. “Ninety percent of the city is without electricity,” Lviv’s mayor said in a social media post. “We are waiting for more information from energy experts. Trams and trolleybuses are not running in the city.”
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Texas Refineries Could Take Two Weeks To Fully Restore Operations After Storm
Most refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast have begun procedures to restart operations that were disrupted by the massive winter storm late last week, but a full return to normal output of motor fuels could take up to two weeks for some facilities.
The freezing temperatures affected refinery equipment and caused issues at the steam and co-generation units at some refineries, sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Wednesday.
Pemex’s Deer Park refinery and Motiva Enterprises’ Port Arthur, the biggest refinery in the United States, could see their restart stretched out to the first or second week of January, sources familiar with the refineries’ operations and schedules told Reuters.
Winter Storm Elliott led to hard-freeze warnings issued for all the states along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where most of the U.S. refining capacity is located.
As of Friday, December 23, as much as 1.5 million bpd of the Gulf Coast’s refining capacity was shut down due to the freezing temperatures, per Reuters estimates.
Refineries run by Motiva Enterprises, Marathon Petroleum, and TotalEnergies outside Houston were shut late last week. Operations at other refineries in Texas, run by ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, and LyondellBasell, were also disrupted by the severe winter storm.
In total, the extreme winter weather affected some of the output at refineries along the Gulf Coast that process a combined 3.58 million barrels per day (bpd) and deliver around 20% of U.S. motor fuels.
Last week, the national average gasoline price dropped for a seventh consecutive week, but it’s not certain this week will bring another decline in gasoline prices, due to the rally in oil prices and the refinery outages due to the storm, according to fuel savings app GasBuddy.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Fusion!
How hydrogen fusion will save us (or not)
A recent breakthrough in an experimental fusion reactor has created a shock-wave of news rippling through mainstream media. Writers from all stripes waxed lyrical how this is a major step forward, and how it brings us closer to a ‘clean, safe, almost limitless’ energy source. Reality though is slightly more nuanced.
Asalways, that which is unsustainable, won’t be sustained. Physics, part of Nature’s rule book, works on simple principles like that. It’s not complicated: the system must produce more (much more) energy than what it needs to sustain itself in order to be useful as an energy source. It must produce surplus energy — no wonder that scientists pursuing fusion has made this their primary goal. The US National Ignition Facility (NIF) producing the outstanding result has reportedly achieved just that:
The facility used its set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium. The laser’s pulse of energy caused the capsule to collapse, reaching temperatures only seen in stars and thermonuclear weapons, and the hydrogen isotopes fused into helium, releasing additional energy and creating a cascade of fusion reactions. The laboratory’s analysis suggests that the reaction released some 3.15 MJ of energy — roughly 54% more than went into the reaction, and more than double the previous record of 1.3 MJ.
Translated to human language: a bunch of folks used brute force to ignite a miniature hydrogen bomb in a test chamber (without using an atomic bomb as a fuse). Quite a feat! Did it produce surplus energy? Hell it did. Just like in that ominous experiment seventy years ago. For reference ask the inhabitants of Enewetak Atoll how high surplus energy of this kind can throw coral into the atmosphere.
Gee! Look how much surplus energy fusion can generate! Ivy Mike, 1952, Enewetak atoll…click on the above link to read the rest…
Report Warns Risk of Nuclear War At Its Highest Since US Nuked Japan
President Biden has recognized the risk of nuclear war but continues to escalate against Moscow
A Swedish group that assesses catastrophic risks warned in its annual report this year that the risk of nuclear weapons use is higher today than at any point since the US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in 1945, AFP reported on Tuesday.
Kennette Benedict, an advisor to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who led the report for the Global Challenges Foundation, said the risk of nuclear war was greater than during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The report warned that an all-out nuclear exchange would send enough dust in the air to block sunlight resulting in “a period of chaos and violence, during which most of the surviving world population would die from hunger.”
President Biden acknowledged the risk back in October when he said the chances of nuclear “armageddon” are higher today than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Despite his recognition of the danger of his policy of supporting Ukraine against Russia, Biden continues to escalate US involvement in the war, and there is no end in sight to the fighting.
Ukraine’s war effort is entirely reliant on Western support, and the US is not just sending weapons but also providing training, intelligence, and other kinds of targeting support. According to recent media reports, the Pentagon now tacitly backs Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, and the CIA is directing sabotage operations inside Russia.
Russian officials have made clear that they believe they are not just fighting Ukrainian forces in the war but also the US and NATO. This means Russia has the pretext to launch strikes on the US and NATO, although there’s no sign that such a decision has been made.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Give progress a chance: Embrace degrowth
Illustration: Getty Images
Give progress a chance: Embrace degrowthContinuing to prioritise economic growth is not a recipe for being a good ancestor. Nor is it a recipe for human progress, writes Jack Santa Barbara.
A large and growing number of scholars from many disciplines, are advocating for a reorientation of our social and political priorities by abandoning economic growth as our overriding priority.
Even some progressive economists are making these arguments. This degrowth movement argues for prioritising genuine progress in terms of both human wellbeing and ecological sustainability. Indeed, these scholars argue that abandoning economic growth is essential for achieving these more important objectives.
While recognising the need for social and economic change, others, mostly economists and business leaders, argue that economic growth is essential to achieve human wellbeing and ecological sustainability. They cite examples of green growth with clean technologies as pointing the way forward.
Obviously, both groups cannot be right; their views are mutually exclusive. Green growth and degrowth cannot both provide a guiding framework for a just and sustainable future. Which is most likely to be helpful?
Given the extent of our disruption of natural systems at a planetary level, our rapidly worsening social and political problems, and the growing investments in green growth technologies, this seems an important question.
Are we basically on course with the green growth, technology-driven initiatives that most major governments have embraced? Or do we need a radical rethink of our priorities and how we organise our economies and societies, as degrowth advocates argue?
Green growth is a more comforting option, as it implies we can continue pretty much as we are, and largely rely on technology to do the heavy lifting to clean up our environment, and deliver wellbeing in all its guises.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
