Steve Bull's Blog, page 156
December 5, 2022
Winter in Central Europe and for the dollar
In this article I examine the current state of the fight for hegemonic control between America on the one side, and Russia and China on the other. It is being fought on two fronts. Ukraine, the one in plain sight, is about to endure a winter without power and adequate food potentially leading to a humanitarian crisis.
The other front is financial with America facing a coordinated attack by Russia and China on its dollar hegemony. The Russians are planning a replacement trade settlement currency, which if it succeeds, could unleash a flood of foreign-owned dollars onto the foreign exchanges.
We have no way of knowing how advanced this plan is, but the indications point perhaps to a gold-based digital currency. Moscow establishing a new gold exchange, Asian central banks accumulating additional gold reserves, and Saudi Arabia seeking non-dollar payments for oil sales are all circumstantial evidence.
As well as these plans, there has been an underlying shift away from a long-term everything financial bubble, with the prospect of higher interest rate levels in time. The reasons for foreign ownership of fiat dollars are diminishing, and a successful new Asian trade currency will only add to the dollar’s woes.
Could this pressure compel America de-escalate Ukraine and sanctions against Russia? The argument to do so has become compelling. It is also a way to lower energy prices, giving central banks needed room for interest rate manoeuvre.
Russia is making the most of winter
The evidence that Russia is intent on breaking the will of the Ukrainian people is mounting. As the snow begins to settle, Russia is knocking out the power generation necessary to keep people warm and alive. It is a modern variation on the medieval siege. But instead of surrounding a city or castle and starving the residents into submission, by making conditions impossible they expect the Ukrainians to leave.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
December 4, 2022
OPEC+ Keeps Oil Production Unchanged, Maintains 2MMb/d Output Cut After Launch Of Russia Price Cap
Two weeks ago, oil tumbled after the WSJ reported a fake news hit piece quoting “delegates” who “said” that Saudi Arabia was preparing for a 500K oil production hike. We quickly countered that this was ridiculous and if anything OPEC+ would seek further production cuts, a view which other media promptly quickly picked up. In the end, the report of an output hike (which some interpreted as a gesture of good will from Saudi crown prince MBS who had just received immunity from the Biden regime), proved to be indeed fake news, but likewise any expectations of further output cuts were dashed when earlier on Sunday OPEC+ agreed to stick to its oil-output targets just two days after G-7 nations agreed to a $60 price cap on Russian oil, despite mounting concerns about oil demand as the world in swept up by a global recession and as new Covid-related lockdowns in China and lingering uncertainty over Russia’s ability to export crude have sent the price of oil sliding.
During a virtual meeting, OPEC+ decided to rollover the production cuts of 2 million barrels a day initially agreed to in October, a move which will allow the group time to assess the market impact of the price cap on Russian oil, the delegates said.
Brent crude plunged to its lowest level since September on Nov. 28, but ended up posting its biggest weekly gain in a month.
“With massive and offsetting fundamental and geopolitical risks bearing down on the oil market, ministers understandably opted to hold steady and hunker down,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Advisers LLC.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Addressing Climate Change Will Not “Save the Planet”
The dismal reality is that green energy will save not the complex web of life on Earth but the particular way of life of one domineering species.
A boiler tower surrounded by mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert, Calif., on Aug. 26, 2022. Photo: David McNew/Getty Images
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY FINDS itself in a terrifying place today, witness to mass extinction, helpless to stop the march of industrial Homo sapiens, the pillage of habitat, the loss of wildlands, and the impoverishment of ecosystems. Many of its leading figures are in despair. “I’m 40 years into conservation biology and I can tell you we are losing badly, getting our asses kicked,” Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under President Barack Obama, told me recently. “There are almost no reasons to be optimistic.”This might explain the discipline’s desperate hitching of its wagon to the climate movement. Climate, after all, is the environmental cause du jour, eclipsing all other sustainability concerns, increasingly attractive as a rallying cry for a public that has canonized it as one of the major political, social, and economic issues of our time. Mainstream climate activism of the Bill McKibben variety points toward a grandly hopeful end within the confines of acceptable capitalist discourse: decarbonization of the global economy, with technologies driven by profit-seeking corporations subsidized by governments. Taking up this banner of optimistic can-do-ism, the environmental movement has convinced itself, and sought to convince the public, that with a worldwide build-out of renewable energy systems, humanity will power its dynamic industrial civilization with jobs-producing green machines while also — somehow — rescuing countless species from the brink.“But this happens to be a lie,” Ashe told me. “The lie is that if we address the climate crisis, we will also solve the biodiversity crisis.”
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Greenwald Drags MSM Journos For ‘Hive-Mind’ Hackery Over Taibbi-Twitter Bombshell
Update: Glenn Greenwald sums it up perfectly in an epic Twitter thread:
First, click on this link. Just click it. You’ll see how these liberal media employees operate as a hive mind, an in-group pack, reciting the same phrases on cue. They have no novel thoughts. They’re Democratic Party activists who unite as pack animals:https://t.co/S0U2SB69fJ
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022
Go look and you’ll see the whole mindless liberal pack making this point: “LOL, Elon claimed there was government involvement when Taibbi admitted in tweet 22 there’s none.”
Now, look at Taibbi’s tweet: he’s saying there’s no evidence of *foreign government* involvement, not US: pic.twitter.com/ApcN6VviOb
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022
In fact, the tweet they’re pointing to – to claim @ElonMusk lied by saying Dem officials were involved – says the opposite.
That’s the whole point! Twitter lied when saying they censored this story because the docs were hacked by Russia. They know there was no evidence of this! pic.twitter.com/8SYteOFi8R
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022
Third, we have the personal attacks on Taibbi – from all the people who could not match his journalistic accomplishments if they had 100 lives to try.
Again, the more big stories you break, the more these frauds – who just repeat what CIA and Google tell them to say – hate you. pic.twitter.com/1IofZNOEnv
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022
Never forget the person they chose to start this lie: the single worst and most dishonest US Security State propagandist in corporate media, @NatashaBertrand, who got promoted and promoted and promoted again the more she lied. Lying is how one advances in liberal corporate media. pic.twitter.com/H7qWtJeD74
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022
Click on any of the above tweets to read the rest.
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On Friday night, veteran journalist Matt Taibbi released the first installment of “The Twitter Files” – evidence of Twitter’s interference in the 2020 US election provided by new owner Elon Musk.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
December 3, 2022
The Unavoidable Crash
Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe Unavoidable CrashAfter years of ultra-loose fiscal, monetary, and credit policies and the onset of major negative supply shocks, stagflationary pressures are now putting the squeeze on a massive mountain of public- and private-sector debt. The mother of all economic crises looms, and there will be little that policymakers can do about it.
NEW YORK – The world economy is lurching toward an unprecedented confluence of economic, financial, and debt crises, following the explosion of deficits, borrowing, and leverage in recent decades.
In the private sector, the mountain of debt includes that of households (such as mortgages, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, personal loans), businesses and corporations (bank loans, bond debt, and private debt), and the financial sector (liabilities of bank and nonbank institutions). In the public sector, it includes central, provincial, and local government bonds and other formal liabilities, as well as implicit debts such as unfunded liabilities from pay-as-you-go pension schemes and health-care systems – all of which will continue to grow as societies age.
Just looking at explicit debts, the figures are staggering. Globally, total private- and public-sector debt as a share of GDP rose from 200% in 1999 to 350% in 2021. The ratio is now 420% across advanced economies, and 330% in China. In the United States, it is 420%, which is higher than during the Great Depression and after World War II.
Of course, debt can boost economic activity if borrowers invest in new capital (machinery, homes, public infrastructure) that yields returns higher than the cost of borrowing. But much borrowing goes simply to finance consumption spending above one’s income on a persistent basis – and that is a recipe for bankruptcy..
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Permian Pushes US December Oil Production to Post Pandemic High
All of the Crude plus Condensate (C + C) production data for the US state charts comes from the EIAʼs November Petroleum Supply monthly PSM which provides updated information up to September 2022.
U.S. September production increased by 289 kb/d to 12,268 kb/d. It should be noted that August’s oil production was revised up by only 4 kb/d in the current September report. The large increase over the August update is real. For September, the states with the largest increase were Texas 90 kb/d, New Mexico 75 kb/d and North Dakota 43 kb/d. The Gulf of Mexico added 64 kb/d.
September’s production was at a new post pandemic high and crossed 12,000 kb/d. It is now 732 kb/d below the pre-pandemic high of 13,000 kb/d
While overall US oil production increased, a clearer indication of the health of US production can be gleaned by looking more closely at the Onshore L48 states. In the Onshore L48, September production increased by 208 kb/d to 9,989 kb/d. This means that 72% of the increase in US production came from the Onshore L48.
The blue graph, taken from the November 2022 STEO, is the production forecast for the U.S. from October 2022 to December 2023. Output for December 2023 is expected to be 12,580 kb/d.
The red OLS line from June 2020 to September 2022 indicates a monthly production increase of 50.5 kb/d/mth over that period. The first portion of red line stops at September because that is the range covered by the OLS analysis. The second portion is the same OLS line extended to see how well it fits the STEO forecast.
Oil Production Ranked by State
Listed above are the 10 states with the largest US production. These 10 accounted for 81.9% of all U.S. oil production out of a total production of 12,268 kb/d in September 2022.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Visualizing The World’s Largest Hydroelectric Dams
Did you know that hydroelectricity is the world’s biggest source of renewable energy? According to recent figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), it represents 40% of total capacity, ahead of solar (28%) and wind (27%).
This type of energy is generated by hydroelectric power stations, which are essentially large dams that use the water flow to spin a turbine. They can also serve secondary functions such as flow monitoring and flood control.
To help you learn more about hydropower, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu has visualized the five largest hydroelectric dams in the world, ranked by their maximum output.
The following table lists key information about the five dams shown in this graphic, as of 2021. Installed capacity is the maximum amount of power that a plant can generate under full load.
At the top of the list is China’s Three Gorges Dam, which opened in 2003. It has an installed capacity of 22.5 gigawatts (GW), which is close to double the second-place Itaipu Dam.
In terms of annual output, the Itaipu Dam actually produces about the same amount of electricity. This is because the Parana River has a low seasonal variance, meaning the flow rate changes very little throughout the year. On the other hand, the Yangtze River has a significant drop in flow for several months of the year.
For a point of comparison, here is the installed capacity of the world’s three largest solar power plants, also as of 2021:
Bhadla Solar Park, India: 2.2 GWHainan Solar Park, China: 2.2 GWPavagada Solar Park, India: 2.1 GWCompared to our largest dams, solar plants have a much lower installed capacity. However, in terms of cost (cents per kilowatt-hour), the two are actually quite even.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Why China Sucks: It’s A Beta Test For The New World Order
For over a decade there has been an open globalist obsession with the Chinese governmental model – A love affair, if you will. Many top proponents of global centralization including Henry Kissinger and George Soros have praised China in the past and hinted that the communist country is burgeoning into a major player within the New World Order. Soros expressed this exact sentiment way back in 2009, around the time that China began courting the IMF and issuing trillions in Yuan based treasury debt in order to join their global currency initiative.
Several years later, China was inducted into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket. The CCP now avidly supports the creation of a new global currency system with the IMF in control.
This is a reality I have been writing about for many years: China does NOT stand in opposition to global centralization under the control of western oligarchs. All they want is a prominent seat at the table when the “Great Reset” kicks off and total centralization begins. But the above information only suggests an economic relationship between China and the globalists. Does the alliance go even further than that?
Recently, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum gave an interview to the Chinese government controlled CGTN at the APEC Summit. In that interview, Schwab praises China as a role model for many other nations. This might shock some people considering China’s economy is faltering, with their global exports plunging in 2022 and their housing market in shambles. This decline is in large part due to global stagflation, but also due to their insane “zero covid” policy which has kept the nation under pandemic lockdown for years.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
December 2, 2022
Peak oil, food & the “King of Chemicals” sulfuric acid
Preface. I first learned of sulfur’s existence when my grandmother told me how she loved going to tent revivals on the edge of town where it was common for preachers to get converts by burning sulfur to make the fire and brimstone damnation of Hell seem real (during the 3rd Great Awakening).
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Sulfuric acid is called the “king of chemicals” because it is the most widely used chemical on earth. Over 260 million metric tons were produced in 2021 for lead acid batteries, detergent, rayon, paper, iron and steel pickling, glass, cement, adhesives, sugar refining, fireworks, rubber vulcanization, explosives, pesticides, drugs, plastics, pigments, water treatment, and 30,000 other products.
Sulfuric acid is also essential for electric vehicles, batteries, solar, wind turbines, semiconductors and other green technology, because sulfuric acid is how you get lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and some rare earth metals by dissolving the rock around them.
But over half is used for the most important product of all, dissolving phosphate out of rocks to make phosphate fertilizer, which can increase crop production by 50%, to grow our fuel: food. And not only that, but to make the universal energy currency of all life on earth, Adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) which powers all cells. Plus, all living creatures are part phosphate, it’s in our DNA, RNA, cell membranes, bones, and teeth.
Yet sulfuric acid shortages loom in the future, even though sulfur is the fifth most common element in the world! So how on earth could there ever be a sulfur shortage?
It may be common, but deposits large enough to exploit are extremely rare, mostly near volcanoes. Most sulfur or sulfates are combined with copper, iron, lead, zinc, barium, calcium (aka gypsum), magnesium, and sodium.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Russia Now Says US & NATO “Directly Participating” In Ukraine War
Earlier this week CNN reported that the Biden administration is considering “dramatically” increasing its training of Ukrainian forces. The proposal would involve US advisers training “much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics” at American installations in Germany, and possibly other locations in Europe. This could involve as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers trained by US advisers a month, which over a half-year period would total 15,000 going through the proposed ramped-up US program.
This report and others, which have also detailed expanding military training programs for Ukrainians in Europe overseen by UK and other NATO-member militaries, has prompted a Friday response from the Kremlin. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged Thursday that the US and NATO are now directly participating in the Ukraine war.
Via AP“You shouldn’t say that the US and NATO aren’t taking part in this war. You are directly participating in it,” Lavrov told a press briefing.
“And not just by providing weapons but also by training personnel. You are training their military on your territory, on the territories of Britain, Germany, Italy, and other countries,” he pointed out.
He reiterated prior Kremlin statements underscoring that war between nuclear powers is “unacceptable” but while highlighting that growing US-NATO involvement greatly heightens this risk.
“Even if someone plans to start it by conventional means, the risk of escalation into a nuclear war will be enormous,” Lavrov added.
Lavrov’s comments are hugely significant given up to this point Moscow slammed what it called “indirect” American involvement. Russian officials spoke of the growing proxy war nature of the conflict. But now it appears the Kremlin sees that there’s been an escalation to direct NATO involvement.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
