Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

kbd512 · 2022-03-18 10:42:57

clark,

My mixed-race kids are learning that people who claim to value tolerance, can be awfully intolerant of other people. My advice is that you do not make it a point to demonstrate to your children that you are no different than people you despise, by behaving exactly like those people.

I patiently listen to everyone, even people I disagree with. I've listened to clark's arguments. I've listened to Calliban's arguments. My response is that I disagree with both arguments. Calliban has made no statements that constitute overt racism, despite your assertions to the contrary. If he ever does, then he knows what the policies are on this forum and what the consequence will be.

As an administrator, I would greatly appreciate it if the two of you would stop attacking and antagonizing each other. If you can't say something that maintains a modicum of civility towards each other, then don't say anything at all.

Quaoar · 2022-03-18 16:36:35

Calliban wrote:

No doubt some idiot will chime in calling me a racist. But the fact remains that all successful civilisations have basically been mono-racial. We ignore that at our peril. There is no nobility or morality in believing in an unworkable idea.

Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic society: it was successful and it worked for centuries. We had emperors like Traianus, Hadrianus and Marcus Aurelius who were Hispanics, Antoninus Pius who were a Gaul, Septimius Severus who were a Libyan, Alexandrus Severus who were a Syrian, Philip the Arabian who were precisely an Arabian and Diocletianus who were an Illyrian.
The trouble is not about the ethnicity it's about religion: when monotheistic religions became dominant intolerance spread and people become unable to get along.

Last edited by Quaoar (2022-03-18 16:45:23)

kbd512 · 2022-03-18 17:46:18

Quaoar,

A better question to ask would be why that happened.

What unique traits did monotheistic religions have or impose upon their adherents?

Did it have something to do with ostracizing or committing acts of violence against non-believers, perhaps?

In other words, imposing an even more extreme form of tribalism.

The Roman Empire failed for a much simpler reason, though. When enough people refused to fight for their empire, Rome was sacked. Self-hate, other forms of depravity like state-sanctioned games where people murdered each other, declining birth rates from back-alley abortions, and the destruction of the family unit did what they always do to every previously well-functioning society, which is to say they utterly destroyed it from the inside out.

This need not be our fate, but if we refuse to learn from history then we're doomed to repeat it. This would require wisdom, though, and our so-called "leaders" are not wise.

SpaceNut · 2022-03-18 17:58:14

Thank you Kbd512 for nipping it in the bud as I can only read the forum during the work days.

I read to day that the Nato nations are thinking of sending in a peace keeping force into the Ukraine...

If Russia did not retreat this could be world war III for sure.

louis · 2022-03-18 17:59:43

There's no evidence there was a real shortage of soldiers. The main thing that did for the Roman Empire, well in the West at least, was the loss of North African wheatlands. The huge food surplus from that region was vital in terms of feeding armies, maintaining social cohesion and allowing all the economic superstructure to rest upon it. Once that food surplus region was lost (in the mid 400s IIRC), Rome's fate was sealed.

kbd512 wrote:

Quaoar,
A better question to ask would be why that happened.
What unique traits did monotheistic religions have or impose upon their adherents?
Did it have something to do with ostracizing or committing acts of violence against non-believers, perhaps?
In other words, imposing an even more extreme form of tribalism.
The Roman Empire failed for a much simpler reason, though. When enough people refused to fight for their empire, Rome was sacked. Self-hate, other forms of depravity like state-sanctioned games where people murdered each other, declining birth rates from back-alley abortions, and the destruction of the family unit did what they always do to every previously well-functioning society, which is to say they utterly destroyed it from the inside out.
This need not be our fate, but if we refuse to learn from history then we're doomed to repeat it. This would require wisdom, though, and our so-called "leaders" are not wise.

kbd512 · 2022-03-18 19:39:17

Louis,

If your enemies are raiding your Capitol city, then you have a real shortage of soldiers who are able and willing to prevent that from happening. Rome's enemies clearly had enough food to do that, so where did all of that food come from?

louis · 2022-03-18 20:39:31

Barbarians got into the Empire, rampaged and then tended to get settled at various locations where they could take up agriculture but the real death blow was the loss of North Africa (to the Vandals I think it was). That led to the complete collapse of the Western Empire - the Eastern Empire survived into almost the modern era of course, and reconquered much of the Western Empire under Justinian.

It's a complex tale but Roman culture and military strength remained in play until the loss of North Africa.

kbd512 wrote:

Louis,
If your enemies are raiding your Capitol city, then you have a real shortage of soldiers who are able and willing to prevent that from happening. Rome's enemies clearly had enough food to do that, so where did all of that food come from?

kbd512 · 2022-03-19 00:06:19

Louis,

It took an army of barbarians to sack Rome, so where did the food to feed that barbarian army come from? Someone must have produced enough food to feed the barbarian army, at least long enough to sack Rome. If that food was accessible to the barbarian army, then it must also have been accessible to the Romans since the barbarian army was operating within the Roman Empire.

The fact of the matter is, Rome was sacked by Alaric due to poor generalship and the Romans massacring the families of the Germanic auxiliaries who they previously paid to fight for them, causing virtually all of the survivors to fight for Alaric. That is how Rome was sacked, and how nearly every other major city was sacked from times before Rome existed until now. It had precious little to do with grain.

Terraformer · 2022-03-19 03:29:15

Quaoar,

The Roman Empire was also an... Empire. They didn't have to worry about ethnic voting blocks, because no-one had the vote. And when certain ethnies (e.g. the Jews) got unruly, the legions would march in and sack their cities and pull down their temples. It's not really a good example to draw on to show that multi-ethnic democracies can function well. Switzerland perhaps would be a good example for that -- and it achieves it by having very high decentralisation, so it's multiple democracies that are far more ethnically homogenous than the country as a whole (and which share a common culture... but if you have a common culture you aren't really multi-ethnic, just multi-racial/multi-ancestral).

If you're going to try and have a democratic society with lots of 'ethnic' diversity, you need to make sure everyone assimilates into a common culture. If people from a certain country aren't doing that at a high enough rate, you suspend immigration from that country, because you don't want ethnic ghettos forming. But it's a process that takes multiple generations to properly happen (no, eating pie and chips does not mean someone has assimilated into English culture), so there's a ceiling on what the rate of immigration can be without causing trouble... and the ceiling is far below the current rate of immigration. Probably no more than 0.5%, maybe 0.1%, of the population each year is the max immigration a country can handle without a significant change to its culture/stability. Far less if you've had very high rates in the recent past.

Cultural nationalism generally gets ignored, but it shouldn't be. If you don't want to cut off your roots and be drafted on to the nation you're purporting to join, go home.

SpaceNut · 2022-03-19 11:27:18

Mars_B4_Moon wrote:

141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UN. 141 countries voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution "deploring" Russia's aggression against Ukraine and demanding the immediate and complete withdrawal of all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.
https://news.yahoo.com/141-countries-vo … 06406.html

Among Moscow's supporters on the war, now entering its second week, were Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea and Syria
https://www.newsweek.com/4-nations-who- … it-1684250

Russia uses hypersonic missile in Ukraine attack for time: report
https://www.space.com/russia-uses-hyper … kraine-war
The hypersonic missile, called Kinzhal ("Dagger" in Russian), was used in an attack
Secretive Swiss banks hold $213bn in Russian offshore cash, sanctions reveal
https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2022-03-18 … index.html
A video of an Indian TV debate on Ukraine has gone viral after the host berated a guest for more than a minute live on air — before realising he was shouting at the wrong person.
Indian TV host’s on-air rant about Ukraine goes viral after guest identity mix-up: ‘I am Mr McAdams’
https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/indi … 29364.html
The Indian Hindu Tv
https://www.republicworld.com/world-new … eshow.html
Republic's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami opened The Debate at 9 on Wednesday with a power-packed lead story in which he cut to the chase, and exposed 'Why America loves the Ukraine-Russia War'. In the debate opener, Arnab pointed out that as Ukrainians were dying amid the invasion of Russia, it was the Joe Biden-led country that was making money - lots and lots of money.
"Every day, every minute that this war continues the biggest American defence-related manufacturers see their stock prices shooting up. Billions, maybe trillions are being made out of this war. And most of the money is coming to the United States of America," Arnab said, suggesting to the viewers to see for themselves the share prices of American companies like Lockheed Martin & General Dynamics.
Republic's Editor-in-Chief added, "As hundreds of Ukrainians die. As the missile attacks destroy homes across Ukraine. As innocents like the 21-year-old student from Karnataka are killed in the shelling and the bombing, Europe prepares to spend hundreds of billions in increased defence expenditure.
Nestlé CEO accused of aiding the killing of ‘defenseless children and mothers’ by refusing to stop doing business in Russia
https://fortune.com/2022/03/18/nestle-r … -schneider
Italy seizes $116 million property belonging to Russia's richest man, Alexei Mordashov
https://www.businessinsider.com/alexei- … rch-2022-3
Swiss company Nestle accused of 'war crimes' by Ukraine foreign minister over ongoing trade in Russia
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/nestle … ISE2N43TM/

Its doubtful that the UN vote will change what Russia is doing so its time to send in UN troops to get it done..

louis · 2022-03-19 16:15:44

Musk had already put himself in the sights of CCP China. Now he's definitely in the sights of Putin's regime. I hope he's upped security at Boca Chica.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … tanks.html

louis · 2022-03-19 16:29:00

That's rather a caricature. The Romans did have voting blocs. In fact voting for various offices of state (Consuls, Tribunes etc) was incredibly complicated. Also there were votes (and election campaigns) for city councils. So they were more democratic than say CCP China or the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

Ethnic-based nationalism has only been around for, really a couple of centuries. Rome as a continuous political state lasted over two millennia and for most of that time was made up of disparate peoples.

But I agree with your point about a common culture, or at least a common core culture. Rome was successful because people from different ethnic groups still wanted to buy into Roman culture and would pay good money to have their children educated in Latin and the classical subjects. People wanted to become Roman citizens. We know for instance St Paul, though an orthodox Jew to begin with was also a Roman citizen. The Emperor was a focus of loyalty. Rome of course had an integrated economy, with good communications, a common currency and limited tarrifs.

A lot of Russian speakers in Ukraine - most in fact - are very happy with the overall core culture of Ukraine which includes respect for the Russian language, a democratic system and openness to the rest of the world.

Terraformer wrote:

Quaoar,
The Roman Empire was also an... Empire. They didn't have to worry about ethnic voting blocks, because no-one had the vote. And when certain ethnies (e.g. the Jews) got unruly, the legions would march in and sack their cities and pull down their temples. It's not really a good example to draw on to show that multi-ethnic democracies can function well. Switzerland perhaps would be a good example for that -- and it achieves it by having very high decentralisation, so it's multiple democracies that are far more ethnically homogenous than the country as a whole (and which share a common culture... but if you have a common culture you aren't really multi-ethnic, just multi-racial/multi-ancestral).
If you're going to try and have a democratic society with lots of 'ethnic' diversity, you need to make sure everyone assimilates into a common culture. If people from a certain country aren't doing that at a high enough rate, you suspend immigration from that country, because you don't want ethnic ghettos forming. But it's a process that takes multiple generations to properly happen (no, eating pie and chips does not mean someone has assimilated into English culture), so there's a ceiling on what the rate of immigration can be without causing trouble... and the ceiling is far below the current rate of immigration. Probably no more than 0.5%, maybe 0.1%, of the population each year is the max immigration a country can handle without a significant change to its culture/stability. Far less if you've had very high rates in the recent past.
Cultural nationalism generally gets ignored, but it shouldn't be. If you don't want to cut off your roots and be drafted on to the nation you're purporting to join, go home.

Last edited by louis (2022-03-19 16:29:28)

SpaceNut · 2022-03-19 20:36:20

Just laughable.... reparations for invasion sanctions....
Lawmakers reject Russian official's request to return Alaska: 'Never, ever, ever'

It is war Scores of Ukrainian soldiers are feared to have been killed after an attack on a military barracks on Friday.

AAVgtYF.img?w=768&h=623&m=6

SpaceNut · 2022-03-20 16:46:11

Since it became its first imperial possession in the 18th century, Russia has denied Ukraine’s national existence, while seeing it as an exotic threat.

S&P slashed Russia’s debt to junk and says there are already 30 corporate ‘fallen angels’ as a result of the war. Here are 5 charts that show the hit to ‘Russia Inc’s’ creditworthiness

Colonel-General Sergei Beseda, the head of the Fifth Service of the FSB intelligence service, and Beseda's deputy were being held under house arrest, according to a report by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) non-partisan think tank.

Support from others it-s-either-kill-or-be-killed-the-south-americans-going-to-fight-in-ukraine

military-convoy-displaying-z-symbol-drives-through-berdyansk

Russian elites are allegedly planning to remove President Vladimir Putin, according to Ukrainian intelligence, with a successor already in mind.

Nato member Slovakia starts deploying Patriot air defense system

SpaceNut · 2022-03-20 19:56:59

Russian demands to lay down and give up is over as the groves are off Ukraine rejects Russia's demand to surrender Mariupol in exchange for safe passage; Zelenskyy seeks help from Israel and of others to funnel weapons that are in great demand especially in bombing an art school where about 400 people had taken shelter. .

Ukrainian officials also accused Russian forces of kidnapping several thousand residents of the besieged port city of Mariupol and deporting them against their will to “remote cities in Russia.”

So what is the point of leveling an entire city?

The U.S. has uncovered "credible information" that Russian forces "are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps," and that Russian troops will "likely use lethal measures to disperse peaceful protests," according to a recent letter to a U.N. high commissioner, sent by a U.S. ambassador.

At what point is this enough?

85 slides of those evacuating

kbd512 · 2022-03-22 00:20:04

SpaceNut,

We're not going to intervene so long as President Biden is in office. That may be to everyone's advantage, though. If America enters the war, all bets are off. I do not wish to sacrifice our European allies to Putin's bid for conquest of Ukraine. There's a 50/50 chance that Russia will use nuclear weapons if America directly intervenes- if not against America, then against our allies. Russia's military may know that the nuclear option is a losing proposition, but Putin may not care or they may believe their own BS about America not responding in kind. It's agonizing to watch, because America's military would chew up and spit out the entirety of Russia's military inside of two weeks, but we must stay off the battlefield this time around and support Ukraine from afar. We meddled in their affairs, so this is the punishment.

Ukraine is already doing everything they need to do. They're wrecking all of Russia's war machines that have been committed to the fight. As losses mount, Russia will either withdraw to prevent further losses or subject their mechanized units to annihilation at the hands of the Ukrainians. They may ultimately use nukes in Ukraine, but after that happens the Russian people will depose Putin. The destruction of Russia's armor, artillery, trucks, assault helicopters, and attack jets in Ukraine is the best possible outcome for everyone, including the people of Russia. Otherwise, more of our allies from the other European countries will be sacrificed, along with many more Russian soldiers, to satiate Putin's desire for conquest and the reformation of the old Soviet Union.

The point of leveling an entire city is to break the will of your enemy and to starve those who do not perish in the bombardment. America did the same thing to Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. To the best of my knowledge, nobody was ever charged with "war crimes" against civilians for utterly obliterating those cities, so the lesson is that the winner gets to write the history books and to visit every conceivable horror of war upon their enemy with impunity.

louis · 2022-03-22 18:03:29

Russians are good chess players. Even Putin wouldn't lurch for the nuclear button. He'd ratchet up the pressure, claim Ukrainians used WMD first, then maybe use a very small tactical battlefield nuclear weapon. As the West have already said they won't intervene directly in Ukraine - because of the threat of escalation to all out nuclear war - it's unlikely we would intervene at that point.

However, I think Putin knows any use of nuclear weapons, however small, would make it much more likely that he would be deposed or targetted for assassination from within Russia.

kbd512 wrote:

SpaceNut,
We're not going to intervene so long as President Biden is in office. That may be to everyone's advantage, though. If America enters the war, all bets are off. I do not wish to sacrifice our European allies to Putin's bid for conquest of Ukraine. There's a 50/50 chance that Russia will use nuclear weapons if America directly intervenes- if not against America, then against our allies. Russia's military may know that the nuclear option is a losing proposition, but Putin may not care or they may believe their own BS about America not responding in kind. It's agonizing to watch, because America's military would chew up and spit out the entirety of Russia's military inside of two weeks, but we must stay off the battlefield this time around and support Ukraine from afar. We meddled in their affairs, so this is the punishment.
Ukraine is already doing everything they need to do. They're wrecking all of Russia's war machines that have been committed to the fight. As losses mount, Russia will either withdraw to prevent further losses or subject their mechanized units to annihilation at the hands of the Ukrainians. They may ultimately use nukes in Ukraine, but after that happens the Russian people will depose Putin. The destruction of Russia's armor, artillery, trucks, assault helicopters, and attack jets in Ukraine is the best possible outcome for everyone, including the people of Russia. Otherwise, more of our allies from the other European countries will be sacrificed, along with many more Russian soldiers, to satiate Putin's desire for conquest and the reformation of the old Soviet Union.
The point of leveling an entire city is to break the will of your enemy and to starve those who do not perish in the bombardment. America did the same thing to Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. To the best of my knowledge, nobody was ever charged with "war crimes" against civilians for utterly obliterating those cities, so the lesson is that the winner gets to write the history books and to visit every conceivable horror of war upon their enemy with impunity.

kbd512 · 2022-03-22 18:42:44

Louis,

I wish that were true, but Putin has badly miscalculated. If he's a chess player, then he's not a very good one. What Putin does know, because our village idiot came right out and said it in public, is that he won't have to fight America on the battlefield. Every chance encounter the Russians had with American troops in Syria ended in disaster for the Russians. America needed Corn Pop to counter Russia, but what we received was a dementia patient instead. The only thing I believe that Putin "knows" in the absolute sense, is that he thinks he's reconstituting "The Kingdom of Rus", which was remarkably similar to the Soviet Union as far as occupied territories was concerned.

SpaceNut · 2022-03-22 19:25:34

So far the Russian chessboard moves have been foretold by Biden in open televised events to keep the he done it first crap out and truth for all to hear.
Seems a batch of Russian arms has made its way to the Ukrainians for use even if they are getting plenty of used tanks to repair use from there previous owners.

SpaceNut · 2022-03-23 19:42:28

Battle field wins in the form of pushing the Russians back have been happening along with an ever increasing death rate for the Russians, to the point that it would seem that they will be in retreating mode if supplies get cut off.

Another important is not only the supply of weapons for use but other items Vermont State Police tallied an impressive haul of donations in Body Armor Drive Nets 1,000 Protective Vests for Ukraine

Calliban · 2022-03-28 16:19:56

Why no one will win the Ukrainian war.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/03/28/n … -conflict/

Last edited by Calliban (2022-03-28 16:20:10)

kbd512 · 2022-03-28 17:00:16

Calliban,

The world has been ending forever. For whatever reason, life goes on.

Edit: I see that she understands the underlying issue with the so-called "renewable energy" or "green energy".

She's quite wrong about one thing though- there is no shortage of natural gas supply. If there was, we wouldn't be flaring off so much of the stuff every day. Whether or not anyone wants to sell it at a specific price is a different story.

Last edited by kbd512 (2022-03-28 17:09:53)

louis · 2022-03-28 19:25:52

She sounds like a complete nutjob - believing NATO wanted the war in order to disguise their resource problems! Total effing BS. NATO are terrified of Putin!! They never wanted the war. Even now they won't send planes or tanks to Ukraine.

On the larger question I don't think resources, in the sense of materials for industrial use, are a brake on increasing GDP. World GDP has increased every year since WW2 bar one year I think it was. That's despite huge population increase and a huge increase in per capita material consumption by humanity. Hardly an indication that resource utilisation is a brake on growth. (The bigger issue is probably food - unless you want to destroy natural habitats and cause huge disruption to ecosystems, we are probably getting close to the limits of food production on Earth.)

What we have experienced over the last couple of years are classic dislocation effects from a pandemic, a flawed pandemic response (test and trace interfering with normal economic activity), and now a big war and sanctions response.

In the longer term I think human ingenuity can address the issue of sourcing materials. Recycling technologies improve every year allowing us to reclaim more and more resources. As raw material prices rise so novel mining solutions e.g. extraction from the sea bed become economical. Ultimately as rocket transport prices drop, we will be able to ship in resources from the asteroid belt. At the same time we can find better way of solving energy problems than for instance using lithium. Iron-air batteries and green hydrogen will likely be better forms of energy storage than lithium in the long run. We can probably reduce the size of lithium batteries used in EVs by bringing in electric roads, allowing vehicles to charge as they travel.

Calliban wrote:

Why no one will win the Ukrainian war.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/03/28/n … -conflict/

kbd512 · 2022-03-28 21:36:35

Louis,

NATO kept poking Russia, from Putin's perspective, until he threw a massive temper tantrum that resulted in mass murder of people who would otherwise have had more in common with Russia than the rest of Europe. In reality, NATO was never going to attack Russia and they were never going to admit Ukraine to NATO, but after a month of watching the Ukrainians lay waste to the Russian military with comparative pea shooters, now the entire world knows that Russia's military has a glass jaw when it comes to a real slugfest, and their leadership is so paranoid about being attacked, because that's what they want to do and are actually doing to their neighbors, that they can think rationally (from anyone else's perspective). Putin's merely another third-world tin pot dictator, no different from Castro or any of the other little phony street toughs who think they know something about fighting until they mess with someone who actually knows how to fight.

Regarding GDP, in a sense you're right if we're talking about services, and if you read what she wrote instead of simply calling her names, then you'd see she stated that sometimes new services are not very energy-intensive while being very valuable, boosting GDP out of proportion to the energy invested into the economic activity. We see how services like Uber use owner-operator ride-sharing with cellular technologies to reduce the number of cars required. Seemingly unimportant little innovations like that can have profound impacts without going gonzo on energy consumption. We had taxi cabs since we had cars, but Uber figured out how to use mobile devices to more efficiently utilize the fleet of vehicles while not paying the owner-operator for maintenance, likely another unsustainable scheme in the long-term, but it works until those owner-operators can't pay their bills. However, you still subscribe to the "metaphysical woo woo" nonsense that these "economists who never left the classroom" do. There is no human activity that doesn't use energy. If you're alive, you're using energy. Period.

I'm also counting on recycling improving because otherwise this "electronic-everything" futurism, however cool-looking, is pure fantasy. In the same way that it took about 90 years for Lead-acid battery recycling to reach 95%, it's probable that recycling any other type of battery will take at least that long to become at least that pervasive, and then the energy cost will still exceed that of sourcing virgin materials. The government could incentivize programs for recycling, but they believe the same thing you do- that resources are infinite. If we're talking about the entire solar system, then compared to Earth the resources are infinite, but someone has to have "been there, done that" first, and thus far there are no takers despite the fact that they could be wealthy beyond anyone's dreams. The sea bed mining looks interesting and I read about that, too, but again, let's see how closely reality matches up with "the dream".

I've already stated what the present issue with photovoltaics, wind turbines, and batteries is. The sunk cost over time is exponentially more than competing solutions. It starts out that way and gets worse over time. When fossil fuels were more plentiful, it didn't matter much, but they can't keep the lights on in China where they make all these things. That's why the marginal monetary cost of making the next copy of these whiz-bang gadgets, which reflects embodied energy costs, has to approach something trivial for it to be viable. We've almost figured out how to do that with microchips, but the energy cost is still staggering. How do you achieve continual growth when energy costs keep going up as the scarcity of the inputs continues to get worse? Beats me, but if you figure that out please let the manufacturers know so we can make this beautiful dream a reality.

Calliban · 2022-03-29 03:15:50

The idea that the west deliberately goaded Russia into war as a cover for domestic problems, is more of a stretch than I would make. But Gail is correct about the Western media relying on external crises and a cult of hysteria, rather than discussing difficult domestic issues like resource depletion. She is also correct about the growing service component of GDP. For me, the dead ringer for stagnation in the real goods economy can be found in exports.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX … frame=true

Global exports have been essentially stagnant since 2010. As a rule, real goods are exportable but services are not. You can export a toaster. But you cannot export a haircut. This is what puts manufacturing economies in such a strong position from a foreign exchange earnings viewpoint. And we can see from the data that exports between countries have been shrinking in relative terms since 2010. Note that this data pre-dates the Corona crisis. This does not necessarily imply that all manufacturing in all nations has been shrinking. We know that China has engaged in massive infrastructure spending programmes since 2010 and this is what has kept their economy growing at relatively high rates, even though in many cases those infrastructure projects were not good investments.

The stagnation of exports starts around the same time that Western countries started using quantitative easing and dropping real interest rates almost to zero. This suggests to me that much of the recorded GDP growth in Western countries since 2010 is simply the result of spending stimulus money rather being growth from capital investment. We also see that stock buybacks increased very rapidly after about 2003.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads … origin.jpg

This is a clear indication that US registered firms were running out of productive places for new capital investments. The Chinese at that time had cheaper labour, cheaper energy and access to resources at huge scale economies. The problems that China is having sustaining its energy supply indicate that a lot of these relative advantages are going into reverse.

Another factor that Gail misses in this analysis is demographics. The developed world is ageing rapidly and China is ageing fastest of all. Working age population has now peaked in every major economy. This means that all real growth in GDP must be achieved through per capita productivity growth. That is quite difficult to achieve as it requires either growing scale economies or rising automation levels. The first is impossible in first world countries, the second is proceeding very slowly. Both would require heavy capital investment that does not appear to be happening. Rising resource cost pressures are adding to the problem. Per capita prosperity cannot now grow, but as energy costs increase, disposable income is eroding and people are getting poorer. This is quantified by the work of economist Tim Morgan, which I would recommend reading.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpres … d-at-risk/

Prosperity per capita in advanced economies peaked around the turn of the century. Prosperity has gradually declined since then, as the rising cost of essentials (food, gasoline, heat, etc) has eroded discretionary income. So far as I can see, we do not appear to be headed for a catastrophic collapse. But as prices rise and wages fail to keep pace, people are slowly and inexorably getting poorer. The root cause of the problem is falling EROEI of our primary energy sources and a contraction of surplus energy. We are essentially waging a war against entropy. In the golden years of post WW2 growth, energy consumption in the US was rising at 7% per year. This could happen because the EROEI of US onshore conventional oil deposits was so high. It was the insanely cheap energy of conventional oil that propelled post WW2 growth. Since 1973, those wonder years of high growth have been impossible to repeat. As onshore oil depleted, Alaska, GOM and the North Sea, largely filled the gap for the OECD. But these were poorer, lower EROEI resources than the onshore conventional which had previously been relied upon. So growth slowed and eventually, peaking conventional oil production (onshore and offshore) halted all OECD economic growth shortly after the turn of the century. Since then, we have been faking it by screwing with money supply. All new growth in oil production since 2009, has come from US and Canadian unconventional. This has prevented outright declines in global oil production, but many suspect that 2018 will go down as the all time peak year for oil production.

The idea that renewable energy can somehow replace the high EROEI energy of oil and gas and permit continued growth in prosperity, is absurd. It is entertained only by those who are ignorant of the energy basis of all economic activity. In a situation where falling EROEI of fossil fuels is making economic growth impossible, replacing them with energy sources with even poorer EROEI will worsen the problem. This is why I have persistently argued in favour of developing energy sources with EROIE high enough to realistically substitute fossil fuels. This implies using the much greater energy density of nuclear fuels: Fission, Fusion and fusion-fission hybrid approaches. Without development of these energy sources, any ambitions we have in Space are likely to contract along with the Earth-based economy that actually has to finance these activities.

The problems that falling EROEI poses for our particular interest on this board, Space colonisation, are fairly obvious. In the past, space activities have been funded by governments. Governments are funded by taxation of mostly medium income individuals. Those incomes are getting squeezed, which is one of the reasons behind exploding government deficits. Large government funded space programmes, which are widely regarded as expensive curiosities, will come under increasing pressure as government budgets are constrained. It is no accident that the really impressive achievements of the US and Soviet space programmes, occurred during an era of enormous surplus energy from the Earth's richest fossil fuel supplies. This surplus energy and the government spending surplus it allowed, are now gone forever. Essentially, we are now entirely reliant on billionaire philanthropists like Elon Musk as the principle drivers for our off world ambitions. This ambitions remain possible only so long as these individuals remain generous and have the disposable income to blow on these sorts of investments.

Last edited by Calliban (2022-03-29 04:24:40)

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#126 2022-03-18 10:42:57

Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

#131 2022-03-18 19:39:17

Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

#145 2022-03-23 19:42:28

Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

#148 2022-03-28 19:25:52

Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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Re: Putin's Russian expanding to be the old USSR

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