http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52377.htm
Trump’s Syria Withdrawal? Relax, It’s Another PR Gimmick
For a change, President Trump managed to unite the US Congress this week – in provoking broad condemnation of his surprise announcement to withdraw American troops from northeast Syria.
All the more so because his ad hoc deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has quickly spun out of control, launching a Turk offensive against Kurds in northeast Syria.
Turkey labels Kurdish militants “terrorists”, while the US has allied with them, having used them as proxies ostensibly to fight jihadist terror groups. (The US has also covertly sponsored the jihadist terror gangs, such as Islamic State, or ISIS, indicating that the real role of the Kurds for the Americans was to annex parts of Syria.)
Trump was assailed by Democrats and Republicans for his “betrayal” of the Kurds and for “destabilizing the Middle East”. Even political allies like Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and hawkish advisers Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio joined the fray to lambast Trump over his apparent policy shift.
Hold on a moment. The reaction is no doubt hyperventilating over-reaction, which gives Trump way too much credit in making a “strategic decision”.
Closer to the truth is that this president, in typical loose-cannon fashion, simply stumbled into what appears to be a major policy shift, when in reality what he was after was a cheap PR boost for re-election next year.
After all, we are in American presidential campaign mode. That’s why the Democrats are gunning for impeachment based on flimsy “evidence” of Trump’s alleged collusion with Ukraine against Democrat rival Joe Biden.
For his part, Trump is, of course, seeking a bit of glory with voters, and that most likely explains his announcement last weekend ordering US troops to withdraw from northeast Syria. That followed a phone call with Turkey’s Erdogan on Sunday in which Trump apparently acceded to demands to give Turkey a free hand to make an incursion in northeast Syria to push back Kurdish fighters.
Erdogan appeared to assure Trump that Turk forces would take responsibility for running prisons holding thousands of ISIS terrorists. That’s implausible given Turkey’s past covert liaison with these jihadists, but to Trump’s ear that probably sounded a great idea to save America money.
Everything about how Trump made the announcement indicates that his main purpose was to win votes, without a care for repercussions in Syria. It was classic Trump making up policy on the hoof and without any fore-planning. It was all about him looking victorious and “bringing our troops home”. He mentioned how he was elected to bring an end to “ridiculous, endless wars”, and now that’s what he was purportedly doing with his latest initiative in northeast Syria.
It’s obvious that Trump hadn’t even thought through the ramifications. His only goal was to give himself a big pat on the back for “defeating ISIS 100 per cent”, and handing over security matters to Turkey, in order to get American troops home (as promised three years ago!) and to save US taxpayers loads of money. It was transactional Trump choosing the path of least costs.
To fend off criticism about betraying the Kurds, he inanely said later in the week that the Kurds were not important allies with the US anyway, since they hadn’t helped “us in the Normandy Landings during World War Two”.
After the Sunday phone call with Erdogan, the White House issued a statement Monday, saying: “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into northern Syria. The United States armed forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and the United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘caliphate’, will no longer be in the immediate area.”
That statement contradicts claims made later by both Trump and Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, saying the US hadn’t given Turkey a green light to go on an offensive.
Trump probably had cluelessly forgotten, or overlooked, that the Turks would see the US pullout as a “green light” to make an incursion into Syria to hit the Kurds. He thought his deal with Erdogan was about sub-contracting out security to Turkey and save America money.
Because, when the torrent of condemnation from US lawmakers erupted over the next few hours, Trump was forced into a making a spectacular U-turn. Amid vilification for betraying the Kurds, the president then made a wild threat against Turkey, saying he would “obliterate” its economy if it attacked the Kurds. (So far, Turkey seems to have ignored Trump’s threats.)
Trump tweeted: “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)…”
You can tell from his egotistical, blustering words, that Trump is way out of his depth on what he thought he had agreed to with Erdogan.
In subsequent remarks, it was even more obvious that Trump was floundering over what was supposed to be a “big policy shift” and also making stuff up to scramble himself out of a hole he had just dug for himself.
Speaking from the White House on Monday, he said: “We’ve been there [Syria] for many, many, many years beyond what we were supposed to be. Not fighting. Just there. Just there. And it’s time to come back home.
Trump went on with delusional claims: “People are extremely thrilled because they say it’s time to bring our people back home. We’re not a police force. They’re policing the area. We’re not a police force. The UK was very thrilled at this decision … many people agree with it very strongly.”
Asked if he had consulted the US military chiefs of staff, he said: “I consulted with everybody. I always consult with everybody.”
Media reports indicated that Trump had not consulted with “everybody”. The Pentagon seemed to be blindsided by his impromptu agreement with Erdogan. The British government was not “thrilled”; Downing Street warned against any Turkish incursion into Syria, saying it would flare up dangerous conflict.
The way Democrats and Republicans have grandstanded over Trump’s flippant decision-making is equally contemptible. All the criticism of Trump has revolved around the false, conceited notion that American military in Syria are a force for good in a supposed fight against terrorism. The outpouring of delusional American claims about its troops in Syria has been sickening. American forces are in Syria illegally, are guilty of war crimes, and should be removed immediately in disgrace.
If Trump actually did remove US troops from Syria then that would be an unmitigated good thing, so that the blighted country could begin to restore its territory and sovereignty after eight years of American-sponsored covert war for regime change using terrorist proxies.
But the hullabaloo over Trump’s electioneering gimmick is completely out of proportion.
The State Department and Pentagon were reported to have said the number of US troops withdrawing from northeast Syria were as little as 50 individuals. There are reckoned to be about 2,000 American troops in total in Syria. They are not coming home in their thousands to ticker-tape welcomes on Main Street. That was just Trump’s vote-catching spin. After all, it was a year ago that he first mentioned US forces withdrawing from Syria. They’re still there.
Turkey’s Erdogan likes to brag about taking military action. It’s not clear if a massive ground invasion will go ahead, following heavy shelling against Kurdish positions in Hasakah and Raqqa Provinces east of the Euphrates River. Several civilians have been killed, according to Kurdish Red Crescent and Syria’s SANA station. There maybe further cross-border skirmishing, but Erdogan knows the risks of getting bogged down in Syria are great.
Only last month during a trilateral summit in Ankara, Erdogan signed a joint statement with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani, in which the three leaders vowed to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We can be sure that Moscow and Tehran have firmly reminded Ankara of its commitments and will not take any backsliding kindly if Turkey were to annex northeast Syria.
For several reasons Trump’s Syria “withdrawal” announced this week does not portend anything significant, other than a myopic PR gimmick which has ruffled a lot of silly feathers in Washington.
Tragically, however, his ham-fisted PR gimmick may result in a lot of innocent lives being lost owing to the green light he clumsily flashed to Turkey, thinking he was getting a “good deal” for boosting his voters.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
SC198-13
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52385.htm
Tulsi and Rigged Elections
Tulsi Gabbard, who has at best minimal support by Democrats (around one percent), and zero from the corporate DNC, posted the following video earlier today
There are so many of you who I’ve met in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me how frustrated you are that the DNC and corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be.
October 12, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - This, of course, is nothing new, but thanks to Tulsi for reminding us of how “elections” are conducted. In fact, the state long ago corrupted the process and has selected candidates for long as anybody can remember.
How is it possible a cognitively challenged and corrupt hack like Joe Biden is number one in the running—or was until Elizabeth Warren took that spot away from him? It’s possible because Biden is a trusted asset eager to do whatever he is told, same as Obama, Bush the lesser, Clinton (a “brother by another mother”), Bush the elder, Reagan… on and on, down the line. Like Hillary Clinton, the Democrat establishment believes it is Biden’s “turn” to read the teleprompter. All the others, well, they’re spoilers.
They are attempting to replace the roles of voters in the early states, using polling and other arbitrary methods which are not transparent or democratic, and holding so-called debates which are not debates at all but rather commercialized reality television meant to entertain, not inform or enlighten.
That replacement happened decades ago. Trump won the election because our rulers left the election process intact, arrogantly confident their handpicked candidates will win because only those who have come up through the system are permitted to run. It’s left intact as a public relations gimmick designed to fool the proles who are, regrettably, all too easy to control—or were until Trump appeared on the scene.
Tulsi is spot on about the “debates,” which are nothing of the sort. Indeed, they are a form of televised bread and circuses—bread because most Americans receive some kind of support from the government, and a circus because all circuses are comical, theatrical, and well-scripted.
As for being informed, that’s the last thing the ruling elite want. They have us believe in fantasies so absurd they may as well be props in a Luis Buñuel film—for instance, killing people in foreign lands is humanitarian and the economy is doing great (never mind the unemployed, the homeless, and record debt, both governmental and personal).
In order to bring attention to this serious threat to our democracy, and ensure your voice is heard, I am giving serious consideration to boycotting the next debate on October 15th. I will announce my decision within the next few days. With my deepest aloha, thank you all again for your support.
This is commendable, although, sadly, an almost transparent blip on the political radar screen. Big corporate media will certainly not take notice, and if they perchance do it will be with snide commentary.
The soft totalitarian machine rejects the socialist palliatives of Elizabeth Warren. She appears to be anti-corporatist, and that is inexcusable. Many of our political and social problems are related to the domination of corporations, most of the crony variety.
Elizabeth Warren will be unable to break the corporate stranglehold on America. It is pure insanity to believe otherwise. The Democrat and Republican parties—one party disguised as two—will not savage corporations with taxation and redoubled punitive regulation, not if they wish to remain in Congress and receive money to run obscenely expensive campaigns.
Warren will be overshadowed by the Hildabeast, Hillary Clinton, who is determined to be president. She will enter the race sometime next year, overturning the apple cart of other hopefuls, all spouting the same wealth distribution nonsense because, after all, a well-trained and ceaselessly indoctrinated public, most on a modern version of the Roman Cura Annona grain dole, love free stuff (stolen from others).
No way will the DNC accept Elizabeth Warren as the nominee. She will be subverted, the same way Bernie Sanders was.
Most Americans don’t trust or like Hillary, but that hardly matters.
The days of Trump may soon be over. If he’s not impeached on spurious grounds, he will enter the race under a toxic cloud of accusation and unproven high crimes and misdemeanors greatly amplified by a propaganda media. Polls consistently show he is losing traction, and the MAGA crowd is increasingly disillusioned, unable to realize its populist agenda.
I’m sorry, Tulsi. Your effort to unmask the subversion of the election system will largely fall on deaf ears. As of this morning, the above video garnered a mere 800 views.
It will take more than a “debate” boycott to send the message. It will take a revolution to finally drain Trump’s swamp, end the endless wars, and force transnational corporations and foreign governments (most egregiously Israel) out of the bed they have shared for so long with our “representatives,” who are largely nothing more than self-seeking sociopaths on short leashes.
Tulsi and Rigged Elections
Tulsi Gabbard, who has at best minimal support by Democrats (around one percent), and zero from the corporate DNC, posted the following video earlier today
There are so many of you who I’ve met in Iowa and New Hampshire who have expressed to me how frustrated you are that the DNC and corporate media are essentially trying to usurp your role as voters in choosing who our Democratic nominee will be.
October 12, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - This, of course, is nothing new, but thanks to Tulsi for reminding us of how “elections” are conducted. In fact, the state long ago corrupted the process and has selected candidates for long as anybody can remember.
How is it possible a cognitively challenged and corrupt hack like Joe Biden is number one in the running—or was until Elizabeth Warren took that spot away from him? It’s possible because Biden is a trusted asset eager to do whatever he is told, same as Obama, Bush the lesser, Clinton (a “brother by another mother”), Bush the elder, Reagan… on and on, down the line. Like Hillary Clinton, the Democrat establishment believes it is Biden’s “turn” to read the teleprompter. All the others, well, they’re spoilers.
They are attempting to replace the roles of voters in the early states, using polling and other arbitrary methods which are not transparent or democratic, and holding so-called debates which are not debates at all but rather commercialized reality television meant to entertain, not inform or enlighten.
That replacement happened decades ago. Trump won the election because our rulers left the election process intact, arrogantly confident their handpicked candidates will win because only those who have come up through the system are permitted to run. It’s left intact as a public relations gimmick designed to fool the proles who are, regrettably, all too easy to control—or were until Trump appeared on the scene.
Tulsi is spot on about the “debates,” which are nothing of the sort. Indeed, they are a form of televised bread and circuses—bread because most Americans receive some kind of support from the government, and a circus because all circuses are comical, theatrical, and well-scripted.
As for being informed, that’s the last thing the ruling elite want. They have us believe in fantasies so absurd they may as well be props in a Luis Buñuel film—for instance, killing people in foreign lands is humanitarian and the economy is doing great (never mind the unemployed, the homeless, and record debt, both governmental and personal).
In order to bring attention to this serious threat to our democracy, and ensure your voice is heard, I am giving serious consideration to boycotting the next debate on October 15th. I will announce my decision within the next few days. With my deepest aloha, thank you all again for your support.
This is commendable, although, sadly, an almost transparent blip on the political radar screen. Big corporate media will certainly not take notice, and if they perchance do it will be with snide commentary.
The soft totalitarian machine rejects the socialist palliatives of Elizabeth Warren. She appears to be anti-corporatist, and that is inexcusable. Many of our political and social problems are related to the domination of corporations, most of the crony variety.
Elizabeth Warren will be unable to break the corporate stranglehold on America. It is pure insanity to believe otherwise. The Democrat and Republican parties—one party disguised as two—will not savage corporations with taxation and redoubled punitive regulation, not if they wish to remain in Congress and receive money to run obscenely expensive campaigns.
Warren will be overshadowed by the Hildabeast, Hillary Clinton, who is determined to be president. She will enter the race sometime next year, overturning the apple cart of other hopefuls, all spouting the same wealth distribution nonsense because, after all, a well-trained and ceaselessly indoctrinated public, most on a modern version of the Roman Cura Annona grain dole, love free stuff (stolen from others).
No way will the DNC accept Elizabeth Warren as the nominee. She will be subverted, the same way Bernie Sanders was.
Most Americans don’t trust or like Hillary, but that hardly matters.
The days of Trump may soon be over. If he’s not impeached on spurious grounds, he will enter the race under a toxic cloud of accusation and unproven high crimes and misdemeanors greatly amplified by a propaganda media. Polls consistently show he is losing traction, and the MAGA crowd is increasingly disillusioned, unable to realize its populist agenda.
I’m sorry, Tulsi. Your effort to unmask the subversion of the election system will largely fall on deaf ears. As of this morning, the above video garnered a mere 800 views.
It will take more than a “debate” boycott to send the message. It will take a revolution to finally drain Trump’s swamp, end the endless wars, and force transnational corporations and foreign governments (most egregiously Israel) out of the bed they have shared for so long with our “representatives,” who are largely nothing more than self-seeking sociopaths on short leashes.
Saturday, October 12, 2019
SC198-12
https://srsroccoreport.com/more-black-swans-arrive-as-u-s-debt-balloons-800-billion-in-two-months/
More Black Swans Arrive As U.S. Debt Balloons $800 Billion In Two Months
The rate at which black swans are showing up in the world should scare the hell out of people. But, unfortunately, everyone seems to be lost in the highly complex technology of I-phones, computers, social media, and the telly to notice that something is definitely wrong. The current situation reminds me of a famous scene in the Monty Python movie, The Holy Grail, where a guy is banging a bell and saying, “Bring out your dead.” Let me explain.
The scene in the movie takes place in England or Europe during the Black Plague, and due to the staggering amount of deaths, carts were used to pick up the bodies throughout the city. Yes, this is indeed a macabre subject matter, but Monty Python takes a serious situation and turns it into a comedy. However, the point I am trying to make is this… death is a very tragic and emotional part of life that impacts family members, friends, and coworkers. But, in this Monty Python scene, there is so much death, that it almost becomes numb to everyone.
And, that is precisely what I see now in the public. There are so many warning signs, or black swans, that no one seems to notice. Everyone has become… QUITE NUMB to it all. So, when the U.S. Government adds $814 billion of new debt in a little more than two months, the public yawns as this is no big deal:
Since the beginning of August, the total U.S. federal debt has increased from $22,023 billion to $22,837 billion. Thus, the U.S. public debt has increased by nearly 4% in just two months! Here is the debt table from TreasuryDirect.gov website since August 1st:
For the first half of the year, the U.S. debt balance remained right around the $22 trillion level. However, after the Whitehouse and Congress struck a deal on July 22nd, the debt ceiling was raised, and as we can see in the table above, the U.S. debt jumped $291 billion in one day (August 2nd). The U.S. government was making up for borrowed funds since the beginning of the year.
If we look at the next chart that shows an increase in U.S. debt over the past two weeks, it jumped another $227 billion:
The big spike up in U.S. debt by $96 billion on Sept 30th was due to the end of the fiscal year. Regardless, the 2019 U.S. budget deficit rose to $984 billion, the highest in seven years.
The federal budget deficit is big by historical standards, and federal debt is expected to rise significantly in the years ahead, to the largest size relative to the economy since World War II. Economic growth is also expected to slow slightly in the years ahead.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and other mainstream economists have said the government’s fiscal course is not sustainable.
That quote was from the article linked above. The relevant sentence in that quote states that top economists and the Fed Chairman do not believe the government’s fiscal course is sustainable. This seems to be the overall theme of my article. Nothing seems to be sustainable, but we keep moving forward as if we are heading into a new futuristic Jeston’s world:
As I mentioned in my previous article, More Than 50% Of The Mighty Permian’s 2018 Oil Production Has Vaporized, the sustainability of the U.S. Shale Industry is in serious jeopardy. While some of the notable “Shale” energy analysts don’t see anything to worry about here, but if we look at what I call the “Annual Compounded Decline Curve” in the Permian, this should also scare the hell out of people:
Some shale oil experts say that there is no BIG DEAL taking place in the Permian in 2018, because every year the wells decline 50+%. However, what seems to be overlooked is the massively STEEP Annual Compounded Decline Rate that is now reaching 70-75%. I don’t know about you, but if you come across a hill that declines 75%, that should be relabeled as a “CLIFF,” not as a “HILL.”
The annual decline rates in the Permian during 2013-2016 (Red, Light Green, Green & Tan colors) resemble a hill, but those in 2017 and especially in 2018 (Orange & Blue colors), now look more like a cliff. So, yes… the overall situation in the United States’ largest shale field is heading towards a collapse in production. Unfortunately, the Permian isn’t alone. The other shale fields, the Bakken and Eagle Ford, also are suffering very high annual compounded decline rates.
While the U.S. Shale Boom can go on a bit longer, the Bust will always follow. As I mentioned in previous articles, the rate at which the U.S. oil production has increased in the past decade morphs what took 40 years in the past:
Even though I am repeating myself here, it’s important to highlight for older and new readers. It took the U.S. oil industry to increase production from 2.5 million barrels per day (mbd) in 1930, forty years to reach 10 mbd in 1970. However, the Shale Industry did it in a decade by increasing oil production from 5 mbd in 2008 to nearly 12.5 mbd in 2019.
What goes up in ONE WAY, will likely come BACK DOWN in the same fashion. And it all is based on the oil price. If we do head into a severe recession within the next 1-2 years, oil prices will likely fall back to $40 and below. This would be the death knell to the shale industry as $137 billion of debt becomes due between 2021-2023.
So, why do I continue to focus on the Oil Market?? Without oil, the entire economy grinds to a halt. And, for those who believe we can transition some oil usage to coal or natural gas, how do you think we extract and transport the coal? Massive trucks, barges, and large trains that are powered by diesel transport most of the coal. Furthermore, without liquid petroleum, the 40,000 natural gas shale wells that were drilled, completed, and produced in the United States since 2009 would not have been possible. Do you remember this photo of the typical shale completion pad setup?
It takes a staggering amount of trucks to drill, complete, and service just one shale gas well. So, the silly notion that we can transition to natural gas, coal, or worse yet… Solar and Wind, is simply not possible in the time-frame we need.
This means… the Black Swans continue to arrive on the scene, but nobody seems to notice, or nobody seems to care.
I can list dozens of troubling headlines, but why bother any more? While the U.S. and global economy won’t unravel overnight, to believe we are going to get another GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD during the next financial crisis, just like the one we were dealt in 2009 by the Federal Reserve, I hate to say… it isn’t coming. The U.S. shale oil boom that brought on 7.5 million barrels of additional oil onto the U.S. and global market CANNOT be repeated.
So, don’t count on the Business Cycle to turn back up and continue after the next BIG MELTDOWN. The world will be heading into a new paradigm. One of protecting wealth, rather than building it.
....
Comment to this article,
In fairness Steve, the madness must go on. Those in the know (the banking elites, senior government officials, corporate titans et al.) are fully aware of the fact that when the money printing runs its course all hell breaks loose. This isn’t going to be a run of the mill cyclical event that works its way out or even a repeat of the Great Depression. This time it’s for all the marbles. Society as we know it ends and what comes after is not even in the vernacular. There was a time when I detested TPTB and to some extent I still do because of the criminally insane system they created and perpetuated. Now, I just feel tremendous sadness and remorse for what lurks in the wings. You and a handful of other very smart analysts understand that what awaits us is an energy crisis of incalculable proportion. The public, aided and abetted by a media that caters to juveniles, has no concept of how our current society sustains itself. They think that the economy functions as a result of how much debt it can incur. Can we manage the payment? No idea that our monetary system is a construct of fuel spewing from the end of a gasoline hose at the nearest gas station. Once that stops or becomes unaffordable, we’re done and there is NO Plan B. We are now living in the Twilight Zone, crazy shit happening everyday and the world simply keeps on as if it’s a new level of normalcy. Lucky for you Steve (tongue in cheek) you will have much more insanity to report on. The problem of course is you are preaching to the choir. Your articles though are a welcome relief to those of us who need to know that we are not out of our minds. So keep up the great work but recognize that at this point there is NO alternative but to continue the financial and geopolitical madness. There is NO going back, there is no sustainable nirvana to work towards. There is NO balancing of anything. That ship sailed 50 years ago. The idea of endless growth and money for nothing and chicks for free, was to alluring. We ran it to the hilt and now we approach the banquet of consequences. It will be like no other time in history if for only it’s proportion. So, let’s continue to be honest with ourselves and note the absurdness and desperation of the control masters but realize that they are fully aware of what happens when we run out the clock....
....
Two comments to the article listed below,
https://www.peakprosperity.com/did-everything-just-change/
They will steal everything we have, one QE at a time … one discount rate reduction at a time. One war at a time. One bailout at a time. One iceberg/icesheet at a time. One species at a time. How long can this last? It can last until you are out of savings (and you may be too old by then to complain, or dead.) Until all but the super wealthy are completely bankrupt. The well is deep, my friend and there is still plenty of water in it. “They” will not stop at implementing extraordinary measures to keep the party going. When the impact of these measures dry-up, there were be more. They will never cease to surprise us. Go listen to George Carlin’s “Big Club Rant” and strap in for the whip-saw rocket ride....
....we’re living in the “long now” as described in Epsilon theory. Everything, and I mean everything, is being sucked into the present for consumption… our children, profits, culture… and our currencies. This is just one of the many symptoms of how civilisations die… they consume everything of value from the future.
The present central bank cult will end like a light switch going On/Off. There’s a stable equilibrium in one position which can remain stable only until enough pressure is applied for the switch to rock over…. this new stable equilibrium becomes our ruinous inflation / hyperinflation.
All civilisations decline in money quality at their end. Note that I don’t say empire, even though the same applies. Empires change during the up cycle (ie Greek to Roman to Byzantine; Dark Age! Arab to Spanish to French to British to USA – there’s a few tuppence halfpenny ones I’ve missed out like the Dutch and Portuguese). But in my opinion we’re not at an empire change (ie USA to China) but at an end of civilisation epoch.
All symptoms point to a Dark Age ahead. We’re all living in a civilisation of terminal decline. I shake my head in disbelief at many posters on this site who appear to believe that we can gently live simpler lives while holding hands in love and harmony. Let me tell you what goes out in a time of collapse: equality; respect for the weak; democracy; honesty; rule of law; anti-racism; order. This is what comes in: hatred; fear; violence; racial slaughter; tribalism; starvation and deprivation; chaos.
So I agree with you that this time is truly different, but not because we’re on an eternal boom (aka economic nirvana). It’s different this time because as a civilisation we’re going bankrupt; we’re consuming everything including our oil, our culture, our minerals and via the central bank-political class… our currency!....
More Black Swans Arrive As U.S. Debt Balloons $800 Billion In Two Months
The rate at which black swans are showing up in the world should scare the hell out of people. But, unfortunately, everyone seems to be lost in the highly complex technology of I-phones, computers, social media, and the telly to notice that something is definitely wrong. The current situation reminds me of a famous scene in the Monty Python movie, The Holy Grail, where a guy is banging a bell and saying, “Bring out your dead.” Let me explain.
The scene in the movie takes place in England or Europe during the Black Plague, and due to the staggering amount of deaths, carts were used to pick up the bodies throughout the city. Yes, this is indeed a macabre subject matter, but Monty Python takes a serious situation and turns it into a comedy. However, the point I am trying to make is this… death is a very tragic and emotional part of life that impacts family members, friends, and coworkers. But, in this Monty Python scene, there is so much death, that it almost becomes numb to everyone.
And, that is precisely what I see now in the public. There are so many warning signs, or black swans, that no one seems to notice. Everyone has become… QUITE NUMB to it all. So, when the U.S. Government adds $814 billion of new debt in a little more than two months, the public yawns as this is no big deal:
Since the beginning of August, the total U.S. federal debt has increased from $22,023 billion to $22,837 billion. Thus, the U.S. public debt has increased by nearly 4% in just two months! Here is the debt table from TreasuryDirect.gov website since August 1st:
For the first half of the year, the U.S. debt balance remained right around the $22 trillion level. However, after the Whitehouse and Congress struck a deal on July 22nd, the debt ceiling was raised, and as we can see in the table above, the U.S. debt jumped $291 billion in one day (August 2nd). The U.S. government was making up for borrowed funds since the beginning of the year.
If we look at the next chart that shows an increase in U.S. debt over the past two weeks, it jumped another $227 billion:
The big spike up in U.S. debt by $96 billion on Sept 30th was due to the end of the fiscal year. Regardless, the 2019 U.S. budget deficit rose to $984 billion, the highest in seven years.
The federal budget deficit is big by historical standards, and federal debt is expected to rise significantly in the years ahead, to the largest size relative to the economy since World War II. Economic growth is also expected to slow slightly in the years ahead.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and other mainstream economists have said the government’s fiscal course is not sustainable.
That quote was from the article linked above. The relevant sentence in that quote states that top economists and the Fed Chairman do not believe the government’s fiscal course is sustainable. This seems to be the overall theme of my article. Nothing seems to be sustainable, but we keep moving forward as if we are heading into a new futuristic Jeston’s world:
As I mentioned in my previous article, More Than 50% Of The Mighty Permian’s 2018 Oil Production Has Vaporized, the sustainability of the U.S. Shale Industry is in serious jeopardy. While some of the notable “Shale” energy analysts don’t see anything to worry about here, but if we look at what I call the “Annual Compounded Decline Curve” in the Permian, this should also scare the hell out of people:
Some shale oil experts say that there is no BIG DEAL taking place in the Permian in 2018, because every year the wells decline 50+%. However, what seems to be overlooked is the massively STEEP Annual Compounded Decline Rate that is now reaching 70-75%. I don’t know about you, but if you come across a hill that declines 75%, that should be relabeled as a “CLIFF,” not as a “HILL.”
The annual decline rates in the Permian during 2013-2016 (Red, Light Green, Green & Tan colors) resemble a hill, but those in 2017 and especially in 2018 (Orange & Blue colors), now look more like a cliff. So, yes… the overall situation in the United States’ largest shale field is heading towards a collapse in production. Unfortunately, the Permian isn’t alone. The other shale fields, the Bakken and Eagle Ford, also are suffering very high annual compounded decline rates.
While the U.S. Shale Boom can go on a bit longer, the Bust will always follow. As I mentioned in previous articles, the rate at which the U.S. oil production has increased in the past decade morphs what took 40 years in the past:
Even though I am repeating myself here, it’s important to highlight for older and new readers. It took the U.S. oil industry to increase production from 2.5 million barrels per day (mbd) in 1930, forty years to reach 10 mbd in 1970. However, the Shale Industry did it in a decade by increasing oil production from 5 mbd in 2008 to nearly 12.5 mbd in 2019.
What goes up in ONE WAY, will likely come BACK DOWN in the same fashion. And it all is based on the oil price. If we do head into a severe recession within the next 1-2 years, oil prices will likely fall back to $40 and below. This would be the death knell to the shale industry as $137 billion of debt becomes due between 2021-2023.
So, why do I continue to focus on the Oil Market?? Without oil, the entire economy grinds to a halt. And, for those who believe we can transition some oil usage to coal or natural gas, how do you think we extract and transport the coal? Massive trucks, barges, and large trains that are powered by diesel transport most of the coal. Furthermore, without liquid petroleum, the 40,000 natural gas shale wells that were drilled, completed, and produced in the United States since 2009 would not have been possible. Do you remember this photo of the typical shale completion pad setup?
It takes a staggering amount of trucks to drill, complete, and service just one shale gas well. So, the silly notion that we can transition to natural gas, coal, or worse yet… Solar and Wind, is simply not possible in the time-frame we need.
This means… the Black Swans continue to arrive on the scene, but nobody seems to notice, or nobody seems to care.
I can list dozens of troubling headlines, but why bother any more? While the U.S. and global economy won’t unravel overnight, to believe we are going to get another GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD during the next financial crisis, just like the one we were dealt in 2009 by the Federal Reserve, I hate to say… it isn’t coming. The U.S. shale oil boom that brought on 7.5 million barrels of additional oil onto the U.S. and global market CANNOT be repeated.
So, don’t count on the Business Cycle to turn back up and continue after the next BIG MELTDOWN. The world will be heading into a new paradigm. One of protecting wealth, rather than building it.
....
Comment to this article,
In fairness Steve, the madness must go on. Those in the know (the banking elites, senior government officials, corporate titans et al.) are fully aware of the fact that when the money printing runs its course all hell breaks loose. This isn’t going to be a run of the mill cyclical event that works its way out or even a repeat of the Great Depression. This time it’s for all the marbles. Society as we know it ends and what comes after is not even in the vernacular. There was a time when I detested TPTB and to some extent I still do because of the criminally insane system they created and perpetuated. Now, I just feel tremendous sadness and remorse for what lurks in the wings. You and a handful of other very smart analysts understand that what awaits us is an energy crisis of incalculable proportion. The public, aided and abetted by a media that caters to juveniles, has no concept of how our current society sustains itself. They think that the economy functions as a result of how much debt it can incur. Can we manage the payment? No idea that our monetary system is a construct of fuel spewing from the end of a gasoline hose at the nearest gas station. Once that stops or becomes unaffordable, we’re done and there is NO Plan B. We are now living in the Twilight Zone, crazy shit happening everyday and the world simply keeps on as if it’s a new level of normalcy. Lucky for you Steve (tongue in cheek) you will have much more insanity to report on. The problem of course is you are preaching to the choir. Your articles though are a welcome relief to those of us who need to know that we are not out of our minds. So keep up the great work but recognize that at this point there is NO alternative but to continue the financial and geopolitical madness. There is NO going back, there is no sustainable nirvana to work towards. There is NO balancing of anything. That ship sailed 50 years ago. The idea of endless growth and money for nothing and chicks for free, was to alluring. We ran it to the hilt and now we approach the banquet of consequences. It will be like no other time in history if for only it’s proportion. So, let’s continue to be honest with ourselves and note the absurdness and desperation of the control masters but realize that they are fully aware of what happens when we run out the clock....
....
Two comments to the article listed below,
https://www.peakprosperity.com/did-everything-just-change/
They will steal everything we have, one QE at a time … one discount rate reduction at a time. One war at a time. One bailout at a time. One iceberg/icesheet at a time. One species at a time. How long can this last? It can last until you are out of savings (and you may be too old by then to complain, or dead.) Until all but the super wealthy are completely bankrupt. The well is deep, my friend and there is still plenty of water in it. “They” will not stop at implementing extraordinary measures to keep the party going. When the impact of these measures dry-up, there were be more. They will never cease to surprise us. Go listen to George Carlin’s “Big Club Rant” and strap in for the whip-saw rocket ride....
....we’re living in the “long now” as described in Epsilon theory. Everything, and I mean everything, is being sucked into the present for consumption… our children, profits, culture… and our currencies. This is just one of the many symptoms of how civilisations die… they consume everything of value from the future.
The present central bank cult will end like a light switch going On/Off. There’s a stable equilibrium in one position which can remain stable only until enough pressure is applied for the switch to rock over…. this new stable equilibrium becomes our ruinous inflation / hyperinflation.
All civilisations decline in money quality at their end. Note that I don’t say empire, even though the same applies. Empires change during the up cycle (ie Greek to Roman to Byzantine; Dark Age! Arab to Spanish to French to British to USA – there’s a few tuppence halfpenny ones I’ve missed out like the Dutch and Portuguese). But in my opinion we’re not at an empire change (ie USA to China) but at an end of civilisation epoch.
All symptoms point to a Dark Age ahead. We’re all living in a civilisation of terminal decline. I shake my head in disbelief at many posters on this site who appear to believe that we can gently live simpler lives while holding hands in love and harmony. Let me tell you what goes out in a time of collapse: equality; respect for the weak; democracy; honesty; rule of law; anti-racism; order. This is what comes in: hatred; fear; violence; racial slaughter; tribalism; starvation and deprivation; chaos.
So I agree with you that this time is truly different, but not because we’re on an eternal boom (aka economic nirvana). It’s different this time because as a civilisation we’re going bankrupt; we’re consuming everything including our oil, our culture, our minerals and via the central bank-political class… our currency!....
Friday, October 4, 2019
SC198-11
https://www.peakprosperity.com/getting-real-about-green-energy/
Getting Real About Green Energy
An honest analysis of what it CAN'T promise
I want to be optimistic about the future. I really do.
But there’s virtually no chance of the world transitioning gently to an alternative energy-powered future.
These Are The ‘Good Old Days’
I’m often asked where I stand on wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.
My answer is: I love them. But they’re incapable of enabling our society to smoothly slip over to powering itself by other means.
They’re not going to “save us”.
Some people are convinced otherwise. If we can just fight off the evil oil companies, get our act together, and install a national alternative energy system infrastructure, we’ll be just fine. Meaning that we”ll be able to continue to live as we do today, but powered fully by clean renewable energy.
That’s just not going to happen. At least, not without a lot of painful disruption and sacrifice.
The top three reasons why are:
Math
Human behavior
Time, scale, & cost
I walk through the detail below. I’m doing so to debunk the magical thinking behind the current “Green Revolution” because I fear it offers a false promise.
Look, I’m a huge fan of renewable energy. And I’m 1,000% in favor of weaning the world off of its toxic addiction to fossil fuels.
But we have to be eyes wide open about our future prospects. Deluding ourselves with “feel good” but unrealistic expectations about green energy will result in the same sort of poor decisions, malinvestment, and crushed dreams as fossil-based system has.
As we constantly repeat here at Peak Prosperity: Energy is everything.
Without as much available, the future is going to be exceptionally difficult compared to the present. Which is why I call the time we’re living in now The Good Old Days.
Now is the time to prepare for what’s coming. To acquire the skills, the land, and make the financial, physical and emotional adjustments in your lifestyle that will boost your resilience for a future of less and more expensive energy.
Math
Let’s start with the math.
Suppose we agree on the goal to entirely replace fossil fuel energy by 2050. (We’re going to have to do it by some point, because oil, coal and natural gas are all depleting finite resources.)
With 2050 as a starting point we can run some simple math.
We start by converting the three main fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – into a common unit: the “millions of tons of oil equivalent” or Mtoe.
A million tons of oil = 1 Mtoe, obviously. And there’s an amount of coal, if burned that has the same energy as 1 Mtoe. Ditto for natural gas. If we add up all of the fossil fuels burned in a given year, then we can express that as a single number in the many thousands of Mtoe.
Roger Pilke has run the math for us in his recent article in Forbes:
In 2018 the world consumed 11,743 Mtoe in the form of coal, natural gas and petroleum. The combustion of these fossil fuels resulted in 33.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In order for those emissions to reach net-zero, we will have to replace about 12,000 Mtoe of energy consumption expected for 2019.
So that’s our starting point. Whatever future alternative energy systems get installed will have to replace around 12,000 Mtoe.
Now, it bears noting that 12,000 Mtoe is a truly massive amount of energy.
To visualize this, let’s use gigantic oil-bearing cargo ships. Here’s a picture of the Ultra Large Crude Carrier, the Oceania, which can hold a bit more than 3,000,000 barrels of oil at a time. That’s a staggeringly massive ship. Ginormous.
We’d need 2.4 of these massive ships to hold 1 Mtoe. Which means we’d need a fleet of approximately 30,000 of these tankers to hold 12,000 Mtoe. (By the way, there are currently only 4 ships in the world of this size).
Because these truly gigantic ships are 1,246 feet in length, our fleet of 30,000 would stretch over 7,000 miles if parked stern to nose in a line.
Are you getting a sense yet for how mind-bogglingly large the world’s annual fossil energy consumption is?
So, what would it take to replace those 12,000 Mtoe with alternative fuels by 2050?
Pilke answers that for us:
Another useful number to know is that there are 11,051 days left until January 1, 2050.
To achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050 thus requires the deployment of >1 Mtoe of carbon-free energy consumption (~12,000 Mtoe/11,051 days) every day, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next 30+ years.
Achieving net-zero also requires the corresponding equivalent decommissioning of more than 1 Mtoe of energy consumption from fossil fuels every single day.
Yikes! More than 1 Mtoe of alt-energy systems would have to be installed every single day? Between now and Jan 1 2050? No resting on Sundays even?
But that’s only half of the story.
We’d also have to decommission and retire an equivalent 1 Mtoe amount of still-functioning fossil fuel property, plant and equipment. Do you have any idea how much money and embedded capital is contained in all the world’s current energy infrastructure — including our cars and homes — that’s built around fossil fuel use?
Somehow, the world would have to replace the equivalent of the energy contained within 2.4 Ultra Massive crude ships. Every. Single. Day. For 11,000 days straight, without missing a single day. A 7,000 mile long cargo train of ultra massive ships retired at the rate of 2.4 per day for the next 30 years.
What would that take? Again from Pilke:
So the math here is simple: to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the world would need to deploy 3 [brand new] nuclear plants worth of carbon-free energy every two days, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050. At the same time, a nuclear plant’s worth of fossil fuels would need to be decommissioned every day, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.
I’ve found that some people don’t like the use of a nuclear power plant as a measuring stick. So we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick. Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines (2.5 MW) over ~300 square miles, every day starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.
So to dismantle that 7,000 mile long conga-line of ultra massive crude carriers, we’d have to build and commission 3 new nuclear plants every 2 days. Or 1,500 very large wind towers installed across 300 square miles every day.
It’s just not going to happen.
Even if the world got totally, completely serious about doing this, it remains an exceedingly improbable task. That’s being kind, too. When something strays this far over the line of improbability, it’s really an impossibility.
Oh, and I started writing this article on Tuesday. Since it’s now Friday, that means we’re already behind by 9 nuclear plants. We’ll need to hurry to catch those up.
But maybe you’re still holding out hope. If all the countries of the world suddenly made this their #1 priority, could we have a shot?
This brings us to complicating factor #2: human behavior.
Human Behavior
One huge reason that an easy, seamless transition to alternative energy won’t happen is because our biological wiring is terrible at responding to such big, complex, long-range predicaments.
A snarling saber-toothed tiger crouching right in front of us? That we know how to respond to. Filling our bellies from a ripe fruit tree to sate our hunger? We’re absolutely wired for solving problems like that.
But organizing ourselves against a faceless distant threat? Not in our wiring. Trying to convince people to make sacrifices today for no immediate or visible reward? Really not at all in our biological wheelhouse.
When united towards a common goal, humans can do amazing things. Simply brilliant and astonishing works exist that inform us of what’s possible when we set our collective minds to a shared mission. The great pyramids. Towering middle-age cathedrals. The Great Wall of China. The Apollo missions.
But far less is possible when we’re fractured and divided. As we are now. We’re currently having trouble trying to agree on which gender(s) should use a particular bathroom. Or being civil when standing in line for a discounted TV.
Given this, it’s impossible to imagine the increasingly-divided populations in the UK, France, America or Germany agreeing on much of anything, let alone a gigantic and massively expensive energy transition.
Each country is currently struggling with its own brew of domestic social and political problems (of their own making, I should add). They have neither the appetite or ability to take on the much more challenging task of a 30-year global energy infrastructure re-build.
Making this energy transition will require an enormous diversion of effort – away from this and towards that.
It will be hard. It will take a lot of political capital and expert leadership. Huge pain and suffering will result as entire industries are shut down and new ones are started up.
Just drive through any former mill or mining region and you can still see the bitter remnants of its abandoned industries. Some have not yet recovered, even hundreds of years after the initial loss.
When the coal mines died out, so did the cities:
Centralia PA
When the mills left, so did the vitality.
Lowell MA
With an energy transition away from fossil fuels, there will be similar examples of ruined economic ideas littering the land. Places where refineries now stand with their thousands of jobs will become rusting derelicts. Ditto for hundreds of other dependent businesses, ranging from Jiffy Lube to Boeing to gas stations to airports.
Which brings us to complicating factor #3: time, scale and cost
Time, Scale and Cost
Suppose for a moment that we did decide This is it!, and began building 3 nuclear plants per day in earnest.
First: how much would that cost? Who would pay for it?
Second: are there enough skilled workers and manufacturing facilities to make and install all of the components?
Third: even after these nuclear plants were all up and running, is there even enough Uranium in the world to fuel the eventual 16,500 new, additional plants?
The answer to each of these questions is some form of “no, that isn’t really possible.”
In the third case, the entire amount of all known Uranium reserves are only currently sufficient to supply the existing ~400 reactors in the world for 90 years.
If we expanded the number of reactors by a factor of 41 (16,500/400), that 90 years of supply shrinks to just a bit over 2 years. Nobody is going to build a nuclear plant with just 2 years of Uranium around to supply it. (that said, I am a fan of researching the use and installation of Thorium reactors, which I’ve explored before)
Similar supply constraints arise if we calculate out the amount of resources required to build the amount of wind towers or solar panels that could replace these nuclear plants. The costs are staggering, the global resources too limited. There aren’t enough new hydro dam sites to even make a dent.
Also complicating things, each of these so-called alternative energy systems requires a huge amount of fossil fuels to mine, manufacture, install and maintain. The world has yet to see a single windmill or solar panel that was mined, manufactured and installed without using fossil energy.
The Vision We Need
The answer to the post-fossil fuel era is not an alt-energy system capable of providing us with the same way of life. Because that’s just not feasible.
The answer lies in doing more with less.
We already know how to build structures that will last for hundreds of years and which require almost no energy to operate for heating and cooling. But those are very rarely built today, because they cost more.
We already know how to build small, light vehicles and operate mass transit very energy effectively. But society prefers its huge cars and trucks, because they’re affordable (while debt is cheap) and convenient.
We already know how to grow more food, closer to home, that is far healthier for humans and the ecosystem. But it’s still only done on a boutique basis because it costs a little bit more.
This is why people need to be told the truth and inspired with a vision that we can all share. With a grand cause, anything is possible. Without one, nothing will be done.
The vision we need will align what needs to be done with proper incentives to get those things done. We’ll be told the truth, what is expected, and our role in the project. It will imbue many lives with a sense of meaning and purpose that are currently missing in the lives of most people.
However, given the enormity of the challenge, and the fractured, divisive social and political landscape, you really need to plan for nothing happening. That no vision is coming along, no savior will appear, and that we’re going to merrily continue along until we run out of time and resources to do anything more than regret our mistakes.
Odds are we’re going to keep heading straight along our current trajectory. Until — clunk! — we go right over the edge.
Conclusion
Given the math, human tendencies, and the issues pertaining to time, scale and cost, the current green energy movement currently is little more than hot air. It’s just not going to happen in time.
We’re nowhere close to being able to build out the massive energy projects required. The equivalent of 3 nuclear plants every two days for the next 30 years? That’s a total pipe dream.
We lack the political will, the cultural readiness, the proper narrative. Even the appropriate resources.
Beyond those concerns, nearly everything about how we heat, move, cool and manufacture the components of our modern lives will have to be refashioned (and possibly jettisoned) as part of that project.
Such an ambitious undertaking has no historical analog. It’s a ridiculously complex set of problems (which have solutions) and predicaments (which don’t). It’s exactly the sort of situation that politicians will avoid as long as possible, after which it will be too late to do very much about it.
Which means you need to adjust your expectations and investment of your money and energy, accordingly. The entire world — which is utterly dependent on infinite growth — is only years away from grasping the impossibility of that approach. When it does, everything will change. Quickly.
This is why Peak Prosperity spends so much time and effort alerting people to these realities, and then helping them take informed individual actions that align with the future we all see (or feel) coming.
In Part 2: Reality Shock we examine the most compelling evidence I know of for why taking matters into our own hands is so important now. It explains everything from slowing global economic growth, to the widening wealth gap, to the rising rejection of globalization and the increasingly desperate mad dash (at any cost) for what remains of natural resources.
Humanity is in the early innings of a great transition. Losing access to abundant energy will change things more than you or I can appreciate at this time.
This future is barreling towards us at a furious — and accelerating — pace. Get prepared.
Getting Real About Green Energy
An honest analysis of what it CAN'T promise
I want to be optimistic about the future. I really do.
But there’s virtually no chance of the world transitioning gently to an alternative energy-powered future.
These Are The ‘Good Old Days’
I’m often asked where I stand on wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.
My answer is: I love them. But they’re incapable of enabling our society to smoothly slip over to powering itself by other means.
They’re not going to “save us”.
Some people are convinced otherwise. If we can just fight off the evil oil companies, get our act together, and install a national alternative energy system infrastructure, we’ll be just fine. Meaning that we”ll be able to continue to live as we do today, but powered fully by clean renewable energy.
That’s just not going to happen. At least, not without a lot of painful disruption and sacrifice.
The top three reasons why are:
Math
Human behavior
Time, scale, & cost
I walk through the detail below. I’m doing so to debunk the magical thinking behind the current “Green Revolution” because I fear it offers a false promise.
Look, I’m a huge fan of renewable energy. And I’m 1,000% in favor of weaning the world off of its toxic addiction to fossil fuels.
But we have to be eyes wide open about our future prospects. Deluding ourselves with “feel good” but unrealistic expectations about green energy will result in the same sort of poor decisions, malinvestment, and crushed dreams as fossil-based system has.
As we constantly repeat here at Peak Prosperity: Energy is everything.
Without as much available, the future is going to be exceptionally difficult compared to the present. Which is why I call the time we’re living in now The Good Old Days.
Now is the time to prepare for what’s coming. To acquire the skills, the land, and make the financial, physical and emotional adjustments in your lifestyle that will boost your resilience for a future of less and more expensive energy.
Math
Let’s start with the math.
Suppose we agree on the goal to entirely replace fossil fuel energy by 2050. (We’re going to have to do it by some point, because oil, coal and natural gas are all depleting finite resources.)
With 2050 as a starting point we can run some simple math.
We start by converting the three main fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas – into a common unit: the “millions of tons of oil equivalent” or Mtoe.
A million tons of oil = 1 Mtoe, obviously. And there’s an amount of coal, if burned that has the same energy as 1 Mtoe. Ditto for natural gas. If we add up all of the fossil fuels burned in a given year, then we can express that as a single number in the many thousands of Mtoe.
Roger Pilke has run the math for us in his recent article in Forbes:
In 2018 the world consumed 11,743 Mtoe in the form of coal, natural gas and petroleum. The combustion of these fossil fuels resulted in 33.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. In order for those emissions to reach net-zero, we will have to replace about 12,000 Mtoe of energy consumption expected for 2019.
So that’s our starting point. Whatever future alternative energy systems get installed will have to replace around 12,000 Mtoe.
Now, it bears noting that 12,000 Mtoe is a truly massive amount of energy.
To visualize this, let’s use gigantic oil-bearing cargo ships. Here’s a picture of the Ultra Large Crude Carrier, the Oceania, which can hold a bit more than 3,000,000 barrels of oil at a time. That’s a staggeringly massive ship. Ginormous.
We’d need 2.4 of these massive ships to hold 1 Mtoe. Which means we’d need a fleet of approximately 30,000 of these tankers to hold 12,000 Mtoe. (By the way, there are currently only 4 ships in the world of this size).
Because these truly gigantic ships are 1,246 feet in length, our fleet of 30,000 would stretch over 7,000 miles if parked stern to nose in a line.
Are you getting a sense yet for how mind-bogglingly large the world’s annual fossil energy consumption is?
So, what would it take to replace those 12,000 Mtoe with alternative fuels by 2050?
Pilke answers that for us:
Another useful number to know is that there are 11,051 days left until January 1, 2050.
To achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions globally by 2050 thus requires the deployment of >1 Mtoe of carbon-free energy consumption (~12,000 Mtoe/11,051 days) every day, starting tomorrow and continuing for the next 30+ years.
Achieving net-zero also requires the corresponding equivalent decommissioning of more than 1 Mtoe of energy consumption from fossil fuels every single day.
Yikes! More than 1 Mtoe of alt-energy systems would have to be installed every single day? Between now and Jan 1 2050? No resting on Sundays even?
But that’s only half of the story.
We’d also have to decommission and retire an equivalent 1 Mtoe amount of still-functioning fossil fuel property, plant and equipment. Do you have any idea how much money and embedded capital is contained in all the world’s current energy infrastructure — including our cars and homes — that’s built around fossil fuel use?
Somehow, the world would have to replace the equivalent of the energy contained within 2.4 Ultra Massive crude ships. Every. Single. Day. For 11,000 days straight, without missing a single day. A 7,000 mile long cargo train of ultra massive ships retired at the rate of 2.4 per day for the next 30 years.
What would that take? Again from Pilke:
So the math here is simple: to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the world would need to deploy 3 [brand new] nuclear plants worth of carbon-free energy every two days, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050. At the same time, a nuclear plant’s worth of fossil fuels would need to be decommissioned every day, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.
I’ve found that some people don’t like the use of a nuclear power plant as a measuring stick. So we can substitute wind energy as a measuring stick. Net-zero carbon dioxide by 2050 would require the deployment of ~1500 wind turbines (2.5 MW) over ~300 square miles, every day starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.
So to dismantle that 7,000 mile long conga-line of ultra massive crude carriers, we’d have to build and commission 3 new nuclear plants every 2 days. Or 1,500 very large wind towers installed across 300 square miles every day.
It’s just not going to happen.
Even if the world got totally, completely serious about doing this, it remains an exceedingly improbable task. That’s being kind, too. When something strays this far over the line of improbability, it’s really an impossibility.
Oh, and I started writing this article on Tuesday. Since it’s now Friday, that means we’re already behind by 9 nuclear plants. We’ll need to hurry to catch those up.
But maybe you’re still holding out hope. If all the countries of the world suddenly made this their #1 priority, could we have a shot?
This brings us to complicating factor #2: human behavior.
Human Behavior
One huge reason that an easy, seamless transition to alternative energy won’t happen is because our biological wiring is terrible at responding to such big, complex, long-range predicaments.
A snarling saber-toothed tiger crouching right in front of us? That we know how to respond to. Filling our bellies from a ripe fruit tree to sate our hunger? We’re absolutely wired for solving problems like that.
But organizing ourselves against a faceless distant threat? Not in our wiring. Trying to convince people to make sacrifices today for no immediate or visible reward? Really not at all in our biological wheelhouse.
When united towards a common goal, humans can do amazing things. Simply brilliant and astonishing works exist that inform us of what’s possible when we set our collective minds to a shared mission. The great pyramids. Towering middle-age cathedrals. The Great Wall of China. The Apollo missions.
But far less is possible when we’re fractured and divided. As we are now. We’re currently having trouble trying to agree on which gender(s) should use a particular bathroom. Or being civil when standing in line for a discounted TV.
Given this, it’s impossible to imagine the increasingly-divided populations in the UK, France, America or Germany agreeing on much of anything, let alone a gigantic and massively expensive energy transition.
Each country is currently struggling with its own brew of domestic social and political problems (of their own making, I should add). They have neither the appetite or ability to take on the much more challenging task of a 30-year global energy infrastructure re-build.
Making this energy transition will require an enormous diversion of effort – away from this and towards that.
It will be hard. It will take a lot of political capital and expert leadership. Huge pain and suffering will result as entire industries are shut down and new ones are started up.
Just drive through any former mill or mining region and you can still see the bitter remnants of its abandoned industries. Some have not yet recovered, even hundreds of years after the initial loss.
When the coal mines died out, so did the cities:
Centralia PA
When the mills left, so did the vitality.
Lowell MA
With an energy transition away from fossil fuels, there will be similar examples of ruined economic ideas littering the land. Places where refineries now stand with their thousands of jobs will become rusting derelicts. Ditto for hundreds of other dependent businesses, ranging from Jiffy Lube to Boeing to gas stations to airports.
Which brings us to complicating factor #3: time, scale and cost
Time, Scale and Cost
Suppose for a moment that we did decide This is it!, and began building 3 nuclear plants per day in earnest.
First: how much would that cost? Who would pay for it?
Second: are there enough skilled workers and manufacturing facilities to make and install all of the components?
Third: even after these nuclear plants were all up and running, is there even enough Uranium in the world to fuel the eventual 16,500 new, additional plants?
The answer to each of these questions is some form of “no, that isn’t really possible.”
In the third case, the entire amount of all known Uranium reserves are only currently sufficient to supply the existing ~400 reactors in the world for 90 years.
If we expanded the number of reactors by a factor of 41 (16,500/400), that 90 years of supply shrinks to just a bit over 2 years. Nobody is going to build a nuclear plant with just 2 years of Uranium around to supply it. (that said, I am a fan of researching the use and installation of Thorium reactors, which I’ve explored before)
Similar supply constraints arise if we calculate out the amount of resources required to build the amount of wind towers or solar panels that could replace these nuclear plants. The costs are staggering, the global resources too limited. There aren’t enough new hydro dam sites to even make a dent.
Also complicating things, each of these so-called alternative energy systems requires a huge amount of fossil fuels to mine, manufacture, install and maintain. The world has yet to see a single windmill or solar panel that was mined, manufactured and installed without using fossil energy.
The Vision We Need
The answer to the post-fossil fuel era is not an alt-energy system capable of providing us with the same way of life. Because that’s just not feasible.
The answer lies in doing more with less.
We already know how to build structures that will last for hundreds of years and which require almost no energy to operate for heating and cooling. But those are very rarely built today, because they cost more.
We already know how to build small, light vehicles and operate mass transit very energy effectively. But society prefers its huge cars and trucks, because they’re affordable (while debt is cheap) and convenient.
We already know how to grow more food, closer to home, that is far healthier for humans and the ecosystem. But it’s still only done on a boutique basis because it costs a little bit more.
This is why people need to be told the truth and inspired with a vision that we can all share. With a grand cause, anything is possible. Without one, nothing will be done.
The vision we need will align what needs to be done with proper incentives to get those things done. We’ll be told the truth, what is expected, and our role in the project. It will imbue many lives with a sense of meaning and purpose that are currently missing in the lives of most people.
However, given the enormity of the challenge, and the fractured, divisive social and political landscape, you really need to plan for nothing happening. That no vision is coming along, no savior will appear, and that we’re going to merrily continue along until we run out of time and resources to do anything more than regret our mistakes.
Odds are we’re going to keep heading straight along our current trajectory. Until — clunk! — we go right over the edge.
Conclusion
Given the math, human tendencies, and the issues pertaining to time, scale and cost, the current green energy movement currently is little more than hot air. It’s just not going to happen in time.
We’re nowhere close to being able to build out the massive energy projects required. The equivalent of 3 nuclear plants every two days for the next 30 years? That’s a total pipe dream.
We lack the political will, the cultural readiness, the proper narrative. Even the appropriate resources.
Beyond those concerns, nearly everything about how we heat, move, cool and manufacture the components of our modern lives will have to be refashioned (and possibly jettisoned) as part of that project.
Such an ambitious undertaking has no historical analog. It’s a ridiculously complex set of problems (which have solutions) and predicaments (which don’t). It’s exactly the sort of situation that politicians will avoid as long as possible, after which it will be too late to do very much about it.
Which means you need to adjust your expectations and investment of your money and energy, accordingly. The entire world — which is utterly dependent on infinite growth — is only years away from grasping the impossibility of that approach. When it does, everything will change. Quickly.
This is why Peak Prosperity spends so much time and effort alerting people to these realities, and then helping them take informed individual actions that align with the future we all see (or feel) coming.
In Part 2: Reality Shock we examine the most compelling evidence I know of for why taking matters into our own hands is so important now. It explains everything from slowing global economic growth, to the widening wealth gap, to the rising rejection of globalization and the increasingly desperate mad dash (at any cost) for what remains of natural resources.
Humanity is in the early innings of a great transition. Losing access to abundant energy will change things more than you or I can appreciate at this time.
This future is barreling towards us at a furious — and accelerating — pace. Get prepared.
Thursday, October 3, 2019
SC198-10
https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2019/10/02/the-tech-giants-are-a-conduit-for-fascism/#more-59719
The Tech Giants Are a Conduit for Fascism
A second former Amazon employee would spark more controversy. Deap Ubhi, a former AWS employee who worked for Lynch, was tasked with gathering marketing information to make the case for a single cloud inside the DOD. Around the same time that he started working on JEDI, Ubhi began talking with AWS about rejoining the company. As his work on JEDI deepened, so did his job negotiations. Six days after he received a formal offer from Amazon, Ubhi recused himself from JEDI, fabricating a story that Amazon had expressed an interest in buying a startup company he owned. A contracting officer who investigated found enough evidence that Ubhi’s conduct violated conflict of interest rules to refer the matter to the inspector general, but concluded that his conduct did not corrupt the process. (Ubhi, who now works in AWS’ commercial division, declined comment through a company spokesperson.)
Ubhi worsened the impression by making ill-advised public statements while still employed by the DOD. In a tweet, he described himself as “once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian.”
– From the must read ProPublica expose: How Amazon and Silicon Valley Seduced the Pentagon
That U.S. tech giants are willing participants in facilitating mass government surveillance has been widely known for a while, particularly since whistleblower Edward Snowden risked his life and liberty to tell us about it six years ago. We also know what happens to executives who don’t play ball.
Perhaps the most high profile example relates to Joseph Nacchio, CEO of telecom company Qwest in the aftermath of 9/11. Courageously, he was the only executive who pushed back against government attempts to violate the civil liberties of his customers. A few years later, he was thrown in jail for insider trading and stayed locked up for four years. He claimed his incarceration was retaliation for not bending the knee to government, which seems likely.
Charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001. This defense was not admissible in court because the U.S. Department of Justice filed an in limine motion, which is often used in national security cases, to exclude information which may reveal state secrets. Information from the Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Nacchio’s case was likewise ruled inadmissible
Fast forward to today, and the tech giants have willingly and enthusiastically transformed themselves into compliant organs of the national security state. Big tech executives have by and large embraced this extremely lucrative and powerful role rather than push back against it. There’s simply too much money at stake, and nobody wants to go to the big house like Joe Nacchio. There is no resistance.
Just yesterday, we learned that Twitter’s executive for the Middle East is an actual British Army ‘psyops’ soldier. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
As reported by Middle East Eye:
The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, Middle East Eye has established.
Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company’s UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.
The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as “information warfare”.
Here’s how Twitter responded to the revelation…
Twitter would say only that “we actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests.”
They don’t even care.
While that’s troubling enough, I want to focus your attention on a brilliant and extremely important piece published a couple of months ago at ProPublica, which many of you may have missed. It details the troubling and incestuous relationship between Amazon and Google executives with the Department of Defense. A relationship which virtually guarantees these CEOs immunity as long as they play ball. It’s impossible to read this piece and come away thinking these are “just private companies.” They demonstrably are not.
In the case of Amazon, a Pentagon whistleblower named Roma Laster grew uncomfortable with the cozy relationship Jeff Bezos had with DOD leaders.
We learn:
On Aug. 8, 2017, Roma Laster, a Pentagon employee responsible for policing conflicts of interest, emailed an urgent warning to the chief of staff of then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Several department employees had arranged for Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, to be sworn into an influential Pentagon advisory board despite the fact that, in the year since he’d been nominated, Bezos had never completed a required background check to obtain a security clearance.
Mattis was about to fly to the West Coast, where he would personally swear Bezos in at Amazon’s headquarters before moving on to meetings with executives from Google and Apple. Soon phone calls and emails began bouncing around the Pentagon. Security clearances are no trivial matter to defense officials; they exist to ensure that people with access to sensitive information aren’t, say, vulnerable to blackmail and don’t have conflicts of interest. Laster also contended that it was a “noteworthy exception” for Mattis to perform the ceremony. Secretaries of defense, she wrote, don’t hold swearing-in events…
The swearing-in was canceled only hours before it was scheduled to occur.
Bezos would’ve certainly been sworn into that board had Laster not had the courage to speak up. She later received her reward.
Laster did her best to enforce the rules. She would challenge the Pentagon’s cozy relationship not only with Bezos, but with Google’s Eric Schmidt, the chairman of the defense board that Bezos sought to join. The ultimate resolution? Laster was shunted aside. She was removed from the innovation board in November 2017 (but remains at the Defense Department). “Roma was removed because she insisted on them following the rules,” said a former DOD official knowledgeable about her situation.
Real whistleblowers are never celebrated by mass media and are always punished. That’s how you distinguish a real whistleblower from a fraud.
As mentioned above, Laster also called out and angered Eric Schmidt who, as chairman of Alphabet (Google, Youtube, etc), was trying to sell services to the Pentagon while at the same time serving as Chairman of the Department of Defense’s Innovation Board. That’s about as incestuous and corrupt as it gets.
Schmidt, the chairman of the innovation board, embraced the mission. In the spring and summer of 2016, he embarked, with fellow board members, on a series of visits to Pentagon operations around the world. Schmidt visited a submarine base in San Diego, an aircraft carrier off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Creech Air Force Base, located deep in the Nevada desert near Area 51.
Inside the drone operations center at Creech, according to three people familiar with the trip, Schmidt observed video as a truck in a contested zone somewhere was surveilled by a Predator drone and annihilated. It was a mesmerizing display of the U.S. military’s lethal reach…
A little more than a year after Schmidt’s visit, Google won a $17 million subcontract in a project called Maven to help the military use image recognition software to identify drone targets — exactly the kind of function that Schmidt witnessed at Creech…
Schmidt’s influence, already strong under Carter, only grew when Mattis arrived as defense secretary. Schmidt’s travel privileges at the DOD, which required painstaking approval from the agency’s chief of staff for each stop of every trip, were suddenly unfettered after Schmidt requested carte blanche, according to three sources knowledgeable about the matter. Mattis granted him and the board permission to travel anywhere they wanted and to talk to anyone at the DOD on all but the most secret programs.
Such access is unheard-of for executives or directors of companies that sell to the government, say three current and former DOD officials, both to prevent opportunities for bribery or improper influence and to ensure that one company does not get advantages over others. “Mattis changed the rules of engagement and the muscularity of the innovation board went from zero to 60,” said a person who has served on Pentagon advisory boards. “There’s a lot of opportunity for mischief”…
Over the next months, Schmidt and two other board members with Google ties would continue flying all over the country, visiting Pentagon installations and meeting with DOD officials, sessions that no other company could attend. It’s hard to reconstruct what occurred in many of those meetings, since they were private. On one occasion, Schmidt quizzed a briefer about which cloud service provider was being used for a data project, according to a memo that Laster prepared after the briefing. When the briefer told him that Amazon handled the business, Schmidt asked if they’d considered other cloud providers. Laster’s memo flagged Schmidt’s inquiry as a “point of concern,” given that he was the chairman of a major cloud provider.
The DOD became unusually deferential to Schmidt. He preferred to travel on his personal jet, and he would ferry fellow board members with him. But that created a problem for his handlers: DOD employees are not permitted to ride on private planes. Still, the staff at the board didn’t want to inconvenience Schmidt by making him wait for his department support team to arrive on commercial flights. So, according to a source knowledgeable about the board’s spending, on at least one occasion the department requisitioned military aircraft at a cost of $25,000 an hour to transport its employees to meet Schmidt on his tour. (The DOD’s spokesperson said employees did this because “there were no commercial flights available.”)
Similar to the situation with Bezos, Roma Laster started asking questions, which angered master of the tech and military-industrial-complex universe Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt responded by threatening to go over her head to Mattis, according to her grievance. She was told to stand down and never again speak to Schmidt. According to the grievance, her boss told her, “Mr. Schmidt was a billionaire and would never accept pushback, warnings or limits.”
There’s so much more in this excellent article, but the key takeaway is the troubling extent of the existing merger between tech giants and the national security state. Disturbingly, this appears to have become even worse in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, and the reasons why are clear. First, there are billions upon billions of dollars to be made. Second, nobody from the private sector ever gets punished for violating the civil liberties of the American public on behalf of the government and intelligence agencies. On the contrary, the only people who ever lose their freedoms and livelihoods are those who blow the whistle on government criminality (Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, just to name a few).
Which brings up a very uncomfortable, yet fundamental question. How dangerous are tech giants that have near monopoly level power in core areas such as communications and online retail and also enjoy state sponsorship and the total immunity that comes with it? Add to the equation the enormous amount of money up for grabs provided you play ball with the national security state and you have a very precarious situation. This isn’t a hypothetical future dystopian scenario. It’s where we stand today.
Facebook and Google are two companies with known ties to the national security state that together have enormous control over who, for all practical purposes, gets to speak in the modern online public square. Then consider that the tech giants represent a perfect vehicle for the national security state to censor or disappear from the conversation those deemed problematic to imperial narratives.
The U.S. government cannot explicitly restrict most kinds of speech, but tech giants can do whatever they please and don’t even need to provide a reasonable justification. This means any relationship between companies with this sort of online speech-policing power and the national security state is extremely dangerous. It’s a conduit for fascism.
Then there’s Amazon. A company that has a $600 million contract with the CIA, has used questionable practices in attempts to secure a $10 billion JEDI cloud deal with Pentagon, is aggressively marketing its facial recognition software to police departments across the country, and is coaching cops on how to obtain surveillance footage from its Ring doorbell camera without a warrant. But it gets even worse.
In light of recent public concerns around facial recognition, Bezos and his company are actively writing legislation for Congress on the issue.
We learn:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his company is developing a set of laws to regulate facial recognition technology that it plans to share with federal lawmakers.
In February, the company, which has faced escalating scrutiny over its controversial facial recognition tech, called Amazon Rekognition, published guidelines it said it hoped lawmakers would consider enacting. Now Amazon is taking another step, Bezos told reporters in a surprise appearance following Amazon’s annual Alexa gadget event in Seattle on Wednesday.
“Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that,” Bezos said in response to a reporter’s question.
The idea is that Amazon will write its own draft of what it thinks federal legislation should look like, and it will then pitch lawmakers to adopt as much of it as possible…
In a statement, ACLU Northern CA Attorney Jacob Snow said:
“It’s a welcome sign that Amazon is finally acknowledging the dangers of face surveillance. But we’ve seen this playbook before. Once companies realize that people are demanding strong privacy protections, they sweep in, pushing weak rules that won’t protect consumer privacy and rights. Cities across the country are voting to ban face surveillance, while Amazon is pushing its surveillance tech deeper into communities.”
Meanwhile, Amazon is now using mafia tactics to pressure retailers who feel forced to use the platform given its dominance in online retail, to pay for advertising. It’s not just small brands under the gun, even large companies with high name recognition like Samsonite are being twisted via increasingly unethical practices.
Via Vox:
As Recode’s Jason Del Rey explored in his Land of the Giants podcast about the rise of Amazon, companies that sell on Amazon are increasingly having to pay to show up in search results — even when people are searching for their specific brands.
Case in point: the luggage brand Samsonite, which has to pay for sponsored ads in order to be the top result when you search “Samsonite” on Amazon.
As Samsonite’s Chief E-commerce Officer Charlie Cole told Del Rey, “Amazon is making money off your products, making money off your data by creating brands, and Amazon is making money off the privilege of being on their platform by selling you advertising to protect your brand.”
“It’s been a tough relationship,” he added.
Think about how completely insane that is, yet it’s also exactly what you’d expect to happen when one company comes to completely dominate a space as fundamental to the modern economy as online shopping.
Naturally, there’s more. It’s been well documented how Amazon uses its knowledge of product sales on its platform to then rip off existing brands by copying them and making its own version.
The more connected these tech giants are to the national security state, the more dangerous and unassailable they become. A destructive process which is already very much underway.
Centralized and unaccountable government power is alway an existential threat to human liberty, but centralized and unaccountable government power exercised via tech behemoths which aren’t restrained by the Constitution is even worse. This is the world being built around us, and we’d be wise to address it soon.
The Tech Giants Are a Conduit for Fascism
A second former Amazon employee would spark more controversy. Deap Ubhi, a former AWS employee who worked for Lynch, was tasked with gathering marketing information to make the case for a single cloud inside the DOD. Around the same time that he started working on JEDI, Ubhi began talking with AWS about rejoining the company. As his work on JEDI deepened, so did his job negotiations. Six days after he received a formal offer from Amazon, Ubhi recused himself from JEDI, fabricating a story that Amazon had expressed an interest in buying a startup company he owned. A contracting officer who investigated found enough evidence that Ubhi’s conduct violated conflict of interest rules to refer the matter to the inspector general, but concluded that his conduct did not corrupt the process. (Ubhi, who now works in AWS’ commercial division, declined comment through a company spokesperson.)
Ubhi worsened the impression by making ill-advised public statements while still employed by the DOD. In a tweet, he described himself as “once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian.”
– From the must read ProPublica expose: How Amazon and Silicon Valley Seduced the Pentagon
That U.S. tech giants are willing participants in facilitating mass government surveillance has been widely known for a while, particularly since whistleblower Edward Snowden risked his life and liberty to tell us about it six years ago. We also know what happens to executives who don’t play ball.
Perhaps the most high profile example relates to Joseph Nacchio, CEO of telecom company Qwest in the aftermath of 9/11. Courageously, he was the only executive who pushed back against government attempts to violate the civil liberties of his customers. A few years later, he was thrown in jail for insider trading and stayed locked up for four years. He claimed his incarceration was retaliation for not bending the knee to government, which seems likely.
Charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001. This defense was not admissible in court because the U.S. Department of Justice filed an in limine motion, which is often used in national security cases, to exclude information which may reveal state secrets. Information from the Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Nacchio’s case was likewise ruled inadmissible
Fast forward to today, and the tech giants have willingly and enthusiastically transformed themselves into compliant organs of the national security state. Big tech executives have by and large embraced this extremely lucrative and powerful role rather than push back against it. There’s simply too much money at stake, and nobody wants to go to the big house like Joe Nacchio. There is no resistance.
Just yesterday, we learned that Twitter’s executive for the Middle East is an actual British Army ‘psyops’ soldier. Unfortunately, this is not a joke.
As reported by Middle East Eye:
The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, Middle East Eye has established.
Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company’s UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.
The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as “information warfare”.
Here’s how Twitter responded to the revelation…
Twitter would say only that “we actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests.”
They don’t even care.
While that’s troubling enough, I want to focus your attention on a brilliant and extremely important piece published a couple of months ago at ProPublica, which many of you may have missed. It details the troubling and incestuous relationship between Amazon and Google executives with the Department of Defense. A relationship which virtually guarantees these CEOs immunity as long as they play ball. It’s impossible to read this piece and come away thinking these are “just private companies.” They demonstrably are not.
In the case of Amazon, a Pentagon whistleblower named Roma Laster grew uncomfortable with the cozy relationship Jeff Bezos had with DOD leaders.
We learn:
On Aug. 8, 2017, Roma Laster, a Pentagon employee responsible for policing conflicts of interest, emailed an urgent warning to the chief of staff of then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Several department employees had arranged for Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, to be sworn into an influential Pentagon advisory board despite the fact that, in the year since he’d been nominated, Bezos had never completed a required background check to obtain a security clearance.
Mattis was about to fly to the West Coast, where he would personally swear Bezos in at Amazon’s headquarters before moving on to meetings with executives from Google and Apple. Soon phone calls and emails began bouncing around the Pentagon. Security clearances are no trivial matter to defense officials; they exist to ensure that people with access to sensitive information aren’t, say, vulnerable to blackmail and don’t have conflicts of interest. Laster also contended that it was a “noteworthy exception” for Mattis to perform the ceremony. Secretaries of defense, she wrote, don’t hold swearing-in events…
The swearing-in was canceled only hours before it was scheduled to occur.
Bezos would’ve certainly been sworn into that board had Laster not had the courage to speak up. She later received her reward.
Laster did her best to enforce the rules. She would challenge the Pentagon’s cozy relationship not only with Bezos, but with Google’s Eric Schmidt, the chairman of the defense board that Bezos sought to join. The ultimate resolution? Laster was shunted aside. She was removed from the innovation board in November 2017 (but remains at the Defense Department). “Roma was removed because she insisted on them following the rules,” said a former DOD official knowledgeable about her situation.
Real whistleblowers are never celebrated by mass media and are always punished. That’s how you distinguish a real whistleblower from a fraud.
As mentioned above, Laster also called out and angered Eric Schmidt who, as chairman of Alphabet (Google, Youtube, etc), was trying to sell services to the Pentagon while at the same time serving as Chairman of the Department of Defense’s Innovation Board. That’s about as incestuous and corrupt as it gets.
Schmidt, the chairman of the innovation board, embraced the mission. In the spring and summer of 2016, he embarked, with fellow board members, on a series of visits to Pentagon operations around the world. Schmidt visited a submarine base in San Diego, an aircraft carrier off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and Creech Air Force Base, located deep in the Nevada desert near Area 51.
Inside the drone operations center at Creech, according to three people familiar with the trip, Schmidt observed video as a truck in a contested zone somewhere was surveilled by a Predator drone and annihilated. It was a mesmerizing display of the U.S. military’s lethal reach…
A little more than a year after Schmidt’s visit, Google won a $17 million subcontract in a project called Maven to help the military use image recognition software to identify drone targets — exactly the kind of function that Schmidt witnessed at Creech…
Schmidt’s influence, already strong under Carter, only grew when Mattis arrived as defense secretary. Schmidt’s travel privileges at the DOD, which required painstaking approval from the agency’s chief of staff for each stop of every trip, were suddenly unfettered after Schmidt requested carte blanche, according to three sources knowledgeable about the matter. Mattis granted him and the board permission to travel anywhere they wanted and to talk to anyone at the DOD on all but the most secret programs.
Such access is unheard-of for executives or directors of companies that sell to the government, say three current and former DOD officials, both to prevent opportunities for bribery or improper influence and to ensure that one company does not get advantages over others. “Mattis changed the rules of engagement and the muscularity of the innovation board went from zero to 60,” said a person who has served on Pentagon advisory boards. “There’s a lot of opportunity for mischief”…
Over the next months, Schmidt and two other board members with Google ties would continue flying all over the country, visiting Pentagon installations and meeting with DOD officials, sessions that no other company could attend. It’s hard to reconstruct what occurred in many of those meetings, since they were private. On one occasion, Schmidt quizzed a briefer about which cloud service provider was being used for a data project, according to a memo that Laster prepared after the briefing. When the briefer told him that Amazon handled the business, Schmidt asked if they’d considered other cloud providers. Laster’s memo flagged Schmidt’s inquiry as a “point of concern,” given that he was the chairman of a major cloud provider.
The DOD became unusually deferential to Schmidt. He preferred to travel on his personal jet, and he would ferry fellow board members with him. But that created a problem for his handlers: DOD employees are not permitted to ride on private planes. Still, the staff at the board didn’t want to inconvenience Schmidt by making him wait for his department support team to arrive on commercial flights. So, according to a source knowledgeable about the board’s spending, on at least one occasion the department requisitioned military aircraft at a cost of $25,000 an hour to transport its employees to meet Schmidt on his tour. (The DOD’s spokesperson said employees did this because “there were no commercial flights available.”)
Similar to the situation with Bezos, Roma Laster started asking questions, which angered master of the tech and military-industrial-complex universe Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt responded by threatening to go over her head to Mattis, according to her grievance. She was told to stand down and never again speak to Schmidt. According to the grievance, her boss told her, “Mr. Schmidt was a billionaire and would never accept pushback, warnings or limits.”
There’s so much more in this excellent article, but the key takeaway is the troubling extent of the existing merger between tech giants and the national security state. Disturbingly, this appears to have become even worse in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, and the reasons why are clear. First, there are billions upon billions of dollars to be made. Second, nobody from the private sector ever gets punished for violating the civil liberties of the American public on behalf of the government and intelligence agencies. On the contrary, the only people who ever lose their freedoms and livelihoods are those who blow the whistle on government criminality (Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, just to name a few).
Which brings up a very uncomfortable, yet fundamental question. How dangerous are tech giants that have near monopoly level power in core areas such as communications and online retail and also enjoy state sponsorship and the total immunity that comes with it? Add to the equation the enormous amount of money up for grabs provided you play ball with the national security state and you have a very precarious situation. This isn’t a hypothetical future dystopian scenario. It’s where we stand today.
Facebook and Google are two companies with known ties to the national security state that together have enormous control over who, for all practical purposes, gets to speak in the modern online public square. Then consider that the tech giants represent a perfect vehicle for the national security state to censor or disappear from the conversation those deemed problematic to imperial narratives.
The U.S. government cannot explicitly restrict most kinds of speech, but tech giants can do whatever they please and don’t even need to provide a reasonable justification. This means any relationship between companies with this sort of online speech-policing power and the national security state is extremely dangerous. It’s a conduit for fascism.
Then there’s Amazon. A company that has a $600 million contract with the CIA, has used questionable practices in attempts to secure a $10 billion JEDI cloud deal with Pentagon, is aggressively marketing its facial recognition software to police departments across the country, and is coaching cops on how to obtain surveillance footage from its Ring doorbell camera without a warrant. But it gets even worse.
In light of recent public concerns around facial recognition, Bezos and his company are actively writing legislation for Congress on the issue.
We learn:
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his company is developing a set of laws to regulate facial recognition technology that it plans to share with federal lawmakers.
In February, the company, which has faced escalating scrutiny over its controversial facial recognition tech, called Amazon Rekognition, published guidelines it said it hoped lawmakers would consider enacting. Now Amazon is taking another step, Bezos told reporters in a surprise appearance following Amazon’s annual Alexa gadget event in Seattle on Wednesday.
“Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that,” Bezos said in response to a reporter’s question.
The idea is that Amazon will write its own draft of what it thinks federal legislation should look like, and it will then pitch lawmakers to adopt as much of it as possible…
In a statement, ACLU Northern CA Attorney Jacob Snow said:
“It’s a welcome sign that Amazon is finally acknowledging the dangers of face surveillance. But we’ve seen this playbook before. Once companies realize that people are demanding strong privacy protections, they sweep in, pushing weak rules that won’t protect consumer privacy and rights. Cities across the country are voting to ban face surveillance, while Amazon is pushing its surveillance tech deeper into communities.”
Meanwhile, Amazon is now using mafia tactics to pressure retailers who feel forced to use the platform given its dominance in online retail, to pay for advertising. It’s not just small brands under the gun, even large companies with high name recognition like Samsonite are being twisted via increasingly unethical practices.
Via Vox:
As Recode’s Jason Del Rey explored in his Land of the Giants podcast about the rise of Amazon, companies that sell on Amazon are increasingly having to pay to show up in search results — even when people are searching for their specific brands.
Case in point: the luggage brand Samsonite, which has to pay for sponsored ads in order to be the top result when you search “Samsonite” on Amazon.
As Samsonite’s Chief E-commerce Officer Charlie Cole told Del Rey, “Amazon is making money off your products, making money off your data by creating brands, and Amazon is making money off the privilege of being on their platform by selling you advertising to protect your brand.”
“It’s been a tough relationship,” he added.
Think about how completely insane that is, yet it’s also exactly what you’d expect to happen when one company comes to completely dominate a space as fundamental to the modern economy as online shopping.
Naturally, there’s more. It’s been well documented how Amazon uses its knowledge of product sales on its platform to then rip off existing brands by copying them and making its own version.
The more connected these tech giants are to the national security state, the more dangerous and unassailable they become. A destructive process which is already very much underway.
Centralized and unaccountable government power is alway an existential threat to human liberty, but centralized and unaccountable government power exercised via tech behemoths which aren’t restrained by the Constitution is even worse. This is the world being built around us, and we’d be wise to address it soon.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
SC198-9
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/wealth-identity-politics-billionaires-acting-like-a-persecuted-minority-is-peak-capitalism-5872cde64dfb
Wealth Identity Politics: Billionaires Acting Like A Persecuted Minority Is Peak Capitalism
“I guess maybe Bernie Sanders shouldn’t exist,” said billionaire Steve Schwarzman while seated in a library building named after billionaire Steve Schwarzman and promoting a book with billionaire Steve Schwarzman’s face on it.
According to Bloomberg this humble response from the always modest billionaire Steve Schwarzman came in response to a question posed by an audience member about a Sanders tweet in which the Vermont Senator said that billionaires should not exist. The comment was reportedly met with enthusiastic applause.
Blackstone CEO Schwarzman, who has previously compared tax increases on the wealthy to the Nazi invasion of Poland, is an oligarch by any reasonable definition. As one of America’s top individual campaign donors he is immensely influential; his plutocratic power is so deeply interwoven with the highest levels of government that his book’s 14 pages of acknowledgements describe cuddly relationships with a who’s-who of top US officials, including the last five presidents. According to a recent report by The Intercept, two Brazilian firms owned by Schwarzman “are significantly responsible for the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest, carnage that has developed into raging fires that have captivated global attention.”
It is very telling that this oligarch sees an equivalence between (A) saying that an elite class should not control such vast amounts of wealth and (B) saying actual people should not exist. What this tells us is that Schwarzman sees being a billionaire as a fundamental part of his identity, making the idea that he shouldn’t control billions of dollars indistinguishable from saying that he himself should not exist. From his point of view he’s just doing the same thing that Sanders is doing: Bernie’s saying the thing that Schwarzman is shouldn’t exist, and Schwarzman is saying that Bernie himself shouldn’t exist. To him they’re the same.
This statement gives us a bit of insight into the way billionaires see themselves as fundamentally different than the rest of us, forming an egoic identity construct out of being a billionaire in the same way a medieval king would form an egoic identity construct out of that position. This anti-billionaire rhetoric is perceived as an attack on their very identity, which is why they are spinning it as though Sanders is calling for the elimination of actual people.
Predictably, Fox News is now trotting out billionaires to defend themselves from this outrageous billionairephobic bigotry, with Home Depot founder and major Republican Party donor Ken Langone receiving a warmly sycophantic reception from Fox’s Mornings with Maria.
“What the hell has he done for the little people?” Langone asked his host Maria Bartiromo. “What jobs has he created?”
Langone went on to detail all the many jobs he’s “created” (read: how many people he’s needed to hire to help him reap lucrative profits from an already existing demand) without bothering to explain what hoarding billions of dollars in offshore accounts has to do with job creation. Exponents of the “billionaires create jobs” argument always avoid this glaring plot hole like the plague.
Again, we see in Langone’s emotional response two things: that he sees ordinary citizens as “the little people” innately different from himself, and that he perceives the push toward greater economic equality as an existential threat.
“If you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany,” Langone has said of the rising pushback against wealth and income inequality. “You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”
These outbursts are reminiscent of one we saw a couple of years ago on an MSNBC interview with resort tycoon Stephen Cloobeck, who expressed outrage at the way progressives are using “the millionaire or billionaire word” to discuss issues with class and economic justice, saying he’d instructed Democratic Party leaders to bring a stop to this rhetoric or lose plutocratic funding.
“It is very, very disturbing when I hear the millionaire or billionaire word,” Cloobeck said, as though he was uttering an ethnic slur for an oppressed minority and not a conventional label for a class that effectively owns the US government. “And I’ve told them to stop it. Knock it off.”
We’re seeing this hilarious conflation of economic justice with the persecution of minorities and the elimination of actual human beings more and more often, so we should probably come up with a name for it. I’d like to propose that we label this phenomenon “wealth identity politics”, and it is capitalism’s dumbest turn yet.
It’s especially dumb because the billionaire class has already proven with its actions that it cannot exist without actively working to manipulate governments in a way that undeniably subverts democracy and the will of the people. The debate over whether or not billionaires should exist is long settled. They should not.
A few million dollars will buy you a nice car, a nice house and some nice clothes. A few billion dollars will buy you the ability to control public narratives using media ownership, lobbyists and think tanks, thereby manipulating entire governments and international affairs. Believing that it makes sense to have an elite class which controls this much wealth and power is exactly as stupid as believing it makes sense to have a total monarchy.
Billionaires should not exist, for the same reason that kings and pharaohs should not exist. The leadership of our world should not belong to a class of highly mediocre people who have nothing noteworthy between their ears apart from a knack for accumulating dollars. The ability to amass wealth is not a valid basis upon which to determine who leads us. Our fate as a species should be in all our hands.
Wealth Identity Politics: Billionaires Acting Like A Persecuted Minority Is Peak Capitalism
“I guess maybe Bernie Sanders shouldn’t exist,” said billionaire Steve Schwarzman while seated in a library building named after billionaire Steve Schwarzman and promoting a book with billionaire Steve Schwarzman’s face on it.
According to Bloomberg this humble response from the always modest billionaire Steve Schwarzman came in response to a question posed by an audience member about a Sanders tweet in which the Vermont Senator said that billionaires should not exist. The comment was reportedly met with enthusiastic applause.
Blackstone CEO Schwarzman, who has previously compared tax increases on the wealthy to the Nazi invasion of Poland, is an oligarch by any reasonable definition. As one of America’s top individual campaign donors he is immensely influential; his plutocratic power is so deeply interwoven with the highest levels of government that his book’s 14 pages of acknowledgements describe cuddly relationships with a who’s-who of top US officials, including the last five presidents. According to a recent report by The Intercept, two Brazilian firms owned by Schwarzman “are significantly responsible for the ongoing destruction of the Amazon rainforest, carnage that has developed into raging fires that have captivated global attention.”
It is very telling that this oligarch sees an equivalence between (A) saying that an elite class should not control such vast amounts of wealth and (B) saying actual people should not exist. What this tells us is that Schwarzman sees being a billionaire as a fundamental part of his identity, making the idea that he shouldn’t control billions of dollars indistinguishable from saying that he himself should not exist. From his point of view he’s just doing the same thing that Sanders is doing: Bernie’s saying the thing that Schwarzman is shouldn’t exist, and Schwarzman is saying that Bernie himself shouldn’t exist. To him they’re the same.
This statement gives us a bit of insight into the way billionaires see themselves as fundamentally different than the rest of us, forming an egoic identity construct out of being a billionaire in the same way a medieval king would form an egoic identity construct out of that position. This anti-billionaire rhetoric is perceived as an attack on their very identity, which is why they are spinning it as though Sanders is calling for the elimination of actual people.
Predictably, Fox News is now trotting out billionaires to defend themselves from this outrageous billionairephobic bigotry, with Home Depot founder and major Republican Party donor Ken Langone receiving a warmly sycophantic reception from Fox’s Mornings with Maria.
“What the hell has he done for the little people?” Langone asked his host Maria Bartiromo. “What jobs has he created?”
Langone went on to detail all the many jobs he’s “created” (read: how many people he’s needed to hire to help him reap lucrative profits from an already existing demand) without bothering to explain what hoarding billions of dollars in offshore accounts has to do with job creation. Exponents of the “billionaires create jobs” argument always avoid this glaring plot hole like the plague.
Again, we see in Langone’s emotional response two things: that he sees ordinary citizens as “the little people” innately different from himself, and that he perceives the push toward greater economic equality as an existential threat.
“If you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany,” Langone has said of the rising pushback against wealth and income inequality. “You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy.”
These outbursts are reminiscent of one we saw a couple of years ago on an MSNBC interview with resort tycoon Stephen Cloobeck, who expressed outrage at the way progressives are using “the millionaire or billionaire word” to discuss issues with class and economic justice, saying he’d instructed Democratic Party leaders to bring a stop to this rhetoric or lose plutocratic funding.
“It is very, very disturbing when I hear the millionaire or billionaire word,” Cloobeck said, as though he was uttering an ethnic slur for an oppressed minority and not a conventional label for a class that effectively owns the US government. “And I’ve told them to stop it. Knock it off.”
We’re seeing this hilarious conflation of economic justice with the persecution of minorities and the elimination of actual human beings more and more often, so we should probably come up with a name for it. I’d like to propose that we label this phenomenon “wealth identity politics”, and it is capitalism’s dumbest turn yet.
It’s especially dumb because the billionaire class has already proven with its actions that it cannot exist without actively working to manipulate governments in a way that undeniably subverts democracy and the will of the people. The debate over whether or not billionaires should exist is long settled. They should not.
A few million dollars will buy you a nice car, a nice house and some nice clothes. A few billion dollars will buy you the ability to control public narratives using media ownership, lobbyists and think tanks, thereby manipulating entire governments and international affairs. Believing that it makes sense to have an elite class which controls this much wealth and power is exactly as stupid as believing it makes sense to have a total monarchy.
Billionaires should not exist, for the same reason that kings and pharaohs should not exist. The leadership of our world should not belong to a class of highly mediocre people who have nothing noteworthy between their ears apart from a knack for accumulating dollars. The ability to amass wealth is not a valid basis upon which to determine who leads us. Our fate as a species should be in all our hands.
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
SC198-8
https://www.globalresearch.ca/government-military-police-globe/5690753
Guns for Hire: No, the U.S. Government Shouldn’t be Using the Military to Police the Globe
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison
Eventually, all military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.
It happened in Rome.
It’s happening again.
At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:
The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.
The American Empire—with its endless wars waged by U.S. military servicepeople who have been reduced to little more than guns for hire: outsourced, stretched too thin, and deployed to far-flung places to police the globe—is approaching a breaking point.
War has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire and its incestuous relationship with a host of international defense contractors, is one of its best buyers and sellers. In fact, as Reuters reports, “[President] Trump has gone further than any of his predecessors to act as a salesman for the U.S. defense industry.”
Under Trump’s leadership, the U.S. military is dropping a bomb every 12 minutes.
This follows on the heels of President Obama, the so-called antiwar candidate and Nobel Peace Prize winner who waged war longer than any American president and whose targeted-drone killings resulted in at least 1.3 million lives lost to the U.S.-led war on terror.
Most recently, the Trump Administration signaled its willingness to put the lives of American troops on the line in order to guard Saudi Arabia’s oil resources. Roughly 200 American troops will join the 500 troops already stationed in Saudi Arabia. That’s in addition to the 60,000 U.S. troops that have been deployed throughout the Middle East for decades.
As The Washington Post points out, “The United States is now the world’s largest producer — and its reliance on Saudi imports has dropped dramatically, including by 50 percent in the past two years alone.”
So if we’re not protecting the oil for ourselves, whose interests are we protecting?
The military industrial complex is calling the shots, of course, and profit is its primary objective.
The military-industrial complex is also the world’s largest employer.
America has long had a penchant for endless wars that empty our national coffers while fattening those of the military industrial complex.
Aided and abetted by the U.S government, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. Indeed, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Unfortunately, this level of war-mongering doesn’t come cheap to the taxpayers who are forced to foot the bill.
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.
In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.
With more than 800 U.S. military bases in 80 countries, the U.S. is now operating in 40 percent of the world’s nations at a cost of $160 to $200 billion annually.
Despite the fact that Congress has only officially declared war eleven times in the nation’s short history, the last time being during World War II, the United States has been at war for all but 21 of the past 243 years.
It’s cost the American taxpayer more than $4.7 trillion since 2001 to fight the government’s so-called “war on terrorism.” That’s in addition to “$127 billion in the last 17 years to train police, military and border patrol agents in many countries and to develop antiterrorism education programs, among other activities.” That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 800-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe.
The cost of perpetuating those endless wars and military exercises around the globe is expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.
The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”
War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors.
For example, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”
Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.
Consider that the government lost more than $160 billion to waste and fraud by the military and defense contractors. With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed as the “coalition of the willing” has quickly evolved into the “coalition of the billing,” with American taxpayers forced to cough up billions of dollars for cash bribes, luxury bases, a highway to nowhere, faulty equipment, salaries for so-called “ghost soldiers,” and overpriced anything and everything associated with the war effort, including a $640 toilet seat and a $7600 coffee pot.
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.
There’s a good reason why “bloated,” “corrupt” and “inefficient” are among the words most commonly applied to the government, especially the Department of Defense and its contractors. Price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire.
It’s not just the American economy that is being gouged, unfortunately.
Driven by a greedy defense sector, the American homeland has been transformed into a battlefield with militarized police and weapons better suited to a war zone. Trump, no different from his predecessors, has continued to expand America’s military empire abroad and domestically, calling on Congress to approve billions more to hire cops, build more prisons and wage more profit-driven war-on-drugs/war-on-terrorism/war-on-crime programs that pander to the powerful money interests (military, corporate and security) that run the Deep State and hold the government in its clutches.
Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.
Essentially, in order to fund this burgeoning military empire that polices the globe, the U.S. government is prepared to bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse.
Making matters worse, taxpayers are being forced to pay $1.4 million per hour to provide U.S. weapons to countries that can’t afford them. As Mother Jones reports, the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Finance program “opens the way for the US government to pay for weapons for other countries—only to ‘promote world peace,’ of course—using your tax dollars, which are then recycled into the hands of military-industrial-complex corporations.”
Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.
As Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez rightly asks:
Why throw money at defense when everything is falling down around us? Do we need to spend more money on our military (about $600 billion this year) than the next seven countries combined? Do we need 1.4 million active military personnel and 850,000 reserves when the enemy at the moment — ISIS — numbers in the low tens of thousands? If so, it seems there’s something radically wrong with our strategy. Should 55% of the federal government’s discretionary spending go to the military and only 3% to transportation when the toll in American lives is far greater from failing infrastructure than from terrorism? Does California need nearly as many active military bases (31, according to militarybases.com) as it has UC and state university campuses (33)? And does the state need more active duty military personnel (168,000, according to Governing magazine) than public elementary school teachers (139,000)?
The illicit merger of the global armaments industry and the Pentagon that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.
This is exactly the scenario Eisenhower warned against when he cautioned the citizenry not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning.
The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.
What we have is a confluence of factors and influences that go beyond mere comparisons to Rome. It is a union of Orwell’s 1984 with its shadowy, totalitarian government—i.e., fascism, the union of government and corporate powers—and a total surveillance state with a military empire extended throughout the world.
This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the growth of and reliance on militarism as the solution for our problems both domestically and abroad bodes ill for the constitutional principles which form the basis of the American experiment in freedom.
After all, a military empire ruled by martial law does not rely on principles of equality and justice for its authority but on the power of the sword. As author Aldous Huxley warned: “Liberty cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.”
Guns for Hire: No, the U.S. Government Shouldn’t be Using the Military to Police the Globe
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison
Eventually, all military empires fall and fail by spreading themselves too thin and spending themselves to death.
It happened in Rome.
It’s happening again.
At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:
The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.
The American Empire—with its endless wars waged by U.S. military servicepeople who have been reduced to little more than guns for hire: outsourced, stretched too thin, and deployed to far-flung places to police the globe—is approaching a breaking point.
War has become a huge money-making venture, and America, with its vast military empire and its incestuous relationship with a host of international defense contractors, is one of its best buyers and sellers. In fact, as Reuters reports, “[President] Trump has gone further than any of his predecessors to act as a salesman for the U.S. defense industry.”
Under Trump’s leadership, the U.S. military is dropping a bomb every 12 minutes.
This follows on the heels of President Obama, the so-called antiwar candidate and Nobel Peace Prize winner who waged war longer than any American president and whose targeted-drone killings resulted in at least 1.3 million lives lost to the U.S.-led war on terror.
Most recently, the Trump Administration signaled its willingness to put the lives of American troops on the line in order to guard Saudi Arabia’s oil resources. Roughly 200 American troops will join the 500 troops already stationed in Saudi Arabia. That’s in addition to the 60,000 U.S. troops that have been deployed throughout the Middle East for decades.
As The Washington Post points out, “The United States is now the world’s largest producer — and its reliance on Saudi imports has dropped dramatically, including by 50 percent in the past two years alone.”
So if we’re not protecting the oil for ourselves, whose interests are we protecting?
The military industrial complex is calling the shots, of course, and profit is its primary objective.
The military-industrial complex is also the world’s largest employer.
America has long had a penchant for endless wars that empty our national coffers while fattening those of the military industrial complex.
Aided and abetted by the U.S government, the American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.
Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. Indeed, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
Unfortunately, this level of war-mongering doesn’t come cheap to the taxpayers who are forced to foot the bill.
Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.
In fact, the U.S. government has spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.
With more than 800 U.S. military bases in 80 countries, the U.S. is now operating in 40 percent of the world’s nations at a cost of $160 to $200 billion annually.
Despite the fact that Congress has only officially declared war eleven times in the nation’s short history, the last time being during World War II, the United States has been at war for all but 21 of the past 243 years.
It’s cost the American taxpayer more than $4.7 trillion since 2001 to fight the government’s so-called “war on terrorism.” That’s in addition to “$127 billion in the last 17 years to train police, military and border patrol agents in many countries and to develop antiterrorism education programs, among other activities.” That does not include the cost of maintaining and staffing the 800-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe.
The cost of perpetuating those endless wars and military exercises around the globe is expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.
The U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.
As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”
War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors.
For example, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”
Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.
Consider that the government lost more than $160 billion to waste and fraud by the military and defense contractors. With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed as the “coalition of the willing” has quickly evolved into the “coalition of the billing,” with American taxpayers forced to cough up billions of dollars for cash bribes, luxury bases, a highway to nowhere, faulty equipment, salaries for so-called “ghost soldiers,” and overpriced anything and everything associated with the war effort, including a $640 toilet seat and a $7600 coffee pot.
A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:
$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.
That price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.
There’s a good reason why “bloated,” “corrupt” and “inefficient” are among the words most commonly applied to the government, especially the Department of Defense and its contractors. Price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire.
It’s not just the American economy that is being gouged, unfortunately.
Driven by a greedy defense sector, the American homeland has been transformed into a battlefield with militarized police and weapons better suited to a war zone. Trump, no different from his predecessors, has continued to expand America’s military empire abroad and domestically, calling on Congress to approve billions more to hire cops, build more prisons and wage more profit-driven war-on-drugs/war-on-terrorism/war-on-crime programs that pander to the powerful money interests (military, corporate and security) that run the Deep State and hold the government in its clutches.
Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.
Essentially, in order to fund this burgeoning military empire that polices the globe, the U.S. government is prepared to bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse.
Making matters worse, taxpayers are being forced to pay $1.4 million per hour to provide U.S. weapons to countries that can’t afford them. As Mother Jones reports, the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Finance program “opens the way for the US government to pay for weapons for other countries—only to ‘promote world peace,’ of course—using your tax dollars, which are then recycled into the hands of military-industrial-complex corporations.”
Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of an overhauling.
As Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez rightly asks:
Why throw money at defense when everything is falling down around us? Do we need to spend more money on our military (about $600 billion this year) than the next seven countries combined? Do we need 1.4 million active military personnel and 850,000 reserves when the enemy at the moment — ISIS — numbers in the low tens of thousands? If so, it seems there’s something radically wrong with our strategy. Should 55% of the federal government’s discretionary spending go to the military and only 3% to transportation when the toll in American lives is far greater from failing infrastructure than from terrorism? Does California need nearly as many active military bases (31, according to militarybases.com) as it has UC and state university campuses (33)? And does the state need more active duty military personnel (168,000, according to Governing magazine) than public elementary school teachers (139,000)?
The illicit merger of the global armaments industry and the Pentagon that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today.
The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.
This is exactly the scenario Eisenhower warned against when he cautioned the citizenry not to let the profit-driven war machine endanger our liberties or democratic processes:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
We failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning.
The illicit merger of the armaments industry and the government that Eisenhower warned against has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation today.
What we have is a confluence of factors and influences that go beyond mere comparisons to Rome. It is a union of Orwell’s 1984 with its shadowy, totalitarian government—i.e., fascism, the union of government and corporate powers—and a total surveillance state with a military empire extended throughout the world.
This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the growth of and reliance on militarism as the solution for our problems both domestically and abroad bodes ill for the constitutional principles which form the basis of the American experiment in freedom.
After all, a military empire ruled by martial law does not rely on principles of equality and justice for its authority but on the power of the sword. As author Aldous Huxley warned: “Liberty cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near-war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government.”
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