The Nightmare Unfolds

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy

"It is your duty as loyal Americans to Shut up."– Bill O'Reily

Bob Chapman was on a tear the other day. Full on, calling out the Illuminati, called it the "CRIMEX" every time, and urged readers to STOP getting suckered into paper metals... "GET A GRIP, PEOPLE" was the exact quote, I believe...

Go back 100 years as an arbitrary starting point. There were and are economic cycles at work, but the long term trend was economic expansion. The economic advances were strong and the cyclical contractions were mostly weak. Even the debacle of the 1930's was followed by recovery and an advance to new higher levels of economic output.

The fundamental factor behind this long term economic expansion was energy that fueled our industrial economy from which the necessities of life come. Energy replaced human and animal effort. This really has been going on since the beginning of the US in 1776 when coal was then a relatively new source of energy. The expansion really took off after the depression of the 1930's as oil was heavily exploited.

Something has changed with the current economic cycle. This is the first economic downturn where the underlying long term trend is no longer up. So instead of having the support of the long term uptrend to pull us out of the shorter term downturn, we have the long term contraction pulling us down in addition. It is like taking a step and finding that the ground is not there to catch you.

This first cyclical downturn against a long term down trend will be severe; more severe than the depression of the 1930's. Any recovery will not take us back up to new higher levels of economic output, but will just be a temporary pause in the massive long term decline we face. We are now going down the a long staircase, not up. When oil executives say the era of cheap energy is over, this is what it really means. A large amount of energy must be expended to acquire oil. What is left after spending that energy is what is available to fuel the economy. That energy cost has been doubling every 20 years, but the amount of energy in the barrel of oil acquired stays the same, or may even go down because of poorer quality. This has nothing to do with how much oil can be pumped which is a separate problem and which is also on the verge of permanent decline. And oil is the precursor to acquiring most other forms of energy also. There is no adequate substitute and insufficient energy to create any new infrastructure even if there were a partial substitute.

So government will tell you that the recovery is just around the corner. In 2009 they will predict that it will all be over by 2010. In 2010 they will tell you it will all be over in 2011. Recovery will always be just around the corner. So how low can we go before we get a chance to catch our breath? Nobody can calculate that for sure, but it will be worse than the 1930's in terms of unemployment, bankruptcies, and losses and it will be longer than the 1930's. We are just at the beginning.

Government is taking from us and squandering what little wealth we have left. They are giving it to special interests like Wall Street, car companies, and the banking industry. They are planning to spend it on things like roads and bridges at a time when we face a future without energy to fuel cars and trucks. Obama even spent some of it on White House dinners with $500 a bottle wine and $100 a pound imported steaks.

Not only do these clowns lack understanding of what is happening, but they are aristocratic plunderers as well. The probability of civil war in response is high. When Obama was elected gun and ammunition sales went up out of fear of another government attack on the 2nd amendment right; buy you assault weapon before they are banned and buy ammo before they put a huge tax on it. But then people kept buying out of fear of riots and increased crime from increasing economic problems. If the buying keeps up, you can bet it will be because of something beyond these two motivating factors, perhaps a perception that the true purpose of the 2nd amendment must be acted upon.

Give up your linear thinking and recognize the dynamics of the new era we have entered.

Dude. Two liters of tap water is empathetically NOT the equivalent of a dose of Prozac.

Besides, chlorinating tap water is, or has been, done by pretty much every municipal water service for a long time. It's a good thing, as chlorine kills bacteria and many/most viruses. Without some form of antimicrobial in long water pipes, any breach (like the smallest crack or tree root breach) that allows nutrition into the water would have organic growth inside the plumbing. That's nasty. And dangerous to users.

Ideally, those consuming the chlorinated water would filter it before drinking it. But as many don't, water services limit the amount they put in, to try to reduce the side effects of ingesting chlorine. How far they dare go in this direction depends on many factors. In hotter climates, where water is hotter, more is needed to curtail/prevent growth. Better filtering and control at the source (=more expensive) allows for less chlorine use as well. And in America, I bet you the absolute fear of being sued, causes water departments to err on the high side more often than in less litigation prone societies.

But please. Chlorinated water is not a mind control device. Anyone claiming it is is either selling something or simply lost.

interesting observations.