Higgenbotham's Dark Age Hovel

[aeden]

All in the works. Not even America can stop this evil.
The Biden administration is openly threatening Americans over Ukraine. In a classified briefing in the House yesterday, defense secretary Lloyd Austin informed members that if they don’t appropriate more money for Zelensky, “we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia.” Pay the oligarchs or we’ll kill your kids. Tucker Carlson on X
Demons are very real.

[Higgenbotham]

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/ ... 6186998135

"I voted for Karen Bass. I voted for Biden. I voted for Gavin Newsom. I’m sick of it."
"Give me a reason to vote for you again."

Good find. It's going to be a long, long way to the bottom.

The business owner, Ryan Baggaley, says he received a phone call from the ring system and rushed to his company while his wife contacted police. He says it took two hours before police responded to the scene.

“They’re saying, ‘We don’t have anyone in the area,’” he recalled. “We’re like, ‘Now it’s been 15 minutes, then it’s 20 minutes and they’re still not here. It just kept going and they didn’t respond for two hours.”

https://ktla.com/news/la-co-business-ow ... break-ins/

He's clueless in multiple ways.

[Guest]

South Africa is 10x worse than any Western country and it still hasn't collapsed. Until it happens in South Africa, speculating about a collapse in the West (and the perceived benefits of such) is a escapist cope.

[aeden]

Your air of realism was never missed.
https://www.worlddata.info/africa/south ... mption.php
As you indicated escapism in the wrong zone indicates you are in the wrong area in the first place.
I guarantee after sun down you may survive logic.
South Africa use of a lethal 3500 volt electrified fence on its borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe
still in play?

Zone C
Year To Date
Shot & Killed: 544
Shot & Wounded: 2386
Total Shot: 2930
Total Homicides: 602
https://heyjackass.com/2023-homicide-map/

https://southafricainsight.substack.com ... sses-added Have the Communist totally disarmed you yet?

If SRV's discount drops below -12% as the offering expires,
investors should not subscribe as it would be cheaper to buy new shares on the open market.

[Higgenbotham]

South Africa is 10x worse than any Western country and it still hasn't collapsed. Until it happens in South Africa, speculating about a collapse in the West (and the perceived benefits of such) is a escapist cope.

It's a global system that runs on energy distributed worldwide. If South Africa was completely separated from every other country it would collapse tomorrow.

Peer polities [i.e., groups of mutually competing states] tend to undergo long periods of upwardly spiraling competitive costs, and downward marginal returns. This is terminated finally by domination of one and acquisition of a new energy subsidy (as in Republican Rome and Warring States China), or by mutual collapse (as among the Mycenaeans and the Maya). Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. No longer can any individual nation collapse. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole. Competitors who evolve as peers collapse in like manner.

[Higgenbotham]

Lottery Economy Update

The S&P 500 was down 19.4% last year and is up 19.9% so far this year. It closed at a 20 month high of 4604 today. The previous high close this year was 4589 on July 31.

It was previously noted that last year I made 15% with the S&P down about 20%, which is OK performance. So far this year, with the S&P up about 20%, my account is up 2.9% taking the withdrawals into account. That's very good performance for a bear. Typically, once the S&P has gained over 20% on the year, I will start showing losses on the year and that has happened many times over the past 15 years. It may happen once again.

My account is now 129% short and the average entry on this short is 4380. I'm prepared for a move back to the all time high and beyond.

Lottery Economy Update

I covered my entire short position in the last hour Friday.



On Monday, I will take the third draw of the year out of my account, taking it back to baseline, which is the thin red horizontal line. The draws taken out of the account year to date are marked with the thin vertical lines.

Here, I covered within 10 points of a multi month low.

Lottery Economy Update

I'm fully short again and won't be adjusting anything for a few days at least. Average entry is about 4350. Maybe it will finally crash this time.

[Higgenbotham]

S&P 500 Annual Returns

[Guest]

South Africa is 10x worse than any Western country and it still hasn't collapsed. Until it happens in South Africa, speculating about a collapse in the West (and the perceived benefits of such) is a escapist cope.

It's a global system that runs on energy distributed worldwide. If South Africa was completely separated from every other country it would collapse tomorrow.

Peer polities [i.e., groups of mutually competing states] tend to undergo long periods of upwardly spiraling competitive costs, and downward marginal returns. This is terminated finally by domination of one and acquisition of a new energy subsidy (as in Republican Rome and Warring States China), or by mutual collapse (as among the Mycenaeans and the Maya). Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. No longer can any individual nation collapse. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole. Competitors who evolve as peers collapse in like manner.

Welcome to the future..... the promised 'great utopia' the Democrats have lead us to.

[Higgenbotham]

South Africa is 10x worse than any Western country and it still hasn't collapsed. Until it happens in South Africa, speculating about a collapse in the West (and the perceived benefits of such) is a escapist cope.

It's a global system that runs on energy distributed worldwide. If South Africa was completely separated from every other country it would collapse tomorrow.

Peer polities [i.e., groups of mutually competing states] tend to undergo long periods of upwardly spiraling competitive costs, and downward marginal returns. This is terminated finally by domination of one and acquisition of a new energy subsidy (as in Republican Rome and Warring States China), or by mutual collapse (as among the Mycenaeans and the Maya). Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. No longer can any individual nation collapse. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole. Competitors who evolve as peers collapse in like manner.

Here's a recent view from someone who thinks a collapse in the West can happen first.

Today’s energy bottleneck may bring down major governments

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Gail Tverberg

Recently, I explained the key role played by diesel and jet fuel. In this post, I try to explain the energy bottleneck the world is facing because of an inadequate supply of these types of fuels, and the effects such a bottleneck may have. The world’s self-organizing economy tends to squeeze out what may be considered non-essential parts when bottlenecks are hit. Strangely, it appears to me that some central governments may be squeezed out. Countries that are rich enough to have big pension programs for their citizens seem to be especially vulnerable to having their governments collapse.

Figure 1. World supply of diesel and jet fuel per person, based on Middle Distillate data of the 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy, produced by the Energy Institute. Notes added by Gail Tverberg.

This squeezing out of non-essential parts of the economy can happen by war, but it can also happen because of financial problems brought about by “not sufficient actual goods and services to go around.” An underlying problem is that governments can print money, but they cannot print the actual resources needed to produce finished goods and services. I think that in the current situation, a squeezing out for financial reasons, or because legislators can’t agree, is at least as likely as another world war.

For example, the US is having trouble electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives because legislators disagree about funding plans. I can imagine a long shutdown occurring because of this impasse. Perhaps not this time around, but sometime in the next few years, such a disagreement may lead to a permanent shutdown of the US central government, leaving the individual states on their own. Programs of the US central government, such as Social Security and Medicare, would likely disappear. It would be up to the individual states to sponsor whatever replacement programs they are able to afford.

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2023/10/25/t ... vernments/

She added this comment about green energy:

Green energy is itself a dead end, but subsidizing green energy can temporarily hide other problems.

Green energy sounds appealing, but it is terribly limited in what it can do. Green energy cannot operate agricultural machinery. It cannot make new wind turbines or solar panels. Green energy cannot exist without fossil fuels. It is simply an add-on to the current system.

The reason why we hear so much about green energy is because making people believe that a green revolution is possible provides many temporary benefits. For example:

The extra debt needed to subsidize green energy indirectly increases GDP. (GDP calculations ignore whether added debt was used to produce the added goods and services counted as GDP.)
Manufacturers can pretend that their products (such as vehicles) will operate as they do today for years and years.
The educational system is given many more areas to provide courses in.
Citizens are given the hope that the economy will grow endlessly.
Young people are given hope for the future.
Politicians look like they are doing something for voters.

Unfortunately, by the time that the debt comes due to pay for subsidized green energy, it will be apparent that the return on this technology is far too low. The overall system will tend to collapse. Green energy is only a temporary Band-Aid to hide a very disturbing problem. Its impact is tiny and short-lived. And it cannot prevent climate change.

[Higgenbotham]

South Africa is 10x worse than any Western country and it still hasn't collapsed. Until it happens in South Africa, speculating about a collapse in the West (and the perceived benefits of such) is a escapist cope.

It's a global system that runs on energy distributed worldwide. If South Africa was completely separated from every other country it would collapse tomorrow.

Welcome to the future..... the promised 'great utopia' the Democrats have lead us to.

Harvard President Claudine Gay at Congressional Hearing