Cruise ships are sailing to the antarctic, passengers and crew imagining the ice to be melting. One ran into a glacier and had a change of plans. Another was caught between two icebergs, and sunk.
In the coming arctic summer, we shall see a bunch of cruise ships attempting to pass what they expect to be the Northwest passage. I suspect that this may turn out to be entertaining. (more…)
Since I think I am smart, going to make prediction. (more…)
The American health care system is socialism without a central plan, and capitalism without markets or prices. (more…)
Econbrowser publishes oil price estimates in more detail
Bottom line: Demand is going to rise one hell of a lot. Supply for that demand just is not there.
This paper does not review supply from coal to liquids or gas to liquids. The only way to meet demand is to generate liquids from coal by underground gasification followed by gas to liquids conversion. This will require many, many quite gigantic projects, but at present we have only a small number of small exploratory projects, most them scheduled to start producing around 2015 or so. So the price of oil will have to rise to quite astonishing levels, at least for a couple of decades. We have only seen the beginning.
Before the twentieth century, the usual method for suppressing guerrilla war was artificial famine, state sponsored mass rape, and mass murder. During the twentieth century the communists used these methods heavily to quell not only resistance, but to quell resentment, to quell suspected politically incorrect thoughts. These methods generated curiously little resentment. Indeed, it seems that the greater the injury, the less the hostility. (more…)
I am continually puzzled by the world’s chronic inability to do basic arithmetic, but I see that econbrowser has done the maths on oil.
There are a lot of people in China. There are no longer large political obstacles to competent and industrious people in China making money. Therefore, very soon, a lot of Chinese will be making a lot of money. Therefore China will soon be consuming an enormous amount of oil. Econbrowser concludes China will soon be consuming a lot more oil than is ever likely to come out of the ground.
Therefore the price of oil will rise without limit until coal to oil and nuclear to hydrogen fills the gap. And right now, coal to oil projects are insignificant, and nuclear to hydrogen is not even on the drawing board. Therefore in the next decade or so, oil will rise to astonishing heights, far above present prices.
You know saying about markets: “They don’t ring a bell at the top or the bottom”
The bell has just rang to announce the bottom of the housing market in California. From here on out, the prices are going up from insanely high to even more insanely high. Never again will ordinary affluent middle class people be able to buy a house in silicon valley, until the day dawns when the private property right to develop land is once again respected.
Various incompetently run or criminally run banks found themselves with lots and lots and lots of inflated and fraudulent mortgages. In due course, they found themselves with the real estate that was securing the mortgage. In the last few days they have held auctions in Silicon Valley and Sacramento to get rid of the properties. The properties sold like hotcakes, with bidders bidding them up, and up, and up.
On May 9, Hezbollah fighters were wandering around Lebanon. The meaning and implications of these events were not clear at the time. No one, least of all Hezbollah, had a clear idea.
Now it is clear what happened.
The Lebanese state is a failed state. It lacks the will and capability to fight the various armed groups in Lebanon, or to impose its will on them. Hezbollah tested the government. The government was an empty bag. It tested the major Sunni party, with the same result. It tested the major Druze parties, which likewise collapsed, but the Druze did not collapse, instead inflicting a nasty defeat on Hezbollah. After running into trouble with the Druze, it declined to firmly test the Christians. The government has shown itself powerless, and the political parties that focussed on elections, parliament, and participation in the government have similarly shown themselves to be powerless.
This is a graph of the global temperature anomaly published from satellite data
To smooth the graph I take the rolling twelve month average – thus the temperature shown on the graph for 2008 January is actually the average from 2007 February to 2008 January.
At present, Environmental Protection Agency rules require that that Americans convert food that could feed five hundred million people into fuel. But this is not enough. The rules require that it be increased five fold over the next fifteen years.
A bunch of senators have asked that the rule be set aside. Hey guys. You are senators. You passed the law. Repeal it.