Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

[Munger]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

For my own part, I have to own up to sometimes dropping in the odd comment of poor consequence, just to stir the pot where in total honesty, I am unable to provide a better analysis. But, here, with the very greatest of respects Munger; you leave yourself wide open to a request, a serious request I might add, for a better analysis from you.........

My analysis is rather easy to explain.

Oil prices do not seem to have risen and fallen in sync with M1, M2, or M3 at all over the past 30 years. For example, witness the dramatic rise in the late 70s, the subsequent fall, the dramatic rise in the mid 2000s, the dramatic fall in 2008-09, etc.

To claim that the latest rise is due to solely (or mainly) to money printing would seem to require a little proof. Stating that the rise of the last year is due to money-printing seems to be a case of fitting a very recent observation to a hypothesis and ignoring adverse data. That is all.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Nothing? Is that it, oil price-rise = money printing?

Dreadfully shallow analysis, this.

For my own part, I have to own up to sometimes dropping in the odd comment of poor consequence, just to stir the pot where in total honesty, I am unable to provide a better analysis. But, here, with the very greatest of respects Munger; you leave yourself wide open to a request, a serious request I might add, for a better analysis from you.........

[Alvaro Spain]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

EJ,

You seem to acknowledge the run up in oil prices is at least partially due to the finite oil supply. You don't explicitly attribute it to the rising demand for oil in China and India, but I assume you understand this. You seem to go on to attribute it's price-rise solely to an increase in the money supply. You may be exaggerating for effect, but if not I fail to see the support for this hypothesis. If you have the data correlating as much, I would like to see it.

From my reading, the assertion that the price fluctuation are due to the money supply does not seem well supported, particularly as the rise in commodities seems to be easily explained by supply and demand. See, e.g., Causes and Consequences of the Oil Shock.

Do you attribute the 2007 run-up to an increase in the money supply? The subsequent 60% drop due to a decrease in the money supply? Or are you making the argument that the fluctuations in the money supply affect/reflect supply and demand?

If I recall correctly (I am no metalman, alas), EJ told us somewhere in 2009 that he believed that the first Peak Oil shock drove oil prices to 100 US$/barrel and speculation did the rest of the rise.

[Munger]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Nothing? Is that it, oil price-rise = money printing?

Dreadfully shallow analysis, this.

[c1ue]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

The trigger will be sea levels rising much faster than anyone has predicted.

You might want to look into 'Climate Change' - sea levels are not only rising well below IPCC projections, they are in fact decelerating.

[shiny!]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Countries of whichever the losing side is in a war lose because their generals are fighting the last war rather than the current one. Wars are fought for food and natural resources*. In a world of dwindling resources, conventional warfare is expensive and wasteful. It wastes food and resources. Nuclear war contaminates land and resources.

Vast armies like we used in past wars are simply too expensive to maintain and deploy. There are "cleaner" and more efficient ways to fight now. A targeted computer virus can shut down a nuclear program. In this electronic age, an EMP can disable a country without contaminating the land or draining natural resources.

WWIII is being fought right now as a Currency War; the last currency standing wins. It's also a Cyber War: Russia vs. US, China vs. US, Israel/US vs. Iran... It will most likely involve EMPs before it's over. The countries that adapt, adopt, and expand their use of these strategies will run circles around countries that are fighting the last war.

* With the exception of Muslim wars. Muslims fight for religious conversion, or because they're over-caffeinated, hate their neighbors, their mothers, or are just bored.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

I agree -- a major international World War III nuclear war is less than likely.

Do not discount entirely the possibility of a limited nuclear exchange.

People need to adjust their US/Soviet Union Cold War MAD preconceptions.

Any conflict outside the aforementioned but updated US/Russia conflict scenario could see, and quite possibly would see, a far more limited exchange that would not be The Day After or Threads.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Crap - that's one of the ways that they (the b*st*rds running the show here on Earth) prepare us for these things (the false flag events justifying a new major war), with movies like this.


Dang - that's bold of them. Though I suppose that is just the movie release date, not the actual event date.

Thanks for the link to this trailer, lakedaemonian.

0311 is the designator for Marine Infantryman, coinciding with Southern California based "Hollywood Marine" infantry depicted in the movie.

I think our member Ash is a Marine.

I watch very little TV anymore, nor "news". But enjoy quite a few movies. I'm looking forward to this one for some pure military/action/scifi escapism.

I didn't think 300 was an attempt to get us to support an invasion of Iran, nor do I think this movie is to prepare us to accept our new alien overlords.

But I do think with each passing day that our multiple overlapping crisis are not decisively dealt with the risk of leadership having delayed the pain SO long a massive convenient excuse for action may not only become a more appealing option, maybe it might actually be sought.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Much less bother is to use a biological....

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

I'm in the "less than likely" camp,

I agree -- a major international World War III nuclear war is less than likely.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

I just saw a preview for a moving coming out soon called Battle: Los Angeles:

Crap - that's one of the ways that they (the b*st*rds running the show here on Earth) prepare us for these things (the false flag events justifying a new major war), with movies like this.

And did you catch the 0311 reference?

Dang - that's bold of them. Though I suppose that is just the movie release date, not the actual event date.

Thanks for the link to this trailer, lakedaemonian.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Aliens. It's the only enemy that makes sense in an exponential world. Get ready for the show.

I remember folks getting up in arms about the movie 300 a few years back...based on the Frank Miller comic book series on the Spartans at Thermopyle...and how it was prepping us for a war against Iran.

I just saw a preview for a moving coming out soon called Battle: Los Angeles:

Maybe it isn't a war with Iran......maybe it IS aliens......I'm looking forward to this one....


Ash, were you a "Hollywood Marine" in Southern California? And did you catch the 0311 reference?

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

Nuclear war could change the game quickly. Imagine a nuclear strike that destroys the production capacity of some "competing" countries -- followed by lots of jobs in the US to build replacement factories.... All paid for by raiding the resources of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is, of course, an insane game, but that's how some people think.

I'm in the "less than likely" camp, for now, as far as believing a MAJOR regional or inter-regional war will break out in the next few years.

Lots of counter insurgency, brush fire social disruption/insurrection, increasingly desperate efforts to maintain regime survival, etc...hell yeah....LOTS of that.

But if I was to game a scenario where I think the US MAY be able to maintain it's relative military/economic/political dominance for another generation it would be a scenario involving Pakistan/India/China.

If Pakistan finds it necessary to divert attention away from it's domestic terminal cancers by attacking India by proxy AGAIN...eventually India will HAVE to respond(it's patience thus far since it's Parliament was attacked by Pakistani ISI backed terrorists and numerous other major incidents is notable, but not unlimited), and MAYBE the next time the US fails(intentionally or unintentially) to de-escalate a future crisis and allows a future crisis to "cook off" into a real war....as in 1965 or 1971 or the tit for tat nuclear testing or Kargil 99.

India has also been developing a "cold start" war doctrine.....an ability to launch combined arms warfare, on very short notice, against either Pakistan or China.

It's a bit like a 3 way Cold War, with a long and consistant history of going hot both directly and via proxy.

It probably wouldn't take much to push them over the edge(action), or to prevent them from falling off the edge(inaction).

If Pakistan/India cooked off with the use of nuclear weapons(probably the greatest risk of use anywhere in the world), it would surely drag China into it.

I could also imagine an effort to drag the United States into it.

The US simply dragging it's feat(allowing the conflict to fester and spark) and aggressively declaring a cordon sanitaire around Pakistan/India/China and letting the combatants burn themselves out with the threat of total destruction from the US if the combatants attempted to expand the conflict beyond the cordon, represents a Machiavellian wet dream for the continuation of US global military/economic/political dominance for another generation.

Pakistan/India/China have limited capability to directly attack the United States using conventional/nuclear means. Attempting to do so would cause casualties, and result in the attacking nation being turned into a self-lit parking lot.....so again from a Machiavellian perspective, it could be easily argued that the risk is acceptable.

It would also allow an outstanding and easy opportunity to effect considerable and necessary reform in the US, wipe out a lot of excess global industrial capacity, eliminate a lot of competition for Peak Cheap Oil, provide an opportunity for the US to reindustrialize, and leave the US solely in charge of a Bretton Woods Redux.

The US currently possesses the greatest military "overmatch" against all of it's likely opponents in both conventional and nuclear capability.

It is at it's multi trillion dollar apex/apogee, it cannot maintain this relative overmatch capability indefinitely.......so would it not make sense in some folks minds to leverage this capability if/when the opportunity presented itself randomly or coincidentally?

Pakistan is a toilet...who knows how it's going to end(probably quite badly), but if Pakistan's leadership continues to use blackmail, brinksmanship, and the threat of geopolitical "suicide by cop" who's to say their bluff doesn't get called?

While I think this "capability + opportunity scenario" is just a razor sharp sliver of a possibility......I do wonder if it could swiftly change from possibility to probability.

I'm going to step back from the dark doom stuff now, and go back to just the grey and uncomfortable stuff...like when/how to change from cash to more energy/gold/silver/? to try and maintain my family's PPP.

Just my 0.02c

[Jay]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

. I will not state here who I think will be the enemy. It would bring too much ridicule to this good forum to go into that here and now.

Aliens. It's the only enemy that makes sense in an exponential world. Get ready for the show.

[Sharky]

Re: Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe - Eric Janszen

I don't see how War will benefit our economy this time around, since we don't even manufacture most of our own equipment anymore. Things might be assembled here, but AFAIK most of the components are made in other countries. It's not like WWII when we ramped up factory production in a huge way. Now, war might mean more jobs in other countries but not here.

Nuclear war could change the game quickly. Imagine a nuclear strike that destroys the production capacity of some "competing" countries -- followed by lots of jobs in the US to build replacement factories.... All paid for by raiding the resources of countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is, of course, an insane game, but that's how some people think.