Financial topics

[aedens]

Yes we dodged another bullet on that one G. Another facet to consider is the 700 day solar cycle from the 1986 work which was the very root of the conversation going forward. Our tiny spec of terra firma is a simple after thought to much larger encylical values considered valid going forward.
Please note in this context the lunar effect that was not considered to values we note going forward.

According to Professor Raymond Wheeler of the University of Kansas and Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky solar storms can directly cause conflict, wars and even death among humans on Earth. Wheeler expanded on Chishevsky's work by studying violence during 1913; measuring the time between battles and severity. These findings were compared with the suns 11 year sunspot cycle. The results showed that as the sun cycle peaked, there was a rise in human unrest, uprisings, rebellions, revolutions, and wars between nations. As the magnetic fields intensified, the reaction within the human brain was a mixture of deadly emotional tantrums and unadulterated killing sprees. As Wheeler further compared his findings with human history, he found a startling pattern that could be traced back 2,500 years. From a scientific point of view it is clear that solar flares can affect our health and cause changes in our mind and body.

[Higgenbotham]

Lucky so far, missed one---- http://news.yahoo.com/earth-survived-ne ... 04357.html

Earth survived near-miss from 2012 solar storm: NASA

Washington (AFP) - Back in 2012, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar storm that just missed the Earth but was big enough to "knock modern civilization back to the 18th century," NASA said.

Very interesting. "Slowly at first, then all at once" seems to be getting more and more probable as the short term bullets get dodged again and again.

It's fascinating to me that, in light of facts and scenarios like this, and there are many, Bill Gates and other proponents of technological progress have said that our civilization cannot fall like Rome did because of all the great technology we have. As well, there are others like John Michael Greer who say that our civilization will likely fall at the same rate as Rome did because that's what has happened historically. Yet in fact it seems more likely than not that it can fall faster because of the failure of all the great technology we have that is so vulnerable.

My conclusion is that it can't be lack of intelligence that makes people believe in these optimistic scenarios. I believe it has to do with the brain structure of humans and how human brains are supposed to work. That being, that human brains assimilate and hard wire in optimistic scenarios they have been taught as an adaptive mechanism. Once the optimistic scenario is accepted and hard wired in nothing can replace it in normal human brains and this is why panic occurs when reality sets in. Some human brains like mine and most of the other posters here do not hard wire in optimistic scenarios, but our brains are an anomaly and not properly adapted for survival except during an actual collapse situation.

It's similar to religion. It is said that human brains are hard wired to seek religion and if there were no religion in the world man would invent it to satisfy that need.

[Nathan G]

I think you hit the nail on the head, there.

It's fascinating to me that, in light of facts and scenarios like this, and there are many, Bill Gates and other proponents of technological progress have said that our civilization cannot fall like Rome did because of all the great technology we have. As well, there are others like John Michael Greer who say that our civilization will likely fall at the same rate as Rome did because that's what has happened historically. Yet in fact it seems more likely than not that it can fall faster because of the failure of all the great technology we have that is so vulnerable.

I guarantee that is exactly the same trap Rome fell into: "our technology will always protect us from the barbarians". Pride goeth before the fall as Solomon wisely said.

My conclusion is that it can't be lack of intelligence that makes people believe in these optimistic scenarios. I believe it has to do with the brain structure of humans and how human brains are supposed to work. That being, that human brains assimilate and hard wire in optimistic scenarios they have been taught as an adaptive mechanism. Once the optimistic scenario is accepted and hard wired in nothing can replace it in normal human brains and this is why panic occurs when reality sets in.

I'm guessing that's what's wrong with Ray Kurzweil.

Some human brains like mine and most of the other posters here do not hard wire in optimistic scenarios, but our brains are an anomaly and not properly adapted for survival except during an actual collapse situation.

Prophets are never well adapted for survival. Look at Jeremiah. The cost of enlightenment is breaking free of mammalian instincts.
I also think there comes a balance. People who study the future need to recognize both ups and downs in the long run.

It's similar to religion. It is said that human brains are hard wired to seek religion and if there were no religion in the world man would invent it to satisfy that need.

I believe religion is very key for that reason, but that's getting off topic.

[aedens]

http://www.sierraexpressmedia.com/?p=69460

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-2 ... ng-liberia

I wonder if his arms are tired flying home.

Science already knows the pathogen jumped species in mere proximity.

I have faith that all things are possible, but not in the common sense man proscribes to lately.

[gerald]

Hmmmm

It seems like the d--b a-s politicians are beginning to think about the One who holds ALL of the joker cards, --- how interesting.

The "Most Significant Danger" According To Elliott's Paul Singer
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-2 ... aul-singer

EMP: THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DANGER

Even nuclear war is a relatively localized issue

Why are we writing about EMP? Because in any analysis of societal risk, EMP stands all by itself. Congressional committees are studying this problem, and federal legislation is laboriously working its way through the process. We think that raising people’s consciousness about what should be an effort by both parties to make the country (and the world) safer from this kind of event is a good thing to do.
---------
Like no shit Sherlock

[Higgenbotham]

Congressional committees are studying this problem, and federal legislation is laboriously working its way through the process. We think that raising people’s consciousness about what should be an effort by both parties to make the country (and the world) safer from this kind of event is a good thing to do.
---------
Like no shit Sherlock

Funny. We've only been "raising people's consciousness" for 9 years. But true to the characteristics of a society that is following a prelude to collapse, nothing ever gets done and then one day it is too late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Apr15.html

[gerald]

Congressional committees are studying this problem, and federal legislation is laboriously working its way through the process. We think that raising people’s consciousness about what should be an effort by both parties to make the country (and the world) safer from this kind of event is a good thing to do.
---------
Like no shit Sherlock

Funny. We've only been "raising people's consciousness" for 9 years. But true to the characteristics of a society that is following a prelude to collapse, nothing ever gets done and then one day it is too late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Apr15.html

Unfortunately that is the way people function, having been involved with building maintenance for over 40 years I have heard many times people say, "that is not important" until it is, then it is too late. Better yet, what chance is there of that happening? but then the cost to fix that problem is many times greater. Or the best -- as with partners, we have money left over, lets go vacation in Cancun, my wife wants a mink, --- what do you mean we have an emergency that will cost xxx, where do we get the money? -- aaaa you spent it. --- people, short sighted idiots.

[Higgenbotham]

Unfortunately that is the way people function, having been involved with building maintenance for over 40 years I have heard many times people say, "that is not important" until it is, then it is too late.

I agree that human nature doesn't change that much. Seems to me it's when the complexity of the society changes to such an extent that normal human frailties no longer allow the society to function that the downhill spiral commences. That's perhaps why there is no universal agreement as to why civilizations fail. They all fail due to the same basic underlying causes of human nature being what it is that manifests itself outwardly in many different and unexpected ways.

In this case:
1. If this civilization is to continue to exist, the power grid can't go down for any significant length of time.
2. There are many ways the power grid can go down for a significant length of time.
3. The fact that the power grid can fail has a high probability.
4. The fact that the power grid has a high probability of failure has been known for a long time.
5. This has not been fixed.

The reasons this predicament exists at present seem pretty obvious actually. For most of human history, when people put things off until a later date, there are no consequences for doing so from the standpoint of evolutionary survival. In fact, most of the time putting things off (i.e. kicking the can) is rewarded, so that's what people do. A politician can make the calculation not to balance the budget before his term ends and get away with doing that most of the time. The consequences roll in all at once when the ciivilization reaches the point of complexity where catastrophic failure is the outcome for putting something off. I do believe Strauss and Howe speak to this as being an underlying cause of the generational crisis, and they also state that the crisis can vary a great deal is severity, from being a more typical fourth turning to being the end of a civilization.

[aedens]

Switching cost effect again as Clifford Nass explored. I would forward as another opportunity costs to review from the last decade consolidations.
Basically a outlier effect of observation to the associated kuznet cycle just noted in the cluster groups.

Compression market ongoing.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/ ... t-55/48009
http://education-portal.com/academy/les ... tml#lesson
http://people.uncw.edu/pricej/teaching/ ... tliers.htm
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Kuznets.html

Back to our political smoothing discussion we had here on scope and scale.

http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... ter#p24475

We will see more soon enough by the end of the year. Fixed commodity contracts will expire for some cluster groups for the next few years and the transition will entail
convertibility letter of credit with energy margin supply chains movements into 2018 -2020.
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... ter#p24101
“I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bagehot: character of leaders was often more important than their political affiliation or beliefs so yes it is about clear details.

[gerald]

A CME poses a potential problem for humanity, -- hmmm ---there appears to be another facet of this which could be as bad or worse.

It is related to the starwater phenomenon, more can be learned from the Suspciousobservers site http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/ you may need premium content. ---

You have heard of the biblical story "it rained for 40 days and 40 nights" -- well, it appears that there is a circumstance where that can happen and maybe did, and more then once. Leading to possible mass extinctions.

A simple and crude explanation ---

Hydrogen ions are given of by our sun. Our atmosphere contains about 21% oxygen. The Earths magnetic field keeps the hydrogen ions away from the Earths oxygen. -- Hydrogen and oxygen combine to make water.
The Earths magnetic field is weakening and at an accelerating rate. If we have a massive CME combined with a weak magnetic field, the solar hydrogen could combine with the Earth's oxygen and result in substantial water/rain. A side effect would be the reduction of oxygen in the atmosphere. ---- hmmmm, I see a problem.