Category Archives: Society

Energy and resources limits what humans can do. So do their own systems. Financial systems fail, corruption, wars, religion, politics and more all play a role in how successful societies are and how wealthy their citizens are. As the distribution of wealth grows more unfair, the population is so immiserated at some point that collapse and a new society emerge

Eduardo Porter : Next Crisis from Rising Interest Rates? (New York Times)

A World Unprepared, Again, for Rising Interest Rates. Feb 11, 2014. Eduardo Porter. New York Times. I was living in São Paulo in 1997 when, out of the blue, an investment banker I knew called to ask about Brazilian cocktails. … Continue reading

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Banks get around Bonus Rules = less money to take back after risky bets go bad

February 13, 2014. Banks in London Devise Way Around Europe’s Bonus Rules. Jenny Anderson. New York Times. Since the 2008 crisis, regulators around the world have tried to rein in bonuses, worried that big payouts encourage excessive risk-taking by bankers … Continue reading

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Matt Taibbi : Commodity Scams on Wall Street Will Cause the Next Crash

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks’ Most Devious Scam Yet Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever. Matt Taibbi.  February 12, 2014.  … Continue reading

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Kaplan on West Africa

Preface. This article interest me because I want to understand what collapse from energy decline will be like where I live.  The same patterns appear over and over in this category of collapsed and collapsing nations. Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author … Continue reading

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Ashvin Pandurangi: A Probabilistic Assessment Of Short-Term Inflation, Deflation, Hyperinflation And Serious Deflation

A Probabilistic Assessment Of Short-Term Inflation, Deflation, Hyperinflation And Serious Deflation. Nov 3, 2010. Ashvin Pandurangi.   The blogosphere has been rife with debates over whether the U.S. economy will experience inflation or deflation over the next year or two. Typically, … Continue reading

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Nicole Foss: Notes from videos, radio shows, newsletters

FSN Top Interviews 2010: Nicole Foss & Richard Russell at Financial Sense. Rural areas will be the first to lose access to electricity,with  less priority than cities in a deflation, plus there’s no money to build up the grid, which … Continue reading

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Our interlinked infrastructure is so vulnerable one piece can take the others down with it

This article by Robinson et al is a very prescient article written back in 1998, long before 9/11 and he also points out how vulnerable U.S. infrastructure is to cyberwar and cyberattacks at a time when our infrastructure wasn’t nearly … Continue reading

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Emergency drill: Cyberattack on electric grid

Preface.  Although I am mainly concerned about peak oil, we’ve become so incredibly dependent on the electric grid, including electricity to pump oil at gas stations, that if the grid came down from an EMP or cyberattack, millions of people … Continue reading

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Cyber attack methods. Who are the cyber attackers?

This just in: Cyber criminals are planting chips in electric irons and kettles to launch spam attacks.  A Russian TV channel had footage of an iron being opened up to reveal a “spy chip” with a small microphone that could … Continue reading

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Cyber Attacks an unprecedented threat to U.S. National Security

Preface. This post contains extracts from 3 congressional hearings in the House of representatives session on cyber attacks. Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the … Continue reading

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