When Governments Do Truly STUPID Things....

Doc7505

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When Governments Do Truly STUPID Things....
They tend to collapse spectacularly and the "powers that be" almost-never survive politically -- and frequently physically.
10 Jul 2022 ~~ By Karl Denninger
Sri Lanka is the latest example; they are literally bankrupt, having bought into the "green" thing and then... oops. The root causes were many, but chief among them were overspending and a commitment to "green" farming practices, which decimated crop yields, spiked prices and then of course here comes higher oil costs. The combination proved fatal to the economy.
"The rich" are being literally chased down and slaughtered, with "rich" being defined as "has something, when we have nothing." The President fled the nation and, at least report, the Presidential home has been stormed by protestors.
As they say.... oops.
Oops.
~Snip~
The Ukraine/Russia dust-up also ruined another serious exporter of food, Ukraine to be specific. The land there is well-suited to agriculture and thus they've been one of the largest exporters of same. Not anymore; a nation at war on their own soil has problems, obviously, with managing to produce and export anything. This risks famine in multiple parts of the world, such as Africa for instance.
Once again.... oops.
We, in the US, thought it would be wise to not only play in the Russia/Ukraine sandbox but worse, try to mitigate the impact on oil and gas prices here using the SPR after we also decided to try to backstop European oil and gas supplies. That was stupid all the way around and the people responsible should be asset-stripped to their underwear and thrown in prison -- the SPR exists for the possibility of an external cut-off of oil supplies, such as was threatened and partially done during the Arab Oil Embargo. Biden not only abused that for our voluntary involvement in Ukraine his energy department let some of it go not to US motorists and industry but rather be exported to China. Maybe someone can explain to this blogger and the rest of the United States how exporting oil from our strategic reserves can or does benefit the extreme inflation in fuel costs right here at home, never mind that the SPR will be basically depleted and will have less than a half-million barrels remaining in it (Ed: The source above did the math wrong; its not gone, but is significantly dented) out of an authorized 714 million. Incidentally the US consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day to keep our economy functioning, so the current stockpile is good for about.... a half-hour. The SPR was only about a third full when Biden took office and he has basically blown all of what remained for no net benefit to the United States. If we do have an event occur, whether natural (e.g. a hurricane -- you know, those spinny things that show up from time to time during this particular time of year?) or man-made (war, economic or otherwise) where we need it we don't have it. It's gone. At the same time the Biden Administration has shut down capacity build in all respects (Keystone, leases and more) and by taking those actions ruined people's investments while bribing them to convert to things like "biofuel" production. Now we're short and there's no reason for anyone to invest in fossil fuel production and transport because this and any future administration can screw them one again with nothing more than a pen and a phone, not even bothering to go through Congress. This is not fixable in a few weeks or months folks, and I remind you that without diesel you literally have nothing in the store because you must have it for the truck to get to said store.

~Snip~
Time preference is a huge part of economic activity folks. Simply put time preference is why you labor beyond subsistence; you wish to have something either now or tomorrow so you put in more than bare subsistence in effort in order to have it by saving part of what you produce to spend tomorrow. When confidence that you will have and keep that it is destroyed so is your willingness to put forward said effort. When productivity is destroyed then credit creation is doubly inflationary because the MV = PQ is not a suggestion -- it is the basic monetary and economic law, unlike the laws our Congress and government break every this one is mathematical thus and cannot be violated any more than 2 + 2 will ever equal anything other than 4 and "Q" is directly ratable with productivity.
No President, no King and no Congress can change this.
They can only change their actions that either promote or damage the above.


Commentary:
The news from Sri Lanka is encouraging. Chasing the elites and rich down the street to kill them for destroying a country? There is a “not-so-subtle message” in there for ALL the world’s leaders.
People get pretty worked up when they are starving and/or freezing to death in winter.
Authoritarian responses can dampen down moderate levels of unrest--in Canada the truckers are still seething but their immediate protest diminished when Trudeau went hobnailed boot on them. I'm expecting that in the Netherlands (the boot, not necessarily its success--I hope not on the latter).
Apparently, there is a sudden boom in demand for wood stoves in Germany.
It seems many in this modern world don’t find living life as in the 18th or 19th centuries particularly appealing.
Communists and their ideology hate everything about the capitalist free market. They hate the individual. They loathe people having the freedom to thrive and live independent of the central planners.
Communists want to destroy capital. They have floundered and failed for decades at doing this but no longer. Under the lie of sustainability, they are blocking investment in fossil fuels and closing supply chain routes, they're now blocking the opportunity for capitalists to realize a return on farming.
These mechanisms alone will make food production more expensive and scarcer.
The world is soon facing famine. Global economy is about to fold. Folks better have food and ammo on their shelves and wood in their sheds to cook and warm themselves. it is about to get real.
 
When Governments Do Truly STUPID Things....
They tend to collapse spectacularly and the "powers that be" almost-never survive politically -- and frequently physically.
10 Jul 2022 ~~ By Karl Denninger
Sri Lanka is the latest example; they are literally bankrupt, having bought into the "green" thing and then... oops. The root causes were many, but chief among them were overspending and a commitment to "green" farming practices, which decimated crop yields, spiked prices and then of course here comes higher oil costs. The combination proved fatal to the economy.
"The rich" are being literally chased down and slaughtered, with "rich" being defined as "has something, when we have nothing." The President fled the nation and, at least report, the Presidential home has been stormed by protestors.
As they say.... oops.
Oops.
~Snip~
The Ukraine/Russia dust-up also ruined another serious exporter of food, Ukraine to be specific. The land there is well-suited to agriculture and thus they've been one of the largest exporters of same. Not anymore; a nation at war on their own soil has problems, obviously, with managing to produce and export anything. This risks famine in multiple parts of the world, such as Africa for instance.
Once again.... oops.
We, in the US, thought it would be wise to not only play in the Russia/Ukraine sandbox but worse, try to mitigate the impact on oil and gas prices here using the SPR after we also decided to try to backstop European oil and gas supplies. That was stupid all the way around and the people responsible should be asset-stripped to their underwear and thrown in prison -- the SPR exists for the possibility of an external cut-off of oil supplies, such as was threatened and partially done during the Arab Oil Embargo. Biden not only abused that for our voluntary involvement in Ukraine his energy department let some of it go not to US motorists and industry but rather be exported to China. Maybe someone can explain to this blogger and the rest of the United States how exporting oil from our strategic reserves can or does benefit the extreme inflation in fuel costs right here at home, never mind that the SPR will be basically depleted and will have less than a half-million barrels remaining in it (Ed: The source above did the math wrong; its not gone, but is significantly dented) out of an authorized 714 million. Incidentally the US consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day to keep our economy functioning, so the current stockpile is good for about.... a half-hour. The SPR was only about a third full when Biden took office and he has basically blown all of what remained for no net benefit to the United States. If we do have an event occur, whether natural (e.g. a hurricane -- you know, those spinny things that show up from time to time during this particular time of year?) or man-made (war, economic or otherwise) where we need it we don't have it. It's gone. At the same time the Biden Administration has shut down capacity build in all respects (Keystone, leases and more) and by taking those actions ruined people's investments while bribing them to convert to things like "biofuel" production. Now we're short and there's no reason for anyone to invest in fossil fuel production and transport because this and any future administration can screw them one again with nothing more than a pen and a phone, not even bothering to go through Congress. This is not fixable in a few weeks or months folks, and I remind you that without diesel you literally have nothing in the store because you must have it for the truck to get to said store.

~Snip~
Time preference is a huge part of economic activity folks. Simply put time preference is why you labor beyond subsistence; you wish to have something either now or tomorrow so you put in more than bare subsistence in effort in order to have it by saving part of what you produce to spend tomorrow. When confidence that you will have and keep that it is destroyed so is your willingness to put forward said effort. When productivity is destroyed then credit creation is doubly inflationary because the MV = PQ is not a suggestion -- it is the basic monetary and economic law, unlike the laws our Congress and government break every this one is mathematical thus and cannot be violated any more than 2 + 2 will ever equal anything other than 4 and "Q" is directly ratable with productivity.
No President, no King and no Congress can change this.
They can only change their actions that either promote or damage the above.


Commentary:
The news from Sri Lanka is encouraging. Chasing the elites and rich down the street to kill them for destroying a country? There is a “not-so-subtle message” in there for ALL the world’s leaders.
People get pretty worked up when they are starving and/or freezing to death in winter.
Authoritarian responses can dampen down moderate levels of unrest--in Canada the truckers are still seething but their immediate protest diminished when Trudeau went hobnailed boot on them. I'm expecting that in the Netherlands (the boot, not necessarily its success--I hope not on the latter).
Apparently, there is a sudden boom in demand for wood stoves in Germany.
It seems many in this modern world don’t find living life as in the 18th or 19th centuries particularly appealing.
Communists and their ideology hate everything about the capitalist free market. They hate the individual. They loathe people having the freedom to thrive and live independent of the central planners.
Communists want to destroy capital. They have floundered and failed for decades at doing this but no longer. Under the lie of sustainability, they are blocking investment in fossil fuels and closing supply chain routes, they're now blocking the opportunity for capitalists to realize a return on farming.
These mechanisms alone will make food production more expensive and scarcer.
The world is soon facing famine. Global economy is about to fold. Folks better have food and ammo on their shelves and wood in their sheds to cook and warm themselves. it is about to get real.
A conservative is to blame
 

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