Last Lap for Bretton Woods

[fogger]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Will our C02 emissions eventually cause a problem? Yes, of course. Is the ecosystem going to implode in your grandchildren's lifetime? No.

Everything we know is going to be redefined in the next 30-50 years:
money
govt
hierarchical structures
societal organization
consciousness
human

C02 is the least of our problems.

[bart]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Professor Wheeler's research of climate cycles:
http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/wheeler.html

[Guest]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Will our C02 emissions eventually cause a problem? Yes, of course. Is the ecosystem going to implode in your grandchildren's lifetime? No. C02 is the least of our problems.

Fogger - I would suggest you think about it with a little more altruism. I suggest you keep your eyes firmly upon the price of grains and the food complex in the next decade, to see how accurate your assessment will be. They are already leaping, and anyone telling you this is due to primarily to currency debasement is not giving you the whole story.

If you have discretionary income to re-route to doubling your cash allocation to feeding yourself and your family you are more fortunate than 50% - 60% of the global population. Are you then being a good sport to take the risk of the "other 50%" so cavalierly?

Look elsewhere, toward groups for whom the food budget comprises 50% - 60% of their income (hint - they are very many). You may come to reassess the importance of CO2 as a factor, relative to your (our) quite narrow economic class firstly, and secondarily recognise that 50%++ of the world population does not have anything remotely like your discretionary income to act as a shock absorber if food costs soar much higher this decade - which I am here to assure you, due to the future soaring price of petroleum derived fertilizer and soil erosion - they most certainly will.

Global deserts are growing apace, arable land is diminshing apace, global population is cruising from 6.5 billion to 7.5 billion by mid-century, deforestation is reducing an irreplaceable old growth forest in a land mass equivalent to the State of Texas yearly from the world, while you profess serene confidence? Allow me to suggest your comment is entirely too glib on your grandchildren's behalf, if nothing else.

Are you aware there are food price riots occurring scattered around the world already, and do you stop to note why those food prices are beginning to soar uncontrollably at the present time? Food inflation is starting to soar all over the world - and contrary to the very popular view on these pages, it's NOT primarily due to currencies.

This is called "situational awareness" in the global context. These people, on the other side of the discretionary food budget barrier from you and I, would be highly appreciative of your increased "situational awareness" of these issues. They would doubtless much prefer you and I were part of any eventual "die off" due to soaring food costs and insufficient global food production rather than that they should go down obligingly for us.

And yes, as outlandish as "die off" sounds, take note that the present world's population has exploded precisely due to cheap petroleum in farming, and just as the global population wanting something more than a subsistence dieat is exploding, the availability of larger amounts of petroleum to expand food production is faltering.

Why the soaring cost of food production? Look for the redirection of corn to ethanol, the soaring cost of fertilizer, the rise of 3 billion people who want the same varied diet you and I consider our birthright. Hell, you need only look at the soaring price of food itself, up 20% - 30% across the board in most Western countries in one year alone. CO2 is one part of the equation bearing in on us - but a good subset of components in all that other supposedly "trendy" eco-stuff that sets so many people's teeth on edge is actually bearing down on us too (it's called limit's to growth, and it's about to slam into us in a big way), and is inextricably tied up with those "pesky soaring food prices" at the supermarket.

So needless to say, if the tables were turned and it was you and I who's food security was actively threatened here, we'd suddenly discover a good deal more lively a concern, no? You don't have to go far to discover these people Fogger - just take a trip down to Chiapas state, in Mexico, and you'll find a good representative group of the millions in this predicament all over your world.

Now broaden the focus a bit elsewhere - a mere 2-4 degree change in global mean temperatures will wipe out tens of thousands of species. Another symptom - half the world's coral beds are dying already - with entire ecosystems of rich aquatic life which exist only around coral reefs dying with them. This is not Sierra Club chit-chat - it's actually well along in it's trend already, (for those with a scrap of conscience for their grandchildren's inheritance who wish to look).

Further - I've read a third of the old growth forest in some parts of Canada are already dead trees, due to the encroachment of a beetle which never existed at these latitudes prior to the warming of the past half dozen years, and we apparently are just getting started? The trees die off because they never encountered this beetle at that latitude before. This is highly significant to some of us, but maybe not worth more than a yawn to others.

Curious, how such large damage proceeds from so slight a temperature change, or other variables which can easily tip the scales into hundreds of millions sliding towards food hardship (the euphemism for "starving") due to a mere slowdown in the formerly robust rate of petroleum production growth. Where then do you derive your serene convictions that this will not do real damage to the ecosystem in your grandchildren's lifetimes?

From what I've read, it will do (is doing!) considerable damage within your own lifetime. Are you really confdent you are being as good a steward of your grandchildren's inheritance as you presently believe?

I can imagine, if your family encounter steeply rising insurance costs, or commuting costs, or the cost of health coverage, or schooling for your kids - you'll spend an evening at the kitchen table discussing it seriously with your spouse? What gives you the assurance then to assume that similar soaring costs in mere food prices, (that inert, low tech stuff we consider the least threatening of our survival worries), does not have the power to be utterly devastating to people who have nothing in the world and who's great majority of earnings go merely towards buying enough food to stay alive? They who don't own a single scrap of all the stuff you buy and pay for monthly on an installment plan - but they spend 60% of their income just to feed their families. You think CO2, and it's (apparently still hotly disputed here) potential to influence the price of the food they buy is an issue they take as lightly as you do?

[c1ue]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

I have only this observation on your responses to date on this topic - your elaborate professed lack of curiosity. You've acknowledged elsewhere on this forum, that you were buying a big chunk of land in the Siberian tundra on the thesis it will thaw, and provide you good farmland and a big jump in valuation consequently.

Lukester,

I never said I was buying Siberian land - I was just joking ;), I said if you truly believed in global warming, that you should buy Siberian land as that is the one region likely to become productive farmland in a global warming scenario.

As for lack of curiosity, I'm not sure how my examination of global warming theories and hype to date qualifies.

I monitor the global warming racket just as I do a number of others - maybe the thesis will pan out, but then again maybe not.

[Guest]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Uh huh. Whatever you say C1ue. S'aright.

I never said I was buying Siberian land - I was just joking ... I monitor the global warming racket just as I do a number of others.

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

As I seem to be the starting point for a furious debate back and forth about the merits of global warming, I feel I should intercede with Cold Hard Facts and let them talk for themselves. So, do not take my word for anything. Look at the reality which is that the Arctic ice melt is accelerating way beyond anything forecast. I am not sure that I will be able to find the other recent films of some guys larking around with Methane that is now suddenly bubbling up under new surface ice over the previous years UNFROZEN perma frost. They dig a hole down to the bubbles and set light to the gas, providing a very startling "whoosh!" of flame about 10 feet high.....

I tell you what I SEE.... ice is melting many times faster than ANY previous prediction, by ANYONE. Period.

A global warning for UN chief : Polar experts fear an ice sheet covering a fifth of Antarctica could crumble causing sea levels to rise by six metres http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...MC-Bltn=EFKCF4

There has been a lot of news about arctic ice. This seems the best report as it is by the very people at the heart of the problem. http://www.canada.com/edmontonjourna...21430f&k=24062

More on Arctic Ice http://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/newsroom...ory.php?id=804

This is a very large web page and you need to go nearly to the bottom to get at a continuous video of the loss of the ice from 1995 to 2007.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_sea...810_index.html

Also, Geophysical Research Letters announced a major report on Arctic Ice 4th October. http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/200...GL031138.shtml

BBC science and environment correspondent David Shukman joined the Canadian Coast Guard research vessel, the Amundsen, as it attempted to make a crossing of the Northwest Passage. Record summer melting of the sea-ice made this famous waterway that connects the Atlantic with the Pacific fully navigable this year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7033831.stm

These are NOT predictions or opinions, they are the reports of the facts. The Northwest Passage was open this year. 1 million Sq Kms of ice were lost this year. Methane is bubbling up all over the vast arctic areas where perma frost was completely frozen all year around until 2001/2 since when it has now been covered by water for the last five summers. So, in my humble opinion, stop thinking it won't happen, even to your grandchildren and start to accept, it might happen within our lifetimes. Within the next decade.

[Guest]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Chris -

You wrote:

<< The Northwest Passage was open this year. 1 million Sq Kms of ice were lost this year. Methane is bubbling up all over the vast arctic areas where perma frost was completely frozen all year around until 2001/2 since when it has now been covered by water for the last five summers. >>

You are wasting your efforts putting this data forward for consideration here - C1ue will advise you (with a commiserating smile), that you are "jumping to conclusions". Every train must have a Caboose - that's the part that comes clicking across the tracks at the brow of the hill, after the engine and forward cars are already traveling across the bottom of the next valley.

[c1ue]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Once again, is it hype or is it scientific reality?

A good candidate for the last previous opening of the Northwest Passage was the period 5,000-7,000 years ago, when the Earth's orbital variations brought more sunlight to the Arctic in summer than at present. Prior to that, the Passage was probably open during the last inter-glacial period, 120,000 years ago. Temperatures then were 2-3 degrees Centigrade higher than present-day temperatures, and sea levels were 4-6 meters higher.

There it is again, the sun and the earth's orbital tilt.

Yes, the Northwest Passage is open for the first time European recorded history (Eskimos don't have calendars). But that is best case only 500 years to draw on - a lot of time if human intervention scales are at question, but not a lot of time in solar/earth orbital terms.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200710

Lest you think Dr. Masters is a Republican plant:

Jeffrey Masters, Ph.D.

Director of Meteorology
Jeff Masters grew up in suburban Detroit, and attended the University of Michigan, where he received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Meteorology in 1982 and 1983, respectively. While working on his Masters degree, he participated in field programs studying acid rain in the Northeast U.S. and air pollution in the Detroit area.

[metalman]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Lukester,

I never said I was buying Siberian land - I was just joking ;), I said if you truly believed in global warming, that you should buy Siberian land as that is the one region likely to become productive farmland in a global warming scenario.

As for lack of curiosity, I'm not sure how my examination of global warming theories and hype to date qualifies.

I monitor the global warming racket just as I do a number of others - maybe the thesis will pan out, but then again maybe not.

i still think a guy's gotta choose: either global warming or peak oil. you can't have both disasters. pick one.

[zoog]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

i still think a guy's gotta choose: either global warming or peak oil. you can't have both disasters. pick one.

Oh I dunno. Maybe global warming is melting the oil away. Two for one special.:eek::rolleyes:;)

[Chris Coles]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

i still think a guy's gotta choose: either global warming or peak oil. you can't have both disasters. pick one.

I am tempted to apologise for this, but you have got them both in my humble opinion.

Lukester, that bit about the Caboose.... great! Nice to have a smile on my face so early in the morning.;)

[Andreuccio]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

As for the government of Dubai, I think the term is, "if you got the money, who's to tell you where you must spend it"? Personally I would be really distressed to see Venice (Italy) vanish under the waves. A billion dollar glam hotel / condo project in the Arabian Gulf, built a mere decade prior, I can't promise I'd sorely miss. Of course, it's not my money went into building it.

[ Zoog - looks like our posts crossed each other in the "internet ether", and both reference Venice. You aptly mention the mammoth budget project to set up two "tidal gates" at the entrance to Venice harbor to protect it from both rising seas, and the fact that Venices is sinking. Anyone curious to see Venice should plan to go in the next five to ten years max, because I really think we will lose this city. One of the most truly stunning, dreamlike places in the world to see. ]

Tragic. (Venice sinking, not necessarily the Dubai hotel project.)

I lived in Venice for a year. It really was magical. It even snowed once that year. I don't imagine it's likely that'll be happening there again in the near future.

[akrowne]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

Thank you for posting that JK; I think you took care of my major comments on the initial article (which was excellent, despite my quibbles).

I don't actually consider it a handicap that the Eurozone lacks a single Treasury; in fact I consider that an advantage -- akin to the 19th century free banking period in the US. Yes, your Euro-bond issuer (country) could fail, but the answer to that is not invest in (financially) stupid countries.

The US is proving right now, in blatant obviousness, that unifying the banking system behind a currency zone -- when the political bloc in charge becomes deeply mismanaged (which may be inevitable) -- is not going to lead to more secure returns for investors (especially not outside ones). Even if there is no formal default, there is the "inflation default". Over-strained is over-strained.

A corollary to the above analysis is that the collapse of some parts of the banking system in a free banking environment doesn't tend to weaken the currency in the long term. The 19th century US saw a gradually strengthening currency, not weakening, despite periodic waves of bank failures, and even two defunct central banks.

So let Spain fail; whatever. I'll be holding German bunds (well, not really -- but I wouldn't be too worried if I was). The Euro may take a hit, but cash will rally domestically, my bunds will rally, and the hit to the Euro exchange rate isn't likely to be lasting either.

I wanted to riff on your point #5 as well (assuming you mean the United States). I wonder how many people realize that, given how bogus the GDP is as an absolute metric, just how ominous the public debt is. It is close to $12 trillion including both Federal and non-Federal, whereas national income is more like $6 or $7 trillion.

Taking the more optimistic number, and assuming we could somehow put 10% of the national income per year towards paying it down (and ignoring private debt held by foreigners), that is 17 years to full payoff.

More likely, we can't afford that 10% tithe, so we'll just inflate by that amount.

Hmm, 17 years of 10% inflation reduces the value of today's dollar to 16 cents.

I realize the above isn't very scientific, but it is certainly suggestive, and probably in the right direction (unfortunately).

[akrowne]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

A possible explanation is that Italy is not a world class power.

Or more directly: Italy isn't the backer of the world's (ailing) reserve currency. The US's problems per se matter more, because it has so much more to lose.

Also, ominously (see my earlier post), the US public debt already (close to) meets the 100% GDP ratio when one gets past the multi-level-government counting distractions. Then there's the fact that the US additionally has tons of private debt. Then there's the fact that the US GDP is heavily distorted upwards -- could Italy possibly be lying as much as the US? (My guess is there is some level of Eurozone auditing of such vital stats -- does anyone know for sure?) Then there's the off-balance sheet promissary debt, $55 trillion+ and so forth (no one else's health care system is as screwed up as the US's, hence ballooning the cost of medicare).

I wonder how much of Italy's public debt is owned by foreign creditors? Such debt is a much higher risk than domestic, since domestic investors cannot flee inflation. I suspect the US is in a far worse position (obviously, it is in a bad one, per se).

[jk]

Re: Last Lap for Bretton Woods

welcome back, aaron. it's good to see you posting again.

it's interesting to contemplate the euro and the ecb's position. the ecb has only 1 mandate: price stability. but the political pressures can only grow.

airbus' deteriorating competitive position is indicative of the situation of all european manufacturers of internationally traded goods. the caveat is to keep in mind that some of the manufacturing may have been offshored from europe to asia or the americas. [witness european automakers' plants in the u.s.] but politically, the degree to which e.g. bmw is insulated from the euro by virtue of doing some of its manufacturing the u.s., is also the the degree to which it is not maintaining employement in the e.u.

if the u.s. enters recession, i don't see how europe can avoid following. if the ecb stays with its mandate, europe's recession may well be worse than the u.s.'s. i think the ecb will eventually pay attention to europe's gdp more than europe's cpi. and when the ecb finally caves to political pressure, i would think that gold will take off like a scalded [yellow] dog.

does this mean that gold and german bunds are the perfect hedge?