A very good, comprehensive and scarily realistic view of the potentially terminal vulnerabilities of the Western industrial base.
China has outplayed us, especially America that has spent decades training its best and brightest to become stock market gamblers and celebrity lawyers, on the assumption that the rest of the world would always make the dirty stuff on the cheap, and be delighted to sell it to Americans.
May I add some observations:
The first is the similar and parallel situation with energy, which is a key factor in both extracting and processing all of the other materials. As Trump commits America to fossil fuels, the net EROEI is sliding towards zero. Even now, fracking wells are using solar power to run pumps and equipment, just to try to keep the EROEI in positive territory.
At the same time, China is using its remaining coal and imported cheap oil and gas to build it's nuclear and renewable infrastructure, expecting to be out of fossils by 2050. The Chinese renewables prices per kWh are already less than half American electricity prices, and the extra demand from the A.I. Centres will make that worse because of the 7 to 10 year time gap to build more capacity.
This means America simply does not have the energy to take on more processing, and the energy is much more expensive so China can always undercut it on price anyway. In a country like America that leaves all such decisions to the markets, then investors will simply keep their wallets shut!
Lastly, I have seen much comment about recycling old solar panels for the silver. First point is the energy required to remove the panels,transport them to a central point, and process them to recover tiny amounts of silver and process the other waste materials. I would be interesting in the labour and energy cost of this process relative to the value of the silver recovered, especially as American energy costs continue to rise as EROEI declines.
But the second point is this; old solar panels generally continue to produce maybe 60% power for a long time, so the imagined and theoretical cut-off point to replace them with new will not be so clear cut - most people will hold off before the major reinvestment in new panels. And there is the next problem - if you replace old panels with their silver with new panels with their silver, how much net silver do you end up with, and at what energy cost?
Back in 1972 The Club of Rome produced 'The Limits to Growth' on a computer model that must have had the computing power of a modern digital wristwatch. Whilst the model's timing was out, the structure of the resources crisis it indicated was, it seems, very accurate.
The computer program was revisited in 1992 and 2004 with startlingly similar results and a more accurate timeline, that forecast worldwide resource shortages starting......about now!
One last point for Americans; if Trump starts wars as he plans, starting with Venezuela this year, that will fit China's agenda perfectly because American military suppliers will run into their essential materials problems even faster. All Xi has to say is "Stay out of Taiwan or I tun off the tap!" and the humiliation will destroy American credibility.
Then the American military will be training flint-knappers for their future arsenal! 🙂
Perhaps there are no practical solutions, once all the elements are factored in? Perhaps this is what the phrase, 'fait accompli' was designed for?
To be honest, if the ability of America to wage war (especially under Trump) is to be severely curtailed, I suspect the world will be a much safer place.
What an extraordinary article! Breathtaking, though I struggled a bit with the jargon and the abbreviations. I am settled in an opinion that the west will never do anything to deal with the issues this article raised. Here is the problem, in a nutshell……in a so-called free market, why would wall street allocate capital to a copper smelter in the west in order to get a sub 5% return, after a 5/10 year lead-time, when it can instead organise share buy-backs and other arcane financial engineering smoke & mirrors and get a 30% return inside a year. Furthermore, no American Govt is ever going to direct Wall Street investments away from the more profitable option, since those same Govts are bought by the financial lobby, just as they are bought by the MIC, big pharma, big Ag, and big everything else. Game over.
An eye opening piece. Cogent, well structured. In some instances, it makes connections which, in retrospect, are/were hiding in plain sight. Its train of thought is easily followed, making reading a delight. This truly is a must read.
I thought shipping the industrial plant to China and elsewhere was a bad idea thirty years ago, but I was, then and now, unaware of the depth of dependence that this created. This article has given me an outline of the problem and a blueprint for what to do about it. The first two obstacles to be overcome require all but revolutionary change. The economic paradigms have to be rooted out and replaced. The political system needs be taken by the heels to shake out the dry rot and careerism that infests it. An entire generation or two of people, smart and dedicated people, are needed. We had them once.
Excellent article on the short-sightedness of Western economic planning. The West has accentuated wealth creation at the expense of a balanced economy.
The bottom line is the short-sighted, rapacious, megalomaniacs who control the US are only interested in expanding their wealth and power.
Now if these cities never existed, as you state, then why is something like this being published in the official CCP mouthpiece? Is the CCP wrong? I'd be happy with that, but where does it leave you?
The cities certainly exist, but ghost towns and ghost cities are dead. The so-called 'ghost cities' were built in advance, that's all. Now they're all full and thriving.
I like how you provide a link to your own article to prove a statement you make. "It's not really true, look I said so here:". The ghost cities have been open knowledge for years.
I provided a link to my article because a comment would have been too long. But in the article I linked to I did not claim to be an authority. I referred you to people who are specialists in that area, like Wade Shepard.
Methinks the man protests too much! Global Times refers to them as ghost cities, they still exist to this day (albeit tiny pockets of population). They exist because of egregious borrowing and speculation by greedy local governments, enabled by Chinese cultural norms and greed obsessed real estate companies like EverGrande. They are the tip of a demographic iceberg, and China's ageing population is the Titanic.
A very good, comprehensive and scarily realistic view of the potentially terminal vulnerabilities of the Western industrial base.
China has outplayed us, especially America that has spent decades training its best and brightest to become stock market gamblers and celebrity lawyers, on the assumption that the rest of the world would always make the dirty stuff on the cheap, and be delighted to sell it to Americans.
May I add some observations:
The first is the similar and parallel situation with energy, which is a key factor in both extracting and processing all of the other materials. As Trump commits America to fossil fuels, the net EROEI is sliding towards zero. Even now, fracking wells are using solar power to run pumps and equipment, just to try to keep the EROEI in positive territory.
At the same time, China is using its remaining coal and imported cheap oil and gas to build it's nuclear and renewable infrastructure, expecting to be out of fossils by 2050. The Chinese renewables prices per kWh are already less than half American electricity prices, and the extra demand from the A.I. Centres will make that worse because of the 7 to 10 year time gap to build more capacity.
This means America simply does not have the energy to take on more processing, and the energy is much more expensive so China can always undercut it on price anyway. In a country like America that leaves all such decisions to the markets, then investors will simply keep their wallets shut!
Lastly, I have seen much comment about recycling old solar panels for the silver. First point is the energy required to remove the panels,transport them to a central point, and process them to recover tiny amounts of silver and process the other waste materials. I would be interesting in the labour and energy cost of this process relative to the value of the silver recovered, especially as American energy costs continue to rise as EROEI declines.
But the second point is this; old solar panels generally continue to produce maybe 60% power for a long time, so the imagined and theoretical cut-off point to replace them with new will not be so clear cut - most people will hold off before the major reinvestment in new panels. And there is the next problem - if you replace old panels with their silver with new panels with their silver, how much net silver do you end up with, and at what energy cost?
Back in 1972 The Club of Rome produced 'The Limits to Growth' on a computer model that must have had the computing power of a modern digital wristwatch. Whilst the model's timing was out, the structure of the resources crisis it indicated was, it seems, very accurate.
The computer program was revisited in 1992 and 2004 with startlingly similar results and a more accurate timeline, that forecast worldwide resource shortages starting......about now!
One last point for Americans; if Trump starts wars as he plans, starting with Venezuela this year, that will fit China's agenda perfectly because American military suppliers will run into their essential materials problems even faster. All Xi has to say is "Stay out of Taiwan or I tun off the tap!" and the humiliation will destroy American credibility.
Then the American military will be training flint-knappers for their future arsenal! 🙂
Agree 100%. What saddens me is that not 1% of Western leaders understand the situation and none of them has the slightest idea of how to deal with it.
Perhaps there are no practical solutions, once all the elements are factored in? Perhaps this is what the phrase, 'fait accompli' was designed for?
To be honest, if the ability of America to wage war (especially under Trump) is to be severely curtailed, I suspect the world will be a much safer place.
brilliant
What an extraordinary article! Breathtaking, though I struggled a bit with the jargon and the abbreviations. I am settled in an opinion that the west will never do anything to deal with the issues this article raised. Here is the problem, in a nutshell……in a so-called free market, why would wall street allocate capital to a copper smelter in the west in order to get a sub 5% return, after a 5/10 year lead-time, when it can instead organise share buy-backs and other arcane financial engineering smoke & mirrors and get a 30% return inside a year. Furthermore, no American Govt is ever going to direct Wall Street investments away from the more profitable option, since those same Govts are bought by the financial lobby, just as they are bought by the MIC, big pharma, big Ag, and big everything else. Game over.
An eye opening piece. Cogent, well structured. In some instances, it makes connections which, in retrospect, are/were hiding in plain sight. Its train of thought is easily followed, making reading a delight. This truly is a must read.
Eye opening stuff.
I thought shipping the industrial plant to China and elsewhere was a bad idea thirty years ago, but I was, then and now, unaware of the depth of dependence that this created. This article has given me an outline of the problem and a blueprint for what to do about it. The first two obstacles to be overcome require all but revolutionary change. The economic paradigms have to be rooted out and replaced. The political system needs be taken by the heels to shake out the dry rot and careerism that infests it. An entire generation or two of people, smart and dedicated people, are needed. We had them once.
Excellent article on the short-sightedness of Western economic planning. The West has accentuated wealth creation at the expense of a balanced economy.
The bottom line is the short-sighted, rapacious, megalomaniacs who control the US are only interested in expanding their wealth and power.
Financialised your economy, and this is what you get.
Excellent.
https://youtu.be/yNJ0yQqgm4g?si=6_PThinYwCoZOOHp China is an illusion.
The video you linked to, The China Housing Crash: Why The Ghost Cities Are A Warning (The Property Bubble) is pathetically counterfactual. Ghost Cities never existed. See https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/chinas-latest-ghost-town?r=16k
You'll excuse me if I place this here. The Global Times, of all outlets, published this in 2015.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/201504/916007.shtml
Now if these cities never existed, as you state, then why is something like this being published in the official CCP mouthpiece? Is the CCP wrong? I'd be happy with that, but where does it leave you?
The cities certainly exist, but ghost towns and ghost cities are dead. The so-called 'ghost cities' were built in advance, that's all. Now they're all full and thriving.
I like how you provide a link to your own article to prove a statement you make. "It's not really true, look I said so here:". The ghost cities have been open knowledge for years.
I provided a link to my article because a comment would have been too long. But in the article I linked to I did not claim to be an authority. I referred you to people who are specialists in that area, like Wade Shepard.
Who is the subject of the Global Times link I sent.
Wade Shepard, writing ten years ago. Today, there are no ghost (dead) cities and there never were. The term is entirely Western and pure propaganda.
Methinks the man protests too much! Global Times refers to them as ghost cities, they still exist to this day (albeit tiny pockets of population). They exist because of egregious borrowing and speculation by greedy local governments, enabled by Chinese cultural norms and greed obsessed real estate companies like EverGrande. They are the tip of a demographic iceberg, and China's ageing population is the Titanic.