Peak Oil equals famine, and soon!

The U.K. Telegraph reports that US investment bank Goldman Sachs believes the advent of peak oil, the diversion of food to fuel, constantly growing population (+70 million people this year alone), and the westernization of the Chinese diet to meat will ensure a crisis in commodities in 12-36 months. Unlike the 60s China has the foreign currency to buy anything it wants on the open market and they will not be denied their chance to become decedent pigs like us.


Something is going to break and the current food inflation sweeping the world is going to become much worse as shortages enter the market. World wheat and corn stockpiles have been shrinking, prices going up and supply will move away from poor countries to the rich, it would appear the 3rd horsemen will soon be upon us.



This would be a good time to remind people to read the book Peak Everything by Richard HeinbergRecommend this Post

A Disney haters adventure to the tragic Kingdom, opps, Magic Kingdom

Before anyone bitches at me I have resigned myself to some form of environmental penance for the carbon food print I must have made in this seven day period, how I will do penance for supporting child labour and sweat shops I do not know.

Now I don’t want to be totally negative so I’ll go through the entire trip and try to be objective.

The airport limo van was quick, efficient, took 5 of us and another couple to the airport in 1 trip. A limo also saved me the risk of leaving my ten year old van that will no longer lock and needs air in the tires weekly at the airport.

Toronto airport had nasty line-ups at check in and then West Jet screwed up by not puttin our 22 month old (who had no seat) on our boarding passes, customs and security were equally slow. They say you should get there 3 hours early and you really do need that much time.

I was quite amazed that my spun stainless steel drink bottle in my knapsack was not hand searched, but of course the security guy was far to busy racially profiling the swarthy fellow in front of me. Had I been profiling I don’t think I would have picked this guy, no accent, a t-shirt with a picture on it, gold ring and chain, designer jeans, and my guess would have placed him as Indian or Guyanese and quite secular.

I would suggest you warn children about the security checks so they don’t flip out when their luggage containing Elmo gets thrown into the x-ray, being asked to take off his shoes was also a bit of an issue for one of my little folks.

The West jet flight was cramped but extremely kid friendly with Tree House available on the seat TVs and they provided juice, cookies, and Bits and Bites in large enough quantities to keep all the wee ones one the plane happy and quiet.

Orlando’s airport was much more efficient than Toronto’s but they certainly start the trip to Disney on the expected consumerism roller coaster by placing shopping conveniently between you and your plane or bus. My first fussing child incident was when the 3 year old would not leave the NASA store because he wanted to visit rover and space man more.

U.S. security people were not at all pleasant like most of the other droids at the airport; also don’t eat in any airport. You are captive and they know it!

The Shuttle bus to Disney was clean and quick and was my first experience with the endless piped in music and non stop Disney Propaganda that I was inundated with for 7 continuous days. The only reasonably nice way of traveling between the resorts and the various parks within Disney was the network of fairies. You get to putt along on a lake, enjoy the scenery, see wildlife and be free from the music. If it had not been for my obligation to help with the kids I could have ridden the boats all day or rented a party barge, anchor in the middle of the lake, read for 7 days, fish and enjoy a few bottles of Samuel Adams.

The Wilderness Lodge was quite nice having pools, beach, gym, nice rooms and even H2O soaps and shampoo, but with most of their accomdations you find yourself 15 minutes away by bus or boat (plus waiting time) from other hotels or parks in Disney. This isolation gives you two choices for eating at your hotel; expensive sit down restaurants or the cafeteria type set up where you can enjoy burgers and chicken fingers for the entire week, yum. Yet again the halls, lobby, elevator etc had endless Disney musak, between the noisey bustle the music and the water features by older boy had a noise tolerance of about 10 minutes in the lobby before he started cowaring and covering his ears.

One thing that bugged me all week was despite the availability of internet access in your room(provided you brought your laptop)there was not a single internet cafe or kiosk anywhere in Disney. After all the kids crashed early and I could only stand so much lou Dobbs so it would have been nice to check my mail and post daily on the nightmare I was living.

We tried to eat most breakfasts and some lunches in our rooms for frugalness sake and just to maintain some sense of normalcy for our kids. It was impossible to do any real food shopping at the hotel store, $4 dollar bread, milk, Rice o’Roni and some other crap that would not enpower you to build a decent balanced meal. Wrong or dishonest instructions led to a 31/2 hour trip for groceries and of course Disney buses will never delivery you anywhere where you might spend some of their rightfully claimed money some place else.

I had a number of issues with the food both at the hotel and in the park.

Price- honestly I don’t need a $20 all you eat buffet for lunch, and I sure as hell don’t expect to pay $11 for the same meal for a 3 year old who will want 5 fries, a pickle, maybe a piece of fruit or cheese. If my kids were really hungry a fully eaten peanut butter and honey sandwich is considered a coup in our house. Fast food was rampant yet decent fast food like burritos, wraps, simple sandwiches were not present.

Selection- with the exception of the sit down places in Epcot the selection sucked. Each area in each park had the same shit at the same outrageous prices.

Nutritional Balance- would it hurt to put some fucking vegetables on the plate. We went to two diner theatre type shows, a Polynesian and a vaudeville/hillbilly kinda show, in both cases 2 meats, 2 starches, and no veggies. While both did have a salad I’m just not use to having the majority of my meals 90% meat and starch and certainly not for a week. They should have had an onsite colonic spa!

Once you get into the various parks you quickly see the quality employment opportunities for seniors who can’t make ends meet, students too stunned to stay in school, glassy eyed people obviously too medicated to realize they are in living hell, and a variety of people who have been kept out of group homes and various other institutions where they could be doing something more productive like weaving baskets.

Yes there was seemingly normal types working for Disney but as one dated anti Disney web site says seems about right

• Young and pretty workers get jobs where they will interact a lot with the customers;
• Older women sell things in the stores;
• Older men work in security;
• Haitian women work in housekeeping;
• Young people from Puerto Rico work in food services and preparation;
• African Americans work as cooks, stewards and in food preparation;
• Anyone who might seem less 'presentable' works on the night shift, from 11pm - 7am.
If the numbers of shambling mouth breathers I saw in the day time were any indication the night crew must be quite something.

Safety. I had to notice that even on crappy carnie rides in Canada they check every single person to make sure they properly secured, belts on , hands in etc. Not at Disney, you loaded yourself, restrained yourself and no one checked. You have to wonder at that point if their maintenance is that shabby?

The People,
It was not just some of the staff that appeared marginally defective; my wife was asked by another guest in the animal park what kind of animal the Gorilla was, she had kids and they did not know either.

We saw one couple planning their Disney wedding who would have been much better served by buying a set of teeth they could have shared.

The number of his and her scooters being used by people who only appeared to be in their forties was bizarre, Yes we saw young men with prosthetics and scooters which we can all understand and sympathize with but the number of people who appeared to have no issues but their weight driving scooters was large.

Consumerism,

It’s amazing what they will charge you for in Disney, a 5X7 of your kid with Mickey is $12, to get pictures burned to a CD $150. $10 ballons, T-shirts, Mugs, no matter what you pick are all 2 or 3 times the price of a non branded equivalent outside the parks. I also know an accountant who worked for the copy write police at Disney and they were bastards, but that a different story.

I particularly hated rides that emptied out into yet another gift shop. I have to admit the kids were really quite good and asked for very little. I think they were just too over whelmed with the noise and bustle to even focus on the abundance of crap that was being flogged. I could not believe some of shit people were buying; I mean what grown adult needs Mickey ears, big puffy Mickey hands, a 2 foot tall American flag plush top hat? The assortment was immense and the utility of many of the items was nil.

In the end we got a few shirts for the kids and beach towels/postcards as something they would not grow out of and would be able to keep for years. For me I settled for a piece of pottery shaped like an Olmec head from Epcot Mexico, to go with my collection of Native and fake pre Columbian art.



Would I go again? Not if I could help it

Is Disney the greatest place on Earth? Not even close.

Should an asteroid be nudged into a collision course? Hell yesRecommend this Post

Wallowing

Once in a while a week comes along where the stars align, and not in a good way, leaving GAB in a major league funk. Since there is nothing I can do to shake this in a timely manner, I may as well embrace it and have a good emotional wallow

That in mind I spend the morning at work, (sshhh, don’t tell) surfing youtube for some old songs, so if anyone is up to indulge, enjoy.

P.S. my selections will most certainly date me and where the hell is all the old Canadiana on youtube.


















Recommend this Post

Harper to create new Ministries

While not yet announced, my inside sources (inside my head) tell me that PMSH is on the verge of creating two new ministries to deal with all the confusion over the Afghan prisoners who may or may not be (yeah right) tortured by our Afghan allies, and other issues like those pesky little government climate scientists who think they have the right to speak on science without the permission of John Baird who holds a BA in Political studies.



Of course since the Harper caucus is so thin on talent and the Ministry of cloning Harper has so far failed in creating anything sentient (Garbage in Garbage out) two new Senators have been named and promoted to cabinet in preparation of the two new Ministries.




The portfolios will be called the Ministry of Secrecy headed up by none other than Boris Badenov, who will oversee the collection and destruction of any information the government wants to keep secret

and


The Ministry of Make Believe run by Barney who will oversee the creation of numerous fantastic songs and stories to cloud the sanity and concentration of rational citizens who might question why our lakes don't freeze anymore. Why we are having summer long droughts? Why Venice, Bangladesh, and Conservative polling results are sinking?

The first action by these new minstries is expected to be an all paid junket for Environment Canada Scientists where they can discuss climate change with the governor of Kandahar. Opposition MPs are also welcome.

In addition to these new Ministries it will also be announce all subsequent Senators will be elected by a highly qualified panel of Oil company executives and Republican Party insiders.

In unrelated news Karl Rove has been granted Canadian citizenship.Recommend this Post

U.S. Droughts proven man made

The New Scientist reports on a new study that shows the recent droughts plaguing the western U.S. cannot be attributed to random weather variations but rather are 60%the result of warming caused by humans.

The study also says this condition can be expected to persist and will continue to impact reservoirs levels like Lake Mead's which is already at a 40 year low.

This is just more proof that action must be taken on global warming but just as importantly action on water conservation must be accelerated considering growing populations and thirsty agriculture in the west.

For Canadians it's another wake up call to protect our water rights and fight any plans for bulk water exports or diversions to the U.S. Under Nafta once we allow it we can never change our minds. Even better let's get the hell out of Nafta so we can keep our water and oil for domestic consumption.Recommend this Post

Stimulate this Bernanke!

What the hell are they thinking in Washington? They currently have over $9 trillion in debt, $56 Trillion in unfunded liabilities, are fighting a war funded with Capitol One credit cards and they think it’s a smart thing to throw together a $145 billion stimulus package to encourage the consumer to spend.

Don’t they realize that being reliant on over exuberant consumer spending is what has created the monster of consumer debt in the first place. Consumer desire and sense of entitlement has driven the explosion in the average home size, the ownership rate of luxury SUVs that have never seen a dirt road, the proliferation of large screen TVs that still play the same shitty shows they did when TVs were ¼ the price. At least half of America's problem is caused by insane consumer expectation so giving consumers handouts so they can maintain an unsustainable lifestyle for another 1 or 2 months does nothing to solve the real problems.

Now the U.S. does need new spending but diverting valuable tax revenue (oops, sorry) , valuable credit to stoke consumer spending is irresponsible. The U.S. needs new spending on infrastructure such as trains (national and mass transit) and water systems, they need to invest in wind, solar thermal, geothermal and beefing up their electrical distribution network. This kind of spending if tied into domestic content rules will create high quality research and industrial jobs, it would begin to offset some part of the trade deficit associated with the import of energy, it would also move the U.S. closer towards energy independence, making foreign wars less likely and making the U.S. a far better international citizen.

Hell if this was the goal of the stimulus I’d say double or triple it but of course this is not the route they plan on taking, they’d rather give people cash to spend on dinners out, a trip to the local Mall of America and maybe even beer and popcorn;) Some people will obviously save it, pay down debt and a few will buy gold and bury it in the backyard but we all know the U.S. consumption bubble eventually has to deflate, so why extend it?

This $145 billion will be created out of thin air raising inflation and devaluing the value of rational citizen’s savings. Despite Bernanke’s claims that this stimulus package must be temporary in nature it's just window dressing. This package is just the first step towards U.S. hyperinflation, next quarter they will have another program then another until the credit dries up, then it really gets ugly. Yes they should spend on the things I outlined as stimulus but it should come from savings realized by getting the hell out of Iraq, Korea, Germany, Japan, Kuwait,………… and even then they should only spend 1 dollar for every 3 they save or divert.

The Biggest need for stimulus in the U.S. is to get voters off their asses and demand worthy leaders, until that happens it will just get worse.Recommend this Post

I'm in the Wall street Journal , too cool!

As some of you may know I also blog the Canadian Silver Bug a site dedicated to my belief that fiat money is a sham and that money should be either asset backed or actually be made of something of value not just dead trees, ink and hope. I also firmly believe we are heading for a heap-o-pain as the U.S. flounders through a housing, debt, and banking crisis of Weirmark Republic proportions.

The end game I believe is a a world depression with the U.S. suffering hyper inflation allowing my small pile of precious metals to appreciate enough to where I can buy a hobby farm, live out the Long Emergency in relative comfort and have all the relatives and friends that have dissed me working as my share croppers. (yes I'm slightly bitter and vindictive)

Now I'm sure none of you really give a rats ass about any of the above, so I'll tell you the cool thing, Today the Wall Street Journal actually linked to one of my articles relating to citigroup bail outs the danger posed by inaccurate rating agencies and nearly bankrupt bond insurers. While they did not delve into this topic, the mere act of linking to me gives me some hope that I'm not just wasting my time. When you see the future I see it and your a Green as well, hope is a valuable commodity.

PS. The Canadian Silver Bug is nominated for best business/finance blog.

friday morning 7:50

Damn they buried the link, oh well I was someone for 12 hoursRecommend this Post