…There’s a lot more, including a fascinating segment about the early 20th Century Technocracy movement that Elon Musk’s grandfather was a part of, and reflections on the UK’s December report on ecosystem collapse.
“Finance can and did stretch reality for a while, and politics can in turn delay recognition for a while, but neither can repel energy costs, material limits, or ecological feedbacks.”
I could quote the whole episode but instead, have a listen:
…and adapt expectations accordingly
…I thought of the above episode while watching Starmer on the news, at the lectern today with Takaichi.
Here’s a relevant lightly edited excerpt:
1/3
“Japan is a country that has run on increasing its financial claims on reality for a long time… held together for decades by low yields, converting natural resources into exportable tech, central bank interventions, associated credibility and a shared belief that the plumbing will continue to work at this top level of the biophysical pyramid…
2/3
…“Japanese government bond yields have been pushing higher [and when] they start spiking as they are now, it matters not because Japan is about to blow up tomorrow, but because the entire modern system is built on the assumption that debt can be carried cheaply and continually rolled forward, smoothly…
3/3
…“Higher yields are gonna be biophysical gravity reasserting itself because they increase the cost of serving an already large stock of obligations. They pressure [Japanese] government budgets and they force investors to reprice risk across portfolios that were built for a much different interest rate regime.”
…To come back to Starmer trying to do his bit to glue Anglo-Japanese relations. Trouble is his entire economics is BS. He and Takaichi seem peas in a pod in that respect. It cannot possibly hold. At some point it won’t
…In a month-old JP Morgan report they show that, at $80, silver is 30% of the cost of a solar panel.
At yesterday’s $115, silver is 45 to 50% of the cost”
“The March silver contract alone… is almost double the amount of the actual silver in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange warehouse.”
”Silver is just a tiny reminder that the energy transition is also a materials transition, and materials are not infinitely substitutable.”
