Brenton Thomas

Does Man Cause Climate Change After All?

And Is CO2 The Culprit Or A Symptom?

Old Thor is a dyed in the wool skeptic.  Tell him the sky is blue and he will shake his head, look down his prodigious nose and make you wonder whether the sky isn’t blue after all and perhaps you were imagining things.

Well this climate change hysteria had Thor worried. There is something wrong with the arguments, but he just couldn’t figure it out.  Once the politicians got involved he was sure something was wrong.  Having whole parliaments declare their belief in CO2 driven global warming with the same breath and with the same fervor that they declare their belief in God (if you forgive the profane word) totally tipped him over the edge.

Trouble is he couldn’t come up with a better explanation.

First off it was much worry about the predator prey models for various CO2 absorbing micro organisms, which according to the horned one should adapt to increased CO2 levels by increasing their population size.  Thankfully we have no shelf space left or we would be spending the next year or so looking at endless jars of sea water fermenting in a CO2 enriched environment under sunlamps. This wouldn’t be so bad except guess who would end up with the job of counting the plankton when Thor declares the resulting soup “cooked”.

Following this he went off on a Fourier Analysis binge attempting to decompose planetary temperature cycles into periodic terms, but got stumped on the fact that the cycles although obvious would not be integer multiples of some starting frequency. Trying to express a general time series in terms of  any non orthogonal set of basis terms is decidedly annoying, even with Gram Schmidt. To find a unique “best” such basis virtually impossible given there is an infinite number of the damned things.

So in the end the whole lot sat on the back burner while Thor started working out whether the strategy of trading shares by flipping a coin to decide whether to long or short rather than thinking would be profitable.  Turns out the coin is smarter than most of us by the way as long as it uses a stop loss, which is somewhat humiliating,  but that is another story.

An Epiphany.

Anyway Old Thor eventually decided to look at some CO2 vs temperature curves. These he has decided mean that the climate guys are trying to say “That over a 20 year period there has been a roughly linear increase of C02 of 30 ppmv corresponding to an observed temperature rise of 0.5 degrees C in the same period.”

So the initial question he asked was “How much energy per CO2 molecule does that work out to be?”

To do this we first work out how much energy went into the air in general. So if is the change in kinetic energy, and  is the change in temperature and is Boltzmann’s constant, we have

Which works out to be

per molecule of air

To work out how much the extra CO2 has contributed we  need to work out the total energy and divide it by the average of the extra CO2 over the period.  To get the total energy we multiply the above by a million.  Seeing as this must have come from the CO2 We need to divide it by the parts per million of CO2 concentration. This is easy thankfully. We know we have an additional 30 parts per million by volume from the graph.

This gives us and amount of additional energy contributed to the air of  Joules per molecule of additional CO2.

Despite his age and disconcerting habit of cavorting with mythological beasts, not saying he is off with the faeries half the time mind you,  old Thor was converted to the Newtonian heresy long ago and generally agrees that energy is conserved. As such he has no fundamental philosophical issue about the spontaneous creation of energy or spontaneous loss. It simply doesn’t happen. He also likes simple math. So before he starts looking at additional energy absorption or reflection due to variation in atmospheric gas composition he likes to keep it simple and asks how much energy is released from carbon based fuels per molecule when the CO2 enters the atmosphere. In other words how much energy was released when the additional CO2 was released in the first place.

This turns out to be 890 kJ per mole or J per molecule for methane

CH4+2O2 ->CO2 +2H2O + Energy

To summarize, the energy released due to burning is

and energy attributed to CO2

The ratio of energy released from burning to that attributed to CO2 is

Which in the scheme of things and making allowance for the back of a beer coaster math is bloody  amazing.  In a mathematical sense numbers when dealing with gasses range from the order of  to range. Which is huge. Errors are similarly large if you get things wrong, so to obtain even an order of magnitude similarity let alone something like 4 is amazing.  Keep in mind stored energy, and radiated energy needs to be factored in which would bring this even closer to unity.

To understand this you need to understand that when you do any work at all energy is released or stored. Stored energy for example occurs if you build a sky scraper and lift things up in the air. Energy is stored as potential energy in all the cement  that has been lifted against gravity.  When you make a plastic and change the chemical composition you store energy in the chemical bonds that you can release if you burn the item.

But apart from stored energy, all energy consumed must go somewhere and that generally means into the atmosphere as heat.

Think of every light globe, fridge, car radiator etc all pumping out heat.

So Is CO2 The Problem?

Here is where Thor is now sees a problem.  You see the relationship is energy release driving temperature and also driving CO2.  Think of burning coal, it releases heat and CO2. Its not CO2 driving heat, although some atmospheric absorption changes are possible.  Consider though that you replace the coal burner with a nuclear power station.  The heat that results from energy will still be pumped into the air although the amount of CO2 will drop.

Due to the closeness of the energy released and apparent gains due to temperature in the calculation above the first thing to look at should be general man made energy. If you want to factor in other terms such as solar energy being stored due to some “greenhouse” effect you still need to account for the general energy release. In simple terms if the temperature rise is not due to general energy release you need to explain where the energy that was released along with that CO2 went.

By the way the “greenhouse” effect bit is why the micro organisms should increase. Apart from the heat in a normal greenhouse, a trick used to increase plant size (tomatoes in particular) is to pump CO2 into a greenhouse which the green things duly scavenge. The natural question is then “Why does additional CO2 in the atmosphere not drive additional photosynthetic micro organism growth?”

So think CO2 as a by product.

In simple terms if the above holds CO2 trading schemes will not work. Even if they drive people to other energy sources, you will still have the problem that the energy released by any source is going to eventually end up as kinetic energy of the air.

Wind, Hydro and Tidal may arguably be exceptions as they act as energy sinks, although this is non trivial. The issue being that the energy in the Wind and Tides has built up over time and harnessing it is simply another way of  concentrating energy and releasing it all at once.

In fact thinking about it all energy from Wind, through to Hydro Electric, through Geothermal and Solar all attempt to concentrate energy that has been stored over time and release it.  In the case of coal the energy was stored long ago.

Where it gets worse is that no matter how efficient you become the energy requirement per person has a lower bound. That is to say there is an absolute minimum amount of energy used to boil water, move an object, lift the tiles onto a house roof. This is as a function of each individuals technological level and is constrained by physical law not politics. With an exponentially growing population of increasing technological requirements you are not going to be able to stop it.

King Canute couldn’t hold back the tides, perhaps you humans should learn to surf….

Final Words.

Well we don’t have a real conclusion here yet because old Thor still has not satisfied himself about the normal variation in temperature anyway.  That weird flat spot called the Holocene still worries him.

It does look like you have your causality all screwed up though. Wouldn’t be the first time.

What can be said on the matter is that you need to focus on the right problem and so I will digress into things you do need to worry about.

As far as his errant milk drinking, beer swilling, dog loving, pork eating, war mongering Anglo Germanic Celtic Nordic etc  misfit children are concerned, it is your reproduction rate that keeps him up at night. More specifically the lack thereof. You need 2.1 children per couple just to break even allowing for deaths etc before adulthood.  The Caucasian populations are running at about 1.6.  If you treated yourselves as an animal species you would be classed as “Near Threatened” across most of your territories and “Threatened”  in your major cities.  To put this in practical terms it means that each generation your populations are down by a quarter.  The  immigrant groups in your territories are running in the 3 to 5 children per couple, so their numbers effectively double each generation. This also compounds itself because it means that the probability of you even meeting another Caucasian to have children with also drops each generation.

In simple terms if you are of European descent your children’s children’s children etc won’t be here in a thousand years to worry about climate problems.  While no more white guys seems a good idea to some, it also means Western legal principles, styles of government, arts, culture, science and philosophy goes as well. That may not worry you, but is does worry the horned one.

Western governments are funded by Ponzi schemes of immigration where you hope to fund the baby boomer retirement by bringing in immigrants to pay taxes to pay for baby boomers whose tax money has been lost or misspent

Have you thought about who is going to pay for the immigrants retirement?  Another wave of immigrants? or do you expect them to pay for their own retirement and yours as well? Using developing world populations to feather your own nest is not a good way to make friends methinks.

Western industries are in melt down. If a war started tomorrow between say you India or China would the West even have the industrial capacity to make the boots uniforms and tanks?  Don’t forget it was industrial capacity that won WW1 and WW2, not brilliant tactics. Could you do the same today?

With these issues on the plate at this moment in history climate change is not at the top of the list. Get your long term survival, territorial control and independence in order first. This is a planet where you lot are dying out and every other racial/cultural group with the possible exception of the North East Asians are rapidly expanding and moving into Western lands, legally or illegally. If you don’t reverse or at least hold it constant the outcome is inevitable.  Just imagine that you were an animal species. Picture a map with the density of different groups in different regions over time . It is a one way migration into Western lands.

In other words you are stressing yourselves out trying to create a really nice world, for someone else to live in.

Whether you like it or not, its a game of rats in a cage at this moment in history, a game that will only get more intense as populations rise.  At this moment in time the West is the group losing territory and reducing in numbers.

When you can guarantee that as a people you will still be here in a thousand years, that you will be dependent on no one other than your selves for your knowledge, your technology, your medicines, your land, your defense, your resources and your food, then you can worry what the weather will be like.

Don’t let the snake oil salesmen distract you from the real issues with smoke and mirrors. They would sell their own mothers if they thought it would elevate their status for a term.

November 30 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

The Value Of A Company

To A Nation

In the West we currently live in a world where more and more of our industrial activity is driven offshore. The United States in particular, once a power house of industrial activity now can barely support the very automotive industry that it created.

Companies continually justify off shoring their manufacturing as being good for the economy.  It is worth a thought to see if this is actually true.  For that you need to have to be able to answer the question of “What is the value of a company to an economy?”

The more or less abstract view I currently have of an economy is of a pool of circulating tokens called money and counter circulating items called product.  In simple terms you exchange money for product.  Money moves one way and product moves the other.  You could in fact hide the view of one or the other and see either flowing tokens, or flowing value added raw materials. Imagine for a second raw iron coming out of the ground, being shaped into steel, further shaped into components, coming together to form a car and ending up in your driveway.

Without loss of generality we will discuss token flow here – while keeping in mind that we could equivalently look at the flow of value added materials.  In this view the value of a company to an economy is its value as a pump of sorts.  Money (tokens) flow into a company and then are pumped out to other parties who in turn distribute money to other parties.

With this view in mind, the value of a company can be considered to be the gross amount of money that flows into the company. Forget taxes, forget profits, forget everything except the flow of tokens into the company’s coffers.

These tokens then get distributed to various parties.  Shareholders, Suppliers and Government.  Here staff are classed as suppliers and retained profits as he company distributing profits to itself as a shareholder. As companies tend to collect taxes for employees the government component will include all taxes, tariffs etc that the company as an entity pays to the government. Denote each of these quantities as; , , respectively.

This allows us to say the gross value of a company is

Where a company does business in several different economies, we can split this up and sum it over each of the N different economies to give

Where the is simply a shorthand way to write “sum up all the terms”.

With that you have a picture of a company being a pump of sorts, that sucks money in and then pushes it out to various parties. The value of a company to a single economy is the amount that is distributed to shareholders, government and suppliers within a single country.

So What Is Happening

The issue we have at  the moment is that Western companies are reducing the amount they are paying out to suppliers and government in the economies they are based in so that they can increase the amount being paid to shareholders.  The total gross is the same in the sense that the amount of money coming in is unchanged, but how it is distributed does change.

With that concept in mind I have to argue that while the value of a company to shareholders may increase the value of a the company to an economy decreases unless the payments to shareholders within an economy meets or exceeds the lost payments to suppliers and associated tax revenue – which includes income tax paid to employees that is lost to an economy when labor is off shored.

In a sense I am repeating earlier posts where I have argued that in a welfare state where people are protected the government also has to protect the revenue streams that pay for the medicine, pensions, roads, defense of the modern state.

The shortfall is debt as the developed world is finding out in no uncertain terms.

As I have argued before you can not have a welfare state and low cost goods and services.  If you wish to have the benefits of a welfare state, you have to accept that product produced within that economy will have a higher tax burden associated with it. Worse you not only have to accept that local products will cost more, but you have to be prepared to pay for them.  No money, no welfare as simple as that.

The counter argument does exist that off shoring manufacturing results in companies within other economies spending their wealth within your economy. In a nation like Australia which  is resource based that may hold to an extent, although you need to be careful with profits distributed to offshore shareholders and taxes paid by companies based in foreign economies.  But with a nation like the United States which has more of an industrial rather than resource profile then this loss of economic value as their industries collapse is a total disaster.  For reference General Motors and Chrysler have both gone into bankruptcy in the last couple of weeks.

To get back to the point. The value of a company to an economy is a different kettle of fish entirely to the value of a company to shareholders.  While off shoring actions by companies may increase shareholder value, they decrease the value of a company to the economy in which they are based.  These companies do have a legitimate argument that they simply can not compete against companies that manufacture in non welfare state economies. This is an issue for government.

We have a couple of choices. We do away with the welfare state to reduce our cost of business to levels that are competitive with the third world. This means reducing social infrastructure to third world levels. or we protect our economies by burdening up third world products with the delta between the welfare state burden they are carrying and the amount we are carrying. In simple terms it means that we penalize economies that do not provide social support for their populations by imposing a burden equivalent to the one they would be carrying if they did.  At the moment we are in a reverse protection situation where the social costs we carry ourselves act as a tariff on our own product which tends to protect countries that do not protect their own people.

It might also help stem the flow of economic refugees who are seeking the social benefits of the West that are not provided within their own economies. Why would they want to come to the West if they could get equivalent levels of social support, education, medicine and opportunity in their own lands?

In any case I see no other choices. The West either loses everything it has worked for since Napoleon ended the Holy Roman Empire of the Ostragothi and bought the enlightenment and humanist law to Europe or we impose the values, principles and cost burden of the modern liberal humanist state upon our less burdened competitors.

June 04 2009 | Economics | 1 Comment »

Climate Change

Check The Data Guys.

Old Thor was kicking back waiting for the Lateline Business show to start last night – we think the Horned one has a thing for Ali Moore but daren’t mention it – when a story on coal came up.  Unusual for the ancient one, he didn’t fire up into a tirade and then settle into the usual funk. This time he went quiet, wandered off the library and hammered out an email to the ABC only to find he couldn’t send it.

So rather than waste a good letter, here it is in it’s entirety. If you are from the ABC please learn to use use an email address not a data entry form. Blocking spam is one thing, but blocking valid feedback is quite another.

Dear Lateline.

I tuned in last night to your story about clean coal and was dismayed with your question to the coal industry spokesman along the lines of “Do you accept global warming”. It was put across in a manner as if you were asking “Do you believe in God?”.

Can you please be a little more skeptical or at least neutral on the matter. Put yourselves above the politics and have a look at the actual temperature data before asking questions.  I assure you most of your “guests” haven’t bothered.  In fact a good question to ask global warming proponents and skeptics alike is “Have you looked at the data?” followed by “Can you describe the key features of it?”.

The actual temperature data can be found at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Yanks can be annoying, but they are really good with public access to things like this.

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/deutnat.txt

The temperature profile of this planet over the last half million years from the Vostok Ice Cores is below. (Editors Note: Click on the images for a close up)

The scale is degrees variation from present. Now is at the far right. The annotated picture below shows some key features that anyone who has looked at it should be aware of and anyone who is studying it would be expected to have reasoned explanations for.

Most of the global warming arguments only look at the last few centuries as they attempt to show that temperature change is caused by man.  The problem with doing this is that it is a bit like looking at the recent share market and assuming because it is currently down, that it has always been down.  The last few centuries is about a millimeter of the data on the far right of the graph. The so called “Hockey Stick” effect that all the caffuffle is manifests itself in the spike in the very last data point.

It may be possible to ignore the periodic patterns, but would require an explanation as to where they went. The  periodic cycles are driven by something. For them to stop would require a significant change in whatever that  thing was.

Perhaps it may be worth your while to find a mathematician or engineer and ask them how you add up a collection of periodic curves to obtain a “flat spot”. While you are at it ask them how “flat” such a flat spot is really likely to be and what would you expect if you were inside one. Another question for the maths guy when you talk to him is what would you expect to see when such a “flat” spot was ending.

There are also valid questions about whether CO2 levels and temperature are a causal relationship or a temporal one. (One causes the other, or do they both occur at the same time but aren’t causally related)

Anyone who has looked at the actual data should also be aware of the flat spot on the right. They should be aware and can account for the repeating saw toothed pattern and they should be able to state that the mean temperature is about -4 degrees colder than present. If they can’t, then nail them.

The big problem is that you are in an unusual flat spot. It gave you a fairly flat environment within which to develop civilization, but it is long overdue to end. The planet is normally a lot colder, and the normal temperature variations are huge by comparison with anything humans can dream up. Any analysis has to not only factor in proportionally small human effects – but also account for the massive natural effects.

What you are doing is equivalent to measuring the temperature in a room, blaming it on someone leaving the stove turned on while ignoring whether it be summer or winter.

The human response needs to be framed accordingly.  In simple terms are you trying to stop a rising tide by marching into the sea and commanding it so?  Last time that was tried it failed dismally but was endlessly amusing.

If large scale temperature change is inevitable – and early analysis of the long term trend components suggests it is – then are you perhaps taking the wrong strategy in trying to stop a rising tide, when you should be preparing to ride with it? I would suggest you think about the consequences of making the wrong call. Perhaps you should be moving cities rather than trying to clean up?

In any case, opinions on whether the temperature will go up, down or forever remain the same aside, can you sort out the cheer squad from the players by asking some pointed questions to see if they even have looked at the data? And don’t assume they have just because they have lots of letters after their names.  That is like assuming a priest is moral because he wears a collar.  Science in a democracy is political – and in this day and age science funding is dependent on having “with application to climate change research” somewhere highly visible on the front of the research submission.

Don’t fall for the argument that “well I didn’t but respected scientist such and such did” or “it’s far too complicated for a simple analogy and requires extensive computer modeling to understand” because that only boils down to ” I didn’t look, I assume that someone else did” or “I don’t understand math but I assume that the person who wrote the software does”.  What is that story about “Ass You and Me” ?

By the way how do you spell clusterfuck?  Is that two words or one?

In fact if you have a situation where two scientists agree on something and don’t answer a question with “On one hand it could be this and on the other hand it could be that” then you know you have a problem. They are a bit like economists in fact.

Your Sincerely

Thor.

Horned God Of The Anglo Germanic People.

Editors Note:  Cough! Ancient old bastard with a silly hat more like it. Cough!

May 20 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

USD Gold Comparison

Ooooh A Slippery Dip!

We are all used to looking at the price of gold in USD. It is interesting to think of how much gold a single $USD will buy you.  Even though we no longer use the gold standard there is a reasonable argument that the value of gold is effectively constant and currencies vary relative to it.

The chart below (click on it for a larger version) shows how much gold one $USD buys.  The interesting thing to note is that it has been falling like a stone ever since April 2001, which if I recall correctly is before Sept 11 and the current War so we can’t blame that.  In fact it lines up with the first NASDAQ bottom of the Tech Wreck.

It seems the US never really recovered from their IT industry crashing.  (Probably because they sent all their work to India afterwards – but that is a different story).

In stock market terms this is about as straight a line as you can get by the way. Just remember this is over 8 years of relentless decline.

It reflects a steady and massive erosion in US buying power that has only just leveled out thanks to various games being played with currency in the current crisis.  Rumors are that the US does not want their currency to go below a thousandth of an ounce (0.001 on the chart) which is where it has paused. Whether this is simply a dead cat bounce or not only time will tell.

If this makes you feel worried, then remember that your currency is probably only a fraction of the $USD

$USD Buying Power

May 07 2009 | Economics | No Comments »

Carbon Scrubbers

What Happened To Them?

Thor is worried. It seems you have either lost or miscounted some very important nano devices that are meant to be part of your ecosystem.  Namely carbon scrubbers. Surely you know about them, they are meant to be all over the place.

To provide some context, last night as has become “tradition” those of us who couldn’t find anything else urgent to do had to sit through an episode of Master Chef followed by the horned one displaying his culinary prowess. This time it was all about Thor’s discovery of chile, probably from reading the recipe on this site if I do say so myself although he would never admit it.

Anyway after a memorable **cough** culinary experiment involving habenoro chillis, Jalapeño chillis, meat, beans  and very little else apart from large quantities of beer the conversation turned to methane production – as it does after consuming large quantities of the aforementioned on an empty stomach.

That  in turn lead to you humans and your current obsession with global warming and CO2 which got old Thor very worried.

The problem is that there shouldn’t be any problem.  The whole planet is meant to be chock full of carbon scrubbers.  You have been pumping out their byproduct and using it to power your motor vehicles for a century or so.

To see if you still have any, go find a green house, pump a pile of CO2 into it and stand back.  You should find after a while that the CO2 diminishes, the plants get bigger and if you wait long enough will turn into oil that you can dig up, burn off and the whole cycle repeats.

Now most of your carbon scrubbers aren’t in fact on the land. When this was all kicked off there wasn’t much on land apart from rocks. The bulk of them are in the oceans.  But you shouldn’t need to worry about them as they operate on a self regulating cycle.

Remember the island ecosystem exam question every biologist and environmental scientist did in first year uni?  The predator-prey model based on a wolf and deer population on an island. An increase in deer numbers  creates a jump in the number of wolves, which reduces the number of deer, which causes some wolves to starve. Less wolves means the deer population jumps  and the whole thing repeats.

Standard first year stuff. You end up with a simple harmonic motion equation none of you would have forgotten. Particularly the guys who chose bio in the first place because they hated maths and the idea of having to solve wave equations during an exam wasn’t high on their list of expectations.

Well your carbon scrubbers – unless you have totally screwed things up – use the same cycle.  Just  think of the whole planet as an island of sorts.  More CO2 causes an increase in carbon scrubber numbers which increase the rate that CO2 is pulled out of the atmosphere.  This occurs until such a point that the CO2 level can’t support the whole carbon scrubber population and some die off. That in turn causes an increase in CO2 and the whole cycle repeats.  There is a bit of a lag, but not a large one, these things reproduce pretty quickly.

It worked perfectly well back in the carboniferous and Thor can’t figure out why it doesn’t work now.  These things are worse than cockroaches. Once they are in place, barring the sun going nova they are impossible to get rid of.   Even if you have just a single one of them they should in theory reproduce to fill all available planetary surface area in no time at all.  And to top if off they compete with each other to become even more efficient  and fill every available gap in an ecosystem as time goes on.

Nasty little gadgets really, you would not believe the mountain of nanoethics paperwork that went with these things. Everything has to be proven on paper first, all work done in a biosafety level 4 or above lab, spot checks from grumpy old swiss gnomes etc etc. A right pain in the arse actually.

So if they have stopped working we really would like to know. Could you go and have a look?  Thor is worried.

Anyway got to  go – seems my personal methane production is about to overcame my capacity to absorb.

May 05 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

Thor The Masterchef…

Scary Scary Thought

Well at least Thor is off his short lived get fit kick that started when he overheard a couple of the Valkyries comment on how his formerly barrel chest seems to have dropped to his navel.  The Valkyries really shouldn’t talk, Caesar hadn’t crossed the Rhine the last time any of them could even spell the word virgin let alone pass for one. Given that most of their formerly perky nipples can now shake hands with  their navels, it really was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  The phrase “gaggle of cackling hags” does to spring to mind here – just don’t say I said it.

Anyway after three months of Thor vegging on the couch complete with Lycra pants and sporran, the Biggest Looser comes to an end, promising to put a close to this entertaining – but futile episode. Except no one had counted on some bright spark at the local TV station deciding to put a cooking show into the same time slot as a weight loss program…..

If that’s not deliberate cruelty I don’t know what is.  Here you have an audience of people with an unhealthy appetite for food stressing themselves into complete dietary dysfunction, taking out soon never to be used again gym memberships,  suddenly having endless plates of the most delicious food waved in front of their pudgy little faces.

Needless to say the horned one now thinks he can cook.  Which wouldn’t be so bad except Thor is a typical Anglo Germanic strictly meat and three veg type of guy.  Gourmet cooking to him and his hordes consists of opening a beer, firing up the barbie, heat meat until it starts to blacken, put potatoes, carrots and peas in microwave for two minutes, throw everything onto a plate and eat.

The closest this guy gets to a herb crust is when he drops the steaks onto a newly mowed lawn.

The deer and unicorn have already buggered off lest they become the target of some misplaced gastronomic experiment. The staff in the kitchen are about to go on strike and the normally hearty eating dwarfs have all mysteriously decided to go on a strict frozen dinner only diet.

This is going to be a very, very long three months…

May 04 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

A Correction

A Reference to Pigs.

Thor is not  happy,  again…  He came across this site during one of his searches for “educational videos” if you catch my meaning, and it seems that in an earlier post I should not have described you as “Thor’s beer guzzling, lactose digesting, dog loving, war mongering, errant flaming Anglo Germanic children”. It seems that this is far too technical and I left out a reference to pork…

So to correct  the matter  and provide a proper description of the distinguishing features of the Anglo Germanic’s other than the alternative of  “Big nosed gwailo” that has been suggested.

“Thor’s beer guzzling, milk drinking, pig eating, dog loving, war mongering, ferociously independent errant flaming Anglo Germanic children”.

which even in his cups put a smile on his face.

May 03 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

Australian Defence Policy

Unacceptable.

Thor is pissed, again and this time with good reason.

It was one of those days. As you no doubt are aware Thor isn’t too fond of his children worshiping Middle Eastern deities. Takes it personally I am afraid.  In fact he isn’t too fond of any form of idolatry including that of himself. Foreign idols, false gods, lack of humility and all of that.   Makes him cringe when he sees you on your hands and knees talking to a piece of wood – no matter how grandiose the building it is situated in.  It’s just one of those things that is best to be avoided.

You have been doing if for a couple of thousand years now, haven’t you figured out it doesn’t do anything? Besides even if the principal worked it, which it doesn’t, it wouldn’t work for you anyway because that is a Semitic god you are attempting to “commune” with and you aren’t Semites.  This isn’t the sort of game where you can change team colors just because the other guys are offering forgiveness and eternal life for all and sundry. Its an ancestral thing, you are stuck with the horned one whether you like it or not.  By the way the Semites aren’t really interested in a mob of beer swilling, pork eating Anglo Germanics stampeding over their idea of paradise either. Just because Rome or Constantinople says something doesn’t make it true.  Surely you have worked that one out by now.

Anyway back to the story, when old Thor discovered that Australia’s ruddy commander in chief wasn’t in fact a child of Kant’s enlightenment that had been cheered into office by the masses but was to quote the horned and hairy one “another flaming opportunistic idol worshiping turncoat with one foot on the shoulders of the religious right and one foot on the shoulders of the loony left“  we all had the joy of putting up with a morning of the usual tirade about – you guessed it, “Semites, money lenders and those idiots in Rome”. Although if I recall Canberra, George Bush and christian fundamentalists did feature rather prominently.

Now this would have been all well and good, we could have made excuses, left him to his ale and form guide and made ourselves scarce for a while. But then comes along Australia’s new defense white paper… I really do wish the Aussies wouldn’t do this to me, totally ruined any hope at all of this being a good day.

Thor agrees with the need for his beer guzzling, etc, etc Southern children to maintain a position of independence. It has always been this way and probably always will. Olympian indifference has it’s consequences after all.

Unfortunately in their new defense policy Australia wishes a position where support of their allies is optional.  Something Australia will consider if it suits them.  Not a smart move. Hours after this discovery the halls are still resonating with the words,  “What bullshit is this!!”.

To remind you who seem to have forgotten, the way things work is that you can sort out your own internal squabbles as you did with WWI and WW2 if you cant find a better way to do it. The battles last century as the old Ostrogothi Empire (Catholic Axis) and the new Anglo Saxon one (Protestant Allies)  finally sorted out their pecking order were memorable to say the least. Made a bit of a mess of Europe though and neither of you  managed to get the upper hand on the Franks (Post Enlightenment fence sitters) .

But when it comes to external matters the position is that Thor’s children will unconditionally support each other. There is to be no question on this matter. You can sort out  your position on various (usually American in this day and age) misadventures behind closed doors, but once any one of you takes the field you all do.  That has been policy ever since the Romans  tore you apart tribe by tribe, while the other tribes stood aside and watched convinced that the Romans would go away if you simply bent down and spread your cheeks. They didn’t and you all got a good fucking anyway.

It is one of those paradoxes that as long as you wish to maintain your Liberty as a people you have no liberty to choose on this matter. Choose liberty on this and lose your Liberty as a people.  Hobson’s choice.

So Mr Rudd and associates it is strongly suggested that you and your people put aside the rhetoric and learn to read a map. Take away your usual allies and point to the friends that are left.

If you wish the unconditional support of your allies no matter what your foolishness, no matter what the threat, you in turn need to garauntee them yours.

May 03 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

The West and China

You Ain’t Asian.

In Thor’s last interlude with sobriety he came across various pieces of information that seems to indicate the potential for trouble between you and the Yellow River folk.  The large quantities of your mineral resources being purchased by the Han, a declining US influence, the need for Australia to ramp up it’s defense spend. This all spells trouble.

Thor agrees with the need for his “beer guzzling, milk drinking, pig eating, dog loving, war mongering, ferociously independent children” to maintain a position where you are not subject to the whim of the Yellow River tribes. You get along well enough as partners as long as you don’t interfere in each others affairs, but having one of you subject to the other just does not work. Chalk and Cheese I am afraid.

There used to be a rather large mountain range and the sub continent between Europe and China which with the notable exception of the Hun generally kept you from each others throats.  The problem now you have extended your territories is that it puts you in contact with a people who are far more cohesive than you are.  These guys do think about themselves as a united people, they do have long term strategies for themselves and unlike yourselves they don’t have trouble thinking further down the road than a year or so.  Their social networks are stronger, they do business and trade far better than you do.

Militarily you recent history hasn’t put too many runs on the board against them either. Remember Vietnam and Korea? They were only buffer states. Taking on the Han on Han territory is not a fight you can win without the mandate of heaven and that is rarely granted.

So be on your toes. China will act in China’s interest while you lot wallow in a game of politically correct “fairness and equality to all” that no one apart from your selves is playing.  A game your competitors – which is everyone – are quite happy to use against you.

The truth of the matter is life isn’t fair and you are not all equal any more than you are the same height. It’s dog eat dog and going to get worse as that planet of yours gets even more crowded.

The rules you want to play by only work if everyone is playing by them as well.  Think about the cost of the welfare state that burdens up all your goods that is not paid by your competitors.  The same goes for your attempts to clean up the planet by imposing a carbon tax on your products that your competitors don’t.  Admirable sentiments for sure, but harmful policy.

The only way to level the playing field is for you to impose your social political and legal standards  across every nation. That isn’t going to happen because it contradicts the basic tenant of independence that is the basis of your ethical system.  You simply do not have the political will to impose yourselves on others to that extent.  Strike another one up for the paradox of civilization I am afraid.

But back to the point. Thor’s children need to maintain their military, political and economic  independence from everyone else. You can not put your selves in a position where your Liberty is subject to the whim of ethical systems that to your mind are alien. You are not the same as each other and no amount of political correct gas bagging is going to change that fact.

Do business with other people, trade with other people,  marry other people, but never ever forget you are not and never will be as important to other cultures as their own people are.

Different people, different places, different problems, different solutions.

May 03 2009 | Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »

The Cost Of The Welfare State

International Debt

Thor found the following information about the worlds biggest debtors on CNBC’s website the other day. It is something the West really needs to have a good hard look at.  In simple terms it is a list of the top debtor nation ranked as a percentage GDP.  What is interesting and what grabbed Thor’s immediate attention is that with the exception of Hong Kong and we can blame British influence there, this looks like a roll call of Thor’s beer guzzling, lactose digesting, dog loving, war mongering, errant flaming Anglo Germanic children.

Not Happy

Take it from me your lighting wielding, chariot riding, wench loving ancestral deity who managed to pull his beard out of his mead long enough to log on to CNBC is furious. You lot are in so much shit. Not only does he find you on your hands and knee’s worshiping Semitic gods, but you are in debt!.

Let me quote “Which bit about avoiding usury at all costs did this fucking mob not understand!!” which was followed by his usual tirade about Semites, money lenders and those idiots in Rome.  The bit he is really pissed about – and which you had better get your story straight about real fast is “How the fuck did this mob manage to control most of the worlds primary resources, all of it’s air space, it’s law, it’s armies, it’s medicine, it’s universities and not be able to turn a simple fucking profit!!”.

After calming down long enough to relight his ever present and omni potent stogie, pour another ale and scratch under his sporran for a while he has some “advice” for you if you get my drift.

All this social welfare, medical, legal, educational and military infrastructure that you have spent the last few thousand years developing  is good stuff. But what you need to understand is that there is a cost to it. Every time government comes up with a “great idea” it has to be paid for and under your economic system that means governments recoup the cost as a tax spread across everyone.  In simple terms it is an overhead that gets added to the cost of business. Whether it be a transaction tax, an income tax, company tax, a tariff, whatever. In the end it is a burden that gets spread across the economy.  This means that goods produced in economies that have the burden of a welfare state are more expensive.

Now all this is fair enough, you chose to have a welfare state, which means that as individuals you have chosen to pay that burden in order to receive the benefits. What you can’t do, and this is the source of all your problems is now say you won’t buy goods that carry that burden.  When you decide to buy cheaper goods from markets that are unburdened by these costs you are left with a net debt.  This in turn forces up taxes because the government has to cover costs which in turn makes your goods even more expensive to the point that your businesses fail.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can not have cheap goods and a welfare state.  If you choose to do without the welfare state then your tax burden drops and your goods can compete.  If you impose a welfare state and associated burden on external markets then you can achieve parity – but will result in a general raising of the cost of living because you are now paying  the burden from external markets.

What you can not do is do nothing. Nor can you hide behind your individual “nations” try and say Ireland’s problems are not Australia’s problems.  Like it or not blood is thicker than water and we sink or swim together.

Take the Irish for example, admittedly a worst case.  Each and every man, woman and child in Ireland owes $USD 549k. This will take generations to repay. It is the equivalent of a good house for each person, and you are paying interest on all this.

I suggest you lot do something fast before Thor finds the keys to his chariot.

April 29 2009 | Economics and Thoughts of Thor | No Comments »