Engineered Shortages

Mythopoeika

Mythopoeika

I am a meat popsicle
Joined
Sep 18, 2001
Messages
50,829
Location
Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
I (and many others) have noticed that governments of multiple countries have been trying to deliberately engineer shortages of power, fuel and even food.
What is the long-term endgame of this? What is the desired result? Some people have noticed that Bill Gates and other super-wealthy individuals have been buying farmland after the farmers have been forced out. Bill Gates now owns more farmland than anybody else, worldwide. This will lead to ownership of food production being held by just a few powerful people. Inevitably, lack of competition will lead to the cost of food being much higher. I encourage all those who can do so, to grow their own food. FYI, I am not a 'crazy prepper'.
What are your thoughts? Here are a few links:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=farmers+riot+in+netherlands
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=uk+farmers+offered+money+to+retire

I wasn't sure about posting this in 'Conspiracy' - because it's actually happening.
 
This is a little alarmist.
For example, trying to reduce the use of nitrates and phosphates in farming is a sound environmental policy, that promotes the practice to look elsewhere for sustainable fertilisers.
However, agriculture lobbies around the world, including here in Ireland, have conflated this with food shortages. They are saying that it is too hard, too costly, too disruptive, too blah, blah, blah... in an effort to divert, obfuscate and generally deflect from the fact that agriculture is one of the most polluting and environmentally damaging industries.

It is the tobacco and big oil playbook 101.

On the other hand, the current tactics of one of the world's largest natural gas producers are most certainly engineering a shortage for strategic reasons, but that is a different matter.

Each of these assertions needs to be looked at in turn, as often the claims being made are self-serving and disingenuous.
 
Ascalon said:
This is a little alarmist.
For example, trying to reduce the use of nitrates and phosphates in farming is a sound environmental policy, that promotes the practice to look elsewhere for sustainable fertilisers.
However, agriculture lobbies around the world, including here in Ireland, have conflated this with food shortages. They are saying that it is too hard, too costly, too disruptive, too blah, blah, blah... in an effort to divert, obfuscate and generally deflect from the fact that agriculture is one of the most polluting and environmentally damaging industries.

It is the tobacco and big oil playbook 101.

On the other hand, the current tactics of one of the world's largest natural gas producers are most certainly engineering a shortage for strategic reasons, but that is a different matter.

Each of these assertions needs to be looked at in turn, as often the claims being made are self-serving and disingenuous.
Click to expand...
I agree that the environmental damage done by the use of these fertilisers is an issue (and we do need to find a better replacement for them), but you can't simply ban their use and say 'go organic'. Like waving a magic wand and expecting stuff to miraculously happen. There has to be a lot more thought given to it than that, and farmers must be given help to transition over to a new business model.
Maybe the funding of inland waterways and riparian zones needs to be increased to protect against and mitigate any damage that is caused, during the transitionary period?
Also worth bearing in mind that 'organic' will always mean 'more expensive' and 'lower yield'. This may be incompatible with a growing population.
If I'm being in any way alarmist, it is simply to act as the canary in the mine - signalling the danger that is yet to come.
When we do start to get widespread food shortages, will I still be an alarmist? There is the question.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I agree that the environmental damage done by the use of these fertilisers is an issue (and we do need to find a better replacement for them), but you can't simply ban their use and say 'go organic'. Like waving a magic wand and expecting stuff to miraculously happen. There has to be a lot more thought given to it than that, and farmers must be given help to transition over to a new business model.
Maybe the funding of inland waterways and riparian zones needs to be increased to protect against and mitigate any damage that is caused, during the transitionary period?
Also worth bearing in mind that 'organic' will always mean 'more expensive' and 'lower yield'. This may be incompatible with a growing population.
If I'm being in any way alarmist, it is simply to act as the canary in the mine - signalling the danger that is yet to come.
When we do start to get widespread food shortages, will I still be an alarmist? There is the question.
Click to expand...

Reasonable points all, but the term engineered shortages is quite loaded and pointed.

Those kinds of terms are usually levelled by those who are trying to get out from under the spotlight of their dirty industries, opaque practices and massive profits. Managed transitions are almost always the way that these things are implemented, but the climate emergency, and the diminishing window of opportunity to make a difference, are accelerating the timeframes.

Organic in food production does not need to mean lower yield, or lesser output. Again, this is an obfuscation by the larger industries to slow transitions away from cheap methods that are higher profit and lower effort.

These days, organic and industrial scale are not mutually exclusive.

The simple fact is that big companies that are most responsible for pollution and harmful emissions do not want to pay or take responsibility for their actions, be they fossil fuel producers or battery chicken farmers.
 
Ascalon said:
Reasonable points all, but the term engineered shortages is quite loaded and pointed.
Click to expand...
OK... what term should I use? I guess the heading can be renamed.
 
Mythopoeika said:
OK... what term should I use? I guess the heading can be renamed.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't go so far.

More just in the discussion to highlight that it is a position taken, not a judgment as such.

Bare shelves are as likely to be disrupted supply chains as they are shortages, engineered or otherwise, so it is important to highlight that whenever the claim of engineered shortages is made it has to be examined for motivation as much as anything else.

Just my two cents, though at the current rate of inflation, that may well be worth less than previous.
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
Here we're assuming that it's control, driving up prices on nearly everything, and just generally 'keeping the herd' in place.
Click to expand...
I don't think it is "government" control, I think it is greedy bastards who want higher profits, the venture capitalists who buy up apartment complexes and houses, then raise the rent as high as they can until people can't pay it, then they walk away, leaving abandoned dumps. And the oil companies playing games with the gas prices, usually in a way to blame politicians, but really it is the gas companies. And there are electric companies who go in to debt and then sell to a larger company in another state that raises the rates even though it is not warranted. The corporations are doing this and the politicians are letting them.
 
Sgt Girth said:
I wonder why all of these clever engineers haven’t gotten around to inventing an everlasting light bulb by now?
Click to expand...
They have, but I understand the ironic point you're making. :)
Sometimes it's just bad business to make something that never fails.
 
It strikes me as quite interesting that utility companies continually tell you to use less of their product, while still charging you the same –generally using the “save the planet” line.

We won’t build new reservoirs, we won’t rush to fix leaks but we will encourage you not to use water while charging you the same. You live in a “water poor area”; FFS Somalia is a water poor area not England!

You need to reduce your use of electricity, to save the planet Oh, unless it is for electric cars of course, they’re OK. Warming up old people however is anti social. You can get a “free” smart meter as endorsed by a CG Einstein to scare you into turning your heating off.* (Actually it isn’t free because we’ve added the cost to your bill, but you’re not meant to realise that)
Look at the publicity for heat pumps. Do they really break the laws of thermodynamics?

The blame is shifted to the consumer who is to be demonised for using the product they are paying for, it’s a nice touch.
It’s now starting to be applied to food. Undoubtedly more vegetables can be raised per acre than meat, but that often means killing off the insect pests which also kills off the bees. But peddle veganism and organic produce and stick the price up. It wouldn’t surprise me if farm land was being bought up for control by larger conglomerates.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be careful with resources, but I’d like those that we pay to provide them to exhibit the same or more care.

OK rant over.:ranting:

*A lifelong friend of mine found his mother in two coats and a blanket on a freezing day. She’d turned the heating down because the smart meter was scaring her about her heating bill. Luckily he went in to see her each day or he may well have found her dead of hypothermia.:chain:
 
Sgt Girth said:
Strange that all of our households aren’t lit by LEDs then!
Click to expand...
LEDs typically run on 3 volts so you could in theory light your house with them but you’d need to install a lighting circuit stepped down from the mains voltage.
 
I would go with @Ascalon 's views on this.

These things are complex webs, and there is more than one cause to shortages.

Whilst the Ukraine war has caused Russia to control it's flow of Gas into Europe, there are other reasons for rising energy bills.

Relative lack of wind.
Growing population
Covering the cost of the energy companies that went bust (in the UK)

The war has also affected the production and transport of wheat and cooking oil.

As have, post Brexit supply chain issues and Covid related supply chain issues.

We can all see the gaps in the shelves in supermarkets.
It's not a bad idea to store some extra long life food at home ahead of this winter.
 
hunck said:
LEDs typically run on 3 volts so you could in theory light your house with them but you’d need to install a lighting circuit stepped down from the mains voltage.
Click to expand...
I am in the US, and here LED lights are made to be plugged into regular electrical outlets; nothing special needed.

I am an enthusiastic buyer of various weird lights, as I am frequently looking for a high CRI light with even spectrum for my hobby of painting. It is a black hole (get it? get it?!?) :)

I always keep 3-4 weeks of dried and canned food in the house, just in case. I may increase that before this coming winter.
 
Sgt Girth said:
I wonder why all of these clever engineers haven’t gotten around to inventing an everlasting light bulb by now?
Click to expand...
Osram and other companies got together and fines were imposed if their bulbs lasted too long. Even back in the 1930s they knew they could make them last far longer. (James Dyson talks about this somewhere.)
 
Tunn11 said:
It strikes me as quite interesting that utility companies continually tell you to use less of their product, while still charging you the same –generally using the “save the planet” line.

We won’t build new reservoirs, we won’t rush to fix leaks but we will encourage you not to use water while charging you the same. You live in a “water poor area”; FFS Somalia is a water poor area not England!

You need to reduce your use of electricity, to save the planet Oh, unless it is for electric cars of course, they’re OK. Warming up old people however is anti social. You can get a “free” smart meter as endorsed by a CG Einstein to scare you into turning your heating off.* (Actually it isn’t free because we’ve added the cost to your bill, but you’re not meant to realise that)
Look at the publicity for heat pumps. Do they really break the laws of thermodynamics?

The blame is shifted to the consumer who is to be demonised for using the product they are paying for, it’s a nice touch.
It’s now starting to be applied to food. Undoubtedly more vegetables can be raised per acre than meat, but that often means killing off the insect pests which also kills off the bees. But peddle veganism and organic produce and stick the price up. It wouldn’t surprise me if farm land was being bought up for control by larger conglomerates.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be careful with resources, but I’d like those that we pay to provide them to exhibit the same or more care.

OK rant over.:ranting:

*A lifelong friend of mine found his mother in two coats and a blanket on a freezing day. She’d turned the heating down because the smart meter was scaring her about her heating bill. Luckily he went in to see her each day or he may well have found her dead of hypothermia.:chain:
Click to expand...
We've talked about these 'smart' meters somewhere and yes, the biggest con going imo. I used ours for a week or two just to see how much certain appliances used (I already knew though, really) and then unplugged it. I have heard others say the same. (It's the 'standing charge' that should be stopped as well).
 
If you want to push up the price make it scarce.
As for smart meters they don't save anything in themselves just frighten
people into using less, power company's then put up the prices so your
paying the same for less and benefit from not only saving on fuel to generate
the power but save on replacing and maintaining as much plant and machinery.
 
Ascalon said:
1) …the climate emergency, and the diminishing window of opportunity to make a difference, are accelerating the timeframes.

2) Organic in food production does not need to mean lower yield, or lesser output.
Click to expand...

1) If one proceeds from the assumption that a “climate emergency” exists. l don’t.

2) The people of Sri Lanka might disagree.

maximus otter
 
Nothing like putting the fear of 'shortages' into peoples' minds.
Has everyone forgotten the toilet paper shortage 2 years ago, everyone went running from store to store, the shelves were empty, and if you were lucky enough to find some, there was a limit of 'one' package to purchase, and you would pay anything to have it?
Fear.
 
maximus otter said:
1) If one proceeds from the assumption that a “climate emergency” exists. l don’t.

2) The people of Sri Lanka might disagree.

maximus otter
Click to expand...
Eh? One proceeds from the now overwhelming body of evidence of anthropomorphic climate change.
If you doubt that, just look at the recent documentary about the big oil. Just like big tobacco before, if they did not think the science, much of it their own, was true, why have they spent 50+ years trying to undermine it, and spending as much on their disinformation and obfuscation campaigns as they have done on marketing? As with so much, follow the money.

As for the people of Sri Lanka, I think the issue there is far more complex than organic food production. I think decades of corrupt and self-serving governments have much to do with the appalling vista.
 
hunck said:
LEDs typically run on 3 volts so you could in theory light your house with them but you’d need to install a lighting circuit stepped down from the mains voltage.
Click to expand...
You can buy LED bulbs. I've got one in my desk lamp.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top