Role Reversals

I have an INTJ personality type, which means that I function best on my own. Given that my wife and I need only one salary in order to make ends meet, the ideal situation for me is one in which I stay home and my wife goes to the office. I become the housekeeper and my wife the salary earner.

My wife would also have liked to stay at home rather than go to the office, but she's not fuzzed about the situation. She's happy that someone takes care of the house and kids while she's away. Without me to take care of things, she would have had to seek other employment because her office hours are irregular and often long, making it impossible to combine her work with domestic concerns.

Having me at home to keep an eye on things allows my wife to make more money by taking on more responsibilities at work, so my domestic activities aren't just conveniences. They contribute to my wife's freedom to work as she pleases.

This in itself is proof that the modern arrangement of having two salary earners per household is neither convenient nor particularly profitable. Two salaries doesn't mean twice the income. Once stress and inconveniences are calculated into the final figure, it's clear that there's little gained by having two salaries.

This is particularly true in countries with progressive income tax. Even one salary may be too much fuzz to be worth it, as was the case when I still worked long hours in Norway. Cutting down on the hours by 20% resulted in no more than 10% reduction in my take home salary, and I got a whole extra day off. No wonder many people choose to cut down on the number of hours spent at work.

The idea that having two salary earners per household is somehow empowering is a political fiction created in order to generate more taxable income for the state. Dual incomes are not empowering. They're not signs of wealth and engagement in society. Dual incomes are by and large signs of poverty. The rise of such arrangements over the past decades indicate a drop in affluence rather than a boom.

There should ideally be one housekeeper and no more than one salary earner per household, and it's best for the kids to have mother at home during their first five years of growing up. However, once kids get a little older, fathers are just as good at bringing kids up as mothers. They may even be a little better in that they tend to promote independence and a sense of adventure. Fathers tend to promote science and craft while mothers promote security and care.

Without a parent at home, education of children becomes entirely a matter of institutional learning. Parents become secondary to the educational system, which is another reason why politicians tend to promote the double income family model. Not only do they get to tax an extra salary, but they get to indoctrinate the children as well. It's a great arrangement for the state, and something to be avoided by anyone who wants their children to grow up happy and confident.

I must admit that I wouldn't have been as comfortable in my position as the stay at home parent if it wasn't for the fact that I receive a reasonable fixed income every year, so I understand that it may seem overly daring to rely on nothing but a single income. But I would have insisted on my current arrangement with my wife even if we had no fixed income. The only difference would have been  a willingness on my part to be the salary earner if that turned out to make more money than my wife is currently making.

The role reversal that we have in our household doesn't include a reversal of our decision making hierarchy. The fact that I'm the housekeeper doesn't affect my position as the head of the household. I'm still the final decision maker when it comes to things that affect the family as a whole. This isn't simply because I'm a conservative soul, but due to the fact that the man should always be the head of the household. It's the perfect arrangement for reasons that I've explained before.

My wife and I are happy in the way we've arranged things for ourselves, and I suspect many others may benefit from similar arrangements because I don't think we're unique in the way we experience the world.

The trick is to value family and time correctly, and to think outside the box. We need to be open to the possibilities inherent in your relationships, and take full advantage of what's there. Key to success is a healthy relationship with our partner, and a refusal to go along with the myths spewed by the state.

Fireside education

By Transferred from en.wikibooks to Commons by Adrignola using CommonsHelper. Originally uploaded to en:Wikipedia in November 2006 (log) by Darentig (talk)., Public Domain, Link

Silly French Protests

The French have been out in force for some time now, protesting pension reforms. They were promised a comfortable retirement from the age of 60, and they are now told that this wont happen. They have to wait a few more years.

That's all it took for the French to start protesting in the streets. It's quite a contrast with Norway where the retirement age went from 67 to 70 without anyone raising their voice.

What amazes me the most about the protests in France is that people actually believed that they could all retire at the age of 60.

In what sort of alternative universe are these people living where professional liars, also known as politicians, promise people something that's too good to be true, and everyone expects it to come true because it's been voted upon and turned into law.

Reality, aka God, pays no attention to man made laws. Legislating the impossible has no effect on reality, and only people devoted to Lucifer, the deceiver, would go along with the idea that things might be different. But people have evidently been separated from reality for so long that they really do believe that man made laws can overrule basic economics.

All pension funds, public and private, are by now bona fide Ponzi schemes. They are required by law to deliver the impossible, and are as a consequence underfunded to the point of insolvency. Without reforms, there will be defaults, either in the form of missed and reduced payments, or in the form of currency depreciation.

To protest this is to protest reality itself. This is especially true for those who are second in line for pension pay-outs. If the pension age is kept low, the funds will be emptied in their entirety by the ones first in line, and there will be nothing for the ones second in line. With pension reforms, there will be less for the ones first in line, but at least something for the ones second in line. However, those further back in the queue are going to get next to nothing regardless.

This has been clear for decades to anyone with even the most basic understanding of economics. It's therefore especially absurd to see young people protesting the reforms, because they are fighting a battle for which they will gain nothing regardless of outcome. It's pointless for anyone younger than fifty-five to protest against the pension reforms.

What people should do instead is to set aside savings for themselves. Gold, real-estate, productive land and stocks held directly by individuals is a far safer bet than to trust this type of investments to be done soundly by heavily regulated pension funds.

Us against them

By Pedro Ribeiro Simões - Flickr: "Geração à Rasca" Demonstration, CC BY 2.0, Link

300 Billion in a Single Week

The US Central Bank has come to the rescue of small and medium sized banks, thus averting an immediate collapse of the financial sector. But the rescue didn't come without a cost. 300 billion dollars have been injected into the struggling banks since I last wrote about this a week ago. That's 1,000 dollar from every US citizen.

This money is formally presented as loans. The idea is that this will be paid back by the banks, and that there's no negative effect on ordinary citizens. However, that story has been told many times over the past decades, and no-one any longer believes that the money will be paid back. The central bank has drained 1,000 dollar in purchasing power from every single American, and there's no intention to fix this.

Inflation, which is already running hot will become hotter. Ordinary people, who are already feeling the pinch, will be in even more pain. The dollar is teetering on the brink of collapse.

Reflection in a soap bubble

By Brocken Inaglory. The image was edited by user:Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Will Zelensky Pivot East

The Chinese are on a diplomatic offensive in the Middle East and Eastern Europe these days. Having already convinced the Saudies to trade their oil for Yuan, next stop on the diplomatic tour is Moscow, and very likely a visit to Kiev as well.

The goal in Eastern Europe is to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. If successful, the diplomatic reach of China will stretch as far as Kiev, and we will see a Pax China emerge in which the Silk Road between the far east and the far west of Eurasia is restored.

With nobody any longer believing that Ukraine can win their war against Russia, and hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers dying every day, a brokered peace deal must seem tempting to Zelensky who has been badly let down by NATO.  Every attempt at de-escalation has been sabotaged by western politicians, with terrible consequences for the Ukrainian people.

But Zelensky can't simply accept a peace deal with Putin. That would be dangerous to him personally, so the Chinese will have to offer him something better than what the West has been willing to do. China will have to guarantee his safety and provide him with more money than the West has been doing.

Apart from that, I don't think there's much more that Zelensky is looking for. He knows that he'll end up like Mussolini did back in the 1940s if he tries to stick around in Kiev for much longer. He's probably desperate for constructive talk regarding his safety. If the Chinese can provide Zelensky with what the West has refused him, he's likely going to be in on a deal.

If the Chinese end up successful in their mission, NATO will have suffered a great defeat. The US dollar will lose its dominance in trade. The West will be in disarray as it tries to come to grips with the new world order.

Xi Jinping

By Palácio do Planalto - https://www.flickr.com/photos/palaciodoplanalto/47945730807/, CC BY 2.0, Link

Perverse Tax Incentives

My wife recently came home from work with a debit card specifically meant to be used in restaurants and supermarkets. Instead of getting her full salary deposited as cash in her bank account, she now gets part of it paid into her debit card account.

This new arrangement is prompted by tax rules, and has nothing to do with free market capitalism. However, the impression is that it is another ploy by entrepreneurs to secure deals among themselves. The company that my wife works for has teamed up with a debit card company in order to secure itself lower taxes. Greedy business owners are once again at it.

But the arrangement wouldn't have come into place had it not been for tax incentives, and it's naïve to believe that the bureaucracy of the state was unaware of this loophole. Rather, the intention of the tax rule was to make companies pay part of their salaries in the form of modern day food stamps.

What's interesting in this respect isn't the rational reaction by my wife's employer, but the motivation by the bureaucrats. What is the state attempting to achieve through the introduction of this new system?

A quick look in the history books will tell us what's going on.

Being paid for labour in sound money is in fact a relatively new idea. As recently as the start of the industrial revolution, many workers were paid with tokens that could only be used in the factory store, the factory pub, and for rent at the factory lodging. Workers paid in this way had no choice but to put up with whatever standard of comfort that the factory owner deemed sufficient.

Going farther back in history, we find that most workers were paid with food and lodging. Trade with money was the preserve of the elite. Workers would either have to put up with what they were offered, or find work in some other place, and to prevent workers from simply leaving one employer for another, there were laws preventing this from happening. A serf was not free to move anywhere he chose. He needed written permission to do so. No serf was allowed to leave the grounds of the lord without a passport.

It appears then that the bureaucracy in Portugal is working towards a plan where the ultimate goal is to recreate the conditions that were considered normal until relatively recently. A gradual shift from sound money towards credit based payments will achieve this.

The system being introduced in Portugal is to the benefit of large corporations, and at the expense of smaller stores, because the debit card that we've received only works with supermarkets and restaurant chains. We are therefore likely to spend more money with corporations going forward, and this is to the detriment of smaller independent operators.

The net effect of this will be economic stagnation, because the quality of products and services will be increasingly determined by corporate entities favoured by the state. The state can in turn dictate the type of products and services provided. The entrepreneur is kicked out of the economic equation. The driving force for economic growth is being neutered.

The state is once again busy trying to revert the processes that were unleashed during the Victorian era when sound money reigned supreme. Small businesses and entrepreneurships are to be stifled. The vision is that of a society where most people own nothing, and only a few powerful lords engage in trade.

This push towards feudalism is very much in the spirit of the WEF which has openly stated that their vision for the future is on in which ordinary people own nothing. With many politicians firmly in the grip of the WEF, it shouldn't come as a surprise that measures are taken in this direction.

Klaus Schwab

By Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) swiss-image.ch/Photo by Remy Steinegger - https://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/2296517249/, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

Fragile Arrangements

Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt on Friday. That means that anyone who lent money to that bank will find it hard to get it back, and anyone who did business with it will have to take their business somewhere else.

The consequences of this will be seen as early as this coming Monday, and we will learn how fragile or robust our current financial system really is.

The challenges for anyone who did business with SVB are multiple, so its bankruptcy serves as a good test case. First of all, a large number of businesses were dependent on the bank for their operations. Many had the bank taking care of salaries for their employees, either through credit lines or from deposits.

A bank deposit is a loan to a bank, and any amount above $250,000 is uninsured. A company with a bank deposit above that figure isn't going to get access to all its money. If the money is required for salary payments, it's going to fail its legal obligation to pay. Those dependent on credit lines for paying salaries won't be able to pay either. If they cannot find an alternative to their SVB services by Monday, or early next week at the latest, employees will have to be furloughed.

SVB specialized in venture capital, with a large number of its clients being start-ups. These companies were typically doing all their banking with SVB as part of their deal to get funded in the first place. A large number of start-ups are therefore likely to be wiped out unless some other bank steps in as an alternative, but with financial conditions now tight due to central bank tightening, we're not likely to see anyone step into the vacuum left by SVB. Many well paying jobs are therefore likely to be cut as early as Monday morning.

But a bank like SVB isn't an island. Banks trade in loans among themselves, and any bank that owned SVB bonds or had deposits at SVB must now write that money off as as a loss. There's also the sudden awareness among depositors that deposits aren't ironclad. Even if they are insured, cash can be difficult to withdraw from a bankrupt bank. Other banks are therefore likely to see withdrawals of deposits at the same time that some are seeing losses due to exposure to SVB.

It's hard to say how severe this contagion will be before some time has passed, but there will be further losses in the banking sector, that's for sure.

Our current financial system is up for a test. If it's as robust as central bankers assure us that it is, the SVB failure will be contained to that one bank, a handful of their clients, and their employees. Things will sort themselves out. The newly unemployed will find work with other companies, a few start-ups will have failed and some people will have lost some money to SVB, and that's the end of that story.

However, if the system is as fragile as some fear, we'll see dominos falling everywhere. A whole bunch of small banks will find themselves bankrupt due to bad loans and depositors withdrawing money. Businesses dependent on these banks will have to stop their operations, the unemployed will fail to find new work, and there will be a rush to sell real-estate and other assets in order to raise cash. There will be defaults on loan payments from businesses and private clients. Larger banks will get in trouble, and the whole economy gets clogged up in an illiquid mess.

Reflection in a soap bubble

By Brocken Inaglory. The image was edited by user:Alvesgaspar - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Little Search Interest for Bitcoin

Bitcoin is up 30% so far this year. That may sound impressive, but Bitcoin is still down 67% since its peak back in October. To get back to that level, Bitcoin has a further 300% to go, and there are good reasons to believe that it will never happen.

Search interest for Bitcoin is currently at the lowest it's been since 2016, and low search interest has always preceded a drop in Bitcon's price because Bitcoin requires fresh buyers in order to sustain its price.

Bitcoin is a flawed investment object in that it requires energy and hardware for its existence, yet generates no income for its owners. The Bitcoin community as a whole has to pour money into Bitcoin's upkeep, and this cannot be sustained over time if there is no fresh money coming in. With search interest for Bitcoin at a seven year low, we can expect Bitcoin to go another leg lower in the not too distant future.

Brass token currently priced at about $21,000

By Steve Jurvetson - https://secure.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8410385932/in/photostream/, CC BY 2.0, Link

A Theory of the Penis

I'm a firm believer in the idea that the world is arranged in a near perfect way, and that there's little point in trying to be clever about things. Our best response to adverse situations is to analyse them, and find out why the situation is the way it is, and why it is in fact due to some higher order. Once we understand the underlying mechanism, we're in a position to navigate whatever situation we find difficult at the moment.

This led me to my theory of women, which explains why women are hardwired to do and say crazy things from time to time. There's a reason for why women behave this way, and there's a proper response to it. Understanding this makes it all the more easy to respond correctly, and it makes the craziness a lot less unnerving when it happens. On final analysis, we discover that the arrangement that nature (aka God) has put into place is pretty much perfect.

Another thing that many men find suboptimal in life is our sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci famously wrote in one of his notes that he resented the way his penis would readily rise to the challenge when there was no need for it and stubbornly refuse to rise when he desired it the most.

There's no way to will the penis into action. Even in situations where everything is laid out perfectly for a romantic rump in the hay, the penis can suddenly decide to take a nap. On the face of it, it's hardly a perfect arrangement. However, on closer analysis, we see that this too has a perfectly good explanation.

For one, the arrangement promotes fidelity. A couple will develop routines that work. Sex with a steady partner is more reliable than sex with random strangers. This in turn promotes strong family relationships and a secure environment for children to grow up in. Children that grow up with strong family ties are more likely to thrive and prosper, which is ideal for the success of the family and its legacy.

But couples can fall out of their routines due to illness, work related stress or financial troubles, and they may find it hard to reignite their passions. Boredom and a desire for adventure can also get in their way. Men are programmed to be physically attracted to fertile young women. Women are programmed to desire strong male personalities. It's easy to be tempted, and to let this grow into a resentment towards our partner. One thing leads to another, and the magic is gone. The marriage bed becomes a cold and lonely place.

The way to deal with this is to acknowledge the situation and make an effort to rectify it. If the problem is related to practical matters, we need to fix them so that the house is once again in order. If the problem is related to boredom or a desire for adventure and conquest, this must be dealt with sensibly. A desire for some other person must be recognized as a fantasy that shouldn't be acted upon. The fantasy is usually a result of discontent with life in general rather than a genuine desire for a new partner. Discontent must in turn be dealt with sensibly and constructively.

Having properly analysed the source of our discontent, most couples will agree that the only way forward is to reignite the spark, but as Leonardo da Vinci pointed out, simply willing a situation isn't enough to make it happen. One thing is to make a good analysis of a relationship problem. Another thing entirely is to act on it. Once a couple has fallen out of their routines, their routines may no longer work, and some may conclude from this that the situation is hopeless. However, such a conclusion overlooks an important aspect of Leonardo da Vinci's observation.

All healthy men get strong and reliable erections during deep sleep. These erections have nothing to do with sexual fantasies. They are not caused by any romantic or erotic situation. To the man, they are pointless in that they seem to serve no purpose. But this is only the case seen from the perspective of the man. The erection isn't there purely for him, it's there just as much for the woman. The penis is an organ attached to the man, but it belongs just as much to his wife. Once this is understood, it's clear that nature (aka God) did in fact arrange for a perfect solution to relationship problems. All a couple needs to do in order to reignite their spark after a dry spell is for the woman to make it clear that her man's next deep sleep erection is for her to enjoy.

If the problem turns out to be that the reliable erections don't materialize, the likely source of the problem is weak Kegel muscles. The solution is then to incorporate Kegel exercises into our daily fitness routines. My own experience with is that this greatly increases the strength and frequency of nightly erections.

There's no need for elaborate séances or voodoo magic in order to reignite a flame. All that's needed is for the man to give his wife the care and affection she needs to feel secure in their relationship, and for the woman to make herself ready for him. When the man wakes up with his usual pointless erection, he rolls over to her side of the bed, and they make love.

Cinderella

By Sarah Noble Ives - https://www.americanantiquarian.org/AabMcL53.htm, Public Domain, Link

Practical Investments

My mother wants to spend future winters outside of Norway. She has specifically mentioned Canterbury in England as a desired location. She's English, so it makes sense. Canterbury would feel like home. However, my father is ninety years old and my mother is only a few years younger than him. Moving to a town with no immediate family close by seems like a risky venture. I have therefore suggested that she should come to Porto instead. My wife and I could find my parents a flat nearby. This would allow us to visit them, and they could come and visit us.

I've also suggested that I, or one of my brothers, escort them to and from Porto. At my parents' age, I think it better to have an escort to take care of things so that they don't have to worry about anything.

This plan has been well received, not only by my parents, but also by my brothers as well. It may come true, in which case everyone is better off. If my parents come to Porto for ten to fifteen weeks starting January, they will avoid the worst of winter in Norway, and my son, my family in Porto and I will be able to enjoy my parents' company.

A consequence of this, if implemented, is that it will change things around for everybody. Things that made little sense before are suddenly more interesting. In particular, it opens up for the prospect of buying a flat for my parents to live in. If my wife and I can rent out such a flat to my parents for several weeks every winter, the risk is reduced, and chances are that the flat can be used for other purposes too.  My brothers in law can stay at the flat when they come visiting from Lisbon or Paris. My children can use it when they come visiting from Norway. My stepdaughter has just turned 24. She may soon want to rent a place for herself. The place may also be rented out on Air B&B, or it can be used as a retreat for my wife to focus on her knitting projects.

Suddenly, a whole world of possibilities opens up. A flat in the vicinity of where we live has so much potential that it becomes an interesting prospect even if prices are a little elevated at the moment.

This is a world of difference from what my wife and I was looking into a few years back, and illustrates an important point when it comes to investments. My wife and I were thinking of buying a small place with a garden out in the country. We thought it a nice idea to have a summer house. But we ended up laying the plan on ice, and this turns out to have been the right move now that we have a clearer idea of what sort of conveniences we're actually looking for. A house in the country would have been an expensive luxury. A flat in the neighbourhood, on the other hand, would be a practical solution to a lot of things.

From this, we see that the value of an investment is divided into two parts. One is the pleasure and convenience that it brings. The other is the potential for profit. When the second point is the main reason for a purchase, the risk is elevated relative to when the first point is of greatest importance.

My experience is that practical investments, such as my house in Norway when I still lived there, is far more likely to yield a healthy return when sold than more speculative investment. The reason for this is that what's practical for me is likely to be practical for others as well.

However, house prices are elevated relative to gold at the moment, which means that gold shouldn't be sold for this purchase. The reason for this can be found in this post, where I concluded that gold serves best as insurance in scenarios where it is undervalued relative to real-estate. Instead of buying a flat by selling our gold, we'll seek a bank loan. My wife is currently employed at a relatively good salary. She owns an attractive flat, and she has no debt. It shouldn't be hard to secure a loan.

This means that by my own definition, we'll be investing in real-estate, rather than saving in it. We'll have to seek a return on this investment to cover at least some of the expenses related to it.

The hope is, of course, that any investment into a flat will turn a profit over time. However, this won't be our primary reason for buying it. If we do buy a flat, it will be mainly in order to make life better for ourselves and our nearest, and any future profit on this will be but a bonus. Had this not been the case, I would've dismissed the idea, because I'm a saver and to some extent an investor. But I'm not a speculator. I don't buy things on credit merely in the hope to make a quick profit.

What now remains to be done is to get a better idea of what's for offer in terms of flats in our area and at what price. If we find that buying a flat comes out little more expensive than renting a place, we'll seek to buy a place. If it turns out to be a lot cheaper to rent a place, we'll have to wait until a better opportunity comes around.

My stepdaughter

Reasons for Post-pandemic Optimism

Wikipedia just completed its recording of notable deaths for February, and the reading is cause for optimism. There were a little under 700 deaths recorded, which is in line with pre-pandemic years (blue column). This is a big improvement on January which came in line with the pandemic years (red column). It's also a big improvement on February 2022 (yellow column).

Notable deaths according to Wikipedia

Comparing January and February of this year with individual years from 2018 to 2022, we discover an interesting pattern. Death rates didn't take off before March 2020, and the numbers stayed persistently high until January 2023, with 900 notable deaths. But this has now dropped off a cliff.

One way of reading this is that deaths went up as soon as government bureaucrats started to dictate remedies and solutions in March 2020. The deaths remained high for the following years, when most people were following government recommendations.

The last booster campaign that resulted in people taking their recommended medicines took place in December and January of this winter, but scepticism has grown since then, and the sharp drop off we've seen in February may simply reflect the fact that people no longer follow government recommendations.

We are not yet seeing negative excess deaths, which is something we should see before we can say that things are back to normal, but the latest numbers are promising. They indicate that the harm done by the official response to the pandemic is transitory. Once people stop following government recommendations, they become noticeable more healthy.

Notable deaths in 2018, 19, 20 and 21

Stoltenberg's Defeat

More than a year has passed since Russia started its invasion of Ukraine. Diplomacy had broken down and the Russians decided to make the first move in the conflict. There was an initial swift strike on Kiev, which failed, followed by a broad advance into eastern Ukraine that was stopped and in some places reversed over the spring and summer. As far as territory is concerned, little has happened since then.

What we're seeing is an artillery war reminiscent of the western front of World War 1. Soldiers deployed at the front line have four hours on average to live before they are hit according to some estimates. Ukraine has lost a quarter of a million men in the twelve months up until now. Russian figures are estimated to be about the same. That's half a million dead young men in the space of a year.

This is the price we've paid so far for failed diplomacy, and the chief diplomat for NATO is Jens Stoltenberg, a man who was an outspoken pacifist in his youth. He wanted Norway out of NATO. If the Russians were to invade, Norwegians shouldn't resist, but work against the Soviet overlords through peaceful protest and disobedience.

However, once the Soviet Union collapsed, Jens Stoltenberg changed his tune. He became increasingly pro-US and was a keen supporter of the war in Libya. When asked about Norwegian involvement in that war, he replied with a flippant remark about the virtues of target practice. It didn't seem to bother him that one of the targets was an orphanage that Norwegian pilots levelled in order to get at Gaddafi who was rumoured to be hiding out among the children.

Stoltenberg's diplomacy with the Russians hasn't been much to brag about either. Instead of actively looking for common ground, Stoltenberg kept rising the stakes. He needed only to honour past promises related to NATO expansion and find reasonable ways to police the Donbas region of Ukraine in order to save what has now become half a million lives. But he chose instead to invite Ukraine into NATO, thereby setting off Russian aggression.

This made it clear that Stoltenberg wasn't put in charge of the diplomatic efforts in order to broker a peace deal. He was put on the job to trigger a proxy war in which NATO could fight Russia without having to send NATO soldier to the frontline. With billions of dollars worth of military hardware ready to be poured into Ukraine, Stoltenberg's backers were sure of an eventual victory as well as a handsome profit from arms sales.

Stoltenberg had done exactly as he was told, and is continuing to do so even as the horrible consequences of his failed diplomacy is becoming clear to everyone. The Ukrainians have lost so many soldiers that we will soon have to send troops from other countries into battle in order to keep up the pressure. A propaganda campaign to this effect has already started, with people like Sean Penn urging NATO countries to become more directly involved in the conflict.

The backdrop to this latest development is the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut which has been under siege by the Russians for the greater part of this winter. This is where Kiev is sending their young men to die in their hundreds every day. The battle is estimated to have claimed around a hundred thousand Ukrainian lives so far. Without fresh recruits entering the conflict from outside of the Ukraine, this battle will be lost and the Russians will be in a position to take multiple other cities that depend on Bakhmut.

The city of Bakhmut is so important that it cannot be allowed to fall. But the cost of holding it is enormous. As such it's the ideal battleground for the Russians. The Russians don't need to launch an all out offensive when they can stay in their positions and wear the enemy out over time. The Russians are waging a war of attrition rather than the blitzkrieg that was expected.

As things stand, Ukrainian forces cannot win in Bakhmut. They can only lose immediately or lose later. The rational thing would therefore be to withdraw from Bakhmut immediately, but that would result in immediate backlash against those who sent thousands of young men to their certain death for nothing. The situation is politically difficult, and politicians are extending the conflict in hope of some miracle. They are engaged in the type of wishful think that German leaders engaged in towards the end of the second world war, and people like Sean Penn are actively encouraging this by holding up promises of more direct support from NATO.

As head of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg stands to lose a lot too, should Bakhmut fall and cause a domino effect along the highway's leading out of that city. He would have to explain his diplomacy and his failure to secure a peace deal with the Russians. A negotiated peace that ends up more favourable for the Russians than what Stoltenberg was willing to accept a year ago would translate into half a million dead bodies for nothing. That's a mighty big pile of dead bodies to somehow explain away as a good thing.

Mark Esper with Jens Stoltenberg

By U.S. Secretary of Defense - 200212-D-AP390-6107, CC BY 2.0, Link

Increasing Snow Mass on the Northern Hemisphere

Winter is nearing its end, with melt season starting in about two weeks. That means that we're unlikely to see much snow accumulation from here on out. It also means that we can say a few things with a high degree of certainty about the winter of 2023 and how it compares to previous winters.

The charts I will be referring to can be found by following this link. Of interest to us is the chart titled "GCW/FMI SWE Tracker" and the chart titled "EC/GCW NH SWE Tracker". Both track the Snow Water Equivalent on the northern hemisphere; I.e. the amount of water locked up in the snow-cover.

The main difference between the first and the second chart is that the first one compares the current winter's snow-fall to the average from 1982 to 2012 while the other compares it to the average from 1998 to 2011. The first one uses a thirty year average while the second one is based on a thirteen year average.

This means that we can compare the thirteen years up until 2011 with the thirty years up until 2012, and when we do that we find that winters during the thirteen year period were less rich in snow than previous years. This supports my impression that the mid-nineties until mid-tens were unusually mild compared to previous years. Those years happen to correspond to the peak of the modern warm period which traditional climate analysis would point to as a temporary top before we go into a new cold period.

This hypothesis is further supported by the fact that our current winter comes out as unusually rich in snow compared to both the thirteen and thirty year averages. We're tagging the one standard deviation on the thirty year trend line, and we're way above the one standard deviation on the thirteen year average. That means that this winter has seen a great deal more snow than normal, going back to 1982. This in turn, may mean that we'll see glaciers start growing again in the not too distant future. In fact, the thirteen year chart seems to indicate that this is already happening.

Looking closely at the thirteen year chart, we see that snow cover was above normal as early as August 2022. With August being the end of the melt season, the above normal snow cover in August was glacial by definition. If it persists, we'll see glaciers grow larger.

It appears that the classic climate model is once again proven correct. We've passed the modern maximum, and we're entering a period of colder weather with more snow and ice.

Hardangerjøkulen viewed from Hårteigen

The Narrative Pivot Continues

Woody Harrelson surprised everyone with a joke he told on SNL the other day. The implication of the joke was that state supported drug lords had conspired with the state to lock people in their houses in order to force them to take their drugs.

The fact that this conspiracy theory was aired on prime TV is both surprising and interesting. The studio audience was visibly shocked. The mainstream media was up in arms. However, if anyone searches for news related to Woody Harrelson today, the episode is buried in a pile of gossip and stories unrelated to his joke. Rather than highlighting the story, it's now being ignored.

The reaction of the press reveals that they were taken by surprise, and that they had no idea how to deal with it. Conspiracy theories are becoming so widely accepted that the claim that Woody was spreading such stories had no negative effect on him. The narrative that worked effectively to silence dissent a year ago has lost its power.

This is a continuation of a trend that I remarked on back in August 2022. There's a shift away from the pro-vaccine narrative. People are distancing themselves from pro-vaccine statements that they made in the past. They are eager to come across as more nuanced and educated. The #ThankYouScience tag is no longer cool. However, this pattern was until recently only noticeable among politically active people. What's new now is that a mainstream figure whom everyone loves has come out as a conspiracy theorist. It's safe to say that Woody is unvaccinated, and that is apparently sufficiently cool to say out loud on TV.

Woody's joke has pushed people's perception of the unvaccinated from acceptable to cool. That's a huge change from only a little over a year ago when supermarkets were preparing to deny the unvaccinated access to their stores, and states were operating quarantine camps and handing out stiff fines to unvaccinated people leaving their house.

If Woody had told his joke two years ago, it wouldn't have been aired, and Woody would almost certainly have become an outcast. His status as unvaccinated was a secret until just a few days ago. His strategy has in other words been to stay low yet firm until the worst of the storm has passed, and then come out all the stronger afterwards.

This happens to be the recommended strategy we find in the Bible, namely to be meek in the face of adversity.

Also illustrated by this pivot is the way nature, aka God, operates in a different fashion from evil, aka Lucifer. The deception and push for universal injections was intense but relatively short lived. The pressure could only be sustained for so long before cracks started to appear, and the old narrative was suddenly changed once the war in Ukraine broke out last year. This is because Lucifer must constantly change in order to keep us distracted. God, on the other hand is like a rising tide. He may not look like much to begin with, but He's unstoppable.

As for those who got themselves vaccinated, we see in their behaviour a classic example of miscalculated risk/reward due to high time preference and recency bias. Most people are both impatient and inclined to think that whatever happens in the now is likely to persist into the future. Hence, they got themselves vaccinated out of a belief that we were entering some kind of new normal where only the vaccinated would be free to live normal lives.

Considering the enormous misalignment between the minuscule risk of dying from Covid and the considerable risk associated with a brand new and largely untested medical technology, we now know for sure that most people are terrible at risk/reward analysis. They are trend chasers that believe that whatever happens in the present is likely to persist for ever.

Fresh air