View From The Herd

 Rawhide Extras,​

​  ​I have found a Bill Gates CNN interview video that is not Twitter here:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bill-gates-on-the-next-few-months-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-its-bad-news-11607893787
​  ​I admit I had not watched it, ​when I sent it yesterday, ​but now I have. My read of Mr Bill is that he should not play high stakes poker.
He is very pleased with himself numerous times in the interview, with a huge smile that he actually tries to suppress a few times to look appropriately serious. 

​  Bill​ always smiles when speaking glowingly of his own prior predictions, now come true, and the efforts of his foundation and their allies, and of the failures of the Trump Administration. He is very careful in choosing his words to give them no credit at all. 

​Bill​ speaks glowingly of Biden and Fauci and all the big vaccines, and says he will take his shot in public, only when his turn comes. 

He implies this is a massive, life-saving good, and he wants to be in the same line as the common people. 

  ​Bill​ says things will not be back to normal until 2022, but implies they may be​somewhat ​ better next summer. 

Nothing about vitamin-D, though his comments seem to imply that he is taking it into account, summer, and winter​ pandemic waves,​ and all.

​  Bill​ Gates reads like a fairly open-faced book if you know where he has been coming from for the last 15 years. I read something by him, about 15 years ago. He was fascinated with vaccines, including vaccines as birth control. Now he does not say that.​

  Bill sees the importance of reducing global human population to what global ecosystems can sustain. 

My personal view of the population-utility of power elites is that they keep the human herd (me; you, our families) from completely destroying the means of food production, by helping us kill a lot of each other before that happens.​

​ ​ Nobody who is not in the God-play-group likes people who play god.
​They are​ a clear threat.
Bill Gates play​s​ a very clever god, a smug and pleasant god, who deeply loves himself and invites all of us to do the same. 

It will be best for all of us.​ God knows best. God has the big data, and the science.​
​God-Bill's​ obvious point would be that the least painful form of population reduction is birth-reduction.
It’s less bad than war, pestilence, famine and death, but it does not exclude them​. 

​Unfortunately, b​irth reduction alone might not be enough to do the whole population-reduction job.​

​  ​What might I suggest as a counter-offer?
I don’t play god. I ​also ​don’t eat critters, because I practice non-violence.
I am not a tyrant. I think that we should be past massive slaughter as a means of population control. 

We are technologically and intellectually able to leave ​genocide​ behind​.  ​

W​e have not ​exactly​ found the societal disposition to leave it behind​ yet​.

​  ​What I suggest is our human strong point, distributed problem solving in small groups. 

Nothing is assured, but it is what we, as a species, do best, and it is what has brought us to the point where we are about to extinct ourselves from success.
​  ​Going forward, we will have the severe and permanent decline in global oil, natural gas and coal, especially the cheap, easy and high quality stuff that the permanent-growth economy needs.​ 

  Energy and Economy have already begun their terminal decline, but ​the decline​ has been​ ​labeled ​"​COVID Pandemic​"​.
COVID has destroyed “demand” for the fuel and products that are now in decline, but we do not have to​ know that​ they are in permanent decline. “Back-to-normal” just keep​s​ getting put off until later, while our owners work things out in THEIR smallish groups.

​  ​The Davos-crowd​/​World Economic Forum clan may be as smug and self-satisfied as Mr Gates looks in the video​, though they are not all doing as well as the prescient Mr Gates today​. At least they ​can look forward to the imminent​ destruction of their nationalist rivals​.​ 

​That will free them up​ ​to​ work out one, big, good solution for all of humanity, and put it into action. 

​The Global Reset is​ a work in progress, but they and their best experts are on it​. They are​ all over it.

​  ​I must disclose that what I advocate is not laid out at all, but the potential strength of it lies in customizing adaptation​s to​ specific locations and cultures and groups, like towns and churches and employee-owned-enterprises, for instance. 

Just everybody does ​their ​homework in small groups for 30 years. 

That’s my suggestion.​ It's just what people always did to survive. ​
I’m doing my homework. My health remains good at 62.

​  ​The supply lines are breaking globally. Merry Christmas. 

More and more things are out of stock. Noticed that?
It’s time to invest, not to consume. 

Invest in what you need to survive, not in New York (if I may be so bold) ​n​or Phoenix, not in an isolated bunker.​ We need each other.​
Risks involve a lot of uncertainty, and an ideal situation in 2-3 years might be terrible in 12-13 years.
We are renting a little half duplex from my Mom, in Austin, where we both work. The weather here won’t kill you, even without utilities. 

We have paid off the gardening “homestead” in Yoakum, population 6000, with a rail line, and ​a ​mixed economy. ​Cattle ranching and farming persist. 

Eagle​ ​Ford shale fracking went black. That’s ok for the moment. What’s next?​  ​

It’s a 2 hour drive each way. We spend weekends working ​in Yoakum​, and weekdays working our paid jobs. 

When will we have to choose one or the other?​ When will we have to stop driving four hours each weekend?​
The country used a lot less gasoline in the 1970s, but there were long gas lines, and alternate-day filling laws.​​
When will supply-destruction become apparent? ​  

Charles Hugh Smith assesses that going forward into volatility:​  https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20/gasoline12-20.html

With supply destruction as a limiter, you can’t buy what you need, and prices shoot up into hyperinflation. They sure will this time.
​We will experience s​tagflation again; hyper-stag-flation…​ We will be insecure and frustrated.​
​   Can you learn to grow some of your food​?

​Mainly, it gives you a comprehension of how difficult and uncertain it is, but you also develop skills and expertise. 

Perspective. Working-knowledge.​ Actual experience.

​
​  ​Look to how you might survive for a month if the utilities go out. Grocery store utilities will be out, too.
Gas pumps need electricity. Utilities need electricity. Phone systems need electricity.
I’m not being extreme.

​  ​The God-play-group will have to sacrifice billions of us, somewhat arbitrarily, ​at some time​.
The birth-control-surprise cannot work fast enough to deal with the absolute decline that factory farming ​will ​go though in 10-20 years. 

You may think my timeline is wrong. It might be. Some failures are bound to come sooner​; some later​.​ ​

​  ​Physically preparing as much as you can, not just thinking, is better than not preparing.
Do have a sensible, multi-purpose bike, and some spare tu​b​es, tires,​ parts,​ grease and tools.
Ride it at least every other day.

​Wheeled Bovine​