Economic Control, Power & Wealth

Understanding corruption boils down to the idolatry of money, currency, vanity, materialism, wealth, opulence, luxury, comfort, security, haute culture, elite culture, fancy cars, supercars, helicopters, and many other expensive rare or unique items of consumption.

Looking at the global economy through the lens of petrochemical energy, we can see that finite petroleum based fossil fuels have historically returned 94 units of useful chemical energy for one unit of energy expended to recover the chemical black gold crude oil from the upper layers of Earths mantle to be pumped and shipped around to oil refineries that make millions of chemical products, while gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels are their bread and butter, products like propane, butane, and many chemical intermediates used to make fertilizer are also highly profitable, generating enormous revenue streams. 

In understanding how to create an economy a few essential ingredients at the societal level are required. The national government has to invest in infrastructure such as roads, power plants, power wires, water distribution, domestic trash & recycling collection, schools and education, healthcare and setup a stabile society where citizens feel comfortable taking risks. Access to credit therein enables innovators and entrepreneur to get capital funding on KickStarter or similar to kick off emerging business models, a business incubator environment that favors capital invents into new business models. Thus motivated intellectuals from these stabile economy are encouraged to collaborate with other smart people to develop, make and market & sell interesting, new or better products and services, with good branding or brand identity that sell well online worldwide. 

Power vastly more complicated to define. It involves complicated currency manipulation and trade manipulation such that the advantaged country effectively subjugates the disadvantaged country to take advantage of cheaper labor in the developing country so that people with political power and elite income earners in the rich country can make even more money by exploiting people abroad. In this way some wealthy people are only wealthy because they leveraged increasing income on the backs of people working in other countries for low wages, like the CEO of Nike who sells a pair of shoes in America for over $100 when he is able to have them made in cheaper labor markets abroad for $16 a pair, and effectively pioneered outsourcing which destroyed most of the American market for USA made custom cobbler manufactured shoes made of real leather and no rubber or plastic, that last for decades and can be resoled by a cobbler in the future. 

Certainly such shoes exist that are made in America by a cobbler, but with limiter local availably, they are also very expensive at more than $800 for a pair, and not widely available in most locals in America. The cobbler has to measure the feet of the customer, just as many tailors that make custom suits for a customer measure the customers body dimensions before fabricating the high end suit, the cobbler must also take foot measurements in first person with the customer, further delimiting the cobblers market reach, just like a plumber, electrician, contractor, roofer, finish woodworker, remodeler, craftsman or handyman can only work on one job at a time locally, and cannot be easily or practical insourced or outsourced like Nike did with shoes. 

Wealth is mindset that focuses on making endlessly more money, while also spending less. Really wealthy people in America tend to also be very frugal compared with the incomes or budgets, especially noteworthy since most Americans in other income brackets tend to spend "above their means" meaning that spent too much compared to their incomer or how much money they make working. Wage slavery means that effectively most people hate their jobs because they are effectively income prostitutes who trade their body & time for money. 

In this way everyone who works is selling them selves or what Hillary Clinton calls "Exercising their franchise as an individual" which is how her political husband make so much money, as they effectively exercise their franchise together. I would call what the Clintons are doing for income unethical and sleazy, given its tantamount to theft in a way. 

There are a lot of very generous kind loving wealthy people in America. America has the most generous population in the world, such that many Americans of all income levels readily give donations of money to many kinds of charities and non profits and churches, NGO, humanitarian relief efforts, to animal sanctuaries, to poor children in distant far away countries, to UNICEF, or the world wildlife foundation, to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to the Marching Dime or St Vincent DePaul or similar charities that benefit low income and poor people. 

America has pioneer the compute industry, the industrial large scale recycling industry, the internet industry, many aerospace industries, industrial oil industries, industrial agriculture, large scale chemical plants, large scale road, water & power systems, large scale power plants, the nuclear industry, the space race, many inventions of many kinds across many industries, all invented and commercialized originally in America. The entire Swiss watch industry virtually started by first absorbing American watch makers that moved their operations to Switzerland. 

The whole Quartz Criss was a fake worry because expensive mechanical and automatic wristwatches sell themselves with brand cache, brand identity, brand prestige, brand recognition, branding, quality, precision, as wrist mounted status symbols that people of higher income like to flex their money on, when they purchase mechanical perpetual or automatic Swiss made watches like Rolex that cost more than my then brand new 2020 Yamaha MT-03 motorcycle which had an OEM retail price of $4599 or the cheapest of the 300cc class, also the smallest and easiest to park in confined space which suited my parking case & still does better than the out-of-stock Honda CB500F that I actually wanted, which was larger, more expensive, and more powerful, but harder to park, more expensive to insure, and less fuel efficient, though much better at highway speeds in America without being buzzy, though I am such a repressed motorsports fanatic that the R3 engine of the MT-03 sings magical notes to me at every RPM in every gear, through that lovely mechanical sequential 6 speed manual transmission setup, and handles like a agile wet dream with just the right amount of noise and NVH to impart special enjoyable sounds and vibrations that suit my ASMR perfectly. Thank you Megan Otto for buying that amazing work of mechanical art and thank you Yamaha for making the MT-03. This is even more special since Yamaha works with Toyota on special vehicle project engines, making a Yamaha motorcycle the closest thing to a Toyota Motorcycle, since Toyota does not make motorcycles. 

Our 10lb propane fueled metal furnace takes propane gas from a 20lb or 4.6 gal domestic white painted steel barbecue stove fuel tank with a brass valve setup and regulator through a fiber reinforced polymer hose that is plumbed into a flared brass fitting into a steel pipe where a small brass orifice blows a jet of propane gas past oval shaped holes cut into the wall of the flame tube, which is mounted tangentially to the round 316L stainless cylinder walls lined with rock wool insulator to create a spiral flame that swirls around the crucible filled with metals I am smelting, namely soda cans or aluminum beverage cans, that I first crust with a pneumatic can crusher where a foot pedal actuates the air pressure powder piston to smash crush pop cans inserted into the mild painted steel housing, that are reduced to 1/10 their original height, so I can fit more in the crucible at once. I use a #10 sized fuzed sintered metal oxide crucible, that the 30kw of propane flame heats up such that it's able to boil the aluminum. I then use metal tongs while wearing thick leather gloves, eye protection, a leather apron and protective shoes, scrape off the dross or slag into a metal slag bucket filled with sand, then using a special set of tongs lift the crucible out and poor the liquid aluminum into graphite molds that were preheated with a propane torch. I have actually used the cast aluminum blocks to warm my car that's parked outside on the winter mornings, by heating the aluminum blocks on the electric stove to 120 F, then moving them with leather gloves into a amazon box to the car, where I put them in the foot well of the driver cockpit, so my feet are warmer when driving the cold car, since it gets freezing cold outside at night and my car is frozen in the morning. Did you know that block heating a car engine from ambient temps outside when parked outside to 105F can reduce cold start fuel consumption by a pint or 16 fl.oz during the fist 90 seconds and prolongs the life of your engine by reducing friction during cold start since the warmer engines will have less friction on cold start. 

Lets examine the oil crisis of 1973 when gas prices shot rapidly upward, during a time when plastic started making waves as mass produced injection moulded goods rapidly produced and sold at high profit margins that are naturally electrically resistant, less prone to drop breakage than glass, less damaged by acids than metals, not prone to corrosion, and relatively strong & resilient, the same reasons that plastics & microplastic are an environmental problem today, also the same reasons that polymers and plastic are popular materials for automotive applications in the dash, doors, bumpers, pillar covers, engine covers, even some engine parts like the intake or cold side to reduce thermal robbing of the aluminum head or block to improve thermal efficiency or further reduce weight of the engine, with other parts previously made of metals like the water pump now made with plastics, something that makes them less durable or less reliable over 20 years of 200,000 miles than the classical metals parts they replace, but cheaper and more energy efficient to manufacture, especially noteworthy given that variable flow rate water pumps with brushless motor drives and variable frequency controllers are now used to optimized thermal efficiency of engines like that of the Toyota Prius Hybrids for example, which in its latest 5th Generation has 196 HP and get over 55 MPG on regular unleaded gasoline or better than 3.1L/100km of fuel efficiency, and can be purchased with optional e-AWD such that electric motor drives the rear wheels in concert with the front to accomplish all wheel drive, though that drops economy to 53 MPG or ~3.4L/100km. At the time larger American made automobiles were getting 8-15 MPG city, and 12-20 MPG highway, better fuel economy at 50 or 55MPH than at higher speeds where aerodynamic penalties on 3 speed and 4 speed vehicles of the day meant the engine was spinning at higher RPM's using even more fuel per mile to push more air out of the way at 70 or 80 MPH in the center of America where speed limits are higher on highways, since aerodynamic drag increases as a 3rd order rate of speed such that higher speeds require increasingly more fuel above 50 MPH where the transmission is in its highest gear ratio. Today many automobiles have 8 speed or 10 speed automatic's or VCT's which have effectively gear equivalent ranges of 21 to 28 speeds by continually varying the final drive ratio the way the PSD and HSD system of Toyota Hybrid vehicles does very clearly to achieve class leading fuel economy and ultra low emissions. The middle eastern oil producing nations wanted to hamstring oil supplies to increase the price of oil to increase their revenue streams or profits and this had disastrous impacts on the truck highway system dependent economy of the USA where public roadways and cars are the dominate way that people and goods are moved about the country, such that gasoline consumed at the rate of ~369 million gallons daily in the USA. Locally right now we are buying gasoline as regular unleaded 87 for $4.40 USD near Seattle, WA, while many other locals are selling it for $3.20 or even $2.80, and airlines are only paying $1/gal for jet fuel. The American economy very sensitive to gasoline retail prices since they strongly affect family budgets as many people choose to buy SUV's and Trucks with low fuel economy for their utility or other aspects, while Meg & I prioritize fuel economy and practicality with our 22 Corolla Hybrid and 10 Prius III, and Honda PCX150 Scooter and Yamaha MT-03 motorcycle, all which have stellar low fuel consumption or excellent fuel economy for their respective vehicle class compared with alternative vehicles that are similar. In this context rich dad's drive cheaper practical cars, and poor dads drive used luxury cars that are money pits, not just by wasting fuel with poor fuel economy, but also with higher repair and maintenance costs, and much higher total operating costs per mile or more total cost of ownership. 

When the tsunami hit Japan, local electricity prices hit $1 USD/ kWh one of the most expensive rates in the world for grid power utility customers who were paying record breaking prices for domestic electricity, something that also dramatically increased the costs of some bakeries with electric ovens, or other commercial and industrial operations where electrical power dominate the operating costs like industrial refrigeration used to keep perishable seafood safe for consumption for longer periods for distribution to locals far from where the fish was caught in the oceans. Modern households typically keep around $700+ of perishable foods in a refrigerator, such that power outages lasting longer than 3 days can ruin foods store in unpowered fridges. Its estimated that a prolonged power outage in the USA would kill off much of the American population, since CPAP machines and other critical equipment that people depend on like their furnace blower motor, cannot operate without grid power, such that a home in winter cold could become dangerously cold, such that gas stations and natural gas pumping and water pumping stations stop working eventually, credit cards and debit cards do not work, internet is offline, online surfaces & many servers are offline and most of modern societal first world function grinds to a halt and stops working during power outages lasting longer than 8 days. If the power or internet stays offline for 8 months or more, chaotic decay happens and crime surges & official police & military services are not available or not effective, armed gangs roam around pillaging and taking from weak unarmed unprepared people and it becomes a cold dark cruel future for a while, something like the tribulation mentioned in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Thus modern societies are fragile and prone to failing, not just from fiat currency failures either. 

During the 20th century, countries like America, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France, Norway and many others setup national investment and technological development companies and research institutions to master industrial arts like metal mining and refining and production, or electronics know how in research, development and manufacturing of integrated circuits, or oil exploration, oil mining or drilling in land or at sea and how to build and operate oil refineries to make gasoline, diesel, motor vehicle oils, propane, butane and many other valuable petrochemical products at mass produced continual production levels to serve huge numbers of clients across the country and even internationally. We are talking about industrial activities of the global economies invested into by nations and states with vested long terms nation interests in developing economy growth through specific deliberate investment in applied technology at for commercial and industrial applications then applied in manufacturing of goods and services that sell well generating huge revenue and profits that support economy growth and taxation that funds government in a feedback cycle based on consumption and growth of industrialization. 

To understand the scope of the 4th Industrial Revolution, you have to first analyze the age of mechanical reproduction, namely that of mass production. To illustrate this point, to make one of something for 8 billion people, if you made one every second 24/7 it would take 31.4 years to make 8 billion. There is a cleaver art video about this from The Verge visiting CES or the consumer electronics show, that I suggest you watch & think about, especially the reading of the work about mass production / from 9 years ago /

257 CES gadgets in 3 minutes — CES 2015 

https://youtu.be/o6dp7zeTExY?si=dqVi75fNGL1L_j4Z

Looking ahead of 2024 since that video is from 2015, let me tell this, today were are in the middle of the 4th Industrial Revolution while most people think in 3rd IR terms mentally, like news paper or printed books, when digital e-readers like Kindle have been around since 2009, there are people today that deny the existence of battery electric vehicles even though they are sold by the millions starting with the Tesla Model S or Nissan LEAF back in 2010, or 14 years ago. This illustrates the slow speed of information diffusion, such that most people do not get all the updates about what is happening in the world at the same time and are often left behind, mentally up to 20 or more years behind the existing emerging zeitgeist or spirit of the times today. I feel sad for many of these elderly people who are forgotten, alone, lonely, ready to move on in death to whatever is next as their bodies have fallen victim to the negative effects of aging or what is known as gerontology of the science aging, noting the exceptional book " Lifespan, Why We Age & Why We Don't Have To" by Dr. David A Sinclair. Hint for age reversal, the supplement NMN and anti-diabetic drug Metformin + lots of water to protect your brain & kidneys! Sleep super important too, since healing of the body occurs when we are sleeping and light promotes sleep disorders by disrupting the sleep cycle or circadian rhythm of the human body, such that any light exposure triggers sub basal nerve ganglion in the fovea of the retina of the human eye to sent stimulatory signals to the SCN or suprachiasmatic nucleus of the brain increasing blood cortisol levels and blocking the release of melatonin the sleep promoting cytokine substance the brain releases into the blood to stimulate sleep stages, since cortisol and histamine are wakefulness promoting stress inducing cytokines. 

Yes light promotes wakefulness! When your eyes see light your brain registers the color and intensity of the retinal signals to the brain from the eyes, such that your brain causes blood cortisol levels to increase when you see light, and seeing light also leads the brain to block release of melatonin #science #medicine #physiology #physics #chemistry use your brain to understand more. You only have a finite amount of time alive. I spent 83,000 hours reading wikipedia to make sense of the world, what are you doing? That is what fuels my blog posting, along with 8 years of college, 4 years of high school, 3 years of middle school, and 6 years of elementary school, after 2 years of preschool. I was reading college level literature and science white papers as a 7 year old boy bored in School by the slow boring pace of information presentation and repetitive nature of what we were studying, since I often get it after one exposure as autistic savant with ASMR and sensory blending such that words and letters are different colors when I read something written and I see sounds and hear colors naturally without drug use and have since I was a small child, noting at age 4 that I was very different than my parents or sister, neighbors, teachers, other kids at school and other adults. I felt alien as young as 4 amongst a see of children, like a boy with one eye in a world of blind people. 

Consider the miniaturization of transistors in complicated systems of transistors in integrated circuits like the SOC of your smartphone. Transistors are the most manufactured item in human history and hold many records in terms of manufacturing volume and scale, significant given the chip shortage due to COVID19 and the corresponding US Chips Act to stimulate class leading IC manufacturing by companies like INTEL and TSMC in the USA and similar from IBM and Texas Instruments or NVIDIA and AMD. With YouTube streaming and other content streaming platforms and social media, no one can really say for sure where the future is going, except of the edge of a cliff known as runaway climate change suddenly out of control that makes the biosphere and atmosphere destroy agriculture which causes food price spikes and shortages that give rise to a global starvation and meteoric rise in crime at every level as people struggle to survive without read access to food and water or gasoline, since credit and debit systems will no longer work, and police and military will have disbanded and gone awry. During a global power outage or internet outage societies plunge into chaos and entropy as important institutions become insolvent and fall apart like the Roman Empire. America is not the first, not the best and not the last global super power, as evidence in the precipitous decline in the purchasing power of the USD or United States Dollar, which has lost a lot of its power and prestige over time, peaking in the early 1960's like the US economy from which it originates. The book of revelation in the Christian Bible is perfect clear about the future of mankind on Earth when Christ comes back and judges everyone fairly according to his perfect will. Warning to the sinners and those who habitually sin, to the atheists and agnostics, turn away from your life of sin and give God praise and worship with contrition in your heart, with verbal praise and worship of the Lord your God in the Holy Name of Christ Jesus, enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God who visits those of use who love God in our hearts, minds, souls and spirits. 

Digital wrist watches

Cars with hundreds of onboard computers as rolling data centers, increasingly more sensor for data collection training of autopilot algorithms at Tesla Motors the Big Data Company in California.

I am talking about trillions of miles of wires connection power and data like USB-C into the minds of real living people connected in increasingly novel ways to other people and products and services online like never before, yet retail like the mechanical automatic wristwatches will be around to serve those who shun technologies or electronics or internet, like the Amish, who like to make wood furniture by hand using hammer and chisels or axes to cut down trees to harvest the wood, and wood fires in wood buildings used to dry the wood before its cut to lengths and shapes used to make furniture. I am talking about real craftsman making artisanal goods like we did during and prior to the first Industrial Revolution. 

I am talking about the World Wide Web, Amazon.com, Ebay.com. Alibaba.com and online e-commerce or online retailers connecting buyers and sellers with search engine technologies, using key word searches or search queries that people speak or type into smart speakers or laptops or cells phones or tablets or desktop computers. 

I am talking about information technology, cryptography, internet security, antivirus, computational modeling, computer aided engineering, chip designs, and emerging technologies that will change the future of mankind. I am talking about the next big thing age reversal drugs that sell better than any product in history in terms of revenue, as millions of older people want to become biologically younger, healthy and energetic like they were during their youth many decades ago, especially those that are well healed or with deep pockets to spend tens of thousands on age reversal treatments.