Ehlana and Ethan:
Welcome to your Witch Falls family, Alex
White!
Congratulations, Marcie and Allen – it’s a
boy!
Ethan and I rarely think about the
connections between Cassie and Michael’s school friends with any of our best
friends, but Aaron definitely has a family link to Allen; so he has a new
cousin tonight too! He and Sophia
stopped for a visit to the clinic tonight too, but we weren’t in on that part
of their day. We’re also not doing any
co-ed sleepovers tonight as we’re each spending the night with our respective
parents – though we did have a group dinner with all of the parents that could
do that meal with us.
As for our own travel adventures, we were
up early local time in Seattle; skipped Tai Chi; and packed up and headed for
the airport before dawn. We needed extra
time to return the rental van; check our luggage; and get through the usual
airport hoops with time to spare before our flight boarding time. Michael reported some fun from the rental
desk; since the miles – or kilometers – we put on that van seriously impressed
the agent handling the return. By the
time we took off for the flight home, we were all ready to relax for a while;
some of us had little cat naps; and the air time through to our ‘home’ airport
was smooth and uneventful. Thanks to the
time change, we arrived by early afternoon, and our welcoming committee helped
Cassie and Michael by having their car ready for them when we were finished
clearing the airport and collecting our luggage. Mom also had fresh travel bags for them so
they’d have everything they needed for the wedding and the rest of the events
they’ll be attending with Chloe, Vic, and the rest of the wedding guests. We met up for a late fast food lunch and a
chance for Mom to talk with Cassie and Michael before they headed out; and then
we headed home. Since we had six teens
to get home, Mom had help with Sophia’s Mom handling the second vehicle; and
Jessica came along because she really missed her little sister! ;^)
Okay, Jessica helped out with retrieving
Cassie and Michael’s car from long-term parking, but she missed Sophia a lot
too! After the fast food lunch and
getting an order to go for Aunt Leanne, we hit the road for home. Naomi and Aiden were with us while Sophia and
Aaron were with her Mom and sister; we stayed together all the way home; and
then Mom – and Dad – hosted the welcome home dinner for all of us. We had time to deal with luggage to all homes
first and freshen up before getting together again for that meal; and we had a
handful of cameo moments with family and friends checking in to welcome us back
too. Everything about that was amazing,
but one difference we noticed was the change in temperature from the west
coast. It was hot again today – in the
triple-digits; so we definitely noticed the switch from the mid-seventies to
the mid-one-hundreds! Maybe I should
re-phrase that, but hopefully future readers understand that I meant around
one-hundred and five – not in the one-hundred and fifties. If that isn’t true somewhere in our
more-distant future; then the aliens have taken over the world and adapted both
their host bodies and the planet for a different ecology! As for the rest of our day, that meal was a
highlight; we delivered food for Naomi’s mother at the salon; and Sophia’s
father took a break from the gas station for a quick cameo visit to get his
food in-person and spend time with Sophia and Aaron. Ryan did the same and they took turns to do
that, and after we ate; our guests headed for home and Ethan and I helped with
the clean-up before we moved into the office for a visit while Dad worked to
get ready for his week in Crystal Springs.
Mom did a Magi lesson with us and we did some charity work, but then it
was bath or Jacuzzi time; and I will happily admit that I am more-happy to be
home than Ethan is because of my Jacuzzi!
Now we’re winding down toward nap time with a return to our usual bedtime
computer checks and twin chat fun; so let’s wrap this up with a different
version of a world news report.
After a travel day – and while we were
in-transit too – Ethan and I have been thinking and talking about the
implications of the developing energy crises around the world from different
perspectives than are normally covered in the media. We do not want to put future Magi to sleep
with too many details – especially if you’re driving while listening to an
audio version of our journal, but try to stay with us; since we do think that a
different perspective on current global economic issues are very
important. We definitely wish that our
world leaders would pay more attention – and know they won’t do that even if
they could read our journals.
While there are a lot of complex factors
that affect world economies and supply chains, there are some basic facts of
life too, and one of them is that there is a direct relationship between energy
and everything that is produced. For the
purposes of our commentary, while the percentage of productivity costs related
to energy changes depending on the country; the world average is around ten
percent of global GDP. Taking our
country for an example, that means that our approximately thirty-three trillion
dollars of GDP requires around three-point-three trillion dollars of energy to
sustain. That relationship changes based
on things like energy prices, but not really by much over time; since increased
costs just get worked into the total prices that make up GDP anyway. Our point, though, is that as energy becomes
restricted, by definition, GDP will go down too – and that is happening now
around the world.
Keeping those thoughts in mind, let’s add
in the reality that our own national leaders don’t seem to care about that
because the hardest hit economies won’t be ours first. That will happen to countries most-reliant on
energy imports. They are wrong about
that because we also have a negative trade imbalance of more than a trillion
dollars a year – meaning that we import the products made with energy used by
those same other countries to the tune of more than one-hundred billion dollars
worth of their energy consumption.
The factors we’re working through are
adding up, but stay with us; since we are taking this somewhere – we promise! Let’s add in some world totals data now. Global GDP was around one-hundred and
eighteen trillion dollars last year; ‘our’ thirty-two trillion dollars
accounted for a bit over a quarter of that total; and the world collectively
spent around twelve trillion dollars on energy to produce that total
output. Thanks to the current wars,
actual energy production could drop by five or ten percent as inventories are
depleting rapidly and we’ll collectively need to compete for the oil, gas, and
other supplies that are available. At
that point, prices won’t matter because production will adjust to total energy
usage. For our examples, a ten percent
drop would mean a cut of eleven to twelve trillion dollars from total global GDP. Yes, that won’t be equal in every country,
but then you also get into the human nature of scarcity behavior that will lead
to hoarding or at least protecting both resources and productivity. We are already seeing signs of that as trade
wars heat up with tariffs and export and import controls.
Our point for all of this is that everyone
in the world is going to have a big problem regardless of the differing impacts
thanks to the wars and other stupid political policies. There isn’t really any way to predict how out
of control that could get; and our leaders really need to change direction
before we all get to find out. Finally,
for this part of our report, we want to point out that people in other
countries who have lived through extreme hardships are far-better prepared than
‘we’ are in most western countries where we’ve only known comparative-comfort and
affluence for generations now. We are
sure that the fall will hurt more in the countries with the most to lose!
We’ll get off the soap box now, but before
we wrap this up; we do still want to include a bit of news from the current war
fronts. The Middle East war of words
rages on; the straits are or aren’t open depending on who you ask; and the
horrors from Israel now apparently include intentionally trying to burn
southern Lebanon to ashes to utterly destroy the region just as they’ve
destroyed Gaza and are trying to take over the West Bank too while carelessly
killing, injuring, and displacing millions of people. Expect another major increase in migrant
refugees heading for Europe and beyond; and we will soon see that those ‘local’
problems are going to become all-new crises elsewhere!
While the ‘hot’ part of the war in the
Middle East is likely only on a temporary hiatus; the fighting continues to
heat up in and around Ukraine. The
attacks on both sides continue to expand to new areas; and we’re
especially-concerned by the targeting of civilians and food
infrastructure. Russia and Ukraine
export a lot of food to the world; and that could end very badly for the
countries and people that rely on those supplies to survive. On the political front for that war, European
leaders are playing with fire on many fronts, but their piracy and theft of
Russian ships and cargoes are risking retaliation from Russia, and for one
example, Russian leaders pointed out that some European countries are currently
sending many commercial ships through the Arctic along the passage along the
Russian coast that is possible in large part thanks to Russia’s
state-of-the-art ice breaker ships and their navy. It would be very easy for them to not only
take some of those ships to retaliate and recover losses, but they could also
shut down the passage to all enemies of Russia.
Either option is bad; and all western countries and their leaders need
to stop the piracy and theft before those retaliations start. For the record, our leaders are to blame for
this; since we started the trend for piracy with the ships we stole out of the
Caribbean Sea and elsewhere; and now other countries are ignoring maritime laws
too – or at least they’ll keep doing that until the costs become too high for
them to continue the insanity. Ethan and
I do not foresee ships returning to having cannons again, but we could
definitely picture commercial ships with a supply of kamikaze drones and other
weapons to use for defense – or for piracy.
Why should political leaders and navies get to have all of the fun? Corporations could start up private pirate
fleets. We can definitely picture Black
Rock Pirates Incorporated! ;^)
Okay, on that silly note; it is obviously
time for us to stop and get some sleep; so that is all for this update.
Until next time, live with love, fellow
Magi of the Light!
