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!
