Out of Gas
Following Hurrican Ike's wake through the Gulf of Mexico, affecting oil production and refining, a
severe gasoline shortage afflicted the southeast US.
- Severe Fuel Shortage Grips Parts of US Southeast
September 30, 2008
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29386189.htm
- A severe fuel shortage has gripped parts of the southeastern United States, causing long
lines at filling stations and symbolizing for some people their fears about the wider
economy. The shortage began two weeks ago in Atlanta, the region's largest city, when oil
refineries on the Gulf Coast were shut down by hurricanes Gustav and Ike earlier this
month. Parts of north Georgia, western North Carolina and parts of Tennessee were also
affected. The effects on motorists have been dramatic. Most service stations in Atlanta are
out of gas, with plastic bags placed over the pumps or signs saying "out". Lines and
elaborate queuing systems have developed at gas stations on days when oil companies
deliver fuel. Motorists report showing up at gas stations before dawn to beat the line only
to find dozens of cars ahead of them. The shortage has also had a psychological impact.
Like many U.S. cities, Atlanta is car dependent and residents say they had until now taken
refueling for granted.
The problem, primarily, was delivery. Pipelines serving the southeast come from the Gulf of Mexico, and
a pipeline cannot be diverted to another source of refined gasoline. If the source is dry, the pump goes
dry.
- Gas Shortage Plagues the Southeast
September 29, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR2008092902263.html
- While other parts of the country get gasoline from a variety of domestic and overseas
sources, the Southeast relies heavily on two pipelines that carry fuel from the Gulf of
Mexico. Because the gasoline moves at just 3 to 5 mph, it can take up to 10 days to reach
Atlanta. In the meantime, government agencies have postponed public hearings,
community colleges have canceled classes, and some companies have provided vans for
carpooling or encouraged employees to work from home.
Though Atlanta is no doubt considering this gasoline shortage to be merely a temporary inconvenience,
the Zetas warn that this will be the norm after the pole shift. In fact, the norm after the pole shift will be
far worse, as gasoline will run out, and existing stores of gasoline will be a hazard, exploding during the
pole shift and creating death by fire to those nearby.
ZetaTalk Advice 11/30/2002: We have stated that fossil fuels will soon run out, so should not be
relied upon by survivors for the long term. We have also stated that refineries and storage tanks
of oil and natural gas and gasoline will be broken and set afire during the shift, creating a
holocaust for all nearby. Likewise gasoline stations, fuel pumps, and even tightly sealed tanks
may rupture and leak, also a continuing danger for any nearby. Natural gaslines in streets will
run fire along the street, setting houses ablaze where they would otherwise not be in such danger.
Natural gas in lines under cities will cause explosions, setting the cities on fire and burning many
trapped citizens in a painful death. Avoid gas cans or anything that can explode. What do you
gain by a few cans of gas? A few hours of heat or light? And what do you stand to risk in
exchange? Your life? A painful death to others? Since you are going to have to adjust to life
without these explosive fuels in any case, and soon, learn to get along without them!
Beyond future gasoline shortages after the pole shift, there is the issue of what will occur in the last
weeks when many will be wanting to dash from the coastlines to a safer location in the hinterland. The
ability to get a full tank of gas, or to have clear roads to travel on, is in doubt. There are many reasons
for this. Refineries will be devastated by the increasing storms to be expected as the Earth wobble
worsens. Delivery of refined gasoline will be affected by roads and bridges broken by the many
earthquakes expected as the last weeks approach, and gasoline pipelines twisted and ruptured by
earthquakes. And finally, each family trying to escape to safety will find others with the same desire
clogging the roadways. Many of these cars will run out of gas in the traffic, and be abandoned in place.
A nightmare, making travel almost impossible.
ZetaTalk Prediction 8/15/1995: In spite of denial and suppression of talk about the approaching
cataclysms, when the earth slows and then stops in its rotation the truth will be known. How
could it not? Those who sense the seriousness of the situation will attempt to flee. If they have
been informed, but scoffed, they may know what to do and where to go, and attempt to do so in
great haste. Belongings and even loved ones left behind, doors left wide open, heading for the
hills, for cover, to escape the city. If they have not been informed they will attempt to flee
anyway, going in all directions. Those who have prepared and placed themselves and their loved
ones in safe places will not find themselves overrun at the last minute. This is not because last
minute stragglers are not trying to join them. This is because the stragglers cannot reach them.
Imagine the situation. On one side of the Earth the Sun is not setting. Temperatures rise.
Machines break down. The telephone lines are jammed, and highways blocked with disabled
cars. On the other side of the Earth perpetual night is reigning. Here activity is not heat- locked,
but is rather sleep-locked. Businesses do not open as everyone is confused. Are the clocks
broken? Telephone lines are also jammed, and lack of coordination is evident everywhere. The
night shift goes home, eventually, exhausted, but the day shift never shows up. The traveler
attempting to drive somewhere finds gas stations unattended and cars out of gas blocking the
roads. So those becoming aware of the situation at the last minute do not go anywhere,
essentially, whether they want to or not.
Washed Out to Sea
Some 400 people remain missing after Hurricane Ike's devastation. Despite the early warnings and
mandatory evacuation orders, many people remained behind in their homes, refusing to evacuate.
Hurricane Ike had a high storm surge, estimated to be 20-25 feet, where prior storms had a lesser
surge. But where are the bodies? The swamps surrounding the coastline are being searched, but many
have been simply washed out to sea.
- Two Weeks After Ike, More Than 400 are Still Missing
September 28, 2008
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hurricane/ike/6027458.html
- Gail Ettenger made her last phone call at 10:10 p.m. She was trapped in her Bolivar
Peninsula bungalow with her Great Dane, Reba. A drowning cat cried outside. Her Jeep
bobbed in the seawater surging around her home. That was Friday, Sept 12. On
Wednesday - 12 days later - her nearly nude body was found face down by a huge debris
pile in a remote mosquito-ridden marsh in Chambers County, about 10 miles inland from
where her gray beach house once stood. Two weeks after Hurricane Ike swept through the
Texas coast, 400 people remain missing, mostly from Galveston County, according to an
analysis of calls logged to a hot line set up by the nonprofit Laura Recovery Center to
assist local authorities. Until Wednesday, Ettenger was one of them. Disturbing tales told
by survivors from Bolivar communities like Gilchrist, Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar
suggest some may never return.
Searchers confirm they've also spotted countless cars in the floodwaters and marshes. It's
impossible to tell which were once occupied, though so far no bodies have been reported
recovered from vehicles sticking out above water. Submerged vehicles are not being
searched. Raul Roy Arrambide last heard from his mother, sister and nephew as the three
prepared to evacuate by car from Port Bolivar. Just after 6 a.m. Sept. 12, his sister,
Magdalena Strickland, 51, called from the house to say they were leaving. The family's
2000 white Ford Taurus and 1993 maroon Ford pickup were loaded and idling in the
driveway. It was a quick call, since Strickland was eager to go. His mother, Marion Violet
Arrambide, 79, along with Strickland and Arrambide's nephew, Shane Williams, 33, had
planned to evacuate to Arrambide's house near Dallas. They had two vehicles but no cell
phone. They never arrived. Roy Arrambide fears they were washed off the road. After the
storm, he hired an airboat to visit the area, where he saw dozens of submerged cars in the
floodwaters and marshes along the peninsula's lone low-lying highway. But neither he nor
anyone else has found his relatives or their vehicles. The house they left behind was
damaged but intact.
Housing along the coastline was in many cases battered into nonexistance. Given the crashing waves and
high winds, what would the hapless souls caught in this situation do? Cling to debris? Swim until they
were exhausted and could swim no more?
The Zetas have described a similar situation during the pole shift. There will be hurricane force winds
worldwide, and along the coastline high tides that will drown high-rise buildings. For this, there will be no
escape and few survivors. The answer, of course, is to move sufficiently inland and onto high ground
before the last weeks, well before travel becomes impossible. Where it was only Galveston and the
immediate coastal area that was affected directly by Hurricane Ike, the Zetas predict that most of Texas
will be so affected during the pole shift.
ZetaTalk on Texas, 2001: Those who have witnessed tidal bore roaring up a ravine are
astonished that water does not seem to respect the relative sea level during those times. What
makes the water climb? Water pressure drives water to climb above its level because at the point
where the pressure builds, it takes the easiest path. When the force of pressure is extreme,
compressing the water at lower levels, the path of lease resistance is taken. During a tidal wave,
this path is away from the bulk of water. A tidal wave moves inland until one of two situations
occurs:
1. the level to which it has climbed is higher than the level elsewhere, and the wave recedes, or
2. the pressure behind the wave decreases.
Where tidal waves meet mountains, this can result in tidal bore up ravines. Where tidal waves
flow inland, this results in a flood tide going hundreds of miles inland. Where the tidal wave finds
foot hills or barriers, the force of the wave is broken such that it is slowed, allowing a reduction
in pressure behind the wave to arrive before the wave moves far inland. But where the tidal wave
finds virtually no barriers, due to the land being flat, it becomes water on the move, and this very
momentum carries it far inland, and above a height that would otherwise be expected. Water on
the move does more than just push forward, it also creates a void behind it. At first, this water is
on the move because there is pressure behind it, like sloshing water in the Gulf. But then, the
force of this moving water takes on a life of its own. It has momentum, and moving forward,
creates a void behind it, thus drawing the water in the direction of motion, thus continuing the
motion. This water on the move is greater than the resistance in front of it, so it continues. For
Texas, this means that the water will lap at the foothills of the Rockies, before dying back.
Texas will be devastated by waters sloshing in from the Gulf during the pole shift as well as the
rising waters that occur within in the first two years after the pole shift. Being flat land, and low,
the Gulf will roll over Texas without opposition, at a height of several feet. This water must go
someplace, and will take the path of least resistance. If the water is flowing most rapidly as it
moves over the flat land, then water that would normally move toward mountains or natural
barriers will be diverted to a faster moving flow area - the Texas plains. Thus Texas, due to its
flat terrain, will get more water overall than neighboring areas. Even the high plains will have
several feet of water moving across it, where the coastal areas will have tidal waves hundreds of
feet high. With few tall trees and faced with the after effects of hurricane force winds and
earthquakes that will flatten all but new steel skyscrapers, desperate survivors will have few
places to go to escape the moving sheet of water, which will drag whatever it engulfs back out
into the Gulf on its return.
Depression Patterns
The causes of the Great Depression are endlessly debated, but some facts are clear. How do those facts
line up against the facts from today? There are many similarities. Deregulation and unfettered greed were
characteristic of the roaring 20's? There was a stock bubble, with the price of stock not reflecting its true
value, and when euphoria was replaced by lack of confidence and fear, the bubble crashed.
- Wall Street Crash of 1929
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929
- The Roaring Twenties, which was a precursor to the Crash, was a time of prosperity and
excess in the city, and despite warnings against speculation, many believed that the market
could sustain high price levels.
How does this compare to executive compensation over the past few years? Would this be described as
"prosperity and excess" based on speculation?
- Wall Street Executives Made $3 Billion Before Crisis
September 26, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGL5l6xOPEHc
- Wall Street's five biggest firms paid more than $3 billion in the last five years to their top
executives, while they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring
down the investment-banking system. Merrill Lynch & Co. paid its chief executives the
most, with Stanley O'Neal taking in $172 million from 2003 to 2007 and John Thain
getting $86 million, including a signing bonus, after beginning work in December. The
company agreed to be acquired by Bank of America Corp. for about $50 billion on Sept.
15. Bear Stearns Cos.'s James Cayne made $161 million before the company collapsed and
was sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in June.
Just how over-inflated are our stocks? Per the Zetas, a stock crash similar to what happened during the
Great Depression is possible before confidence is restored. This is why the current bailout of Wall Street
has such urgency, as those pressing for its passage by Congress are concerned that confidence will not
be maintained.
ZetaTalk Overview 12/15/1999: Without confidence, most governments and financial structures
would fail and fail rapidly. So confidence is kept pumped up as long as this can be maintained.
Most stocks are inflated beyond their value, very few are not, and they can fall to 1/4 of their
value before they settle with the public feeling they have some confidence in the stock and that it
cannot be worth less.
Another similarity between today and the time of the Great Depression is debt - the degree of debt that
individuals and corporations carry. If this was true during the Great Depression, it is certainly true today.
Individuals have been encouraged to max out their credit cards and carry multiple credit cards, and
families were encouraged to take a second mortgage out on their homes based in the theory that the
value of their homes could only go up. Surprisingly, a similar process occurred in the roaring 20's.
- Great Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression
- Debt is seen as one of the causes of the Great Depression, particularly in the United States.
American consumers and businesses relied on cheap credit, the former to purchase
consumer goods such as automobiles and furniture, and the latter for capital investment to
increase production. This fueled strong short-term growth but created consumer and
commercial debt. People and businesses who were deeply in debt when price deflation
occurred or demand for their product decreased often risked default. Banks which had
financed this debt began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to
withdraw their deposits en mass, triggering multiple bank runs.
Another surprising similarity between today and the time of the Great Depression is the price of housing.
The roaring 20's had a housing bubble too!
- The Great Bubble Economy
http://www.anthonypalmer.net/money/newsletter_great_bubble.html
- The destined-to-be-infamous interest-only mortgages of today are nothing new, as they
were first used during the Roaring 20's.
Certainly overinflated housing prices are directly responsible for the current crisis on Wall Street. The
sub-prime structure assumed that housing prices were perpetually going to go up, never down.
- WaMu Deal Suggests Home Prices May Fall Further
September 26, 2008
http://www.mynn.com/story/538826/wamu-deal-suggests-home-prices-may-fall-
- When buying Washington Mutual's banking business, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. weighed
the risks of the deal using some worrying assumptions about house prices and future losses
on mortgages. That's sparked concern that mortgage-related assets held by rival banks
including Wachovia Corp. may be worth less than previously thought. In a presentation on
its WaMu (WM acquisition, J.P. Morgan forecast a 58% peak-to-trough slump in
California home prices if the U.S. enters a severe recession. In Florida, house prices could
fall 64% in such a scenario, while nationwide prices could drop 37%.
Here too the Zetas have grim news, but they have a word of advice to stabilize the situation. Their
advice is to allow bankrupt individuals to continue in their homes and bankrupt corporations to
continue in their business. Here again, the requirement is liquidity in the system, so that bankrupt
individuals and corporations can get credit and over-extended banks are assisted. This is in effect what
the bailout of Wall Street is attempting to do, in part. What is missing is the piece where the homeowner
gets relief from a bankruptcy judge. Current law under Bush (who vetoed such relief for homeowners)
forbids a bankruptcy judge from renegotiating the terms of a home mortgage.
ZetaTalk Advice 7/20/2002: The real estate bubble will likewise burst when the current weather
problems and lack of insurance coverage prove this to be hollow. The percent of the workforce
to be affected is already increasing, and look to the Depression era, worldwide, for expected
results. During the coming depression, which is in fact in place but denied by the media and
powers that be, one should look to the past Great Depression as an example of things to come.
Banks were insolvent, but allowed to operate, not called in. Homeowners and businesses were
insolvent, unable to pay, but not called to term, allowed to continue. Thus, those insolvent
entities were allowed to continue, and gradually came back into solvency, and thus business was
reestablished. During the coming crash, this will repeat itself, but with a difference. There will be
no re-solvency, no new health, but the shift, instead.
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