Five Facts From April, 2024

BeeLine is rooted in facts and data. It is the foundation from which everything I write is based.

Five facts from BeeLine posts in April and in my research during the past month that I  thought were particularly salient, surprising, or stupefying.

In a world in which opinions seem to be based more on feelings, emotions and prevailing narratives it might make sense to put more focus on straightforward facts, data and truths. 

Consider these facts and data and consider the context they provide to the larger issues of our world today.

Global Energy

Economic progress in the world is inextricably linked to energy.

How many years are remaining of the principal worldwide energy sources?

In looking at the years of life of oil reserves today, it should be kept in mind that in 1980  the best estimate was that we had 30 years of proven reserves remaining. Improved exploration and extraction technologies have kept reserves increasing faster than production and consumption. It is possible that could be the case in the future.

Of course, so-called renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are potentially limitless but we currently are a long way from being able to depend on these to power our world.

Perhaps there is a reason that China and India are building all of those coal-fired electric generation plants?

China now emits more carbon emissions than the United States and Europe combined and those emissions are not coming down anytime soon.

Abortions and Deaths

Here is a fact that I am sure you have never heard before unless you read BeeLine regularly.

Last year there were more abortions performed in the world than the total number of global deaths.

To put it into better context, there are seven times more abortions annually than those who die from heart disease and six times more than die from cancer.

During the last four years, there were 42 times as many induced abortions globally than were reported as Covid deaths.

What is the major difference in our perceptions of these issues? With Covid we saw a tabulation of deaths every day for the better part of three years. In the other case the actual numbers are never mentioned.

Now consider the above when also assessing the declining total fertility rate (TFR) of women in various countries in the world.

A TFR of 2.1 per woman in any society is necessary to maintain a stable population.

 

A TFR below that number means that the population of that society will decline over time.

The United States is at 1.6. It has never been lower in its history.

Russia is at 1.8.

Germany is at 1.4.

Japan is at 1.4.

China is now at 1.2.

Italy is also at 1.2.

Spain is at 1.1.

South Korea is at .7

Ukraine is at .7.

Even India's TFR has fallen to below the replacement rate at 1.9.

You not only need affordable energy sources, you also need people to have a functioning society and economy.

Will we reach a point at which abortion will become illegal in some parts of the world for the simple reason that society will collapse otherwise?

Inflation

We all know that inflation has taken a toll on the American household over the last several years.

However, I have not seen a better graphical representation that brings it home as this chart of the increase in fast food prices over the last 10 years.

Notice that most of the price increases have occurred since 2019.

Prices at McDonald's have doubled over the last decade.

They are up 80% in the last five years.

The prices at McDonald's and the grocery store are a big reason that 71% of voters disapprove of Biden's handling of inflation that was reported in a CNN poll that came out earlier this week.

All Job Gains Going To Foreign Born Workers

The Democrats are busy proclaiming how great the economy is and how many jobs have been created since Biden took office and how Trump presided over a loss in employment.

Here is Nancy Pelosi getting angry on MSNBC earlier this week when she was reminded that job losses under Trump and the "record" job gains for Biden were due to a global pandemic.

Link: https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1785044208736240002

Who is getting those jobs in the United States?

The most recent employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that over the last year the number of foreign born workers increased by 1.3 million. On the other hand, workers who were native born declined by 651,000.

If we go back to December, 2019 (right before the pandemic), there were 131,281,000 native born employed workers in the United States and 27,223,000 foreign born workers according to the BLS historical data.

In March, 2024, the number of native born workers had fallen to 130,242,000 ( a decrease of over 1 million jobs held by native born Americans) while foreign born workers had risen to 31,114,000 ( an increase of 3,891,000 jobs held by foreign born workers).

Some of the reduction in native born workers can be explained by Baby Boomers retiring in increasing numbers. However, those workers are not being replaced with their children or grandchildren. They are being replaced with foreign born workers of which a large number undoubtedly entered the country illegally.

Chocaholic Alert

Last month I highlighted the amazing fact that cocoa commodity prices had risen so dramatically this year that cocoa was more expensive than copper.

When I wrote the blog post, cocoa was trading at $10,758/ton and copper was at $9,240/ton.

Considering that copper prices were already so high that thieves were stripping copper all over the place to sell for its recycling value, I cautioned that it might be time to lock up your chocolate.

Cocoa prices eventually rose to over $12,000/ton last month but recent days have seen the price falling back to the $10,000/ton range. Down 1.5% in the last month.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/cocoa-price

Copper has been rising but is still trading below cocoa. Up 13.3% over the last month.

Source: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/copper-price

My advice is to keep both your copper and chocolate locked up.