"Surprise, when it happens to a government, is likely to be a complicated, diffuse, bureaucratic thing. It includes neglect of responsibility, but also responsibility so poorly defined or so ambiguously delegated that action gets lost. It includes gaps in intelligence, but also intelligence that, like a string of pearls too precious to wear, is too sensitive to give to those who need it. It includes the alarm that fails to work, but also the alarm that has gone off so often it has been disconnected. It includes the unalert watchman, but also the one who knows he'll be chewed out by his superior if he gets higher authority out of bed. It includes the contingencies that occur to no one, but also those that everyone assumes somebody else is taking care of. It includes straight-forward procrastination, but also decisions protracted by internal disagreement. It includes, in addition, the inability of individual human beings to rise to the occasion until they are sure it is the occasion - which is usually too late. (Unlike movies, real life provides no musical background to trip us off to the climax.) Finally, as at Pearl Harbour, surprise may include some measure of genuine novelty introduced by the enemy, and possibly some sheer bad luck."
From Pearl Harbour: Warning and Decision, by Roberta Wohlstetter, Stanford University Press, 1962.
My comments: When our government and business leaders understand this quote, they will know why we are in this mess. I refer to water, electricity, State Owned Enterprises, corruption, transport, and so many other crises that have "slowly" crept up on us in South Africa, but which have been "visible" to some of us for decades.
"To carry out a timely response to warning ... two conditions must be met: we must not only receive warning, but also take the decision to respond. The first task has long been recognized; it calls for strong intelligence capabilities. It is the second task that has been neglected or misunderstood. We cannot assume that the enemy, if he actually plans to attack, will necessarily do us the favour of furnishing warning that is unambiguous. Military history reminds us that we ought to expect a massive and skilful effort at deception.
"The Soviet Union failed to anticipate the German Attack in 1941; the Soviets, in turn, surprised the Japanese in 1945. Despite the lesson of Pearl Harbour, we were caught unprepared again in June 1950 by the North Koreans. The Israelis achieved surprise in 1967, only to fall victim to surprise in 1973.
"It seems likely that skilful deception could deprive us of clear warning. Indeed, Soviet military doctrine puts great emphasis on deception and surprise. Hence we have to change our policy for reacting to warning. Our forces and those of our allies must be prepared to respond to warning indicators that are highly ambiguous ... Being prepared to respond only to warning that is unambiguous means being prepared for the kind of warning we are least likely to get."
Caspar W. Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defence addressing Congress, February 8, 1982
My Comments: This quote is just as applicable to a human enemy as it is to an environmental enemy. We are so brainwashed into believing that we need to save for retirement or that we need to buy expensive consumer "durables" like cars, watches, computers, phones, TVs, sound systems, even go to restaurants, or eat cheap food instead of organic healthy "expensive" food, that we have forgotten about the most critical things in life.
Analysis:
For me the most critical thing to be prepared for is to make sure that I am alive next week, in seven days time!!
What do I need to be alive in seven days time?
· Electricity.
· Water. Potable (Drinking) Water. And a way to collect and clean and keep water clean.
· A Sewerage System. Maybe drop toilets or a septic tank and French drain or a biodigester.
· A Waste Removal System, which could include recycling and worm farms.
· Food. And food that can be kept outside a refrigerator and that won’t go off, e.g. dried fruit, dried meat, smoked foods, seeds and nuts, etc.
· Refrigeration.
· Shelter.
· Security.
· Clean Air. A Fellowes Aeramax is good for this, especially in a City with its dirty air.
“Surprisingly”, in 2019, I can make electricity and water and food and much else cheaper than I can buy it. And I can feel good about achieving the goal I set in 1999 of being able to “Live Off Grids”. Actually what I want is for people to share their surplus, which means we don't need e-volution, but rather re-volution. Not the dirty, waring revolution. But a revolution in the way we think. A new paradigm. A paradigm shift.
I have been on a “crusade” for 20 years, telling “the world” of my dream of being retired. And being teased about it by many of my colleagues and friends and neighbours and even by some of my family members for decades.
But my vision has been clear even through the dark times when people left me to my own devices because I was “out there”. If I was rich, I would have been eccentric, but I am an average middle class kind of guy, and so I am “out there”, and who wants to be with an “out there” kind of guy? Luckily my wife, and she is my strongest support and my strongest critic and whilst we fight about my dream sometimes, after our fights I always tell her that I love her and that I appreciate what she is telling me, and I love that she keeps me grounded whilst my head is in the sky and my mind is daydreaming.
A dreamer has a vision. A corporation has a vision. A vision is a dream; of the future; an achievable dream.
Retirement for me isn’t about having millions in the bank and living off the interest, or the annuity income.
Retirement for me is waking up in the morning and deciding what I want to do today. Retirement is about knowing the future. And that isn't actually all that difficult!
It is living in the moment, and if I feel like going on a hike, then that is what I’ll do, and if I feel like reading a book or writing an article then I’ll do that, and if I feel like writing a computer program or learning some new technology or mentoring or doing my strategy consulting, then I’ll do that. I am in the moment, in the now, meditating all the time, and being “on holiday” all the time. If one lies on the beach and worries about work, one is not on holiday! And the only time I am not on holiday is when something is urgent, because someone hasn’t done something by a certain date, or because there are loose ends, or because a delivery hasn’t arrived, or because my water project is three months behind schedule, because I constantly have one week delays or my suppliers and contractors don’t turn up for work or they don’t have the right tools, or they don’t understand project management.
In 1999 I did some consulting at one of South Africa’s biggest Insurers in Johannesburg, and when I came home, I phoned my broker and I cancelled (actually made “Paid Up”) my 3 retirement plans. I did this because of a 3 story marble waterfall in their entrance hall. I didn’t mind that the CEO drove a Rolls Royce. I did mind that they wasted my money on a valueless item in their foyer.
I decided that I would create my own retirement plan. And that if I got to retirement age and had no money, it would be entirely my own fault and I would only be able to “blame” myself.
You see, I don’t know anyone who can retire just on retirement savings. Even people I know who saved 15% (before tax) per year from the age of 20 and who retired at 65 don’t have enough to continue the lifestyle they had at 65, with their big houses and planes and yachts and other stuff. And until recently the retirement age in Europe was 60 for women and 65 for me. It is now 67 for women and 67 for men. After a lifetime of "saving for retirement", there just isn't enough money to retire, and so people must work longer. We need a paradigm shift in our thinking, a new way of thinking, and a way to get there.
And the ones who do manage to continue that lavish lifestyle are the ones with assets that they have built or save up for, e.g. buildings, or investments. I know people who have saved with experts who have actuaries and consultants and people earning R5 million per annum, really clever people with multiple degrees and the most expensive computer systems in the world, who still ended up losing hundreds of millions when a Dimension Data or a Siltek or a Steinhoff Crashed, or when the gold price crashed or America found new gas in the mid 2010's and so slowed down their appetite for Middle Eastern Oil and hence peoples’ returns in oil companies slows down.
And so I decide to help myself to retire!
And it was very simple. Ensure that I am alive in seven days time, no matter what happens on this planet. By doing this, I know the future. And I don't even need to be psychic.
And what of the seven days after the next seven days? If I (and my family and my friends, and the people I have promised to help) am alive in seven days, then I just need to repeat what I have just done. Staying alive from days 8 to 14 is exponentially easier than staying alive for the next seven days, especially if one considers what might happen if we run out of electricity or water.
In a modern city, using a Just-In-Time supply chain, there is 4 days of food in the supply chain. If that supply chain is disrupted for some reason, then in 4 days the supermarkets and my local shops will be empty of food.
If electricity was switched off today and only turned on again in 10 days time, due to a catastrophic failure, e.g. at De Aar switching station, (which is why there is an army base at De Aar, essentially to protect that switching station), or a terrorist group blows up the main electrical supply line from our power stations on the coal fields to Cape Town or to Johannesburg (and we cannot protect every km of that power line, although we can using modern IOT technology, but that is another 10 page article), then we will have a meltdown in our electricity system.
People and companies with generators tend to have 8 hours of diesel or gas reserves for their generators, so on the first day after the power failure all the fridges and freezers in the supply chain and in my house are switched off. On day 2 the food starts rotting. By day 4, most of the refrigerated food is spoilt. And the food in the supply chain is also spoilt. Riots break out as people search for food …
A one day electrical failure implies an immediate water crisis. Water is pumped about 100 km from Theewaterskloof dam to my house. A power failure means those pumps won’t work, and assuming Theewaterskloof was full(er), that water wouldn’t get to me; and Caltex Refinery would be off, and I won’t be able to get petrol to put in my car to drive the 116 km road distance to get to the dam. The sewerage leaving my house won’t be able to be pumped to the Athlone Sewerage works. Stagnant decaying sewerage is a recipe for Cholera and Typhoid.
Our water management crisis really isn't over, even if our dams are full. We are still restricted in the water we can use, and therefore our economy is constrained. What about if we have another water “crisis”, like last year in Cape Town, but we still have electricity, then we also have a really big problem. Imagine 4 million people queuing at 200 water collection points (20,000 per collection point; and assuming 100 taps, that is 200 people per queue, and at 10 minutes to fill a 25 litre container (bearing in mind low pressure due to low water in the dams, etc), that is 2000 minutes which is 33 hours per day!), where each person carries a round 25 kg container of water and tries to carry this home, one kilometre away. Have you ever dragged a 20 kg suitcase through a bus station or a train station or an airport? And this 20 kg suitcase is designed to be carried relatively long distances. A 25 litre water container is designed to be carried 10 meters to one’s car and another 10 meters from one’s car to the kitchen.
And after queuing for 6 hours, I finally get my ration of water, and as I’m leaving I get hijacked and I have no water. I then have to pay a ransom for my water, and I end up paying R50 per litre, when if I had just planned my own water provision I would be paying R50 per 1,000 litres. Yes, I know that I could previously get 6 kl “free of charge” or I could pay R120 for those 6 kl, but how expensive is this free or R120 6kl anyway, especially if there is no water, and I have just bought a new Rolex instead of providing for my water needs?
And then we have the poor complaining that the rich will have water and they will miss out. Well my poor friends, the rich have spent over R10 billion (this is my estimate and I believe it to be conservative (low)) on private water infrastructure between 2017 and 2018 during the main part of the drought, and because of their investments you will have water! You see whilst you think the rich are misers and only interested in themselves, the rich want to survive the impending water disaster as much as you do. And so this particular “rich” middle class citizen cancels 4 years of holidays, and works 16 months a year, so that he can pay for infrastructure that the government promised us in the 1996 Constitution and the 1998 Water Act and which the previous Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, took an Oath to deliver. And an oath is to God. And when Nomvula (which is a Zulu word meaning “with the rain”), who believes that it will “rain soon”, goes to heaven and she has helped 4 million people die because they ran out of water, then she will have her day of judgement with the King of the Universe.
And if and when Cape Town runs out of water (from the dams) then all the Smart Meters that the City is installing and the Billions of Rands and hundreds of people working on them will have been for naught. People will simply bypass their meters.
Farfetched?
Many people already steal electricity, by connecting themselves directly to electricity sources. And in many cases, Eskom does nothing about it, because Eskom is scared of entering those “crime hot spots” and the government is scared of switching off the electricity to those areas because then the crime will spill over into the neighbouring areas, where people are working and paying tax.
Our government says that they are installing valves in the system so that the 200 water collection points will have water, and so that critical infrastructure such as hospitals will have water. But if people can steal electricity, then these same people can drill into the water main and steal water. And the water meters will be useless and the 200 water collection points will have yet another reason why they won’t work.
Note that whilst the government says that this is the “worst drought ever”, statistically the current drought is the worst in 33 years. And yes, it is the worst Water Management Crisis ever. And when was the first Water Management Crisis? 1994? 1812? 1800? 1652? 1483?
Cape Town’s first Water Management Crisis was in 1800 and Cape Town’s first two dams on Table Mountain were built 100 years later because of this Crisis. Large scale infrastructure such as power stations and dams can take 50 to 100 years from conception to realisation, never mind the time it takes to fill the dam!
So since 1800 we have been aware that we are in a “water scarce region” and we have done little about it. I still see new cars. I still see people with expensive watches and going on holidays, when we already live in the most beautiful place in the world, and if we had abundant and cheap and reliable and clean energy (water and electricity) we could live here and have millions of visitors and be happy.
But instead we have bickering and infighting and one party blaming another and a party which could take action by doing a Mandamus doesn’t do it, and this Citizen does a Mandamus himself, and knows that the Constitution gives this Citizen the right to declare a State of Emergency should the Premier of the Western Cape be unwilling or unable to do it. See http://mypowerstation-sa.blogspot.co.za/2018/01/david-lipschitz-mandamuses-south.html
So when I spend R200,000 on a Solar Electric (Photovoltaic / PV / Battery System) in 2008 and my electricity cost is R5.00 per kWh when my neighbours are paying 50 c (South African cents), then it is up to me to choose how I spend my money. My neighbour taunts me that my electricity cost is so high, but buys a new R300,000 car and spends R150 per hour driving it. He spends 50 cents per kWh on electricity whilst I drive an old paid off car and spend R5.00 per kWh on electricity. Who is right?
Ten years ago it would have cost R600,000 to take my entire house off the grid, and I would have had to live frugally and constantly be energy efficient. Today I can take my entire house off the grid for R175,000, and I don't even need to be energy efficient, but I do need energy efficient appliances. This R175,000 includes a Lithium Ion Battery Bank and an LPG Generator and 6 kW of PV and a 10 kW inverter. And I get security of supply, and green electricity.
Do you want to be able to retire, securely?
Do you want to know the future?
Do you want to be stress free?
Do you want green, environmentally friendly, electricity, water, food and air?
Do you want security of supply of your electricity, and water?
Do you want to be secure in your electricity, water, food and air, knowing that its quality is constantly improving, whilst its price is constantly coming down, in real terms?
Do you want to help to bring in the new world, the new paradigm, and change how things are?
Yes to any of these questions? Please email me and let's have a discussion. david @ mypowerstation.biz.
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