Oil Prices Will End the Futility Economy
On the first business day of the new year and oil traded above $80 a barrel, which means the price has re-entered the danger zone where it can crush industrial economies. This is a central element of the predicament we find ourselves in. The US economy is essentially a Happy Motoring economy. During the whole nervous period since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, American gasoline consumption hardly went down at all, though so many other activities collapsed, from house-building to trucking. Yesterday, The Seattle Times published a story with the idiotic headline: Oil Touches $80 on US Economy, Demand Optimism. Apparently, they think high oil prices are “a good sign.”
How much can a nation not get it? Would $100 oil ignite a new orgy of “consumer” spending and another round of investment in commercial real estate? Welcome to the Futility Economy. This is the economy where Nature and its material companion, Reality, punish us for our stupidity and fecklessness. This is the economy that will tear the United States apart, after it bankrupts us at every level, and mercilessly drives the population down by one-third through starvation, homelessness, violence, disease, and sheer political cruelty.
Whatever you thought our economy was the past thirty years — whatever model of it you have in your head — that is definitely not what we are going back to. Like one of Dickens’s Yuletide ghosts, Reality is leading us by the hand into new circumstances. We resist like crazy. We throw our hands over our eyes. We don’t want to look. We want to return to the comfort of our dreary routines — living in places that aren’t worth caring about, weaving endlessly in freeway traffic, drawing a paycheck at the air-conditioned cubicle, inhaling Buffalo wings by the platterful, with periodic side-trips to the state-chartered casino where there’s always a chance of scoring a lifetime’s income on one lucky bet. And at the end of the day, you can retire with a simulated prostitute on your laptop screen! And not even have to fork over a dime — except perhaps for the Internet connection fee.
Reality is taking us out of that familiar, if sordid, realm, whether we like it or not. Our destination is an everyday economy where you rarely travel far from the place you live, where you have to make provision for you own health, your own old age, your own income, your own diet, your own security, and your own education. If you’re really fortunate, some or all of these necessities can be obtained in conjunction with your neighbors in the place where you live — but don’t expect an increasingly mythical federal government to supply any of it. Expect a new and different way of organizing households based on extended families and kinship groups. Be prepared for agriculture to return to the foreground of everyday life, where farming is back at the center of the economy. Think about how you will cultivate your best role in a social network so the things you do will be truly valued by the other people who know you. Learn how to make your own music and write your own scripts. Try to study history. Resist cults. Keep your mind clear and your senses sharp.
Even if you have a dim sense that this is where we’re headed, most of you probably want to stay where you are. The investments we’ve made in the current mode of existence are so monumental that we can’t imagine letting go of them. This will be the theme of American life for the next couple of years as we struggle mightily to escape the confining armor of the Futility Economy and move closer to ways of life that have more of a future. Right now, all the power and authority in our culture has dedicated itself to remaining inside that old armor.
The Master Wish around the country, including among people who ought to know better, is that we can “solve” our economic problem by finding some other way to run all the cars. Even hardcore environmentalists yammer incessantly about hybrid and “plug-in” cars as the “solution” to our blues. One of Barack Obama’s first acts as president was to “save” the giant car companies. This is exactly the kind of signature behavior of a Futility Economy. It’s based on the idea that we have to continue driving cars all the time and for everything, at all costs.
The religion of the Futility Economy is Techno-Triumphalism, which is the belief that an endless sequence of magic tricks performed by shaman scientists can defeat the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which rules the universe — which true scientists ought to know cannot be defeated. Their colleagues, the shaman economists believe in parallel magic tricks, such as the idea that increased borrowing can “solve” a problem of runaway over-indebtedness. These are the actions that currently engage the people in charge of things in our society.
Given this current state of things, and the current course we’re on, my guess is that when the falsity of these ideas and actions are exposed, they will become evident not gradually but very rapidly and shockingly. The people in charge of things will lose their vested legitimacy in a flash, and the institutions they command will become irrelevant overnight. The process would be traumatic for all of us as routines we counted on for a thousand particulars of everyday life vanish or collapse. A Great Indignation will rise across the land over the perceived swindles involved. A lot of effort will go into avenging the swindles instead of rebuilding an economy out of the ashes of futility.
Regards,
James Howard Kunstler
January 5, 2010
James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is perhaps best known for The Long Emergency, which predicted the financial meltdown and the implications of the peak oil problem. The Geography of Nowhere , about the fiasco of suburbia, is a campus cult classic among the architecture and urban planning students. It was followed by a sequel, Home From Nowhere and The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition . Mr. Kunstler has also authored 10 novels including World Made By Hand, a story set in America's post-oil future. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly.
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THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
Abbe Faria: Define Economics.
Edmond Dantes: Economics is a science that deals with the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities.
Abbe Faria: Translation?
Edmond Dantes: Dig first, money later.
Translation: Without hard work and risk, there is no money, something socialists have forgotten.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ron Simon and caermon, mika.. mika. said: Oil Prices Will End the Futility Economy http://ff.im/-dRoPO [...]
Dear James:
Unless Doom & Gloom is to you what “Climate Change” is to Al Gore–and I don’t really think it is–I have finally figured out what your problems are. There are two of them, and one of them would probably be pretty easy to change.
1. Honey, you need some new friends! If you want to cheer yourself immensely go read MY reader’s comments and my replies. I’m knee deep in wonderful people who are already living the kind of life you think is necessary or are doing their best to figure out how they can–and we all pitch in with ideas. Seriously, it would do you more good than a week at the seaside to hear my Jennifer talk about the joy she gets from putting her OWN whipped cream out of her OWN cow on the gingerbread she makes, or to read about the families in the Ozarks, some in Virginia, and others in Minnesota. We’re living the good life NOW, and we’re crazy about it. We’re prepared for just about anything short of dictatorship and we have lives of immense leisure and joy. We got rid of the extraneous, like 14 ‘phones in the family and a thousand channels of cable TV. We drive sound older cars we picked up for very little, instead of having car notes on new Hondas. I drive Jaguars, myself, because those are what I like. A good one can be had for $5,000, have at least 150,000 miles left in her, be supremely luxurious, and will ALWAYS be a Jaguar. Since I am concerned about the availability of gasoline my backup position is a pair of diesel Mercedes Benz cars, and diesel trucks and tractors. Diesel has a much longer shelf life and I think it will be available longer.
We’re growing/raising enough for our own needs and extra for cash while the sad old USA holds together, and to barter after it all comes crashing down–and whoo, boy, the tax deductions; one of my friends hasn’t paid a dime in taxes in a dozen years. When the desolation comes we’re going to be as secure as anyone can be with good chances of becoming filthy, stinking rich (defined as more land, cattle, diesel, and then gold.) We’re ALREADY “rich” because we have the sort of food few can buy and we’re dealing with the problems we see coming AND we love our lives. EVERY day is a “vacation” for us. .
You are herewith invited to come stay at Mildew Manor and SEE, firsthand, how your ideas work out in practice, although I will have to disabuse you of the bizarre notion that just any city kid can come be an even vaguely adequate farm or ranch hand. They’re ignorant, opinionated, and untrainable. You did mention again, today, the necessity of learning how to do something USEFUL (shoe repair would be a great one) because most of the kids in high school today aren’t qualified to take care of a stray cat or mow the lawn-nor are grown men. Oh, my, excuse me for laughing, but do YOU know even enough to keep gates closed, animals watered, and do routine chores precisely as you are instructed? I’ve fired two people this year who couldn’t manage to be truthful and do tasks just like those. If you have some country background or friends who are actually becoming self-sufficient, fine, but only the worst sour puss in the world could fail to have a grand time around here and you might leave thoughtful.
2. I hate to break this to you, but you really can’t save the world. It won’t cooperate and it isn’t worth it. We’re going to have a natural sort of triage one of these days, and the thoughtless, worthless, irresponsible, and unreliable are going to find out the hard way why character counts. That is the main difference I can see between your focus and mine. I really don’t care what happens to cities full of ghettos, welfare dependents, thugs, crooks, couch potatoes, and politicians. I care about defending and protecting those I love–the basic difference between an urban architect and a mother. I have NO interest in “walkable” cities, and nobody else I know does either. More to the point they cannot work; you can’t come up with a modern version of Bamberg, Germany, which celebrated “a thousand years of art and culture” in 1975. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it. I wonder how they’re doing under the influx of Turks and Arabs…I don’t know a single plump German hausfrau who thinks it is normal to walk to town every day with her little string bag and buy just enough for the night’s dinner–a singularly useless waste of time and energy. Most months I get away with not having to go to town more than three times; I stock what I need in things we don’t produce. None of us race rats or commutes. When I need a manicure or a hair cut badly enough, I arrange all the other errands that have stacked up in a neat circle with the grocery store last, and go do them all. There isn’t a mall anywhere that has anything I want. Tractor Supply, my feed store, my nail artist, my hair dresser, book stores, Krogers, and McCoy’s Lumber yard about cover it. Movies? Why would we want to do that? Rent videos? Why? If we want to walk around holding hands we do it here.
Wage slaves cannot live the sort of life you envision, and there are NOT enough jobs for all of them in the country or small towns. As I have pointed out before, towns of two to five thousand are in perfect balance. If some service or store is needed, someone is already doing it and that family has usually done so for at least two or three generations. If there is no such store that’s because the local populace doesn’t want what it sells enough to make one profitable. Worse, an influx of townies–even those with pensions to live on or jobs in a new factory–overstresses the infrastructure. The taxes newcomers pay are nowhere near sufficient to expand schools, water mains, roads, bureaucrats, and electrical services. When a Dell descends on Round Rock the woes it brings are far worse than the new income, because they dump all of suburbia there: Chilis, Olive Garden, big chain grocers, new “name” dry cleaners, tattoo parlers, dozens of other restaurants and fast food places. This drives the older, smaller merchants out of business because the newbies don’t enjoy the slower pace or shop locally, they want the brands and amusements they are accustomed to. Yeah, so Dell built a beautiful new sports arena and convention center–but the locals’ idea of fun is sitting in outdoor bleachers watching their kids play football or cheering the basketball team in the school gym. Who cares who won the Super Bowl? Can our AA team beat the tough kids from the next wide spot in the road?!
My biggest problem is personnel. I would love to have one more full time hand, but those who are qualified are thin on the ground. Sooner or later I’ll find the right man, because there are times when two men can do easily what one can do with extreme difficulty, if at all–like carpentry. Sometimes one has to hold while the other nails. The instructions for my beautiful new greenhouse begin, “Take three men and a windless day.” Hmmm. Got two problems there. One of these days the wind won’t be blowing 30 mph, but where to find the extra man? I keep looking of course.
Enjoyed your article, but I still think my way is more practical.
Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham
GREAT comment, Steve! LBT
James,
I hear you.
We are Doomed!
I just hope to be able to convert my retirement account into something tangible before it becomes worthless.
Like the Weinmar German/Austrian guy that paid into a life insurance policy for 20 years took the procedes and bought a loaf of bread.
We may not like what happens in the future but we sure do deserve it.
R
James, I agree with what you say. I also agree with Linda too, except you both have different audiences. The one thing Linda has not put in the equation is how people in the large cities are going to cope with the future. Not everyone in the USA is going to go be able to live on a farm and drive older but good Jaguars. Anyway, where do older Jags come from anyway? Of course the older Jags come from newer ones, just seasoned a bit more. So what happens when there are no new Jags produced? Of course there are no good older ones in a few years to purchase inexpensively. There is not enough farm land in the USA for everyone to move to. I don’t think that Linda knows that out of a barrel of crude there is less diesel than gasoline produced. We did experience a shortage of diesel in North America a few years ago but gasoline was okay, how quickly we forget! Gasoline engines now get as good mileage as diesels, plus the maintenace and original purchase for gasoline engines are less. Diesel engines need to have much more stringent exhaust emission devices than gasoline engines. The old Mercedes “backup” vehicles will not be able to pass any emission tests in the near future either. The rest of a car deteriorates just as quickly no matter which fuel it burns.
We all will have to learn to cut back our daily activites in the future, what is wrong with this concept anyway? We will be just as happy with what we have as with what we think would be nice to have.
Best Regards, CanadaNorth
James is right. There are going to be BIG problems. Individuals are going to have to adapt. You know, root hog or die!
Linda is right. Adapting can be fun and satisfying. Look at the Amish people. Do you think they are even aware of the new Great Depression?
I know any number of “return to the land” hippies, who are just itching to give up the jobs that they have to keep to pay the property taxes, and spend all their time working their land. I’m sitting here in the city of Portland Or. I can hear the chickens out back, scratchin’ for worms. The family down the block have a couple goats. We get fresh foods from Farmers Markets in almost all communities around here. Small steps to be sure. But they are happening because people are catching on…
Linda, You should read James’ book World Made by Hand. Then You would see that He is not all Doom and Gloom.
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Canada, you sweet nut, you can’t talk me out of my Jags. Besides, I have six of them, and we can cannibalize if I run out of stocked parts. Sugar..look again before you say:”The one thing Linda has not put in the equation is how people in the large cities are going to cope with the future.” The answer is written very clearly above. I don’t worry about what will happen to them. I am not mother to the whole world, and what’s wrong with most of them is too much Nanny State. I don’t know HOW to save them short of making me Empress of the world. It would be a far better place, but somehow I suspect a lot of people wouldn’t like my solutions, since we’d start with “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” Old Jags come from Craig’s List and classifieds. There are lots of them out there, and we real Cat people recoil in horror over the thought of driving one newer than ’95. I prefer those from the late Eighties, the most beautiful ever made in my eyes. There are all sorts of great older cars out there, from Camaros to my ’89 Silverado extended cab, to whatever your heart’s delight is. America has too many cars. We don’t need any more new ones, and I am very unlikely to drive the more than a million miles mine are still good for, given that I average maybe 75 miles a month! But that is MY choice, and some people feel deprived without new cars. Some people build enormous layouts for model trains; others buy golf clubs and Mitsubishi and Lexus SUVs, God knows why. Charles and I love old cars, we can afford them, and we’re harming no one. “There is not enough farm land in the USA for everyone to move to.” Sure there is. It just all belongs to people, or Agribiz, and the government has grabbed enormous hunks of it—and keeps giving it to the UN. “I don’t think that Linda knows that out of a barrel of crude there is less diesel than gasoline produced.” Sure Linda knows that, honey. She also knows that diesel is easier to produce and what 18-wheelers run on. If/when we start having shortages, governments and corporations will be more interested in moving freight than POV, and my money says diesel will be available longer–and I’ve got a fair amount resting quietly in tanks. More to the point, gas cannot be stored a long time even with additives; diesel can. Mothers are people who make sure we’re never out of peanut butter, mayonnaise, and diesel. This may come as a horrid shock, but where you get YOUR gas is YOUR problem. I’ve taken care of our needs even though it would have been more fun to buy a silver mink coat or the bulldozer we want. Sigh…Canada, dear, what we need are NO nonsensical rules about emissions. The whole thing is a fraud. Those and the lunacy with ethanol are an enormous part of our problem. Cars over a certain age are not required to pass emissions tests, and they are cheaper to license and insure, too. And besides, my vehicles don’t smoke; what a disgusting suggestion. ALL of my luxury cars put together (including the 731i, the ’68 Daimler, and the two Mercedes) cost less than a Honda convertible–but mostly it is MY choice of how to spend my money. and my odd choices of how to be happy. If Charles never drives his ’66 right hand drive Mark X it won’t matter; just owning and looking at a long-held dream gives him great joy. We bought those instead of cruises, a condo in Acapulco, a MacMansion, or a 6′ HD TV. We prioritize. We defer gratification. We pay cash, not interest. We use money well. I don’t know anyone else who enjoys life as much as we do, and we harm no one. One reason to grow our own food iwould be so that sanctimonious do-gooders can’t claim we’re consuming “more than our fair share,” which is vicious statist nonsense in the first place. A better one is that we love it and the work and having exceptionally fine food without hormones, antibiotics, or additives. I haven’t got a shred of cosmic guilt.
“We all will have to learn to cut back our daily activites in the future, what is wrong with this concept anyway? We will be just as happy with what we have as with what we think would be nice to have.” For one thing, less is less, not more. Sugar plum, SOME of us are working hard and investing in things that are real so that we are NOT inconvenienced by what is to come–and who are any of us to declare what others “must” do and say smugly that it will make them happy? I only worry about making mysef, Charles, the hands, and my kids happy. It’s a novel notion, but it works well. We have already cut out the extraneous in our lives. Here at the Bar TS we have NO cable TV; we don’t watch TV. We have ONE cell ‘phone Charles carries, and Asia has one. No other ‘phones, no call waiting/forwarding/texting/etc. I haven’t been in a mall in over 20 years. We don’t go to movies or rent videos. We buy books. Lots of books! We do have some videos–opera, nautical warfare, Cornwell’s Sharpe series, a few old favorites. We don’t join clubs. We don’t leave the place until we have to. I am LIVING the life James wants–and probably more stringent–and we don’t miss any of the rat race trappings. This was all our own choice, but no one has any right to demand that we give up “life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness” just because THEY think salmon and redwoods are sacred, not that I have ever harmed either. In my sweet, implacable way I insist we have to be responsible for our own behavior and our own choices and take the consequences. I know how to keep myself and mine safe, well-fed, and happy against everything short of dictatorship, but I neither know how to save 300,000,000 million people, nor consider it my duty, nor care what happens to them. Being responsible for our own choices and behavior and laissez faire are fine moral principles and I recommend them. I don’t try to convert anyone; I simply tell others what makes me happy and why I think it is the safest choice for the future. Besides…I’ve seen where you live, you know! Tell the nice people about your magnificent lake front property , with glorious scenery, and at least ample room to garden. You didn’t tell me how many hectares you own, but your place is incredibly beautiful, quiet, serene, and gracious. You have already gotten away from the urbs. Do YOU plan on taking in strays to raise when the cities fall? Somehow I didn’t think so! Now, tell us what YOU drive and why. Usually we drive our “new” car, Charles’ 2000 Jeep Cherokee, or the older truck if we have to pick up feed. Or..what dreams did you buy, and what did you give up to get them? And then go plant some pansies or something. It will restore your serenity. Hugs, Linda
Hi, Dr. Hexx, long time no hear. You will all be glad to know that I actually enriched James by buying both the Long Emergency and World Made by Hand, both due to be delivered (at extra cost, mind you) by tomorrow. Gary keeps telling me they will change my mind, and it may be JHK and I agree on many things I will learn. MY problem is….I keep telling y’all: I’m a mama. I like people to be happy. James frequently sounds so miserable and angry! I’m not ever either one. Poor, sad man, he doesn’t even answer his reader mail here on W&G, and answering mine is my idea of one of the best times life can hold! I think what he needs to do is take his own advice, get out of cities, and get a couple of sweet Nubians or French Alpines and some chickens to wander around devouring disgusting things joyously. It is impossible not to be happy with goat girls loving you. Clambering over the classic cars we could do without, of course, but eventually we’ll get them all under cover. First things first.. I wonder what’s on this year’s opera schedule? Portland has a magnificent opera, and so many good restaurants, and an utterly superb museum…not that I’m sure I’d get on an airplane even for all Portland has to offer! What’s the name of that great big restaurant on the Columbia where John aand I used to go for brunch and watch the sailboats? Silly question: why don’t YOU get a a mini moo cow? If you called a bunch of lawn care companies they’d probably be glad to let you pick up brush trimmings and grass clippings, which would feed her for free, basically, and Black Dexters are so sweet they are used frquently in petting zoos. Your own milk, cream, and butter…
Signature chuckle. I still say the HE is the famous James Howard Kunstler and I’m a sweet little old lady from the sticks, but I enjoy life more than he does!
Alert!!! the intellectual snobbery and self-righteousness index just hit a new level with JHK’s latest essay. St. James, please forgive us our dreary routines, our places not worth caring about, our endless weaving in traffic, our meager paychecks, our Buffalo wings by the platterful, our simulated prostitutes on our laptops! (Hopefully, not all at once.) Please forgive us for how easy it’s been to have benefitted from the hard work of previous generations enabling us to enjoy the fruits of the 20th century. (But isn’t that why they worked so hard: to make life better for themselves and their families.) Whatever happens, however these troubled times turn out, smart and industrious people won’t quit. They will continue to develop solutions. Physicists, physicians, engineers, and teachers don’t want to spend their work hours reinventing the wheel by hand. We promise when the going gets tough we will work hard, harder than our parents. We will make up for our mis-spent youth. We will make the world anew with cheap nuclear energy, intimate working knowledge of the 2nd Law, efficient transportation and more beautiful environments. GIve us time your holiness, yes we confess we are Techno-Triumphalists. We still believe. Oh, by the way, St. James, Just what do you call your religion?
Bill…you’re wonderful. Yours is far better than my missing response to CanadaNorth,wherein I wanted to know (approximate translation) by what divine right some of them were entitled to tell the rest of us what we MUST do and declare smugly that we would be happier afterwards. Oh, I was really naughty, I was. I told him what I drive is MY choice, paid for with MY money, and that America has plenty of good cars already and doesn’t need any new ones. I was at least as fierce as an indignant kitten. I can only suppose that our collection of beautiful old cars–the most expensive of which was the ’76 XJS convertible that was in a James Bond movie, at all of $10,000, ranging down to a pair of immaculately kept XJ6 models from the Eighties I paid $2,000 each for–offends communistic…um…whatever it is statists have, since I don’t think either “souls” or “principles” fits. The old statists hold that NO one should have a Jaguar until everyone can have one, while the new crowd delights in insisting that my “gas-guzzlers” (which get 25mpg, certainly all anyone should expect of a luxury car and close to twice what a lot of SUVs get, not that I care) are destroying the world so NOBODY should have anything nice. Balderdash. Anyone who wants a Cat has only to dispense with cable TV and more than one telephone for a year to save enough to go buy a beautiful, elegant, luxurious older lady of his own. Anyone who bleeds for the huddled indolent masses, sitting there with fully-paid-for dull lives may do so with my blessing–but not to the point where they rob ME to pay for it. There. I said it. I am a throwback who thinks it is every man for himself, not some for the privileged. The original dream of America was that anyone who worked could become at least successful. Let’s tell the guilt-mongers to get lost.. Talk to you later; right now I think I’ll go find myself another tenant farmer to oppress, promulgate an edict that says that henceforth all serfs will tug their forelocks when they see me, or have the moat dug out another 15 feet and find an alligator to put in it. I’m fed up with the politics of envy and the supposition that by nature humans are incompetent to take care of themselves. You want to lower emissions? (I don’t.) Cut out all those ruinously expensive, smoke-belching buses that trundle around cities endlessly with rarely more than a couple of passengers on them. Seriously…it would be cheaper to buy all the regular riders a Neon and provide a gas allowance, not that I would approve of that, either. Bah. Let the feast begin in the baronial hall and throw the bones to the dogs. Where’s my court jester? Oh, yeah. I seem to be the court jester. L
Technology improvements turn driving from necessity toward entertainment. Less need to travel to work, greater leisure to travel across country. Telepresence will enable everyone to be virtually everywhere. Less energy required but more knowledge gained. Small town and rural living will offer ever more advantages to those so inclined because technology will provide cheap energy, automation and less isolation (when desired). City life will continue to draw the masses due to efficiency of scale. Techno-triumphalism has actually been the guiding philosophy since the stone age because it has proven true. Trying to scare people with the bugaboo of entropy is laughable in light of the immense sources of available energy on this planet in comparison to the limited, although still abundant supplies of fossil fuels. Petroleum is our whale oil. Yes, it will run out, but so what? Markets will control availability, and human ingenuity and our remarkable universe will provide better alternatives. If we can free ourselves from the political and economic oppression of the statist-financial oligarchy, general standards of living will rise or fall closely tied to the development of energy sources, not to exclude other important determinants of living standards, such as, education levels, environmental stewardship, hygiene, etc. The causes of our present predicament are not technology or energy related but directly attributable to control of our economy by big government in bed with financial power. Forget simulated prostitutes. They aren’t the problem, It’s the real prostitutes dressed in suits sitting in Washington screwing us all.
Bil,
I think he is right.
The rot is so deep, corruption so rampant only a complete collapse could purge the way our society has become
Events might well be swept up by the nights of the long knives. Grievances and injuries like gross theft of retirement savings(Goldman, AIG and Shearson Lehman), the removal of the chance for people to make an honest living, (NAFTA, GATT) and the outrageous thefts by Congress (Frank, Dodd) in the mortgage disaster, as well as the duplicity and lies from Bernanke and Greenspan.
You think innovation and technology can pull us out of this reality of lies? No chance.
Hi, Robert. You didn’t ask ME, but I think that what will pull the few of us through this are the same character traits and approach to the American dream that always worked. We’ll be keeping score for a while with different counters, but there will always be winners and losers, and order of business #1 is to be certain that we stay in the same top 5% I’d be surprised if most W&G readers aren’t in. Top 3% is quite hard (Senate billionaires, Goldman Sachs, those with Platinum Parachutes, entertainment stars who invest well, heirs to big corporations), but 5% is do-able for most people who got an education, chose a good career field, and worked. We can even go top 10%, probably. How do we do that? We change horses very carefully in mid-stream. We rebel against the idea of the “safety net” knowing that WE are the ones responsible for our own safety, support, and choices. We cut out the extraneous immediately and put it into whatever we think will do best. Bill Bonner says short the dollar and go long Japanese stocks. Mr. Bonner’s very good at what he does, but he already has an estancia in Argentina and a chateau in France–which could just mean to follow his advice! I like very simple rules that work. First, check whatever could be wrong that YOU could fix. Is it unplugged? Is it turned on? Is the circuit breaker popped? Before you call the repairman about the dishwasher, get in there and unscrew everything until you can pull out the dasher, laying it all out VERY carefully in a row so that you’ll know how to reassemble things. The chances are over 99 to 1 that what is wrong is that (a) something has been jammed up under the float (over on the left, usually, which is why it isn’t filling/draining right) or (b) some kid dropped a straw, a twist tie, a popsicle stick, or a toothpick in there and it is wrapped around/blocking a moving part. Remove and reassamble; or (c) some kid dumped a bowl of popcorn in it, and the “widows” are blocking the drain. Now, don’t ask, “Huh?” Sure, those hints cut down on service calls, but they are far more applicable. What are YOU most afraid could happen to the economy? Prepare against THAT. Get out of what you think will be losers, and buy your pick for winners. MY theory from the start was that the serious shortages will be food and fuel. My plays were to put the “serious” money into physical silver and work out how to have the capacity to produce all the food we’ll need and want for better. A captial outlay of $3000 will do that easily IF you have some land and something you can live in on it. My answer to “what?” is “A motor home or older rv if that’s the best you can affford!” A tent. Haven’t you a shred of pioneer spirit? This is no time to be effete. Take care of “Comes the revolution…” and go about your lives if you like them. If not, join the cheerful old hippies and go live in the country. It’s a lot of fun! Sure, fun counts when we’re keeping score. IF it comes to TEOTWAWKI you will have the capability to produce what you need to eat and at least fuel for emergencies. What happens to the masses? Well, some will die and most will be at least miserable…but that’s what happens to those who put their trust in Princes and Politicians. They aren’t OUR responsibility. It is high time the Little Red Hen got taken seriously because the Big Red Government is out of money. It’s every man/family/clan/tribe for him- or itself when the barbarians are pillaging in the streets.
Robert,
Basic belief systems determine so much
Technology improvements will turn driving from necessity toward entertainment. Less need to travel to work, greater leisure to travel across country. Telepresence will enable everyone to be virtually everywhere. Less energy required but more knowledge gained. Small town and rural living will offer ever more advantages to those so inclined because technology will provide cheap energy, automation and less isolation (when desired). City life will continue to draw the masses due to efficiency of scale. Techno-triumphalism has actually been the guiding philosophy since the stone age because it has proven true. Trying to scare people with the bugaboo of entropy is laughable, in light of the immense sources of available energy on this planet in comparison to the limited, although still abundant supplies of fossil fuels. Petroleum is our whale oil. Yes, it will run out, but so what? Markets will control availability, and human ingenuity and our remarkable universe will provide better alternatives. If we can free ourselves from the political and economic oppression of the statist-financial oligarchy, general standards of living will rise or fall closely tied to the development of energy sources, not to exclude other important determinants of living standards, such as, education levels, environmental stewardship, hygiene, etc. The causes of our present predicament are not technology or energy related but directly attributable to control of our economy by big government in bed with financial power. Forget simulated prostitutes. They aren’t the problem. It’s the real prostitutes dressed in suits sitting in Washington screwing us all. The stifling level of corruption may be insurmountable, but we surely shouldn’t compound the problem of fascist corruption by buying into a new state religion of pantheistic, anti-growth, nature worship sold by Kuntsler, Gore and kind. Yes, I do believe improvements in technology will help to pull us out of many of our troubles by raising living standards. You are right, though, our most intractable difficulties lie in the recesses of the human soul, and that is why I am attacking this false belief in puritanical limits to energy use. It is a world view equally insidious to its companion world view that elite moneymasters and politicians should control our financial destiny. Their desire to oppressively control energy supply and money supply go hand in hand.
Robert,
Basic belief systems matter.
Technology improvements will turn driving from necessity toward entertainment. Less need to travel to work, greater leisure to travel across country. Telepresence will enable everyone to be virtually everywhere. Less energy required but more knowledge gained. Small town and rural living will offer ever more advantages to those so inclined because technology will provide cheap energy, automation and less isolation (when desired). City life will continue to draw the masses due to efficiency of scale. Techno-triumphalism has actually been the guiding philosophy since the stone age because it has proven true. Trying to scare people with the bugaboo of entropy is laughable, in light of the immense sources of available energy on this planet in comparison to the limited, although still abundant supplies of fossil fuels. Petroleum is our whale oil. Yes, it will run out, but so what? Markets will control availability, and human ingenuity and our remarkable universe will provide better alternatives. If we can free ourselves from the political and economic oppression of the statist-financial oligarchy, general standards of living will rise or fall closely tied to the development of energy sources, not to exclude other important determinants of living standards, such as, education levels, environmental stewardship, hygiene, etc. The causes of our present predicament are not technology or energy related but directly attributable to control of our economy by big government in bed with financial power. Forget simulated prostitutes. They aren’t the problem. It’s the real prostitutes dressed in suits sitting in Washington screwing us all. The stifling level of corruption may be insurmountable, but we surely shouldn’t compound the problem of fascist corruption by buying into a new state religion of pantheistic, anti-growth, nature worship sold by Kuntsler, Gore and kind. Yes, I do believe improvements in technology will help to pull us out of many of our troubles by raising living standards. You are right, though, our most intractable difficulties lie in the recesses of the human soul, and that is why I am attacking this false belief in puritanical limits to energy use. It is a world view equally insidious to its companion world view that elite moneymasters and politicians should control our financial destiny. Their desire to oppressively control energy supply and money supply go hand in hand.
Submitted comments not being accepted by W&G.
I’ll try shorter comments.
Guess I should stick to one liners. That’s all that seems to be accepted. JHK’s belief in limited growth sucks.
Robert, I had a long answer for you but suffice it to say you are right. The corruption seems insurmountable.
However, improvements in technology can continue to improve living standards. JHK’s “religion” exalts primitivism.
Bill, Linda,
Ever drive through NY City? I went to school with some crazy guys from the city. They told me of ‘cities in a building’ with a wasteland around them. 50,000 people at a pop. They have sprouted like mushrooms on a warm moist day. Check them out on Google Earth. Now add up the number of cities that no longer produce anything. Those are some staggering numbers. How many on food stamps? How many just lost their jobs that will never come back? What do they do when the checks stop or buy nothing when they come?
Hang out in the ‘ hood and sing Kum Ba Yah?
Did you ever consider the number of people who really believe that , ‘ ‘Bama gonna hep me get a house and gas fo’ my car. I vote fo,’ him, he gonna hep me. ‘ I saw that one on tv during the voting. They believe they are owed a living, the entitlement generation. Those are some big numbers.
Hopefully the effete hedonist and I are wrong, because I am not ready by a long sight.
Robert…I haven’t been to NYC since dragged as a small child. I can’t even imagine wanting to go. I haven’t been to Houston in 30 years, thanks be a gracious God, and I go through Dallas/Ft Worth only because it is necessary to visit my daughter. Rome I put up with for the history. The world reminds me of a dead turtle I saw long ago swarming with maggots. Revolting. It gave me a strong urge not to be a dead turtle. Our sound byte world reduces to cliches more and more frequently, such as “the quick and the dead.” Will it matter if one is in the ghettos or in a MacMansion if one is dead in riots? Starving in the slums will probably come faster (depending upon how quickly the inhabitants adapt to a life of crime) than starving in a town of 2,000, but it will be most unpleasant wherever one does it…so let’s do our best not to be in either and not to starve wherever we are. For those who favor Darwin, this is just another era where some traits are more conducive to survival than others. How gloomy of me. Guess I’ll go read the Kunstler books that arrived. Those should be spiritually uplifting!.
I really enjoy talking with you all about this crisis of confidence we face. How did we get here? We had so much going for us. Were we really as empty as JHK accuses? Do we really deserve what we are about to get? I’ve known many good, decent and smart people. Some are better prepared than others for the future, but no one can ever be completely ready psychologically for loss. Not if you have a heart. I choose to face the future with realism and solutions. Greater efficiencies are needed but not if the debt incurred to implement change is impossible to outgrow. GM’s Volt is a case in point. Whatever we do it has to make good business sense. Pie in the sky won’t cut it. Bureaucracy and over- regulation no longer allow our formerly free enterprise to grow us out of our debt. Now the solution is to debase the continually rising debt thereby impoverishing savers, workers, businesses and pensioners, i.e. everyone except those with investments in non-dollar assets. The elite are on the dole just like those on the bottom. The middle-class is being split in two. The majority headed toward the bottom. Fewer making it to the top. Nevertheless, overall, technology continues to raise the general standard of living. Less disease, less pollution, better nutrition, more information and entertainment, knowledge explosion, improved transportation, electronic and communications revolution: these changes are happening without government subsidies, without unsustainable debt as incurred by most alternative energy schemes. I really believe that it would be possible to grow our way out of our problems given the correct policies. Unfortunately the likelihood of pro-growth policy is slim for the next few years. Intelligent people must reject the romantic infatuation with the primitive as espoused by Kuntsler. Just as Linda says, back to the land is wonderful, as long as you have an income to support it. Those in Detroit turning to subsistence urban farming are simply recreating their Southern sharecropper heritage. That may be all they know or can do with their available skills, but it won’t keep them warm and fed through a Michigan winter. Kuntsler’s advice is just plain wrong. A rejection of technology at the precise moment when we need it most is suicidal. People need the valuable time honored skills that Linda champions, and we all need to keep abreast of the exciting developments in science and technology that will make us all richer in the future so we can afford to be Jeffersonion farmers.
As always, a good read Mr. Kunstler. Glad to see you are finally seeing thru the shenanigans of Mr. Obama too.
W&G you got me again. I must remember to copy my submissions before I click the Submit Comment button. I’ve lost two or three comments that I spent too much time on. Can’t take time to rewrite. Oh well, another rant against Kunstler, no great loss.
Just one more word, the scenario laid out by Kunstler is just a fantasy of the way he would like things to be. He hates the American way of life so much, he projects a collapse into a pre-industrial condition. Voila, get rid of cars, get rid of pollution, get rid of strip-malls, get rid of suburbs in one fell swoop. Oh yeah, and I guess productive smart people will just give up and split wood and walk behind mules. Not that there’s anything wrong with wood fires and horsepower if you want to live that way out of love and choice, but there is something missing if you are forced to live that way out of necessity. People will not stop pumping oil out of old wells no matter how bad things get. People will continue to keep old cars running just like they do now. The whole theory of Peak Oil is debatable anyway. Markets will control price and use. There is enough available energy on our planet in the form of uranium, thorium, natural gas, coal, shale gas and oil, wind, solar, geothermal, ocean wave, tidal, small hydro, tar sands, orbital solar-microwave transmission, etc., etc. etc. Let’s discuss the interplay between the romantic attraction of the primitive and the rush to modernity later.
Bill, you genius, tell me how to save what I write, please! Is there a better way than to put it on my clipboard? That doesn’t always seem to work. There are those of us who love the successful, productive American way of life so long as nobody expects us to endure it ourselves. Laissez faire, y’all. At the same time there ARE reasons to hedge our bets NOT because we expect to be victims of “peak oil” but the very good possibility that social and economic forces are going to destroy or restrict the supply distribution network. The main differences I can see between myself and Mr. Kunstler are that he’s famous, broods about suburbia, and thinks a BIG solution is needed. I’m a robber Baroness at heart and work on being sure that I and mine don’t ever have to do without anything, and what happens to the grasshappers will just have to be on their heads. Real grasshoppers are good for baiting fish hooks and pouncing on by chickens. I have no idea what economic and political grasshoppers will do when a bankrupt government can’t pay them to consume and deliver the vote, other than riot, but so long as they don’t come bother ME, I really don’t care. I’m quite cheerful about admitting that I have no cosmic guilt and don’t worry about mankind in general. I encourage those who achieve and produce. I just read Mr. Kunstler’s incredibly depressing “World Made by Hand.” About all those people did was stand around brooding over those who had died in three epidemics and the loss of TV…and resenting the cattle baron who had prepared so well that he could produce his own electricity, cast concrete pipe (he donated) to repair the city water mains, and keep his “serfs” living in comfort and plenty–and the luxury of real hamburgers and buns. The townies regarded him as some sort of Dracula! The one amusing part was the new dream: to own a horse. Okay, so I’m a nut and I have already bought two horses and a glossy doctor’s buggy. They horses are beautiful and entertain me, and for now they function as “pasture art” and to move cows around, which is quite enough to justify their price and keep. If we ever get back to the days of “the carriage trade,” well…I’m prepared! The goal of preppers is to be prepared to ride out temporary disturbances at the very least, and those of us who make it a full time passion labor to become so self-sufficient that we won’t ever be hungry and cold. We aren’t ever going to run out of salt and peppercorns,as Kunstler’s townies did. Those are things anyone could stock several years’ supplies of for under fifty dollars and would make superb trade goods. If I’m wrong, they will sit there in their hermetically sealed containers until I use them all. Delighted laughter…here’s your personal invitation to come visit my version of “the romantic attraction of the primitive.” One of my friends calls me Marie Antoinette and insists I’m trying to recreate my own petit trianon. Nonsense. I don’t expect to get to the maze and statuary in the garden for years!
Another great post, Bill. I dare not say much more because the spam filter appears to have declared Jihad if I write more than a couple of sentences. Perhaps a hadj to Baltimore is in order? Linda
Bill, I don’t know if you’re not intereted or not paying attention, but one last time, my address, if you want to discuss things without having to worry about spam filters, is ranchLT4@gmail.com. LBT
Dear Dr. Hexx:
I have now read “World Made by Hand” and the only cheerful thing I found in there was the Cattle Baron who had become totally self-sufficient–and is regarded by the townspeople as some sort of Dracula they suppose to be sucking the life out of his “serfs.” When they aren’t envying him the things he has because he planned ahead. I found the book very depresing,and if that is the way most of the survivors will respond, whining about what they lost and making almost no efforts to improve their lots, there will be a lot more scope for entrepreneurs than even I had suspected. Thanks for the suggestion, though. At present I’m slogging through “The Long Emergency,” but since I’m only to the point where he blames the craze for the SUV on yuppies, who knows? The SUV, of course, came into being NOT because anyone wanted on but because Congress made it impossible to manufacture our beloved station wagons and land yachts; the only thing exempted from irrational CAFE standards was trucks, so now people drive around in uncomfortable, uneconomical gussied-up trucks.
Dear Bill:
Thank you for the very nice compliments. I think it is a matter of character more than knowledge or money, the last two being far easier to come by than the first one. I’m very new to the TEOT-WAWKI discussion because I realized the problem while doing something else over three years ago, saw what had to be done, and got started on it. This is really pretty funny, because the FIRST thing I always do when a new subject interests me is go read thirty or forty thousand pages, or whatever I can find. It just didn’t occur to me to ask Google if anyone else had put together the same numerous factors I had. Dumb, huh? Well…it was a lot of fun reinventing this wheel, and what to do was really pretty obviousl. I can really recommend James Wesley, Rawles (that comma drives me crazy, but he always uses it) “How to Survive TEOTWAWKI.” An excellent, readable presentation, and the only real flaw I noticed is that he appears to be pretty confident we’re all going to find land 300 miles from a metropolitan area and 150 miles from the nearest main road. Uh…James? I didn’t manage that one, Sugar, so I had to make some extra preparations to overcome the difficulty of the location I already had. What really floors me is how many people are still asking “Do you suppose we ought to do something in case all the Doom & Gloom people are right?” Yes, I really do. Gosh, y’all are fun to talk too. Linda
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