Peak Oil, Credit and the Collapse of Complex Systems: What Next?
Mar 3rd, 2009 | By James Howard Kunstler | Category: Featured, Macro Economics, Oil
What next? Isn’t that a question, though…
The Peak Oil story was never about running out of oil. It was about the collapse of complex systems in a world economy faced by the prospect of no further oil-fueled growth. It was something of a shock to many that the first complex system to fail would be banking, but the process is obvious: no more growth means no more ability to pay interest on credit… end of story, as Tony Soprano used to say.
There was a popular theory among Peak Oilers the last decade that the world would enter a “bumpy plateau” period when the global economy would get beaten down by peak oil, would then revive as “demand destruction” drove down oil prices, and would be beaten down again as oil prices shot up in response — with serial repetitions of the cycle, each beat-down taking economies lower — the only imaginable outcome being some sort of quiet homeostasis. This scenario did not play out as expected. It was predicated on a mistaken assumption that all systems would retain some kind of operational resilience while ratcheting down. Anyway, the banking system was mortally wounded in the first go-round and the behemoth is dying hard.
The last desperate act of the banking system in the face of Peak Oil’s no-more-growth equation was to engineer species of tradable securities that could produce wealth out of thin air rather than productive activity. This was the alphabet soup of algorithm-derived frauds with vague and confounding names such as credit default swaps (CDSs), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), structured investment vehicles (SIVs), and, of course, the basic filler, mortgage backed securities. The banking system is now choking to death on these delicacies.
The trouble is that the EMT squad brought in to rescue the banking system — that is, governments — can’t remove these obstructions from the patient’s craw. They don’t want to drown in a mighty upchuck of the alphabet soup.
The collapse of complex systems is actually predicated on the idea that the systems would mutually reinforce each other’s failures. This is now plain to see as the collapse of banking (that is, of both lending and debt service), has led to the collapse of commerce and manufacturing. The next systems to go will probably be farming, transportation, and the oil markets themselves (which constitute the system for allocating and distributing world energy resources). As these things seize up, the final system to go will be governance, at least at the highest levels.
If we’re really lucky, human affairs will eventually reorganize at a lower scale of activity, governance, civility, and economy. Every week, the failure to recognize the nature of our predicament thrusts us further into the uncharted territory of hardship. The task of government right now is not to prop up doomed systems at their current scales of failure, but to prepare the public to rebuild our systems at smaller scales.
The net effect of the failures in banking is that a lot of people have less money than they expected they would have a year ago. This is bad enough, given our habits and practices of modern life. But what happens when farming collapses? The prospect for that is closer than most of us might realize. The way we produce our food has been organized at a scale that has ruinous consequences, not least its addiction to capital. Now that banking is in collapse, capital will be extremely scarce. Nobody in the cities reads farm news, or listens to farm reports on the radio. Guess what, though: we are entering the planting season. It will be interesting to learn how many farmers “out there” in the Cheez Doodle belt are not able to secure loans for this year’s crop.
My guess is that the disorder in agriculture will be pretty severe this year, especially since some of the world’s most productive places — California, northern China, Argentina, the Australian grain belt — are caught in extremes of drought on top of capital shortages. If the US government is going to try to make remedial policy for anything, it better start with agriculture, to promote local, smaller-scaled farming using methods that are much less dependent on oil byproducts and capital injections.
This will, of course, require a re-allocation of lands suitable for growing food. Our real estate market mechanisms could conceivably enable this to happen, but not without a coherent consensus that it is imperative to do so. If agri-business as currently practiced doesn’t founder on capital shortages, it will surely collapse on disruptions in the oil markets. President Obama at least made a start in the right direction by proposing to eliminate further subsidies to farmers above the $250,000 level. But the situation is really more acute. Surely the US Department of Agriculture already knows about it, but the public may not be interested until the shelves in the Piggly-Wiggly are bare — and then, of course, they’ll go apeshit.
The recent huge drop in oil prices has left the public once again convinced that the world is drowning in oil — if only the scoundrelly oil companies were forced to deliver it at reasonable prices. The public has been consistently deluded about this for decades. What’s missing so far is for the president of the US to lay out the reality of the situation in a dedicated TV address. I know a lot of you think that Jimmy Carter already tried this and failed to make an impression (and ruined his presidency in the process). I guarantee you that Mr. Obama will have to do this sometime in the next few years whether he likes or not, and he’d be well-advised to get it done sooner rather than later. And by this I don’t mean just vague allusions to “energy independence” or “renewables” in speeches devoted to many other issues. I mean telling the public the plain truth that we’ll never offset oil depletion and the intelligent response is to do everything possible to transition to walkable towns and public transit, not to sustain the unsustainable.
The alternatives — i.e. what we’re trying now — is to further delude ourselves into thinking that we can run WalMart and the suburbs by some other means than oil. Despite all our investments in these things, we won’t be able to run them by other means, and the news about this had better get out before enormous disappointment turns into titanic rage. If Americans think they’ve been grifted by Goldman Sachs and Bernie Madoff, wait until they find out what a swindle the so-called “American Dream” of suburban life turns out to be.
On this blizzardy Monday in the power centers of America, attention is fixed on the never-ending fiasco of AIG — a company whose main product turned out to be credit default swaps, and is now choking on them. Kibitzers on the sidelines of finance are forecasting a king-hell bear market suckers’ rally in the stock markets followed by a belly flop to Dow 4000 or lower. I myself called for Dow 4000 two years ago — and was obviously a bit off on my timing. All this is surely trouble enough. But while your attention is focused on Rick Santelli in the Chicago trader’s pit, or Larry Kudlow desperately seeking “mustard seeds” of new growth in financials, try to let one eye stray to the horizon where these other complex systems are working out their next moves. Farming. The oil markets. These are the coming theaters of alarm and distress.
Regards,
James Howard Kunstler
March 3, 2009
For a look at what a post-oil world may look like in one corner of our nation, check out James Howard Kunstler’s World Made By Hand. It’s a Whiskey Bar favorite along with The Long Emergency.
A few of you are rightfully confused about my remarks on Sarah Palin. “Surely Gary Gibson is being sarcastic when he suggests Palin is the answer to Republican prayers!” says one. And another…
“Gary, Don:
“How can two obviously intelligent guys like yourselves find anything to value in Sarah Palin? I read your essay, Don, and found it somewhat insightful, the points obvious for those of us who consider the economy and its effects (but still your points are valid) and I’m sure news to some.
“But then you state that Sarah’s your gal? And Gary, you also state some support for Palin. I’m at my wit’s end.
“That woman is such an obvious fraud that it became painful to watch her embarrass herself. If she has any intellect capable of understanding anything beyond the immediately obvious to any dog or cat, she wins an Academy Award for her ability to hide it. When she opened her mouth to speak it was painfully obvious that she fails to understand the simplest rationale, and she honestly believed she made points instead by employing colloquialisms, further defining her shallow, narrow understanding of most anything.
“As far as any knowledge of societies, economies, history, governing philosophies, or even our government, she proved to possess little knowledge. Electing people like Palin to governing positions because they’re popular, or considered good communicators, is exactly how we’ve arrived at our current predicament. It’s past time for voters to do an infinitely better job of selecting electing representatives and then following their actions and demanding accountability, while diluting the influence of special interests and their paid, professional lobbyists. Failing to do so will surely eliminate our right to vote at all.
“Surely you two are pulling my leg about the Sarah thing.”
I do not dare speak for Don, but I agree with your assessment of Sarah…but when did I say anything about voting her into office? I just wish she’d return my phone calls.
Another Shooter seemed to know where I was coming from and warned: “God will damn you to hell for the lust in your heart.” I assure you, Shooter, that my intentions are honorable.
And here is some angry protest from the Marxists who insist on reading our letters…
“Dear writer of the article: Gary Gibson?
“This article is an insult to my intelligence! You cater to fear [and] ignorance, and you propound borderline conspiracy-doomsday theories of the most banal ilk. Your beloved unregulated capitalism has sent the world economy into a tailspin of epic proportions. Even Allen Greenspan an avatar (Ayn Rand devotee and all) of the free enterprise system said his core working assumptions are now in doubt! Added insult to this rant is your mention of Sarah Palin as a serious candidate for our nation’s highest office. Even John McCain’s aides were appalled at her ignorance and leaked negative information. I spent ten years being a high school social studies teacher; you do a disservice to our country by these Jeremiads, which are not even half-truths, but one-eighth truths at best! Please remove me from this email list!
“A recovering ex-Republican, conservative and Ayn Rand devotee
“P.S. I would love to debate this point further with you. How about the thesis: unregulated free markets caused the sub-prime mess and brought us into a recession? How do you logically refute this?”
We spend a couple thousand words each business day trying to explain that the fiat money, fractional reserve banking, government-regulated thing that is destroying all your lives is not a free market based on sound money.
If you don’t understand this or simply refuse to, then I’m not sure why you were receiving our newsletter in the first place. If you don’t know the difference between our modern day Alan Greenspan and the dashing young Randian he replaced, then nothing you read in this newsletter can help you anyway.
That a statist and proponent of centralized planning such as you taught “social studies” in high school wouldn’t surprise me, especially if you did so in a public school…but it still saddens me.
The Washington Post reports: “The government needs to continue moving aggressively to combat the recession and financial crisis, even as it takes steps to rein in the budget deficit in the longer term, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said this morning.”
With an entire planet of people clamoring for more government management and bailouts — and with the government happily obliging — you may want to consider bailing yourself out.
Until next time.
Regards,
Gary Gibson
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder
Hello Gary– Thank you as always for your work. In regards to the social studies teacher, it is a shame he/she did not teach a little more history, or economics, or even evolutionary biology or mathematics. It’s a fairly simple tenet that, in general, an organism can be counted on to act in its own best interests. If an entity (substitute home buyer, builder, bankster, politician, or whatever you want) is given access to artificially cheap money, it will take advantage of the situation, and all kinds of shenanigans will follow. If it is taken as given that the Federal Reserve, or Greenspan and his Great Moderation, were natural, inevitable phenomena, then yes, absolutely all kinds of regulation would be required! But then that darned individual self-interest happens again, and clever entities continue to find ways to maximize their profits around the latest sets of rules and regulations, until you have to keep adding amendments, and patches, and updates to make sure that the Madoffs don’t get their way.
“How about the thesis: unregulated free markets caused the sub-prime mess and brought us into a recession? How do you logically refute this?”
Well, if you shift your paradigm and don’t take the Fed as a given, all of a sudden things become much simpler. How about the thesis: the over-abundance of sub-prime mortgages and all of their spawn (mortgage-backed securities and other derivatives) were an inevitable result of cheap money? This is an admittedly simplistic proposition, as there are countless other contributing factors. But, the point is, if you pull out Occam’s razor, you might discover that the idealized social contract of government all boils down to 1) keeping the peace while 2) preventing the smart, informed, wealthy, insider crowd from hoodwinking the ignorant, or the poor, or the less sophisticated crowd. In reality, of course, it doesn’t work that way at all, since the former crowd are the ones controlling government! What is the happy medium between anarchy and the present-day US government? I don’t pretend to have the answers. I do know, however, when someone’s been eating my lunch. And that is not in my best interests.
Keep up the good work, Gary.
Cheers,
Hadley
PS You really think Palin is all that? If we’re talking about vacuous, non-painful political figureheads, I’d just as soon go with Mary Carey, for example. I’d actually vote for Palin only inasmuch as it might guarantee and accelerate the demise of the Whole Damn Thing, then maybe we could get the Greater Depression over with during our lifetimes and move on.
Dear Gary and Mr. Kuntsler:
As we say in our quaint Irish patois, “Hit him again, bye!”
I don’t know why arrogant, self-satisfied liberals read our discussions, either, other than to get your good financial advice for free, annoy us, and disrupt us when we’re working.
Thanks for addressing the farming issue, which has been my Cato-esque cry as the biggest threat we face for a very long time. Business and farming require stability of government and long-range planning and cannot function with constant fluctuations of regulation, monetary policy, and “environmental” demands, and the weather really does have a modest effect on how good the crops are and how many calves, kids, and lambs survive. Some years nothing but little males are born, and others the cut worms get the plants.
The bean counters foisted “just in time” inventory and other abominations upon us, and some time in the next year or two (at least by the first nationwide truckers’ strike or the return of gas lines), America is going to find out that Thursday’s dinner had better not be on a truck somewhere in Alabama, Idaho, or California. I’m more glum than that, and say, “Dinner will be ready a minimum of five months after seeds go in the ground and the chickens hatch, plus an hour.”
IF, of course, you have eggs in the incubator and seeds, tools, and supplies in hand, and the ability to sustain yourself while you wait, the neighbors don’t destroy your crops, and the HOA will let you plant crops and keep chickens…
THE FLAW IN MR. KUNSTLER’S BRILLIANT THESIS is that it simply is not possible for most people to relocate to rural areas, and it will not be even after the death of “luxury” services and industries. Again: charming Hamilton, TX, already has all the businesses and services it needs, and few jobs–those at the Cit-go or waiting tables. It does not have spare housing, schools, or water supply sufficient to double the population from about 2100. At the very least, unless you can support yourself from the day you arrive, don’t go.
Hondo is a lovely little town of 30,000 south of San ‘tone, THEY don’t need any new residents, much, either, and I regret to tell you that you will be regarded as “newcomers” for at least 50 years. We’re kind and polite, but insular.
Over in East Texas wide-spot-in-the-road Tomball has been overrun in the last twenty or thirty years by those fleeing urban and suburban conditions in Houston, and become a suburb itself. Housing areas, strip malls, movie theaters and tattoo parlors…the same old big city living.
The towns of 25 to 30 thousand have been turned into strip megalopalouses, so that it is basically one big city from Austin 75 miles to San Antonio, just as from Naples to Pompeii, and in a giant pool around Dallas and Fort Worth which has over run Flower Mound, Coppell, and so forth. When I was a girl Bastrop and Elgin were delightful little communities; not any more. They are refugee camps from the cities with all the big city appurtenances and have lost the “small town” ambiance.
If you want to build yourself an “enclave,” a refuge, you had best find a hamlet with a population of well under 2000 if you want it to stay that way. There will be no jobs, and you will have to build your own house. Rueful chuckle: there never has been any “free” lunch. As always, you need to add to wherever you want to live, rather than be a burden.
THE KUNSTLER SOLUTION IS FOR THE OLDER GENERATION, those with pensions (so long as they retain any value…a few years, at best? Probably not more than two.) and enough capital to support themselves at current and rising costs and taxes until they have acquired a little land, housed themselves, and accumulated the livestock, machinery, and experience necessary to become at least self-sustaining.
I advocate the classic Anglo-Saxon method of dealing with political upheaval: one branch of the family supports the Yorks, the other the Lancasters, and we’ll keep the family holdings no matter who wins the War of the Roses. You support Bonnie Prince Charlie just in case, and I’ll tend to our knitting at court.
If Grandma and Grandpa can work on a refuge that will support the whole family if WE are right, our brilliant, charming progeny can continue being senior mortgage bankers and crunching numbers until sanctuary is needed, if it is. If we’re right, in time my darlings will live in “guest suites” of 30′ motor homes and RV units I have acquired for that purpose and about ten of us (related or like-minded and all valuable in terms of survival skills and being good company) will ride out The Great Depression, the Sequel, in well-fed reasonable comfort and security.
If THEY are right, and Beauty’s fantastic job and lifestyle are “recession proof,” as she believes, and my 24-year-old summa cum laude, MBA, very near to his CPA, is promoted to upper management this year as promised again recently by the big corporation he works for, well, Mama is well-entertained and will make profits eventually from her preparations, leaving them a going concern which will pay for a resident manager until the heirs are ready to retire.
This is as close to a win-win solution as I can devise. It covers everything other than military dictatorship and civil war, and there aren’t any good answers to “What are you going to do when Beast Butler is on the rampage again?” and “The Nazis are marching into Poland and Pennsylvania.” Bury the silver, hide the livestock and move to Panama for my health? What do you do when it is 1938 or 1917 or even 1859?
“Conservatism” is about conserving, planning, and being prepared for as many foreseeable and even unlikely concatenations as we can manage. It is taking care of business first, retaining our values, and coming up with the best answers we can to “What if?”
The ancient rallying cry of “States’ Rights!” is growing around the land, and we’re still fighting over the same issues there were in the Eighteen Fifties: big vs. small government, tariffs and taxes, and laisez faire as opposed to “Everything not forbidden is compulsory.”
Slavery was Lincoln’s EXCUSE, come up with well after the war began; slavery was a dying institution started as a big money maker by those of the NORTH, as it happens. There was not one Southern slave ship!
This time, the slaves have been on the welfare plantation for over seven generations consuming vast amounts of tax money to ensure that Democrats keep getting elected. They do not have kindly masters or a sense of being loved and useful and valued…and they don’t want “freeing” any more than the vast preponderance of the slaves in the South did. They will view it as being stripped of their “entitlements” and forced to take care of themselves, and they aren’t going to take kindly to such ideas. They aren’t even vaguely prepared for the task.
It is clearly becoming the Red against the Blue, not the Gray against the Blue, but once again the Blue holds government, the treasury, the large population areas, the military, most schools, the media, and the coasts. This time they control electrical power and communications, as well.
On the other hand, there is almost no rolling stock, and we’ve probably got a ball bearing factory or two…
sounds a lot like global warming isn’t about global warming. ever wonder why this collapse has nothing to do with oil at all, except that they jacked up the price probably partially based on bullshit like Kunstler’s? (At least thats how us peons accepted it) A lot of this crisis is that they then collapsed the price of oil, because there was ALWAYS plenty of it, and always will be. “They” purposefully closed refineries. “They” want you to think that oil comes from dead dinosaurs, which is total bullshit too. Peak oil and global warming are both scams, just like the credit crisis. I’m not saying we aren’t in trouble, but it has nothing to do with Kuntsler’s misanthropic “personal responsibilty” crap. It starts at the top. Do some research.
I will implore all to read this webpage ,liberal loons this means you, committee of one million to defeat barack obama .com Andy Martin is sponsoring an eligibility conference in DC on April 3&4. Dr. Orly Taitz has a number of active duty overseas soilders as plaintiffs in a case against soetoro/obama in California. The revolution is coming and you better be ready! Love America and do not let it die!
Thoughts about AIG:
I as understand it, the reason they are in alphabet soups of high finance is because they are a primary insurer of municipal bonds. Without insurance, bond rates would rise quite substantially as now the bond buyer takes on all the risk of default.
(Although frankly, I think it’s insane to believe you can insure against any government defaulting. It’s possible to minimize risk but insure away a huge “act of god” type of event? I doubt it. My house doesn’t even come with that kind of coverage. )
If I understand it right, the Feds are trying to ensure that state and city governments have access to cash by propping up the Titanic of insurance companies. Me thinks we’re throwing good money after bad as AIG is bound to fail anyway. What the Feds have on their hands when AIG fails is private *and* public organizations begging at the doorstep for operating capital. That will be a great day…
“This time, the slaves have been on the welfare plantation for over seven generations consuming vast amounts of tax money to ensure that Democrats keep getting elected. They do not have kindly masters or a sense of being loved and useful and valued…and they don’t want “freeing” any more than the vast preponderance of the slaves in the South did. They will view it as being stripped of their “entitlements” and forced to take care of themselves, and they aren’t going to take kindly to such ideas. They aren’t even vaguely prepared for the task.”
Can we leave race out of this? I highly doubt that slaves love slavery even if they are unsure of what to do with freedom. Gone With the Wind was never real…
[...] WhiskeyandGunpowder.com [...]
“I highly doubt that slaves love slavery even if they are unsure of what to do with freedom.”
Good point, but my observations of bipeds call this conclusion into question. Governments grow because people absolutely love the false security of slavery.
I am just a reader but as a reformed agriculturalist, producer of apples,cherries, grapes and hops,
and several other things. But you kind of have a one pony show.
Because energy is about electric power not transportation.
I know it hurts you guys , but that is the way it is . More diesel is used to power electric plants,
using ahem barrels of oil than is used to drive us.
Unless we can get that under control, no effort is being made here as 60 % and more is used to generate
electricity. We just want to have the government buy it for the poor people. Pretty soon we will all be poor
people. No way you can trust people who don’t shoulder their responsibilities (crooks) who don’t pay taxes
who like Joe Biden, (stoopid) to run a system.
Hell Biden flunked Costitutional law (knowledge ?) flunked local knowledge, did not know local resturaunt
was closed 10 years. What a dullard, says a few platitudes sounds like a political ward refugee.
He makes 5-10 gaffes per day , it is just the media never calls them.
Ol Sara sort of tells it like it is and yu can ‘t find all those stupidities in her talks.
They say we can get a big complex of solar in Nevada and it will replace all the oil , used in generation
somewhere north of 65 % used in that work.
However the mafiosotype reps from the east coast want some of it located in Jersey.
Bogus that eats up all the savings.
Well yu guys can chew on that for a moment.
Where were you guys when Fannie and Freddie, and Indymac were going down the tube.
What about now the rathole that it has become. Whole thing is a monument to Political correctness.
The Romans had it right when you have the ability to draw on the State Treasury, there will
cease to be one. That is everyman.
Well at least you have profound if stupid and sometimes illogical opinions.
al reg
WHAT FORM OF GOLD IS THE SAFEST: BULLION, COIN? FDR DID NOT CONFISCATE GOLD COINS. IF COINS ARE THE BEST, WHAT DENOMINATION. WHAT ABOUT SILVER AND IN WHAT FORM? WHAT PERCENTAGE OF ONE’S MONEY SHOULD BE IN GOLD?
Mr Kunstler said “The next systems to go will probably be farming, transportation, and the oil markets themselves (which constitute the system for allocating and distributing world energy resources). As these things seize up, the final system to go will be governance, at least at the highest levels.”
He may very well be correct. Consider that farmers who use the Monsanto super seeds (the crops from which provide no seeds or infertile seeds) have to buy the seed using credit. If it is not available, they have no means of planting a crop since they will be hoisted by the Monsanto attempt to have a repeating income by cornering the seed market. Those farmers who have heirloom seeds will be able to plant and perhaps keep their farm alive as long as they can afford fuel for the tractor, and to pump the irrigating water.
I wish I had the money to buy a farm out in the mountains and set up a sanctuary for my friends so they can bolt for it should the disgruntled Obama followers start venting their wrath at not getting any more handouts. But a lesser step is to scope out a small town of about 2000 people and visit and make a few friends and scope out a space for a trailer home. The above article and the other on the Collapse of Big Cities have inclined me to this course of action now rather than next year. I would rather move next year, so, has anyone heard of any financing problems being experienced by farmers?
As to Governor Palin. I venture a guess that she was made to look like a country bumpkin because she had not been a denizen of the DC crocodile pit. She is learning the hard way how they play the game. My hope is she has learned the tactics her enemies might use, and can now devise effective counters to them. She should now be learning the real history of the USA, the countries of the world, the real way that funding works, what capital really is, what wealth is and how to explain to the brainwashed how life will be good if they go out and earn their daily crust. Sarah could carry 2012 if she does her homework now and surrounds herself with Patriots who know the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution by heart and actually apply both to their lives and ensure she knows it too despite provocation.
Thank you Mr Kunstler for a thought provoking and action prodding work!
[...] Peak Oil, Credit and the Collapse of Complex Systems: What Next? By: dragline190d Tags: [...]
YOU DON’T NEED TO GIVE ANY EXCUSES AS TO WHY YOU LIKE SARAH PALIN. YOU KNOW WHO THEY VOTED FOR AND AS FAR AS I CAN TELL OBAMA DOESN’T KNOW HIS ASS FROM A WHOLE IN THE WALL. TELL THEM ALL TO GO KISS YOUR ASS. I AGREE THE WOMAN DOESN’T HAVE A LOT OF EXPERIENCE BUT McCAIN AND HIS TEAM CHOSE HER. WOULD YOU REFUSE THE OPPORTUNITY TO POSSIBLY BE THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BEST COUNTRY ON EARTH? THE MEDIA IN THIS COUNTRY DISGUSTS ME FOR HOW SHE WAS TREATED. I KNOW SARAH WOULD NEVER HAVE EARMARKED MONEY TO ABORTION CLINICS, REVERSE BUSH’S TAX CUTS AND HAMMER THE CAPITAL GAINS TAX ON INVESTMENTS. JUST BECAUSE A PERSON LOOKS GOOD AND CAN SPEAK ELOQUENTLY FROM A TELEPROMPTER DOESN’T MAKE HIM A PRESIDENT. SARAH PALIN IS MUCH BETTER LOOKING BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY. SORRY FOR SOUNDING SO BITTER BUT I THINK THE TIME IS FAST APPROACHING WHEN THE HARD WORKING PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY ARE GOING TO SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. GET RID OF THESE ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS AND GET THOSE LAZY BUMS OFF THEIR COACHES. EVERYTHING IS THE REPUBLICANS FAULT, THAT’S A LOAD OF HORSESHIT. GLOBAL WARMING WASN’T CAUSED BY BUSH BLOWING FARTS. YOU DIDN’T HERE A WORD ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING FROM GORE WHEN HE WAS IN THE WHITE HOUSE FOR EIGHT YEARS. BUSH DIDN’T CAUSE KATRINA OR 9/11. DOESN’T ANYONE THINK ALL OF THAT MAY HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH OUR SPENDING DEFICIT. 170,000,000.00 MILLION FOR AN INAUGURATION, ARE YOU KIDDING ME. BUT HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE CONCERNED WITH THE HAVE-NOTS IN THIS COUNTRY. WE ARE IN FOR THE RIDE OF OUR LIVES FOLKS, STRAP ON YOUR SEAT BELTS. SINCERELY, RICH GRISWOLD.
Dear Amy:
My apologies if you thought I was talking about race, although I think it clear that I was referring to those who have come to rely on the government for “entitlements.”
The “welfare plantation,” as I put it, and in the sense that you interpreted it, has far more whites on the rolls than it does “people of color.” “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” no matter what color the body it is in happens to be. If you wish to draw conclusions on which segments Welfare hurts the most do some research into comparative percentages of various ethnicities on the dole and in prison, but you will stray from the point.
The point is that this isn’t about race, just as wasn’t last time. It is about big government vs. small, tariffs, taxes, unions, the Nanny State vs. being responsible for our own behavior, the Constitution vs. celebrity rule, and all the variations between those who want to impose their ideas on others and cheerful little old ladies like me who help others personally and solve our own problems rather than turning to government. It is about how to protect ourselves from the fumbled-fingered bureaucrats who are tinkering with a vastly complex system without any idea of what they are doing.
It is even about whether we have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or whether assorted government entities are “entitled” to order every aspect of our daily lives, confiscate the “wealth” we produce as they choose, and demand that we refrain from any speech which might conceivably offend anyone.
You are quite correct: “Gone With the Wind” was slightly less real than the fantasy of the Kennedy family, or the notion that Hollywood denizens are qualified to give advice on economics or scientific issues, or the proposition that Mr. Obama is a great speaker. He reads teleprompters and text messages on Blackberries very well for his age, although the messages are seldom high in content or logic.
Consider again what I SAID, which was that those on welfare are not going to want to lose what they have been told they are ENTITLED to, any more than agribusiness is going to deal well with being stripped of THEIR “entitlements,” farm subsidies. Government handouts at any level are subsumed under “welfare,” whether we’re talking about food stamps or keeping the price of butter artificially high, or “Buy American!” provisions in recent legislation.
Am I ever going to get a subsidy if a goat kid is stillborn or my pastures are destroyed by drought or wild hogs? No, of course not. Subsidies and entitlements are for big voting blocks and those who can afford lobbyists. When only five to sixty per cent. of a batch of eggs hatches do I demand a big study to determine what environmental concerns caused my loss? No, because farmers have always known that many things can go wrong. That’s why the old proverb is “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!” Poultrymen know that a great many of them aren’t going to, even if we take every precaution and candle the eggs first, turn them over twice a day, and keep the temperature at 99.5 and the humidity high. Would that Bernanke, Paulson, and proponents of the president’s “budget,” growth projections, and ideas of “stimulus” knew the same.
Dear Stephen:
Nice post and good to see you back. Chuckle, we’re thinking along the same lines. Just last night I wrote an e- suggesting that Mr. Kunstler’s plans could be modified slightly to be useful for considerably more people, and I had two proposals:
First, the only ones who have the leisure and the income to follow JK are Grandma and Grandpa, so they should be starting small family farms if they are interested and healthy. It takes quite a while to accumulate food, seeds, tools, machinery, knowledge, and livestock, and it is quite expensive.
Resident “managers” and/or workers are required; it can’t be done on weekends. Livestock has to be fed and dairy animals milked, and it doesn’t matter if the basic chores can be done in 30-45 minutes, they still have to be done every day.
The average person simply cannot pack up, move to the country, and expect to find land and housing, far less a job, ready at hand, or to support himself immediately at agriculture. It takes time, effort, and, again, money, to build for the future. However, I can think of no better way to protect our children (mine tend to think this is “just another bump in the road!”) than to prepare a refuge in the best wilderness we can find.
I particularly like your second point, which is similar to two thoughts I have suggested to others. The first was that Craig’s List (a secondary market to analyze for trends) has quite a few nice older motor homes and RVs for sale for between fifty and a hundred dollars a running foot, at least here in Texas. It seems to me a VERY sensible precaution for those who cannot leave until things get bad to put money into a 30′ motorhome. That becomes the escape vehicle, housing, cooking and bathing facilities, and storage which can be filled with necessities ahead of time. No tent cities or tiny motels!
If it were a matter of staying out of the way of mobs and locusts for a few weeks, even a small town RV park would work, or pull well off any sort of main road. YOUR suggestion of finding a place ahead of time is very, very valuable. My similar one is to work out the fastest route to very minor roads NOW before you have to try to beat your way out of a city in turmoil. No matter where Charles and I go we take note of small lanes that wind off into woods, just in case we aren’t home when the balloon goes up. Amy was right: the burning of Atlanta in GWTW wasn’t real, and was nothng compared to trying to get out of Houston or New Orleans when hurricanes are making landfall.
Such a vehicle would also provide housing, however meager, while setting up a small farm.
I love the idea of like-minded people getting together to plan for the future, which is part of what we have done. Two other couples will join us, if necessary, when the time comes.
Why NOT, if you can, talk this over with six or eight of your friends and family and see if you can form a combine? Everybody pitches in an equal share of living expenses for the leader because he or she will be buying basic supplies and livestock, starting the garden, patching fences, whatever needs doing–and having a fabulous time, judging from our experiences!
Twenty years ago that would have been a bizarre idea, but with luck we may have a year or even eighteen months before the food shortages and reactions get bad, and a LOT can be done in that time. Maybe we only have six months, as was discussed in San Antonio on local talk radio yesterday, before there is serious civil disturbance, but even to have a set rendezvous and ANY sort of organization and start on preparing to feed and defend yourselves would be a great blessing. I gave this a great deal of thought back in ought-seven, and concluded that the ideal colony would be between eight and twelve people. There have to be enough to handle manpower requirements (building, livestock innoculation twice a year, maybe, guard duty), but if you get too large the logistics of feeding everyone become untenable. It is obvious that we need friends of character with different skills, and preferably with few encumbrances such as small children, spoiled teens, or nagging wives. There cannot be jealousy, bickering, or backbiting.
Iif you (you in particular, Stephen, and “you” “the rest of you”) want to write to me I’ll be glad to tell any of you privately about what I have learned trying to become as completely self-suficient as we can and to help you with sources and lists. Gary has my permission to give out my e-mail address. I have an on-going battle with keeping my messages below 1000, at which point AOL closes my box, so don’t send me any jokes or any articles readily available on Town Hall, please.
My biggest problem other than trying to find a retired Vet or doctor to join us eventually? Figuring out where things are! When you start accumulating and expanding seriously, things don’t get put up neatly and inventoried properly, in OR out. Another fantastic buy is to spend about three thousand on a Maritime Shipping Container, 45′ long, 8′ wide, 9 1/2′ high, sturdy, weatherproof, and lockable. You could live in one if you were desperate. (Ugh.)
Eventually one “colonist” will be in charge of inventory and advising the cook that we’ve been having sirloin too frequently, or that it is time to have spaghetti more frequently, and that laundry detergent is being used at too rapid a pace and MUST be measured. We have an agreement, by the way, that “The Colonel’s Snickers Bites are the Colonel’s Snicker Bites,” which means that each of us have special treats we love that others merely like. All are responsible for stocking Cheetos, Cheezits, smoked oysters, Godiva chocolate, wine, whatever they think of as a “must have” or delicacy. (We have cases of asparagus!) Right after “If you don’t work you don’t eat” comes “Don’t pig someone else’s treats.”
The person who picked up the adorable Banty chicks today hadn’t gotten the word that we were out of chick starter, so we fed ‘em some bread crumbs to start, and tried cornmeal and masa harina before digging out the morter and pestle (three here somewhere…) to grind grain over the weekend. They ate everything, but the masa is the big winner.
Coordination: I remembered that the new heating element was coming in yesterday, and mentioned it…but not to the right person, so dinner until Monday is going to involve stovetops and barbecue grills. The silly thing was less than three years old! Burned out anyway.
I have wondered why Gary thinks he can’t leave Baltimore. Hey, we can research and write anywhere! You could conference over ‘phone or TV if you had to.
Get out if you can find any way to do it. It may well save your life, and it will certainly be good for your sanity. Life doesn’t get any better than having a squatty, shaggy black cow come up, stretch out her neck hopefully for a pat and a hunk of range cube, wrapping her vast black tongue around it delicately,,,and watching little bucklings racing around giddily playing tag…seeing your herbs thrive and knowing that they are far, far more flavorful than the “fresh” ones you can buy in the store, and they don’t cost a dollar an inch to pick, either…even the “frustration” of “I’ve got to make some cheese tonight because all the milk jugs are full!” The fun of the fire in YOUR fireplace burning wood cut from YOUR trees…
You need as good a tractor as you can afford, used, but you aren’t going to be on it very long days working in vast fields; besides being good for agriculture it is your source of brute strength. If you’re all camping out in motor homes and have woods, some day you’ll want to build a log cabin for a meeting hall… You aren’t going to spend hours week after week hoeing weeds. The aim isn’t to make more than just enough profit, eventually, to keep the IRS from calling your place a “hobby.” It is to know that there is beef for a year on the hoof without slaughtering a mother, all the chicken and eggs you and your friends need to stay healthy and well fed, ample milk, butter, and cheese, and your investments are appreciating right there in front of your watchful eyes. One friend has large herds and sometimes plants several acres of tomatoes, and he hasn’t made a profit in a dozen years. Unless you want to consider the tax aspect! With the new rates going into effect, the deductions alone could fund a hefty part of the operation.
I filled the incubator tonight with most of the 50 eggs I gathered. Three weeks from now chicks will hatch. I found a very old product called KEP-EG which insists it can keep 40 dozen eggs fresh for a minimum of a year (the record is over three, they say), without refrigeration for about thirty dollars. The stuff dates from “the” Depression! I don’t suppose they would still hatch, but what a treasure that would be if you didn’t find a place to keep chickens. If you coated a dozen a week with the powder and put them in a cool dark place in the motorhome, that would be a lot of nutrition and good breakfasts stored safely against time of need. In about six months, pull out the first dozen, and if you’re pleased, do another dozen for stock rotation. If it doesn’t work, well, maybe they would be useful at a politcal rally or something! (Joking. We don’t throw eggs at people. Have you ever thrown one at a tree, though? Surprisingly stress-relieving!)
Life is about always having an edge. The things add up, 24% here, 39% there, even a lousy 17% somewhere else. If I HAD to try to start a place on weekends only, I would, and then I’d try the Pygmy goats. They are incredibly cute, and good for both milking and meat, and you could haul them around in your SUV if you had to. Even if you don’t start raising a garden this year, the essential part is to stake out your refuge, as Stephen suggests, and start accumulating what you will need. Someone pointed out scathingly that Hippy-Yuppies had been trying the five acres to independence routine for decades and failing miserably. Yes, indeed, they have.
The difference is that you aren’t choosing a new career, you’re taking out insurance that will provide you with great pleasure and wonderful food for as long as life is anything approaching normal, and will be your best chance at survival at least reasonably “long” term. Let me ponder that…if we face The Great Depression, The Sequel, I think we’ll all have a better shot at eating decently for as long as it takes than the townies.
If it comes to anarchy, massive simultaneous terrorist attacks, or foreign invasion…I stopped to talk this over with my warrior and military history expert, and was pleased that his estimates are more sanguine than mine. Charles thought a minute, and replied “If you survive the first thirty seconds…” A very good point! If someone explodes a suitcase nuke in your city, you’ve got problems. We grinned and said simultaneously, “That gives you time to see how to survive the next five minutes!” For purposes of this exercise I deleted the issue of a Great Depression, and we considered how many will die quickly from riots, fires, enemy action, gangs, and so forth. A bunch.
His conclusion was that if you can make it through the first two weeks you’ve got the character, the skills, and/or the preparations to get through the rest, very bad luck always being possible. In that time you will have worked out a place of relative safety, regrouped with surviving family and friends, scrounged provisions, and have some idea, probably, of what you are facing. He has taught tactics at, shall we say, a “major” military college, and he is almost certainly correct, which is very cheering, isn’t it? No, you don’t get a double your jeopardy back guarantee, just the best counsel I can come up with.
MY estimate was on the order of four months, and choose any four you wish. If you have made it through riots, roving gangs, and harsh winter weather, spring will bring edible plants (uh…dandelions? Go find out! Then tell me. My knowledge is of the “willow bark can be used as a substitute for Bayer aspirin” variety, and it’s easier to pick up several big jugs of aspirin…if you manage to get out of town with it.) and the possibility of planting a crop. By then things will clarify and simplify.
What can you build? What can you barter? Is it safe to go poke around in ruins to look for building materials and possibly even food that survived fires? What is the biggest threat you face THEN?
We can only list possible problems; we can’t begin to sort out myriad combinations or which will come first. It takes a long time to starve to death, even if you aren’t fat, but you’ll die of thirst in days.
Eventually there will be problems in at least the cities caused by lack of garbage disposal, and there may be outbreaks of cholera from tainted water…typhoid fever…tetanus…bubonic plague, real or a gift from friends abroad. Grief, no, I don’t suppose my shots have been up to date since the late Sixties. Do as I say, not always as I do?
Old barns may well yield DDT or 90% pyrethrins instead of the 10% available today…stock up on 100% DEET (almost impossible to find; most brands are 25% at most these days; I cleaned out the last Gander Mountain had, on sale, months ago) because mosquitoes still carry diseases, although I’m not sure about West Nile. Fleas and lice preventive measures, rat traps and poisons…
Put money into research, knowing some of it will be wasted. I couldn’t get night vision scopes Wednesday to deal with the wild hog invasion because Gander Mountain was out. I cannot recommend the eighty buck red LED “spotlights” they have. I wouldn’t try to find my way to the bathroom in the dark with one. The guys are discussing “lighted radicals” (reticles?) on scopes and trying to make the red lights work. The conclusion is that we need what I wanted in the first place, of course. You don’t want to go hunting very dark gray hogs on dark nights with nothing but human vision, and you sure don’t want them to find you first. It has been a long time since most Americans had to worry about things that go bump in the night that had more than two feet, but if you have to get out of Dodge fast you just may come across some large carnivore, like the 12′ bear shot in recently that contained two hikers.
Military troops have night-vision gear and heat sensors, but most of us don’t, so much for pleasing the founding fathers. I hadn’t considered that more than briefly in the last year and a half because the technology is pretty costly, but I’ve rethought my position. Yes, twelve hundred dollars for a pair of scopes could buy a lot of things that I’d rather have most days, but your friends, family, and men will be irreplaceable.
Hope at least one of you learned something useful, and I always have fun since I love to write.