The Consumer Economy Isn’t Coming Back
Mar 10th, 2009 | By James Howard Kunstler | Category: Featured, Macro Economics
At the risk of confirming my critics’ dumbest charge — that I am a “doomer” — the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We’re done with that, we’re beyond that now, we’ve crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we’d better get our heads straight about it.
I maintain that there are countless constructive tasks waiting to occupy us on a long national “to do” list for rebuilding a national economy, but they are way different than the ones currently preoccupying government and the mainstream media. The Obama White House, Congress, and The New York Times are hung up on exercises in futility — “rescuing” banks and insurance companies that cannot be rescued (because they are hopelessly trapped in “black hole” credit default swaps contracts), and re-starting a “consumer” binge that was completely crazy in the first place, based, as it was, on a something-for-nothing standard-of-living.
Meanwhile, if the buzz on the blogosphere is a measure of anything — and I think it is — then a new consensus is forming out there about where to start doing things differently. Unfortunately after less than two months in office, President Obama finds himself awkwardly behind-the-curve on this. It begins with the understanding that a general bank rescue is hopeless and, going a step further, that the people who caused the train wreck of “innovative” securities have to be prosecuted. The public’s collective voice on this is muted but growing. It has been muted by the general air of blackmail that the banks have used to enthrall policy and opinion — the “too big to fail” idea — in effect holding the nation’s future for ransom.
Last week, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo hauled Bank of America chief Ken Lewis into his office to explain who, exactly, received an aggregate several billion dollars in bonuses late in 2008 after the US Treasury forked over billions of dollars in TARP money to his bank. That was a good start. Mr. Lewis, being lawyered-up to the max, had the temerity to reply that answering the question would compromise his ability to keep talented people in his employ. For that impertinence alone, Mr. Lewis ought to be dragged over fifteen miles of broken chardonnay bottles behind a GMC Yukon — but that is not how we do things in American jurisprudence. To be more realistic, a simple indictment would be in order, and then Mr. Lewis can answer this question, and a few others, in the comfort of an air-conditioned courtroom. Ultimately, that might lead to Mr. Lewis becoming the wife of a bodybuilder in one of New York State’s houses of correction — a just outcome that would go far in rejiggering the nation’s expectations about how people in authority ought to behave. And such an outcome might lead to the conviction of many other brides-to-be from the Wall Street debutante pool.
Now it has come to light, just last week in the wake of AIG’s latest bail-out, that previous AIG bail-out money to the tune of $50 billion was distributed to a set of banks including Goldman Sachs (former employer of then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and then New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner), plus Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Mr. Lewis’s Bank of America, and a long list of European banks with operations in the USA. Since the transactions took place in New York State, the investigation of these irregularities alone could solve the unemployment problem here if NY Attorney General Cuomo were given a free hand in hiring staff to depose everyone involved — including the hiring of caterers to bring in coffee and meals for round-the-clock proceedings.
All of this raises another awkward question: where is United States Attorney General Eric Holder in this situation? Surely the federal statutes offer some grounds for inquiring about the misuse of Treasury funds — and many other issues arising from Wall Street’s stupendous orgy of misbehavior. What I’m hearing out in the blogosphere is a growing clamor to call people to account before we are really able to move on to the massive task-list that awaits us in rebuilding our economy.
The bigger question for now is whether any of these authorities will act effectively before the public simply goes apeshit and starts burning down Greenwich, Connecticut. The dangerous shift in public mood is liable to occur with shocking swiftness, in the manner of “phase change,” where one moment you see a bewildered bunch of flabby clown-citizens vacuously enraptured by “American Idol,” and the next moment they are transformed into a vicious mob hoisting flaming brands to the window treatments of a hedge funder’s McMansion. The moment of opportunity for avoiding that outcome is looking sickeningly slim right now.
Another thing that President Obama can set into motion anytime — and pull himself back to the head of the curve of leadership — is to either by executive order or by proposal to congress, shut down the credit default swap system for a period of time while procedures are drawn up to place all these dubious contracts in a “clearing” market, where the holders of them will have to come clean about what they’re sitting on. The lack of this procedure is allowing zombie banks to hold the United States hostage for never-ending bailout ransoms. None of these banks are going to survive another six months anyway, so the basic blackmail motif that the whole money system will collapse if ransoms are not paid is a bluff that has to be called sooner or later in any case. So Mr. Obama might as well get on with it.
Once these two matters are dealt with — an earnest start-up of prosecutions and disabling the credit default swap blackmail racket — then perhaps a stressed-out and impoverished public might be induced to not go apeshit and instead get on with the mighty task of rebuilding our nation along lines that have a plausible future.
Regards,
James Howard Kunstler
March 10, 2009
It’s awfully quiet out there, Shooters.
There’s simply not nearly as much clamor as there used to be. I don’t feel I’m doing my job if these daily missives aren’t getting you wound up. We’re happy to have you post to the website, but I still look forward to finding my inbox full of your letters. So get crackin’: gary@whiskeyandgunpowder.com.
In response to Bill Bonner’s treatise on Baltimore and Detroit:
“But I guess corporate welfare is OK. Give the banker terrorists all the money they want. After all, they’ve treated the world to a wonderful crisis. They deserve whatever we can give them. Too bad you were born with the dreaded Conservative gene. But soon modern medicine will be able to block it. Then you may be free to evolve into the full potential that human beings are capable of.”
Oh, right, because we’ve championed corporate welfare repeatedly…wait, no, actually we didn’t. In fact, we say that all welfare is bad and we say it several times per week.
I find that people who believe in evolving into full human potential are usually vegan daydreamers…or Canadians…
“I’m a Canadian and reside in the interior of British Columbia (if you even know where that is). The more I read about the beleaguered American state, the more thankful I am to be a Canadian. Study our model, and flirting with socialism isn’t the root of all evil as you yanks have been taught to believe. Our greatest fear is the lock step we’ve embraced with our biggest trading partner to the south, of a fear-based police state coupled with one of the soon to be worthless fiat currencies.”
We here at Agora Financial know very well where British Columbia is. We — and one thousand of our dearest readers — fly up there every year for the Agora Financial Reserve held in Vancouver. In fact, it’s the Symposium’s 10th anniversary as well as the 10th anniversary of our flagship e-letter The Daily Reckoning. For details, just call Barb at (800) 926-6575…and tell her the guys at the Whiskey Bar sent you.
We all know the love of money is the root of all evil…and we also know that taking things by force will land you in hell…even if you rationalize your theft…and especially if your intentions are good. Good intentions make for really good asphalt.
The irony of good intentions is that they have the worst results. We refer you to the welfare war zones that used to be our nation’s urban powerhouses.
The U.S. is indeed on its way to becoming a full-fledged police state with a worthless fiat currency…and it will be a socialist leader who takes us there. More on this to come (and I expect to hear your opinions on this, Shooters), but in the meantime you may want to take a few precautions…
A Shooter chides, “Greg [sic], pretend to be paying attention to the articles and e-mail me once in awhile with a remark that sounds intelligent!!!”
It’s…er…“Gary”…but thanks for writing anyway. I look forward to hearing from the rest of you, too.
Regards,
Gary Gibson
Whiskey & Gunpowder
The bigger question for now is whether any of these authorities will act effectively before the public simply goes apeshit and starts burning down Greenwich, Connecticut. The dangerous shift in public mood is liable to occur with shocking swiftness, in the manner of “phase change,” where one moment you see a bewildered bunch of flabby clown-citizens vacuously enraptured by “American Idol,” and the next moment they are transformed into a vicious mob hoisting flaming brands to the window treatments of a hedge funder’s McMansion. The moment of opportunity for avoiding that outcome is looking sickeningly slim right now.
Over 8000 people in California were well on the way to going “ape****” last Saturday. Check out the Tax
Revolt 2009. If Californians are for revolution against Schwarzeneggar, can the rest of the country be far behind against Obama? Or any other politician throwing our tax revenues over the wall to their rich cronies or down the AIG toilet? As they said in America 2 1/4 centuries ago, Revolution! and again in France, Viva La Revolucion! We want all those elitist thieves’ heads on sticks!
http://www.taxrevolt2009.com/
http://moderateinthemiddle.wor.....ton-video/
http://www.redcounty.com/orang.....-strength/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/o.....871841125/
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/ca.....-7th-2009/
http://www.ocregister.com/arti.....thers-john
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....1303/posts
~ n8
This is not my ideas at all and unsure where I read this but it made sense to me.
I would think more people would be calling for the end of private banking printing money.
The money supply is grown larger every time credit is issued to someone by a bank.
That is when you go for a loan they do not loan out their cash reserves they create new money into the money supply which if done stupidly creates inflation for all of us.
Banks have incredible power to fuck up a country and obviously they have misused the power that we gave them. Banks have completely screwed themselves and us.
We also allow the federal reserve to print our money for usa and then sell back to us with interest which is stupid considering if congress printed it no interest would be charged.
Just throwing some ideas that made sense to me out there and if I find the article I will send you a link
Dear Gary and James:
Good article, very nice for stirring up the corpuscles. Not as good as the one about creating our own latifundia, but that one was world class. (Gary, dagnab it, don’t you know it gives me th’ screamin’ fantods not t’ have Italics and bold faced type? Not only do I like “rich” everything, but the world will come to an end if I type Latin words without italicizing. I will surely go to hell, the buttons will be cut off my blazer, and they will break my rapier and throw me out of the fort. [I'm not big enough to carry a saber.] Yes, of course I have a shimmering length of good toledo steel with beautiful enamel inlay on the guard…and somewhere is the sword I was wont to balance on my head five years ago when my doctor told me to go take bellydancing lessons for my health and agility. These things just happen to me. Did I ever tell you that I am related by marriage to Albert Einstein? Well, I am. I won’t say the world is full of females who would have married his nephew, Morris, but my cousin did it.)
I know where I was, thinking of P. G. Wodehouse’s classic line, “it will do you as much good as a week at the seaside.”
For a while I was feeling pretty much like 1938 and 1917, but the farther this goes the more I’m sure were in about 1859. Underneath th’ duelin’ oaks we ladies are swishin’ our bustles an’ listenin’ wide-eyed to heroes telling us what dastards th’ damnyankees are, and Fot’ Sumtah is jest a-shimmerin’ there in the spring sunshine…
Like fun we are! MY hero is snoozing peacefully while I’m having one of my insomniac nights and using it to catch up on political and financial news and analyze.
Everywhere we look, straws in the wind. People are starting to talk about phenomena that we noticed or prognosticated many months ago, including shortages and backorders. Railway shipping is down a third and (sensible people, the rolling stock types, not Amtrak, they put a third of their cars in storage!) Air shipping is down 30%. A part I bought three years ago has gone from $30 to $50; that 2.6% inflation a year sure adds up, doesn’t it?! In Arizona they are cutting costs by de-funding public libraries.
BOTH feed stores in my area are out of…chick starter. And have been for over a week. Now, you city fellers might not know it, but we kind of like to get or hatch chicks this time of year. Ah, hopeless lust. I saw a marvelous steel tower, today, that held five trays of chicks on mesh, with slide out trays to catch the fertilizer they are producing, and along one side a tray of feed they couldn’t stomp in and scatter because they could only get their heads through the slit to eat. On the other side was beautifully clear water for the same reason. A charming trinket, about 30 square feet all told, and they only wanted a thousand dollars for it. A thousand dollars!
Hey, my chickens do just fine in free grocery store boxes with ten-buck clamp-on lights with ordinary light bulbs for heat, and feeders and waterers (quart capacities) that I got on sale for $2.36 each. Bought all they had, naturally, because that was forty cents on the dollar.
Yes, of COURSE this has a great deal to do with ethics, principles, common sense, conservative principles, how to cope with crises, and accumulating venture capital. We don’t throw away money on pretty toys we don’t need no matter how appealing they are. Good habits are good habits on any scale.
That brooder would be a truly shocking waste. It wouldn’t eliminate enough work to talk about, and it won’t raise chickens that are any healthier. It will reduce waste, but I’d have to save an awful lot of fifty-cent-a-pound feed to accumulate a thousand after-tax dollars to spend on a brooder! Obama would love it. Nancy and Harry would want to buy six. Me? “A penny saved is a penny to squander” on gold or Buff Orpingtons.
Chicks were $2.50 last year at six weeks, add fifty cents every week thereafter for the cost of feed. Newly-hatched chicks are $3.95 and up, now, and we expect to lose at least ten per cent. in the first month. They are also hard to find. Seems like a lot of folks have figured out that a few chickens are a good idea at the cost of free range eggs in the grocery store.
The Banty chickens I bought (TINY little bits of life that will grow up to be very small chickens) are coming along splendidly. THEY are going to be the incubators in my future; they’re famous for being fanatical mothers and will sit on any eggs they can find, they don’t require electricity, and they were worth $4.25/ea to me. The incubator and egg turner are humming gently in the kitchen, filled with our own wonderful eggs. How fortunate I am that my daddy taught me that the first thing we think of when we want something is, “Could I make it?” Followed by, “What could I use instead?!” I’m not planning on going to the Houston Live Stock show with a cage of 5 birds hunting ribbons. All we want is fresh eggs and fresh chicken, so we don’t care how the assorted breeds we have recombine. Other than feed, our chickens and eggs are “free” now.
Ah…you should have been here this evening! James, I’m rattling on because I want you to see and feel how joyous life in the country is. The very best part of the day is the half hour we spend milking the goats and checking the stock. It is true that once you have livestock it is roughly like having infants; you cannot just take off on the spur of the moment, but…it is far less work and far less boring to farm and ranch than it is to sit in a cubicle and crunch numbers. It has never paid as well…until survival is on the line.
I picked up the smallest buckling and carried him around while his mother and his surrogate mother (all three of her little ones were stillborne, a tragedy, so, being head goat, Faith calmly appropriated Angie’s!) watched me to be certain I didn’t do anything dumb. I put the little fellow down, he headed straight for the fence and tumbled through on his head. “MAAAAAH!” squawked Faith, “Get him back in here!” I laughed and went to fetch the Tidbit, and put him back in the goat house. Faith finished her turn on the milking stand and went in immediately to see that he was okay, while Angie looked for confirmation that everything was fine.
We went to feed the cows their treat, and they came up one by one. To our delight and wonder, today was the first time Sweet Molly Malone dared to take a treat from Charles’ hands. Oooooh, wheee, she’d have eaten twenty pounds if he had fed it to her, and the part that made us break into enchanted laughter was when she lifted her vast head in his direction and swashed about eight inches of black tongue trying to lick his face! She has been watching from a distance for at least a month while K-K-K-Katy, the heifer, and Abdul, the Bull-Bull Amour, a “moo-er,” chowed down, and Maggie (Thatcher) shoves her head up for carrots and cottonseed cake and to be scratched between the ears. Eventually Michelle Ma Belle (Obama, of course), the miniature Jerusalem donkey with the cross on her back, ambled over expecting to drive the cows away, and Molly wasn’t having any part of it. Left, right, and center she drove off three cows and a donkey and went back to the man with the magic hands and the soft voice and the fabulous candy…
How I wish you could have smelled it…the clean, fresh scent of alfalfa hay ($12.50 a small bale), the rich scent of the cottonseed “cake,” redolent of molasses, the sweetness of healthy animals and the peach and pear blossoms. When Charles is milking I lean against the girls,and stroke them, and feed them tidbits, and talk to them. They aren’t up there for the feed, they’re reveling in the companionship. Today shy Jelly Bean was eating carrots out of my hand.
When you talk about your plans, James, please add just a little bit about that. It isn’t JUST that we have got to pull back and simplify because the credit bender lifestyle is GWTW, too. Lord knows I won’t preach that there is “dignity” in working with your hands (Barf. There is dignity in having the right machinery and hired hands!) but compare our evening with those who were fighting rush hour traffic. I have never grown anything other than large herb gardens because grocery stores did not contain what I want, but I’ve heard enough about WWII and The Great Depression to know that anything anyone grows is going to be seasoned with thankfulness. There will be the sheer luxury of having food when others are huddled under bridges or living in tent cities.
The closest we ever come to a flap is when Hank, the young cow dog, starts trying to herd chickens, because they tend to end up dead even though he means them no harm. (We never have the nerve to eat one he has killed.)
We make up for part of our ignorance by keeping our stock up here around the house instead of back in wooded pasture. That would, it is true, reduce expenses, but it would cause so much extra work it wouldn’t be worth it…and something could happen to them. This summer I’ll put one of the motor homes over in the woods and we’ll sit there in the (relative) cool and watch the girls browse. It takes time to learn how to care for animals, and one very pleasurable precaution is to look at all of them every day.
In times to come the goats and the small Dexter cows and the chickens are why we are going to have ample supplies (God willing and we keep trying) of beef, chicken, eggs, milk, cream, and butter. Ah, how those who had such things in WWII were envied, and will be again. Besides that, the stock was expensive, but mostly they’re just so darned sweet and funny and nice that it would be horrible if any of them died because we’re ignorant. I have a friend who runs herds of over a hundred goats each. He turns them out into pastures with electrified fences, checks the fences and the water, and lets them fend for themselves. He loses a lot of stock. Predators, accidents, worms, pneumonia…
He thinks of them as “livestock” and I guess he’s going on the Sears and Ward theory of making up in volume for quality and small production. He doesn’t have more than a few he can catch to milk without a fair amount of effort. He spends endless days keeping his fences up, while we KNOW nobody is going to leave ample food and love. There aren’t any pastures greener than ours so far as they are concerned. The girls are a very real form of gold.
I’m not being just sentimental here, although I love animals. Taking care of our stock is both a moral duty AND a survival imperative. If I had to, I could load all the does in a motor home in minutes and drive away with them. They would be absolutely fascinated! LOL…every time we get a new RV Angie and Faith have to clamber up inside to inspect it. Our parameter is, “The new luxury will be sustainable sources of food and power AND the ability to protect them.” If the locusts are swarming our way, we need to know we can pick up the goat girls and get them out of harm’s way along with our precious hides.
I suppose the most disturbing trend is what James noted, today, the murmurs which are starting to be heard. I had discounted that the Silent Majority might every start to speak and I expected the hot heads to bluster themselves out and do little or nothing. Maybe not. Perhaps the rumbles may turn into a roar…I’m thinking…”feeling”…it just cooooould be…it miiiigggghhht be…
You two are analysts and you know what I know, that a “gut” reaction isn’t voodoo, it is a precis of what our impeccable wetware has concluded that we won’t “know” we “know” until we write it out or talk it out. It is a harbinger of icily pragmatic conclusions waiting to be brought into being. Nascent, incipient, for the oaf who wanted to hear something intelligent.
Okay, the preliminary conclusion is…if OUR side gets organized FIRST, before the riots start…the Obama Nation will fold before the River card is turned. Why? Because they aren’t willing to stand up to their enemies, other than verbally and through dirty tricks. They were willing to riot in Chicago and set all of this on the downward path, but they have no principles, no convictions, and they aren’t ready to put their hides or even their jobs on the line. Think of O’s weasling, “I’m so clever” “That’s above my pay grade” answer. He’s the guy who votes “present,” and you can’t vote “present” when shots are fired at Ft. Sumter. They know how to steal elections and buy votes, but they don’t really know how to lead or command…they’re smug, complacent, accustomed to winning by stealth and trickery and breaking their words, and I think they will be baffled if faced with a large block that remembers the Alamo. Yes, they can “showboat” and turn Janet Reno loose on an oddball church, and they have cowboys who will shoot women, children, and dogs…but I THINK they will do just as badly as the Romanovs did.
Let me think about this some more, and somebody send me a copy to my e-mail, please. Off to ponder, Hugs, Linda
[...] Source: The Consumer Economy Isn’t Coming Back Advertisement Tags: AIG, BAC, Consumer Economy, Credit Default Swaps, James Howard Kunstler, MS, National Economy, Obama bailout, Securitized Debt By James Howard Kunstler [...]
For 48 years, I have voted for whichever candidates promised smaller government and reduced debt. For 48 years I have received the opposite of what I voted for. Apathy has now set in. Why should I even try anymore? There are many organizations that are for smaller and less intrusive government, but they apparently have no effect. I’m guessing it is because they are all working independently of each other instead of synergistically. Is there really any hope?
Roy Miller asks “Is there really any hope?” Yes Roy there is hope, just think of what Linda the Lady Rancher had to say. Roy, go out and do things for yourself, your family and your friends. Tell everyone you can to do the same! Then, everything will be okay. Do not rely on others, particularly governments or their agencies. We all have a great spirit within ourselves, like the Genie in the Bottle. The change of thinking we are now faced with, can unleash many good things. Going back to basics is a good place to start. Do not dispair, move forward as individuals and be proud of it. This is the spirit that made North America what it was years ago. We have new technologies but the principles are the same, we must adapt to the new realities. Forget the idea that we have entitlements, work for the day, every day and things will eventually turn out well again. But none of us must forget this time around and we must not let the following generations forget. A simple life is a good life, the lady rancher could not have said it any better. And thank you Linda for having shared your story with us. Thanks from Canada North!
Dear Roy and especially Tony:
Thanks, Tony, for the encouraging words! We all work better with “Attaboys!” We feed off our support of each other and grow stronger.
Roy, there IS hope, and I see this much as I do my one-lady crusade to save illiterate children one at a time, something I have done for over two decades. Some day we will get to “each one teach one,” but lack of many following our examples is no reason to give up the struggle.
Go find Ron Paul’s website. You are NOT alone, and salvation begins with each of us making preparations to care for our families. Charity DOES begin at home, as does wisdom. I believe so strongly in what I am doing to protect myself and those I love that I am always glad to share what I have learned–frequently the hard way!–with others. If you want to write to me at ranchLT4@aol.com I will be glad to tell you about what we are doing and why and help you work out the best plan that your economic circumstances and geographic location allow, and the same holds true for you Tony, with a cordial invitation to come visit us in Texas!
Chuckle…Maggie is out there bawling, “Maaaa….Daaah…where yum-yums? Where nice peoples? Where cottonseed cakes and head scratches?!”
The basic difference between the North and the South is still exactly what it was over 200 years ago. We South’ners are for laissez faire, being close to the land, taking care of “our” people, and a devotion to both self-sustaining activities AND leisure time. We know that “wealth” lies in the land (”The land, Katie Scarlett! The land!”), friendships, correct behavior, our relationships with God, fulfilling our obligations, taking responsibility for our actions, and enjoying life and being hospitable. We are NOT shopkeepers devoted to extracting the last penny from our customers. The preponderance of the country, geographically, feels that way, but the seaboards, the vast metropolitan areas, and DC override our thoughts, between the 14% who profess liberalism and the votes they have purchased.
I’m a prime example: I do not WANT to keep enlarging my herds past the point where they are all I need with ample to spare for charitable good works and selling just enough to meet my horrendous feed bills. The Lord has a great sense of humor, so I know that He understands just what I mean when I say I don’t want to own the cattle on a thousand hills! Well, yeah, sure, if they make enough for other people to take care of them and treat them as I do my small herds. My point is that knowing my girls personally and loving them as individuals is so richly rewarding that I don’t want to depersonalize them. I don’t want mere money more than I want happiness. I don’t value accumulating sheckles above all the joy life has to offer. There isn’t a thing wrong with my life that losing 40 pounds and having big government go away wouldn’t cure!
Money is lovely stuff, but it only buys nice toys, it does not buy happiness. Charles just came in and asked me, “How goes the battle?” I leaned my head back against that beloved man, and said, “Read the nice letter I got!” and showed him yours, Tony. He agreed, “Yup, what we have is pure joy.”
Politically America is still struggling over the basic dichotomies, big government vs. small, taxes, tariffs, self-reliance vs. the Nanny state, philosophy vs. emotion, principle vs. every dog for himself so long as he goes about it in reasonably principled ways. I resent viciously the concept of “a level playing field.” That MEANS “rigging the game.” I figured out once that the portion of the taxes we paid for “social” purposes supported a second “family” of four…but that woman did not iron my husband’s shirts (Neither did I! He preferred to take them to the laundry and I wasn’t about to object.) She didn’t fix his meals, or sleep with him, or run errands. In the unlikely event her children excelled, we did not see it. If they needed discipline and guidance, we were not there to provide it. We got NOTHING for all that money, and the recipients got only habits and money which lead to destroying all inititive.
No, we cannot protect ourselves at present from punitive governments at all levels that rob us to support lives of idleness and crime, but we can follow John Galt’s examples. We can withdraw our fire until men take away their vultures. We can settle for the basics instead of pumping money into the coffers of those who will do evil with it. We can refuse to spend money on useless consumer “goods,” and stay with the premise that if Iwe can’t use it to feed ourselves, protect ourselves, or store intrinsic value, we won’t put our blood in an immoral system. Does it HURT not to buy hundreds of flowers to beautify my surroundings as I did for at least four decades? Yes, it does. That is something I have had all my life, and I dislike having to deprive myself of soul-satisfying beauty to fight an evil system, but my “payment” is in knowing that I have acted correctly.
I am a follower of Ayn Rand and…Epictetus. I don’t sound much like a stoic in many ways, do I?! However, Epictetus is ALWAYS right. “In all things say, ‘You’re a filthy external and you are nothing to me.’” Rolex watches? Ludicrous! A hundred thousand dollar Hummer? Nonsense! A $150,000 RV instead of one of the same size that is twenty years old for $3,000? Not in this lifetime.
“It is better that my child should be bad than that I should upset myself.” It is BEST that my child should be good, but that is beyond my control. (I have two great kids! And one so disastrously bad that the dream of the family is DNA testing that shows that the wrong child was sent home from the hospital. She had every advantage and turned into welfare scum with a rap sheet that would wrap around the Sheriff’s desk, of her own volition. She has a college degree and high intelligence, but she prefers to live in squalor on food stamps and “disability” because of purported “bi-polar” “disease,” which is what the rest of us call “Manic-Depressive,” and can be controlled by medication. The truth is that she thinks the world owes her a living, that her wits will procure that at the expense of “lifers,” those so dumb that they actually go to work every day…pathetic.)
It is BEST that I live by the philosophy I have developed over a long lifetime and devote myself to caring for myself and my extended family, although I take time and energy to exhort others.
Yes, there IS hope, friends. Hope in the renewed cry of “States’ Rights!” Hope in those of us who are becoming self-sufficient and those of us who devote time to knowing what is going on and fighting back.
God bless both of you and your efforts. Linda
“The dangerous shift in public mood is liable to occur with shocking swiftness, in the manner of “phase change,” where one moment you see a bewildered bunch of flabby clown-citizens vacuously enraptured by “American Idol,” and the next moment they are transformed into a vicious mob hoisting flaming brands to the window treatments of a hedge funder’s McMansion.”
There’s a reasonable point in there, but I think Kunstler could probably frame his argument much more effectively without stuff like this (and a lot of people I otherwise agree with would be well served to drop the “sheeple” talk, too). After all, there are those here among us
who think much the same of Atlantic Monthly and the Midlife Crisis Bongwater Review…’scuse me, I mean Aging Stoner…jeez, what’s the matter with me today? I mean Rolling Stone…as Mr. Kunstler thinks of American Idol and Disney World.
See how easy and fun it is to do that, in lieu of actually trying to communicate?
Dear Ken:
Your argument to eschew stereotypes would have made more force had you done the same yourself. I haven’t the least notion what is in the Atlantic Monthly, and the only rolling stone I know about is the one that has no moss on it. I am passionately fond of piano concertos in minor keys, bag pipes, chamber music, opera, and, in reasonable doses, country-western music. At present, the three books I rotate amongst include Ron Paul’s “Revolution,” a sci-fi alternate universe volume, and the Kennedy brothers “The South Was Right.” While I realize that title is a tautology, the book has some very interesting quotes in it. (Gary, may we PLEASE have “rich text” before this Editor has a nervous breakdown?! How can we possibly stave off the end of civilization when I can’t even underline book titles?) How’s that for being anti-stereotypical? The lady with the goats and cattle is an analytical project report writer, a former concert-grade pianist, and virtually never turns the TV on for anything other than the weather. She reads and writes Egyptian hieroglyphics and couldn’t name all the signs of the zodiac on a very large bet.
I LOVE to write, so when I am doing an analytical project report I just let the words flow. Then I go back and take all the life and fun out of my work, and what is left is icily pragmatic. It tells my client what went wrong and how to do the next project correctly, and I have been known to cause very senior Vice Presidents to turn red in the face and begin stuttering, “Who tol’ you that little lady? Who tol’ you? You don’ unnerstan, it’s jes’ bidness, little lady, jes’ bidness.” I understood perfectly, and nobody told me. I figured it out all by myself by working out contradictions I found in differing accounts.
You might make your point more clearly if you keep your jests to yourself, lest they fall as flat with your audience as the one above did. I can’t appreciate your wit because I don’t know what you were talking about.
MY idea of amusement is thinking “That bunch of clowns wandered all over the place falling into every pot hole in sight and digging quite a few of their own,” but WRITING “The team explored the parameters of the project thoroughly.”
It is necessary to sugar coat the pill. I KNOW that what the client really wants to hear is, “This wonderful group of…mildly competent, come to think of it, people…succeeded brilliantly due entirely to the splendid, far-sighted leadership of the incredibly charismatic leader who commissioned this report. Did I mention that leadership was the sole means by which disaster was averted?”
If I start by telling Mr. Leader that in the annals of business seldom has any one person made such a botch of a very simple project, is he going to read far enough to find out how to do the next phase correctly? I don’t think so. I am forbidden by contract to tell you of the firms I have worked for, but I can ask if you think anyone brighter than a tumbleweed could fail to realize that delicate custom equipment should be installed AFTER the sheetrock work was done, not before? My, my, what a mess sheetrock dust makes in the electronics. Had to pull it all out and pay double to have new equipment built and time and a half to have it installed again.
How about…should the advertising run before the stores are ready to open for business and the crews are trained? It seemed pretty obvious to me, but from start to finish that never occurred to anyone on the project. Caused a lot of hard feelings, and the project achieved 40% of the goal at what I’m pretty certain was double the budget.
Just for fun, why don’t you rewrite Mr. Kunstler’s article? You’re clever and you’re intelligent, so show us how you think it should have been done, please. You do that, and I’ll go get a fire extinguisher in case the mobs mistake Mildew Manor for a hedge bird’s nest or have it in mind to steal my chickens.
Good morning, Linda–
My point was “sauce for the goose.”
“If I start by telling Mr. Leader that in the annals of business seldom has any one person made such a botch of a very simple project, is he going to read far enough to find out how to do the next phase correctly?”
That is _exactly_ what Kunstler does, though. “You’re a bunch of flabby overfed Wal-Mart/Disney sucking clowns! Now shaddup and listen while I and my New Urbanist friends explain to you how you should live.”
But Kunstler himself can be paid in like coin: “Let me get this straight: Your claim to fame is pandering to the refined literary (for given values of refined and literary) sensibilities of latte-and-National-Public-Radio-swilling would-be hipsters. I should listen to you _why_? Now shaddup while I tell you your business.”
(As an aside, visit newurbanism.org and ask yourself whether anyone should listen to him/them _at all_. Neither Rand nor Epictetus are much in evidence in the New Urbanist Vision Of What Is Best For Us.)
The point: Both are equally valid–which is to say not very valid at all–forms of argument. As is true of your Mr. Leader example, jeremiads can be entertaining for the person delivering them, but there is a nonzero chance of communication failure.
As for rewriting his article: I’ll keep my own counsel on what constitutes “fun,” thanks (also, on what is the best use of my finite time), but in any case merely excising the references to suburban sprawl and American Idol would improve it materially.
I’ve got no use for American Idol, nor for strip malls and McMansions where were once soybean fields and apple orchards. That said, “suburban sprawl” may or may not be unsustainable, and I would be unsurprised to find that it does prove to be unsustainable, but it is next to impossible to untangle the substantive argument from Kunstler’s obvious personal animus. Which brings me back around to the New Urbanism. They are entirely silent on how the Vision Of What Is Best For Us will be made manifest, which suggests that it’s either handwaving (”here a miracle occurs”), or coercion.
Kunstler has already called in so many words for the use of public resources to implement the New Urbanism. I invite you to consider what public resources are; frankly, it tells me everything I need to know.
O’Bamas plan is on track and on target. The ruination of America. Iran doesnt need the bomb they have O’Bomba. Raised as a Muslim and converting to a church whose leader espouses the same dislike of America.
The Rancher lady is right, become as self sufficient as possible, but be prepared to defend yours.
O’Bomba’s devious plan to tax everyone, when his carbon plan takes effect, what difference does it make if you are paying 100% more for electricity so the electric companies can pay their taxes, or if you are being taxed directly. Analize all his plans in the same light, the taxes will be paid by someone else but you will ultimately pay them individually. Shades of Barney Madoff, the ultimate scam. Start the Revolution!!!
Dear Ken:
What fun, and some very good points! I was right, you know (she said smugly) you do write very eloquently indeed.
I was judging Mr. Kunstler on what I had read on W&G, and I was the first to point out that his “vision” is impossible. There are two problems: first, people can’t go off and play aging hippie/survivalist/back to nature/whatever the motivations are without an income and quite a bit of capital. The best I could come up with, considering the matter analytically, were:
1. Gramma and Grampa, health and circumstances permitting, find some land out in the country and begin the monumental task of preparing a retreat in the wilderness against time of need. For the fortunate few this would be both possible and enjoyable; or
2. A group of like-minded friends get together, decide who will go start working on Fort Zinderneuf, and pitch in enough to support him, her, or them and accumulate the necessary supplies and facilities. This would take even more committment and the knowledge that if either side defaulted everyone would lose. In both cases, the pioneers would have to learn animal husbandry and farming, about a ten year task to get pretty good at them. It would involve roughing it, because a nice home is the reward for years of sacrifice and building for the future, and the most practical solution would be for each pioneer to provide an RV or motor home. A barn is a lot more necessary! (Where DO you suppose David Koresh and his followers got the money for their enormous “compound?”) After that you’ll need a chicken house…then a work shop…a goat house…shelter for the cow…a way to keep the livestock out of the garden…Pioneer men were known to promise the little lady that she would get a wooden floor before she was a grandmother, if all went well! With luck she got a lean-to addition to the one-room log cabin after children started coming.
There have always been “privileged” classes, but from time to time privilege gets redefined. A country place (and I’m not talking doctor/lawyer “show off” estates, as we call them around here) is far out of the reach of most, including me. The concensus around here is pretty much that it will become increasingly unsafe to live in metroplexes, so if you can conduct your business primarily over the ‘net or establish a store or practice in a small town, what you get will be far more than what you sacrifice.
This is also a cultural issue, an’ one of these days Miss Annabelle (as I call myself mockingly when I’m being excruciatingly South’n) will hold forth on the leisurely, gracious ways of the old South before the war of Northern Aggression. No, you don’t have to have Tara, although it would certainly be nice. To be “landed gentry” you have to have some land and something to live in and some way to provide for the niceties of life such as dinner regularly, and not get all in an uproar with clocks so long as the cows are milked before dark . As Mah deah ol’ Daddy always said, “You can’t afford to run cattle unless you have a private income!” (He wasn’t kidding, and it is still true.) That’s where the grandparents come in, above: pensions, savings, and the sad knowledge that being Snow Birds simply isn’t possible any more. Besides, if Pops is out looking at fences or replacing old tin he’ll live a lot longer because he won’t die of boredom.
The second problem with Mr. Kunstler’s utopia is that small towns don’t stay that way if the yuppies start moving in bringing tract housing, Block Buster, tattoo parlors, and Red Lobster with them. A fine case in point is tiny Tomball, which is now just another suburban sprawl outside of Houston known more widely as “The Woodlands.” Conroe is a disaster of commuters and FEMA.
Small towns can’t even absorb many emigrants; there are no jobs, there are few vacant houses, not enough apartments to talk about, not enough water, not enough schools…and not enough small towns to take in even a dozen families IF those families had the resources to start businesses, buy houses, and so forth.
DO tell me what your ideas of fun are! Mine are writing and being far from the maddening (sic) crowds, reading, being happy with the man I love and our animals, and enjoying simple pleasures…the sight of our own wood cut from our own trees burning in our own fireplace…laughing delightedly every time Michelle Ma Belle (Obama, the miniature Jerusalem donkey) brays that it would be a very fine thing if someone brought her some fresh, crunchy carrots and a bit of cottonseed cake to tide her over until the next meal, and please scratch her shaggy head while we’re at it. I have to be hauled all but kicking and screaming into town because everything I want and love in life is here.
This IS our retirement plan, because because our two hired hands are devoted to us. Short of some catastrophic disease we can look forward to serene old ages being far better taken care of than we would be in a very expensive old folks’ home, at far less cost, and with a great deal more pleasure.
I have done most of the rest, from being an elected public official to living abroad for over a decade to going to the opera regularly in five cities and while those things are entertaining from time to time, for sheer, exquisite joy give me my lifestyle just as it is now, complete with a box of banty chicks under a light in the kitchen and an incubator full of eggs which will hatch in about ten days. Our idea of bliss is assuredly a great many others’ idea of stultifying boredom and deprivation!
I poked you gently you gently in the tummy to see if you would smile and write a far better letter, and you did. You had fun being clever, but now we’re discussing matters of substance, you see. You just needed a little encouragement? I really enjoyed reading what you wrote this time because you made your points well.
As for what public resources I think should be used to further my own little utopia–why, none at all! All I ask is that the government keep its paws off of what I have built taking it for the purported benefit of others. Other than electrical and telephone services (and I certainly pay handsomely for those), I do not benefit in any way from what the taxes extorted from me are spent on. Yes, the road in front of the ranch is finally paved, but I was just as happy when it was a red clay morass. No, the fire department will not come if there is a fire. No, I don’t think they should be using half million dollar small fire trucks as ambulances, and we don’t need an ambulance anyway; if someone is ill or injured we have ample vehicles to make it into town swiftly. Nobody is protecting the borders…nobody stopped our mailbox from being vandalized a dozen times year before last…have my own water well I replaced the pump on last year…I educated my own children, and think others should bear the same responsibility…I guess I’m just a mean-spirited, curmudgeonly old hag with no social conscience
Yes, they deliver the mail, but I’d just as soon they didn’t. FedEx and UPS did a better job and still made money. I’m in favor of toll roads, but I guess one could charge that that’s because I seldom go anywhere. With private roads, you have a choice: pay what the builder wants to drive on one, or use whatever tracks you can find. Nope, don’t need food and health inspectors after a lifetime of handling food and cooking for others without a single instance of illness…I’m thinking, don’t rush me. Don’t need the court system, don’t need people diluting pyrethrins so that we can’t kill flies and mosquitoes…don’t need bureaucrats telling me that I have to put in a ten thousand dollar aerobic septic system that isn’t as efficient if I have it done “professionally,” but at least there are no restrictions if we do it ourselves. So we will fire up the ratty old back hoe, dig a hole, line it with concrete, lay pipe, and make a better model that will be good sixty odd years later.
That’s the real truth, Ken: I’m a stubborn little goody who gets a kick out of solving problems herself, figuring out very cost-effective ways to get what we want and need, who loves the idea of being self-sufficient and cosseting those I love…I like the pioneer spirit, standing on our own two feet, and offering a hand up but never a hand out.
I would love to know what you do professionally. I have a partiality for engineers, because they have such fascinating minds. My Charles is one. If I coax sweetly will you tell us what you do with your finite amount of time? What is it you WANT out of life? What are you working towards? It may be a work in progress, but I finally have a pretty reasonable approximation of all I ever wanted out of life. I earned it. I’ll be 69 in May, and I expect to be rilin’ things up at least for the next decade, and possibly two. And doing a lot of good in my own quiet way. That’s a big problem: I think that we, you and I and our friends, are the ones who should be making our own little corners of the world very nice places. Government doesn’t do it very well.
Good evening, Linda–
Without spilling _all_ my beans on this here world’s biggest party line, I work in marketing at an agricultural trade publisher, and am finishing my doctorate in marketing (I did a little moonlighting as a university instructor and discovered I liked it and had at least some kind of knack for it). I don’t exactly have an eye for the main chance
I tried chemical engineering as an undergrad, but lacked (to say the least) the maturity at the time to hack it.
Fun? Teaching is fun and I hope we are all spared so I can get back to it, this fall (well, I hope we are all spared in any case). I hoped to inspire some of my students to go work for themselves, and I don’t intend to retire from it, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise. My research, in professional selling (I am so-so at it myself but interested in seeing it done well, for the sake of wealth creation) and entrepreneurship in business-to-business markets, is fun — sometimes in a bloodcurdling way (at 2 am when the durned SAS program that just flat wouldn’t run finally is fixed, for instance), but learning something new is always worthwhile. My wife and sons are fun, I have an apple tree and a small raspberry patch in the back yard to tend, I fish a little (poorly, but I can catch ‘em if I can get a little help or a little luck finding ‘em), I play bass guitar, and along with some friends of mine play historical miniatures (a 25-cent term for toy soldiers) wargames. Precious little of that nowadays, though — work and school take up just about everything barring what I carve out for family.
I am much interested in making my little corner of the world nicer, certainly. I am not interested in seeing the boyos grow into serfdom. I will do what I can. Some days the hill looks steeper than others. I don’t know what to do other than buckle my chinstrap, crouch a little lower, and hayfoot, strawfoot: or as the Russian proverb goes, “Pray to God, but row for shore.”
Hello, Linda–
Briefly (tried to post this late last night, but no joy), and without spilling _all_ my beans on this here world’s biggest party line, I work in marketing at an agricultural trade publisher and am finishing my doctorate in marketing (I did a little moonlighting as a university instructor and discovered I liked it and had at least some kind of knack for it). I _tried_ chemical engineering as an undergrad, but lacked (to say the least) the maturity at the time to hack it. We live in an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, nice quiet place, horrendous taxes.
Fun? Coming home at night to my wife and sons, mostly. Teaching is fun, and I hope we are all spared so I can get back to it (well, I hope we are all spared in any case). I hope to inspire some of my students to go work for themselves, and I don’t intend to retire from it, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise. My research, in professional selling (I am so-so at it myself but interested in seeing it done well, for the sake of wealth creation) and entrepreneurship in business-to-business markets, is fun — sometimes in a bloodcurdling way (at 2 am when the durned SAS program that just flat wouldn’t run finally is fixed, for instance), but learning something new is always worthwhile.
I have an apple tree and a small raspberry patch in the back yard I like to tend, I read a lot, I listen to music (all kinds but mostly classical these days, I can study to it) I fish a little (poorly, but the boys and I have a good time), I cook and bake (quite a bit better than I fish), I play bass guitar, and with some friends of mine play historical miniatures (a 25-cent term for toy soldiers) wargames. Precious little of that nowadays, though — work and school take up just about everything barring what I carve out for family.
I am much interested in making my little corner of the world nicer, certainly. I do what I can. Some days the hill looks steeper than others. I don’t know what to do other than buckle my chinstrap, crouch a little lower, and hayfoot, strawfoot: or as the Russian proverb goes, “Pray to God, but row for shore.”