Connect the Dots

Thursday Sept 1, 2005
      Posting a little out of phase due to Labor Day holiday, and will return on Tuesday, but some things worth commenting on about the aftermath of Katrina.

      People are emailing me to ask is this the start of the Long Emergency?

      It is certainly an event of great significance. The effects of damage to our oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico is already being felt in rocketing gasoline prices and a burgeoning supply crisis, especially in the southeast. The home heating situation is becoming a crisis before householders even turn their furnaces on. Half the houses in America are heated with natural gas, which is now clocking in at $12 a unit (1000 cubic feet). It was $3 a unit in 2003. It could go to $16. Connect the dots.

     The crisis at the gasoline pumps will thunder through the economy, most ominously in the bubble suburban sprawl-building sector, which adds up to over 40 percent of business activity in the US. How many people will now contemplate buying a new McHouse 32 miles outside Atlanta (or Dallas, or Kansas City, or Washington), and what will happen in the production home-building industry as a result?

      What will happen in the financial sector when the no-money-down-interest-only mortgage racket ceases to generate ever more hallucinated tradable debt? What will happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two federal governments sponsored entities at the center of that racket, and to their sponsor, whose treasury certificates are held by nervous foreign investors? And finally what happens to a dollar hammered by high energy costs and repatriated treasury certificates?

      Turning to New Orleans. . . viewing the hurricane damage on TV, it is hard not to conclude that most of the building stock in the city is irreparably ruined. One can't help feeling that the city we knew and love is really gone forever. Some kind urban settlement will remain, but New Orleans' downtown of hotel towers and megastructures may be the first comprehensive ruin of the Modernist city. Much of the stuff just outside New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast, was largely post-war suburban fabric -- collector boulevards with their complements of fry pits, malls, muffler shops and subdivisions. We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. The era of easy motoring is over now, and to rebuild suburban sprawl would be a double tragedy.

      Of the desperate behavior seen in New Orleans this week, I don't have much to say right now. The significance of it is largely self-evident. The suffering of the people stuck in the Superdome is very impressive, though. One wonders at the failure of FEMA to airdrop water and food to those stuck on highway overpasses and in high-rise buildings such as Mercy Hospital.  On the agenda next, I'm sorry to say: cholera and typhoid fever. I'll be back here on Tuesday.

Comments

[nova silverpill]

dear god.

[dewar]

the scenes of the early evacuation -- with one side of the highway empty while the other was clogged with stopped traffic -- and the tens of thousands who could not get out also confirm your ideas about the criminal foolishness of no public transporation infrastructure.

[Dermot]

This strikes me as a "dry run" of the public reaction to Peak Oil. People under stress react irrationally, looting, shooting, etc.

In the same day that I read this:

http://tinyurl.com/af5hb

"...corpses lay in the open... other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine."

I heard a co-worker DELIGHTED at the possibility of the New Orleans Saints relocating to Los Angeles.

This co-worker's comment:

"Los Angeles is STARVING FOR FOOTBALL."

We'll be starving for a lot more before too long, methinks.

[Dave]

This could be a small prelude of what is to come if gasoline reaches 4 dollars or more and the natural gas lines go empty. Maybe it is time to split from the US.

[kd]

Reading reports on the web, seeing horrific television images, remembering a flood my family & I experienced in India, & thinking of the tsunami that just seems like yesterday...it's a bit overwhelming.

Then I walk thru the living room, glimpse GWB's vacuous face on the screen, & wonder: What's next?

[onetwothree]

new McHouse 32 miles outside Atlanta

A McHouse 32 miles outside of New Orleans doesn't seem so bad compared to the urban center.

And I'm only referring to the crime rate.

[Jeroen Polak]

To see Dubya on CNN, stuttering through a prefab statement, with Clinton on the left and his dad on the right was simply embarrassing. Those who voted Dubya should be hugely ashamed of themselves. What a moron. Well, people, the 'most powerful man on the globe' just showed that same globe that he ain't shit. Period. Let alone the issues on the oil rigs that are adrift, the refineries that shut down, the gasoline prices sky rocketing over there and the complete mayhem we see on tv 24 hrs a day.

As i read in earlier comments, yes, i do think that this is what will happen as soon as the PO shit really hits the fan.

Talking about an eye opener...

[Reid Dalgleish]

A large part of the aftermath in New Orleans is attributable to the huge gap between social classes in that city (a bigger gap than most North American cities, yes?). All of the middle and upper class people had the means to leave while the poor were left behind to suffer for whatever reason they Some friends of mine have been trying to compare this to the NE power outages last year (less the flooding) to compare the different reactions of the populace but I cannot draw any comparisons, since all the social classes were still in the picture in that situation and the situation was not near as dire.

[DaveT]

"Those who voted Dubya should be hugely ashamed of themselves."

Believe me, I have never been more ashamed.

[Dave]

Perhaps the fact that most obvious solution to lack of fresh water was to do air drop was not done was meant as an instructive lesson for the witnessing masses before their millions of televisions that don't expect any help from any governing structures after the shitstorm really gets rolling. Genocide of the poor by neglect explained by "Incompetency". Capitalist/fascist values in action. These people are hideous.

[kd]

So many questions in the wake of Katrina. So many feelings. Fear, shame, horror, rage. All justified.

An e-mail from a friend came just now:

"...here's a link to the American Red Cross donation site:
http://store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate/
My connection to the Gulf Coast and to New Orleans is tengetial at best, buy you know I just gave my daughter a bath and neither she nor my son will go to bed hungry tonight. I realize that may be a naive thing to say given that there are many, many more babies who don't have such luxeries outisde of this country. I do what I can. But what's happening in New Orleans is sickening and, without getting into politics, may well serve as a long overdue wake up call for this country. It just makes me weep."

[uiucboy04]

Indeed it is sick what are we seeing... The gas thing isn't even bothering me that much, it's the fact that we are supposed to have the "best of everything" in this country and yet we can't even send some WATER to people in need. What a crazy world we live in, prepare for it to get crazier though.... Some other thoughts to consider: what happens to all the people who lived in NO? I wrote a little about it in my blog (although, I am not nearly as eloquent as JHK) see it here http://plannerboi.blogspot.com/
I say, that we are really putting a show on for people in other countries, they are seeing how we treat our own people, why would they trust us with their people. Eh?

[One Eye Open]

The earth shrugged. All that dreamt that contingency plans and mans puny power over the forces of mother nature could prevent what has taken place are fools.

Make way for the arm chair quarterbacks. If only they were in charge this tragedy would have never happened. Yawn.

[Dave]

One Eye open

He can see nothing.
He can't see but for the one eye that laughs at the outrage of those who see only class violence masquerading as racism. His vision is blurred and he feels for the meaning of life defined by what his wallet holds and the power and safety it yields. If that power and safety are threatened old one eye will quickly grow another. Then what will he see ?

[phonono]

I don't often post on this site but I have been reading it since pretty far back.
The Eyesore of the month was my fave as I already did that for the Montreal area (it was a .mac account and got destroyed when Apple decided to charge fees for it).

Anyhoo. This story of mine starts lasts July when a non-expert "economic journalist" wrote an article in Les Affaires (yes, it's in French...)
He basically said that "it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the price of gas will go down again soon or eventually. People who predict doom and gloom scenarios should take the Economy 101 course before saying things like that." The 'journalist', Bernard Mooney his name, also declared that the, and i quote, "supposedly inevitable global oil production peak" is but a marginal element in why gas prices were undergoing a hike, but that the real contender to replace, soon (he didn't say when of course) was nuclear energy...
He then went on to ramble about China (all the rage since about 10 years too late in economic papers) saying "One must not forget however that China is not just an oil consumer; it is also an oil producer. Undoubtedly, in this large country, oil deposits of gigantic proportions could be discovered."
I was quite taken aback by that "undoubtedly" and supposed that maybe Mooney never went to China, because even recently, the queues to the petrol stations have been horribly long and, not unlike the US, China relies heavily on coal to generate electricity (but mostly heat homes)...

I reacted by posting this :
--------
Where do you get your data to support your suppositions? Or is it rather just hot air coming out like a lot of economic journalists seem to be bent on blowing in our face? (Speaking of hot air blowing... if ever a hurricane hits hard the South of the USA, the price of gas will skyrocket to the point wher emost will miss even 80 or 90 cents per litre...)

And even if China would discover this fabled gigantic oil deposit, that oil could not even make the prices go down, or slightly at best, since the Chinese would want to use it for themselves.

Better get used to $1.00+/litre prices. Looks like its going to be the minimum for the rest of the year...

Mooney should take Geology 101 instead of asking us to take Economy 101...
(original post here.
-------
I already wrote my thoughts on Katrina on my website so it is pointless to repeat myself.

The point here being : how I "predicted" that a hurricane could hit the Southern Us was just by reading the National Geographic of August 2005 and seeing the two maps of the Gulf of Mexico comparing 1985-1994 and 1995-2004 in terms of hurricane frequency. And then in the same issue of N.G. finding out about oil refineries in the South... oops. So I expected what was anyway expected by a lot of people, but a lot of people was in denial that it could have hit that hard (including me... of course. I don't believe in premonition)

I have started home gardening since last year when i noticed that my backyard was teeming with life. Thus I have started to notice when the Summer is dry or not, here and elsewhere, and I remembered that one of my uncles, a self-sufficient farmer and beekeeper, said "With a Summer that dry in North America, the storms at the end of Summer are going to be heavier and cause more damage than usual". Boy was he right.

Mr. Kunstler said somewhere on his website that America needed a good "bitchslap"
I think we may have had our first salvo of that bitchslap.

I say we because it would be unrealistic to think that Canadians are going to be unaffected by the impending crisis in the U.S.

And to think my favorite Canadian rock song used to be "New Orleans is sinking" by The Tragically Hip... ouch.

[ross]

I love reading the posts here, especially the ones that point out what a complete cretin the CIC of the U.S. is. If course it's ancient news, but the bastard just keeps giving those of us with triple digit I.Q.s reasons to restate the obvious.

As for last CIC, Clinton continues to perfect his contemptibility. What a hollow chocolate of a human being he is
having thrown in with the Bush's. To say that Clinton twists with the slightest breeze is, astonishingly, an understatement

The destruction of New Orleans is massively significant and saddens me greatly. I was there 22 years ago and still remember my visit.

Dermot, I am afraid I am in agreement with you about New Orleans being a dry run (was that an unintentional pun?) for the coming P.O. horror show. Nased on the action down in the Big Easy when that show finally opens it's going to be every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Finally the Libertarians among us will get what they've always wished for. I hope they don't like it.

[ross]

My apologies for the numerous typos in my last post.

[isaiah]

Governor gives authorization to shoot, kill hurricane survivor 'hoodlums'

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Governor_gives_authorization_to_shoot_kill_hurricane_survivor_ho_0901.html

i wonder why it's ok to shoot Americans looting after a unbelievable calamity, but when the Iraqis looted, that's "democracy...stuff happens...freedom's untidy". good ol' Rummie, always flapping his jaws...

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0416-05.htm

i didn't see any shooting of Iraqis taking ancient priceless artifacts from museums, but when a poor guy in NO taking a PS2, blow his brains out. "Don't trash my corporate Americana, goddamnit! you'll get food and water when we FEEL like dropping food and water..."

[isaiah]

sorry for the typo, "taking" = "takes"

[BD]

this whole event provides many more reasons why one should avoid living in a major city...

avoid cities like the plague--

amazing how quickly mobs of people who are poor, hungry, and sleep deprived turn to predatorial ways of living...

i feel like this event can be likened to flying in an airplane and cutting the engines... we either fight like hell to keep control and slowly come in for a crash landing... or we just rapidly descend and auger right in...

we are now officially on the clock- IMO...

[Dr. Bonzo]

Grover Norquist famously says, "I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Now we know what he means.

[Weaseldog]

New entry on my blog.

I propose from now on that we call Bush what he is, not what he wants to be called. He wants to be called a "War President". What he should be known as, is "The Death President".

http://weaseldog.blogspot.com/

[davidog]

i have trouble calling him any kind of president.

[kd]

Good call, Weaseldog.

The smallness of this man can't be exagerated. I curse his vacuous, smirking face whenever I see it on television. His vanity is matched only by his ignorance.
He has neither the emotional capacity to concern himself with the dying thousands (in Iraq & now in his own country), nor the intellectual capacity to formulate any words/ideas other than those supplied him by his handlers. Of these venal, banal human beings I can only recoil in horror. With a dry, bone-deep shudder, because these men (mostly) are themselves so dry & seemingly innocuous, cut from the same cloth as the Nazi leaders, Pol Pot, & Soviet bureaucrat/ commanders. No wonder a photograph exists of Rumsfeld & Saddam shaking hands. They are mirror images. As are Pat Robertson & the Muslim cleric who calls for a fatwa. The banality of evil.

Perhaps New Orleans is the first loud ring of the Bush team's death knell.

[kd]

Blackness in the mouth of their walking.

Here they sleep.
Who know Thee not.

Standing in their salt sweat...hairy mouths full of a speech no man
anywhere has belief in. Big plans gone west.
They do not want Thee. Except for fun. To paint flags on Your belly.
To make war right.

All is a lie in their world.

God, your noble little sons are mad.
They breathe murder.
Their eyes steam.
The dimout of death.
This day is his.
Now is his hurry.
More than the dying, nothing is done.
But as toads drinking snot.

-from "A Letter to God" by Kenneth Patchen
August, 1943