Upscale

      My new novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available at all booksellers.

__________________________________

     Things continue to slip, slide, and shift strangely Out There.
     Last Wednesday, a bunch of peeved mortgagees protesting government favoritism in the Bear Stearns case entered the lobby of the company's (soon-to-be-former) headquarters building in midtown Manhattan. While it might not seem like much, I view the symbolic "penetration" of this corporate stronghold as the very first sign of a much broader citizen revolt against the extraordinary protections being shown to crapped-out investment banker boyz -- at the expense of millions of equally crapped-out poor shlubs facing the default and re-po of their McDwelling places.

     Occupying an office building lobby peacefully in broad daylight is one thing. Wait until summer gets underway and The New York Post gossip page resumes its coverage of hijinks in the Hamptons. The executives of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan / Chase, and other dealers in fraudulent securities, plus the art world and show biz glitteratti who party together out there, might all find themselves the object of considerable grievance and resentment as the beaching season ramps up, and the limos roll around the charity lobster roasts, and the guests stray down the lawns, chardonays in hand, to plot divorce from their over-leveraged husbands.... God knows what seekers-of-vengence will be creepy-crawling the privet plantings along Gin Lane in the crepuscular gloom, searching for trophy wives to garrote.

     Perhaps a bankrupt landscaping contractor from Lake Ronkonkoma, recently stiffed by a hedge fund manager over the installation of a half acre of pachysandra, will be arrested on the Wantagh Highway with blood on his sleeves and a high-C piano wire in his pocket. The non-Hampton precincts of Long Island, which make up more than 90 percent of the fish-shaped appendage to New York State, will be full of angry re-po victims, and the Hamptons lie at the very dead-end tail of the geographical fish. Will the banker boyz attempt to flee by yacht? And where might they escape to? Newport, Rhode Island? Labrador. . . ?

      I maintain, of course, that the media (and the public itself) has no idea how quickly things might get weird in this country -- or how weird they might get.

      Now bear with me while I shift gears. The past five days I went to a pretty major environmental conference put on by the Aspen Institute in their odd little mountain town -- and nobody needs to tell me how un-correct it was that I flew all the way out to Denver and then drove a rent-a-car the size of a humpback whale deep into the heart of the Rocky Mountains to attend this thing. (I assure you, I wasn't paid to go.) The Institute grounds -- which looked like the set of a 1950s Raymond Massey movie about the future -- were thick with many eminentissimos of Climate Change (minus Al Gore) and activists in "green" politics, more generally. The latest frightful measurements of retreating glaciers, vanishing species, and creeping deserts were proffered and everybody was suitably impressed by the acceleration of scary conditions facing the human race.

        Being such a formal conference, though, with the putative mission to advance understanding and set agendas-for-action, a great effort was made through the medium of panel discussions to set forth various "initiatives" to deal with all the scariness, especially by enlisting the agencies of the US Government -- and most especially with the prospect of a new administration sweeping out the detritus of Bush-dom next January.

      I confess I found most of these well-intentioned proposals utterly implausible, along with their trains of hopes, wishes, and fantasies. The main conceit is that we can keep all the normal operations of the American Dream humming by some "non-carbon" related energy source -- in other words, run WalMart without oil, methane gas, or coal -- and that all the forces of government and capital can be marshaled to make that happen. The secondary conceit is that they would accomplish these things in an orderly process, harnessing "new technology," as though it were a higher sort of school science fair.

      My own opinion is that these birds have the scale issue wrong. The exigencies of the Long Emergency imply that virtually everything organized at the grand scale will tend to wobble and fail as the problems of energy scarcity and climate change converge. Institutions from the federal government to WalMart to the University of Arizona will face increasing impotence, incompetence, and bankruptcy. Vesting our hopes in propping up activities run at that scale is bound to be disappointing, to say the least, and the precursor to social upheaval to go a bit further. There's probably a lot we can do at the finer and more modest scale, but that is not the scale that conferences like this focus on-- in particular because so many of the participants are current or former high-up government wonks themselves. Anyway, the scale of global distress tends, by plain inference, to invoke the wish for global "solutions," however detached from reality they may be.

      At the center of all this conferencing was the movement's lead eco-guru, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), located just up Highway 82 from Aspen. Lovins's long-running emblematic project with that outfit is something they call the "hyper-car," a car that gets such supernaturally great mileage that it will save the human race's threatened Happy Motoring program from extinction. The hyper-car program, which RMI still trumpets to this day, has, of course, the unintended consequence of promoting future car dependency -- which is about the last thing that America needs -- but that hasn't prevented RMI from pushing it. Beyond that, Lovins's RMI program-for-America resembles an actuarial exercise in "carbon credits" and other statistics-based fantasies aimed at inducing theoretically rational behavior among the WalMart executives (and "greening" up WalMart has been another of RMI's consulting projects -- I'm not kidding).

        Here lies my third dissent from what I heard at the conference: since America is bankrupting itself so comprehensively at every level, the wished-for "funding" for the green rescue program will not be there in any case.  Capital itself, as represented by Wall Street, is flying to pieces this year as its stock-in-trade of paper certificates loses legitimacy in the face of the overwhelming fact that the society behind that paper will be decreasingly capable of producing surplus wealth -- which is what capital is. The unwind of "positions" now underway among the big bankz is the process of previously anticipated capital accumulation vanishing down a black hole. It will be gone forever.

      This is the year we find that out. Bear Stearns was not the only sick puppy in the kennel. When another one wobbles and crashes, will the Federal Reserve step in again and accept its worthless CDO paper as collateral on another $30 billion loan, and another, and another, and so on? And will the individual mortgage default homeowner shlubs just watch all this go down on CNBC without any action beyond "penetrating" the lobby of a Manhattan skyscraper? I don't think so. What goes down in the Hamptons will go down in Aspen, too.

Comments

[Nicholas Paredes]

I do like Aspen. As with most of the vacation areas in the Midwest, there used to be a rail line that ran up through the mountains. Unfortunately these are all gone, replaced by human Habitrails, because rail service doesn’t quite have the convenience of your very own monk cell on wheels.

Between the Democrats and the economy, I’m pretty tired of watching the Weebles wobble only to never fall over. Perhaps it’s more like the undead. That which canon be killed… It just keeps on going, and going… dizzying us into a stupor.

My feeling is that nobody is going to really care about Aspen much after they can’t get there to witness the extravagance, and the rich aren’t going to be happy without the extravagances that define such places. Aside from the trout, elk, and local produce, everything else is flown in via sushi express. Is that all a million gets you nowadays?

[upnatpishtim]

ell it just doesnt seem that we have reached the end off the shlubses' ability to adapt to adversive conditions. this will only happen when the manufacturers of spirits cannot distribute their products. when contraband drugs like
pot (weed) and coke and black market
phramaceuticals vanish, then we will see the shlubses in all their glory.
one would think there would be indignant outrage at the excesses of the ruling financial classes now. but we are all brain washed.
maybe i too can plunder and become fabulously wealthly. hope springs
endlessly from the human beast.
and of course dispair tempered with self medication works wonders
also.
one must no under estimate the masses ability of self abasement.
there is a saying amongst the peasantry, "dont rock the boat".
this means if we sail along a little further i may get mine.
i expect complete and utter famine and pest-u-lance.
cities desserted with the unburied dead rotting in the streets.
a mad max dystopian future.
anyone ever seen the anime, 'fist of the north star'? ken, the hero had magic fighting skills.
after beating up a foe, he would walk away. the the foe would seek to continue the fight. ken would turn to a fellow traveler and say, "he doesnt know he's dead yet".
and that is uhmerika. we dont know we are dead yet.
no solar power or subsistance farming is going to save us.
in our death throes, atomic weapons will be used.
we have plagued this pretty planet long enough. no one gets out of here alive. back to nature? after this shakes out there will be no nature to go back to. not for a long time, and not for humans.
those lucky enough to have survived will envy the dead. life will be short and brutal. full of suffering and want. the ground and water will be poisoned. and farmable land scarce. all arguments will be settled with the death of one party.
just like in the thunder dome. a dark age is drawing closer. you got what you wished for. damn you all.

[MBerger47]

I hope the word "bankz" makes it into the next version of Webster's dictionary. It's a great word to describe the current mafioso big banks.

[DanaJ]

Hey Jim, why even bother going to such conferences? For a look at the Peak Oil reality, just hop over to the Oil Drum, truckers are going bankrupt (hows the summer lawn chairs gonna get to Wal Mart?), more alt-energy fantasy, more wars going to be fought over the remaining supplies. And in other news, the CEO of good ol' Bear dumped ALL his remaining stock for a cool $60 Mil, wonder if he plans to move out of the country? Its all unraveling and nary a peep in the papers (cept way in the back pages) and not a word on the boob-toob-newz. Gas here in Nor Cal is $3.92 for premium, and all you hear at the pumps is bitchin' over how much it costs to tank up the Super Duty pickup that hauls around nothing but an over-inflated ego. Meanwhile,those with real work to do that really need to be driving that kind of truck are hurting and laying off people. My friend that bought a diesel car a few years ago when that was cheaper now complains that it cost more than the above Premi, and she only drives her car in town. Ohh, its really gonna hurt when the Sheeple find out that besides no such thing as the Tooth Fairy, Santy Clause, or God, the oil is going to run out some day real soon.
I really wonder what the world will be like in 100 years? Will the future be like Romania, with horses pulling the remains of flat bed pickups around? Will our children curse us for consuming in just over 100 years a resource that took millions of years to make, just to haul our fragile egos around in a 2-3 ton vehicle to go shopping? Oh, and the US auto makers still can't seem to get it thru their thick skulls, the SUV is DEAD. The so-called hybrid Yukon is literally the biggest not funny joke in the world. As for Wall St, mebe the Gov Boyz can bail out the bankers for a few more weeks, and keep the presses humming, but the shit will hit the fan at some point and we will pass recession and go straight to depression.
Good post btw, but really, you should have just stayed home.

Dana J

[DanaJ]

BTW: dID i REALLLY GET THE VERY FIRST POST, NO JR?
OH BOY!

[Jynx]

Yup, we find ourselves in one cunt of situation, yet most folks don't even have a clue (or are in serious denial) to just how fucked we all are. I hope you handed out complimentary copies of Made By Hand to your fellow attendees at the conference.

[DanaJ]

Damm it, I never get the first post. While I was writing, someone else beat me to it.
If things keep going as they are now, Aspen will be a ghost town in the near future, and so will all those other vacation towns for the rich, not because they cant afford it, but because all the peons they depend on to feed and wipe their asses wont be able to make the commute from their trailer parks 40-50 miles away to their jobs spoon feeding the rich & famous, & Jim at his conferences.
So, just where will the rich retire too? The Bahamas? Oh, but those are island, and EVERYTHING has to be imported.
DJ

[Riddick]

"The unwind of "positions" now underway among the big bankz is the process of previously anticipated capital accumulation vanishing down a black hole. It will be gone forever."

Absolutely spot on Jim! Or you can take the same medicine Bloomberg's way:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHCnscodO1s0

However, I believe it is hopeless fantasy for us to believe this unwinding will go as well as Japan's. It will not and it will be the middle class and working stiffs that stoically suffer as their ever-weakening dollars, earned through so much toil, are worth less and less with each Wall Street bailout scheme. All while the value of the dollar is sacrificed at the pyre for the Hampton's crowds summer escapades in their Escalades.

I have conducted a fair bit of travel of late for work and child, driving mostly in a Honda Civic getting 35 mpg. The "weirdnesses" out there on there on the interstates and in the truck stops is very palatable. I mean diesel stuns truck drivers as it hovers around $4 a gallon. I am very empathetic and I can sense that the general population is starting to understand that we are increasingly screwed.

To me, the drivers of the massive SUV War Wagons careen down the road in an ever more wanton and reckless fashion. Pushing to the side a small, insignificant Honda which may defy their majesty and reduce their divinely given speed. Interestingly, at the great revealer or truck stops, rest areas and gas stations, it is usually rather small people (physically)that emerge from these monster vehicles. As I stand 6 foot 7" and weight in at 235, I unfold from my Honda to dwarf even their metallic war machines. There is a great deal of compensation going on I can tell. And America thrives on ruthless "Me First" competition after all so it plays right into short little people's ego needs.

As our dollar is sacrificed on the Pyre of Wall Street and our standards of living decay; I wonder when, if ever, Joe Sixpack and Nascar Nancy will wake up and smell the rotting food bank? Then, probably far too late for themselves, they will realize that Uncle Sam is a cracker that plays polo on the weekends and yachts with the banking boyz while his publicist expels pablum wrapped in Apple Pie, the US flag and our kids's overseas.

I read that 1 in 6 in West Virginia now need food stamps. Food banks and pantries are running bare and still the inflation rises. Inflation we all know the FED totally ignores (energy and food) so as to continue the Nascar fantasy and buy the Hamptons some more time.

[theroachman1]

Great stuff

Aspen is trying the put in a train from Glennwood Springs. A little to late and the rich don't want it. Thus it will never happen.

When the wall come down Aspen will be the second town to turn into a ghost town the first will be Steamboat Springs. People who work there live up to 40 miles away in the College town of Craig. Colorado Gas average is 3.10 today. I am pretty sure these mountain towns are on the high end of the mean averaging.

[montysano]

JHK asks: "And will the individual mortgage default homeowner shlubs just watch all this go down on CNBC without any action beyond "penetrating" the lobby of a Manhattan skyscraper? I don't think so."

Well Jim....... I think they will, unfortunately.

I frequent a couple of other blogs, both run by writers of exceptional talent. These gents are brilliant at identifying, and ranting about, the troubles of our times. Sadly, their posts often end with a hands-on-the-hips "Are YOU just going to sit by and participate in this outrage? Why do YOU choose to support such a system?? When pressed as to what we should actually do, they got nuthin'. Well.... not nuthin', maybe, but not much.

Short of millions....... or tens of millions of the sheeple hitting the streets, calling a general strike, and shutting things down, we have few real options open to us. And I don't have to tell you that the chances of millions hitting the streets is ...... about nil.

I picked up the 30th anniversary edition of "Network" this weekend. My god, what a briiliant, prescient movie. And as Howard Beale said, "First, you've got to get mad!" But nobody is mad, at least not like Howard meant it. By the end of the movie he realizes that, in the age of television, that sort of civil rage had been whittled out of people. As Arthur Jensen, the head of the network, said: "All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused".

So Jim: I hope I'm wrong. I hope people get righteously angry on several fronts. But I'll not be holding my breath.

[Uncle Al]

http://www.wa.apana.org.au/~abolton/pave.html
"The color blue should appear nowhere but the paint on Our Hypercars (tm)."

http://303dia.org/index.php/Pave_the_earth

How droll, whether issued from the mouths of babes or from Enviro-whiner's pie holes.

[Lost Horizon]

".....creepy-crawling the privet plantings along Gin Lane in the crepuscular gloom, searching for trophy wives to garrote......"

I would venture a guess that kidnapping for ransom is going to be a growth industry.

Can I buy stock in it?

How about stock in piano wire? Too expensive.

Baling wire will do and is still available, in quantity I might add.

[mlytle]

Kidnapping for ransom, a growth industry? Sure, but get in line behind the corporate boys for getting paid to do harm to people...John Cusack has an interesting interview with Bill Mahler. The link, if it shows up properly, is here:

http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=859

Basically, Cusack raises the point that it is becoming fashionable to let corporations handle law and order issues, as they are outside of both international and constitutional law, and it's very profitable. Watch the exponential growth of firms like Blackwater, which is using it's government funded existance, as capital to lobby extensively (and successfully) for more contracts and less oversite. Sounds vaguely like tumour growth to me. The dying entity here is, of course, the Constitution.

The only question is the details of how this will be affected by the wild cards of economic collapse and energy constraints. It is to be assumed that our handlers, oops, ...leaders, have already anticipated trouble among the masses, and that just is one of the many reasons this outsourcing of legal enforcement is happening...

[Nudge]

In unrelated news, Agway reports that the sale of pitchforks has greatly increased this year.

Jim, this was utterly fantastic .. keep up the good work :)

[Lost Horizon]

Amory Lovins pushing of the "Hyper Car" is yet another example of cornucopians trying to 'Polish A Turd" (PAT)

People forget that the roads themselves are nothing but flattened, rolled out pancakes made of Oil.

As the Great Financial Unraveling proceeds, municipalities, who barely keep the potholes patched as it is, will run out of funds for road maintenance. What do you think $100+ oil prices will do to pavement costs? Will the Hype Car have extra, extra, extra heavy duty suspension for all those monster potholes? Will Wall-Eyed-Mart trucks break an axle every 50 miles on poorly maintained "Not So Super" highways?

Road maintenance budgets will collapse before we get ultra mileage vehicles. Municipal Bond Auctions have collapsed already. Try floating a municipal bond right now for road improvements. Ha

There is no amount of lipstick on the Late Great Planet Earth that can be applied to the "Hyper Pig".

The suburban road system itself is unmaintainable and unaffordable at $100, $200 do I hear $300 a barrel oil.

Cornucopian Zombie Trolls speaking from both sides of their smiley faced mouths:

Hey, maybe we can drive on roads made of magically materialized sunlight and wind!

Or make the roads from ground up dirty diapers mixed with used french fry oil!

Or broken glass bottles glued together with corn syrup!

....yada,yada,yada

[sangell]

The poor 'shlub' defaulting on his mortgage isn't out a lot of money if he is out any at all. The bank is, the banks shareholders are but not the guy who took advantage of Option ARM loans with negative amortization and a second mortgage to top off a 100% financed home. Now there are some rare birds who bought at the height of the bubble and put down a lot of cash and even some who may have paid ALL cash but they are, as I said, rare birds. Those who put down 20% or more are unlikely to default or have OPTION ARM loans either so they are simply in the position of their neighbors who THOUGHT their house was worth 20 or 30% more than it now is. A financial setback for sure but ruination.

No, the ruination is actually happening out in the Hamptons. You can bet this season will be a dud compared to summer's past. The Eagles will not be performing at some teens bat mitzvah this year unless daddy was shorting Citigroup in a bigway. Bonuses were rather spartan this year on Wall St. but pink slips weren't.

It appears to me, that so far, Main St. has pulled on over on Wall St. this time. Like the Japanese con artists who appear to have absconded with $355 million of Lehman loans, a few million American nobodies managed to swindle Wall St. heavyweights out of far more money.

The banks and hedge funds got caught up in their own flim flam. They began to believe that a house that cost $100,000 in 2000 was now a $400,000 piece of property in 2005-6-7 through the magic of stainless steel appliances and granite countertops. That what was normal for Manhattan, Aspen or Georgetown also applied in Modesto,
Pensacola and Buffalo. If property in San Francisco could cost as much as $1000 per square foot then loaning a guy who was ONLY paying $350 per square foot for his house seemed reasonable even a secure bet.

[wisewebwoman]

What I like to keep in mind is that any road trip is comprised of petroleum products, a Macmeal on the road for 2 would fill the trunk in corn derivatives which are sustained by petroleum fertilizers, most of the car itself is manufactured from petroleum by-products, as is the road under the wheels, as is - Gawd help us all - the Walking Corn driver.
This unavoidable disentangling from petroleum is much more challenging than just not driving....

[moo]

Lovins is a pocket-protector bozo. An arrogant little weeny whose techno-fantasies are are, at best, those of adolesent males who masterbate excessively and prefer the warm glow of a computer screens to that of warm flesh and fresh air. He is one of those free-market extremists and technophiles whose mindless faith in capitalism, science and technology is only on par with the most innane religious sects. they fantasize that life as we know can somehow be perpetuated by the same forces and institutions that facilitated this disaster. Engineers and technocrats hand-in-hand with the entrepanuers and bankers, will create the more perfect world and we can all go on living in a new issue of Popular Mechanics....more super gagets to save the day, morewealth creation to improve the living conditions for the world's poor. They invision themselves demi-gods and attempt to cower the uniniatated with numbers, formulas, calculations, and projections in the ego-driven, manical attempts to elevate themselves to sainthood....at everyone elses expense.

As the Long emergency emerges as the primry force in social life, several things will come into play as the situtation deterioates. For one, the state apparatus will come fully to bear on the situation in an attempt to retain control. Order and control will be priority. Domestic law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies will be given preference with regards to the material conditions of life...that means food, energy, and other resources that are deemed critical to the operation of the state system. The last decade has seen the reorganization and integration of local and state police into a tight-knit state security apparatus. Provisions and planning have long been afoot for handling large scale domestic turmoil and violence. Like Katrina evidenced, this time around we are not looking at CCC camps and social relief. We are looking at abandonment with the gulf between those with resources and power and those without being policed by the likes of Blackwater, DynCore, etc.

Whatever meaningful resources exist in food, fuels, etc will be immediately siezed and allocated for use firstly, to maintain control and 2) protect private property rights of business interests. It won't matter if St. Louis is starving, if ADM can somehow continue to grow corn and wheat and sell it to the chinese or arabs for $1000 a bushel, they will and the ruling elites and the state apparatus will see to it that capital accumlation will not be allowed to be disrupted or constrainted, even if meant killing or starving millions of people to death. States and elites have done it before, they certain have the mentality necessary to do it again. It is the basis of power in the modern state system (monopoly of violence and unconstrainted capital accummulation) and to theaten either is to theaten the very existance of the state itself.

Furthermore, the industrial/technological system that we have in place today took centuries to develop and is so complex that the absence of a tiny screw or a small plastic washer can render the whole thing moot. The material composition of consummer products, not to mention industrial technology is dependent on thousands of interelated processes that are interdependent on a thousand other ones. If one or two of the processes fail, we usually can adapt in reasonable time, but if there is a systemic collapse, making something like a lightbulb or a spare part for your bicycle, at any meaningful level, will be a herculean task. The nation will become like Cuba, where everything will be recycled, scavanged, makeshift and life will move at a much slower pace. Where today we expect things to get fixed in a day or week or we just go to the mall to buy a new one, most everything will eventually be abandoned to its fate. Society will be much simplier, but not in the fancifull notions of simplicity that permiate the environmental community. It will be simplier in the sense that the nature of things will have fewer and fewer illusions to filter them through so things like power will no longer have the luxury of a velvet glove and what will be necessary to eat, to feed your kids will require a psychological adjustment on par with paradigm shift. Everyone will have to relearn some old skills. Women will have to get use to selling/trading their ass to survive and men....well....

The notion that one is simply going to sit idly by, hoeing your vegetable garden, breeding chickens and engaging in small-scale biodiesel brewing is a middleclass eco-fantasy rooted in the same delirium as the McMasions and SUVs. It is a fantasy of a terrified, socially atomized and isolated population that has been domesticated, cottled and infantilized for fifty years. Totally detached from the realities of conflict, power, violence, hardship, etc. If labor and production need to be quickly reorgnized to assure the survival of the state and the lawncare of Hampton McMasions, it not going to be by adding a few new courses to a college curriculum, it will be by the usual methods of severe dislocation, coercion, violence.

I. Wallerstien speaks of the next 25 to 50 years as a critical juncture in the history of human society. That we are at the end of a world historical system that began 500 years ago. That captialism is in terminal crisis because it can no longer externalze the true costs of its operations. Everywhere, both people and the environment are rejecting the program. Peak oil, ecological devastation, population pressures, social and psychological exhaustion/repulsion are all converging on the system concurrently and as there is no square inch left on earth that has not been mapped, charted cataloged, inventoried and analyized, there is simply no place left to go. Those heavily invested, as Jim points out, in the current arrangement will go to pathological ends to defend and perpetuate the arrangement. Those of us who are embracing the transition must understand that the sooner we unhinge the arrangement, the less violence and suffering there will be. The ruling elites are attempting, desparately, to create a new system that will continue to bestow on them the priviledge, wealth and power that capitalism has afforded but are failing dramatically. As things spin out of control, the happy endings are only going to be seen on reruns.....

In the final analysis, there is obviously more happening that just running out oil. The very nature of our reality is changing.

[Lurkerlu]

Enjoyable, colorful post Jim but I'll be suprised if the Hampton crowd becomes the target of lumpen rage. Did the hoi polloi go all French mob circa 1789 on the robber barrons and corrupt politicians last time the shit hit the fan big time in this country? People seem to blame themselves or whoever/whatever is most accessible.

"To me, the drivers of the massive SUV War Wagons careen down the road in an ever more wanton and reckless fashion."

I too have noticed the increasing recklessness on the road (and every person I encounter driving like a jackass has a cell phone plastered to their head, without fail). I used to get angry, really angry, at these piggy fools in their ego-mobiles, but now I'm just sad. Plus I can always come here and live vicariously through Nudge's SUV-hating rants.

[Evelyn]

Hmmmm?? From the tone of most of the comments this week I detect a note of grudging disappointment the pace of deterioration is proceeding at such a painstakenly slow rate. There is an unwholesome cynicism issuing forth that scarcely belies a lust for the voyeuristic need to get on with suffering and the bloodletting. Many here seem to be heavily emotionally invested in the inevitable arrival of a bad end, and the sooner the better. Don't lose sight of the fact the heavy kill-off some of you yearn for will likely include your kids, your lovers, your dogs, and maybe even you. Our commander-in-chief not only has a degree in business, he threw one of the best balls for a President ever at the opening game. Doesn't that give you at least a little bit of hope? If things always went the way that seems just there would have been a lightening strike that would have staggered the thousands of jeering and cheering onlookers with the sight of a cratered pitcher's mound surrounded by smoking globs of barbecued
potus fricassee. Sit back and enjoy and stop wishing so hard for the pain to start.

[Movenonup]

Evelyn,

I guess you are a comedic troll sock puppet. If not, see that granite counter top over there? Bend over you stupid bitch. Hope you like it rough.

The sooner the bottom falls out on this thing, the better our chance the total carnage will not be as devastating. But don't worry, it is gettin bad...

As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31foodstamps.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1206929080-T1nWta1S+xNL5uA16620wA&oref=slogin

So, I hope you were joking.

[bud4wiser]

________________________________

A Rant of Mountainous Proportion

How weird? Weird you say? On the contrary, all in all our future is just another case of what “goes around – comes around.”

JK, I’ve been boning up on some of the history that has brought us to this point in time – namely all the just and free thinking movements and causes of a hundred years ago.

Of course, our chances for economic recovery remote in deed. At this point in time, there is no recourse, nor no resource to seize upon to restore our national well being. No WPA, no TVA, no CCC, no FEMA, no EPA or other acronymic labeled federal projects will be forthcoming to save up from the coming mother of all economic downturns. We will soon come to know the meaning of “depression on steroids.”

While your cheerleading is somewhat uplifting, I’m afraid most of us will become too hungry, too cold, too tired and sleepless to enjoy any ransacking, pillaging or assassination of those who conspired to enjoy and enrich themselves regardless of the “common welfare” of their fellow man.

However, no matter what the future brings, I will not lower my dignity to the activities suggested by you as per “heading out to the Hamptons” for some vengeance.

We all had our chance to what little we could about this fate. And we should acknowledge our complicity and ignorance. I’ve known we were heading to this outcome for as many as 40 years, yet I never made it my life’s work to actually set about trying to change the world. I made a lot of money and took a lot of time off – and I’m glad I did.

You above all, currently “hawking your book” at the top of this column –should hardly be one to be damning others who have “made out” at the expense of a leisure-time-world supported by dwindling oil supplies. By the way fuck Aspen and Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs and Telluride and the rest – they all fucking suck – big time.

[end of rant] Have a nice day.

[mlytle]

Evelyn, there's truth in what you say, I remind myself quite often that although this culture (if you can call it that) is loathsome, what will replace it will probably be far worse then what we have now in most places. Perhaps it might work out as a better arrangement in a few places. I remember some years ago, (maybe 20 years) someone making the comment that America would be the first empire to go from barbarism to decadence without producing a period of high culture in between. That might be what makes our transition so unpleasent, that we didn't but sporadically, produce behavior based on high values (it was displaced by the invisible hand of the marketplace, i.e. greed) and especially among the young, idealism now is as rare as hen's teeth. Tattoos and "get by for the moment" are in, reading, discourse, planning and self-awareness are out.
This is not the stuff you want to build a new civilization out of. The size of the underclass and it's cultural footprint among the young is appalling.

[Lost Horizon]

Yoa Moo

Nice rant, couldn't have summed it up better.

In regard to :
...as there is no square inch left on earth that has not been mapped, charted cataloged, inventoried and analyized, there is simply no place left to go..

Once Upon a time I was thinking of signing on at NASA. During an investigation phase on their organization, I stumbled upon some info about how almost all earth science projects at NASA were designed to spot natural resources in other countries (with ground penetrating radar, tricked out laser technology etc...) and then pass the info on to 'appropriate' multi-national corporations so they could buy up the land for pennies on the dollar. It was disgusting and certainly shattered my faith, at the time I was young, in the 'Space Program"

This type of resource theft was perfected by the British in the 19th century using the Royal Navy instead of space craft but the concept was the same. A large number of Royal Navy ships had greenhouses on deck and botanists on board to collect and analyze botanical specimens for British colonial business ventures. (Think Tea, Coffee,etc..) Using military ships to provide profit for private 'corporations'.

Socialize the cost, Privatize the Profit.

Sound familiar?

[Uncle Remus]

"America would be the first empire to go from barbarism to decadence without producing a period of high culture in between."

That is delicious.