Slip of the Tongue

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

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   Barack Obama caught hell last week for daring to tell the truth about the ragged thing that the American spirit has become. He said that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” to work out their negative emotions. He might have added that the Pope wears a funny hat (see for yourself this week), and that bears shit in the woods (something rural Pennsylvanians probably know). Nevertheless, in the manner lately prescribed for those who slip up and speak truthfully in public (and in contradiction to the reigning delusions), Obama was pressured to apologize for his statements.

      The evermore loathsome and odious Hillary Clinton, co-owner of a $100 million personal wealth portfolio, seized the moment to remind voters what a normal, everyday gal she is -- who would never look down on the small-town folk of Pennsylvania the way her "elitist" opponent had -- forgetting, apparently, that the Clinton family's consigliere, James Carville, famously described the Keystone State as a kind of redneck sandwich with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as the bread, and Alabama as the lunch meat in between.

      As I mull over all this, I begin to think that Hillary is exactly what the USA deserves and, that should she manage to winkle away the nomination and get elected president, the outcome would be instructive and salutary. For one thing, she will be buried under an avalanche of political woe, beginning with the basic financial insolvency of everything in the nation except the Clinton family. Then she would proceed straight into an oil-and-gas clusterfuck that could take this society back to the eighteenth century economically.

      This would have the positive effect of forcing the American public to look elsewhere for governance than the usual parties in Washington, D.C. It's time for a national purgative, anyway. In fact, it's way overdue. Are the Democratic and Republican parties anymore necessary than the Whigs? Neither of them can really articulate the problems we face (and when their honchos slip up and come close to the truth, they're persecuted for it).

      A President Hillary will also go a long way to defeating the popular delusion that a world ruled by female humans would be heaven-on-earth. (It would be more like one of those chaotic single-parent households in Section-8 housing, ruled by a harried and distracted mom, with a shadowy man in the background molesting the little ones while she was off working at the WalMart.)

      I'm very sorry that Barack Obama apologized for his remarks. It compromised his authority. They were truthful and correct. He might have added that the anxious and bitter lower classes were also neurotically hung-up on cars, and that his first act as president would be to shut down the Nascar tracks by executive order in the interest of national energy security.

     It's been illuminating to see how almost nobody has come to Obama's defense in this matter -- hardly anyone in the press, anyway. It shows what the mainstream media's interest in the truth is (close to zero).

     In the background of these sad and sordid campaign doings, the financial sector -- and the dog's-body economy that the wagging financial tail used to be attached to -- is whirling steadily down a big wide culvert, along with the rest of the debris shaken loose by the spring rains. Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd have been putting together mortgage rescue schemes that are gut-bustingly hilarious because they don't seem to take into account the basic fact that nobody knows who the lending parties to all those distressed mortgages really are. (Hint: they're not the "servicing" companies who send out the default notices.) So when they say that the government will "negotiate down" the principal owed on a house hemorrhaging dollar value, who exactly did they have in mind as the negotiating partner?

      These are issues that would, in a more mentally-healthy republic, occupy center stage of the political conversation -- not whether a cohort of Cheez Doodle addicted rural Pennsylvania morons prays out loud for God to shoot all the Mexicans.
 

 

Comments

[Uncle Remus]

Frankly, I don't care what sex Hillary claims to be. "It" is slimey, duplicitous and reeks of feigned blue-blood.

It is unlikely "it" can remember the last time "it" saw, heard or spoke truth.

"It" is guilty of being a Clinton. And the worst part is "it" bred.

Now my kids are gonna have to deal "it" too - should they live long enough.

[Lost Horizon]

Hillary was a "Goldwater Girl" from a die hard Rethuglian family. She is simply getting in touch with her 'inner child'.

[ilyeana]

Pardon me, but I'm having trouble seeing how a world ruled by human females would be any more chaotic and unsupervised than a world ruled by human males. I'm not sure if you were trying to insinuate that females are somehow less capable of political leadership than males, but that's sure how it sounded.

I was reading your urban planning books before you even started writing about peak oil and such, and I have always appreciated your willingness to say what needs to be said without sugarcoating it. But your remarks here qualify as essentialist bigotry, if you ask me. I agree that Hilary would be rubbish as president. That has exactly nothing to do with women leaders in general, end of story.

[greenbeans]

Good post, Jim.

Truth is, if he wants to get elected Obama should by all means try to avoid saying anything that could possibly be construed as being negative about guns or religion...or apple pie.

[Lost Horizon]

Here's how it's shaping up on the "Late, Great Planet Earth"

The global financial scene is in full meltdown mode. There are over 700 Trillion (with a T) dollars in unresolved, outstanding 'derivatives'.

This is the 'monster in a box' waiting for it's Debutante Ball coming out party. It will consume everything in it's path.

Layered on top of this, you have oil peaking, the Saudi King basically admitting recently that Saudi production will never go up again from here on out.

Then we have investors 'flea-ing' stocks and bonds and jacking up commodites (food) to set off global food riots.

"If and when basic human needs are traded in financial markets, the inevitable result is expendable people." from The Automatic Earth

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

People will be 'marked down" (i.e. starved) to satisfy the Market Place.

Oh, and let's not forget Peak Climate. Think dealing with that might cost money?

No problemo, the Treasury Department can just print some brand new crisp money and give it to the privately own Federal Reserve Bank to give out at the 'discount window' to the Gang Banksters of Wall St, you know, so they can invest it in Alternative Energy, not Cayman Island Pirate Coves.

Nothing to see here Folks, just keep moving.

[Blake]

I lived in a small town in Alaska for 16 years. The racism was at fever pitch. You think rural Penn is bad, you should try 'the last frontier.'

I also lived in rural Penn for 10 years, up until about five years ago. Carville's characterization is appropriate. Hey, flatlanders were considered bad enough, but anyone not boasting a waspy skin color was anathema. One of my most colorful memories was when a stunningly beautiful girl (a rarity, btw), about 1/3 black, won the "Corn Queen" contest or whatever. Big outcry ... locals showered the paper with complaints that the winner "didn't reflect who we are around here."

As for Kunstler & women, I guess he pretty much summed up his entire philosophy in the one sentence telling us that we all went back to walking two steps behind "without much fuss," and the revelation later on that "women are amoral creatures."

I still value what the book has to offer; just take certain continent-sized blind spots as a matter of course.

[Johnny Rico]

"The global financial scene is in full meltdown mode. There are over 700 Trillion (with a T) dollars in unresolved, outstanding 'derivatives'."

Can you source this, Lost Horizon? I find it interesting if true. It's just that the value of derivatives is a tricky thing to price and for the purpose of comparison annual US GDP is $12-13 Trillion.

[Nudge]

Jim wrote about Obama:

"He might have added that the anxious and bitter lower classes were also neurotically hung-up on cars, and that his first act as president would be to shut down the Nascar tracks by executive order in the interest of national energy security."

Jim, if he'd done that, he would have gotten my vote, and I'd have probably taken a brief hiatus from work to campaign remorselessly for him, despite the fact that he seems to me like a snake-oil salesman with exceptionally fine emotional button-pushing skills. On NPR the other day they did an analysis of the types of repeat phrases he tends to use, and sure enough, he's using a cherry-picked set of biblical & MLK & JFK references all the time.

Not that Obama's main rival isn't also selling snake oil, of course.

Riddick, can I pick your brain about something off-forum? If yes, please email me at juki underscore driver at yahoo dot com.

[Johnny Rico]

"the Saudi King basically admitting recently that Saudi production will never go up again from here on out."

I'd be interested in seeing that, too.

[free_way_4_life]

My first reaction to this week's post and commentary so far has been to ask myself a very good question: "why did I ever waste my time following national politics?" Seriously, I'd say fuck the federal government, but they are fearsome in the sense that they have bombs and the power to prop up the economy of an entire city. Yes, folks, from what I saw last week, there is no housing crisis in DC, Arlington and Alexandria. Seriously, a ton of high rise condos and government buildings are going up, and I believe that these will someday be our empire's equivalent to vain Roman artifacts.

Great article about Youngstown, as it is this kind of news that gives me hope. The alternative to managed decline can, speaking of PA, can be seen in the former borough of Centralia (sic?). A former coal village of several thousand that is now abandoned due to an underground anthracite seam catching on fire decades ago, and this blaze is still smoldering. The ruins are definitely a must see on your next visit to PA, and they are easily accessible - just get off I-81 at the Frackville exit and go north on route 61 a few miles until the road forks. The left fork is a potholed four lane highway that dead-ends at an earthen berm with trees growing out of it. If you climb this berm, you will find the ruins of the same highway disappearing in to the woods. I found this to be the perfect metaphor for Peak Oil, the resilience of nature, and the ultimate futility of mankind's endeavors.

Can't end this without knocking Hillary. Her whole tour of PA reminds me of the kickoff to her first senatorial campaign, when she staged a huge event "live from Pinder's Corner" (around 30 miles from Cooperstown, one of the upstate villages I grew up in). It was designed to repackage her as an everyday rural upstate New Yorker. LMFAO, I know, but, true to the mysterious nature of human nature, the locals bought it!

OK, so I know this isn't going to happen, as I live in a state that has already voted for Obama, and a state that will furthermore vote for the dem in the general election even if the candidate is Osama Bin Laden. My wish though is that Hillary visit my street to drink natty bohs and pretend to be an everyday Baltimore Hon. Why? Because than I could ask her who the fuck exactly owns my student loan?

[Johnny Rico]

"human females would be any more chaotic and unsupervised than a world ruled by human males."

Actually Jim was talking about Martian females vs. human males. Easy mistake to make.

[Johnny Rico]

For those of you who have somehow got it into your heads that today's column was an example of misogyny, let's review.

This is what Jim actually said:

"A President Hillary will also go a long way to defeating the popular delusion that a world ruled by female humans would be heaven-on-earth. (It would be more like one of those chaotic single-parent households in Section-8 housing, ruled by a harried and distracted mom, with a shadowy man in the background molesting the little ones while she was off working at the WalMart.)"

The man in the background is Bill and the little ones are Monica Lewinsky. WalMart is the United States. Get it?

If you think that Hillary will make this country Heaven-on-Earth, please say so.

[Al_Polito]

FYI the people who own your mortgages are private and fund investors who purchase (or, should we say, *used* to purchase) "Mortgage-backed securities." Groups of mortgages are (were) bundled together for similarity (all the same program, etc.) and the servicing company (such as my old employer, Countrywide) would take a fee for collecting your mortgage, while passing the bulk of the interest onto the investor.

I knew we were in for it when mortgage companies started underwriting 125% LTV loans.

[Johnny Rico]

@Al Polito -

When you were at Countrywide how many poor, ignorant families did you con into ARM's that you knew would eventually put them underwater so you could have a nice, fat, Christmas bonus?

[Johnny Rico]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aizOxHaGj8eY&refer=home

U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Rise on Gain in Gasoline

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Americans spent less on furniture, clothing and appliances in March as the economy faltered and more of their money went to pay for gasoline and food.

Yeah, Baby! You can have my steering-wheel when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[Holmes, I presume]

WMBH charitably suggests to me that character development (male as well as female) is a low priority for JHK. Rather, he correctly sees modern gender roles in energy gobbling societies as profoundly influenced and to a large extent entirely defined by the availability of easy energy. Perhaps JHK’s point is this: Once “Slave Army in a Bottle” is less reliably available to the masses, the roles of men and women will likely (eventually) revert to something closer to what they were pre-Oil Age.

As to Hillary, this shape- and accent-shifting abomination is gender-indeterminate at best. An aberrant data point and clearly a red herring… for those looking to get enraged over a perceived misogynist utterance.

[Lost Horizon]

JR

Here's a Nov estimate from a Bloomberg News stringer:

The estimates have since ballooned to the 700 million range, I don't have a bookmark for the latest figure, noodle around Bloomberg for it.

Market for derivatives grows at fastest pace in nine years, to $516 trillion

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/23/bloomberg/23webbxinvest.php

Here's an older 2006 estimate from Bloomberg:

Credit Derivatives Growth Slows

Credit derivatives are the fastest-growing part of the $270 trillion market for derivatives, obligations based on interest rates, events or underlying assets, according to figures from the Bank for International Settlements. The market expanded more than fivefold in two years, according to ISDA.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a9mg9712QnRU&refer=us

The Saudi King comment was from a TOD thread yesterday:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3842#comments

Follow the thread down through westexas first comment

DrumBeat: April 13, 2008
westexas on April 13, 2008 - 8:35am

"....interesting comments by the Saudi King, as their production is reportedly again declining...."

[Lost Horizon]

"...The estimates have since ballooned to the 700 million range..."

TYPO alert: "700 trillion range"

[Johnny Rico]

Thanks, LH.

[Brandon]

Oh My Fucking God, a post of Kunstler's I was so liking I didn't even finish it and just start typing my response shit up. God damn... frustrating ADHD.

Okay, this is fucking great... and yea I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher cause you know I'm healing and whatnot and with less anxiety = less ADHD. So I could pay attention long enough to laugh and understand what these talking heads were saying...

my point being that ... shit I forgot at 15:07 today... I'll finish typing in this dialogue box when I remember... okay same time but I don't have the patience to re-read his post and get my lost thought back. Fuck it.

[Anonymous Blowhard]

Thank you, JR (& Holmes) for stating what I thought was fairly obvious about this week's JHK post.

JHK could very well be what people claim he is, but this post was just an attempt to deflate the myth that any one sex (and by extension I suppose, any one "race") would be by default better than any other.

[Lost Horizon]

Global Derivatives are the Monster from Deep Space.

In the multi level casino of the Market Place, the guys on the second floor are looking through the glass floor and are placing bets on who will win at the Blackjack tables on the first floor.

The guys on the third floor are placing bets on who will wins their bets on the second floor.

The guys on the fourth floor are .....you get the picture.

The Global Derivative Beast is placing bets from the Penthouse on the 100th floor.

When the Beast finally calls in his bets and orders room service, It wants it's winning Now or a heaping helping main course of 'Heads on a Plate.'

If it's not one thing, it's another...

[Brandon]

Oh yea, I remember now, if America Inc had a parliamentary system say like... I don't know, that awesome orgiastic country to the north called The Dominion of Canada, then Bush's incompetence would have led to change... that's how it works in a parliamentary system, if you suck, you are gone.

Now if only my equally fucking stupid Canadians (although stupid in different ways than American but stupid none-the-less, remember, only 10-20% of people can fit the bill C-180 of intelligence, and only half of those 10-20% get on board the right side of the Titanic... the part where you get off...) would understand that we need to get proportional representation above all else, or we will continue to move towards this two party system that fucking drives me nuts, because, lets face it, The Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada are both rightist-authoritarian groups of people... with only The Green Party, Bloc Quebecois and The New Democratic Party occupying the sane quadrant, aka, Leftist-Libretarian... okay so I've spent too much time on Facebook trying to get people to fill out the Political compass test. Doesn't mean I believe in it. Party politics are innane and the founding fathers of the US, had they not been blinded by their hate of Britain, would have instituted a parliamentary system of proportional representation... oh no they wouldn't have, that's right, they were obsessed with Roman Republicism, Neo-Classical delusional slave owning hypocritical .. bastards!

[Brandon]

Oh my god, is today the anniversary of Titanic... cause we have no human memory of that left, I think she died in 2006... the rest were innocent human drones...aka babies. You know, they only worry about food in, peepee and poopoo out, and also the electrical plug to the personal happy place...

[Lost Horizon]

Brandon

Do they really say,"Gooday hoser" up there in the Frozen North or have I been cruelly deceived?