Reality Bites Again

    The feeble American response to Russia's assertion of power in the Caucasus of Central Asia was appropriate, since our claims of influence in that part of the world are laughable. The US had taken advantage of temporary confusion in Russia, during the ten-year-long post-Soviet-collapse interval, and set up a client government in Georgia, complete with military advisors, sales of weapons, and even the promise of club membership in the western alliance known as NATO. These blandishments were all in the service of the Baku-to-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which was designed specifically to drain the oil region around the Caspian Basin with an outlet on the Mediterranean, avoiding unfriendly nations all along the way.
     At the time this gambit was first set up, in the early 1990s, there was some notion (or wish, really) among the so-called western powers that the Caspian would provide an end-run around OPEC and the Arabs, as well as the Persians, and deliver all the oil that the US and Europe would ever need -- a foolish wish and a dumb gambit, as things have turned out.
     For one thing, the latterly explorations of this very old oil region -- first opened to drilling in the 19th century -- proved somewhat disappointing. US officials had been touting it as like unto "another Saudi Arabia" but the oil actually produced from the new drilling areas of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Stans turned out to be preponderantly heavy-and-sour crudes, in smaller quantities than previously dreamed-of, and harder to transport across the extremely challenging terrain to even get to the pipeline head in Baku.
     Meanwhile, Russia got its house in order under the non-senile, non-alcoholic Vladimir Putin, and woke up along about 2007 to find itself the leading oil and natural gas producer in the world. Among the various consequences of this was Russia's reemergence as a new kind of world power -- an energy resource power, with the energy destiny of Europe pretty much in its hands. Also, meanwhile, the USA had set up other client states in the ring of former Soviet republics along Russia's southern underbelly, complete with US military bases, while fighting active engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, if this wasn't the dumbest, vainest move in modern geopolitical history!
     It's one thing that US foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world...? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?
      So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the US can pretend to do about it.
     We could have spent the past ten years getting our own house in order -- waking up to the obsolescence of our suburban life-style, scaling back on the Happy Motoring, reconnecting our cities with world-class passenger rail, creating wealth by producing things of value (instead of resorting to financial racketeering), protecting our borders, and taking the necessary measures to defend and update our own industries. Instead, we pissed our time and resources away. Nations do make tragic errors of the collective will. The cluelessness of George Bush is nothing less than a perfect metaphor for the failure of a whole generation. The Boomers will be identified as the generation that wrecked America.
     So, as the vacation season winds down, this country greets a new reality. We miscalculated in Western and Central Asia. Russia still "owns" that part of the world. Are we going to extend our current land wars there into the even more distant and landlocked Stan-nations? At some point, as we face financial and military exhaustion, we have to ask ourselves if we can even successfully evacuate our personnel from the far-flung bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
      This must be an equally sobering moment for Europe, and an additional reason for the recent plunge in the relative value of the Euro, for Europe is now at the mercy of Russia in terms of staying warm in the winter, running their kitchen stoves, and keeping the lights on. Russia also exerts substantial financial leverage over the US in all the dollars and securitized US debt paper it holds. In effect, Russia can shake the US banking system at will now by threatening to dump its dollar holdings.
     The American banking system may not need a shove from Russia to fall on its face. It's effectively dead now, just lurching around zombie-like from one loan "window" to the next pretending to "borrow" capital -- while handing over shreds of its moldy clothing as "collateral" to the Federal Reserve. The entire US, beyond the banks, is becoming a land of the walking dead. Business is dying, home-ownership has become a death dance, whole regions are turning into wastelands of "for sale" signs, empty parking lots, vacant buildings, and dashed hopes. And all this beats a path directly to a failure of collective national imagination. We really don't know what's going on.
      The fantasy that we can sustain our influence nine thousand miles away, when we can't even get our act together in Ohio is just a dark joke. One might state categorically that it would be a salubrious thing for America to knock off all its vaunted "dreaming" and just wake the fuck up.

Comments

[StephenB]

Sadly, the truth is that we'll die before we wake up.

[coyoteyogi]

It is particularly difficult for the government to act rationally during an election cycle. If either candidate were to speak to the issues you raise, it would instantly be spun as an indication of "weakness". It is all too clear that America will only begin to debate the limits of our power and the limits of our ability and willingness to project power, when the national treasure has been exhausted. Britain managed to do it back in the forties and fifties. We'll get through it too but it will be a consequence of the depression and not a result of enlightened dialogue.

[EearlK]

I think the idea that Major holders of dollar currency could bring down the system is overblown. After all, the primary victims in such a case will be the holders of dollar currency. They could dump all, but at extreme cost. They could have a much better time jerking the markets around, buying up stuff, and in general kicking sand in our faces.

America may wake the fuck up after we lose a carrier or two in the Persian Gulf, and OPEC turns off the tap for a week or two following the Iran fubar that is just around the corner. Nothing like a societal collapse to get the national spotlight!

[javaman8263]

When Clinton handed control of the nation to moron* back in 2001, he is quoted as saying to moron*, "the country is in good shape financially, you need to work on infrastructure".

moron* being the moron* that he* is, well, pissed that good advice away.

And here we are.

life in a republican hobbsian universe, scary isn't it?

[DanaJ]

The fantasy that we can sustain our influence nine thousand miles away, when we can't even get our act together in Ohio is just a dark joke. JHK.

We have become the Generation of Liars. We lie to ourselves, we lie to every one else, we even believe our lies.
Our economy has become one giant financial con game, but guess what, like a roach motel, this big casino has only one way in and no way out. Well one way, the way off the balcony on the 13th floor.
Other nations know that they cant just dump their dollar holdings as it would bring down the whole house of cards. Smarter nations tho have been reducing their holdings so that if the card house does collapse they won't end up holding an empty bag.
Javaman: The Bush assministration also used to disparage the "Nation Building" of the Clinton admin, but when they tried to do it, even tho it turned into a pile of shit, they tried to sell it a the worlds best fertilzer.
Hmmm.. looks like, smells like, feels like....its a great big pile of shit! Duh.
This administration started a recession, never mind that they said it was over, we never really recovered, cept those at the top kept getting richer. Now as they leave office, we are sliding into a depression and they are doing everything they can to try to put it off until after the election so that the short-sighted Duhmerican people don't lay the blame on them.
Don't matter who wins the election, things are in a real fcuked up mess. Only McSame will just make things worse, and the Repubs will fight Obama tooth & nail, if he wins, to keep Bushes tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.
Are you getting dizy yet from the swirl around the drain?

[TroutBum]

Sadly, Yes, Jim is correct. My fear is that the USA will end up in a Depression economically and some type of Dictatorship politically, after having lost numerous resource wars, unless of course, we decide to unleash the Nucs. In that case, everyone loses because of nuclear winter. Could we muddle through? Our immediate hope is that the US finds a way to vote for Obama. Not that he is the savior, but McCain is a warmonger and will advance the military empire until failure restrains him. My hope is that Obama is a thinker and listens well. Plus, he knows what he doesn't know. Perhaps, we should pray that Obama is the second coming of FDR, not that we need FDR's policies, but we need someone who can think outside the box. McCain is the box, lives in it and doesn't even realize it.

[montysano]

coyoteyogi said: "It is particularly difficult for the government to act rationally during an election cycle. "

Yeah, and since the election cycle is now a neverending thing, rationality is permanently out the window.

DanaJ said: "We have become the Generation of Liars. We lie to ourselves, we lie to every one else, we even believe our lies."

And richly reward the liars. McCain is one of the most brazen, baldfaced liars I've ever seen, and he's polling at dead even. It's pretty clear to me that he cheated during the Saddleback forum; it appears that, instead of being in an isolation room during Obama's segment, he was riding around in a limo, boning up on the questins. He answered some of Warren's questions before they were asked. When a reporter dares to question this, he's smacked with the "How DARE you impugn" tactic.

Let's be clear: I'm no Pollyanna regarding Obama. He's a politician. But I do like his thoughtfulness, his nuanced take on difficult issues. Sadly though, it's appearing more and more likely to me that we'll get the president we deserve this fall.

[Riddick]

"The entire US, beyond the banks, is becoming a land of the walking dead. Business is dying, home-ownership has become a death dance, whole regions are turning into wastelands of "for sale" signs, empty parking lots, vacant buildings, and dashed hopes. And all this beats a path directly to a failure of collective national imagination. We really don't know what's going on."

Jim is in a fine mood this beautiful morning. Indeed Amerika is screwed. I believe that we simply refuse to look back at history and observe that every empire crumbles and withers, typically through inept leadership, clueless and fat masses and the loss of the "edge" that made the empire in the first place. So each empire follows the other down the path to destruction.

I have heard over and over how Amerika is a "consumer" economy, driven by people buying sh*t. What sort of economy is that? How do the people get value or money to buy the stuff anyway? I though a real economy actually MADE stuff or sold STUFF and not merely BOUGHT stuff. How long can we keep spending to consume and what are we spending anyway?

From all that I have read here and elsewhere we simply print paper fiat money and then give it away by the shipload overseas. It works real good until the folks overseas want to start consuming just like us rather than live in a pig sty on a buck a day watching their kids starve. I see problems ahead for Amerika and our lives of multi-plex diversions, shiny things like cars and planes and big screen TVs where we can be entertained and pretend the world is as we want it not as it really is.

And Jim is right about Bush's good buddy Vlad Putin. I can just imagine Putin now as he waltzed around with Bush, his good buddy. I'm sure he was thinking that the resurrection of the Russian Empire would be easy indeed. I wonder if Bush called his buddy Putin and asked for a favor like stop invading other nations and stealing the oil we need to fuel the convertibles.

Oh Amerika is screwed alright. For the most part we don't know it unless you have been dealing with a layoff, foreclosure or repo. The electricity still flows, the stores (that are open) brim with shiny things, TV is full of pretty people, scary stories and athletic events. All is well in the empire.

[Uncle Al]

US economic hegemony was driven by Boomers running a Red Queen's race while compassionate Washington increasingly redistributed their incomes. The sheep were sheared closer and closer, then skinned. They huffed and puffed, took their pills, and droned "I think I can, I think I can."

Here we are! Whites could not afford to reproduce. (What happened to those who tried? Yearning for Zion). 60 million Boomer wallets are slamming shut as 60 million early retirement Social Security parasites scream "UBI EST MEA!"

The Social Security fund has been spent three times over (derivative securities' leverage!) lending succor to the more deserving and reproductive. We are a nation of sub-literate Darkies and Medicare succubuses chewing on a withered public teat.

What is another couple of $trillion/year in the hole? Inflation will amortize that as we conquer client nation states to provide commodities at deep discount. Bush the Lesser promised. Faith-based Washington's worldwide banning of contraception is a gift to God. Assuredly God will gift back.

Oh yes indeed.

[Pvt. Keepout]

"You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?"

They're inebriated on hubris, power & unaccountability.
No supplemental intoxicants required.

[Empedocles]

Once again it is a mystery why Kinstler is a Democrat when his positions show him to be far more of a paleo-con. Today he shows that he's an international non-interventionist, just like all paleo-cons whereas Democrats are interventionists par excellance. Anyone agreeing with Kunstler's noninterventionist stance should have nothing to do with the Democrats including Obama who has taken interventionist positions again and again. Democrats: centralized power not localization, international trade, not localization, international intervention, not nonintervention. I don't see how anyone who believes in localization and nonintervention could vote Democrat.

[clevelandbob]

Jim is spot on again this morning.

I must however take issue with one phrase in today's screed.

"You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?"...

I've been smoking pot nearly every day since I was 16. I have multiple professional certifications, a Masters Degree, own two homes, I'm an 8 handicap on the links and enjoy excellent health and strong teeth at the age of 49.

Trust me, if the wingnuts at any of the "intel" agencies were smoking something beyond tobacco, we'd all be far better off and actually might be enjoying the progressive amenities to our lives like high speed rail, safe borders and well thought out government regulatory agencies instead of having these ideas lie in the dustbin as they do at present.

Let's all stop portraying soft drugs as a potential source of our problems. I know that it's "just a phrase", but from where I sit, pot smoking hardly has a causal relationship to the lack of vision in the Bush administration.

Just sayin'.

[Flamsey]

I am going to miss taking a hot shower every morning. We all have such good sugestions... why do we get stuck with such bad policies? It makes me cynical and withdrawn to think about how we got into this mess.

[dale]

Doom,
Usually I can understand the Doomer “logic”, but see no reason to believe that the Internet would be the “first” thing to go in your scenario. The Internet is, of course, electrically powered and perhaps the most energy efficient information source in existence. It would exist even without advertising, albeit to a lesser extent. The first to go, (in the doomer fantasy), would follow the JHK scenario of cars and suburbia, (the least efficient uses) followed by....well I don't know what, because I find the whole argument a little ridiculous. Of course, car use and suburbia will “crater” to some extent, but likely without the drama. Think s-l-o-w-l-y.

Yeah.....Costa Rica would be the riskier option. Man, I hate that Canadian weather.....

"To make up for the coming oil depletion, a 1 Gigawatt nuclear power plant needs to be built every day for the next 30 years."
--Prof. David Goodstein, "Out of Gas" (2004)
Boy, I'd really like to see the “math” the “Professor” used for that one, since the electrical grid is little powered by oil and becomes less so almost every year. Sounds like another of those toss out assertions unsupported by the slightest shred of fact. I assume he is making some wild estimation of the total of oil used now, (lumping in NG and Coal and calling it “oil”?)and replacing that entirely with new production of electricity. As I posted earlier that would be totally unnecessary given the huge unused capacity of the current grid. Likewise, it makes no allowance for increased efficiency, something which has been occurring dramatically for the last few decades even in the face of cheap energy, and will no doubt increase dramatically going forward. It's easy to predict apocalypse if you assume nothing adapts.

[dale]

Doom,
BTW, if I were going to choose an information source of low efficiency that seems to be a little outmoted and slated for the dust heap, even as we speak, what do you think I might be considering?

[LaughingAsRomeWasBurningDown]

Paleocon? To quote Sgt Ermey, WTF is that?

JHK as a Republican? Thanks, I need some humor on a Monday.

[westville_girl]

Amen, ClevelandBob!

As a fellow smoker, I've often thought that if the "powers-that-be" smoked a little, we'd have fewer problems....

I've also smoked since I was about 16, and although I'm not as financially blessed as you and my golf game leaves something to be desired, I'm a darn good artist, pretty good musician, and intelligent enough to homeschool my son....At 43 I'm in excellent physical shape and just now have my very first cavity (a left-over baby tooth!).....

"They" don't want everyone smoking, because when people smoke, they start thinking outside the box - then where would we be?

[Roland A.]

The trance in which Americans exist is designed and controlled by the plutocracy of corporatism. Thus far, this plutocracy demonstrates that it fully intends to run the American machine into the ground, until it can run no more, in order to drain out of it every fucking ounce of blood, and its last dollar.

They are the same gangsters who put into office every president, so the current monkey, and the next monkey, is their "man", guaranteed to be beholding to them--otherwise, he's never step foot onto the train. To take any dumb bastard in the White House, or in congress, or on the bench seriously, is a naive error of the first order. They are all owned, they are all corrupted to the core, they are all puppets on strings, and they are all low-brow incompetents at everything except for one outstanding talent, namely, they are first rate liars, first rate back-stabbers, first rate at all of the talents of corruption necessary to excel in public office.

This is the scenario from which a nation does not recover, except to be made over completely by catastrophe. Unfortunately, the U.S. corporatist system is like the shark, either it moves forward or it dies--in other words, the American system must keep feeding on debt and the acquisition of scarce resources from abroad, consuming them at astronomically disproportionate rates to the world's populations.

At some levels, the American people know this, whether at some dim level of consciousness, or buried completely in their sub-conscious minds. This, of course, means that to wake up enough to make changes, Americans will have to give up the rich resources provided to them by their evil, global empire--designed by their evil corporatist system.

Ain't gonna happ'n, folks!

[asoka]

DanaJ said: "the Repubs will fight Obama tooth & nail, if he wins"

I guess that is why a veto-proof majority might be important?

[Movenonup]

Hi Jim,

We live in a Doommockracy. You cleverly quip about how fucked up we all are and mock our doom. I wonder if you feel reduced to the role of court jester?

We are an interesting choir you preach to in the assholy land of Clusterfuck Nation. Guess the name of the blog is going to draw a certain element, eh? Good crew of pessimistic, individualistic, smart, blow hards.

I find it interesting that we do our little doom watch together, week after week, the Monday morning ritual, come over at 9:00, see what you wrote. I have been doing it over a year now. Learned a lot from this site and the participants here.

Jim Kunstler, I want to thank you and the makers of the movie "End of Suburbia." When I first saw that film I freaked. The next day I planted a garden. It is the reason I paid off my home. Hanging out on this site and others is the reason I have made some of the preps I have made. I have a garden now that covers well over half of my front yard and I am getting started in the back. I went on a bike bus to the farmers market yesterday and saw many people I knew there, it was delightful. Had not seen them in a long time and they all know the shit is hitting the fan. In certain circles, you can say it out loud now.

Why say all this here? Because as Doommed as I think we are, I also see some things getting better. Because of downsizing there are ways I am living a life that is saner (I do not claim to be sane, don't get me wrong) and more true to who my best self can be.

I find I can get sucked into the details of geopolitical crap or the price of commodities (are we headed for inflation or deflation?) but when I step outside, it is a beautiful day, and while I am sure I will be impacted soon, I downscaled so early (after having the shit scared out of me seeing that movie) that I really think I am going to be okay for at least a while. I am not arrogant enough to think I won't be impacted though, we all have it coming.

I want to help build a world where down sizing is not only "cool" but recognized as the path to true peace. That is all I can do now.

The folks who came together to make that movie made a difference for me and my family.

You made a difference.

Have a great day.

[sharon]

America certainly does seem to be facing difficult times. I like the way this article lists the causes succinctly: The decision was made at some point to abandon manufacturing--or, indeed, productive economic activity of any kind--and instead focus on stealing other countries' resources by direct military force, on the one hand, and through financial fraud supported by dollar hegemony, on the other hand.

In other words, "we"--the boomers, Kunstler suggests--decided it would be a good idea to live by stealing alone, in preference to working and producing.

The only thing wrong with this analysis is the idea that "we" (Americans) decided to go this route, or that it was done on our behalf or for our benefit.

While the recent looting and attempted looting of oil and other resources, worldwide, has been going on, one of the key things that Americans are failing to notice is that they are not getting any of the loot. Even more glaringly, Americans are failing to notice that their country, their economy, is being looted--right along with the other countries and economies around the world.

It USED to be that Americans could expect to live high as beneficiaries of the corporations and financials that were, at least nominally, "American" corporations and financials.

My view is that the US--like many other places--is being relegated to the status of a mere "colony" or "sphere of influence" with natural and human resources to be exploited, as in Latin American banana republics, African countries, and Iraq.

The exploiting corporations are no longer American, and America no longer enjoys a favored or beneficiary status among the nations being looted.

But the illusion remains among Americans that they will get a piece of the action--as they have in the past.

I'd say this isn't being done BY us--not any more. It is now being done TO us.

[Loveandlight]

Yes, Obama is as much a cynical and manipulating politician as any of them, perhaps even more so, but I would recommend voting for him just the same. McCain is well known for his rage issues. As an example, there is a running true joke among Senators that anyone who has served more than two terms there has a drawerful in their offices of "McCain letters", or apology letters that John McCain had to write to them for exploding at them in over-the-top, red-faced, lunatic, vile-profanity-laden tirades again and again over the years. I don't want somebody like that with his finger on the button in this time of heightened tension between nuclear-armed world-powers.

[can you see it?]

“The Boomers will be identified as the generation that wrecked America.”

True, but we can only hope that that truth is evident to the masses. My guess is the drumbeat of MSM will keep the fools and assholes in the dark right up to, and past, the end.

That could leave those of us who are desperately trying to set the nation back on, hopefully a more sustainable, track in a whole lot of hurt.

[dale]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/82236-the-peak-oil-myth-new-oil-is-plentiful

Now, I don't necessarily believe everything this guy says. Frankly, I don't know. As pointed out many times here, it's a VERY complicated situation and answers in the past don't give much hope for prognostication into the future. In any case, it's good to see both sides of an issue.

[zerotsm]

We may well get McCain. This country is still to racist to elect a black guy, even a half black guy. The sheeple think everything is going to be OK now that gas prices are going down, and you can bet that those in power will game the system to keep the prices down (market forces and actual depletion not withstanding) until after the election.