Under a Fluorescent Moon

      Mr. Obama heads to Europe now where official hostility is rising against the Anglo-American method of pounding monetary sand down the rat-holes of “non-performing” debt, bankrupt enterprise, and bubble-levitated bonds. Our poised and charming Prez may escape personal obloquy from the quaint old-world street folk, but most of the other G-20 policy playerz take a dim view of the shell-and-pea games being played by the custodians of the world’s reserve currency, including front-end-loader bank bail-outs, the shuffling of worthless securities under TARPS and TARFS, the desperate efforts to prevent the sane re-pricing of real estate, the cannibalizing of treasuries by the Federal Reserve, the now-notorious hijacking of public “liquidity” injections by third parties like Goldman Sachs, and most generally the perceived sacrifice of everybody else’s greater good for the sake of maintaining Lloyd Blankfein’s cappuccino machine.
    What’s going on now is nature’s way of telling you that America’s standard of living has to be reduced by something between 20 and 50 percent.  You can have it in the form of a compressive deflationary depression, including widespread bankruptcies… or you can have by way of inflation, in which money loses its value.  But there’s one basic qualification to this: the way down is not symmetrical with the way up.  That is, it’s really not just a matter of ratcheting down to a standard of living half of what it was, say, in 2006, because in the event all the various complex systems that support everyday life enter failure mode before our society re-sets at a theoretically lower level of equilibrium.
    By this I mean our methods for getting food, for moving about the landscape, for deploying capital, for trading and manufacturing, for schooling, doctoring, and running public services all destabilize and, to some degree or other, fail to deliver their contribution to normal daily life.  Banking (capital deployment) is already mortally wounded.  It remains to be seen how this will affect the food supply half a year ahead in the harvest season.  Capital is as big an “input” for our method of farming as diesel fuel or fertilizers made from methane gas.  The failure of banking will combine with city and state insolvency to crush public transit, law enforcement, fire protection, and whatever flimsy local safety nets exist to keep the ultra-poor and helpless from die-off.  The lowering of living standards by 20 to 50 percent essentially eliminates all but the must critical commerce, meaning that most of the stores in the malls and strip malls lose their customers and shed employees, while the mall and strip mall owners lose their rents, and the bankers lose performing commercial real estate loans. As all this occurs, tax revenues go way down, schools can’t pay their employees or buy diesel fuel for their yellow bus fleets. More people lose the ability to carry health insurance.  Hospital emergency rooms are overwhelmed. Health care descends to Third World levels.  Meanwhile, pensions are destroyed, the elderly live on dog food and ketchup. . . .
     This is where we’re headed. It could easily be worse than the 1930s, when we still had plenty of family farms, plenty of oil, plenty of factories in good running order, and a highly regimented population of workers unaccustomed to luxury, leisure, and entitlement.  We’ve hardly begun to see the potential political repercussions of economic disorder now underway.  I think it will start to show in a big way not long after Memorial Day, when the current false euphoric Wall Street rally ends in yet another pool of tears, and the despair trickles downward. A crucial piece of the outcome depends on what happens over at Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department – which lately seems to have seceded from the federal government.  A peeved public is going to start wondering why the bankers and insurers have not been called in by the criminal division to do a little ‘splainin'.  As the spring yields to summer, the Obama team’s current fix-it plans are also likely to have run out of credibility.  Mr. O better be prepared to get a new game.
    I spent the weekend at the yearly Aspen Institute Environmental Forum – a confab lately devoted about equally to the energy and climate fiascos.  It’s a peculiar exercise, since major sponsors include the oil and gas companies and the auto industry. The Saturday center-ring panel on peak oil, for instance, was shockingly weak, led by the flack from the Shell corporation, a charming lady, highly-skilled at blowing green smoke up the public’s ass. Even more shocking is the consensus among the presenters and attendees – including the hotshots of climate and energy science and the elder statespersons of environmentalism – that the energy problem merely amounts to finding other means for running all our cars.  The assumption that we must remain car-dependent remains absolutely entrenched among these people who ought to know better.  Of course, the words “public transit” were barely uttered.  It’s disappointing to find such idiocy among this particular elite.
          But Sunday’s departure really plunged me into the epicenter of American idiocy – namely, the airline industry.  They’ve been running airplanes out of Pitkin County, Colorado for at least fifty years, but they seem to discover a’fresh every morning that strange winds blow through the valley.  After jerking around absolutely everybody in the terminal for a couple of hours with unexplained delays, the United Airlines ground crew announced that all flights for the day were cancelled, causing a rhino rush back out through the security checkpoints to re-booking counters.  I ended up on a bus for the Denver Airport – a five hour trip, including twenty-miles of parking-lot quality traffic along I-70 where the jackass Colorado DOT had closed down one eastbound lane, despite the fact that it was Sunday and there was no work going on there. 
    You’d also think that after all these years, the state of Colorado might have organized choo-choo train service from Denver into the ski valleys of the Rockies, given how important the ski industry is to the state’s economy – and how incredibly fragile the airline service is. But that would be too sensible for a nation determined to become the Bulgaria of the western hemisphere.  So, instead, they get up every single morning in Aspen and try to figure out whether commercial aviation works out there, and half the time it doesn’t.  Anyway, the Aspen Institute was very generous in organizing the bus trek out of there, and putting up us travelers stranded overnight in airport hotels.  Mine was some rummy operation called the Staybridge Inn where the vaunted in-room wireless didn’t work in my room, so I write to you in a dreary little chamber off the lobby where children are screaming from their overdoses of fry-max and melted cheese in the only dining venue (Ruby Tuesdays) along this massively over-scaled boulevard of chain motels.  I can easily see the whole miserable strip becoming a ruin inside of five years as the airline industry dies. Final note: the hotel elevator proudly declares itself to be the German-made product of the ThyssenKrupps corporation.  America’s so lame, it can’t even make its own elevators anymore.
    I apologize for a somewhat sloppy blog this week.  My tendencies to insomnia are aggravated by high altitude and I am cross-eyed with sleeplessness. . . .
____________________________________

My 2008 novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available in paperback  at all booksellers.

Comments

[montemerrick]

yes indeed - and meanwhile all you hear on NPR is that "flat is the new up"

[Jason]

Apology accepted, but wow! that was beyond sloppy. That was miserable and self-absorbed. Don't you have anything better to do than wish for the end of civilization as we know it? Good thing no one whose opinion matters takes you seriously.

[UncleYarra]

Yeah, like you Jason.

[lena]

I've sent e-mails to you, but no reply. I hope you can see me here. I'm a Chinese girl. Now I'm preparing my Master's Degree Paper.
I'm quite interested in Ecoliterature, and this is what I'm trying to study. Recently,I got to know your latest book" World Made by Hand" by chance. And the topic in this book really attarcts me though I haven't read it so far. 'cause it is still unavailable in China.But I've already asked my friends in America to help me get it.
Meanwhile, I'm trying hard to get more information about you and your latest book, which is essential to my thesis as supportting details. But disappointedly, I only could get very little.
So, could you please supply me the names of the books which comment on you? Or could you please just give me some advice about how to do research paper on Ecoliterature?
Thanks a lot!
Look forward to hearing from you!

[Ruben Anderson]

I really enjoyed this article on curing insomnia. Good luck with this JHK.

http://SaveYourself.ca/articles/insomnia.php

[asoka]

Great optimistic post! Paints a picture of American reality identical to the pictures presented every week for the last few years. Nothing has changed. Life in the Ruby Tuesdays, the Staybridge Inns, and the strip malls continues.

JHK says: "I can easily see the whole miserable strip becoming a ruin inside of five years"

So now TSHTF "inside of five years"... after the next presidential election???

This is good news! I feel like we have been granted a reprieve. We now have five years to prepare for TSHTF.

TSHTF time horizons... receding... receding... receeding...

[Annie C.]

There's something no one has realized about emergency rooms. My husband works in one, not going to say what he does there, in a small city in Oregon. They've actually been seeing less people since the economy went to hell, since more and more people don't have insurance and so can't come in for every stupid little thing.

On the other hand, the people who do come in, finally, are much, much sicker than they used to be. In our hospital, ER numbers are off by 30%, but ICU admits are up by at least 25%.

What most people don't realize is that if you present yourself to the ER they *have* to see you. And if you're that kind of sick they *have* to admit you, at least until you're stable. Even if you can't pay, and regardless of the potential cost of your care. It does not take many unemployed heart attack/stroke victims to start the tap running funds right out the door.

Another ongoing cost in the ER are the drug seekers. Many of them have learned that complaining of chest pain will get them to the head of the line. It will also get them a courtesy pack of narcotics, as complaints that "they didn't treat my pain" is a quick way to get your accreditation in trouble. Many of them turn around and sell, making calls to meet dealers from the parking lot, even where the staff can hear. But chest pain workups are expensive....

Right now revenues are so down that our ER is in the middle of lay-offs (and it's a non-profit hospital BTW). My husband would not be surprised if they had to close the ER in another 5 years.

Now, current federal law states that any hospital accepting federal funds MUST treat every one who come claiming an emergency, no questions asked. So, how to get around that? Simple, stop taking Medicare patients. Which isn't going to be a problem, since Medicare only pays about 1/3 of the bill. the hospital has to eat the rest. And they take months to pay, debating every charge.

Between Medicare and the ER, eventually the hospital is just going to have to close. Or at least close to everyone without insurance, because they simply cannot afford to keep giving away care. The other hospital in town has already laid off 400 staff and has closed half of all its units. Including the only drug rehab in town, it's nursing home unit, and it's MRI/CT center. And the other hospital that group owns, the only one in the next town over, may very well close by the end of the year. Because they can't afford to pay their staff.

It's just crazy.

[LookMaItsSanta]

Don't worry Jason, all his posts are like that. His insomnia just removed the clever altruistic veneer his puts on his works. Check out his older stuff sometime. You'll find plenty of instances where he slips badly.

[LookMaItsSanta]

Asoka, the timeframe will always shift, whenever convinient. According to JHK, January 1st, 2000 was it. Look how that turned out.

Snakeoil salesmen will never die.

[Dr.Doom]

Looks a little early for a Monday AM post Jim. I liked the first half the best, ending with granny eating dogfood and ketchup--yum! BTW, have you priced dogfood recently? Maybe nettles will make a comeback.

Hey, just be thankful that you survived that trip down the I-70, in late winter. As for flying out of there, well, life is full of risks, I guess. Hope you're not on some deathwish going out in flames ala the Big Bopper. Wot, get writer's block? It happens to all of us.

Posted a comment over at ClubOrlov that's being held for moderator approval. Perhaps I'm too doomy for Dmitry, but next to you, I'm a bloody optimist.

[peryskop]

It is so nice to see that Jim is flying like his ass is on fire (not so long ago South Africa now USA ). I'm always cheered up up when i see Eco warriors and dooms day scenario profits wasting precious oil on nothing but

[UncleYarra]

"I'm always cheered up up when i see Eco warriors and dooms day scenario profits wasting precious oil on nothing but "

-and you're saving oil by not using spellcheck or something???

[sharon]

I thought nettles already did make a comeback: delicious, packed with nutrients, abundant, and the earliest of spring greens. Just be sure to cook them first, or they'll bite back.

[beerzie boy]

Jason, grow up. There is plenty of Happy Talk and other pointless gibberish over at cnn.com.

[SDGreg]

There seems to be quite a difference in a decline in living standard of 20 percent versus 50 percent. A 20 percent decline is manageable to a degree even if unpleasant. A 50 percent decline would be catastrophic.

My sense is a deflationary depression might keep us closer to 20 or 25 percent whereas a hyperinflationary great depression might take us closer to 50 percent. The concerted efforts to prevent a deflationary depression may ironically be what instead gives us a catastrophic bout of hyperinflation. Very grim times ahead if that happens.

[Joe]

We all can still drive cars! It is just that they need to be small and light until scientists get nuclear fusion power or some yet undiscovered energy source online, and until the we get population reduced to sane levels.

I could design a small electric car that gets the gasoline-equivalent of 1000mpg for $2000. It would sure beat lugging food and supplies on a damn bus or train and wasting precious hours of life on public transit schedules out in the inclement weather.

We just have to get beyond the idea that a car has to do everything. No, it shouldn't be a luxurious crash-perfect shell that goes up to 100mph.

[Joe]

Sorry, ranted a bit too profanely, but I get really upset about having it suggested that we have to revert toward primitiveness.

[LaughingAsRomeWasBurningDown]

A bad JHK column is still worth reading. Learned a new word today, too.

Obloquy: state of disgrace resulting from public abuse.

[LaughingAsRomeWasBurningDown]

Wagoner gets the boot. And all those Dodge Hemi drivers are going to be hearing "Fix it again Tony" jokes.

[we_are_toast]

You most certainly must be sleep deprived. A train to the ski resorts?!

You're talking about people going hungry and living in cardboard boxes and you want to waste resources on a train that will carry the rich to waste more resources at ski resorts?

When you wake up, maybe you'll rethink this.

[Yeoman_Lawyer]

On trains to the slopes, that has been tried from time in this region.

I fully agree with you on your opinion that trains are, or should be, the future of transportation in this country. Specifically, I feel that electric trains should be the future of this country.

The problem with trains to the slopes, however, is that they have been a victim of automobiles and costs so far. Laramie Wyoming, for example, had a nice little short line some 15 years ago that ran to the Snowy Range, where you could then ski. You'd think this would be perfect for a university town, but the short lien couldn't make it.

I suspect we'll see the revival of long lines before short lines. Hauling freight by rail has received a big boost from the high price of diesel. I'd guess we'll see more and more freight moved by rail first, and then passengers later.

[FARfetched]

Oh boy, another prediction? Who's got the score card? All those who mock JHK's travel schedule, you got something to mark down too. Anyway:

June-ish (i.e. "not long after Memorial Day"), the stock market tanks and consumer confidence follows.

Before March 2014 (i.e. "inside of five years"), the airline industry dies.

Meh. The market could go either way in the next 3-4 months. As for the airline industry, I don't see it going completely away in 5 years, but I can see it devolving to long-haul flights for people (or freight) who have to be somewhere far away by tomorrow.

OK, enough silliness. Question for the rest of the peanut gallery, because JHK doesn't respond: should we equate a "20% cut in standard of living" to a 20% reduction in energy usage? I certainly wouldn't equate standard of living (or even energy usage, to a point) to quality of life… I think we'd be happier using less energy: driving fewer miles, using smaller vehicles means lower maintenance and insurance costs (or take the bus & eliminate them entirely!); near-cations keep spending localized, helping the local economy; eating fresh local food is simply healthier.

I think the wildcard nowadays is climate change: the effects are proceeding *beyond* the worst-case scenarios of the official reports. In the FAR Future this week, The Boy found work on a flooded coast: http://is.gd/pDUR

Good week to everyone…

[Helen Highwater]

For someone who thinks we should scale down our travel aspirations and start living locally, Jim sure travels around a lot on airplanes. But he never likes it, so why not stop doing it, Jim? Take your own advice and learn to live locally!

[clevelandbob]

Where can I obtain this yummy "fry-max" you speak of?...

It sounds like a product out of Idiocracy, which JHK, if you haven't seen, you should rent sometime. A few laughs in the movie, but ultimately a poorly made film with a bleak message that maps to your worldview.

Oh! My Balls.

[Chris]

Re mall defaults:
It's on: "The owners of the Mall at The Source in Westbury have defaulted on a $124-million interest-only balloon loan, according to a Manhattan-based firm that tracks commercial mortgage-backed security transactions." http://tinyurl.com/dhw3n6