Russell asked a question

Is it may imagination that a lot of the "waiting for the gloom-and-doom" blog writers seeming to be doing relatively poor economically?. I am curies if their is a casual linkage (in either direction) or just a reflection of general demographics. After all with a 20+% under-employment rate, there are bound to be a few in the crowd.

My guess is that there is a slight causal linkage. Those who are wildly successful within a system are probably the least likely to reject the system. And "gloom-and-doom" blog writers generally not show a great attachment to the current situation.

Russell posited this question in a recent post and I thought about it for long enough that I thought it would be worth a response.

A 20+ percent unemployment is enough to send most folks into the worry-wart mode.  Even if you are employed, you are worried about your job.  I hate to refer to the MSM for anything, and you can take this with a large grain of salt, but CBS News shows that more than 50% of folks are worried about losing jobs. That is my personal experience as well.  Lots of folks are worried.

The only folks who I know who seem to be content with the current situation are my wealthier friends. Lawyers and developers and FIRE types.  They seem to be doing well by things.

On the other side of the slate, I can't really think of anyone outside this arena who feels comfy.   The local government employees see the train a comin'.  My friend the cop is trying to get an early out and go to work part-time for the Fed, Schoolteachers are getting nervous with rejected bonds.  City Government is being cut by 14%.   My buddy just got laid off from his welding job.  My old co-workers just ran out of their 99th week.

I would posit that most gloom and doomers have a similar experience.  Doing well in todays world is a precarious thing.  If you think that you have it made, I would posit that it is an outcome of your profession and personal outlook.  The bankers, government types, insurance, lawyers and such have the system sewn up currently, and are pretty certain that they can ride the horse til' it drops.

The rest of us are seeing a world changing faster than we can comfortably adapt.  We ignored it for a while, as long as the cheap shit from China was coming in and folks were handing out money in exchange for our signatures on a piece of paper.  But those times are gone, and now we are getting down to the brass tacks of figuring out which way the world is heading.  We do this so that we won't get squashed in it's passage.

Search and Seizure

I hope to never get on another airplane.

I hate the idea.  As I have said before, when you have >500,000 frequent flyer miles, the idea of getting on a sheet metal tube awash with jet fuel holds no romance for me.  Yet when I hear the so-called horror stories about the TSA, the best that I can come up with a mildly indignant coupled with a comedy.

You see, I never saw air travel as anything but a big business affectation.  As a rich and spoiled society, we started seeing it as a God-given right to jet off anywhere (usually on a credit card) and be the ugly bourgeois boors for the rest of the world to abhor.

It has gotten downright funny lately.  The planes are huge, but the seats are vanishingly small.  There is way too good a chance that you will be stuck in a tiny aluminum seat next to a big fat fucker such as your truly.  The stewardess are either snippy gay males or bitter old harridans.

When you get to the airport, you were once treated as an inconvenience.  Now you are treated as a potentially dangerous inconvenience.    When you get off, you sprint to get out of the airport as quickly as possible.

And all of this is done for what reason?  Business trips are nearly universally unnecessary.  There is little or nothing that cannot be as well done with phone calls, faxes, or internet.  Vacations are an exercise in dick-matching with the neighbors.  Going somewhere to be in a place other than where you live to show off and forget for a little while how badly your life sucks where you are.   Maybe if we stop gadding about on airplanes flitting to the far side on nowhere, we will spend a little more effort making the place we live better.

So when the TSA feels up some titties or mishandles the odd set of testicles, I say go for it boyos.  The more folks that you convince to stay home, the better for me

I would cheerfully accept a world where the total flights available were 10% of the current total.  We would have less noise, less carbon dioxide injected in the stratosphere, and less net stupidity.  I would be able to see a blue sky again and lie on my back on a clear, bright-blue summer afternoon and watch stardust descend on the world.  

Persistence of Vision

Sometimes one gets locked into a way of thinking. Happens to a greater degree as one begins to age. By the time you are over the hill, your thoughts become ossified. Sometimes when I spend some time with a bottle of red wine, I examine my preconceptions.

Sometimes this is fruitful. Sometimes not. One thing I am certain about though, is that this exercise is the only certain way to allow you to navigate an uncertain world. We are constantly deluged by a wave of facts and opinions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ascertain which is which. It is only through a ruthless and thoughtful culling of our thoughts and goals that we can find our way.

But it seems that this kind of behavior is getting to be increasingly rare. I am having greater difficulty do this essential function as I grow older and more intellectually ossified. I would posit that, as a culture, the collective ability to perform this critical self-evaluation is becoming vanishingly small. I think that this deficit is keyed to the fact that few, if any, of us has ever made a decision with serious consequences.

Oh, we will talk about how tough we have had it, but the truth of the matter is that the greater bulk of us have ever had anything but the good life. We complain bitterly about our lot in life, but the worst that has ever happened to any of us is that we had to take a job and a lifestyle lower on the bragging chain than what we would have preferred.

 There have been astonishingly few people in America starving to death, for the most part the homeless situation is under control. Crime is relatively low. But I think now the decisions are coming with greater and greater consequences. The worst part of the problem is that what appeared to be a good decision in the golden past may have devastating negative repercussions when the rules of the society change.

 There are a lot of folks out there with big, fancy houses and nice that will find that their decisions in an uncertain future may have serious negative consequences. Decisions made in during the reign of a previous world-view have lots and lots of freight attached to them. Many times, with a little work, the decisions can be made good. But it takes constant vigilance to do so, along with a healthy dose of self-examination

Jimmy, Jimmy Jimmy

Posted from the departure lounge, Sydney airport, en route to Perth.... 

This is the last line of a tirade against what we are in America.  Jim Kunstler makes many good points.  His stuff is well written.

Must be nice to be able to rise above the solutions you propose.

It's Thanksgiving Week

I am going to give thanks for all the good things I have.  Spending time here whinging about the way things are doesn't seem part and parcel to this goal.

See you on the 29th.  I'll try to have something worth reading then.

John

I'm spoiling them

My eldest is finally doing a sport.  He is trying on wrestling and doesn't hate it.  Good on him, if there is a sport that teaches mental and physical toughness, it is wrestling.

Last night it was a cold and rainy night here in the PNW.  I went and gave him a ride home. Walking home tired after a 2-hour wrestling practice would really suck.  One moron stated that I was spoiling my children,  giving the same tiresome and untrue story about walking both ways to school when "he was a kid".

I didn't tell him to fuck off.  Maybe I should have

Busy doing stuff

Be back tomorrow night

Zero Sum in Econolalaland

We have built a fairly impressive edifice on the idea of perpetual growth.  6.8 billion people being more or less fed in an adequate manner and alive and kicking to try again tomorrow.  You really do have to look at the effort expended and the results as kind of a miracle.

The miracle is, as such things usually are, based on faith.  We have always felt that there was enough of everything to do what we wished.  This simple faith allowed us to believe in a steady upward path, where the next year we would have more and would be better than the years behind us.  An entire industry/culture grew out of the perfectibility of the human race and our climb to the role of demigods.

But, suppose for a moment, that there are in fact constraints on the inputs supplied by the planet and the materials we use to fuel the material growth.  What if there are limits to the amount of oil in the ground?  What if after pulling down the Iron Range, we find that it is difficult to keep feeding the smelters?  What if the source of rare earth metals decides that it in their best interests to control the extraction and sale of the same in order to allow for growth later on?

Now, our old buddy Kondreitieff kinda thought that the world was a cyclical place.  There have been a bunch of graphs drawn using his ideas and for a long time, they pretty much matched reality.  Up through the great depression, it matched real world data just dandy.  Since then, it has been pretty suspect. 

What I am thinking happened is that the normal readjustments seen on the left side of the graft were successfully short circuited by going off the gold standard back in the 1930's, and then managing a short-term fix with Bretton-Woods and all of the other chicanery (Plaza Accords and other such rot).   Over all, it wasn't a bad run, but it would appear that the fixes are having to be applied fast and furious now.  Holding the edifice together appears to be quite problematic.  

You see, I would posit that economists and politicians forgot that economies and countries have long-term timelines.   The fixes that were put in place were simply overrides of well-established safety controls.  It did allow the machine to increase it's output, but it may have damaged the machine in the process.  

The system has all of the appearances of having this existential crisis.   The system has been allowed to grow out of its bounds.  The question seems to be for a lot of the world is how can we restart growth.  For most of us in the gloomy end of blogoland, the more cogent question is, how do we manage decline.

Obviously,this is not an article written in D.C.

When the Afghans see the truth of the matter better than we do, you realize just how doomed we are over there.  This is nothing but a way for the big brass to add to their chests and egos.

http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article39416

FORD O' KABUL RIVER
Rudyard Kipling

Kabul town's by Kabul river --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
There I lef' my mate for ever,
Wet an' drippin' by the ford.
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    There's the river up and brimmin', an' there's 'arf a squadron swimmin'
       'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town's a blasted place --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
'Strewth I sha'n't forget 'is face
Wet an' drippin' by the ford!
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    Keep the crossing-stakes beside you, an' they will surely guide you
       'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town is sun and dust --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
I'd ha' sooner drownded fust
'Stead of 'im beside the ford.
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    You can 'ear the 'orses threshin', you can 'ear the men a-splashin',
       'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Kabul town was ours to take --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
I'd ha' left it for 'is sake --
'Im that left me by the ford.
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    It's none so bloomin' dry there; ain't you never comin' nigh there,
       'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark?

Kabul town'll go to hell --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
'Fore I see him 'live an' well --
'Im the best beside the ford.
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    Gawd 'elp 'em if they blunder, for their boots'll pull 'em under,
       By the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Turn your 'orse from Kabul town --
Blow the bugle, draw the sword --
'Im an' 'arf my troop is down,
Down an' drownded by the ford.
    Ford, ford, ford o' Kabul river,
       Ford o' Kabul river in the dark!
    There's the river low an' fallin', but it ain't no use o' callin'
       'Cross the ford o' Kabul river in the dark.

Veterans Day

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
—Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

— Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

Getting up is hard to do

Managed to skate a four day weekend out of this week.  No one in my office had noticed that friday was available.  I only noticed when I asked my boss who was off so that I could figure out what extra I needed to do.  When she told me no one had asked for it, I went at it like a ferret goes after a baby chipmunk.

Gotta gut through today.  That really isn't that hard, just plow the field.  Work Steady, make sure all the furrows are straight.  Keep going.  Go home.

Gotta turn back entropy at the homestead.  Lots of stuff to do there.  Little maintenance things and the ongoing housework.

Gonna think about the precious metals thing that has been going on lately.  Silver at $28.00 having seen $29.00?  That bears some thought.  The Fed seems bound and determined that the world will conform to its models.  The idea of someone just casually spending 600 billion of money that doesn't exist is not one that gives a sentient being a warm fuzzy feeling.

The fact that they just keep tossing these big bales of cash on the fire is one that should give us all pause.  It is a clear and obvious warning that shit is heading south.  I don't pretend for a minute that I know exactly what is coming down the pike.  I could care less about the theories running around about the plutocracy and new world order and rich fuckers screwing the welfare queens.

Nope, it is just another sign that winter is coming.  Time to finish work and get the harvest in.

Looks like a cold year ahead.

Doomy Bloggers

You know guys (mayberry, busted, hermit, simba, handmaiden, meadowlark, russell, and all the other folks out there.  It might be that we are just 'arold.

Small

A small country has fewer people.
Though there are machines that can work ten to a hundred times faster than man, they are not needed.
The people take death seriously and do not travel far.
Though they have boats and carriages, no one uses them.
Though they have armor and weapons, no one displays them.
Men return to the knotting of rope in place of writing.
Their food is plain and good, their clothes fine but simple, their homes secure;
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.

Lao Tse

Tao Te King #80 

I would really like to head up my buddy Locutius' place this week for a well deserved break from squeezing all the blood out of the turnips.  But I have a feeling that the turnips have more for me to do.   In a way, I am a living example of the changes to lifestyle that most of us will have to bringing on line in the next little while.  The big dogs like Kunstler and Greer and other such folks speak glowingly of "localization", this is what that noble sounding little phase means.

Localization is what you do when you don't have access to the coin or the easy debt that allows to to take off whenever you wish to go somewhere.  Localization means spending a couple of hours weatherstripping and fixing the door seal on your beat up old refrigerator.  Localization means that you have to keep the old car running longer than its shelf life so money goes into tires and maintenance.  Localization means that since vegetables are getting ungodly expensive, you have to go out and dig in the compost and manure for next years planting.

You know, what localization really means is that you live within your means.  Now as usual in the world, the means for folks are different.  Five years ago, my means were a lot better, I wasn't as constrained as I am now.  There are a lot of folks out there who are still living that.  But more and more of us are moving a couple of rungs down the ladder.  That means that we are becoming more local.

I think that one of the reasons that I get so impatient with the folks who spout the benefits of "localization" is that these big boys really aren't "localized".  They jump on planes to go speak with folks at meetings (Most of these which draw attendants from all over the world who flew to the conference).

They preach the local thing, but their frequent flyer miles would tell another story.  In my less than charitable moments, I wonder if us "just folks" here in flyover territory who are being forced against our wills, into the dreams that they themselves are unwilling to live, are anything but picturesque stage props for their ascent into sage/philosopher status

Hey survivalchick

I wanna read too....can I join the club?

Monetary Bullshit and Economic Madrasah's

Not paying attention to the political/economic world around you is akin to not looking both ways before you cross the street.  

But, like keeping your awareness about you while walking around, it doesn't give you the power to effect others, it just gives you sufficient warning to dodge the mess, it can't make the mess go away.

That being said, I am going to mock the fools at the Austrian/Friedman/dipshit school.  As an aside, and as the good quip for the day, I am here and now proposing that we change the nomenclature for economic theory.  Instead I propose that instead of schools, we begin referring to them as madrasah's.  It seems to fit better with the mystic, argumentative, and bullshit laden lack of reality known as economics.

"Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output"

No laddies, inflation is when the prices of everything go up and the amount on money you make to buy them stays the same.  Inflation is caused by running out of the oil that we use for feedstock and having to compete for what is left with the rest of the world.  Inflation is caused by getting rid of our jobs to other countries then shipping the now-foreign products back here.  
Inflation is caused by wars and guns and butter and taking too much.

These idiotic ideologues who wan to masturbate with their charts and theories and too-glib explanations miss the one critical point.  Inflation is caused by the entire country living too large for too long and coming to expect everything as their own due.  

Inflation will go away, but everyone will have to take a lot less...and that is always a recipe for revolt.   

Long winded, but worth a watch

So now the Republicans

They're back.

Nothing will change.

No one will address the core issues of industrial decline, overpopulation, or kleptocracy. 

Not in the cards.  The kabuki theatre will continue for a while, waiting for a dramatic turn.  Attacks on the dollar will continue, the inflation rate will go up because that is the only thing left to do. 

There aren't any good answers left.  The piper is at the door with his hand out.

Where's Herbert Hoover?

The calorie is obsolete

Most of us tend to think of it as something to avoid.  The calories in that chocolate cake that you are eyeballing in the line at the cafeteria: the calories in that one-more slice of pizza lying in its box on the kitchen counter.

But you have to think harder about these pesky things (the first thing that you have to think about is that the calorie that you are so used to dealing with is actually a kilocalorie, but that is beside the point).   As you sit in your warm kitchen on a brisk fall day, you should begin to recognize the overarching importance of this sadly obsolete unit of measurement.

We sit in our warm homes and fret about our bank accounts, a phenomenon that is four or five degrees of separation from reality, perhaps we had better look at a more basic level in our lives.

Lets talk instead of joules.  Still the same kind of thing.  The reason that I want to  talk about this term instead of the archaic calorie is that you can start thinking about the basis of our personal survival and cultural well-being.  The number of joules (amount of energy) that we use to operate our overweening society is staggering.  The number of joules that we use to provide what we consider basic life is getting to be un-doable.   We have to seriously cut back on the amount of energy that we use.

Everybody talks about this, everybody has their little pipe dreams about how they can keep their toys and "lifestyle" and all the accouterments of the dying scheme.  But the way that things are running, with money running out and oil running out and the piper at the door demanding payment, the end point is that everyone will be doing with a lot less.

Hence the joule.  You are going to have a lot less of these available soon.  Better get used to that little nip of reality.  You had better have a serious plan for stretching your allotment (I won't say share, that implies something else entirely). 

I am not voting tomorrow

There is no office or ballot initiative where there is a good answer.  Damned if you do/damned if you don't is the order to the day.

Why Bother.