[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', '
')
I don't think the majority of people know what they are capable of anymore.Some of us really have lost ourselves but now its also unfashionable to re-find it.

[Ludi]

Roxoanne, is that everywhere in your country or just in your township/district/county?

[mentmush]

I'm pretty new to the idea of peak oil, but have been interested in homesteading and simple living for a while. my family and i have been researching and practicing many aspects of homesteading, and i feel confident that we would be okay without fossil fuels.

However, I know that most people won't make the transition willingly or easily. That's what scares me. Not to mention the power that the government has to confiscate property (even greater powers in emergencies).

I hope this doesn't seem off topic. I've been reading all of the posts about the coming depression, and this is what kept coming to mind, how this depression will affect people's psychology.

[Grimnir]

An article in the LA Times today shows that inflation is outpacing salaries.

Wages Lagging Behind Prices

Some relevant excerpts:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')or the first time in 14 years, the American workforce has in effect gotten an across-the-board pay cut.

The growth in wages in 2004 and the first two months of this year trailed inflation, compounding the squeeze from higher housing, energy and other costs.

...

But higher wages could hurt the economy by stoking inflation further. Employers might pass the costs on to consumers in higher prices, and that in turn might prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates more aggressively, possibly slowing the recovery or even triggering a recession.

...

As Chartier loaded bags of groceries into his Honda Civic last week, he boasted that they were full of bargains. "I don't get a single thing that's not on sale," Chartier said. "I can't afford to anymore."

Despite the failure of their wages to keep pace with inflation, American consumers have kept shopping. Consumer spending has continued to rise. Analysts say that's partly because some shoppers are thinking less about their paychecks and more about their biggest asset: their homes. [D'oh!]

...

"There's been a wealth effect afoot throughout much of the recession and the recovery," said Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, "because no matter what people's incomes were doing, their wealth was improving — their biggest assets, their homes, were accruing."

...

The danger is that people like Swatz, despite their home equity cushion, may pull the rug out from under the economic expansion by reining in their spending.

[Sunspot]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', 'T')he world used the war to get out of the depression last time. It would be a seductive way to do so again, with the added benefit of decreaseing the population. Anyone care to guess who the target of the next world war would likely be?

[ehv_nl]

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/search.ph ... int&id=117

Another read on the GD.

BTW, has it occurred to someone here that during the last winter of WW2 there was a famine in the Netherlands? Its northern parts were still occpied territory during that cold winter, and the Germans forbade travel for some time after there was a railroadstrike. It resulted in 30 000 deaths, mainly in the large cities. I think people should take a look into that too, since the famine itself seems to be due to failed transportation. The interesting part with regard to PO is the transportation factor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongerwinter

[ehv_nl]

On the subject of growing your own food. There is more to it that just planting seeds. Many vegetables, escpecially potatoes and quite some cabbage varieties are very susceptible to all kinds of diseases, to wit potatoe blight and clubroot. Both diseases are stubborn and in hard hit years yields may be far below what you need. Potatoes are very good tilth though, since they can be kept for quite some time during harsh winters and do contain vitamin C. Same goes for sauerkraut, made from cabbage.

I think the lessons learned from the past are that you need to adjust to natural circumstances, whether you have a garden or not. Buying potatoes to last a wintertime in the autumn, when they are cheap, might very well be as smart a survival idea as growing your own.

[MonteQuest]

A very good read.

What Made the Next Depression Worse

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t would be very easy to drum up a scenario in which the US economy falls into a tailspin, with the dollar losing its position as the world standard, interest rates soaring, housing prices collapsing, inflation taking off, and the economy left with few means of recovery given the high debt load and low savings rate of the American family. Whether and to what extent this is a likely scenario I do not know, but it does seem clear that until something is done to stop the spending and debt generated by Washington, D.C., there will be a high price to pay.

[creg]

In " Post Peak; The Slow Decline" Monte wrote,"One caveat; if peak oil is already here, Katy bar the door". It has seemed to me since I learned of peak oil that, when Wall Street becomes aware of peak oil the Stock Market would crash,period! In fact even the perception I would think would cause a crash. Reasonable thinking? Back to Monte's quote, I presume you are referring to actual prices slamming the markets, not to just the fear factor. To me it seems we are- have been in slow decline-as others here do,but I can't see how we will not have collapse/crash(s) early in peak awareness by the markets. Also I thought this without knowing the seriousness of the info about debt, printing $,etc. Too pessimistic? So I think I see two major factors,market problems and peak oil,either could cause a crash. It would be like me studying the load a bridge would take( and being near/on/ under the bridge) and being very concerned but maybe/probably it would hold for now ; then finding twice the load was coming!!!

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('creg', 'I')n " Post Peak; The Slow Decline" Monte wrote,"One caveat; if peak oil is already here, Katy bar the door". It has seemed to me since I learned of peak oil that, when Wall Street becomes aware of peak oil the Stock Market would crash,period! In fact even the perception I would think would cause a crash. Reasonable thinking?

[Revi]

The dow is just about to crest over the psychologically important 11,000 mark. Will it start south again after the X-mas shopping season? Will high energy prices cause a crash in the spring? Or will we stumble along until next October, always a bad month for the stock market? It seems like whatever we do, the inevitable is coming.

[grabby]

What are the odds of finding a giant field now?

[Revi]

If we all started now we could use a quater of the oil we are using now, thus quadrupling supplies. 1000 watts per square meter hits every part of the earth whenever the sun shines. We could all live off of incoming solar radiation. People wouldn't be able to live the same wasteful lifestyle, but they would be able to live in a smaller space, eat lower on the food chain, ride mass transport and communicate via the internet. We just lack the will to create a sustainable future.

[dbarberic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', ' ')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')eemed to have just enough food to eat...no leftovers...had to eat everything on our plate.

[Curmudgicus]

MonteQuest has a way of generating some good topics for discussion. Hats off, man.

If you want to get a good feel for the American experience of the Depression, read Studs Terkel's Hard Times. You'll find everything from starvation to people who didn't even notice there was a problem.

I have one minor point of disagreement over the intial conditions described in this thread for the Depression; that the 20's were a prosperous time. They were prosperous for the fortunate, but actually nearly 60% of the US population during the 20's lived below what was then considered to be the poverty line. That's because the Depression began on the farms in 1919 and never left.

The debt levels the average American has now dwarfs those that people carried in the 20's, and far fewer people own their homes outright. The economic collapse could easily be far more severe this time around.

Most people do agree that WWII ended the Depression by forcing Keynsian spending on the part of the government. Our leaders still don't officially buy into Keynes. There are more than a few people who think that our war in Iraq is to make Bush's economy seem more robust than it is.

[threadbear]

Hard Times--Studs Terkel--an oral history

http://www.studsterkel.org/htimes.php

Thanks Curmudgicus. This is what I've been looking for. The Depression was due in large part to wealth accumulating in a small reservoir at the top that fuelled a pump and dump stock market. Amazing that laid off workers internalized the cronie capitalist hokum of their day and turned against themselves rather than the band of manipulators who toyed with their lives and livlihoods

Now we have people who have gone one step further and turned political failure into personal spiritual failure. New Agers respond to job loss by meditating harder. For neo-N.Age fascists the "you create your own reality", or "you chose it", works handily to condemn others, diverting the focus away from the source problem, which again, radiates from the top.

For the more conservative crowd we have the motivational speaker guru who indoctrinate true believers with the idea that force of will and attitude can change anything. The idiot twin ideologies dovetail neatly and help buttress several decades of corporate disinformation.

I wonder how all of it will break down? Will the "spritual" crowd passively accept corporate prisons for debtors, as a way people can work off karmic as well as mortgage debt? I'd say very likely, yes. But their inner children will freak if it happens to them personally, and then you may see some fireworks.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Curmudgicus', '[')smilie=5geezer.gif]

MonteQuest has a way of generating some good topics for discussion. Hats off, man.

[RacerJace]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('creg', '.').. when Wall Street becomes aware of peak oil the Stock Market would crash,period! In fact even the perception I would think would cause a crash. Reasonable thinking?

[Curmudgicus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have one minor point of disagreement over the intial conditions described in this thread for the Depression; that the 20's were a prosperous time. They were prosperous for the fortunate, but actually nearly 60% of the US population during the 20's lived below what was then considered to be the poverty line. That's because the Depression began on the farms in 1919 and never left.

[creg]

I have talked to my 3 neighbors,late 70's&mid 90's about the depression.They were agarian so they had basics. The thing they remember most was NO money.Not even for a coke. At times the vegatables they normally sold at the market had to be thrown away.They ate alot of rabbit and squirrel.Only one of a no. of banks survived and he did business on a very careful personal basis. That the depression was ended by the war, their experience fits this as they remember it lasting thru the 30's then the rationing of the war. "you had to have a stamp for everything,flour sugar,gas,and even can goods".