[eastbay]

On my first day on the job ...

1. I would urge the president to stop the biggest mis-allocation of farming resources in the history of humanity. I'm talking about corn grown for ethanol and corn syrup. Almost none is grown for actual human nutritional needs which is where farming production needs to be directed.

2. I would urge all factory animal production cease because it wastes too much energy resources.

3. I would accompany the above with a $5.00 per kilo tax on all animal products including fish, poultry, beef, pork or any other harvested animal product such as leather goods as a means to conserve energy.

4. I would suggest a permanent ban on converting farmland, forest, parks, swamps or any other such land to roads, housing development, military, factory, or any use other than farming.

5. I would suggest all ongoing oil wars stop immediately since they are a colassal waste of energy, lives, and money while gaining no benefit to the nation.

6. I would urge the President begin an emergency $1.00 per gallon gasoline tax increasing monthly by $1.00 until the tax reaches $12.00 per gallon. This will quickly and permanently phase out all energy wasting personal transportation vehicles.

7. I would urge an emergency stop to all legal immigration for a period of 10 years, yup all of it including asylum and refugee seekers, nearly all of whom flee for purely economic reasons. It would be accompanied by real border enforcement designed to stop all (yup, all) illegal immigration rather than the fake smoke and mirrors enforcement we now have which allows around 1,000,000 to illegally gain entry each year.

8. I would suggest making all urban public transportation free, but only available during peak use hours, say from 5am to 10pm. This would be financed by the gasoline tax.

9. I would suggest a tax on commercial air travel starting at 10 cents per mile and increasing by another 10 cents per mile for a period of one year. A coast to coast air fare would increase by about $3,000 which will greatly reduce air travel and it's fuel waste.

10. I would suggest a federal income tax credit up to $1,000 per person for bicycle purchases.

11. I would suggest the USA adopt a one-child policy including mandatory fertility stopping surgery for both mother and father following the birth of every child. This will be accompanied by harsh economic penalties and hard labor for any violations.

12. I would recommend the President begin a very powerful public relations campaign to counter the protesting this will create focusing on the historically unprecedented situation and how difficult life would be if these measures were not initiated.

[kochevnik]

It struck me last night -

Assuming Dr. B is correct (and I believe he most probably is) then all seven of the things I posted as Presidential 'recommendations' are going to happen whether they are 'recommended' or not. Furthermore if you look closely enough, many of these (or at least the seeds of them) are occuring already.

Examples :

1) Housing - consolidation into the cities will be a prime force. People will move into the cities because that is where the few remaining jobs will be. People will move into the cities because they cannot afford to waste what little money they make on transportation. People will move into the cities because the economies of the small towns will collapse first because they are more fragile and dependent on cheap gas and (usually) one major local employer/industry.

2) Transport - Personal tranport will diminish significantly, mainly because of people moving into the cities, Those that remain in the 'country' will consolidate their trips - several families may cram into one big pickup and do all their shopping for a month. Local bus lines will pop up - much like South America today - why would you pay $100 for a trip into town when you can take the bus for $5. Govt will raise taxes and fees to such an extent that only the well off will be able to afford a car.

3) No more immigrants. When all those 'service' jobs disappear because of a collapsing economy - immigrants will become a despised class - all the H1B's and illegals will get the message and head for home. Read your history - look at some of the laws that were passed and mass deportations that took place during the 1930's - happened before - it'll happen again. Also look for a huge flood of illegals in 5 years as Cantarell collapses. Immigrants (illegal or not) taking jobs from citizens will not be tolerated in a depression.

4) Free housing, free food, drugs, emphasis on entertainment. The govt will be forced to provide massive welfare to those in need. Either they feed those soccer mom's or there will be revolution. Today's weak-minded, dependent, pissed off Americans are not going to take the collapse as well as they did in the 1930's. As for drugs, consider that some large number of people today are being treated with anti-depressants (look for the poll done here on that subject). If the pills stop people from revolting, the pills will be free (or very low cost).

5) One child. During economic collapse the birthrate plummets - again look at the 1930's (or Russia today).

6) Military - they will be recalled - again, because at some point the people will revolt against the NeoCons eternal plans for expanding empire. Too expensive economically and politically to continue during an oil induced depression. The Chinese are not going to pay for our overseas adventures much longer.

7) Shopping - will disappear because conspicuous consumption will come to be a sign of callousness and indifference to the suffering most will be experiencing. Furthermore, the more one has/displays, the bigger they will be as targets for thieves.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'G')uys...I'm all for having fun...but you DO realize that these responses suggest that there is no solution other than dieoff. That's probably not something the politicians can embrace.

Which means we'll have a crash as hard as can be.

I do believe I'm going to need to increase my doomerosity.

[HEADER_RACK]

" Mr. President, You're in a hell of a bind "

1st I would recomend cutting the work week to 4 ,10 to 12 hour work days instead of 5, 8 hour days. On that 5th day create a national no driving day,except for offical and emercency use only. Trucking would also be allowed under certain curcumstances. No vehicle use on any days from 10pm to 5 am.

In the large metro areas place buisinesses in districts with different starting and quiting times. To free up congestion so people aren't wasting fuel sitting in gridlock not going anywhere. Run a campain to promote car pooling , and greater use of mass transit.

In the smaller cities . Those school busses that pick up kids and take them to school can now pass earlier and pick up adults for work then make their school run for kids.

Gas rationing has to be done start at 25 gal a week. Thats about a tank per week and should promote people to use their cars in the most effecient manner and will urge drive only when need to attitudes.

Run an aggresive campain to have people use their lawns for vegetable gardens. like the victory gardens in WW2. Get with the media companies to run programs showing peole the how tos and what not on gardening and canning. Make any purchases for gardening equip. and supplies tax deductible.

Start a recycling of food and grass clipping program for mass commerial composting to try and replace some of the fertilizers we will soon be doing without.
Set up solar and wind power on all comerical farming operations at once. Have all farm equip set up to run on elec.motors.
Make all new homes being built meet a higher energy effecient standard. Have tax deductions for people installing solar panels for their home.

That 9% unemployed we put them to work. Need to have massive rebuilding of the infrastucture. Need to build maglev rail lines throught the country as well as solar and wind farms. They don't want to work take them off unemployment. Use the power of imminent domain to cut through all the red tape and all that NIMBY BS.

Basicaly we need to move our consumption of oil from being majorly personal transportaion to more of a using it to rebuild our infrastucture to run on elec.

But it will never work and we are doomed so be happy that you might go down in history as the last President of the once United States.

[smallpoxgirl]

Screw all that politics crap. I've got the President's ear! There's only one logical thing to do. Sell it on E-Bay, invest the money in oil futures, and I'll be set for life!

[Chaparral]

Getting a greater percentage of the population back in the business of food production rather than superfluous services would be important. This combined with the perilous dependence of agriculture on fossil fuel inputs would motivate me to:

1) direct the prez to confer with the cultural elites and opinion makers and commence the following: Make gardening the hip new thing. Glorify it on TV, in movies, in song and in popular culture in general.

2) Develop a permaculture curriculum based on the numerous models in existence in every high school and community college across the land. Have it operational within two semesters. Marshall all gov't resources to have the soil amendments brought in and the area for teaching/planting jack-hammered out of the parking lot.

2.1) A corollary to #2 would be the necessary trade skills to support a localized economy: cobblers, weavers, blacksmiths etc. The knowledge base for that would have to expand exponentially across the land.

3) Give major but temporary tax credits to urban and suburbanites who move back to small towns and farming regions to start their next careers as small farmers(gardeners...however one wants to spin the permaculture paradigms into a large scale relocation).

3.1) As unemployment and bank foreclosures rise, have a gov't run clearinghouse established to shift bank-owned farmland to help aspiring small holders who would build or haul a house onto the place and commence farming. Maybe the land could be free and gov't loans could be established for the move and the buildings and stock.

3.1) What size homestead? Maybe a combination of eminent domain and mortgage relief would be neccessary to carve up the giant parcels of industrial scale farmers into 5 or 10 or 20 acre plots common in the pre-fossil fuel days of farming.

3.2) Develop an easily maintainable rail network to service all the newly repopulated regions. Instead of vast stretches of paved county roads, state hwys and interstates servicing a place like central Wisconsin for example, have a system of passenger and freight rail that runs at specific times (say, Eau Claire to Minneapolis: once daily, Eau Claire to Escanaba; once a week-there are others better able to sort this out than myself)

3.3) untenable regions like the desert southwest, LA-LA land, the high plains should be abandoned to the Bison. Perhaps a whole group of people could make their living as nomadic herders.

3.3.1) Marginal lands close to the farming regions but still unsuitable for farming could still be used for protein and wool production. Make sheep/goat herding a viable livelihood for those so inclined.

All of this presupposes the plans of Kochevnik and others are also enacted in some form. Population and border control, rationing, outlawing of certain commonly accepted practices, an end to military adventurism and isolationism will all have to coincide.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'S')crew all that politics crap. I've got the President's ear! There's only one logical thing to do. Sell it on E-Bay, invest the money in oil futures, and I'll be set for life!

[Jack]

Seriously, there are a lot of good ideas in these posts.

If (gigantic if) at least some were implemented, it could soften the crash. Ahh, but will politicians ever exhibit such wisdom and leadership?

(Silly question. We all know the answer.)

[steam_cannon]

Very brilliant scenario kochevnik

Sounds a lot like Russian planned communist society and a very good everyone could live scenario. But now I'm going to poke at it. The first problem would be getting people to live like that. It would require a lot of soma(brave new world - drugs to make people comply).

"Shopping, stores and 'buying' things is outlawed." This also sounds a lot like government controlled industry creating needful things for peoples daily living, as was the soviet model. I think their present form of open markets work better though and will be seen here the future.

Also moving people into tiny cities is a nice idea, but would be seen as being moved into a prison by most. The only way I think that could be achieved would be though "Substance D" making most people criminals. Or fear of radiation or bio-weapons remnants in the environment, like the movie "The Island" to could scare people into compliance.

Also about that scenario, I think intellectual jobs might face lower wages and less social status then sewer diggers. During the communist revolution the intellectuals were blamed for problems as well as seen as less important then strong men working in the field. Also an attitudes seen in NAZI Germany. Presently the southern US has similar attitudes against intellectuals. And computer programming is something of a dieing field. As software piles up, less people need programmers.

I met many people who worked as sellers in open markets who were scientists before the crash of the SU. So all together, I wouldn't bet intellectual jobs will fair too well in the event of crashing economies. But what we might see is that you need a college degree to get a job as a waiter, as some collapse stories I've heard in Ukraine suggest. And Kunstler has wrote that, poor jobs will likely go to people who made the effort to get degrees.

Those are my thoughts anyway...

[steam_cannon]

Ok, I will Imagine I've got the ear of the new President

I guess I would present to the president how the people in the Soviet Union survived and suggest encouraging initiatives to at least match that survival scenario.

I would tell that person that we need to encourage gardening by opening plots of parkland for locals and for city dwellers. And I would recommend the government buy public land and reallocate it for recreational gardening "Victory Gardens". And I would recommend using professional solderers on farms instead of in foreign wars, including compulsory service if necessary for scale.

I would recommend encouraging gardeners to sell their goods, by making laws that stores shelf x amount of local goods. I would recommend loosening laws that keep people from selling goods on the streets. Such as providing inexpensive market booths for sellers.

And suggest selling the idea as being energy-independent/pro-jobs/green/pro-environment... And never use the wording that "because we have no other choice". People never like that reason.




But, I doubt any of those recommendations would be implemented as we are on the path of grab the resources with war and drive until we run out of road.

[careinke]

It's simple. All of our problems are due to over consumption.

1. Eliminate all forms of taxation, except for a relatively high tax on all new consumption.

2. Decide what is the minimum amount of consumption is required to live, and pay a monthly prebate to each each individual that is enough to cover the taxes on that amount of consumption. In effect, you pay a high tax on everything you consume after your basic necessities. Make this prebate only payable to US citizens over the age of 18 (discourages having a lot of kids).

3. Do not tax used items when they are resold.

4 Eliminate the social security tax and fund it with the consumption tax. Make the social security payments the same for all recipients (The poverty level)

Results:

A. Does not penalize people from making more money.

B. Does penalize people for consuming resources.

C. Aliens pay taxes too.

D. Encourages recycling.

E. Makes it more economical to buy long lasting products and not throw away products.

F. Companies have a tax advantage to stay in the US (No corporate taxes).

G. Organic farming becomes cheaper while petroleum based farming becomes more expensive.

H. Build it/grow it yourself makes more sense than buying it.

I. Locally grown/made products become more competitive.

Cliff (Start a revolution, grow a garden)

[RonMN]

OK...I'll paly along with Jacks original post.

Now, assuming this president really wants to address the issue of PO, I would have to assume he's trying his best to minimize die-off.

With that said...

Mr. President...Fred...We have to announce this to the public...BUT NOT RIGHT NOW!

First, we need to keep printing money & keep the oil flowing in.

We need to institute a farming soil build-up by paying SMALL farmers to plant things like alphalfa & setting up huge composting bins.

Next, on arbour day, we use propaganda to get all Americans to plant a fruit or nut tree along every major highway, road-way & avenue, every turn pike & clover-leaf...then we have a folow-up team plant where the citizens missed. We also re-institute "victory gardens".

We secretely (by Presidental mandate) force all new construction that possibly can...to have 2 or more levels of sub-basement (earth shelter). We use propaganda/tax incentives/secret subsidies to get people to install wood burning stoves in their homes/businesses. We also start buying massive amounts of wool blankets & -30 degree tents (that will be used for peoples shelters along every highway).

When it's time to announce it to the public (and the world), we will (by presidential mandate) announce PO as a whole, as well as NOBODY can now be evicted or foreclosed on, no-matter what. And we teach everybody thru WWW.READY.GOV (and a mass mailing) that cattails, acorns, and dandelions are eadible...how to filter/boil water to make it drinkable...How to make a debris shelter out of sticks & leaves. To hell with the economy...us Americans are GOING TO SURVIVE! It's that American CAN-DO spirit! We QUICKLY educate the public as to their needs.

SHELTER
WATER
Fire
Food (in that order).

Hopefully all hunters & fisherman will "pitch in" and provide some local meat.

Yes...it's a pipedream...too many dem's Vs. Repubs out there for this to actually happen...but i said i would play along