[deMolay]

The boy has a way with words........ The Coming Siege of Austerity By James Howard Kunstler for ClusterFuck Nation.
Editor's Note: Jim's last two books "World Made by Hand" and "The Long Emergency" are now available at deep discounts via Amazon. -Matt
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')'s a curious symptom of the consensus trance zombifying the American public and its auditors in the media that something like a "recovery" is now deemed to be underway. And, as events compel me to repeat in this space, it begs the question: recovery to what? To Wall Street booking stupendous profits by laundering "risk" out of bad loans with new issues of tranche-o-matic securitized paper? This I doubt, since there isn't a pension fund left from San Jose to Bratislava that would touch this stuff with a stick, even if it could be turned out in collector's editions of boxed sets. Does it mean that American "consumers" (so-called) are awaited momentarily in the flat-screen TV sales parlors with their credit cards fanned-out like poker hands, ready for "action?" Not too likely with massive non-performance out in cardholder-land, and half the nation's electronics inventory wending its way onto Craig's List. Are we expecting more asteroid belts of new suburbs carved in the loamy outlands of Dallas and Minneapolis, complete with new highway strips of Big Box shopping and Chuck E. Cheeses? Go to banking's intensive care unit and inquire (if you can) among the flat-lining production home-builders and the real estate investment trusts on life support when they expect to rev up the heavy equipment.

The idea that we're about to resume the insane behavior that induced the current epochal malaise of economy is so absurd it will only be heard in the faculty dining halls of the Ivy League. And if America is not picking up where it left off eighteen months ago -- the orgy of spending future claims on wealth unlikely to accrue -- then what is our destiny? Based on what's out there in the organs of public thinking, it seems that we don't want to think about it.

So many forces are arrayed against a return to the previous "normal" that we will be lucky, in another eighteen months, to still find ourselves speaking English and celebrating Christmas. What's "out there" is a panorama of mutually reinforcing critical problems pertaining to how we live on this continent. Like the obesity, heart disease, and diabetes that plague the public, these problems are disorders of lifestyle habits and the only possible "cure" is a comprehensive revision of lifestyle. With the onset of spring weather and the cheez doodles and monster truck rallies and Nascar tailgate barbeques and the drive-in beer emporiums all beckoning, can the public public shift its attention from these infantile preoccupations to saving its own ass?

So far, the most striking piece of the economic fiasco is the absence of any galvanizing spirit among the millions getting crushed in the tragic unwind of our relations with money. It will be interesting to see, for instance, if there is any uproar over the evolving story of Goldman Sachs's latest raid on the US Treasury, after booking billions in taxpayer-funded payouts funneled through AIG, based on double-hedged credit default swaps. Such magic tricks are understandably hard to follow, but a dozen-or-so federal attorneys with a middling background in differential calculus might suss out the trail that leads from Ben Bernanke's work station to Lloyd Blankfein's cappuccino machine.

Something similar may be said in regard to revelations last week of White House economic advisor Larry Summers' connection with a number of hedge funds shoveling millions into his deep pockets for showing up once a week to cheerlead their "innovations" -- not to mention his shadowy visits to the Goldman Sachs gravy train even after he signed onto the Obama campaign. As long as the stock markets seem to rally -- no matter what else is really going on in America -- nobody will pay much attention to these disgusting irregularities.

Since it is that time of year, and I am haunting the gardening shop, one can't fail to notice the many styles of pitchforks for sale. My guess is that the current mood of public paralysis will dissolve in a blur of blood and spittle sometime between Memorial Day and July Fourth, even with Nascar in full swing, and the mushrooming ranks of the unemployed lost in raptures of engine noise and fried cornmeal. It doesn't take too many determined, pissed-off people to create a lot of mischief in a complex society.

On the agenda in the second quarter of '09 are ominous rumblings in the oil and food sectors. Half a year of cratered oil prices have decimated the oil industry and we're driving at 100-miles-an-hour straight off a cliff into a new kind of supply crisis -- even if industrial production and global exports remain moribund. So many drilling rigs are being decommissioned that the oil industry itself looks like it's preparing for its own death, investment in exploration and discovery has withered with the credit markets, and the world may never recover from the year long hiccup in oil industry activity -- translation: peak oil is biting back now with a vengeance. Its peakness will look peakier and the yawning arc of depletion beyond will look steeper and pose a threat to every globalized and continental-scale enterprise in the known world.

So many dire elements are ranging around our food production system (i.e. farming), from widespread drought and water table depletion to "input" shortages (especially fertilizers) to sickness in credit availability, that we're all one bad harvest away from something that will make Pieter Bruegel-the-elder's "Triumph of Death" look like Vanity Fair's annual Oscar Party in comparison.

Barack Obama, charming as he is, had better drop his pretensions about kick-starting the old consumer economy, fire the Wall Street clowns and parasites who are running that futile exercise, and start preparing a US Lifeboat Economy aimed at reducing the scale and scope of our outlays so we can survive the coming siege of austerity. Meanwhile, I'm glad that he finally got a dog for the White House, because the President knows full-well where to turn in Washington if you want some genuine love and affection.

[Schmuto]

Seems to still be fairly high on Obama.

Oh well, you can take the liberal out of the city, but you can't take the liberal out of the liberal, no matter how strong the evidence that the latest and greatest incarnation of the great-left-hope is really just Bush the 3rd.

[Kristen]

He's right though. Everything that we associate our lives with is a complete grotesque fairy tale. People are paralyzed in fear. I am completely alone.

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'H')e's right though. Everything that we associate our lives with is a complete grotesque fairy tale. People are paralyzed in fear. I am completely alone.

[Concerned]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cbxer55', 'I') generally do not like Kuntsler. (mis-spelling intentional)
But his last couple have been pretty good,
and on the spot. Hope he stays that way awhile.
When he goes back to being his old-ass-self,
I'll tune out again.

[Schmuto]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schmuto', 'S')eems to still be fairly high on Obama.

Oh well, you can take the liberal out of the city, but you can't take the liberal out of the liberal, no matter how strong the evidence that the latest and greatest incarnation of the great-left-hope is really just Bush the 3rd.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Schmuto', 'B')ecause of everything I've read that the guy has written. I think he was a common liberal who had a peak-oil revelation, and now he's an uncommon liberal.

[dinopello]

Duplicate. I keep hitting quote instead of edit!

[dinopello]

I agree, pstarr. Labels are for the lazy, the bumper sticker crowd. I mean, we are all lazy sometimes (I often am) and use a shorthand description for something that really deserved a more nuanced treatment. But, the problem is it has replaced civil discourse in making policy, at least in most places, which is what self-governing politics requires to work. Many people on this site make the point that it is "them" doing it to "us" - that is, politicians or elites trying to divide us with false dichotomy. It's true to an extent, but citizens enable it by being basically lazy. It is a lot of work and a lot of time to listen to the multitude of views on any issue and even more work to craft a public policy and have it reviewed and critiqued and rewritten and tested in practice and reviewed and revised etc. And then, someone new moves in and says "what the heck is this" and you rehash the whole thing. We do this constantly on hundreds of policies that govern my county and we actually have probably one of the highest participation from citizens of any county in the US. That's what makes it hard for everyone involved (the participation of many) but also (I think) what leads to better policies that can be supported or at least accepted and sustained. I wouldn't have understood this (and I'm doing a poor job explaining) had I not participated for the last 15 years in it.

[Kristen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kristen', 'H')e's right though. Everything that we associate our lives with is a complete grotesque fairy tale. People are paralyzed in fear. I am completely alone.

[Serial_Worrier]

How does Kuntsler have any credibility when he's borderline obese himself? He's obviously partakes in the food products of this "doomed civilization" a bit too much.

Also what is it with him stereotyping all Americans? Not all of us go to "beer gardens" and "monster truck rallies". He seems to assign all of us to redneck status.

[deMolay]

In the age of Austerity, there will be no public money for your favourite artsy fartsy, the entitlement programs will end. Those that cannot work and produce will not eat. The promises and lies of big Gubmint will not happen. Obama's Promised Land will see you following a crows ass for your next meal.

[Ludi]

Seems to me if you think the civilization is doomed you might want to partake of it as much as possible - eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow we may die!


If you expect the future to be austere, why wouldn't you want to enjoy yourself now while you can?

[Revi]

Kunstler is a good writer and can put out a quality rant.

He is the one who finally wrote about peak oil in a way that was interesting to read.

Even Heinberg is a bit wordy.

His book, World Made by Hand is a great work of fiction about a future that may very well come to pass.

You can diss the author, but his books are really fun to read.

[Ludi]

What's wrong with artsy fartsy, anyway? Folks have been artsy fartsy for thousands of years, through good times and bad.

[Revi]

I think that creativity is the only thing that will get us out of the mess we're in.

If that makes me "artsy fartsy", then I am guilty as charged.