[Revi]

I liked what he has to say this week. It was a pretty good analysis of the situation, in my opinion. Here is a paragraph from this week's CFN:

In the background, of course, is an economy just barely holding together with political baling wire and duct tape. It has very poor prospects for continuing in the way it was designed to run, on cheap oil and revolving debt. The upshot is an economy now destined for permanent contraction, and nobody has a plan for managing that contraction -- which will include awful failures in food production, in disintegrating water systems, electric grids, roadway systems, schools... really anything that requires ongoing public investment. It includes a financial system that cannot come up with capital deployable for productive purpose, or currencies that can be relied on to hold value, or markets that function without interference.

I think that pretty well sums it up.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'I') can't believe it, but it looks like Kunstler has turned some brand- new and frightening ground in his column. This week he compares the US government (and white Southerners) with the Nazis! Yes, the very same Nazis that incinerated millions of Jews, he makes a direct comparison and draws a line connecting the Nazis with the American people! I had never thought of it before... it must be a brave thing to make accusations like that.

[EndOfGrowth]

"You never know, there might be a CORN PONE HITLER out there waiting to make his (or her) entrance!"

Sounds like he's waking up to encroaching NWO fascism which he has been denying it's existence for years because he's "allergic to conspiracy theories"

Kunstler is Jewish btw.

[efarmer]

Kunstler is Jewish??? I though it was originally O'Kunstler and he dropped the O so he
could chameleon into the New York literary community.

Older and single, like to rant and paint landscapes, hangs his ideas out so he can
take public abuse, this guy is Irish or else I have been stroking my shamrock.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EndOfGrowth', '&')quot;You never know, there might be a CORN PONE HITLER out there waiting to make his (or her) entrance!"

Sounds like he's waking up to encroaching NWO fascism which he has been denying it's existence for years because he's "allergic to conspiracy theories"

Kunstler is Jewish btw.

[efarmer]

I guess I won't send him a rosary for Christmas again nor share my deep seated fears
of potato fungus creating a diaspora for our people again. Thanks for saving me from
embarrassing myself with my ignorance Ayoob.

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'I') guess I won't send him a rosary for Christmas again nor share my deep seated fears
of potato fungus creating a diaspora for our people again. Thanks for saving me from
embarrassing myself with my ignorance Ayoob.

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EndOfGrowth', '&')quot;You never know, there might be a CORN PONE HITLER out there waiting to make his (or her) entrance!"

Sounds like he's waking up to encroaching NWO fascism which he has been denying it's existence for years because he's "allergic to conspiracy theories"

Kunstler is Jewish btw.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')I know he's Jewish, I think that's where the Nazi fetish comes from.

[highlander]

Wow, LarouchePAC.com I thought that guy was long dead and gone. Made some entertaining late night info-mercials during the campaigns long past.

[anador]

There are some issues on which he just shouldn't share his opinion on.... It devalues the important things he really does know about.

That is actually one of the best parts of his podcast, no real doomer porn, and no incessant politicisation, besides the occasional corn-pone nazi jab. What he sticks to is urban critique, that is what he really does best anyway.

He is really the only one talking about urbanism and contraction to a large audience anyway... except for the transition towners and maybe Jaime Correa, who I had last semester in a fantastic studio.

The other New Urbanists, including Duany try to keep their voices low for the good of their firms on the whole contraction argument. Except of course, Krier... who doesn't have a firm to protect per-se.

Overall I just think its a shame that alot of urban lecturers get overlooked for not speaking about anything else....

Then Kunstler gets bashed and dismissed because he lets his opinion on other things out in the open

[Daniel_Plainview]

Kunstler: This Sucker is going Down

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')y James Howard Kunstler
on April 25, 2010 1:53 PM

George W. Bush was onto something in the fall of 2008 when he remarked apropos of the Lehman collapse: "...this sucker could go down."

It's my serene conviction, by the way, that this sucker actually is going down, right now, even as I clatter away at the keys -- perhaps in slow motion, so that not many other bystanders have noticed yet, and the few who have noticed are mostly too crosseyed with nausea to speak. * * *

... "Going down" will mean a society with no money and an infrastructure for daily life that requires gobs of money to run, and a populace too dazed, confused, and inflamed to do anything useful in the way of organizing new infrastructures for daily life for their new circumstances. In retrospect, the Great Depression of the 1930s will look like "The Philadelphia Story" compared to what we wake up to ten years from now. * * *

... This sucker is going down because the train of bankruptcies underway has a remorseless self-reinforcing power to provoke more and more bankruptcies at every stop along the line as every promise to pay is welshed on. The mortgages will not be paid and securities will not pay their investors and the banks will choke on the bad paper promises in their vaults and the pension funds will not pay their beneficiaries and the states and counties and municipalities will go broke and not pay their employees and creditors, and the federal government will not be able to "print" new money in sufficient quantities fast enough to compensate for all the money not being paid up-and-down the line... and one morning we will wake up and discover that all those promises to pay were sham promises based on no productive activity whatsoever... and that will be a sad day. Perhaps the Dow Jones Industrial Average will hit 35,000 on that day. Nothing can stop this chain of bankruptcy. It's already baked in the cake. * * *

... When this sucker goes down, our primary task will be reorganizing American life on a much more local and de-complexified basis. ... trillions in credit default swaps are ticking away like dirty bombs. Greece is going down, with Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and the UK standing by to go next. Nobody can pay their bills. Before long, the old folks won't get their checks. Then the poor folks. Lately, I wonder if there will even be an election six months from now.

continued

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')... When this sucker goes down, our primary task will be reorganizing American life on a much more local and de-complexified basis

[Serial_Worrier]

The guy's a nutburger but at least he supports Israel.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')... When this sucker goes down, our primary task will be reorganizing American life on a much more local and de-complexified basis

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'B')ecause we'd have to talk to our neighbors instead of hang out here all day.

[bshirt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mcgowanjm', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'I')f you follow his column back to right around the 9/11 attacks, he was a proponent of complete Arab genocide.

[pedalling_faster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Serial_Worrier', 'T')he guy's a nutburger but at least he supports Israel.

[pablonite]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kunstler ', 'I')n the background, of course, is an economy just barely holding together with political baling wire and duct tape. It has very poor prospects for continuing in the way it was designed to run, on cheap oil and revolving debt. The upshot is an economy now destined for permanent contraction, and nobody has a plan for managing that contraction -- which will include awful failures in food production, in disintegrating water systems, electric grids, roadway systems, schools... really anything that requires ongoing public investment. It includes a financial system that cannot come up with capital deployable for productive purpose, or currencies that can be relied on to hold value, or markets that function without interference.

[mcgowanjm]

^
^
l__And there's a name for your logic above.

'Trap' comes to mind. Because after attempting to negate Kunstler, who does have blind spots as do we all,

you offer nothing in it's stead. Your $$$ Quote:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') third possibility is he just doesn't want to risk alienating himself from his large and ever growing peaker fan base.