Kunstler - The Democratic Debate & The Magic Moment We've So Far Avoided Confronting

[hatrack]

EDIT

Here are the some of truths that we seem unable to face:

Very soon we won't have the fossil fuel energy supplies to run the USA as it is currently set up, and no combination of wished-for alternative energy schemes based on so-called "renewables" will allow us to keep running it, either. Meaning, that we'd better start making other arrangements immediately for how we occupy the landscape, how we grow our food, how we move people and things from place to place, and how we reconstruct an economy consistent with these new arrangements.

The longer we put off making these new arrangements, the harder we're going to slam into a wall of reality, and when it occurs a lot of things will shake loose in this country. It will become self-evident that the things we've invested all our wealth in will not retain value -- especially suburban real estate and all the activities related to car dependency, from the interstate highway system to national chain retail. It will also become obvious that we can't base our economy on building more of this stuff.

Our current military adventures in the Middle East, are predicated largely on keeping the old arrangements going. We're in Iraq because we built Dallas, Atlanta, Orlando, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Long Island the way we did, and the only way we can hope to keep these organisms going even a little while longer is to keep open our oil supply line to the Persian Gulf. The truth is, these organisms will not survive the oil-scarcer future in the form they're in. The American people need to come to grips with this. No amount of chest-thumping around the globe will change it. In any case, sooner or later we'll exhaust our military and bankrupt ourselves trying to project our influence into these places overseas -- meaning, sooner or later we will withdraw back into our own hemisphere. I wonder if Wolf Blitzer of CNN will ask any of the candidates, what happens then?

A basic rule of reality is that you can't get something for nothing. Sooner or later the financial sector will have to come to grips with this rule, meaning that that debt is not wealth and the revolving reallocation of debt in the form of credit does not amount to wealth creation. The US will arrive at a magic moment when the full force of this reality reasserts itself, and it is likely to make itself manifest in the collapse of the entity most closely associated the idea of wealth: the dollar. Assets vested in the dollar's legitimacy will follow its fate. The implication is that an awful lot of the presumed wealth held by Americans could vanish into thin air. Do any of the candidates for president recognize how this works, or have any idea how much disorder this phase change will send thundering through our sociopolitical infrastructure?

EDIT

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary21.html

[zeemike]

1. Nail struck right on it's head

If only we could see this debate.
But that would be talking about change and that is the thing that fears the power brokers the most. The wealthy and invested will not consider change until they see their wealth evaporate. and it is so sad.

[Strelnikov_]

5. We have no leadership

As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the human peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.

. . .

Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elites treating themselves to necklaces of 2000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster, reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEO's. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

From Chapt. 5, 'The Maya Collapses', from 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond

[Double T]

2. Why do 'WE' think major corporations have relocated their operations........

and in some cases even their corporate headquarters to distant nations? The debates just barely touched on some of the most serious issues facing America. Mike Gravel brought up the $50 Trillion dollar national debt during the debates and NO ONE, not even Wolfie, wanted to handle or address that blistering hot potato. Only after the crash, when billions of worthless dollars have the equivalent worth of one worthless dollar, will there be the possibility of starting over to get it right this time. Great thread hatrack, thanks!

[razzleberry]

3. we have plenty of coal .n/t

[GliderGuider]

4. Yes, ultimately that's the real problem.

Declining oil supplies will lead to a massive surge in the use of coal as well as biofuels over the next decade or two. Both will be tremendously damaging to the environment while not "solving" the problem.

[endarkenment]

6. For my car? nt.

[kestrel91316]

9. Return of the Stanley Steamer, lol, powered by coal.

Americans will LOVE it. It will allow them to continue in their profligate ways.

[Kolesar]

7. Is James Kunstler qualified to comment on monetary policy?

The pessimist in me says that James "CFN" Kunstler is right-on. However, I am seeing a mode where the the US dollar is progressively deflating in value (at arate inversely proportional the rising price of oil and to the current boom in the stock market--ha ha ha ha ha). More to point, maybe this is just a gradual unwinding like when the American farmers had to suck it up in the 1920s and walk off their farms.

Not a crash, but a whimper

just musing

[endarkenment]

8. It has been unwinding for a long time.

The real question is how long can 'the unwinding' continue without degenerating into an unraveling.