In a startling show of his lack of either his understanding of the situation, or general honesty, President Bush today blasted Congress for not doing enough to address Americans’ financial fears.
Unbelievable. But perfectly in line with our leaders’ weak grasp of the situation.
Okay, for the slow learners in the back of the room (who invariably get picked to run things), here are our economic problems in a nutshell:
1. The Government of the United States is bankrupt. I’m not talking morally here (though that’s debatable), I mean economically bankrupt. Read John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics. Williams’ calculations (which in my opinion are well-founded and more legitimate than those our government gives us) show that the U.S. is in debt to the tune of $62.7 trillion dollars. That’s impossible to pay back. According to Williams, if taxes were raised to 100%, the government still couldn’t meet its obligations. The U.S. is broke.
2. The Government of the United States is trying to keep everything running by pumping trillions of dollars into the system, and since our currency is a fiat currency, one that isn’t backed by gold or any other standard, that means every new dollar introduced into the system dilutes the value of every dollar already in circulation. That’s why inflation is running rampant (Williams says the true rate is 11%). As our leaders pump more and more liquidity into the market, the U.S. Dollar will become worth less and less. This cycle will increase in rate, becoming hyperinflation. It’s happened before, and will most certainly happen to us, unless things change.
3. The farm subsidy system has created enormous problems. We pay farmers not to plant certain crops, and we’ve wasted huge amounts of production capacity in corn and maize by trying to grow these commodities for use as biofuels. It’s a ridiculous pipedream that in the end will do nothing but put a tiny amount of fuel into the system at the cost of the starvation of many, many people around the world, and huge increases in the price of food that uses corn in the production cycle (meat, for instance).
Bush can talk all he wants and point fingers of blame in every direction, but unless the U.S. Government takes dramatic steps to protect the value of our currency by stopping the printing presses, and cutting the expenses of resource-draining foreign wars and failed nation-building, our economy will be buried sooner, rather than later.
Posted in
Economy
If anyone doubts that a shift in the way Americans live is underway, they only have to open up their browser and search, not among the Cassandra-like websites that inhabit the fringes of the net (a region I’m proud to say that WhatComesNext.net lives in, by the way), but the main body of the “respectable” internet.
For instance, searching Google News for “food shortages” leads to a wealth of articles from hundreds of news souces, including Time, US News & World Report, The Telegraph (UK), and on and on. This is a real and fast-developing situation.
The Third World has been battling this issue for a long time, but mainstream America has, for the most part, deemed it a problem “over there” rather than one “right here, right now.” That is changing. Searching Google News for “food shortages in America” leads to a significant package of stories as well.
George Ure’s fine site Urban Survival discusses this again this morning, part of a continuing focus his site’s had recently on food shortages and food riots around the world. Rice shortages at Wal-Mart and Costco are troubling. As Ure notes, even a Wall Street Journal columnist is advising Americans to stock up and store food. It’s one thing when Mormon conservative newsletter publisher Howard Ruff advises stocking up, but another thing entirely when a Wall Street Journal writer suggests it.
Sure, the approaches are different. Sure, the WSJ column is about buying relative ly cheap food today so you don’t have to buy more expensive foodstuffs later and Ruff has been predicting “the coming bad times” since the 70s, evoking imagery that could include violence and some degree of social breakdown
What is especially troubling, is that in the past when writers and analysts who predicted coming economic crashes and severe shortages of important resources, they did so at a time when Peak Oil was coming not here.
And that’s what has changed. The era of cheap oil is over, which means the era of cheap anything is over. It’s time to realize that and take steps to protect yourself and your family.
Posted in
Economy,
Peak Oil,
US Tags:
Food Riots,
Food Shortages,
Peak Oil
As a followup to yesterday’s post about America’s desperate need for a revitalized passenger rail system, comes this article at Bloomberg.com today:
United Air Parent UAL Posts Wider Loss on Fuel Costs.
United became the fourth major carrier to announce this month that it was deepening its plans to cut capacity. Each $1 increase in a barrel of oil raises annual costs by $60 million at United, the world’s second-biggest airline.
This is a serious problem, since fuel prices are nowhere near the top, and these difficulties will continue for a long time.
Posted in
Economy,
Peak Oil Tags:
Airlines,
Passenger Rail,
Peak Oil,
Transportation
Now get this: we are sleepwalking into a transportation crisis. As I already said, the airline industry is dying. The price of petroleum-based aviation fuel is killing it. And forget the fantasies about running it on bio-diesel or used french-fry oil. Driving cars will not be an adequate substitute, either. It’s imperative that this country gets serious about restoring the passenger rail system. We can’t not talk about it for another year.
- James Kunstler from his website
Once again, Mr. Kunstler is dead on correct. The airlines are dying, strangling on the reality of post-cheap-oil. Unfortunately, we live in a very large country and are addicted to travel. If you’re in your late 40s (as I am), you may just barely remember a time when air travel was something special, when passengers dressed up and the atmosphere at the airport was a relaxed, comfortable and almost festive one. Flying somewhere was a special event.
Not so anymore, the only place you’ll find shabbier-dressed people in public are at church, if you happen to be (as again, I am) Catholic (but that’s the subject of another post). It’s rush, rush, stand in line for security, rush to put your shoes back on and re-bag your laptop, rush to the gate then stand and wait to board and finally sit and wait to takeoff. It’s seldom a pleasant experience. Why? Because we’re addicted to travel, or more accurately, we’re addicted to cheap and (what we think is) fast transportation.
As Kunstler says in his most recent “Clusterf***k Nation,” date April 21, 2008* (see below), we’re in serious trouble because none of the political candidates are addressing the need for passenger rail service.
I guess my answer to that, is Kunstler’s right everytime he notes that Americans are asleep, and stumbling toward transportation, economic and societal crisis. Our way of life is getting ready to change in a big way, and the end of the cheap petroleum era is the reason.
One way we could protect ourselves, is establishing a crash passenger rail development program, and yes. Normally, I paren a quip after the word “crash,” but in this case, the pun is intended. A crash is coming. A serious, and well-conceived passenger rail development program could dramatically soften the blow to our economy and American life.
* – Unfortunately, Kunstler’s webmaster didn’t design in the ability for Jim to permalink his content, so from here, after next Monday, you’ll have to search a bit to find the article “Blind Spot”, but it’s worth the effort. – ed.
Posted in
Economy,
Peak Oil,
Politics Tags:
Kunstler,
Passenger Rail,
Peak Oil
I read with much head-nodding this morning, Jim Kunstler’s “Clusterf**k Nation Chronicle” posting “Slip of the Tongue,” about Barack Obama’s comments in Pennsylvania. Listening to news reports about Obama’s comments, I couldn’t help but agree with him. What about small-town Pennsylvanians who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” isn’t true? The only thing I could add to guns, religion and antipathy to people not like them, is Nascar. Kunstler agrees with that as well, and he’s right.
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Posted in
Economy,
Politics,
Society Tags:
Depression,
Economy,
Hillary Clinton,
Nascar,
Obama,
Politics