“…we must reject both the reckless optimism of those who might argue that understanding history will protect us from repeating it and the reckless despair of those who spy the specter of a police state in every act of government.”

It is a complex world out there. Simplifying it can’t hurt.

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/12/hbc-90006176

Currency collapse will indeed be a wrecking ball but a Mad Max landscape? Come on.

The third most populous country on the planet starting from the largest economy still full of a diversity of abundant resources is going to inflict global damage while going down. With one fifth the population of China but with 5 times the arable land the Chinese ain’t going to be looking to Canada for food until Miami is underwater. Then they’ll be competing with a lot of other hungry populations.

Throw in the worlds largest nuclear arsenal already with global reach and I think the rest of the world will start to itch as nations start to take off the gloves for resources. The Americans can cut the military budget in half, take 80 percent of the troops out of the field and still yell at the kids running on the lawn if America gets mean enough.

It’ll be back to the Thirties and a certain meanness will set in. Manufacturing will come around again by necessity and maybe by then we’ll have learned how to make steel, textiles and chemicals without shitting in our own backyard.

The other scenario you have to look out for is if something stops the electronic payments coming out of a major American city. MIT looked into that some time ago and figured if you took Boston off the map the state would be in a depression after a day, the nation after 3 days and, the world after a week.

The shift from the oil economy will be ugly, mean and, painful. It’s just a question of degree and I just don’t see utter devastation. Maybe I’m just stupid that way.

to sense

..

I was at the big city feed store this weekend putting a half ton of concentrated feed in the mini van so I can feed my critters while we hunker down even tighter while the flu bug blows by and had some interesting conversation. A couple of good redneck boys with USMC hats and shirts come over and strike up a conversation about Chinese shoes with my ancient long haired hippie ass. We discussed the sad state of Amerikan manufacturing and business in general, and played a couple of rounds of where were you and what did you do in Vietnam. The conversation became friendly and earnest and moved to the discussion of how many guns and how much ammo a 60 year old broken down ex whatever is going to need and the consensus was that like a carpenter and hammers likely a few would be necessary, but the current shopping spree by citizens is pretty much out of control and misdirected.

We are already at war in this country. A good description, this essay from one of the beltways brightest “Bill Lind”, can be found here. http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/lind/ There will be plenty of suffering, and definitely some bloodshed around the corner, and not one bit of it can be solved by more violence, or even by more organic vegetables. The best we can hope for is that our children and grandchildren have the necessary integrity and trust in their fellow man to rebuild the sense of community that existed in this country in previous generations. To paraphrase Jefferson, since we have failed to hang together, I will be working my ass off to try to avoid hanging separately.

tired john