And a depression from which civilization may not recover.
But don’t fret. The DNC is trotting out Debbie Wasserman Schultz to warn the elderly that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney want to shred their health safety net. By, you know, not touching it.
So we’ll live.
Besides, if things go sideways, it’s not like we can’t just print more money, right? I mean, that’s how economics works, if you’re nuanced in your thinking about such things.
(h/t Mark Levin)
– It would be interesting to watch Tinkle-down-Debbie’s reaction if Blitzer asked her:
“In 2009 president Obama promised in an interview with reporters that he would ‘veto any attempts to restore cuts to Medicare needed to support funding for his health care plan’. Do you support those cuts to Medicare?”
– Maybe they could clear the studio prior to the explosion.
Interest-bearing, policy-driven, debt-based, centralized, single-source fake money goes bust? It’s almost like it’s progressive in those regards.
Well. You nearly read it here first.
“And what’s really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn’t limited to our economy. We found the same catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well.”
To the extent that food and energy are crucial components of the economy, their inclusion is superfluous; to the extent that water production (apart from the mess in the Southwest) is inherently local, its inclusion is just silly. Even if I have to pump it up by hand, the water will come up from the well.
And I ain’t clicking on their video. Maybe it’s narrow-minded of me, but it smacks of late-night infomercials touting how for only $40, you can make a fortune charging people $40 to learn how to make a fortune.
Civilization will survive. It’s just that it won’t be civilization as we know it.
Also that we won’t know civilization has survived.
– Somewhere in some foreign cabinet members office in Vienna its easy to imagine a conversation going something like this:
“So whats the skinny on the American side…Do we stand a chance or what?
“You mean does the dollar go belly up first so we save the Euro?….Is that the question?
“Is that the only hope……I mean christ on a popcicle stick, what a fucking mess.”
“Well yes, that’s what it comes down to…..the globalists just will not support two competing ponzi schemes at a time, so its them or us.”
“Alright….then don’t just sit there, spread so more rumors about Romneys illicite love child, and offer the Chinese a split after the crash, I just hope those ass fuckers in Greece remember what we did for them.”
On the bright side, people have been talking about peak oil since the 1970s, and we’ve had to deliberately restrict access to oil to make the “green” alternative fuel economy, such as it is. So if these guys are from the Paul Ehrlich school of weesa gonna die!, maybe there’s hope for us yet.
On the other hand, stopped clocks and all that.
Look, the site is peakoil.com, so cum grano salis, despite best of intentions. As squid noted, the video linked in the first paragraph goes to the same external site as the link later on about the “German military” doing a study. They want you to subscribe to a newsletter.
A bit Alex Jone-ish, it is. Hysteria is not necessary. The ordinary consequences of our trajectory in the Ryan plan are serious enough. Let’s not get distracted by ideas of civilization ending. Liberty may end yet civilization survives; that has been most of mankind’s history. That is peril enough.
BBH, I have trouble believing that anybody in Vienna would invoke Christ’s name, even in vain. Maybe go with “For the love of Keynes!” or “In Malthus’ name!” or something like that.
I’m going to get Nancy Pelosi to “deem” me over 55. I suggest all “undocumented seniors” do the same.
In his fabulous series from the 60s, I remember Lord Clark saying something akin to civilizations dying because they ran out of energy and lost confidence in themselves. To me, the 21st century is starting to look like a cheap ABC movie of the week remake of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
– Sweet light crude is getting harder to find. Heavy crude, requiring more processing, we have coming out our ears, with new finds every day. The Geology world is swinging to oil being renewable. The immediate costs are low, the whole life cycle costs are abysmal.
– Natural gas is a viable medium term alternative, but, like fracking, poises undetermined geological problems.
– Nuclear, modern designs at least, suffer from politics, and indecisiveness in handling waste products.
– Solar, organics, wind, hydro, all of the potential fuel sorces have the same problem, regardless of any other consideration – medium to long term storage.
– Generating electricity is easy, storing it is the problem.
BTW I don’t think civilization will collapse so much as it will roll back. Imagine life for the little nobody’s being at the 1911-1920 level, everywhere with some higher tech around but not widespread and no Great Britain to keep the seas safe for trade. And the farms won’t be making enough food and the trucks won’t be transporting enough so we’ll have to spread out a lot. We’ll have de facto baronies and fiefdoms if people embrace the new ways and warlords and tribes if they don’t. We’ll have guilds in either case.
But we’ll be substantially better off than bronze agers and we’ll know (roughly) how to do a lot of things if we can just collect the resources to do them and protect them from outsiders .
WWI forever. Kind of like Jules Vernes was so afraid of before WWI ended.
” Kind of like Jules Vernes was so afraid of before WWI ended.”
Technically before it even started.
Subsitstance living for everyone!
We have huge population centers jammed full of people who don’t know where their food comes from. Sure, they may have a houseplant or two but they aren’t farmers. Declawed indoor cats don’t make very good mousers. Purse dogs aren’t very good protection, either.
I’m glad I’m out in the hinterlands.
I’m glad I’m out in the hinterlands.
– The first place people will head if the food runs out, which would take less than two days, judging by what happens with just a electric grid failure like we had back a few months.
– Local stores were almost picked clean by the next day, and whatever wasn’t grabbed up perished from loss of refrigeration.
– Our infrastructure is an illusion, with next to zero backup.
This is the Post-American, Anti-American and UnAmerican campaign to divide up, carve up and toss aside the laws and traditions of the United States and replace them with the power of arrogance. It is the last stand of a beleaguered nation facing barbarians inside its gate. Every previous election was a contest between two American candidates who wanted to preside over the United States.
This is an election contest between the United States and an emerging Post-American order. That entity will be an American EU run by unelected bureaucrats, governed by politically correct technocrats and upheld by corrupt financial pirates disguising the collective bankruptcy with numbers games so elaborate that they make every billion-dollar con game and pyramid scheme that has come before seem as simple as child’s play.
The entity is already here. Its czars are running things in D.C., and its judges are dismantling both constitutional government and democratic elections. It creates a crisis and then makes sure that it doesn’t go to waste. It has excellent design skills and terrible planning skills. It has all the money in the world and none at all. It is the Post-American America, and 2012 is its big referendum. The one that will decide whether this Post-American America, this horrid graft of E.U. governance and Mussolini economics, Soviet propaganda and FDR volunteerism, Tammany populist criminality and U.N. foreign policy will be permitted to devour the United States of America.
Obama cannot win an American election. But he isn’t running in an American election. He’s running in a Post-American election.
link
It won’t quite be subsistence . But you won’t have much disposable income and you’ll be inclined to save up for stuff instead of borrowing it. You probably won’t throw out bottles and worn old clothes but will instead find ways to repurpose them. You might have to move after two bad seasons. I’d say that you might have news papers and magazines for wall paper but I doubt there’ll be much paper unless it is made locally.
Think of all those 30’s Appalachian hillbilly stereotypes on real, and with more plastic and rubber and less wood. (Not that we won’t have to learn to carve and whittle to make the furniture we can’t afford. ) I suspect fans made from woven dry johnson grass and tables made from bent mesquite and willow stitches will be a thing. Most of the time we’ll go to bed tired instead of stressed or bored.
1920’s 2.0
Mark Levin read it on his show yesterday, which is why I bothered looking it up. The site I found it on may have just reprinted it.
– The first place people will head if the food runs out, which would take less than two days, judging by what happens with just a electric grid failure like we had back a few months.
Let them come. Those with skills and work ethic may find a place in these rural communities. Those with entitlement attitudes will find a welcome of an altogether different sort.
I am a city dweller, but I’ve spent years cultivating friendships with the people in the village where my parents retired. There is a wide circle of good people who like and respect me, and who are especially fond of my folks. There are days when I think The End can’t come fast enough, because I figure my odds up there are pretty good and we might as well get it over with.
I just wish there were more apple trees up there. Can’t ever have too much cider and vinegar.
Garage sales -> swap meets and tinkers will fix your pots and pans again. Everyone will learn to solder, weave, and tape. I suspect you’ll have “open project” local tool shops where you spend a buck or two, sign up, and get to use their CNC mill to make or modify a part you need from some stock you brought in, and get some advice from the qualified operator.
– A revitalized “rural-centric” America would be the end game, but would take six months to several years in the making, depending on locality. The lead up to that will make the book of revelations look like a Sunday school picnic.
– Hunger games was a pale description of what you’ll have during ‘the change’. The general population has to slough off tens of millions that can’t feed themselves. Endless dead, sick, and dying, no one to attend to them even in death. Desease, widespread starvation, death, and eventually a rural existance would emerge with the remaining survivors, enclaves that form in cooperatives.
– The new American dream. Simple survival.
– Yet another, and probably the last, unintended consequence of the noble Progressive movement.
“- Hunger games was a pale description of what you’ll have during ‘the change’. ”
They don’t call it a great leap forward for nothing!
– Those with skills and work ethic won’t be the problem Squid. It will be the countless millions of metro’s that have no such abilities.
– Initially they will form gangs to try to take by force what they can’t gain by ability. There will be much bloodshed, but that will taper off as they either die in attacks, or simply starve or from desease.
-Time is on the side of the survivors, so that will become the initial goal of the enclaves, waiting out the attacks.
– Once the ‘change’ has run its course someone, somewhere will raise the idea that they have to form up in some lawfull manner, and the whole frigging thing will start over.
– I don’t think that commnity organizer from Chicago really knew what he was portending when he went with “change you can believe in”.
And in the end, the pigs will walk exactly like men. For a while. But they will be poor stupid pigs in a dying mess not unlike detroit only worse without a super power to prop them up. By then the new vikings will move in and spit them and roast them while the pigs rant about perfect language and boots stamping on human faces forever. Their hides will be made into boots for the new princes who will await their daggers and poisoned chalices and praetorian spears like all princes do.
It won’t quite be subsistence . But you won’t have much disposable income and you’ll be inclined to save up for stuff instead of borrowing it. You probably won’t throw out bottles and worn old clothes but will instead find ways to repurpose them. You might have to move after two bad seasons. I’d say that you might have news papers and magazines for wall paper but I doubt there’ll be much paper unless it is made locally.
I don’t think you’ll have to worry about borrowing money–nobody’s going to lend anyone anything without carefully-evaluated secured assets.
My grandmother (God rest her soul) was a child during the Depression. She made damn sure afterwards that she had a store of food and whatnot to ride out periods of scarcity. When she died, my parents passed on part of her stash to grad school me. I’ve taken a page from her experience and tried to make sure we have a cushion, too.
I don’t see the end of civilization (though Western Rome didn’t imagine any such thing, either). But narrowed horizons? Less opportunity? A lowered, harsher standard of living. Yep, that’s really easy to imagine.
a pale description of what you’ll have during ‘the change’.
On the bright side, I might be able to finagle myself a job with the Lord Protector. Having a good grip on medieval history might be very, very practical.
– Convention notes:
* Christie to give keynote * – Which I guess is all the party needs to prove its conservative bonefides.
* Trump premises convention surprise * – Tweets Trump (who reportedly turned down a speaking slot) – “I’m preparing a surprise for the convention. People are going to love it”. Maybe he’s found a way to fire McCain.
George, et al.
Okay, updated the post with a link to MoneyMorning, which is where the story originated from. The PeakOil site seemed to be throwing a bunch of folks off. Sorry for the confusion. It was just the first place on Google I found the referenced story.
Christie the keynote? Really?
Great. The establishment is grooming us for another RINO run in a few years.
But I doubt the GOP will be as big a deal then, should Romney blow this election.
I am not a big fan of Peak Oil theory (obviously oil is finite and supply will eventually give out, but consumers tend to respond to high prices too and supply increases as more oil comes on line for demand). If the Death Spiral theory is true, electing Mitt Romney will not make much difference.
Jeff is doing the right thing buying rifles, ammo and training. Some dried food stores are a good idea too.
Christie might be good to have around if cannibalism is necessary.
Christie is their Jackie Gleason as New Jersey Fats. They love him because he pops off at the bad guys and they want a firey speech to get everyone rared up.
As for grooming, I’ve heard more talk about Paul Ryan being just like Reagan with JFK’s enthusiasm, &c.
– Yep. The Republicans version of “truthiness”, says he.
…obviously oil is finite and supply will eventually give out…
That depends on who you talk to. There are theories that oil is actually in much larger supply than previously tought. Old abandoned oil fields have been found to show new yields in recent years.
obviously oil is finite and supply will eventually give out
maybe not
Deep-Earth theories of the Origin of Petroleum
– That was behind my comment that the Geolody world is ‘coming around’ to oil as a renewable.
– The old ideas that oil comes from piles of Dinosaur turds has lost favor in the scientific community. One reason. So many bones are found in tar pits and oil deposits. That says the oil/tar had to be there before the bones.
– Most certainly it could spring, at least to some extent, from millions of years of bio-mass deposits. But who knows how deep those may actually go.
– In Russia for instance, some peat moss beds go down for miles. There are some peat moss fires in remote areas that have been burning for mellenia.
I’ve read about those peat fires. I think all that can be learned from the ice cores that have been pulled out of the glaciers is fascinating. The ice is at some of the deepest cores is incredibly ancient.
We know so little about our planet that it strikes me as incredibly arrogant that the climatologists insist that there was is “settled science”.
*their way* I kan 2 spel
I thought it was Santorum’s turn next?
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about borrowing money–nobody’s going to lend anyone anything without carefully-evaluated secured assets.”
Oh the ol’ company store system will pop back up to do most of the lending. It will be decidedly predatory and oriented towards generating surfs and loyalty.
There is not a water shortage. And there should not be a shortage of fresh potable water.
We have the technology to turn seawater into drinking water. What we do not have, due to the short sightedness of politicians and the general public, is sufficient cost effective power that can be utilized for purifying water.
– Leigh, anyone that ever tells you that is not a scientist, or doesn’t understand the sole purpose of science, which means “to continually search for answers”. Real ‘scientists’ know that every answer spawns even more questions. Besides, that approach makes for good job security.
– This weeks science question: “Can a lake kill you in some other manner than drowning?” (first correct answer wins a non-payed vacation in bueatiful downtown atwater Ohio.)
Acanthamoeba can get in your eyes and blind you. Bacteria can get up your nose and give you spinal meningitis and kill you dead.
Fisherfolks, if you are using crawfish for bait, don’t be tempted to eat them like sushi. You might end up with lung flukes. Coughing up clots of blood the size of your fist is no fun.
– All good answers Leigh, but the question is focused on the lake itself, rather than living organisms.
– For anyone interested look up “Lake Nyon in Camaroon”.
CO2 Layer? Isn’t Ohio too far north for a topical eruption?
Lake Nyon in Camaroon
jeez co2 is the new lead
or was that alar?
– Well yeah….you wouldn’t want to vacation where you could get gased would you. :)
– Oh what a difference a day makes. As recently as yesyerday Progressive talking heads were tying themselves in knots rushing to cover Obama’s ass on his Medicare cuts. (See Tinkle-down Debbie)
– Now the Left, having figured out a way to turn gold to shit are saying: “Opps…..Ryans plan keeps Obama Medicare cuts”.
– Which I suppose means Ryans plan also doesn’t cut Medicare…..mmmm….or something.
Well yeah….you wouldn’t want to vacation where you could get gased would you. :)
sounds like lots seltzer water is available
– Incidently, in connection to that co2 gas in the lake thing, volcanic activity is not the only possible trigger that can release trapped gas at the bottom of a body of water.
– There was a case (I’ve forgotten the details but you can probably find it) where the same thing occured when a land slide from a high cliff into a lake released the same sort of bubble and hit a nearby village.
Nr, Jessica Lange (I think) played a farmer’s wife in a movie and testified before congress about the death threat! of Alar in apple juice. Acting made her a scientist! and nearly ruined the apple industry in the meantime.
BBH, that was also in Africa.
– Yes but I couldn’t recall exactly where. Been too long since I read it
Rwanda, the Congo whatever it’s called this week.
a land slide from a high cliff into a lake released the same sort of bubble and hit a nearby village.
a couple of solar cells, batteries, co2 detectors and an alarm would help the villagers. too bad all the money is in the pockets of ngo’s.
This is where the piece comes from, a book published April 3rd, 2012. “The New Depression: The Breakdown of the Paper Money Economy” by Richard Duncan. I would assume there is more than just this one piece in the book.
He wrote this in 2005, “The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures” and this in 2011, “The Corruption of Capitalism: A Strategy To Rebalance The Global Economy And Restore Sustainable Growth “.
Those look interesting, geoff. Thanks!
– Tea party rally in Cleveland: (from Malkin)
“If you are in the Cleveland area this Saturday, you won’t want to miss the Tea Party protest to bring attention to MSM whitewashes/cover-ups of Occupy violence/criminality.”
Location:
Willard Park/Freestamp Plaza in Cleveland, Ohio
Saturday, August 18, 2012 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM (EDT)
(more details on Malkins blog)
and indecisiveness in handling [nuclear] waste products.
Nonsense. Encase it all in ceramic and dump it in the Marianas Trench. Then in 100 years, oversized monsters will destroy Tokyo but those bastards have it coming.
But first we will lose most if not all of the insulin-dependent diabetics and T4-dependent thyroid patients (my doctor needs both; I can live without the T4 but I’ll be utterly useless) and anyone else whose life depends on meds or machines.
“When All Hell Breaks Loose” is a great book about surviving when there’s no electricity or gas or trucking or any other amenities. It deals with the very awful problem of corpses piling up.
And shows how to roast a mouse.
Large plastic garbage bags and bleach are good non-perishables to keep around. Book lists more stuff you might want to keep around, even if things don’t go completely pear-shaped.
It’s a good thing we still have the whole set of Foxfire books, a generator and fuel, several cords of wood, at least six months worth of food and a well.
Corpses? We have wild life around here to make short work of that mess.
di
I know what the word “darn” means and not as a substitute for “damn”.
If civilization collapses, this granny can knit, crochet & sew … and we still have a peddle sewing machine in the family.
I had Lasek, but I need to put aside a couple of good pairs of cheaters for the close stuff.
I think it was Meryl Streep you are thinkinh of rather than Jessica Lange, though perhaps she testified as well.
I almost said Meryl Streep and then changed it. I should know better.
Darleen, I can also knit, sew, crochet and quilt. It’s saved us a fortune over the years.
Meryl, Lange, Fonda..doesn’t matter which one, leigh, they’re all part and parcel of the “I act, therefore I know something” crowd.
And congress is willing to go along.
True, Blake. Congress really sank to a new low when they actually listened to Stephen Colbert, in character, testifying about God knows what.
Embarassing, is all I could say.
Meryl, Lange, Fonda..doesn’t matter which one, leigh, they’re all part and parcel of the “I act, therefore I know something” crowd.
And congress is willing to go along.
“We shall go on to the end, we shall mock them
fightin France, we shall mock themfighton the seas and oceans, we shall mock themfightwith growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall mock themfighton the beaches, we shall mock themfighton the landing grounds, we shall mock themfightin the fields and in the streets, we shall mock themfightin the hills; we shall never surrender”I think it was Jessica Lange who testified about a farm bill or farmer support or something because she played a farmer in a movie.
“The same people who chuckled indulgently at Obama reading this in 2001 are the ones condemning Romney for ‘torturing’ his dog. Fine. Let’s keep talking about it. Obama eats dogs.”
link
They don’t like us bringing up the fact that Obama ate dog meat and then told everyone about it? Tough. Kind of like dog meat, according to Obama.
Maybe it was dog jerky. Or just prepared by a bad cook.
Need to get Ozero out of office, the sooner the better.
– Don’t care how much mutt the Wonce ate in the past, just as long as he has to eat a butt load of crow this winter.
OT: There’s a place in South Dakota that sells rhubarb wine. It pairs nicely with hotdogs.
The bottle says Red Ass.
If America elects Paul Ryan to the office of Vice president he will kill you and wait a few months to let you get mushy and then he’ll dig you up and screw your corpse on youtube. FACT.
And then he’ll put the rest of us back in chains n’ shit. Because JOE “THE BRAIN” BIDEN had to go and GIVE HIM IDEAS.
Yeah, THAT WAS SOME REALLY GOOD THINKIN’ JOE!
Nice JOB! Maybe you can remind him of that midget that pulled William Wallace’s guts out in Brave Heart too while you’re at it!
The Bedwetter Caucus
People like McKinnon are the reason why, from a domestic policy standpoint, the Bush presidency was a failed one.
He ought to be blacklisted. Him and those McCain losers* and everybody like them.
*that campaign manager who’s name I can’t bother to remember. If he’d had spent all that time he wasted trying to make sure Sarah Palin would get blamed for his failings on actually trying to win, he might not have had to waste all that time trying to make sure Sarah Palin took the blame for his failings.
Steve Schmidt. And Nicolle Wallace, for that matter.
Steve *Schmidt*
Well that explains why googling Steve Schwarz wasn’t getting me anywhere.
McKinnon, Schmidt, Wallace blacklist ’em.
And while we’re on the subject, have Mr. etch-a-sketch and ms. Under RomneyCare His Wife wouldn’t have died! been fired yet?
At least tell me they’ve been bound and gagged and tossed in the corner!