Gregor.us - Latest Comments in The Scholarship of Collapse

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

kells1001 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:13:47 -0000

There is definitely a trend that is just beginning, which will downsize housing, concentrate populations and permanently change the American landscape unless new strategies to coordinate communication, mass transit and cheaper housing are not addressed more proactively. This does not mean Americans will not adapt and prosper, but instead will buy fewer cars, move closer to population centers and build and maintain smaller homes. Many more Americans will most likely live or even immigrate abroad.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

Inactive — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:33:03 -0000

"To use a phrase that was once somewhat unfairly said about California by Gertrude Stein, we have discovered that there was no there, there in the US economy."

Well, your image appears to be correct, but only inadvertantly.

Miss Stein wasn't speaking about all of California. She was speaking specifically about Oakland, where she lived as a child between ages 4 and 18.

Even more specifically, she was speaking about Oakland on a return visit as an adult, and the place had changed so much from when she grew up there it was almost unrecognizable. The comment wasn't a slam; it was more in the spirit of Thomas Wolfe's, "You can't go home again."

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

EricCB — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:51:58 -0000

CNG?? Good luck with that.
http://www.theautochannel.c...

I believe that there are substantial deposits of NG in the US; enough for quite awhile. Considering that you can convert autos to it, it's amazing that no serious push by the government has occured. What am I missing??

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

agathocles — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:44:29 -0000

Dear Gregor,

I respectfully disagree with the following conclusions:

"[I]t’s hard to see how California–and the US by extension–does not become a permanently smaller economy."

"An interesting exercise when looking at previously collapsed economies and societies is to ask when a certain, initial terminus was reached, before the overshoot phase began...It now seems likely the United States reached this point in the year 2000. That’s when the ability to grow the economy, without a large acceleration in debt, appears to have crossed a threshold."

We had a similar problem in the early-to-mid 1970s in the US. Productivity declined as the go-go years of the 1960s electronics and semiconductor industries fell into a slump, the government was priming the pump in Johnson/Nixon's War on Poverty initiatives, and the Vietnam War was draining our coffers. The Federal Reserve didn't have the political will, backing, or independence to place their foot on the credit and money supply growth.

Did all this necessarily cause a permanent long-term decline in the US? No - times were hard for many in the 1970s due to stagflation, but this didn't really affect long-term growth.

It's hard for me to see a long-term, absolute decline in the US economy. More likely, I think, is a short-term absolute decline followed by a long-term, relative decline *as a share of* the global economy. Is that what you mean, or do you really mean a permanent, absolute decline?

Cheers,
agathocles

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

JJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:12:06 -0000

"To make matters worse, the federal government is in the midst of one of the largest policy mistakes in US history as it has chosen to make enormous new investments in car companies, cars, biofuels, roads, and highways to the exclusion of public transport."

That "policy mistake" started right after WWII and is merely coming to its crashing end.

We built a country, infrastructure, and economy that requires 20 dollar a barrel oil, and all the cheap, easy to pump oil is gone. Mexico will cease to export in 2 years, Iran in 2014, all major exporters cease exporting in 10 to 20 years. The US is going to have to cut its oil imports drastically in say 5 years, which does not give us a lot of time.

We should have started doing the energy efficiency improvements in the late 70s like Carter said, but we just could not be bothered. So the majority chose to live in a fantasist Morning in America that actually turned out to be the evening.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

gregor.us — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:31:24 -0000

One method to capture 50 cent liquid fuel right now would be to use a CNG vehicle (compressed natural gas.). CNG car owners must feel, with NG prices so low, that they are nearly driving for free.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

EricCB — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:16:57 -0000

I'm wondering if we see your 50 cent per gallon gas price due to all those tankers sitting out there and being used for storage. I hear there are 67 of them each holding 2 million barrels. I realize in some respecs thats not much, but maybe on the margin prices will drop at the pump and keep the current system alive another 18 months or so. The other thought about that floating crude is that maybe somebody or somebodies know that the flow of oil will soon be curbed due to political or military action in Iran or else where. Gregor, your always a good read.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

Eric Garland — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:38:36 -0000

I tend to follow John Ralston Saul in his brilliant book "Voltaire's Bastards" in which he argues that all defense spending is fake GDP. He has two points: First, that the "products" are unusable by society, bullets and helicopters not really being a marketable good. Second, that all "excess" production goes directly into arming the rest of the world, which often results in more foreign military intervention, and thus requires the "industry" to arm up our 19 year olds and send them to send foreign countries. This in turn requires an increase in sales to replace to depleted stocks of bullets and rocket launchers. So we then arm countries with more sophisticated stuff, but saving the best for our 19 year olds, whom we eventually send back into the fray. Wash, rinse, repeat: Latin America, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

John Ralston Saul's argument is that while the whole enterprise makes money for the employees of the defense companies, it's not really a GDP you can measure and aspire to in terms of quality of life. And if California is attached to that type of GDP while we become fiscally incapable of repeating our role as the worlds arms dealer-policeman... a whole-lotta shakin' will be going on.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

Eric Garland — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:30:08 -0000

I actually feel sorry for some of the "leaders" I meet who look like frightened rabbits in a burning forest. There's real change going on, "creative destruction" if you like to wax Schumpeterian, and these guys feel obligated to be stiff-lipped white guys barking "I know what's going on...everything is UNDER CONTROL." And well, NO IT ISN'T, and that's OK. Nobody's in control of the old system, which just isn't going to work any more. It's like there are still guys running around trying to corner the horse feed market so they can own a chunk of the transportation sector. Sorry dude...nice idea, but that's not how it runs any more.

Hopefully, we'll hit enough EPIC FAILS that the leaders realize they don't need to appear to be in control, and then we can get back to the business of creating what works.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

gregor.us — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:06:02 -0000

Thanks for the perspective. I assume you mean that the British standard of living post-war declined only relative to other OECD/EU/US? If that's what you mean, yes, I am aware of the viewpoint. As an aside, as someone who lived in the UK, I often found myself asking: "Just exactly what portion of British society actually enjoyed a high standard of living between 1900 and 2000?" Socially, pre and post war Britain are perhaps two different eras. So that too complicates the equation.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

Cindy6 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:54:48 -0000

One must point out that Britain's post war decline was relative, while the US decline is likely to be absolute. Living standard of the British people actually rose in the time period.

Adaptation like you suggested, while makes perfect sense, will be impossible. The US is set up on the assumptions of abundance of resources and shortage of labor. And these 2 parameters stretched way back than WWII, to even colonial period. (Slavery was not due the southerns being more evil than others) They define not only its economy but all other aspects of society as well. Now that these 2 assumptions no longer hold, the US is having the rug pulled from under it.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

gregor.us — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:44:31 -0000

US ridership on public transport soared in 2008. Cities and states are begging Washington for money to finish projects already underway, or, to simply have the money to go ahead with subsequent stages. The original StimPak was designed with a few fatal clauses. One was that the money could not go to existing projects. Even so, so little of the original StimPak was for public transport, it's moot.

I need to read Confederacy of Dunces.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

gregor.us — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:42:21 -0000

Our politicians are also very much post-war paradigm thinkers. They are still operating within a framework of discretion. They think "Well, we can do this, or we can do that." They don't consider the other possibility: "We have no choice but to do X."

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

gregor.us — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:40:14 -0000

Aerospace was huge in post-war CA. I mention that more fully in my newsletter. It's a whole 'nother piece to the problem. Indeed,

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

Eric Garland — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:15:04 -0000

I think you are so right to view California as the harbinger of what is to come. The simple, undeniable fact is that the U.S. economy will no longer be judged on its ability to inflate itself like it was bitten by some poison toad. It's got to work for people, live within its means, cease to measure its worth by its ability to spread suburbia across this gorgeous continent like a metastatic cancer.

Will this be a shock? Sure. Will this be a tragedy? Only if we make it one. We have many other productive, humane, culturally-beautiful options. And we also have a number of control-addicted, vicious, destructive options.

Now, it is up to us to choose. Our politicians won't do so, for reasons of ideology and campaign finance. It is up to us as a people. I wonder what we will decide.

Re: The Scholarship of Collapse

bzmoore — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:32:18 -0000

Gregor: Excellent article. I don't think the US will invest in public transport, that would take too much thought.

The stick approach might work. That is, I think, what works in Europe, high gasoline taxes, suppresses individual fossil foolishness and provides a market for public transit. But again anyone advocating higher taxes would be bombed like Baghdad.