The Entropy Economy (Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

Oct. 16, 2006 -- I got an email from a reader in the banking sector who said that he generally likes this blog but I that I was "way off" in last week's observations about the US economy. I called him on the phone to entertain his complaints in more detail. His main complaint was that I failed to appreciate the fantastic resilience of American can-do enterprise, and what it means in the larger economic scheme of things. He said that massive amounts of capital were moving into investments for alternative energy and into new technology associated with the pursuit of alt.energy. These capital flows, he said, would keep the US economy humming as far ahead as anyone can see.

He was a thoughtful and articulate fellow, but I still disagree. I still view the U.S. economy as chronically diseased. It must be in the nature of a stock market melt-up, of the type we've seen the past month, to exert a hypnotic effect on herd expectations -- generating any number of rationalizations to make the melt-up seem a healthy and natural occurance when it is actually something like an aggressive cancer feeding on the organs of our society and sucking the life out of them.

There may be money flowing into alt.energy ventures, but that is no guarantee that these ventures will produce significantly more petroleum or viable substitutes for petroleum -- or anything that will permit us to keep running WalMart, Disney World, and the interstate highway system. We could sink a trillion dollars into research and development for perpetual motion machines, too, but the venture would probably end in tears.

It seems to me that as long as our overall goal is to keep a lot of cars running by other means, at all costs, then we are going to be horribly disappointed, and our investments will amount to a Chinese fire drill performed like a game of musical chairs with overtones of Ponzi. Whatever else the future may be about, it is unlikely to be a continuation of mass democratic happy motoring in the service of mass consumption. So an investment campaign to save that mode of human existence is a waste of investment. It is just the financial facet of what may turn out to be an even more comprehensive, and utterly futile, effort to save the entitlements and previous investments connected with American suburbia.

A recognition of this would at least allow us to get on with other things and make better investments in a reality-based future.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=377

[whistle]

1. It has been said over and over again, but no one will listen even

...after the crash

[FogerRox]

2. Much of our infrastructure is aging or obsolete,

rail is stuck in the 1960's. Think FDR & the CCC & WPA.

[Demeter]

3. There's No Denying America IS the Can Do Nation. But

the corporate/political mafia that has taken over these last 30 years is slowly and inexorably killing it off. The parasite will destroy the host, unless and until we put all these crooks behind bars and raise up democracy-proficient citizens.

That means public financing of all elections, updating the Constitution to cover the lastest in fascism, purging the courts, taking out corporate welfare, restoring the estate tax and capital gains tax and progressive taxes in general, and rebuilding a strong, healthy public education system through college levels.

It means regulating the operation of corporations to prevent the kinds of abuses of workers, customer, shareholders and investors that we have suffered of late.

It means prosecuting BushCo and the fellow travelers to the fullest extent of the law, and giving real sentences and confiscating assets under RICO.

It's a lot of work we have cut out for us. Let's get started!

[SharonAnn]

4. Right. The corporate mafia that's taken over is the CAN'T DO society