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Where Are We Now? - A World View
Submitted by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
Wondering why the money world got its knickers in a twist last week? The answer is simple: the global economy is breaking apart and its constituent major players are doing face-plants on the downhill slope of a no-longer-cheap-oil way of life. Let’s look at them case by case.
The USA slogs deeper into paralysis and decay in a collective mental fog of disbelief that its own exceptionalism can’t overcome the laws of thermodynamics. This general malaise precipitates into a range of specific quandaries. The so-called economy depends on financialization, since it is no longer based on manufacturing things of value. The financialization depends on housing, that is, a particular kind of housing: suburban sprawl housing (and its commercial accessories, the strip malls, the box stores, the burger shacks, etc.). Gasoline is now too expensive to run the suburban living arrangement. It will remain marginally unaffordable. Even if the price of oil goes down, it will be because citizens of the USA will not have enough money to buy it. Lesson: the suburban project is over, along with the economy it drove in on.
But so is the mega-city project, the giant metroplex of skyscrapers. So, don’t suppose that we can transform the production house-building industry into an apartment-building industry. The end of cheap oil also means we can’t run cities at the 20th century scale. That includes the scale of the buildings as well as the aggregate scale of the whole urban organism. Nobody gets this. For one thing, there will be far fewer jobs in anything connected to financialization because that “industry” is imploding. The recent action around the Federal Reserve illustrates this. When chairman Bernanke’s lips quivered last week, the financial markets had a grand mal seizure. He floated the notion that his organization might “taper” their purchases of US government issued debt and mortgage-backed securities — the latter being mostly bundled debt originated by government-sponsored entities and agencies. That’s the “money” that supports the suburban sprawl industry.
If the Fed were to reduce its purchases of this debt paper, nobody else would buy it. The reason the Fed buys the quantity it does in the first place ($85 billion-a-month) is that nobody else would touch it at the offered zero interest rates. The US Treasury and the mortgage bundlers could only sell the stuff if they paid higher interest rates. But the US government would choke to death on higher interest rates because its aggregate debt is so huge and the scheduled interest payments so gigantic that a one percent increase would destroy even the fantasy of economic equilibrium.
Apart from that unhappy equation, entropy never sleeps. Everything in America except the Apple stores and a handful of big banks is falling apart — especially the human habitat and households. Suburbia will only lose value and utility. Big cities will have to get smaller (ouch!). Tar sands, shale oil and shale gas will not ride to the rescue (they cost too much to get out of the ground). The entire declension of government from federal to state to local will be too broke to fix the roads and make “transfer payments” to idle, indigent citizens. This populace will lose faith in their institutions… and disorder will eventually resolve in a new and very different disposition of things on-the-ground. If we’re lucky, this will not include cruel despotic leadership and war.
If the “taper” talk is empty rhetoric, and the Fed continues sopping up issued debt, it will eventually destroy the credibility of its issued money. That is just another way of going broke, though it might beat a shorter path to the general loss of legitimacy of governments and other institutions.
Young people, harken: prepare for careers in agriculture and activities that support it. Consider moving to small towns in parts of the country where farming is possible and get ready to rebuild a very different economy. Also, consider repudiating your college debt en masse, since the fantasy of repayment is but another mental shackle holding you back from your future.
As for the other parts of the global economy, a digest:
Europe doesn’t have enough oil and gas to run itself. Its suppliers (Russia, various Islamic states) are all basically hostile to it. As the late, great Tony Soprano might say, “end of story.” Europe has been playing financial pocket pool with itself for five years with credibility ebbing. Soon Europe will descend into painful economic re-set. Its era as the go-to theme park of advanced civilization is ending. Go there while it’s still possible and take some snapshots of what comfort and artistry used to look like.
China is imploding under the weight of its half-assed crony command economy and banking system. Nice try. Cookie fortune says, “Industrial era entered too late in game.” All else there is desperation: e.g. the idea of moving hundreds of millions of peasants into new cities. As Tony would say, “Fuggeddabowdit.” They’re better off growing bok choy en situ. Anyway, no one should assume that China can remain politically stable. Let’s hope that its economic and political crack-up doesn’t transmute into war.
Russia’s oil production is in permanent decline. It has a lot, but it gets most of its income from selling it to other people. Hence, Vlad Putin’s notion of finding something else to base Russia’s economy on. Like…what? I don’t think they’re going to replace China in making salad shooters. Farming would be the way to go, and Vlad’s government is hoping that global warming improves Russia’s prospects for doing more of that. In any case, Russia might benefit in the long term by not selling off all of its oil and gas — though Western Europe would surely suffer from that decision. On the plus side, Russia’s government is not crippled by idiot squabbles over abortion, gay marriage, and the Bible in schools.
Japan. Sorry to repeat myself. Going medieval. They have no oil and gas. (Cue Tony Soprano again.) In the event, Japan’s financial hara-kiri will drag down the rest of the world’s banking system — or at least hasten the damage already self-inflicted elsewhere around the globe. I’m also informed that much of the essential computer chip fabrication in the world still happens in Japan, and that will go away, too, as the Japanese engine seizes, smokes, and expels its final belch of CO2.
What else is there? South America? Think: spreading jungle (or desert, take your pick). Canada? There’s an idea. Maybe Labrador becomes the new Hamptons? Second biggest national land mass… 30 million people (2 percent of China’s population). Only one drawback: the view to the south.
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I am on record as saying that all assets in turn will be devalued and it is almost pure guess work to know which and when.... It is a crapshoot, until recently, the best performing asset class over 5 years were treasuries, you and I know that ain't going to hold up...
I thought Au/Ag was the obvious and easy answer, but I have just watched a whole bunch of buying power vanish even if the collapse of the dollar result in nominal gains...
Your best bet is a 20 acre farm including a 5 acre woodlot (hardwood) somewhere in New England.... gonna set you back more than 100G though....
Or you could get yourself non-Bakken/EFS stripper well...
New England is too cold. Have a read of the pilgrims first winter.
The answer is Brazil's farmland. We always interpret Brazil as oil, but it's not. It's farmland. #1 coffee producer. #2 soybeans. #1 Orange juice. Corn, livetock.
Three crops per year. No winter.
On my time scale NE is fine...
I ain't gonna be around for another 40 years and on that time scale just about anywhere within 40 degrees of the equator will be damn well near unihabitable without AC. Can you imagine Atlanta when its 120 degrees outside?
I know you are aware that things have changed climatewise since the Pilgrims...
Flak reading your comments is always a good time. I do disagree with the NE for farming prefer the south for now. The key to any of it is having a group of like minded friends you can trust to protect what you farm or grow. I do have physical gold but honestly you need more then gold or you will be trading it to me for food.
Preparation is the key and gold is just a part of the preparation. Many state the other items or things you need if the SHTF actually happened.
Agreed... Yes, the south has some pros, but there are other issues that outweigh things at least for me...
PS Thanks for the kind words....
How long can soil take that kind of abuse?
pardon my broken record-ism....read fofoa and the low POG can be understood...I'm up (way up) betting that (paper) gold will continue to fall. Meanwhile my physical stash sits quietly waiting for its true value to be known.
True value relative to what? There are no absolutes.
Yet you pump empiricism like it were a religion on here. You really do not understand consistency do you?
give it up
Relax pal. It will come before you know it. Weak holders being liquidated.
JHK has been showing up a lot lately. I think the tylers must be sensing it is time for everyone to wake up from their personal nightmares and rejoin the distorted reality. We are in a waking nightmare now, no more rest for these many wicked.
I simply cannot grok the typical ZHer reading "The Long Emergency"....
TLE in my opinion has a lot to say to the average ZHer who isn't here strictly for ideas on how to profit on the way down.
i would put myself in the below average cateogry and concur with you cougar, I'm not here for the spot price on shiite so i can fondle some paper krugs., I'm here strictly for the 24 hour advance notice of when to fill the cube van to the roof with GGG and book it to the far end of the earth with my wife and kids.
plus i gots me the 180 bpm for four hours as the ultra hedge, not sure i'll be able to carry the wife however.......LOL
I read it. Twice.
You have to understand that ppl on ZH are human and when humans are as heavily psychologically invested in the concept of gold as how to survive an oil scarce world as they are on ZH, they have problems embracing self doubt.
The window of levels of civilization in which gold means something is pretty narrow. That's just the way it is. It's not going to be universally accepted because ppl don't carry a chemical gold test around with them. They don't even carry scales around with them.
If the government taxes gold transactions at 60%, you won't even have published prices.
The window of society's level in which gold would mean something is truly narrow. In contrast, an ear of corn is an ear of corn. An egg laying chicken is an egg laying chicken.
when this trap door opens we're falling waaaaaay past gold for some unforseen timeline and on the way back up out of that dark age will gold be of any service, not sure how many of us will be around to even care because it could be generational, who even knows anymore. The only thing for certain is that the violence will be started by the oligarchs, it will be manufactured and most of us are going to get fucked hard because guns don't work in a tank fight.
CiO, you ain't the typcal ZHer...
@Flakmeister:
I bought it and read it several years back...and it's still upstairs on my bookshelf.
As for "Where Are We Now" @ 1445 EST on 6/24/2013
We're "well off the lows." LOL!
+1 for quoting Valentine
Edit; Awww a down arrow ..... how cute.
Heinlein says, "fyvm."
ZHers get the Financial message and reality.
Physical and Geological limits and realities, Not so much.
I blame the media. It's been "fortress America" for 200 years. As if anything that happens off our shores amounts to peanuts.
Well that was probably true until a good part of our oil came from off our shores, and we moved all our jobs off our shores, and we had to get all our finished goods off our shores, and unfriendly nations off our shores had to start buying all our debt to fund our addiction to internet porn.
So much for America the strong. Oh wait we still have all the nukes. So I guess we win anyway?
I think it more along the lines of "we lose last"....
the truly sad awareness is that "fortress America" has a sizeable percentage of folks who've never used a passport, and rely on TeeVee to tell them about the "foreign lands" - all via an amrkn perspective, of course.
and we all know how truthful the tell-a-vision is, hmm. . .
sure, amkra has the nukes, buried in the undergrounds, sure to continue poisoning the land & water well beyond our lifetimes.
apple
just went 399.65
Wait till the hyperinflation cure for this implosion.
Then you will have AN apple for $399.65.
pods
Unless you own the trees growing the apples odds are long on that even.
Monsanto will have a say in that.
A Monsanto super bee will be developed that will kill all old world bees and then only pollinate plants that Monsanto has genetically engineered to attract said Monsanto Bees.
Ben: "Look at me now, look at me now, look at me now.... I'm printin' Paper!"
OR
"I'll make it rain, I'll make it rain, I'll make it rain on the Globe!"
CNBC will blame it on Snowden.
It's funny how Japan's bond market has stabilized while everyone elses has gone to shit.
was goinbg to say the sam ething.. watch when yields go up domesticly. the japs will dump their $$ into our bonds tanking JGB's
And the dollar is up why?
It's biorythums and horoscope said it was going to be good today.
Only reasonable explaination...if that were reasonable
because once all of the digital dollars vaporize.....the actual dollar will be quite rare...
Glad to know my $300K buried out back is going to be worth somethin'
The deer mice told me they were really tasty... They liked the extra crispiness of the C-Notes...
Gotta get through that fire/water-proof, lead-lined stainless steel box first. However, if they started chompin' on them, they're probably all get a coke buzz and run anyway.
Watch out for the termites!
And PMs are once again establishing their place at the bottom of the barrel as bonds and equities stabilize. Amazing how that seems to happen every day ...
Kunstler on Zero Hedge:
"The characters who infest their comment section are some of the worst vermin in trolldom."
Kunstler on 9/11:
I regard the 9/11 conspiracy theories as a fantasy and a distraction from the real problems we face. It is especially unfortunate that they became associated with the Peak Oil issue, and that was obviously a result of Mike Ruppert's elaboration of them in his book Across the Rubicon, which brought discredit to his otherwise good reporting on the global oil situation, and tainted others like myself who regard energy as the crucial geopolitical and economic issue of our time.There is enough confusion in this nation without conflating the real concerns over energy with paranoid fantasies about government plots.
wear that shit about vermin and trolls like a badge of honor
Anyone who calls others vermin is not so removed from vermin himself.
The "vermin" comment came back before the Tylers were policing the forums. It could get really sickening back then. For a time I personally had to abandon the comments section even to read it. Things are better now, I think JHK is posting here now as something of a peace offering, and as a literate alternative to the shreaking din of despair.
The nadir was early on in the last election cycle during the Repug prmaries...
Good times...good times. Where's Trav777?
He'd make Mother Teresa lose her shit on a good day.
I'll tell you a little secret, he bugged out from ZH when he realized that the only person he thought was his equal in intelligence here was a "socialist"...
True story....
Very good Just Observing,
Just remember a rat is a rat is a rat. Its all it does, it makes no pretence about what it is, instinct does it for it. A rat will never knowingly rip you off, although it will chew through anything in its way, it wont hurt you or yours unless you corner it, and even then it will avoid doing so unless it has no other option. And to top it off a rat has purpose, it gets rid of the excess shit we leave lying about and makes good use of it.
Not the nicest of animals granted, but its not a central banker, can anyone give me one use of a central banker or their ilk anywhere near as usefull as a rat?
Not vermin mate, that label belongs to someone else.
;-)
rats piss and shit in their own nests
Wow, what a prick.
9/11 is the litmus test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21pPpYw_axQ
Cuntstler... SmokeyQuinn...
The 9/11MORONs of ZH!
just 'cus Kuntsler is dead-wrong about 9/11 doesn't mean he isn't spot-on regarding certain other things. I just think you need to understand his biases/limitations when you read him. IMHO, his section in The Long Emergency regarding why various alternative energy sources won't save the day is one of the best of the genre.
The recognition that each individual owns himself and has sovereignty over his own person and property is the only litmus in which I'm interested.
I gave my love a cherry... That had no stone...
I gave my love a chicken... That had no bone...
indeed, individual body sovereignty over ones "own person" is the ultimate litmus test.
Nice...
Half the clowns here worship their personal freedom with out realizing how subjective they are being...
Then by all means, lets look at the Objectivist viewpoint:
“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
You can not expect him to make sense, if you look above he was telling someone else that everything is subjective.
He's a troll that only pops up when one of his latest pumping schemes is in the news, AGW and Peak Oil.
Hard to argue with any of that.
Except he's utterly blind to the injustices of Israel and 21st C. western colonialism and how the US uses Israel as an agent for Middle Eastern instability to prosecute the oil wars that speak to his core issue. It's inexplicable in someone who writes so coherently, except for a tribal aversion to the truth when it concerns the Israeli / jewish part of it (is he Jewish, I don't even know?)
He avoids because of the fact that what you just said borders on complete utter horseshit, ergo, it is not relevant...
Consider instead on how the Isreal issue is used to manipulate the Evangelicals and their vote....
The world would be a more comforting place if all the Evangelicals and "Repugs" decided to just drop dead, wouldn't it, Flak?
Look what the cat just dragged in...
Nope, just a very vocal small minority of them...
I told my love a story... That had no end...
I just busted your guitar on the staircase, the time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say...
I just poured a jar of mustard on my toga...
The author can defend himself. However in the interest of clarity I should point out that discussing the death of American suburbia and the end of happy motoring (those are his terms for the issues) are worthwhile in themselves and you can skip over why this or that did or did not happen.
The music is over, and there are not enough chairs for everyone to have a seat for the future. This is when shit starts to get real, and when people start to fall of the edge of reality, becoming victims of happenstance.
Nice, real nice,
Its not just me then who thinks us fuckers are stark raving maniacs pointing out whats wrong with the world then?
The mighty Cuntsler thinks so as well.
A beautifull end to a beautifull day bitchez.
;-)
Ahh I see what you did there you clever dog
I grew up around the Baltimore area and I learned very early on that even as much as you can criticize the government you certainly cannot criticize people who're doing wrong and making others bear the burden of their mistakes.
Illegitimate kids? Nope can't comment on that. Theft, rape, robbery? Nope, that's discouraged, its not their fault that we caused them to do those things. Drinking instead of getting a job? Nope not allowed to comment. Wondering how they sustain themselves instead of working and taking care of their own? That'll get you pulled into the Dean's office and reprimanded at University.
Very good post "JustObserving" I will admit, I have spent the last five years reading Mish's blog and was a comment section regular before a sort of melt down destroyed the comments section. Today it is a wasteland. I have also read Kunstler for years, he would not be so popular with the growth capitalist and cheap oil crowd, but I gather some useful insight from him. Now, the thing about Kunstler that he gives away from time to time, is a full buy in to the terrorist threat idea and he seems, but does not admit, to be a fully fledged Zionest. Reading his comments over the years, he has shown himself to be in the Israel first camp. Why? I do not know.
I suspect the "vermin" comment relates to the strong number of rabid anit Zionest posts, and also some Jew hater posters that frequent ZH. I take some value from Kunstler's writing, but he is too Zionest for my tastes.
Yeah, Mish went off the deep end, in fact almost every libertarian leaning blog comment section did so as well. And that is a clue..
And yes, the vermin comment was likely directed at the vocal anti-semites here...
Maybe you could write a paragraph explaining what exactly a Zionist is?
Why is someone posting under the Division Shield of the 10th SS Panzer Division so concerned with anti-semitism?
Ironic isn't it?
Actually, I am against all forms of bigotry, it only demonstrates the ignorance of the bigot.
Perhaps you could write a paragraph explaining what a Semite is.
It would be a short paragraph.
Anyone who is not goyim.
or is not a descendant of Ghengis Khan ~ lol
Message me FS, because I haven't heard the reference.
Perhaps a reference to the Khazars.
....ummmm...Ashkenazi Khazarians are not semitic...see genome research... Johns Hopkins University, December 2012... Oxford University Press... however... there are actually semitics living in the ME... Persians in Iran... and those folks living in camps along the Gaza strip... Palestinians...
Yep, they're not from looking at the history I saw. Khan was more Asian, not Turkish or Middle Eastern. Which is why FS's original comment puzzled me.
It was basically a "joke" based on the following loose fabrication:
~~~
- The number of people in the world [who call THEMSELVES 'jews'], are Ashkenazi [& in fact, not semitic], to the tune of something like 80+%... It was north of 92% before WW2, but in any case, you're still talking 80+% in 'Western Society' [which is important for 'practical' purposes because it is mostly these ones who are so vocal about 'discrimination' & such... In short ~ they play the 'anti-semitic' card like a race card &, in fact, are not semitic themselves... Or MOST of them are not, anyway...
- The Ghengis Khan part was kind of a stretch, but not necessarily... He moved about & covered vast swaths of land [including the land of the Khazars]... So it's not out of the question that co-mingled bloodlines resulted...
Bottom line... FOR ME... As always... Is the following:
- I really don't give a shit about bloodlines [they are what they are]
- What pisses me off are people who are historically known for practices such as 'usury'
- 'Usury' is what is at the very foundation of the PROBLEMS of the world today
- 'Usury' is being asymmetrically apportioned as we speak [there are 'dozens' of comments about it in this thread alone, with NOBODY mentioning or nominating the elephant in the room thereto]
- Now ~ when you combine all of the above... & then take the next step in identification... Then ~ are 'branded' as 'anti-semitic' [by water carriers], who can't stomach the argument, because of their delicate sensibilities or sense of faux self-righteousness... Then consider that the ones who are calling you 'anti-semitic' [in the defense of supposed 'semites']... Well ~ all hilarity ensues...
Hey, but I guess there are no laws against being retarded...
Thanks for the reply FS. Completely agree with your post. Shouldn't that be more aptly names "cheese carriers"?
I believe it's a snark at something I once used to crush some of the more vapid eugenics nonsense (or rather, "Social Darwinism") on the boards here. Do a GREP, it's surrounding posts about the Congo, African Empires and Eugenics.
Khan has genetic ties to about 0.5% of the entire world population. Charlemagne has a similar total.
Fuck early and fuck often I have been told....
No ~ They were telling you to fuck [OFF] early & often... Gotta listen more closely...
My, wasn't that witty and drole....
Good comments and observations Jack. Been reading for years and I agree.
You pick up what you can of value from a writer, leave those Idiosyncrasies of no value.
He is correct on Peak Oil, and Suburbia etc.
I like the anti zionist rants here in ZH land. Always so confident and black/white. Loved when heads of state who travelled to Israel for negoitiations with Bebe: If Netenyahu had brass ball he would have held all talks in Sderot or ashkelon. As if yassar Arafat or abu mazen were even worthy of leadership.
Well in all fairness it's not black and white. I know there are many innocents lumped in along with the evil ones, as with any demographic. But boy do a small fraction of the population cause pain to exponentially more people.
Did it ever occur to you that it is same *type* of people, i.e. sociopaths, narcissists otherwise lacking empathy, that are the cause? And the distribution of these people is pretty much uniform across all populations?
It occurred to me that 'water carriers' are fairly well distributed...
People should look up the 'Cremation of Care' ceremony and what it entails.
For those who won't... "The ceremony involves the poling across a lake of a small boat containing Care ("Dull Care"). Dark, hooded figures receive from the ferryman the effigy which is placed on an altar, and, at the end of the ceremony, set on fire. This "cremation" symbolizes that members are banishing the "dull cares" of conscience".
You basically renounce your oaths, vows, contracts, obligations.
But there is a similar practice in another religion...
No because of the actual number being SO disproportionately fractional to the fucking everyone is receiving at their hands. Someone from 2% of the population doesn't rise to an 80% concentration unless there's huge collusion going on.
Good to see you, James. Was wondering where you went.
No word from Leo. Safe to assume he lost his fight against "natural causes". He'd be what... 75 or so this year. The lost of Swan was the breaking point. The switchover to echo delivered the final blow. Now the village idiots are roaming the land.
Every forum has its share of such people. Here we've got MDB, Greater Fool has "The Smoking Man". Mish has Alstry and BFWR.
JuliaS, Thank you for the kind words. I was James Cole over at Mish for a long time. The avatar of various Scarlett Johansson photos is always a dead give away as to who I really am. I started as Jack Burton over at Mish's and switched after a year to James Cole, lead character in the Movie 12 Monkeys. In it's prime, Mish's discussion board was second to none, sad when it imploded!
It took me a long time to come around to making long posts on ZH. The ZH blog is so first rate with it's economic stories, second to none! Comments here tend toward the short sharp opinions, but many post longer comments and many are very, very good.
Started as a lurker at Mish's blog, and its been a long ride down the rabbit hole ever since.
Yes me too. Whatever I think of Mish's views, I did learn from him early on that the whole financial situation and housing bubble was a fraud. Due to my readings of his blog, I was totally out of the market when it blew up. For this at least, I think him.
Hey what's all that talk lately of hacking cars and planes and remote controlling them? *cough*
That's just conspiracy talk like how the government has the ability to spy on you but doesn't.
Better to be as tenacious as a cockroach than as powerful (and approaching extinction) as a lion.
Kuntsler
Fixed it for you.
Sorry Howard, cheap joke at your expense. Just like your writing.
The funny thing is that the 9/11 conspiracy theories ("free fallers")
are just as much a distraction as the Peak Oil theories...
Kunstler has gotten a little closer to the real issue recently by now calling it Peak Cheap Oil, but even with that he misses the focal point of "need to use less oil/energy" - and the US still has a lot of low hanging fruit in that regard...
we all need to hit the slopes on the chilean mountain tops quick.
[hits teleport button on platinum wrist watch]
I think Russia can capture key segments of the arms trade and the porn trade from the US.
Ah, bullshit! I am sitting back and waiting for Hilsenrath to tell me everything is hunky dory later this afternoon!
2:30 EST, or will he wait until 3:30 EST?
I think Hilsenrath bombed. I am waiting for a major announcement from Warren Buffet that he just initiated several buys using a large amount of cash
or even a large amount of taxpayers cash...would that count ?!
Ha good point.
It's funny we have a 5% correction and they are making the etf industry out to be a giant subprime loan the last few days.
We are here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63UlBsdElsY
Another problem with Canada is that the livable areas are all strangely susceptible to flooding nowadays.
Must be Haarp (er) or some such thing.
I live on a large rock in the Pacific, and we haven't had too much trouble with flooding (due to being, you know, a rock).
But you'll probably want to rent. The RE market is still... Pretty frothy. Across the nation.
Does that rock have place called Sooke?
No one goes there, let alone speaks of that part of the rock.
I honeymooned on the beach at Cape Scott....
Edit: Anybody junking Cape Scott is a fucking idiot.....
Anybody breaking beer bottles in the creek is a fucking idiot too !!!
It's another dirty sand beach in a crappy country.
Sounds like fun times. I am one of few Europeans with my own weapons of war. And if shit hits the fan I will use them to start my own kingdom and collect taxes from the peasants.
I am ready to roll baby!
5/5 for "Entropy never sleeps" alone.
And may I add; "Entropy never sleeps alone".
"Entropy should be embraced, never denied."
F. Flintstone
You can’t have both make up your mind its either the city or the suburbs .
There exists a third way.
But there is not much internet access, and no HD at all.
The author is half-wit. City-less, agrarian nation states are the answer? Good luck finding concentrated markets for perishable agricultural goods without 1) cities within ox-cart distance or 2) cheap fuel for motors so that you can move your produce over distance to concentrated markets.
I agree that suburbia is likely an ephemeral construct of modern times, probably doomed by inevitability, however you don't have prosperous agriculture without the pooling of produce and exchange in villages, towns, and yes cities.
Along with internet and HD, there are no concentrated markets on the third way either. Which is why the DHS bought half-a-billion rounds of hollowpoint, in case you were wondering.
If that causes you a good deal of terror then you can start screaming now and miss the crowd.
"...start screaming now and miss the crowd." Refugee lines of drift, I think they're called, and they will be a'comin'.
They also bought Guilotines. 3000 of them. Saves the effort of the public building them.
Not to nit pick but the author did use the phrase "mega-city"
A "mega-city" is simply a derivative of the self-reinforcing feedback loop of successful agriculture and successful markets that grows over time. I do agree that higher fuel costs may fracture the mega-city + mega-farm scenario however, as the "mega-city" is essentially suburbification of the non-farm wilderness/wastelands between smaller cities, that's really saying nothing.
Exactly what I was thinking...
Did you forget rural?
The cities will empty into the rural, as vast roving bands of starving suburbanites and former-welfare-dependents give up and take their chances on the roads out. The rural will run out of bullets fairly quickly, and become overwhelmed.
I don't like it. I was raised in North California (as we proudly call it) and I don't want to see it destroyed. But the cities (and Big Ag, who I learned to fear and detest) have been destroying the rural for nearly a century, and there isn't much left now, and what there is will fall in a fortnight.
Maybee, but in Europe we still have a lot of genuinely rural areas not dominated by big Ag. A lot of people in those com unities will be fine. Particularly if there are plenty of trees - a few minutes with a chainsaw and you have a roadblock. Add some hills/mountains and I think the hoards of city dwellers will struggle / look for easier prey. If they don't have petrol they are not going far anyway and will thin their own numbers as they go.
Thats the bottom line. Low hanging fruit.
If a mob comes to your door, you are too late, but if you can catch up to the mob while it is 30 minutes away, and give them a hint about a better option... Describe formidable defences.
In medieval times, towns were walled. And for a reason. Outside would be the bodies of some criminals, thieves, rapists, murderers, left as an example for would-be thieves, murderers and rapists.
The key here is to not reinvent the wheel. Our forefathers have dealt with most of this shit before.
Those are all very good points and suggestions, yes they knew how to deal with bandits in the old days. And while I don't like to argue for the sake of it let me point out that everyone knew the score including the bandits, and as a rule there were fewer bandits outside the walls than defenders inside them.
Now let us say you were to empty a starving and unravelling Los Angeles (just to pick one closer to home) you would empty enough people into the south of the state to utterly overwhelm existing police forces all the way to Sacramento before they killed enough of each other to make a dent. Because as one wave of refugees hit a town, it would create another bow-front of new refugees leaving by another route. It would roll like falling dominoes until either winter hit and slowed it down, or someone let loose the WMDs.
We're off the edge of the map with this one. Humanity has never seen the likes of this. We have no relevant experience from before the world was 7 billions, from before technology made our lives soft, since before we left the working farms for comfortable lives in suburbs, since before cheap oil made us unwise, greedy and fat.
I fear the criminal class is simply going to take over entirely. Our future king may well rise from the ghettos we forgot.
Defense (esp. with fortifications) is easier than offense. When we are talking about defending yourself against a mob. Against a professional army your only choice is to disappear or be disappeared.
I.E. If tank warfare comes to the streets of your town, its probably time to leave town.
If people can't buy gas, their mobility is greatly reduced. Have you seen all the people on scooters?
It will get interesting quickly if locally bivouacked units of the US military and national guard start taking their orders from local politicians. I can see several scenarios where that simply becomes the way to go as command and control go out the window along with our techno-utopian dreams.
I'll take a decentralized feudal state over a centralized one.
Mott and baily castles were thrown up in a few weeks with spades. Imagine what you could do with a front end loader in a couple of days.
Something like that would serve the needs of a few. Maybe 20. For maybe a year.
Learn how to think large and long-term. We have an entire civilization to preserve.
Unless you've already given up on the notion, which is fine. You are not alone. I certainly have no answers.
Besides expanding the Anti-Infiltration law, another important prong in the Netanyahu government's migrant policy is the construction of a $416 million, 144-mile fence along the southern border. Completed earlier this year, it is designed to stop migrants from approaching military outposts as well as to further protect Israel from an increasingly chaotic, post-Mubarak Egypt. [PBS]
Well worth a considered read. How long before the entire country is an enclave? Then again, at what point will that fence down Mexico way need to be beefed up into something more substantial?
World War Z looks more like a manual every day.
"The cities will empty into the rural, as vast roving bands of starving suburbanites and former-welfare-dependents give up and take their chances on the roads out..."
~~~
Bullshit ~ The fat asses won't make it 5 miles out of town before they go into septic shock from needing a fucking twinkie... Most of them are doped up on meds anyway & when the meds get cut off they'll be staggering around in circles...
A person doing any walking is gonna need maybe 2-3 gallons a day [& 'carrying water weighs you down to the tune of 8 pounds a gallon]... Typical backpack holds about 65 pounds... If you're walking fast you walk 3 1/2 miles per hour... Fully laden, over terrain, & in a group, maybe 2 1/2 if you're lucky... Most couldn't do more than 6 hours [if they were in 'semi' decent condition]... You'd have to account for the 'slowest' in the group, if in fact, you're talking about these feared 'gangs of vigilantes'...
Considering all of the above... It would take more than 2 weeks to get far enough away from any city at any pace [& most would be choosing the same arteries, so would be competing with EACH OTHER for resources along the way]... Their water would have run out by DAY 2 [unless they could find an uncontaminated water supply along the way]...
Bottom line is... I don't see this roving suburbanite exodus scenario [or, only 'limited', for those who are VERY IN SHAPE, which would probably be 'allies' if they ever showed up on your farm]... My guess is that the majority would seek 'shelter' first [& the easiest shelter to find would be warehouses & industrial parks]... They'd camp out there & go foraging close by on day trips...
With the number of guns laying around the Golden Horde is going to be thinned pretty quickly in the urban centers.
If someone is prepared, the whole idea of bugging out is lunacy. Where the fuck are you going anyway?
You stay put, protect yourself and supplies and let as many people kill each other as possible before venturing outside. In a few months more than 50-70% around you will be dead.
Agreed. And those recently deceased will be protein-rich - if you can get to them before the rats.
One of the rules of survival is follow the rivers of water, usually downstream when in a wilderness, but upstream would work in an urban area.