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Say Goodbye To Normal - We're Going Medieval
Submitted by James H. Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
The tremors rattling markets are not exactly what they seem to be. A meme prevails that these movements represent a kind of financial peristalsis - regular wavelike workings of eternal progress toward an epic more of everything, especially profits! You can forget the supposedly “normal” cycles of the techno-industrial arrangement, which means, in particular, the business cycle of the standard economics textbooks. Those cycle are dying.
They’re dying because there really are Limits to Growth and we are now solidly in grips of those limits. Only we can’t recognize the way it is expressing itself, especially in political terms. What’s afoot is a not “recession” but a permanent contraction of what has been normal for a little over two hundred years. There is not going to be more of everything, especially profits, and the stock buyback orgy that has animated the corporate executive suites will be recognized shortly for what it is: an assest-stripping operation.
What’s happening now is a permanent contraction. Well, of course, nothing lasts forever, and the contraction is one phase of a greater transition. The cornucopians and techno-narcissists would like to think that we are transitioning into an even more lavish era of techno-wonderama — life in a padded recliner tapping on a tablet for everything! I don’t think so. Rather, we’re going medieval, and we’re doing it the hard way because there’s just not enough to go around and the swollen populations of the world are going to be fighting over what’s left.
Actually, we’ll be lucky if we can go medieval, because there’s no guarantee that the contraction has to stop there, especially if we behave really badly about it — and based on the way we’re acting now, it’s hard to be optimistic about our behavior improving. Going medieval would imply living within the solar energy income of the planet, and by that I don’t mean photo-voltaic panels, but rather what the planet might provide in the way of plant and animal “income” for a substantially smaller population of humans. That plus a long-term resource salvage operation.
All the grand movements of stock indexes and central banks are just a diverting sort of stagecraft within the larger pageant of this contraction. The governors of the Federal Reserve play the role of viziers in this comic melodrama. That is, they are exalted figures robed in magical Brooks Brothers summer poplin pretending to have supernatural power to control events. You can tell from their recent assembly out west — “A-holes at the J-hole” — that they are very much in doubt that their “powers” will continue to be taken seriously. This endless hand-wringing over a measily quarter-point interest rate hike is like some quarrel among alchemists as to whether a quarter-degree rise in temperature might render a lump of clay into a gold nugget.
What they do doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that a great deal of the notional “wealth” they conjured up over the past decade or so is about to vanish —poof! Perhaps that will look like a black magic act. That wealth seemed so real! The bulging portfolios with their exquisite allocations! The clever options! The cunning shorts. Especially the canny bets in dark derivative pools! All up in a vapor. The sad truth being it was never there in the first place. It was just an hallucination induced by the manipulation of markets and the criminal misrepresentation of statistics, especially the employment numbers.
There are rumors that the Grand Vizeress of all, Ms. Yellen, is flirting with possible indictment over the “leakage” of valuable information out of her inner circle to potential profiteers. Whoops. It may lead nowhere but to me it is an index of her more general loss of credibility. All year she has spouted supernaturally fallacious nonsense about how “the data” guides Fed decision-making. Only her data is contrary to what is actually happening in the pathetic Rube Goldberg contraption that the so-called US economy has become (Walmart + entitlements). Her “guidance” amounts to a lot of futile drum-beating on a turret of the Fed castle, hoping to make it rain prosperity. Her enigmatic utterances have kept financial markets in a narrow sideways channel most of the year until recently.
I’d say she’d lost her mojo, and the lesser viziers on the Fed board are looking more and more like the larval, sunken-chested dweebs that they really are. So where is the nation to turn? Why, to the great blustering Trump, with his “can-do” bombast about “making America great again.” What does he mean, exactly? Like, making America the way it was in 1958?” Behold: the return of the great steel rolling mills along the banks of the Monongahela (and so on)! Fuggeddabowdit. Ain’t gonna happen.
I have to say it again: prepare to get smaller and more local. Things on the grand level are not going to work out. Get your shit together locally, and do it in place that has some prospect for keeping on: a small town somewhere food can be grown and especially places near the inland waterways where some kind of commercial exchange might continue in the absence of the trucking industry. Sound outlandish? Okay then. Keep buying Tesla stock and party on, dudes. Hail the viziers in their star-and-planet bedizened Brooks Brother raiment. Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
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Anyone know where to get some agricultural land on the cheap? Anyone? Anyone? Didn't think so.
The cost of land doesn't bother me too much. Property taxes are the killer.
Gail Tverberg thinks this is the beginning of the end...
Oil and the Economy: Where are we headed in 2015 and 2016
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2015/02/oil-and-economy-where-are-we-heade...
I wish we could go medieval. Pristine environment and 10% flat tax on all the serfs? No VAT or utility expenses? No firearms for ANYONE? Yeah, the good old times when you could defend your turf and the fruits of your work with a large family and pitchforks are gone forever.
I'm holding out for the castle on the hill.... It's good to be the king.
Or as the quote goes - Fuck you, pay me.
"It's just you and your tattered libido against the bank and the mortician forever, man. And it wouldn't be luck if you could get out of life alive."
Bring out your dead.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
I was about to say, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords would be the basis of systems of governments...
King Arthur: I am your king.
Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king.
Dennis: [interrupting] Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Help, Help, I'm being repressed!
That friggen movie is beyond hilarious. Love that part. (although the flying carnivorous rabbit takes the cake IMHO)
Gawd, why don't they make good comedy movies like that anymore? Monyt Python and Kung Pow have got to be two of the best "quotable" movies you can ever see. ...maybe Young Frankenstein fits in there as well.
"Thats a lot of nuts"
E. Tennessee and Kentucky.
One reason I moved near the family farm in the Midwest and got out of the city. To be honest never wanted to leave the farm, but the job I wanted required me to leave and get experience.
There is no survival in a city at the end. If you don't have family with land you can always work on skills. Farms will need people to do help with much of the work running farms with limited implements and little fuel. They will take in people with skills. The main skill is willing to work. If you have that you're ahead of 75% of the US population. Yes I'm a US citizen so I can criticize my country.
Just outside of tianjin, or just outside of Chernobyl, or just outside of Detroit, or just outside of Chicago, or just outside of Fukushima. All the rest is owned by the Chinese. solly.
Central banks promised to end the boom-bust cycle. I believe they did. This ride is going all the way to the bottom.
I absolutely reject the limits to growth written about here. The central banks are just one of the entrenched interest standing in the way of economic and structural transformation that will trigger explosive growth that has never been seen before. The main ingredient necessary for growth is freedom, after that, sound money. I hope I live through the dark times to see the dawn of these things that will propel unlimmited opportunities for my children.
You will not, but your children will make good slaves... or perhaps house servants.
Do medieval chicks shave their pits?
Nah - it's country-pie and a whole lotta stank... But hey, don't be proud...
Plus one for the turn of phrase!
My Nordic wife just keeps smelling better, day after day. She was designed by nature to go (cold) months without bathing and still be attractive to potential mates. IT IS THE PROCESSED SUGAR IN OUR DIETS, and the bacteria it fosters that causes the majority of unpleasant body odor. What I hate is women who smell like the unavoidable cosmetics gauntlet one faces when walking in the mall entrance to a Nordstroms. Nord-stroms...please.
Don't forget Flouride and processed meats! Jerky and home made beer, REAL vegtables and fruits, sunglasses and lots of sunblock, cutting firewood and tending a garden, these things will keep you alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin
Medieval chicks (and guys) also bathe twice a year whether they need it or not!
The ultimate product of peristalsis is....shit. That corn dog gets moved down to the anus somehow.
D is for...
We sell baby parts in the fusa , cops are shot daily. And the blacks are put on what amounts to a reservation. Gov sub contractors engineer rouge shooters to order I can go on we are Medevil now
The reason why putin regime is suffering economic recession is not only because of low oil prices (look at Norway who also is oil exporting country) and EU & US sanctions on putin regime – problem roots goes much deeper than that. It goes back into 2001 – 2003 when oil prices where booming and Russia economy just started to get on it’s feet from crisis that hit 1998.
Cash from oil was flowing in Russia economy and it kept that way for next 10 years which was a chance for putin regime to make decision what way will Russia develop. One option was to invest in developing: industrial complex, agriculture, science, democracy, free market, free media, civil rights, free elections, fight with corruption – that all would bring to Russia more foreign investment, differentiate economy structure, stabilize social structure, etc. But instead putin regime choose different path: create regime control over media, attack opposition till their leaders jailed, killed, silenced, etc. Court system works for regime, but regarding economy putin regime didn’t invest in: industrial complex, agriculture, science, etc. – because it was easier to earn money now from oil export and buy everything needed as import from EU, US, China etc. So year by year more Russian manufacturing companies closed because could not compete with EU, US, China import. In order to stop unemployment level from rising in Russia – putin regime made different steps, like increased bureaucrats, created different kind ofprojects that had nothing to do with economic reason. Of course all those projects where created in order to steal more and more Russian nation money that was coming in from oil.
So more cash to elite, more simple jobs to people of Russia and everyone put on blind eye on corruption and economic reason and that could work for 10 years. Because oil export was booming, price of oil was high and everyone get his share of a pie. If something was necessary – it was simply imported. So In result today Russia manufacturing industry can’t work without importing many parts that are produced in EU, US. Now what that means for Russia economy in future? It means that as RUB continues to collapse it’s more and more expensive for manufacturing industry to produce anything as they need to import parts from EU, US but they must pay more and more RUB. In result their products get’s more and more expensive and they loose the market share. So they have to lay off more workers and this problem only will increase.
There is no way out of this. RUB will crash because of low oil prices and because Russia economy structure is not differentiated (as for example Norway has) and linked to oil export. Problem with Russia economy started before putin regime invaded Ukraine. It goes back into 2013. So only way for putin regime to stay in power is to create artificial outside enemy in order to mobilize Russian patriotism so that Russian do not to attack putin regime who makes him self as only savior. This can be done only if putin regime controls main stream media – which is what putin regime does. Putin regime and it’s elite knows that there is no way out of this situation. They know Russia is heading for a collapse. But they have no options to solve this. They know they have been stealing oil money for more than 10 years, they know they have been breaking international law by invading other countries like Georgia and Ukraine. They know they can’t simply leave their positions. Because than they will be hanged. And they know they can’t escape Russia economy collapse.
They know they can’t start full open war with Ukraine or worse with NATO – that would only make Russia collapse faster. They are stuck. And have no way out of this situation. Of course China know that, US knows that, EU knows that. So everyone will take their actions to get more benefit out of this and to protect it’s interests. Time is not on putin regime side.
My prediction is that putin regime will collapse in time frame something around October 2015 – June 2016. It will get ugly and bloody.
https://stopputinregime.wordpress.com/
Was this translated with a potato?
Awesome comment L Bean.
My question: where's Boris when you need him? :-)
No, a potatoe
Is that you, Dan?
Comparing Russia to Norway is idiotic or dishonest or perhaps dishonestly idiotic.
Norway has population of 5 million
Russia has populaton of 143 million
Norway has oil production of 1,539,000 bbl/day
Russia has oil production of 10,107,000 bbl/day
Norway's oil production is 0.3078 bbl/day per person
Russia's oil production is 0.0707 bbl/day per person
Norway also did not have to rebuild itself from WWII and then communism. They do not need much of a millitary budget as they are protected by NATA. Russia has to have a capable millitary and develop advance weapon systems if they want to remain independent.
So quit being a dishonest idiot.
trav7777- ''The future cannot repay todays debts''
Nice quote.
Also: Free Francis Sawyer.
Amazing - somebody actually stating what is going on. Bravo.
What the world faces now is something akin to the black plague...a period of outright population declines likely within the next 50yrs...but the population declines among the high consumer nations of 0-64yr/olds has already begun. The actions of CB's has simply been to substitute credit / debt for declining demand...but the demand declines upcoming are far beyond what more credit / debt can make up...a violent end of this period is imminent.
And nations where population growth continues are those with no money...consider there are 20 nations in Africa with annual incomes lower than that of Haiti's $1750/yr (PPP)?!? Can't buy much oil or ipods or much of anything on that no matter how many more exist...hell, Congo has a population of 82 million with average income of $700/yr...
http://econimica.blogspot.com/2015/08/global-growth-3-legged-stool.html
I'm astounded by ZH's ignorance or disinterest or avoidance of the topic of why the world has seemingly gone mad...it's really a simple flow issue but ZH has gone out of it's way to not call this out? Wonder why??? How we are so late in the game and ZH still isn't on this makes one wonder....
rational plan, assuming we go closer to Mad Max than peaceful reset, is to sit out the first 6 months in a cave with lots of food. At the 6 month point assess whether there will be a struggle for remaining resources or if there are enough producers to re-establish a functioning economy.
If the former, wish you had more in guns and security. If the latter wish you had more function capital (gold, farm impliments and machinery.
How one rationally prepares depends very much upon one's outlook. Hopefully it is based on deep thought rather than fear and hope.
Much better plan, make sure you live on arable land, decently far from large population center and freeways and large power structures, have your BBB (beans, bullion and bullets) stored away, enough for six months at least of off the grid living, multiple power sources, water sources, and a like minded community nearby. During the black plague the communities that survived were the ones that isolated themselves and blocked others from entering. It could be the same type of thing, droughts and collapsing food production is what kills millions more efficiently (and with less blow back on the PTB later) than sending people to "FEMA CAMPS". Reading history (does anyone actually read history anymore?) you can see where hundreds and possibly even thousands of millions of people have died because of simple starvation (and associated illnesses) in the last 100 years. Fixes things like 'pension plans' doesn't it?
Just what are you suggesting?
>>>Just what are you suggesting?
Good question. I suspect part of the answer is that ZH, in addition to enlightening, entertaining and preaching the Gospel, is also a major-league "profit thing".
Medievel Good. Maybe then we can rustle up some banksters for the guillotines.
I'll help.
Nope.. It's gonna be broad ax, rope, burning at the stake, dunking,crushing with stones, throwing off cliffs, being fed to wolves, or drawn and quartered..
Take your pick cause Guillotines were Renaissance gizmos...
Solyent Bankster...... It's what we will have for dinner
Biden 2016
Bring Out The Gimp!
"I'ma get medieval on your ass" <marsellus wallace>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6zqu_9Sb7w
Kunstler instictively hates the Trump because he is successful, blond and of Germanic stock. But he'll come around...
;-)
If zero hedge is doom-porn then this post was a real snuffer...
ZH said ... "there really are Limits to Growth and we are solidly in the grips of those limits".
Absolutely correct.
The gobal economic sytem was built upon a world that had unconstrained resources ... we could drill, mine, farm and chop down - anything we wanted to. That world has disappeared. BUT our economic system and the structure of our society still "expects" this world to exist. It does NOT exist, and it will not return.
The longer that we try to maintain an economic system based on "past principles and expectations" .... the higher the chance of a MAJOR loss of human life in the future.
There are other limits also. Such as social complexity.
Most of what holds modern society together now has gone from robust to completely fragile. JIT systems are the norm. Everything connected by complicated logistics.
You mean how people can't interact with each other in person any more cause of Farcebook, Twatter and their ilk?
Spent fuel pools are nice model for JIT: if the cooling pumps stop, you get a global extinction event.
In a systemic crisis how will those pumps be maintained, who will do it, with what equipment? How will they get to work? What will they eat? How much fuel is on hand for the generators? Days? Weeks?
I have more than wondered about this. So far the answers I have found are not pretty.
Helluva doomsday machine: You vil maintain exponential growth or else!
A set of doomsday machines that turn a mere catastrophe into an extinction event, an orders-of-magnitude levered systemic anti-hedge.
I've mentioned this once or twice. Your absolutely right, cooling pools need to be transitioned to dry cask if possible and natural circulation if possible until dry cask, open Yucca mountain, we can store Harry Reid there first...
That is always the last thing to add when educating sheep. Oh, and once all that shit goes down and it's all mad max, then you have 400 reactors go boom. I prefer not to think about them
The two are intertwined. Social complexity has costs, many of which are in the form of physical resources.
Anyway, lets face it, if you want to understand the tax code, you'd need to spend 3 years in law school specializing in the tax code, then 20 more years studying the code and you still wouldn't understand it in its entirety. Even for people who are OK with the idea of a tax code, it is entirely too complex. You shouldn't need to have post-doc knowledge to understand something that you are required to do in day-to-day life.
Per the immutable law of karma, every IRS employee above the level of data-entry or answering the phone, will die horribly.
Per the immutable law of FATCA, my return runs 150 pages, though I never owe the feds any tax, anyway.
As a semi-geezer heading out the door, I will welcome the death of the USA and a new Medieval Age. (My son is a hell of a nice guy, bur well-trained in controlled violence... might become one of the nicer war-lords)
Have blast, guys and gals! And don't forget to tip your server.
YOu can never master the tax code.. They keep changing it every fucking year.
CL: Another aspect of JIT systems is that they involve multiple hands in the trough, multiple skims, more and more costs added to every transaction. The carrying costs of doing anything are much higher today than they were when I was a kid, and vastly higher than when my dad was young. All those components, all the added steps of complexity, create drag on the system like sand in the gears. Eventually the system just stops. That's the moment when things get very interesting. Unfortunately, that's the moment when the very worst of us see the opportunity.
Sure today everybody is a specialist. But go back 100 years and lots of people knew how engines worked, how to grow food, dig a well, etc.
So increased complexity means decreased robustness and increased dependence on Government.
It means none of these things.. certainly not dependence on government.. government depends on all these complexities to attach iteself to as many moving parts and suck out as much as possible.
But...but....isn't it more fun to watch micro skirted bimbos on TV telling us all is well?
You mean the bimbos that represent the National Association of Realtors?
Please insert pics of the micro skirted bimbos.
How is this:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/b2/b5/a6/b2b5a6c8aeafcde9f2ca7...
Nobody listens to what they say, as long as they wear micro skirts
Nano skirts are the next big thing.
indeed we have reached the limits to growth but
these limits are artificial - put on us by creditors demanding to get their laons back
we can simply write off the debts and have limits lifted off
interesting article at der Spiegel.
German companies see the REFUGEE CRISIS IN EUROPE as an opportunity for growth.
who would have thunk it! Coincidence?
Next it will be a GUARANTEED ANNUAL INCOME. mark my words. they have the printing press and the Council on Foreign Relations ran an article on it 7 or so months ago.
The beast must be saved at any cost. besides, our leaders live in gated communities with 24/7 armed security so THEY dont have to worry about the coming crime wave.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugees-are-an-opportunity-for-the-german-economy-a-1050102.html#ref=nl-international
Now go read "The Trap" by Sir James Goldsmith. He explained the "plan" for us back in 1980.
Debt is overtaking us because actual growth has been slowing.
Unfortunately for us, our financial system has come to dominate our economy, rather than serving as a useful tool in aid of the real economy. And the financial system has several well-known flaws. The flaw I'm thinking of right now is that it creates debt first, before anything else happens in a transaction. The rest of the transaction can go completely haywire and never produce any growth or anything of value at all, but the debt created is still there. As a result, all kinds of pro-debt incentives are built right in. With the results we see all around us.
feature, not flaw.
The i is silent in Medieval.
Going Medieval? So is everybody here cool if I lead the Viking hordes out of Nebraska and the Dakotas on a yearlong campaign of rape and pillage on the east and west coasts. I was hoping to set up my trebuchet outside of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and bombard the place with the rotting corpses of John McCain and his buddies.
If you find Jon Corzine throw him in there too please. He and the current occupant are best buddies.
And HILLARY!!!
PLEASE!!
When I said "buddies" I was reffering to democrats.
Best to move the trebuchets to the Fed at Constitution Ave. I'm fine with the plan to launch McCain and Corzine at them though.
I think that what you are feeling is the approach of a tipping point, where the male dominated, dualistic, competitive, technological society will change and more power will be given to the spirtual, unified and female society.
It is said that we can do everything we do technologically and more, spiritually. Well, maybe the left-brained emotionally dead rulers of the world cannot, but people as a whole are capable of it.
The controllers are trying to stop the change. Hopefully they will not destroy this world as they did their previous one.
Modern society is thorougly feminine: collectivist, abstract, irrational, and fictitious. Anyone paying attention will notice how feminists are the bolsheviks of democracy. War has increased, we are not free, and spirituality is reduced to the capricious self-worship of individuals. There are no islands of beautiful lesbians inviting you into their paradise, only closet-dykes looking for individual sponsors to pay for their 'emotional labour' (i.e. entitlement to life, or a more than living wage for being a woman).
It is another scheme, and you fell for it. Albright, Clinton, and Nuland are your real female leaders. Men may devour their children, but women will insist they are victims while doing so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8
When I run for King I expect y'all to vote for me, or else!
So borrowing what you cant afford to pay back was normal? The fuck kind of mythology is this?
Live for nothing, or die for something.
-Rambo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDsu-CnBHBY
Sure, go amish. We are not hitting the limits of growth yet, but we are close enough to figure out where they are. However we do need to reduce world population. I would just say stop immigration and let every country live within its own means. EU and USA are already on a downward population trend, just let things happen naturaly.
With sufficent energy we can continue growing. And I already know what everyone here thinks about renewables, but they are the only sunshine away from dark ages. Only 300k km2 (Sahara 9m km2, Arizona 300k km2, let alone Gobi, Nevada, etc.) of photovaltics can supply ALL the energy world has consumed in the previous year. And than there are hydro, wind, tide/wave, biomass, nuclear or coal (we can leave some coal). With sufficent energy we can grow.
Resources can be recycled or switched. Just remember Nazi Germany switching from natural rubber to synthetic. Fertilizers can be made though Haber bosch without Nat. Gas. When push comes to shove innovation comes naturaly.
There are roads to a shiny future. They are not easy but they exist. Shunning them for whichever reason is in my mind irresponsible. And how can we take them? Let's look at resources spent by armies of the world. Top 15 armies army budgets are at 1.3 trillion dollars per year. Total wealth in the world is estimated at 240 trillions of which most is in the hands of 0.001% of population. It is not the path forward that is hindering us, but the shackles of the past.
As I walk through the valley where I harvest my grain..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo74Dn7W_pA
How much is the sufficient energy that we need to continue growing? The problem is the path forward.
Only issue with regard to population reduction are those religious groups who believe that God says (and put it in writing too!) they can have as many kids as they want....
I think this thingy is one of the coolest things around. Want one in the basement.
http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp
Certainly we could make a decent life for the current world population to reduce itself gradually over time. But you know as well as I do why this won't happen: it won't provide PROFIT to the Banks and the Investors. It's a steady-state economy or even a slight decline. It doesn't promise eternal and infinite growth. Capitalists only make money from Growth. If there is no Growth people have to actually PRODUCE something in order to prosper. They can't sit back and just let it roll in as the result of investing fantasy ledger-entries.
Sorry. The only way to get from here to there is to get rid of the parasite classes.
I have this old little book called THE LIMITS OF GROWTH
written by the council of Rome.
It's a old book but it's the book of nostrdameus that predicted every crash and they way our society goes.
2016 was the breaking point starting in 2015. And believe me, it's some scary shit what they're predicting.
Medieval indeed
UNLESS!!!
Unless we can move on to a society 1 level, and as high as our technology is, it's not advanced enough to be there so if you ready the book, it's about a 2 hour read and you can find the pdf's online, you'll read some scary shit.
Like I said, the scary part is that most of it is right.
And the council of Rome isn't just some think tank, it's where every country in the west goes for advice and they're still sticking the books predictions.
Get yer free copy of it here:
http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digi...
And thanks for the heads up on it SD!
cool ...medieval wenches to bring me beers
Mead dude!
Yeah, but you're going to have to figure out how to get brewer's yeast without the benifit of a lab. They figured it out 4 or 5 thousand years ago, so my guess is that the process is simple and has to do with not feeding a sourdough starter. Figure that out, then you can have all of the mead or beer you can produce the inputs for.
You can reharvest yeast from a fermented batch and cultivate and store it (though lack of power/refridgeration can make that tricky). I've got a 4th generation cider yeast that cranks out some insane ABV yields.
Great Goddess, is this some kind of trick question?
You skim off the bloom, toss it in a cup of warm water and add a tablespoon of sugar or honey. Cover with cheesecloth. Every third day, divide it, add more water and sugar. Use however much you need when you make a batch of bread or beer. Share and trade with your neighbors so that if one household's culture dies, there are alternatives.
This AIN'T rocket science. This is College Survival 101.
If we go medieval all the women will be producing enough yeast for bread, beer and anything else you desire... only problem is that everything that you make with it will smell like oysters;.
The Limits to Growth is probably our masters' most successful disinformation document since the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
If they themselves believed it for one second, they wouldn't be encouraging those subspecies of mankind incapable of functioning in an industrial civilization to breed far beyond their capacity to feed themselves by subsistence farming and send the surplus north to clean their mistresses' catboxes. Only those nations whose peoples pose a threat to their rule are being encouraged to stop reproducing.
Why would you think that the people calling the shots today are any smarter than the people who were calling the shots in ancient Rome? Because that level of thought would imply that they are.
We are all, as in all of us, unless you are on your death bed mind, going to find out just how valuable your actual real productive capacity is. Including you Mr Kuntsler. What a fucking name by the way.
Every, Mother, Fucking, One, Of, Us.
Its all you have ever been worth....
Ask Blankfiend, and that poisoned little dwarf cunt mate of his called yelling or sumint.
Got it?
;-)
We are already seeing the consequences of growth limits. Currency wars are going to heat up. Saudi Arabia pumping oil to drive other producers out of the market. Pretty soon, you're going to see much harsher measures taken by many governments, like outright tariffs on foreign made goods. Get ready for the trade war.
Read The Limits Of Growth from the council of rome. It's from the 70's and it's a perfect prediction of what's happening and happened up to date.
When it was publisehed "Limits to Growth" was the target of a smear campaign...Rockefeller is weird, Club of Rome....nothing they predicted happened in the first few years therefore they'tre wrong etc. etc.
But they nailed a lot of things and did it without massive computational power.
"absence of trucking industries" - what's next ,wagons and donkeys?
crazy prepper
Ifrastructure failure means the highways can't be maintained with asphalt but maybe gravel. So horses and donkeys why not.
I didn't even have to click on this piece of shit article to know, from the two sentences on the first page, it's from the old grouchy luddite Kunstler. How can anyone take this clown seriously?
Obviously, you are very anti-ludditic
And think on this mind. I am of, or nearly the same general intelligence as Joe fucking Bidens son. Round abouts like?
I mean for fucking Dogs sake, the intellect just oozes owt me skin, same as that first class fucker with an arse for a brain. Dont get me wrong mind, if that daft cunt Joe can take the piss owt of you lot for how long? Whats to stop the likes of his son or me doing the same? Whatcha gonna do?
And you dont even have to call me 'Hunter', Sir will do. Get it?
Politics wont solve the problems we face my friends, but you already know this...
:-)
Pretty sure I read some calculations by a Caltech professor who ballparked the carrying capacity of the earth at around 500 Million people.
Also read another report that said that a Concentrated Solar Farm that was 250 kilometres by 250 kilometres could supply the current power requirements of the earth.
FWIW.
That's a lot of silver. A LOT.
"Get your shit together locally, and do it in place that has some prospect for keeping on: a small town somewhere food can be grown and especially places near the inland waterways where some kind of commercial exchange might continue in the absence of the trucking industry."
Inland waterways are for commerce? No silly, they're for boating accidents!
I have a bunch of food but my teenagers need the internet or they'll be a problem. Eventually they'll learn to adjust but those first weeks without Call of Duty....not looking forward to that. Homemade piazza will not fill the void left by 'what?!?! no internet?!?!.
I think my daugher will go into some sort of bonified withdrawal episode.
The kids really need some slapping around and a hard reality check.
They are overdue for it.
Just DO IT!
Say what you will about Jim, he is on to something here. I see the great migrant wave that has begun to flow from Africa, the Middle East and SW Asia as the symptom of what Jim says. There are countless millions of people with nothing, no job, less food, less housing, collapsed medical care and wars for what is left.
In the modern age of TV and Internet, all these poor people are fed a daily dose of European news and TV programs. The millions of poor people see Europe and instead of trying to work and build their own nations, they are saying "fuck it" and racing north to get in.
Why do I say "racing"? Well look at the videos, they are actually running each other over to get to Northern Europe. Why? Well, because they sense that the "good idea to move to Sweden" that they just got, has been picked up by everyone else too. So it isn't one family with the smart idea to go live in Stockhom, London or Berlin, nope, millions have figured out the same thing at the same time! Thus it is now a race. In that race, the central theme is to get to a rich EU country and beat the other millions. The fear is that 1,000 families figuring out to move to Sweden is gonna work, but when 500,000 familes decide to move to Sweden, it will cause a Swedish backlash and borders may be closed.
So what you witness on the news in this migrant crisis is a RACE among tens of millions who want to be inside Sweden or Denmark or UK when the borders get shut. In other words, you gotta move now, next year might not cut it.
The EU is incapable of handling the crisis. Why, because liberals want this migration and business interests want it. Liberals want to dilute the hated white ethnics, and business want more labor at cheaper prices, plus more consumers. If you own flats in London, the more migrants crowd in, the higher the rent you can demand. This works everywhere. London landlords and landlords and property agents all across Britain are betting a million new migrants a year will cause housing prices to boom!
Greed and stupidity. The EU is full of both!
The most amazing site ever wittnessed by the markets will be the failure to make everything right on the part of the Fed. I doubt it will be a loss of nominal value to assets though. It will probably be a loss of value in the dollar.
The Fed can print it's way to DOW 36,000. They cannot print value into the currency....and the government can't quit spending...it just hurts too much.
I've been reading James Howard Kunstler's books and blogs for roughly ten years now. I think he's contributed some very important material to the discussion. His older works on architecture were actually very well done. Nowadays, however, he's sounding increasingly cranky and unhinged, and the crude, unreconstructed leftism of his youth keeps bubbling through the surface of his writings like pullalations of some miasmic bog.
Kunstler's idee fixe of the reappearance of small local economies is producing an increasingly kooky effect. While I fully agree that there will be an inevitable downscaling of economic activity in the not-too-distant future, the likely result will be the development of large but simple national economies (i.e. the coalescence of giant industrial guilds with nationalist state power, something like the Gazprom model in Russia).
This represents, I think, a far better alternative than "a world made by hand." It will allow a greater number of people to retain at least some of the blessings of civilization, albeit at a lower base level.
I concur with your assessment of Kunstler. Ultimately, despite his insight he is a bitter ex-hippie new york joo who can't transcend the limitations of his cultural/ethnic background. His biases poison his conclusions, but he shines his harsh light on deserving topics and knows how to turn a phrase.
Man has throughout history attempted to obviate the laws of nature, the universe, God (or whatever the hell you want to call it). And he has largely succeeded in many cases, because while these laws can’t be repealed, they can be temporarily suspended. For example, an airplane created by man can temporarily suspend the law of gravity, but eventually gravity wins. Likewise, man can extend the life of natural resources with improved technology, but eventually those resources will run out.
While we could run out of oil, gold, silver, etc. and still continue to exist, if we run out of food or water, it’s game over. And guess what, we’re running out of food and water. Since 1950 arable land per capita has decreased by over 50%. This decline will accelerate as the world’s population increases exponentially. Then, there is the sad state of farming in most developed countries. In short, young people do not want to farm. The average age of a farmer in the U.S. is around 60 years old. Meaning that in the next decade or two we will not have enough farmers to service existing farms. Then what? Monsanto will magically develop some evil seed with 10 times the yield, but with zero nutritional value. Likely. People with full bellies don’t tend to overthrow governments quite as much.
But at least humanity can survive a few weeks or months on restricted caloric intake (might even be good for them). Without water, not so much. Less than a week, tops. But of course our government is on top of things. With California experiencing the worst drought in modern history the Governor is right on top of it by backing the construction of……a high speed train. Huh??? Of course, silly me, a high speed train is highly useful for generating fresh water. Assholes!!!
Take my advice (I can’t use it). Find a good piece of land with a good well, learn how to grow your own food, learn how to use a gun and teach your kids. You’re probably screwed anyway, but at least you’ll have a fighting chance.
IMHO the Medieval period is grossly underrated.
Kunstler makes the Dark Ages sound like a bad thing. Those were the good old days of wine, women and kumbaya. It was dark because everybody was making love all the time. Given what we know now, and a few antibiotics, we could live like high-tech cavemen kings with no more PC bullshit and the fat lesbians would go the way of the Wolly Mammoth. Mark my words.
is he making a living with this BS?
Yes.
Medieval ! My next tattoo will need to be hand poked!
I'm going to go live in the Castle Anthrax. See you in a couple of centuries.
Fine. Get local. Get small. Prep. Buy a farm.
And then have a large white family to work that farm. Don't become depressed like the socialist NWO wants you. Do not give up hope. If this doomer stuff is true then you NEED a large family to survive! You need people you can trust with your life. You NEED many children to work and help you.
So doom for modern consumerist, hedonist, degenerate society is a glorious future for a return to traditional family values. So where you see doom I see hope for a better future. A future where white people have children instead of beach houses and fancy imported cars.
The women (if you want to call them that) are no where near in the mindset to come even close to what will be needed to survive this way. Kids? LOL Not in the cards for these feminazi brainwashed tarts...
This society is totally fucked all over and the women in this country have become nothing short of clueless, self-entitled, hedonistic, narcissistic, mind fucked cunts from coast to coast.
Sadly you are correct.
I have a very strong bias against breeding outside of my own European stock, but I may need to get myself a foreign wife as she will likely be the only type of woman who will A) Not mind the traditional female role; B) Not balk about bearing and caring for children[A and B are somewhat redundant, but not entirely]; and C) Be content to live on my income.
Yes, I've actually devoted serious thought to this, and it is by no means an easy topic.
Go East my young man, Go East!
...as in far east. The women there are hands down better than the westernized trash that has been brainwashed on the kike inspired clusterfuck mindset we have here.
I am counting the days until I leave to find a decent female. Finally!
Wait, how do you know my wife?
Weaall. The uprates on this just demonstrate the extreme gender imbalance in the commentariat on ZH. Not that I hadn't already figured that out from the general lack of couth. American males these days certainly do NOT rate the term "gentleman".
Women in this country are tired of doing all the work while the men sit on their lazy cans and complain. I tossed one husband out for that kind of behavior, and I won't have another sitting around expecting me to spoil him like an only child. If you can't find a hard-working, intelligent woman who will have you, look at yourselves for the cause. If you want a woman to carry a football around in her tummy for nine months and then change diapers for another two years, wipe snot for another five, and cook the meals and do the laundry until said precious poppet OUGHT to be moving out but won't -- you'd better be prepared to work as hard as she does. I've yet to find a man capable of that.
Fine. But could you dump the religious trappings and stop worshiping a dead Jew on a stick? As long as you're going local, why not pick a local tree to honor and cherish? Trees do so much more for us than dead jews: they exhale oxygen; they reduce summer heat with their shade, they pump water up from as much as fifty feet underground, and many of them drop delicious nuts in the autumn. Doesn't it make more sense to worship Trees?
Here is some pertinent engineering economics regarding solar power*:
1. Approximately 23.84 Mega Watts peak (electricity) per square kilometer (km^2) can be produced with current technology using single axis tracking arrays;
2. Capital and installation costs are about $50.87 M (million) per km^2;
3. Expected lifetime with proper installation and regular panel cleaning and maintenance is about 25 years.
4. Every component of the system has a high fossil fuel content;
5. Transportation and installation requires fossil fuels;
6. About 202.3 Mega Watt-hours per day per km^2 can be generated assuming 12-hours of sunlight per day, not accounting for losses;
7. At $0.10 per kW-hour ($100 per MW-hour) that power is worth about $20,226 or about $7.38 million per year;
• One person here posted regarding a 250 X 250 km array: $3.18 Trillion capital & installation costs.
• Another person here posted regarding a 300,000 km^2 array: $15.26 Trillion capital & installation costs.
Note the caveats below regarding all of the costs that are not included above. Good luck finding investors!
*Information based on the USAF solar power installation at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona in 2014 dollars. Costs do not include land acquisition costs, electrical storage installations, electrical high-voltage transformer installations or electrical grid installations and/or upgrades required to distribute the electrical power. Operating, regular panel cleaning and maintenance costs not included.
This is going to get so bad before it is over. We should start playing pick the false flag headline. I'll take ex Vietnam vet gold bug on Social Security who is purported to be a "racist", has a tendency to make "anti government" statements, is "paranoid" about banks and watered his lawn twice last week shoots up hospital neonatal ward killing dozens of babies in incubators for $500 Alex.
P.S. I think "We're going medievil" would be a great ZH shirt.
Remember Ben's "Great Moderation"? Well we have now moved well beyond that plotted point and are heading ever deeper into disequilibrium and the swings will come more fequently as collapse nears. No reforms were made and more dergulation has continued and unfettered capitalism is a very unstable system tending to disequilibrium and in this case a coming collapse. Steven Keen has shown us the light but too many don't want to admit he is right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QrmY7o5ulY
Whatever, Ben-Knustler spewing more leftist bullshit of "resource scarcity". Fuck they love their eugenics.
There are plenty of resources, the only thing we can't do is the Leftist delusional wet dream of 6.5 billion people living on welfare, producing nothing and expecting to live like kings.....
Real tangible shit isn't going away....too bad the collapse won't take away all the marxist/leftist/progressive faux intellectual assholes...just breeds more imbelciles that want to solve to issue of too much govt and regulation with MORE govt and regulation