Predictions for 2009

[we_are_toast]

James Kunstler:

There are two realities "out there" now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let's call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a "consumer" economy to resume in "growth" mode. This view includes the idea that technology will rescue us from our fossil fuel predicament -- through "innovation," through the discovery of new techno rescue remedy fuels, and via "drill, baby, drill" policy. This view assumes an orderly transition through the current "rough patch" into a vibrant re-energized era of "green" Happy Motoring and resumed Blue Light Special shopping.

The minority reality (let's call it The Long Emergency) says that it is necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon. It says that a campaign to sustain the unsustainable will amount to a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources. It says that the "consumer" era of economics is over, that suburbia will lose its value, that the automobile will be a diminishing presence in daily life, that the major systems we've come to rely on will founder, and that the transition between where we are now and where we are going is apt to be tumultuous.

My own view is obviously the one called The Long Emergency.
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The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

My hope for the year, at least for my own society, is that we will transition away from being a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns, to become a purposeful and responsible people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to get some things done. My motto for the new year: "no more crybabies!"

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

[FRED]

Re: Predictions for 2009

James Kunstler:

My hope for the year, at least for my own society, is that we will transition away from being a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns, to become a purposeful and responsible people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to get some things done. My motto for the new year: "no more crybabies!"

We do not buy into the notion of the US as "a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns."

Not complacent and distracted but 100% busy making two incomes to pay the credit inflated tuition, insurance, medical, mortgage, and other bills.

Not over-fed but, if you read the research, under-nourished, overweight from the cheap, high calorie diets composed of the food that they can afford. Obesity in the US is the flip side of hunger.

James has it all wrong. He's angry but at the wrong people. He should do his homework and understand how our economy actually works.

Not sure where James plans to go with his solutions. Who does he want to help? The "purposeful and responsible people" -- we presume he includes himself among them -- or the great mass of Americans that he holds in contempt?

[ax]

Re: Predictions for 2009

"Not complacent and distracted but 100% busy making two incomes to pay the credit inflated tuition, insurance, medical, mortgage, and other bills."

Thanks, Fred, agreed on these:

Two-incomes-currently negotiating a "better" (i.e. more pay for more work) second job just in case next year is worse than I have already imagined.

Tuition-if you have a pre-pay option like we do in Florida, I advise you to do it. Locking in tuition now and gambling that a good school like Univ. of Florida will triple its rates over the next 18 years is more of a sure thing than funding a 529 and negates the non-interest earning burden.

Insurance/Medical-my disability insurance was just raised 15%.

Mortgage-as I recently wrote to GRG, even those with good credit who have put money down may find it difficult to refi in bad markets.

Other Bills-Luckily my kids are still young enough to confuse the dollar store with the toy store!

[FRED]

Re: Predictions for 2009

"Not complacent and distracted but 100% busy making two incomes to pay the credit inflated tuition, insurance, medical, mortgage, and other bills."

Thanks, Fred, agreed on these:

Two-incomes-currently negotiating a "better" (i.e. more pay for more work) second job just in case next year is worse than I have already imagined.

Tuition-if you have a pre-pay option like we do in Florida, I advise you to do it. Locking in tuition now and gambling that a good school like Univ. of Florida will triple its rates over the next 18 years is more of a sure thing than funding a 529 and negates the non-interest earning burden.

Insurance/Medical-my disability insurance was just raised 15%.

Mortgage-as I recently wrote to GRG, even those with good credit who have put money down may find it difficult to refi in bad markets.

Other Bills-Luckily my kids are still young enough to confuse the dollar store with the toy store!

When the boys get older, a brand new $1.29 Matchbook car every couple of months to add to the set can hold them off for a couple of years if you do it right.

[JayS]

Re: Predictions for 2009

I predict that my friends and family will continue to be mystified by money and debt, will still not be motivated to invest any time and effort toward demystifying them, and will continue to be victimized and paralyzed by ignorance and fear.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Predictions for 2009

When the boys get older, a brand new $1.29 Matchbook car every couple of months to add to the set can hold them off for a couple of years if you do it right.

Very nice frugal suggestion! Apparently you listened to your parents when they tried to teach you to save for a rainy day and bigger is not necessarily better. I think that makes you a "purposeful and responsible" person.

Now if you had suggested to ax that he should go out and get a big 3000+ ft^2 house in a new development hours from where he works, simply because he could get the mortgage and it's bigger than the house he currently has, and that he should by 2 SUV's to put in the 3 car garage, and then get a HELOC to buy a 52" LCD TV and a playstation II for the kids, and he should max out his credit cards on whatever he wants, and his family should eat out and go to Starbucks as often as they can instead of eating a healthy meal at home with the family, and he should vote for the politicians who tell them deficits don't matter and you can get government services without paying taxes; why that would be encouraging him to be complacent, distracted, and an over fed clown.

Then if you should suggest that we should forgive the mortgage and the good people at iTulip who were purposeful and responsible about their finances should pay for the McMansion in the burbs, I would have to wonder, who do you want to help?

[LargoWinch]

Re: Predictions for 2009

James Kunstler:

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

Here is my prediction for 2009, cause "we are toast" (that is unless GrapeJelly can save us all):

1min.

[D-Mack]

Re: Predictions for 2009

The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

My hope for the year, at least for my own society, is that we will transition away from being a nation of complacent, distracted, over-fed clowns, to become a purposeful and responsible people willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to get some things done. My motto for the new year: "no more crybabies!"

I think there is no need for this...

Reminds a bit of Brzezinski talking(lamenting?) about the fall of the Roman Empire

Three major causes led to the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire. First, the empire became too large to be governed from a single center, but splitting it into western and eastern halves automatically destroyed the monopolistic character of its power. Second, at the same time, the prolonged period of imperial hubris generated a cultural hedonism that gradually sapped the political elite's will to greatness. Third, sustained inflation also undermined the capacity of the system to sustain itself without social sacrifice, which the citizens
were no longer prepared to make. Cultural decay, political division, and financial inflation conspired to make Rome vulnerable even to the barbarians in its near abroad.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9152820/Br...ic-Imperatives