Kunstler and I seem to be on the same wavelength this week as he addresses peak oil, the fantasy of Bakken oil as a savior, Obama’s ridiculous Keynesian jobs solutions, the danger of electing Rick Perry President, and the implosion of Europe.
Living locally should be our choice, based upon the facts at hand. But it will not be our choice. We will spend hundreds of billions on our road infrastructure that will be obsolete when peak oil kicks us in the balls.
Perestroika
By James Howard Kunstler
on September 5, 2011 9:05 AM
There’s a difference, of course, between what this country thinks it needs and what it’s going to get. The world has a way of dragging you, kicking and screaming, to where it wants to take you.
We think we need more American oil so we can “end our dependence on foreign oil.” Despite the PR bullshit you see on CNBC, the oil is not really there in a form that will flow sufficiently to support our completely insane mode of living in cars. I get letters from crazy people every week who tell me that shale oil from the Bakken Formation in Dakota will keep this racket going. Forget about it. Marcellus shale gas? Similar story. These are phantom energy reserves. And we don’t have enough capital to throw at it.
The world wants to take us to the place where you don’t have to use a car eleven times a day, a different arrangement of things on the landscape than what we’re currently stuck with in most of the United States. The American people are not disposed to taking this idea seriously, but we’ll get to that place eventually. The first kickings and screamings are exactly what’s coming out of the Tea Party. These are people who don’t want to change the sacrosanct American Way of Life, but they don’t want to have to pay for it either, so the contradiction produces a sound and fury.
This week, President Obama is on the spot to deliver a Santa Claus sack of “job initiatives.” What a sad assignment. We’re leaving behind that kind of economy, with secure salaried plug-in positions provided by giant corporations and governments. We’re headed into a world not of “jobs” but of vocations, trades, crafts, situations, and a lot of casual labor, largely self-guided by those with who possess a functioning internal compass. Obama can pretend to keep the old way going, but that pretense will be along the same lines as keeping insolvent banks going. The Federal Government can pay people to work repairing highways and bridges but the road system is too big now for even an additional “jobs” crew to stay ahead on maintenance, plus why are we putting these capital and labor resources into gold-plating a car-and-truck system that is going to be functionally obsolete in a few years?
Gorbachev called it right. His aim was true. Perestroika… restructuring. The Soviet Union was thoroughly corrupt, incompetent, and insolvent. I suppose Gorby thought he could guide his country through a transition, but the system he headed was so astonishingly flimsy that it just fell apart in a few months, and even left him behind. Still, I regard it as one of the major miracles of history that Russia did not trip into a bloody civil war. Maybe Russia had enough blood-spilling with Stalin and World War Two. Otherwise, it was a kind of magic moment in 1990 when the whole rotten edifice crumbled neatly into its own grave.
What followed there was an impromptu and extremely half-assed melding of organized crime, unorganized crime, gestures to the rule of law, and a lot of leftover habits, paranoia, lethargy, and sheer will to live – with an overlay of mystical oriental intrigue. Russia staggers on with its oil and mineral reserves propping up what remains of modernity there. Their future will arrive on sleds.
We should be so lucky here. Given the situation, it’s not unthinkable that self-styled Texas secessionist Rick Perry could be the next president. On top of that, the guy is a Christian Dominionist nut. This outfit wants to capture all politics, culture, and media in what is now the USA and turn them into a sci-fi nightmare of correct thinking. You have no idea how dangerous and determined this group is. The Left ignores them at the peril of everyone. They are the corn-pone Nazis I’ve been warning you about.
That is not the kind of restructuring that is going to help this country. At the moment we’re trapped in our own gigantism and the “jobs” pitch is surely going to be just another page out of that. I’d like to hear Mr. Obama tell this country that Job Number One for us is getting more Americans into agriculture at the small, local scale. Translation: dismantle agri-business. Otherwise, we’re going to have a lot of starving people across this land. That might seem like a strange destination for America, but I suppose that’s why there’s all the kicking and screaming.
Post-script: While everybody’s eating burgers today, or cleaning the mud out of their kitchen, or playing Resident Evil 5, Europe is on the brink of its own decisive moment. Nobody there can decide what to do about the debt-bomb and the fuse is sparking away. There are no solutions to the problem of the Euro Club, but the idea of no Euro Club is making a lot of Euro people kick and scream. Whatever happens there will affect us hugely, you may be sure.
Dragline says:
I read today that Sarah Palin is accusing Perry of being a “crony-capitalist”. I think I like “corn-pone nazi” much better.
That Dominionist shit is really bizarre.
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5th September 2011 at 11:25 am
KaD says:
I agree entirely. The only infrastructure that might be worth saving is the cross country railroad system. Trains can be run on coal or even wood if the necessity arises; and it might be a good thing to have ONE transcontinental mode of shipping and transportation left after the shit hits the fan.
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5th September 2011 at 11:44 am
Dave Doe says:
I think Kunstler has the right direction but his time frame is way too fast IMHO. The government will try to prop this sucker up by any means necessary. Look for 100 Million on SNAP.
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5th September 2011 at 12:11 pm
Stan says:
I promise you that Kunstler will vote for Obama in 2012, reguardless of who he is running against. And If somehow Ron Paul were to win the nomination, his weekly diatribes would assault Ron Paul instead of Perry.
I guess none of you remember that Kunstler said that Y2K would destroy us. Then he called for total collapse before memorial day 2009. Then Labor day 2009.
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5th September 2011 at 12:45 pm
Stucky says:
I’m doing all I can to promote Ron Paul.
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5th September 2011 at 1:15 pm
Stan says:
If a woman is willing to put Ron Paul on her titties, then she must be a true American.
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5th September 2011 at 1:55 pm
AWD says:
Corn-pone Nazis.
A compliment to them, and insult to Nazi’s everywhere.
Dominionist redrawing of our great land:
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5th September 2011 at 1:59 pm
AWD says:
Stucky:
Still sore after your work-out? Good job, It’ll get better when you get in shape. I have the following unsolicited recommendations for you:
Use 100% creatine monohydate: After each work-out, and the next morning. DON”T follow the dosing instructions on the bottle. One or two teaspoons a day only. It works like magic, gets rid of soreness and tired muscles.
SAM-E: 400mg in the morning. S-methyl-methionine. Intra-cellular repair agent. This stuff is expensive but makes you feel 10 years younger. No joke.
Hydroxycut: One in the morning, maybe twice a day. This stuff really works as an appetite suppressant (the only one that actually works).
Ginko Biloba: One or two every morning. Great stuff, clears the head, provides motivation.
Grapefruit juice: 100% pink grapefruit juice, a glass after every meal. Amazing stuff for weight loss.
Sugar-free Red Bull: one before a work-out, jet fuel.
Follow this regimen, and you will get past 2 1/2 hour work-outs with ease. I only spent 2 hours at the gym yesterday, you beat me. Keep posting, others are sharing, it’s spreading….
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5th September 2011 at 2:15 pm
Muck About says:
That first one is the best looking ballot box I’ve ever seen!
@AWD: I’ll have to look up your recommendations.. Never heard of 3 of them but if there is something out there that’ll make me feel 10 years younger I’d vote for it. I remember feeling pretty good ten years ago..
MA
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5th September 2011 at 2:34 pm
Welshman says:
Dave Doe,
While you agree with Kunstler, you think he is way too fast. I would bet that a new agarian society that he talks about would take minimal three or four decades to acheive. You have to have something in place when you turn off the ignition. When you have to work to eat, that is a big change in mind set. What can a government do that is insolvent? It breaks down and something new takes its place. Just hope there is something that can take it place that is not out of control anarchy. Think Cambodia, that might make some plan ahead.
Think a new canal system, different ways to mine coal, much smaller scale agriculture, no safety net for parasites, and 90% less money for public employees.
Where in the fuck is RE when you need him.
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5th September 2011 at 3:51 pm
Stucky says:
AWD
Thank you very much for the advice!! Let follow up with my comments.
First, let me say I did not actually work out in the gym for 2.5 hours.
The weight-exercise routine lasted about an 1hr 15 min. I’m doing a circuit-routine, full body, warm-ups of 12 reps at 50% max, and 30 seconds later, one set of 12 reps with the maximum weight I can lift at 12 reps. Then off to the next machine within 2 minutes. My heart is pounding at the end of the hour and I am drenched.
Then I spent 15 minutes in the sauna. Then 15 min in the hot tub and 15 min in the regular pool. Man, is that ever relaxing!! I spent about 15 minutes following a very large breasted woman around … pretending to be working out. (I don’t think I fooled her.) I have no fuckin’ clue where the other 15 minutes went.
.
Creatine — I was pretty sure I was going to do that. Your post convinced me to do so. There are so many sources. Do you have a website or product that you’ve found to be the best?
SamE, Hydroxycut, and Ginko — I am fairly hesitant to take any supplements. The only ones I take now are; Krill Oil, Q10, B-12, Acai, and Whey Protein. Not sure I want to add to that.
Grapefruit Juice — I have decided that until I reach my desired weight that I will NOT be drinking any calories, with one minor exception. SOME juices … that I make myself. I had a grapefruit juice this morning. I put the whole grapefruit in my VitaMix blender along with some water. The VitaMix spins so fast it turns the grapefruit into juice … pulp and all … no sugars, no additives or any of that other crap one finds in supermarket juices. Nothing but a liquified grapefruit. And it was DELICIOUS.
Red Bull — I have a can in front of me right now … Ms Freud likes them. It’s only 10 calories (she has the sugar free kind), BUT reading through the list of ingredients there’s too much stuff there I have no idea about. I mean, what the hell is Pyridoxine? Besides, it violates my don’t-drink-calories self imposed plan, and once I make am exception in one place it becomes to easy to make subsequent exceptions. I gotta stick to 95% water, 5% home juiced fruits/veggies.
Vinegar-Honey drink. It was one of the ladies here who recommended that. I’m using raw, organic honey. (NOT pasteuirized!) I’m using organic vinegar (brown stuff) from Trader Joe but it”s pasteurized so I’ll be switching to Braggs Vinegar shortly. (Store bough white vinegar is pure shit!). Anyway, what a marvelous drink!!! That gives me plenty of instant energy. Plus the health benefits of raw honey and raw vinegar are simply enormous. I squeeze some fresh lime or fresh lemon in also which gets rid of the vinegary taste. I drink one glass in the morning and one at night. I love it.
I haven’t had a potato chip, tortilla’s, Wheat Thins (my favorite), dips, cookies, cakes, or any kind of dessert in the last three weeks. I don’t even miss it all that much. If I feel like a snack we have a whole shelf full of various nuts, seeds, and dried fruits. A small handful … works like a charm! Not eating crap snacks allowed to achieve a caloric deficiency last week of just under 8,000 calories without even feeling hungry all the time.
Again, thanks for the advice, doc!
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5th September 2011 at 7:17 pm
Dave Doe says:
My own workout motivator !
Doc – do you advise low carb or just moderate carbs and work your a** off ?
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5th September 2011 at 7:38 pm
Dave Doe says:
More embedding problems.
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5th September 2011 at 7:42 pm
AWD says:
Stucky:
As I mentioned, creatine monohydrate 100%, vitamin world has the best/cheapest.
Sugar-free Red Bull: just before a work-out, Pyridoxine is a B vitamin.
SamE, Hydroxycut, and Ginko: Don’t be hesitant, just try ‘em, you’ll be amazed. Give ‘em a try, you can always stop if you don’t like them. I’ve tried everything in the book, and they work the best. All in the morning. Krill oil? WTF is that? Fish Oil is recommended also.
Vinegar? that’s like taking Geritol isn’t it? Yuck. Whatever works for you.
I take all this stuff. I like the “executive workout” (sauna, pool etc.) Your on the right track. The carbs/sweets are like an addiction, after a few days without, you don’t miss ‘em. Then, when you do eat ‘em, you realize how bad they make you feel. But, you gotta splurge once a week.
Dave: Low carbs, high protein for weight loss/strength. If your cage fighting, you need more carbs.
Stucky is trying to lose weight.
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5th September 2011 at 8:24 pm
Dave Doe says:
Doc. Thanks. I’m trying to lose weight as well. Work out a lot but cannot get ride of gut. Am trying low carb and ALA, Green Tea Extract. Will try others mentioned – thanks.
Have you read Timothy Ferris’s 4 Hour Body ? Any thoughts on that would be welcome.
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5th September 2011 at 8:32 pm
AWD says:
Dave: “Have you read Timothy Ferris’s 4 Hour Body ?”
I have not. I do an intense full-body free-weight workout with raped-succession sets, so I get cardio also. Then the recumbent bike for 25 mins. at the end. 2 hours, three times a week. I lost 80 pounds in about 6 months and kept it off for more than two years. The gut is weight, you have to lose the weight. Try 1400 calories per day, with exercise, loses about 4-5 pounds per week. You have to work your abs/core as well.
Reading books and magazine about dieting/exercise hurt my head. Everybody is an expert. I believe 98% of it is all bullshit. You have to burn more than you take in, period. Exercise increases your metabolism so you burn more, as does grapefruit juice. Caffeine also. Exercise is it’s own reward though. Great endorphin rush, stress gone, cleans out your system, plus metabolic benefits too numerous to mention here. The diet industry makes tens of billions of dollars, and Americans are more obese every month (hence it’s all bullshit). I especially love the “eat what you want and lose weight” diets. (the laxative diet).
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5th September 2011 at 8:49 pm
AWD says:
“raped-succession sets”
that would be rapid, Lol.
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5th September 2011 at 8:50 pm
Dave Doe says:
Thanks. I think I’m working out enough but will try the 1400 calories and see how I do.
I would do raped sets with her anytime
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5th September 2011 at 8:58 pm
Stucky says:
Dave
AWD is absolutely correct. To lose the belly you have to get rid of the fat. And the ONLY way to do that is to reduce your current maintenance calories. (More on tat in a minute.) Doing ab exercises doe not in and of itself get rid of the belly … all it does is strengthen the muscles underneath the fat! And that means reducing caloric intake.
The question is how much? That’s easily answered by going to this website;
http://exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
Just enter the easy info requested and the program spits out your maintenance caloric requirement. It’s important to know that because you need to consume less than that!
How much less? Well, one pound of fat is 3,500 calories. So, if you reduced your maintenance calories by 500 per day, you should lose one pound per week (500 x 7 = 3500) just from dieting.
You will have to count calories. No way around it. How the hell else will you know what you’re consuming?
Weight training helps insure that you’re burning fat, not muscle. If you try to lose weight simply from diet alone, there is a good chance the body will also burn muscle mass in addition to fat. Weight training is key. Muscle burns calories much more than fat.
Lastly, to REALLY burn off calories try some INTENSIVE cardio (aerobics). Three days a week I do something called Peak 8 (see below). Basically, it’s extremely intense Interval Training. It lasts about 30 minutes. At the end my heart rate is 140 (goal is to get it to 160) and I am drenched in sweat and can’t even talk. Published studies show outstanding results. You will burn a shitload of calories. You’ll also get stronger as the program is geared towards strength rather than endurance. Of course, not every one would enjoy this kind of punishment! lol But, it won’t hurt to check it out.
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitness/archive/2010/06/26/10-minutes-of-exercise-yields-hourlong-effects.aspx
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5th September 2011 at 10:06 pm
Iowan says:
I recommend The Archdruid Report for weekly reading a la ideas about the future without free-flowing hydrocarbons.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/08/elegy-for-age-of-space.html
The post from two weeks ago raises an interesting idea:
“The Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was a standard contest to see which empire would outlast the other. The irony, and it’s a rich one, is that the loser of that contest was pretty much guaranteed to be the winner in a broader sense. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia had an empire wrenched out of its hands, and as a result it was forced to give up the struggle to sustain the unsustainable. The United States kept its empire intact, and as a result it has continued that futile but obsessive fight, stripping its national economy to the bare walls in order to prop up a global military presence that will sooner or later bankrupt it completely. That’s why Russia still has a functioning space program, while the United States may have trouble finding the money to launch cheap fireworks by the time its empire finally slips from its fingers.”
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5th September 2011 at 10:19 pm
AWD says:
Stucky is turning into a beast. Well done.
Nothing motivates a person to get to the gym like…
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5th September 2011 at 10:25 pm
.44 mag says:
Anyone who thinks the term ‘corn-pone’ sounds intelligent is a yankee elitist butt-lugger.
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5th September 2011 at 11:58 pm
rhenson says:
@KaD
You said “I agree entirely. The only infrastructure that might be worth saving is the cross country railroad system. Trains can be run on coal or even wood if the necessity arises; and it might be a good thing to have ONE transcontinental mode of shipping and transportation left after the shit hits the fan.”
Lol there is nothing to really save…the class 1 railroads have turned in net profits of + 3 billion for the past 12 years. I work for a class 1 and they have plenty of private capital to maintain the current lines and alot of incentive as well. The railroads a reaping enormous profits and as the cost of fuel rises we get more freight. I wouldn’t worry too much about the roads they will be maintained as long as there is a profit to be made!
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5th September 2011 at 2:20 am
Dave Doe says:
AWD, Stucky thanks for advice. Will try watching the calories more and see where if I can reduce.
I workout 6 days a week, an hour a day. 2 days Intense Cardio, 2 days Moderate Cardio, 2 days Weight Lifting. I feel great but can’t lose the gut.
I did have low T but the doctor is giving me a shot now for that.
Weight still bothers me cause I’m l80 pounds over the chart weight but at 25% bodyfat. Need to lose more but I’m carrying enough muscle that I’m never going to weigh the chart. Health Insurance Companies underwriters do not like that one bit. If you’re shopping on the open market – you’re screwed. I probably need to go back to work for a F500 (yuck) so I can afford insurance.
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5th September 2011 at 9:25 am
AKAnon says:
Dave Doe-better watch those raped sets with Nicole-she looks like she could rape you six ways to Sunday.
AWD & Stuck-Thanks for the advice & motivation. I am trying to lose a few pounds myself. Regrettably, the first casualty is locally brewed beer. Will still have a few once a week or so, but the daily imbibing is part of what put the extra pounds on in the first place.
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5th September 2011 at 11:37 pm
Opinionated Bloviator says:
Stucky – Good luck with your workouts. The free weight training may not get you huge but it will build your core muscle and strength up dramatically if you are consistant and put some “man up” into it.
Remember, go hard or go home.
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5th September 2011 at 2:20 am
Opinionated Bloviator says:
AWD – That’s half the reason I do go to the gym.
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5th September 2011 at 2:23 am
Novista says:
AKA
I found an effective weight loss program, wouldn’t recommend it, though. When my wife died, I lost 20 kg. without even trying. Did not change intake of food nor drink.
It gradually came back but I can still put on R.J. Williams trousers bought 15 years ago.
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5th September 2011 at 6:51 am