Muck’s Minute  #53 The Future of Mankind Part XIII

ADMIN NOTE: Sadly, I received an email from Muck two days ago with the following message:

“Just a note to let you that I lost the love of my life yesterday.”

Muck and his sweetheart had been together for over 50 years. I can’t imagine the pain he must be experiencing this week. I’m not sure if he wanted this to be public, but I thought his TBP family might be a comfort during this difficult time.

Begin Part XIII

It will soon be moot, for in a short while (another 50 years or less) there will be not be a sufficient number of family nucleus around to work to maintain that standard of living and the actual 50+% cut in standard of living that we, in the richest country in the world, have suffered will continue to spiral downward until it is obvious to all that we can no longer maintain the basis of our own prosperity. Will we end up with two moms and a dad so three people can work to support one household? There are some plus and minus points to that idea as other cultures have discovered long ago!

One last dagger that is already pointed at the heart of our own economy is debt. As Robert Heinlein put it, TAANSTAFL or “Their ain’t no free lunch”.

As Dad and Mom both work really hard to make ends meet and fail, rather than cut down their standard of living, they borrow in order to maintain it. Consumer debt (and we are all consumers) now far exceeds 100% of the disposable income of the population. Savings rates in this country are now negative, meaning simply that people are continuously spending more than they make. Home equity levels have been eroded by nearly 50% since 1950 as John and Jane Doe have re-financed their home to continue to support that standard of living they cannot seem to do without. A federally financed housing bubble has encouraged this behavior and that one popped in 2007-8. All bubbles pop eventually and when that happens and the prices of homes start to fall, all that is left is debt that will become ever more difficult to pay. This will be a further drag on us economically and the drop in standard of living will accelerate.

Just wait until the current bubble in financial top tier debt paper (i.e. Treasury Bills) falls apart!  That one is coming fast (i.e. damn near now!) and will be the subject of another Muck’s Minute.

Productivity (the economic output of a worker in producing more goods or services at lower cost or in less time) and ever expanding debt are the only things that has kept the wolf from the door these past  45 years. With the advent of automation in all its forms (computers, robotics, et al), it may be marginally possible to assume that productivity will continue to climb at the same swift pace as it has in the past three decades. At least for a while . But increased productivity and automation costs money. Where is it going to come from? Only in the advanced, industrialized countries will this occur – maybe.

And I wouldn’t bet the farm on it anyhow.

When productivity increases falter, even a little bit, the pressures of population, debt and resource exhaustion will come to bear, stressing the lives of everyone more and more. This may not happen in the very near future, but it will in a future not so terribly far away.

We must also deal with mistakes and accidents or terrorism, any one of which can damage our standard of living or destroy a civilization depending on the severity of the accident. There are no safety nets under a violent natural disaster such as a repeat of the Midwestern dust bowl of the 30’s or a simple magnitude 9.0 Earthquake in San Francisco that destroys a good chunk of California’s economy or a quick stop by a 1km size asteroid when it strikes anywhere on Earth or the rumble you will hear when a 2 kiloton mini-nuke pops off in downtown Seattle.

The economic damage inflicted by terrorists on September 11, 2001, would be the equivalent of small fart in a hurricane when compared to such disasters. Instant depression would be the result as wealth that took three hundred years to accumulate and create is wiped out in a flash. I’m not talking about money either. If you think money = wealth you are not economically literate and need to educate yourself.

A credit collapse from excessive debt or a severe period of inflation before a credit collapse (as almost happened in 1980 and 2008) will reduce the wealth of all of us. Economic deflation, while no one claims to worry about, would be more destructive over a longer length of time than most natural disasters would be – well except for the asteroid. Think of what a ten year recession (most would call it a depression) would do to your wealth? Japan is frittering around with its second decade of recession/flat growth right now with interest rates at 0% percent and no one will borrow money. Housing prices have dropped 35%. How would you like your home equity to drop 35%? Right now, in America, home prices are reflating after the pop of the 2007 bubble so wait a while..

Remember that we are now in an “Everything Bubble” and when it pops, everything pops!

How would you like to try and live on a fixed interest income then? The Japanese public are now buying gold in great quantities as their banking system totters and creaks and sags lower and lower with  trillions of yen of bad non-producing loans they won’t write off. Never underestimate the stupidity of governments.

It may take another 10 years to trip and skid or fall into this ultimate state of decay and chaos, but I think it will happen sooner. I think that unless we drastically modify our way of living, of using up natural resources and most of all, controlling world-wide population, we are doomed to runaway inflation and crash much sooner than later.

The only solution is spread out the human species in such a manner so that we are not all vulnerable at once.

We must acknowledge that there is no Negro race or Caucasian race or Asian race or any other race other that the human race. All white, black, yellow, brown or red varieties thereof are closely related interbreeding subspecies all descended from a common mother that lived somewhere in East central Africa some 100,000+ years ago.

The goal of the human race as a whole must be to escape this planet. We live on a very small (and probably rare) watery planet located in the midst of a vast, extremely hostile and completely indifferent Universe and are in dire danger of loosing the ability to escape the planet through population excesses and eventual exhaustion of resources and wealth we must have in order to mount the effort of flight to the stars.

Let’s face it. Mexico or East Timor or Indonesia are not and never will be capable of putting their citizens into space. The only people who can do that are those living and working in currently industrialized top of heap countries.

End Part VIII

Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes. View all posts by MuckAbout