Monday 20 June 2011
On Hiatus
I'm going to be away from my usual haunts for a couple of months, so there will be little to nothing on AotF during most of that time. It's bad timing as the blog has been going pretty well for the last few months, (thank you, my modest readership) but I will be back. As always, having a feed on this place will get you the best results. Later.
Wednesday 15 June 2011
More Oil = Less Blood in the Levant, More in the Orient?
Today we'll see if sleeping on the revelations (see June 14's post) of massive reserves of recoverable oil in Israel has produced anything worthwhile. I don't know where I'm going with this yet, so strap in...
I am on record repeatedly here as a defender of Israel; not everything they do, but the right of the place to exist as a Jewish state. It's not a lot of real estate, it's in a (forever) rough neighbourhood, and if the Palestinian Arab recent arrivals can argue a "Right of Return", certainly Jews have priority of claim to everything west of the Jordan.
At the end of the day might makes right, and the Israelis have been a lot more restrained than I would have been facing a group of people who wanted (and repeatedly tried) to wipe my people from the earth. The fact that there are Palestinians still in the West Bank and Gaza is proof of that restraint, with all of the attendant misery on both sides that has come from it. A lot of that restraint, as mentioned in the FP article I referenced, comes from skittish Westerners scared of pissing off the Arabs.
I can't imagine that 2,000 years of anti-Jewish sentiment will disappear from Europe if Israel can suddenly supply them with petroleum, but it is to be hoped that more rationality could result. More interesting to me is the effect of this sort of sustainable windfall on Israel's security policy.
Americans are not entirely enamoured of the amount of money their country sends to Israel every year. I could add that a similar amount of money (c. $2B/y) has been going to Pakistan, a place that can't seriously be considered an ally of the US, but that's just for perspective. The latter is already being throttled back for being unreliable, but in any event the gravy train is over for all concerned as Uncle Sam is skint.
I will make the argument here that a more secure Israel will be a more stable bulwark in the Mid-East. They could of course go nuts and ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip or some such, but on past practice I consider that unlikely, as justifiable as Gaza's current government would seem to make it. This is good news for the local Arab countries too, particularly their soldiers. A strong Israel with the best and most modern armed forces in the area will dissuade a future Nasser from trying again; a weakened Israel with no US support might be a tempting target and result in a bloodbath on both sides. Even worse, if Israel was facing disaster, what would stop them from nuking their tormentors?
Of course this gives energy-and-everything-else starved Egypt a motive to invade, but as noted above it ensures Israel's means to resist all comers. In short, I can't see any way in which an energy and financially secure Israel will make things worse in that part of the world. Iran could go even farther off the rails and do something crazy once they have nukes but if Pakistan hasn't let one slip yet I don't see that happening either, and payback would be the end of Iran as we know it.
Much as a certain amount of restraint was necessary during the Cold War and later during the (very) recently lapsed Pax Americana due to the ability of superpowers to do a lot of damage, weakness or perceived weakness is the trigger for invasions and other adventurism. The Americans are overstretched, so the Chinese are playing war games with their weaker neighbours over the Spratly Islands. In that case a combination of oil reserves and no strong counter to the ravenous (of resources) Chinese could plausibly lead to war with at least Vietnam and Taiwan.
This suggests to me that it's time to switch my focal point to the Far East, as that is where some real movement could take place. Pakistan or North Korea could completely collapse and China could skirmish or worse with many of it's neighbours; yes the centre of gravity has definitely shifted. There will continue to be stuff happening in the Mid East, but I don't see much actually changing (globally) because of it. China throwing it's weight around will be QUITE different. I'm waiting to see American carrier groups defending communist Vietnam against free-market (ish) China. "The End of History" my ass.
I am on record repeatedly here as a defender of Israel; not everything they do, but the right of the place to exist as a Jewish state. It's not a lot of real estate, it's in a (forever) rough neighbourhood, and if the Palestinian Arab recent arrivals can argue a "Right of Return", certainly Jews have priority of claim to everything west of the Jordan.
At the end of the day might makes right, and the Israelis have been a lot more restrained than I would have been facing a group of people who wanted (and repeatedly tried) to wipe my people from the earth. The fact that there are Palestinians still in the West Bank and Gaza is proof of that restraint, with all of the attendant misery on both sides that has come from it. A lot of that restraint, as mentioned in the FP article I referenced, comes from skittish Westerners scared of pissing off the Arabs.
I can't imagine that 2,000 years of anti-Jewish sentiment will disappear from Europe if Israel can suddenly supply them with petroleum, but it is to be hoped that more rationality could result. More interesting to me is the effect of this sort of sustainable windfall on Israel's security policy.
Americans are not entirely enamoured of the amount of money their country sends to Israel every year. I could add that a similar amount of money (c. $2B/y) has been going to Pakistan, a place that can't seriously be considered an ally of the US, but that's just for perspective. The latter is already being throttled back for being unreliable, but in any event the gravy train is over for all concerned as Uncle Sam is skint.
I will make the argument here that a more secure Israel will be a more stable bulwark in the Mid-East. They could of course go nuts and ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip or some such, but on past practice I consider that unlikely, as justifiable as Gaza's current government would seem to make it. This is good news for the local Arab countries too, particularly their soldiers. A strong Israel with the best and most modern armed forces in the area will dissuade a future Nasser from trying again; a weakened Israel with no US support might be a tempting target and result in a bloodbath on both sides. Even worse, if Israel was facing disaster, what would stop them from nuking their tormentors?
Of course this gives energy-and-everything-else starved Egypt a motive to invade, but as noted above it ensures Israel's means to resist all comers. In short, I can't see any way in which an energy and financially secure Israel will make things worse in that part of the world. Iran could go even farther off the rails and do something crazy once they have nukes but if Pakistan hasn't let one slip yet I don't see that happening either, and payback would be the end of Iran as we know it.
Much as a certain amount of restraint was necessary during the Cold War and later during the (very) recently lapsed Pax Americana due to the ability of superpowers to do a lot of damage, weakness or perceived weakness is the trigger for invasions and other adventurism. The Americans are overstretched, so the Chinese are playing war games with their weaker neighbours over the Spratly Islands. In that case a combination of oil reserves and no strong counter to the ravenous (of resources) Chinese could plausibly lead to war with at least Vietnam and Taiwan.
This suggests to me that it's time to switch my focal point to the Far East, as that is where some real movement could take place. Pakistan or North Korea could completely collapse and China could skirmish or worse with many of it's neighbours; yes the centre of gravity has definitely shifted. There will continue to be stuff happening in the Mid East, but I don't see much actually changing (globally) because of it. China throwing it's weight around will be QUITE different. I'm waiting to see American carrier groups defending communist Vietnam against free-market (ish) China. "The End of History" my ass.
Tuesday 14 June 2011
Israel vs. OPEC?
I'll take a bit to digest this, but it's certainly a game-changer:
Financial Post June 10 2011
In the first 25 years after Israel’s founding in 1948, it was repeatedly attacked by the large armies of its Arab neighbours. Each time, Israel prevailed on the battlefield, only to have its victories rolled back by Western powers who feared losing access to Arab oilfields.
The fear was and is legitimate – Arab nations have often threatened to use their “oil weapon” against countries that support Israel and twice made good their threat through crippling OPEC oil embargoes.
But that fear, which shackles Israel to this day, may soon end. The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.
The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims. “None of the major oil companies are willing to do business in Israel because they don’t want to be cut off from the Mideast supply of oil,” explains Howard Jonas, CEO of IDT, the U.S. company that owns the Shfela concession through its subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives. Jonas, an ardent Zionist, considers the Shfela deposit merely a beginning: “We believe that under Israel is more oil than under Saudi Arabia. There may be as much as half a trillion barrels.”
What if Western foreign policy was freed from fear of another OPEC embargo? Admittedly that scenario is fantastically unlikely as things stand presently, but if it's happened once it (or something very similar) can happen again. More importantly, what happens if Israel no longer needs the USA?
Anyway, this requires some thought so I'll come back to it when I have more time; in the meantime I leave it as a mental exercise for the reader
Financial Post June 10 2011
In the first 25 years after Israel’s founding in 1948, it was repeatedly attacked by the large armies of its Arab neighbours. Each time, Israel prevailed on the battlefield, only to have its victories rolled back by Western powers who feared losing access to Arab oilfields.
The fear was and is legitimate – Arab nations have often threatened to use their “oil weapon” against countries that support Israel and twice made good their threat through crippling OPEC oil embargoes.
But that fear, which shackles Israel to this day, may soon end. The old energy order in the Middle East is crumbling with Iran and Syria having left the Western fold and others, including Saudi Arabia, the largest of them all, in danger of doing so. Simultaneously, a new energy order is emerging to give the West some spine. In this new order, Israel is a major player.
The new energy order is founded on rock – the shale that traps vast stores of energy in deposits around the world. One of the largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel’s Shfela basin, comparable to Saudi Arabia’s entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil – has until now been unexploited, partly because the technology required has been expensive, mostly because the multinational oil companies that have the technology fear offending Muslims. “None of the major oil companies are willing to do business in Israel because they don’t want to be cut off from the Mideast supply of oil,” explains Howard Jonas, CEO of IDT, the U.S. company that owns the Shfela concession through its subsidiary, Israel Energy Initiatives. Jonas, an ardent Zionist, considers the Shfela deposit merely a beginning: “We believe that under Israel is more oil than under Saudi Arabia. There may be as much as half a trillion barrels.”
What if Western foreign policy was freed from fear of another OPEC embargo? Admittedly that scenario is fantastically unlikely as things stand presently, but if it's happened once it (or something very similar) can happen again. More importantly, what happens if Israel no longer needs the USA?
Anyway, this requires some thought so I'll come back to it when I have more time; in the meantime I leave it as a mental exercise for the reader
Monday 13 June 2011
Snow more to say about "Climate Change"?
"The science [of man-caused Global Warming] is settled" my ass:
BBC 16 Jan 2007
Scientist's fear for Snowdon snow
Scientists have been studying the changing snowline on the mountain for 14 years.
Snowdon could lose all its snow in less than 15 years as climate change continues to take hold, it is claimed.
Wales' highest mountain has seen its snow covering fall by about a third in 10 years, Bangor University scientists and environmentalists have found.
Measurements show significant warming on Snowdon since the 1960s. Average spring temperatures are up about 2.5C.
Now this:
BBC 10 June 2011
Summer snow falls on summit of Snowdon
This was the scene on top of Snowdon at lunchtime on Friday
The summit of Snowdon under a white blanket of snow: it's a picture postcard cliche.
But if you thought this photograph was taken in the dark days of winter then think again.
The wintry scene, at the Snowdon Mountain Railway's terminus near Hafod Eryri, was photographed at 1300 BST on Friday - in the middle of June, days before the start of Wimbledon and just over a week before the summer solstice.
Around the UK this week counties have been declaring drought conditions after one of warmest and driest springs in memory. Parts of Wales, too, have been experiencing very dry weather.
Even when Nature shows them that they have no idea what is happening or what's going to happen, the Changeistas have to shill their agenda. The "warmest and driest springs in memory" follow abnormally (for recent times) cold snowy winters in the UK.
I don't claim to have the last word on this, but the hypocrisy of some groups and individuals is staggering. There is absolutely NO PROOF that the earth is still warming, as opposed to local fluctuations in climate. The satellite temperature measurements are the closest we have to a global average, and as best I can tell they show no warming since 1998. Particularly since 2007 we've not been all that warm and the Arctic ice is recovering in area and thickness.
You can look this all up (I've seen it all but can't be bothered to look it up for links presently) and make up your own mind, though I advise a lot of cross-checking of facts and sources. That's standard research, but this of course only applies to people who want to KNOW what's going on; those who've already made up their minds don't need anything as crude as observations.
Models are the basis for all of the alarmist predictions, and not a single one of them has been right so far. They keep pushing the timelines farther out to make them unverifiable, which is the antithesis of Science. It's political and idealistic and accordingly dangerous. For reference, Hitler and Osama bin Laden were also idealists.
BBC 16 Jan 2007
Scientist's fear for Snowdon snow
Scientists have been studying the changing snowline on the mountain for 14 years.
Snowdon could lose all its snow in less than 15 years as climate change continues to take hold, it is claimed.
Wales' highest mountain has seen its snow covering fall by about a third in 10 years, Bangor University scientists and environmentalists have found.
Measurements show significant warming on Snowdon since the 1960s. Average spring temperatures are up about 2.5C.
Now this:
BBC 10 June 2011
Summer snow falls on summit of Snowdon
This was the scene on top of Snowdon at lunchtime on Friday
The summit of Snowdon under a white blanket of snow: it's a picture postcard cliche.
But if you thought this photograph was taken in the dark days of winter then think again.
The wintry scene, at the Snowdon Mountain Railway's terminus near Hafod Eryri, was photographed at 1300 BST on Friday - in the middle of June, days before the start of Wimbledon and just over a week before the summer solstice.
Around the UK this week counties have been declaring drought conditions after one of warmest and driest springs in memory. Parts of Wales, too, have been experiencing very dry weather.
Even when Nature shows them that they have no idea what is happening or what's going to happen, the Changeistas have to shill their agenda. The "warmest and driest springs in memory" follow abnormally (for recent times) cold snowy winters in the UK.
I don't claim to have the last word on this, but the hypocrisy of some groups and individuals is staggering. There is absolutely NO PROOF that the earth is still warming, as opposed to local fluctuations in climate. The satellite temperature measurements are the closest we have to a global average, and as best I can tell they show no warming since 1998. Particularly since 2007 we've not been all that warm and the Arctic ice is recovering in area and thickness.
You can look this all up (I've seen it all but can't be bothered to look it up for links presently) and make up your own mind, though I advise a lot of cross-checking of facts and sources. That's standard research, but this of course only applies to people who want to KNOW what's going on; those who've already made up their minds don't need anything as crude as observations.
Models are the basis for all of the alarmist predictions, and not a single one of them has been right so far. They keep pushing the timelines farther out to make them unverifiable, which is the antithesis of Science. It's political and idealistic and accordingly dangerous. For reference, Hitler and Osama bin Laden were also idealists.
Thursday 9 June 2011
Profiles in Petty Tyranny
There are lots of (logical) arguments in favour of "profiling" in law enforcement and security, but this one is as good as they get:
... when a group of 2,000 elderly British cruise ship passengers docked at Los Angeles for a short stop-off during a five-star cruise around America it was, in the words of one of them, more like arriving at Guantanamo Bay.
Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.
The fingerprints of both hands were taken as well as retina scans and a detailed check of the passport as well as questioning as to their background.
Passengers claim that the extra checks were carried out in “revenge” for what had been a minor spat over allegedly overzealous security.
I totally believe this. I have a friend who was banned from entry to the USA for five years for getting in an argument with one of their border guards, and that was before 9/11 and the Patriot Act. I've said it before and I'll say it again; as long as visiting the USA is an ordeal, I won't subject myself to it.
A group of elderly Brits on a high-end cruise ship is about as unlikely a group of terrorists or illegal immigrants as you could ask for, and nothing about the situation justified what was done. So some old guy compared you to North Korean border guards (maybe not literally, but you know what I mean), does that mean you have to act like them? This is the result of too much power being given over completely banal situations, and petty functionaries the world over are prone to get drunk with such power.
Stories like this abound about "the land of the Free and the home of the Brave". Efforts to control everything to this degree are born of Fear, and they make people distinctly not Free. I know that the US is having problems, but is the place really so fragile that anything that a six-year-old or a group of elderly tourists could possibly do (saying nothing about what's probable or even likely) bring the whole rotten edifice down?
Fear drives most of security thinking, but fear should be used as a tool and not take over or be a means to further a plan which loses sight of the basic rights of the citizens and even of visitors who shouldn't be assumed (at least not all of them) to be terrorists. This requires intelligence and flexibility, not something you'll get from the sort of people who want to be TSA screeners.
"At the end of the day, the United States is down, for sure, but it is not out," ; this is from a statement about oil prices and investment from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, but I'm not so sure. The US can certainly come back from this, but it's increasingly difficult to see how. What hope I do see is in this general direction and comes from the grassroots; the government and the malignant bureaucracies it has spawned needs to be torn down and rebuilt. That I don't see happening, so I'll just stay away until they prove me wrong.
... when a group of 2,000 elderly British cruise ship passengers docked at Los Angeles for a short stop-off during a five-star cruise around America it was, in the words of one of them, more like arriving at Guantanamo Bay.
Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete.
The fingerprints of both hands were taken as well as retina scans and a detailed check of the passport as well as questioning as to their background.
Passengers claim that the extra checks were carried out in “revenge” for what had been a minor spat over allegedly overzealous security.
I totally believe this. I have a friend who was banned from entry to the USA for five years for getting in an argument with one of their border guards, and that was before 9/11 and the Patriot Act. I've said it before and I'll say it again; as long as visiting the USA is an ordeal, I won't subject myself to it.
A group of elderly Brits on a high-end cruise ship is about as unlikely a group of terrorists or illegal immigrants as you could ask for, and nothing about the situation justified what was done. So some old guy compared you to North Korean border guards (maybe not literally, but you know what I mean), does that mean you have to act like them? This is the result of too much power being given over completely banal situations, and petty functionaries the world over are prone to get drunk with such power.
Stories like this abound about "the land of the Free and the home of the Brave". Efforts to control everything to this degree are born of Fear, and they make people distinctly not Free. I know that the US is having problems, but is the place really so fragile that anything that a six-year-old or a group of elderly tourists could possibly do (saying nothing about what's probable or even likely) bring the whole rotten edifice down?
Fear drives most of security thinking, but fear should be used as a tool and not take over or be a means to further a plan which loses sight of the basic rights of the citizens and even of visitors who shouldn't be assumed (at least not all of them) to be terrorists. This requires intelligence and flexibility, not something you'll get from the sort of people who want to be TSA screeners.
"At the end of the day, the United States is down, for sure, but it is not out," ; this is from a statement about oil prices and investment from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, but I'm not so sure. The US can certainly come back from this, but it's increasingly difficult to see how. What hope I do see is in this general direction and comes from the grassroots; the government and the malignant bureaucracies it has spawned needs to be torn down and rebuilt. That I don't see happening, so I'll just stay away until they prove me wrong.
Saturday 4 June 2011
Come see the stablity inherent to the system!
Yes, a Monty Python mis-quote, but this fool's deluded bit of political theatre will not accomplish her stated aim.
Though she was immediately fired from the sought-after position, Marcelle said she doesn't regret upstaging the government on its coming out day in Ottawa.
Again that word "change". Beware idealists throwing that around. I want to know what exactly it is that you want to see, and if you won't tell me then you can't possibly be better than the status quo. Oh, here it is:
So have your protests within the law if you'd like to, but your chance to change the government was lost when everyone who wanted to "stop Harper" failed to unite on that principle. In standard bell curve fashion Left, Centre and Right each take up roughly 1/3 of the population; if 2/3 of the left-centre couldn't get together then, tough Twinkies until the next election. I only hope that this Marcelle is banned from Government employment for life; that would give her lots of time to plot the overthrow of the state, but at least I wouldn't be paying her for it.
Though she was immediately fired from the sought-after position, Marcelle said she doesn't regret upstaging the government on its coming out day in Ottawa.
In fact, Marcelle, who is also a theatre performer, called on people across the country to stage Canada's own version of the "Arab Spring" and stand up to the recently-elected Conservative majority government.
"This is the only way we're going to see real change," Marcelle told CTV News Channel, as she conceded that Harper's majority government will hold parliamentary sway for the next four years.
I could in fact make a case for sedition and according criminal charges, but she got off lightly with being fired from her job. "Stand up" to the elected government? That was what the ELECTION was for you stupid bint. I am being particularly insulting to this person because of what she represents, which is the school of "the election gave the 'wrong' result, so it's invalid".
It's not quite anarchism or nihilism, but what it is is dangerous to civil society and the rule of law. There are plenty of people who don't like our "first past the post" election system, but there are two solutions for them:
- go somewhere that has a system you like better, I won't get in your way, or;
- elect a government that will do away with the system that got them elected (bon chance).
Again that word "change". Beware idealists throwing that around. I want to know what exactly it is that you want to see, and if you won't tell me then you can't possibly be better than the status quo. Oh, here it is:
"I think that Harper's agenda is so damaging that it called for something that is different," she said. "I think we really need to take action."
A bit overblown at the very least. I don't see any internment camps, conscription, repealing of the Charter of Rights or anything that isn't merely reinforcing something we're already doing or removing something that the Liberals have decided we needed ((non-restricted gun registry, pour example). Keeping the economy at the top of the G8 is not "damaging" in my books, neither is paring back the bloated Public Service. Government must give good value for tax money, and live within those means. The more of that Stephen Harper's government accomplishes, the more it does what those of us (minority or not) who voted for them wanted them to do.So have your protests within the law if you'd like to, but your chance to change the government was lost when everyone who wanted to "stop Harper" failed to unite on that principle. In standard bell curve fashion Left, Centre and Right each take up roughly 1/3 of the population; if 2/3 of the left-centre couldn't get together then, tough Twinkies until the next election. I only hope that this Marcelle is banned from Government employment for life; that would give her lots of time to plot the overthrow of the state, but at least I wouldn't be paying her for it.
Friday 3 June 2011
Debt, equity, and the virtuous Joneses
The linked article is longish, but it deals with certain economic and social fundamentals of the USA. Uncle Sam being my neighbouring elephant I can't ignore his thrashing about, and there are some things which have wider application.
The basis of any real democracy is the Middle Class. Starting from there it follows that what strengthens the middle class strengthens democracy, what weakens it has proportional deleterious effect. The modern economic age of the middle class followed WWII with the economic expansion and near-universal lifetime employment, or at least the expectation of it. It's pretty obvious that those days are over and that there has been a seismic shift in our consumer society; what is not so obvious is where it's trending now.
In the end it all comes down to debt and the management thereof. This bit struck home for me:
The transformation of Americans from a nation of savers and entrepreneurs in the era of the family farm to a nation of consumers in the last eighty years was a fateful one. Our ancestors thought that debt was shameful and a burden; we’ve come to think of cheap debt as part of our birthright. The American Dream as we’ve known it entailed a lifestyle based on permanent debt. The growth of the American economy depended on growing debt at every level from federal Keynesian stimulus to credit card and mortgage debt.
"Shameful" is a bit harsher than I see it, but embarrassing is close enough for government work, and "burden" is bang-on. The choice faced by most people is to have more stuff and wonder (I hope) how to pay for it all but look good to their peers, or to have less gadgets and fail to keep up with them, but not have the sword of Debtmocles hanging over their finances. Most people are sheep, and even the ones that aren't don't want to lose what status they have, so they all buy new cars and plasma TVs and their kids get the newest iPhone.
Few of us are immune to this, and even I am only resistant to it. What separates me (and presumably you, my readers) from most people is that I think about how it all works and ties together, and I DO NOT assume that it'll all sort itself out no matter what I do. Yes, that nasty, non-PC word: Consequences.
Thinking is not doing of course, and you'll only get as far as you're willing to go. Much could be accomplished by once again making a virtue of restraint, but the Economists would have a fit contemplating the impact of that on our current economic model. If people stop buying things the economy takes a tumble (happens; think of those reports on "consumer confidence") and I don't pretend to have a solution to that.
There's the rub of course. We are officially encouraged to buy things, primarily national, but things in general, to keep people employed (in China?) and sales tax revenue rolling in. Building houses employs a lot of people, so buy houses too. That last bit is handled much more responsibly in Canada than the US, but the basics are the same across the 49th //.
We can't of course blame the government, as it's a tiger created by our fevered dreams of cradle to grave security and services, but those expectations will not allow us to dismount. In the end the whole thing comes down to Expectations, and those need to change.
Our standard of living is already decreasing, a thing in itself which is directly counter to what we were raised to expect. I've ridden this hobbyhorse from the direction of energy costs, but it's bigger than that. Our system is as prone to entropy as any other, and what we're trying to keep afloat has run out of steam. Unless there's some fundamental change we're all going to have to get used to a lot (or at least a bit) less. For the record, even the most charismatic politicians are Change, not change, e.g. superficial; replacing our entire economic model is almost beyond me to envision, but I'm open to reasoned suggestions...
The basis of any real democracy is the Middle Class. Starting from there it follows that what strengthens the middle class strengthens democracy, what weakens it has proportional deleterious effect. The modern economic age of the middle class followed WWII with the economic expansion and near-universal lifetime employment, or at least the expectation of it. It's pretty obvious that those days are over and that there has been a seismic shift in our consumer society; what is not so obvious is where it's trending now.
In the end it all comes down to debt and the management thereof. This bit struck home for me:
The transformation of Americans from a nation of savers and entrepreneurs in the era of the family farm to a nation of consumers in the last eighty years was a fateful one. Our ancestors thought that debt was shameful and a burden; we’ve come to think of cheap debt as part of our birthright. The American Dream as we’ve known it entailed a lifestyle based on permanent debt. The growth of the American economy depended on growing debt at every level from federal Keynesian stimulus to credit card and mortgage debt.
"Shameful" is a bit harsher than I see it, but embarrassing is close enough for government work, and "burden" is bang-on. The choice faced by most people is to have more stuff and wonder (I hope) how to pay for it all but look good to their peers, or to have less gadgets and fail to keep up with them, but not have the sword of Debtmocles hanging over their finances. Most people are sheep, and even the ones that aren't don't want to lose what status they have, so they all buy new cars and plasma TVs and their kids get the newest iPhone.
Few of us are immune to this, and even I am only resistant to it. What separates me (and presumably you, my readers) from most people is that I think about how it all works and ties together, and I DO NOT assume that it'll all sort itself out no matter what I do. Yes, that nasty, non-PC word: Consequences.
Thinking is not doing of course, and you'll only get as far as you're willing to go. Much could be accomplished by once again making a virtue of restraint, but the Economists would have a fit contemplating the impact of that on our current economic model. If people stop buying things the economy takes a tumble (happens; think of those reports on "consumer confidence") and I don't pretend to have a solution to that.
There's the rub of course. We are officially encouraged to buy things, primarily national, but things in general, to keep people employed (in China?) and sales tax revenue rolling in. Building houses employs a lot of people, so buy houses too. That last bit is handled much more responsibly in Canada than the US, but the basics are the same across the 49th //.
We can't of course blame the government, as it's a tiger created by our fevered dreams of cradle to grave security and services, but those expectations will not allow us to dismount. In the end the whole thing comes down to Expectations, and those need to change.
Our standard of living is already decreasing, a thing in itself which is directly counter to what we were raised to expect. I've ridden this hobbyhorse from the direction of energy costs, but it's bigger than that. Our system is as prone to entropy as any other, and what we're trying to keep afloat has run out of steam. Unless there's some fundamental change we're all going to have to get used to a lot (or at least a bit) less. For the record, even the most charismatic politicians are Change, not change, e.g. superficial; replacing our entire economic model is almost beyond me to envision, but I'm open to reasoned suggestions...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)