The Death Rattle
World stocks nosedived today, and according to Yahoo News, “the losses on the blue-chip stock indexes of Germany, Britain and France alone amounted to more than $350 billion, or roughly the size of the combined economies of New Zealand, Hungary and Singapore.”
The DOW will crater, just one domino of several, and according to Jim Sinclair, a panic is about to occur with emergency action coming in days. He’s telling to people to buy gold, but as my friend Hayduke says, I’d rather invest in my life than emergency schemes to protect monetary wealth.
I’ll happily settle for shelter, a garden, a good shotgun and ammo, a canoe, fishing poles and accoutrement, food storage, access to clean water and wood. I’ll need my books and some good wine.
Our economic system, in fact our entire system, is like a terminally ill patient. They symptoms have been there for some time, untreated. Even ignored. But we’re now approaching the end, the point of no return, because we’ve allowed the disease to metastasize and spread to the vital organs. The lust for money and power has eaten away our brain to the degree that there doesn’t appear to be any reasoning or sensible cognitive function remaining.
Most Americans naively believe technology can save us.
So we now find ourselves hospitalized, no longer self-sufficient, fluid drained from our abdomen weekly, on intravenous pain meds and with close monitoring.
A few people gather in the hallway, whispering about what a good society we had. Where we went wrong, what could have been done, assigning blame, and guessing how long we have. Others completely deny the obvious.
And like a patient, we will briefly rally. Sit up in the bed, have some hopeful conversation, avoid the necessary talk about what’s really happening, and lapse again into semi-consciousness. Maybe another brief rally, followed by coma and finally, death.
What’s happening with the economy is the death rattle. It’s a warning about what’s to come. A society that’s propped up by a cheap, non-renewable energy source and that lives by the philosophy “if you ain’t growing, you’re dyin’” will not last. In fact, it will most certainly bring death.
But amazingly, no one at the Fed or in the big brokerage houses appears to be connecting the dots. It’s the most amazing case of willful denial and ignorance I’ve ever witnessed. Even as oil climbed to $100pb, it’s still “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead, matey!”
So, here we go. As some of us have been saying for a long time, Peak Oil will ultimately mean recession and then crash. Combine that with global climate change, shrinking aquifers and the stubbornly stupid insistence that technology can save us, and you have what some call a real mess. But people apparently don’t like the truth.
I call it blessed relief. Maybe we’ll come to our senses. And remember, in death there is life. Ultimately, something better, a sustainable society, awaits us.
I liken it to a big slap in the face. It’s going to take something like that to make people wake up. Fortunately, the ones that have been paying attention have nothing to worry about, we’ve already got our bikes, home brew kits and sanity after it starts crumbling down.