We The People; Better Get Cracking:
Good Morning to all of you good people in reality land; your King of Simple News is on the air.
There were so many good comments and questions on Friday’s blog that I’ll attempt to respond in a short post rather than make short comments.
I want to first say that many economists are so hung up in theory and poorly conceived models that they fail to comprehend the basic tenants of their trade. No one ever stated this better than Alfred North Whitehead, English mathematician 1861-1947. “It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.”
Many economists’ talk incessantly about the necessity of housing recovery. Such statements as, “Our economy won’t recover until housing recovers,” can be heard or read in the news each day. Yet, the statement is provably false.
There are rigid fundamental economics at play as they apply to real estate. The real estate market is buoyed by jobs. As jobs decline, the real estate market must necessarily decline as the two are not separable.
Therefore, real estate will be forced to continue its downward march until such time as sustainable jobs return in sufficient numbers to reverse that trend. I say sustainable jobs, as lenders will be very slow to loan to anyone who is not deemed to have solid long term employment. Such temporary employment can be seen as those who exist on stimulus money.
Unfortunately, even the Whitehouse concedes that they were wrong and we have not seen the worst of the job losses. As a result, the price of real estate will continue to decline as desperation, foreclosures, and a weak market for new buyers dictate home prices rather than the original or replacement costs. In this instance, the market force has a greater influence than the actual cost of construction.
What all my above rambling says is that until sustainable jobs return to America, the housing market will stink.
Yesterday, George and Greg weighed in on the virtues of wood heat. George has plenty of wood and there are literally thousands of acres of dead standing timber not far from George’s home. Greg pointed out that the cities have no wood at all. There is of course the exception of those little bundles that they sell at the grocery store which approach the price of gold.
The above statements made by George and Greg, make a good point and one that we have certainly covered. Should things get real down and dirty, those who live in sparsely populated areas of plentiful resources have an advantage when it come to food, shelter, and fuel. Once the normal flow of goods and services is disrupted, we all must look to the immediate resources that surround us for survival.
I have encouraged those who are able, to move to a small community where resources are readily available. That being said, I have no delusions about the fact that the vast majority of our population live in large metropolitan areas and most of those folks are not in a position to pick up and leave. Not to mention that most have no desire to do so…yet.
This leaves us with the option of attempting to get this train back on track to save all of our citizens as best we can which brings me to the good comments that Star Eagle made. One in particular was, “We the People. Our forefathers did not give us the tools to use for us to give up our collective fight. Nobody scored talking about the play they were going to run. So let’s pick up the damn ball and execute. Our citizens are waiting for leadership!!!”
And so they are. My contribution everyday is to write this blog and attempt to shine a little light on the truth, to demonstrate the power of basic common sense, and to give all of you a place to write your collective thoughts down for the world to see. This blog is read in all 50 states and five foreign countries on a daily basis! United we stand, divided into two equally corrupt political parties we fall.
As Star Eagle said, engage in your local affairs; that is where we can and do have influence. Run for office or help someone else run for office. Attend the open meetings of your local leaders at every level and strongly voice your concerns. Get your neighborhoods together and fight for what is right.
We the people are in charge, it says so in the rules. Send your elected officials letter after letter or e-mail after e-mail. Believe me; it works when we work together. Legions of letters and e-mails do get these people’s attention…but it takes effort and a lot of us. Here is the link to contact your officials.
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Subscribe to this blog
We the people, better get cracking….excellent advise.
We need to be smart and move quickly. Forget trying to save the Federal Government, that patient is terminally ill and no amount of effort will keep it alive.
However, the State and Local level are another matter. Some of the States may still be viable entities. Many local communities can probably be salvaged. In any event, we can all have much greater impact at the State and Local level than at the Federal level.
As oil becomes more expensive life will become more local. Work like crazy with your local mayor and city council to turn things around. They are much more accessible than elected officials in Washington and our State capitals. Also, in a local election it only takes a couple hundred people to turn the dingy around, sometimes fewer than ten.
At the risk of sounding uncaring, what does it matter if the State of CA implodes; especially if you don’t know anybody who lives there, if you live in Missouri? In a post oil world distances get larger, CA may as well be a foreign country if you live east of the Rockies.
If you have never been an activist, this is a good time to start. If you aren’t already well connected locally, start getting connected now. People who are isolated;regardless of how well prepared they are, will have trouble surviving.
Our situation is very uncertain and it will probably become much more difficult; however, at the State and Local level it is not hopeless. Not unless everyone sits on their duff waiting for someone else to jump first.
Greg,
California and New York, are symptoms of things to come for others, as they have lived at the greatest excess and have reached the physical limits first.
I want to say that I visited Northern California last year and the people in the small towns were nothing short of gracious and friendly. California also grows a large portion of many of our food stocks including 21% of dairy products!
We are interconnected and California like New York represents two different states in one, the massive cities and the remainder; different states, includes “state of mind.”
You are correct in that rising energy combined with rising unemployment creates a giant step backward; for the first time in historydistances will get further.
Good advice once again regarding local control. I agree, the Federal government will fail in its present form no matter what.
Take a look at this graph provided by George 45-70. You can click at the top for three sets of data on state to state economic conditions. It may influence where you want to be. Note that some states have high unemployment but no budget shortfalls as of yet…that will change.
http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/gapmap/index.htm
No question, there are great differences in every State between the big cities and the rural areas. The former have too many people to be sustainable, but they have all of the infrastructure and political clout. The latter have little population, but they also lack the infrastructure to grow as the big cities depopulate. .
When the great migration comes, I doubt there will be much money to build housing and other infrastructure in those sparsely settled areas as they grow. This will be a real problem. Can you see small towns booming and not be able to provide sanitation or housing fit for human habitation? If States have collapsed, there won’t be any oversight to enforce codes on housing, water quality, working conditions, or anything else. In short, it will be a free for all with rural slums to match anything we currently see in the Third World.
The complexity of the situation is mind-boggling. I suspect that many of the States will simply repudiate their debts and disband at some point. Others may muddle through. However, even if we know which ones will default and disintegrate, we still don’t know when, or how things will play out.
The same goes for agricultural regions. When the fossil fuels become too expensive, some rural areas will be found to have soils that are so badly depleted that they will be unproductive for many years, if not decades.
There are just too many variables to predict anything but general trends. We will need to remain flexible and keep our eyes open.
Mike, you’ll get a kick out of this.
http://www.physorg.com/news164986606.html
For more than 50 years, many have taken the so-called Fermi Paradox to indicate that the existence of intelligent alien civilizations is an impossibility. However, a recent re-examination of the paradox points out that, rather than discounting the spread of an intelligent civilization, the Fermi Paradox merely points out….
We have been given the tools to fix it. If the situation gets to where the cookie crumbles, only about 1% of todays population survives. Especially in this nation where I don’t care if you live in the country and are relatively self sustaining, you’re toast. That is why all these scenarios where “living simple” fall apart. We need to fix what we have! Defeat the defeatist attitudes and start fixing the greatness underlying all this deceit, doom and gloom. Our forefathers gave us the blueprint. We don’t have to create, only re-create. Intelligence and courage are the main ingrediants still needed 233 yrs later… I believe it is this countries destiny to lead the rest of the world but not like we have been leading so far. We need to take humanity to a new level of sustainability and brotherhood or our true destiny will have failed to evolve due to our lack of will. Are we doomed to fail? Perhaps. Will I go quietly? Not likely. Thanks for doing your part Mike and providing such a wonderful forum for expressing thought. You truely write excellent post concerning the economic delusion facing us today. When you write “I want to first say that many economists are so hung up in theory and poorly conceived models that they fail to comprehend the basic tenants of their trade” I could not agree more. However I challenge them to come up with dynamic new perceptions of money and its use in the future social structures. We absolutely must leave the money masters and their expotential growth behind like we left the steam engine and the ball and cap firearms of their day. County by County we evolve.
I agree with what Star Eagle has to say, “We need to fix what we have! Defeat the defeatist attitudes and start fixing the greatness underlying all this deceit, doom and gloom. Our forefathers gave us the blueprint. We don’t have to create, only re-create. Intelligence and courage are the main ingredients still needed 233 yrs later… “. But not in the sequence he has laid out.
We have a small amount of intelligence in our society today. And an even lower number of courageous individuals.
If we are to prosper in future years we will have to return to constitutional law and a steady state economy as he has stated above.
But we, as individuals, we have let it all go on too long now to deter the outcome of the coming crash. The robber barons we have elected to control our destiny have out done themselves in their lust for greed. Therefore the preparation and self sufficiency that is referenced so often on this site is necessary. If we as individuals have not done some fairly complex planning and prepared for self sufficiency for a minimum of one year, there will be no one, intelligent, courageous, or otherwise, to pick up the pieces on the other end and begin assembling what is left back to something we all cherished many years ago.
It would be a wonderful thing to be able to stop the direction we are headed today, but there in insufficient time remaining to pull it off. We could more easily stop a speeding freight train with our bare hands.
Informing all who will listen with the truth and preparation are things we do have control over and are things that can make a difference. And these things do not require one to beat his or her head against the wall everyday in futility. - bb
Billyb, I can only hope you are right. I however don’t expect these robber barons will allow all of you to simply wait out a year or two and then rebuild some kind of society. You all will be dead one way or another. Deadly virus, deadly bombs, Chinese soldiers, whatever. The best bet we have is stopping the train before it gets to the station. Of course if we don’t we go to plan B, C, and D as needed but don’t think for a second that by having your goods together and a plan it is going to mean you will survive. It may make you stick out like a sore thumb and mean your days are gone for sure. If it gets to that point insanity rules and your so called sanity will probably not survive. I wish you and all on this site and beyond well Billyb but.. I have to try and stop this insanity before it gets totally out of control because once its unleashed in all its power nobody knows what will really happen. People are waking up so don’t think only we are the enlightened ones. And we don’t need everybody anyway we just need enough to make it happen.
Star Eagle, you’ve sure got some grit. I admire that. Hope you can pull it off. Hang in there. -bb
For those few who believe there is some hope of salvaging something of what we have, the next weekend “T” parties will be an extremely effective gathering to make your voices heard. Change must start ” of the people, by the people and for the people”, and the “tax day” parties got things started.
Star Eagle,
Those who have followed this site over the long haul have read many times that history bears out that NOTHING of consequence ever happens before the pain reaches the level of social intolerance.
Being prepared will ensure that one can hang in there for the period of turmoil that will proceed meaningful change.
In the mean time, attempting to change the economic model that currently exists, and doing so at the levels where we have the most influence, is good advice.
However, downplaying the validity of preparedness is not something that I agree with.
Clyde,
Certainly the strategy of the status quo is to downplay their effectiveness and allow the Tea Parties to die. Not allowing this to happen takes tenacity on the part of those who have the most to gain…Middle America.
Supporting the Tea Parties will become easier and easier as millions of former jobs are no longer getting in the way our free time. Go Tea Parties!
Mister Mike, its not that I am downplaying preparedness, it is simply like I stated..”I have to try and stop this insanity before it gets totally out of control because once its unleashed in all its power nobody knows what will really happen”. To assume survival, and to smugly court it, in the face of unknown insanity because of some sense of preparedness is the ultimate folly when actions still available to us are a far better way a diverting this so called inevitable catastrophe. I am only pointing out that we have not lost yet because we were given the tools by our forefathers to fix what is so obviously broken. That, I believe, is our #1 prioraty. We have been hijacked as a Country by the money masters and that is the same power we as the United States of America rebelled against in the Revolutionary War with our colonial master the Queen and her Bank of England. We are now given the oppertunity to again throw off this monster of a master and that is the real battle before us. This Bank of England has transformed itself today as the Federal Reserve. With its policy of expotential growth, you so poignanatly point out Mike, it is the real man behind the curtan. By exposing this monster at this time we still have the time and the tools to fix this society without falling prey to the destruction advocated so often. This is the real reason this Country was founded with the principles it was founded upon. We are given the task of evolving its growth to new levels of social grace. I am only asking for us to raise our sights Mike and not see only one path because the path of destruction and despair is only to be taken as the path of last resort and I don’t see it as the only path available. Having a plan B, C and D are fine but lets not forget plan A is still viable. I hope you understand that I too am only trying to educate and that “Knowledge is Power”. Thank You!
Star Eagle, if I understand what you are saying, preparedness is great, but if we let this thing get too far out of hard; regardless of preparations, it may be unsurvivable.
I would compare this to flying in an airplane. You can wear your seat belt, wear cotton clothes so when you catch on fire your clothes don’t melt on you. You can buy a hood to protect yourself from poison gasses, you can get into a tuck position. However, if you crash into the side of a mountain at five-hundred miles an hour, your preparations won’t make a bit of difference.
If that is your position I concur. I am making lots of preparations myself; however, I know if my local community hits the wall, I will likely go down with it. For that reason I am getting involved in local politics and becoming a Master Gardner, among other things.
In your post, you mentioned the Bank of England and the Fed, by any chance have you read The Web of Debt by Ellen Hodgson Brown?
If we could somehow wrestle control of the banking system from the Fed, IMF and World Bank, we might just manage to survive. Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to understand this.
Greg, I have not read that book and I am sure it is an excellent read as I have heard about it but there is plenty of great info out there on the subject and you are right, not too many people are aware of it yet but.. every day I am making more and more people aware of the facts and the good news is, like Mike says “NOTHING of consequence ever happens before the pain reaches the level of social intolerance” and that point is here now. People all up and down the street, especially small business owners are waking up to the fact that this economy is not getting better and their days are numbered if they don’t figure out a way to survive. Which means they are opening to knowledge that before they never would have acknowledged or accepted. This is why now is the time to strike with information. Now is not the time to meekly accept defeat. This is the moment we have been waiting for. Like ClydeB and the Tea Party movement. The trick however is to NOT get caught up in the divide and conquer of partisan politics. We must band together against both parties. All parties for that matter. The enemy is the Federal Reserve and the electoral system that enables its candidates to be bought and sold by the Fed and its media partners. That is why the only way to the top is by starting at the bottom. County by County. It will not be changed from the top down. Like Greg says, “the Federal Government… is terminally ill” as it stands right now and the only way to fix it is from the bottom up. To think otherwise is folly.
Without a major plague (perhaps round two of the swine flu), or World War III to bring the global population of close to 7 billion people in check, we are looking at a Malthusian catastrophe of biblical proportions square in the face. No style of government just or corrupt, big or small, free or totalitarian will really matter.
“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man” - The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (1766-1834)
Star Eagle said: “We must band together against both parties. All parties for that matter. The enemy is the Federal Reserve and the electoral system that enables its candidates to be bought and sold by the Fed and its media partners.” I thoroughly agree with this premise.
And therein lies the problem…sort of. I have said, “United we stand, divided between equally corrupt political parties we fall.”
But, I have also written about the deep divisions in America that exist between those who seek real freedom and those who would adopt communism tomorrow if it were wrapped in the same false promises that brought the inexperienced Obama to the highest office in the land.
George 45-70, I have no doubt population will find a balance point. I do however thinik the best thing we can do is begin the healing here in this Country. We must get over any thoughts of saving the world. The best thing we can do for the rest of the world is to get our house in order and let that be the light that shines to the greater world from our shores. Mike, you are right about the divisions in this Country but.. the way we bring people together is solutions that make sense to everybody (well enough everybodys) and pleases ourselves. For instance, you do a fantastic job of pointing out the limitations with the system as we know it today but, what is your knowedge of the day when Andrew Jackson threw off the Federal Reserve of his day and the subsequent years that followed. How can we apply the lessons of that time to today? What can we do to shift money back into the hands of We the People and our newly elected Represenatives when the time comes so that we can have a viable economy in this new enlightened age we all anticipate.