Leroy’s; They’re Everywhere:
Good Morning all of you early risers out there; your King of Simple News is on the air.
It’s cool and clear here in Western Colorado this morning, a stark reminder that a construction season that never started will soon be coming to an end.
One morning in the not so distant future I will be able to look up on the higher mountains and see a dusting of snow. When I was living in Alaska, we called that first snow “termination dust,” as the layoffs in outdoor construction were not far behind.
I was thinking about all of the contractors, suppliers, real estate people, developers, local, state, and county building departments and so on, that will have a long winter to consider their futures.
I was also thinking about people like Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, George Bush, and we can now add Barrack Obama, who talk as they may, have little influence on the reality of our situation.
I ran an article on this site some three times that is titled, “3rd World Status; A Pink Slip Away.” The jest of that article is; All that separates us from the unfortunate status of say Mexico; is employment. It’s just not that difficult to grasp.
I’m sure that you have noted that nearly every investment advertisement contains the following words, “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Yet, Americans are betting the farm that the past performance of our economy is absolute proof-positive-double-dog-dare- guaranteed to return to hyper levels. Barrack Obama is certainly counting on it.
However, to believe that our economy would return to past levels, we would then have to believe that viable full employment as a percentage of the available growing manpower will retun to past levels. We would then also have to believe that the resources are available to put all of those folks back to work; forever.
If my standing prediction that America has reached zenith for viable employment and that GDP will never rise above the past high when inflation and per-capita share are considered, we’ve got us a problem that Mr. Obama and most Americans are not prepared to deal with.
Even the federal government has limits (I think), and when the coffers run dry for infusing borrowed money into such idiotic programs as cash for clunkers, stimulus packages, bank and insurance company bailouts, auto company bailouts, airline bailouts, tax rebates, government hiring, and new military spending; the coffers of the average American will run dry simultaneously.
The reason that investment ads contain the caveat, “past performance is no guarantee of future results,” is because the circumstances that surround the investment change! And, the circumstances that surround viable employment also changed.
As a for instance of changing circumstances, as our fishing boat was sinking, my old childhood pal Leroy Finkenbinder once said, “This thing never sunk before.” To which I added, “Well Leroy, you never hit the pier at 15 knots before.”
I often said there were some folks around my old home town that didn’t know much. But Leroy? He didn’t even suspect anything. There are a whole lot of Leroy’s out there folks.
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Mike,
Word broke yesterday that “Social Security could face default within two years,” U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus predicted. “The situation is much worse than people realize, especially because of the problems brought on by the recession, near depression.”
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090818/NEWS/908189977/1007?Title=Bachus-discusses-Social-Security-health-care
Bachus, the ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services, said “What this recession has done to Social Security is pretty alarming.”
Yet at the same moment in history; Democrats plan to go-it-alone on Mandatory Government Health Care. To Hell with those opposed to it in its current form. To Hell with the constitution, state’s rights and individual liberty. Some how I don’t think this will address the national debt or Social Security going bust in 2011 or 2012.
Leeeeeeeeerooooooooy!
I’m not sure what constitutes a bigger threat to our survival, the economy hitting the pier at fifteen knots, or the reaction of all the Leroys when they find themselves in cold water without life jackets.
As cold as it may sound, it might be prudent to put as much space between ourselves and the Leroys who are going to have that “deer in the headlights” look on their face when things go sour. I am all in favor of helping people, but I don’t want to experience drowning because someone grabs my neck in a panic and takes me under with them. There’s that primitive genetic programming kicking in again. So should we consider greed and selfishness to be good, or bad?
Forget it, on second thought, that’s way too philosophical, I’m saving my own ass. Line score: genetic programming - one; intellect and morality, nothing.
George,
Here is an excerpt from my book:
“As gloomy as the scenarios presented for Social Security and Medicare are, the predictions for lasting even that long are projected on what? You guessed ’er Chester ─ economic growth. “How in the world are we going to have economic growth if the working population is going to be shrinking, half the country is on Social Security retirement and Medicare, and immigration is cut back?” If you can solve that riddle, information of that type would be extremely valuable to G.M. and Ford.
Greg,
When it comes down to it, the genetic programming aimed a survival will win out.
I always think of a sign I saw in a repair shop that read something like this;
“Poor planning our your part, does not necessarily constitute an emergency on our part.”
In other words, “Leroy’s, you’re on your own.”
Mike,
Even if the resources, including abundant oil, were available, full employment is a thing of the past. Every manufacturer that remains has used the downturn to increase productivity.
It was a long term goal where I worked to reach the point where we could operate our factories with the lights out. In other words, with out people. There is no shortage of goods, yet the folks who make the goods keep getting pink slips.
We are rapidly approaching the condition described in Pete Murphy’s book Five Short Blasts of decreasing per capita consumption which adds to the long term grief, since it will lengthen the time for what meager recovery that eventualy does occur.
Buckle up, folks, we’re in for a long winter.
Clyde,
Thanks for Billyb for this quote:
“We have, for example, the little matter of technological unemployment, which, in spite of the application of the most potent of witchcraft by our very best medicine men in an effort to conjure it out of existence, appears to be with us yet.”
“Lest there still be confusion on this point, let us review the pertinent facts: Every piece of machinery introduced since the beginning of the use of tools has resulted in some job or other requiring fewer man-hours for its performance than was previously the case.” — M. King Hubbert, 1935!
Hubbert went on to explain that greater per-capita production, combined with population increases, was the exact opposite of the normal condition. But then, no one ever said that the human mind is normal.
Mike,
With respect to Hubbert, most of what he described in the quote were good things.
Many of those activities you enjoy in your beautiful western Colorado would just be chores were it not for machinery and labor saving inventions of all sorts.
The modern age is not all bad, we just have too doggone many people attempting to survive in it.
Perhaps the CDC is on to something with the Swine Flu. Swine flu vaccine has been linked to killer nerve disease. More people are dying from the vaccination than from swine flu. Now that’s one way to bring the population under control.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html
Makes you wonder. Hey Leroy.
On a side note. My total electric energy consumed in July 2009 was 19% less than in July 2008 thanks to a more efficient freezer and hot water heater; yet my cost was 15% more than last year. I just can’t wait to see what it’s going to be next year
Technological unemployment; that’s a term I haven’t heard in a long time. That was a term used by Jeremy Rifkin in his book “The End of Work.” He argued that we only need a small percentage of our total population employed to produce all of the goods and services that we require. He said we need to address the issue now, and that was years ago.
Funny how the mainstream press ignored his book, it was as if it never existed. This is how the power structure deals with any threat to their dominance. If that fails, legal action is plan “B”, and violence plan “C”. Watch what happens as things unwind.
Clyde,
You said, “The modern age is not all bad, we just have too doggone many people attempting to survive in it.”
That was exactly Hubbert’s point. He was a man of technology who said the proper use of that technology could “lead to an earthly paradise.”
However, he challenged population growth mathematically and pointed out that our present rate of growth was unsustainable.
“Technological unemployment” plus large increases increases in non-technical population (poor foreign born non-English speaking folks) equals purposeful destruction of a way of life.
Massive unemployment, massive illegal and legal immigration, and a third wave of bank and mortgage failures. Does equal “A purposeful destruction of a way of life.” BINGO!
With a government well beyond bankrupt with Social Security to default within 24 months and a massive government power grab in disguised as Heath Care Reform and you have many if not all the pieces in motion for NAU (North American Union). All it will take is a few real or fabricated events and the dollar and the USA will be abandoned in favor of the Amero and the NAU. Or with the existing pressure from China, Russia, and India for a global exchange currency the Amero may never surface and the NAU (USA, Mexico, and Canada) will adopt a global UN regulated currency.
George,
It’s hard to know what will happen for sure. One correction is that Social Security will not default in 24 months, but has the possibility of going into the red. The previous default date was 2041, but as i suggested years ago, will come much sooner due to flawed assumptions.
Medicare remains the 800# gorilla in the room and pales Social Security. I’m thinkin’ that the new healthcare bill has much to do with the impending failure of Medicare than it does for providing “affordable world class healthcare.”
Show-Stoppers all George. Some problems simply lack palatable solutions.
All of the unemployment numbers seem to ignore those recent college grads. I know of several under or unemployed at the moment. I was talking to one young man this past weekend who said that, if he had it to over again, he would have gone to technical high school, save his college money and been employed and not in debt right now. It won’t take long for parents to see the wisdom in that statement. The kids may take longer to smarten up as this means actual hard work as opposed to living on their parent’s dole for 4-6 years.
Kathy,
Good to hear from you, I thought maybe you ran off with the Gypsies or some such thing.
Not only this years college grads, but many of last years crop still lack employment.
I continue to point out that there is merely no work to be done that is viable for a population of now greater than 300 Million.
The whole bloom is off the rose for creating artificial jobs.
I have only run off with a huge garden, a couple of pigs, bees that keep swarming and a family who expects food on the table every day. This homesteading stuff is not for the faint of heart. In addition, I have been asked to write another book on raising kids in a post peak world and I am teaching classes on food preservation all fall. I’m busy but it’s such a good busy. So much life, so little time.