Wobble Time (James Howard Kunstler)

[Tace]

James Howard Kunstler -- World News Trust

July 13, 2009 -- The cat coming out of the bag this week -- a frazzled, flaming, rabid, death-dealing cat -- is the news that Goldman Sachs will announce impressive second-quarter profits, and set aside $18 billion or so for employee bonuses averaging $600,000 per head (though, of course, not evenly distributed among them).

There probably are not fifty-three people in the USA who can explain how this development figures in with last fall's bailout gift from the US treasury, or the $13 billion GS received on the backside of U.S. gift payments to the failed AIG insurance company, plus the reams of necrotic securitized debt paper rotting in the back of the GS vaults. This is a company playing with the fire of world history.

It brings back the question, which has loomed dimly at the margins of America's collective consciousness, as to whether we can get through the long emergency ahead without going through a wringer of domestic political convulsion. At this rate, sooner or later, anything identified with wealth could become a target for the wrath of the unemployed and foreclosed. The first rock that flies through an East Hampton window, or the first firebomb tossed into the lobby of Goldman Sachs Manhattan headquarters could ignite a chain of events that shoves all economic policy out of the political arena and quickly divides everyone at the center of power into armies out for blood.

What the nation -- including President Obama -- can't seem to get through its head is that the USA has entered a period of epochal economic contraction. Instead of growth, as measured in conventional econometrics, we can only expect (in the best case) transformation to a different economy within the limits of real contraction. The president has got to stop promising renewed growth. While this would affect the perceived "standard-of-living" as measured in things like shopping mall sales and vehicle miles driven, it would not necessarily mean diminished "quality-of-life." It would mean different ways-of-life for a lot of people -- for instance, young adults who had expected lifetime employment as corporate executives but who, instead, find themselves ten years from now working at farming. We have an awful lot to get real about.

(snip)

I'm not ready to capitulate to cynicism. There is something in the political wind this summer. I think events will force Mr. Obama to assert some real leadership and take the national debate on our predicament in another direction, even if it is an uncomfortable direction for him and everybody else. Despite the massive disappointment being expressed by so many Obama voters these days, I believe the president will redeem himself before long.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/wnt-reports/commentary/wobble-time-james-howard-kunstler.html

[DemReadingDU]

1. If people start throwing rocks at the banksters' houses

that might be an event that might force Obama to real leadership

or is Kunstler trying to describe to people, one way to protest? because, many people are too apathetic and complacent to think for themselves?

[Miss Authoritiva]

2. " We have an awful lot to get real about."

We sure do. It's over. It's been over for a long time. The big delusion is that the United States triumphed over the Soviet Union. Not really. The Soviet Union just went backrupt first, or, more accurately, accepted its bankrupt condition first. The US basically has three options: ignore or dither, which is the mode we've been in for 3 decades; revamp and regroup, which as a first priority would entail ensuring an acceptable standard of health and well-being for all US citizens; or pedal to the metal, which would be a helluva ride but very unlikely. That's the US: dithery, nasty, and wussy.

[natrat]

3. That's the US: dithery, nasty, and wussy.

yea but think how fabulously wealthy a few tousand people are becoming. Isn't it grand?

[Hestia]

4. 3 words - "The Shock Doctrine"

[northernlights]

5. class warfare

I was recently talking to the acquaintance/manager of a feed store I frequent, first about my (and his 2 kids back at home) unemployment and desperate search for work. And then the difficulty I had getting my house up on realtor.com (took the realtor 3 weeks) and how if worst comes to worst I may have to take out a home equity loan to finish the healthcare job training I'm halfway through.

There was a couple at the register and as they were leaving, the woman, in a very nasty tone, butt in to say, "Well you'd *better not* take out a loan or you'll get yourself into *worse shape* than you are now!"

(Like what am I supposed to do, Ms. Beeyotch? Eat fucking grass? :grr:)

I left right behind them, and got to see them leave in a shiny, new Jaguar.

I've seen that Jag around town before. I can tell you right now that if I *ever* see it in a place where I can slip in and out quickly, it will have a lovely 4-letter word scraped into its passenger-side paint. :nuke: