Campaign Blues (James Kunstler)

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James Kunstler -- Clusterfuck Nation

-- While it's gratifying to watch Hillary Clinton melt back into her senate seat -- in the process foiling the ascent of Emperor Bill the 1st -- one can't help but feel that that the contest for president is taking place in a different "world-line" (shall we say) than the melt-down of the U.S. financial sector, and with it, the U.S. economy.

Whoever wins Nov. 5 will wake up to preside over a different America than the schematic one he was debating about during the primaries and the election. The long campaign will beat a path straight into the long emergency. The new president will inherit a wrecked banking system, an economy in freefall, a wobbling world oil market, and an American public extremely ticked off by its startling, sudden impoverishment. (This is apart from whatever melodramas spool out on the geopolitical scene.)

The president-elect will quickly realize that the number-one problem is not that Americans can't afford health care -- it's that they can't afford anything, because their income is evaporating in terms of both lost jobs and a dollar that is racing toward worthlessness. They'll be hard put to pay for food and gasoline, nevermind Grandma's emphysema treatments. They will be walking away from home ownership -- or yanked kicking and screaming by default-and-repo -- and any government scheme devised to abridge their mortgage contracts will only undermine basic contract law that has made mortgage lending a credible thing in the first place. And that too, of course, would redound straight to a real estate sector already in price free-fall, with no one willing or able to think about buying a house.

As Obama and McCain go at it through the next eight months, they will likely focus on our situation in Iraq. (Calling it a "war" now is imprecise.) As merely one commentator among thousands, I'm not satisfied that either one of the contenders has defined his position on this coherently. Obama is disposed to get the U.S. military out of there as quickly as possible. He's right that the sheer awful cost of the adventure is one big factor in wrecking U.S. finances while it erodes our standing in the world. But with our Iraq garrison shut down, he'd better be prepared for a further breakdown in Middle East stability and the oil markets that depend on it -- meaning, the basis of American life for four generations, dependable oil imports, will sharply end. That would accelerate the disorderly abandonment of our massive misinvestment in suburban living, and also ramp up the anger and resentment of the public grieving over its lost entitlements.

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http://www.worldnewstrust.com/commentary/campaign-blues-james-kunstler.html

[zonkers]

1. I always enjoy Kunstler's analysis whether discussing politics or Bob Dylan or

whatever. He always writes straightforwardly and bluster-free. Kick.

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2. I Agree

Thanks and cheers