Okay. I'm not as drunk as I usually am when I make an ass out of myself here, but I have a question

[cherokeeprogressive]

Hell, maybe a bunch of questions, but I'm trying to keep this as on the level as possible. Please bear with me.

I've come to the realization, in no small part because of what I've learned right here on DU, that American Style Consumerism is the cause of the lion's share of problems the world is facing at the moment. We're a relatively small percentage of the world's population, but we use the bulk of its resources. Yet here we are, throwing eleventy mizillion dollars at the demise of American Style Consumerism in an attempt to prevent or at least postpone it. Suddenly it seems we as a country realize that our very existence depends on it.

Am I missing something here? We've figuratively flogged in public the corporations that we were most proud of at one time, and rightly so. But here we are tossing them golden treats in an effort to prop them up. What do we stand to gain from this? I'm at a loss to find an answer. Time was (and it wasn't too long ago), we decried the huge compensation packages managers received for driving their companies into bankruptcy, and placed part of the blame on regulators that looked the other way. Now we not only bring some of them onboard in the new administration, we laud them as possible saviors of American Style Consumerism. That just doesn't seem right to me.

In my small, partially inebriated mind, I'm wondering how throwing more and more money (which we don't have) at the problem we face today will solve our problems in the LONG TERM. Now that we're free of the Great White Chimp and his minions (most of them anyway, and the rest will soon follow their "peers" as soon as we can discover them and weed them out), why are we trying to prop up their legacy of conspicuous consumption and how long do we think "stimulus" will prolong the inevitable?

Our manufacturing capacity as a country is a fraction of what it once was. Manufacturing goods is the only way we work ourselves out of this mess. Forgive me for saying this, but I don't think the stimulus bill does much in the way of bringing our outsourced manufacturing capacity back within our borders. I also believe that the stimulus package lacks foresight when it comes to the idea of employment in the long term, in jobs that pay a living wage, with benefits, that would allow the average citizen to do things like buy homes, cars, appliances, or whatnot.

Repairing and painting bridges, stringing new power lines, fixing potholes, and making every McDonald's a wi-fi hotspot will only take us so far. There are only so many smoking cessation counselor jobs available. One thing I haven't heard a single news organization talk about is the number of DEGREED persons who have lost their jobs in the last year as opposed to those WITHOUT degrees. How many of those educated people would be happy in the hot sun, shoveling hot-mix asphalt into a pothole? How many DEGREED people want to paint bridges while sitting on a slim seat at the end of a cable? How many of them want to climb down a ladder under a manhole cover to repair/replace sewer/gas lines? My severely uneducated guess is NOT MANY. Somewhere along the line we became a nation that has more Chiefs than Indians out of work. It's going to be hard to convince someone who is used to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year that they're going to have to give up the McMansions, expensive cars, and Ivy League educations for their kids in an effort to return this country to its history of conspicuous consumption, AKA American Style Consumerism.

All I know is that I've got a huge cache of stuff that will hopefully get me through the tough times ahead. I've been working on it for over a year and a half now, and I think that I've got enough "stuff" to get up to six people (enough for me, the Ms., and our grown children) through at least a year of hardship. Past that, I've got hunting and fishing gear that hopefully will provide sustinence for who knows how long.

I guess my point is that I don't see "stimulus" that will provide for the common good of over three hundred million people for any longer than it takes to replace/repair the infrastructure that the "stimulus" will provide. I don't think we're spending our children's money in a responsible way.

BTW, I don't have answers to the questions we're going to be facing in the coming two or three years. I'm at a total loss. That's why I've been stuffing my basement with every extra commodity I can think of, in the feeble hope that I can get those I'm responsible for through what I see as a total meltdown of the world's economy. If I were pressed, I'd say that the beginning of the solution would be to bring every uniformed serviceman and woman back to within our borders. Get them out of the countries that don't want them there in the first place (Cuba... Cuba... Beuller? Beuller?). Get them out of the countries that think they can do whatever they want under the umbrella of American protection. Hundreds of thousands of tax paid workers spending their monies in our own economy, rather than propping up economies that might not be viable without the presence of American servicepersons. I'm not advocating an isolationist philosophy, rather one where once we take care of our own, we'll have MORE to help those who need it most.

I'm fucking scared, and I don't think simply throwing our children's money at our own failures will bring us out of this mess.

Don't bother ridiculing me, I've lived with that for most of my life. I have skin so thick that a blowtorch feels like a space heater in the corner of the room. I'm only asking questions that I don't have answers for.

Have I told you lately how much I love this place (DU)? If I haven't, I will. Sorry, that's just a paraphrase of one of my favorite actors, Antonio Banderas. Did you know that in south Orange County, CA, there is an intersection where Antonio and Banderas meet?

Damn, I hope DU is one of those places that doesn't go by the wayside due to bad economic times. I do worry though that with over 130,000 "members", it takes nearly a week to get 1,000 to donate to the best cause I've seen in a long time...

Oh by the way? I FUCKING LOVE THIS PLACE!

Here's to the hope that I'm stone cold wrong in my assessment of what's to come.
Chris

[cliffordu]

1. K&R......Go read clusterfuck nation -

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/

Kunstler pisses a lot of people off but his take on the end of strip mall 'merica is spot on.....

[elleng]

5. He asks:

"Does anyone remember Mr. Clinton saying, even once, that an economy based on suburban sprawl building and car dependency might not be such a good thing?"

Not PRES. C, but MRS. C did (indifferent words) complain about our aquisitive culture.

[elleng]

2. What STUFF do you have?

and how will it get you and yours through?

After all this, might we reassess NEEDS from WANTS, and spend more of our resources on NEEDS? Might that help us and the world?

[The Brethren]

7. When you finish with needs vs. wants, you may want to add

entitlements. As I see it, I am entitled to breathe as long as there is compatible air. My wants are usually put on the back-burner till I have met my needs....a growing list it seems. My wants reappear about the same time I remember to breathe. I think a lot of people mistake their sense of entitlements with wants masked as needs.



Know what you're paying for. The Stimulus Plan ("American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009"): Orig. House version -- http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/RecoveryBill01-15-09.pdf , House spreadsheet -- http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pV-c6t5fOVmNorqMpHvnCMw ; Senate version -- http://appropriations.senate.gov/News/2009_02_02_The_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009.pdf ; and Senate compromise -- http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-1 , Text and $$$ details of Senate compromise -- http://appropriations.senate.gov/News/2009_02_08_UPDATED_Appropriations_Provisions_of_American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act.pdf?CFID=4043629&CFTOKEN=40573040 . In addition to -- http://readthestimulus.org/amdth1.pdf , along with -- http://www.readthestimulus.org/ . Final version, Feb. 13th, 1500 pgs. worth -- http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/arra_public_review/ , more details on the final version -- http://www.taxpayer.net/resources.php?category=&type=Project&proj_id=1913&action=Headlines%20By%20TCS , including spending -- http://cbs4denver.com/national/Web.government.accountability.2.937188.html

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. It surely will help us and the world to think about what we'll need as opposed to what we want.

I go to the grocery store with my Ms. every time we need something. I take it upon myself to buy EXTRA every time we go. By "extra" I mean we buy non-perishables that will last on our shelves like canned goods, dried meats, candles, batteries, etc. Granted, we don't always have the extra cash that I'd like, but I've tried to use our "disposable income" to buy things that would be necessary should we have to endure something like a prolonged power outage. By prolonged I mean without power for an extended period of time measured in months at the very least. We have:

Warm and cold weather clothing
Batteries and radios
Canned goods
Dried meats
Charcoal
Camping gear including tents, sleeping concerns such as sleeping bags, chemical warmers, stoves etc.
Hunting and fishing gear including hunting rifles (passed down from earlier generations), ammunition, fishing poles, lures and canned bait
Water purification tablets
First Aid kits
Antibiotics
Gasoline
Generator
Small propane cannisters
and more

We live in the mountains next to a lake, so there is a large amount of game and fish available.

The Ms. THOUGHT I was crazy at first, but now she's at least as apt as I am to buy a little extra every time she goes shopping. To be honest, it's become such an adopted practice that I'm running out of room in the basement.

We sat down and wrote the things we thought we'd need in a "worst case scenerio" in our notebook and started to use our extra storage space accordingly. I THINK we could survive the worst case, but at least I'm trying.

My biggest concern in a worst case scenerio is that my daughter and the Ms's kids won't be able to get to to where we are. We're at 7,000 feet, outside of Los Angeles. I feel safe in the fact that not many people would bother to trek up the mountain on foot should the worst case scenerio come to pass. There are only three roads that lead to our valley. I'd not hesitate to bike down the mountain should my daughter or one of the Ms's kids couldn't make it.

I'm tryin'

[susanna]

3. I only read a third of the way through your wonderful post...

...but I did bookmark it to finish tomorrow. I'm sorta tired. :-)

About two weeks ago, I posted a response to a thread about the credit card companies piling insult upon injury to people who carry their form of plastic; it was summed up with the fable "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg." In essence, the credit card companies are now swooping down like the vultures they are to get the last remaining bit of $$$$ they can as our economy sinks into oblivion. What they don't realize is that they are killing what is left of the money train (not much). But I digress.

I think what you are talking about deserves yet another reference to a popular cultural reference: "don't put all your eggs in one basket." In short, the world has believed for a long time that those of us in the U.S. could continue buying, buying, buying, until, oh forever. They were wrong. All the eggs in one basket (the U.S. as the shopper of last resort) has met its Waterloo.

Wish that I could say it was different. :-(

P.S. I love this place too. :-)

ETA: I spell better when I'm awake.

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. Well, what comes tends to follow from what's already happening.

And there is a lot of immoral stuff happening, regarding literally throwing our children's money at our problems. so where is that going to get us? I heard Bill Clinton (who's comments I normally like) today saying that Obama should reassure the people that we are on the path to economic growth. But growth is a very literal word, and this is a very finite little world. Eventually, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we are going to run into the limits of growth, and then everything has to change. Ideas like the economic systems no longer make sense without expansion. Its easy to see this as some distant future thing but its happening right now, that's we have to spend our childrens money instead of our own to mantain this standard of living. We need to change, or our hard fall will be well deserved.

[Jeep789]

6. If that is your thinking when drunk, you must be a friggen genius

when sober. I share your fears and have for quite a while. Course, many of us don't have the luxury of thinking fishing and hunting will get us by. Not gonna work in the southern CA. I don't even own a gun and I doubt there are enough squirrels and rabbits to support us all for more than a day here anyway. I own a fishing pole but have only caught one fish in my life (and I felt bad about it and let it go).

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. Don't sell yourself short! Surely if it was necessary, you'd learn to provide.

I was born and raised in the South Bay. Norwalk of all places. I was lucky to have had a very capable Grandfather (may the Great Spirit rest his soul) who taught me LITTLE things like how to fish and hunt. His most enduring philosophy was that if you didn't HAVE a tool, you should MAKE a tool. It's worked for me. God DAMN I miss him. He taught me more than my own father did.

I live in So. Cal. Big Bear Lake.

So you let the fish you caught go because you felt guilty. No harm in that. I felt that way too when I was growing up. In a pinch though, you'd keep the fish, and feed your family with it.

I wish you could have met my Grandpa. I once saw him cry after shooting a deer in a place called Kennedy Meadows (it's on 395 just north of Mojave). He wasn't crying because he was feeling guilty, he was crying because that deer provided more meat than he'd ever seen on the reservation in Tahlequah, OK, as a child. Once I understood what he was feeling, which wasn't TOO long ago, I knew where he was coming from.

[Jeep789]

16. Your Grandpa must have been a great guy

You nearly had me in tears with the story about the deer and I have no doubt that I would have kept that fish if it was needed (okay maybe a small. but insignificant, twinge of doubt). And yes, I have more camping equipment than we can store easily and enough survival skills to make do for a while but I would really feel more comfortable not having to depend upon them. By the way, we have a home (shared family cabin) up at Big Bear Lake (where I have never caught a fish, I might add) too.

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. He was my hero and to this day, fifteen years later, I still get tears when I think of him

which is almost daily. He wasn't anyone special, except for what he meant to me. Maybe he treated me the way he did because I was his only grandson. He used to show up at my bedroom window some Sundays at oh dark thirty. He'd bang on my window and say "Put your clothes on, we're going fishing". Me and him, alone on a boat at a place called Vail Lake. I swear the man could catch fish by simply spitting on a hook and tossing it in the water. Those were the days I'll treasure most for all my life. One of the things I'll take to my grave is the sorrow I felt over the fact that I didn't get the chance to tell him how I felt about him before he died. Well, I guess I had plenty of chances, but I think he knew...

Next time you come to Big Bear, send me a PM and I'll take you to Chad's and buy you a beer or four.

I don't want to use the camping gear (some of which I got from my Grandma after He died) for survival purposes, but am confident that should the need arise, I'll be able to step up and make do. Thanks to Him.

[renate]

42. I have absolutely no doubt--none--that he knew how you felt about him

You and he couldn't have had an extraordinary relationship like that without his knowing.

:hug:

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

9. There has to be a paradigm shift

to sustainability. That means environmentally gentle technologies for energy generation and transportation (including solar technology, green-friendly cars, regional high speed rail systems - an airplane makes sense from NYC to Los Angeles, Seattle, or Miami. It's wasteful and silly from Boston to Washington or anywhere north, or from Minny/St. Paul to Chicago). These infrasystems will require a lot of skilled workers to operate and maintain. The French TGV certainly does.

Societally the issues are more difficult. The bark needs to be stripped off the insane, and uniquely American, notion that no executive salary is ever enough in the harshest and nastiest way possible. My preferred method for getting this point across involves the very public use of tree chippers or guillotines on the offenders, the repatriation of EVERY LAST DOLLAR these parasites have stolen in the last eight years and the sale of their families into slavery as domestic servants in Saudi Arabia. And I am not kidding much. PUNISH these pigs and make it known that it is considered a START, not an end. Akio Morita, the man who founded Sony, never made more than $300K a year. Proportionality of this sort should be enforced with confiscatory income and estate taxes indexed to inflation.

Reinstatement of serious tax rates. 75-90% of everything over 30 times the average wage. I do recognize the relative unfairness of this for musicians, entertainers, artists, and even athletes, who are individual freelancers who are not necessarily fungible, unlike corporate executives or shitbag idiot MBAs andlawyers (and I graduated from Michelle and Barack Obama's alma mater in Cambridge). I don't GIVE a shit if Brett Favre or Julia Roberts or Madonna makes 30 million a year. There's no cost to me other than more commercials that can easily be muted. NOBODY can make me buy their "products" if I have no interest in them. They are purely optional commodities.

Basically, things have to have direction set from the center (democratic socialism on the Euro model, anyone) and implemented and invented on the micro, Jeffersonian model.

A few other things: FEDERAL usury laws that are enforced with brutal and incredibly punitive, death-penalty efficiency, universal single payer (i.e., Medicare for everyone who wants it, including it's 3-4% overhead) health care would do more to improve the lot of small (and large) businesses than anything. Free college education at a public university for anyone with the qualifications to get in. 60 percent decrease in military spending and the redirection of the engineers of the military industrial complex into the energy and transportation fields. Remembering that Eisenhower was RIGHT. And for Dog's sake, legalize marijuana and tax it reasonably. Let all of the non-violent "drug offenders" out of jail and stop imprisoning them in the first goddamn place. Educate everyone receptive to sanity that religion, as opposed to spiritual practice, is the straightest road to complete stupidity.

Jeebus, this sounds a lot like Gene Roddenberry's prescription for the future, if humanity is to survive. I am a nerd.

[Richard Steele]

10. You don't seem to be particularly mistaken about anything, but may I offer a word of advice?

Your stockpile of 'stuff' is wonderful; kudos to you for stockpiling it.

But, in a long-term situation, 'stuff' will be less valuable than KNOWLEDGE.

If you truly wnt to be PREPARED for some bad times,
you should start visiting your local thrift stores and
buying all the "How-To" books you can get your hands on.

Books on Home Repair, home remodeling, car repair, home CONSTRUCTION,
furniture construction/repair, basic carpentry...
sewing, knitting, gardening, Canning & drying garden items...
The list goes on and on.

When times get truly BAD, a stockpile of consumables is just a temporary cushion.
But a BOOK that tells you how to make/find/fix and/or CREATE things
will be worth its weight in gold when the average person has no money
and truly NEEDS to make/find/fix something to keep their family alive.

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. That's the best advice anyone could ever offer considering what MAY come.

I'm an optomist, and I'm hoping that the stimulus package will NEGATE that need. On the other side of that coin, I know people who couldn't tell you the most basic of things like how many quarts of oil your car should contain regardless of the fact that your owners manual tells you. Or where it should be added. I'm just afraid that there are times ahead that many, many people aren't going to be prepared for.

I totally see your point. Totally. While I have just a few books concerning the preparation and preservation of wild game, I like to think that I'm a major player in the world of "do it yourself". Mechanical things are not a mystery to me, and I'm not totally sure why. Maybe it's because of the common sense things my Grandpa taught me, or maybe it's something else, but I like to think that if it's "mechanical", I can not only figure out what's wrong with it, but can fix it as well. I used to get in major trouble as a kid for taking things apart. Taking them apart was the only way I could figure out how they worked, and why.

I spent nearly ten years in the Navy figuring out what was wrong with airplanes, then deciding what was needed to get them back into the air again. I could have NEVER done that without the knowledge that my Grandpa gave me.

I was sixteen, and my first car, a '67 Mustang had a tranny problem. My Grandpa bought me a rebuilt tranny for the car, and told me if I needed help changing it I needed only ask him. That was my challenge. He'd placed me in many positions like that before: FIGURE IT OUT. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me how much a tranny weighed when it was slipped off the studs that secured it to the bell housing. I broke a finger, or should I say THE FUCKING TRANSMISSION broke a finger when it fell on my hand. The look on his face was classic. "You should have known how heavy it was".

I fucking miss that man. He taught me so many things it isn't funny.

[cilla4progress]

19. The coming hard times

Your grandpa was a phenomenol man - and look who he created out of his wisdom: you.

Fortunately MY "old man," aka my husband, DOES know how to fix things - like he has karma about it. I can remember him fixing, like, the toaster or the iron. And come to find out - no one knows how to fix those things any more. Why? You guessed it: you're supposed to throw them out when they break and buy new ones. Consider the sustainability of that! We always rejected that ethic.

And I just told my husband last night, I now do the farriery (hoof trimming / maintenance) for our horses, I'm assuming I'll have to do the veterinary care this year too - vet costs and availability are out of range.

Fortunately, we grow a small garden, have laying chickens, woodstove, have a well. We are pretty self-reliant, though need electricity! and at least one job between us. We are products of the 60's-70's and I think the "back to the land" ethic drove this.

I, too, have noticed over the past 20 or so years all the folks who have no idea how to do simple maintenance, or anything other than run computers or push paper. Other than the folks in health care, I guess. Or baristas. Should I feel badly that in recent years (20 or so) I have mused that it would be of some value for America to get into another financial depression, so that we can all learn to become resourceful again and to do meaningful tasks? I mean, consider the elders you know who lived through the past depression: they are uncommonly resourceful, tough, capable. Well I do - feel badly - I didn't really intend for pain and hardship for folks. I guess another way to frame it, is hopefully the "silver lining" in the current economy is that Americans will once more tap into their ingenuity, positiveness, resourcefulness, that is a part of our national character.

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. What an awesome post. Thank you.

I have faith in the "national character" of which you speak. I'm afraid though, that it will take "going back to the land" out of necessity to return this country to the ingenuity and resourcefulness that made it what it once was. I guess my fondest wish is that very few people will suffer in the transition, but I'm afraid that wish is tantamount to wishing in one hand, and shitting in the other, then wondering which is more beneficial.

Good luck taking care of the horsies. They're the only thing that made him uncomfortable, and they knew it. So, needless to say, I'm afraid of them as well, and boy do they know it.

Welcome to DU. Watch, listen (read), and learn. I like to think that sites like this one are the reason the internet was created.

I have a toaster on a shelf in the garage that no longer works. I couldn't bear to throw it away because it was practically new. I've taken it apart, tried to re-wire it, but... No Joy. What's your hubby doing this afternoon? LOL.

In all seriousness, it's the "throw away" culture that got us into this mess in the first place. My Ms. is one of the worst offenders (she'd buy a new car if it needed new tires and we could afford it), but we're making progress.

Thanks again for your kind words in reference to my hero. I'm sure he's smiling at this moment and wondering if I remember how to tie a fisherman's knot. I do. Thanks to HIM.

[cilla4progress]

28. Lovely -

thank you!

[Jeep789]

17. Yikes, this is really getting scary

I just bought several how to books on skills you just described including knitting (pretty simple by the way) and canning (haven't tried that one yet - a bit scared I'll poison everyone trying). I panicked a while back thinking of all the skills that I and/or family members lack. Am feeling a bit better but sure hope I never have to depend upon them.

[Blue_Tires]

45. +1 on the books

[acmavm]

12. Glad to recommend this thread. Especially for one quote that I believe

to be the absolute truth:

<snip>

Our manufacturing capacity as a country is a fraction of what it once was. Manufacturing goods is the only way we work ourselves out of this mess.

<snip>

Yeah buddy! We have to have something to make and sell.

[road2000]

14. Posting While Drunk.

It's a really good idea to refrain.

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. Understood.

My fingers have minds of their own though when my mind has something it can't contain.

Sorry.

[cilla4progress]

20. PWD

I don't know ... in my experience, it's either one, or completely the other (posting while drunk...good / bad idea!) :)

[dgibby]

18. Great post! Thanks!

If you google "sustainable living", you will find a wealth of really good info. There are sites that include lists of things needed to survive, where to buy dehydrated/freeze dried food, making solar ovens,etc. I'm in the process of stocking up enough "stuff" to survive for at least a year. Oh, don't forget to plan for your pets, too. In addition, my neighbors and I are planting a community garden and checking out membership in a CSA(community supported agriculture). Good luck to everyone. We're going to need it!

[TWiley]

22. a society based on obscene consumption is doomed

We are working through that problem at the moment with efforts in the areas of pollution, sustainability, and global warming just to name a few. Not real clear how it will all turn out at the moment.

One "problem" you may be missing is that the dow was once at 14,500 and now it is less than half of that. Hundreds of Trillions of dollars have evaporated, and they are no longer available for circulation. Over the past year or so, a couple trillion has been tossed into this black hole in an effort to get people back to work

It does very few people good to let lots and lots of people to loose their homes and jobs. An extraordinarily high price is paid in terms of health, crime, and governmental services.

We did not create this mess, it was the years of de-regulation and endless tax cuts that caused it. Right now, we have to find the best way to put all the pieces back together again.

This is the direct result of having a moron in the white house for the past 8 years who was being coached by the religious right.

[cilla4progress]

25. Rise above our circumstances

Yah, and I repeat: THERE IS NO WAY WE ARE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS WITHOUT PAIN.

Bush esp., but the macro-economy and Masters of the Universe in toto (and I include Greenspan in this -- plenty of blame to go around) encoded in us that we could have everything we want without sacrifice. The worst example are Bushco's wars. Hell, he didn't even include war expenditures in the budget or deficit; wouldn't show the caskets ("security concerns" you know - I understand this started with his father?); urged us to shop our way out of 9/11 - still being pushed on us today, though goddess knows why...

The examples set by those at the top, in terms of their power and material wealth, has just been devastating, and has encouraged an attitude of limitlessness and greed. There can be no contraction without pain. I just hope a line can be drawn at homelessness, hunger, sickness, education. I think we CAN tighten up with a MINIMUM of pain if we are willing to be self-disciplined about it.

[TWiley]

31. I saw this chart today

today i saw an analyst apply a strategy that uses the 200 sma(simple moving average) on daily charts.... his point of showing the chart was to suggest when a cross might occur... marking his beginning to the next bull market .... the chart below shows 6 to 12 months of bear market remaining, take your pick...

[cilla4progress]

37. Riding it out

I'm reasonably confident my family can ride it out, and I'm prepared to help those who need assistance to do so.

[janet118]

23. The myth of independence

I have experience with sustenance farming and living in a large family. I grew up in a teeny house with 8 people and lived in Maine on a small farm for many years. Here's the problem I see with the survivalist mentality - you don't just need stuff, you need social capital. The American culture worships the loner, the independent, the "maverick." My experience tells me that to make it through tough times, you need a village. One person or small family cannot handle all the work, knowledge and social interaction people need. If there is going to be a dramatic economic downturn, we have to develop a new culture - a cooperative, all-in-it-together model. Right now, most Americans have difficulty living together, sharing and working as a group. We have overdeveloped egos and underdeveloped community-building skills.

Let's face it, there are enough resources in this country to provide for all of us and enough creativity and knowledge to make whatever we need, if - and this is a big if - we learn to share and take care of each other. Look at some of the immigrant communities for examples. They often pool their resources and help each other.

I'm just as guilty of this as anyone. It's so easy to cocoon in your own little (or big) shelter and wait until everything collapses. I think some of the survivalist gear is warranted, but I also think that there is power in unity. I hope that we all begin to look around us and see if we can build real communities, not based on just politics or special interests or religion or ethnicity, but on taking care of each other, taking care of our planet and surviving the hard times. My belief is that this cultural change would serve us well no matter what happens with the economy.

[cherokeeprogressive]

26. You are so right it's not funny.

Would that we could as a nation make it back to what made us great. What made us great WAS a sense of community. We've lost that, and I wonder how many of us will have to perish to return to that place. I worry that cynicism and selfishness will prevent it from happening any time soon.

[cilla4progress]

29. I think you are very right on -

I esp. agree with "right now most Americans have difficulty living together, sharing and working as a group." I don't know HOW MANY communities you describe that are dysfunctional; that just always seem to devolve into petty disagreements and infighting! I guess the only explanation is our basic competitiveness; a competitiveness that is urged by capitalism. It's our national religion! I even have friends who compete over who has a better / more fun life!

[madmom]

27. Back in the mid to late 70's my hubby and I and another couple we hung around with

decided we needed to know this kind of stuff.We really were thinking about moving to the NW territory of Canada (never happened)or even the wilds of Colorado or Utah. We schooled ourselves in self preservation,hunting, canning, making our own clothes etc. I guess we were just WAY ahead of our time. It was also nice that we were able to pass this knowledge on to our kids.

[cilla4progress]

30. Self-sufficiency

I think I must come from the same DNA - or ethos, anyway. Maybe the 70s weren't such a waste of a decade after all! :)

[L0oniX]

32. K & R

[glowing]

33. Its all about priorities and making wealth out of things that mean something.

Most would like more time with the family. What if nobody went to work tomorrow and stayed home with family or met with friends in the back yard.. Don't you think they'd be offering us a lot of money to go back to work.. The idea that our time is valuable is something many don't understand in financial markets.. most of us are on the "liability" side of a financial report. Well, we are not liabilities and if I or my husband or my family or my friends are willing to give our valuable time to produce something for you.. you better trade me something real for my time. We don't barter anymore.. we have money for our time.. and that money is used to buy things. And somehow the people in the big business learned to pay us less for our valuable time, take short cuts, and charge too much... Guess what? The owners are still stinking rich and don't give a shit about the rest of us. Greed and Power. Most of us are not ass sucking POS. I would absolutely love for every scared little pea-brain to just take Monday off... or Friday.. make it a weekend. How do they fire you if no one shows up.. the other way is to stop shopping on One day.. don't buy anything... or to NOT pay a bill..collectively. We have power in numbers.. its just about organizing everything.. Believe me, many of us can pick up from the evil empire and make a system that works for everyone and pull out the best assets from everyone to give to the world.. Don't tell me everyone feels like they are utilizing their best potential or "god-given" tallent...

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. My only issue with your post is the remark about who you deem to be "scared little pea-brain" people

Who would they be?

More important to me is QUALITY time with my family. Quantity of time is important but not paramount. My problem with my pop as a kid was that he was "too tired" to come to my baseball games, "too tired" to go fishing with my Grandpa and me, and "too tired" to teach me to golf, which was his weekend passion as I was growing up. Yeah, he worked his butt off to provide for me, my mom, and sister, but other parents were at my baseball games who worked just as hard and worked just as many hours. He might not have been the most involved parent, but he weren't no "scared little pea-brain".

You say we should all take a Friday or Monday off to make weekends three days long instead of two, and that we should stop shopping en masse for at least a day. To me, that goes against what President Obama is trying to do with the "stimulus" package he signed this week.

[glowing]

39. pea brains would be people who continue to listen to the t.v. and think

that is the "life". "too tired", is that because he didn't care.. or because he was too tired from a job to do more at the end of the day? I'm not very concerned about Pres. Obama. His family will continue to eat and be just fine. I'm more worried about the many in my community that are hurting, losing their home, cannot afford to see a doctor. You have to make the President and politicians move.. otherwise, they never will. They protect the system until enough people en masse make them change their ways.

[cherokeeprogressive]

41. He didn't care. Managers don't usually tire due to hard physical work.

We are on the same side, you and I.

We can "make the President and politicians move" by being educated voters, and voting in our best interests. We don't seem to be doing that, and haven't for over thirty years.

[TBF]

34. You may be drinking (and I don't blame you), but I say these things and I'm sober.

The system is the problem, making more things isn't going to help. Capitalism has run it's course and then some. Time to move on.

[cherokeeprogressive]

36. Head, meet nail.

What do we stand to gain by bringing back American Style Consumerism? Personally, I'd rather see a "return to the land", but I'm scared shitless about how many people will suffer during the transition.

[TBF]

38. We may end up there either way if we have no vision -

and I am appalled by how many people we are now going to send over to Afghanistan to die for the empire.

[cilla4progress]

40. Same page

Sounds like most of us are on the same page here (pun intended?)

[tbyg52]

43. Two words from a Heinlein fan

_Farnham's Freehold_. Some take it as racist, but I think they are people who simply can't read and understand what they have read. (Heinlein put literary critics in a room that they could exit simply by reading.... ;) )

'Course, I don't want to live in either of the worlds depicted in that book. I like the world I grew up in, and am not sure I want to live at all in a subsistence world. Every time I think about the middle ages, I think about not being able to bathe daily.....!

As to the person who said knowledge is the greatest commodity (which is what prompted me to post this), it's no good without raw materials, I'm afraid.

Edited for traditional stupid typo.

[GeorgeGist]

44. It's capitalism my friend ...

profit's must be manufactured in order to destroy humanity.