Post by ShineThePath on Apr 9, 2005 14:43:34 GMT -5
This is a great article by Jim Kunstler about the economic situation as he sees it. He thinks there is a possibility for a economic downturn in this year alone. I think this gives more credibility to the idea of a Civil War of some sort, or a Coup plan by the Bourgeoisie to solve their problems.
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The Hooverization of Bush
March 27, 2005
Poor Herbert Hoover, the round-faced Stanford-educated wonderboy of the 1920s boom, who got elected president in 1928 on the strength of his performance as an economic management wizard, was corn-holed by the 1929 stock market crash and humiliated by several years of depression that followed it. Hoover's reputation never recovered, and he lived a long life -- another three decades -- under a cloud of ignominy.
A similar, though probably much worse, fate now awaits George W. Bush. The Great Depression, however, was milder than what Bush (and America) now faces.
When Franklin Roosevelt came on board in 1933, he remarked that we had "nothing to fear but fear itself." This now-hoary phrase was much more precise and astute when first uttered than it seems after seven decades of recitation. The Great Depression was indeed a mystifying event because, as Roosevelt further observed, it happened in a society that was so fundamentally wealthy -- suffering "want amidst plenty," as FDR put it. We had barely begun pumping our stupendous oil endowment. We had productive farmland in abundance (even with the dust bowl happening) and plenty of food. We had loads of manpower, oodles of mineral resources, fabulous new industries like radio, motion pictures, cars, the world's most dynamic cities -- you get the picture. And yet the nation was on the ropes in 1933.
The Great Depression was a crisis of credit, capital formation, and markets, not of fundamental resources. It was a crisis of the abstract markers of real wealth, not the wealth itself. It was also a symptom of the diminishing returns of industrial hypergrowth, a kind of economic hormonal disturbance. It produced strange, unanticipated consequences. Hypertrophy in manufacturing led to saturated mass markets. The industrialization of farming led first to over-production of commodities and then to the dust bowl (thanks to that novelty, the Ford tractor). The system seized up. Money (credit) was scarce to an extreme. Farmers went broke. Factory workers were laid off. Essentially, it was intermission in the great industrial meta-drama. Everybody went out for a smoke.
After the convulsion of World War Two, we went back to confidently marshalling our resources with a vengence. We took all that oil, all the mineral wealth, the raw land, the timber, and other riches and directed it into the dubious-but-profitable project of building a suburban utopia. We're now in the final act of the industrial pageant, a few minutes to curtain. The Long Emergency that we're about to enter as the world passes the all-time oil production peak will be about the depletion and scarcity of things we used to have in plentitude: energy, electricity, food, water, minerals, with a new crisis of money and credit like a cherry on top.
Herbert Hoover was vilified for doing nothing about the depression that followed the stock market crash. When we look back on the years of George W. Bush we will marvel at his failure to lead, especially his failure to inform the public that our habits of daily life would have to change, that we could not continue to burn twenty million barrels of oil a day, and spend money we hadn't earned; that we desperately had to reform our suburban land development habits, that the WalMarts and other predatory corporations had to be restrained in their systematic destruction of local economies, that our railroads needed to be rebuilt, that our borders needed to be defended, that our local small farmers needed to be supported, that our industries needed to be re-scaled and retained here, that corporate chiseling had to be policed, that finance had to be qualitatively different than a craps game in some casino.
The Hooverization of George W. Bush has begun. Only it will go much worse for Bush. His fall could be so hard, swift and awful that he may not be allowed to finish his second term. That's how stunned the public and even their entrenched oligarchical elites will be as the economy tanks and our national life begins to unravel. The Republican majority will go down with him, including such arrant villians as Tom Delay and the hosts of corporate CEO chiselers who sold out their workers and their country. They can pray all the want. It won't help.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Hooverization of Bush
March 27, 2005
Poor Herbert Hoover, the round-faced Stanford-educated wonderboy of the 1920s boom, who got elected president in 1928 on the strength of his performance as an economic management wizard, was corn-holed by the 1929 stock market crash and humiliated by several years of depression that followed it. Hoover's reputation never recovered, and he lived a long life -- another three decades -- under a cloud of ignominy.
A similar, though probably much worse, fate now awaits George W. Bush. The Great Depression, however, was milder than what Bush (and America) now faces.
When Franklin Roosevelt came on board in 1933, he remarked that we had "nothing to fear but fear itself." This now-hoary phrase was much more precise and astute when first uttered than it seems after seven decades of recitation. The Great Depression was indeed a mystifying event because, as Roosevelt further observed, it happened in a society that was so fundamentally wealthy -- suffering "want amidst plenty," as FDR put it. We had barely begun pumping our stupendous oil endowment. We had productive farmland in abundance (even with the dust bowl happening) and plenty of food. We had loads of manpower, oodles of mineral resources, fabulous new industries like radio, motion pictures, cars, the world's most dynamic cities -- you get the picture. And yet the nation was on the ropes in 1933.
The Great Depression was a crisis of credit, capital formation, and markets, not of fundamental resources. It was a crisis of the abstract markers of real wealth, not the wealth itself. It was also a symptom of the diminishing returns of industrial hypergrowth, a kind of economic hormonal disturbance. It produced strange, unanticipated consequences. Hypertrophy in manufacturing led to saturated mass markets. The industrialization of farming led first to over-production of commodities and then to the dust bowl (thanks to that novelty, the Ford tractor). The system seized up. Money (credit) was scarce to an extreme. Farmers went broke. Factory workers were laid off. Essentially, it was intermission in the great industrial meta-drama. Everybody went out for a smoke.
After the convulsion of World War Two, we went back to confidently marshalling our resources with a vengence. We took all that oil, all the mineral wealth, the raw land, the timber, and other riches and directed it into the dubious-but-profitable project of building a suburban utopia. We're now in the final act of the industrial pageant, a few minutes to curtain. The Long Emergency that we're about to enter as the world passes the all-time oil production peak will be about the depletion and scarcity of things we used to have in plentitude: energy, electricity, food, water, minerals, with a new crisis of money and credit like a cherry on top.
Herbert Hoover was vilified for doing nothing about the depression that followed the stock market crash. When we look back on the years of George W. Bush we will marvel at his failure to lead, especially his failure to inform the public that our habits of daily life would have to change, that we could not continue to burn twenty million barrels of oil a day, and spend money we hadn't earned; that we desperately had to reform our suburban land development habits, that the WalMarts and other predatory corporations had to be restrained in their systematic destruction of local economies, that our railroads needed to be rebuilt, that our borders needed to be defended, that our local small farmers needed to be supported, that our industries needed to be re-scaled and retained here, that corporate chiseling had to be policed, that finance had to be qualitatively different than a craps game in some casino.
The Hooverization of George W. Bush has begun. Only it will go much worse for Bush. His fall could be so hard, swift and awful that he may not be allowed to finish his second term. That's how stunned the public and even their entrenched oligarchical elites will be as the economy tanks and our national life begins to unravel. The Republican majority will go down with him, including such arrant villians as Tom Delay and the hosts of corporate CEO chiselers who sold out their workers and their country. They can pray all the want. It won't help.
