Well, folks, I honestly have no clue what to have an alternative opinion about right now.
I’ve been ranting for ages that the economy, as it is, is just plain unsustainable. Unfortunately, with the stock market still going down (it is the night of 8/10/11 as I write this) it’s starting to look like I was right. Darn it. This is some scary stuff folks and I’d really rather be dead wrong because it won’t take much to tip the whole shebang in to total chaos.
Honestly, I have some questions for the big gun on economics, anyway. Simple questions about stuff I think helped get us into this mess. Questions like, “Why does the bottom line have to always get bigger? What’s wrong with it getting big enough to keep the ball rolling and then just staying at that size? In fact, as long as the cost of living stays the same, why do paychecks have to get bigger?” Then there is, “What ever happened to that law that kept a big business from ‘cornering the market’ as they used to say? You know, the one that busted up Ma Bell into the mini-bells.” The very law that might have kept certain businesses from becoming "to big to fail!" Oh, and then there’s my favorite, “Why in the world does a product have to become ‘NEW AND IMPROVED!!’ every year or so? Even if all you did was add a new fragrance or remove one for that matter?” Not real sure that last one has to do with economics.
Heck, I even wonder why stuff has to be so freaking centralized. I mean, I could see it back when you had iron ore and coal all together in one state, more or less but that’s not the case now with most modern industries. Why haul the raw material to a central location for processing then haul it away to somewhere else. Why not have a recycling plants in most big cities where they could recycle their trash flow right there instead of having to either bury it or haul it somewhere else? Then they could have factories there, small ones, that could build the stuff to supply that city. You know keep it local. (Yeah, I know! I’m skipping over some details and the devil is in those details. Especially that pesky law of thermodynamics that talks about entropy.) That goes for energy too. Especially, renewable energy like with solar and wind. Why does there have to be a big plant way far away, when a small turbine and solar array can power at least one or two houses close to it? After all electricity does not travel well.
Oh, yeah, I forgot. The old NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) thing. Yeah, I can see the problem there. I darn sure wouldn’t want a nuclear plant in my back yard. Or a fracking gas well either. [Why, yes. I did watch Battle Star Galactica back when! ;) ] Unless it was using solar and wind power to turn rain or dirty water table water into hydrogen and oxygen. That I think I could live with. Heck, wish I had the bucks to build that in my back yard and then buy a honking big fuel cell to power my house and maybe a couple of my neighbors houses as well!
Then there’s the food problem. Some folks just have no clue where food really come from. I suspect they will be learning fairly soon or going hungry.
I don’t know who said it but I just recently I read a saying I’d like to pass on to you. I hope I can remember it right. “For all Mans wonders and marvels his very existence rests on about 6 inches of fertile top soil and the fact that it rains.”
Now that’s scary. Especially when it hasn’t rained in so long.
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