Alt Op # 40, Economic downer

Lots of bright minds in DC and other places are coming up with all kinds of plans to “Save the Economy.” Well, folks, here is where I get not only alternative but down right gloomy.

I don’t think the “economy” that we have developed over the last century or so can be saved. I don’t think it can be saved because it is inherently unsustainable. Why do I believe that? Who am I to say such a thing? I’m a regular gal. Slightly over educated, but not in economics. But I read all kinds of things from all kinds of places. I’m not the only one who thinks our present economy is doomed. As to why I agree that it is doomed, keep reading.

Our economy today is dependent on one and only one energy source. If you don’t get your energy from that then you don’t get, by our economy’s standards, “enough to do anything.” No, that energy source in not electricity. That is just how we use a lot of it. The real, the basic energy source is fossil fuel. Oh, here is where I might point out that even the uranium used in nuclear reactors is a fossil fuel, perhaps the oldest one, left over from the very formation of the planet.

That dependency on fossil fuel wouldn’t be quite so bad if we used them, and had always used them, in a wise and frugal manner. But we didn’t and with the outlook our economy insists we have in today’s society we never will. We use them lavishly and wastefully.

We are using them that way even though they are no longer cheap and easy to get. You’ve all read the horror stories about “fracking” as it relates to the process of getting oil or gas out of non-permeable shale. Want to know why we are only now finding out about this problem? Because until now the oil and gas folks didn’t need to do any fracking where people rich enough or close enough to a big city TV station could bitch about it. The only reason they do it where they do it now is because they have to. Why? Because there ain’t no more else where!

Yep, that is one of the big reasons the economy is, in my opinion going to go bust. We are running out of the stuff we use to make it go. Coal? HA! What they’d have to do to make that run your car or truck is way more expensive than gas is now. Yeah, it could power an electric car, but without a lot of filtering the smoke from the stacks would have us all suffering from COPD before long.

Then there is the basic outlook our economics has taught us to have. We deserve a raise just because we showed up for work most days and were generally on time. We think we deserve a raise even if the cost of living our life dose not go up.

Why? If we have enough to live on, enough to eat, keep reasonably warm in winter, cool in summer and stay dry and comfy when it rains, and friends / family to keep us company, why do we need more money? More stuff? Human nature? Maybe. Maybe not. Somehow I think our present wastrel life style has taught us this outlook. Now we throw out things even our grandparents would have repaired and kept using. These wasteful habits of ours are really rather new to our culture and will end it.

What to do, specifically what to do NOW to survive the end of oil and the modern economy? Start a sustainable food garden. Read up on Permaculture. Learn to walk again. Help any interested neighbors start their own gardens. Work with nature, not against it.

Alt Op # 32 : Questions about the economy.

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.