THE DAY THE MUSIC STOPPED: PART II

Everyone is talking about it. The news is raging with it. It was one of those spectacular days that remain in the collective memory of us all. Michael Jackson has died.

Even if you did not know Michael Jackson, you knew him when you thought about it. When you heard a song via some electronic media and thought that the music was appropriate for the moment, a lot of the time you were appreciating Michael Jackson.

He was the star of a family of African-American musical performers from Gary, Indiana. He was a mystery as a person. He was inventive and his "moon walk" won acclaim from everyone who enjoyed music and dance. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8 and watch a video of his famous thriller performance.

Regardless of what anyone thought of him, Michael Jackson was the kind of icon that comes easily to mind as a symbol of his time.

He lived and died in the fifty year period stretching from 1959 to 2009. He was like the country and the world in which he lived; constantly changing and re-defining himself. He went from sweet little brother of the Jackson Five to make his own mark in his own right, but he was always a blur of change and many wondered if he really knew what he wanted. In this way, he was a reflection of his time.

Nevertheless, whether you considered him a deviant or a genius, his impact on the world was gargantuan.

And so it is with the world as we face intense changes in the way we inhabit our planet. Those changes haunt and chase us and will soon overtake us. While the future is no longer a concern for Michael Jackson, the remaining population of the planet must accept constant changes. And whistling past the graveyard is no way to achieve that acceptance. Reality cannot be denied. One thing is for sure, however. The journey forward will be better thanks to the music of Michael Jackson.

The Dock of the Bay

If you sit and watch, you begin to see a virtual swirl of existence. The cacophony of all of it tends to totally occupy our senses. What means this impingement upon our health of this strange malady called "swine flu"? When will the markets reach bottom and bring the cooling winds of economic recovery? What about energy and the lack thereof that we try to grasp and connect to the lack of economic growth and its resultant lack of jobs?

Some of the people still think in classical terms: Terms such as this is just a temporary slowing of the economy; we will be saved by technological breakthroughs that will permit a return to the past where labor and capital continue the minuet of getting, giving and using limited resources; and that only thinking despairing thoughts will prevent this return to "normalcy."

Too often we tend to misaim the power of positive thinking. Thinking positive about the future is essential to our survival and creation of the different order which will come despite protests against it. Thinking positive must be used in realistic terms, however, to realize the full value of that intellectual tool. Despite the desire to obtain great monetary wealth to which some people still direct their energies, a better practice might be to think realistically in terms of shelter, food and medical care for ourselves and our loved ones.

Instead of taking great joy in spending our life energy in climbing a corporate ladder by selling intangibles, there is an undercurrent flowing that says these activities are not better than the entrepreneur who seeks to grow food on smaller plots of land, or raise fish, chickens and another animals in a harmonious cycle where all of the activities complement each other.

Speculation, whether in real estate or stocks, is the epitome of greed and brings a veritable feast to the drive within the human animal to outcompete the rest of the herd of humankind. It also brings great pain since speculation is nothing more than the capturing of life energy of human participants through their exploitation of finite resources until there is no more energy to capture or resources to exploit. The great "ponzi" scheme then collapses. Eventually, the resources expire or the needs of the population that drive speculation begin to dwindle as population stops growing.

Sitting on the dock offers a great view of the goings and comings of humankind and beautifully illustrates the futility of speculation. The ocean and cool breezes remind us that the best things in this life are free.

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Spring Has Sprung

Spring is here. Garden planting time has arrived. Already the squash, zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are sprouting. Now the digging of holes for transplant of these vegetable plants is upon us. It is a good time and a time for reflection.

My hand guides the spade as it uncovers the leaves and digs the holes, and a sense of doing something productive blossoms deep inside. For one dark moment, I think of the past; the paths not taken. The ghosts of departed friends and loved ones rise from my memory for a moment. Introspection is not all bad, but too much can be bad for the best of us. It is best to look ahead even though that future path is much shorter than it seemed at previous planting times.

What is ahead? Will the current economic depression run its course to a return of the ways of years past? If not, will the new order that emerges bear any resemblance to the capitalistic economy of today? The answer to these questions is one worth pondering.

America is the undisputed leader of the modern world. Like the rest of that world, we are going through a bad time. We take great and justified pride in our newly elected national leadership. Finally our leader speaks and points to the problem. It is energy, he says. We nod in total agreement. Our economic system is locked up and credit needs to flow again, he says. Some of us wonder what this means and its connection to energy. Some even turn their heads away as the leadership asks and receives money to fund some needed projects to employ citizens. Many more become rightfully concerned as sums of public funds go to what we perceive as undeserving recipients like banks and officials of the financial oligarchy.

The largest concern is whether the need for economic growth espoused by the leadership means a type of growth that bears the same markings and characteristics of the system that resulted in the present disarray of greed and disregard for the planet's resources. Many citizens think so and disillusionment is growing.

An agrarian past grew to an industrial present and ultimately to the physical and moral bankruptcy of the world economy as resources were devoured by an ever growing population. A future looms and the major concern is what will it look like?

Before we grow too impatient with the leadership of our nation, perhaps a view of transitions in the past is not out of order. Remember that those changes did not happen all at once. There was resistance to change. Wars were fought. Pestilence entered our world and took away many a poor soul. Ultimately though, the evolution of change made its inexorable way forward and those who stood against it perished.

So it is with the present situation. Old ways of thinking must and will change. Some of the change will result from enlightening of individuals. Some of it will sadly result from deathly struggles resulting in the obliteration of those who refuse to change. Technology will provide some light for the way forward. As always, the future is there. The question is whether we in a collective sense shall shape it, or be shaped by it?

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Earth from the Skies

 

The awesome view of earth from the skies is marvelous, or so I am informed by some who have acquired a certain computer program at a nominal fee and now scrutinize various facets of the earth's surface.

Somehow, I wonder if I really want to view everything from above. If your purpose is to walk down memory lane, seems to me there may be merit in looking at those things from eye level here on the ground. As nostalgia tugs at me to view my childhood haunts, I think doing it like a floating or soaring bird from above just wouldn't be the same. It would not really satisfy that yearning for yesterday which blossoms from time to time in all of us.

The greater value of such a program might be in viewing that not yet seen. For me, this would include viewing current events, or looking at exotic destinations like the Mayan pyramids or those similar structures in Egypt.

Also, such a program probably has merit if you are a bit of a pantheist and want to see how it would feel to be a soaring eagle in the next life. I may get the program just so I can view those places in India, or England or North America where I was privileged to be for a brief time. Maybe I will even swing over to some underdeveloped nations and see how they are making out.

The sky view of the third world will definitely be one worth taking. Even now, doubters of the predicted future of economic contraction due to the depletion of resources by our ever growing population can view the beginning of global disaster in poorer countries.

Such a preview of the events and effects of the global economic contraction later to be experienced here will serve to hopefully get us more prepared. Hopefully, we can observe the changes elsewhere, vicariously experience them, and make fairly rapid adjustment to cope with what will surely be a different existence. Yes, the program is known as Google Earth and probably is a good thing.

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The Crash and Predictions

Everyone that I know is concerned about the changes in the stock market and the government bailout. What does it mean? The answer to this question is obvious. Economic growth is slowing from its previous pace.

Why is this happening? Growth depends upon an ever increasing source of energy. The world, however, has reached peak oil. The rate or amount of oil presently pumped, roughly 85 million barrels per day, cannot increase in any appreciable manner because the pumping capacity and the resource to meet that capacity are stagnant.

Unmindful of these constraints, financial manipulators attempted to continue with a process of wealth creation. Instruments alleged to document value were bundled and sold at a profit. The population accepted this perception of wealth creation in much the same way that the coyote assumes a road in thin air as he chases the road runner. Then, the perception fails, the emperor is discovered to have no clothes, and everything crashes.

A popular banking fiction long thought to be a truth is that additional money is generated when banks loan money to customers. This idea was sustained on the reasonable basis that a valid loan with high prospects of repayment expands the assets of the bank. A loan with an expectation of repayment over and beyond the initial amount loaned to the borrower under current banking principles means that the profit amount is newly created wealth.

So accepted became this financial philosophy that lenders either became complacent or corruptly forgot the element of chance remaining in the loan situation—that the borrower might default and fail to repay the loan. When this possibility did occur to the banking world, unscrupulous, but innovative minds went to work with the issuance and sale of credit repayment guarantees. By avoiding the terminology of insurance, a ponszi scheme of mammoth proportions enveloped the entire world.

Now those schemes have collapsed in the face of the unthinkable. A curtailment of energy available for continued future growth at a rate sufficient to meet and exceed population demands has come to town. The future is not out there. It is now. Suddenly the factory planned in order to hire tomorrow's workers won't be built. As a consequence, the loans of today cannot be repaid. Further, the size of the failure has destroyed the ability, if any there was, for effectiveness of the illicit repayment guarantees. An economic debacle of unimagined dimensions is upon us.

Can the slate be wiped clean? Is it possible to eliminate the invalid loans and the ineffective guarantees and straighten out the financial mess that we face? Some say that an astronomical bailout by the government will cure these problems. Certainly the government can step in and pay these debts. Without considering whether such repayment will come at a cost of great inflation as more and more fiat money is loosed in the system, there is another question that should be asked: Can a repeat of this situation be prevented from happening in the future?

Unless the possibility of repetition can be guaranteed against, the more appropriate path would appear to be to let the market control, let this world financial crash continue as massive human suffering climbs to gigantic proportions, even at the cost of social unrest and political upheaval.

A good guess is that the future will be marked by a zig-zag downward direction as regards economic charts. That direction will also experience some temporary upturns as energy prices fluctuates. As soon as demand starts building, however, prices will rise and the rug will be jerked from under the newly rising economic tide. The plummet downward will likely continue until either population excess gets trimmed or there is a magic energy break through courtesy of the gods of technology. A smart move would be to bet on excess population trimming to happen before miracles occur which amend the laws of physics currently governing the finite resources of the world.

The current debate on stimulus versus tax cuts by government is not really relevant. Stimulus will only bring temporary relief and inflation (but may prevent social unrest). Tax cuts will do nothing but fatten already fattened wallets. Tax cuts may prevent inflation, but are also likely to encourage social unrest and political upheaval.

For the present day, everyone simply has to live for the fairly long term future on a much reduced scale or standard of living than has been the case in the past. But all is not lost. Optimism should still have a home in our hearts. David W. Orr in a commencement address to the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007 put it this way: "Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up."

The challenges of tomorrow are still there. The mystery of true curiosity still exists and brings with it the wonder of innovation amidst a realization that we may truly find meaning in redefining ourselves and our civilization.

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The Year That Was

 

Treat the earth well.
It was not given to you by your parents,
it was loaned to you by your children.
We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors,
we borrow it from our Children.

(Ancient Indian Proverb)

Wow and gosh almighty! 2008 was quite a year! Talk about doing it up in the national election! John McCain selected himself a wing-woman to guard his back on the treacherous trip to the gates of hell to get Bin Ladin, which gave us a national debate on the subject of experience and qualification required by a person who is a backup in the event the President is unable to act.

Heated were the discussions on television, coffee shops and breakfast tables across the land on a subject that really is pretty unimportant in most presidential elections. It was important this year due to McCain's age (72) and his status as a four time cancer survivor.

The Salt Lake City Tribune summed it up best with the following:

Out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously underequipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain's bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency. ...

The country desperately needs a new and well-defined road map for the 21st century and leadership that can unite the country behind it.

We believe that Barack Obama can give us both.

Apparently the public saw it the same way. As we all know, Obama won the election, big time.

In the meantime throughout the world, the global economy continued to tank. Not a surprise to anyone who is alive and reading anything in the recent past. A close friend, however, who is a regular reader of this blog, wrote and expressed his concern that we may be losing our central theme of hope for the future. Quite the contrary is the fact. There is a greater necessity for hope today than ever before.

On a personal level, the year 2008 and events in that year lent even more emphasis to hope for the future as we celebrated the arrival of our first grandchild. While the future is dark, hope will prevail as we all pull together in common cause to find a solution to the world's problems. It must be so because a little girl named Madison, who is barely two plus months old, demands it.

The future does require that we be realistic. It is in that sense of realism that we seek to convey a glimpse of the huge problems coming to the fore. The people of the earth are the cause of most of those problems. There you have it. A priori, the cause offers the solution: In this case, the acceptance by our world population of the constraints of the finite nature of the world and its resources. Will that occur?

An answer to this question is close at hand. We and little children around our world see the road of hope as the only avenue. Join us in 2009 as we travel that road. The journey's destination also bears the same name as the road. .

 

 

WHAT COMES NEXT?

What comes next? This is a question that many are asking today. Energy prices are falling. Isn't this a good thing? Well, it could be a good thing, but it is likely simply another directional signal to the future coming our way or better stated, the way of our descendants. After all consideration is given to the subject, it is indeed all about energy. Consider the following:

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. … the past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology.
-– Joseph A. Tainter

For the reader who is enticed by the foregoing quotation, your attention is directed to http://dieoff.org/page134.htm for a very edifying read. If the idea of reading through dry scholarly writings does not have appeal, the simple, but effective, way of broadening your horizons on this subject exists at http://www.dieoff.org/ for your viewing pleasure. Just click at the top of the page on the cartoon media that deals with the subject of your interest.

Now the intricate and immediate details of our present situation revolve around whether employment will continued to fall, will we have a predictable future that meets our needs and the needs of our loved ones, correct? No matter how much we may want to rely on intuition or daily routine, it behooves all of us to broaden our knowledge base on the subject of energy. What is its effect on our lives? What determines its availability? How should our leadership respond to the global crisis before us? It is submitted that a knowledgeable basis of opinion as we seek these answers is beneficial.

In the interim, a path of sustainable and frugal life style appears advisable absent the discovery of the "magic bullet".

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