incurable optimist

INCURABLE OPTIMIST
As long suffering Loyal Minions are aware, Rawles and I have polar opposite views on survivalism. At times I can be rather rude and annoying about our differences ( he acts like a gentleman and generally ignores me ). However, I still wish him the best of luck becoming the Ruff of the Double Aughts. He seems to be well on the way. Having wished him fame and fortune, I can't believe what an incurable optimist he is. Read his article for today. A slow steady decline with a steadily worsening recession eventually turning into a depression. This generally fits in with his readers approach of working for the big bucks in the city and waiting for the balloon to go up so they can pile into their pretty SUV's with twenty cans of gas strapped on the roof and head to their concrete bunkers in Idaho. That's also the way to sell books, because no one is going to shell out $7.99 or more just to hear they are going to die. They are buying hope.
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Me, I like to sell nothing but gloom. Rawles is the Macy's of survivalism. You can buy a Chinese made shirt for $60. I'm the street vendor down an offal strewn alley, selling illegal knock offs for three for ten bucks. There is no way I'm going to be the next poster child of preparedness. Is it because I'm just a miserable old bastard? Not breast fed as a child? Let's not analyze, neither one of us is going to like the answer. Look, as far as I'm concerned, 99% of all economic forecasting out there is modeled wrong. Everyone is looking at our economy and our empire through the last five hundred years of history. Before the carbon fuel economy, there was the colonial economy. Both are based on mining wealth. There was nothing but growth. Even if one nation lost the empire game to the other, resources were still being mined. Just by another group. Throughout the whole period, energy extraction continued to grow.
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We are at the end of carbon fuel growth. The globe has already seen oil production peak. Oil exploration has peaked. Per capita oil consumption has not just peaked but fallen. There is no need to plow through thousands of pages of information ( although it was fun in a slow motion train wreck sort of way ), just Wiki peak oil and follow the links from there. The Hubbert theory has never been disproven, the deniers intent on fudging the numbers to push back the dates. Any non renewable resource is subject to depletion, yet somehow oil should be different? But I digress again with oil. Let's just focus on energy in general. To get an idea of the direction we are headed, look to Rome. Forget about the hyperinflation and death of the Republic, the growth of a dictatorship, etc. ( although they are being mirrored by us also ). Rome ended by the end of the surplus of energy ( they ran out of slaves and fertile soil, essentially ). Just like we are.
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Rome turned into a ghost town. Former fertile regions took centuries to support that many people again. The entire system crashed and the entire physical and cultural infrastructure crashed. Little remained. That is where we are headed. The deniers are insistent that we will also see a generations long slow descent. Yes, so far it has been slow. But we will eventually reach the tripping point ( if we haven't already, say by the credit freeze or the exponential growth of money creation ). The Perfect Storm. When suddenly the roller coaster stops chugging up the hill and screams over the other side. I won't blather on about why I think a quick collapse is inevitable. Read my book Life After The Collapse ( you can read the free part which explains the why of the collapse, follow the book link at www.bisonpress.com ).
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You can gamble on the slow collapse, business as usual. Paying the mortgage and SUV payment. Or, for little more than one months payment for those two you can buy a piece of junk land ( www.dirtcheapdirt.blogspot.com ). One more month buys all the gun and grub a good little frugal survivalist needs. Two months for a life time of security. Look at all the old trolls. Bad mouthing those that were doing something ( congrats, Mayberry, on the RV ). It takes so little, but all they do is stay envious. If I'm wrong ( it took me twenty years to be right about owning a house ) you are out nothing. You are well prepared for any disruption. Oh, there is much more such as getting out of debt, but that covers the hardest part. We've been through all this before. Sue me, I was short on original ideas today. I just can't see why there is such resistance to simple and cheap insurance ( I can see why there is denial, but insurance is for just in case! ).
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Thank you, the Three Amigo's over at www.tslrf.blogspot.com for the plug with the fiction page.