The Peak Oil Blues have returned (again). As I write this, President Obama (I will never get tired of writing that) is on his way to Denver to sign his new stimulus bill. Some laud the new law as being the right idea and others despise it for a wide variety of reasons. In my supremely unedumacated opinion, it's a nice political stunt, but the bill itself contains too few of the real investments that the country needs (e.g., where is the national high-speed rail network, guys?) and too much of the financial legerdemain that keeps bankers and accountants happy but robs depositors of their deposits, to be of much value. Also, given a $13 trillion economy, $790 billion--about 6%--really doesn't go very far. Even if we spent it on stuff that matters, which we didn't, it's pocket change. (Imagine you have $100 for the week. You budget $25 for rent, $25 for groceries, $25 for the car payment, and $25 is saved. Uncle Sam gives you $6. Now, yes you could take that extra cash and buy a few more groceries, pay down your car a bit more quickly, over-pay your rent a bit or save it, but compared to the grand scheme of your weekly spending, it just ain't that big a deal.)
On the other hand, the new CEO of America, Inc. needs to do something--which is why he was elected, after all, by an increasingly desperate electorate. And the new law will indeed do something. Just what, I don't know. Maybe nothing. Maybe create 3.2 million jobs. Maybe something totally different. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. Something that surely will take place is that $790 billion is added to the national debt which will have to be paid off at some point by somebody (if you're curious as to who that somebody will be, look in the mirror, then imagine your kids and grand-kids and their kids and grand-kids all looking back at you. Scowling actually, because they're going to be pissed off.)
In addition, the Dow is now falling through the 7,500 mark. About 6,500 is where it was before the dot-com rise-and-bust in the mid 1990s, and that's around where it should be now, seeing as how all the financial additives are being siphoned out of the economy. (Granted, the two things have very little to do with each other but that's the subject of better writing than my own, much of which can be found along the Money & Economics links in the left sidebar.) That's not to say it will go to 6,500 then go back up, nor to say it won't keep going down to 5,000, 3,000, or straight to zero. It's not likely to go down that far but, well, things happen.
At the moment life maintains its apparent cohesion the way a water strider glides (hops?) across the surface of a pond. The bug can do this because of how it's built and because it only weighs a few micrograms. If that tiny insect were several orders of magnitude larger, it would go straight to the bottom. It's just not in the nature of insects that the big fat ones get to walk on water like the tiny ones do. Similarly, life appears to go on the way it's supposed to. My car starts when I turn the key in the ignition. There's food on the shelves of the local supermarket. My bank pays out a check I wrote last Thursday. These things happen not because there's any natural law that says they need happen, but they're the result of very specific systems having been put in place decades ago. But we only see the surface features so it's all we generally think about. For the moment, things continue to work and that's a good thing.
I ordered a new laptop back in January, one of the new MacBook Pros, which, if I'm lucky, will ship next week and arrive about a week later. The funny thing is that it took three rounds of phone calls to my bank and two credit card companies (and to Apple of course) to find a way to pay for the silly thing. I have the cash in the bank for it, but getting that cash to Apple was the challenge. I think everything is done, but we'll see. As I just wrote, things continue to work, but . . . we'll see what happens.
I have resigned myself to knowing that this will be the last computer I own. There will be no other after this one. First because there's nothing I'll be doing (other than some gaming on the weekends) that I'll need a computer for that can't be done with paper and pen. My writing, financial bookkeeping and such can be done in blank journals and on ledger paper (or my checkbook) and as long as I remember to print the important stuff out and store it properly, there is no reason the record-keeping methods used in the 19th century should fail me now. With a bit of luck I expect to be using the new machine until it dies or falls apart. Much like I expect to do with my car, a 2000 Nissan Sentra that gets relatively little wear and tear (65,000 miles as I type this over 8 years). This is something to get used to: trading up and handing the older stuff to those in greater need than yourself. The laptop I'm typing this on is being sold to a friend who's upgrading her own hemispherical iMac (remember those?) from five years ago. One day the parts will cease being made, and that will then be that.
I've got about six months of prescription asthma meds tucked away in case I need them; I'm less sure how to get a reserve supply of Zoloft (for other members of the family) or the very specific state-controlled meds my nephew uses, but that's something I'm working on.
There's enough cash in a safe deposit box to last awhile, until then, we're still employed and trying to keep expenses down. And I've got about a month of food stored in my kitchen which I believe I can make last twice as long if nobody insists on going back for seconds (or eating a ton of rice).
In his latest blog entry Dimity Orlov describes four areas to concentrate on in pursuit of the post-collapse lifestyle: food, shelter, transport, and security. All else, he says, is besides the point. (He may be right, we'll see.) Food I have at least in the short term; transport depends on my car, which has been little used and well maintained--gas is the real problem, but it gets better gas mileage than 50% of the cars on the road, so perhaps that's not too bad. Shelter is interesting--my wife and I have discussed it, and if things got really bad, we're able to entertain the thought of moving into my mom's house. (Actually picking up and doing it is another story.) Security is dependant on how well I can conceal a long knife (nicely, it seems) or a sword (not that well) on my body. I practice with a .22 once a week and I have a carved longbow I badly need to learn to use. But I live in NYC which is the gun control capital of the country, so one hopes I'll have some time to figure out a few more ways to gut a man before things actually stop working.
But that's just concerning me and the Mrs. When I think about my brother and sister-in-law, niece and nephew, friends, godchildren, in-laws, and so on, things get much murkier and thicker. Very few of them listen to me when I tell them that this show known as Early 21st Century Industrial Society will soon be going on the road. Part of me is looking forward to it; it will be such a relief not to have to go "work" every day. Unfortunately, being an asthmatic makes me a bit of a liability in the Darwinian sense to those around me so I'm building up my post-technology library as well. I'd be nice to be known as they guy who had all the Books We Need.
I apologize for this rant, I usually try to be more coherent. But this is not a subject that engenders a lot of coherence (unless you're Sharon Astyk, who has never been anything else.) I refuse to panic or give in to despair but I haven't really believed in The System for a long, long time, and I suspect that's helped me keep going. In the meantime, I think about this stuff. Quite a lot.
We shall see.
i agree with the stimulus package. i think it just needs time to take effect.
Posted by: oilfield equipment | April 12, 2009 at 09:34 PM